| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| That the mayor a lot will be a mayor for all New Yorkers. | ||
| If I had any doubt whatsoever, I would not be standing here today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| This week, watch Washington Journal's Holiday Authors Week series, featuring live conversations with a new author each day. | ||
| Coming up Sunday morning, John Jay College of Criminal Justice Constitutional Law Professor Gloria Brown Marshall discusses her book, A Protest History of the United States. | ||
| Watch Authors Week, live during Washington Journal, Sunday morning at 7 Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
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| Submit by January 20th. | ||
| Details at studentcam.org. | ||
| Your voice, your story, Student Cam 2026. | ||
| It's the Washington Journal for December 27th. | ||
| When it comes to rhetoric used by politicians, how comfortable are you when that rhetoric contains profanity and insults? | ||
| A recent Associated Press article looks at the use of coarse language of politicians with both Republican and Democratic stripes. | ||
| And a former governor of Indiana recently penned an opinion piece about his concerns of profanity becoming commonplace in political dialogue. | ||
| To start the program today, tell us if it's a big deal to you for politicians to use profanity and insults. | ||
| Here's how you can call us. | ||
| For the Eastern and Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| For the Mountain and Pacific time zones, 202748-8001. | ||
| And for text, if you want to text us, 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can also post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And on X, it's at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| It was the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, also the former President Emeritus of Purdue University, pending an op-ed in recent days, taking a look at this idea of profanity and coarse language used by politicians. | ||
| Here's the headline: Public norms have been warped. | ||
| Is the damage permanent? | ||
| In which Mitch Daniel writes, there is some small fraction of Americans, conspiracy bloggers, radio hosts, performance artists, somehow elected to public office who prosper from and presumably revel in this century's rapid collapse of long-standing norms in the public square. | ||
| Like it or not, standards of both conduct and discourse have shifted unmistakably and radically downward. | ||
| A large majority of the rest of the country, spanning the ideological spectrum, minus its fevered edges, have seemed wearied and discouraged. | ||
| We may nurture the hope in the decadence that is temporary, but we must accept the reality that in many respects it is likely here to stay. | ||
| Mitch Daniels also going on to write, specifically when it comes to this idea of profanity, is that profanity is suddenly mainstream. | ||
| Once unacceptable words, specifically the ones you know I'm thinking of, are everywhere, from comedians who apparently couldn't get laughs without them to politicians who must think it makes them look tough. | ||
| The grossness has now infected even our formerly proudest and most stately publications. | ||
| However, one might wish, it seems unlikely that once the vulgar becomes commonplace, society will ever rule out it, rule it out of bounds. | ||
| The infantilization of political debate and personal demonization of opponents may similarly have ratcheted downward, although on this score one can imagine some recovery. | ||
| At some point, the public could tire of playground insults and asinine nicknames and start asking for a little more substance from those elected to serve them. | ||
| Interminable stalemate, especially when the country enters a stretch of serious economic or national security difficulty, could trigger a collective demand to, quote, grow up. | ||
| That is the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. | ||
| He also served as president emeritus of Purdue University on this idea of profanity and insults becoming part of political rhetoric. | ||
| We want to ask you to start off the program if you think it's a big deal. | ||
| So here's how you can let us know your thoughts. | ||
| It is 202-748-8000. | ||
| For those of you in the Eastern and Central time zones, if you live in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And you can text us your thoughts too at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Now, if you want to post on social media, you can have options to do that too. | ||
| And you can do that simply on our Facebook page. | ||
| Several of you posting before the start of this program at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And you can also post on X2 at C-SPAN WJ. Buffalo, New York. | ||
| This is Anthony. | ||
| Anthony, what do you think about this idea of profanity and insult as political rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this president of the United States is constantly upbraiding women reporters, calling them piggy. | |
| In one instance, he told the lady when she asked a question from ABC TV that she was stupid. | ||
| He consistently uses the abuses the English language to the point where I don't want to even listen to him anymore. | ||
| He can't put two sentences together either. | ||
| And it's totally unbecoming of a president. | ||
| It's just disgusting. | ||
| Well, the idea of it being unbecoming either to a president or a politician, why do you think that is? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Could you repeat the question? | |
| You said it was unbecoming for a president, but when it comes to profanity and insults, why do you think it's unbecoming either for a president or a politician to use that type of rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because the English language was never meant to be used in that fashion. | |
| And for a president to consistently use, upbraid women, especially women, you don't need to have you noticed lately how many times he's criticized a woman reporter for asking a question, calling them stupid, that they have no character, calling them Miss Piggy, etc. | ||
| This is not acceptable language. | ||
| No. | ||
| You don't see that from a real president. | ||
| This president does not use English properly. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's terrible. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Anthony there in New York. | ||
| Let's hear from Susan in Pennsylvania on this idea of profanity and insult as part of political rhetoric. | ||
| Hello, Susan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Pedro. | |
| What I want to tell everybody is: profanity is not facts. | ||
| Insults are not facts. | ||
| And for myself personally, I'm a Democrat. | ||
| And for myself, personally, when people get on TV and say, you know, Democrats are communists and et cetera, et cetera, all that does is tell me that they don't have anything valid to say. | ||
| If I express an opinion and give facts and they start calling me names, Pedro, all that does is tell me that I've won the argument. | ||
| That what I'm saying has more validity than anything they say. | ||
| And the more adjectives a person uses to just, you know, insult, like I said, all that does is tell me I've won the argument because they don't have anything intelligent or valid to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Susan there in Pennsylvania. | ||
| That Associated Press article I referenced earlier talks a little and gives some historical context. | ||
| The author writes this saying, recordings from Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, for instance, revealed a crude, profane side of his personality that was largely kept private. | ||
| Republican Richard Nixon bemoaned the fact that the foul language he used in the Oval Office was captured on tape. | ||
| Quote, since neither I nor most other presidents had ever used profanity in public, millions were shocked. | ||
| Former President Nixon wrote in his book, In the Arena, quote, politicians have always sworn just behind closed doors. | ||
| That was Benjamin Bergen, a professor at the University of California's San Diego Department of Cognitive Science, and the author of What the F? What swearing reveals about our language, our brains, ourselves. | ||
| The big change is in the past 10 years or so, it has been much more public. | ||
| That's a little bit further from the Associated Press. | ||
| If you want to give a thought there or at least read that to give your thoughts as well on this idea of profanity or insults being part of regular political rhetoric, 2027488000 in the Eastern Central time zones, 2027488001 in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. | ||
| This is from Russell. | ||
| Russell is in Idaho. | ||
| Russell, good morning. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's incredibly insulting for our president to speak vulgar speech. | |
| You know, we all say vulgar words, but I think it's very insulting to the public for our people in power to say words like the S-word and F-word. | ||
| And I don't like that. | ||
| I think that we're incredibly intelligent people, and we don't need to resort to that. | ||
| We can get our ideas forward with things that help the human population, you know, the American people. | ||
| Russell, you said that you said that everybody uses this kind of language. | ||
| Politicians shouldn't use that kind of language. | ||
| And I think you talked about it, but why should they be exempt specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if you're going to be in the public eye, you know, I don't need to go there. | |
| I could speak vulgarity all day long in my private life. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| But if you're going to be a public figure and a public servant, you're elected. | ||
| You don't. | ||
| Russell, you're still there? | ||
| I think Russell's connection is fading, but we got his point, Russell from Idaho. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Another Idaho, and this is from Paul in Nampa. | ||
| Paul, hello. | ||
| Thanks for calling. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I would say it matters what the situation is. | ||
| If it's anger and it's profanity and it's used, it can be quite shocking. | ||
| If it's anger without profanity, it can be forceful. | ||
| And when it's trying to make a point, if you really want to get across to everybody in the room, usually if I have to do that, I use it as a double exclamation point so that people understand I mean business. | ||
| And I think just using it just for the use of you, being able to use it, it serves a purpose too in certain professions. | ||
| But when I heard Trump use the F-bomb about, I think it was six months ago, when he was being questioned outside by the helicopter, it wasn't shocking, but I never wanted to experience that in the first place. | ||
| But when I heard it, it made perfectly good sense to what he was referring to. | ||
| And I think it can be unbecoming if that's what you're looking for. | ||
| But if you're never around people that use profanity, you will be shocked. | ||
| And that's the point. | ||
| I think that it serves a purpose at times. | ||
| And like I say, for the double exclamation point. | ||
| I don't have a problem with the President of the United States or somebody in Congress using it. | ||
| Maybe if they don't shout it into the microphone, that would be helpful. | ||
| But if it does happen to come over the airways, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Paul there in Idaho, thank you for the call. | ||
| This is Greg Moser off of Facebook saying embracing profanity while promoting, quote, Christian family values. | ||
| The hypocrisy is the issue. | ||
| Presidents used to speak softly and carry a big stick. | ||
| Now they rant loudly and carry, quote, concepts of plans. | ||
| This is Amy Ford from Facebook saying that no issue with occasional profanity, but the middle school insults constantly rolling out of the president are beneath the office of the president and prove his lack of intellect. | ||
| Jim Dahmer says, you know, it's nice to have a president who talks like the rest of us, who have to get up every morning and put their boots on before they go to work. | ||
| Facebook available to you as well as X, if you want to give us your thoughts there. | ||
| Text us too if you want. | ||
| 202748-8003 is how you do that. | ||
| In Minnesota, this is from Alexa and St. Paul on this idea of profanity and insults being part of political rhetoric and if it's a big deal. | ||
| Alexa, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I was in the Navy for six years and it's just there's talk like that constantly and I resisted it. | ||
| I never adopted that type of language. | ||
| And I've always taught my children that if they use any language like that, they'll be in big trouble. | ||
| I immediately correct them. | ||
| But now I've noticed that it's just our culture. | ||
| It is widespread. | ||
| You can't even listen to a person speak without them interjecting all this nasty language. | ||
| And about six months ago, maybe it was a year, I was listening to the PBS News Hour. | ||
| It was a piece about academic censorship of some sort. | ||
| And it was a professor, a Yale law professor, being interviewed. | ||
| And he was using a lot of bad language. | ||
| And it just seems to me like nobody can keep their language clean. | ||
| And nobody should have to talk like that to get there, to make their point. | ||
| And if they do talk like that, it's called an ad hominem attack, an ad hon, ad hoc attack. | ||
| And that's a logical fallacy. | ||
| Do you think that politicians should be held to a higher standard then when it comes to this use of this type of language? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, absolutely. | |
| And I hope it can be reversed by having this discussion. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Alexa there in Minnesota giving her thoughts on this. | ||
| Let's hear from Bartholomew and Washington State. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, good morning. | ||
| I just disagree on the political rhetoric when there's a lot of foul language or any of that elementary kid sandbox talk, yelling, and just belittling or using vulgar language to intimidate anybody in the arena of the political spectrum. | ||
| I think that what Donald J. Trump has done in this political arena with his mouth, it has just infested nothing but negativity in the past GOP Republican Party. | ||
| And I think it's terrible because I believe as a Democrat that there needs to be two parties with two political objectives in an arena that can balance each other out with debate. | ||
| I remember when I was a kid growing up, they had debate teams and they taught you how to speak proper debate without using foul language in a public arena. | ||
| It just reminds me back growing up in the 60s and 70s, that base of how to speak publicly in a public debate. | ||
| And now in a public arena up to the 2000s and beyond, Donald Trump has just made the public arena for both parties just infested it with negativity. | ||
| And it's infesting with racism on the public spectrum because of that. | ||
| And it just reminds me of how the KKK and all the kids growing up with the parents back in the 60s and 70s, it was okay for them to walk around in their little white hooded capes. | ||
| That's Bartholomew there in Washington State. | ||
| That Associated Press article, by the way, takes a look a little of the history of the use of this type of language. | ||
| Going back to 2010, then Vice President Joe Biden talking about the ceremony for the Affordable Care Act then, saying that the event there was a big, and he uses an expletive deal. | ||
| Talks about the president himself, President Trump, talking about in recent days, disparaging Haiti and African nations using an expletive there. | ||
| It goes to the former, the current vice president, JD Vance, calling a podcast host an expletive there. | ||
| You can read all these if you want later on. | ||
| And then Kamala Harris, too, among the Democrats, the former vice president, former presidential candidate, condemning the Trump administration, using expletives to describe the Trump administration, but also taking a look at how this type of language being used by both parties over the years. | ||
| You can highlight those. | ||
| Some of you have as far as your comments are concerned. | ||
| Let's go to Sandra. | ||
| Sandra in Virginia in Waynesboro. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi there. | ||
| I was thinking back to when I was a child and our grandmother washed our teeth with soap if we called each other stupid or dumbbell because she said that was kidding. | ||
| And that if you have a point to make, she said, you can make it without cussing your brother. | ||
| If you have no point to make, then just shut up and don't say anything. | ||
| And I think we could apply that same thing to politicians. | ||
| If they have a point to make, if they have something to lift us up towards a goal that this country supposedly was founded on, the liberation of people, the elevation of people as the point of governance. | ||
| If we have that, if we have some noble thing to lift up, we don't need to lace it with profanity. | ||
| If we have no point to make and we just want to make people pay attention to us and show what big people we are, then we run around inserting a few tough words in there and show everybody we're just as tough as the other guy. | ||
| It doesn't make me think anybody is tougher or smarter or better. | ||
| It makes me think that they're very little-minded and have nothing much to say to me. | ||
| And when I hear somebody use that kind of language, I turn the TV to something more elevating to watch, maybe something on PBS or something on BBC. | ||
| I just do not listen to people who insist on using language that draws us downward, that makes us lesser, that makes us sound like that we are sliding backwards down the whatever you call it that we're on as far as people, | ||
| oh, my 81-year-old mind won't get the word, but people go upwards, they elevate, they go forwards, but if you go backwards to having to use playground language, as far as I'm concerned, that's something I don't want to participate in. | ||
| Sandra won't participate in it. | ||
| Sandra there in Virginia giving us her thoughts. | ||
| You heard the thoughts of Mitch Daniels previously, recently on our program. | ||
| We had the president and co-founder of Real Clear Politics, Tom Bevan, on the show. | ||
| He responded to this idea of course language and rhetoric, specifically to comments made by the former president of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels. | ||
| Here's some of that from a recent Washington Journal program. | ||
| Profanity used to be, I mean, it's existed in politics, certainly, but it's always been more private. | ||
| And we saw that, and we've seen that with, you know, if you read histories and biographies, there were plenty of presidents who were very profane. | ||
| They just didn't do it in public, but it has seeped into our seeped into our public discourse and particularly over the last few years. | ||
| Again, I think, you know, Donald Trump has just thrown so many wrenches into our system. | ||
| Democrats would argue he's the one who's lowered the standards. | ||
| And certainly Trump has cursed in public more than I think most presidents. | ||
| But Democrats' response to that has been to curse at Donald Trump because their base wants to see them fight. | ||
| They want to see this sense of outrage and indignancy against Donald Trump. | ||
| And that's led people to one expression of that is to curse. | ||
| And we've seen that all the way. | ||
| I mean, the former Vice President Kamal Harris on our book tour has done that repeatedly in public. | ||
| So it is a problem. | ||
| And I understand his point. | ||
| It is a crossing of a line that perhaps we're never going to go back into. | ||
| I think social media has contributed to that as well. | ||
| We managed to say things online to people, terrible things, that we would never say to someone's face. | ||
| And so that has, it's also become a part of our discourse to see that kind of language used online. | ||
| And so I totally get his point, but I'm not sure that that's a genie that can be put back in the bottle. | ||
| You heard our guest there reference social media. | ||
| That's the thought of Steve Fox off Facebook this morning when it comes to this idea of the use of profanity and insult as political rhetoric, saying what has changed in almost every word uttered is recorded by someone. | ||
