Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240704

Announcer coming up on washington journal, the state of the progressive legal movement. The cofounder and executive director demand for justice will join us. Also the president of the national right to work Legal Defense foundation, mark mix, on workforce issues and recent labor unrest. Washington journal starts now. This is a very sad day for america and was also very sad driving through washington, d. C. And seeing the filth and decay and all of the broken buildings and walls with the graffiti. This is not the place i left, it is a sad thing to see it. When you look at what is happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in america. This is the persecution of the person that is leading by very very substantial numbers in the republican primary and leading bided biden by a lot. If you cannot beat him, you persecute him or prosecute him. We cannot let this happen in america. Host good morning. It is friday, august 4. Former President Trump was arraigned yesterday afternoon and let not guilty on four counts related to 2020 election interference. In this first hour, we are asking if you think donald trump is now, after the third indictment, politically stronger or weaker. Our phone lines are split up this way, the lines for Trump Supporters is 202 7488000. If you support other gop candidates, call 202 7488001. And democrats, 202 7488002. Independents 202 7488003. You can also reach us on social media. We are on facebook. Com cspan and on twitter, cspanwj. Welcome to washington journal. We start with the front pages of the major papers. Take a look at the Washington Post because this says trump leads not guilty in d. C. Case. Here is a wall street journal, trump leads not guilty devote plot and usa today, trump in legal peril. The washington times, trump pleads not guilty on sad day. In the New York Times trump in shadow of capitol issues a not guilty plea. We are asking this morning if you think the former president is now politically weaker or stronger. Want to show you this article from roll call, House Democrats request live broadcast of trump court dates. Lawmakers including some who were on the now disbanded house january 6 select committee urge the public courts to let the public watch. More than three dozen Congressional Democrats want live video of proceedings in the criminal case against donald trump in washington. Arguing extra to steps are needed because of the highstakes nature of the prosecution. The group, which includes members of the disbanded house panel that investigated the january 6 21 2020 want to tax sent a letter thursday that requests the traditional conference explicitly authorize the broadcast of proceedings connected to trumps efforts of overturning the 2020 election. We will start taking your calls we want to show you this before taking your calls, from the Washington Post, all the times trumps trial conflicts with a 2024 election campaign. This is a little hard to read but what is in red is sensitive gop primaries, other campaign dates, and the yellow is the trial. Take a look at this, january 17, the date of the iowa caucus is the start or the date scheduled for the e. Jean carroll defamation trial, the same day as the iowa caucus. Here are primaries in february, super tuesday, it is march 5, and here march 20 fifth, new york falsify Business Records criminal trial is scheduled to start the same month of super tuesday and other primaries, and over in may is the classified documents criminal trials scheduled to start sometime in the two weeks beginning may 20. Here in july is the Republican National convention. Obviously we dont know when this latest trial is going to be but imagine it would be sometime in the summer or later. We will definitely keep an eye on that. It lets a look at what President Trump said yesterday at the airport after pleading not guilty. [video clip] this is a very sad day for america, and it was also sad driving through washington, d. C. And seeing the filth and decay, and all of the broken buildings and walls with the graffiti. This is not the place i left. It is a sad thing to see it. When you look at what is happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in america. This is the persecution of the person that is leading by very very substantial numbers in the republican primary and leading biden by a lot. If you cannot beat him, you persecute him or prosecute him. We cannot let this happen in america. Thank you very much. He want these trials host we will go straight to calls. Joe is firstcome a trump supporter in georgia. Good morning. Caller i love cspan, great network, you do a great job of covering. I am a strong supporter of Donald John Trump and always have been. I think these indictments will lead to him to be reelected not reelected but elected by huge majority, and im so fired up, im having a hard time sleeping. I vote for trump for president and that is how much i believe in him. Host tell me why you think this latest indictment will help him politically . Caller because i think the American People realize biden has politicized the Justice Department, fbi, and in georgia where i am from, everybody im talking to, i predict my county will go 85 for trump. The lady named malory staples i think will be president , someday, she is a strong supporter for trump. Im so fired up about trump im having a hard time to sleep hard time sleeping. We love him here and we will have a rally for barbecue soon for him. I am so excited. Im a stockmarket guy and the stock market when trump was president , it did great. I cant wait to see him get back in because i want to predict the stock market will break every record in history with Donald John Trump as president in 2024. Host lets talk to dominic in ontario, canada. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller i would like to say the stock market is not everything, it is not the be all and all, and i dont know why people are idolizing this manlike he is gods embodiment on earth. He is not, he is a criminal through and through. He has been doing crime since his university, his charity, taking money and laundering it for the mob. He has done some to crimes i would be in jail for like a year ago. Not even 10 years. This man has been doing crimes his whole life. Host dominic, you are in canada, are you an american citizen, will you be voting in the next election . Caller no, no, no. Im just someone your politics affect our country because we are attached to each other. Host lets talk to carl next, independent. Caller how are you doing . Yeah, im glad they filed the charges. This is one thing i was wondering why now they allow a man with 78 criminal charges [indiscernible] the system is serious. Right now he is taking everything is a joke, so thats it. Host this is take a look at this poll that just came out yesterday from ugov. The