| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Until then, enjoy your Saturday. | ||
|
unidentified
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Coming up Sunday morning, we'll talk about American views of capitalism, first with Noel King from Vox. | |
| And we'll continue the conversation with American Compass founder Oren Cass, who will also discuss the impact of President Trump's economic agenda on American workers and families. | ||
| Then, Progressive Talk Show host Tom Hartman will talk about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Trump administration policies, and the Democrats' agenda. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Sunday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
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| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, September 13th. | ||
| Yesterday, law enforcement officials announced the arrest of the suspect in the assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was killed during an event on a Utah College campus this week. | ||
| Also, yesterday, NATO announced a new operation to bolster its defense posture in response to Russian drone incursions into Polish airspace earlier this week. | ||
| And this week marked the 24th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, with ceremonies commemorating the deadly events taking place at the sites where nearly 3,000 people were killed. | ||
| Those are just a few of the headlines from this week. | ||
| And for the first hour of today's program, we're asking you, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| The lines, Democrats, 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few moments, but wanted to start with one of those stories just mentioned. | ||
| This is the headline in today's Wall Street Journal: Utah Man Arrested and Kirk Killing. | ||
| It says a 22-year-old Utah man was arrested in the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk after law enforcement authorities received a tip that he told his father he was the shooter. | ||
| Officials said Friday. | ||
| Tyler Robinson, 22 years old, was booked Friday in a Utah County jail on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, and obstruction of justice. | ||
| The arrest follows a massive multi-agency manhunt since Kirk was killed during a Wednesday speaking engagement at Utah Valley University in Orum. | ||
| Authorities who issued a desperate plea for the public's help during the search said they believe Robinson acted alone. | ||
| People close to Robinson gave investigators a trove of details, including messages that linked him to Kirk's Wednesday killing, officials said during a Friday news conference where they offered the most detailed timeline yet of the fast-moving manhunt. | ||
| It was during that press conference yesterday morning that Utah Governor Spencer Cox spoke about the investigation and also what led to the arrest of the suspect. | ||
| Here's a clip from that event. | ||
| Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. | ||
| We got him. | ||
| On the evening of September 11th, a family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted the Washington County Sheriff's Office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident. | ||
| This information was relayed to the Utah County Sheriff's Office and senior investigators at Utah Valley University. | ||
| This information was also conveyed to the FBI. | ||
| Investigators reviewed additional video footage from UVU surveillance and identified Robinson arriving on UVU campus in a gray Dodge Challenger at approximately 8.29 a.m. on September 10th, in which he is observed on video in a plain maroon t-shirt, light-colored shorts, a black hat with a white logo, and light-colored shoes. | ||
| When encountered in person by investigators in Washington County on September 12th in the early morning hours, Robinson was observed in consistent clothing with those surveillance images. | ||
| Investigators interviewed a family member of Robinson who stated that Robinson had become more political in recent years. | ||
| The family member referenced a recent incident in which Robinson came to dinner prior to September 10th. | ||
| And in the conversation with another family member, Robinson mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to UVU. | ||
| They talked about why they didn't like him and the viewpoints that he had. | ||
| The family member also stated Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate. | ||
| That's just one of the stories from this week. | ||
| For this first hour, we're asking you your top news story of the week. | ||
| The lines, Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will start with Diane. | ||
| It's in Ann Arbor, Michigan, online for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Diane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I would just like to say that President Trump is playing with fire and all this rhetoric that he's giving. | ||
| I think he's trying to start a civil war. | ||
| I think that's really what he wants. | ||
| The assassination of Charlie Kirk was MAGA on MAGA. | ||
| It had nothing to do with Democrats or the left. | ||
| This was all Republican, MAGA on MAGA. | ||
| MAGA, the Republican Party has a lot of splits in it, and they have to think about this. | ||
| There's no reason to even look to the left. | ||
| And Charlie Kirk's wife, sympathies to her. | ||
| I don't know why she referred to the assassin as they. | ||
| It was him. | ||
| It was that man, Tyler Robinson. | ||
| It's almost like they're focusing on something, deflecting, blaming people that are innocent. | ||
| That was Diane in Michigan. | ||
| Ron is in San Clemente, California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Ron. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Tammy. | |
| Yeah, you know, this is when Donald Trump blames the extreme left. | ||
| You should be looking in the mirror. | ||
| Sadly enough, he's the one with the hate speech. | ||
| He's the one, everything starts at the top of our government, and he sets the tone. | ||
| So when you're day in, day out, calling people names and inspiring hate against the left, what do you expect in return? | ||
| Who knows? | ||
| But we don't know what Ty Robinson's political positions are. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| I'll tell you, there's a response to the leadership of this country at this point in time. | ||
| And that goes down to the Congress as well. | ||
| And there's a divide in the Congress with his hate speech. | ||
| And that's where it starts. | ||
| I mean, at least the governor of Utah has some modicum of demeanor when he talks about the horrific events and all that kind of thing that happened. | ||
| But, you know, we better start understanding that hate speech starts at the top. | ||
| It would not be allowed if Don Trump said, you know, no more hate speech. | ||
| That was Ron in California. | ||
| Joseph is in New Providence, New Jersey, online for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Joseph. | ||
| What's your top news story this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I guess the same stuff these other two people are talking about. | |
| I guess they're all Democrats. | ||
| What I don't like is what all these Democrats are preaching hate, hate, hate, hate. | ||
| It started, was it Thursday when the guy got killed and everybody was calling up? | ||
| And all the Democrats were hollering about this and hollering about that. | ||
| And they're the ones that's causing all this trouble. | ||
| They call, and what was it on CNN yesterday? | ||
| There was this senator from New York, and this lady asked her, What about the what are you doing? | ||
| Joseph, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, okay. | |
| I thought you hung up. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Was a senator from New York, and this year, the woman on CNN asked him, Well, what do you think about all these name-calling about being Nazis and Germans and Heinys and all this other stuff? | ||
| And he goes, Well, that has nothing to do with it. | ||
| And how can a guy have it come to have a brain in his head and say something like that? | ||
| You know, naturally, he's going to have people are going to get worked up over it. | ||
| Now, this is Joseph in New Jersey. | ||
| Tom is in Chicago, Illinois, lying for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, I've been looking into this, and it looks like Tyler Robinson, the assassin of Charlie Kirk, was a grouper, spelled G-R-O-Y-P-E-R. | ||
| And he dressed up as one for Halloween. | ||
| His mom posted one on Facebook. | ||
| And he's from a MAGA family. | ||
| And he thought Charlie Cook was too far to the left. | ||
| And this is part of the group of Nick Hurantes. | ||
| And they are full of groupers. | ||
| And they believe the same thing. | ||
| And so this is likely a fight, as some other callers have talked about, between conservatives. | ||
| And, you know, this is just a sad reflection of the finger pointing. | ||
| And again, it's rotten at the top with Trump pointing fingers and dispersing hate through our country. | ||
| You know, we have to come together. | ||
| We have to be one as a country. | ||
| And we need a leader who wants to unite our country for peace and not divide our country. | ||
| That was Tom in Illinois. | ||
| Earl is in Indiana. | ||
| Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Earl. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My topic is like this character that you just had on there. | |
| That poor girl that gave that speech when her husband was killed, and we could talk about Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
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Trump is trying to get this country straightened out. | |
| And then you've got people that don't believe in the Bible. | ||
| I want you to get a program on there of how many people believe in God. | ||
| Christ went on that cross and died for us. | ||
| You people have got no sense of everything. | ||
| You might as well have the idiots that's supposed to be not a Democrat or Republican, whatever they call it. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm from Ag Fighter. | |
| That poor girl last night, I tell you what, she broke my heart. | ||
| And anybody that can put that poor thing down and see those babies she's got to raise without a father, this country has went to hell. | ||
| And we need to get God back in it. | ||
| And you people need to get people on there that speaks the truth. | ||
| That was Earl in Indiana. | ||
| Anthony is in Detroit, Michigan, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Anthony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| On this top story, the terrible demise of Mr. Kirk, I'm not really buying the Tommy Robinson, whatever his name is. | ||
| I mean, the videos and is he carrying the rifle? | ||
| Is he jumping off the roof with it? | ||
| And just none of it's adding up to me. | ||
| And, you know, Charlie, this is not, it's not about civility and political decorum and left versus right. | ||
| That's like the whole distraction for America. | ||
| The real angle is it's a war for the hearts and minds of America's youth and over the issue of Israel and support for Israel. | ||
| Charlie was undergoing an extreme transformation. | ||
| One of his good friends, Candace Owens, called it a spiritual transformation on this issue, you know, relating to his Christian faith and everything. | ||
| And you know, you should read reporting from the gray zone in Max Blumenthal and also a gentleman with InfoWars. | ||
| I know InfoWars isn't reliable, but it was a guy who knew Charlie, Harrison Smith. | ||
| Harrison said that Charlie said he was afraid Israel might kill him in August. | ||
| And the Grey Zone reported that he was fearful, which Charlie also expressed to Megan Kelly in her interview. | ||
| So, yeah, that's really what happened here. | ||
| That was Anthony in Michigan. | ||
| Another story from this week. | ||
| This is from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says, NATO said Friday it's bulking up its defensive posture in the eastern flank bordering Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine with new equipment to deter potential Russian aggression following an incursion by Russian drones into Polish territory. | ||
| The alliance's supreme commander in Europe said a new operation dubbed Eastern Sentry will add equipment from France, Denmark, Germany, and the UK to its existing air and ground-based defenses. | ||
| It says, quote, the key to this is an entirely new defense design. | ||
| U.S. General Alexis Giniewicz told reporters at the Alliance's Brussels headquarters. | ||
| It goes on to talk about some of the details of that. | ||
| The new defense mission was announced yesterday by NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta. | ||
| Here is that event. | ||
| Safeguarding our eastern flank is of utmost importance. | ||
| This is why we have forward land forces deployed in eight countries with contributions from every ally supporting these contingents and plans in place to scale up our presence if and when required. | ||
| We have air defenses, ground, sea, and air base systems. | ||
| Here too, with contributions from allies across Europe and North America, working together every day to ensure that we are prepared and ready to defend every inch of allied territory. | ||
| We stood up Baltic Sentry at the beginning of this year to help safeguard critical infrastructure from reckless behavior in the Baltic Sea. | ||
| And today, General Ginkiewicz and I are here to announce that NATO is launching Eastern Sentry to bolster our posture even further along our eastern flank. | ||
| This military activity will commence in the coming days and will involve a range of assets from allies including Denmark, France, United Kingdom, Germany, and others. | ||
| In addition to more traditional military capabilities, this effort will also feature elements designed to address the particular challenges associated with the use of drones. | ||
| Eastern Sentry will add flexibility and strength to our posture and make clear that as a defensive alliance, we are always ready to defend. | ||
| We are taking your calls on your top news story from this week. | ||
| Let's hear from James in Vermont, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Listen, I truly feel very sorry for Mrs. Kirk, but I want to point out something. | ||
| If you're into the Bible, the Bible says, as ye show, so shall ye reap. | ||
| I had heard that Mr. Kirk was propagating hate speech when he said he was for families, which is okay. | ||
| Some people say they're all for families, meaning in actuality they hate homosexuals. | ||
| I don't know if that was what was involved in the assassination of Mr. Kirk, but there is a lot of hate speech going on by the Republicans in MAGA. | ||
| And remember this: when Donald Trump had his insurrection, he said he was only propagating freedom of speech. | ||
| His freedom of speech led to the death of cops, people, hurt people, slammed the doors into people, crushed people in the Capitol. | ||
| He had a fiasco, and he says that was only expressing himself. | ||
| That was James in Vermont. | ||
| Pat is in Brick, New Jersey, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Pat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| My topic is Charlie Kirk. | ||
| The pronoun shooter did not like Charlie Kirk's biblical worldview. | ||
| He silenced him. | ||
| That's why he shot him in the neck. | ||
| In memory of Charlie, a husband and father, his death is not in vain. | ||
| We, the people, will rise and carry on his legacy. | ||
| Psalm 116:15. | ||
| Precious in the sight of the Lord are the death of his saints. | ||
| Rest in peace, Charlie. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Pat in New Jersey. | ||
| Alan is in Tennessee on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My story, top story of the week, is the same: the shooting of Mr. Kirk. | ||
| I guess I just have a different view, it's a sad thing, but I have a different view of it. | ||
| And I don't hear anybody talking about it. | ||
| I don't hear any news station talking about it. | ||
| And it's a huge problem in our country. | ||
| And that's where big money, billionaires, and corporations have been running this country for many years now. | ||
| People my age, the number of us are shrinking every day. | ||
| The number of us that remember our political system before corporations and big business were running this country where the Democrats and Republicans could sit down and talk together and work together. | ||
| And now it's divide and conquer on both sides. | ||
| That's why I'm an independent because I don't believe either party is representing the people. | ||
| This shooting should be no surprise because both sides are dividing with hate. | ||
| And none of the American people are being represented by our government. | ||
| Congress does absolutely nothing. | ||
| Our country is being run by executive orders. | ||
| Got your point, Alan. | ||
| We'll go to Larry in Georgia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Larry. | ||
| What's your top news story this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Yes, I just want to make a comment about Donald Trump blaming people about, you know, the guy that got killed. | ||
| But he is the one that started all this rhetoric. | ||
| They had told him to stop it. | ||
| Larry, go ahead and turn your television down in the background. | ||
| It's a little confusing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I got it. | |
| Yeah, I just want to make a comment about what Donald Trump is blaming. | ||
| He always put the blame game on somebody else. | ||
| But he is the one that started all this rhetoric. | ||
| They told him to tone it down. | ||
| He wouldn't tone it down. | ||
| So what he did, you know, he just continued. | ||
| Okay, I got it. | ||
| Yes, what he did is, you know, he confusing everybody. | ||
| He started this with that insurrection, you know, and stuff. | ||
| So, you know, it just triggling down, you know, so he is the one that caused everything. | ||
| He shouldn't be blaming nobody else but himself. | ||
| That was Larry in Georgia. | ||
| Rob is in Maplewood, Minnesota, on the line for, I'm sorry, Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Rob. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Tammy. | |
| I just want to, for this is for every Trump hater and some Trump non-haters, think about eternity before you think about how you feel towards one man. | ||
| To be saved, you must trust Christ's death, burial, and resurrection for all your sins, and God will save you on the spot. | ||
| And he also changed your heart towards hatred, towards love, from hatred towards love. | ||
| Just trust Christ's death, burial, and resurrection plus nothing else, and you will be saved. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Rob in Minnesota. | ||
| Another story from this week, the headline from the Associated Press, Americans mark the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 attack with emotional ceremonies. | ||
| The article says that nearly a quarter century has passed since the September 11th, 2001 attacks, but for many, the emotions of the day remain raw as ever. | ||
| It says on Thursday, America marked the 24th anniversary of the deadly attacks with solemn ceremonies in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. | ||