| Social media is a huge factor in the instant communication and instant gratification age. | ||
| Barb from Illinois texting us saying the use of profanity and insults by politicians needs to be curtailed. | ||
| It has no place in politics at this time. | ||
| Sandra, let's hear from Joy. | ||
| Joy in Chicago. | ||
| Hello, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Profanity is like a fruit. | ||
| Biblically, we call it a fruit. | ||
| You know the person by the fruit that they bear. | ||
| I grew up in a parochial school. | ||
| I don't know if it's true, but the nuns used to teach that profanity was spit out when they were giving exorcisms, that it was a form of evil. | ||
| Now, I believe that, you know, when profanity is used in a room, the energy shifts. | ||
| It becomes something very dark. | ||
| I don't care if it's a comedian. | ||
| I don't care who it is, a politician. | ||
| I believe it's like, like I consider, I hate to say it, it's president like the Pied Piper, because I believe he's leading a lot of people with his rhetoric and things of that nature into dark places. | ||
| So I say be careful with it. | ||
| And like I said, it's a fruit. | ||
| You know the person by the fruit that they bear. | ||
| And when people are up there, they're cussing and swearing. | ||
| It just shifts the energy in the room. | ||
| We were not allowed to curse when I was a child. | ||
| And I don't like people who do do it. | ||
| I think it's way too commonplace. | ||
| I really do. | ||
| Joy there in Chicago. | ||
| Leela is in Texas. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you so much for having me. | |
| But I am a retired school teacher who wants all of the kids to listen to the people who are running for office and to know them. | ||
| But in my household, my father and mother did not curse. | ||
| My dad is cursed words, but Jesus Christ. | ||
| And I don't like to hear any curse words on TV. | ||
| And they use the D word often. | ||
| And I just think that people holding office, and you know, kids may grow up too and want to hold office. | ||
| And I don't want them to think that it's all right to curse in public and do things like that. | ||
| So that is my reason. | ||
| Thank you so very much for having me. | ||
| Leela there in Texas. | ||
| There was a recent poll taking a look at the idea of rhetoric overall, aside from profanity and insults. | ||
| But this is what people had to say about this idea of going too far with rhetoric. | ||
| It was a Gallup poll from October saying that when it comes to this idea, 69% said that about the Republican Party, that parties have gone too far when it comes to rhetoric, and 60% believes that it applies to the Democratic Party and Democrats when it comes to the idea of parties going too far with rhetoric. | ||
| Rhetoric is what we're talking about, but specifically this idea of profanity and insults as part of that rhetoric. | ||
| Is it a big deal is how we're framing the question. | ||
| And you can give us the answers there on the phone lines. | ||
| You can text us if you wish, some of you posting on our social media sites. | ||
| We'll hear from Ann next. | ||
| Ann is in Ohio. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I believe that politicians should be held to the same expectations as our teachers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As a teacher, I'm expected to be professional and dignified in the classroom and when I am out in public, when I am not teaching. | |
| If your child's teacher acted like the class was president, would you tolerate that behavior from your child's teacher? | ||
| What if your child came home from school and said that their teacher told him to shut up, Piggy? | ||
| That's Ann there in Ohio. | ||
| Ryan is in Massachusetts. | ||
| Ryan, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I've seen the topic on your television this morning. | ||
| And, you know, nobody is actually talking about how we try to use political correctness in our society to try and reduce speech, and that includes politicians, right? | ||
| I've been tried to shut, been shut down by local government, by colleges, and now the Washington establishment tries to restrict Trump on his speech. | ||
| I mean, give me a break. | ||
| What happens in this country is Trump is a breath of fresh air because what he does is he calls out politicians for their retarded policies, and they can't handle it. | ||
| And he keeps winning on every issue, and it drives them absolutely insane. | ||
| The reality is he's talking the truth on the border. | ||
| He's talking the truth about immigration, and he's talking the truth about the transgender issue. | ||
| Well, and talking about, let me ask you this, and talking about this, does profanity and insults have to be part of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the thing is, is either we have free speech in this country and that includes speech you don't like, or it's not at all. | |
| And as far as I'm concerned, if you're offended, offer an argument. | ||
| It's just like these people on social media, they try and justify blocking you and everything, and then they'll sit there and lecture you about free speech. | ||
| Same thing with local governments, and same thing with professors at college. | ||
| I've experienced it myself. | ||
| So as far as I'm concerned, just because people can't handle a little bit of off-the-cuff speech, I mean, give me a break. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear from Ray. | ||
| Ray in Arizona. | ||
| Hello there. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| We've come a long way since Red Butler got a lot of crap for saying damn in a movie. | ||
| My grandfather, grandmother used to have a cushbox. | ||
| And whenever my grandpa cussed, you discussed where he had to record her in the cushbox. | ||
| I don't know what to do about the president, but people in Congress start fining them for being, you know, using vulgar language in the world, anyhow. | ||
| But it's, yeah, he had gone way, way too far. | ||
| If you can't keep a super tongue in your head, you're not going to get my vote. | ||
| But does that include all profanity and insult? | ||
| Does it include a string of profanity? | ||
| Is there a line to be drawn in your mind? | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, the ones you probably are saying, you can use it as like to accent your speech. | |
| But, you know, it needs a really hell or a damn now and then, something like that. | ||
| But yeah, the really vulgar things, like, you know, the airborne and things like that. | ||
| No, that just does not belong. | ||
| It just doesn't in the political arena. | ||
| Ray there in Arizona. | ||
| This is from a recent, recent, it was back in May that Forbes published this article about this idea of profanity and its use. | ||
| It just says this. | ||
| Polls taken over the years reveal another pattern. | ||
| Social norms may change. | ||
| But a substantial number of Americans don't like to hear profanity. | ||
| In a 1995 ABC News question, 72% said it would bother them to hear an adult regularly curse or use swear words in conversation, while a quarter said it would not. | ||
| In 2010, 35% told CBS news pollsters they were bothered a lot when they were people who use swear words or curse in conversation. | ||
| 24% bothered some, 15% a little, and 23% were not bothered at all. | ||
| In a 2022 Harris ex-Deseret news poll, there were huge age gaps. | ||
| So 26% of 18 to 34-year-olds compared to 68% of those 65 and older, cursing bothered them a lot or some. | ||
| In a 2024 Pew Poll, 38% cursing out loud in public was never acceptable, 27% rarely, 23%, sometimes 9% usually, or so on. | ||
| That was from May. | ||
| We're asking about this idea of profanity and insults being part of political rhetoric. | ||
| What you think about that? | ||
| Do you think it's a big deal or not? | ||
| 202748-8000 for the Eastern and Central time zones. | ||
| 202748-8001 for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. | ||
| And 202748-8003, if you want to send us a text on your thoughts on the matter, let's go to Larry. | ||
| Larry is in Nebraska. | ||
| Larry, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to say, you know, it works both ways. | ||
| A lot of these Democrats are calling in and saying Trump with bad words are really the biggest hypocrites in the world. | ||
| Because the last 30, 40 years, the Democrats and the media has called me a racist, a bigot, a home frog, all kinds of nasty names, Nazis lately, a whole bunch of names. | ||
| And when it comes to that, let's look at it this way. | ||
| You wouldn't go up to a black man and call him the N-word. | ||
| So why would you call a person a racist, a white supremacist, a Nazi? | ||
| It's not good. | ||
| And I think a lot of times, a racist is somebody who wants to kill you or hurt you. | ||
| Well, back specifically to this idea of profanity and insults, is it acceptable never by a politician in some cases? | ||
| How would you define that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, yes, I think in certain cases, it's okay, maybe a slip of a word once in a while might be okay. | |
| But to actually, you got to realize it's profanity the same as Reddick bearing false witness against people, calling them Nazis and dictators and racists. | ||
| Like I said, racist, somebody wants to hurt you or kill you. | ||
| A racist is not somebody you disagree with. | ||
| Just because you disagree with them doesn't make them a racist. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to Aaron. | ||
| Aaron in Georgia. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| My point on the profanity is that it is immoral, unethical, and uncivil. | ||
| And for a leader of a country to do this, he sets the tone for the nation, and he represents the nation. | ||
| With Donald Trump, it was a departure from civility. | ||
| When you look at President Obama, he's pretty eloquent. | ||
| And I think that with Donald Trump came in, he couldn't match that. | ||
| And as far as the racism and fascism, those are two different things. | ||
| We were talking about profanity. | ||
| When you talk about somebody being a racist or a fascist, if you could look it up. | ||
| And civil discourse is always a part of this government. | ||
| And when you have a president that calls half of the country that he hates them and calls them names, it really is very divisive. | ||
| That's my feeling. | ||
| That's Aaron there in Georgia. | ||
| It was back earlier this month at a cabinet meeting that the president in referring to Somali immigrants using a name to describe those people. | ||
| Here is a portion of that from earlier this month. | ||
| Somalia, which is barely a country. | ||
| You know, they have no anything. | ||
| They just run around killing each other. | ||
| There's no structure. | ||
| And when I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, who I don't know at all, but I always watch her for years. | ||
| I've watched her complain about our Constitution, how she's being treated badly, our Constitution, the United States of America is a bad place. | ||
| It hates everybody, hates Jewish people, hates everybody. | ||
| And I think she's an incompetent person. | ||
| She's a real terrible person. | ||
| But when I watch what is happening in Minnesota, the land of a thousand lakes or however many lakes they have, and they got a lot of lakes, but this beautiful place. | ||
| And I see these people ripping it off. | ||
| And now I'm understanding. | ||
| And you're going to look at that scout. | ||
| I hear they ripped off Somalians, ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions. | ||
| Every year. | ||
| Billions of dollars. | ||
| And they contribute nothing. | ||
| The welfare is like 88%. | ||
| They contribute nothing. | ||
| I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you. | ||
| Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't care. | |
| I don't want them in our country. | ||
| Their country is no good for a reason. | ||
| Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country. | ||
| I could say that about other countries, too. | ||
| I can say it about other countries too. | ||
| We don't want them to hell. | ||
| We have to rebuild our country. | ||
| You know, our country's at a tipping point. | ||
| We could go bad. | ||
| We're at a tipping point. | ||
| I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying that we could go one way or the other. | ||
| And we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. | ||
| Elon Omar is garbage. | ||
| She's garbage. | ||
| Her friends are garbage. | ||
| These aren't people that work. | ||
| These aren't people that say, let's go. | ||
| Come on, let's make this place great. | ||
|
unidentified
|
These are people that do nothing but complain. | |
| They complained. | ||
| And from where they came from, they got nothing. | ||
| You know, they came from paradise and they said this isn't paradise. | ||
| But when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country. | ||
| Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. | ||
| Again, earlier this month, you can see the whole cabinet meeting if you're interested in watching the comments of the presidents and others during that event. | ||
| Let's hear from Debbie. | ||
| Debbie's in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Hello, this idea of if it's a big deal for politicians to use profanity and insults. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, anybody, even politicians, comedians, even people I talk to everyday life, I cannot take them using the F-word as punctuation. | |
| I mean, as soon as I hear all that, I lose respect for them. | ||
| I can't hear anything else that they're saying. | ||
| And I actually don't care to really then at that point. | ||
| But that shows me they have no vocabulary. | ||
| They don't have any other words to describe what they're trying to tell me. | ||
| And that's just the way I feel. | ||
| I mean, even nobody mentioned Biden, but he used to really use the words too. | ||
| And Obama would say, oh, that's just so, you know. | ||
| But that's how I feel. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Debbie there in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Dennis will be up next. | ||
| He's in Texas. | ||
| Hello, Dennis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, this is Ernest. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm in Texas. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| All I wanted to say was that I am raising five grandchildren, and I've tried my best to keep their, of course, they hear language here and there. | ||
| But then when Trump came into office, everything was okay. | ||
| It was okay to talk like that because why? | ||
| Because the president. | ||
| President setting an example to these children of how to speak. | ||
| And, you know, besides the other, the subjects and all that, besides all that, the language that Trump is using against everybody else except his own is disgusting. | ||
| They are learning, they are thinking that it's okay to talk like the president, put it that way. | ||
| And they asked me, why do you not let us say those words? | ||
| And our president is saying those words to other people and insulting other people in a way that my children are not allowed to talk like that in my house. | ||
| I hope they don't talk like that anywhere else. | ||
| And I hope they don't grow up talking like Mr. Trump. | ||
| And I'll call him Mr. He's not my president. | ||
| I did not vote for him. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| That's Dennis there in Texas, Linda in Tennessee texting us this morning saying, we expect our president and politicians to be statesmen, someone our children could look up to and admire. | ||
| Now they behave like gutter rats, especially, and that's in quote, the president. | ||
| And then Laura Gossart from Facebook saying, absolutely, leaders should be able to speak without profanity, insults, and just plain down rudeness. | ||
| If you can't, you don't belong there. | ||
| It doesn't make you look anything but dumb. | ||
| I may curse like a sailor, but I'm not trying to be a president. | ||
| I'm not, absolutely don't want my president or any other governmental leaders to either keep it professional or you have no business holding that position. | ||
| Let's hear the thoughts of Betty. | ||
| Betty in South Carolina, if it's a big deal for politicians to use profanity and insults. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Betty. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I can't, Donald Trump don't say no more than the Democrats. | ||
| Why don't y'all put on something that they all saying? | ||
| They've called him everything but a human being. | ||
| No, it's always Donald Trump, Donald Trump. | ||
| CNN, that's all they do. | ||
| That's all they do. | ||
| It ain't just Donald Trump. | ||
| Why everybody about Donald Trump? | ||
| It should be about the Democrats. | ||
| That's what it should be about because he's doing a good job. | ||
| I give him an A-plus all the way up. | ||
| Well, what about this overall idea of politicians who use profanity and insults? | ||
| What do you think about that overall, aside from the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, they shouldn't. | |
| Why should one could do it? | ||
| The Republicans and Democrats, they do it. | ||
| What's the difference? | ||
| And the Republicans and the Democrats is doing it. | ||
| They do the same thing. | ||
| They stay on that man all the time. | ||
| That's all you hear of Jefferson. | ||
| He's one of them. | ||
| Chuck Schumer's another one. | ||
| And Nancy Pelosi, all of them. | ||
| Max Waters or whatever, they all say bad things about him all the time. | ||
| That's all you hear. | ||
| I hear more from Democrats than I do with Republicans. | ||
| Okay, that's Betty there in South Carolina. | ||
| It was from the fall where the former vice president and presidential candidate Kamala Harris was on a book tour and asking and answering questions about the Trump administration and specifically health and human services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy using profanity during that exchange. | ||
| Here's a portion of it. | ||
| And when I see what these people are doing right now to end the war on cancer, to deny science and fire scientists, Kara, it's personal for me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It's personal for me. | ||
| And I can't laugh at it because like so many of you who have known people who suffer because of unknown diseases or cancers for which there are no cures or there is the beginning of, but more work that needs to be done for the cure, what they are doing to push misinformation and lies at the highest level of government, it's criminal. | ||
| And people will die because of what they're doing. | ||
| I can't laugh about that. | ||
| sorry again that event from earlier this fall if you want to look it up go to our website at c-span.org access our video library and then you can hear the full comments of the former vice president there amongst others Again, that's available to you at c-span.org. | ||
| Stephanie in Ashburn, Virginia, you are up next. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Thanks for your call. | ||
| I'm just going to say that I agree with most of the commenters, but I really, really wish that we could go back to where the media does not emphasize all of this rhetoric because I think that makes it worse. | ||
| I think the cussing from all the presidents and all these educated people cheapens that leadership. | ||
| And like others said, we're trying to teach our kids that words matter and decorum is important. | ||
| And I do hope America can get back to that. | ||
| I just agree with everybody, but I just wanted to say that piece because this is really on my heart. | ||
| I want a real president back who focuses on what he's supposed to do and not all this Broadway rhetoric to stir people up just to get elected. | ||
| Well, I mean, why do you think it's wrong specifically to use this type of rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they think it gets votes. | |
| For some reason, there's some people, I guess, it resonates to them and they say, yeah, he's strong, he's this, he's that. | ||
| And then the others try to play the game. | ||
| And so it's like their little game, and we're sort of like the audience, and we're not really participating. | ||
| I just want to vote like I used to. | ||
| It was fun to do, and now it's not anymore. | ||
