Info va markwarner. Com. I know many of you are interested in getting involved and wondering how you can do so. I will pass it over to jimmy so he can give you information. Thanks. And im a Rogers Deputy field director with the coordinated campaign. The coordinated campaign is excited to be working on behalf of the senator and our great Democratic Candidates through november. While we are eager to be on the doors, there are many ways volunteers can get involved right now. You can go to markwarner va. Com digitalorganizing, you can get involved. We are here to excited to be here. Reach out if you have any questions. Great, thanks, jimmy. I will pass over to the senior senator of virginia, senator mark warner, to kick us off. Go ahead, senator. Sen. Warner watching the news over the last couple of months, from the administrations bungled response to the coronavirus to the response of the brutal murder of george floyd and the calls across our country for criminal Justice Reform, for Racial Justice and to see the administration the image i will never lose is the administration and the president using troops to clear out these full protesters to do a photo op in front of st. Johns church, where my wife and i got married 31 years ago, was really one of the low points of a really challenging First Six Months of this year. I thank you for participating in this Facebook Live. I hope you will be engaged with all of our campaigns. Challenges a lot of in our country, but i know we can meet those if we work together. Do you want to make comments and then turn it over . Rep. Connolly thank you so much, senator. I will say it is a privilege to be on a ticket with mark warner. He was a great governor and he has been a senator who makes all virginians proud, certainly made. It is great to be a party with him in the United States congress these last 12 years. Mark has led the fight especially on the intelligence outittee, trying to root foreign interference in american elections. Mark has done it with great skill and on a bipartisan basis, which is not easy to accomplish, which says a lot about his ability to reach across the aisle to find common ground. It is not easy. I applaud you, mark. I look forward to being with you on a ticket this fall. I agree this is one of the most consequential elections in the last halfcentury. Is is in aountry really dire shape. We have three crises converging on us all at once. We have the worst pandemic in way, wes, and in an odd are back to 1918. We dont [no audio] [indiscernible] and thats why quarantining was the only way to try to stop the spread. This was a highly contagious virus. ,ven with the measures we took we saw 110,000 americans officially listed as dying from covid19 and 2 million plus americans actively having been infected. We know the numbers understate [indiscernible] lethality. The American Economy is all but seenllapse and we have over 4 million americans file for unemployment. That is depression era level unemployment. We went from a tight labor market with the lowest Unemployment Rate in the past halfcentury to almost one out of five americans looking for work and losing their jobs. We had to respond to that, and we did with the cares act. Pumped 3it into law, million into the state and local health, direct payments to americans, showing up unemployment, and it is not enough. That is why the house passed a fifth bill which will provide an additional 3 trillion disparately needed by state and local governors, the postal service, which needs some help, and further assistance to our Small Businesses we helped in the earlier bills. Now america has to look at itself in terms of the issue of Racial Justice after the brutal murder of george floyd at the hands of a Uniformed Police officer who sat on his neck for almost nine minutes, killing him. I think americans look at that and said, we cannot have that. We have 18,000 Police Departments across america. Every one of them needs to be looking at practices, weeding out the bad actors, how it relates to the community, looking at Racial Justice and how it handles it. We know there is not an equitable delivery of Law Enforcement in america are if you are in a community of color, it is a very different experience than if you are in a white majority suburban district. This is a moment of truth. One of the heartening things is two thirds of all americans agree something is wrong. We dont approve of that practice in our Law Enforcement. Police departments will have to be restructured and we support those peacefully protesting this terrible tragedy. That is a far cry from where america was in the 1960s where we had lots of marches and we had the full disruption. I draw hope from that. I will be glad to hear and entertain the questions our audience asks. It is a privilege to be with you, senator warner, and thank you for all you are doing for all virginians and americans. First question from Community Advocate here with us. Go ahead. Jocelyn. You very much, thank you for the opportunity, congressman connolly and senator. The past few weeks have really been eventful. The pain has been persistent, the hate is rampant. Visible. Ities are i believe sometimes we are misguided to think we have to fight for Economic Resources when in fact if properly resourced focused, those opportunities can create Economic Opportunities and resources for all of us to benefit from. The best way to bring people together is allow them to work together, depend on each other and they can understand and make families together. Develop morean to Workforce Development programs to allow people of divergent backwards to coordinate together and add value . Programs that would help undocumented workers who have limited opportunities . Sen. Warner let me start. Then i will turn it to jerry. Question. The one of the reasons i was late on getting on this Facebook Live womenwas on a call with in black and brown entrepreneurs. 