Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 12252019 20240713

Lines. For those of you in eastern and central time zones, 2027488000. Mountain and pacific time zones, 2027488001. You can text us, 2027488003. Make sure you include your name and where you are texting from. On twitter we are cspanwj and on facebook, the post is up. We would like to hear from you, facebook. Com cspan. It is a poll that came out earlier this month from usa today dominated usa today in early december, a poll they did with sauce ipsos. A number of articles in this extensive peace piece. Here is susan page, the Washington Bureau chief of usa today, she writes about this poll, americans are united on this, they are sick and tired of being so divided. , social media,s and the news media have exacerbated and exaggerated those divisions sometimes for their own benefit. She writes more than 9 of 10, about as close to unanimity as a National Survey usually reaches said it is important for the United States to reduce that divisiveness. Some of the reporting from that poll on the front page, 83 of americans say divisiveness and gridlock are a big problem in politics. Republicans, 87 of democrats, there is more Common Ground between us than the media and politicians say. And independents, 76 and we think we can reach out to someone on the other side. People consider the other party worthwhile, but think it misguided, but find it worthwhile to , they say ins terms of the impact of what that Division Needs means, 29 say partisan disagreements have impacted their lives, 14 paid more attention to political news and commentary, 12 paid less attention and 11 , the effects of political division, 11 surveyed experienced depression, anxiety, or sadness. 10 lost or had serious fights with friends and family, 9 got left involved with lyrical life and 5 got more involved. Overall, they say 69 of americans think our country deals with disagreements in a destructive way. For the most part, americans do not think our nation has too differences. Ilable only 10 worry about fundamental disagreements and conflicting values as a more pressing issue. 38 worry equally about both of those problems. We are talking about the political divide on this christmas morning, we welcome your calls and comments. Eastern and central time zones, 2027488000. Eastern and pacific, 2027488001. We will go to virginia and hear from that. Good morning. Had a quick question. As i was listening, i thought resonate with me, i come from a very rural community, but i teach at universities and it is kind of the opposite bubbles in the country right now. One of the reasons i like to listen to washington journal is it is one of the few spaces where people are coming from different political perspectives itself does not make a distinction. The question i had for you all rather than a comment is what do you all here when you divide the phone lines between democrats, republicans or between different political beliefs . This happens to be coming up from people on both sides that you are happened to notice you all happen to notice has something everybody is speaking about. I am deeply curious. Host you mean is there a common theme we hear between political lines . This morning we are dividing them regionally. Is that your question, is there a commonality . Regionally andth politically, do you notice things that seem to come up that everybody is speaking of regardless of ideology and place. Host but we talk about each morning, depending on the topic and much of december it has been about impeachment, there is a lot of passion on both sides. We divide that line and we often hear that passion perhaps more than a topic like this where we are talking about things that divide us. And perhaps maybe because it is christmas morning, the tone might be somewhat different, does that make sense . Single calls every morning and certainly major events like the impeachment process, so there is a lot to process from this end. Caller absolutely. I was just curious if there happens to be i know one of the things you will not try to do is become commentators, but are there issues you happen to thane that rather issues of the day, just general themes or patterns you see that kind of go, that is interesting or something that is not really at the front of the headlines, but i am noticing that coming up a lot. Host what do you teach . Writingi Teach College for freshman sophomores. Caller great to hear host great to hear from you. Mark, good morning. Caller good morning, bill, Merry Christmas. Just a great topic. I went to the gym yesterday. I live on the bucks county, Philadelphia County border and my gym is in suburban bucks county. I kind of get both sides and i was working out with a friend of mine yesterday and he is a bluecollar guy even though he has a College Degree from the university of maryland, somehow he is a certified welder, something very technical job he had and we were talking big trumpand he is a fan because he is a social conservative and all of that, but what i was amazed that was as we were talking, the disinformation coming out of him. He claimed to me that Rudy Giuliani worked for the state department and when he went over to ukraine for President Trump, he was a state department employee. I am like where in the world do you ever get that from . There giuliani went over in his capacity as President Trumps personal attorney. He is a college graduate, a skilled welder, i could basically not convince him he was wrong. I said where did you get it from . He gave me some right wing conservative one of those talk shows or something way out to the right. It is amazing to me host was that sort of a one off from him . Does he often Say Something and you raise your eyebrows or question the veracity of what he is saying . No, it is not one off. It seems as though the more this impeachment thing is going down, kind of the more outrageous his statements are becoming. Maybe it is the right wing media, becoming more rabid or something. He doesnt make a lot of sense factually. Host to victor in florida, good morning. I am not so concerned about the political divide, but i am definitely concerned about the misinformation people are getting to make decisions on. They are telling people that it is good for the rich to get a tax cut, but it is not good for you to get a tax cut. They are not telling you 39 Million People live in poverty and social services have been cut by the Republican Party. They are not telling you david duke supports the Republican Party because the neonazis endorsed donald trump. All these right wing People Choose to believe what they want to believe and ignore the facts and a lot of this is caused by the media not supporting the facts and they are not reporting the facts because they need an ignorant population to keep under control. Most of these people would be better off with andrew lang at 1000 a month, but they dont realize you cannot get that unless you can control the congress and get likeminded people in the senate and they dont tell you about how Mitch Mcconnell is trying to cut Social Security and medicare and they would not believe it, so it does not make any difference because they choose to believe what they want to believe and that is the big problem that causes the political divide, in my opinion. Host our discussion on the political divide spring boarding off the pole by usa today, public agenda and ipsos. The brought the wall street journal did their look at the past decade, a decade of division. Writing about the political ramifications, how the u. S. Became a nation divided. Itical, cultural, and a fundamental argument over american values. In january 2010, president barack obama walked into the well of the house of representatives to deliver the annual state of the Union Address and declared a new decade stretches before us. He acknowledged americans were frustrated and angry particularly after a bruising financial crisis and tired of the political shouting. Then he sounded a more optimistic note. In this decade, it is time for the American People to get a government that matches their decency and embodies their strength. That decade is drawing to a close and it is unlikely Many Americans would say there government or the Broader Society has lived up to that asian. On twitter, some comments from there is nothing on the horizon that looks like it would unite people. D. C. Wishing us Merry Christmas and saying the divide must be to survive as are a nation. In illinois, go ahead, good morning. Caller good morning, mr. Scanlon. Drew the short straw for this morning. Host no short straw, happy to be here. Caller ok. Most of the callers have got it right, we have a larger pool method of developing or ferreting out ones own personal taylors to their psychology, their upbringing, various other factors and that is just able to come to the floor. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Adaptation or acceptance of other opinions, all one can do is when i have been on this show before, is doing the work of having as diet of opinion news as onetion, fact as best can gather. There are outlets, reliable the bbc, ther as cdc. The more youthink read, the more sources you get, the more informed you feel but the less divided you will be . Is that your point if people are more informed . Fragmentation, there is no real cement unless there was crisis asof National Conflict. Not a the Apollo Mission was theessful because in 1950s, there was the Scientific Technology and have it be on the front burner of americas interest, that does a likelihood of Something Else developing that would coalesce and make cohesive the American People as strongly, a singularly as that kind of phenomenon. The 50th anniversary of the 1969 landing on the moon, obviously a uniting event for the country. Many other uniting events seem to rally around things like the war, world war ii, and the aftermath of 9 11, the unification of the country. You are talking about the sort of events, the moon landing, those sorts of things, that is what you are calling on the country needs those events to bring the different the divisiveness together, you would say . Needr it would just be the Natural Development of a single issue or very defined set climates, i would pick change myself and we have to convince more people it is as serious as it is. If we can do that, that would be issue, a veryg unifying phenomenon because it is survival of humanity and who is against that . Host montana, marissa, welcome. Caller thank you so much. Cspan. Grateful for thank you so much and i am going to speak on the topic at hand, but i would ask a couple questions. Please bring people on about tokey and what mr. Trump did free the turkey people to be able to slaughter the kurds. I have been hearing horrible stuff about that. Please bring people on because you are giving them a free pass about what is going on in syria with the kurds and the atrocities committed by the turkeys. I would appreciate if you bring people on about his ties with the russian mafia and the fact he is moneylaundering. I have a question, please do not engage the people that call in conversation, it dilutes their conversation and makes things distorted. I cannot focus on what they are saying because you are engaging in conversation. As far as divisiveness is concerned, this is an ontopic, we need to have differing opinions, that is what american democracy is about. Are we all supposed to say the same thing . We are not clones and it is okay for everybody to agree to disagree, thank you very much, cspan, for all you do. Host one of the members retiring this year is senator Johnny Isakson of georgia and he talked about the political divide in the country in his final speech on the senate floor a week ago or so. [video clip] john lewis from georgia or someone like that step out of his comfort zone, do what he thinks is right and somebody tells you he is wrong, dont do that, judge your conscience and tvr heart, not some commentators. We have people in the United States of america who play the hate card. Politicians will dance around the issue of hate. They will not use the buzzwords, but they will get close. The issues get pretty tough. We have got to stand up to the evils of society. I said i was going to tell you tonight what i really believe. America, we have a problem. Our problem is we are not going to repeat ourselves, we are not going to exist much longer. We live on the greatest country in the face of this earth. Everybody is trying to break in, nobody is trying to break out. Is the safest, happiest, richest place in the world. We are the best people to protect that wealth and happiness and have enough people go into the military on a volunteer basis, make us the strongest defender of freedom and opportunity than anyone else in the world. That, we wille ethics andverage of Standby Support and all the other things we love and the things we do. I see things happening that i am asked about by people that scare me and i have heard people i know say some things that terrified me. We are better than the hate and violent vile statements people make. Over them,not talk but to them. We have to sit down and say why did you say that . We have a problem, lets get it out in the open and talk about it. The strongest country in the pressurenot succumb to inwardly. The challenges of life today for america is changing. I think the solution is right here, in their heart. Part of the final floor speech from senator Johnny Isakson retiring at the end of the year, Merry Christmas from washington journal and members of congress on twitter. Max rose from Staten Island saying for so many soldiers on their fifth, sixth, even 10th deployment, missing the holidays is the new normal. Honored to be able to join some this christmas to thank them for the sacrifices they are making for our country. Senator from south dakota tweets some video saying from our family to yours, we want to wish all south dakotas a very Merry Christmas. Our question this morning about the political divide in the u. S. , how concerned are you . In eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 for mountain and pacific and for those of you on text to want to text us, 2027488003. Tina says it is not political, i am concerned about the moral divide. Arthur says i am concerned about levels of corruption, racism, becameogyny we only just aware of. I dont want to go back to when people did not care. I want us to fix what is wrong. The Division Come solely from the left with its cancel culture that even obama decides to blocking people with opposing opinions on social media and not talking to family who voted for trump. Detroit, good morning. Caller Merry Christmas. I hope you give me enough time as you gave the rest of the callers. First, i want to talk about our president. In my lifetime, i never dreamed we would have a president who would get on television and tell the world he is a white. Ationalist