| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
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| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| This is the Washington Journal for November 27th, Thanksgiving Day. | ||
| At this hour, there is no update on the condition of two National Guard members recovering from what officials are calling a quote targeted shooting in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. | ||
| The guard members and the alleged shooter, an Afghan national, are under medical care. | ||
| The FBI and the D.C. Attorney's Office are investigating the incident. | ||
| In reaction, President Trump ordered a pause in processing immigration requests from Afghan nationals, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseff said that he is attempting to bring even more National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. | ||
| To start the program today, you're reacting to this shooting, and you can call in on the following lines: Democrats, 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text us your thoughts this morning, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can also post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And on X, that's at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| This is ABC's news reporting of it saying that authorities are set to hold a press conference later today after those two National Guard members from West Virginia remain in critical condition after a gunman opened fired on them in that apparent, quote, targeted shooting near the White House. | ||
| It broke out about 2.15 yesterday afternoon when the unidentified suspect rounded a quarter near the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., raised his arm with the weapon, and opened fire, according to Metropolitan Police Department executive assistant Jeffrey Carroll. | ||
| Other National Guard members quickly responded to the shooting and helped subdue the suspected shooter. | ||
| Again, law enforcement officials, including the FBI Director Kash Patel, scheduled to hold that 9 a.m. conference today. | ||
| It will also be attended by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington with U.S. Attorney Janine Pirro expected to be present. | ||
| We expect to take that live at 9 o'clock today. | ||
| So stay with C-SPAN to watch that and the latest information on this. | ||
| Again, you can call the lines in your reaction to the events of yesterday, 202748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans 202748-8001, and Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| Texas, if you wish at 202-748-8003. | ||
| CBS follows up with a little bit more about this alleged shooter, an Afghan national named Ramanala Lachinwal identified in that attack yesterday. | ||
| He was shot by another guard member, taken into custody. | ||
| He's currently hospitalized. | ||
| He's 29 years old, entered the United States in 2021, according to multiple law enforcement sources. | ||
| The Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noam, said on X that the suspect was paroled into the U.S. on September the 8th of 2021 under a Biden-era program for Afghan nationals called Operation Alias' Welcome. | ||
| A deputy Department of Homeland Security official told CBS that he was paroled in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds back in 2021. | ||
| That was the main legal mechanism for the Biden administration used to welcome tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees. | ||
| And the story also adding that he applied for asylum with U.S. citizenship and immigration services in 2024. | ||
| His application was granted in 2025, according to the DHS official. | ||
| But his request for a green card, which is tied to the asylum grant, is pending. | ||
| That also occurred yesterday, as well as the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in reaction. | ||
| He and the Dominican Republic asked questions about the shooting and added this when it comes to this idea of more National Guard coming to Washington, D.C. Here's the Defense Secretary from yesterday. | ||
| Two National Guardsmen have been shot in Washington, D.C., critically wounded. | ||
| A shooter shot in a cowardly, dastardly act, targeting the best of America. | ||
| Heroes willing to serve in Washington, D.C., serve for people they don't know and they've never met because they love their country and their capital and their community. | ||
| They were willing to do dangerous things others were not because they love their fellow Americans. | ||
| Someone decided to turn that into targeting National Guardsmen. | ||
|
unidentified
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That will only stiffen our resolve. | |
| We will never back down. | ||
| We will secure our capital. | ||
| We will secure our cities. | ||
| In fact, this happened just steps away from the White House. | ||
| It will not stand. | ||
| And that's why President Trump has asked me, and I will ask the Secretary of the Army to the National Guard to add 500 additional troops, National Guardsmen, to Washington, D.C. | ||
| This will only stiffen our resolve to ensure that we make Washington, D.C. safe and beautiful. | ||
| The drop in crime has been historic. | ||
| The increase in safety and security has been historic. | ||
| But if criminals want to conduct things like this, violence against America's best, we will never back down. | ||
| President Trump will never back down. | ||
| That's why the American people elected him. | ||
|
unidentified
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America and our warriors, our National Guardsmen, are strong. | |
| To start the calls today, Doug in Ohio, independent line on the shooting in D.C. yesterday involving two National Guard members. | ||
| Doug, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| Well, I got a few things to say about it. | ||
| Number one, I'm thankful for my family to stay because of everything good that we do. | ||
| I'm thankful that Joe Biden was the president for four years before Donald Trump took over. | ||
| Again, because he's the worst president ever. | ||
| And I'm blaming him for this shooting. | ||
| He's sending eyes out for everybody that's a different color. | ||
| It seems like that's crazy. | ||
| And I feel bad for the National Guard. | ||
| But, you know, with this guy preaching all this evil from the top, you rebot your soul. | ||
| I'm sorry if I feel that way, but it's the Republicans' fault for the whole thing that's happening right now in this country. | ||
| We never hated each other. | ||
| I love my country. | ||
| It's a country of independence and beauty. | ||
| And that's what I'm really thankful for, our independence that we have. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Go to Scott. | ||
| Scott in California, Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
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Pedro, again, your wife is dressing you well. | |
| To the events of yesterday, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I wish I could buy that suit. | |
| Let's go to Deb. | ||
| Deb in Virginia, Republican line. | ||
| Hello, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Well, here we go again. | ||
| The Democrat Party creating all this stuff, always blaming Donald Trump. | ||
| And most of it is their doing. | ||
| Look what they're saying on TV now. | ||
| All kinds of crazy stuff. | ||
| And they're always blaming Donald Trump. | ||
| But what did you think about the events itself yesterday, the shooting? | ||
|
unidentified
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It was awful. | |
| It's crazy. | ||
| The Democrat Party creates all this. | ||
| That's why it happened. | ||
| They're the reason why America's going down. | ||
| Every time they get into office, they always create some kind of hardship on the American people. | ||
| Number one was letting all the illegals in. | ||
| They all kind of doing it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That's Deb in Virginia reaction from members of Congress. | ||
| Yesterday, the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posting on X saying, my heart breaks for the victims of this horrific shooting in Washington, D.C., near the White House. | ||
| I'm closely monitoring the situation and praying for the wounded National Guardsmen and their families. | ||
| I thank all the first responders for their quick action to capture it and goes on from there. | ||
| The Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, adding this on X yesterday, saying, As I monitor the situation that's developing near the White House, my thoughts and prayers are with the National Guardsmen who were attacked this afternoon. | ||
| I urge them to keep you in, keep them in your prayers too. | ||
| This is from a viewer. | ||
| Let's hope this incident opens the eyes of liberal Americans, that Islam is still the greatest threat in America way of life. | ||
| And then this is from a bill, which we had mentioned earlier, that the shooter came to the U.S. in 2021, applied for that asylum in 2024. | ||
| And then again, the Trump administration granting it in April of 2025. | ||
| Rod is next. | ||
| Rod in Ohio. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Yeah, the only thing I got to say is being Thanksgiving. | ||
| I'm just thankful that stuff like this don't happen more often. | ||
| I mean, with the country and the shape it's in now, so polarized. | ||
| And you got people who just wake up every day, nothing to do with their life but go out and raise hell or try to kill somebody. | ||
| Unfortunately, that's a way of life halfway around the world. | ||
| And happen to be an Arab this time. | ||
| You know, it could be anybody, but like I said, with the Arabs, I mean, they have that mindset. | ||
| They want to, you know, they're raised that way. | ||
| Kill, and especially in the name of their God. | ||
| And I don't know whether God was involved in this. | ||
| Who knows? | ||
| But anyway, that's all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| From Danny, Danny, in South Carolina, Republican line, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is Trump's fault. | |
| Trump fault this pub. | ||
| They shouldn't have been out there. | ||
| They don't bother to do that. | ||
| I'd like to ask you a Republican. | ||
| Why is it right for Trump to marry in the end? | ||
| We're going to ask them that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| CBS adding that the suspect that's in question was subdued at the scene, taken into custody, according to the assistant executive chief of the D.C. police, saying he isn't cooperating with authorities, according to law enforcement sources. | ||
| Some of those authorities spoke at the conference yesterday, including the D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Metropolitan Police Department's Jeffrey Carroll asking and answering questions about the shooter. | ||
| Here's some of that exchange from yesterday. | ||
| So now, at this time, there was no indication that there was any other suspect, the one suspect that was involved in this incident. | ||
| They were shot during the interaction, and they were transported to the hospital for treatment. | ||
|
unidentified
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What we know, Andrea, is that this is a targeted shooting. | |
| One individual who appeared to target these guardsmen. | ||
| That individual has been taken into custody. | ||
|
unidentified
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Matt, can you tell us more details on the condition all the two National Guards asking whether or not anyone else is injured? | |
| And a quick question for the FBI director. | ||
| You said that we'll make sure we find the perpetrators for this act. | ||
| So, just to clarify, the person believed to be responsible is in custody and there are no other suspects. | ||
| Sure, so I can start out again. | ||
| Chief Carroll from MPD. | ||
| So, both the individuals, the guard members, they are in critical condition at local hospital at this time being treated. | ||
| At this point, we have no other suspects. | ||
| We have reviewed video from the area. | ||
| It appears, like I said, to be a lone gunman that raised the firearm and ambushed these members of the National Guard. | ||
| And he was quickly taken into custody by other National Guard members and law enforcement members. | ||
| Again, those events taking place yesterday, another press conference scheduled for 9 o'clock today with the D.C. attorney and the FBI director. | ||
| You can see that right here on C-SPAN, our main channel. | ||
| And follow along on our app and our website, too. | ||
| Duke is in Maine, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Yes, good morning, C-SPAN, and happy Thanksgiving to everybody. | ||
| There, it never ceases to amaze me the actual military that Donald Trump has got so much disdain for and calls fuckers and losers and just runs the military into the ground that he wants them there, though, for when he wants them and wants to bring in more troops and stuff into Washington, D.C. there today and stuff. | ||
| This is a horrible thing. | ||
| I go along with that first caller. | ||
| I put the blame right at his feet. | ||
| Had he not deployed our National Guard there, these boys wouldn't have been shot. | ||
| And then everything there. | ||
| And what is he doing? | ||
| He's down in Mar-a-Lago down there, stuffing his face and having a good time and stuff. | ||
| And to me, I haven't seen him on TV saying anything about this. | ||
| So I think it's high time he gets off his high-haws and comes out there. | ||
| And that's, you know, we're telling the square there, but what happened and stuff there and stick up for our military for once in his life. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| The president posting on X yesterday when it comes to his responses, we'll get that to you shortly for his comments on the events of yesterday involving the shooting of that National Guard. | ||
| Here's a portion of those comments from yesterday. | ||
| I can report tonight that based on the best available information, the Department of Homeland Security is confident that the suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on earth. | ||
| He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021 on those infamous flights that everybody was talking about. | ||
| Nobody knew who was coming in. | ||
| Nobody knew anything about it. | ||
| His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden, a disastrous president, the worst in the history of our country. | ||
| This attack underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation. | ||
| The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don't want to even know about. | ||
| No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival. | ||
| An example is Minnesota, where hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country and ripping apart that once great state. | ||
| Billions of dollars are lost, and gangs of Somalians come from a country that doesn't even have a government, no laws, no water, no military, no nothing, as their representatives in our country preach to us about our Constitution and how our country is no good. | ||
| We're not going to put up with these kind of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn't even be in our country. | ||
| We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country. | ||
| To that end, this is the post that U.S. Customs and Immigration Services put on X yesterday following that shooting saying effective immediately processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely. | ||