35 people is about of color. It is not over half women yet. Less than 3 Venture Capital women when he goes to womenowned firms. One of the best places that we can get people of diversion to backwards backgrounds, whether they are inumented or not, is starbucks, they will often bring kind of more progressive, younger approach. We have got to do more to entrepreneurs of color. There is a number of programs we could work in that area. One of the things im working on bill, ithe next covid am hugely afraid that minority owned businesses which operated with thinner margins are going to hit the wall in the third and Fourth Quarter after this direct Covid Support falls off. Im working with secretary mnuchin, he has been a good partner on this, looking at how we can get more capital into black owned banks, Community DevelopmentFinancial Institutions so we can shore up institutions that have a more than mostworkforce businesses. And this is something i would like to get the next bill, but it might take a little while longer, we need this is a big , i think we need to change the Tax Accounting and reporting requirements around companies that invest in human beings. We have a tax code that favors companies that invest in robots or a piece of machinery. You get a lot of Tax Advantages and tax breaks. If Companies Invest in human beings, they dont get the same tax benefits. That is unfair for all of our workers, particularly workers of color who start at some level of economic disadvantage when it disadvantage. You have a good idea, elvis. Rep. Connolly i agree with senator warner. I would add to it. There are so many facets to you answer. Tions and the one of the has to do with educational opportunity. Interesting in education is the smartest investment we can make in terms of the workforce of the future and glide path to Financial Success and career success. We know no among the many inequities, education screams at us. Trying to make sure that we can make Education First of all excellent for everybody, that there are not Technology Gaps depending on where you live, your, the color of your skin so all of us can Access Technology and information and participate and make it more affordable. Oft is why making two Years Community college free is a smart idea. It is a smart investment. And it allows young people to excel and go on to finish their educational career with a fouryear college. Virginia has a good system that does that. I would say there are lots of other aspects of this. The workforce of the future is going to be a Diverse Workforce. Internship programs to diversify and to recruit the Diverse Workforce you are going to need weather in the private Public Sector is going to be , thetant so that impact workforce ends up reflecting the face of america in which it operates. A wellknown and powerful tool when we started on the hill, paying stipends for our interns previously we did not have a budget some of the diversity changed overnight, the application pool. All of a sudden the people who weble to participate can use that in subsequent hiring. I often turn to those who interned with me when i first look at if there is an opening. We can do a better job in terms of diversity, but it has done a good job of using diversity programs to move people up. Cultural sensitivity. As the workforce diversifies, it will not work like the workforce before. We have an opportunity to make that work for us in terms of productivity and in terms of forging chains that are diverse and happy about it and work well together. That is not going to happen if we are not dealing honestly with the ratio issues of racial inequality that you referred to georgeer the murder of lloyd. If we are not george floyd. If we are not dealing those as a society and country, that will workforce,ill in the because we have not invested. I think there is a real opportunity but there are lots of challenges to meet the goals you are talking about. Who is next . Congressman. K you, i know we are having trouble with our Facebook Live feed. I want to let folks know, bear with us. Continue asking your questions. We are recording this conversation and we will be posting it to facebook so you will get a chance to see all that has been said. That will take us to our next question, submitted by email. Newt would like to know what is the stance on legislation to end qualified immunity some of your colleagues have proposed . Cosponsorlly i am a of the bill in the house. In that bill, we have addressed qualified immunity for Law Enforcement so we would make it easier in the event of misbehavior by the police for people to seek redress. We also want to change a standard from local behavior to a lesser standard so it will be easier to hold both police inicers who do engage unlawful or violent behavior to account. I favor changing the qualified immunity that is a hindrance to accountability and the bill we are considering