there is only one nationalist i know of and that is a white nationalist. Those people with trump, i dont think they are all racist, but racism inave a bit of them because there is no way you and stick withmp him after he has had all these things about mexicans, black, brown, and asian people and arabs, too. Whenan you be with trump he has cut 300 billion off of food stamps . I am looking at the people with trump, they dont have enough knowledge to know he is cutting their food stamps. More white people get food stamps than black people. They try to act like black people are getting everything. If you check the statistics, it will tell you. Turkey,at happened in what the president did was treason. I will tell you why it was treason. Weapons from the turks a he gave the adversarykill our that helped russia. When those guys dont have weapons to fight russia, who does it help . It helped the russians and they slaughtered those people. Nobody cares. Swept in the news media what the president said when he said he was a nationalist under the table. Host we will go to jeff next in georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are on the air, go ahead. Caller yes, the only political nowadays is the fact American People are losing faith in their government. My soninlaw refuses to send his kids to college because of how biased colleges are, college professors, these are supposed to be educated people. Host on your point of losing faith in the government, why do you think people are losing faith . Caller it is pretty obvious. I watched cspan. I watch the inquiries from congress and this and that and 45 of my paycheck goes to taxes. The democrats want to raise that to 75 . These people lie to us daily, they promise you the world, but you get nothing, the only thing. Get is deeper in debt obama himself said to resist, obstruct, get out and stop traffic. Go protest. That was dividing the country. What he did when he said that was divided us from the government. Host next up is lawrence in minnesota. Caller Merry Christmas. Two quick points, the first one is something i noticed when 43 was around. General media,an i am not saying left, right, the media tends to focus every day on what did the president do and i understand the president is important, but in that mindset, i think the general media loses sight of coequal branches of government and did not focus equally on what is congress doing. The thing some things the president does is important, but we also need to keep our eye on other branches of the government and i think the media has been very narrow the past couple decades focusing on what the president is doing. Is thend comment, which biggest american tragedy deals lady by killing of the vehicle in charlottesville and the shooting at the congressional baseball game. They are both equal american generally, the people, the masses, the citizens, and the media always talk about charlottesville. I think that bias and how we are reporting information, how we are receiving information, what we focus on tends to isolate people. What this country needs and the lady two calls ago or so said it, we need more diversity of thought, we need to be more accepting of diverse opinions and until we open our minds to alternate information, alternate opinions, we will not get past this. Thanks for taking the time to listen to me. Host the polls from usa today and public agenda, you can read the whole thing at public agenda. Org. Part of the poll says three quarters of americans think there is more Common Ground among the public than is commonly pretrade. 82 of republicans think that from strongly agree to somewhat feel and 67 of democrats that way. Asking your thoughts. The eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 for mountain and pacific, send us a text at 2027488003. Another story we are keeping our eyes on this Christmas Day, front page of the washington options for gift multiply just before north korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, scientists attached to a test stand to see how it would performed, the engine burned successfully for 200 seconds and generated enough thrust to propel a world had halfway around the world. On december 13, a new missile engine lit up while scientists watched. The burn lasted 400 seconds, almost seven minutes according to an official statement. The results were startling and mystifying, north koreas last icbm was powerful enough to reach the east coast. Was this a same booster or Something Different . No one knew, but experts feared the world could soon find out. President trump and his comments speaking to trips by phone was asked about that, commented about that yesterday in maralago. [video clip] north korea threatening a christmas surprise for the world . We will find out what the surprise is and deal with it successfully. We will see what happens, everybody has surprises for me, but lets see what happens, i handle them as they come along. These are great people. Replenished. Is now we were totally depleted when i came into office. It is great stuff what has happened and you see these incredible people, it is totally replenished. New equipment coming in on a daily basis all made in the usa and our economy is the strongest it has ever been. Host what options are you considering if it does end up being a longrange missile test . Lets see, maybe it is a nice present. Maybe it is a president a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test. I may get a nice present, you dont know. President trump at maralago yesterday, his full comments to the press and also military servicemembers calling in available at cspan. Org. The president tweeting five minutes ago from maralago Merry Christmas. Our topic this first hour is the political divide in the u. S. 2027488000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 mountain and pacific, this one is front page of usa today from their editor in chief, nicole carol. She writes america is divided and americans are placing blame on National Politicians who promote destructive public andte for political gain news media. It depends on what channel and station you watch. Was in the media supposed to be neutral to report the facts . Here is the hopeful part. Americans dont want it to be this way and have ideas on how to fix it according to a public poll. Usa today ipsos this launches our ambitious hidden ground project, Monthly Research and analysis that served searches for areas of agreement. Usa today will go deep into thorny topics and offer solutions from leaders, that is from usa today. We will hear from cindy next, waukesha, wisconsin. And merryod morning christmas, thanks for taking my call. It is interesting the divide not only in our country, and other countries, but in our country, in the United States of america, the political divide is a symptom of dissatisfaction among the citizenry and our government. If you look back through history, just our history, short that it might be, many of the divides we have had have resulted in significant change in our country and i think we are at that point where we are going to have significant change in this country. Some of the problems are artificial intelligence, screen time rather than face time, a multitude of things people cannot get past the limited niche ofon or their information and open up to others to talk about these deep seated mysteries of racism, weism, ageism, all the isms face that we dont expose that we are now facing. In our political strangeness of the day, i dont really know what the solutions are. Yourw communications and conversations on cspan and conversations at the dinner tables have to have that have to happen because we all have deepseated angers and it comes out toxic. The political divide, we all have to communicate, it is not trump that is the problem. He is a symptom of the problem he is the result resentment. S and open your hearts, open your doors, have a conversation with your neighbors. Go next to california, andrew. When you go to the ballot box if you cannot make up all youtalk about raise the tax. Republicans to take more money from the poor and give it to the rich. Host sherry from indiana saying as far as i am concerned about the political divide, it all goes back to the media. When it is 97 negative coverage people are exposed to and they call republicans deplorable and uneducated, they are attacking half the population. Will says i am sure we only succeed if we work for the common good. I think we should accept and respect our differences and Work Together for progress. John on twitter says half of americans think the other half owe them. Living front page of the year ending Washington Examiner weekly, a lot like christmas and a look at their depiction of speaker. Elosi and President Trump kevin in indiana, welcome. Caller good morning. Merry christmas. The politicalf divide is technology. Term limits for senators, so you have a bunch of older people told about technology, but dont use it every day. Tech companies can do whatever narrative kind of like we think the media does on whatever opinion they have that day and we, the people, are able to research and we have communicate. People the only divide part of the equation is what to believe or not to believe. Host do you think social media like facebook in particular is helpful in bridging a divide or is it part of the problem . I think it is both. I think it runs into the problem because officials i am not going to name names, but a lot of elected officials enrich themselves for years. I am only 40 years old and i have been paying attention to politics since 9 11 and it just seems like i will give you an example. I am in indiana. I cannot find any internet playce where my son can xbox live. We cannot even get good enough internet. Yet google, facebook are making billions of dollars. Soonopoly is when someone a big, they dont spend their money to grow the infrastructure, that is a technical word of monopoly. As in political divide, you take loyal countrys, people that cannot communicate get as geared in or teched in, however you want to , that, you go to a city is the only divide, loic rural and cities. Oft you are achieving all that to the technical divide . The Digital Divide it is called by a lot of people . Caller yeah. There is a whole realm of stuff, constitution has been around for the long time. As long as we follow that, the country will be fine. As far as factbased arguments, we dont know what our senators do behind closed doors. Itt it is not that just is not just the political opinion, but pew research looks at the differences in opinion on political issues. Interesting note from one of their recent polls, the most recent poll, wide partisan gaps across a number of areas, but the largest difference on the issue of guns and race, differences in opinion between 57ublicans and democrats, percentage point difference, racial attitudes, 55 . Climate and environment, 48 and the social safety net, medicare, Social Security, 46 percent. It is sometimes surprising and revealing some of the political divides that come together over instances of things like funerals for members of congress , moments like that, here is mark meadows, republican congressman from north carolina, chair of the Freedom Caucus and a colleague of emmanuelle coming awayijah cummings who past this fall. Here is his comments at the Memorial Service in the capital. [video clip] we are called to give honor where honor is due, so it is fitting we are here today to honor a friend. He is called a number of things, father, husband, friend,. Hairman for me, i was privileged enough to be able to call him a dear friend. Some have classified it as an unexpected friendship. For those of us that no elijah, it is not unexpected or surprising. Not only is he a quality man, we were able to share a number of personal stories and intimate secrets that elijah never shared with anyone because he was a man of his word and he said he never yet, through the tears of the past few days, i am of one particular conversation. Because of who elijah is, he had a smile that would consume his whole face. You know that. He also had eyes that would pierce through anybody standing in his way. I reminded him not too long ago of a quip he made, he said darrell issa was going to make him famous. That he is not defined by other people, he is defined by the character of his heart, the honesty of his the man that we will miss. About let nots your heart be troubled. If you believe in god, believe also in me. In my Fathers House are many mansions. If it were not so, i would have told you. You to prepare a place for tent toh has left his go to a mansion, a better place. Perhaps this place and this country would be better served with a few more unexpected friendships. I know i have been blessed by one. God bless you. Republican congressman mark meadows at the Memorial Service last month for elijah cummings, who passed away this fall. Are you concerned about the political divide in the u. S. . In buffalo, we hear from kyle. Caller good morning. Merry christmas to all. Political divide. As a 44yearold africanamerican male, our sincey has been divided the history books and now we enter modernday politics where we have a president who didnt and president donald trump, who is doing a great job and we have our 24 hour media stations, a lot of them are one way or the other and that divides us because if you only listen to one source, you would think our last few president s are horrible. If you listen to the other side, our last few president s are doing great. Then you have the average american who does not watch anything. They listen to the car radio and one station will Say Something about one president and another person will drive their car and listen to another station. I have been watching cspan since around 2000 and it is amazing how you have callers call in. At the other side will always theyou are always bashing president and the next the next side will come along and say you are bashing this guy. I just dont see how it is helpful because the one side will call the other side a name. How could a blackeye vote for President Trump . We are tired of the same liberal agenda. I think he is doing a great job. The last president got us out of a hole and this president is keeping us out of the hole as well. Hopefully we will do well and keep going. Happy new year, cspan host california, john. Caller good morning. Merry christmas to every american in this country, democrat and republican. I wish the same divide in this country would happen within each party because every time they vote, it seems to be down party lines and i cannot believe they all take the same position. The idea that we are split down the middle is absurd and it has been going on for years. These people in either party, and i am talking about either party, democrat or republican, for them to not take a dissenting decision means they are not living their