| Pending further review of security and vetting protocols, the protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission. | ||
| Let's hear from Raymond. | ||
| Raymond is in California, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving, but my problem is, why are we using the National Guard? | ||
| Those two people shouldn't have even been there. | ||
| They should be home or at their jobs. | ||
|
unidentified
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The National Guard are citizen soldiers. | |
| The president and all the people that run the government are abusing the National Guard. | ||
| It started in L.A. and they should have never called the Guard out. | ||
| Local law enforcement can handle all the problems that we have. | ||
| Why aren't we going back to that? | ||
| They're professionals. | ||
| The National Guard aren't professionals. | ||
| They shouldn't be there. | ||
| And the President says this and that, and blah, blah, blah. | ||
| And I'm just kind of getting tired of it, but we're not taking care of our people. | ||
| Thank you for listening to me. | ||
| George in New York, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, how are you? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I can't believe the Democrats who are calling in on the line blame Donald Trump. | ||
| The gentleman who shot the two National Guardsmen, if it wasn't them, he would have found someone else to shoot and kill. | ||
| The issue, we elected Donald Trump to clean up the mess from the last four years. | ||
| You'll never find a Democrat to admit that. | ||
| Don't find anything wrong to criticize. | ||
| He needs to send more military in to clean up the mess and leave ICE alone. | ||
| Donald Trump got in to clean up the mess from the last four years with all the millions of illegal immigrants who came in under the Biden administration. | ||
| It has to be cleaned up. | ||
| This is going to continue. | ||
| Leave Donald Trump alone. | ||
| Leave ICE alone. | ||
| Let them do their job and the country will move forward like it did years ago. | ||
| Thank you and have a happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| That's George there in New York. | ||
| Here's the headline from the New York Post after the events of yesterday with the main title ambushed. | ||
| The subheads, two National Guard troops wounded in, quote, targeted D.C. shooting. | ||
| And that following subhead, terror suspect is Afghan led in by Biden in 21, again, applying for asylum and receiving the asylum, but not a grain card as far as his current status. | ||
| This is from NBC Ford, the local NBC affiliate here, about that timeline of deployment in D.C. by the National Guard, starting off by saying it's after a former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency was attacked. | ||
| It was the president issuing that executive order in August declaring a crime emergency in the nation's capital. | ||
| Within a month, 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states in the district were patrolling the city under the command of the Secretary of the Army. | ||
| It says that it was later in August that guard members were allowed to carry service weapons as they patrolled D.C. All units with firearms were trained and operating under strict rules for use of force according to the military. | ||
| And saying that the Joint Task Force of the Military's rules allowed force to be used, quote, only as a last resort and solely in response of an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm. | ||
| Also, this stating that it was in late August that guard members were instructed to pick up trash and work dozens of, quote, beautification and restoration projects in D.C. | ||
| And then this story adding, it was just last week that a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to end its deployment of National Guard troops in the nation's capital, saying it illegally intrudes on local officials' authority over policing the district. | ||
| However, that judge, U.S. District Judge Jacob, put the order on hold for 21 days to allow for an appeal. | ||
| That's just a brief timeline. | ||
| There's more there if you're interested from the NBC website. | ||
| Let's hear from California Independent Line. | ||
| This is Abdul. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Let me tell you what happened. | ||
| These two National Guard got shot. | ||
| I think sorry for them. | ||
| I hope they recover right away. | ||
| I was with the military. | ||
| We brought 200,000, close to 200,000 rapists, thieves, terrorists in this country. | ||
| And Fox News in the Republican always say, oh, we left 5,000 citizens. | ||
| No, we don't left 5,000 citizens. | ||
| You brought 160,000, 180,000 terrorists. | ||
| Yes, 20,000 to 30,000 is good people. | ||
| The other, they don't have any education. | ||
| They're rapists, they're thief, they're for a woman, to the man, the young man, to old man, all of them. | ||
| Because I was with the military fighters inside the Afghanistan in the field. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| Nobody liked United States. | ||
| Trust me, not even Afghan governors. | ||
| Because all they like, the money, the dollars. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| When they come here, they don't know where the United States knows of which country, which continent is located. | ||
| They have no education. | ||
| I know all of them personally. | ||
| But what's going on? | ||
| Just wake up, send them back. | ||
| They're not a friend of us, especially if we try to get the background. | ||
| There will be a lot of attacks. | ||
| CIA knows that one. | ||
| It be afraid. | ||
| Reggie is next. | ||
| Reggie is next in New York, Republican line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yay. | |
| Happy Thanksgiving to all the Republicans out there. | ||
| You know, as far as the Democrats, I hope you choke on your food. | ||
| All your people's calling you the clowns. | ||
| And as far as the shooting, yeah, it was a horrible thing. | ||
| And I would prefer it would have been Democrats getting shot. | ||
| Okay, no, we're not going to, we'll stop you there. | ||
| Leanne, Leanne in Michigan, Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Pedro, for cutting him off. | |
| Happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| That right there just shows you weak-minded people. | ||
| You have Trump talking about Biden. | ||
| Biden hasn't been the president for over a year now. | ||
| That's weak. | ||
| You bring up a country in Africa, talking about Somalia that has nothing to do with these two men who almost lost their lives and someone who just, for some reason, call themselves shoot. | ||
| That has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican. | ||
| That's strictly someone that has made something happen to them where they felt like they had to go out and shoot. | ||
| And I'm tired of people blaming a political party because that's what it is. | ||
| I wish people would go back and learn history. | ||
| Political parties versus people doing bad things. | ||
| And to keep bringing up Biden, who hasn't been the president, is just weak. | ||
| So please stop blaming political parties that goes Republicans and Democrats and stop saying that this president is great when all he's doing is saying weak things and he's feeding into the weak-minded people and that's what's going on. | ||
| And that's just what it is. | ||
| And thank you for letting me call. | ||
| On our line for Republicans from Michigan, Michael, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Pedro, you're sitting there. | |
| Let's hear what you have to say about this. | ||
| Can you do that for us? | ||
| Let's hear what you have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Tom is next in Ohio. | ||
| Democrats line hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, Pedro. | |
| Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. | ||
| I'm just an old, dumb, 90-year-old, but it's just a shame that our world is getting to what it is. | ||
| I'm so thankful that my baby granddaughter is getting out of the Navy. | ||
| She was a nuclear engineer. | ||
| And I am so thankful that she did, because with Psycho Don sitting up there, Lord only knows what will happen. | ||
| Well, as far as the shooting itself yesterday, what do you think about it? | ||
|
unidentified
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It's politicians. | |
| And he's going to bring all these people in from South Africa. | ||
| That's for him. | ||
| That ain't for the country. | ||
| That's for him to use at his resort. | ||
| Well, call her to the caller specifically to the events of yesterday. | ||
| What did you think about those? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Pedro. | |
| Okay, that's Tom in Ohio. | ||
| Again, 9 o'clock is when the D.C. attorney Janine Pirro and the FBI director, Kash Patel, expected to update reporters on the latest from the shooting yesterday. | ||
| It was yesterday also that the FBI director appeared before cameras after the incident. | ||
| Here's a portion of that. | ||
| We're here to brief you on the tragic events that happened today at approximately 2.15 local time in Washington, D.C., where two of our brave members of the National Guard and the Department of War were brazenly attacked in a horrendous act of violence. | ||
| They were shot. | ||
| They're in critical condition. | ||
| As you can see behind me, we have assembled the full force of both the federal and state and local law enforcement agencies to bring bear all of our resources to make sure we find the perpetrators responsible for this heinous act. | ||
| And make no mistake, they will be brought to justice. | ||
| Since this is an assault on a federal law enforcement officer, this will be treated at the federal level as an assault on a federal law enforcement officer. | ||
| The FBI will lead out on that mission with our interagency partners to include the Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, ATF, DEA. | ||
| And we're thankful for the mayor's assistance in this matter. | ||
| The Metropolitan Police Department and their skills in investigating homicides and gun shootings in this city is exceptional. | ||
| We will work together collaboratively because this is a matter of national security, because it's a matter of pride. | ||
| President Trump has been informed. | ||
| We've been in contact with the White House. | ||
| We will shortchange the American public with no resources to make sure we find and safeguard our nation's capital right here in Washington, D.C., and bring anyone responsible for this heinous act of violence to justice. | ||
| I would lastly like to add to the American public and the world, please send your prayers to those brave warriors who are in critical condition and their families. | ||
| They are here serving our country. | ||
| They are here protecting everyday Americans and citizens around the world in our nation's capital. | ||
| They are the heroes of this day, and we must remember them on this day and every day and their families and the sacrifice they have made. | ||
| Kash Patel from yesterday, you'll hear from him around 9 o'clock. | ||
| NBC updating when it comes to the suspected shooter saying that he arrived in the United States in September of 2021. | ||
| According to a relative, having served in the Afghan Army for 10 years alongside U.S. Special Forces troops, Lockenwall was stationed at a base in Kandahar for part of that time. | ||
| He served in the Army, according to the relative. | ||
| It also adds that the relative who spoke with MBC said served with Lockenwall supporting U.S. troops, saying we were the ones targeted by the Taliban in Afghanistan. | ||
| Cindy is next up in New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Cindy in New York and Liverpool. | |
| Hello. | ||
| One more time for Cindy. | ||
| Okay, we'll go to Deb. | ||
| Deb in Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I have friends who were deployed National Guard in D.C., and I also have friends who were afraid to leave their homes and go to the store because of how the National Guard members have been in the city. | ||
| And because we've deployed troops on our toilet, it's good people, right? | ||
| Like it's like teachers. | ||
| It's like just people who like, I don't know, you know, and I just think that I don't feel like everyone remembers how we withdrew from Afghanistan and like how much that, like, you know, I don't know, affected people. | ||
| It's, it's and how does that relate to yesterday's event? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The like just, I think that one thing that we really have here is like a really, really bad moment. | |
| And I think it's just these escalating tensions. | ||
| And I think we have to be really, really careful how we, I mean, I think it's Thanksgiving and I think it's murder. | ||
| And it's, and it's just, it's, you know, there is a whether it's like domestic violence or, you know, these escalating incidents, like we just really have to be careful about how we care for each other and like how we use force. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Abraham in Virginia, Republican line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| To all those Democrats who don't understand what the National Guard do, they're trained to do exactly what they're doing there in riot control and things of that nature. | ||
| I've been in National Guard for over 15 years. | ||
| And I wish President Trump would just concentrate on the people who love America. | ||
| And these people who don't love America, like these cities like Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New York, where they don't want their police force to handle crime, just leave them alone. | ||
| Let them do what they're going to do. | ||
| Let them eat each other up and just concentrate on the people who think that this is the greatest country in the world and do things for us. | ||
| And the people who hate this country, they can leave, find you a country that you like, and leave this country to the people and the patriots, the real patriots who love this country. | ||
| I wish Trump would just say that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Next up is Judith in Michigan, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I just want to let you know, years ago, I watched with Obama and then all the skid loads of money he gave to Iran. | ||
| So then I decided I don't want to be a Democrat no more. | ||
| I want to be independent and who I decide who's best for the country. | ||
| I voted for Donald Trump and I'll tell you why. | ||
| Under Biden, I know who went down to the border under Biden, the National Guard, who went out every night to say how many were coming over. | ||
| Did they check the people out? | ||
| They were put on buses and airplanes, and these people are not half checked out. | ||
| And who's the only person? | ||
| So, how does all that relate to yesterday, please? | ||
| So, then, you ever watch the angel mobs whose ones have been killed here by illegals who were not checked out? | ||
| You have people waiting who did it the right way, who fell out their paperwork. | ||
| We'll call her this. | ||
| This individual in question had received asylum, apparently, after he came to the United States. | ||
| So, how does that relate to yesterday, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yesterday, well, 21. | |
| Who was the president then? | ||
| This is what I'm saying. | ||
| Under buying, too many people were not getting checked out before they come in. | ||
| I want to welcome you with welcome arms. | ||