does that. Sen. Warner i am also a sponsor of the senate bill that, let harris and cory booker that Kamala Harris and cory booker lead. Naively hopeful, but i am hopeful we may get stuff done. Tim scott, who is an africanamerican republican senator from south carolina, has the numberngly about of times he has been harassed as a United States senator because people did not think he as a black man was a senator, is taking i will be anxious to see what he comes up with. The lead on the republican side. I hope it will come up with something meaningful so behind between the variety of proposals here, we can only put forward at a solution but get makehing signed and important reforms to our system. I am partially optimistic on this one. Jocelyn thank you. Our next question is from facebook. Heather asks, will businesses who were closed during the pandemic be able to apply for more ppe funding . Will start this one. We did make some changes on ppp it was wellintentioned. I think we may design flaws. I think we should have included Public Companies which should have had companies show revenue loss. I worried some of these companies that got the money may be did not need it when the companies that really needed it did not get it. We made the changes and jiri gerry was part of the effort. Shutdown isd the taking longer than eight weeks. Tot has given flexibility take overhead costs. Billion ofso 100 30 that ppp that has not been used yet. You can still apply. The question you are asking, if you have already got ppp, are you able to get a second round, and i am not sure that will come to pass. The house bill did not include that. I am not sure there is a bill in the senate called a paycheck security act that has got people to the left of me like Bernie Sanders and people to the right like republican senator josh hawley who has got a version that would provide direct federal support for people who have been laid off. European models that seem to have worked better. I think it is an open question whether we will have a second round of ppp funds for businesses who have already got ppp. On ine need to focus those companies and businesses , and ive been most hurt would only hope if we do it, we will do more targeting so some of the firms that may have gotten the first round, they should not be in the second round. A long answer, i apologize. Initial idea the was to try to save Small Businesses and keep their employees on the payroll. That is why it is called the payroll protection act. The deal was we will give you funding in the form of a loan that becomes forgivable up to 10 million for those that fewer if 500 500 or you keep those people on the payroll. No one thought the pandemic would be still raging after 18 weeks. That seems like a reasonable time. Was 400al response million and a quickly ran out of month it quickly ran out of money. There was the only high demand but the Small Business administration did what it always does, it went to the normal banks that manage their coursend the big guys of took big pots of money and they went to their preferred customer list. That defeated part of the purpose here. The purpose was to help small mom and pop businesses on main street that door dont loans. Y get fda sba we made the process easier, but sba did not do a good job broadening the Financial Institutions that qualified. We passed another 350 billion this round for a total of 750 billion and it worked better. We were able to carve out a chunk for minority owned businesses. We insisted a broader range participate and be able and certified to manage those loans. I can tell you in one district, the demand, the calls to my office for help have died down. Gottenf people have those loans. Female, veteran, minority owned businesses who dont normally participate in these and dont know how or dont feel confident. One of the other things we have to do besides broadening the Financial Institutions to make them more community based, local city, local Credit Unions who do have their finger on the pulse of Economic Activity in their communities and are going to be more sensitive to smaller businesses who need this help. As senator warner said, it is not too late. There is still a lot of money available for Small Businesses. We need Outreach Coordinators. County andrfax Prince William county to use some of the money from the cares designatee or Outreach Coordinator scoop coordinators who can help these businesses navigate the loan process so they qualify and get assistance. The other thing we did was extended the timeline from eight weeks to 24. That is important as well businesses because they werent still reopened after eight weeks. It makes sense to put people on the payroll once they have reopened then during a time in which they have no business. After eight weeks they will have to let those people go. Flexible somore businesses could use 40 of that and for overhead and rent 60 for keeping people on payroll. The original will was 7525 bill was 7525. Sen. Warner one thing i have been thinking a lot about, not directly part of heathers question but as i am talking to businesses all the time, and restaurants are the prime example, but a lot of other small retail, other traditional will get a big chance to reopened but they dont see any time in the next even couple years they are going to get back to the kind of same needs for the number of employees they had before covid hits. A restaurant that might add 100 employees might only have 70 going forward. I think we will have to spend time and ideas and put folks on this Facebook Live or on the zoom. How they provide real efforts to retrain, think about other efforts in putting people to work. One thing the senate is doing right now and the house is hopefully going to take it up shortly, for the last 30 years, we have allowed our National Parks we think about parks and battlefields and the parkway is part of a national park, to become dilapidated. 