conscience. They are throwing the constitution and the country under the bus when they do that on either side. I just dont believe they can all believe a man or woman on a single position and i think the pressure we feel from the media and from each other also happens in these parties, those people in the house and the senate and i cannot believe the job is that great that they would put themselves out in front of the American Public and try to convince us to a man or a woman they believe in these positions that are so wavy these days. We have got a lot of problems honesty. T to see more i think maybe the problem is that they dont have secret ballots, but they dont vote. Every time they vote these things, we already know how they are going to vote before the vote comes up. I think that is disgraceful. Better as need to do the American Public and get to the ballot box because those statistics are not 5050. Half the people vote, half the people dont vote, they just dont show up at the ballots and i think that is what we could do better this year and god bless america, Merry Christmas to everyone and may you have a safe one. Campaign encourages voters to confront snowflake relatives. With families coming together at the end of one of the most divisive years, president Donald Trumps campaign has created what wed intends to be a gift to supporters who might talk politics with a snowflake relative. Designed to help backers win an argument with liberal friends and Family Members. The site, snowflakevictory. Com provides talking points to Trump Supporters for 12 hot button topics ranging from immigration to Congressional Democrats impeachment probe. Perhaps writing about his Family Gathering last night on twitter, this viewer says i left my dads inight leaving illinois, this is lawrence, next. Caller yes and no to the question about concerned about political divisiveness in the country. It has been like that for the beginning of time not only in our country, but every single civilization. The good thing about our country is we have the freedom to have these disagreements. The guy from new york was trying to say that. What i think is really a problem is us and the words we use. I am not sure people that call the this statement on station i hear talking own a dictionary because they use words and try to make them villainous. You had the gentleman who called about the nationalists. If you look up the definition, it is a good thing. You put your Country First before other countries. My 60s. Into my spouse of 34 years is an immigrant. A black, brown immigrant from another continent and when she became a citizen, she raised her hand and be and took an oath to become a nationalist. She calls me her old white man of no color. That means people of color except they are excluding you. We have a little give and take with that. People need to have a dictionary sometimes and they dont even know the words they are using all the time and it is a shame our country the problem is the people in the country, we want to label people. An earlier caller rallying on the Republican Party because david duke supports the Republican Party. Who cares. There is one person with one vote. Who cares . I would not denigrate an entire race because you have somebody who is a muslim who would an arab who would not Say Something derogatory toward another person. I would not put that persons opinion and put it on an entire culture of people. How disgraceful that is and we have too many people doing that. They pick out phrases and use them. Even the term hatred. Hatred is acceptable. We talk about righteous anger and righteous indignation, there are good things about righteous hatred. Read proverbs and you will read the 6, 7 things god hates. He spells them out and included in that group are people who sow discord among brethren. People that rush to cause hubble. God hates those things. Steve, your this is thoughts this morning. Caller good. Merry christmas. I agree with that last caller from costa mesa, california. I dont agree though that politico spot you were tioning discussing addressing how to discuss political divides. I dont think that will be effective. I have tried it with people i know. People are so entrenched about their views and i think it stems the, in my opinion, from 2016 elections and people feeling like they were disenfranchised by voting not for trump and trump won. We have been dealing with that from day 1 with him. Meanwhile, you have fox on the others and the propaganda arm of it, continually pushing that side forward. When you try to have a reasonable conversation, they have nothing to argue back about. They spin off to another topic or sidestep. There is no coherent argument they can make when you say what about all the people who have of the trunk Campaign People in jail right now . There is like 8 of them in jail. The Mueller Report came out and toelieve there were about 12 20 convictions out of that even. Somewhere the russian army people trying to hack the election. There was a lot of evidence there was some misdeeds done. Host we showed you earlier some of the comments from Johnny Isakson, republican of georgia, the senator retiring at the end of this year. Headlining roll call. America, we have a problem. His farewell warning. Ahead of those final comments, his colleague from the georgia delegation, longtime civil rights leader, longtime congressman and democrat, john lewis came over to speak with senator isaacson. Here is a look. He goes out of camera range shortly, but he will come back. Lets take a look. [video clip] i would like to thank you, johnny, for your years of service. I would like to thank you for the service to our state, our nation. Health and happiness ad take some time to enjoy beautiful and wonderful life in the state of georgia. You have been very good to the people in the state of georgia and i am lucky enough and blessed to call you a friend and a brother. Thank you so much. Almostpeaker, it is timecult to yield back the when i speak of this good and great leader from the state of. Eorgia i will come over and meet you, brother. Host senator Johnny Isakson and john lewis, georgians and friends and a farewell on the house floor. We hear from david next. There you are, apologize. Go ahead. Caller the last three or four callers were interesting. The last one is a perfect set up for what i have to say. It is about bench make benchmarking what you know to be true. The ig report, the result of a year or such investigation, compare it to what the news media has been putting out for three years. Compare it to the nunes report in 2018. His report was almost identical to the igs report. The difference was they both had things not included in the other, but virtually everything the ig said was identical. Compare that to the schiff report, 10 pages. Was full of it and everything he was saying was wrong and the news media picked it up and everybody was saying the schiff report was terrific. The words they use to describe it were unbelievable and it has been proved to be 100 wrong. Ig report,nt, this which is a prelude to the Durham Report that will really knock the doors down is giving us an opportunity to look at three years worth of the worst National Media reporting, lies, and distortion and to be able to determinations without just making it up, look at what came out and look at what they have been reporting. Look at the two weeks before the ig report came out, the leaks that came out before it were ala that there was no political bias. That is not what the ig said. Listen to the two days that he was testifying. Pardon me . Host the two days before the senate and house committees. Theer they did not cover 42 minute Opening Statement by lindsey graham, which is one of the finest statements that he has ever made. The guy that called before me mentioned the Intelligence Report where 17 agencies claimed that trump was being supported by russia. There are so many hoaxes within the hoax. Look for the Durham Report to totally blasted this out of the water. That came about in october and september when obama commissioned the intelligence agencies, brendan and copper in particular, to put together this report. Everyone knew there was russian hacking. The question had to do with collusion. It totally manipulated first about how they came out with that report in only about a month is crazy. Brendan cia guy attached the dossier, which this to report was officially released in 2017. Listen to the ig. In 2017, they had already interviewed that Single Source of seal. They knew that everything he told them was garbage. The ig reported that he had no was going toele use this. Host we will let you go there david. You do point out the two meetings. We did cover both of those. You can find them at cspan. Org. Head on the washington journal, our annual authors week continues. Our series continues with a surgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins university, dr. Marty makary. He will talk about his workbook book, the. Pay. E price we 0. As a oureres a look at some of featured programming. On Christmas Day at 10 00, viewed this years Christmas Decorations at the white house with melania trump, plus a look decorations for michelle obama, laura bush, and Hillary Clinton. It discussion about Global Technology issues at the manhattan institute. Journalism director john miller and fake news the with the Liberty Forum. A joint economic hearing on the high cost of raising a family. 9 10, we talk about occupational licensing requirements. Watch this holiday week on cspan. University of washington history professor Margaret Omara talk discusses her book the code. You have the biggest of Big Government programs the space race, what eisenhower labeled the militaryindustrial complex, that becomes the foundation for this entrepreneurial flywheel of incredible creation, innovation, and private wealth creation, and an industry that is considered itself that considered itself an industry thats built itself on its own. Government became invisible to many of the people in Silicon Valley were the creators of these companies and technologies. That is part of the magic actually it is a government out of sight. Saturday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan q a. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined by dr. Marty makary. He is a professor of Health Policy at Johns Hopkins university in baltimore and also there. H or surgeon his latest book is the price we , good morning dr. Mccarrick. If you had to pick a breaking point for American Health care, where would you put it . Guest if you had to identify the issues that are driving our affordability crisis, it is number one pricing failures, number to the middleman industry, and number three in appropriate medical care. Collectively there is broad consensus in america about addressing these issues. Unfortunately our discussion has been sidetracked into this false choice we have into whether or not you are pro or con health care. I have yet to meet somebody who thinks that any industry has gone from nontransparent pricing to transparent pricing and then said this is a bad idea, lets go back to hiding prices. People are getting hammered out there. People are getting crushed. They are hungry for honest pricing and health care. It is ironic. I am a surgeon and i do pancreatic surgery. For most of my career, i could tell you 5000 things about pancreatic surgery except for 1 the price of surgery. People now need to know the prices. Think that is similar among your colleagues at Johns Hopkins and surgeons in general . Guest yes and it is not because we have bad people. We are just focused on taking care of the patient. When people come in, we like to take care of them. Have relied on our hospitals, our billing department, our administration to handle the billing processes. They are not bad people either. We have inherited this crazy system in health care where we mark up prices for the purposes of offering secret insurance discounts, secret and selective insurance discounts. Why do we have an army of staff negotiating discounts off of artificially inflated prices . This is the crazy game this crazy game has resulted in hundreds of insurance executives am a part saying i of this system, and i cannot say this publicly, but it is insane, after the book came out. Guest you host you went out into the field and interviewed people. Like your book says, you did your rounds. What type of people that you see . Guest like doctors do rounds on people, i thought it is time to do rounds on this issue as a professor of policy at Johns Hopkins we hear a lot of opinions. We hear a lot of stories of outrage and gouging in Health Wanted to take a comprehensive approach to identifying the factors leading our crisis. I spoke to hospital leaders, doctors, nurses, patients, who few people talk about. A lot of people are getting rich in health care, but not the one stakeholder the patients. Talking to pharma, large academic centers, i tried to put together a basic Health Care Literacy book so we can create a common language and really unite people by appealing to the best in them. People go into health care at every level at of a sense of compassion. People going to hospital administration, any aspect of health care, Insurance Companies, they work at any level for the purpose of contributing to society. We have got to appeal to the best in people and remember why we went into the field. Create price couching today price gouging today is threatening the public trust in hospitals. Host we would like to hear from you. Were talking about fixing the Health Care System. Talking about his new book. We would like to hear your experiences, your ideas. Here is how we are breaking down the phone lines if you get employer provider insurance, that number is 202 7488000. If you get your insurance through the Affordable Care act, that is 202 7488001. Through medicare or medicaid, that will be 202 7488002, all others, including uninsured, that would be 202 7488003, one of the things you write about early in the book leg pain. You said doing leg procedures for people who do not need them is one form of unnecessary treatment. The problem is even bigger in the preface i mentioned that doctors believe that 21 of things done in medicine is unnecessary. 11 of procedures are unnecessary. Aliens of dollars are spent on care we do not need. All of us have seen the tv ads on this. What do you focus on in the issue of treating leg pain . Guest when we surveyed doctors at Johns Hopkins in a National Survey and asked them what percent of medical care is unnecessary, they say it is about of a fifth of everything we are doing. 