| The commemorations were punctuated by moments of silence, the tolling of bells, and the reading of the names of the nearly 3,000 killed. | ||
| It was Thursday, September 11th on the Senate floor that minority leader Chuck Schumer spoke about the anniversary. | ||
| Here is a clip. | ||
| I still think about the scenes when I arrived at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attack the day after. | ||
| The putrid smell of death, of burnt flesh, was in the air. | ||
| I remember the rows upon rows of people holding up makeshift signs with photos of their missing loved ones because no one knew who was alive and who wasn't. | ||
| Have you seen my brother Bill? | ||
| Have you seen my daughter Mary? | ||
| The anguish on their faces stays in my mind to this day. | ||
| They're the kind of heart-wrenching images that will stay with me for a lifetime. | ||
| While 9-11 was America's darkest hour, I also saw New Yorkers in our finest moments. | ||
| There were countless acts of kindness by strangers to help each other. | ||
| In the midst of the tragedy that the world saw, the true strength of America and New York came through. | ||
| The next day, I called on every American to display the flag on their clothes outside their homes as a sign of solidarity. | ||
| And ever since that day, I wear this flag on my lapel. | ||
| And every time I look at it, I think of those who were lost. | ||
| It's a small but constant reminder of our sacred promise. | ||
| Never, never forget. | ||
| Never forget especially means honoring the countless brave first responders who ran towards danger, not away from it, to save lives. | ||
| In our darkest hours, these heroes, police officers, firefighters, EMTs, so many others, risked their lives, construction workers, to rescue others. | ||
| Many of the finest first responders became sick because of the toxins in the air. | ||
| Many were diagnosed with rare, deadly cancer and diseases, and many, far too many, succumbed to their illnesses, including my great friend, Ray Pfeiffer. | ||
| May he rest in peace. | ||
| That's why I have fought to secure nearly $1.7 billion for the World Trade Center health program to help sick first responders get the care they need. | ||
| Sadly, sadly, it's been such a struggle to get that money. | ||
| It has been a difficult few months for many 9-11 first responders and others now sick due to exposures at ground zero. | ||
| Cuts to this program are wrong, immoral, and I have fought in a bipartisan way with fellow Republicans and Democrats to oppose them. | ||
| Back to your calls, we're asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's hear from Doc in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Doc. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm calling what the top news story, as far as I'm concerned, of course, is Mr. Kirk's assassination. | ||
| He was assassinated because he embellished the true American way of thinking, which is slowly, slowly going away from our being, I guess, whole being. | ||
| He would go out on a stage of, you know, people who didn't like him. | ||
| He would call them up to express their thoughts. | ||
| That is things that communists don't like. | ||
| President Trump was almost assassinated because communists don't like him. | ||
| And in the 50s, there was a senator named Joe McCarthy who warned us about these communists. | ||
| Well, the communists are here. | ||
| They are the DNC, the Democratic National Committee. | ||
| They are communists, and they must be stopped at any cost. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Doc in Louisiana. | ||
| Stacy is in Illinois on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Stacey. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| I must say, first of all, I thank you for accepting my call. | ||
| I am very sickened of what happened to Mr. Kirk. | ||
| My prayers go to his family. | ||
| I'm also disgusted with Republicans now because we are one. | ||
| Without Christ, where would we be? | ||
| A face that we haven't seen of God. | ||
| How can we say we love one another? | ||
| I feel that the President of the United States is treating us with like we are his play toys. | ||
| This is what's happening alive. | ||
| People are dying. | ||
| I feel sorry for all of us because we are human. | ||
| I don't like the fact that our military units are here, that we, the citizens, pay the gap. | ||
| Our taxpayer monies is going for them to come harass us, to terrorize, to mobilize, to just act as if we're not human. | ||
| We are citizens of the United States. | ||
| I feel like the president of the United States has opened my eyes. | ||
| He has opened my eyes to see that he is with biggest hatred. | ||
| I will never be a Republican again. | ||
| First and foremost, a president of the United States is supposed to accept we the people. | ||
| We the people are the ones who put that preemptive together. | ||
| People need to open their eyes and see. | ||
| They treat him as if he's a king. | ||
| We have a Christ here in America. | ||
| We have authoritarian dictators that are dividing us, that are deceiving us. | ||
| We have these Republicans of ours, my Republicans, just turned on themselves, on their children, on women's rights. | ||
| I will never, ever be a Republican again. | ||
| I despise. | ||
| That was Stacey in Illinois. | ||
| Stephen is calling from Baltimore, Maryland. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Of course, I have really two quick top stories. | ||
| One, of course, is the assassination of the guy. | ||
| But what sort of, excuse me, what sort of offends me is that on YouTube, they had a picture of him, Martin Luther King, and President John F. Kennedy together saying that he died for his free speech. | ||
| My problem is that his speech, even though he could express himself however he wants to, was hateful because I know he's gone from us now, and I know he's probably going to go to heaven. | ||
| And when he goes to heaven, he can explain to the Christ how he believes that black women aren't qualified for the jobs that they're getting and that they're taking jobs from white men and the other horrible things that he said about black people. | ||
| And so he's going to explain to Christ how he made black people's life a hell on earth, and he's going to go be forgiven in heaven. | ||
| And my other quick story is how the Supreme Court let Mexicans be rounded up on looking Mexican, speaking Spanish, walking a Tihuah dog, Mexican Tihua dog. | ||
| And it reminds me of the old war movies because I'm a little older. | ||
| And in the old war movies where the Germans would walk up on a dissident sword Jew and the Germans would say, are your papers in all tough? | ||
| And now that we allowed this, the Supreme Court allowed this for the Mexican people, you know, we're going in the wrong direction. | ||
| We're heading into a faster state. | ||
| I know it doesn't matter for the white people who have blended in and it is the main baseline, you know, based on the United States, but for all the other people, you know, this is pretty bad. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Stephen in Maryland, and this is the headline in Fox News. | ||
| Erica Kirk delivers moving tribute to husband Charlie. | ||
| Quote, I will never let your legacy die. | ||
| It says that Erica Kirk, the widow of the late Charlie Kirk, gave an emotional tribute to her husband and declared that his mission will not end at Turning Point USA's headquarters Friday. | ||
| It was her first public statement since her husband's assassination on Wednesday at Utah Valley University. | ||
| Here is a clip of Erica Kirk speaking yesterday. | ||
| I want to thank the millions of people who have shown their love for Charlie here in Phoenix, across America and worldwide. | ||
| I want to thank my husband's dear friend, Vice President Vance, and his phenomenal wife, Usha, for their love and support. | ||
| You guys honored my husband so well bringing him home. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You both are tremendous. | |
| I want to thank President Trump and his incredible family for the same. | ||
| Mr. President, my husband loved you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he knew that you loved him too. | |
| He did. | ||
| Your friendship was amazing. | ||
| You supported him so well. | ||
| To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die. | ||
| It won't. | ||
| I refuse to let that happen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It will not die. | |
| All of us will refuse to let that happen. | ||
| No one will ever forget my husband's name, and I will make sure of it. | ||
| It will become stronger, bolder, louder, and greater than ever. | ||
| My husband's mission will not end, not even for a moment. | ||
| And Erica Kirk there, mentioning Vice President JD Vance. | ||
| This is a story from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says Charlie Kirk's casket arrived in his home state of Arizona aboard Air Force 2 on Thursday. | ||
| As Vice President JD Vance honored the conservative activist with the final flight, Vance's wife, Usha, stepped off the plane with Kirk's widow, Erica. | ||
| Both women wore black and sunglasses. | ||
| The vice president was a few steps behind in a dark suit. | ||
| It says Air Force 2 arrived in Phoenix after a short flight from Salt Lake City, about 40 miles from Oram, Utah, where Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University. | ||
| Vance helped carry Kirk's casket with a group of uniformed service members as it was loaded onto the plane. | ||
| It says on Wednesday night, Vance wrote on social media that his relationship with Kirk began several years ago. | ||
| After he appeared on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News, Kirk reached out to compliment him and, quote, that moment of kindness began a friendship. | ||
| Back to your calls asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's hear from Kevin in Louisiana, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| How's it going? | ||
| Donald Trump is doing an excellent job and they need to keep up the good work and for that lady's husband to get messed over like, you know, like that. | ||
| That's simple. | ||
| It's sad. | ||
| It's a sad war. | ||
| No, and it don't make no sense. | ||
| Like, like she said, to keep America alive and keep, you know, our society, you know, changing for the better. | ||
| It's not getting any worse. | ||
| And, you know, the people that are in charge of this ought to be government on that. | ||
| It should be well known all. | ||
| This is not in the United States, but in other countries, too. | ||
| And that's really all I have to say. | ||
| But that was Kevin in Louisiana. | ||
| Joe is in Maine on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, my God. | |
| Wow. | ||
| Let me just start by saying anyone who hides behind their religion for a political argument, I don't have any respect for you. | ||
| Doc called earlier from Louisiana, and communists use no warrant arrests. | ||
| Mr. Trump is using no warrant arrests in America. | ||
| So an earlier caller mentioned the Supreme Court's ruling. | ||
| What he didn't mention and probably didn't have time was also you can be pulled over for talk, you can be pulled over for your looks, and you can be pulled over if you look like you work a lower wage job. | ||
| The Supreme Court put that in writing in their in their whatever they call it. | ||
| But what it is, is it's only good till for a couple of months. | ||
| It's not a law. | ||
| It's just a way for the Supreme Court to pass on their BS. | ||
| And if anyone, anyone cannot say this is totally racially motivated, I mean, pick your head up out of the sand. | ||
| You're burying it in the sand. | ||
| You're not watching what's happening. | ||
| Donald Trump has increased his wealth by a gazillion dollars I'll use Elon's term. | ||
| You know, Louisiana, the last guy who just called, Elon Musk was going to save us $2 trillion. | ||
| Do you wonder what happened to that, or you just keep your head buried in the sand down there in Louisiana? | ||
| That was Joe in Maine. | ||
| Philip is in Springfield, Massachusetts, on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Philip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I thought I'd call in, and my top story is the assassination. | ||
| I'm glad they got the guy. | ||
| And the girl that got murdered on the train the other day, they should do something to help her and her family. | ||
| And they're having a big Democrat convention today in Springfield for 4,000 people, I hear on the news. | ||
| And I hope everything goes okay down there. | ||
| But it's disturbing to watch the C-SPAN and the people calling in. | ||
| You have free speech, but sometimes people seem to have a lot of hate and racism in there. | ||
| And it's scary to listen to it because I've been listening to C-SPAN for years now, and you get a lot of information of what's going on. | ||
| And I think it's a good program. | ||
| And I just want to say thank you. | ||
| And God bless. | ||
| And thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Philip in Massachusetts. | ||
| Robert is in Greenville, Texas, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My top news story is this ought to kind of wake people up a little bit about the political violence in this country. | ||
| Just the sheer fact that we're having it depicts more of an essence of where our political environment, the temperature of it is. | ||
| My suggestion somewhat to resolve this is one that I've been calling into this show for 10 years. | ||
| It's just we need to put term limits on Congress, and we should have an age limit also on how long you can be there. | ||
| Well, not how long you can be there, but how old you can be to qualify to run for office and get in some fresh thinking, some fresh ideas, some people that haven't been polluted by the politics for decades and put in a decent term limit for Congress, for the Senate, | ||
|
unidentified
|
and for the Supreme Court, because I believe they have grown extremely well. | |
| They've been succumbed by the political arena that is Washington. | ||
| So that's it. | ||
| It's just simple term limits, age limits. | ||
| You know, we have a minimum age to run for Congress, to run for the Senate, to run for president. | ||
| It shouldn't be that hard to put in a cow. | ||
| You know, it's 75, let's just say, is a cap at that point. | ||
| You know, it's time to move on, open it up to some new blood, new ways of thinking. | ||
| Got your point, Robert. | ||
| Let's hear from Cassandra in Fort Washington, Maryland, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Cassandra. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to give my deepest sympathy to Charlie Kirk's wife, Erica. | ||
| But the problem is, the problem is racism in this country. | ||
| And that's what the problem is. | ||
| Some of them start with the man in the White House. | ||
| He has been dividing this country ever since he became the president. | ||
| You know, they talked about, you know, all the, you know, he's sending the National Guard to the blue states, but what about the Republican states? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| What about that? | ||
| You don't hear anything about that. | ||
| And then you hear all these racist callers calling in, pointing their fingers at the left. | ||
| You know, both sides need to come together, okay, and try to bring this country together, okay? | ||
| Because I know Jesus Christ is on his way. | ||
| Because, you know, we can't take too much of this. | ||
| You know, you had these black schools that were shut down because everybody's pointing the fingers at them and threats. | ||
| So we really need to come together in this country and stop this hatred that's going on. | ||
| And if he's the president, he should be the president for all people, not just for rich people and not for just white people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Cassandra in Maryland. | ||
| Mike is in Florida, calling on the Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Of course, it's the Charlie Kirk assassination. | ||
| I think the girl, the lady from Maryland, had some good points. | ||
| We do need to get together and stop all this killing, which is coming from the left. | ||
| They tried to kill Trump twice. | ||
| Also, Steve Scalise, there's been several, and we just need to stop this. | ||
| Every Republican is not Hitler. | ||
| Every Republican is not a fascist. | ||
| And the Democrats need to start making their own minds up, not listening to their representatives who have lost power. | ||
| And this is the only way they can get power. | ||
| And I don't know when it's going to stop. | ||
| It all started in 2008 by the greater commander and divider, Obama. | ||
| He's probably sitting at home laughing his ass off because he cannot believe what he has created. | ||
| We are going on such a better path until I voted for him the first time. | ||
| And that was such a bad mistake because he took us to a place where I don't know if there's a way to get back. | ||
| And I just want to thank you for taking my call. | ||
| And let's heal this country, please, because it's not going in the right direction. | ||
| That was Mike in Florida. | ||
| Also in Florida is Gary, Klein Online for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to point out that if we want to get to the root cause of this violence, I think we've got to start with the notion that we've got to hold people responsible for making claims that are unsubstantiated. | ||
| It just leads to such poisonous thoughts. | ||
| People accept things without evidence. | ||
| And there's one group that's probably more expert at this than any other, and that's religion. | ||
| And we've got to hold people responsible for what they say. | ||
| Otherwise, this violence is just going to continue. | ||
| That was Gary in Florida. | ||
| Another headline from this week. | ||
| This is in Politico. | ||
| Senate GOP nuclear break to goes nuclear to break Trump nominee gridlock says that Senate Republicans deployed the nuclear option Thursday to begin clearing a pileup of President Donald Trump's nominees, paving the way for them to be confirmed in potentially large groups starting next week. | ||
| It says the 53 to 45 vote to change the rules comes after frustration about the slow pace of confirmations boiled over the GOP conference following the collapse of bipartisan negotiations over the summer to confirm a package of nominees. | ||
| It says the Senate still needs to finalize the rule change on the floor next week, but Thursday's votes puts them on track to confirm a slate of 48 Trump nominees as a block instead of voting on them individually, a process that would otherwise take months. | ||
| It was on Thursday that Senators Chuck Schumer and John Thune spoke about the rule change. | ||
| Here are their remarks. | ||
| Democrats and their political base cannot deal with the fact that the American people elected President Trump. | ||
| And so they're dragging out every confirmation in retaliation. | ||
| Mr. President, it would be fine if this Democrat temper tantrum didn't affect anyone else. | ||
| But Democrats' historic obstruction is having serious consequences. | ||
| In addition to the obvious problem of delays in filling important positions in the administration, having to engage in the time-consuming cloture process on every nominee ties up the Senate floor, preventing us from considering important legislation. | ||