| And like someone said, we don't know so much misinformation, so much, nothing, much to do about nothing except what we're interested in. | ||
| It's like their little game, and we're just people watching it happen. | ||
| And it's just, oh, thank you anyway, but that's basically what I wanted to say. | ||
| Sure enough, Stephanie there in Virginia. | ||
| We'll hear from Randy. | ||
| Randy joins us from Wisconsin. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Got a couple of quick things, and I don't believe the political rhetoric should be used the way it's been used. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I'll give you a couple examples. | |
| It has on both sides. | ||
| Play that clip of the Democratic rally that they had in D.C., where that one woman got up and said, I hope my two daughters aren't listening. | ||
| And it was everyone got up when it was an F-Trump, F-Trump. | ||
| That was on the Democratic side. | ||
| Trump said he's getting on the helicopter one time, and I think he said it before. | ||
| But as far as rhetoric and the way Trump speaks to some of these reporters, I mean, they ask him a gotcha question, but they don't talk and ask questions about what the subject is that day where you're interviewing a dignitary or whatever. | ||
| Well, they're trying to get a gotcha question. | ||
| That's why Trump gets on these reporters of asking stupid questions. | ||
| And he tells that. | ||
| And I'm for it as far as when they deserve it. | ||
| You know, look at what CBS did when they changed the wording around on the January 6th deal. | ||
| You know, that was just trying to get Trump. | ||
| Don't do that to President Trump. | ||
| Trump's not putting up with it. | ||
| Every other president put up with it. | ||
| Trump is not putting up with it. | ||
| He tells it like it is, and I'm for him 100% on what he does. | ||
| He does get out of line sometimes, but, you know, I don't blame him. | ||
| I don't blame him for what he does. | ||
| But anyway, that's my point. | ||
| Thanks, Pedro. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Randy there in Wisconsin. | ||
| You can continue on the conversation by giving us a call on this idea of profanity and insults as part of rhetoric. | ||
| Do you think it's a big deal? | ||
| 202-748-8,000 for the Eastern and Central time zones. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. | ||
| And 202-748-8003. | ||
| If you want to text us your thoughts on the topic this morning, the Associated Press article I showed you earlier adds this when it comes to the idea of coarseness and political rhetoric, saying as both parties prepare for the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential campaign, the question is whether this language will become increasingly mainstream. | ||
| Republicans who simply try to imitate the president's brash style do not always succeed with voters. | ||
| Democrats who turn to vulgarities risk appearing inauthentic if their words feel forced. | ||
| For some, it's just a distraction. | ||
| Quote, it's not necessary. | ||
| That's Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring next year after winning five elections of one of the most competitive House districts. | ||
| He adds, if that's what it takes to get your point across, you're not a good communicator. | ||
| The words about Don Bacon there as part of that article. | ||
| We showed you the headline. | ||
| It's from the Associated Press in the last couple of days to this idea. | ||
| If you want to look it up online and read it for yourself. | ||
| Let's hear from Lloyd. | ||
| Lloyd in Whitestone, Virginia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm 72 years old and I'm listening to what's going on. | ||
| The bottom line of talk is very important because if you don't believe it, look at the billions of dollars spending comedians and they spend on the media and everything for commercials and things of that sort. | ||
| So presidents and people in leadership, it's very important that they speak the right things you have, which called locker rum talk. | ||
| This is very important so you get a chance for everybody to say what they want to say and then you can go back and respond to everyone can respond. | ||
| Get it out there, but make sure you get it out there in the right way. | ||
| So what's going on there is all this negative thought calling people all different names. | ||
| From one blood comes all people. | ||
| We have to know this. | ||
| And so you don't call these countries that you're putting down on. | ||
| They were being abused back in the day. | ||
| Big Cummins went over, did all kinds of stuff. | ||
| So the bottom lines, we got to come ahead and realize that this is 2025. | ||
| It's supposed to be. | ||
| We should be more civilized. | ||
| And words are very important, what you're saying. | ||
| So leadership, they shouldn't be involved in this freedom of speech thing because they affect them in the people. | ||
| And so that's got to be clarified. | ||
| It's being used too broadly. | ||
| Lloyd there in Virginia. | ||
| Here's the headline, by the way, that I referenced before when it comes to the Associated Press. | ||
| WTF embracing profanity is one thing both political parties seem to agree on. | ||
| If you want to read some of the comments that I've been reading from this morning, Bob is next in San Diego. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Pedro. | |
| I wanted to just, well, I was, it says political rhetoric and all this stuff. | ||
| I think the actions are more important. | ||
| My parents are getting older, like in their 80s, and I'm getting older. | ||
| And so I thought, you know, I'd scan my grandfather's records onto the computer because they're not on the computer. | ||
| I would, you know, scan his history, and that way my family would have some something to look at. | ||
| So, I'm scanning his military record. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He was a prisoner of war. | |
| And so, when I'm going through, I see all these envelopes, and one of them was a card that said Geneva Convention card with his name on it, laminated. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Said, mail it in if you lose this card. | |
| Sorry if I'm a little broken up. | ||
| Anyways, I started thinking President Trump's bombing people that are hanging on boats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There is no Geneva Convention anymore. | |
| Well, back to the topic at hand: political insults and profanity. | ||
| What do you think specifically about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Actions. | |
| Actions instead of political. | ||
| What are they saying? | ||
| It's actions. | ||
| So there's not even a Geneva Convention anymore. | ||
| And I wonder about what's going to happen to our, you know, if we have prisoners, there's some war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And, you know, my grandfather was in the Japanese camp for three years from, you know, 42 to 40, 45. | |
| You know, got your point, Bob. | ||
| Thanks for calling. | ||
| Let's hear from CJ in Mississippi. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| CJ in Mississippi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
| How are you doing this morning? | ||
| Fine. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| It doesn't matter which side it is, Republican, Democrat, or Independent. | ||
| I mean, as leaders, you're supposed to be standing above everything else. | ||
| You're supposed to exhaust yourself to where, because you got kids out there listening to you, and you're supposed to be leaders of the United States of America. | ||
| And using vulgarity in recording, it shouldn't be even allowed. | ||
| So I don't think it's even, I just don't understand leaders today. | ||
| Because they don't set a good example for people in America. | ||
| And it doesn't matter, like I said, which side it is on, independent, whatever. | ||
| It doesn't matter. | ||
| It shouldn't be allowed. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| CJ there in Mississippi. | ||
| Jerome is next. | ||
| Jerome's in Pennsylvania. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes. | ||
| My thing on profanity is when you got a president, a person who's supposed to have moral values, cussing, calling people names, disrespect. | ||
| I was brought up to respect. | ||
| We don't became a country that disrespects. | ||
| We accept no morals. | ||
| We accept a man who called everybody names that I mean, my mom will whoop my behind for. | ||
| And then we have people calling the president. | ||
| So I just don't get that. | ||
| So are you saying it's unacceptable amongst all presidents and political leaders, or is it the president, the current president that just stands out for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I tell you, it's disrespectful for anybody. | |
| I mean, we were brought up to treat people with respect and talk to them with respect. | ||
| America has become a country with no moral values. | ||
| And we got a man up there representing us with no moral values whatsoever. | ||
| And we have people calling in, calling him a president. | ||
| No one on this planet respects America because of that man. | ||
| Okay, Jerome there. | ||
| Lynn will join us next in North Carolina. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I was the same. | |
| I'm pretty much the same with him. | ||
| If you got a president that sits up and calls people names and screens, look at your mouth. | ||
| Your mouth is the key to your soul. | ||
| If a man can sit on nationwide TV and degrade another man because he got murdered in his household, what did that say about him? | ||
| If he's that, you know, if he's that evil inside and he sits and he disgraces everybody, he attacks everybody and can't, he attacks everybody else because he can't take it. | ||
| And we sitting there a president that had the mauls of a halley cat. | ||
| And that's all I got to say about that. | ||
| We just got a president that just, it ain't never been this bad in 70 years. | ||
| I'm 70 years old. | ||
| I never seen nothing like this. | ||
| Okay, that's Lynn there in North Carolina. | ||
| It was a recent conversation with Utah's Governor Spencer Cox in which he was talking about the idea of civility and bringing it back to political discourse. | ||
| He did reference President Trump's rhetoric. | ||
| Here's that exchange from earlier this month. | ||
| Look, there are people that admire him and want his bluntness and want that because they feel like the times call for it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And in fairness to them, they think the time for polite dialogue is over. | |
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So how do you respond to all of these varying factors? | |
| Sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So this is the thing that always comes up, right? | ||
| And there's two things I want to say. | ||
| So one, I think if President Trump were here right now, he would tell you that this isn't his thing. | ||
| And he would be very honest about that. | ||
| I think he was very honest about it at the celebration of Charlie Kirk's life. | ||
| And he and I have had this conversation. | ||
| And it was interesting after the press conference, when I talked, when I shared so passionately how I felt about bringing our country together, he called me and he thanked me and he said, I appreciate that you said that. | ||
| And I liked that part. | ||
| And he was asked afterwards, he said, Do you agree with Governor Cox that we should practice nonviolence? | ||
| And he said, yes, I agree with him 100%. | ||
| Now, that didn't get as much attention, obviously. | ||
| And I'm not trying to play down his divisive rhetoric at all. | ||
| I'm not going to do that. | ||
| But I'm going to say this. | ||
| If we think that a president of the United States or a governor is going to change where we are right now, we're fooling ourselves. | ||
| I truly believe that our, I true believe that the people of our country are the ones who are going to have to change this. | ||
| Our elected officials are a reflection on us. | ||
| They're a reflection on we the people. | ||
| This idea that we feel it's okay to scream and interrupt now. | ||
| We've given a pass to this type of boorish behavior for far too long. | ||
| And this is what we get. | ||
| If we want to change what's happening in Washington, D.C., we, the people, have to decide that this is not who we are. | ||
| We have to demand better. | ||
| There is a there is an exhausted majority in this country. | ||
| 70% of Americans hate what's happening in politics right now. | ||
| They're desperate for something different. | ||
| And yes, you can point at the president, but I'm just here to tell you that neither party is interested in addressing that market failure right now. | ||
| Remarks made earlier this month, available for viewing at our website at cspan.org. | ||
| Philip, hello there from West Virginia. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I feel like we're discussing or the discussion has been diverted too much into curse words and oh, curse words are bad. | |
| And the real rhetoric, the real talk that is corroding our system is it started years ago, Democrats and the left calling everybody who disagreed with them a racist. | ||
| Well, 20 years ago, that was a serious charge. | ||
| And they just used it on everybody. | ||
| And that started the slide to where we are now with not just people on the left calling Trump Hitler, but they've transitioned now to where they're calling voters, attacking the voting public as being Nazis and homophobes and all the way down the list, Hillary's basket of deplorables. | ||
| They're attacking voters now, other Americans, not the politicians. | ||
| And the left is reveling in that because they think they're making points. | ||
| Nobody cares if Tim Waltz says the F word. | ||
| I've heard him say that several times. | ||
| And it just shows that he can't express himself. | ||
| He's just a small-minded person. | ||
| It doesn't create the hate and foment the hate that this left and Democrats have enshrined by calling everybody who disagrees with them a Nazi, a white supremacist, a white nationalist, a slamophobe. | ||
| They're demonizing other people. | ||
| Go to a YouTube video of an anti-Trump rally and watch them scream at people with a Trump t-shirt, scream at them that they're Nazis and murderers and terrible, horrible people. | ||
| Well, that said, is it acceptable to you by the president himself for the use of that kind of rhetoric or use of insults? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would rather he not do that. | |
| I think he creates unnecessary controversy, just like, I mean, the subject of this part of the C-SPAN. | ||
| I think it's unnecessary. | ||
| It's very different, though. | ||
| It's a very different thing when he calls a reporter or some official an idiot or like Tim Waltz a retard. | ||
| I think that's bad taste myself. | ||
| But he's not calling the voters. | ||
| He's not labeling everybody who supports Kamala Harris as a fascist or a Nazi. | ||
| Everything from the left now is how Trump voters are fascists. | ||
| They are horrible. | ||
| Okay, Philip there in West Virginia. | ||
| Let's hear from David in Louisiana. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Pedro. | ||
| Good to see you. | ||
| Look, it seems, though, that the problem is people take offense to certain words. | ||
| And so you the one who chooses to be offended or embarrassed or whatever. | ||
| I think, you know, I don't have education. | ||
| But I'm embarrassed way more about some of the policies that they propose. | ||
| Some of the ideas are way worse than any cuss words. | ||
| God bless you, Mr. Pedro. | ||
| Ruben is next. | ||
| Ruben joins us from Philadelphia. | ||
| Hello, Ruben. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, can you hear me? | |
| I can. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think they need to separate it from profanity and insults because every once in a while somebody might spit something out of profanity by mistake. | |
| But the insults that are directly coming from the President of the United States is just deplorable, like Hillary Clinton said. | ||
| On Christmas, on Christmas Day, would he just get up and just criticize everybody on the left with this 200 report from on his true social? | ||
| When he first came down the escalator, he was talking violence, talking about, hey, if you see anybody from the left out here, knock them out. | ||
| And some white guy just knocked out this black guy right there while he was running for president in his first term. | ||
| He sat there and refers to Jeremy Diamond as somebody that was just born without the brains that God gave him. | ||
| And one of the other reporters from CNN had to stop, step in, and say, hey, you can't talk to Jeremy like this. | ||
| And the way he is just talking to people and calling them garbage and just calling them sickening. | ||
| And for anybody to sit there and tell me that they're naming the name of Jesus and you support this, whereas though the book of James says, what greater fire a little tongue can set a forth, this guy is just deplorable. | ||
| And his people know it. | ||
| As a matter of fact, J.D. Banks was the one that first called him American Hitler. | ||
| So stop blaming the people on the left for us calling you Nazis when you're on vice president. | ||
| Okay, Rick in Los Angeles. | ||
| Hello there. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes, I'm Rick in Los Angeles. | |
| Yeah, I agree with the second to the next caller. | ||
| It's not what the man says, it's what he does. | ||
| And Trump produces all your colors. | ||
| Obviously, they didn't vote for him. | ||
| And as far as the kids, a lot of these colors, cussing fans, they're kids. | ||
| If the kids don't hear cussing from their parents, they're going to hear it at school with the kids and their friends. | ||
| They're going to hear it anyway because it's all our profanity is around us. | ||
| You can't get over profanity. | ||
| And yeah, but politicians shouldn't be held to a higher standard? | ||
| They should be held to a higher standard. | ||
| But look, you had politicians that were eloquent like Obama, but they lied to us to get the Obamacare. | ||
| How affordable is the Affordable Care Act now? | ||
| He lied to us. | ||
| They sold our jobs to China and Mexico. | ||
| But they were very eloquent. | ||
| Listen, the man is not perfect. | ||
| He's human. | ||
| And but if he was, if his speech was perfect, he'd be like a god because he gets things done. | ||
| He's got so much, he's bringing 18 trillion dollars to this country. | ||
| None of the other presidents ever did that. | ||
| The man's been a lot of trust pressure. | ||
| They tried to lock him up for life. | ||
| Listen, he's got to let off some steam. | ||
| He's only human. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| This will be from Claude in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| I'm well, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to say the rhetoric between the two parties, it's bad on both sides, but the Democrats use it a lot more than the Republicans. | |
| And the way they use it, the Democrats, is more harmful to the people of the United States and to the other political party than what the Republicans say to the Democrats about the Democrats. | ||
| I'm a Republican, and I agree that it shouldn't be said at all. | ||
| But like I say, the way they say it and the type of wording they use and all, it's wrong. | ||
| And the Democrats are, they're taking it to extremes way farther than the Republicans ever have. | ||
| And that's all I got to say about that. | ||
| Claude in Pennsylvania, finishing off this block of your calls, taking a look at this topic. | ||
| Thank you to all who participated. | ||
| Coming up, we're going to continue Washington Journal's annual Holiday Authors Week series with writers from across the political spectrum whose books touch on important public policy and political issues. | ||
| Joining us next is Chris Whipple. | ||
| He's here to discuss his recent reporting on President Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and his book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series. | |
| This Sunday, with our guest Pulitzer Prize winner, Stacey Schiff, author of biographies, including Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Cleopatra. | ||
| She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| So, writing a second book on Franklin, you must admire him. | ||
| I assume you don't want to write two books on somebody you don't admire, but you do admire him. | ||