question is should donald trump be charged with any crime in connection with the events of january 6 . This is the result of all american adults, 49 say yes that he should be charged, 35 say no, 17 say they are not sure. Mary is next on a fort washington, maryland, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning, washington journal. Know he is not stronger in my book. He is the pied piper of lies. I refer to him as number 45. I dont understand the love for him. He is state and and when sane comes to town, he will be treated like a king and his worshipers are treating him like a king but he is finally going to be held accountable. He is going down. As he showed. I hope he does. There will be hope. Me, myself, and everybody that is against him and we need to be against him because he is evil, we are going to make sure he is not going to be on the ballot, make sure he is not going to be able to run for anything again except maybe being in prison, which is where he should be. Maybe you can take mr. Desantis with him. Thats what i got to say, he is a weak puppy, a fool, and everybody that votes for him as a bigger fool. Host lets take a look at a new ad released by the Trump Campaign yesterday. [video clip] what do you call someone this weak . Someone caught in primary scandal that made them millions, complacent in a government cover up and uses your government to get special deals for his family . You call them joe biden. And acting just like a third world dictator, biden unleashed unscrupulous government bureaucrats he controls tack like rabid wolves and attack his greatest threats. A launching one of the greatest witchhunts in history, but biden underestimated the intelligence of voters and trumps support is growing stronger. As hardworking americans come together, in huge numbers, to stand with the one person they now has their backs and will fight to make America Great again. I am donald j. Trump and i approve this message. Host that was obviously a protrump ad released yesterday. Take a look at this article from the pittsburgh postgazette, antitrump republicans are hitting the airwaves in pennsylvania after the latest indictment, plus the campaign it says the republican accountability project, a group of antidonald trump republicans , is responding to the most recent indictment of the former president with an Advertising Campaign in pennsylvania and for other four other battleground states as well as nationally on fox news. This is from the republican accountability project, take a look at it. [video clip] you have to get your people to fight. We fight. You will never take back our country with weakness. Fight like al. We will never concede. Were going to walk down to the capitol, and i will be there with you. If you dont fight like hell, you will not have a country anymore. Host we are taking your calls this hour on if you think trump is politically stronger or weaker after the third indictment and josef is next. Albany, new york, independent, good morning. Good morning. I believe that mr. Trump should move on with his life. He admitted all the crimes he has been accused of and mr. President biden should forgive unless this move this country move forward. We do not want to be a sin of the whole world. It is very sad situation. Let others run for the residency. Mr. Trump committed the crime and let him forgive him and lets move on. I think you. Host nathaniel in greensboro, north carolina, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. Host what do you think, daniel . Nathaniel . Caller what i have to say about this, if donald trump was not guilty, i have a trial so i can go ahead and run my campaign, what i observed in washington, d. C. Is he had no support. He did not have his family. If hes got no family support, you gotta be a fool to support him. Because he dont even have his family. Joe biden has not said anything. They keep saying biden putting his finger on the scale but joe biden hasnt said anything. You dont hear him saying anything, talking to the press, nothing about donald j. Trump. So we reneed we need to rethink this because i think you made a lot of crimes and he caught up with. Host we need to rethink what . Caller excuse me . Host we need to rethink what . Caller anybody is on his side that he committed a crime and willing to do the time. So splitting the country in half but think about what he has actually done. He only made money off of this country as president and his supporters rob them blind. Host joey is a trump supporter in new york york, pennsylvania. Caller good morning. He is looking stronger i would think after his third indictment. The situation is you are going to have people no matter what think he is guilty of a crime and people saying he is guilty but he has not been found guilty. And they pour the charges on it is in a way free advertising. Looks like a witch hunt, feels like a witchhunt, and host i want to ask about what you said, it is free advertisement for him. He will be required to be in court for all three indictments, possibly another one coming from georgia. That takes them off of the campaign trail. What do you think of that . Do you think that could be damaging to him politically . Caller you are right, that would take him off of the campaign trail but does not take him out of the public spotlight. It puts more spotlight on him. Weve never had a president ial election like this. With criminal charges brought again and again on one of the candidates. He is a major candidate and [indiscernible] although he will be away from the Traditional Campaign trail, he is doing something that has never been done in history. He can do his president ial campaign from a courthouse on cspan. Host lets take a look at this tweet we got from deb who says he gets stronger after each indictment. Anyone aware of World History can see what is happening. Banana republic always do this. Rory is in margarita, california, trump supporter, good morning. Caller good morning. Trump, i think, will become president again because biden is doing so many lousy things. He is stealing money from us. Not trump, biden. I think he will end up, hopefully trump will put him in jail, all of the bidens in jail for being crooks. And siding with the communist chinese. That is about where i take it. If you ever get a democrat in the white house, you will probably get 70 Million People writing about that. No more democrats. Republicans. And let us keep our money, dont tax us for state stuff. That is it. Host as a reminde, here are the reminder, here are the charges against the former president. He is charged with four counts, conspiracy to defraud the United Statescopiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of a attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rht the last one refers to infringing on a persons right to vote. Lets go to chantel next in owings mill, maryland. Independent. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I think trump has been in and out of courts even before his presidency. Growing up, he was always good at getting out of things. I think when they first start he will do well but this is no joke the feds are no joe, very serious. When the feds come after you, it is different than courts in states. Which can be opinionated. When feds come for you, they usually have their case very strong and it is a sobering experience. I think trump has been rich as people catered to him and have not really given him truth that being in a said court system will be eyeopening fed court system will be eyeopening for him and i think it will be a hot air balloon that will be sobering for him and all of america. The feds court system is no joke. They dont play games and they dont come after cases they cannot win. Host chantel. Bonnie is next in jackson, michigan, trump supporter, good morning. Caller i wonder why when you play that clip of trumps speech you didnt play the ending where he told them to go peacefully to the capitol. How come just the middle there . Host that was an ad, that was not what we were playing so that was an ad by an antitrump Republican Group called the republican accountability project and that is what is running. They made that decision. Caller you should play the end of it. You should not just play that part. You do anything you can do to hurt trump, all of you. Host all right. Thomas in cincinnati, ohio, good morning. Caller good morning. I was just trying to figure out how the dome president in history can be the most corrupt. I dont get that. Money talks but to the average american citizen, only it says to us is goodbye thing it says to us is goodbye. Host lets look at social media, he tweet from michael that says he thinks the former president is weaker. While his cult will still vote for him, i would hope independents and moderate republicans would not. This is from the cspan review. He says just because they are the fed does not mean they are just. Truth sayer says both, if possible, with those that hate him weaker, those that love him stronger. The real question is those in the middle. Kenneth in texas. Caller yes. Host are you there . Caller i am here. Host go ahead. Caller ok. The only people testifying against donald trump are republicans. There are no democrats up there testifying to put donald trump in jail. Second is his own lawyer went on fox news last night and confessed to the crime, so i cant see how he has got anyway he will be able to fight this with his lawyers saying yeah, we did it, so what . Host who went on fox news and confessed . Caller his lawyer last night on fox news. He said that donald trump, john eastman, and what is pences assistance name . And pence were in the office and donald trump when in there and said which binary going to go for . And admitted doing the crime. It is on fox, the whole confession is on fox news last night where they admitted doing the crime. Im sure it will be replayed, it is a good commercial now. Host all right, kenneth. This is cnn. Com, they took a poll and says the percentage of republicans who think bidens 2020 when was a legitimate takes back up to near 70 . It says this was all told 69 of republicans and republican leaners say bidens when was not legitimate come up from 63 this year and through last fall even as no evidence of Election Fraud that would alter the outcome of the contest. Mike is next in bessemer city, north carolina. Trump supporter. Caller good morning. These last charges, one of them goes all the way back to the ku klux klan, the antimask act. That is how desperate they are getting. It is also a weird coincidence that jack smith come out and do this right after the devon archer testimony, and to take attention off of hunter biden and joe bidens corruption. The most dumbest corrupt president is the one in the white house now. This is all a facade and these republicans testify against them, these are the romney and mccain republicans. Both of them, obama kicked their rear ends in presidency. Chris christie, that fat slob is a part of this Lincoln Project stuff, part of the liz cheney and Adam Kissinger group. Trump will be 2024 as these cases will go to the Supreme Court where they are going to actually see democrats and harland Justice Department, garland is doing this mainly because he thought he was entitled to that Supreme Court seat so he is getting his vendetta against trump and the rest of these republicans, as they call us maga. They call us maga republicans are fascists and the democrats are communist. That is all i gotta say. Host this is on the front page of the Washington Post. It says the expresident s focus on revisiting 2020 alarms the gops the former president and some legal advisors see an upside to the latest criminal case against him. He can use his trial for the argue is false claims of a stolen 2020 election. The courtroom showdown is poised to push his insistence that Election Fraud occurred in 2020 for the center of the 2024 president ial campaign, a dismaying prospect for republicans. Trumps defense team has signaled they will focus on rebutting prosecutor as legations allegations that trump knew his claims were false. We are takur calls on that fors first hour, about another halfhour or so. The numbers are on your screen. If you are a trump supporter, you can s on 202 7488000. If you support other gop candidat, e number is 202 democrats 202 7488002. Independents 202 748800. Carl is alabama, democrat, good mor caller good g. Thanks for taking my call. Think trump is cerinly and sadly a formidable candidate and is certainly stronger in the republican party. I also think it is deeply disturbing to see Republican Leaders and voters the length Republican Leaders and voters are willing to go to dismiss what trump is being indicted for. I certainly hope that the january 6 trial will be aired on tv for all to see because we know what the republican outcry would be. Because whenever there is a black da or judge involved in the case against trump, his first line of defense is to play the race card and he did it with Letitia James and evan bragg in new york and with the one in georgia and they are already saying he cant get a fair trial in d. C. Because the judge is black and hates trump. They are also stating there should be a change of opinion, but when eileen cannon was named to preside over the classified documents case, down in florida, they were pleased and they did not assert any racist charges, there was no racist charge leveled against her. And they did not come out and ask for a change of venue in florida because, based on a previous ruling in cases involving trump that she presided over. They were thinking she would be more favorable rather than fairer. Host lets talk to steve next an independent an independent in florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was