10 years ago we prescribed two point 4 billion prescriptions. Last year it hit 5 billion. Did disease really double in the last 10 years . No, we have a crisis of appropriateness. We have a consumerist culture, we have this fear amongst physicians that they have to cover themselves i doing things they know are not necessary and we have this problem of money on the table and this feeforservice system that incentivizes quantity over quality. I open with this story in the book of people being recruited for leg stent procedures at local churches here in washington dc because medicare is funding this entire system. There is no way to identify currently patterns of doctors doing this. Justify what they need to in the medical records, medicare to pay for it. Into throw good money medicare, that does not fix the problem. Politicians talk about different ways to finance health care we need to talk about how to fix health care. Host it is not just procedures, it is products like mobility devices and other types of medical devices provided through medicare. Abuse there is a lot of in a lot of areas. We have two issues in health care we have underuse and access issues and we have overuse. By far overuse is dominating our cost crisis today. Doctors are speaking up about it. Patternsing practice to identify actionable outliers who can then see results and we see that they autocorrect in the data. Host we have done a couple segments here recently about the in ruralf you will, hospitals. Some of these issues youre talking about, are they exacerbating it . Guest rural hospitals closing is a big problem. We are seeing a Record Number of closures. Big hospitals are on track to get record profits. At the same time, small and rural hospitals are closing. What we have got is this multiple multiple streams of cash into the big hospitals. You can name it. State subsidies, philanthropy. Small hospitals usually dont get that and they are the ones getting crushed. A bigJohns Hopkins is hospital. Is that a forprofit system . Nonprofit system. With that taxfree status comes an obligation to help the community. What we can see is if we can use the right lexicon, some hospitals are engaging in predatory building billing where they are taking patients to court. That is the most absurd conflict of a taxexempt organization. Before we get to the calls, the center for Medicaid Services the cost of health increased nearly 5 to forh 3. 6 trillion in 2018 11,001 hundred 72 per person. The insured share of that 11 ,172 dollars per person. 35 Prescription Drugs billion. Dental services, 135 billion dollars. We will hear from you. We go first to sneed phil, tennessee. Sneed phil we go first to tennessee. Caller i am with you on hospitals price gouging. Bandaid take a . 50 and charge the Insurance Company 15. That is ridiculous. Kind ofare needs some oversight over the price of whatever. They need to have a general standard they ought to have a guideline of pricing that they have to go by. That is not gouging the people. I was hooked on opioids. They came out with suboxone which is a great drug, but then you have the doctors who wont take your insurance and you have pay 300 25 ad to doctors visit, even though i had insurance i had to bay i 325 a doctors visit even though i had insurance. Guest it is a disgrace what is happening. Lets call it what it is it is price gouging. What i learned from going on tour, talking to Everyday Americans, and stakeholders in health care in the book is that most americans do not live like i do. Life has been good to me. Half of americans have 400 or less in cash on hand in their savings account. People are getting hammered with these crazy bills. If airlines did not have to provide prices on travel websites and instead argued that we have to bill you after the flight, we cannot tell you what the flight will cost, we would have gouging all over the airline industry. It would result in this loss of the public trust. Right now in health care, we have the same crisis. Host you put out there in your book, you do suggest that people asked the price. We do not do that. We do not ask before the procedure. How do you change that . Guest one of the exciting things happening is organizations are now showing you prices. Check out the mayo clinic price estimator. Check out the free medical freemarket medical Association Shop tool. Empty saves, sesame health, clear health costs. Md saves,ut the sesame health, clear health costs. It happened this week. A woman came in with the help a head cold and was charged 25,000 dollars. We need that bill forgiven and a public apology, and a systematic change in the system. The purpose ofor offering secret discounts is a crazy game that costs a lot of money to do and has nothing to do with bedside care. Callingts go to eric from rome, georgia. Caller the republicans and trump have no health care plan, but the democrats have several. Mcconnells medical health care is basically what you have to do in order to bring down the cost of medicare will stop care uncompensated care in hospitals. What you would have to do is that is where the largest prices are coming from. It is uncompensated so it is raising the prices on other people. You have to mandate that people pay a copay or some kind of payment at these hospitals. That would bring down the price. Next thing you would have to do is go to medicare for all. That is where you get the cheapest medicine. You drop the price down, you drop the age limit down slowly on it and what you do you negotiate the price of the drugs. Then the price of medicare is actually cheaper then any other insurance that is provided in the United States. First you have to have a plan. Medicare for all, drop the aide, stop the uncompensated hospital care. That is what is raising the problem. Host an additional comment from mark on twitter medicare for all, do you support that . Costs forimbursement health care. Guest we need to turn off the echo chamber of cable news that unfeasible,s these nonrealistic options and instead talk about where we have Common Ground. There is broad consensus on how to fix health care. We need to address pricing failures and inappropriate care. We have a study out of Johns Hopkins that shows that 48 of all federal spending right now is going toward health care in its many hidden forms, that is not just medicare and medicaid. Half of Social Security checks are going toward medicare copays and deductibles and coinsurance. It is the defense departments the defense departments divide half of the defense departments budget goes to health care. Partest on the debt is in interest on health care data. 4 of all federal spending think about this next time you file your taxes 48 of all federal spending goes to health care. Those arguing for medicare for all, what do they propose we twoe that 48 percent number to . Do we cancel all other National Priorities and spend all money on health care gecko even then we couldnt afford medicare for all. Do we cancelcut all other National Priorities and to spend all money on health with on health care . We couldnt afford medicare for all. We need those secret negotiated prices to be disclosed. Infuse transparency in the marketplace and do a lot of good. How about we give transparency a chance . Host the center for Medicaid Services with the figures for 2018 on spending private Health Insurance, 34 of that. 37 , doesedicaid is not include tricare outofpocket costs. 10 . Tulsa, oklahoma. Talkingwe are back to about price per pill. I am on the aca next year, she is on medicare. She has pain medication that hases . 12 a dose and she medication that costs 27 a pill. We need some Nonprofit Organization going and some kind of pricelist. I go into walmart, i know what im going to pay for something. If i go into the hospital i dont know one till i get the bill. This is getting too complicated with all the different types of insurance. My aca went from 250 a month to 1200 dollars a month. It is not really Affordable Care month. 0 a it is not really Affordable Care. It is ridiculous to pay 1200 a month for health care. I would love for you to address the guest it is important we filter what politicians are saying. During the democratic debates we heard a massive pylon on the insurance industry. There are things there that were correct. We do not have a primary insurance crisis in health care. We have a pricing crisis. That pricing is managed by insurance passed on to individuals. We have to address the underlying issues that are resulting in our affordability crisis. Spent 48 if we percent of all federal debt spendsrage household 20,000 a year on health care and then you get a bill on health care and here it is not covered people have a right to be angry right now. People are getting crushed. We need some public accountability around pricing. I recently met with an executive at google. Someone there had read the book and wanted to meet. When somebody googles the name of a hospital, instead of just putting the hospital, the address, and the phone number, how about put the name of the hospital, the address, the number, the average markup, sue patientst they and their markup quality doing host an callern earlier mentioned using opioids. If you have a chapter on that. For most of my surgical career, you write, i gave out opioids like candy. I was unaware that one in 16 patients become chronic users. My colleagues and i did not realize we were feeling a national crisis, but today opioids are the leading cause of death in america of people under the age of 50. As a medical student and a surgical resident, i spent thousands of hours learning how to diagnose Breast Cancer, how to cut out Breast Cancer, and chemo chemo and radiation after surgery, that at no point was i taught that the way we liberally issue opioids would kill more people than Breast Cancer itself. Tell people what you do differently in the pain medication arena now . About theeel terrible Opioid Epidemic because i contributed to it for many years with good intentions and arguably bad science. I did what i was taught and i prescribed opioids liberally after the surgical procedures i formed. As painful as it was to write about it, i think we need more humility in medicine. Out is Sutter Health paid 575 million in a settlement announced this week, part of the settlement was they would admit to no wrongdoing. I think we need more humility. The Opioid Epidemic is just one example. Opioids have become the number one cause of death in america among people under age 50. Doctors at construction sites were prescribing opioids to anyone who is injured and at certain sites, the majority of people longterm died from the opioid prescriptions that they were given. These are not people dying from injury or illness these are people dying from the care that they have received. T is a snapshot opioids are just one medication that we overprescribing. There are many more out there. Fatalas a particular addiction that has attracted National Interest that has gotten large, but there are many other issues. It is one glimpse into our problem of too much medical care. Host how do you handle pain relief now . Guest first of all, we went to the patients involved in the decision. Have a website called solve where we have patients watch a video. We do not want the pain to debilitate them where they cannot be active or walk. We use nonopioid alternatives and there are a lot of them. I had to educate myself on what we call multimodality alternatives, usually a combination of acetaminophen and local anesthetics. We use opioids judiciously. Our guidelines that should be specific to the operation, just why we have stated our consensus headlines on the website. Tony is on the line for those who get their insurance through the aca. Caller i came to the opinion that the government could service for the Insurance Companies by making comprehensive insurance required aca and also when they made it so businesses had to provide insurance for their itloyees and but it made so that they had, they were appointed as middlemen. Public a lot of harm because there was a lot of rate waste in the system because of people not shopping around when people are covered when something is covered. The other thing i think that is theput up with that other choice is to be price gouged and as dr. Macario was dr. Makary was saying, they rise the prices so they can start at a better negotiating position with the Insurance Companies. The entire thing got way out of hand from the beginning. Think we would definitely not have this requirement to ensure maintenance costs that a market would develop to lower prices. You need to have some taxes to who care of the people cannot become selfreliant, but certain people have enough good health and finances and maybe savings to not rely on the government. It would be like the equivalent of homeownership and you would not have to pay for host we will get a response. Guest we has a National Priority in the United States have basically realized that people deserve health care and no one should suffer because they cannot afford care. We already spend enough money on this country on health care to give every Single Person in our borders goldplated health care. We just have to cut to the waste. If we look at arkansas expenditure on health care, it is absurd. It is threatening every other National Priority. The amount of waste going on is apparent to any doctor or nurse practicing medicine today. There are a lot of priorities right now in health care. One of them that we need to put first is to create some public accountability around pricing. Employers have been given this mandate to provide insurance to their employees, what did that really came out of world war ii when salaries were frozen and employees took on this employers took on this task to make their jobs more attractive, that they would provide insurance benefits. It is not ideal. No one should have to worry about switching jobs because of their health, but it is the system we have right now. Host you make a comparison error between the Financial System and Health Care System before the 2008 crisis. Rippedmost are getting off on their health care plan. That is in part because they buy pharmacy plans for their employees on an open market where plans are sold by brokers. Isse brokers, that industry as corrupted as the subprime Mortgage Broker industry was before the 2008 financial collapse. The reason i learned about this entire industry is that brokers told me about that. Many brokers have said that we are sick of this game of kickbacks and, commissions. They said we will try to work as a true fiduciary and be independent. How was a broker independent when they are getting a 100,000 kickback from the Pharmacy Company . Many of these are not disclosed to the employers. Take for example in new york state if you are an employer and you buy Health Insurance for your employees, 4 of every dollar spent on Health Insurance premiums for life goes to that broker. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of money going to whoever sold you that one time plan. On top of that, the insurance or pharmacy plans will say to their broker, if you keep this employer with us, we are looking at giving you a bonus this year 30,000, 40,000, or 50,000. That is how our services as doctors and nurses are being sold on the market like energy on a grade. There are so much wasted there. Most businesses are getting ripped off. I provide tools for how you can go to some of these more enlightened advisers who will act as a true independent fiduciary and help you get into the right plan for your employees. Is calling from florida. He is on medicare. When i was first diagnosed, the doctor prescribed limit call at the time i had my own business. I made good money. I am on medicare now. I get 800 a month. Is 4400 adicine month now. That is just crazy. I take to aday. Aday. I hurt my eye real bad when i was a 60 and it hurts so bad, but the doctor prescribed oxycontin to me. I know how bad it is around here in florida. It is every day. That onek it for night. I do not know what it was. I woke up the next morning and it was terrible. I couldnt hardly focus. I looked at what it was and saw that it was oxycontin. First thing i did was flush it. My cousin bought me some smoked that in the pain was completely gone. I slept good the rest of the night. I woke up the next morning, i was not foggy, my head was not in the clouds. Question quick you said it was 4400 a month. Is that the retail price that you pay . Caller that is what i am supposed to pay. Host thank you. We will hear from dr. Makary. Guest what the patient is responsible for paying at the pharmacy counter can have no rhyme or reason. There is something called spread , which is the health plans behind the pharmacy counter. It is a middleman industry that sets the copays and charge the patient. Ges i go through the boca showing the gouging going on in america today. Most businesses are getting ripped off because they cannot interpret the doses, by some lawyers, and frequencies. They are hoodwinked by these price gouging prices. C. Need basic health care the goal of the bucket is that somebody could read this and renegotiate their insurance navigate people could their health care and make smart decisions. We need public accountability for american hospitals. Ask your beloved community you suing the department of health and Human Services to crush the initiative that they have announced . Right now the Hospital Association is trying to block Price Transparency. We have seen this assembly of u. S. Hospitals, there is no Media Coverage on this, but this is the biggest story on the Biggest Issue in the United States today. Hospital,ommunity create some public accountability are you joining the lawsuit to block Price Transparency . I think that is what we need in america, regardless of whether or not we get legislation or any more government action. We need basic concerned citizens speaking up and creating public accountability. Host the book is the price we pay, what broke American Health care and how to fix it. We welcome your tweets, texts, and your calls. I text from john david in Northern California he says price exposure alone not reduce prices. How do we control individual greed, Expose Corporate a specific question for you walk us through how you determine your fee for a routine surgery done a thousand times . Guest in maryland the rates are set. The price of a common procedure that i perform on the pancreas is about 40,000. Some hospitals have moved toward Price Transparency. I Johns Hopkins, my team conducted a study of medical centers that went from the standard way of doing business where there are no prices and patients who asked for prices were given the typical runaround. Look at what happened when they offered a set menu of prices what happened was remarkable. Not only were those prices belowmarket, but is this is this boomed at those centers. The market will reward Price Transparency. I have hospital ceos whisper to to offerhey would love transparent pricing, but our trends our insurance contracts wont allow us or other contractual obligations prohibit us. There has been an effort to prohibit Price Transparency that is going on why special interests. People should be aware of it and people should give their business to the hospitals that offer high quality and fair prices. If you want to charge twice as much as the next hospital, go ahead, but the quality should be better. We have some of the best prices in the country at Johns Hopkins and i would argue some great quality. Andidea that the hospital prices, why are they doing it . Is the quality that much better . No, they are taking advantage of people who are out of network and they can gouge and they are doing what the market will allow. Plethora oft a homeless, uninsured immigrant skiers on Vail Mountain who they have to jack their prices up to cover. No, these are wealthy, uninsured, outofnetwork patients. They have been gouging the outofnetwork patients. Mike inr next caller is north carolina. Caller Merry Christmas to both of you. I like what i hear from you, dr. Makary. I really do. First, i called in on the employer insurance line. I have been happy with it through my career. I have had blue cross blue shield, i have i am currently with sickness. Cignus. I would like to make a couple of comments. The gentleman before me who commented on how he noticed the price of a certain drug exploded on him when he went to medicare my mom passed four years ago. She was 90. I have personal experience with monitoring her medicare bills. She was a dementia alzheimers patient. As pretty much everyone knows, i do not know what the statistics are, but endoflife patients are the ones who get something 80 of medicare. My mother did not have to pay these bills, but they were paid by medicare to various providers. Once i saw the costs of some of these things, it rankles me. I figured out where that 60 it is theyear fraud and theft and mismanagement of medicare. This is something that medicare for all people never discussed. 60 billion a year, which is 1 5 of the entire medicare budget. I saw that personally. To want that for the entire country is just insane. Until we can fix that like dr. Makary has talked about, getting a handle on this corruption, this fraud, this waste, and abuse the other thing i want to ask about getting these costs under control is why isnt Health Insurance structured and priced similar to my Car Insurance or my Homeowners Insurance . Lets go with Car Insurance. My Car Insurance does not cover new batteries, windshield wipers, tires, oil changes. If it did my premium would be unaffordable. That is why in my humble opinion Health Insurance is unaffordable. As adults we should be responsible for our basic needs, just like we are responsible for we should pay for basic tests, xrays. The meat and potatoes. The really mundane stuff of health care. That is our responsibility as a citizen and as an adult, especially if we are working. We should not cover all of that stuff, just like Car Insurance only covers accidents. It doesnt even cover major engine failures. Host dr. Makary. Guest first of all, i am sorry about your mother. I am a cancer surgeon myself and i am reminded frequently have short life is. That is one of the reasons i speak up on these issues and i encourage my colleagues in medicine to do the same. With it come to grips dying in the United States. It is a tragedy often times we are put in a awkward situation talking about death with patients and their Family Members. There is waste that is going on there. When of the problems is we do not know who is going to get through and who is not when they are in the icu. There is no substitute for sound medical judgment. I have patients who study things to death and patients who say whatever you tell me to do i will do. We want people to be informed and to make decisions together. It is there is a tremendous amount of waste going on in health care. Some studies estimate that it is 30 to 40 . Look at the army of people we hire just to manage all of these crazy insurance discounts that we selectively provide. A clinic said they have 3000 separate insurance contracts. That is the problem. Why do you have 3000 different prices for the same service . Look at the amount of people we have to hire to negotiate those contracts . People are hungry for basic transparency and with the medical or medicare for all issue, i agree. Look at all the countries who have adopted a medicare for all system. Governments 100 of the time dial down expenditure on health care by tightening the belt every year as other National Priorities surface. You look at systems 10 and 20 years down the road and they are often underfunded and sometimes even dilapidated. I do not think we want that. Look at our own medicare funding system. We have been doing the same. You have been dialing down our expenditure, tightening the belt on medicare year after year relative to inflation, and many doctors will tell you that this trajectory is not sustainable longterm. I get the appeal. We want to cut to the waist, cuts the middleman, cut through the price gouging and there is an appeal there with medicare for all, but we have to be fiscally responsible and we cannot do that right now. Tocannot increase our 48 5000 . We have to give transparency a chance, cuts the waist. We already spend enough money on health care in the United States to give every Single Person in our borders old plated health care. Just have to cut to the waist. Gold plated health care. We just have to cut to the waist. Ste. He wa oft the average Expenses Health care on in other countries like canada is 8. 8 of their gdp. What are some things that are working . Guest go to germany and get an acl repair. To the go around, talk Different Centers about their performance and you can get a price. Most of the world you are going to get a price for everything from a tooth extraction to a hysterectomy. World, carehe generally speaking is less then the care we give in the United States. I have an uncle who practices cardiology overseas. Doctors have an reputation for over operating, over medicating. The rest of the world generally sees this access. How is it that we have u. S. Cities, post industrial cities, former steel cities that have been entirely revitalized on the business of health care. Is that this is is that something to be proud of . What is the export . What is the product . We have created this massive set of industries where a lot of stakeholders are getting wealthy, except for one and that is the everyday patient. We have businesses spending more money on starbucks. Spending more money starbucks is spending more money on health care than they are on coffee beans. We have a cost crisis that is threatening every major u. S. Business. It is one of the drivers of businesses leaving the United States. It is something we can fix by allowing pricing, Price Transparency to work, creating competition and allowing employers and proxy shoppers of health care to find value in the marketplace. Host we will hear from debbie next in roswell, new mexico. Caller am i on . Host you are. Caller i think you are being disingenuous. I do not think it is abuse. It is greed on your part. 40,000 for a pancreas operation . There is a big difference. It is called greed. I got hepatitis c. My insurance refused to pay for the medicine. I do not have 150,000 dollars to pay for the medicine, so what did i do echo you are not the only game in town. I went to india, saw dr. , got the medicine, and flew back. I got to admit i got the medicine for 440. Youre saying america is too stupid to figure this out. Every other industrial nation has figured this out. Havee too dumb, we do not the money. Maybe we should pull it from them the military. Personally, the greed parts . It is on you. Will let dr. Makary respond. Guest i get the frustration. To defend ind court any patient has who has been sued in court who has been sued by a hospital. People are frustrated. Thanof america has less 400 cash on hand. When they get gouged 25,000 for a service that should cost 13,000, people have a right to be angry. A researcher called 100 hospitals who do heart surgery, a standard procedure, and asked what is the price . After haggling and calling back and getting to the right person, and really fighting to get that price, he got the price at 50 out of the 100 hospitals he called. The price ranged from 44,000 dollars to half 1 million with an almost even distribution. He took those prices and correlated them with the outcomes in our National Database of heart surgery outcomes and guess what . There was no correlation between price and quality. None whatsoever. We took those prices and compared them to the charity care at those hospitals. There was no correlation. High prices are due to highquality or high prices are due to charity care is by and large a myth and it is a reflex out there when people in health care do not have basic Health Care Literacy. Host the review of your book had this headline this doctor is on a mission to make Surprise Health care bills hospital bills history. What said to you on this mission to address the problems in health care . You are a health care professor at hopkins and a surgeon and you are writing about an issue that is more broad than that . What made you take this up . A low income in housing part of town. Host in baltimore. Guest it is actually in arlington, virginia. I moved there as a resident when i could not afford much more. I liked it. I stayed there, i love the people there, it is a terrific neighborhood. Immigrantly an community from central america. I have become friends with my neighbors. They are getting hammered with bills. Theyre getting crushed and they get hot they work hard. It is a disgrace to our profession and a disgrace to our country. I started going into defending them to the hospitals and asking for mercy. What i found is that these hospitals who pay no taxes had no mercy whatsoever. When they argued we are a business, i said pay taxes. Hospitals were built mostly by churches and they were there to safe haven. Fuge and doctors and nurses worked there sometimes as volunteers. Hospitals like mine, Johns Hopkins, operated in the red for decades. Serve charter to joint that is our great medical heritage. When the polio vaccine was invented and the inventor was told to get a patent, he said no, this it will be the property of humanity. That is our great heritage. Right now we need to rebuild the public trust. Public trust in the medical profession is being threatened by collis beta spade price gouging being threatened by lets call a gouging. Pade, price we have inherited this crazy offerf price gouging to host we will hear from raymond next in michigan. Caller i would like to talk pricefixing for different procedures. I had athis 30,000 cold, ok . How i got it was this. I was down in florida. I went back to michigan. I went to the hospital for another reason. They said i had a cold. They separated the whole wing for two days. [indiscernible] cold. 0 for a thats what it is. Host you said the bill was 30,000 . Caller