| I feel as if he is in all ways admirable in so many ways. | ||
| Just the essential DNA of America. | ||
| His voice is the voice of America, literally. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with Stacey Schiff, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
| And pass president nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kangaroo court. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| We continue our holiday authors week with Chris Whipple, documentary filmmaker, journalist, and political analyst. | ||
| His most recent book, Uncharted, How Trump Beat Biden Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. | ||
| Mr. Whipple, thank you for coming on our program. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| The book came out in April. | ||
| What have you learned about people's reactions to the whole events of last year when it comes to the election and President Trump winning? | ||
| Well, I think we're seeing the results of what was obviously a pivotal election in the history of this country. | ||
| And it was surely the wildest presidential campaign in modern history. | ||
| The only one that compares is probably 1968 with Lyndon Johnson abdicating and two assassinations. | ||
| So look, I think in some ways we're all still reeling and recovering from that extraordinary election. | ||
| And we're now almost a year into Trump 2.0. | ||
| And as you know, that's something I've been writing about as well. | ||
| You have been. | ||
| And one of the things that came out in recent days, related to the book of sorts, is that the Democratic National Committee deciding not to publish their autopsy of why the election went the way it is. | ||
| What do you think about that decision? | ||
| And what can you parallel from the book as far as what you learned about how the DNC reacted during this time? | ||
| Yeah, well, look, I'm not sure it's that earth-shaking the DNC's decision not to publish. | ||
| You may recall the RNC's autopsy published back a few years ago. | ||
| That didn't sit too well with a lot of people. | ||
| And so anyway, I don't put a lot of stock in that. | ||
| But look, I think the lessons are we're still sorting them out. | ||
| And I really think that it fundamentally what happened in 2024 is that Kamala Harris had to be the change candidate in a change election as the sitting vice president of the United States. | ||
| That's a really tough hurdle to clear. | ||
| I think she did very well considering the time she had, certainly through the convention. | ||
| And then I think she stalled coming out of the convention for reasons we can talk about. | ||
| What do you think is chief reason? | ||
| Well, for whatever reason, I think that she reverted to her natural instinct, which is caution. | ||
| I think there was a timidity that set in. | ||
| Even as she left Chicago with the wind in her sails, she retreated and she failed famously to go on Joe Rogan's show. | ||
| You can debate whose fault that was. | ||
| She certainly fumbled that big question that was posed to her on The View when she was asked if she would have done anything differently from Joe Biden. | ||
| That was a major misstep. | ||
| And at the end of the day, I think that that campaign relied too much on turning out the traditional Democratic constituency. | ||
| The big advantage in the Trump campaign, which was led by Susie Wiles, somebody you may have heard of lately, the big advantage they had was that they focused like a laser on traditionally non-unmotivated voters. | ||
| And boy, did they turn them out. | ||
| And I think that was really largely the difference. | ||
| Our guest is with us. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions on a couple of different topics, you might want to ask him about the long-term effects of the last election, the topic of his book, Uncharted. | ||
| You can do that. | ||
| Also, his recent interview with Susie Wells, as he referenced for Vanity Fair, here's how you can ask your questions. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Text us your thoughts at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Mr. Whipple, that interview in Vanity Fair with Susie Wiles, why do you think ultimately she consented to give you that? | ||
| Well, as you know, it was a series of interviews over almost a year, 11 interviews in all that I had with her. | ||
| It was really extraordinary to me, surprising and remarkable that she would be as candid, as kind of freewheeling and unguarded as she was throughout those interviews. | ||
| And look, I've read all the speculation in the press about, oh, she talked to Whipple because she was trying to send a signal that she's getting ready for the post-Trump era and her future, or she's trying to take JD Vance down a notch and elevate Marco Rubio. | ||
| I don't think it was as Machiavellian as that. | ||
| I think it's pretty simple at the end of the day. | ||
| She wanted, she's convinced that Trump was maligned during his first term, unfairly covered. | ||
| She thought she'd get a fair hearing from me, and I think she got it, despite whatever her feelings may be now. | ||
| The other thing I think is that when you're in the West Wing, you really are living in a bubble, exponentially more so in the Trump White House than in others, because she's talking all day long to like-minded acolytes who are all reading from the same playbook. | ||
| And I think at a certain point, you kind of lose track of reality, and you think that what you're saying makes sense in the real world. | ||
| A lot of the stuff she said just sounds crazy in the real world. | ||
| Does that include, in your opinion, some of the characterizations she made of her fellow workmates when she talked about the vice president and this idea about conspiracy theorist Russ Vodafone Zealot saying the president himself had an alcoholics personality? | ||
| When you heard those things, what went through your mind is what she was saying and how you interpreted that. | ||
| Well, I knew she was being extraordinarily candid, speaking out of school. | ||
| I knew it was going to make news, every word of it, because as you know, Susie Wiles has a reputation for being under the radar and not really being out there, rarely giving interviews or being photographed. | ||
| But those characterizations I thought were just honest and colorful. | ||
| What I'm talking about, when I say crazy stuff, I'm talking about how she said out loud that Trump's revenge and retribution tour was ongoing. | ||
| I'm paraphrasing now. | ||
| I'm not quoting her directly. | ||
| But when I pressed her on the subject of Letitia James, she said, oh, well, yeah, that's retribution. | ||
| It's almost a get-out-of-jail free card for Letitia James' attorneys. | ||
| And yet here was the chief of staff to the president of the United States saying clearly that it was all about revenge and political retribution. | ||
| That's the kind of thing you might sit around saying to Stephen Miller, but not to a journalist who's going to report it to the world. | ||
| When you set up these interviews, what were the ground rules? | ||
| The ground rules were we were on the record unless we explicitly agreed otherwise. | ||
| And again, it was extraordinary that she was on the record as much as she was. | ||
| Very rarely asked to go up, but was very precise about it when she did go off the record. | ||
| So from the get-go, this was on the record. | ||
| And I can't tell you how extraordinary that is. | ||
| I wrote a book about the Biden White House, and everybody was on so-called deep background all the time, meaning that you could never quote them unless you came back and got approval for those quotations. | ||
| So I give Susie Wiles enormous credit for being as candid as she was and agreeing to those ground rules. | ||
| And frankly, I give her credit for a number of things in that Vanity Fair piece. | ||
| It's 9,500 words. | ||
| There's plenty of context. | ||
| And I tried to be as fair as I could be. | ||
| What did you think about the White House's reaction once the piece came out? | ||
| Not terribly surprising because, again, I knew, they knew that a lot of the stuff that she had said in unguarded moments were a political problem. | ||
| The candid assessments of JD Vance, a guy who she said is a conspiracy theorist for a decade, calling Russell Vogt a right-wing absolute zealot saying that the president had an alcoholics personality, which evidently, by the way, Trump confirmed and doesn't have a problem with. | ||
| But she knew and the White House knew that they had a political, you know, that they had a political earthquake on their hands. | ||
| They had to circle the wagons. | ||
| And so not terribly surprising. | ||
| Again, this is Chris Whipple giving us his time. | ||
| We've showed you the front page of the Vanity Fair piece. | ||
| You can ask about that. | ||
| The book is current book or the most recent book, Uncharted, How Trump Beat Biden Harrison, the Odds of the Wildest Campaign in History. | ||
| He did mention his other book, The Fighting of His Life, Inside Joe Biden's White House. | ||
| First call for you, sir, comes from Michael. | ||
| Michael joins us from Denver, Independent Line. | ||
| You're on with Chris Whipple. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pedro, good morning. | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| And Mr. Whipple, first of all, I want to say it's a real privilege to speak with you, and thank you so much for writing the book, sir. | ||
| And I had kind of a comment and a question this morning. | ||
| So something you touch on in the book, Uncharted, that was really interesting to me. | ||
| Presidential campaigns have four major attention-getting events or what strategists call moments. | ||
| They're the declaration of candidacy, the convention nomination speech, the televised debates, and the vice presidential candidate selection. | ||
| And with two months remaining until the 2024 election, that September debate with Trump and Harris, it was widely considered a huge moment. | ||
| And, you know, I personally think Kamala Harris was well prepared. | ||
| You know, she had a compelling voice and won that debate easily. | ||
| But the question I wanted to ask you is which of these moments would you have considered most crucial for both candidates, Trump and Harris? | ||
| And who do you think capitalized the most on them? | ||
| Well, no, that's a great question. | ||
| And thanks for the close reading of the book. | ||
| You're right. | ||
| I mean, they're constantly looking for those moments that can change the direction of a race. | ||
| And debates are obviously foremost among those. | ||
| And I think that, you know, Harris was widely considered to have won that debate hands down on the merits. | ||
| And yet, I thought that Trump's performance in that debate was underrated. | ||
| You know, at the end, he kept stressing that Kamala says she would do this and that and the other thing differently. | ||
| Why hasn't she done it? | ||
| She's been there four years. | ||
| You know, why hasn't she done it? | ||
| And he kept repeating that. | ||
| And I thought it was actually quite effective, even as he said, you know, some other pretty crazy stuff, you know, immigrants eating dogs and cats and so forth. | ||
| I thought that he was, I thought his performance. | ||
| Tony, up in New York in Buffalo, Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Mr. Wilpel. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I just, my humble opinion, I'd like to hear from you what you thought that what was the pivotal point where it brought Trump over the top. | ||
| I feel that, you know, I think the years and years of politically correctness people got tired of. | ||
| They got tired of all the nonsense. | ||
| And he finally came out with blunt. | ||
| And yes, maybe his rhetoric could be cleaned up that we need to stop all this rhetoric for both sides. | ||
| But what do you feel that really just put Trump on the top? | ||
| Well, listen, good question. | ||
| And I think you're right that he won the culture war, for sure. | ||
| And remember, that transgender ad was which Kamala Harris really failed to effectively answer was a factor in that. | ||
| But I really think that fundamentally the big problem for Kamala Harris is that there was just this massive anti-incumbent sentiment, not just in the U.S., but around the world. | ||
| Incumbents lost left and right, really since the pandemics. | ||
| And so I think, again, she had to somehow portray herself as the change candidate in a change election. | ||
| And boy, is that tough. | ||
| And she didn't do herself any favors on the view when she was asked what she would do differently. | ||
| And frankly, you know, if you read her memoir, 107 Days, I still don't think she gets it. | ||
| That was an opportunity for her to create a little distance from Biden and say, you know what? | ||
| We blew it on inflation. | ||
| Here's what I'm going to do. | ||
| She didn't do that. | ||
| You wrote in the book about the vice president saying the vice president was navigating a political minefield. | ||
| The slightest misstep, any hint that she was plotting to replace the president could have been politically fatal. | ||
| But while Harris was lying low, her political operation was working behind the scenes. | ||
| To what degree do you think the political operation supporting her campaign was a help or a hindrance? | ||
| Well, it's a complicated answer. | ||
| And, you know, you could argue that I talked about her timidity and her caution coming out of the convention. | ||
| Sometimes that's the fault of consultants. | ||
| I mean, it's often the fault of handlers who try to make sure that the candidate doesn't make a mistake. | ||
| But I think in this case, it was her own innate caution. | ||
| And I think that, again, one of her big failures was not realizing that she had to create distance between herself and Joe Biden. | ||
| And when she talks about that debate, I mean, it's the parents on the View. | ||
| She keeps saying, well, she felt compelled to be loyal to the president. | ||
| Well, Hubert Humphrey was loyal to LBJ, but in the late October of 1968, he broke with LBJ on his conduct of the Vietnam War, and there was a surge. | ||
| He almost caught Richard Nixon. | ||
| We'll never know what might have happened if Kamala Harris had simply said, hey, you know what? | ||
| We need to do something about inflation. | ||
| We need to, you know, I think I disagree with Joe about this. | ||
| We'll just never know what the result might have been. | ||
| Chris Whipple joining us for this conversation, George in Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Hello, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everyone. | |
| Mr. Whipple, I did read your book, cover to cover, and what I noticed the most in the book was that you seemed to want to give the Democrats more of a pass on things than you did the Republicans. | ||
| The problem with that, though, was that the truth kept getting in the way. | ||
| And I was just wondering, you know, why that was, You know, it was a good book, and I did enjoy reading it. | ||
| And I do think that when you're talking about Kamala Harris and Democrats, it was not Kamala Harris's fault that she necessarily lost because of herself, but more the fact that the Democratic Party didn't do their job by saying to Joe Biden, you shouldn't run for a second term. | ||
| Okay, well, interesting, your interpretation, because frankly, I think I was pretty critical of Kamala Harris and gave her hell for the mistakes that I thought she made, including the one I've just been talking about at length on when she appeared on The View, the failure to go on Joe Rogan. | ||
| They should have found a way to do that. | ||
| They should have focused. | ||
| She should have focused on getting traditionally unmotivated voters to the polls the way Susie Wiles and the Trump campaign did. | ||
| There's an interview with Susie Wiles in the epilogue of the book in which Susie Wiles says she couldn't believe how bad Kamala Harris was as a candidate. | ||
| So, boy, you know, I think Kamala Harris might argue with you about the notion that I went easy on her. | ||
| You even write in the book that when it comes to the president himself saying the truth was that Joe Biden was too old to run for re-election, must less govern effectively in a second term. | ||
| His advisors knew this or should have known it, but he refused to face that fact. | ||
| You go on from there. | ||
| Elaborate from there. | ||
| Yeah, look, it was a the reason I was writing another book when Joe Biden had that disastrous debate. | ||
| And I immediately put it aside, called my editor and said, boy, I think I need to do this book. | ||
| Not because I felt I was uniquely qualified to write it, not because I'm smarter than anybody else, but because I had sources at the highest levels of the Biden and Trump campaigns, which I think the book reflects. | ||
| But that was, you know, that was a seminal moment when Joe Biden dropped out of the race, that 11th hour abdication, which left Kamala Harris with too short a runway to really mount a successful campaign. | ||
| And I think it was a tragedy for the Democratic Party. | ||
| It was certainly something that will haunt the Democratic Party for some time to come. | ||
| I mean, I do think that this was scandalous. | ||
| Joe Biden's failure from hubris or whatever, his failure to step aside earlier, and the failure of his inner circle to recognize that he needed to get out of the way. | ||
| You mentioned Susie Wils. | ||
| I want to elaborate. | ||
| What do you think she did right? | ||
| Well, one of the things I think she did right in the campaign was, again, her strategy, which she told me all about in great detail, and which, by the way, readers will be able to check out in my next book, which is a history of presidential campaign managers, the kingmakers. | ||
| So watch for that. | ||
| But her genius, it seems to me, was very simple. | ||
| They focused like a laser on, again, the unmotivated voters that don't usually get to the polls, but they knew that there were a lot of Trump voters among them. | ||
| And what they did was they rallied them. | ||
| And I think those voters made the difference in the swing states. | ||
| And I think the Democrats, the Harris campaign, focused too much on the traditional sort of Democratic constituencies. | ||
| And they missed the vote. | ||
| referencing that Vanity Fair article with Susie Wells. | ||
| She responded, you know clearly, and this is what's part of what she said, significant context was disregarded of much of what I and others said about the team and the president was left out of the story. | ||
| I assume after reading it that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president and our team. | ||
| What do you think of that characterization? | ||
| Well, let's be clear here that she's not talking about my campaign book. | ||
| She's talking about the Vanity Fair two-part series that I wrote, 9,500 words. | ||
| And that comment is frankly just silly. | ||
| You know, when a White House starts talking about context, quote unquote, or, you know, leaving all the positive things out, you know you've done your job. | ||
| Because if they really had a problem, they'd be talking about the substance of the piece. | ||
| But they failed to challenge a single assertion or quotation in the 9,500-word piece that I wrote about Susie Wiles. | ||
| And I was scrupulously fair. | ||
| That's my job as a journalist. | ||
| That's why Susie Wiles spoke to me in the first place, is because in books like The Gatekeepers, my book about White House chiefs of staff, I praise Republicans and Democrats when they deserve it, and I criticize them when that's called for. | ||
| And my job as a journalist is not to judge, it's to describe, which is what I tried to do in the Vanity Fair piece. | ||
| As far as specifically to the Vanity Fair piece, to what degree has Ms. Wiles responded to you directly or you to her? | ||
| No, she's responded publicly. | ||
| And, you know, her first response was to, her initial response was to tell the New York Times she'd never said any such thing about a quotation about Elon Musk. | ||
| Times called me and I played the tape. | ||
| Subsequently, we've heard nothing, no challenges to any assertion or quotation. | ||
| And again, this rather feeble statement that, you know, somehow I was, somehow this was out of context and I left out all the positive things, which I think if anybody reads the piece, you'll see is just not true. | ||
| Again, this is the Gatekeepers piece that our guest references for Vanity Fair. | ||
| Or that's the book, The Gatekeepers. | ||