watching this and of course with his cult, his popularity is going to go up. With democrats, it is deafly going to go down. With the independents, i would say the same independents, it will deafly go down the sane independents it will, deafly go down. Independents, it will definitely go down. Speak out against the sky and everything has done. We can actually have a Good Campaign of trump is out of the picture. I might even go with asa hutchinson. [laughter] host ok. All right. He mentioned asa hutchinson, this is from august 1, before yesterdays events, the arraignment. Here is the public in primary field, donald trump, you can see here at 58 followed by ron desantis at 15 , ramaswamy at 9 , and mike pence percent and nikki haley, tim scott, and Chris Christie at 3 . That is where that stands. Lets go to fred who is in florence, kentucky. Fred, who are you supporting in the gop field . Caller i am sorry, i called up the regular gop number and i didnt look to see the democrat number was now the trump number. Host its a little confusing. Its ok, ad. Caller that add is just a tebecause the speech that trump i listened to it three times and watched it three times, the speech for january 6 that he gave, and there was not anything i citing about the ad ig about the ad. The fight was mentionedut not as a physical fight and at the end he told everybody to march to the Capitol Building peacefully. That certainly does not show in that ad, that is a horrible lie, that ad. It is terrible the way they put that together. Host fred, i want to show you what the New York Times is talking about on the front page of saying charges notably absent in the case, it says there was something notably absent when the special counsel jack smith unsealed an announcement charging the former president with multiple conspiracies to overturn the 2020 election. Any account that directly accused mr. Trump of being responsible for the violence his supporters committed on the capitol on january 6. So he is not being charged with that. It says the indictment asserted as violence or up to that day, mr. Trump exploited the disruption, using it to further his goals of stopping the certification of his loss in the election but stopped short of charging him with actually encouraging or inciting the mob that stormed the building, chasing lawmakers from their duties. So he is not being charged with that. John is a trump supporter in yukon, pennsylvania. Hi, john. Caller thank you very much for taking my call. If trump were president now, china would not be buying up our farms, china would not be in cuba, and china would not be threatening to invade anybody. As far as the war host but that was happening during the Trump Administration though. China has been buying up land, it stated from the beginning of the Xi Administration their intention is to unify china and retake taiwan. Caller well i still would go with trump, because i trust him. I certainly do not trust joe biden, and i certainly do not trust the fbi and cia and all of the gestapo, american gestapo. I am very upset with at all, and i come from the roosevelt era. I never knew anybody for four terms except roosevelt. I never saw anything like what is going on now. It is just upsetting, and i get to have one more thing i would say to the black people, obama had a white mother, so we can claim him too, and he was brought up by a white grandmother, and he went to a white college, so you can have half of them and we will take the other half. Host did you like obama as a president , john . Caller you know, he was not bad. I will say that. Host all right. Maximilian is next in vero beach, florida. Good morning. Caller hi, good morning, can you hear me . Host i can. Caller fantastic. Your name again . Host mimi. Caller such a pleasure to be speaking with you live. Just to get through the channels, i went through like gop, the different denominations, etc. Let me take a deep breath, im a little excited. [laughter] my First Time Ever being live ever, ive never even broadcasted alive anything on youtube or anything. So bear with me for a moment. How is your morning going . Host its going great, im on cspan, it is a great day. [laughter] caller so im down here in florida, literally 15 to 20 minutes probably from fort pierce probably where all the action is happening and i gotta tell you, just the energy in the area, local, is palpable. The tension is, physically it is reverberating around the entire world, around the entire country, but specifically in the United States. Host you are a republican. Caller yes. So heres the interesting thing, born december 29, 1983, so i recall the administrations push the administration of bush and i side with the Founding Fathers, so in terms of republican gop, democratic, here is where i side. I side with truth in the way i see it, and i know you have a lot of other colors waiting so i dont want to belabor the point. I appreciate the time. I will not get into a lot of nonsense here and there. Here is my stance, the way i see it now currently is that everything has gotten to a place and point in our Political Climate where everybody is ready to press the red button, if you know what i mean. Instead, take a deep breath and all of us stepping back for a moment and looking really at what is going on, and i think you understand what im saying, i hope you would. Host who are you supporting in the next election . Caller right now it is funny you mention that. An ironic twist of fate i am announcing my candidacy in this election. Host for president . Caller yes. Host you will have to get used to speaking live a lot if you want to be president. [laughter] caller i know. I know. Host lets move onto neo in pennsylvania, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. The answer to the question, is trump stronger . Yes. That is the unbelievable part, you have so many stupid Americans Still devout to trump with all of the crimes he committed, it is absolutely unbelievable and i do not understand why they are not passing a law that says if you are indicted you cannot run for president certainly. If you are convicted, you definitely cannot be president. There should be laws for that. I dont get it. It is ridiculous that he is even running with all of the crimes he has committed. It is pathetic. You have millions of not tens of millions of stupid americans supporting the sky. The country is in a bad place with some any bad politicians in place, Marjorie Taylor greene, jim jordan, lindsey graham, these people should not have been voting back in voted back in. We are in a bad place. Thank you very much. Host i want to make sure viewers know that the night former President Donald Trump will be traveling to montgomery, alamand he is speaking at a dinner hosted by the alabama puican party, his first public eventince being arraigned yesterday in a federal court. We will have live