Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20240622

How are the causes and what can we solve this problem. Our phone lines are open. 2027488001. And rats 2027488000 independent 2027482002. Headlines following that shooting in virginia that television. N live his is the front page of the richmond dispatch. Ward parker and adam started their day the front page of the star horror rom new jersey, slain. Air as t. V. Crews and slaughter for all to see as the shot from the gunman taken camera that fell from adam wards hands after he was hot and one more headline from the Washington Post this bittered ex colleague kills two. A gun and ssim, social media. It took over the news feed of the world. If youre near the internet you found up experiencing this crime. Its shared at the speed of light. This morning on the washington journal were it took over the news feed of the world. Asking our viewers to weigh in on violence in u. S. Society, what are the causes, what are the solutions problem. Members of congress weighing in expressing their frustration and sadness and shooting s about the and the victims and families. Ohn lewis wrote host several asking our viewers other members tweeting their responses as well show you those. We want to get to some of the comments that are on our Facebook Page to this question in american society. The causes and solutions. Christopher woods writes Thomas Dickerson below that and brad cooper writes below that were getting your thoughts this morning. In on social media. Us at er you can tweet span rfplt cspan wj. Calling in winancy from california with the democrats. Good morning. One of the situations thats appened with the media, as im sure everyone knows, they thrive on violence. One of the first things that tell you if you want to kind of get in a better frame of is to d be more positive just completely quit watching the news. So, when you really think about something happens theres that saying if it bleeds it happens something thats what everybody goes towards and or goes towards actually happened to the media. O i think if everybody just reflected and said, why dont we try to have a new paradigm here put some things on the news of a downer much and ill hang up for your answer. Host i want to show you a from the l. A. Times this morning. Irginia shooting, did you watch, was the question posed on the front page story and a clip the video that was taken by aimingoter of the gunman his gun just before the shooting. Are you still with us . Yes. Er host get you to respond to this the on in the piece Washington Post that we started top of the program. Noted that the news implicated granting prominent coverage without terrible climbs would ever become famous. Do you think its gotten out of hand with the media these days . Is er gotten out of hand the understatement of the century. Absolutely. Absolutely. To not even have any question to show any of these incidence. Merican people have to look at themselves and thats what rings in the ratings and so kind of the t the psyche of where americans are right now. And you know, its just a sad commentary for the planet and ive tried to quit watching the news. Host jeff is up next. And you know, its just a sad commentary dakota. Mbie, north jeff good morning. Im a card carrying member of nr a and i think that the only thing that we can do to top all the violence is to arm everyone, even the senile old adies in the retirement home, infants. The very first thing they need to do is get a gun. Get that baby a gun. Shoot it. Host shawn, greenville, good morning. Caller good morning. Good morning. Im really frustrated with all violence and everything going on in our country. North that here in carolina they have privatized Mental Health and i think its big problem. In this state most of the 911 into ems is Mental Health issues. Violence is prevalent. I dont think that stricter gun laws is the issue. Think a lot of these people that go out here and commit are really s crimes Mental Health victims. I wish there was something we do to make it more public and mandated that they can have that training to be able to are repeathen people felons. This guy is not his first time a violent person. Its just really sad it took the people and then he ook the cowardly way out by taking his own life. Id like to see more energy and dumped into Mental Health. Host the Washington Post more ne on their piece, shootings, more deaths and when will congress and states finally on gun laws and for different opinion theres the National Review Editorial Board, the headline of their piece yesterday, the tired and pportunistic gun control agenda. They write in that piece its presume if a man is going to go through the hell findtelevising a weapon to which to carry it out. Reform our broken and Mental Health system is a sensible take. E to we might move to prosecute anybody who has a reasonable ause to believe that he is availing a dangerous person of a firearm. Have ht insist to knowledge that a person represents a great and eminent threat to others is to have a responsibility to inform the authorities. If you want to read more on the Editorial Board today and the Editorial Board of the Washington Post. Allen is up next. Line for democrats. Morning. Caller yes, good morning. Taking my call and thank you for cspan. First off id like to say you can never predict when someone is going to snap and have any kind of rage. Its taking my call and hank you for cspan. Ludicroust youre going to weed out people that are mentally unstable. People are only unstable after trigger. L the you cant predict who is going to do that when or where. The only states is nation in the world that seems to have this problem with the of gun violence. ve been tracking gun violence 10,007 some then odd people had died from gun violence that year. Civilizations that we had ngland, france, germany, numbers could be 30 or 40. F you look at the center of Disease Control who has been tracking gun violence for the years that number has deaths fromr 31,000 gun violence in the past few years. Guns than ever. And we have more deaths than ever. Were the only country that out that we need handguns, assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Rifles and shotguns, i have no problem with that. And i believe the Supreme Court got it wrong with the Second Amendment because they ompletely forgot the words about a well regulated militia. Host the piece that i just read that some of those bans that you were talking about wouldnt apply to the handgun that was used in this case. Ban on all g for a sell, manufacture and its for the less armed services, police agencies, citizen, no. We do not need hand guns. Has a her country proliferation of hand guns that we do. Seven times more deaths 11 countries combined. Lost each lives are year and other nations see 30 or 40. Understand the nr a is a vow powerful lobby group, but the got the ruling wrong. Host some of the stats you were alking about have been pointed out on various columns and online. Vox. Com have several stats on this ou see australia down at 1. 4 and netherlands at 3. 3. 6. 2. G up to luxembourg at nited states at the bottom 29. 7. New york times notes that more homicides ie in gun very six months than have died last 25 years than terrorist combined. D iraq his piece, learning from two murders. We can grieve or change our gun laws. In the meantime well go to waiting in los angeles, california. Line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning and im in brentwood, california. That. Sorry about caller thank you for cspan. 40 years old and since nwa, movie straight out of compton, since that group came 80s, you n the late now, music has really driven the youth and the generation to generation of violence and glorifying guns and violence. Back in the th nwa late 80s and then television has taken off with violence. Were s no surprise that having youth in the street cting out, disrespecting the elderly and whatnot, but the guns its a been in the music on television. Host whats the solution then . Are you looking for more estrictions on entertainment and television . Caller absolutely. This ship is in order if is going to happen. Workplace conduct is definitely be looked hat should at too. I dont think that this news the people at d the news station probably fairly. This guy i mean, everybody listening today has country treated somebody or yelled at somebody or belittled somebody. At that somebody, theyre actually going through todayain and this society is such a highpaced, Stressful Society that people sometimes cant deal attacks. E personal so, personal Business Ethics and h handling yourself well at work can help. Im living in brentwood and its called integrity and were integrity and character and bringing that back it and e that have lost character counts. Censorship and workplace conduct definitely this country. In ost charley in brentwood, california. Gilbert from tulsa oklahoma. Independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. Forgotten on we have the history of this country. This country was founded on violence upon the native inhabitants of this ountry and then they enslave people for 450 years. Proclaim great innocence, we are modeling for that that young man just exhibited and i give you during 9 11 george bush and that group, look what did. They destroyed mess poe tame i look at the 10s of thousands of lives that have on. We were in 118 countries. Is all over the world but not on the southern border. Military base a in australia, billions of in australia and he reason that is is for the europeans to control the pacific rim. Host go back to u. S. Military all these countries and bring them back to the United States . Caller yes. Ost do you think thats part of the problem that would help caller yes Sadaam Hussein didnt have anything that could go 500 miles his group bush and pulled that mans head off that before isil. Look what they did in iran and proclaim that iran is the enemy. Murdered afterre democrat y elected democratical democratically. Nd then our good friend Sadaam Hussein trying to be friends with america he keuled more than named iranut we have what they ia, look have done in latin america and were paying the price because you. Re coming here. Thank host thats gilbert in tulsa, oklahoma. Up next District Heights for democrats. Aller i heard so many good comments this morning that i really dont know where to who started e lady with the media and the other gentleman started with about the violence, then the last started about American History. Vicious violent nation. What we are looking at is what were breeding. I joined the metropolitan Police Department of washington,. C. Do you know it was a mystery to find a gun anywhere in and 1968. , d. C. There were no guns in this city. Somewhere in the 80s, like the ther gentleman said, somewhere in the 80s, i dont know how this thing happened but you had pockets of heroin and thats but all of a sudden out of nowhere i saw the drugs coming in into washington. Apprenticeship programs leave and any type of Educational Programs and any of professional professions carpenters rerz and and plumbers, all that stuff dried up and came away but then the drugs and guns. It has not stopped since then. If you take a look at these socalled politicians, you dont hear anybody talking about jobs. Jobs are going overseas and people are frustrated and feeding the beast about the violence. Ugly andhing is really its out of hand host take us to the solution of this question. Caller only solution i can see, to is that something has got be done. The first thing i heard was the firearms obacco and jumped on that case. Are sucking t they these guns out of the city supposed to its start regulating the guns in country. But the nra is so powerful it up for the rights of the American People to be protected from the gun violence up this country. Dosolution is what we got to is start with gun get the guns and if you dont have a gun solve the problem with the gun. Talk about own and and find another solution other than pointing a gun and shooting. Tweets that have come in this morning. Jeff writes another headline on the wall treet journal on the social media aspect. N their piece this morning the headline bite Editorial Board i facebook. Hooting, see. He shooting was routine what was distinctive and disturbing was the staging of, he filmed it and how quickly he made sure to alert his social media followers to watch the clip. Goes on to l board say up next. Line for republicans. Ahead. The problem we have is we let people believe that any action feel wrong is so we stoked it. If i and raeupeople think feel wrong then i have whatever is justified. Get away tting people with disproportion nature reactions. We educate people and get out of sixties mentality. Heard y times of you callers say that we were born from constitution and slavery, but people dont realize we have moved on and issues are still a problem but theyre not like they used to be. About ing is not always race. So this guy, he goes and he feels like they treated him in a acist manner, their actions were racist in his messed up brain he can go kill people because they wronged me. So its healing the racial wounds and educating people about the laws that we have and we are a Law Abiding Society caller exactly. Tart educating the youth and all ting people now about the positive impact and the changes from the civil rights movement. Host where does it take place . Caller at home, schools and churches. Let people realize there are change made and people are trying to all do the right thing. Host thats gerard in lafayette, indiana. Lawrence is up next arlington, virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. For taking my call. To touch d i wanted base on it and if you ask me my opinion. I believe the crux of the racism. Is i believe that if people could address that as far as leaders in and the that, that address would be as far as addressing that problem, it would be th they could address that and that decrease the violence is not an ism deology but ignorance and misleading factor. Host how do you suggest we do it . Doing wrong right now . Foremostell, first and i think it has to be addressed leadership. E if they address it and create a anel or something of that manner and really confront the problems and issues, really onfront them, dont dance around it and dont dont just scratch the surface but that will be at least a beginning to diagnosis create a solution to really cure it. It . How do you address president obama in his eulogy talk n charleston said we a lot about race in this country. What are we doing wrong in how were talking about it . Well, like i said, a panel where you could create a of minds and confront the panel with just every day really people and just hash out whats the drive of the mean . , you know what i you can create solutions. But right now its not even its going to continue. Start an unless people taking this serious, because this is a serious situation and people start taking it serious just going to continue to happen. Its just going to go on. Thats it. Host the wrapup of the shooting yesterday, it was noted that williams, the shooter, is black. Victims d ward, the were white. Williams were gay and parker and straight. None of which is relevant except he said his identity is a factor in the killing in the 23 page rambling letter. Had a white straight man killed a black gay man josh is up next rockford, illinois. Good morning. The media is not stopping covering this story and my point. D of theres been, what, 5, 600 eople shootings in the chicago area alone this year and that all, been on the news at but god forbid two white people and we got toinia news cycle. On the newsguy was fired from his job. His whole point was to get on the news and get back on it and successful in doing o fplt Something Like this happens and msnbc and fox and hold of it and that all they could talk about it. Cnn couldnt even restrain themselves from showing the event and they bragged the rest theyre not at going to show it. Were not going to show this on early in thedid it morning and they couldnt restrain themselves. Host do you think the live of this, this happening during a live broadcast and then talking o that youre about made this different in a way than other shootings that mostned in this country on days . Caller did it make a difference . In terms of how the news covered it . I dont. O, i think the difference there shouldnt be a difference. It shouldnt be different whether one black kid gets in the ghetto and what two white People Killed on in national tv. The the problem arent guns. Until people actually admit the too many guns ve and way too many guns out there and the nra is way too powerful isnt going to do anything about it, its not going to happen. You dont see this happening. 