| Advice and consent on presidential nominations is part of our job as senators, but it's not the only part of our job. | ||
| The Senate is first and foremost a legislative body. | ||
| But that primary role is getting crowded out by the need to be constantly considering nominations. | ||
| Mr. President, when I became majority leader, I made it clear that one of my priorities was to get the Senate functioning again. | ||
| And the Senate can't function effectively as a legislative body with the confirmation process in the state that it's in right now. | ||
| So today, the Senate will move forward on amending the rules to restore the long-standing precedent of confirming presidential nominees expeditiously. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It would have been nice not to have to go through this process. | |
| I think there are a lot of Democrats who are aware that they've created an untenable situation. | ||
| And it would have been nice to see them acknowledge that and to move to return to longtime Senate precedent. | ||
| What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more, to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants whenever he wants them. | ||
| No questions asked. | ||
| That is not the Senate's job. | ||
| We're supposed to debate and take votes on nominees, especially when the executive branch is grossly breaking norms by sending us woefully unqualified, unscrupulous, and in some cases, deeply dishonest individuals for powerful and important positions. | ||
| By going nuclear today, Republicans are saying we don't want to do our jobs. | ||
| They're saying whatever Trump wants, we'll do it. | ||
| Make no mistake, because of the harmful step Republicans took today, historically bad nominees Donald Trump has sent to the Senate all year long will get even worse. | ||
| Just a little over 10 minutes left in this first hour of this morning's Washington Journal. | ||
| We're asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's hear from Jeff, who's in Miamisburg, Ohio, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jeff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just wanted to say first off that I don't condone the killing of this Charlie Kirk guy. | ||
| I didn't even know the guy's name until I saw it in the news. | ||
| And then I read a quote from him, and it basically said he had insisted that it was worth it to have, quote, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights, unquote. | ||
| And the way I see it, I guess, if him and the MAGA people are okay with a statement like that, then they should probably be okay with what happened to him because it was kind of like his quote that somebody used it against him. | ||
| So, you know, if you have that kind of hateful thought and you're okay with someone else's father, mother, or child dying, then they should be okay with you. | ||
| And as far as Charlie Kirk, I'll forget his name like last week's news when some other news comes out. | ||
| But I just wanted to kind of throw that quote out there that, you know, if you think like that and it happens to you, unfortunately, then, you know, and thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Jeff in Ohio. | ||
| Jerry is in Broadway, Virginia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning, America. | |
| Let's see. | ||
| Top story of the week. | ||
| About all this rioting and burning down campuses, burning down cities and all this, breaking into businesses, losing them over Charlie Kirk's murder. | ||
| Oh, wait a minute. | ||
| That's not happening. | ||
| That's Democrats who do that. | ||
| Can you imagine what would be happening in this country today if it had been someone like Al Sharpton was killed or Camp Von Tim or Jethro Boudine Richard? | ||
| What would be happening all across this country? | ||
| Can you imagine? | ||
| That was Jerry in Virginia. | ||
| Clarence is in North Carolina, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Clarence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I just, being a black man, I just want to respond to a lot of black callers I've been here in the whole week talking about Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Charlie Kirk was preaching something that I think the black community don't want to hear. | ||
| 80% of the fathers of black homes are not in the home. | ||
| The abortion rate among black women are 56%. | ||
| And we are, the black population are decreasing. | ||
| So what he was preaching to the black community is be responsible for your own community. | ||
| And a lot of black folks have a problem with that because they don't want to see their own problems that the black community is going through. | ||
| And another thing, I just want to say this: if most people were learning to not to trust the government, the government have kept black people in poverty for the last 40 years. | ||
| They have done nothing for the black community. | ||
| The black community now is poor now than it's ever been because of the government. | ||
| When you depend on the government, you'll never get ahead. | ||
| Get a job, get an education. | ||
| The government is not for the black community, it's to keep black community in poverty. | ||
| That's why they have projects. | ||
| They'll put you in one area to keep you poor. | ||
| They will not do nothing to help you get out of poverty, but they will help keep you in poverty. | ||
| So it's a black way to get out that Democrat mentality. | ||
| They have brainwashed you for 40-something years. | ||
| As a black man, I was raised in poverty. | ||
| And my mama taught me: if you want to get out, you got to get a job and get out because a Democrat, a Republican, no government gonna do it for you. | ||
| Trust Jesus Christ, and I promise you he'll help you out. | ||
| But don't trust in the government. | ||
| The Democrat probably have ruined the black community. | ||
| That's why we're still in poverty today. | ||
| And I'm praying for us as the minister of the gospel that we have opened my eyes and said we need Christ in our life. | ||
| We don't need more government. | ||
| We need Jesus Christ. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| That was Clarence in North Carolina. | ||
| Homer is in Kansas City, Missouri. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Homer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, and amen. | |
| Good morning, Tammy. | ||
| Here's the problem with the Republicans, and I think it is probably Charlie Kirk thing, sadly, that's the main topic. | ||
| But this gentleman, I didn't even know who he was until I watched this South Park episode. | ||
| But, anyways, you know, this guy demonizes black people. | ||
| There can be no doubt about that. | ||
| And here's what here's one of my points: thank God it happened in Utah, Lilywhite, Utah, by a white guy from a family with police officers. | ||
| Just like kind of like January 6th. | ||
| Let's imagine if January 6th happened with the BLM and a bunch of Antifa people. | ||
| Can you imagine the carnage that day that would have happened? | ||
| You know, I ask my Republican brethren, and Lord knows I live in Missouri, so I'm a like super minority. | ||
| I mean, they're trying to take Emmanuel Cleaver's seat. | ||
| And you have to understand, people, we do. | ||
| We are not. | ||
| This country does not want to be run by a despot, a man that appears to be in Vladimir's Putin's pocket. | ||
| So there are going to be bad things that are going to happen in the next three and a half years, sadly, because of what we did by re-electing this individual. | ||
| And thank you, Tammy, and you have a wonderful day. | ||
| That was Homer in Missouri. | ||
| And something he mentioned: this is the headline from NBC News. | ||
| It says, Missouri legislature passes new Republican-drawn congressional map. | ||
| It says that Missouri state legislature has passed a plan to redraw the state's congressional map and turn Democratic Representative Emmanuel Cleaver's district into a Republican-leaning seat. | ||
| The latest move in a nationwide redistricting fight amid a shifting aimed at shifting the balance of power in Washington and next year's midterm elections. | ||
| It says just weeks after Texas successfully passed maps aimed at netting Republicans up to five more congressional districts, Missouri's state House and Senate convened in a special election to redraw the lines to benefit the GOP. | ||
| They had far less room to grow than Texas. | ||
| Republicans, they had far less room to grow than Texas Republicans did, given that six of Missouri's eight House U.S. House seats are already represented by Republicans. | ||
| It says, but the new map will carve up Cleaver's district in the Kansas City area in the hopes of creating a new red one there. | ||
| It goes on to say that Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe, a Republican, is expected to sign the new map into law. | ||
| It was this week on the Hill that Representative Cleaver spoke about the efforts. | ||
| Here is a clip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just moments ago, the Missouri House passed a measure that is monumentally unpopular in the state of Missouri. | |
| We are polling data to show that Democrats are opposed to this, Independents are opposed to this, and Republicans are opposed to this. | ||
| Unfortunately and painfully, the state has fallen into a state where the will of the people of Missouri is being substituted for ideology. | ||
| Just a few minutes left in this first hour of Washington Journal asking for your top news story. | ||
| Elizabeth is in New York on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Elizabeth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Go ahead, Elizabeth. | ||
| You're on air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, thank you. | |
| Yeah, first of all, I'd like to just make a comment about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| The fact that this is a First Amendment issue, not a Second Amendment issue. | ||
| Charlie Kirk encouraged free speech and encouraged robust debate. | ||
| And these people that come out and say all the time, you know, we need to come together. | ||
| It's, well, who has brought us more together? | ||
| We have a president in the White House right now who invited, who appointed two former Democrat candidates for the president to be in his cabinet. | ||
| I mean, I don't understand. | ||
| So we see all this violence coming from the left, and then they turn around and lecture the right on rhetoric. | ||
| And it's a repeated, a constantly repeated refrain. | ||
| The Nazism, the Hitlerism, the fascism. | ||
| They've got a flexible morality on the left. | ||
| And I just feel like they need to look at their schools, look at what's being taught. | ||
| For example, you know, we have a book in our public school for the youngest learners, and it's called Not My Idea, a book about whiteness. | ||
| And it starts there, demonizing people for the color of their skin. | ||
| And it has references to Christians in it. | ||
| And I just don't understand how the left can look at that and say that's perfectly fine. | ||
| And as far as these redistricting, I think the left has done a masterful job at redistricting and gerrymandering. | ||
| And here in New York, they tried to do it on an off year. | ||
| And it was so egregious that the courts had to step in and say, you can't do this. | ||
| In Massachusetts, there are no Republicans. | ||
| So when the Republicans turn around and start, you know, turnaround is fair play. | ||
| When the Republicans turn around and do it, they scream and stomp their feet, but at least it's being done legally. | ||
| That was Elizabeth in New York. | ||
| Roland is in Detroit, Michigan. | ||
| Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Roland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Graham Rising to you. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Damel Roland, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I just want to say that I'm an independent because I pay attention to my inner soul and spirit. | ||
| I don't attach myself to all of these brands out here, Democrat, Republican, left, right, Confederacy, Union, Crips, Bloods, all of that kind of stuff. | ||
| That's what is leading this country into collapse. | ||
| People need to stay away from these brands and do what they need to do. | ||
| And the answer is within themselves. | ||
| And I cannot stump every time something happens. | ||
| Oh, it's the Republicans. | ||
| Oh, it's the Democrats. | ||
| What kind of mentality has been created in this country? | ||
| It's insanity. | ||
| And I think this country is going to collapse as a result. | ||
| Everybody wants to take their side and their position. | ||
| And if you don't like this, then, you know, I hate you. | ||
| And all this. | ||
| The human mind and intelligence is much more deeper than that and much more smart. | ||
| So that being said, I think the people have lost their minds. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| That was Roland in Michigan. | ||
| Our last call for this first hour. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Senior Advisor Mark Kanzian will join us to discuss the potential impact of and reaction to Russian drones entering Poland's airspace during an attack on Ukraine this week. | ||
| And but next we'll talk with author Alexandra Hudson about efforts to promote civility in American politics and her book, The Soul of Civility. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026, join American History TV for its new series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of our founding. | ||
| Finalists for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize discuss their books on the nation's founding era. | ||
| The book prize is an annual award sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Washington College, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. | ||
| Then, the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies features conversations on the Civil War, including a look at the relationship between Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the fight between Midwestern abolitionists and anti-war activists, and Abraham Lincoln's relationship with General George McClellan. | ||
| On Lectures in History, University of Kansas political communication professor Robert Rowland on the 1992 Republican National Convention speeches by former President Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination that year against incumbent President George H.W. Bush. | ||
| The White House Historical Association profiles former First Lady Barbara Bush against the backdrop of the forever stamp issued in her honor. | ||
| Exploring the American story. | ||
| Watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| book tv every sunday on c-span 2 features leading authors discussing their latest non-fiction books Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 5:45 p.m. Eastern, Justice Amy Coney Barrett discusses her book, Listening to the Law, about her journey to the Supreme Court and her views on the Constitution. | ||
| Then at 7, blogger Lee Tillman, author of If You Don't Like This, I Will Die, an influencer memoir, describes the impact of making a career on social media. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern, Fox News contributor Joe Concha with his book, The Greatest Comeback Ever, sharing his take on President Donald Trump's return to the White House for a second non-consecutive term. | ||
| And at 10:15, author and researcher Matthew Facciani and his book, Misguided, Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do About It. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss efforts to promote civility in American politics and her book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, is Alexandra Hudson. | ||
| Alexandra, thank you for joining us this morning. | ||
| A pleasure to be back with you, Tammy. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| We'll start. | ||
| This is unfortunately great timing for this topic. | ||
| Always a good reminder for people as well. | ||
| But before we kind of get into civility itself, tell us about why and how you became interested in the idea of promoting civility. | ||
| I was born into it. | ||
| My mother is Judy the Manners Lady. | ||
| She was someone who taught my brothers and I the ways and means of politeness, also modeled through civility and hospitality and kindness to the stranger. | ||
| And those two things are different, civility and politeness, as I hope we'll talk about in a few moments. | ||
| But I always questioned the rules of politeness, but followed them, and they served me well in life until I got to federal government. | ||
| I served 2017, 2018 in Washington, D.C. | ||
| And there I saw firsthand the crisis of dehumanization in American public life. | ||
| And I fled and poured myself into writing this book. | ||
| My book, The Soul of Civility, is the product of a lifetime of reflection on this topic of the ways and means of our social norms, the why, why do we do things the way we do them? | ||
| And it is a humanistic manifesto extolling the profound gift of being human in ourselves and others, which is the message we need right now in this divided and dehumanizing time. | ||
| We will get more into the nuances of civility, but explain why civility is important and why we see these instances where it seems to not be as valued as much as it should. | ||
| I learned and observed this firsthand when I was in government. | ||
| I saw two extremes. | ||
| On one hand, I saw people who were hostile. | ||
| They were bellicose. | ||
| They were belligerent. | ||
| These were people who had sharp elbows and were willing to step on anyone, just to crush anyone to get ahead, to get what they wanted. | ||
| And on the other hand, I saw people who I thought were my people. | ||
| They were polished and poised and polite. | ||
| But these were people who would smile and flatter me and others one moment and stab us in the back the next. | ||
| And this clarified for me this essential distinction between civility and politeness. | ||
| People often conflate them and they often resort to hostility and bellicosity, even violence, as a means to puncture this hypocrisy, this culture of pretense and political correctness that is toxic and suppressive of public discourse. | ||
| And I argue that disambiguating civility and politeness and clarifying what is the mode of conduct that we ought to aspire to in our public life. | ||
| And I argue we ought to aspire to not just manners, not just niceness, which is the stuff of politeness, but civility, which is an inner disposition of the heart, a way of seeing others as our moral equals, beings with innate dignity and worth, worthy of a bare minimum of respect, just by virtue of our shared equal moral worth as human beings. | ||
| Full stop. | ||
| And I wanted to ask you another question when it comes to how we got here. | ||
| There's a headline from the New York Post from last October. | ||
| It says nearly half of Americans think members of the opposing political party are, quote, downright evil. | ||
| That's according to a new poll. | ||
| How did we get here almost to this tribalism when it comes to politics, which can be one of the causes of incivility? | ||
| It's such a great question, Tammy, and it's one I explore at length in my book, The Soul of Civility. | ||