coverage beginning at 8 00 m. Astern here on cspan, on the cspan now, our free mobile video app, and online at cspan. Org. Lawrence is calling from maryland, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. Host what do you think . Caller i wanted to point out to my fellow americans, specifically republicand, this current outcry about it is such a double standard of justice and we need one standard of justice, and we deserve a fair trial for donald trump, i dont know too Many Americans who have the power or money to just say no, im not going to attend a court subpoena. If you recall, trump has been subpoenaed more than once, and more than once he said im not going to go. So first i would like to ask, how Many Americans have the same authority to do such whether we are president host do mean being subpoenaed before congress . Caller yes. Me personally as an average citizen, if i get a court subpoena, i have to show up. I have been subpoenaed before and been told if you do not show up, you will go to jail. So lets talk about that double standard of justice. Two, my last point is that this whole thing reminds me of a boyfriend or girlfriend who has gone through several axes exs and insists the other person is the problem. We are on the fourth and i may, third indictment rather, fourth possible, second impeachment, and it is always just the other sides fault. At what number indictment will it be such that ok maybe there is a little tiny truth to it . Even if you do not accept the entire the facts of the entire indictment, some of it has to rain true. When we talk about this double standard of justice and how unfair trump is being treated, i would like to point that because several of us have been held to the law and held accountable by the law and it is like we are magically excusing this bozo. Thank you very much and god bless america. Host mike in saratoga springs, new york. Trump supporter, hello. Caller how are you . Host good. Caller good morning, america. I want to say hello and say my opinion. I totally believe in trump. I think he is stronger, and i wish america would wake up. Every time i go to the gas station the prices go up. I see immigrants all over the damn place, illegal. Look at our country, look at the lies trump has look at the lies biden has told the country. How can anybody vote for this guy . Mimi . Host yes. Caller i dont understand it caller wake up, it. Wake up, america. Trumps for america, he stands for america. Biden is for china, he is for personal wealth. These old traders committed treason in my opinion. That is unbelievable. Im sorry. Ok . Host got it. I want to show you this article from the washington examiner, that says the pens campaign capitalizes on Trump Indictment cells too honest merchandise. The former Vice President mike pences president ial campaign is capitalizing on former President Donald Trumps recent indictment related to january 6 capital rights and efforts to overturn the 2020 election by selling new merchandise. The pens campaign made available tshirts and hats printed with the phrase too honest, allegedly the phrase phrase too honest,llegedly the phrase trump used when pence would not overturn the Election Results, something he says he did not have the right to do. He was asked about the Trump Indictment and actions on january 6. For my card, i want people to know that i had no right to overturn the election. And that what the president maintained that day and frankly said over and over the last 2. 5 years is completely false, and it is contrary to what our constitution and the laws of this country provide. Im a student of American History. The first time i heard in early december suggest as Vice President i might be able to decide which votes to reject in which to accept, i knew it was false. Our founders have just won a war against the king and the last thing they wouldve done was vest unilateral authority in any one person to decide who would be the next president. I dismissed it out of hand and sadly the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers telling him what itching ears wanted to hear. While i made my case to him of what i understood of my oath of the constitution, to require the president ultimately to continue to demand i do things over the constitution. Irrespective of how this case plays out, i want the American People to know that i believe with all of my heart, by gods grace i did my duty. As i stand for the public denominational president , whatever means to me, i will always stand on the constitution of the United States. Our country is more important than any one man. Our constitution is more important than anyone mans career. That is true of me and true of the president , the former president of the United States. If we are going to stand on the facts, we are going to stand by what happened that day, the stand we took and trust ourselves for Republican Voters and ultimately the American People. Host that was the former Vice President , polling according to the Morning Consult at about 7 and that was from august 1. Maia is calling us from anaheim, california, independent. Caller good morning, mimi. Im calling because i wanted to talk about when i say donald trump being stronger and i wanted to clarify for me strongest is not been mean agreeable, it means able to win. It does not mean innocent of charges, it implies the charges dont matter so donald trump is stronger meaning he is able to win the, yes. Is donald trump innocent . That is subjective until it is determined through court findings. I believe the court of Public Opinion is broken into three categories. You have one who errs on the side of justice, usually nonpartisan for the people, those protrump, which are not necessarily party specific but primarily represented by republican party, and those antitrump. When we were talking about stronger, we tend to think it is agreeable and im talking about able to win. Is donald trump stronger . Yes he is able to win. Those loyal followers of his are down on that because there are double standards in our Justice System, not just with whether it is donald trump or joe biden or talking about black people and stuff like that. There are double standards across the board but people only care when it affects their personal interests, and that is where the double standards come, not just with a Justice System but people who have an opinion about it. I personally voted for biden but biden has failed to secure my revote so it is up in the air. I am still undecided. I will not be voting for donald trump for all the obvious reasons everyone has listed before me. Host my, is there a gop candidate you would be willing to vote for besides trump . Caller maybe Chris Christie. Theres a couple other people im not confident to say just because i dont know how i feel about them totally. I have to see how they form on the debate. There are people on the democrat