| The Vanity Fair piece is what we've been talking as well. | ||
| Specifically an interview with Susie Wiles. | ||
| There is the cover there. | ||
| And then his book of most recent months, Uncharted, How Trump Beat Biden Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, Chris Whipple, joining us for this discussion. | ||
| Let's hear from Zame in Maryland Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, Mr. Whipple, there were a lot of blunders made. | ||
| But regardless, I don't feel America was ready for a female president, especially a black one. | ||
| Also, Mr. Whipple, have you seen that video where Trump says he's in the Oval Office with the FIFA president saying that if the 2024 election wasn't rigged, he wouldn't be president? | ||
| Have you seen that? | ||
| Have I seen which, sorry? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The video of Trump in the Oval Office with the FIFA president saying that if the 2024 election wasn't rigged, he wouldn't be president. | |
| You know, actually, I missed that, sorry to say. | ||
| That's fascinating. | ||
| And I'm not sure what to make of that. | ||
| But as far on your first point about Kamala Harris, I couldn't agree with you more. | ||
| I do think that clearly misogyny played a part in this election. | ||
| Racism played a part. | ||
| That's the kind of thing that is so difficult, almost impossible to quantify, that I don't spend a lot of time writing about it in my book, Uncharted. | ||
| But I think you're absolutely right that you'd have to be living under a rock not to acknowledge that, of course, that's a big factor in anybody's decision in the voting booth. | ||
| How much did the Biden team embrace the Harris candidacy? | ||
| Well, that's very interesting because contrary to some of the reporting that's been out there in a couple of other books, I know that Joe Biden really has a fondness for Kamala Harris and personally told her, do what you have to do. | ||
| You know, you can, if you need to distance yourself in some way, if you need to say something, go at it. | ||
| You know, you need to win this election. | ||
| There's other reporting out there that suggests that somehow the Biden people told Kamala Harris and her team, don't you dare create any daylight between her and the president. | ||
| That's just not true, in my view. | ||
| And I know that Joe Biden's White House Chief of Staff, Jeffrey Zeitz, told Kamala Harris's top advisors: you know, look, go for it. | ||
| You need to do what you have to do. | ||
| PK is next. | ||
| He is in Las Vegas, Republican line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Whipple. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Being in Nevada, where we're known for our fake electors, and that's been going on, and I have a lot of knowledge pertaining to that. | |
| But one of the things I wanted to ask you is last year I was at a memorial and I met at that memorial one of the co-authors of Project 2025. | ||
| The weekend before that particular memorial, another gentleman was on the morning show discussing, what was Mr. Roberts discussing Project 2025. | ||
| Well, I hear what he had to say, and then I'm at the memorial, and one of the writers is talking about it. | ||
| And I said to him, I said, you know, Trump is denying all of that. | ||
| And he said, he has to. | ||
| And, you know, because it was coming up in all the campaign things. | ||
| So he was denying it. | ||
| Well, now that he's in, and now we're a year going into our second year with him being the president, and knowing some of the things that I do, did Susie Wiles and you discuss why he's denying his involvement? | ||
| Because he does want to stay in as president. | ||
| He just does. | ||
| Well, you know, I did ask Susie Wiles directly about that. | ||
| You know, I said, will he run for a third term? | ||
| And she, as you point out, she denied it emphatically. | ||
| She said, but boy, is he having fun with it. | ||
| In other words, he just enjoys the sport, as apparently he considers it a sport, of trolling the rest of us about his intention to run, keeping everybody guessing and just keeping his opponents off balance. | ||
| That's what Susie Wiles would have you believe. | ||
| She says there's no wiggle room in the 22nd Amendment, which, of course, restricts a president to two terms. | ||
| So, look, I mean, I think you can read the piece and you can take her at her word or not. | ||
| I think any intelligent reader will probably be skeptical, dubious about some of the things she says. | ||
| But boy, you can't fault her for not being speaking out in this case. | ||
| Numerous interviews for the Vanity Fair piece, did you ever get the sense that she was going to pull out of the whole thing altogether, or was she willingly engaging in these interviews you conducted? | ||
| Not for a moment. | ||
| Not for a moment. | ||
| She was all in all the way until she wasn't after the piece came out. | ||
| And of course, she realized that they had a political firestorm that they had to put out. | ||
| And so, no, she was quite willing throughout. | ||
| Let's go to Mark. | ||
| Mark in Massachusetts, Independent Line for Chris Whipple. | ||
| Hello there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I think I don't really think that Colin Harris really wanted to be president. | ||
| And obviously Biden fumbled by not, if there was a true primary, I don't think Trump would have won. | ||
| But I think it goes back to the whole border when he made her head of the border. | ||
| And even during her whole vice presidency, she never kind of helped him out. | ||
| It didn't seem like she was helping Joe out that much, you know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think she, you know, and, you know, it was a perfect storm for Susie Wiles and the Republicans. | |
| They just fed everything. | ||
| I mean, the Democrats, like the thing with the garbage truck, working in McDonald's, you know, they call him garbage. | ||
| And he works, it was comedy, you know. | ||
| I mean, and I think he's really the best show or huckster since P.T. Barnum. | ||
| Yeah, well, you know, this is the first time I've heard somebody suggest that Kamala Harris didn't want to be president. | ||
| I think she did. | ||
| And again, I think she ran a pretty good campaign through the convention and then not so much afterwards. | ||
| You mentioned the border, and I think it's important to point out that something she failed to point out really during the campaign, which is that she was not the border czar. | ||
| She was not in charge of the border for Joe Biden. | ||
| She was in charge of the so-called Northern Triangle, which means the, you know, the Central American countries that she was dealing with the long-term causes of immigration, but she wasn't the border czar. | ||
| But Trump hung that around her neck like an anvil, and she never successfully got out from under it. | ||
| And just worth pointing out. | ||
| There's a viewer. | ||
| This is Kendra in Richmond, Virginia. | ||
| She asked this, saying, do you see Kamala Harris as someone who had that has leadership skills necessary for a president? | ||
| And then she follows up by saying, what did she stand for? | ||
| She goes on from there, but focus on those two things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Well, you know what? | ||
| I think that she appears to be trying to keep her options open for 2028. | ||
| And I think she should do herself and everybody else a favor by simply bowing out. | ||
| I don't think she's demonstrated the leadership or the insight into her own failed campaign. | ||
| And now, as you know, I give her credit for a lot of things she did well, and I think she was up against it. | ||
| Had to be a change candidate and couldn't be. | ||
| But having said that, look, I don't think she's a realistic, viable candidate for 2028. | ||
| She had her shot. | ||
| And by the way, Democrats never get another bite at the apple when it comes to the presidential nominees. | ||
| The last Democrat who lost and then was renominated was Adelaide Stevenson in 1956. | ||
| Can you elaborate on that idea that you said as far as she doesn't seem to learn from the campaign to apply it to another campaign? | ||
| I'm paraphrasing you. | ||
| Can you elaborate that? | ||
| I was struck reading her memoir about her description of that appearance, that infamous appearance on The View when she was asked if she'd do anything differently from Biden. | ||
| She was prepared seven ways to Sunday with an answer for that. | ||
| She had an opportunity to create a little daylight between herself and Biden, and she could have chosen the issue: the economy, inflation, Gaza, whatever. | ||
| I think inflation would have been the way to go. | ||
| But she failed. | ||
| And in her memoir, she still seems to underestimate the importance of that moment. | ||
| She still doesn't seem to get it. | ||
| What all of her advisors understood in the moment, which was that that was a big blunder. | ||
| Juanita is in Ohio, Democrats line. | ||
| Juanita, good morning. | ||
| You're on with Chris Whipple. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Mr. Ripple, you know, I went to J school too 53 years ago, but I did. | ||
| And I haven't read your book. | ||
| I'm not sure I want to. | ||
| And these are the reasons why. | ||
| You know, they taught us in J school also, particularly with political campaigns, to look at the nuances. | ||
| And I was struck by two or three things that I saw online over the press lines, over podcasts, and foreign news people. | ||
| The book doesn't seem, and I'll look at it when I get better. | ||
| The book doesn't seem, or you don't seem, to have acknowledged some facts about the United States. | ||
| I don't think we were ready for a black woman president, period. | ||
| I agree with the sister who called in earlier. | ||
| By the way, I did too. | ||
| I agreed with her as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
May I finish, please? | |
| Sure. | ||
| Now, the other thing I want to really clear up for the MAGA folks and the people who are there who are not as old as I am. | ||
| Harry Truman said the book stops here. | ||
| It stops with me. | ||
| I was born under his administration. | ||
| He made it clear the president makes the decision. | ||
| I don't care what kind of czar he may have said he was, but he makes the final decision. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, Juanita in Ohio. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Mr. Whipple, if you want to follow up. | ||
| Yeah, look, I guess I would just suggest that, you know, never judge a book by its cover and never judge a book by, you know, the snippets that you see online. | ||
| I hope you'll pick it up and read it. | ||
| From James. | ||
| James is in Virginia Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro Mission. | |
| What I'm confused by is that why are we paying so much attention to the loser? | ||
| And then I hear, oh, she couldn't have won because she's a black lady. | ||
| They didn't have a primary. | ||
| You know, it seems like when the Democrats lose, especially to Trump, it's a million reasons on why they lost instead a better team won. | ||
| And what I like about Trump, I don't agree with everything he does, but I like the fact that he gets things done. | ||
| Could you imagine if Roosevelt tried to build the Hoover Dam today or any big projects we had done back in the 30s and 40s and even 50s that we try to do today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They say, oh, you got to talk to the Congress. | |
| Congress doesn't get anything done. | ||
| Look at D.C. D.C.'s been crime-britten for years. | ||
| Congress is technically in charge of D.C., and they just allowed it to happen. | ||
| Trump comes in and does something, he's the bad guy. | ||
| Clinton got rid of over 200,000 government employees. | ||
| Nothing said. | ||
| Obama deported 3 million immigrants. | ||
| Nothing said. | ||
| Trump comes in and does the exact same thing. | ||
| He's horrible. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| James in Virginia. | ||
| Well, yeah, I mean, Trump is a doer. | ||
| He does stuff. | ||
| And in addition to all the stuff you just mentioned, he pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists, rioters who were involved in January 6th. | ||
| He's deported hundreds of people without due process, some who actually maybe deserve to be deported, but an awful lot of people who were not. | ||
| He's prosecuted his political enemies. | ||
| He's verbally abused women and minorities. | ||
| He's certainly changed the behavior of presidents as we've known them. | ||
| So, yeah, he does stuff. | ||
| And so it's a question of, you know, do you approve of what he's doing? | ||
| Mr. Ripple, what questions do you think either the Democratic Party itself or the DNC has to ask itself before approaching the next election, considering what they learned the last time around? | ||
| Yeah, I think fundamentally they have to figure out what's the message. | ||
| And it has to be more than just Trump is a bad guy. | ||
| It has to be more than democracy is at stake, even if it is. | ||
| So that's the key thing. | ||
| And I don't think, and my guess is it's going to be someone who is an outsider in the sense that it's not going to be a creature of the Democratic establishment. | ||
| You know, I think the country is fed up with the establishments on both sides, Republican and Democrat. | ||
| But I think the message is what they have to figure out. | ||
| Do you think that to that last part, do you think that the New York City mayor's race demonstrates that idea of an outsider, at least someone different than the usual political stock? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| And if you were to ask Susie Wiles, as I did, about Zorhan Mamdani, she will tell you he is, quote, scary good, end quote. | ||
| Whether you like him or not, he's got a message that resonates. | ||
| And he's a once-in-a-generation communicator. | ||
| And it's not a coincidence that Mamdani and AOC and Bernie Sanders are filling venues with enthusiastic supporters. | ||
| They're resonating. | ||
| And they're resonating because they have a clear message. | ||
| So whoever it is, whoever the nominee is in 2028, it's going to be somebody who is genuine, who can convey a message clearly. | ||
| And it doesn't have to be AOC's message or Mamdani's. | ||
| Do you see anybody emerging on that front? | ||
| Yeah, I'm not going to handicap names, but I was talking to Leon Panetta about this not too long ago, an old friend of mine, first-rate White House chief under Bill Clinton and Defense Secretary and CIA director. | ||
| And he thinks it needs to be a centrist, somebody kind of a kind of modern version of Bill Clinton. | ||
| Let's go to John. | ||
| John, when you heard that, what was your response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My response, sorry, was that for me? | |
| Yeah, for you, sir, Mr. Whipple, when you heard that from Mr. Panetta, what was your response? | ||
| Well, I thought it was just fascinating that he thinks that that kind of message can resonate in 2028. | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| John in Akron, Ohio, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, hello. | |
| Hey, Chris. | ||
| I just had the call after I heard you guys misrepresenting black women in America. | ||
| I heard the two black women say we can't vote for a black woman. | ||
| I'm a white guy. | ||
| I'm 72 years old. | ||
| My best man was black 50 years ago. | ||
| That doesn't really matter. | ||
| The fact is, I would have voted for Condoleezza Rice. | ||
| I loved her. | ||
| She was a real person. | ||
| Harris was a big phony. | ||
| It was terrible. | ||
| Biden lost his mind even before he was the vice president. | ||
| He was the one that convinced Obama that gays should be able to get married because Obama was totally civil union. | ||
| And so now, and that's why Trump won because people went nuts. | ||
| We got the gays and lesbians and transsexuals in the government. | ||
| These guys didn't make a good decision on their life choices. | ||
| Now you want them to make decisions for me, Transportation Secretary, Booty Gudge. | ||
| That was the worst decision ever. | ||
| Biden's out of his mind, and Harris didn't deserve a shot. | ||
| And black women can be great, and white women can be great too. | ||
| Okay, John in Ohio. | ||
| Mr. Whipple, any response? | ||
| You who believe that. | ||
| And as I said before, the culture wars were significant. | ||
| I mean, but in my view, the bigger factor was that people wanted a change candidate. | ||
| Derek is in Texas. | ||
| Derek joins us on our Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| My key thing about Trump: every time anyone falls, he's beaten women. | ||
| And my whole problem with that is that I think if he had ran against a qualified man, it would have been a little bit more harder. | ||
| He's a very nasty person when he's talking about women. | ||
| And he is not qualified to be a president. | ||
| I'm not even worried about the indictments that he had. | ||
| It's just the thing he did in Georgia trying to get votes. | ||
| The man is a cheater. | ||
| So let's take the elephant out of the room and just be straight up and just say this man cheat on everything he does. | ||
| He cheats on taxes. | ||
| He cheats with everything. | ||
| You know, he does not treat the United States the way they're supposed to be treated. | ||
| You know, he just lies. | ||
| Everything he does. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Derek there in Texas. | ||
| Mr. Whipple, you can respond to it. | ||
| Let me just address the point he made about Trump's language and his verbal abuse of women. | ||
| I brought this up with Susie Wiles, and I was fascinated by her response. | ||
| I asked her what was going on with that, and in particular, the comment he made in November to a woman from Bloomberg. | ||
| He said, quiet piggy, memorably. | ||
| I asked her what she thought of that, what Susie Wiles thought of that. | ||
| And she said, look, he's a counterpuncher. | ||
| And increasingly, these days, the people doing the punching are women. | ||
| I found that kind of remarkable, that answer. | ||
| Mr. Whipple, the first year of the Trump administration almost beyond us. | ||
| What do you think faces him the next three years? | ||
| Well, look, I think that the real test here, and this is really what my Vanity Fair piece is all about. | ||
| I trace the first 11 months of Trump 2.0 and Susie Wiles' performance as White House chief of staff. | ||
| She's done a lot of things effectively. | ||
| Trump 2.0 is different from 1.0 largely because of her. | ||
| She runs a smooth operation in the White House. | ||
| But the ultimate test of any White House chief of staff is his or her ability to walk into the Oval Office, close the door, and tell the president what he doesn't want to hear. | ||
| You know, early on, Susie Wiles seemed to want you to believe that she was doing that. | ||
| She would tap the brakes on trying to talk the president out of a blanket pardon for all the January 6 rioters, for example, trying to tap the brakes on tariffs, trying to get him to give up revenge and retribution after 90 days, which clearly failed. | ||
| And so I think that as we go into the second year of the Trump White House, it's more important than ever. | ||
| The stakes could not be higher. | ||
| This is somebody who is still pursuing political prosecutions of his enemies. | ||
| This is someone who is, contrary to what the administration is saying, is trying to blowing up boats in the Caribbean without clear evidence simply to get Maduro out of power in Venezuela. | ||
| The list goes on and on. | ||
| This is somebody, Donald Trump, who is untethered to any kind of Democratic guardrails or constitutional safeguards. | ||
| And it's the White House chief's job, among others, but particularly the White House chief's job, to tell him hard truths. | ||
| And that's a fundamental test as we go into the next three years for Susie Wiles and for the country. | ||
| I was going to ask you, in the course of the interviews, you get to know the person, I would imagine, why do you think Susie Wiles gets the president's ear? | ||
| Is it that bluntness or are there other things there, too? | ||
| She has a kind of magic with Trump, and this is fascinating for those who haven't read the Vanity Fair piece. | ||
| I suggest you go to VanityFair.com and read about her history with Trump, but also going all the way back to her childhood. | ||
| Her father was the famous sportscaster Pat Sommerall. | ||
| He was an alcoholic. | ||
| And Susie Wiles earned a kind of Ph.D. in difficult men. | ||