| This crisis of division and dehumanization and even political violence is nothing new. | ||
| In fact, these are kind of the default. | ||
| If you look at the long arc of human history, I'm a student of history. | ||
| I love looking at the wisdom of the past to help us lead better lives now. | ||
| And if you look at human history, you see that actually peace and prosperity and harmony, those are the exceptions. | ||
| And violence and division is actually the rule. | ||
| And so how did we get here? | ||
| It's a part of the human condition. | ||
| It emerges from a part of the human personality that we all share. | ||
| We are profoundly social as a species. | ||
| As long as we've been around, we've been trying to do this thing called life together with others. | ||
| And as long as we've been around, it's been hard. | ||
| Society and civilization is fragile. | ||
| It is a precarious proposition. | ||
| And it's held together by civility, this voluntary consideration of the well-being and needs of our fellow citizens, a basic respect for our fellow human beings. | ||
| Our guest is Lexi Hudson. | ||
| She's the author of The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. | ||
| She is joining us for a discussion on efforts to promote civility in American politics. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in Now the Lines, Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001 and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Lexi, going back to something you talked about at the top, it was also something you mentioned in an op-ed you wrote in January, and that is that, quote, we must stop confusing civility with politeness. | ||
| Explain what you mean. | ||
| I love, so there's two vocal voices. | ||
| There's two vocal camps in our public discourse today. | ||
| There's one camp that says, you know, we just need more civility and politeness. | ||
| And they often harken back to a bygone golden era. | ||
| And they say, if we can just revive these lost virtues of civility and politeness, we can restore harmony and comedy. | ||
| Comedy is an old, lovely word for harmony, and it actually derives from the Sanskrit word to smile. | ||
| I love etymology because it often tells a sweet story like that. | ||
| But they say, if we can just revive these bygone virtues, it will save democracy. | ||
| All will be well. | ||
| There's another contingent that says, no, civility and politeness are part of the problem. | ||
| They're tools of the patriarchy, the oppressor. | ||
| They're tools to silence the oppressed. | ||
| We need less civility and politeness in public life. | ||
| Burn it all down in order to achieve greater justice and equity in our world now. | ||
| Both these contingents miss this essential distinction that I argue for throughout my book between civility and politeness. | ||
| I argue that politeness is manners. | ||
| It's etiquette. | ||
| It's technique. | ||
| It's what we do. | ||
| what we say. | ||
| It's the external stuff. | ||
| Whereas civility is something deeper, something richer. | ||
| It's an inner disposition of the heart. | ||
| It's a way of seeing others as human beings just like us with equal moral worth, with innate dignity, worthy of a bare minimum of respect just because of that equal moral worth and dignity. | ||
| And sometimes, crucially, actually respecting the dignity of others, actually loving a person, requires being impolite. | ||
| It requires saying something that might offend them, might hurt someone's feelings. | ||
| It requires telling a hard truth, engaging in robust debate even. | ||
| Debate is the lifeblood of a democracy. | ||
| Hard conversations are the lifeblood of a healthy marriage, of a healthy relationship. | ||
| Today, we're afraid to have these conversations, but in fact, they are a way to actually respect others. | ||
| And we ought to aim for civility, not politeness in our public life today. | ||
| What do you say to people who would argue that you can't have civility when it comes to what you just mentioned, those hard conversations, the difference of opinions? | ||
| You can't actually do that. | ||
| You can't have those hard conversations and be civil at the same time. | ||
| Someone you've had on your show many times is a dear friend of mine, Daryl Davis. | ||
| And he was actually at my home in Indianapolis, Indiana, the day of Charlie Kirk's assassination, of his death. | ||
| And I was talking with him about this. | ||
| And for those of you who aren't familiar with Daryl's work, he is a African-American jazz musician. | ||
| But he says, you know, music is my vocation. | ||
| Race relations is my obsession. | ||
| And he is someone who has spent his life seeking out members of hate groups and befriending them. | ||
| And in befriending them and conversing with them and engaging with them with curiosity and even humility and love, he has converted, you know, over 300 members of neo-Nazi groups of the KKK of these hate groups, people who literally think that he should not exist, that the world, people who think that the world would be better if he were dead. | ||
| And he still engages in these conversations actively. | ||
| When he was at my house, I asked him for a recent example. | ||
| And he said, you know, just last week, I sat down with a member of the KKK and we talked about music, the universal language, he called it. | ||
| And he said, you know, we shared our long conversation about our shared passion for music. | ||
| And by the end of that conversation, he asked me to accompany him. | ||
| Daryl is a jazz pianist, so at his church while he sang his favorite hymn. | ||
| And by the end of that episode, this member of the KKK was no longer a member of the KKK. | ||
| And I love what Daryl said that night. | ||
| He said, you know, I'm on the front lines having, I'm seeking, proactively seeking out these people who hold hateful views. | ||
| You know, but not everyone needs to do that. | ||
| That's not everyone's calling. | ||
| But he says everyone has one of those front lines and we need to pick a line and we need to hold it. | ||
| And that might mean knowing our neighbor across the street. | ||
| That might mean seeking out a colleague who has a differing point of view and engaging with them with humility and an emotional intellectual hospitality and curiosity. | ||
| And I always say, people who say that, you know, this person has such hateful views, I can't even be around them. | ||
| I can't be friends with them. | ||
| I'm cutting them off. | ||
| If Daryl can have these conversations, these friendships, with people who literally deny him the right to exist, we can too. | ||
| Daryl has joined us on the program several times and on the network. | ||
| If you'd like to learn more about his work and what Lexi was just talking about, you can find him on our website. | ||
| Just search Darrell Davis. | ||
| Lexi, we have callers waiting to talk with you on this topic. | ||
| We'll start with Dave, who's calling from Long Island, New York, on the line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Dave. | ||
| Hi, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Great topic, unfortunately. | ||
| I just want to point out two situations that I think are very leading to significant divisiveness between Americans that are really, most of us are all Americans. | ||
| We're not that different. | ||
| But when obvious, the first one, the obvious one is the media. | ||
| Obviously, I mean, you see it on the left, the right, the pundits, they want to make, rather than talk about news, they want to make it a political issue. | ||
| They want to spin everything to their direction for the votes. | ||
| But again, that's the obvious one. | ||
| The second one I want to bring up is the algorithmic radicalization. | ||
| And what I mean by it is when you look at Facebook, YouTube, internet, generally, you have the algorithms that will reinforce an individual's bias, so to speak. | ||
| So as you click and then a new video comes up and you click, it'll kind of lead you in a direction that kind of reinforces maybe something. | ||
| And they get more and more extreme as an individual goes through it. | ||
| So when you take a situation that just happened with, I mean, the horrible situation with Charlie Kirk, the individual, the shooter, if you look at the inscriptions on the ammunition, there were memes. | ||
| These were internet memes. | ||
| The kid was on, you know, very deep involved on the internet, 4-channel, whatnot. | ||
| Who knows what this kid was looking at and what these algorithms fed this kid and radicalized him to do such a way. | ||
| And to summon up the one person who really did try to find a middle ground and gave both sides an opportunity, Charlie Kirk. | ||
| The one person that they shoot is that guy. | ||
| I just, it's incredible. | ||
| It really is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Dave, thank you for calling in. | ||
| Thank you for those very thoughtful reflections. | ||
| I just, I have a few responses. | ||
| One is, yes, there are going to be people who capitalize on crises like this. | ||
| There always have been. | ||
| There always will be. | ||
| And second, it's really easy to point fingers at this political party and their rhetoric, this platform, this algorithm. | ||
| And sorry, there's a train going by in the background. | ||
| I'm on the West Coast and it's 5 a.m. here, so I apologize. | ||
| And no guarantees, my three children might not come out during this interview. | ||
| My husband's doing his best to hold the line. | ||
| But anyway, it's easy to want to blame, to point fingers. | ||
| Those are neat explanations that exonerate us from responsibility. | ||
| But Daryl and the work of his nonprofit called the Pro-Human Foundation is so exceptional. | ||
| It shows us that, and this is what I argue in my book as well, that every single one of us have way more power to be a part of the solution than we realize. | ||
| And we shouldn't be satisfied with blaming and exonerating ourselves from responsibility. | ||
| I learned this firsthand when I moved from toxic Washington to Indianapolis, Indiana. | ||
| I felt overwhelmed by the intractable, divided system. | ||
| And I knew I wanted to be a part of the solution, but I didn't know how. | ||
| And I came to Indianapolis, and one day a friend came up to me and said, Hi, I'm Joanna. | ||
| Would you like to porch with us? | ||
| And I never heard the word porch used as a metaphor before, but I was curious. | ||
| We went to her porch that day and she had curated people across race, politics, geography, social class, just to be in a shared space, to remind us of our common humanity, our shared moral status as citizens in this country, as members of the human community. | ||
| And we can do that too, with or without a front porch. | ||
| Porching is essentially a metaphor for the disposition of civility, reaching across the divide, transforming outsider to insider, stranger into friend. | ||
| So Dave, yes, I affirm everything you've said. | ||
| There's no question that these factors from the tenor of our leadership to our political rhetoric to the algorithms, algorithms, and these novel platforms have exacerbated this crisis of dehumanization, but they are not the cause and they do not exonerate us from our responsibility to be a part of the solution. | ||
| Lexi, you do talk about technology and social media in your book. | ||
| And as you just said, it's not the root cause. | ||
| Talk about what some of the root causes are. | ||
| The root cause, unfortunately, is the fallen nature of the human condition. | ||
| As I mentioned, I'm a student of history. | ||
| And if you look across history, this is not this crisis of dehumanization, this crisis of division. | ||
| It is not an America problem. | ||
| It's not a democracy problem. | ||
| It's not a Facebook or algorithm or X problem. | ||
| It's not a Donald Trump problem. | ||
| These are all things that we hear often people blame. | ||
| And the problem is, if we misdiagnose the problem, if we say, oh, if we just break up social media platforms with antitrust law, if Donald Trump were in president anymore, if we say these things, if we misdiagnose, we're going to miss important parts of the solution. | ||
| And the reality is this crisis far predates all of these things. | ||
| As I mentioned, it emerges from part of the human personality that we all share. | ||
| It's this tension between the social, the part of us that wants to be in community with others, and this innate self-love that we are morally and biologically driven to meet our own needs, to think of ourselves before others. | ||
| And these two things are intention. | ||
| They are the ever-present threat to human flourishing and community in all times and all places. | ||
| And thoughtful people across time and across place have independently come to this conception of civility as I define it and explore it throughout my book as an antidote to division, to alienation, these things that we are experiencing right now. | ||
| And how I define civility, once again, is the art of human flourishing. | ||
| It is the bare minimum of respect that we are owed and owe to others by virtue of the imago dei, this notion that we, each one of us, bears the imprint of the divine and have an irreducible moral worth by virtue of this dignity, of this shared personhood. | ||
| And crucially, civility is more, once again, than just politeness. | ||
| It's not about being nice. | ||
| It's not about polishing over difference. | ||
| It's about respecting one another through difference. | ||
| And in fact, aiming to thrive, flourish throughout difference, that our differences are not annoyances to be quashed, but they're resources to be mined. | ||
| They are the strength and the lifeblood of our democracy. | ||
| Let's hear from Tracy, who's calling from Florida, Lineford Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Tracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| And I just want to thank C-SPAN. | ||
| I love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love the format. | ||
| And I think hearing all these voices all over our country that oftentimes I don't agree. | ||
| And sometimes I do, you know, that also is part of, that's why I like C-SPAN so much. | ||
| I live in Florida right now, but I'm in my 50s and I grew up in Queens, New York, which still continues and even then was one of the most diverse areas, I think, in the nation for in terms of nationality. | ||
| And I really appreciate that upbringing because even at the time, there's a lot of tension. | ||
| I think that as a child, you lived amongst so many diverse people that it gives you insight into the fact that the humanity of people and not just the othering of people, which unfortunately, as I've moved into areas of the country that are much more homogeneous, is very, you know, it's very, you know, it really has stuck with me. | ||
| And thus, I do see how our differences can be capitalized. | ||
| And I think one important point, and I love this discussion, your guest is really interesting. | ||
| And I want to just speak to also the influence of corporations, I think, now that I'm in, I've always voted, but I see how the influence of corporations with lots of money have really essentially radicalized our Congress. | ||
| And so the people that are representing us, I think, to some degree, these corporations want to buy influence and don't want to be regulated. | ||
| And I think that is also part of what we as human beings are having to deal with. | ||
| It's like, so that the echo chambers that are paid for by corporations, you know, that where, you know, you can find the news that you, you know, that suits, you know, the algorithm or, you know, it's just not, unfortunately, it's one of, and again, it is human nature because corporations are probably just doing what they're trying to do to survive. | ||
| But when people blame politicians, it's like, no, I think we really need to blame the corporations that are buying their influence by lobbying. | ||
| So it's, you know, in this day and age, it's just, I think, I mean, something that I think is important to mention. | ||
| So again, when people complain about politics, politicians, I would point them to the corporations that are buying their influence so they're not regulated. | ||
| So they can make unhealthy, you know, platforms, social media, that then impact our children. | ||
| So thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| Thank you for calling in. | ||
| Thank you for caring about this topic. | ||
| Thank you for those thoughtful reflections. | ||
| I would like to take the opportunity to offer a few things that give me hope right now amidst, again, all of the sadness in our world, this crisis of dehumanization, the forces that are working to divide us and tear apart the fabric of our democracy. | ||
| And yet, amidst that, there are reasons to hope. | ||
| And I'd like to share a few of them with you. | ||
| I've been so encouraged by people who, since my book came out two years ago, have seen my book. | ||
| It is this, it is leaders across the country, from former governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels to Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, to Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History at Stanford University, who are using my book, The Soul of Civility, as a handbook to help us navigate these divided days that we're living. | ||
| We're living in. | ||
| And it's not just national leaders. | ||
| I'm encouraged by the local leaders who are doing this too, from Chris in the California state legislature, who is leading, he was just the other day handing out one pagers. | ||
| I created a one-pager of my book, The Soul of Civility in One Lesson, for people who wanted a daily reminder in their office on their vanity about some of these core points about the gift of being human, the difference between civility and politeness. | ||
| He was handing them out like candy. | ||
| And so people were so encouraged by that. | ||
| To Dean Heward, who's a city planner in Texas, who's implementing some of these ideas in his book in his community right now. | ||
| To Jeff Worrell of Carmel, Indiana, just up the road from where I live in Indiana, who wrote to me a few months after my book came out in 2023 and said, I loved your book, How Do We Embody Your Book in Our Community in Carmel. | ||
| And I said, I don't know, but let's build something. | ||
| And together we have, he's founded an institution called Project Civility. | ||
| And in just a few weeks, everyone listening is invited to the National Civility Summit happening in Carmel, Indiana. | ||
| And it's going to be an incredible gathering of leaders from across the country, local mayors, city managers, just everyday citizens who care about this topic. | ||
| We are dedicated to the idea that agreement is not the goal. | ||
| Perfect unity is not the goal. | ||
| Disagreement is a feature of democracy, not a bug. | ||
| And the challenge to us is: again, how do we respect the dignity and personhood of others despite and in light of that disagreement? | ||
| So the evening will open with former governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels and I having a fireside chat about leadership and civility. | ||
| And there will be a few notes the next day, Saturday. | ||
| It starts September 26th, and Saturday, September 27th, will be a few talks and then an unconference. | ||