side i may be willing to support even though i know joe biden is likely to secure that for the dnc. It is possible but i gotta see what is going on. There are some double standards and play and my concern is joe biden conflict of interests with hunter biden because it implicates the department of justice and im not comfortable with the commanderinchief, their integrity, mys door being considered, theres too much of a picture there. It has to be clear so that is why im undecided. Until that is cleared up or until i feel good about it, i have information, i cannot say he has my vote and i have concerns about kamala harris. I think joe biden will stand a smaller chance if he replaced his vp with someone both parties can respect and i not to say she is not about a respectable person she is not a respectable person in general but she is not performing to the standard, and that has nothing to do with her demographics. I believe because joe biden is particularly older in age, if he passed away during a second term, we have to trust fully who the vp is an, the harris is not it. Theres a couple things he needs to consider if he wants to secure a vote for people who voted for him before and voters like me. Host carol is a trump supporter in houston, texas. Good morning. Caller good morning. Did you say carol . Host yes, you are on the air, go ahead. Caller first of i would like to apologize to because last time i talked to you i thought you had said something and i can even remember the topic now, not that important, but i think it was over the word frenzy or Something Like that and i said i dont thing i said that and that she said i dont think i said that and i think you did in i found out later you are right so i never did get the call and apologize. Host i appreciate that. Caller anyway, now the topic about donald trump. I am a reformed democrat. And i mean reformed. They got too dark and at this point i had to get up to get these children to go to hospitals and surgery. That they were brainwashed. This is a terrible situation and im sick about it. I dont even believe it and i still get up and do it every morning because it makes me sick. And how that was hidden from me, i am angry about that. Host how did you react to the indictment of former President Trump . Caller well i dont like it. Of course he did not intend he did not mean and did not want those people to break in. He wanted them to come show support. I believe that. I do not think he is responsible for the breakins. They say they are not holding him responsible for those, just for his actions. Host all right. Got it, carol. This is a tweet from steve who says i have yet to hear any defender of trump actually deny the charges levied against him. If somebody has, please play the tape. Lets talk to joe in spring hill, florida. Good morning, joe. Joe . You gotta mute your tv. Are you there . Host henrietta is in fort pierce, florida, hi, henrietta. Caller good morning. A couple things, with regards to pens, pence. I believe he does not care about his career because it is quite frankly over. I support trump and i kind of am sick of hearing all of the crimes he has committed. And you not jumping in. There were no crimes he has committed. A crime denotes thank you, have a great day. Host ok . Lets talk to leanne in michigan, democrat. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller that one republican that said wake up, im going to tell him the same thing, remember when on january 6 the fbi did something with their phones to where they were upgrading so we could not find out what the Text Messages said backandforth regarding that . We could not trump could not get a judge to say there was enough evidence that voters, scams, and things of that nature. All of these things he could not do. Pence, he could not get him to overturn the election. He is trying to get all these people to side with him like pence said, crackpot attorneys, to side with him. I would respect a republican if they said he was a croak, he did this, he is wrong for trying to obstruct voting and things of that nature, but i still want him president. Just be honest and say, you know what, he has done these things but i still want him to be the president. Stop saying the things arent true, stop saying it is an attack on him because his numbers are up. Just say the truth, he is a crook but i still want him to be the president. I would respect them more if they call it out for what it is. Host jean in wellington, ohio, trump supporter, hello. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller thanks for having me on. First off, i do support mr. Trump, i believe they are levying these charges against him in order to deflect from biden. How come the other news Media Outlets never cover all of the things going on with biden and all of the crimes he is supposed to have committed . That is double standard justice. I do not care what country you are from but i will tell you, this President Biden is an embarrassment to the country, an embarrassment to the world, this man is destroying this country, he is a communist, bought and paid for by china, russia, and any other country that offers him a few bucks. Host ive got a question for you. We got a tweet saying Trump Supporters are not actually denying the charges against him. Do you deny that trump is did not do what he is chaed with . What do you think of the actual charges . Caller iont think he did all of the things they charged him with. When heuestioned the election, he has every right just like every other american. Just because he is President Trump does not mean he has less things he is able to question then any other american citizen. Biden is trying to take away our right for free speech and trying to make it so people do not have a right to question anything. Our Founding Fathers gave us that right and he has no right under the constitution to take that right away from the American People. Host larry in florida, independent, good morning. Caller good morning, maam. I am calling about the indictment and also the double standard of biden. They got him on tape, a meeting he got through burisma he got the burisma prosecutor fired when his son became on the board. President Trickey Dickey nixon got impeached for a coverup. This is a crime. He took money with llcs and they have document paperwork to prove it. Host are you a trump supporter . Caller no, i am not a trump supporter, i am a constitutionalist, and we need to throw the government out and go back to that piece of paper. Host who would you like to see is the next president . Caller what saw me. Hes is the first generation american that came here who loves his country, who understands wide was made and what the revolution was about. Host lets talk to krista in north carolina, who are you supporting for the gop nomination . Caller 100 trump. He is a businessman, i support this man, and i want