| We have people in their countries who did it who've been still waiting and had been background checked and everything. | ||
| But these people came here over the border, boom. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to California Democrats line. | ||
| Hello, you're next up. | ||
| This is Dan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hi. | |
| So, actually, I am a Democrat. | ||
| I'm a liberal, but I actually do hear and understand the last lady who called in many of the Republicans and conservatives who talk about national security. | ||
| And I think this is where the Democrats fail. | ||
| I think this is why the Democrats hemorrhaged a ton of voters and lost the last election. | ||
| And in the case of this shooting, we don't know the full information, but if this guy does turn out to be an Islamist, it is bad. | ||
| And I'll just really quickly go through my life and evolution. | ||
| I was born and raised in a conservative Republican family, but the reason I left the party was because the party did an unholy alliance with the Christian right. | ||
| And unfortunately, I've seen what's happened with the left and the Democrat Party make an unholy alliance with Islamism. | ||
| I saw it happen with the women's march being hijacked with anti-Semitism. | ||
| And I've seen it happen since the October 7th atrocities and how the far left has been completely anti-Semitic and allying themselves with Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran. | ||
| And this is a major albatross on the left. | ||
| And now we just found out that the mayor-elect in New York City, Zorhan Mamdani, going back to the women's march, is now having Tamika Mallory be one of his aides. | ||
| Okay, okay, we've gone too far from the original topic, so let me finish you off there. | ||
| And for those of you who called, you'll have a chance to call in later on in the program during the course of the program. | ||
| Two guests will join us throughout the morning to talk not talking only about the events of yesterday, but also the larger idea of civility, especially when it comes to political disagreements. | ||
| Later on in the program, you'll hear from Alexander Hefner. | ||
| He's the host of PBS's The Open Mind. | ||
| He'll join us what he's learned in talking to people about civility and politics. | ||
| And then the next guest we have wrote a book on the topic, The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, Lexi Hudson, will join us next when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, C-SPAN presents a day-long America 250 Marathon, all part of our more than year-long coverage of historic moments that explore the American story. | |
| At 11 a.m., we'll feature Boston's Freedom Trail through a guided tour featuring the site of the Boston Massacre, Old Statehouse, Faniel Hall, and Old North Church. | ||
| Give me liberty or give me death. | ||
| At 2.30 p.m. Eastern, Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech on the 250th anniversary and in its original location, St. John's Church in Richmond. | ||
| At 6.05 p.m., the U.S. Navy 250th anniversary Victory at Sea concert in Philadelphia with a musical performance by Patty LaBelle. | ||
| Also at 8 p.m., the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, where more than 1,000 reenactors commemorate one of the earliest and most consequential Revolutionary War battles. | ||
| And at 9.30 p.m., a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, featuring a parade through Washington, D.C., an enlistment ceremony, parachute demonstration, and fireworks. | ||
| Watch the America 250 Thanksgiving all-day marathon today on C-SPAN. | ||
| Also, head over to C-SPAN.org to get the full schedule. | ||
| C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get. | ||
| You are so fair. | ||
| I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | ||
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
| I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
| I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased. | ||
| And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
| You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Throughout the course of the morning, a discussion when it comes to civility and American politics. | ||
| Our first guest joining us on that discussion, Alexandra Hudson, goes by Lexi Hudson. | ||
| She's the author of The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. | ||
| Lexi Hudson, welcome to the program. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving Day. | ||
| Pedro, happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| Thrilled to be with you again. | ||
| I want to start, though, by asking about the events like we saw yesterday in Washington, D.C., the shooting of these National Guard members, what it does overall when it comes to this idea of where we are as a country when unrest and things like this happen. | ||
| We don't know a lot of the details, sure, but in the larger context of civility and the things you write about, what are your thoughts on that? | ||
| We live in a crisis of dehumanization right now, where we insufficiently appreciate the profound gift of being human in ourselves and others. | ||
| And we see that in this current moment defined by political violence across the political spectrum. | ||
| It was the Charlie Kirk assassination in September. | ||
| It was the murder of the Democratic senator and her husband in their home this past summer. | ||
| I mean, it just, and the list goes on. | ||
| There are so many instances of it. | ||
| And again, we don't know a lot about the details of the most recent act of political violence in Washington, D.C. | ||
| But it's time to curb this crisis of dehumanization by recovering an appreciation of our shared personhood, our shared human dignity, our shared humanity. | ||
| That's what civility is about. | ||
| Our shared common dignity is the moral and intellectual foundation for our obligation to treat others with civility. | ||
| Civility is the bare minimum of respect that we owe and owe to others just by virtue of our shared moral status. | ||
| Full stop, no qualifications. | ||
| No, well, this person is affiliated with this party or this person did that. | ||
| We each have that basic right and obligation to be treated as human beings first. | ||
| And we've lost sight of that. | ||
| And it's time to do something about it. | ||
| You mentioned the assassination of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| You mentioned the deaths of those Democratic legislators. | ||
| Do you think we, as a nation, have learned something along since that time in recent memory? | ||
| Do you think we've made some strides towards improving civility in your mind? | ||
| I think so. | ||
| And I'll tell you why I feel hopeful. | ||
| I mean, it's always tragic when we have to hit rock bottom in more ways than one in order for people to recognize that we have to do something about this. | ||
| So, for example, I've been contacted since my book came out two years ago, increasingly by leaders across the country, across politics, across vocation, across geography of people saying, I loved your book. | ||
| Now what? | ||
| How do I embody it? | ||
| And just this week, I was working with a small bipartisan group of state legislators in Texas. | ||
| And I don't know how much you know about Texas state politics. | ||
| I've learned a lot about it in recent weeks and months when I've been working with these legislators. | ||
| It's very toxic. | ||
| It's very vicious right now. | ||
| And these people have come to me and said, we want to lead a book study around your book in the legislature, a bipartisan book study, and just to have your book be a canvas, a catalyst for having a conversation about personhood and human dignity and common respect amongst our colleagues. | ||
| And that is just one of many examples that are causing me such hope. | ||
| I'm working with local mayor, city council persons. | ||
| We just gathered over 100 of these civic leaders in Carmel, Indiana. | ||
| Carmel is one of these communities that reached out to me and said, we love your book. | ||
| What do we do now? | ||
| How do we embody it? | ||
| And in September, 100 of us gathered and was such a hope-filled endeavor because it was people who gathered around these core ideas of my book that civility is not politeness, agreement is not the goal, but rehumanizing one another across deep difference is the goal. | ||
| People are recognizing the problem and they're doing something about it. | ||
| And that gives me such hope. | ||
| Do you think that those who live in the political world or those who heavily follow politics, to what degree is it harder for them to reach those ideals that you talk about? | ||
| I think the trend that we see is that in politics, you have to hit a personal rock bottom before you recognize the costs of human dignity. | ||
| I mean, I had one of my champions in the Texas state legislature send me that MSNBC report about Marjorie Taylor Greene when she talked about, she said, I'm sorry. | ||
| I'm sorry for the way that I contributed to the vitriolic tenor of our public discourse. | ||
| And it took her kind of being publicly malained and dragged through the mud for her to recognize, you know what, there are costs to how I treat, how we treat other people. | ||
| And I actually saw the same thing when I served in federal government. | ||
| I was in Washington, D.C. | ||
| I was at the U.S. Department of Education 2017, 2018. | ||
| I saw a very, very, and this is part of the story of why I wrote my book, my experience in government was a microcosm of our deep divisions. | ||
| And I didn't feel like I was being part of the solution and I wanted to be. | ||
| And I remember seeing really, you know, confident world leaders come into the administration, come in and lead, and then they would get totally chewed up and spit out by their principal, by the public, and leave kind of broken shells of themselves. | ||
| And I remember Rex Tillerson, for example, when he left the State Department, his parting words to the State Department when he left were, please, please be kind. | ||
| Just be kind. | ||
| And that was like all he could say. | ||
| It's like I was there. | ||
| I was broken myself by federal government. | ||
| That was what galvanized me again to write my book, The Soul of Civility. | ||
| And so I understand when you have just been utterly eviscerated and have nothing left, all you want is just like you'll grasp onto any remnant of human goodness and human kindness. | ||
| And it's too bad that it takes hitting that to get there, but it's a good sign that more and more people are saying, you know what, maybe we should reconsider the consequences of what we do and say. | ||
| This is not cost-free. | ||
| They're a cost to us personally, cost to society, cost to others. | ||
| And we have a responsibility to act now. | ||
| Lexi Hudson is our guest. | ||
| And if you want to ask her questions, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| One for Republicans and Independents. | ||
| 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your questions or comments at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Ms. Hudson, you on this day especially, I suppose as people gather around tables, this idea of politics might come up. | ||
| There might be disagreements. | ||
| But you said in your first point that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to agree on these things. | ||
| Can you elaborate on that? | ||
| It's true. | ||
| Agreement is not the goal. | ||
| In fact, democracy, in a democracy, disagreement is a feature, not a bug. | ||
| And I think it's kind of insulting when some of these very well-intentioned people, leaders, or groups try and say, you know, we don't actually disagree as much as we think. | ||
| If we just, you know, we see eye to eye more than we think, we just have to, you know, sweep our differences under the rug and find common ground. | ||
| And my message is actually, no, we are going to fundamentally disagree. | ||
| Again, that is a feature, not a bug of democracy. | ||
| The question is, how do we disagree in a way that actually strengthens our relationships and promotes, is a catalyst for enlightenment, progress, and again, strengthening these bonds? | ||
| Because how we're disagreeing now is toxic. | ||
| It's scorched earth. | ||
| It's like us disagreeing, Pedro, you and I means you are the enemy, you know, and I will do anything to defeat you. | ||
| And that is the death knell of democracy, the death knell of friendship and human flourishing. | ||
| And so my message is that disagreement doesn't have to be this way. | ||
| How do we channel disagreement by keeping the dignity of the other front and center, keeping the goal of the relationship and preserving it front of center, that we can actually catalyze, use disagreement to be this catalyst for progress, for growth, and for strengthening not just our relationships, but democracy. | ||
| Calls lined up for you. | ||
| This is Chris. | ||
| Chris joins us from Maine, Democrats Line. | ||
| You're on with Lexi Hudson. | ||
| The book is called The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Hill Society and Ourselves. | ||
| Chris, good morning. | ||
| You're first up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is going to be, how can we possibly solve the problem of civility in this country when 45% of the country, the right-wing, basically hold themselves up in a single little box of listening to daily hatred against the other half of the country? | ||
| And so the history of this sort of, it comes from the far-right-wing radio, Rush Limbaugh that I used to listen to in the 80s and 90s and Glenn Beck. | ||
| And then it sort of filtered into Newt Gingrich. | ||
| And then Fox News came on the scene with its commentators. | ||
| And if you listen to Fox News any evening of the week, if you listen to right-wing radio, any day of the week, you're going to hear them say repeatedly over and over and over again how much me, a veteran, my dad, a veteran, how much we hate America. | ||
| And then it's gotten to the very top with the Speaker of the House who, respecting the No Kings rally, these are his words. | ||
| He said, Democrats hate America. | ||
| They hate capitalism. | ||
| They hate our free enterprise system. | ||
| They hate our principles. | ||
| They hate the ideas we come into work every day to fight for. | ||
| They hate the idea of the rule of law. | ||
| They fight against it. | ||
| They're close to law enforcement. | ||
| They hate the military. | ||
| That's the speaker of the house. | ||
| And he's simply repeating what Fox News says every single day and what we hear on C-STAN every single morning. | ||
| It doesn't matter that I wore the uniform. | ||
| It doesn't matter that my dad did 200 missions over Vietnam for our country. | ||
| No, we hate America. | ||
| And 45% of the country believe that. | ||
| Even one of the callers earlier today said that when they said the Democrats are pro-Hamas. | ||
| So how do we get around anti-civility when half the country believes this disgusting belief that I hate America? | ||
| Gotcha. | ||
| Chris, thank you. | ||
| Chris, happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| Thank you for taking the time to call in and share your concern, which many people feel. | ||
| I have been in 135 cities in five countries on book tour the last two years with my three small children under five. | ||
| And I get this question almost every time. | ||
| In fact, just last week, I was talking to a friend and they said, they said to me, Lexi, like your work doesn't matter as long as the person in the White House stays in the White House. | ||