| She learned that, you know, maybe a version of the serenity prayer, that you change the things you can, but you can't change everything. | ||
| So it's a fascinating history that she has. | ||
| Part of their bond was the fact that she could, you know, the first time they met, she sat there and they talked about football games and about 1970s New York, the whole Copacabana era. | ||
| They're creatures of that bygone era. | ||
| They click. | ||
| They really get along. | ||
| So I don't think Susie Wiles is going anywhere. | ||
| I think she still has this bond with Trump, for better or worse. | ||
| James is in Florida. | ||
| James, from our line for Republicans, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I think I'm up to about 11 excuses you gave Kamala Harris, except for the one that's obvious, is that she was a terrible candidate. | ||
| She was one of the first ones to drop out during the primary. | ||
| She didn't get her a single vote. | ||
| I don't understand how you can say it was everybody else's fault. | ||
| But Kamala Harris, she's a terrible candidate, and that's been ever since she's been running for president. | ||
| She's going to try to. | ||
| So respectfully, that's exactly what I wrote in the book. | ||
| I don't know if you've had a chance to read it, but I quote Susie Wiles making that case that we couldn't believe how bad she was, was the direct quote from Susie Wiles. | ||
| I documented cases I documented of Susie Wiles, of Kamala Harris making tactical blunders, including her appearance, that infamous appearance on The View, and countless other ways, her failure to go on Joe Rogan. | ||
| So the notion that I'm making excuses respectfully, the notion that I'm making excuses for her, I just think is silly. | ||
| Caller, finish your thought, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I heard I started counting them. | |
| So, yeah, you had given her excuses, and that's, you know, you wear your bias on your sleeve very well. | ||
| The fact is, you don't, this whole thing, I mean, I can't believe how quick you turned it around to Trump, but I thought it was all about the Democrats and what happened during the election. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you're saying you excused them from not releasing their autopsy at the same time. | |
| And I think their autopsy just says the fact what I just told you. | ||
| Mila Harris is a horrible candidate. | ||
| She has no ideas for anything for this country that's positive. | ||
| Okay, you made that point. | ||
| We'll end it there. | ||
| Mr. Whipple, if you wanted to follow up on that. | ||
| No, I think I pretty much answered the question. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jay and D.C. Democrats line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pajo. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Thanks, C-SPAN. | ||
| Quick question for your guest: who was the chief re-election manager for the Biden re-election campaign? | ||
| I mean, we can, I can easily recall that James Carville was the number one strategist for Clinton. | ||
| I can easily recall that David Clough was Obama's chief political strategist for his election campaign. | ||
| Who was Biden's chief election strategist? | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So her name was Jen O'Malley Dillon. | ||
| She is a highly respected, very smart operative who worked on Biden's 2020 campaign and was really the chief strategist campaign manager in 2024. | ||
| David Plough came in and worked with her on that campaign. | ||
| But I would have to say she really was first among equals. | ||
| And so the focus of your next book looks at campaign managers. | ||
| What got you fascinated about that? | ||
| Well, you know, I wrote a book about White House Chiefs of Staff called The Gatekeepers, which traced the evolution of that job from H.R. Holdeman in 68 to the present. | ||
| And I thought it would be fascinating to look at that history this time through the eyes of the presidential campaign managers. | ||
| It's an incredible cast of characters from John Mitchell to Lee Atwater to James Carville to Susie Wiles. | ||
| And it's going to be, I think, a rollicking history. | ||
| But also, I hope we'll have some insights along the way into the evolution of presidential campaigns from one of the wildest in 1968 to another incredible campaign in 2024. | ||
| Of all the ones you're going to profile, is there an underlying thread that makes these people successful? | ||
| Yeah, you know, I think that I think to some extent it depends on a really strong presidential campaign manager or advisor like James Carville, for example, in the case of Bill Clinton, can really make a fundamental difference. | ||
| You know, in that campaign in 1992, just to give you an example, at that point, the Democrats essentially were defeatist. | ||
| I mean, they wondered if they'd ever win a presidential election again. | ||
| They'd been shellacked time after time after time. | ||
| Carville came in, and he was just a believer. | ||
| And boy, was that contagious. | ||
| And of course, they had a fantastic candidate in the form of Bill Clinton. | ||
| But I'm telling you, campaign managers can make a difference. | ||
| And Susie Wiles is in that category, too. | ||
| Donald Trump, in my view, would not be president if not for Susie Wiles. | ||
| So for those who say that I've been hard on Susie Wiles, remember that. | ||
| Let's hear from New Jersey. | ||
| This is David, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I just want to say nothing accounts for Donald Trump's personality more than leaders in New York City like my father-in-law, who was director of field services for the Landmarks Preservation Commission. | ||
| He knew Donald Trump. | ||
| He knew the Dolans. | ||
| He worked with Jackie Kennedy and his boss, Beverly Moss Spatt. | ||
| After Penn Station was destroyed by the Dolans, he worked with Ms. Kennedy and Ms. Spatt to preserve Grand Central Station from what happened to Penn Station. | ||
| But he and my mother-in-law were part of the intellectuals of Manhattan. | ||
| They were appalled by this guy from Queens, by his money. | ||
| And it's that rejection by the cognoscente, the culturatae, and the literati of Manhattan. | ||
| It is that rejection. | ||
| And the attack on historic sites is an attack on men like my father-in-law, who would literally not even let Trump buy him a cup of coffee. | ||
| He spent a whole night on the circle line with Trump bobbing around Manhattan. | ||
| Okay, Caller, because we're running out of time, that's it. | ||
| What's the question for our guest? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My question is: does your guest agree that this kind of eternal tempered tantrum of Trump and attacks on our most important sites really results from him being disdained by the intellectual elite of Manhattan? | |
| Okay, I think I would agree with you. | ||
| I think I would agree with you that no question about it, that part of Trump's drive, part of his need to be president, was fueled by resentment toward the elites who, as you point out, would really never quite accept him in New York City. | ||
| One more call, and this will be from Kevin. | ||
| Kevin is in Texas. | ||
| Republican line, last call for our guest. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Mr. Whipple, I promise I'll read your book if I ever find a free online version of it. | |
| But, I mean, I could, because I'm a critical thinker. | ||
| I like to hear both sides, but it's obvious that you're a Democrat progressive and an apologist for the Democrats. | ||
| You pretty much admitted that when you said that. | ||
| How so? | ||
| No, actually, I admit no such thing. | ||
| But I wonder what it is I've said that makes you think so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll tell you exactly what you said. | |
| You said, when people show how unbiased and one-sided your portrayal of things are, you know you did your job. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| That's your admittance that you are biased. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's okay. | |
| All right. | ||
| I mean, like I said, quite the contrary, quite the contrary. | ||
| What I was saying was that when the White House fails to challenge a single assertion or quotation in a 9,500 word article, you know you're doing something right, is what I said. | ||
| And I don't see that as having anything to do with bias. | ||
| Caller, we're almost out of time. | ||
| Go ahead and finish your thought or question, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, here's my question for you. | |
| And this is what I want you to think about. | ||
| Okay, this is, you want to give the reasons why the Democrats failed in the election, but here's the bottom line. | ||
| They're policies, they're policy. | ||
| And you're going to say, well, the culture war, blah, blah, blah. | ||
| I'm talking economics. | ||
| You mentioned, oh, but she would have won if she had addressed inflation. | ||
| With what? | ||
| Sorry, actually, I never, actually, I didn't say she would have won. | ||
| I simply think that she missed an opportunity to try to distance herself. | ||
| And in fact, you're agreeing with my point, which is that she needed to convince people that she had a program to bring inflation down. | ||
| You could argue that Trump hasn't done it either, but she might have done better had she distanced herself from Biden on the subject of inflation, for example. | ||
| So I don't see that you and I are really disagreeing about much of anything. | ||
| The most recent work from our guests comes from Vanity Fair, that PC published, that interview with Susie Wiles, which you can find online, the most recent book of our guests, Uncharted, How Trump Beat Biden Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. | ||
| Chris Whipple, joining us as part of C-SPAN's Washington Journal's Holiday Authors Week. | ||
| Thank you for doing so, sir. | ||
| Happy holidays to you. | ||
| Always great to be with you. | ||
| Happy holidays, Peter. | ||
| We'll finish the program this morning, viewers, with the question that we started with. | ||
| When it comes to the use of political rhetoric, particularly when it comes to profanity and insults, is it a big deal? | ||
| You can tell us on the following lines. | ||
| In the Eastern and Central time zones, 202-748-8000. | ||
| In the Mountain and Pacific time zones, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And you can text us, too, at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Politicians using profanity and insults? | ||
| Is it a big deal? | ||
| We'll take those calls when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| This week's Encore interview is from Book Notes from September the 21st, 1997, 28 years ago. | ||
| Our guest was Peter J. Gomes, former minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard. | ||
| His father was from Cape Verde Islands, and his mother was an African-American. | ||
| In 1991, he identified himself as gay, but says he remained celibate. | ||
| Professor Gomes passed away in 2011 at age 69. | ||
| During his lifetime, he received over 40 honorary degrees. | ||
| Professor Gomes was a registered Republican for most of his life and offered prayer at the inaugurations of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. | ||
| However, in August of 2006, he changed his registration to the Democratic Party. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We revisit an interview with Peter Gomes and his book, The Good Book, Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. | |
| BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| And pass precedent nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a Kennaroot quarter. | |
| Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| The idea of profanity and insults as part of political rhetoric was part of a recent opinion piece by the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, who is President Emeritus of Purdue University. | ||
| In which that piece, he wrote this about profanity. | ||
| He said, profanity is suddenly mainstream. | ||
| Once unacceptable words, specifically the ones you know I'm thinking of, are everywhere, from comedians who apparently couldn't get laughs without them to politicians who must think it makes them look tough. | ||
| The grossness has now infected even our formerly proudest and most stately publications. | ||
| However, one might wish, it seems unlikely that once the vulgar becomes commonplace, society will ever rule out of bounds the infantilization of political debate and the person demonization of opponents may similarly have ratcheted downward, although the score on one can imagine some recovery. | ||
| On some point, the public could tire of playground insults and asinine nicknames and start asking for a little more substance from those elected to serve them. | ||
| Interminable stalemate, especially when the country enters to a stretch of serious economic or national security difficulty, could trigger a collective demand to, quote, grow up. | ||
| Again, that's available online. | ||
| It was a piece, an opinion piece in the Washington Post. | ||
| Public norms have become warped. | ||
| Is this damage permanent? | ||
| In today's Wall Street Journal, here's the headline. | ||
| Some centrist Democrats sharpen tone, saying that a politician's husband, Mark Kelly, was used to playing a supporting role, the steady mild manner retired astronaut at the arm of former Representative Gabby Giffords. | ||
| Even after she survived, she survived an assassination attempt and he stepped into center stage with his own political career. | ||
| The Arizona senator played the role of level-headed centrists. | ||
| Lately, Kelly is breaking character as he embraces a public and at times profanity-laced feud with President Trump. | ||
| After the retired Navy captain filmed a video with other Democratic veterans telling military members to refuse illegal orders, Kelly has cast himself as a fighter. | ||
| So with that in mind, this idea of political rhetoric, particularly when it comes to profanity and insults, do you think it's a big deal? | ||
| The lines, the Eastern Central Time Zones, 202748, 8000. | ||
| The Mountain and Pacific time zones 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you want to send us a text on this, it's 202-748-8003. | ||
| Let's start with Roseanne in Wisconsin. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I'm very sorry that I missed Mr. Whipple. | ||
| But it's still the continuation of Divide and Conquer when it comes to the Republican Party. | ||
| It's like, let's blame everything on race or sexual preference or anything else, and then throw up these bitter, terrible, horrible things that they're saying because it's like a firestorm that they're trying to start infighting rather than really address the bread and butter issues of the country. | ||
| We are all one as a country, but let's not divide ourselves and play the blame game as to what color you are or what sexual preference you are. | ||
| And this is why this is happening to our country. | ||
| No, the thing is, we have no laws, no rules to prevent people from gouging other people. | ||
| Wall Street is doing great right now because they can. | ||
| I mean, the things that are going down with no taxation and Uber rich, and the poor people are paying for it, it's insane. | ||
| We've got to stop this. | ||
| Okay, let's go to Kyle. | ||
| Kyle in Hawaii. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Aloha, Pedro. | |
| Happy New Year, Merry Christmas. | ||
| Happy holidays to you and all that C-SPEN for your work. | ||
| Here's a great 2026. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You know, overall, when politicians start talking like this, and not just President Trump, you know, there's other politicians that talk like this. | ||
| When they start talking like this, it's gone beyond, or it's getting toward getting beyond already. | ||
| It's getting chaotic. | ||
| Maybe politicians, when they talk like this, it's reflective of us, but I don't think so. | ||
| I think they need to have a higher standard and, you know, speak well. | ||
| It's not good. | ||
| It doesn't look good. | ||
| And something needs to be done. | ||
| We're getting to a point in politics and government where if politicians are talking like that, something needs to be done. | ||
| Seriously, I know we always say that something needs to be done, but we're inching toward chaos and disorder here, and it's sad. | ||
| So that's the first step. | ||
| You know, it's free speech, yes, but you don't have to talk like that, you know, going back to our golden rule. | ||
| Kyle there in Hawaii. | ||
| Let's go to Joe in New Jersey. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| We just had Christmas, the birth of Christ. | ||
| What do we think when we say, how would Christ utilize this rhetoric? | ||
| It's sinful. | ||
| People are degradating their lives. | ||
| Politicians do not care. | ||
| There's sinfulness in too many people in this world. | ||
| We have to have respect. | ||
| And that's my final comment. | ||
| Wish everyone a blessed new year. | ||
| Brother Joe, Knights of Columbus, thank you. | ||
| From Kevin. | ||
| Kevin, who is in New York, Staten Island. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| I'm also a Knight of Columbus, and I'm a Trump supporter. | ||
| And it is sad to say that our whole society, both even movie, radio, music, and all that, has demoralized the public a lot. | ||
| And we used to have Rated X, PG, and G, which was pretty well enforced in the 70s, 80s. | ||
| Now it seems to be gone. | ||
| And that, I think, is one of the biggest downfalls that we have. | ||
| So what do you think about politicians using coarse language or insult as part of rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's, I mean, they're part of society, and they're human beings. | |
| So, I mean, they're following the status quo. | ||
| That's my point on the rating system. | ||
| And really, you know, Donald Trump is a Christian, supports Christianity. | ||
| I definitely support Christianity. | ||
| And, you know, it's appalling to sit down and see both Democrats and Republicans, some Republics, I should say, use profanity to get their points across. | ||
| I mean, it is sad. | ||
| Kevin there in New York, the Associated Press, in recent days, taking a look at this idea of profanity and its use when it comes to politics. | ||
| A section there says this. | ||
| There's a risk if that such language becomes overused. | ||
| Its utility as a way to shock and connect with audiences could be dull. | ||
| Dulled comedian Jerry Seifod has talked about this problem, noting that he used swear words in his early routines, but dropped them as a career progressed because he felt profanity yielded only cheap laughs. | ||
| It goes on to quote White House spokesperson Liz Houston said that the president, quote, doesn't care about being politically correct. | ||
| He cares about making America great again. | ||
| The American people love how authentic, transparent, and effective the president is. | ||
| The Associated Press going on to say, but for the president himself, the words have generated the most controversy are often less centered in traditional profanity, that slurs that can be interpreted as hurtful. | ||
| And the final weeks of the 2016 campaign were rocked. | ||
| when a tape emerged from him discussing grabbing women by their genitals, a language he minimized as locker room talk, and then it goes on from there. | ||
| The Associated Press where you can find that story in recent days, the president himself making news when it comes to insults and the use of them. | ||
| This was aboard Air Force One last month. | ||
| Many of you referencing it earlier this morning. | ||
| This is about comments of Jeffrey Epstein, but particularly comments directed to a reporter. | ||
| Here it is again that was aboard Air Force One. | ||
| And shortly after that, during a back and forth with reporters at the White House press briefing, it was Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, talked about that exchange. | ||
| And here's what Caroline Levitt had to say at the time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What did the president mean when he called Reporter Piggy? | |
| Look, the president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room. | ||
| You've all seen it yourself. | ||
| You've all experienced it yourselves. | ||
| And I think it's one of the many reasons that the American people re-elected this president because of his frankness. | ||
| And he calls out fake news when he sees it. | ||