1998massacre in australia, there was a massacre and their congress said, no more guns and verybody said, yeah, youre right and they havent had anything ever since. 10, 15 deaths from gun violence. Ere in america, we have what, 30,000 a year or Something Like that . Until we deal with the problem guns, i mean, we can deal with Mental Health, but earlier, you said dont know when somebody is going to snap. Predict it. Some people, they may have ental Health Problems that you dont know whats going on. They dont have access to the uns and they cant go and blow somebody away. There are way too many guns in this country. Another vox chart showing shootings that have taken place since sandy hook. You can see where those happened on that map there. Next. E is up mt. Pleasant South Carolina line for republicans. Good morning. Caller yes. Generation. Ferent im over 70. I could trade poor stories with anybody. Life al problem is that id devalued. Alle people whatever they need not what they need but whatever they want. Theres no responsibility. There is no excuses that should be given and no consequences. Out and kill somebody and they show things on television on this silly program where the walking dead. And people look at that and they watch it and they think its great. How the heck can you curve violence when you show it all the time on television and make like its fun. Its sick. Earlier callers was calling for more censorship in the news and on television. The solution then . Caller no, i think more responsibility. Is. L it like it you dont have to censor it but what it is. There are no more parents in the world. Tells their children, shut that darn tv off. To say ches are afraid anything. Everything now is racial. Listen, its just a problem. Bility people arent responsible. These kids grow up without you getny consequences, pregnant you have an abortion. You kill somebody, hes craze country. There is something wrong. Responsibility. What do you expect . We excuse everything. Host one of the killers from profile 2012 shooting in that shooting in aurora, was sentenced yesterday. Ames holmes received 12 consecutive life sentences one for every person he killed on uly 20, 2012, followed by additional 3318 years in prison for trying to kill 70 other to blow up lotting his apartment. There is no chance for him to be paroled. That trial ending yesterday in ending encing phase yesterday. We asked viewers to email us as well. Emails, this from mark repealing or chipping is at the bill of rights not an answer to controlling violence in free society. Censorship and placing everyone the havior training is not answer. God is not the answer and never has been. People know right from wrong but no choose to do wrong matter what. One more email by ron look for your emails as well as your calls, your tweets and your facebook posts. San antonio on the for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Ahead. Go caller it started back when they had video games, they games and n video then they come up with the Assault Rifle ban and that pretty well for a while until a certain president it and then o push they went haywire after that. Unfortunately with their rhetoric that you hear especially on tv, its all over the place, im not going to put names, thats recolle dick hru ridiculous. Thats all you hear on tv hate, hate, hate. And thats where its the psyche just American People are getting banked up with hate, hate, hate. If you dont hate them that means youre not in. So i dont understand whats going on in the rhetoric thats and only a on tv few companies own the tv media media. Io so you just walk into this all this hate. You cant get away with it. Tv media ou think the needs to do more studio about good and love . Caller well, i dont know about good and love. Has good and love anymore . The whole thing is controlled. You cant get away from that unfortunately. Conspiracy freak but you got to see. Turns. Ot like they take you cant watch another channel im sr. Ry. Host is the solution just turn off the tv . Thats not going to work, you know that. Is the solution . The solution i guess politically. Start learn to love your brother. Nobody shows any love out there. Watching the debates left stuff on tv and im on a emocratic line and im not being biased in any way, shape nd form, when i hear the democrats give out a speech i hear at the hatred. Side of the aisle on the republican side theyre ust knocking down each other left and right and youre not getting any specifics of any kind on any type of thing that for unfortunately. Nd its been like that for oh, jesus, ever since bush won the a court. Y by i mean that really frustrated a lot of people. They just spill out hate. They got channels and their own station and Radio Station and nothing but hate on everything and they got to change. People. They have to change. Because if they change i guarantee you the people will change. Host james, san antonio, texas. James mentioned previous assault weapon bans. Stores s about some wont sell specific high powered rifles specifically walmart. Authorities have said that the gunman in the attack used a type of weapon that the company does not sell. Largest the nations seller attributed its decision such er demand for military style rifles and not from gun politics. That story in the business section. If you want to read more bills pennsylvania. Ng, good morning. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Im 70 years old. Country 55 this years. Kacarrying a gun 45 years of my life. Its not the gun. You what it is, its the system. System. E criminal its the laws, the whole problem thats where it starts from. Got a guy who kills 18 guys and they se taxpayers llion of money, you execute them on so everybody can see that. You got to have fear. Theres no fear in this country more. Theres no if you dont have fear you dont have respect and you dont have no law. Money and er, killing. That doesnt work no more that way. Its got to go the other way. The politicians that create that they dont give a dam except how money and the lawyers are all the time. Criminal system. Argue more fear would make less violence. Do you think about calling for more love . Going to ve youre have you got to have fear have to respect and love. Dont have that, what kind of love are you going to have . Here. Ody hates each other you see people who burn cities down and a governor who doesnt do nothing about it. I was at governor, in five minutes every go home and everybody be killed. I guaranteed everybody would go home. You got to have that. Thats the only way were going change. Do notnald trump and i met him a long time ago. Jerry on the washington journal. Caller good morning and thank call. Or taking my i hear this rhetoric going on its not the guns. The second for amendment people would come into homes running everybody. Heres the solution, we took god bible out of schools and our country started going downhill. God first back in the government, because thats ne of the major reasons our country was founded on, well see a turn around in our country. Thank you for your day. Right. All thats north carolina. Uanita is up next port arthur, texas. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Make a i was calling to comment about the guns. Believe the guns are the problem. Guns do not have a brain and cant think, its the people the guns, so i have to problem. Ns are not the the problem is that the media, they keep showing all the they show the negative killings that the cops are doing show the good. They just keep showing this over and over againer and thrive on the bad and violence and i believe thats problem. The media is playing all of us and they are turning us against other. And it just doesnt have to be like. Raised with i was white, mexicans and our parents best of friends. Im 51 years old and born in 63, so my father and my mother to love everybody. Had they not done that i been mixed ld have up and hate everybody and hate cops. Case. Hats not the it starts at home. Host when youre talking about the media, was it always like that . Always remember the media doing that . Turning ying they are people against other. If not, when did it change . Some i think it changed time in the 80s. 80s . Why in the caller because they started you would see stuff on tv that a finally as watching tv and youd be ashamed would show hat they on the television. When i was young we watched the i love lucy and like that. S, stuff now you sit with your child you and dont know when you have to and all they nnel do is advertise is killings. Media. E the media needs to stop. Few more tweets. Merica hero writes wrights jon d is in in jonesville. Did morning. Caller my sympathies go out to families, my prayers go out to them whose loved ones were murdered. Jonesville froms roanok roanoke . Caller about a 3 hour drive. They deserve our sympathies. Thing that is going on is evil. Even is what is doing this. Causes it. He way to stop it is through the Lord Jesus Christ and our can stop this thing. Its going to be stopped shortly bible, according to the the end is coming shortly when a nation in 1945, last generation of people. Hope people go and read that in matthew chapper 13. I hope people read that because back to. Ere it goes they try to keep things hidden, does. Emocrat party a lot of the black people, not all the black people. Abortion has killed 70 million babies in america. Babies andling these they dont care. Mean , thats 70 i thats more than several wars that happened throughout the 70 million babies have been killed and they dont care. Hearhey care about and you it now is black lives matter. White lives dont matter. Babies dont matter. Whats l about evil is come over america and thats the to change is going when christ comes back and clears it up. Satan is coming first. Before christ does and hes going to deceive the whole world. Thats floyd in jonesville, virginia. One more email that came in. Ill read it a bit of it our thats going to be last comment this morning in segment of the washingt washington journal. And xt well talk with npr week on the ter arkets and then well have a round table on assisted suicide laws in this country. Well be right back. Florence harding said she only had one hobby ask that was warren harding. She was a significant force and adept at handling the media. Despite scandals and infidelities and death in office define the role of the modern first lady. At 8 00 ay night eastern on cspans series first ladies, examining the private who filled women the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. From Martha Washington to michelle obama. On American History tv on cspan3. Saturday, august, 29 marks the hurricane rsary of katrina, one of the five eadliest storms of u. S. History. Bernard at saint parish in louisiana. You cant describe it, thats your whole life gone. You got nothing left but rubble house but yourur whole community, your friends and family, everybodys gone and later and you still your family and friends you used see anymore that you to see. Hell of a feeling. You dont forget it. Never forget it the rest of your life. Followed at 9 00 with a town hall meeting in new orleans. You. m relying on i know all this is state level, all other el and levels. I dont have them. I voted for you to represent me on a local level. Where else to go. I dont know what else to do. Thursday night starting at 8 00 more from the atlantic onference in new orleans with fema fema. And well show you the trip to the region and remarks to the effort ten years after. Anniversary coverage all this on cspan. Continues. Journal host marilyn is a Senior Business editor with the public radio and joins us. Before yesterdays big gains week and one utal of the headlines read simply, china. N is the explanation as simple as that. Simple when it comes to china but it has a lot o do with what happened to china. China grew really, really, really fast in the last couple decades. sple call it the roaring 20 of china. The level of growth its mind boggling. You cant believe how quickly changed there just the tremendous addition of of everything. So as they were building out the manufacturing base, they needed a lot of raw materials. Buying everything, over the l, so all world people started trying to produce more to supply china for thisthat it needed fantastic growth. Particularly t transpare transparent. They dont share a lot. Is it dont really know growing . S it at the same pace or starting to slow down. People call it a black box and dont know what is in there. Have this narrative of China Growing like crazy. Us what you got and signs pointing to the fact that its maybe slowing down. Theyre buying a lot less of our commodities and everything. Sorts of per, all metals and anything you could name theyre buying less of it especially oil. So all of a sudden you have this in a fundamental dynamic all over the world. Minerther youre a copper in arizona or chile or wherever youre at and trying to supply market and now your customer may be pulling back . You got all this expansion that created all this to send stuff to china and now maybe not so much. Maybe they dont want it. So everybody has become very theres not enough information about the chinese really to understand whats happening. But Everybody Knows doesnt sound great. Nervous. Re chinese stocks are down tremendously this summer and gotten way too high and fell off a great deal. Nervous and ody is they tend to add to this volatility. Host a lot of folks saying shock that the market saw the 19 point drop and 00 gain yesterday, a lot of people saying that this correction wasnt a surprise, due to come to the carly heres ang bit from her. I expected a correction for some time because the are not that strong. Of course now we have the fed backing off on 0 Interest Rates. It a has issues in front of and the devaluation of the one as well as the huge selloff in spell trouble ahead. You look at the stock market chart and you can time and, over a long it may not be the best measure of the stock market, but its more than a or century. Because you low it know kind of what happened, it doesnt look like a straight line. Uplooks like up and down and and down. Theres always this saw tooth up and then t goes it goes down some. Upward, the line points stocks gain over time. But theres always those up and downs. And every now and then you have a pretty big down, the saw tooth people call and that a correction. If its 10 in a drop thats they refer to as a direction. F it goes down to 20 then people call it a bear market. Where we got the other day was 10 . Correction. Now its popped up a little bit correction. Quite a corrections happen. In fact, theyre actually fairly common. To freak out, but usually you have a correction months, every other year you have one of these 10 drops. And then we recover. On the other hand, you could have a terrible bear market like 1970s, for n the example, where after year stocks questionrowing, so the people always have is, well, is those saw ike one of tooth little typical correction that well get over in very or is it more like the 1970s when well have a ear market and year after year stocks dont go anywhere, maybe i better pull out. For signs. Re looking yesterday we got encouraging news that the market went back up. Maybe it was a little correction. Heres the headline hat from the Washington Times nd from usa today heres how they gained in valuation. In e gaining 33. 