| And I hear this all the time. | ||
| You know, people want to blame. | ||
| How do I fix this person? | ||
| And I mean, first of all, Chris, feel free to gift copies of my book, The Soul of Civility, to people in your life who you think need it this year. | ||
| I joke that it's a great gift for your best friend or your worst enemy. | ||
| And sometimes that's both the same person these days. | ||
| But the point is, my message, my encouragement to you, Chris, is to not point fingers and blame, but to look inward and say, what can I do right now to be a part of this solution to incivility? | ||
| And frankly, and division, echoed chambers, and frankly, loneliness. | ||
| I think loneliness is at the root cause of this crisis of incivility because, frankly, it's easy to say, let's just all talk nicely together and let's all be kinder to each other. | ||
| But it's a cliche that's also true: that hurt people hurt people. | ||
| And a lot of these people who are shouting from the rooftops vicious, hate-filled, dehumanizing things, they are broken. | ||
| And what could it mean to show kindness to these people? | ||
| And I'll tell you a story there. | ||
| There once, you know, that happened thousands of years ago. | ||
| There was a very impoverished person named Eumaeus. | ||
| And he had very little in the way of means and possessions in life. | ||
| But one day, he encountered someone who seemed to have even less than he did. | ||
| And an even more impoverished beggar showed up at his doorstep, you know, ragged, war-torn, and hungry. | ||
| And Eumaeus didn't ask any questions. | ||
| He said, Welcome, stranger. | ||
| Come into my home. | ||
| Let me feed you. | ||
| Let me bathe you. | ||
| Let me give you some clothes, a place to rest. | ||
| And only after all of his basic needs had been met, Eumaeus said to the stranger, Now tell me your story. | ||
| And Eumaeus didn't know that this person who seemed to have way less materially than he did was his long-lost king and master and best friend, Odysseus, who had been lost at sea for 10 years after the Peloponnesian War. | ||
| I love this story from Homer's Odyssey. | ||
| This is quintessential hospitality at its finest. | ||
| In ancient Greek, this concept of zinea was kindness to the stranger, kindness to the person that you don't know. | ||
| And this might sound disconnected from your question, but I don't think it is because what does it mean to show hospitality to the stranger at our Thanksgiving dinner table today and throughout this weekend? | ||
| We're busy. | ||
| We are overloaded. | ||
| People respond way better to kindness and to bids of invitation than we realize. | ||
| How can we use our tables, our hearths, our homes, our lives to be tools of healing and warmth and friendship and hospitality that can set the foundation for the conversations that you want to be having with people? | ||
| And so, Chris, thank you for caring. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| And I encourage you to think: what is your role in having and being part of the solution? | ||
| And I think it starts with extending friendship and hospitality this weekend, even at our Thanksgiving tables. | ||
| In Oklahoma, on our line for independence, this is Guy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Good morning, Alexandria. | ||
| Hey, did either of you happen to watch the show with Mimi and Henry Olson about four or five weeks ago when he was talking about what we're experiencing today and the Trump derangement syndrome? | ||
| No, feel free to summarize it. | ||
| I didn't see that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, well, Henry Olson, he was on the show with Mimi talking about the corrupt media, how they've demonized, dehumanized President Trump for 10 years basically since he came down the golden escalator. | |
| And anyway, Mimi, in the last month, she's asked two people, Henry and also Representative Mike Flood, to define the TDS, the Trump derangement syndrome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'd like to do that for you this morning. | |
| You mentioned dehumanization. | ||
| There's a program that was implemented back in the 60s from the CIA, and it's called the five Ds. | ||
| They start off with their opponent. | ||
| Do they want to demonize? | ||
| When you demonize somebody, that takes away any credibility and you lose any trust in them. | ||
| Like Trump, he's a Russian spy, KGB, he stole the election. | ||
| So that wipes out their trust and credibility. | ||
| The second thing you mentioned, Alexandria, was dehumanizing somebody. | ||
| As an example, Nikolai said in the film, you're a bottle cap or a piece of lint that needs to be discarded. | ||
| It takes away any emotion or human feeling that you have towards that person. | ||
| So you can assassinate somebody and justify it or not feel it's a bad thing. | ||
| So, Guy, for matters of time, I don't think we're going to be able to get through all the points. | ||
| So, what's the question for our guests? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The third D is you divide, which the country is completely defied. | |
| Then, the fourth D is you deflect. | ||
| Everything's Trump's fault. | ||
| And the fifth D is the outcome, the disintegrative outcome that we're seeing, the assassinations and so on. | ||
| Okay, that's Guy there in Oklahoma. | ||
| There's his summary. | ||
| What do you take away from that, Lexi Hudson? | ||
| Oh, it's a fascinating thing. | ||
| I hadn't heard about the five Ds, the CIA protocol that our questionnaire was just referring to. | ||
| But it is true that our crisis of division is a national security crisis. | ||
| I mean, I have Civic Renaissance is my newsletter intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness, and truth. | ||
| I invite everyone listening to please join us over there if you want to learn more about how we can each be a part of the solution. | ||
| And I have this small cohort of Civic Renaissance ambassadors, people who are trying to embody these ideas in their community and be agents of social change. | ||
| And one of them is a national security expert, and he is passionate. | ||
| This is Rich in Evansville, Indiana. | ||
| He is passionate about civility because he deals, he's a former hostage negotiator. | ||
| He is a, he's a security consultant now who sells, you know, unfortunately, security systems, multi-million dollar security systems for schools because of the threats that we face every day, sending our kids to schools. | ||
| We don't know what threats our children might face in these institutions. | ||
| And, you know, what he says is that the work he does day to day, it wouldn't be necessary if we all had an appreciation of the personhood and dignity of ourselves and others. | ||
| it's a downstream intervention and he sees civility as an upstream um intervention so he's passionate about bringing civility to his community and and and and nationally um as well and i mean the government is working now like it's it's open and it's operating you know temporarily but i was reflecting a lot about the crisis of division and civic friendship in congress um after we hit the longest government shutdown in America's history. | ||
| And I was reflecting on back in 1995, 1996, where we had two shutdowns in one year, a similar time of hyper-partisanship and gridlock, where our government wasn't working and people wanted to do something about it. | ||
| They said, you know, an unprecedented amount of political capital and philanthropic capital was harnessed to get Congress out of Washington and recover civic friendship. | ||
| There was a civility retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Half the time, congresspersons talked about institutional barriers to civility. | ||
| And the second half, they free played. | ||
| Kids and family members and congresspersons, you know, threw football and grilled out together. | ||
| And everyone came back from Hershey after four days there and said, this was amazing. | ||
| We need to do this again. | ||
| You know, Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House at the time and he said, let's have a civility retreat every year. | ||
| And they should have done that because what happened was just a few months after this amazing intervention that got everyone friendly and talking and these steely relationships were thawed, the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and it was scorched earth politics once again. | ||
| And what this tells me is, A, civic trust is what makes our democracy work. | ||
| It has been strained. | ||
| It has been rebuilt. | ||
| It's strained now. | ||
| It can be rebuilt through an intervention that I, you know, let's do another civility retreat. | ||
| I think we're overdue for one, but the reality is a one-off intervention is not enough. | ||
| This thing called civic friendship that makes our democracy work and allows our representatives to serve the people that elected them, it requires day in, day out commitment to this joint project of living well with others. | ||
| And this is a national security threat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Guy, for your question and your insightful reflections, rather. | ||
| It's time to recover common dignity and civic friendship at the local level and in Congress. | ||
| So to that point, we have a viewer off of X, David Roth, ask about what do you do about our dear leader who thrives on incivility and encourages it? | ||
| Do we respond with grace? | ||
| And I'll follow up with that saying people who sit like in the president's chair, do they have that much influence over how, you know, day-to-day people interact with each other? | ||
| It's, you know, it's unquestionable that the tenor of how our leaders talk and talk to each other, talk to their supporters, talk to their dissenters, that matters without question. | ||
| But it's not enough. | ||
| It's not enough to just point fingers and blame and say, if that, if that person or that thing doesn't change, then it's hopeless. | ||
| And I'm not going to do anything until that person changed. | ||
| We can't do that. | ||
| I'm currently working on the children's book, the kind of classroom read aloud and family read aloud version of my book, The Soul of Civility. | ||
| And one of my heroes of civility that I talk about in my book and in the children's book, he's this unsung hero of moderation. | ||
| And he's the hero we need in these polarizing days that we live in now, Erasmus of Rotterdam. | ||
| No one's heard of him today because he didn't pick a side. | ||
| He was a Catholic, but he criticized the Catholic Church for abuses of power during the Protestant Reformation. | ||
| In fact, he was an intellectual predecessor of the Protestant Reformation and inspired this young monk called Martin Luther. | ||
| And he and Luther were friends, and he wasn't a Protestant, so Protestants don't claim him today. | ||
| He never left the Catholic Church. | ||
| He instead wanted to promote reform within the institution through education and over time. | ||
| But anyway, he, so no one remembers him today, but he was an intellectual superstar during the European Renaissance. | ||
| And he wrote this amazing book on manners for children. | ||
| And he has, it's called A Handbook for Manners on Young and Young Children. | ||
| And it's one of these books that I explore. | ||
| And it was, again, it was translated into every European language. | ||
| It was never went out of print for like several centuries. | ||
| And this is again at the dawn of the printing press, where you know it was just a runaway bestseller. | ||
| There are many insights Erasmus has from this book that I love, but my favorite one is what he calls the wellspring of all civility, where he says, readily ignore the faults of others and avoid falling short yourself. | ||
| And I love that. | ||
| It's such an antidote to what our world wants to tell us to do. | ||
| And what the world wants to tell us to do is point fingers and blame, which is so disempowering, frankly. | ||
| And Erasmus's reminder is don't point fingers and blame. | ||
| Look inward first. | ||
| Forgive others. | ||
| Focus on what you can do. | ||
| Avoid falling short yourself. | ||
| This is Jerry. | ||
| Jerry joins us from New Jersey on this Thanksgiving Day. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| You're on with Lexi Hudson. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Alexia. | |
| I have a comment and then I got a question for you. | ||
| You know, I'm going to tell you something. | ||
| I watch C-SPAN every morning, every morning, faithfully. | ||
| And the callers that call in are so full of hate. | ||
| I've never seen anything like it, okay? | ||
| Now, one of the reasons I believe this is happening is you got the media, and I say this about all stations: the lies, the lies that come across the media. | ||
| The short, you know, like I heard, what's his name, your host there. | ||
| He was talking about the illegal that was here, and he said, oh, he came in on a visa. | ||
| Well, it expired in September. | ||
| So the man was here illegally, but they don't tell you the facts. | ||
| And the problem is that when you don't get the facts, you get the hatred. | ||
| It's festered. | ||
| You got people that call in about Trump, I mean, literally want to see him go. | ||
| Either get assassinated, go. | ||
| You have Republicans. | ||
| You got Charlie Kirk that was killed. | ||
| There were people celebrating it, celebrating it. | ||
| And I blame the media for that. | ||
| C-SPAN is the worst. | ||
| It generates the hatred every day, every day. | ||
| And they don't stop it. | ||
| They let the callers just keep going on and going on. | ||
| And I'm sitting here in my sunroom and I'm thinking I'd like to shoot these people for the sound. | ||
| Okay, okay. | ||
| I'm going to stop you there after we let you go on and go on, caller, just so you know. | ||
| But Ms. Hudson, if you wanted to respond. | ||
| Thanks, Pedro. | ||
| So respectfully, I'd like to disagree with the caller. | ||
| This is what, Pedro, my, I don't know, third or fourth, fifth time on C-SPAN. | ||
| And I love the callers. | ||
| I love hearing what people have to say. | ||
| I've always been treated with respect by callers and with, and of course, from hosts in the C-SPAN team. | ||
| So respectfully, I'd like to disagree. | ||
| And frankly, I want to praise C-SPAN for having this open forum to have these open and honest dialogues. | ||
| This is a core argument I make in my book, The Soul of Civility, that there is an essential distinction between civility and politeness. | ||
| I learned this firsthand when I was in government in DC 2017, 2018, that politeness is technique. | ||
| It's external stuff. | ||
| It's what we do, it's what we say. | ||
| And it's not, and focusing on what we do and say, or what we don't do and don't say, is not enough to alleviate our deep differences and help us navigate our deep differences. | ||
| So we have to focus on civility, which is a disposition of the heart, a way of seeing others as our moral equals, worthy of respect. | ||
| And sometimes actually respecting, actually loving someone requires telling a hard truth, engaging in robust debate, even saying something that someone doesn't want to hear, risking offending them, hurting their feelings. | ||
| That's actually a way to love and respect people. | ||
| Today, people are too often content with politeness, you know, sweeping difference under the rug, polishing over difference, which is what the etymology, the root of our word politeness, comes from the Latin word polyiere, which means to smoother polish, you know, sweep these differences under the rug. | ||