12 million a backlog. We are passing a bill in the Senate Next Week which will take care of the backlog. Half of has got over that. We will fund the land and Water Conservation fund. This has been called for outdoors environment, made it the biggest bill in a generation. It will provide about 10,000 infrastructure jobs in virginia. How we think about replacing some of the jobs that are not going back in the short term is something congressman connolly and i are working on. Greatonnolly that is a point and very important piece of legislation the senate is taking up. I would add that the house has half a trillion dollars infrastructure bill which would eat up excess labor and put people back to work retrofitting our into structure infrastructure which is neglected. Jocelyn we have another question from facebook. Thomas would like to know what is being done to ensure the cdc has all the funds they need to continue their work. It is a good question. Among the many sins of the trump administration, it got overlooked that in every budget since donald trump became president , he has recommended cuts to the cdc budget. The house and senate on a bipartisan basis have refused to implement those and have augmented the cdc budget. I would not give the cdc terribly high marks even with the budget we gave them in terms of how they have performed during this crisis. Their gardens has been muddled guidance has been muddled. Their testing was a disaster. Originally they developed a test that worked in singapore and south korea and other places. The cdc said no, we will have our own test. They wasted a month developing a test of their own. When they tested the test, it did not work and we wasted another month to figure out and fix the problems with the test. The virus is spreading, people were getting sick and dying. We still dont have the most robust testing that we need frankly to be successful. Identifying where the virus is, the hotspots, isolating them is the key to reopening and allowing people to get back to work safely. Testing is everything and Contact Tracing has to go with it. If you were diagnosed positive, we have got to know who are you in contact with so we can either isolate them or alert them so they are not spreading it or getting sick themselves. Cdc has also unfortunately as a result, it was seen as the gold on earlyin the world detection of diseases or problems and unfortunately that reputation has been tarnished during this pandemic. One of our goals has to be not only to add more resources to cdc but to revamp it so it returns to the Gold Standard all americans could be proud of. Sen. Warner i could not agree more. This has been a real embarrassment. Not just money. I think when this is behind us, we are going to need to really figure out, how did the cdc get so many things so wrong . I agree with everything gerry just said. But if you look at the newspaper and the growth of the virus and how many in each state and country, normally the cdc would do that. They could not get their act together on that so Johns Hopkins university is doing it. The congressman made mention about testing. I am worried about making sure we will do the virus i mean the vaccination in a smart way. A friday afternoon, a big headache, 8 of virginia is latino but 50 of our cases are group and only 1 of the of people in the vaccination trial are latino. Racism, about systemic and that is not all cdcs responsibility, but they should be probing the Drug Companies to say this is hitting brown people lets make sure they are in the testing trial. When will look back, and this will not be all cdcs fold, but there will be books written about how this administration screwed up on ppp, state versus ppe, when we had state versus state and hospital versus hospital, why we didnt take the test back in january south korea and others were using, and my hope is we dont see that same mistake on vaccinations. Cdcerry and i, we want the to be back to be the Gold Standard and yes, some of it will be money but some of it may need to be management reform. Jocelyn thank you. Our next question is from mia, a recent graduate and young democrat. Go right ahead. Thank you. My name is mia and i am a recent graduate of high school as of a week ago. I believe rep. Connolly congratulations. I believe Climate Change is one of the most important and pressing issues to my generation. I am concerned about the reporting of the Current Administration with environmental regulations citing the current covid19 crisis. I understand during this difficult time, our countrys priorities may change, but i believe Climate Change like other issues doesnt take a break. I know you touched on this earlier, but my question is what actions are you and Congress Taking right now to protect and clean the environment but especially concerning the minorities and communities of color that will be disproportionately impacted by