6 billion day. Billion, microsoft 17. 9 billion and so on down the line and the chart if you want coaster bout a roller week on the stock markets, if ou want to talk about chinas impact and the commoditys to talk arilyn is here about it with npr. Can call it and 2027488002. Good morning, michael. Aller good morning and good morning marilyn. Since most of the market is tied is this a case of china catchi catching guest china is such an factor these days and second largest economy in the a ld and its just been such sponge for all of the commodities out there. Be letsou would say you would drill oil in north that , so you have a job you didnt have ten years ago nd now people have jobs out there, and it goes into the of oil. Rket i mean, its sort of a giant world. F oil all over the as we all create more oil whether its in the saudi states or in arabia, all of that oil was rising and it was all going over to china. Of like a big straw sucking all the oil over to with so they could keep up their growth. If theyre not growing so fast and whatthe straw down do you have . Oil prices fall. Came out ofoil that the ground in north dakota wasnt specifically put in a arrel and sent to china that doesnt happen. Its all part of this giant pool all over the world and if theyre sucking on that straw much theres not that demand for oil and the prices have fallen. Cheaper commodities did for consumers who go to the see gas prices some under 2 in this country . Hang with me on this one because this is where its tough. Using less oil and that means prices are down, thats work in texas, if you work in north dakota or any of the people pumping oil, thats so great for you. Is is it bad for us that oil so much cheaper. Most economists would say on us. Nce its good for were talking about a giant drop a barrel at the this of last summer and week oil was trading at about 37 from 100. You know, wow. What does that mean at the pump . Ou know youre seeing cheaper 2. 57 and prices 0. 86 less than it was one year ago by this time. Be t people say it will under 2 a barrel on average. Are a person who buys 30 of gas every week. A dollar e is down by you got an extra 30 in your pocket. End of the month its 120. Ts back to school shopping, folks. Ets spend it on kids back packs. You have a positive impact. Lumber prices are down. If you wanted to build a house in the spring, great. Cheaper lumber. From of things benefit this cool off in commodity prices. If you work as a minor, as a is not, as a farmer, it so great for you. If you are a consumer who needs to drive, who needs to buy food, who wants to build a home, it is pretty much good news for you. On balance, which two things matter more . Probably overall it is good for us to have cheap commodity. It holds down inflation. It can help hold down Interest Rates. Host Marilyn Geewax is the Senior Business editor at npr. She is with us for about the next half hour taking your questions and comments. Livingston, louisiana. Line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to address the 401 Pension Plans that most companies are using now, and with a young people instead of getting guaranteed pensions they have to rely on for a 100 plants. Was addressing for a once for social security. If they are so great why arent Government Employees involved in for a one plants . I would like your comment on the other people who have to depend on these for a one 401 plants. Point this is a good about how we save for retirement these days. It was pretty typical when i was a child for adults to have what they called to find benefit programs for workers. That is, when he retired it was defined. You knew what you were going to get. If you want other plant near where i grew up, gm says when you retired you would get x amount of money every month in a check. You had a defined benefit. But that is really tough these days. Companies dont want to promise with the future is going to hold. There are lots of retirees and they dont want to be held to promises 30, 40, 50 years from now. They would rather have you put a defined contribution into your own saving fund, money that you take with you no matter how many times you take change jobs. The idea that you will start with one company when you are 20 years old and stay with them until you are 65 is a pretty outofstate idea for a lot of people. Thesewe move towards retirement funds, and people call them be 401 k plans, you are supposed to put money into it and retire comfortably. In this complex of economy, as we were just talking about, the commodities can hurt some people. The falling prices can hurt some and help others, will the stock market situation, you could say does not have much to do with the real economy. Most of us are not Stock Traders on wall street, it is not our business. But most people a lot of americans do have these retirement plans, and you do care about the stock market. Ultimately it does have an impact on your life. What has been happening in the stock market is kind of a big question right now. It is what economists are christmas will be coming up, i hate to say. It is going to get here. And when it gets around to november and you are really thinking about gifts and how much are you going to spend . Are you are going are you going to take a trip . As you think through that type of decision what is going to weigh on your mind more if you are consumer . Are you going to be more thrilled that you have that extra 30 a week because gas is cheaper, or are you going to start looking at your 401 k , holy cow, weing dont have anywhere near the money we thought we had. The stock market is down 10 . Maybe we shouldnt take that trip. Lets not go to florida over the summer. Its a question of what is going to happen or consumer encourage consumers more, that extra cash in your wallet or your longterm rating plan . These are very important in terms of long consumer confidence. Host what do you make of reports that individual american s trying to access their accounts this week as stocks were troubling has of trouble doing that . You know, it has become such an unfriendly place for the individual investor. There is really overwhelming youre supposed to own a broad index they call them index funds, dont try to get in and out quickly because it is all being done with computers on a large scale. If you are just an individual investor buying an individual stocks, you can really get killed on any given day. Think about apple stock. Its a fantastic company, but in a short. Is lost by 20 of its value. Well if you have to much faith in one stocks, it wouldve been a pretty scary day for you. If everybody gets gears and their scared and they are all calling at wants to try to sell their stocks, you are just a little god. Youre are not going to get the attention of the brokers who are going to be able to execute those traits. It is a dangerous place in a lot of ways. Maybe thats too strong a word, but you need to have a strong stomach and a lot of appetite for risk to be an individual investor buying individual stocks. For the great majority of americans, you are better off there is safety in numbers. That is managed professionally by the person appointed by your employer, or make sure you have one of these index type funds. Up next,k is louisville, ohio. For independents. My first book i wrote i predicted the real estate bubble. I predicted that evolved into the seven. My latest book i wrote about flash crash this is about two years ago, all of this is protectable. Did you predict what happened last weekend yesterday . Caller yes absolutely. I am an options trader. You are right, i could tell my options. It is all race. Here is the big story. I am from detroit. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. The very definition of class warfare is wall street versus mainstream. That in the 70s the stock market did not go anywhere. It did not go anywhere in the 50s or the 60s or the 70s, because we were based on capitalism. This is a fascist country today. 1 controls have the wealth. The amazing thing about this bubble, we had a 25 trillion bubble. Now this bubble is tied to the leveraging of oil. You start the wars in the middle east. From 20 to the oil 140 a barrel. The stock market goes up 10,000 points. As the oil comes down the stock market comes down. You were talking about Pension Funds what they want tell you was of the Pension Funds are called hedge funds. You just talked about apple stock and Facebook Stock at what these billionaires do in new york and connecticut is that they take your pension money and they put it in the stock market. That was against the law host a lot there so far. I want to let Marilyn Geewax respond to some of the comments. Just to be factually accurate, the stock market was great in the 1960s. People, the gogo 60s because the stock market went up so much. That was really quite in contrast to what happened in 1970s because you had the oil problems and the Energy Shortages and that sort of depressed the economy for a long time. They went back up again in the. 0s in recent years we have had one of the longest boom markets in history. The market has been up tremendously. In the first month or two when president Obama Took Office in february, march of 09, the Dow Jones Industrial was down around 7000, a little bit below that. By june of this year it was up to 18,000. A huge runup in the stock market. It is has dropped back, bouncing around more around 16,000. Host maybe the larger point he was trying to make there is of the market is fixed at the little guy will never be able to get ahead. Guest there are a lot of retirees in flirty florida golfing today because they had a good idea. The time most people evidence would suggest, look at the statistics on it, most of the time when you save money on a Broad Spectrum of stock overtime they do gain. There are certainly setbacks, there are certainly terrible. There are certainly terribleperiods. Go to google, type in dow jones historical chart. You can see that it is that kind of solitude action, up and down, up and down. End, most of the time, people who say money and invest wisely in a broad ranking generally do well. Heres a tweet. Markets will fluctuate unprintable, so deal with it. Chris is up next, chicago, illinois. Lines are democrats. Line for democrats. Caller my question pertains to the rate Interest Rate hike. Do you think that the Interest Rates will be raised in the coming months . Is so what will be affected in the equity markets, and steve think we will start looking at the energy sector, is that affecting inflation and is that a reason why they might be holding back on interestrate hikes . Host you might have to unpack it a little bit for us. Guest i am going to reach down and get by eightball. Is really interesting because the Federal Reserve has not raised Interest Rates in a multidecade. It is been nine years without having an Interest Rate increase and they have been cutting them for the last six. The reason for driving down Interest Rates, the Federal Reserve wants to try to encourage people to borrow. If they hold down the Interest Rate for banks they can lead of that money at a lower rate. That means you can get a car loan, a home mortgage, office of things at lower rates. It helps businesses expand. It helps you buy things. Interest rates matter in how the Federal Reserve, which is the nations central bank, as it tries to finetune and tweak Interest Rates. They want to try to adjust our expectations and our desire to spend money. They have to make a decision. They have kept and rates at such low levels, almost zero, really, what they do with the banks. They have captured about as low as you can get. Here is one argument. It is time to start to raise those rates to get back to a more normal historic level because you want a few bullets in your gun. What if the economy really does go into a recession . How do you fight that . If we have apons recession and Interest Rates are already this low, is that it does not have much to do. But if they start to move Interest Rates back up to a more normal level, if the economy starts to sink than they can cut rates again and give the economy a boost. They feeling they need to have Interest Rates go back to a more normal level. On the other hand, there is all this turmoil around the world yous a long story, but if raise Interest Rates it basically makes the dollar stronger. This makes our commodity more week, it makes it more expensive for our foreign customers. You dont want a super strong dollar. You dont want to make borrowing more expensive if your business is already struggling. Has to decide, do we want to get back to is the economy Strong Enough to get back to more normal times, or is it still so weak that this is not the right time to change rates . That is a big question. Thely honestly, no one has answer. I dont know what theyre thinking. I dont know that the fed knows what theyre thinking. We still have some more data points before they come to this conclusion. Host heres the front page of the Financial Times this morning, case for rate rise next month now less compelling sense that official. Says fed official. Turmoil in china markets are rattling policymakers. We are talking about these issues for the next 15 minutes or so. William is in virginia, line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. I dont know whether your guests will comment on this or not, that i have had an online trade account since about 1999. I get up some days im just a small investor, but i am just wondering who starts the buying and selling . If i get up in the morning and i do something i call bottom feeding, i go in and find a stock and i put in a bid for maybe two or three dollars. Most of the time it gets canceled by the end of the day. If i did the opposite, i went in and put a bid for two or three dollars more, it would get almost instantly. I am wondering who are the people who wake up in the morning, and like apple you just discussed, it was at almost 110. And now is about at who gets up and says i am going to put up a bit for 115 . About two weeks ago google pops 80 when they opened. Who gets up and says ok i think im going to pay 80 more for google today . That just mystifies me and i am not really sure if there is an answer but i would like to hear your response. There im not sure that is really a specific answer either, other than to say it is a big world out there. You are thinking in terms of when you wake up, but remember there are people who are just going to bed there are people in europe who want to own apple stock. They have had a whole day they have already been awake and are thinking about things. Host the market never sleeps. Guest you are just waking up thinking what is happening today . They have already thought it all through. They have already seen what happened in asian markets. Have already seen what happened in european stocks. By the time you get to new york when trading things around following the sun around the world, there are a lot of people who have already made their made up their minds about where the world is going. That is why it was so crazy the other day when the market opened first thing in the morning and the Dow Jones Industrial average 1000thousand point on points on opening. We were all watching it and, holy schmoly. 