| Let's not have these uncomfortable conversations. | ||
| Let's save them for another time. | ||
| Civility, by contrast, says, no, I'm going to respect you enough to have this open or honest conversation. | ||
| I'm going to respect myself enough to speak up when I have something to say. | ||
| But I'm going to do so in a way that respects your personhood, that respects your dignity. | ||
| I'm not going to let this devolve into dehumanization. | ||
| I'm not going to let this devolve into threats of political violence or actual political violence. | ||
| I am going to have this conversation, this open and honest debate in a way that respects you enough. | ||
| And so thank you, C-SPAN, for having this forum to let people bring their thoughts to the fore. | ||
| Of course, having some curatorial discernment, but frankly, there's not enough places like this. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| But to her point, she said that if people get all the facts, then suddenly this great change in their attitude and presentation or demeanor will happen. | ||
| Do you find, given your experience, that's the case? | ||
| Or do people just hold on to what their mindset is when it comes to disagreeing with people? | ||
| To be honest, that's part of the sort of patronizing thought line of thinking that I'm trying to move away from. | ||
| People often say, oh, if people just, if others, the other, just saw the world as I see it and had the same set of facts that I do, we would surely all agree. | ||
| And that's what I think is so patronizing because people can have the same facts and still have disagreement, still have different visions of flourishing and the good. | ||
| And that has always been the case, Pedro. | ||
| As long as we've been together as a species, we've been trying to come together and do life with other human beings. | ||
| And it's always been hard because we're never going to see things the same way. | ||
| And it always will be the case. | ||
| It's a naive goal to say, let's just make sure everyone has all the correct information and all the correct facts, and then we'll perfectly agree. | ||
| That's just not going to be the case. | ||
| What I would rather focus on, instead of trying to cultivate perfect information and perfect agreement, is trying to, again, revive this basic appreciation of personhood, which is the key antidote to our dehumanizing time. | ||
| Once we see other human beings in the fullness of who they are, beings with innate dignity and worth, we will see that we owe them a bare minimum of respect, even when we vehemently disagree. | ||
| I'm not saying all ideas are equal, Pedro. | ||
| I'm not arguing that all ideas, you know, for an intellectual marketplace where all ideas come to the fore and we just hash them out in public. | ||
| No, some ideas ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history, such as ideas that put people and ethnicities on a racial totem pole. | ||
| But I am arguing that all persons are equal. | ||
| And even those persons who have hateful views deserve a bare minimum of respect just by virtue of our shared personhood. | ||
| Jesse joins us from Arizona, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Lexi, I just really wanted to say I like your idea about progressive disagreement. | ||
| And, you know, I'm a social studies teacher, so I'm going to break this down. | ||
| I'm going to say for the media, I love C-SPAN. | ||
| I think they do a great job of trying to create a progressive discussion with disagreements. | ||
| I think for political purposes, I think the political parties really need to have more disagreement in their parties and allow that. | ||
| I'm going to say for social purposes, adults are not going to fix this problem unless we focus on helping the kids with this issue. | ||
| I just had an interesting staff member from Buffalo tell me he heard a lot of Hispanic kids here using the N-word and really talking bad about black kids. | ||
| And he didn't realize how bad that racial issue was. | ||
| And I told him I'm from New Mexico and it is a pretty interesting issue. | ||
| So I just think that's really interesting. | ||
| And then finally, for business purposes, I will say I started my own business, PencilPals.shop, and I have red and blue color ink pens. | ||
| And it doesn't matter what party anybody's in. | ||
| I tell all my students, you know, if you're a teacher, you got to love all your students. | ||
| It doesn't matter where they're coming from. | ||
| So I just think everyone's awesome. | ||
| And I think we just all need to try to keep, yeah, just trying to be ourselves and trust. | ||
| I think trust is the ultimate issue. | ||
| We got to trust each other beyond everything. | ||
| That's the biggest issue. | ||
| Jesse there in Arizona. | ||
| Thanks for calling. | ||
| Thanks, Jesse. | ||
| I want to personally invite you to reach out to me. | ||
| I want you to be as a social studies teacher, part of the small working group of educators across the country I'm working with as I'm writing this children's book and the curriculum. | ||
| So please reach out to me. | ||
| We'd love you on a part of the civic renaissance community and also your help with this. | ||
| But I know we're low on time. | ||
| We're running to the end page, where I want to leave viewers and Jesse in particular with three tips for how to navigate Thanksgiving dinners, dinners. | ||
| We're hosting three out of four days this weekend. | ||
| And so, and I thought of it because of this first thing Jesse said about our party system, which is so broken. | ||
| You know, he wanted, he called for more dialogue and debate within party systems. | ||
| And this is what's so hard about the American party system right now. | ||
| It's so reductionistic, where there's so much diversity within, you know, Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| There's like spectrums within each party that it's so, there are so many limitations to just saying, oh, I'm Republican or I'm a Democrat because it doesn't capture the fullness that there's so many spectrums within that. | ||
| So I want to argue that my first tip that responds to that reductionistic moment we're in where we think we know everything about someone based on one aspect of who they are. | ||
| We hear someone's a Republican, we hear someone's a Democrat, and we think, oh, you know, I know everything there is to know, and this person has nothing to teach me. | ||
| I want to, this is my first of three of three tips for your Thanksgiving dinners this evening and this weekend. | ||
| The first is unbundling people. | ||
| Unbundling people is a mental framework I use in my book to basically see the part of someone that we may not like or disagree with, something they've said or done, in light of the whole of who they are, which is the irreducible dignity and personhood and worth of them as a human being. | ||
| And even zooming out and seeing the fullness of our relationship, the full context of our interactions with them. | ||
| For example, to me, the unspoken crisis of our crisis of dehumanization is the number, the shocking number of lifelong friendships and personal relationships that have been ended over political disagreement. | ||
| And that's not how it should be. | ||
| We've let politics matter too much. | ||
| We need to. | ||
| put politics back in its proper place and instead recover, you know, recover friendship, recover the most important things in life, family relationships. | ||
| And unbundling people can do that. | ||
| You know, Aunt Agnes is at your dinner table. | ||
| You disagree vehemently on one issue. | ||
| Remember how she showed up at your piano recital growing up. | ||
| Remember all the times she cared for you when you were sick. | ||
| Don't just say, you know, she voted for this person, therefore I can't have her in my life. | ||
| Zoom out, unbundle her, remember the context. | ||
| That'll help you and help you be happier and more joyful this holiday and beyond. | ||
| So unbundle people. | ||
| Second, don't talk politics, this Thanksgiving table, this Thanksgiving around your dinner table. | ||
| It's okay to draw a bright red line and say, you know what, this is not the forum for that. | ||
| This is the forum for friendship, for bonds, for relationships. | ||
| And let's nurture, let's cultivate those bonds of love rather than bringing the divisiveness that is everywhere. | ||
| Politics is everywhere in a way it hasn't been in the past. | ||
| It's bad for democracy, bad for society, bad for our souls. | ||
| Draw a bright red line around, like say, politics does not cross my threshold at my front door. | ||
| Don't bring it in the house. | ||
| Don't bring it around the table. | ||
| Just say, this is a conversation for another day. | ||
| Talk about everything but and nurture those bonds, the relationships. | ||
| So unbundling, don't talk politics. | ||
| And my third point is remember the hidden superpower of the 21st century. | ||
| I learned this from my amazing grandma Margaret who passed away five years ago. | ||
| It is unoffendability. | ||
| How to be unoffendable is the hidden superpower, underrated superpower of the 21st century. | ||
| Remember if that, that if someone says something that you find deeply uncomfortable or offensive, you have it within your power to say, I'm not going to be offended by that. | ||
| That is, that is like you can control. | ||
| It's not like someone, we're not like animals. | ||
| We're a step above animals, where it's not just like, you know, input, stimulus, offensive thing, output. | ||
| We have to be offended. | ||
| We can actually choose and say, I am, I'm not going to respond. | ||
| I'm going to choose to rise above that, ignore it, you know, whatever you will. | ||
| But remember, that is within your control to be unoffendable, like my grandmother was, who was totally unflappable. | ||
| So three tips to bring to your Thanksgiving dinner table. | ||
| Sorry to interrupt. | ||
| At the end of the day, how do you know if your efforts on this idea of civility are successful? | ||
| How do you gauge that? | ||
| I gauge it by this growing movement that is afoot. | ||
| I have, you know, 50,000 people on Civic Renaissance, my newsletter and intellectual community, and growing. | ||
| I have these ambassadors across, again, geography, vocation, civic renaissance ambassadors that are building institutions around my book. | ||
| I have, to promote flourishing across difference, to not try and erase difference. | ||
| And they're actively convening and fundraising to build initiatives around these ideas in their local communities. | ||
| I hear all the time that people are being encouraged by this message that we don't have, we can't, we don't have to. | ||
| And we, in fact, cannot wait for the other, you know, for this person, for that leader to change, that we have way more power to be a part of the solution than we realize. | ||
| People are taking that message to heart. | ||
| I work with these people every day, and I'm so encouraged by that. | ||
| And I have reason to hope, and I hope you and your viewers do as well. | ||
| The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, written by Lexi Hudson, joining us on Washington Journal. | ||
| Ms. Hudson, thanks for your time. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A pleasure. | |
| Happy Thanksgiving, Pedro. | ||
| We will continue on the conversation of civility and politics with Alexander Hefner. | ||
| He is the host of PBS's The Open Mind, has been talking to leaders across the world about this idea of discourse in politics and joins us next to take your questions when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
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Today, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, C-SPAN presents a day-long America 250 Marathon, all part of our more than year-long coverage of historic moments that explore the American story. | |
| At 11 a.m., we'll feature Boston's Freedom Trail through a guided tour featuring the site of the Boston Massacre, Old Statehouse, Faniel Hall, and Old North Church. | ||
| Give me liberty or give me death at 2:30 p.m. Eastern, Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech on the 250th anniversary and in its original location, St. John's Church in Richmond. | ||
| At 6:05 p.m., the U.S. Navy 250th anniversary Victory at Sea concert in Philadelphia with a musical performance by Patty LaBelle. | ||
| Also at 8 p.m., the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, where more than 1,000 reenactors commemorate one of the earliest and most consequential Revolutionary War battles. | ||
| And at 9:30 p.m., a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, featuring a parade through Washington, D.C., an enlistment ceremony, parachute demonstration, and fireworks. | ||
| Watch the America 250 Thanksgiving all-day marathon today on C-SPAN. | ||
| Also, head over to C-SPAN.org to get the full schedule on the day after Thanksgiving. | ||
| On Friday, C-SPAN will present a marathon lineup of episodes from our new weekly series, America's Book Club, hosted by acclaimed author and civic leader David Rubinstein, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Filmed at some of the nation's most iconic libraries and cultural institutions, America's Book Club features lively, thought-provoking conversations with leading authors, policymakers, business innovators, and cultural figures. | ||
| Featured guests include Stacey Schiff at the National Archives, John Grisham at the Library of Congress, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the Folger Shakespeare Library, David Grant, also at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Walter Isaacson at the National Archives, and Jose Andres at Catholic University. | ||
| Watch episodes from our new weekly series, America's Book Club, in a marathon the day after Thanksgiving on Friday, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| Also, head over to c-span.org to get the full schedule. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Our next guest of the morning is Alexander Hefner. | ||
| He's the host of The Open Mind on PBS. | ||
| He's also the co-author of a documentary history of the United States. | ||
| And one of the things he does quite frequently and talks about is civility when it comes to American politics. | ||
| Mr. Hefner, good morning. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving to you. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving, Pedro. | ||
| I wanted to start about the shooting in D.C., how events like this affect the whole when it comes to this idea of civility in a society. | ||
| They do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They make us feel vulnerable. | |
| They attack our basic idea of dignity, freedom, purity as a country. | ||
| The idea that innocent civilians or officers of the court or military officials could be under that kind of attack. | ||
| It's tragic. | ||
| It's horrible. | ||
| And in many instances, when it comes to gun violence in the U.S., preventable. | ||
| We don't know the specifics. | ||
| I do know having been to DC not so long ago that there was this new feature of patrols of National Guards people. | ||
| I say this observationally. | ||
| It was certainly a reality check, but it was not offensive and it was actually encouraging some degree of protection in a place that has been indeed quite vulnerable to gun violence in the last years and decades. | ||
| So personally, my heart is with the victims, their families, and wanting to ensure nothing like this happens again. | ||