Climate Change . Rep. Connolly let me start with that. Sen. Warner let me start with that. Congratulations. Class of 2020, it has got to be a weird time. You are right. Friends has got an Environmental Justice act out there i am taking a look at. It has got good proposals, pointing out the fact not just Climate Change but a whole series of where are the pipelines, where are the runoffs disproportionately in communities in color. Climate change specifically and i am part of a bill in the senate which zero out carbon i thinks by 2050, but it may take us a little bit of time until the immediate threat of covid is a bit behind us. I think there is a chance to make the case to the american thele, we did not take pandemic seriously enough. We did not prepare. We did not have our stockpiles in place and the chance of a pandemic was still low. The chance of what is going to happen to our planet waste upon Climate Change, sea level rise, that is a nobrainer. It is going to happen. I hope we can convince those americans who have been reluctant to face this issue to hell we how much, what had to go through because we did not prepare for a pandemic when chance. Climate change is coming and x chance of what a pandemic was going to be. Lets go ahead and do what our country should do to lead the world. I dont want to sound naive, but i hope we might be able to make a new case here. Rep. Connolly i agree with senator warner and everything. Be aere is going to defining issue for your generation, certainly Climate Change and how we retrofit and react to it and how it changes lifestyles, reconfigures geography, going to be front and center issues for your generation. You will inherit the good come of the bad and the ugly from our generation in terms of decisions we did not make. Start with the paris climate accord. We had universal agreement on the steps that need to be taken at a minimum in the paris i met accord. Every country on the planet has signed on to it paris climate accord. Every country on the planet has signed on to it except one, the u. S. , one of the biggest sources of global warming. That is because of donald trump. It was tragic because not only inbolic but also life impact terms of commitment to reducing our Carbon Footprint. So until donald trump is replaced with a more enlightened sciencebased administration that will make enlightened Public Policy based on empirical evidence, then you and i as citizens, our state and local governments need to be taking measures to reduce our Carbon Footprint and Greenhouse Gas emissions we can have some impact on. Worldwide shutdown, we saw all of a sudden for a while clean air. We saw the omissions, greenhouse becausesions, reduced cars were not on the road, filter is factories not belching out pollution. Saw visibly as well as measurably positive impact of that. You also talked about Environmental Justice. Warnerrren mentioned a bill. It deserves a lot more attention. Sites in suburban neighborhoods. They are in poor neighborhoods where people are not in a position to hire Legal Assistance to defend themselves. Ponds are often near neighborhoods that are vulnerable on an income point of view, often communities of color so no one is paying attention until something catastrophic happens like happened with the dan river and other places in the United States. A lot of power plants are located in poor neighborhoods that are perceived as not empowered to protect their interests. Those are aspects of environmentalism that have been growing inattention and importance but still do not receive the kind of legislative attention they need. That is why the bills senator warner referred to, it is an important step for congress to take. Sen. Warner i see you are going to william and mary. I hope you will be as active with the whiteys there as you were. I will. I appreciate it. Jocelyn our next question comes from a Community Activist valerie brooks. Good afternoon i thank you for this opportunity. My question is the upcoming november 2020 election has some of the most important elections. What charge can you give to the volunteers to keep them motivated to work consistently 2020 . November 3, rep. Connolly thank you, valerie. Let me harkin back to what senator warner said. This is one of the most consequential elections any american is going to live through. This is the time to stand up and be seen and heard. The good news is, and a lot of our fellow americans get that, they are motivated and energized. We have seen that in virginia. We have seen turnout records in 2017, 2018 and 2019. We saw what happened with broader turnout. We have to be committed to ending voter suppression, calling it out and ending it. President trump and my friends from the other side of the aisle say we will do all these things to prevent voter fraud. Disputes thatne myth. Voter fraud is not a problem in america. It is infinitesimal. In the last president ial election, 40 of americans did not vote. Making it easier to vote and making sure there are lots of places you can go to vote early and making sure the time period to vote early isnt there and the machines are protected and secureecure and cyber with lots of time to register and vote and voting by mail. I believe voting by mail is in our future after this shutdown and pandemic. To be safe and make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to participate. We have seen it succeed in states like oregon