yes. I had a whole wing. Host we will let you go. Guest my students are some of the most encouraging people in this work. Generationillennial have social justice as a generational value. I see these stories of egregious price gouging where i have personally gotten involved outside of my capacity at Johns Hopkins, my students have said we will go with you, we wanted to get involved. We need to change the language. Ets talk about medical prices instead of talking about bills, lets talk about editorial billing. Lets talk about price gouging when the markup is not justified. People are hungry for honest prices right now. Proxy shoppers of health care if you are not paying for health shop proxy shoppers will on your behalf and they are just figuring out what hospitals are delivering babies for 4000 and what hospitals are delivering babies for 70,000. They are creating preferred networks and doing steering. People are hungry for honest pricing. And i go to court on behalf of patients who are being sued to have their wages garnished, a that we exposed this summer, all of these stories that came out were from us calling reporters and saying this is going on, we want to meet with you and talk about it. This has been the story of the year. Hospitals will go after patients to garnish their wages even though they are nonprofit institutions. Many hospitals have stopped suing patients. And i defend these patients in court, we win 100 of the time. Honor, iem, your cannot mow your lawn and send 3000. Ill for these are walmart workers, postal workers, these are not people who have done anything wrong. They work and have insurance and they have been terrorized financially. Billing quality is medical quality and financial toxicity is a medical complication. Host you say that we as consumers, we as patients should ask for prices each and every time we have any kind of medical procedure. Guest when people ask for organic food in restaurants, restaurants responded. The people asked for nutrition information, we got nutrition labels. Market response to demand. Right now there are centers around the country, hospitals that are telling you it will be 7,000 to deliver your baby all in with everything. Will not get a surprise bill for the epidural. Well get an allinclusive bill. That is the result of the demand for Price Transparency. It is really a revolution. I am optimistic about health care because we are seeing this demand rise right now. Host a couple more calls. First on twitter, this is a democrat saying we cannot afford to pay Insurance Companies. Forprofit insurance drives up the cost of care and it must go. Steve says health care should never be subject to the insidious nest of capitalism. Is starbucksat largest expense proves that we need National Healthcare and stop all the unnecessary procedures and medications. Steve is with us in anaheim, california. Draw thehy dont you short stock. I think the lady from new mexico was right, debbie. That basically you are having to trust the charge master which every hospital uses to set prices along with Insurance Companies. And there is a bill in congress right now, hr three which is now hr six, which addresses some of the diseases that need to be cured. Its sitting on the colonels desk. It hasnt gone anywhere. If you people are really tired of this and want to get some change, theres another bill sitting in congress which is hr one, the public funding which would finally get some of these people in congress who are feeding off of the special interests and lobbyists out of congress. Host on steves point in the health care bill, i think he may be referring to the Prescription Drug bill passed in the house. Are you optimistic that there is consensus on that issue in congress that they will pass some sort of Prescription Drug bill . Guest i think theyre going to pass something because people are fed up and they want to be able to show they are doing something. Are times the solutions bipartisan but the media sort of polarizes folks. Turn off these echo chambers of the right versus the left. Announceddent trump Price Transparency as a new rule hear ae dhhs, i did not single democrat speak in opposition to it. Opposed to Price Transparency . Yet the american Hospital Association filed a lawsuit the next week to block it. The media didnt cover the story at all, i believe in part because he did a right thing. He did a bipartisan good solution. Something no other president has done on this issue. You have a complete suppression of what is the Biggest Health care story of the last five years. The Price Transparency executive order. Get no attention in the media, no opposition would at the same specialaction and the interests in washington, d. C. Move in to block it. On the hill weve seen the Alexander Murray bipartisan bill to address spread pricing and disclosure of broker fees and kickbacks, to address many of the issues identified in the book. And essentially the bill gets modified even though its bipartisan and pieces of it get worked into the end of Year Spending bill but then get kicked out of the last second. Once again weve kicked the problem down the road. This is not a right versus left issue. This is an American People versus health cares powerful special interests. I think people need to be smart to interpret what they are hearing in the news to realize theres another story and that is the story of what Everyday Americans want and need and that is basic Common Sense Solutions to address our pricing failures. Thats why i wrote the book, to create rod Health Care Literacy around these issues in a way that we can have a consensus. Host its authors week. Our guest has been dr. Marty makary. Thanks so much for being with us. , we willgton journal go back to our morning question and talk about the political divide in the u. S. Focusing on the usa today poll of earlier this month, are you concerned about the political divide. East and central time zones 202 7488000. Mountain pacific 202 7488001. We will be right back. During this holiday week, American History tv is on cspan3 every day at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight the apollo 11 moon landing 50th anniversary astronaut michael collins. On thursday, environmental history with a look at the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire. And the first africans in virginia 400 anniversary. Allh American History tv weekend every weekend on cspan3. Week and every weekend on cspan3. Primetime features each night. Tonight, in depth with naomi klein. Her latest book is on fire. Thursday, Nancy Eisenberg and Andrew Bernstein discussed president s in their book, the problem of democracy. Friday, ronan farrow and his book, catch and kill. Bearing ofpecial book tv and every weekend on cspan two. Cspans Live Campaign 2020 coverage continues. Hawaii congresswoman tulsi gabbard. Former Vice President joe biden in new hampshire. Monday, Entrepreneur Andrew Yang in nashua, new hampshire. And tuesday, senator elizabeth warren. Watch the president ial candidates or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Washington journal continues. Host we are talking about the political divisions in the u. S. Its the subject of a recent poll from usa today. Americans see our angry political debate as a big problem. We are asking your thoughts on that. For eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 mountain and pacific. , 202 us a text 7488003. Lets go to angelo in new orleans. Morning. Merry christmas. Aboutt so much worried the political divide in this country as much as im worried about propaganda and other countries that are getting theselves involved in political divide and causing the political divide. And manipulating people into thinking that they are right. When in essence they are wrong. It needs to be brought out more. Thank you. Host wanda is in los angeles. Go ahead. Caller hello. Remailafroamerican feo female but as an air force veteran. Agree [indiscernible] i dont appreciate the division that we are having in this country right now because [indiscernible] we are divided. Watched in this country as have been coming closer together and supporting each other more. [indiscernible] the shadow area. Black people, white people, asian. You have harmony there. There is harmony happening in this country im a democrat. I believe the majority of americans right now are all for whats best for each other. Health care i believe we are more united than [indiscernible] host joining us from los angeles is ashley or choose, the executive relations director for the National Conflict Resolution Center. Our focus has been the political divide. The conflictork of Resolution Center . What do you do . And day out inin conflict resolution. What we focus on is how we can equip people in society to engage with one another with more stability. We really feel that we have forgotten in this country and maybe just in general that its ok to disagree with one another. That something thats part of a healthy democracy. But when we do that, theres a way to have those conversations thats civil and respectful and can be really insightful and helpful to democracy. Host what do you think is causing people to forget that we are able to have those conversations . I do think we are becoming more siloed whether we want to or not. The way that digital algorithms work, we just end up kind of in our own bubble sometimes. It requires of individuals now in todays times is to conversationsout with other people who dont share the same viewpoint that they do. And i say that acknowledging that thats a very difficult thing to do. Its not the type of thing you wake up in the morning and think i want to go out and seek a fight with somebody who thinks differently than i do. I think our perspective is that it doesnt need to be a fight if you are equipped with the right and that seeking out those conversations can help educate and make youru case stronger when you have those dialogues. We are talking about the political divide in the u. S. Some practical advice where people are going to encounter a friend or Family Member with radically different political views and they will share the same space together. What are your thoughts on that . Brain toain your respond to dissent. When we hear something that we inherently disagree with, our body very naturally goes into fight, flight or freeze. Thats a very natural response. Often times what that means especially around a holiday that we fight with the people we are talking to and we go right into battle mode. That ispens when we do there is absolutely no active listening happening. Not only are you not able to hear what the other person is saying but they are certainly not able to reciprocate that and hear what you are saying. So train your brain to know that when you hear something you disagree with, your initial reaction is going to be to maybe respond in a way that escalates the situation and if you can rather be in the practice of taking a beat, maybe even repeating back what you heard them say, not in a cheesy way. Youre saying this. This is what im understanding. This is why i think differently than that. It can really change how that conversation goes. About you hear something that you find is offensive or absolutely factually incorrect . How do you in a polite or civil way respond to that . One of the things that we find that in trenches people the most in their views is when they feel attacked or isolated. When you hear something that you factualoffensive or not , it is so natural to want to respond to them in a way that really is attacking. And in a sense, thats a good thing especially when you hear something offensive and you are a bystander in a situation and want to stand up for someone else. Thater, will you change persons behavior in the future . Probably not using the attack method. Addressing it head on is really important. Absolutely doing something about it is important. But doing it through more of a dialogue approach and a way that , i usually love your jokes. What you just said crossed the line for me. I want to understand more of what you meant by that. Thansounds a lot different , i cant believe he said that. What are you thinking. Just approach the conversation giving individuals the opportunity to engage with you rather than feel shut down, attacked. Do that, reason you you dont want individuals to become more entrenched in their position. You want to work with them and try to bring to the surface the issues that need to be worked out. Into 2020, your thoughts for how media organizations and College Campuses can encourage a broader array of views to be presented. I think part of the solution is to start right now. Intonk it the more we go 2020 the more heated we are all going to become and so being able to have some of those conversations now while yes, things are tense but we are not in october. Theres not a big election pending. Is really important and part of training ourselves. I think things like town halls, dialogues where people are encouraged to come together that have different viewpoints. And just discuss in a way thats really effectively moderated. Neutrally moderated where individuals can share their viewpoints, be heard and also facilitator or have the folks in the room be able to acknowledge different viewpoints before moving onto the next one. What we tend to do right now is we hear something we dont like and maybe we are quiet and assume that means we are being polite. Its a good start not interrupting. Usually what we are doing is while the other person is talking, we are just reloading in our head the next thing that we want to say. We are not actively hearing them. Being able to stop and make sure really givesard to feel an opportunity like they can express themselves, be heard and share viewpoints. Is theshley virtue external relations director for the National Conflict Resolution Center. Thanks so much. We continue our conversation with you on the political divide and go to james in kernersville, new york. Good morning. Good morning. Merry christmas and happy holidays to people. James, thats me. 74 years old. Vietnam that. Lived here all my life. I used to call myself a political. But i got sick around the time of the publican combat situation between 17 people and i watched it and thought donald trump was really funny. I think the news journalists thought the same thing. Thats why they give him 2 billion worth of following. Free following. Waiting for the next dumb thing to say. Ive got one thing to say for you. I appreciate that hes woken up a lot of people. Want also feel offended, i to get to the medical thing real quick. I feel offended about having a this dodger doing all of saluting. I feel real offended and heard about that. One thing i want to say about medical, i dont think were ever going to get divisional lysed medical situation until we take it from the politicians. The politicians got the titles wrong. Are on whatans people like me