1000 point on opening. Who were these people . Peopletly they were the already trading in asia and in europe who knew things were ugly and they were nervous. They just wanted to get out of the way. Plunged. Ts after we all got up, had a cup of coffee, thought about a little bit, the market came back up 900 points. So you see a swing like that from 1000 down, 900 up. I cant remember all the numbers. This week has been so wild. It really is chuck stomach turning. That was my point about being a small trader. You are one individual fighting title wave ofal money that washes around the world and follows the sun. To absolutelyd take your moment to be in the right place at the right time because it is 20 47. 20 24 7. Host here is the Dow Jones Industrial average, a lot of fluctuation here in the past couple of days. Ending yesterday 16,285. Craig is up next, massachusetts. Life democrats. Hi, thanks taking my call. The issue i am always interested in is the idea of full employment. If you get the Unemployment Rate almost alls good for working people. It is good for conservatives, it is good for liberals, it is good for everybody. You have more bargaining power. We had this briefly in the clinton administration, but prior to that we had it the only time we had it was way back in the age of aquarius, 1690, that we had full employment. I am wondering what you think about full employment as an issue and what you think about the idea of getting it below 4 . Guest thats exactly. You have really hit the issue squarely which is that the Federal Reserve remember we were talking about Interest Rates moment ago. One of the things they really is to see that kind of full employment. It is true. People had 1960s tons of jobs. You could quit my job and start the next job the next morning, because there was more work than people. Because we had that postwar boom still going on. The United States was still pretty much all the cars were being made in this country. Steel mills were going like crazy. It would be wonderful to get back to that. We almost had that in the late 1990s. It was also a very strong economy. It helped wages, it helped workers. The Federal Reserve wants to make sure there is plenty of money out there and cheap loans so that consumers can afford to buy a home. It is great to have low mortgage rates, low car loan rates. All of that is good for people to keep the economy moving. On the other hand, you dont want to make loans so cheap that people make foolish decisions. For example, think about what happened with the housing bubble 10 years ago. There were all these things called subprime mortgages, or they were really low Interest Rates but they were just teaser rates, a lasted for a couple of years. People said oh yeah, i can afford a house because the Interest Rate is so low. A lot of people who really should not have bought houses went out and bought houses. Then the bubble burst. A really cannot afford all of those homes. It ended up causing a lot of trouble for the economy that there were those subprime loans out there. You dont want to have Interest Rates be so low that people make foolish decisions and you create bubbles and prices. But you would like to get that full employment. So how do you find the right balance . That is the question. That is why i glad i am a journalist and not a Federal Reserve governor. Those policymakers have a really tough job trying to figure that out. Host what are considered full employment numbers . Guest that is debatable. Some people say 5 is full enough. Host 5 unemployment. Guest yeah. Unemployment right now is 5. 3 . Host 5. 2 in the latest report. Guest its right in there. Some people argue that a 5 if we can get to 5 or just below that and we are getting pretty close, but that is full employment. You dont want it to be so low complain because they cant find workers. He want a little bit of slack so that they cannot workers and keep growing. Some people are saying that we are pretty close to full employment right now. However, we also have another problem, which is other people nowheregue that we are near full employment because there are a lot of people who got washed out of the economy during the recession and they dropped out of the labor force. Labor force participation is low. More jobs,a created people who are on the sidelines right now, people in their 50s who may be lost their jobs, a which they were working. They are calling themselves retired, but really they wish they were working, if you got unemployment down lower, maybe a whole lot of people would rush back into the job market and really we are not near the level of will employment that we sort of like to think that we are. That is an argument in economics right now. Host lets get mark waiting in trenton, west virginia, line for republicans. Good morning. Caller hi marilyn, how are you doing . Guest hi. Caller thanks for taking my call. I could be considered anything. Democrat, republican. I just got you on the republican line. You know, if you look at the these like you said, there have been 299 declines of 5 or more since 1928. There have been 94 declines of 10 or more since 1928. There have been 28 declines of 25 or more since i did 28. Weeku need your money next , dont have it in the stock market. That is number one. You can diversify and have others. As far as oil, and i did not hear you talk about that its not just the weakness in china that has caused the loss of phrases, it is technology. Guest that is true. Good point. Has really g we are now discussing in congress, hey, we need to Start Exporting Oil because we have so much of it. The price it is not just at the mine demand, it is supply and demand. You have a lot of supply of energy because of technology. Guest right. If i could just comment on that, he raises a really good point about before i was saying that the chinese economy was really soaking up all of this oil for many years, and that is withheld to drive oil prices so high is years ago. And thats true. A hugehave also seen increase in the supply of oil, because of these new technologies, new methods of drilling for oil. In the United States we do not export our oil to china, but by drilling it into shale drilling into shale formations and these new techniques that people refer to as fracking, we have increased the total global pool of oil, even if we keep it at home for our own domestic use, you dont need to buy semi much fromuela as venezuela, as much in saudi arabia. We have increased the whole total supply of oil around the world, and that is really helpful. What you have really seen in the past year is this decrease in also to somel, and degree from us, because more people have more fuelefficient vehicles and are switching to hybrids, whatever. Technology working on both the supply and to the demand. Guest yeah. You really saw a huge increase in supply. Oil inventories are huge, and china as well as other countries has stopped using as much oil. Say they arelets not decreasing the total use of oil. Hey are decreasing the amount if the oil supply is growing if you are an oil driller you would like the supply to be growing at least the same pace. That is not what is happening. Oil demand is still rising but supplies are rising even faster. To upper darby, pennsylvania, where jerry is waiting period line for democrats. Good morning. Basically i would like to find out with respect to the stock market, can you give me a thepsis as to how this stock market actually works . 1000or example as i have in my 401 k , and the stock drops like 1000 points, 5000 points, how does that myually directly affect 1000 for example . And another thing i wanted to find out host jerry, that is a Big Questions to ask. I think we could do a whole show on it. Own a remember, if you specific stock, it is an individual step company. They could suddenly go bankrupt. Anything could happen to anyone company. If you put your thousand dollars into just one stocks, then really what is happening with the entire stock market does not matter to you. The only thing that really matters is that one company. But if you buy a big basket of stocks, that is a mutual fund or tiedhing that is an index investments, where it just follows the stock market, it does it is put together in such a way that reflects what is happening with the overall stock market, these are just measures of things. There are lots of different ways of trying to get a handle on what is happening in the stock market. There is the s p, the Standard Poors 500, that is a market stocks. F people jones some think it is not a particularly good measure of the whole market. But really all these things and we throw around these terms, the Dow Jones Industrial average, the s p 500, it is just a proxy. A way of measuring the stock market overall and giving a sense of what is happening with most stock prices most of the time. It depends on what you as an individual own, but only when we talk about these things we are just reflecting general trends so that you have a general idea of what is happening. Lois is waiting in baton rouge, line for republicans. Good morning. Are you with us . Caller good morning. Yes. What i am wondering about is the fact that the feds have been putting so much money for so long. What is going to happen when they start cutting back . Guest i might have to reach for that eightball again. Lois, thank you for calling. It is nice to hear a woman call on many issues. This is a question that a lot of people have. This is a very big deal. It Federal Reserve has made very easy to have a lot of cash in the system. It is a long story, a lot beyond the scope of this show. Basically the Federal Reserve has made a real effort to make sure that there is, as they call it, the quiddity in the market. Liquidity in the market. If you want to expand your market business you can get money to do that. Some people say there is too much money floating around. It is kind of like what i said about the housing bubble. When too much money is running around and chasing things, maybe you get an unnatural situation where things get overvalued and then eventually they have to become you have to reprice all those assets at a lower level if there has been too much money running around and chasing things. There is a concern that too much money in the system contributes to inflation. But so far, at least, we are not really seeing much inflation. I know if you have a kid going to college and the tuition is up this year you feel like you are seeing a lot of inflation. If you golly speaking to the gas pump, it is a lot cheaper this year to buy gas that it was last year and it is getting cheaper every day. We will probably get down to about two dollars a gallon. On average, every market is little bit different. Right now there is really a lot of downward pressure on prices, because these cheaper commodities because of these cheaper commodities. At the is looking situation saying so far all of this extra money has not created any inflationary pressures, and sop up thato stop extra money in the system. It is a question of can you do that smoothly, gently . Maybe what we see in the market this past week suggests that smooth and gentle is not how the world works anymore. A bumpy ride. But you have to look at the big picture, and over time, the fed hopes that it will be able to reverse these loose policies that it has had and get back to a more a little bit tighter, more normal environment. Seniorarilyn geewax, editor with npr. Appreciate you helping us. Up next, a roundtable on the washington journal where will we will be discussing laws that allow doctors to help patients and their lives. Currently four states have those laws, others are starting to consider them. And later the director of Al Jazeera Media Network will join us where we will talk about al jazeeras mission, history, and audience. On tuesday, the study of the 21st century. They hold an event on the iran nuclear agreement. Here is a clip. I do actually think that the deal will go through, but for the sake of the argument if the deal is not implemented iran will be in a place where it can dramatically increase its Nuclear Activities quite quickly. It can double its uranium enrichment capacity, so the time it would take for iran to obtain enough material for a Nuclear Weapon would drop quite dramatically down to just a number of weeks, if iran to do that quite quickly. Also there would be far less intrusive monitoring and verification then there is now with this interim deal in place. Iran would revert to a very basic safeguards agreements that it has with the International Atomic energy agency. That would give the agency some access to irans site but it would not be as complete as would be of limited under the final deal. Irans Nuclear Program would certainly increase, and they could escalate that quite quickly. Just clarify. If the u. S. Says no, the agreement just does not stand anymore . Sure someone will touch on this, but yes. If the u. S. Says no, because there will be no sanctions relief i cant see why iran followe incentivized to through on this agreement. It would be great if they chose to abide by those nuclear restrictions, regardless, im not sure i doubt that that is the choice iran would take. Nuclear act ofan 2015, we are currently in a 60 day review. Where Congress Reviews the deal and the president is prohibited from extending any additional sanctions relief to iran. If Congress Passes a joint resolution of disapproval and then the president has threatened to veto that , but if that nato is overridden, i did this piece of legislation the president is prohibited from taking any ofion involving any measure sanction relief under that agreement. Any congressionally mandated sanctions that have been imposed that would require a to negateal waiver the effect of, the president would be prohibited from extending that. There is also a very intricate legal argument about why there might be no ability for the president to extend sanctions relief, but you can talk to me afterwards. [laughter] that meansis relief on irans energy sector, on its financial sector, on its oil exports. Significant sanctions targeting irans major sectors of irans economy will not go away. Washington journal continues. Host physicianassisted suicide is legal in four states in this country. Others are starting to discuss laws that would allow this issue. We are joined by Kelly Buckland of the National Council of independent living and Mickey Macintyre of compassion and choices. Mickey