that have been doing it 10 or 13 years. There is almost no fraud but they have managed to expand the franchise and make opportunity. It is the most sacred thing in a democracy, vote. I think people like senator warren and senator warner and thisf are passionate about. And we will do everything we can to keep people charged up and understand their vote does matter and has consequences. I agree with everything the congressman has said. What one of the things i would ask you and everybody on this call is especially when we are in this time when we are not going door to door and doing as many outdoor events, how do we get folks motivated to go ahead and register . The Voter Registration numbers were down at the beginning of the pandemic. They have picked up since the protests have started but we will need your Creative Ideas on how we engage people online. My hope is towards the end of the summer we will be able to get back out more often. This administration, for all of the things we have are reasons to be motivated. Im glad virginia has made voting, 20 days of early , easier to do vote by mail but we will have to educate voters on how they can vote by mail and where those early voting spots will be. , think we have to articulate and our jobs, not only are we donald trump but let us tell you about how we are going to make the cdc the envy of the world again, how are we going to make change and sea howise is addressed do we identify and train for the jobs that we have to recreate now . A lot of it goes to supporting entrepreneurs, start up businesses, making those look like virginia and america which means more black men and women. It will mean how we make sure that the energy we see on the street the last 12 days turns into criminal Justice Reform and not just frustration, so our job as policymakers should be to make that your job. I hope especially during these times when we are still social distancing how we can best motivate people to go ahead and take the actions like registering or like contacting reinforce how to important your vote is this year we will have to do this together. Rep. Connolly one of the things i would like to add to that, we are in virginia. We made progress in the last general assembly. We made we took away any requirement for you to justify why you wanted to vote early. So you dont need an excuse. We have a primary you still need an excuse. The governor has decided covid19 is sufficient, but it still confuses and discourages people. They dont want to lie or make it up. Hey are not sure they qualify if you are a virginia voter, there is a chance you will have been asked to vote for different times. , theve super tuesday congressional primaries, the town and city elections in may and then again in november. Up elections like that, it is a remnant of the harry byrd machine, designed to suppress votes, to make sure the wrong people did not vote. . O did they mean men and women of color. We have to address those of barriers to voting. Make it easier, streamline it to maximize the vote. What can we do to get more people to participate, not fewer . Some of the existing instructions we havent virginia continue to discourage participation. Have in virginia continue to discourage or dissipation. Jocelyn i will pass it over to the congressman and then the rep. Or close area connolly i want to to close. Rep. Connolly i want to thank everybody for coming today. I would like to think a for his team and my team for hosting this event. These are really difficult times, but we will come out at the end and the sun will shine again. Hopefully we will reflect upon this experience and come out stronger as a community and a nation. Anything obviously i or my office can do to help anybody get through this, we stand ready to help. I know senator warner does as well. Thank you all for participating. Everybodyr i think for being on. Everybody for being on the we need better broadband across virginia. I want to echo everything gerry said. This is one of the most market will times of my life. Im sure it is for you will. I stay optimistic you all. I stay optimistic. Black americans killed in kentucky or georgia or elsewhere, the level of energy, see i of energy, i made mention of the front how a i wasi was how aghast when trump locked lafayette square. Even during members pushed back and said that is not who we are, that is not our job to be in onitics, to turn our troops peaceful american protesters. With all of these challenges, i see these moments of great humanity and keeps me optimistic. All of these good questions we had an want to give a special shout out to mia, somebody who i can still see the passion and energy in her voice, even if she missed her graduation. She will do great things at william and mary. Keep the faith. We will get through on this get through this. Lets turnout record numbers and send a message about who we are as virginians and americans. Thank you. Jocelyn thank you. Thank you senator warner and senator connally and everyone who was watching on facebook. We are sorry about the technical difficulties we had. We will have a full reporting of this conversation up later on this afternoon on our facebook. Thank you for your patience. We appreciate it. [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. 