| We had talked with our previous guest about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the death of those Democratic legislators. | ||
| That's in the political realm, and those are extremes. | ||
| But when you see those kind of events happening, especially when it comes to the realm of politics, what goes through your mind as far as improving this idea of civility amongst those who disagree with each other? | ||
| I think the first thing to recognize, Pedro, and the viewers out there is that Lexi said this eloquently. | ||
| What differentiates us as human beings is our capacity to rationalize and to be rational and to use our words, verbal cues, body language, and a sensitivity to the plight of the other to have that kind of dialogue and exchange. | ||
| And what I want to emphasize is that it's the act of mad people who've lost that rationality to engage in violence as opposed to dialogue, debate, deliberation, and discourse. | ||
| And so I think that we've seen in this country, there's been a history of assassinations or assassination attempts of presidents, of advocates, civil rights leaders in the 60s, politicians. | ||
| What we as Americans, I think, can say earnestly and objectively is that we want to, for the most part, engage in civil discourse when we go to the market, when we go to the town hall meeting, when we engage in parent conferences with teachers. | ||
| This country could not and would not operate successfully if the vast majority would engage in that kind of irrational behavior. | ||
| And so the folks who would potentially commit such an act, I think, are mentally ill. | ||
| And that is what we have to acknowledge, that this is not about liberal or conservative or where you are on the political spectrum in most instances. | ||
| This is about mental unwellness to the point of to the point of evil, to the point of murder, and that's never acceptable. | ||
| But let's understand that the majority of the country does want to practice civil discourse, and I think even the majority of politicians do too. | ||
| Mr. Hefner, you've been spending quite a bit of time recently with politicians in other countries. | ||
| We have photos of you talking with the mayor of Toronto, Canada, also with the mayor of Athens, Greece. | ||
| Talk about why you're doing it, but also talk about what have you learned about the civility process from how other countries and cultures deal with these issues. | ||
| Well, I think, again, the conversation over meals and activities have culturally enriched the dialogue, whether that's in Santiago, Chile, or Toronto or Athens, as you describe. | ||
| I think a few learnings have been when you have a system of multiple parties and perspectives that is not so diametrically opposed in a partisan context, there's really an opportunity but a necessity to coalition build. | ||
| And that's distinctive from the American process, at least on the federal stage. | ||
| The overwhelming takeaway, Pedro, is that at the municipal level, you've got to get stuff done. | ||
| And you hear from constituents directly, and you as elected officials are far more accountable for the safety and well-being of your people. | ||
| So it's one thing to have an innovative idea in the abstract. | ||
| It's another to put it into practice. | ||
| And I think coalition building, accountability are the two features, whether we're talking with the mayors of Miami, Atlanta, who are also featured next year in our series, Mayors of the World, or you're talking about mayors overseas. | ||
| It's the same focus on the well-being of people. | ||
| And I think there may be a greater capacity in a less polarized context to achieve results. | ||
| One of the unifying themes of the series was the desire for more accessible, affordable housing. | ||
| I would say that across the board in these democracies that I visited, whether it's Toronto, Athens, or here in the U.S., Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, housing is a principal concern. | ||
| And I can talk more about that. | ||
| But when it came to public policy, that was first and foremost on the minds of these mayors. | ||
| We'll talk more with our guest, Alexander Hefner. | ||
| You can ask questions of him too. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| Our guest is the host of a program called The Open Mind. | ||
| Mr. Hefter, a little bit about that program, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Founded in 1956, if you go to Wikipedia, it is one of the longest running programs in the history of television overall. | ||
| And it is one of the longest newscasts, public affairs series as well, founded by my grandfather in 1956 and shortly thereafter hosted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. | ||
| And often on the open mind, our mandate has been, and I've hosted for the last 12 plus years now, succeeding him, to discover ideas that are central to the public well-being, whether that's scientific exploration or public policy areas like housing. | ||
| And we engage with our guests, whether it's the specials we've done over the last two years, interviewing governors and senators in their home territories. | ||
| So we went to visit with Senator Murkowski in Alaska or Senator Warnock in Savannah, Georgia, or whether we're having dialogues as you and I are in person or virtually. | ||
| The founding mandate has been to probe the world of ideas, but in a context that our viewers can actually engage then in the policymaking process because they're informed and want to improve the status quo. | ||
| Often, when my grandfather would have guests on, they were appearing for the country The first time Dr. King set foot on broadcast television was on the open mind for a national audience. | ||
| So that's been the case for guests that we've had over the years, just in the last decade, people like Pete Butige and Bernie Sanders, who are not well known to the public. | ||
| And now, you know, they are, but we've wanted to discover ideas that we think are not being heard and people who don't have the forum and invite them on the open mind to do that. | ||
| And you can watch us on PBS stations wherever you're living. | ||
| Let's hear from Darren in Colorado. | ||
| Democrats line your own with Alexander Hefner. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Hinton. | |
| Happy Thanksgiving to you both. | ||
| I just wanted to say I appreciate both of your guests this morning. | ||
| I wish actually both of you could counsel a current president. | ||
| Two topics I'd like to touch on. | ||
| One is leadership, and the other is social media. | ||
| First, you know, we as humans kind of look for leadership as an example. | ||
| And when you have a president, like he has a nickname for everybody, you know, there is Hillary Clinton, Sweetly Joe, calls a reporter Ms. Piggy. | ||
| And then in my whole life of following politics, I've never had somebody, I mean, act such like a teenager. | ||
| If you, I wish C-SPAN would do a segment on his two socials. | ||
| Some of the things he posts are, I mean, if you had a teenager posting this, you would get the kid counseling. | ||
| You know, you got a guy who got cute patches on his lapel and everything, and spews hate him. | ||
| And then he wants to kill senators for telling service members to obey illegal or you know, not to obey legal orders. | ||
| It starts at the top. | ||
| I know we have to personalize this and do what we can as individuals, but you had something about social media. | ||
| You had something about social media as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And social media, I think it's just the great cover. | ||
| People hide behind it. | ||
| They can say the most hurtful things they would never say to your face, but they hide behind it. | ||
| And like I said, Trump's true social is just a cesspool of disgusting rhetoric. | ||
| And I just wanted your guest comments on that. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Darren from Colorado. | ||
| Yeah, I've said, I think on this broadcast, you know, the nature of social media is the old supermarket tabloids, but the ones that said, you know, alien child, et cetera, things that were just phony or malicious and basically monetizing that entire framework of discourse, which is often in the fiction section of a library as opposed to the nonfiction in reality section. | ||
| So whether it's ad hominems, hatefulness, divisiveness, yeah, there's no measure of regulation and there's hardly any self-censorship. | ||
| People name call. | ||
| And it is astonishing to me that in this context, we are still such a civil society when it comes to dealing with other human beings. | ||
| Because when you model that kind of discourse, whether you're the president of the United States, a senator, or a celebrity, that is amplified to such an extent that you would think the trajectory would kind of misfire and we'd all start to be calling people names and not engaging with people genuinely. | ||
| That's not the case, so I'm hopeful about that. | ||
| As someone who hosts a television program that was founded in 1956, that believes in the idea of free expression in that medium, I consider myself a millennial Luddite. | ||
| I mean, I'm on the second half of the millennial generation, but someone who still believes in the ethic and ethos of newspaper, which you, Pedro, and your colleagues read on the screen every day as a way to preserve that idea of common values and newspapers across the board of geography and ideological makeup. | ||
| So, yeah, I think one thing to suggest for Thanksgiving and not just this Thanksgiving holiday, but the future is to uninstall apps on your phone or whatever device that you may think are pernicious and inimical to the health of society. | ||
| It's not as radical or revolutionary an act as you might think. | ||
| You can still purchase an item on Amazon, listen to XM Radio or the C-SPAN app or whatever. | ||
| But we all know the apps that came of birth on our phones in 2009, 2010, 2011, that have had such a malicious and destructive impact on civil society. | ||
| It's not every app, but there are apps that have that impact. | ||
| Mr. Hefner, our viewer, this is Michael from X asking about the role that emotion and tone plays in civil discourse. | ||
| I think it's very significant. | ||
| You know, the mayor of Santiago Chile, who considers himself center-right, also the mayor of Lisbon, Portugal. | ||
| You know they, um have straddled that line of moderation in their politics and and described the the challenge of appealing to an electorate um that is uh, you know, so tantalized by the extremes and gets sucked into um the group think of left or right exclusively. | ||
| So I think bringing that humanity to the stage, something that I found the mayor of Atlanta, Mayor Dickens, Mayor Dugan of Detroit also not being defined by a partisan allegiance or any kind of rigid criteria of what it means to be a Democrat or Republican. | ||
| Oftentimes in municipal elections, there are non-affiliated candidates running for office, but instead to be defined by your authenticity and by your work product. | ||
| And in the case of both Atlanta and Detroit, I saw some amazing work product, a station that had been decrepit and abandoned in Detroit during financial difficulties and challenging times over the last 25 years, revitalized into a free library and museum and workspace for the city and state's young people. | ||
| In Atlanta, I saw Mayor Dickens take facilities that were constructed for COVID, the early stage of the pandemic, and transform it into a housing opportunity for people who are vulnerable to homelessness or unhoused and not making enough to find their first home in the city. | ||
| Also, building the first city's supermarket. | ||
| It's hard to believe, Pedro, but downtown Atlanta did not have a supermarket until about two months ago because of the food deserts that are so prolific and persistent and such a persistent problem in American life. | ||
| So the mayor was helpful in ushering this first ever market that is accessible to people who live and work downtown. | ||
| So I think the authenticity of one's mission is vastly important and the emotion that it gets embedded in that mission in the case of the mayors of Detroit and Atlanta, I felt that and I felt that in their achievements. | ||
| From Brad, who joins us in Brooklyn, New York, Independent Line, we'll hear from Brad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning, Alexander and Pedro, and happy Thanksgiving to both of you. | ||
| I have two points. | ||
| I love this country, and the way that I manifest that is to go on road trips. | ||
| I love to travel the coast and see the nature experience of food, the local customs, the microcultures that are born from America. | ||
| And one of the things that I'm happy to report on is that Americans are not as divided as we might think they are. | ||
| I took a hint from Andrew Zimmer, and I like when I stay overnight to sit at, find a great restaurant that has a bar and sit and like Anthony Bourdain as well, just talk to people. | ||
| Food is the great democratizer. | ||
| And one of the things we don't do most of the time is talk about politics. | ||
| We talk about food, family, our travels, our lives, our experiences. | ||
| And I'm just amazed at how different the Americans that I meet are than the Americans that I see in social media. | ||
| And my second point is that media is a for-profit enterprise. | ||
| And the way that I see that they make money is to create political drama. | ||
| And it's horribly divisive, of course. | ||
| And, you know, I just like you to speak about the effect that profit has on a Fox News, on an MSNBC, on a CNN in shaping the way we perceive ourselves. | ||
| Because I don't see what they're seeing. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Brad in New York. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks. | |
| Those road trips sound fantastic. | ||
| And I say to your second point, amen, amen, amen. | ||
| Yeah, it's a mystery to a lot of Americans, but in reality, you know, the profit imperative motivates much of what is produced in terms of the topical relevance and also the way that subjects are being framed. | ||
| And to your point about drama or trauma, trauma doesn't have to be trauma. | ||
| So something that is dramatic in the political sphere of making a decision and establishing a new paradigm or policy, whether that is how to lower premiums for health insurance or a new system that might be adopted to preserve health insurance for all Americans when the Affordable Care Act is looking shakier and shakier, | ||
| or for that matter, extending the life of Social Security for generations. | ||
| Senator Booker, who I interviewed on The Open Mind, and he and Republicans have worked together on these baby bonds, the idea that there should be at the front end of American society some kind of infusion of support for a child and their, whether it's for their food, for their future education. | ||
| The essence of a safety net doesn't have to be at the end of life. | ||
| It ought to be at the beginning of life too. | ||
| And Republicans and Democrats have come around to that idea, which is just to say that you can create excitement for legislative outcomes and political discourse that is positive. | ||
| Let's call it the theater of positivity. | ||
| We just don't do it. | ||
| And there's not an ingenuity or imagination on the part of the platforms you describe to do so. | ||
| I've been looking towards the new media platforms to engage in that. | ||
| C-SPAN has a great program now called Ceasefire. | ||
| And if Apple and Netflix and others took that same hardware and said, we're going to create constructive drama that leads towards achievements, outcomes in the public sphere, we might think about it differently. | ||