| I don't know if you've ever heard of an unconference, but we'll be gathering and all participants will be both speakers and listeners. | ||
| And so if you care about this topic, go to projectcivility.com. | ||
| I'd love to meet you in Carmel, Indiana. | ||
| And you can join this movement, this growing movement of people who are saying agreement is not the goal. | ||
| We can respect each other with civility despite our differences. | ||
| Let's hear from Carl, who's calling from West Virginia on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Carl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| This is Carl from West Virginia. | ||
| I know you ain't heard from me in a while. | ||
| But Darryl Davis was right. | ||
| This was not an election. | ||
| If you go back to Trump's first speech after he won, he thanked America. | ||
| He thanked the people in America for the movement. | ||
| It was a movement to save America from becoming different colors. | ||
| The white people in this country only account for 68%. | ||
| So they had to do something about it. | ||
| And furthermore, I believe what Malcolm X said: this country will be destroyed from within. | ||
| Goodbye. | ||
| Y'all have a good life. | ||
| Thank you for calling in. | ||
| I'd like to take the opportunity again. | ||
| You know, one response I've had, I wrote about the death of Charlie Kirk the day after it happened, and I got some responses that were along the lines of, okay, you know, if you're going to offer condolences to Charlie and his family and grieve that political murder, you have to also acknowledge the harm that he caused to people with his rhetoric and the hate that he spread and perpetuated. | ||
| And I know this is something we've heard a lot of in the wake of the assassination. | ||
| And, you know, my response to that is: empathy cannot be contingent on ideology. | ||
| That when a senseless loss of human life occurs, the response ought to be grief. | ||
| You know, when the CEO of United Health was murdered in cold blood in the streets a few months ago, the response shouldn't be, yes, but healthcare is so broken and insurance companies are corrupt. | ||
| No, it should be grief. | ||
| When the Minnesota House Speaker, Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered in their home, the Democratic representative in Minnesota were murdered in their home. | ||
| The response shouldn't be, yes, but she was corrupt and she did XYZ. | ||
| The response should be grief. | ||
| When the Ukrainian refugee was murdered on public transit, just minding her own business just a few weeks ago, the response shouldn't be to extrapolate a political commentary from it. | ||
| It should be grief. | ||
| And so the people who are trying to qualify the dialogue around Charlie Kirk's death by saying, you know, we need to qualify it with the fact that he, you know, had these hateful views and did these hateful things. | ||
| No, we don't need to do that. | ||
| That when senseless loss of human life occurs, the response is grief and sadness. | ||
| And that when we try and qualify it with an ideological lens or a litmus test, that in itself is a symptom of our crisis of dehumanization. | ||
| That again, I wrote my book to hopefully be an antidote to. | ||
| George is calling from Bonita, California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, George. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for having me on. | ||
| First of all, I just, you know, I just want to say that regardless of our way of looking at things, you know, the beautiful thing about America is we have that freedom of speech, and that's what we should honor because a lot of places you don't have that. | ||
| Now, I used to be Republican and I just didn't like the way things were happening here with this current president. | ||
| So I switched to independent. | ||
| You know, and that was my prerogative because I have that freedom here. | ||
| To go and hurt somebody like the way they did what happened here with Charlie Kirk, that's not right. | ||
| Now, I don't definitely agree with what a lot of stuff he said, but to assassinate him, that was not current. | ||
| In fact, what's ironic about this is that at the moment that he was shot, there was a question that was asked of him about gun violence. | ||
| And he was a proponent on that. | ||
| And then on the top of the ten, it says, prove me wrong. | ||
| And my God, unfortunately, I can't find, you know, the way he, I mean, a greater way than he got proven wrong right now with this happening, that does not justify, again, the action of this, okay? | ||
| I feel, in fact, with Alexander, the civility in American politics, that's what's been lost here, is that civility, that respect of the differences of the American people. | ||
| Back in the day, in the old days, we say you can get three people and put him, three friends in a room, and we will not probably agree on politics, religion, and finance. | ||
| And before then, we said, well, you don't want to talk about that. | ||
| Well, I feel that we should talk about this, which is what Charlie Kirk was saying. | ||
| We should have a discussion here. | ||
| And I think that's what's being lost here. | ||
| We all need to have this kind of discussion, whether we like it or not. | ||
| We're not going to agree with a lot of stuff, but you can actually see, I feel, some type of unity on certain things that we do agree on. | ||
| I think that's my perspective on this. | ||
| And I feel that whether you're Republican or Democrat or Independent in this case, we should come together and talk about that because again, We can lose this country not from without, but from within unless we all agree to kind of hear each other. | ||
| Not tell each other, but agree to hear each other and kind of take things from there. | ||
| George, we'll get a response from Lexi. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I think it's a great reminder that perfect agreement is not the goal. | ||
| And many people today have, again, respect across difference is. | ||
| And it's sad that many people today have lost faith in persuasion and curiosity and dialogue. | ||
| And, you know, what we saw on a college campus, which should be a hotbed for the collective pursuit of truth, we saw violence to silence conversation, which is a profound metaphor for the state of our public discourse now. | ||
| One of my favorite English intellectuals, Michael Oakeshott, said that conversation is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure. | ||
| And I've heard someone say, would you rather be right or rather be surprised? | ||
| And I'd rather be surprised. | ||
| When you go into a conversation, you know, knowing that you are certainly correct, there's no fun in that. | ||
| Or when you want to silence someone by bullying them, by bludgeoning them into silence or submission or perfect agreement. | ||
| There's no fun in that. | ||
| That is deeply dehumanizing. | ||
| That's wrong. | ||
| Winston Churchill once said that a fanatic is one who won't change his mind and can't change the subject. | ||
| It's a great line. | ||
| And there's no question that there are a lot of fanatics in our public discourse and maybe even in our personal lives today. | ||
| And it's tempting to want to stop talking with them. | ||
| And, you know, for whatever his faults may be, Charlie Kirk talked with anyone who would talk with him. | ||
| And that is something we need more of in our public life. | ||
| Unfortunately, I hope we don't see this chilling effect. | ||
| We're afraid to have conversations because we're afraid of the consequences of asking questions or voicing our opinions in ways that may offend people. | ||
| But thank you so much for calling in. | ||
| I really appreciate those thoughts you shared. | ||
| Lexi, it's not just talking with people that you may not know about having these hard conversations. | ||
| You also had an op-ed in the Washington Post in December, the headline, want to save your friendship. | ||
| Take a page from the founding fathers. | ||
| Tell us about this piece you wrote. | ||
| It's a great story, forgotten story, about the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. | ||
| They were frenemies, founding frenemies. | ||
| So Adams was our second president. | ||
| Jefferson was his vice president. | ||
| They were brothers in the American Revolution. | ||
| They were co-architects of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. | ||
| And they had a famous falling out over politics. | ||
| It was the election of 1800, and it was a vicious election. | ||
| We think our rhetoric and political climate is destructive, corrosive, cruel, vicious. | ||
| Now, it got vicious then. | ||
| Insults were hurled, and Jefferson won, and they stopped talking after that. | ||
| Their friendship was effectively over. | ||
| They let politics get in the way of their longtime friendship. | ||
| And it was Benjamin Rush who fomented a rapprochement between them. | ||
| He encouraged them to talk. | ||
| This is about over a decade, about 12 years after the election of 1800. | ||
| And they started a relationship again through letter writing. | ||
| And we have today hundreds of these letters they exchanged over the final years of their life. | ||
| And in these letters, we can see they talked about everything under the sun. | ||
| They talked about grandchildren. | ||
| They talked about their diets and their exercise routines. | ||
| They talked about their self-care regimens and what they were reading and what they were learning at the time. | ||
| They talked about everything but politics. | ||
| They had let, in the election of 1800, politics become the most important thing in their life and Trump triumph over their friendship. | ||
| And yet, older and wiser and later in life, they realized that there were more important things in life than politics. | ||
| And so we're happy to draw a bright red line around that issue and reflect fondly on the bygone years, but focus on other aspects of their life to allow the friendship to flourish. | ||
| And I want to encourage everyone listening to this that it's okay not to talk about politics. | ||
| I wish this wasn't such a revolutionary idea, but it's okay to just, you know, if there's someone in your life and a political difference is straining that relationship, or it has even ended it entirely. | ||
| That is a symptom of this crisis of misplaced meaning that I write about in my book, that many people have elevated politics to the level of religion and idolatry. | ||
| And you have, you know, one heresy, one view on a subject that is important to someone, they'll cut you off. | ||
| They'll say, you know, you're dead to me. | ||
| I can't have you in my life because you have this hateful view that I so disagree with. | ||
| If this is happening to you, there's been a strained or even severed relationship in your life around politics, I encourage you, maybe even today, to reach out and to say, you know, let's start again and let's maybe draw a bright red line around this issue or politics entirely and start anew, you know, talking about everything but politics and remembering all the shared history we have. | ||
| This is something that Jefferson and Adams did very well. | ||
| And it's instructive to our own moment. | ||
| We've allowed politics to take up too much of our mental consciousness. | ||
| We've allowed politics to become too important. | ||
| And that is actually bad for democracy when politics becomes our be-all end-all, when it becomes a religion. | ||
| And it's bad for our own souls too when we let politics take precedent over family relationships or lifelong friendships. | ||
| That's not the way it should be. | ||
| That's not the good life. | ||
| So I encourage you today, if you're listening, if there's a relationship that's been strained over political division, take that step today to rekindle that strained relationship, to offer forgiveness, to invite reconciliation and maybe start anew casting politics aside, even just temporarily, so that the relationship, those bonds can be rekindled and maybe healing can come about. | ||
| We'll try to get another call or two in. | ||
| Let's talk with Carol, who's in Miami, Florida, calling on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Carol. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| This is a very interesting conversation that I've been listening to. | ||
| And all this is not about politics. | ||
| It's about power. | ||
| The issue, I have never, never remembered time when a candidate announces candidacy and there's just pure hate stealing from one side of the aisle. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Why did that happen? | ||
| So what happened? | ||
| That hate just festered and spread because their mouths festered and spread. | ||
| I've never they talk about democracy. | ||
| Everybody talks about democracy. | ||
| So show me where anyone's practicing democracy. | ||
| When you bully and you demand people to think your way, like not democracy. | ||
| Freedom of speech is great. | ||
| It is, but there is a limit. | ||
| You can't have violence to get your point across. | ||
| That is not what our Constitution had in mind when it said freedom of speech. | ||
| People use these words, the user, the user, our Constitution. | ||
| They use the word democracy too much. | ||
| It's not about democracy. | ||
| It's about power. | ||
| And that's all people are going for. | ||
| It's power. | ||
| Lexi, your response. | ||
| Carol, thank you for listening. | ||
| Thank you for calling in and offering those thoughts. | ||
| It reminds me of an important distinction that the founding fathers made between liberty and license. | ||
| I'm reminded of this because of your reflection on free speech. | ||
| You said something along the lines of just because you can say something that you have the freedom to doesn't mean you should. | ||
| And that's such an essential observation you make, Carol. | ||
| So the founders thought that liberty was the virtuous use of our freedom, whereas license was the vicious use of our freedom. | ||
| You know, someone using the First Amendment to say, I can say the most hateful things possible and you can't do anything about it. | ||
| That's not a virtuous use of liberty of our freedom in a way that undermines social trust. | ||
| That's not civility. | ||
| You know, civility is the voluntary restraints that we place on our freedoms for the sake of this joint project of living well with others, for this joint project of self-governance that is our democracy. | ||
| And so, Carol, I just want to encourage you to thank you again for being here. | ||
| And I want to invite, finally, before I think we're almost out of time here, everyone, I hope those listening can, you'll consider joining us for the Project Civility, the National Civility Summit, in just a few weeks, September 26th, 27th of this month. | ||
| Love to meet you there in Carmel, Indiana. | ||
| And we're there to revive civility and humanity to our politics and public life. | ||
| And I hope that you can join us there. | ||
| The website again for that event is projectcivility.com. | ||
| Lexi, we are going to take one more call. | ||
| We want to talk with Sharon, who's in Waterford Works, New Jersey, on the line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Sharon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning, everybody. | |
| I just, you know, I just had to say that I had to call in this morning because I am a former federal employee, and I completely, completely understand what the guest was saying as far as the viciousness and the anger and the vitriol and the lack of civility as our former federal employee. | ||
| I took the DRP program, and I didn't take it because I wanted to. | ||
| I took it because I knew that I would be absolutely crushed and destroyed more by the people that were going to be left in charge. | ||
| And it's been a very hard place for me as we maneuver through all of these last seven, eight months, because what some people are doing to the country and to folks is what was going on in the federal government. | ||
| This is just a hard place to be right now. | ||
| And I so appreciate the idea of civility versus kindness because they are different. | ||
| And I'd lastly like to say thank you to C-SPAN for finally getting U2 TV going because it is so hard doing this wireless and having to listen on radio. | ||
| You just don't get the full picture. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Thank you, Sharon, for calling in and thank you for, I'm thrilled that this distinction I make in my book, The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, this distinction between civility and politeness is helpful to you. | ||
| And, you know, I think one thing we can take away from the death of Charlie Kirk as really the latest in a series of instances of politically motivated violence is that these instances can show us what we don't want in society. | ||
| We don't want a to live in a society where we are dehumanized, where we are killed, we are degraded, we are condemned for our views and we can and to revive a high view of humanity, recognizing the profound gift of being human in ourselves and in others, which is what civility calls us to do, to see the dignity, to see God in the other person in the ways big and small, | ||
| and to be encouraged that a life well lived isn't seen in one great moment, one epitome of success, that it's in the small ways, it's in the ways that no one sees, that the small acts of kindness, those seeds of grace and charity, with the clerk at the grocery store, looking our Uber or a taxi driver in the eye. | ||
| Like these are small ways to affirm the personhood and dignity of others that weave together and strengthen the tapestry of our democracy. | ||
| So I hope everyone listening is encouraged that we have way more power to be a part of the solution to this crisis of dehumanization than we realize. | ||
| And we can start right now. | ||
| Alexandra Hudson is author of The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. | ||
| Lexi, thank you so much for taking the time to join us this morning, even earlier because you're out on the West Coast instead of in Indiana. | ||
| We appreciate your time. | ||
| Thanks, Tammy, for having me, and thank you to all the thoughtful callers. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal Center for Strategic and International Studies, Senior Advisor Mark Kansian will join us to discuss the potential impact of and reaction to Russian drones entering Poland's airspace during an attack on Ukraine this week. | ||
| But next, it's open form. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Here are the lines, Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Next week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and Senate are in session. | |
| The House will consider several bills to reform DC's policing and criminal sentencing laws. | ||
| The Senate will vote to confirm the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Stephen Myron, to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors prior to the Fed's open market committee meeting. | ||
| They'll also continue to work on the 2026 defense programs and policy legislation. | ||
| On Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee, conducting oversight on the agency. | ||
| Then on Wednesday, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Menares, who was recently terminated from the position, and Deborah Howry, former CDC Chief Medical Officer, testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, reviewing the recent events at the CDC and the implications for children's health. | ||