to let you know biden is a compromised president. He takes money from Foreign Countries and he is the corrupt president. Trump was impeached twice over what biden has been doing. I am so angry to hear those democrats people talk bad about trump. He was a good president. This country needs a businessman and trump was investigated from day one. Do you think this man will do those crooked things that biden has been doing and claiming blaming trump about it . No. He is too smart. I do not agree with all of those indictments against him and he needs to be off the high horse. All those democratic people, remember who stopped the slaves. Host caller thanks for taking my call. Wow, what can i say . There is a certain sector of america that is simply irredeemable and im talking about Trump Supporters. You cannot reason with somebody who is in a cult. The reality is, for those who are independent or moderate leaning, the fbi has never in its history had a democrat leading the department. All of these people, jack smith, not a registered democrat or republican, not Party Affiliated , robert muller, republican, chris faure appointed by donald trump, stomp republican, the reality for us is thesemaga trump people, no matter who it is, are so far gone that they have vilified and pushed away like mitt romney, john mccain, mike pence, historically conservative people in the name of one man. Thats extraordinary to me. The difference you will see between maga is they will go to the death in the name of donald trump. We dont care if joe biden is charged or goes to prison. If he commits a crime or if his family has committed a crime, so be it. We voted him in office to do a job. We will not die on that hill in the name of one person. Host i got your point but we are out of time in this segment and thank you to everybody who called. If you didnt get a chance to weigh in, you can call in on open forum at 9 30 a. M. Coming up, the cofounder and expelled going executive director brian fallon discusses Supreme Court reform and the state of the progressive legal movement. And later, the president of the national right to work Legal Defense foundation discusses what is driving recent labor unrest across the country. We will be right back. American history tv saturdays on cspan2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. At 3 p. M. Eastern, watch the second part of the Calvin Coolidge centennial Conference Marking the centennial of 30th president ascension to the white house and at 9 30 p. M. 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In 1848, husband and wife william and helen craft embark on a journey of self emancipation disguised as a wealthy stable white man with a servant, they left georgia while trying to conceal their identity. The author of master, slave, husband, wife recounts their harrowing journey north and the impact of the fugitive slave law passed two years later. Sunday night at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a which you can listen to on errorfree cspan now app. Cspanshop. Org is the our online store. Breast relays collection of cspan products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. There is something for every cspan fan and every purchase help support our nonprofit operation. Shop now or anytime at cspanshop. Org. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back, my guest is brian fallon, the cofounder and outgoing executive director of demand justice, talking about Supreme Court reform. Welcome to the program. Guest thanks for having me back. Host yes i should say welcome back but before we get to our topic in my wanted to get your reaction to the third indictment of former President Trump. Guest i think the special prosecutor thats been handling this case, jack smith, former head of the Public Integrity section at the Public Integrity section at the Justice Department is very well respected, nonpartisan prosecutor and i think he has done a very methodical job here. The case is pretty watertight. I think this country will get a little bit of an education into our legal system here through the course of this case. I know some people will try to argue that the president will emerge from this indictment politically stronger somehow and that this whole rally will mobilize his supporters but this is now the third indictment. He will be hamstrung significantly just from a political standpoint. A lot of fundraising resources are being diverted to his legal fees and he personally will have to be devoting time to planning for trial so he will have to go through that and it will take time away from the campaign trail. He will be a less strong candidate because the fact that these cases are all playing out. Regardless of what happens in the court of law, as a candidate, he will be weakened by these indictments. Host if you would like to call in and ask questions and share your thoughts, you could do so on airlines by party affiliation. Republicans, 202 7488001, democrats 202 7488000, independent, 202 7488002. Youre wrapping up your tenure as founding executive director of demand justice, remind us of what that organization is about. Guest demand justice was started in 2018 by myself and my friend and colleague chris kane who had worked as a Deputy White House counsel during president obamas term in Office Working on judicial nominations. We start the group with the mission of trying to galvanize the public against the capture of our federal courts by a rightwing element that was very much out of step with the country. Now we are seeing the sort of results of that capture as the cords play out in the last couple of terms where the decisions of the Supreme Court have happen. We have been trying to mount a campaign to push back on the nominees that President Trump was putting forward during his time in office and trying to galvanize support among the public and try to counterbalance the takeover the hard right successfully achieved at the Supreme Court level. Our funding is primarily from two sources. We have a lot of institutional donors and Foundation Type donors that believe in our mission. Also, we have over half a million supporters online that contribute to us on an average of 20 per contribution. We have a mix of small the small dollar donations and levels of support from Foundation Type donors. Host i want to show a New York Times article from the launching of demand justice back from 2018 in the headlines this the idea back then that republicans were about judicial reform, is that still true today five years later . Guest the pendulum has started to swing back. The project that was carried out in terms of capturing the court has many objections. The effort to fight back and try to undo that damage is not going to happen overnight either. We are five years into this project now but we have made a good amount of gains in the last five years. We started in the aftermath of