macintyre stone is off. What are the ethical arguments here in favor of expanding these laws into more states . Think the biggest ethical argument is to try to alleviate pain and suffering, that people who have a terminal illness and are mentally competent adults endure after they have gone through a horrendous journey often with their disease, and they are at the end of their life and they would like to be able to eliminate the pain and suffering and be able to control the time so manner of their death that they can die at home, peacefully with their families. With their loved ones, and be able to say a goodbye that is worthy of their life. You approach the term assisted suicide here. Why is that . Guest first and foremost it is because almost all of the people who access aid and dying dont consider themselves suicidal. This is not a traditional definition of suicide. Dying,olks are already most, nearly all, are in hospice. They are at the end of their lives. You have got there an incredible journey with their disease. They would like not to have the Disease Control how they die, but they would like to be able to have selfdetermination and autonomy to be able to control how they are going to die. At the very final end of their journey. Host Kelly Buckland is with the National Council on independent living. Is that you are personally glad these laws were not more widespread in more years because you might not be here today . Guest that is correct. I was injured when i was 16. Most people are afraid of pain, most people are really afraid of the disabling effect of what is going on in their lives. What they are really trying to is not live with a disability, and what concerns us is that those people, if they lived through the disability and went through the mourning process, they would not make this choice. For instance, when i was injured i was given to her three years to live. That was 45 years ago. They were really wrong which is part of the problem. Doctors cant there is the sense that doctors can say you are going to die in six months, and in six months you drop dead. Thats not how it works. Doctors are not that good at predicting death. That is one problem with it. Host and the argument is that physicianassisted suicide people need more suicide prevention. Guest we think it is discriminatory, frankly. Everyone else gets prevention if they are suicidal. We get assisted suicide. Talking about the mourning process, like when i was injured, i got depressed. You do with that kind of loss. You want to end that, right . Suicide. Considering i did not see myself ever working or ever having a family or any of that stuff when i was first injured or it that is pretty depressing. You want to end that. But if i had, as i have received assisted suicide, i would not be here 45 years later. I have a family, i have a job, all that said i was worried about did not come to pass. Talking about physicianassisted suicide laws in this country and the expansion that is being considered in some states. We are asking our viewers to join in if you have questions or comments about these laws. If you are in eastern or central time zones, 202 7488000. If youre in mountain or pacific regions, 202 7488001. Take us howtyre this process works at least in the four states where it is currently legal. Often it varies a little bit in each state, but mostly there is, either through the statutory theme or through the medical practice there is a process that an individual goes through in order to be able to access a prescription for life ending medication from their doctors. This process includes their attending physician determining the prognosis, determining whether the person is decision capable, whether the person is under any duress or coercion, a consulting physician to verify all of that. If there is a concern about Mental Health counseling and analysis. There are waiting periods between the time of an oral request, a written request, and the second oral request, and the process is not an easy one. It is not something i think often folks to think about this and to oppose this believe that somehow an individual has an and is able to walk into their doctor and receive a prescription. It is truly not the case. In most cases these are people with cancer who have gone through the directory trajectory of their disease. They are in the final stages of their disease in hospice when they are taking this medication. Of 25 people who inquire about it, one person does all the way through the process. Host and your group has been advocating for the expansion of some of these laws. What are the states that are considering new laws on this topic . Are 24 states and the District Of Columbia that considers loss in the last legislative session. Now california, new jersey, and the District Of Columbia are the three that are most actively considering it. , whatand Kelly Buckland have we learned about who uses this process, and how they go ahead and talk about their decision with families and friends in the states where it is legal . Guest not much. The data is destroyed after a year. You know who did it, but basically that is all, because data in the state of oregon is destroyed after year. We dont learn much. But we do know that people in Cancer Patients who want to chemotherapy has actually been told they could not get chemotherapy under the organ Oregon Health plan but they could get assisted suicide. That has been a problem. Host you wanted to jump in . Guest i want to respond to that because it is not true. Particularly in oregon, this is one of the most heavily reported and heavily studied medical statutes in the country. There is 18 years worth of data about how this law has been implemented, who is accessing the law, and that information that is readily available to anyone who seeks to have it. Additionally the cases that mr. Buckland is bringing forward, no one has been denied chemotherapy. There have been two cases of experimental treatments which were not covered by the Oregon Health insurance which were denied it to patients and eventually both of those got that medication. Like people in oregon are being routinely denied chemotherapy. That is untrue. Host go ahead. Guest we are not saying routinely. This is a final decision. This decision means the end of your life. You die. If one person dies wrongly, we think this is a huge problem. It doesnt need to be tens or hundreds of people. One person dying wrongly is wrong. Host lets bring up collars. Carl is first in San Bernardino, california. Carl, just turn down your tv and talk through your phone. Caller hi. I am carl from San Bernardino california. I keep wondering about the kerry scheibe Terri Schiavo saying and stuff like this. We are not allowed to make our own decision about the endoflife . The last six months of my life if i am in pain i dont want to hang out until they decide to unplug me and let me start to death. Is that he made a . I would like control over my own life. I am a Senior Citizen and i would like to have control. Host mr. Buckley . Guest we think that there are alternatives for people to try to deal with pain. There is hospice. There are there is sedation if people wanted. The problem with this is, for the few people who want to end their lives, we are making broad Public Policies that affect everyone in that state. That is why it is the problem. It affects everybody, it does not just affect a few. Host what does the National Council on independent living, you are the executive director there. Guest we are a membership organization. Statewident independent Living Councils and individuals with disabilities in the washington area. There are about 700 centers for independent living across the country. This is basically in most communities. They are organizations that are. Onprofit, nonresidential the boards of directors are at least 51 people with disabilities. The staff are at least 51 able with disabilities. Host and mr. Mcintyre, compassionate choices . It is an organization of individuals across the country who seek to improve care and at the endoflife. Carl, we caller believe that everyone should be access able to access the care that they want, nothing more nothing less. In the case of palliative therapies, people should be able to get what it is that they want at the end of life. We do share a lot with the Disability Community in terms of autonomy and being able to provide the individual the ability to control their own endoflife choices. And another caller from california, state that is considering this. Troy is in colfax. Caller good morning to him in. I also had a buddy of mine who recently chose to end his life and he actually killed himself. The beginning of his suicide note actually said, hey guys, guess what. Host that was dry. We will move on to sunny and kentucky. Yes. R the subject i am going to bring up is dialysis. My daughter has been on dialysis for eight years. Going on nine. You canstanding is voluntarily take yourself off the dialysis just by signing papers. You will probably live maybe six days, a week or something. My understanding is, according to my daughter, she is only 48 years old, but there are elderly dialysis her down center, they took themselves off the dialysis and allow the cells to die. I just wanted to comment on that and hear more about it. Thank you. Host mr. Mcintyre, do you want to start . Guest withdrawing life retaining treatment, or nutrition and hydration, is a way that people who are at the end of their lives are constitutionally protected and have an option or a way to determine how they are going to leave the end of their lives. Every across the country day engage in that practice, particularly people who are engaged in terminal illness. Sometimes it is coupled with terminal sedation, where the withidual is provided sufficient pain medication in older in order to become comatose and allow the underlying impact of their disease or the failure of their kidneys to end their lives. Know, a matter similar to aid in dying, only different. Host and mr. Buckland, if people really want to do this, what about the idea that they will find other ways to do that if laws are not in place in their state to go through a process like the one of mr. Mcintyre talked about . Guest yes. Its a problem. We actually think that those people are suicidal for the most part and should probably get some suicide intervention. I can tell you there are people who are quadriplegics who have their lifesustaining supports terminated and they died as a result. It was shortly after their injuries. They were going through depression, plus they were living in an institution. So for people who have not lived in an institution, it is incredibly depressing. Living in an institution, having no control over life, when you go to bed, what you eat, is incredibly depressing and does not make you want to stay there. If that is the only thing you have to look forward to, a lot of people get very depressed about that and get suicidal. So what is the alternative . What changes need to be made, in your mind, and what have you added advocated for at the National Council for independent living jacket independent living . Guest we advocate for these laws not to occur. The more people learn about these the more they think it should not happen. In colorado. It has failed in montana, wyoming, utah, maryland, nevada, alaska, new hampshire, rhode island. All those states considered it and rejected it. But if we look at any sort of social change legislation or legislation that empowers equity or access for individuals, even Something Like the americans for disabilities act took many years to occur and it took a lot of failures at municipal and state levels in order to become the law of the land today. It is a good law. It is a law that brings justice, equality, and protection to the individual, similarly to the way people should be older have if they are terminally, if they have gone through their journey, if they are at the point where they are not suicidal there are literally at the end of their lives, they should be able to have the opportunity to not die in institution, but to be able to die at home surrounded by their family and loved ones, being able to say goodbye that honors the kind of life that they have had and not be gone down by their disease. Host in pennsylvania, stephen is waiting period good morning. Caller hello. I just want to mention that hospices are basically assisted suicide. What is the difference . It just seems that people have got to get over this idea that prolonging your life isnt saving your life. It is not saving your life. It is just prolonging it. Where i haveuation been given the best medication they can give me, the best i can get out of that is every four hours taking a pill, waiting half an hour for them to take effect, and then having maybe an hour of function so i considered taking my pills again. I have been going through this for years and the only thing they have to offer me is those pills. I can get brain surgery which i dont have the desire to do. Again, i am just prolonging my life. That doctors like to prolong peoples lives so they can milk every dime out of them before they die. The bottom line is, it is our life. Everybody dies. It. Ust have to get over we show mercy and kindness to our animals, why dont we do the same for ourselves . You for the call from green tech, pennsylvania. Mr. Buckland, what would you say to stephen . Said, like i have already i have to completely disagree with the points that this is like the americans with disabilities act. That is quite offensive to me actually. These laws have been tried to be put in place for decades. Choice is what used to be called the hemlock society, they were working on this in the 70s. We are now in 2015. They have been trying for years and years to get these laws passed, and the more people learn about them the more they oppose them. The collar is right. Everybody does die. We think that you should not hasten that. Mr. Mcintyre, in terms of the education about this issue, who is britney mayor and what does she mean to this cause . Guest the reality is that more people learn about this as we heard over the last year, more people are advocating for it. Maynard was a young woman with terminal brain cancer who accessed the service in oregon. Her experience was pretty similar to what people have. The trajectory of her disease was one that was a notably going to lead to pain and suffering. She was beginning to experience the finalmajor way in days of her life in hospice, and she accessed the process for being able to attend medication through the oregon law. Andtook the medication ended her life peacefully and with comfort, surrounded by her family in oregon. She did a video near the end of her life telling her story, she felt that it was tragic that she and her family had to move to her and become residents of the state there and that people were not able to access the law people like herself were not able to lock access the law across the country. And so she made a part of her mandate upon her journey to tell her story and to bring to life the situation was from an authorization point of view. That story resonated with millions of people across the country. Intergenerational he. Young people, older people, people with disabilities. People in vulnerable populations. That is what led to the overwhelming knowledge. That education led to an overwhelming amount of legislation activity and Court Activity around this issue. Host mr. Buckland, what