| Also on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hold a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, possibly announcing an interest rate cut. | ||
| And on Thursday, the Mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the city's crime policies and general oversight. | ||
| Watch live next week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
| Also, head over to C-SPAN.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime. | ||
| C-SPAN. | ||
| Democracy unfiltered. | ||
| There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
| Use our free C-SPAN Now app or go online to c-SPAN.org slash radio on SiriusXM radio on channel 455, the TuneIn app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying play C-SPAN Radio. | ||
| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day. | ||
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| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| For the next 25 minutes or so, we are in open forum. | ||
| If there is a public policy issue you'd like to talk about, you can go ahead and give us a call. | ||
| We'll start with Jerry, who's calling from Maine on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Ms. Hudson, wonderful. | ||
| Wonderful. | ||
| But now I'm not talking about any party of what's going on in the world in the United States or any discrimination. | ||
| But I'm going to talk about Mr. Kirk. | ||
| When our president was sitting behind his desk and gave his sympathy to the wife and family, in the same breath, he said about the political left. | ||
| Now, right there, we are to look up to our president. | ||
| I have never seen in all the presidents in my lifetime in having what he speaks about and what he touches on any aspect of what's going on in the White House. | ||
| It doesn't make any difference what political party. | ||
| Ms. Hudson, I would love for him to receive that page that you have given out to people of civility and humanity. | ||
| And that's where it starts, that we have to look up to our president. | ||
| For that, thank you. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| That was Jerry and Maine. | ||
| Scott is calling from Effingham, Illinois, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Tammy. | |
| God bless you. | ||
| It's good to hear from you again. | ||
| Anyways, I got a couple things, and I really need the American people, the patriots, to help me here. | ||
| First off, never forget 9-11. | ||
| Some of y'all wasn't even born yet, but just look up the history of it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was a tragic day, and I always play that song by Don Henley, New York Minute. | |
| Everybody should play that song. | ||
| But, anyways, the two things I want to talk about is I got South Africans, they're farmers here in Illinois living next to me. | ||
| The three years they've been here, they come back. | ||
| They say there are no jobs for white people in South Africa no more since Nelson Mandela became in power. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I talked to a Ukrainian today. | |
| He's a truck driver here, and I asked him, Would you move to our country? | ||
| And he said, No, your country's falling apart, just like the South Africans. | ||
| I'm curious at the worldview. | ||
| I know we always help everybody in wars, you know, but it's, and I serve in Vietnam. | ||
| But the thing is, why is the world so much, it seems against us? | ||
| Okay, well, thank you, Tammy. | ||
| It's good to hear from you again, and God bless the United States. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| That was Scott in Illinois. | ||
| Susan is calling from Iowa. | ||
| Good morning, Susan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I would just like to mention that I've worked in several places, and the attitude of an organization starts at the top. | ||
| And I don't feel that things will change until we have a president who acts civilly. | ||
| And we need leaders and religious leaders to step up and condemn this speech of name-calling, the hatred, retaliation, bitterness that this current president shows. | ||
| I don't consider him a patriot. | ||
| A patriot would try to bring the country together. | ||
| He has no intention of bringing the country together. | ||
| You can tell that by his speech following this latest assassination. | ||
| He came right out and said the radical left, the lunatic left. | ||
| Even his Easter message, I saved on my iPad because his Easter message this year was full of hate for the lunatic left. | ||
| Unless he changes and he tells his worshipers and the people in Congress to change their tone, I don't think that things are going to change at all. | ||
| So I think it starts at the top with the President of the United States, and I don't see him changing at all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Susan in Iowa. | ||
| This story is in Fox News. | ||
| It says President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he would be deploying the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee next as he continues his anti-crime initiative. | ||
| It says the president made the announcement during an appearance on Fox and Friends, adding that the deployment would not be limited to the National Guard and could include the Army if needed. | ||
| It was at a press conference in Memphis, Tennessee yesterday that Mayor Paul Young addressed the president's plan. | ||
| Here is a clip from that event. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This morning, we learned that the president and the governor are looking to bring federal resources to our city, which include the National Guard, which they have the authority to do. | |
| I want to be clear, I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don't think it's the way to drive down crime. | ||
| However, that decision has been made. | ||
| And as mayor of the city that I love of Memphis, Tennessee, my commitment is to make sure that we work strategically to ensure that this happens in a way that truly benefits and strengthens our community. | ||
| I want to note that we have been making progress as a city on reducing crime. | ||
| 13% overall reduction in crime in 2024. | ||
| 19% reduction in violent crime. | ||
| 29% reduction in murders. | ||
| 37% reduction in car thefts. | ||
| And that's in 2024. | ||
| And on 2025, we're on pace to beat those numbers. | ||
| We've been executing a very deliberate strategy, one that focuses on identifying the most violent individuals and groups in the city. | ||
| And we've seen success. | ||
| We've invested in a citywide camera network that provides the technology that allows us to capture criminals more quickly. | ||
| We've recently had a successful FBI initiative in partnership with MPD that has produced significant results. | ||
| And because of the work and the tireless efforts of our law enforcement, we're seeing double-digit percentage reductions in crime across the board. | ||
| And I believe that what we should do is double down on those strategies that we know work. | ||
| I think it's important that I say here as mayor that we know the work is not done. | ||
| Our city is still far too high on too many of the bad lists. | ||
| Back to your calls in this open forum, Delia, in New York, New York, on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Delia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was just listening to that. | ||
| I actually was watching Fox when President Trump was talking about, I saw him when he said he was going to go into Memphis and when he made the announcement about the assassination and the guy who got caught, you know, finally, you know, and quickly, you know, who assassinated Charlie Kirk. | ||
| And it's sad. | ||
| I couldn't stop crying last night when I saw his wife, his widow, Erica Kirk. | ||
| And I just saw Charlie a few days ago. | ||
| And I call him Charlie because he feels like a friend. | ||
| And yes, I'm a Christian. | ||
| I'm a Democrat. | ||
| I'm a Democrat. | ||
| God says I'm a Democrat. | ||
| I'm a Jewish Democrat. | ||
| I can't believe that he is gone. | ||
| We have lost a very important voice. | ||
| The young lady that was just on who spoke so eloquently, she did a fabulous job at explaining. | ||
| She was saying about people liking, you know, that you may not like what, you know, to tell the truth. | ||
| And I would say to her, yes. | ||
| And when you like someone, you tell them the truth. | ||
| To love someone, you must point out the wrong that's going on. | ||
| And you should not have to be afraid of your life being taken because you disagree with what I'm saying. | ||
| Or I, you know, or I disagree with what you're saying. | ||
| No. | ||
| As a Christian, which is what Charlie did. | ||
| He evangelized what he was doing. | ||
| And I hope you play, by the way, I saw it last night. | ||
| I couldn't stop crying when his wife came out and spoke. | ||
| And she is just a powerhouse. | ||
| I can't imagine the pain she must be going through. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| Again, as a Christian African-American woman and a Democrat, I absolutely also agree that we must have civility when we're speaking to each other, | ||
| and that does mean not only telling the truth, but also being able to stand and not want to hurt someone else because you disagree with what they said. | ||
| And there was a gentleman that called in earlier, the gentleman from North Carolina, talking about, you know, he's a Christian too, and he was saying, you know, the crisis also that black people find themselves in. | ||
| I think he was trying to imply that Charlie was talking about, you know, how our, you know, numbers are growing smaller. | ||
| And particularly, I would say, with homosexual marriage being in play now, and particularly young black people who are looking at who passed it, and that was Barack Obama, who I didn't vote for, because I saw that coming. | ||
| And whether, and again, I saw that he was going to be used for that, and willingly, that's what he wanted to do. | ||
| The last, I think I heard him say that that was one of his greatest achievements coming out of his White House, passing homosexual marriage. | ||
| Well, no. | ||
| And it was, I believe, at first, I believe, and I probably still believe that it was done to hurt black people because of young black people and older black people, you know, whoever looking at him, he's the president, and they're saying, oh, it must be right because he did it. | ||
| Julia, we'll leave it there. | ||
| We want to get some other calls in here. | ||
| Let's hear from Bill in Spring Hill, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I just heard that lady talking to the Democratic lady. | ||
| I don't think it's all Democrats, but I do think the Democrat liberals are contributing to the moral decay of our country. | ||
| Charlie got killed, and a lot of other people are getting shot for the last 20 years because there is no morality in this country anymore. | ||
| People all blame each other. | ||
| I agree with the homosexual and the transgender and anything goes anymore. | ||
| There's no moral compass anymore. | ||
| People have to start realizing that God made a man and a woman different for a reason. | ||
| Also, I think that everybody should be able to convey their ideas without the fear of getting shot. | ||
| But that I blame on all the liberal teachers, professors in these schools, getting these college kids all hyped up, going in the wrong direction, okay, promoting all this promiscuity, single-family homes, and poor women are trying to raise kids by themselves because the fathers go out and pregnate these women and then move on. | ||
| We'll leave that there, Bill. | ||
| Let's hear from Paul, who's calling from California on the line for independence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Paul. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Paul, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Go ahead, Paul. | ||
| Yes, how are you today? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| No, the reason I was calling, I've never called before, and I'm really not an independent or a Democrat or a Republican. | ||
| I don't vote. | ||
| And the reason why I don't vote is because if you say you're a Christian and you follow the example that Jesus set for us, then he didn't vote for any party or any government. | ||
| He said that I am not from this world. | ||
| And if that's true, he represented the Most High God in heaven, his Father. | ||
| And we all go through a lot of things in our lifetimes, just like in the news we're seeing and all these callers that are calling. | ||
| And yet, consider yourself, if you are a Christian, are you willing to follow Jesus and what he represented? | ||
| He represented a sovereign God in the universe. | ||
| He followed that example when he was sent down by his father to the earth to represent him so that all mankind could have everlasting life here on earth. | ||
| Many people won't believe that, but just look at your scriptures. | ||
| Read the Bible, the Old and the New Testament. | ||
| Compare the scriptures. | ||
| Make sure that what you are reading is accurate and it is truthful. | ||
| In Titus, it says that God does not lie. | ||
| So the Bible doesn't contradict itself. | ||
| It's that people interpret it in so many different ways. | ||
| That was Paul in California. | ||
| This is a headline from Politico. | ||
| It says, Republicans eye government funding punt to November 21st. | ||
| It says Republican leaders are eyeing a House vote on a stopgap spending bill next week that extends government funding through November 20th up to the Friday before Thanksgiving. | ||
| That's according to five GOP officials granted an anonymity to describe the talks. | ||
| It says House Appropriation Chair Tom Cole of Oklahoma confirmed Thursday that the chamber plans to vote on a so-called clean continuing resolution next week, taking action on a measure Democrat leaders have suggested they will reject. | ||
| A firm date for the expiration of the funding punt, however, has not been finalized. | ||
| It goes on to say that Senate Republicans could put the CR on the floor next week as well, depending on when it passes the House, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss scheduling. | ||
| Also, a couple programming notes for you next week. | ||
| On Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel testifies on an oversight hearing before Senate Judiciary Committee. | ||
| We expect questions on the President's plan, President's push to reduce crime, as well as the FBI and Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. | ||
| You'll be able to watch that live. | ||
| That's at 9 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| You'll also be able to find it on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Also, on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hold a news conference to discuss the U.S. economy following a board of governors meeting where officials will decide whether to cut interest rates. | ||
| That will be live at 2.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Just a few minutes left in this open forum. | ||
| Let's hear from Henry. | ||
| He's calling from Alabama on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Henry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm at the opinion that two top leaders make a statement in Springfield, Ohio, that black people eat cats and dogs. | |
| He turned around and turned to lose 1,500 felon, convicted felons, on the public. | ||
| He staged the parade where he had caskets passed by to try to alienate the South Africans against one another. | ||
| Found out that wasn't true. | ||
| This man just mean out people no good. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| That was Henry in Alabama. | ||
| Joyce is calling from Jacksonville, Florida. | ||
| Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Joyce. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Cecil. | |
| Yes, I'm calling. | ||
| First of all, I'm sorry. | ||
| See, I watched Tally Kurt on, I'm not watching, but I listened to him on the radio and stuff. | ||
| And a lot of things I didn't agree with him. | ||
| But anyway, I'm calling a lot of people, I listen to a lot of your callers called, you know, giving views about Christian. | ||
| And Tali, he was a Christian. | ||
| But we need to define what Christian is in our thing. | ||
| I listen to a lot of them on Fox News, and they're saying, a lot of them are saying they're conservative Christian. | ||
| Let me use the word conservative Christian. | ||
| When Jesus Christ said, he told Nicodemus, he must be born again. | ||
| A lot of people use the word conservative, conservative Christian. | ||
| No, being born again. | ||
| The Sadducee and Pharisee, they were conservative Christian. | ||
| They was not born again. | ||
| So they need to start in that thing. | ||
| But the born-again Christian, you need to come out and be yourself, God said. | ||
| And we need to stand together. | ||
| Because God is going, he's working through the Christian. | ||
| I mean, the born-again. | ||
| He's working through the born again. | ||
| That's what isn't that thing. | ||
| Not to the world. | ||
| He said, we got to come out ourselves and seek his faith. | ||
| Not the world. | ||
| You come out and be a separate thing. | ||
| Come on, a Democrat and a Republican. | ||
| We stick a stand. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Joyce in Florida. | ||
| Eileen is calling from St. Petersburg, Florida. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Eileen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, I did not, I don't think I ever watched Charlie Kirk before. | ||
| I never heard his speeches. | ||
| But I started watching some videos after this happened. | ||
| And to be honest with you, I'm scared as hell that he had so many followers. | ||
| He seemed to have a problem with gays, trans, black women, especially. | ||
| I listened to one of his speeches where he said he had a problem with Justice Brown, and he didn't think that he thought that she got her position because she's black. | ||
| And this, in my opinion, is my point. | ||
| This goes all the way back to when Barack Obama became president, two terms, popular president. | ||
| And Trump claimed that Obama was not born in America. | ||
| I'm sure we all remember that, the birther movement. | ||
| He claimed he had proof that he wasn't born in America. | ||
| He doubled down. | ||
| And then when he couldn't find proof, he offered people millions of dollars to find proof. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And nobody ever did. | |
| And that started this hate, in my opinion. | ||
| That started this hate. | ||
| And he's been getting worse and worse and worse and worse. | ||
| And he is the reason we have problems in America. | ||
| That's my opinion. | ||
| And I hope everybody has a safe and wonderful weekend. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Eileen in Florida. | ||
| Marshall's calling from Birmingham, Alabama on the line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Marshall. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| I've just got a couple of things to say. | ||
| First of all, Charlie Kirk was in no way, shape, or form a Christian. | ||
| You said, and I quote, I can't stand the word empathy, actually. | ||