| And then these entities might still get the kind of viewership that they want. | ||
| To your first point about talking to regular folks, that's been my experience too, from Spearfish, South Dakota to Hayes, Kansas to the coasts. | ||
| I think in many respects, you start conversations about your life. | ||
| And then when it comes to politics, let that be an extrapolation of your human experience. | ||
| Rather than starting with, are you Democrat or Republican, or what do you think about this issue or that issue? | ||
| It's kind of like if you're raising a child and you want to infuse those greens with something that's more delicious, cream spinach today, for example, you need to start with something that is going to be attractive to the audience. | ||
| In the case of regular people at bars, that's talking about their favorite football team, their favorite pastime, their kids, and relating policy to those things as is relevant. | ||
| So I think in road trips that we take and meeting regular people, it's okay to talk about public policy. | ||
| We shouldn't be afraid of that. | ||
| We should start from how it's most germane to each person we're having a beer with. | ||
| Beverly is next. | ||
| Beverly in Wyoming, Democrats line. | ||
| You're on with Alexander Hefner, the host of The Open Mind on PBS. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I would like to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| And when you have a coin in your hand and there's in God We Trust, who do you, is it on both sides of that coin? | ||
| And when you flip it, does it tell you to be mean? | ||
| You know, I just don't understand the world, how they hide behind politics and Republican and Democrat. | ||
| I just, you know, it's terrible. | ||
| You're the same person if you're Democrat or Republican. | ||
| When you're mean, you're the same person. | ||
| So I think the people need to start being nice to each other and have some respect and honor. | ||
| And that's my topic. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving to you, too. | ||
| Yeah, I think you just highlight how problematic demagoguery is because the meanness has a point, right? | ||
| The cruelty has a point. | ||
| And, you know, you're not demonic for the sake of being demonic. | ||
| I think demagoguery, when you try to exploit the division for your own advantage, is not a motivating factor for preserving the union or a better republic. | ||
| And I think that that point you're making is so salient to our preservation as a country. | ||
| Alexander Hefner, I see a press release, you speaking earlier this year at the College of Charleston. | ||
| I know that you've gone to other college campuses as well. | ||
| What are you seeing there when it comes to this idea of civility? | ||
| It's interesting, Pedro. | ||
| I did see a backlash against social media by what we're calling Gen Z now in some form. | ||
| I haven't seen it as prevalent recently, this idea that the youngest generation coming of age in high school or college now, Gen Z or Z plus, are wanting to take their message offline and engage in some of the traditional modes of discourse, debate, protest. | ||
| I think that animates some of the activity on campus, but also just a pervasive notion that there's not effective channels or vehicles to engage in issues. | ||
| And I think that's been the problem for so long in American political life, this feeling of helplessness, deterring any action beyond one's community. | ||
| And community action is most important. | ||
| And I think that that's the recognition still. | ||
| And that's why I went to these cities and interviewed and profiled mayors around the world, because I think that the younger community, whether it's College of Charleston or anywhere around the country or world, I think they recognize that, | ||
| as Tip O'Neill said, the late speaker, all politics is local, and there's been a realization that it is far more fulfilling at the local level and you're far more likely to make a difference. | ||
| And that's true. | ||
| And I think that's the prevailing current on campuses that you have to be local to be effective. | ||
| You talked about in talking with these mayors and leaders across the world, this idea of ultimately they have to get things done. | ||
| With that in mind, what did you take away from the recent shutdown we had, how it ended, and what it said about the civil process? | ||
| Well, I think the folks who voted to reopen the government were thinking about the American people. | ||
| The idea that the Democratic Party was engaging in the tactics of the Tea Party in the shutdowns that happened previously, I think it's hard to reconcile with Their position on government going back to the Obama administration. | ||
| That is to say that the folks who voted with the Republicans to reopen the government, I think they were thinking about the security of the most vulnerable populations that use food stamps for everyday nutrition, the safety of our airways. | ||
| And having traveled myself during the shutdown, I spoke with more than one flight attendant that was horrified at what they were seeing in terms of the abandonment of safety and security and the fear that it was going to escalate into something catastrophic. | ||
| I mean, I heard that repeated time and time again. | ||
| And, you know, I think one of the things about flying today is that every strata of society does it for one reason or another, whether it's to visit a family member or to go for a job interview or to move across the country. | ||
| You see it in America is our airports and everybody who passes through it. | ||
| And the idea that we were sacrificing for political games and gamesmanship, the security of our people, it was an embarrassing notion and really more than embarrassing, had the potential to be catastrophic. | ||
| So the one thing you can look up, Pedro, is that in cities, there are virtually no shutdowns. | ||
| There have been shutdowns from time to time in states. | ||
| I think Connecticut has the longest one in history of our 50 states. | ||
| But again, to my point about functionality, if you're a mayor or a governor, you know that you just can't operate successfully without cleaning up the garbage, without having some basic level of interaction with your constituents, some base-level foundation of public services. | ||
| And that's why cities and states don't shut down. | ||
| And the federal government, you know, can, in some ways, because of how disconnected it is from every person. | ||
| So, you know, most of the countries that I visited would not find this familiar, this idea of periodic government shutdowns. | ||
| And we should really erase the normalcy of this idea. | ||
| It's so foolish to hold hostage people's lives for partisan games. | ||
| It's something that I think the American people have had enough of. | ||
| And if there was legislation to ensure that there are no more government shutdowns, I think it would pass handily if it was a proposition put forward to the American people. | ||
| On our line for Republicans, this is Bob in Tyler, Texas. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Alexander, man. | |
| I just love this topic. | ||
| And I tweeted my question to you at openmind.tv. | ||
| So if I don't express myself well on air, I appreciate a response there and maybe a follow. | ||
| So anyway, my question is: 25 words. | ||
| Is the separation in our church and state that citizens do not know the word or that congregants do not know the law? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, the tools for the answer are the first sentences of four things. | |
| So it's the first sentence of the Bible, the first sentence of the Declaration, the first sentence of the Constitution, and the first sentence of Article 1. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I would love to explore that with you at our leisure. | |
| Bob in Texas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Well, you know, we the people, that was the founding creed and remains the founding creed of America. | ||
| In the vast lobbying complex of Washington shenanigans and decision-making, we feel far removed from we the people as the defining characteristic of our republic. | ||
| But with respect to the separation of church and state, I think it's been a long-standing practice. | ||
| And I think the Bill of Rights specifically encourages a country that is free, free to believe, free not to believe, free to believe any rendition of one God or multitudes of gods. | ||
| I think the most important thing from any of these civic documents is the we the people, the idea that we are only as good as our own actions and engagement in civil society. | ||
| And I think that's true of congregants in all the religious services and instruments that exist in this country. | ||
| All the congregations of every faith were as good as we are devoted to the idea of faith or the idea of good government. | ||
| Bob, that was Bob. | ||
| This is next call is from Ted. | ||
| Ted's in Colorado, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| And I've been listening to you guys since the beginning of your programming, and I've learned a lot. | ||
| We are going to return to civility if we just practice honoring one another and conflict and resolution. | ||
| And we have to stop with thinking that we always have to end problems with wars and stuff. | ||
| And I just finished one of the longest road trips in my life. | ||
| And I drove from Colorado to Coos Bay to see this beautiful lady at Coos Bay who takes and cleans up beaches called Wash Ashore. | ||
| And she cleans up beaches and she makes sea creatures out of plastics and junks that she collects on the beaches. | ||
| And then from Coos Bay to San Francisco and then to San Jose, California. | ||
| My heart is broken right now. | ||
| My sister, just 13 months older than me, was killed by a drunk driver. | ||
| And you talk about civility and all the people that get in their cars drunk and they don't realize the damage that they're doing to other people and families. | ||
| I mean, this is the hardest Thanksgiving for my family. | ||
| And one of the things I practice civility is I am a feng shui master. | ||
| And the principles of feng shui is peace and harmony. | ||
| And one of the oracles of the I Ching is polarized and another one is retiring. | ||
| And a lot of people are retiring early right now because there's no sense to work in the workforce. | ||
| And, you know, we have to just return to gardening. | ||
| And, you know, we have a garden here in Colorado called Colorado Farm to Table. | ||
| And we grit over 100,000 pounds of produce. | ||
| And all our produce goes to free the food banks. | ||
| I mean, my sister helped families in crisis for the last 35 years. | ||
| And my sister was a very peaceful woman. | ||
| And my sister's birthday was on January 6th that we celebrate the epiphany of Jesus. | ||
| And we always saved a present under our tree till January 6th. | ||
| And she's just to lose my sister to a drunk driver and violence. | ||
| My family has suffered from alcoholism all our life, from even our dad going to Korea and the Philippines. | ||
| Gotcha, gotcha, Ted. | ||
| And Ted, I apologize for interrupting. | ||
| I'm sorry about your sister, but I do want to let our guests answer and respond to what you brought. | ||
| But thank you for calling. | ||
| That's Ted in Colorado, Mr. Hefner. | ||
| Yes, Ted, condolences to you and your family. | ||
| You know, I think one of the themes of your message was getting back to the basics and the roots of humanity. | ||
| And you, Pedro, asked about the college life. | ||
| I think that young people are deploying use of AI and robotics to solve problems. | ||
| And that's good to an extent, but I think that there is going to be, when Ted references the economy and go back to gardening, I think there is the momentum building for a counterculture to the AI if it doesn't just usurp everything and take control of everything. | ||
| There are a few very positive uses of AI in discovery of cures to disease already when it came to producing vaccines for COVID, looking at the spike protein and what would be most effective. | ||
| AI was deployed for that. | ||
| AI still is very much removed from our humanity in exchanges with each other. | ||
| You know, Ted mentioned alcoholism. | ||
| He mentioned the basic human agency and the freedom to, in this case, drive and to be considerate of your fellow human beings. | ||
| And I think that the human ethos is important in considering our future decision making. | ||
| And when we veer so far and let machines take over, I think we're not going to be so pleased with the outcome. | ||
| When it comes to jobs, in particular, I don't think we're going to be pleased unless we guarantee a universal basic income. | ||
| We're not going to be pleased with what the machines wrought. | ||
| And I just say, with respect to gratitude, which is how the caller started his conversation, one thing on Thanksgiving and every day we in America can express gratitude for is the geography. | ||
| Several of your callers have mentioned driving across the country freely from sea to shining sea. | ||
| And in a lot of places in the world, it's just not feasible to do that. | ||
| There are not the roadways to do it, or there's a segment to the country where there's strife or unrest. | ||
| We can feel gratitude for our island, our country, our continent too. | ||
| And we are not ensnared in the violence of Eastern Europe. | ||
| We are not ensnared in what's been the violence of the Middle East. | ||
| We've been able to practice our civil society in a way that engenders that feeling of freedom from sea to shining sea. | ||
| And I, for one, express gratitude on this Thanksgiving that this is our country and we can drive through it peacefully and admire the beautiful geography and people who inhabit it. | ||
| Just a few minutes from now, we are expecting a press conference from the FBI director and the D.C. Attorney D.C. legal system when it comes to the shooting at the National Guard yesterday. | ||
| We'll take that to you when it starts just around 9 o'clock. | ||
| Larry in North Carolina, Democrats line, you're up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'd like your guest's view on civility and violence. | |
| His view of Trump sending people to the Capitol on January 6th and attacking the Capitol and then pardoning the ones that did it. | ||
| How is that okay? | ||
| Yeah, I think that January 6th is a subject that comes up from callers having been on your series over the last several years. | ||
| The idea that that's become acceptable in the minds of any person is wrong from the perspective of just common law. | ||
| You know, the common law dictated that it was trespassing, a violation of the procedures of Congress, what we've called the insurrection on January 6th. | ||
| In this country, there has been a history of forgiving political opponents, but the idea of forgiving people who committed acts that were violative of our democracy and that were violent is challenging. | ||
| And to pardon people who were associated with January 6th is something that many Americans, I think, are going to struggle to stomach. | ||
| Although I will say to the caller that one of the challenging things about America is amnesia. | ||
| We do have this beautiful country, the geography I described before. | ||
| One of the struggles, I think, when it came to COVID and our memory of that in January 6th is that it's very much a blur. | ||