call welfare. The people that are on what the government labeled welfare, thats called minimum fair. If you get what i mean. Host Christmas Greetings on this Christmas Day from representative debbie mucarselpowell from florida. Wishing a joyful and happy new year to all. We go to st. Louis, missouri next. Good morning. Yes. R i am concerned about the political divide in the u. S. I would like to thank cspan for the Public Square. In my opinion, we may have been divided, but the current president is exacerbating the situation with his chaotic, lying, divisive attitude about things. And i would like to see things improve. So my suggestion to everybody in the country is that republicans vote for bill weld and democrats vote for a moderate like klobuchar, stier. Whoever they think would be best to bring us together. And that we truly work at ringing us together. Because the lying that is going on right now looks to me as if republicans being around the president are becoming the party of liars. I watched debbie lesko of arizona on your cspan program tell people all about what was 2016ning in ukraine in with the joe biden thing and it was an absolute lie which she knew was a lie and i couldnt help wondering if lying before congress is an impeachable offense, could she be impeached for saying that joe biden, and i am not a fan of joe biden, was doing something incorrectly by fire the attorney that was supposed to be host the ukrainian prosecutor . Caller the ukrainian prosecutor. That his reason for wanting him fired was because he was a donothing prosecutor. Not because he was prosecuting anything at all. Host we will go to hackensack, minnesota next. This is brian. Caller i would like to say im an independent. Ive been an independent all my life. These as im concerned, two parties do nothing but keep us divided. They work at keeping us divided. Theyve been charged for almost 200 years now. In charge for almost 200 years now. We need to get some other people. I dont care what party they are from. We need to get some people that actually care about what happens and are not controlled by the dnc or the rnc. Just think about how long theyve been in charge. At one time they had united and then broke up. Know but i just believe they work to keep us divided we werethey know supposed to be the ones in charge. The United States of america. Its not United States of america and the federal government. We are supposed to be in charge. They know as long as they keep us arguing among ourselves they can do pretty much what they want. And thats really all of got to say. I appreciate it. Column in thea wall street journal, how the u. S. Became a nation divided. Economic, cultural and gaps have hardened amid anxiety born of the financial crisis and a fundamental argument over american values. He writes that the 2008 deep new generated skepticism about whether the countrys financial and political establishments really are interested in conducting the countrys affairs for the benefit of all. Many average americans concluded the establishments reaction to the crisis once underway was insufficient in light of the pain inflicted. Is jimmy. Nia, this go ahead. Caller hello. Thank you. Merry christmas and happy holidays everyone. Id like to thank cspan for the Public Square as well. I believe the division in our country and even in the world recently brought to our attention by the person of the year, greta thunberg. Talk about the comments. The land, the air, the water. The effects our humanity has on wildlife and other forms of life on earth. Things like health care, homelessness. Those are social issues. Then again we have the capitalistic system we live in which economically tries to divide the commons. So this creates a huge problem for our society. And first of all, you have to care. To go back to your former guest on insurance, i have a little anecdote that when i was 40 years ago dating, i dated a young lady whose father was an insurance broker. And this man had mansions. Two or three mansions. He took us on his yacht. He did absolutely nothing for health care. But he did tell the story after a couple of beers and sandwiches on the yacht about how he created a malpractice insurance for dentists that could not be collected on. So there is huge Insurance Fraud our country would not be so divided if health care for connected to our employers and perhaps medicare for all or at least an Insurance Company that allowed everyone Health Insurance without the greed. We need to agree that theres too much greed. And first of all, youve got to care. If you dont care about those who have less than you, then youve got nothing. You we are also showing the holiday greetings from members of congress. They are out on break until january 7 when the second session of the 116th congress will gaveled back in. Tweeting in, happy hanukkah and a very Merry Christmas. Peace on earth. Goodwill to men and women. Christmas to all those celebrating the christmas holiday. May you find yourself surrounded by family and friends this holiday season. Also in Merry Christmas to our men and women serving home and abroad. From arizona, thinking of all our great luke perry families. We can never truly repay them for our service and sacrifice. In westfield, massachusetts. Jim is next. Good morning. Think there are times that we all need to put our differences aside. Its very important for people to get along. Just dont talk about the differences during certain times of the holiday and such. To be parter going of the solution or part of the problem. Divisiong a topic of on a day like christmas, i would be ashamed as a Program Director to even present that topic. There are more appropriate times for it. You guys really have to ask questions are going to bring us together sometimes and not picked the opposites against each other. It becomes part of the problem. We need to Work Together. Not to oppose each other. And the press has a responsibility in the way they present their programming and the way they present their questions. Host appreciate your input. In tennessee, dolores. Good morning. Good morning. The first big division in our country is this president. He came in speaking hey. Not trying to get us together. Weve got to see how this man is doing. He lies every day. The republicans are afraid of him. They know this man did all this stuff thats out there for us to see. The number one division person in this country is donald trump and the coward republican senate. If he gets out there and speaks the truth on whats going on, our country will be a better place. He lies all the time. I hope you all have a great holiday. Host charles in florida. Good morning. Caller morning. Can you hear me . Host go ahead. Caller i have a problem with the use of the word hate and the number of times that its used even on congress. Even in the congressional floor and they are having the debates about impeachment. The republicans continue to use the word hate. Erased fromuld be the lexicon of words. Because every president ial , the president ve is continually spewing this. Portraying himself as a victim. And thats what donald trump does best. That andould grab onto tell them to stop using the word hate and start getting down to the real business of running the country instead of calling in foreign entities to interfere in our elections. This morningo reporting on the popes christmas message. Pope offers hope against darkness. They write that pope francis offered a christmas message of cloaksdnesday that conflicts and relationships in large parts of the world from the middle east to the americas to africa. The pope told tens of thousands of tourists gathered in st. Peters square that the light of christ is greater than the darkness in human hearts and in economic, geopolitical and ecological conflicts. Had davidiving we blankenhorn join us. He has a program that he started called better angels. Their mission is to foster civility in public discourse. How to haveout advice for political conversations at family holiday gatherings. Theyve done studies about this. If you just try to out argue the other person, showing them facts and you just keep arguing, the only result of that is that both sides get more dug in. No one changes their mind as a result of that kind of arguing. Its really pointless. If you can make it personal in the sense of, what may be happened in your life to cause you to have this view. What experiences did you have. Than arguing information, if you try to find out where the other person is coming from, that is a much better approach to trying to find something that you can really have a good discussion about. Are you concerned about the political divide in the u. S. . Eastern and00 central time zones. 202 7488001 mountain and pacific. Caller Merry Christmas. I think its happened is our culture as a whole has devolved. I think the way we speak to each other, our literacy, our courtesy. Our niceties to each other. Holding the door, good morning, good afternoon. I remember when we lived in new york city and my mom would want to go to the grocery store. She would on stockings, high heels, dress, do her hair. Everything to go out because she said you should look proper when you go outside. Weve lost all of that. The way we speak to each other. Our literacy. The way we use words that we dont even understand the comprehension of those words. Our society is evolving. There was this movie of some marine that went into a scientific thing, cyber freeze him for a thousand years, he woke up in our society was destroyed. People were ignorant. Hitting buttons. Theres no intellect. Happened in our country in general between going to church, they teach the children in schools, saying prayers, theres no allegiance. All of that stuff. The politician gets up on stage and says we are going to him. Reach impeach the mfer that is just horrible. I might disagree with what you say, i will defend your right to say it. But im not going to call you racist or nazis. This is where we are. You see young people come out of school and they dont even know how to write cursive. They cant articulate things. Also with the media and tv. Everybody has these cell. Everybodys on youtube. The internet. You hear all this squawking and noise and they feel that they can speak to people in a way that they wouldnt speak facetoface. I think its a decline in our moral fiber and courtesy. All of that has played a point in where we are today. Richmond, virginia. Good morning. Wanted to comment on the current discussion around the political divide. There are several very good statements that have been shared so far about how deeply entrenched it has become as well as people commenting about how there are counter efforts offerng which i think to a possibility of a more positive picture going forward. Its a matter of where you want to put your emphasis. Previous thing is the doctor from Johns Hopkins had many worthwhile statements about the value of transparency. Having lived overseas for several years in singapore, i had to have a major operation which was not covered by my u. S. Health insurance in their hospital system. Before they admitted me, they gave me a detailed economic picture of what it would cost to go through the procedure right down to the detail to have me fully informed before i got the procedure. I think thats very unusual in american hospitals to do that and commit to a cost. I thought that was great. The big thing marty left out that is equally important, the american wellness. The selfcare issue is so tremendous. I think this also comes from living abroad and coming back to america after several years. The issues of obesity and of course the opioids. Ofres just a lot of lack basic health, nutrition, lifestyle issues that are causing a huge need for health care which is after the fact. The horse is out of the barn. You are sick. You are not well. Right about that in the book. We didnt really touch on it so much in our conversation with him. That and the about wellness industry as he calls it. A couple of comments on twitter. You can also text us at 202 7488003. Joanne Oklahoma City says the wealth class intentionally creates this divide. With no oversight. Solution, elect someone who doesnt take their money. Bernie sanders. Politicaling, our divide is indicative of our diversity as a nation. Essential to our vibrant democracy. A little noise is good. A question on twitter. Did trump communicate a christmas message . He said Merry Christmas early this morning. He also spoke to the troops in a videoconference yesterday. You can find all of that at cspan. Org. We might hear more from President Trump today. Sean in san bernardino, california. It morning. California good morning. Host go ahead. You are on the air. Caller people have to learn the difference between political propaganda. When you use racism, fascism and misogyny as political propaganda , it creates a divide in which ouray we are so against in society, it creates the hatred in which we say we are so against. I think politicians and our media, they really need to start doing Something Different about how they speak to the American People. Andturn on the television all we hear from our news stations is racism, fascism. Its running the streets. I dont think thats right and it creates the hatred we say we are against. People need to start learning the difference of political propaganda. And political agenda. Society, everything from our cultural breakdowns, theres so many things people are doing. I dont understand how people cannot see through whats political and whats not. Host next in chicago, we hear from max. Did morning. Caller good morning, i believe your name is bill scanlan. Merry christmas to all. Fromabbed myself schizophrenia using cspan, book tv, the archives and all the things that branched out from that. Doing. Doing what youre keep helping everyone. Because i developed a relationship for good buddy know,est virginia and you im in chicago. West virginia is a republican stronghold. Course is a democratic stronghold. And hes isolated. But we talk and we talk. We dont always agree. Then i get a lot of feedback from people around me who think supporter orrump Something Like that and im really just trying to do outreach. Say like that guy i want to Darrell Davis from q a who reached out to kkk members who ultimately in the end regretted what he did and changed his howtude and laughed about idiotic he was. Experiencehe same from grasping onto reality by what cspan offers. So thats about it. Host thanks for that. That interview with musician and find thatald davis, at cspan. Org. A couple of different takes on Merry Christmas this morning from the Washington Times and the Washington Post. 2019. Christmas saying Merry Christmas is an affirmation of the american way of life. Theres more to saying Merry Christmas than the joy of the season. Theres if my instinct is right theres a sense of affirmation of the american way americans