| I think empathy is a made-up UH term that does a lot of damage. | ||
| Well, empathy is all about Christian love. | ||
| And if you don't have that Christian love, then you're not a Christian. | ||
| And I don't see why he's getting so lionized about his outrageous ideas. | ||
| And for the black lady you called a while back, let's see, he said, and I quote: black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. | ||
| You have to go steal a white person's slot. | ||
| He was representative of everything that's divisive in this country, everything that tears us apart, everything that makes the right-wingers hate democratic principles. | ||
| And it makes me sad that my governor flew flags at half-staff yesterday in his memory. | ||
| He shouldn't be memorized. | ||
| He should be forgotten. | ||
| His ideas are trash and they should be thrown in the trash heap of history. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| That was Marshall in Alabama. | ||
| Brent is calling from Cedar Woolley, Washington on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Brent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| Yeah, I really, the last two callers have pretty much taken what I was going to say. | ||
| You know, and I don't believe that Charlie Kirk should have been killed. | ||
| But again, I would remind Republicans that there were Democrats in Minnesota that were murdered by a Republican right-wing fanatic, and no flags were flown at half-staff. | ||
| And in fact, a lot of you Republicans were mocking the situation, just like you did when Nancy Pelosi's husband got beat up. | ||
| You seem to somehow justify it when it's your people doing it, but when something else happens, you seem to always want to blame a Democrat. | ||
| And once again, you start blaming Democrats or liberals for what happened to Charlie Kirk, and it turns out to be it was a Republican young man who was raised by a family of gun fanatics, just like most of you Republicans are. | ||
| So you really, what you need to do is do some reflecting, you know, maybe adjust your moral compass just a little bit. | ||
| Other than that, I'd like to say to everybody, be light, be well. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Brent in Washington State. | ||
| Shirley in Missouri. | ||
| Line for Independence is our last call. | ||
| Good morning, Shirley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'd like to prove that what Charlie Kirk said is wrong. | |
| Okay? | ||
| And I'm going to prove it. | ||
| First of all, God did not give you a country. | ||
| God gave you life. | ||
| And with God giving you life, okay, you are a direct product of your environment. | ||
| You don't know who you were when you were born. | ||
| You didn't know who you were, where you were, or what you were. | ||
| All you knew is that someone taught you the things that you know, be it right or wrong. | ||
| And if in fact you truly believe in the Bible, okay, it's not what goes in a man's mouth that defiles a man, it's what comes out of a man's mouth that defiles a man. | ||
| But I know some of you would never agree with it, and it's in the Bible. | ||
| So I pray that all of you understand the fact that as mankind, we are going to destroy ourselves unless we get together and understand that what God gave us is life, not a country, not a man or a woman, not what we choose to be. | ||
| Everything in your head is learned behavior. | ||
| That was Shirley in Missouri. | ||
| Our last call for open form. | ||
| Next on Washington Journal, we'll talk with Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Advisor Mark Kansian about the potential impact of and reaction to Russian drones entering Poland's airspace during an attack on Ukraine this week. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV. | |
| Exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | ||
| This weekend, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026, join American History TV for its new series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of our founding. | ||
| Finalists for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize discuss their books on the nation's founding era. | ||
| The book prize is an annual award sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Washington College, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. | ||
| Then, the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies features conversations on the Civil War, including a look at the relationship between Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the fight between Midwestern abolitionists and anti-war activists, and Abraham Lincoln's relationship with General George McClellan. | ||
| On Lectures in History, University of Kansas political communication professor Robert Rowland on the 1992 Republican National Convention speeches by former President Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination that year against incumbent President George H.W. Bush. | ||
| The White House Historical Association profiles former First Lady Barbara Bush against the backdrop of the forever stamp issued in her honor. | ||
| Exploring the American Story. | ||
| Watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 5.45 p.m. Eastern, Justice Amy Coney Barrett discusses her book, Listening to the Law, about her journey to the Supreme Court and her views on the Constitution. | ||
| Then at 7, blogger Lee Tillman, author of If You Don't Like This, I Will Die, an influencer memoir, describes the impact of making a career on social media. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern, Fox News contributor Joe Concha with his book, The Greatest Comepack Ever, sharing his take on President Donald Trump's return to the White House for a second non-consecutive term. | ||
| And at 10.15, author and researcher Matthew Facciani and his book, Misguided, Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do About It. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the potential impact of and reaction to Russian drones entering Poland's airspace earlier this week is Center for Strategic and International Studies senior advisor. | ||
| He is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel. | ||
| That is Mark Kanzian. | ||
| Colonel Kanzian, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me on the show. | |
| Always good to have you back. | ||
| We'll get to what we saw play out this week, but wanted to start with the overall state of the Russia-Ukraine war and get your reaction to this headline on Bloomberg.com. | ||
| It says, Kremlin says Russia-Ukraine negotiations are on pause. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's not a surprise because they'd been on pause for quite a while. | |
| After the president's President Trump's meeting with Putin, it was clear that they were not making progress. | ||
| That although emissaries, Witkov, had believed that they were moving forward, they had maybe great conversation with Putin, but Putin was not budging. | ||
| And the reason is that Putin believes that he's winning this war. | ||
| He's continuing to capture territory. | ||
| It is very slow. | ||
| It comes at enormous price, but it has been relentless. | ||
| He also believes that time is on his side. | ||
| He thinks that Ukrainian resources are draining. | ||
| He believes that over time, the U.S. and Europeans will lose interest. | ||
| That certainly appears to be the case of the United States. | ||
| So he sees no reason to make a deal. | ||
| And this headline was in the New York Times. | ||
| NATO says it scrambled fighter jets to shoot down Russian drones over Poland. | ||
| That was this week. | ||
| Remind our audience what NATO is and why this action is significant. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. | |
| It was put together in the early 1950s to protect Europe against the Soviets, who had become very aggressive. | ||
| It has been the security stable for Europe ever since then. | ||
| It has been extremely successful, brought together initially 20 and now 32 countries, all pledged to defend each other. | ||
| The key provision is what's called Article 5, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all. | ||
| So any attack on a NATO member, and Poland is a NATO member, would be an attack on all and engender a NATO-wide response. | ||
| That's why this incident got so much attention. | ||
| Article 5 has not been invoked, but as a result, Article 4 was. | ||
| Explain what that is and who can invoke it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Any NATO member can invoke Article 4 or Article 5. | ||
| Article 4 just says that there's an increased threat and the country wants consultations. | ||
| And Poland did invoke that. | ||
| Article 5 is an attack. | ||
| An attack on one is an attack all. | ||
| Poland did not make that claim, although they're very worried about this, probably more worried than many other NATO members. | ||
| But that's not surprising because they are furthest on the east. | ||
| They face the Russians. | ||
| And there's a lot of history there where Russia has taken Polish independence and territory. | ||
| So the Poles, along with the Baltic states, are particularly concerned. | ||
| And since the formation of NATO, how common is it for an article, Article 4, to be invoked? | ||
| And what happened? | ||
| What was the result of it being invoked, of Poland invoking it this time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Article 4 has been invoked a number of times, and the results are consultations. | |
| These consultations act as both preparation and also as a signal to any country that is potentially causing a threat. | ||
| Interestingly, Article 5 has only been invoked once, and that was by the United States after 9-11. | ||
| So the United States asked, argued that it had been attacked, asked for NATO assistance, and in fact, several NATO countries sent assistance to the United States. | ||
| Colonel Mark Kanzian is our guest for the next 35 minutes or so for our discussion on the potential impact of and reaction to Russian drones entering Poland's airspace this week. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines: Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Colonel Kanzian, I want to go back to the event that we saw this week. | ||
| What was the response to the incursion from the Kremlin, from President Trump, and from NATO? | ||
| What actions have they taken? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it was an unusual event because there was debate about whether this was a deliberate attack, whether it was an accident or something in between. | |
| Russia claimed that it was an accident. | ||
| Very unlikely because there were 19 drones that entered Polish airspace. | ||
| Not impossible. | ||
| Didn't look like a direct attack because these were decoy drones and they weren't armed. | ||
| There were no explosions. | ||
| There were no casualties, although some of the drones hit some buildings. | ||
| Probably something in the middle. | ||
| People have speculated whether this might be a Russian probing of NATO air defenses, whether this might be a signal to NATO to back off. | ||
| A little unclear what the signal might have been. | ||
| In any case, NATO responded with heightened activity. | ||
| It's called Eastern Sentry, which is patterned on what they're already doing in the Baltic, Baltic Sentry. | ||
| And that involves increased air defenses and fighter activity. | ||
| But interestingly, it also includes a lot of work on advanced technology for countering drones, because the problem with drones like this, you know, a decoy drone, is it cost maybe $10,000 per drone? | ||
| And probably the cheapest air-to-air missile that's out there for the United States, it's called AIM9X, is about $600,000. | ||
| So it's 60 times as expensive. | ||
| So the United States and NATO are looking for cheaper ways to handle these inexpensive drones. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Robert, who's calling from Atlantic City, New Jersey, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
| Robert, are you there? | ||
| We'll give Robert one more chance. | ||
| Okay, Robert, if you stepped away from your phone, go ahead and give us a call back. | ||
| Colonel Kanzian, I want to go back to something that you were talking about, and that was the possibility that what we saw Russia do was a test, was a probe to see what would happen. | ||
| If that is the case, what could we see Russia do next? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Russia has been put on notice that NATO is taking action, and that may have been one of the things that they wanted to find out. | |
| How would NATO react to that? | ||
| Interestingly, it's been the Europeans who have stepped up and they have stepped up with forces and activity. | ||
| The United States has not. | ||
| President Trump has been criticized for maybe not taking this as seriously as others, but the Europeans have stepped up. | ||
| I think it's unlikely that Putin will send another set of drones into Eastern Europe, given what's happened. | ||
| Nothing, I think, will happen in the short term. | ||
| Maybe in the future, he might try this again, but he'll move on to some other probing, some other way to try to weaken NATO. | ||
| How far do you think Russia could go when it comes to testing the waters? | ||
| You talked about the efforts of the Trump administration and the fact that these ceasefire talks have been on pause or in that the Kremlin has now said that they are on pause. | ||
| What may work? | ||
| How far could they go? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think against NATO now, it's unlikely that they will directly confront NATO. | |
| They have their hands full in Ukraine, although they think they're winning. | ||
| They're barely winning and at enormous cost. | ||
| I don't think you'll see any lethal devices used against NATO. | ||
| The Russians have been using sabotage, and there have been suspicious explosions and incidents in Europe. | ||
| It wouldn't be surprising if there were more of those. | ||
| What the Eastern European countries worry about, the Baltic countries, is what happens four or five years after the Ukraine war ends when Russia's had an opportunity to rebuild its forces. | ||
| Those forces now will have had a lot of combat experience and whether Russia might take that opportunity to strike at exposed countries like the Baltics. | ||
| They're very worried about that. | ||
| Let's hear from Dan, who's calling from Maine on the line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Dan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| So I don't mean to be insulting, but it seems that you are giving credence to the possibility that the Russians actually did this. | ||
| Well, there's no question the Russians did it. | ||
| I mean, these are their drones. | ||
| The only question is, how did this happen? | ||
| Was this an accident? | ||
| Was it intentional in some way? | ||
| And that's what's being debated. | ||
| The Poles believe that it was intentional. | ||
| NATO, institutionally, has not taken a position, although they have said that this kind of incursion is irresponsible and that the Europeans will respond to it. | ||
| But there's no question they're right. | ||
| I mean, we have the drones. | ||
| I've seen pictures of them. | ||
| There's no question what they are. | ||
| So that they're Russians is clear. | ||
| Let's hear from JB, who's in Little Rock, Arkansas, on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, JB. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| This oil that Russia is selling to India, I believe in China, too. | ||
| To the best of your knowledge, how do they get that oil down there? | ||
| Is it by truck or by ship or pipeline or what? | ||
| You know, that's an important point. | ||
| That is that Russia's main export is oil. | ||
| They have a lot of that. | ||
| Since the sanctions, they have not been able to send that oil to most Western countries. | ||
| They have sent a lot of it to countries like India and China. | ||
| The United States has been trying to force both of those countries to stop. | ||
| That's what the secondary sanctions discussion is about, but that has not been successful. | ||
| I believe that most of the oil goes to China by tanker, although the two countries do have a common boundary. | ||
| That boundary is far to the east, far from the oil fields. | ||
| Russia has built what they call a ghost fleet of oil tankers, and that is tankers that are misrepresenting themselves and that take oil from the Russian oil fields to places like China. | ||
| Colonel Kanzian, President Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this morning. | ||
| I want to read you the post and get your reaction to it. | ||
| It says a letter sent by President Donald J. Trump to all NATO nations and the world. | ||
| He says, quote, I am ready to do major sanctions on Russia when all NATO nations have agreed and started to do the same thing and when all NATO nations stop buying oil from Russia. | ||
| As you know, NATO's commitment to win has been far less than 100%. | ||
| And the purchase of Russian oil by some has been shocking. | ||
| It greatly weakens your negotiating position and bargaining power over Russia. | ||
| Anyway, I am ready to, quote, go when you are. | ||
| Just say when. | ||
| I believe that this, plus NATO as a group, placing 50% to 100% tariffs on China to be fully withdrawn after the war with Russia and Ukraine is ended will also be of great help if ending this deadly but ridiculous war. | ||
| China has a strong control and grip over Russia, and these powerful tariffs will break that grip. | ||
| This is not Trump's war. | ||
| It never would have even started if I was president. | ||
| It is Biden and Zelensky's war. | ||
| I am only here to help it, to help stop it and save thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives. | ||
| He says in parentheses, 1,700, 108 lives lost last week alone. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| If NATO does, as I say, this war will end quickly and all of those lives will be saved. | ||
| If not, you are just wasting my time and the time, energy, and money of the United States. | ||
| Thank you for your attention to this matter, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America. | ||
| That posted just earlier this morning, 7:15 a.m. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this, I think, captures President Trump's attitudes. | |
| First, on a positive note, he really is worried about the destruction and loss of life. | ||
| Every statement he makes about ending the war comes back to the high costs to both sides and his desire to stop the killing and the destruction. | ||
| His attitude towards NATO is clear and it's contemptuous and blaming them for not doing enough. | ||
| The secondary sanctions that he talks about, that's been discussed in the United States for a long time, a couple months. | ||
| He focuses on China. | ||
| I didn't hear anything about India, and that's a problem because India does buy a lot of Russian oil. | ||
| On the other hand, India is not an ally, but has been a close partner and clearly a very powerful country in the region. | ||
| Putting 50% tariffs on their goods would be extremely damaging to a whole variety of other U.S. initiatives for which we need India. | ||
| It also does interfere with our trade negotiations with China. | ||
| If we put 50%, 100% tariffs on China because of the Ukraine war, what does that mean for the other negotiations about tariffs? | ||