| Most Americans don't record those events and then have a historical memory of it in an age when you can instantly Google something and Google is your memory instead of you living that experience and absorbing it in the flesh. | ||
| I think that's a struggle. | ||
| So I would say to the caller, to me, it's not so much about January 6th as it is about this deficit of recollection and memorialization of events and recognizing we've had some transformative crises in this country from the Great Recession before that 9-11, more recently going through the pandemic period and January 6th. | ||
| These are events to understand fully and not appreciate just in the moment. | ||
| And that's as much of a problem as pardoning people who were connected with acts of political violence. | ||
| And if there is a place for forgiveness in American political life, and I hope there is, that we understand what went wrong there. | ||
| And I think that's the fundamental issue that you would have with what transpired, which is there was no acknowledgement of the wrongdoing of that day and what resulted in breaches of city, state, and federal law. | ||
| Typically, when you do engage in commutation or pardoning individuals, there is some recognition of I did something that wasn't right, and that didn't happen here. | ||
| Alexander Hefner is the host of a PBS program called The Open Mind. | ||
| Mr. Hefner, how can people find your program? | ||
| You can go to 13.org/slash openmind or theopenmind.com and check out our episodes. | ||
| And the Mayors of the World Series will premiere next year, and I hope your viewers check it out. | ||
| And Pedro, happy Thanksgiving to you. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving to you. | ||
| Thank you for giving us your time. | ||
| And just a few minutes from now, we are scheduled to show you a press conference with the D.C. attorney, the FBI director, on update on the National Guard shooting. | ||
| We'll take that live, and you can watch it not only on this channel, but you could also watch it on our app and at c-span.org as well if you wish. | ||
| Up until then, we will take calls, and then you can, when we go to the press conference, we'll take that. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for independents. | ||
| Text us your thoughts at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And then also, you can post your thoughts on social media. | ||
| Even on this Thanksgiving day, you can do that all day long if you wish. | ||
| On Facebook, that's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And then also on X, you can do that at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Again, the plan is to take calls and hear from you about this National Guard shooting. | ||
| And then when we go to the press conference, we will show that to you live. | ||
| If it goes up until 10 o'clock, then we will finish this program. | ||
| But if the press conference starts and finishes before 10, then we will come back and continue on. | ||
| Let's hear from Ron. | ||
| Ron in Michigan, Independent Line. | ||
| Ron, thank you for calling, especially on this Thanksgiving Day. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just can't understand how all of the left Democrat political violence is never talked about. | |
| And every time something gets brought up, it's always January 6th. | ||
| January 6th was nothing compared to what PLM did in 2021. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we need to stop this one-sided bull that is the left that creates more political violence than the right. | |
| Ron there in Michigan, our next call, Robert. | ||
| Robert joins us from Cincinnati, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| Happy Thanksgiving first. | ||
| I'm surprised that the shooting of the National Guard have not occurred earlier. | ||
| I mean, when you pushing people out and grabbing them in stores and in their workplace, it gets to a point where people are pushed to the limit. | ||
| And every time an immigrant does something in this country, they paint it with a broad brush. | ||
| But when the white guy does something, he's got a mental disorder or he's taking pills or something. | ||
| This president that we have have caused this country to almost weaponize between the minorities and the majority. | ||
| We got to do something here. | ||
| We have to do something. | ||
| Have a good Thanksgiving. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| Robert there in Cincinnati giving us a call. | ||
| Again, you can call in on the lines, 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans, 2027-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| As we wait for this update on the National Guard shooting from authorities. | ||
| Linda, New York, Democrats line, jump right in as we will take this press conference as soon as it starts. | ||
| So Linda, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, happy Thanksgiving to everyone and praying for the families of the soldiers who were shot in D.C. | |
| I think that the troops, all the troops, should be out of the cities. | ||
| I think it's a political stunt putting them in the cities. | ||
| And I think they should all be out. | ||
| The cities have police forces. | ||
| That's what they're there for. | ||
| And to be used as a political stunt, it's a horrible, horrible thing. | ||
| Also, every, every, seems like every occasion when Trump or Vice President Vance could bring this country together, they always use it for a division. | ||
| You know, whether pardoning the turkeys or when Vance was serving meals at the military base the other day. | ||
| Just using it for division. | ||
| It's a sad, sad thing in this country. | ||
| That's Linda in New York. | ||
| We heard the Defense Secretary yesterday after news of the shooting broke that the president telling him that he wants to see even more National Guard troops come to Washington, D.C., 500 being the number that was uploaded yesterday in Oklahoma. | ||
| Democrats line, this is Clyde. | ||
| Clyde, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| No, I'm not praying for the ones that's lost their life over this, but you know, I mean, adding to the problem and, you know, not caring about somebody dying, there's something wrong. | ||
| Because even on January 6th, a woman got shot. | ||
| No, by a person opening their mouth. | ||
| That's murder. | ||
| Because, you know, flat out, you know, you call something with you opening your mouth. | ||
| Well, you cause somebody to die. | ||
| Well, they're just not right. | ||
| That's just the way it is now. | ||
| Still opening the mouth and not listening. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| USA Today, reporting on the events of yesterday, saying that those National Guard members were part of a, quote, high visibility patrol that was near the White House on Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon when the suspect came around the corner, opened fire, according to the Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Jeff Carroll. | ||
| After a back and forth exchange, Carroll said that other troops subdued and detained the shooter. | ||
| The two wounded guard members were in critical condition, local hospitals. | ||
| The FBI Director Kash Patel said they have not been publicly identified. | ||
| This is from Vanna, Vanna Independent Line, Massachusetts. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I just want you to ask politicians to do something about what happened in slaughterhouses all over this country. | ||
| Nothing's done to protect the animals, and terrible things happen in farms that kill animals before and during the slaughter. | ||
| So I really wish politicians did something to help and stop the cruelty against animals. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| We'll hear next from Keith Keith in Florida, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey, good morning, Pedro, and happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| I've been watching the show for a longer time since Brian Lamb and Steve. | ||
| Are you seeing your guy now, Pedro? | ||
| I've been around a while. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I've talked to you a few times. | |
| But anyways, You know, the civility thing has been going on forever, but it seems like it is it's mounted with the shock jocks and everybody's got to be better. | ||
| It used to be you hide behind the phone on C-SPAN. | ||
| And, you know, we used to cut people off and stuff that said stuff that they do now after the 20 years I've been watching. | ||
| Like the first guy, Colin, he related the National Guard to ICE people going and arresting illegal immigrants. | ||
| Like these people, the National Guard is there to arrest illegal immigrants, and they weren't. | ||
| They were put there and even the Mayor Bowser has helped and they've cooperated each other together that the outside quiet perimeters of DC is covered by them. | ||
| So the police that would be down there usually would be able to go down into the neighborhoods and do more of a public servant police force down there. | ||
| And I believe the crime has even dropped there. | ||
| And we should respect the people in uniform and thank them for everything. | ||
| I think this is a sad, sad Thanksgiving for America and the two guys involved, their families and stuff. | ||
| And I wish we would take time. | ||
| You know, there used to be things like if you talk to people, don't say anything you wouldn't say to your grandmother or grandfather. | ||
| You know, let's get back to civil and be able to discuss. | ||
| Everybody calls names and they want to be the shock jock that says it worse. | ||
| You know, we started with what has been that went this serious, and then the cowboy guy and the shock jock mentality has grown. | ||
| And I believe a lot of people have PTSD since COVID. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mark, that's Keith, Keith in Florida there. | ||
| This is Mark in California, Democrats Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning and Thanksgiving, longtime listener, haven't called in a while. | ||
| I just wanted to respond to a prior caller. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I think I have this reaction every time I hear people try to compare January 6th with the events of BLM. | ||
| And I want to just sort of call out January 6th is unlike all of the other events that they try to compare it to, because it's really just about the fact that a group of people did not like their election results. | ||
| And the events of Black Lives Matter was about the constant killing of Americans by our police force. | ||
| And I just, it just drives me crazy when I hear people try to compare the two. | ||
| Democrats have never stormed the Capitol because they didn't like the election results. | ||
| They haven't caused violence because they haven't liked the election results. | ||
| I think I've made my point. | ||
| But that's really what I wanted to call on. | ||
| So thank you for hearing me out. | ||
| Philadelphia's next Democrats line. | ||
| We'll hear from Jack. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Pedro, good morning. | |
| I just want to give a shout out to C-SPAN, the most level-headed coverage of any of the news publications and media. | ||
| And I just want to say that I can't act surprised that this stuff happens. | ||
| You know, when you put National Guard members in cities and areas where the mayor and the police aren't asking for help, it's like pouring gas on a fire. | ||
| And I don't know why people think this is something that wasn't going to happen. | ||
| In addition to that, to the Republican folks listening, like you voted for this president to lower grocery prices and to lower your, you know, make your life better, to make America great. | ||
| He's, you know, basically giving you the Gulf of America. | ||
| And, you know, he's continuing to, he's supposed to get rid of the, you know, murderers, rapists, things like this. | ||
| And you have citizens that are being, you know, harassed on a daily basis on the job, you know, waiting, waiting to get their citizenship. | ||
| You know, it's literally like Nazi Germany. | ||
| And I don't think you guys voted for that, but you still won't call it out. | ||
| So, you know, happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| And, yeah. | ||
| North Carolina next, Democrats line. | ||
| Lewis, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, top of the morning, and happy Thanksgiving. | |
| Look, I see, this is not what I want to talk about, but I see it catch a nerve on the magnet Republican when you talk about January the 6th, right? | ||
| And they get a kick when you twitch a nerve when you say that this administration is protecting pedophiles. | ||
| But this is what I want to talk about. | ||
| This is a Thanksgiving day. | ||
| And when them pilgrims came over and hit Plymouth Rock, they were starving to death. | ||
| And if anything, white America should give honor and Thanksgiving for the Native American because if you read history from 1620 to 1621, they were starving to death. | ||
| And the Native American came in and gave thanks and broke bread. | ||
| And Andrew Jackson put them all in one little hut. | ||
| That's how white America paid back Native American. | ||
| But y'all have a very good Thanksgiving. | ||
| And remember, keep your brothers in mind because we are our brothers keeper. | ||
| Y'all have a blessed day. | ||
| Lewis in North Carolina, Lynn Olfavex saying that the president needs to send the National Guard home, that he's putting the National Guard in danger. | ||
| She posts that on X. | ||
| And then Barbara saying, after I heard that the two National Guard were shot, I knew Democrats would blame Donald Trump's typical rhetoric that is called hatred towards police and military guards. | ||
| That's Barbara there in Vermont again. | ||
| Posting on X is at C-SPAN WJ posting on the text 202748-8003 is how you do that in North Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
| This is Brandon. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Good morning, gobble gobble. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| I had to talk to the speaker, but I have a comment on running the theme of civility and discourse. | ||
| It's regarding a personal view on the H-word. | ||
| When I say H-word, I don't mean E-double hockey stick. | ||
| I mean the H-word with the number eight at the end of it. | ||
| I've removed it from my vocabulary and my personal view on life. | ||
| And I think H with the number eight is a reflection of yesterday. | ||
| And the simple use of that word when you describe a color of food, I think cheapens it. | ||
| Now, there's a lot of things I strongly dislike out there, but to go to the length of the H-word is an example of yesterday. | ||
| And I think just removing it from your vocabulary could help remove it from someone's behavior. | ||
| So thank you for your time. | ||
| Thank you for your program. | ||
| And everybody be well and be kind. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Crystal in Philadelphia, Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| And happy Thanksgiving to those who are able to have a nice meal today. | ||
| Trump was on saying that this gentleman came in undocumented. | ||
| No, everybody, that was the mad rush to get out of Afghanistan. | ||
| And they had to have papers and all kinds of things. | ||
| This gentleman helped the army that was over there at the time. | ||
| That's why they let him in. | ||
| Now, somewhere along the line, he got mad about something. | ||
| But Trump, Trump gave him asylum back in April when he was up for review. | ||
| But he's busy on there blaming Biden, Biden. |