have for decades said Merry Christmas at this time of year. So Merry Christmas to all even if you are one of those long in the face lefties. Enjoy yourself for a change. Taking a movie about Global Warming or gun control. Post in washington their traditional publishing of the Herbert Locke editorial cartoon. Once again the president has curdled the eggnog by invoking the idea of a war on christmas. Perhaps President Trump thinks there is a lack of spiritual meaning in a bland greeting such as happy holidays and would have us be more aware of the true meaning of christmas. That seems unlikely since christmas is the tale of a family driven place to face by imperial decrees and the irrational fears of an unsettled ruler. Approaching,tmas the president or one of his elves in the darker reaches of his workshop came up with a plan to cut the number of refugees admitted to the United States to a record low of 18,000 despite the fact most refugees have been andugh thoroughly vetted offer considerable promise to society. Latest needless and probably selfdestructive action like many the president has taken is the reality behind the mirthless jollity of his Merry Christmas. Harold in california. Good morning. Caller i would like to say that with thee started Public Sector starting out so small and going so big and taking everything inhouse. All the work and stuff and taking it away from the private sector. I just believe that theyve grown too big and the private sector pays their taxes and benefits and Everything Else and the money is not there anymore. So muchwhy we have homelessness. The government has created this. I think they really need to look how they have let this get too far ahead of itself i guess you could say. I dont know. Im kind of nervous right now. Are you on the phone . Host thats all right. We are just listening to your comments. In north dakota. You are on the air. It can youant stand hear me . Host go ahead. Caller i was a veteran. I was in germany when i built they built the german berlin wall. Health have the same care we do, the politicians, the same retirement that we do. Ive got one other thing i wanted to say. And the term limits. Wed be better off. I could not believe i heard the other date nancy pelosi had been in office 50 years. What is that all about . Host heres brad in brooklyn. Good morning. Caller good morning. Very interesting show. Listening with great intensity here. One of the things that i have come to realize is the power that the media plays in dividing us. See the hyper news cycle after intensity that the propaganda machines really on newssides are using the for profit. People really need to realize that there is a profit incentive behind our news. I began watching rush limbaugh, listening to him back in the 90s. He immediately started to go after Hillary Clinton very hard. They realized the powerful nature of her. Hillary ongn against the media sustained itself for 20 years. People came where to think of her as the personification of evil. We really need to educate the public about the medias intention. I flip between cnn, fox news, msnbc constantly. Love this show. Its so middleoftheroad. And while breaking news is happening constantly on cnn, fox and friends are talking about barbecuing out on the patio interspersed with a very strange sort of opinion about the evil nature of the democrats. Its bizarre. Thank you. Of people are traveling, flying over the holidays. The New York Times leading with the story about the boeing 737 max jet. Travelers areows wary of its plane, so it has prepared presentations with strategies for airlines to help win back the Publics Trust. You may be noticing some of this. They write that since the max jet was grounded after crashes killed 346 people, the question , willomed for the company passengers be too scared to fly on the plane. Boeing has repeatedly surveyed thousands of passengers around the world to try to find the answer. The latest results from this month found that 40 of regular flyers said they would be unwilling to fly on the max. In a series of Conference Calls , boeing laid out strategies to help win back the Publics Trust and convince travelers that the companys most popular plane is safe. Paso, texas. Welcome. Caller hi. Merry christmas. Today of all days we need to put god first. Im convinced god is fully supporting our president and blessing our country greatly. Donald trump is humbled before god and tough with men. We should all repent and turn our gaze towards heaven and then we will all get blessed. For each one of us, just think about, just ask the holy spirit. Thisod which way to go on and i think we can all get along much better. With texas mom arrested for delivering christmas presents to border camps released from jail. Thisas woman was released week after being detained by mexican authorities for trying to bring Christmas Gifts to children living in migrant camps on the southern borders. Arrested crossing from brownsville, texas into mexico. Their car had more than 300 gifts they were planning to hand out to children on the border as a surprise for christmas. In michigan, dennys. Denyse. Caller how are you . Maybe our airat force troops are a bit worried that the department of defense just awarded 14. 3 billion to to build our bombers. And on a broader note, i think all of america should take one small minute and realize whos ultimately winning in all the this vision and its prudent. Prudent putin. Thats all i need to say. Hear from evelyn. Caller good morning. Merry christmas. Host thank you. Caller i have never called in before. Say that i was raised to democrat but im no longer a democrat because the democrats have no longer democrats. Shame how they do the president. , but ihes not perfect was taught you didnt say anything about a president or you get in bad trouble. That they doorry him like they do. Man or he very strong could not take it. And i have seen her dressed up ms. Pelosi. Te she needs to be sitting over theyr with president if and trouble all the time. And i dont like talking about people. That, most of us old people is on host evelyn in tennessee. President trump with a christmas message out. Trump calls for deeper understanding and respect in christmas message. The president called for unity and respect in his president ial christmas message released today while the white house. While the challenges that face our country are great, the bonds that unite us as americans are much stronger. Together we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect, traits that exemplify the teachings of christ. The statement comes days after President Trump was impeached by the house. Widely expected to be acquitted in the senate. Jack is next in fort lauderdale. Caller Merry Christmas and happy new year. I want to give you a little bit about my background and tell you my idea. Company and iajor handle millions of dollars worth of business. What happened in my office was 15 guys got fired and five guys went to jail from taking for the lobbyists. Muchobbyists have so influence in this country with the politicians. She hillary ran for office, spent over a billion dollars and most of that money came from the lobbyists. Republicans like rubio and the rest of them put their fingers up in the air and say, how much do i need . My solution is this. I feel if we get together, the American Public and try to get the lobbyists out of the equation and the way to do that is to give all viable candidates free newspaper ads and Free Television time. Therefore you get the lobbyists out of the equation and are viable candidates can make common sense decisions without lobbyist influence. The problem is that weve all years withg 25, 30 our nose to the grind stone. Beenhe lobbyists have behind the scenes changing all these laws to work against the middleclass and the working class people and taking care of the rich and the powerful. , and think that solution cspan could do a lot to influence that and i really thank you very much for listening and i think its a great idea. Report in the Washington Post about a split from the evangelical community. Antitrump editorials lets evangelical leaders. Christianity today criticized President Trump as immoral. Saidagazines president the evangelical magazine has logged in even greater wave of new subscribers. Thend the author of editorial will probably face personal and professional consequences according to interviews with several other conservative christian leaders and writers who have spoken critically about trump. They have described losing book ands, Conference Attendees relationships. Quit his job monday because the website was looking to publish pro trump editorial. The website has sought to represent both sides. Everything has escalated with the christianity today editorial. Eric in new york. Bill. good morning what an honor. Ive been watching your show for a very long time. Lamb andistmas to mr. The wonderful contributions hes made to our society. Watching your program and the warmth imbued through it, ive come up with a personal pole. Ive been doing this for five years now. What i do when im alone with someone, this is my gift to america if you like. Its my gift to people as i come into them. When im alone with them i asked them to questions. Do you think most people are nice . They answer me inevitably. Ive asked 5000 people over five years. Then i ask them the following question. What do you think most people told me when i asked them question number one . Ive gotten some great conversations with people who obviously have different political persuasions than myself. Nicee no idea what the people look like or what im in for when i am pumping gas and eking across to someone speaking across to someone i have no idea where they are going. Its been a wonderful experience on the results are this. 85 of those people ive spoken to have answered yes, i think most people are nice. Im a positive fellow. That outstrips my perception that i find from the media which i believe we are in a big experiment as far as social media is concerned and the siloing that results from it which is counterintuitive to what i thought the internet was going to do initially. I think these are early days for that. Find that people dont necessarily buy the differences that are being trotted out to us. 12 said no. To wrap it up, out of all those people i asked, only two were nasty to me for doing such a thing. Host did you say you had interviewed 5000 people . Caller thats correct. Host how do you keep track of that . Caller well i do an average of six a day. Whenever i find myself alone with somebody in an elevator, i speak to anybody from a surgeon and a great hospital down here in new york city all the way down to some buddy who claimed to live under the boardwalk in coney island. Ive asked a lot of people in retail who are underpaid and overworked a tentatively. Ostensibly. Whenever i find myself in the space that a lot of times nobody says anything to each other. So im pleasantly surprised. My dream is someday to have some of the walk up to me and say, excuse me. Can i ask you for your opinion . That question . Ou caller that would be great. Host youve been doing it for how many years . Caller five. Host great. Merry christmas. Thats get one more call. Provincetown, massachusetts. Peter. One more call. Caller Merry Christmas. I want to take a moment to read a passage from a book that i found very enlightening. I first read it five years ago. I have since read it again in the last couple of weeks. Quirky humorous historian wrote a book left yet, in the somewhat United States. She states that we the people have never agreed on much of anything other than a bipartisan consensus on barbecue and meryl streep plus that time in 1942 when everyone from bing crosby to oregonian schoolchildren heated fdrs call to scrounge up rubber for the war effort. Failing,cessarily a but as a free peoples privilege. And thanks to lafayette and his cohorts in Washingtons Army plus the king of france and his navy, not to mention the founding dreamers who clearly did not think through what happens every time one citizens pursuit of happiness infuriates his neighbors. Adding on each others nerves is all right. I think one of the two mistakes that President Trump made in 2018, his current relationship with north korea started at that time. That was a fatal mistake and we need to correct that quickly. Host we will let you go. Want to thank our studio crew and staff who is here 365 days a year to bring you washington journal. Thank you to our producers, directors and staff. Our direction to all of you i wish you a Merry Christmas, we are back here tomorrow morning, see you at 7 00. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] hi everyone, my name is adam can die me cease my name is adam cook and i am a cspan competition winner. The deadline is getting close, but you still have time. This is about the time that i started with my documentary. Im in the d. C. Offices right now, im going to tell you that studentcam was an Incredible Opportunity for me to express my thoughts and ideas about the asitical climate, as well local and state leaders in political office. Im extremely excited that you are all interested in this and pursuing this, its a onceinalifetime opportunity. There is still time for you to enter the studentcam video competition. You have until january 20 to create a five to six minute documentary that explores an issue you want president ial candidates to address during campaign 2020. We are giving away a total of 100,000 in cash prizes, with a grand prize of 5,000. For more information go to our website. Tonight on cspan, journalist and author john miller on the history of journalism and fake news, hosted by the Liberty Forum in Silicon Valley. Im reminded of all of the president s men, its a terrific movie, great movie, it also has had a bad effect on journalism. It encouraged a lot of young people to go into journalism who thought that the purpose of journalism was to bring down a government. There has always been an adversarial side to journalism, you have to be willing to ask hard questions. Thats all true. Kind ofrought in a crusader element to journalism. A lot of young people in that era swept away by woodward and bernstein, pretrade on film by Dustin Hoffman and robert redford. Its a fun movie to watch, but they got swept away in thinking this is the job of journalism, to bring down the government. Thats what you need to do. You can hear more from john miller as he talks about the history of journalism and fake news. The house will be in order. For 40 years it cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country, so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Coming up this morning we will look at the white House Holiday decorations, starting with the arrival of this years christmas tree, then a look back at other holiday decorations from previous years with Hillary Clinton