| So it gets sticky in the implementation. | ||
| Trump's criticism of the Europeans is, I think, misplaced. | ||
| The Europeans have gone to a tremendous effort to move themselves away from Russian fuel. | ||
| I don't think they take any oil at this point, but they have been very dependent on Russian natural gas. | ||
| They've moved away from that to a large degree. | ||
| I don't think they've been able to do that entirely. | ||
| This is one of the problems with the energy policies of Europe. | ||
| They wanted to move away from coal, for example, which is much more polluting, and that makes a lot of sense from an environment perspective. | ||
| But the only way they could do that was to buy Russian natural gas, so that made them vulnerable to pressure from Russia. | ||
| And we're seeing that play out now. | ||
| So it may be that they could back off further. | ||
| They've tried to make deals with the United States to get more natural gas. | ||
| But I think it's unfair to say that they are not doing enough because they've done a lot and could perhaps do more with U.S. help. | ||
| And the reason that they are so dependent on this Russian fuel is because of environmental reasons, which have been shared by the United States up until the Trump administration came into it into office. | ||
| Patty is calling from Virginia, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Patty. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I respect this retired colonel, and I really respect his history and knowledge of his history. | ||
| And because I probably am older than him and grew up with this, my question is that don't you think that now that we have a war that taken so long, | ||
| we need to really listen to at least to our own head that why someone so advanced that hung in there with the European countries for so long suddenly is doing this. | ||
| And he's not a madman. | ||
| It's none of our business that he's communist as long as his people are hanging in there with him. | ||
| Why don't we try to resolve this when he says that it is Ukraine who has started this war? | ||
| Why don't we just at least give it a benefit of the doubt? | ||
| And that is why is he saying that? | ||
| The European countries, especially Germany, has been at it with Russia for so many decades. | ||
| It sounds like a whole hundred years, but I am not that old. | ||
| And they have been trying all the time to defeat a country that has a view for themselves and they are living there. | ||
| When President Trump had him on the red carpet, do you remember how many, many times we broadcasted that how disgusting it was? | ||
| They say what you do to me doesn't matter. | ||
| It will go away. | ||
| What you make me feel, it will never go away. | ||
| We always made Russia feel very, very bad. | ||
| And this The fact that he's been long time in Jiu Dizzo, that by itself is something that we will never understand. | ||
| Why this guy has a black belt? | ||
| Patty, we'll get a response from Colonel Kanzian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you. | |
| On the point that we ought to entertain the possibility that Ukraine started the war, I have to disagree with that because the facts are very clear that Russia started the war. | ||
| They invaded Ukraine. | ||
| And we can see that Russian forces are inside Ukraine. | ||
| They have been from the beginning of the war. | ||
| Ukrainian forces never at the beginning of the war pushed into Russia. | ||
| They did later, a year ago. | ||
| So I think accepting that Russian perspective, I think, is unwarranted. | ||
| You do raise a point that has been debated in U.S. circles, and that is, to what extent has NATO and the United States made Russia feel insecure and brought on at least some of the hostility that we see in Putin and Russia today? | ||
| And on the one hand, there's no question that Putin would be hostile, given his background as a spy, given his fondness for the Soviet Union. | ||
| But the United States and NATO moved east when the Cold War ended. | ||
| Russians thought they had an agreement not to do that. | ||
| It's debated. | ||
| We believe we did. | ||
| But the countries like the Baltics, countries like Poland and Romania, which are very close to Russia, became NATO members. | ||
| Russia clearly felt threatened by that. | ||
| Now, from our point of view, there was no need for that. | ||
| The idea that NATO would attack Russia is, to us, is absurd. | ||
| Getting them to agree on anything is very, very difficult. | ||
| Getting them to agree to an attack on Russia would be impossible. | ||
| When you go to NATO meetings, if the United States says it's partly sunny, the French will say it's partly cloudy just to show they aren't under the American thumb. | ||
| So it's understandable that there are some of these feelings on the Russian side that we might at least consider, but they're a larger narrative that they are the victims in this war. | ||
| I think we must reject. | ||
| Fisk is calling from Mill Valley, California, online for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Fisk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Colonel, I just would like to ask you about probably the biggest problem in our world right now, which is deception. | ||
| And the deception is everywhere. | ||
| But let's start with this. | ||
| Right now, science tells us that we are rotating, spinning, and going through the universe of space at a million miles an hour, spinning, twisting, and turning. | ||
| Does anybody believe that? | ||
| On the first page of the Bible, it says we live in a firmament. | ||
| We live on a plane. | ||
| We live in a world which is not spinning and twisting and turning. | ||
| And we've been deceived about space and about everything. | ||
| And this is what happens when you lie to people over and over and over, Colonel. | ||
| They don't believe you. | ||
| Why don't you tell our audience about Tataria and about the Khazarian mafia in Ukraine? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why don't you tell them about the biolabs? | |
| Why don't you tell them about the Nazis, the neo-Nazis that gathered there? | ||
| Colonel, deception is the biggest problem. | ||
| Address that. | ||
| Well, there's no question that deception, misinformation has become part of the discussion about domestic and foreign affairs for the last number of years with the rise of social media. | ||
| I mean, I don't accept the notion that we are not spinning through space. | ||
| I think that there's ample evidence of that. | ||
| But the question of deception is a real one. | ||
| It is true that Ukraine is not a perfect society. | ||
| They have many weaknesses, but they are a democracy. | ||
| They do elect their leaders. | ||
| Their constitution does not allow elections during wartime, but Zelensky was elected fair and square. | ||
| And I think that there is a huge difference between a country like that with all of its weaknesses and Russia, which is an autocracy, and the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine and tried to take over a navying country that did not want to be taken over. | ||
| So I think for both of those reasons, it's important not to lose sight of the larger picture about who attacked whom and who has more claim on the feelings of Western democracies. | ||
| Colonel Kanzian, in order to boost their defense systems, it was announced yesterday, NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta announced Operation or Eastern Century. | ||
| What do we know about that? | ||
| What could it look like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Eastern Century has two parts. | |
| And of course, it's still evolving. | ||
| One part is enhanced air defense against things like drone incursions, maybe missile incursions. | ||
| But the other part is looking for cost-effective ways to down drones. | ||
| As I mentioned earlier in the program, a decode drone like we saw it in Poland costs maybe $10,000. | ||
| Even the armed version, the Shahids, costs a little unclear, $50,000, maybe a little more. | ||
| But the low-end air-to-air missile that the United States uses, which is called an AIM-9X, costs about $600,000. | ||
| And the next step up, radio-radar-guided missile, AMRAM, is well over $1 million. | ||
| So you can't be shooting those missiles at $10,000 drones. | ||
| You have to come up with some new technologies. | ||
| And there are a wide variety of technologies that are being tested out. | ||
| And some of them we've given to Ukraine, some of them we're doing testing ourselves to try to get that cost ratio closer together. | ||
| In the long term, people talk about directed energy, like laser beams, and that may be possible. | ||
| We're seeing a little of that on the battlefield, but it's got a long way to go. | ||
| Let's hear from Darnell, who's in St. Louis, Missouri, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Darnell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I appreciate everything that C-SPAN does. | ||
| I'm coming a little bit more educated on the world and geopolitics and things of that nature. | ||
| I wanted to ask, and thanks to the Colonel for being a guest today. | ||
| I wanted to ask him a question concerning Kiev and the fact that Russia so easily bombards the civilians and they kill so many people at will. | ||
| What is it that Ukraine, I know when the Biden administration was in, they limited Ukraine the long-range weapons to go into Russia. | ||
| Is that the reason why we're not hearing of more Russian casualties? | ||
| Because every time I turn on the news, I'm hearing that the civilians and children and people are dying in Kyiv because Russia is bombing them. | ||
| Why isn't Kiev bombing more people in Russia? | ||
| I mean, maybe that may deter Russia from continuing this war if we see some of their people start dying. | ||
| And thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Let me answer your two questions here. | ||
| The first one is, why aren't the Ukrainians striking deep into Russia the way the Russians are striking into Ukraine? | ||
| And the bottom line is that they are. | ||
| They have been attacking particularly Russian refineries and its fuel systems, but also Russian military bases. | ||
| We saw the spiderweb attacks with the small drones a while ago, very clever attacks. | ||
| But they have a lot of long-range drones that they use to attack Russian bases. | ||
| So they are doing that. | ||
| Now, the United States has restrained them from striking Russian populations, arguing that that will not help the cause and that killing civilians is so what you see the Ukrainians doing is going after military and economic targets. | ||
| That's not true of the Russians. | ||
| They appear to be going after civilian targets, and if not specifically civilian targets, at least targets that are in civilian areas where you have collateral damage. | ||
| You ask the question, okay, why can't they shoot them all down? | ||
| Again, a great question, but no defense system is perfect. | ||
| The most recent last week attack had about 800 and I'm going to say 30 missiles and drones attacking Ukraine. | ||
| The Ukrainians shot down maybe 95% of the drones and maybe I think half of the cruise missiles and just a handful of the ballistic missiles, if any. | ||
| Those are much, much harder to shoot down. | ||
| So the ballistic missiles get through. | ||
| Some of the cruise missiles get through. | ||
| A handful of the drones get through. | ||
| But even if you shoot down 95% and they've fired 800, that's still 40 that get through. | ||
| Each one of them, I think, has a 200-pound warhead. | ||
| So that's a lot of damage that can be done, even within a successful air defense system. | ||
| The Ukrainians ask for more air defenses. | ||
| That's at the top of their list when they ask Europeans in the United States for more assistance. | ||
| We've given them a lot. | ||
| The problem for both Europe and the United States is that we greatly reduced our ground-based air defenses after the Cold War. | ||
| Many countries essentially eliminated them. | ||
| And now we're trying to build them back up, but from a very low level. | ||
| So we really just don't have a lot to send them. | ||
| Tom is calling from San Jose, California on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| This war would be over if Trump would step up to the plate, join the United Nations, NATO, and have an alliance with them and stand firm. | ||
| But he won't because he surrounds himself with people that are afraid, his cabinet to afraid to say anything because when they do say something, he'll fire them. | ||
| And so it's a loop. | ||
| Now, here's a perfect example. | ||
| Trump will sit there and say that Ukraine started this war. | ||
| But we all watched before the war started on TV, we watched Russia form this big, big line of people, and everybody on the news was saying he's going to invade Russia. | ||
| But Trump will stand up there and say, no, Ukraine, it's your own fault. | ||
| It's the same thing with the Epstein files. | ||
| We watch on TV that he was partying with two child molesters, but he'll call it a hoax. | ||
| He's got a problem. | ||
| Trump has a problem. | ||
| He thinks he knows it all. | ||
| And we need a strong commander to stand with you, with our allies and say, stop this nonsense now, and the war would be over. | ||
| And you know it, Colonel. | ||
| And he needs to get people like you on his cabinet. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. | ||
| Putting aside the politics, let me talk about U.S. aid to Ukraine. | ||
| And, you know, could we ramp up that aid and bring the war to an end? | ||
| I think the answer is maybe. | ||
| We could ramp up aid, and the Ukrainians would very much like that. | ||
| I think it would help them a lot. | ||
| At least maybe stabilize the front lines. | ||
| Not clear if the Ukrainians could go over to counteroffensive. | ||
| They might be able to do that, although we'd have to send a lot of aid along with the Europeans. | ||
| But it's not clear that we could send enough to really win the war. | ||
| But sending aid by itself sends a signal to Putin that his strategy may not work. | ||
| In other words, if we sent a lot of aid, I mean, I say we should announce a billion dollars of new aid. | ||
| That would signal to Putin that maybe he's going to continue his attacks and not make any progress, but still take the very high casualties. | ||
| Chuck is calling from Morrisville, North Carolina, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Chuck. | ||
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unidentified
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Hello, this is MSG Chuck, Smash Sergeant. | |
| You know, I spent 30 years in the Army, and I predicted 9-11 by just reading a lot of the, under George W. Bush, the State Department's waivers and things like that. | ||
| And I just made my own analogy when I did that. | ||
| And I predicted we're on our way to Germany. | ||
| So I briefed all my guys on these, what was going to go down, you know, and at my thoughts. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And so, well, his second week we're there. | ||
| They took down the World Trade Center. | ||
| But I predicted that. | ||
| I knew something that is not what they were doing, but that something was going to happen. | ||
| What's your prediction on Ukraine then? | ||
| My prediction on Ukraine is that a lot of the European Union or whatever, their money or whatever, I don't know how much they're putting into this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And a lot of that, I mean, I really like what the Colonel's got to say because he's a smart guy. | ||
| And I see that right off. | ||
| Reminds me of Colonel Rust, Fulberg, a friend of us. | ||
| But he just kind of has this, Colonel's got this kind of aura type thing that he knows what he's talking about. | ||
| And the analogy and all this and that. | ||
| But I always, you know, I don't believe a whole lot in what's said on TV anymore. | ||
| I love my country. | ||
| I'm not crazy about my government. | ||
| And I'm not a Democrat or whatever. | ||
| And I don't beat the drone on it. | ||
| What Trump is, is that Trump does not want to get us in a war that's not any of our business, but he's going to help them because it's free because pressure from Europeans. | ||
| And they've all got to come together. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| You really have to come together through, you know, through NATO and prove them wrong. | ||
| And the casualties, from what I looked at and things like that, that there's probably like over 400,000 Russians about soldiers. | ||
| Chuck, we're running short of time, so we're going to get a response from the Colonel. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, on your last point about the casualties, they have been immense. | |
| The Russians are thought to have lost about a million casualties, and that's killed, wounded, and missing. | ||
| The Ukrainians, somewhat less, maybe 400,000. | ||
| But still, that's a lot of people lost to a country that's not very large. | ||
| That's why you see President Trump pushing so hard on humanitarian grounds to end the war. | ||
| It's also true that President Trump has said that he doesn't want to get involved in overseas conflicts that aren't U.S. business. | ||
| So he doesn't want to have U.S. forces on the ground. | ||
| We won't participate in peacekeeping. | ||
| But that's fine. | ||
| Now, personally, I think that sending aid to Ukraine is a very inexpensive way to weaken one of our major global competitors, the Russians. | ||
| So I think it's a good deal. | ||
| But I know that the White House is conflicted on that. | ||
| Colonel Kanzan, what are you going to be watching in the coming weeks and months when it comes to what we saw play out this week? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, the first thing I'll be watching for is whether Russia conducts any more of these provocative actions, as they may have said earlier. | |
| Drones, it's possible, but sabotage may be more likely, something that's deniable. | ||
| I'm also going to watch to see what the president does, President Trump, given the failure of U.S. efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. | ||
| The president was very adamant about that during the campaign, that he was going to end the war quickly, that he has failed at that. | ||
| So will he take steps to help Ukraine to put pressure on Putin? | ||
| Or is he going to back off and just say this has been a failure? | ||
| And the third thing is to see where this war of the missiles goes. | ||
| The Russians launching hundreds against Ukraine, Ukraine launching these strikes against Russian oil and military facilities. | ||
| That may go on for quite a while. | ||
| Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark Kanzian is a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. | ||
| You can find his work online at csis.org. | ||
| Colonel Kanzian, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
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unidentified
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Thanks for having me on the show. | |
| That is it for today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow morning with another program at 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific. | ||
| Until then, enjoy your Saturday. | ||
|
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