| He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration. | ||
| But he also is the most transparent president in history. | ||
| And he gives all of you in this room, as you all know, unprecedented access. | ||
| You are in the Oval Office almost every day asking the president questions. | ||
| And so I think the president being frank and open and honest to your faces rather than hiding behind your backs is frankly a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration, where you had a president who lied to your face and then didn't speak to you for weeks and hid upstairs and didn't take your questions. | ||
| So I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis. | ||
| As always, you can see these exchanges from the White House and other things that our cameras take in. | ||
| When you go to the website at cspan.org, take advantage of the video library there to see everything we've taken in over the years when it comes to topics of a lot of different topics. | ||
| This is from Joseph in Florida. | ||
| Profanity and insult is part of political rhetoric. | ||
| Joseph, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I'm an independent, and I'll give you a couple real-life situations. | ||
| I had to do business with Donald Trump in his early years when he ran his hotels. | ||
| And we had to sue him three times to get paid. | ||
| He would tell his payable people not to pay vendors because they'll just go away. | ||
| That, my friend, is not a Christian. | ||
| Secondly, I live in Florida. | ||
| We have a golf group. | ||
| I would say the majority of them are either MAGA or they're moderate Republicans. | ||
| And the crack is there. | ||
| What happened with Rob Reiner has tipped the scales with that golf group. | ||
| People don't talk politics, but it is a topic of conversation. | ||
| And Donald Trump is going to get crushed. | ||
| These Floridians have had it. | ||
| And if that's any indication of what's going on in the country, this guy's not going to last. | ||
| He's going to lose the election in November. | ||
| And I'm not from the Democrats. | ||
| I'm not saying Democrats are a godsend here, but you're dealing with a man that is not a human being. | ||
| He is... | ||
| Okay, okay. | ||
| Got the point. | ||
| Let's go to Ingrid. | ||
| Ingrid in Colorado. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Political rhetoric when it comes to insults and profanity. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely unacceptable. | |
| And it was never heard of until Trump came along. | ||
| He started it. | ||
| He started the divide and conquer thing. | ||
| He wanted us to be against each other. | ||
| And he got what he wanted. | ||
| And he used a lot of profanity. | ||
| And I think it's absolutely uncalled for. | ||
| And a man in his position should not speak like that to people. | ||
| Anybody doesn't matter. | ||
| Again, if you go to that Associated Press article, viewers, there also highlights other things others have said over the years when it comes to the use of profanity, Democrats and Republicans alike. | ||
| Just to give you an example, just to show you that, they highlighted President Barack Obama when Joe Biden used the F-word, so to speak, as part of an expletive towards him. | ||
| This remark overheard on live microphones at the Affordable Care Act ceremony talks about the president's current president's use of profanity and insults, talked about Kamala Harris, which we talked about earlier, but post-campaign talking about these things. | ||
| So whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you want to call in and give your thoughts on this idea of profanity when it comes to political rhetoric and if you think it has a place, 202748-8000 for the Eastern and Central time zones, 202748-8000 for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. | ||
| And you can text us too at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Let's hear from Carrie in New Jersey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Every time I see you on the screen, I say, Ola, Pedro. | ||
| I just want to say, is anyone else crying? | ||
| Is anyone else crying besides me about everything that's happening? | ||
| And I'm sorry to say this, and God forgive me. | ||
| The only way that this guy is going to be okay. | ||
| Caller, we're going to stop you right there. | ||
| Unacceptable on both those counts when it comes to referencing the president that way. | ||
| So we'll just end it there. | ||
| Let's hear from Beverly in Connecticut. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and happy holiday to whatever holiday you support and celebrate. | |
| As far as the language, yes, it's absolutely atrocious. | ||
| And what a lot of people are using it, but a lot of people are dressing in a manner that to me is not acceptable. | ||
| However, the people that are on TV the most, and let's face it, the president, that's who most people are hearing. | ||
| A lot of people that talk this way, people don't listen to or hear. | ||
| I fortunately have C-SPAN. | ||
| This is the best, the best TV. | ||
| I have it on as much as I can. | ||
| But the president is on all channels a lot. | ||
| And that's where they hear the language that should not be spoken the most. | ||
| And if you are a religious individual, why are you using that language? | ||
| So when someone says to me, so-and-so is religious, but the things that come out of their mouth are far from someone that's a religious person that cares about people. | ||
| But my worry is the children. | ||
| Children are on a lot of media. | ||
| They hear a lot of things that unfortunately we as older people never heard when we were young. | ||
| So please, please knock off that language. | ||
| It's just not becoming to anyone to speak the way a lot of people are speaking. | ||
| And it's all fine. | ||
| Beverly in Connecticut. | ||
| Let's hear from Rick. | ||
| Rick is in Florida. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, my friend. | |
| Listen, just as the article said, I think part of what we like about Trump is that he says what's on his mind. | ||
| I think many of us are tired of being politically correct. | ||
| You know, we like politicians like Trump, like here in Florida, Ron DeSantis, who are honest with you. | ||
| You like it. | ||
| You like it. | ||
| You don't facts over feelings. | ||
| And I think, as my mom used to say, you just have to toughen up, buttercup. | ||
| Get over yourself. | ||
| I want to hear politicians that are truthful, that say what's on their mind. | ||
| If they don't like something, they don't like something. | ||
| If they think you're a pig, you're a pig. | ||
| People need to get over their little hurt feelings, poor baby crying, and deal with reality. | ||
| I was going to ask, is there a way to be direct, though, without resorting to profanity or insults? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, you can be direct without resorting, but if you do a big deal, we need to stop being a whining, crying little society and toughen up. | |
| That's just our feelings. | ||
| That's what we like about Trump. | ||
| We like the fact that he's honest, says what's on his mind, like it, don't like it. | ||
| Too bad, so sad. | ||
| He got the majority of the vote. | ||
| He got the popular vote. | ||
| And people need to get over their little whiny selves. | ||
| Sherry up next in Indiana. | ||
| Profanity and insults as part of political rhetoric. | ||
| Is it a big deal? | ||
| Hello, Sherry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't think it's such a big deal. | |
| I think it's been going on for a long, long time. | ||
| It's only just picked up steam more now. | ||
| So recently, in recent years, I think for me, the major turning point to where, to me, all the gloves came off was when Nancy Pelosi ripped up the speech. | ||
| I think she set a terrible, terrible visual on that for how behavior in the United States should be. | ||
| I really thought she should have been reprimanded for that. | ||
| But to me, and it just seems like the words, words hurt people more on the left than they do the right. | ||
| And I think it's because, you know, sticks and stones, it's just words. | ||
| Words are wind, and it's not a big deal. | ||
| Like Rick said in Florida, just, you know, put on your big boy pants and go on with it and toughen up a little, America. | ||
| Gina up next. | ||
| Gina in Mississippi. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Well, I would just like to state that the whole country, the whole society has gone down. | ||
| It's so the way people dress, the way people act, the way everything has just gone down so much that it's terrible. | ||
| It's just embarrassing. | ||
| Also, I would like to point out that Donald Trump, no, I don't agree with his cursing, but he is only responding to the way he has been treated for the last 10 years by the Democrats. | ||
| And for the four years that he wasn't in there and Biden was in there, not an ugly word was hardly ever aired about him. | ||
| So anybody who pays close attention to it, like I do, you see what happens. | ||
| And frankly, I don't know how Donald Trump has stood all of the harassment, the lies told on him by the media, the insinuations. | ||
| I mean, it is just, it's horrible. | ||
| It has drugged this country down. | ||
| And now the Democrats want to blame the Republicans and Donald Trump. | ||
| They're just being hypocritical. | ||
| They need to take a good long look in the mirror. | ||
| And all these people now who think they're so holy, you better look in the mirror because the Lord is watching and he knows who is lying and who's not. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And whatever. | ||
| Okay, that's Gina there in Mississippi. | ||
| More from Mitch Daniels, the piece that you can find online, by the way, at the Wall Street Journal if you're interested in reading these thoughts later on. | ||
| He goes on to say, where norms are not permanently ratcheted into their warped state, a pendulum still will need a push. | ||
| We await leaders with the gumption to say enough to lay a claim to the currently vacant high ground in the way they speak and respect they show their opponents. | ||
| To say of the temptations to rig the electoral map trespasses on the prerogatives of another branch of government or utilize power to punish adversaries, quote, I could, but I won't. | ||
| To the political mercenaries and professional cynics who find the idea comically and suicidally naive, who can only reply that we won't know until someone tries it. | ||
| Where I live, one meets people every day who are fed up with both the style and the content of what passes for our system of self-government. | ||
| We may have outgrown our capacity for revulsion in popular culture and maybe even in the way we expect our political leaders to talk and behave. | ||
| But if Americans conclude that our political class stays busy hurling third-grade insults at each other and feathering their own nest as the national debt and national security dangers turn catastrophic, a pendulum will swing and it will have a sharp edge on it, the kind that ends political careers. | ||
| That full piece by Mitch Daniels, again at the Washington Post, if you want to read more, this idea of political rhetoric when it comes to the use of profanity or insults, and do you think it's a big deal? | ||
| Let's hear from Ellen. | ||
| Ellen in Nevada, hello, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I'm just calling to say that, you know, Trump was a Democrat once. | ||
| And, you know, I think calling people garbage and calling people sleepy is not the way most of us. | ||
| Our parents brought us up that the wise one is quiet, shuts up, you know, and that we don't use foul language and we don't call names. | ||
| And I don't think he's making America great by always bashing on Democrats or Republicans. | ||
| You know, I think that Republicans and Democrats formed our country and we should all get along with each other. | ||
| That's just, I'm an old grandma and that's the way I am. | ||
| I babysit the children. | ||
| I do not allow foul language in our home. | ||
| But I just think that foul language is not very mature. | ||
| It's like the teenager stuff, you know. | ||
| And that's all I wanted to say. | ||
| I love our country and I appreciate your program. | ||
| And I appreciate that the Constitution be held up and that we have the freedom of speech. | ||
| And thank you. | ||
| Ellen and Carson City there. | ||
| Let's hear from Tony, who is in North Carolina next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Pedro and C-Span. | |
| Now, you know, everybody should know what they voted for. | ||
| They voted for this kind of foul language is, you know, rhetoric. | ||
| They like that. | ||
| So they're not going to say anything negative about that, just because it's in their spirit. | ||
| But look, you know, he's walking around like a beast, you know, like a beast, doing things like a beast. | ||
| And I thank God that I did not give him the mark for president. | ||
| And people, if you voted for it, this is what you get. | ||
| So as far as its use generally, though, by Democrats or Republicans, is it appropriate? | ||
| Is it a big deal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, I find out that, you know, like you just showed about the hot mic with Biden. | |
| Yeah, I'm sure a lot of adults use profanity, you know, where there is no one but themselves. | ||
| But to do it on a platform such as that. | ||
| Now, I believe that it's trying to become a normal thing because a lot of people think when you say profanity, not cursing, because cursing means you damming somebody, you know, but just using profanity, which are words, I believe that the vocabulary is very short because I know I can curse or say profanity like a sailor. | ||
| No offense to the sailors, but regardless, on this platform such as this, people shouldn't say it. | ||
| And if somebody does say something on a platform such as dislike profanity or cursing, you got to hurry up and shut them off. | ||
| Why y'all don't do that to Trump? | ||
| Because we know it's impropriety. | ||
| It's out of order. | ||
| It's not normal for an adult to do that when children are watching you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to Kathleen. | ||
| Kathleen joins us from Maryland. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to interject that when I was growing up, I was taught that if you are using profanity, it's a sign of low intellect and lack of communication skills. | ||
| And I was taught that if you can't express yourself without insults or profanity, then you need to wait and figure out your thoughts more clearly so that you can articulate them without that. | ||
| So I think that using profanity and insults is a sign of low intellect, a lack of communication skills. | ||
| And so I think that there is no place for it because I would prefer that my political leaders have the intellect and the communication skills to articulate ideas and thoughts clearly and appropriately. | ||
| Kathleen there in Maryland joining us about this idea of profanity and insult as a part of political rhetoric. | ||
| You can join in the conversation on the phone lines if you wish. | ||
| You can post on our social media sites at Facebook and X. | ||
| And you can send us texts too if you want. | ||
| 202-748-8003. | ||
| Let's hear from Alfonso in Arizona. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, Pedro. | ||
| How are you doing? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| Real quick, what I'm hearing from a lot of these people that are calling in is a lot of pro-clutching. | ||
| Now, a lot of them seem to have lived very, very sheltered lives. | ||
| What the president has gone through, what his family has gone through, what his businesses have gone through, if those who are hearing his quote-unquote rhetoric, they need to understand that this man has been attacked. | ||
| His family has been attacked. | ||
| His businesses have been attacked. | ||
| If he's a little short or upset, that is American to me. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| That's how I see it. | ||
| A lot of these people, like the lady who called and said the F-bomb and deaths Trump, I hope she's being reported. | ||
| But if that doesn't happen, that's the only person I heard that got shut off today was somebody who had that in them to do that. | ||
| I don't feel that the language he's using at times is meant for anybody else but the individuals he's speaking of. | ||
| And that's how I see it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Alfonso there in Goodyear, Arizona, giving us his thoughts. | ||
| Some person who gave us, somebody who gave us his thoughts earlier this month, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, he participated at that Washington National Cathedral event. | ||
| He talked about this idea of civility and its place in American politics. | ||
| Here's some of that exchange from earlier this month. | ||
| Leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and call it out wherever they see it. | ||
| Exactly the way Spencer Cox does. | ||
| Here's what we cannot allow for leaders that don't act with moral clarity, remain silent about certain violence, or give a pass to others. | ||
| Because that is insidious. | ||
| That is gasoline on the fire. | ||
| And that leads to greater violence. | ||
| I'm going to say it, and I realize it may not be popular with some in this room. | ||
| When you're a governor, when you're a president of the United States, you are looked to for that moral clarity. | ||
| And we have a president of the United States right now that fails that test on a daily basis. | ||
| It should not be hard to see the Minnesota Speaker of the House gun down and mourn her loss. | ||
| It should not be hard to follow the beautiful eulogy of Erica Kirk with an amen instead of saying, I can't do that. | ||
| I hate my enemies, as the president did. | ||
| We have a crisis in this country that requires all of us to do better. | ||
| The panel before spoke about citizen engagement and participation. | ||
| What are we to ask of citizens if their leaders aren't meeting that standard? | ||
| I understand that there are ways to disagree forcefully on policy, but I think it is critically important that at the same time we leave no room for anyone to allow for violence and fail to universally condemn it. | ||
| That is what we need in this country, and I believe it starts at the top. | ||
| In Washington State, we will hear from Angel. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| It's been a while. | ||
| I think we ultimately need more empathy for each other as fellow human brothers and sisters. | ||
| I think the relentless sandbox bonnabo monkey poo flinging with profanity is not getting us anywhere. | ||
| We're punching down instead of trying to rise above. | ||
| I think we need to lift each other up way more in this world. | ||
| This is a world that needs more love and compassion. | ||
| There are children dying of cancer, for heaven's sakes. | ||
| This is our politics, where people are just like saying such horrible, ridiculous things. | ||
| I mean, these are the people that are supposed to be the example for our children for crying out loud. | ||
| We need more filters. | ||
| We need more self-filters. | ||
| Think about it. | ||
| Just think about something you say right before you say it instead of like just flinging your craziness, right? | ||
| It's like, it's embarrassing. | ||
| When the people at the top use profanity, it's embarrassing. | ||
| It's like, this is our example. | ||
| So that's all I have to say, Pedro. | ||
| And I hope you have a wonderful, happy new year. | ||
| This is from Tony, and Tony is in Michigan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, Pedro. | ||
| Happy New Year to you. | ||
| I think that this rhetoric is terrible. | ||
| It's gotten out of hand by leaps and bombs, especially from since I was a kid. | ||
| I was raised that cursing was a bad thing, and I better not do it because I will be punished. | ||
| Now it's like second nature. | ||
| And then I hear the people calling in, hey, it's cool. | ||
| You voted for Trump, but you do not have to like this epic, what he's saying, because it's terrible, man. | ||
| Kids are listening. | ||
| And it's sad. | ||
| I don't think that people will really get it until after when Donald Trump is out of office and the Democrats get back in power, then you guys are going to, you're going to feel some kind of way because this is not good for politics. | ||
| This is bad politics. | ||
| And at some point in time, we all should be able to say, wrong is wrong. | ||