are your thoughts . Guest you know, it was a very sad situation. My wife has cancer. Issue forill an people with cancer. Aboute just talked about how this resonated with millions of people, including people with disabilities. You heard that. What he is saying basically is the people at disabilities wants to end their lives and now they should have the option to do that. We dont think that that is true. If they are considering that likely this is because of their disability and the disabling effects of that. That i made before around they should not have to die in institution. Those bills dont do anything to keep people out of institutions. Naynards maynards would it work wrote, i want to thank oregon residents for having the wisdom to pass a balanced initiative two decades ago to authorize physicians to describe medication prescribed medication that allowed my wife to avoid being tortured, that allowed her to decide for herself when was the right time to die, they absolutely lived up to the principal of first do no harm. We are taking your calls and comments for about the next 20 minutes or so. Steve is up next in highland park, illinois. Good morning. Morning. Ood i have a few points to make. Never one, what are the total economic costs including hospitals, physicians, surgeons, drugs, nursing homes, hospice care to keep someone alive for one month. The second point is to mr. Buckland, can he unequivocally state that pain medications completely and 100 reduce and eliminate the pain somebody is having at the time that pain medications are being prescribed . , thatKelly Buckland question is for you. Guest he has brought up exactly what we are concerned about. That people will end their lives because the support is too expensive to keep them alive and they will be scared towards a suicide. Host by who . Guest by physicians and hospitals. We already know that people in oregon have gone physician shopping to find a physician that will assist them in suicide. If one doctor does not feel that they should get it, they go shopping until they find someone else somewhere who will and compassionate choices help them find them. The color is concerned about pain medication . Caller . Palliative sedation does. Which mr. Mcintyre mentioned a few minutes ago. It make you comatose. You are not feeling anything. We are not 100 certain about whether you are feeling pain or not. You are in a coma. The ability to be able to determine about what are feeling pain or not is not there. There have been studies that have registered that. No one really knows the true cost of what it costs to keep someone alive, in terms of a financial position. However, what we know from 18 that of the oregon law is nearly all of the individuals who have accessed the law are at the end of their lives, within hospice care. So, any curative therapies that many people do avail themselves as a possible have occurred. They have been unsuccessful or the treatments are no longer desired by the individual. And those folks are usually within days of the end of their lives when they are taking the medication. So, the savings around that doesnt exist because most folks have already gone through the entire experience of their endoflife care by the time they get to the point of taking a prescription medication. Host a few tweets from viewers. Peg writes in, quality of life is more important than quantity. And vivian writes, any adult should have the right to choose, when to die, and hopefully they dont have to choose a bullet or a rope. Bob is up next, albuquerque, new mexico. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Someone mentioned the terry case earlier in the program and i have a question and a comment. Firstly, jeb bush and the state of florida actually made it such that Michael Schiavo couldnt make the decision he wanted to make, which was to remove the large. And remove the feeding tube. And so i just think that is incredibly wrong. Jeb bush probably regrets that decision. And secondly, a friend of mine actually committed suicide and she did it using bleach. , do you wantintyre to talk about the politics of this jekyll this . Guest we are going to have a president ial election coming up. As the majority of the population continues to age, baby boomers are seeing what you looks like through their parents eyes. And their parents are facing their own mortality. This is part of the reason why this issue has become more front and center. Not just aid in dying, but how we treat people who are at the end of their lives. And this is an important political discussion that needs to happen, not just around eight and die, but around, for example, do people have appropriate Health Care Directives . Other proxies that people making decisions are fully empowered to do that on the and not able to make decisions for themselves . And will the government could the opportunity through the vehicles it has to ensure that americans get what it is that they want at the end of life, whether that is quantity or quality of life, that is really up to the individual, but we should be mabel able to make it possible for everyone to get that. Host mr. Buckland, does this rise to the federal level . Or is the fight here still going to be mostly on the state level . Guest it is going to be on the state level. But talking about terry scheiber, Terri Schiavo terry schappell Terri Schiavos case was about her parents not wanting her husband to remove lifesustaining report. So the real discussion there was about who makes the decisions about somebody else who is unable to make their own decisions. So it wasnt about assisted suicide. That doesnt factor into this. Frankly, jeb bush has been asked about that decision and he doesnt regret it could doesnt regret it. Host good morning. You are on the washington journal. Guest good morning caller good morning. I just want to say i was a nurse all my life. I have had many times, the nurses give a Standing Order for morphine. When you have a patient who is in their final stages and they well, that much pain, they are not really do. If i give her morphine now, she just tied it 20 minutes ago. But the doctor has given me a Standing Order. And im watching her lay in bed rising and pain. In pain. I have that choice. And i can give that to her and it will end her life because it will suppress her respiratory system and she will pass on a little earlier than she would with that kind of agonizing pain. Here in virginia, i cant even get medical marijuana for my ms because when i wrote to my congressman, his response to me was i asked him to move it up on the table in congress, where it has been sitting for six years, medical marijuana for ms and aids. His response to me was, as you know, i was a former prosecutor and i dont believe in it for anything. And i just want to point out the callousness of some of the Republican People that are running in this country for things. And i just think that those are the kind of things people have to sit back and look at the reality. Or you existing that suicide are you just allowing them to go a little faster out of their pain . Buckland, i will let you respond to that. Guest well, which is talking about his problems in the medical system. There are problems in the medical system. There always has been. And we need to continue to address those. So, i agree with her in that respect. But, again, like the medical care to lead to assisted suicide, really is not necessary. That care is you are able to get it in other ways. People get the care they need is assistedso this suicide that is the problem. The other thing i would just mention really quickly is that these laws dont really require any oversight. If you are wanting to lets say you are an heir to someones inheritance. You can you can help them get the drug, you can help them administer it. Without any witnesses. So, host mr. Macintyre, do want to pick that up . Guest i will ask a go to the other view, which is that one of the things that deborah broadfoot was the role that she might play brought forward was the role that she might play. And the role, as well, in what rome at the Children Play jekyll one of the things in what will the children might play . The ultimate oversight that exists is that the actual medication is a liquid that needs to be drunk. It is not something that can be put into a needle or injected. The person has to be able to self administer that. They must be able to swallow it in some way or ingested in some way. In just it in some way. So ultimately, the control does rest with the individual. The process is designed to be one that is a very personal process. You have gone to the process of being able to get the medication, and then it is meant to be your decision on when and how you take it. The fact that it must be ingested is ultimately the final way that someone determined whether they are going to take it or not. Host new jersey, gary, good morning. Caller good morning. My i have two points. Marijuana, etc. Is. Plant that is medical and it should be used for medical use. It is a plant. That goes along with the lady from virginia, i believe it was, the ms patient. Second, i had a neighbor when i was in my 30s who was sent home for to feel comfortable because he didnt have much time to live. He lived it years later. Family did research and found that food was the way to with vegetables. And this medical business that we have today is disgusting. I dont know how people can constantly vote for these deniers that medical marijuana is is so evil. It is disgusting to see politicians talk about stuff that they have no information at all. Host we will hold off on the medical marijuana debate for another day on the program. A lot of folks wanting to talk about physicianassisted suicide. Mickey macintyre is with compassion and choices. And Kelly Buckland is with the National Council on independent living. And compassion andchoices. Org. Patty is in houston, texas. Caller good morning. How are you all . Host good, patty. Caller yes, i am calling in because of the medical thing. My husband was a vietnam veteran. He had everything you can name. And he hurt so very badly. So i am trying to see what you all is seeing, you know, about this. And it is the hospitals and everything good they are not even helping him. Right now, he is so depressed and everything else. He is on a feeding tube and everything else. So im just dying to see right now trying to see right now with him host is he somebody who would consider physicianassisted suicide if it were legal in texas . Caller he wouldnt because he has been hurting so very bad, but he has been holding on and holding on. Really, he is just suffering. He has cancer, heart disease, now they put a feeding tube into him. Everything that he is doing care he just keeps on saying he is so tired. He is tired, he is tired. Host mr. Macintyre. Guest thank you so much for your call. I hear the stories every day. And first, thank you husband for a much for his service to our country. I am so sorry you are all going to this extent. The first thing i would say to you is we want to make sure that the depression, if there are Mental Health issues, that we make sure that those get addressed immediately. As well as to the best of your ability, treating pain. Because we do want to make sure that those two things are taken care of before anything else moves toward. I will say, you know, we have an endoflife consultation service, which you can access. And they will work with you specifically about how you might be able to access those services and others in your community to make sure that you and her husband get what it is that you want to see happen for his final days. Host mr. Buckland, any suggestions . Guest yes. I would echo mr. Macintyres comment. I absolutely want to thank him for his service to his country. The vietnam war was a huge conflict in our lives. I was alive during that. Thanks for your service. And, yeah, i would also refer her to the center for independent living. They can provide advocacy. And we know that there are problems with the Veterans Health care system. So if the center for independent living in her area can help do some advocacy to get the services you need, i think that would be great. If you go to our website, which was mentioned before, www. Ncil. Org, you can find a center in your local community. Host helen, good morning. Caller good morning. Iere is so many issues and think you all have done a very good job of covering them most of them. But as an operating this since 1974 and one that does a lot of for research, i am a patient advocate. I have two short issues. Number one, no patient should just die in the agony of pain. You know, i want to say and preface it, every patient should be able to make decisions. But they need all the information they can get from somebody. Number one, there is a medication used to be used for many years. When i stood out in the started out in the or in 1974, they used to be a drug. This was proven and used in europe long before it was used here. And i dont know, because of the politics and this and that, drugs and people getting addicted, it was discontinued here. In the United States. The point is that a person, a patient who is in their last stages would be relieved of the agony of their pain. Brain cancer, this and that, there is all these other issues. That causes pressure on the brain, it is going to cause a lot of headaches, etc. But no patient, whether it is somebody who uses marijuana or whatever, no patient should have to die in pain like that. Host appreciate the call from henderson, tennessee. Mr. Macintyre, the mixture that is used, that is swallowed to end somebodys life that you were talking about earlier, how do we know that that doesnt cause pain at the end deco e nd . Guest the process has been used in oregon for 18 years. It is a method that has been used with all of the individuals who have taken that now in vermont, washington state, and montana. We have been able to use it and there have been many times when doctors have been present in that process, in addition to Family Members. And so it is a peaceful method of dying. Host mr. Buckland, any concern about the use of that drug . Guest i mean, yeah. We have mentioned before. We are opposed to the issues of drugs to end somebodys life. But to go to the callers comments, pain in the case is , pain did oregon not even make it into the top five reasons. Host what are some of the reasons teco reasons . Caller some of the reasons are people dont want the debilitating effects of the disease, mobility related issues. Again, we think that people are going through the depression of those. Just dealt with it longer, they would see that life is still worth living. That has been my experience. I have got loss of body control. All of those issues are affecting me, as well. But like we mentioned, if i had committed suicide or if this had been available to me, i might not be here today. Neither would my son. Host Time Magazine studied this in a piece that they did late lester, talking about the top five issues that People Choose to make use of physician assisted suicide. Losing autonomy ranks at the top. Less able to engage inactive at ease. Loss of dignity. Loss of bodily functions. Burden on family and friends and caregivers. The top five reasons. Inadequate pain control comes after that and i natural implications down below. Implicationsial down below. Guest we talked about the elimination of patient suffering. One of the things i would add , where