2020] announcer 1 American History tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. This weekend sunday at 4 00 eastern, four films from the 1940s and 1950s profiling various industries negatively impacted today by the coronavirus pandemic. At 8 00 p. M. Eastern, the nixon indian reforms, a new era of selfgovernment. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. John Charles Fremont brought the Pacific Coast into the United States. At the beginning of this story the United States did not have a Pacific Coast. There was territory in oregon that was disputed with britain and territory in california which belonged to mexico. Fremont took part in the conquest of california in time for the gold rush. So he did play a real role in changing the map of the United States. Steve inskeep on his book imperfect union, how john fremont helped cause the civil war. It 00 eastern on q a. A 8 00 eastern on q federal Communications Commission or michael orielly. I think the difficult circumstances from the covid19 pandemic, the Communications Network as a whole seems to be Holding Quite well. I dont promise anything or congratulate anybody to early so we will have to see if things hold but i am pressed i am impressed where things are now. In terms of the connectivity and the work from home issues, certainly conference is being done through this medium is more. Ikely to increase over time i would not say it is the new normal but it is a lot more this way then returning to the old style. Night on 1 monday the communicators on cspan 2. Cspans local content vehicles made a stop in fort worth, texas to feature the literary life of the community. Here is a portion of our interview with stephen woodworth, author of this great struggle. He shares his thoughts about confederate statues. The fact we are sitting in front of a civil war statue raises the issue of the controversy we have today. Are very muche against having confederate statues or statues that the confederacy. There is a reason for that. Whether we like to admit it or not or wish it had been about that or not, whether our ancestors i had ancestors on both sides whether our ancestors would have thought for that cause fought for that cause, the people back then said they were fighting about slavery. For the whole decade before the war, that was the political issue they were having controversy about. That was the issue they seceded about. When the state of texas and others did, they drew up an official declaration, here is why we are seceding. Slavery was really the central issue. Why our slaves are not returned when they run away, why the north elected a president who is against slavery. Why they wont send troops to defend our frontier, because we have slavery. The war was about slavery. As we look back on that, a war about slavery, i dont think too many people are in favor of slavery. I would hope nobody. Havee said why should we monuments that celebrate slavery . You have probably followed in the news different times were that has come up and it has been an issue in new orleans and elsewhere. There is a right and wrong way to go about this. This is speaking for myself as a citizen who is a historian. There is an example. At the university of texas, they have done it the right way. They had an eight foot tall statue of jefferson davis. For many years it was on campus on a pedestal, way up there, respect, honor this man. That was not a good thing. They did the right thing. They took the statue down but did not trash it. They put it in a museum. They have got a museum called the American Center of history. It is a small museum and they put the statue in there. You can, up closer, admire the sculptureork of the and just see it better. Videoare displays, a display, facts you can read that statue was puthe there, what it meant, who betteron davis was, a job of presenting history. That is the answer. People say if you take down a statue, you are destroying history, you are a racing history. Erasing history. My business is teaching people history. We want to keep the history but put it in a museum where it is accessible. As we know the history, we have more wilson more wisdom to deal with events of today. The civil war was very difficult. The more we study it, we have wisdom and understanding to deal with the difficult episodes that happen now. President trump gives the commencement address to newly commissioned west point graduates. And policing in america and his new book on the issue. After that a forum on Civil Liberties and the coronavirus hosted by the federalist society. Cspans washington journal. Every day we are taking your calls on the air discussing policy issues that impact you. Sunday morning Vanderbilt University medical centers discusseshaffner covid19 cases in several states and the wall street journals ling ling wang will talk about superpower showdown, how the battle between trump and xi threatens a new cold war. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, in his first commencement address at the United States military academy, President Trump called the west point graduating class the bravest of the brave. More than 1000 cadets received their commission as Second Lieutenants in the u. S. Army. [applause] pres. Trump thank you, general. Hello, cadets. On behalf of our entire nation, let me say, congratulations to the incredible west point class of 2020. Congratulations. Everyone, have a good time, enjoy yourselves because we are here to celebrate your achievements, and great achievements they are. Let us also recognize your