| We should be able to call balls, balls, and strikes, strikes. | ||
| So, all right, Pedro, have a great day. | ||
| Okay, that's Tony there in Michigan. | ||
| Let's go to California. | ||
| That's where Carol is. | ||
| Carol, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| It's good to see you, Pedro. | ||
| In my opinion, Trump's language is in disparagement of all other people that he doesn't like. | ||
| Just reflect what he really thinks of himself. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Carol there in California. | ||
| If you're just joining us, we're talking about this idea of politicians who use profanity and insult as part of their rhetoric, asking you the question, if it's a big deal to you. | ||
| If you want to give us your thoughts on it, you want to call us. | ||
| It's 202-748-8000 for the Eastern and Central time zones, 202-748-8001 for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. | ||
| And for text, if you want to do it that way, 202-748-8003. | ||
| Several of you posting on our Facebook site even before the start of this show this morning. | ||
| You can do that too. | ||
| Facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And on X, it's at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Debbie up next. | ||
| Debbie joins us from Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Happy holidays. | ||
| It's not Democrat and Republican. | ||
| It's common decency. | ||
| If you go back to McCain and he told that woman, no, he's not a Muslim and he's a decent human being. | ||
| You go back and you look at that and you read what Trump wrote on Christmas. | ||
| Radical scum. | ||
| And then you have him use the word. | ||
| I even hate to say the word. | ||
| It's not a curse, but it's the word. | ||
| W there? | ||
| Let's go to Bob. | ||
| Bob in Tennessee. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm glad to know that Republicans are bringing morals out into the open for the Democrats to come around and start being a little more moral. | |
| Thank God that Trump brought that out of them. | ||
| And I'll explain. | ||
| Give me a second here. | ||
| These people who listen to rap music and they allow their children to listen to it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is more profanity coming out of that than Donald Trump will ever say the rest of his life. | |
| And not only that, you enjoy it for the most evilest things in the world. | ||
| Pedophile doctors mutilating children and murdering babies. | ||
| I mean, come on now. | ||
| Democrats. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Glenn Falls, New York. | ||
| This is Patrick. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| Yeah, I think the barroom, locker room talk is pretty tiring. | ||
| I think people need to have a little more class. | ||
| And as far as the last caller, I think that two wrongs don't make it right. | ||
| So you can always just change the channel, as they say. | ||
| But yeah, I think it's tiring to get some class. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Mason Polling took a look at the president's statements following the death of producer and actor Rob Reiner. | ||
| This is from The Hill in recent days, saying it was nearly two-thirds of Americans believing that the president's social media posts and comments about the killing of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle singer Rio Reiner, were, quote, inappropriate. | ||
| That according to a YouGov poll, the poll showed that Americans' Trump post, as well as the post about Reiner by several other politicians from both parties, and asked what they thought about it. | ||
| Americans weren't fans. | ||
| The post continued, when shown a screenshot of it, 72% of Americans say that the president's post is inappropriate, and just 17% say it was appropriate. | ||
| And the UGov poll found that 55% of Republicans called the post inappropriate, along with 90% of Democrats. | ||
| It was earlier this month that the president himself followed up and was asked about initial comments about Rob Reiner, and he followed up on those. | ||
| Here are those comments from earlier this month. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, a number of Republicans have denounced your statement on true social after the murder of Rob Reiner. | |
| Do you stand by that post? | ||
| Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. | ||
| He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned. | ||
| He said he knew it was false. | ||
| In fact, it's the exact opposite that I was a friend of Russia controlled by Russia. | ||
| You know, it was the Russia hooks. | ||
| He was one of the people behind it. | ||
| I think he hurt himself in career-wise. | ||
| He became like a deranged person, Trump derangement syndrome. | ||
| So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape, or form. | ||
| I thought he was very bad for our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Here is Charles in Washington, D.C. You're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Great, great day to you, America. | ||
| Donald Trump has lowered the standards by giving everybody permission right as the leader of a country to be their lower selves and come out with the lower aspects of who they are. | ||
| A gentleman called said they attacked Donald Trump and they did all of this stuff to his family. | ||
| What did they do to Barack Obama? | ||
| They lied on him. | ||
| They threatened his family and did everything but to call him but the child of God. | ||
| But did he lower his standards or did he rise his standards? | ||
| We as human beings need to evolve as human beings and know that we're all interconnected. | ||
| And if we look at history from the Romans all the way up until now, people have been doing the same thing over and over again, hurting each other and repeating that cycle. | ||
| As conscious human beings, we need to evolve past the lowest aspect of who we are and evolve as human beings. | ||
| That's what we come here for. | ||
| But if you have no training, if you're not socialize into reaching a different level of consciousness and understanding, you just imitate what society does. | ||
| And Donald Trump is a bad representation for young people to imitate or emulate. | ||
| That's my comment. | ||
| Charles there in D.C. | ||
| This is Judy, Judy in Arkansas. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, thanks for listening. | |
| I just can't believe that we're talking about this rhetoric on both sides when there's so many other issues in our country that is very, very important. | ||
| I think the rhetoric is just beside itself, polarizing someone on what they say and how they act, instead of looking at things like $9 billion that was taken out of our country illegally. | ||
| And looking at also, the Constitution in the last administration was just thonked upon by opening the borders and letting everybody in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's just amazing to me that the news media doesn't really look at that when they're using our laws against us and not paying attention to us. | |
| I mean, people say some of the most polarizing things there can ever be a spew, and they enjoy it. | ||
| So why don't we get back to what we're supposed to be doing in a country instead of listening to what we say, enforcing what they should be doing and working for us and not themselves. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Judy in Arkansas, the U.S. news earlier this year put together uses of profanity by various presidents. | ||
| The Trump effect is how they categorize the current president. | ||
| Why it waited to the murky waters of, quote, colorful presidental rhetoric because President Trump described Israel and Iran this week of having fought so long that they didn't know what the, I mean, use the expletive they were doing. | ||
| Highlights a C-SPAN clip of that, but then adding, under the president's current, the current president, Mr. Trump's remarks have mostly been shrugged off. | ||
| Obama on Mitt Romney with U.S. News saying, let me be clear, of course, presidents swear, just not with the frequency of President Trump's public outbursts. | ||
| President Barack Obama once quipped that kids ages six to 12 would vote for him over Romney, look at that other guy, Romney, and say, well, that's up. | ||
| And uses an expletive that you can see there, I can tell. | ||
| And then in a 2015 appearance on Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians and Cars, Obama even endorsed swearing as a form of stress relief. | ||
| I curse, I curse, bad stuff or super stupid stuff. | ||
| It's happening constantly, right? | ||
| Every day. | ||
| So you just have to be able to make fun of a lot of that. | ||
| Like there was even dumber or more annoying than usual. | ||
| That's when cursing is really valuable. | ||
| It goes on from there. | ||
| If you want to read more for yourself there, the piece from U.S. News report is an expletive deleted, a brief history of presidential profanity. | ||
| As you look at that, we will hear from Walter. | ||
| Walter's in Ohio. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Yeah, a lot of great comments here about the violent rhetoric. | ||
| Those are all certainly bad and profanity can, you know, has its place, but I think often it shouldn't have a place. | ||
| But how about a little bit of respect for the office of president? | ||
| We have all sorts of politicians, representatives, senators that have zero respect for the office of president. | ||
| Let's not forget, you know, they call him Nazi, they call him names. | ||
| They shot him. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And 80 million people needed a fighter. | ||
| We needed somebody who would speak for us. | ||
| And that's what this guy does. | ||
| He speaks for us. | ||
| And all of a sudden, this other side gets all offended when he says these things. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| A previous caller mentioned all the great things he's doing. | ||
| He shut down the border. | ||
| President Otto Penn left the border wide open. | ||
| The economy is getting ready to take off with the big, beautiful bill. | ||
| He's bringing peace around the world. | ||
| This guy speaks for 80 million Americans. | ||
| Keep it up. | ||
| Keeping America first. | ||
| From Everett in North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Everett White was speaking about the both sides rhetoric. | ||
| It just makes it easy for the Republicans, you know what I'm saying, to give them a scapegoat. | ||
| Because even with the Charlie Curtin murder, they were after HBCUs. | ||
| They had nothing to do with it. | ||
| And then even when you're talking about Islamic terrorism, well, that must have started in the 60s because it was plenty of black churches that were bombed and they even burned crosses in people's yards. | ||
| So that both sides rhetoric is a lie. | ||
| And then with being an insurrectionist, that's why it seems like he's always trying to get a monument because you know you're insurrectionists and that's going to be your legacy. | ||
| So yeah, it might be one law that he might treat other people different than others, but we're all American and whatnot. | ||
| So it's just ridiculous. | ||
| It's just a game where they always say both sides, both sides, but we're not the ones that's doing the balance. | ||
| You know, Charlie Curtin was actually murdered by somebody that would have been in his own camp. | ||
| But then black people get blamed for it. | ||
| And I'm going to just stop it right there. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Jeffrey in Mississippi. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Jeffrey in Mississippi. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yes, I like to say that Donald Trump holds that the largest speaker in the United States, in the world, he should respect the office that he has been nominated for, that he's been elected for. | ||
| It's not for us to talk any kind of way just because we are powerful. | ||
| It's because people are listening to us. | ||
| And if we don't give respect and show respect to other people so they can see that we are decent human beings, then this country is going to keep on going down because Trump is not going to stop doing the things that he's doing. | ||
| We need to get together and pray that Donald Trump will stop doing the things that he's doing and start being a better president. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And offering her assessment of the Trump administration in its first year, it was the former Vice President Kamala Harris during her book tour, talking not only about the president himself, but the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in this assessment from earlier. | ||
| And when I see what these people are doing right now to end the war on cancer, to deny science and fire scientists, Kara, it's personal for me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It's personal for me. | ||
| And I can't laugh at it because, like so many of you who have known people who suffer because of unknown diseases or cancers for which there are no cures or there is the beginning of, | ||
| but more work that needs to be done for the cure, what they are doing to push misinformation and lies at the highest level of government, it's criminal. | ||
| And people will die because of what they're doing. | ||
| I can't laugh about that. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's up. | |
| Let's hear it from Texas. | ||
| This is Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| I want to say about the profanity. | ||
| Now, words come together to make a complete thought. | ||
| Each sentence should have a naming part and a telling part. | ||
| That's the noun and the verb. | ||
| I think it's appropriate if you use an adverb to accentuate the verb with profanity. | ||
| And that's my vision on that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| JL is in Utah. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, do you use a swear word in a sentence? | |
| Just makes your sentence a little bit longer. | ||
| It doesn't really add anything to it very seldom. | ||
| And if you sling insults or call somebody a name when trying to make an argument or as part of your argument, your argument is weak from the go, not to mention your character and your intelligence is somewhat lacking as well. | ||
| And I don't mean to sling insults at anybody like that because we all say what's on our mind and sometimes it's stupid. | ||
| Sometimes it hurts. | ||
| Sometimes, but yeah, it would be best if we didn't. | ||
| We'd have a better life. | ||
| I enjoy this country no matter who's the president. | ||
| It's the best country in the world and I'm grateful for it. | ||
| God bless us. | ||
| Thanks, Pedro. | ||
| We showed you that piece about Democratic centrists as they're described, willing to take on the fight according to the headline, prove they will take on the establishment. | ||
| It profiled Mark Kelly and others, but adds this saying, centrist politicians are expected to be even-handed, staid, and boring. | ||
| They are the ones who bridge the extremes and turn ideas into something that can get passed. | ||
| But a crop of centrist Democrats like Kelly are increasingly deciding to dig in their heels and fight. | ||
| These centrals aren't just confronting Trump. | ||
| They also don't want to cede the control over to the party's agenda to progressives, who have typically had a lie out of a microphone. | ||
| The strategy comes at risk. | ||
| It could appear inauthentic to voters or play into the hands of the president. | ||
| It could also turn off independent or moderate voters. | ||
| Some liberals say it's more style than substance. | ||
| And Democrats need to embrace progressive policies. | ||
| That's, again, the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| If you want to read that there, Doris is in Georgia. | ||
| Doris, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have to say, I missed out on a lot of C-SPAN since I retired. | ||
| I discovered it, and I've been watching it quite a lot. | ||
| But this whole scenario that's going on now, people need to realize that this is history repeating itself. | ||
| Donald Trump has created his own downfall. | ||
| The Bible even describes him as being a wicked, evil man who will advance from bad to worse. | ||
| And all those that are following him are going to go down with him. | ||
| So I think what right now, what he's doing is trying to build some sort of a defense for himself. | ||
| So when it does hit the fan, he'll have a way out, just like Hitler did. | ||
| And it's not a reality that Hitler used the country of Argentina as a place of refuge. | ||
| And look at the money that Trump's been pouring into Argentina. | ||
| He's planning his escape route right now, just like Hitler did. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to Lisa, Lisa in Georgia. | ||
| Lisa, you're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I would like to say that the profanity, the rhetoric that we're hearing in our political environment, it starts from the top. | ||
| It starts from Donald Trump. | ||
| But everybody had four years of Donald Trump. | ||
| They knew what Donald Trump is. | ||
| They knew him. | ||
| They knew the rhetoric. | ||
| And now we're repeating it all over again. | ||
| I would like to say that the caller that called in a few calls back, when he said that people, every time Donald Trump does something heinous, people want to say it's both sides. | ||
| No, it is not both sides. | ||
| Let's get it straight. | ||
| Democrats need to wake up. | ||
| So when it comes to the use of profanity or rhetoric in itself, is it appropriate? | ||
| Do you think it's a big deal? | ||
| Is it a big deal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, it's not appropriate. | |
| And nobody can go to work and speak like that. | ||
| You will be fired. | ||
| If your CEO of the company you work for speak like that, you wouldn't like that. | ||
| So why would people accept that from the president? | ||
| Why would people accept that from any leaders? | ||
| But I would say that the messaging of the Democratic Party was so bad, a lot of them came out using profanity, highly intelligent now. | ||
| And you want to lower your standards way down underground with Donald Trump. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| John in Georgia, we got about a minute left. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I just want to say that it's the profanity is terrible, but the lying is more harm than the profanity. | |
| And this is a man with zero class, and he's a man who just every word out of his mouth is a lie. | ||
| You've got Republicans calling. | ||
| They're all convinced that somebody just called, say they shot him. | ||
| We all know that it is deranged young people with guns who are shooting around here. | ||
| It's derangement. | ||
| But before we let you go, why is the profanity or why is the profanity not as bad as the lying, or your statement about the profanity versus the lying? | ||
| Can you elaborate on that? | ||
| You got about 20 addresses. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because he says I can grab women's genitals and that. | |
| Yeah, that's terrible for us. | ||
| I'm a grown man. | ||
| As long as the children don't hear it, we know he's a sick man, but people believe his lies. | ||
| You know, he says that there's no Russia hoax. | ||
| The first page of the Mueller investigation says the Russians helped Donald Trump and harmed Hillary Clinton. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And with that, we have to leave it there. | ||
| Thank you all for participating this morning. | ||
| Another edition of Washington Journal comes your way tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This week, watch Washington Journal's Holiday Authors Week series, featuring live conversations with a new author each day. | |
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| The United Nations Security Council met this week in New York City to discuss U.S. military actions against Venezuela. | ||
| Numerous countries spoke, including the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Michael Walls, and the Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN. | ||
| Ambassador Walls began his remarks by saying: The United States did not recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate government of Venezuela and accused him of heading a foreign terrorist organization. | ||
| The Venezuelan ambassador countered those remarks and accused the U.S. of attacking Venezuela for big oil companies. |