itly in oregon has been studied for such a long time is that most of the things you are seeing here is the affect of knowing that you have control of the end of your might. The ability to know that you ultimately will be able to make the decision if the painandsuffering becomes too great. And there is a huge palliative impact in just ring able to know the option is available to you. Know just being able to that the option is available to you. Most of the people who do take it are doing it in the final days of their lives. I have to express that over and over again because it is not a typically a situation where someone is diagnosed with cancer and they immediately access the law. People are trying to live their lives. This is why this isnt suicide. Most of the people who take the medication have been trying to live their lives to the fullest. Brittany is a great example of that. Right up until the very last moment, try to live her life for her family, for herself, as free from pain and suffering, and in the way and in the spirit that she had tried to live her life throughout her life. That is the point. Giving people the highest quality of life until the very end. Host lets try to get in one more call. Richmond, virginia. Caller i just i it has been said that we havent had any conversation today about the inadequacy of safeguards in the bill themselves that are being considered across the country. There is a real lack of safeguards. There is no enforcement of our investigation authority. There is a lot of ways to run around his reported safeguards, which are basically hollow window dressings. I was wondering if either of the gentleman had comments on that. Host mr. Buckland, do you want to start teco start . Guest anne is exactly right. I mentioned the lack of safeguards. It is really disturbing that somebody can help them make the decision for assisted suicide, help them get the drug, and then help them administer the drug later and there is no witness to that. So we dont really know if the person actually selfadministered or not because we dont have a witness for the most part. And i know mr. Macintyre is going to say we do, but that is selfreported from the person who is the witness, so we actually dont. And the other issue i want to bring up, as i brought up earlier, is if one person loses their life for the wrong reason here, that is a huge problem. Host mr. Macintyre, the last 30 seconds or so. Thet 18 years in oregon, safeguards have proof proved effective at work. Five years in montana at a year and a half in vermont. The safeguards are effective. They work. There is oversight in the process. There is reporting in the process. And no one has ever come forward having, or a Family Member having been coerced. This is a safe practice that needs to be expanded across the country. Host i want to thank Mickey Macintyre of compassion and choices. Buckland, the executive director of the National Council on independent living. Appreciate your time this morning. Guest thank you. Host up next, we will be joined by Mostefa Souag, the director general of al jazeeras media network. We will be right back. Announcer Florence Harding once said that she had only one hobby, and that was warren harding. She was a significant force in her husbands presidency and adept at handling the media. Help define the role of the modern first lady. Florence harding, the sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans original series, first ladies. Examining the public and private lives of the women who failed the position of first lady. Who failed the position who filled the position of first lady. Night, Brookings Institution senior fellow rhonda brown talks about the u. S. Counterinsurgency in afghanistans. Nonetheless, it depends on how it and. Hesitate and question myself, we dont know how it will end. I think there is a moment of if we withdraw now. But it is also possible that five years down the road, we will be back in a civil war in afghanistan. Isis is now slowly emerging in the country. The taliban is deeply entrenched and highly defeated. So if we end up five years down the road in a new civil war in afghanistan, a new safe haven for the telegraph and isis, the caliban and isis the taliban and isis, then i would say it was not worth the price. Announcer washington journal continues. Host in our last segment this morning, we are talking about the Al Jazeera News Network with the director general, Mostefa Souag. What is al jazeeras philosophy for covering the news . Guest well, al jazeera is about covering the news professionally, accurately, objectively, in a balanced way. The focus is to provide people with the knowledge. And if we are talking about knowledge, we had to talk about real things. No dealing with issues that are of no importance, no relevance to people. Whenever be there there is an event that needs to be covered. We tried to bring to people not only the news about the current events, but also the context in which events happen. We try to bring analysis through experts from all sides. The opinional with and the other opinion. Slogan ist our our the opinion and the other opinion. So this is the main thing. Host and how big is al jazeera . Guest we have for our staff in general, we have more than 4000 people. Of course, many of them are journalists. But it depends on what you mean by journalist. We have to hundreds and hundreds of them. Because we do have many channels. Host how many channels are there . Is big, thezeera mothership. They studied in november 1996, and then after that, we got like cspan here. We present things that are going on in the world. We have al jazeera english, al jazeera documentary, Al Jazeera America now. And with this big number of channels, each one of them has its website. We have the Al Jazeera Center for training, the Al Jazeera Center for studies, the center for human rights, which i believe is the only network in the world that has such a thing because we have a special focus on human rights and liberties, trying to make people aware of their rights and show them what the rest of the world is doing. We have a lot of training, as i said. Not only for our journalists and our media people, but also for people who are interested in inmoting im sorry, enhancing their skills. Host explain how al jazeera is funded. How much of the Networks Funding comes from the government of kotter qatar deco guest qatar . Guest al jazeera is funded completely by the government. It is completely funded by the state of qatar. Host and does that get in the way of objectivity . Guest absolutely not because one of the beautiful things about al jazeera and this relationship with the state of have the budget with no interference whatsoever. We are completely independent. We work independently from the government. And this is one of the mess misconceptions of al jazeera. They think because we get our budget from the state, then there must be some kind of restriction or some kind of even guidance from the state of qatar. We dont have any relationship with them. Host how do you ensure that objectivity when it comes to stories that are critical about the government of qatar . One that comes to mind recently as the building of soccer stadiums and the death of workers at soccer stadiums that are being billed for that future world cup. Guest what is happening there, i mean, they are building for a big event. In 2022. And what we do, we dont feel with the with sports that much. We have a very small segment for sports. Has someat happened kind of significance and relevance to our audience, then we reported like we do with anybody else. If any other tenant reports, then al jazeera would be reporting. A lot of what is happening in qatar is not really that important to the rest of the world. So we dont reported. But if it is, then al jazeera will be reporting it. And we have reported with the stadium and the workers. We did a lot of report. Host we are talking with Mostefa Souag, the director general of the Al Jazeera Media Network. If you have questions about the network, now is your time to call in. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7458002 for independents. We will get right to calls. In denver, colorado. Dennis, good morning. Caller yeah, good morning. Yes, i was real happy to see al jazeera on tv. I have been watching it for several years. But i have come to the conclusion that you are not really any different than any of these other news organizations. About four months ago, you had a program on marijuana. And you messed that up so bad i couldnt believe it. You are so negative that it was just ridiculous. Host what what are the other stations like . Caller you had an article about host what are the other stations like . What were you hoping for . Caller i was looking for the fox dontuse msnbc, tell us the truth anymore. Ok . So that is what i was looking for, hoping that al jazeera would fit in there a little bit better. I think they are better about the four news. However, this [indiscernible] program you had on their there, there was only one side. It was so terrible, i was i was so upset with them watching these programs abroad genetically modified organisms that i i just al jazeera you are a piece of you know what. Host we will let you respond. Concerned about being different from the other networks were not being different. Guest well, i think we are different from the other networks. But when you talk about different, it depends on what you mean by different. First of all, i dont think you can judge a network, not one channel, but i believe dennis i am glad you asked that question. If you have it your mind, you should ask it. And i personally have not seen this program. Therefore i cannot judge the program. But i would make sure that to see the program and see if it is unbalanced, then it should be corrected. Accept any kinds of work that lacks balance. Balance is one big important you asked the question a little bit earlier about how do you make sure what are objectivity is. One way to make that objectivity closer to what we should be doing is the balance. If you bring different points of view, different perspectives. People from different trends. This is one of our tools we always exercise. Host how much did al jazeera invest in Al Jazeera America to try to compete with fox and msnbc and cnn . Guest if you are asking about money, we invest what was needed to be invested. People talk about a number that is not exactly right, but we did invest quite a good number a good amount of money. However, i believe the the the competition doesnt come from the amount of money that you invest, but with the philosophy that you are using. The how committed your stuff is to be editorial policies that we have. This is we try to get back to the traditional, hardcore news and reporting. Not wearingling that much about commercials and the business side, we are not with anybody. And we are not against anybody. We just want to inform people. Host do you feel like youre getting a return on that investment . A story called Al Jazeera America a nonfactor in the news, drawing about 30,000 euros a night. Guest well, first of all, i think the number it depends on what you mean when you talk about 30,000. That is 30,000 each minute you want to count, the number. But during the day, you have hundreds of thousands of people watching al jazeera. So people have to understand the difference. This is 30,000 only if you are talking about a specific moment. You have 30,000 eyeballs looking at the screen. But for the whole day, we have something between 500,000, 600,000, up to 1 million and more than one million. But you have to remember, we are still new. This is our second year. If you take, for example, cnn or fox news, it took them several years to reach the numbers we are now at. It is going to take a little bit of time. Our staff has to learn more about al jazeeras policies and al jazeeras editorial standards, etc. And they are doing a great job in my opinion. I think they will get there. Channell get our our here in america. I hear i am here not only talk about al jazeera. He will give you more details. Im talking about the network. The Network Provides a service to a worldwide audience. We are talking about al jazeera arabic has more than 20 Million Viewers a day. In the arab countries did al english gets english gets too many homes. In addition to this, we also have our website, our social media activities. I believe you must have heard about which is collecting tens of millions of people to follow what they present there. The secondmost, you know, successful digital platform. All these things. That is why i tell people usually you dont have to believe me. But at the same time, you should not believe any kinds of criticisms to al jazeera that are quite often not objective. But watch al jazeera and find for yourself. For dennis, i believe if there was one program that made him upset because it was not balance, i think it is wonderful that he is talking about it because it makes us do something about it if it is true. But he should have contacted also Al Jazeera America and tell them about this because they are not supposed to be doing something without providing the balance that is a part of al jazeera work. Host lets go to john waiting indicator, illinois. The line for democrats. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller can you hear me . Host yes, go ahead with your question. Caller ok. I live in central illinois. We dont get al jazeera. But if the man wouldnt talk so much, we could get more calls and and probably get more in and probably get more al jazeera in illinois. Host trying to learn about the network this morning. Appreciate it Mostefa Souag stopping by. We will go to joanna, maryland, the line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just wanted to tell you i am a big fan of Al Jazeera America. I am a 68yearold white lutheran laity. [laughter] and the thing i left about Al Jazeera America is it is not ethnocentric. I let about people from all over the world, even remote places. I think their emphasis on human rights is unmatched, frankly. And you get a lot more indepth, i learned so much more. Some of my friends and i have msnbcfrom cnn and fox and and broadcast stations simply because all they do is they report all day long on the same sensationalistic headlines. That is all that is about. And they restrict themselves. They are not reporting from asia and africa and remote places in the world, for example. I just love it. I think you are gaining more and more fans all the time. I am grateful for the station. John, by the way, is wonderful. The fact that i think the problem with us here in america sometimes as we are to ethnocentric. We think we are the only people in the world. And we are not. And this has really opened up my mind to a lot of things about learning about people from everywhere. I just want to thank you. I think it is a Great Service and a great station. Host Mostefa Souag, would you agree or with that sentiment agree with that sentiment that we are to ethnocentric in america . Guest i thank you for that question. And also to john, that he cannot get al jazeera in illinois. We are now in about 55 million homes in america, which means that we are in just half of america. Not in the full 100 plus million households. So i hope that we will be able to get to illinois sometime. If you like to write to your to your cable provider, maybe he will get 202 7488001 for maybe he will get al jazeera. Fort joanna, thank you for your for joanna, thank you for your good words. And i dont like to comment on our colleagues in the American Media institutions. They do have their own way of reporting now. There are things that we believe channelscore news should not go into, but they chose to do so. And if they have an audience that actually wants that kind of stuff, then they have a right. Host what is an example of that . Guest i i believe it is better not to i think the channel here, a lot of them do have a lot of chatting rather than giving the news. Repeating so many things at the same time. What joanna mentioned about sensationalism, sometimes you dont need that kind of thing. If you want to provide people with the knowledge, give them facts, give them context, give them analysis. I do ask a little bit earlier, what is different about al jazeera . Al jazeera provides the american audience with the news that is i wouldnt say absent, but almost absent in the American Media here. Asia, latinica, america. We deal with human stories, the people who are suffering, the people who are successful, the people who are happy. We try to bring people together. And that probably comes from the fact that we do have, in doha alone, we have more than 80 Different National allergies working for nationalities working for al jazeera. And everyone makes sure that their understanding of the story is there. And therefore, that is another reason why we can keep our objectivity and our balance because of that diversity in our newsroom that is in our offices abroad. We have 80 offices over the world, which is where difficult to match. I dont think it is matched by any other network now. That is because we believe that the world has to come together. We are in in time, in history where people have to understand each other. And understanding each other is the only way for peace and prosperity. Host i want you to address the status of some lawsuits that have been proud against Al Jazeera America. Al Jazeera America accused against bias against nonarabs and women. Head claims in a lawsuit that the tv channel a better neutrality in favor of an arab viewpoint. Guest again, i would say again and again and again that if you want to make up your mind about al jazeera, watch the channel. Al Jazeera America, watch al jazeera english, etc. We dont have that kind of policy. It doesnt exist. If you talk about issue like discrimination against women, i was in a meeting for the board of directors of Al Jazeera America and we asked specifically that question. How many women do have compared to men . We have over 45 women. And we want more. The door is open. Even in the middle east, where women jobs are difficult to find, al jazeera have so many of them. They never happened in the middle east. That only with al jazeera happened because we believe in empowering women, like we believe in empowering minorities. Like i said earlier, we need to bring people together. And this is one of our objectives. We believe in that kind of approach. Host lets go to joe and oklahoma city, oklahoma. For republicans. Caller hey, guys. I just wanted to say that i am a very, very big fan of al jazeera. I think it is very important to note that i was watching a conference on cspan of young folks from some of the brightest schools in america, and they went around the room like 200 kids in here from all over the country and they were asking them table by table where you get your news. And it was bbc america, al jazeera, cspan, al jazeera, bbc america. You see the pattern here is that the young, bright people in our country are turning away from our media. Mainly, everybody that is watching should always remember that we had a thing in this country called the baroness doctrine fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine basically kept honesty in journalism. So you couldnt do spend, spinds, propaganda. My own party, the republican party, in Congress Killed the fairness doctrine. Why would any party of politicians get rid of truth in media echo well, media . Well, that is when you have stations like fox that tells everyone that Climate Change is a hoax. Could you imagine al jazeera telling people that Climate Change is a hoax . I often tell my republican friends, if you want to be a conservative, the conservative. Stop voting for s did start watching cspan more, al jazeera more, ebc america more. And free speech that doesnt have any corporate ownership. That is where you go, oh, that is why they voted that way. Host Mostefa Souag. Guest thank you, joe, again, for watching al jazeera and having these good words. I believe that al jazeera is here to some people ask me actually what are you doing in america . And i say, i did my studies here, i did my phd here in washington dc host you into American University. Guest American University. And i used to watch the news here and admire the richness and the balance and the objectivity and the way things were done. But at that time, i believed that commercials were not the main the main the main thing that they were looking for. They there was so much of what i learned, i learned from there. And i believe that in america here, what we need now what honestns need is more of reporting, global reporting because, again as i said earlier, we cannot leave what we call the global village, yet we dont know about our neighbors. We dont know about the people on the other side of the village. We need to do that. And al jazeera provides that. And i believe the media should not be partisan. Should not be ideological. Should not be with a business or a against the business. It should be there to work for the people, to provide them with the truth. Because when people know, to have the knowledge, the facts, the real facts, then they can make the right choices for themselves. If they made their minds, their choices on the basis of false information, the decisions are going to be the wrong ones. And who is going to be blamed . It is the media because the media is what gave them that kind of false thing. Host maryland, our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. And thank you for speaking to me. I just want you to know i look at al jazeera every day. I love al jazeera. I also look at democracy now. Americanok at our stations, such as cnn and msnbc. I avoid fox because it is pretty obvious that they dont generally tell the truth and they are extremely opinionated. But al jazeera, they tell you the facts and they are always on time. Love you. Thank you. Host from maryland. Wes is next, or me cap, alabama. Good morning. Caller yes, im calling from birmingham. Originally from about 70 miles of the road. What i would like to ask the director thereof al jazeera is , is who of al jazeera was his biggest source, his representative, his inspiration to get him into that field . And who was the founder of al jazeera . As well as the other stations. And i do enjoy getting the facts about what is going on and less of the opinion, though opinion in journalism is a given. That is what journalism is based on, opinion. And then we, as the viewers, we have our conversation around the table about that. But i do watch al jazeera and im glad that this network offers that. And it always have offer the customer that. Other networks offer that. But what was your greatest inspiration to get you involved in the media . And can you explain what the word media is a means to you really means to you . Host a lot of questions there. First, your inspiration. Guest the media, yes, of course , we have to see the opinion of the media. But it has to be not only one opinion. We call it the opinion and the other opinion channel. We need to bring a variety of opinions so people can understand the different the different way of thinking and they can, again, they can decide for themselves. For the i think there was one question about who is the founder . Host the founder. Guest the founder is the state of qatar. He is now retired. And his son is amir. He started it with not only he also started many other ,nstitutions, like universities a lot of sports. Very big urban development. A lot of a lot of empowering women. All kinds of things. So al jazeera was probably one of his first initiatives in order to help media in the middle east. Because in the middle east, before al jazeera, television stations were mostly owned by the government. And they were mouthpieces of the government. You can see, for example, you can turn on your television for the 8 00 news and the first half an hour would be just about the king or the president or something. Al jazeera was created to be a professional media outlet. And that is what it has been doing. Our aspiration, again, is to make to bring back to the audience real news. Rather than anything but the news. Real news, hard fact news. Programs that deal with issues of relevance to people and investigative programs. We have a lot of investigative programs that we do that many other channels are not doing it we have a lot of discussion programs are not doing. Have a lot of discussion programs. That createdeera the tradition of a free discussion of debate. Host which gets to his question of who inspired you and your news career . Guest myself . , was a University Professor not in media. But since i was in high school, i was a writer. I was riding in the school newspaper. Then the newspaper of the country. And then i continued when i was doing my studies here in washington dc, i was a correspondent for two or three different newspapers and magazines. Remember theday i bbc was looking for some talent to to start an arabic channel. 1994. As an 1994 in it was the first arabic channel credit by the bbc. So i joined them. And that is where my Television Career started. Host lets get to boca raton florida boca raton, florida. You are on with Mostefa Souag of al jazeera. Caller thank you very much. I want to say you are a very good spokesman for al jazeera. And very convincing, very charming. I appreciate what you said, especially balance. Nevertheless, i am very skeptical in that all programs for example, in america, the motive might be to make money, therefore they have news channels that have commercials and so on and so forth there is always an overriding philosophy when you do something. What you are telling us is qatar simply wants to present the news to the world in an unbiased fashion so the world can be aware of what is happening. I find that hard to believe that there isnt a a goal, a purpose, a design other than simply that. Just to do something on this kind of noble basis, to bring news to the world in an unbiased fashion by qatar seems to me very idealistic and very improbable. So perhaps that is the outset, but then eventually there will be opinions that will be formulated to try and convince people of certain things. That is my thinking. Because that is the way the world works. You are telling me that qatar is such a place that this does not exist. It is only humanitarian, compassionate, understanding, peace loving and provisional kind of operation. Hard to believe. Host we will give you a chance to respond. Guest thank you for the question. Actually, it was difficult for me to believe before i joined al jazeera because it was it was too good to be true. I discussed this with my colleagues yesterday, actually. I had dinner with one of my old professors here at American University and we were discussing exactly this. How come the state of the state of qatar decided to great this without a specific motive for his or the countrys interest . I believe, first of all, that ihat the im sorry believe that by having such an institution like al jazeera, qatar benefits indirectly immensely in terms of its reputation. Before actually al jazeera, not many people knew qatar. People started knowing qatar as soon as al jazeera. If you have Something Like al jazeera, you can be proud of, you can talk about. People come to see al jazeera. When people come to qatar, one of the first things to see is al jazeera. Fromou really independent the state of qatar . We say, yes, we are. I mean in people bring to us specific instances. They say, oh, what happened with this and this and how the state of qatar benefits . When we explain it, they understand. I cannot tell you why the amir of qatar decide to do this, but i can tell you the fact from within that we are an , financedt network fully by the state of qatar. Yes, it is idealistic. And i love it. Host lets go to our independents line. Minneapolis, minnesota. Caller hi. Thank you. And please dont disconnect me, i will make it quick. I am going to Say Something about al jazeera, but i have some comments. I love the diversity of the people that do the reporting and the everyday people that are doing the reporting around the country. And but some of the negatives is you guys arent as open as cspan or democracy now. And i know you are breaking and talking up how great al jazeera is. But why dont al jazeera to a call in once a week at least for three hours or so having people around the world call in with their questions . I think that would really show how open and different you all are. Thank you so much. Guest thank you. Thank you. It is a very good suggestion. I would actually ask our team in Al Jazeera America to think about it. And maybe for the future to do Something Like this. Of course, for us at al jazeera, al jazeera english, america, etc. , we dont have programs like cspan because we do have a full channel, a full channel that deals exactly with that brings the people to the studio or reports from outside live and give a chance to people to talk for hours sometimes. Here at Al Jazeera America, we dont have that system yet. I would suggest it to them. If there is a need for it, then maybe people should think about that. Once a month or once a year or something. We do have, however, programs that probably will be coming soon to Al Jazeera America, but we do have them on al jazeera english, like a program called the stream, in which people can engage with al jazeera and express their opinions and discuss things together, etc. Hopefully we will have more of that sort of program that engage people directly. Host we had a very profile highprofile incident yesterday in this country, a killing that happened on live television. How does al jazeera, how would al jazeera navigate the questions about whether to show Something Like that . It is also a question that has come up in some of the brutal images that isis has posted on twitter, on videos they have had to put out on the web. Guest as you know, there are rules. World. R the for example, with al jazeera english. There are pictures or images that you can put on screen and images that you cannot put. So there are restrictions. We evaluate the need for these pictures to be brought to the the awareness of people versus i dont know the propaganda or the bulkiness of it, etc. So this is the role of the Editorial Team to decide which image to be shown or not. For what happened yesterday, i believe that i was watching al jazeera. They did show the but i did not have a chance to watch Al Jazeera America to see how they dealt with it. I was in a hotel and was out. I dont exactly how they do it. Generally speaking they try to look into the reason for why things like this happen because they believe that one of the most important things in reporting news and bringing context and opinions and , to frame the story sometimes different from the professionalism that sometimes happens with different channels. And go deep into why