what happened with Merrick Garland. Mitch mcconnell blocked president obama from filling that seat but more distressing was even his Mitch Mcconnell was doing that, the public didnt seem that upset about it. It was not a big issue in the 2016 election. Even though the fate of the Supreme Court, whether it would be controlled by a majority of liberal or conservative justices, literally would be decided by that election. There was some attention during the president ial debate step but not much. When neil gorsuch was confirmed in 2017, that happened with a whimper and there wasnt much of a fight by the democrats against that nomination in 2017. From that, our group was started with the goal of trying to galvanize the public to care a little bit more. Five years later, i would like to take credit for it but its really external events that have happened over the last five years. You had the kavanaugh conversation, Ruth Bader Ginsburgs untimely passing followed by Amy Coney Barretts confirmation, highly charged confirmation battle that focus the public attention on this issue. In the ensuing years, you had rulings like the overturning of roe v. Wade that have really thrown the public for a loop, people who took that for granted that was 50 years old. We were trying to tell people that was on the line and a lot of people didnt believe it until it actually happened. I think you are now seeing that the issues have never been more salient especially among democratic voters. They tell us in polls more than Republican Voters that this is a voting issue for them in a complete flip from 2016. You also see it in the form of the low Approval Rating the court has. They have an historically low Approval Rating and this creates the Supreme Court as a highly charged political issue. More than its ever been host i want to talk about the election and the impact the Supreme Court decisions can have on the election. Break that down a little more for us as far as where you think that will go, especially with the Dobbs Decision. Will it impact Younger Voters or the womens vote . Guest we certainly saw in the 2022 midterms, evidence that the backlash to the Dobbs Decision helped soften the losses the democrats were otherwise in store for in the 2022 midterms. Historically, the democrats take a drubbing in the midterm elections when that partys president is in power. Democrats held the senate and their losses in the house were fairly minimized to the point where democrats have a legitimate chance to take back the house in the 2024 election. A lot of the polling shows the reason that democrats are able to keep their losses in 2022 to a minimum was because, especially suburban voters, women voters were externally upset about the Dobbs Decision and completely taken aback they actually follow through and overturned roe. I think that dynamic will persist into 2024. This is an issue that is creating a political wing that at joe bidens back. President biden is reluctant to engage in this conversation. He has stopped short of directly criticizing the court. A lot of democrats on capitol hill have started directing criticism at the Supreme Court. Joe biden has sort of stood back from directly engaging that conversation but that dynamic is certainly there. His team is certainly aware of it and i think they know it will only benefit him this backlash to the Supreme Court. This court is seen as an arm of the republican party, the maga republican wing that joe biden is running against in 2024. Host here is the front page of demand justice. Org. How are you really going to do that especially if joe biden has said he is not interested in doing that . Guest this is a generational struggle we are in. The republicans werent able to win over and capture control of the Supreme Court in a matter of months or a couple of years. They did it over the course of many decades. They had the Federalist Society to help them carry out that result and the pendulum starting to swing back but its only just starting. This will really be a generational, years long struggle we are in. They have a 63 super majority on the Supreme Court. Some people think democrats can just sit back passively and hope that retirements or illtimed illnesses occur in the democrats may organically regain a majority on the Supreme Court. Realistically, we will have to go out and convince the country about structural ones of the court. There has been Academic Studies like a harvard researcher that said in less than legislative was sutured results, legislature is needed. Other than that, the Supreme Court will remain in power until 2065 which is a sobering thought. A lot of us are trying to help cultivate a conversation about Structural Reforms that can rebalance the center than that to include ideas like term limits, adding seats but this will not happen this congress when you have a republicancontrolled house. But we are making a lot of Great Strides to build support for these ideas, not just at a Grassroots Level with voters, but the judiciary act which is a proposal that would add seats to the Supreme Court. Host you mentioned the Federalist Society. We will start taking calls shortly but one more question the federal society and there is also the Judicial Crisis Network. What kind of impact of these groups have . Guest they have been highly successful. Host in doing what . Guest in mobilizing Republican Voters to care about the court as an issue and vote according to the Supreme Court as an issue and insist on their candidate speaking to the issue where to the point where donald trump literally released a list of names and 2016 about people he promised to look at in tombs in terms of who he would nominate. They succeeded in getting super donors on the republican side to give money to this project. Leonard leo, the head of the federal society, the former head, has been particular successful at getting large megadonors on the republican side to give huge eight figure gifts to the Federalist Society and affiliated groups to help fund this effort. One structural advantage they have is resources. They are giving their flows into groups like the Judicial Crisis Network and its like 71 as opposed to groups like mine on the other side. Theyve been externally successful and if anything, when we go to capitol hill and meet with democratic lawmakers, or point to them as we need to get into the game and compete with the groups doing so well on the republican side and galvanizing support for this issue. Host lets take a look at a gallup poll that asked the question about the Supreme Court job approval by party. Republicans have a 62 approval rate for the Supreme Court, independents are at 41 and democrats are only 17 . You said before that approval of the Supreme Court is at historic lows. What needs to happen to turn that around . Guest thats a relatively recent phenomenon. When we started pulling democrats in 2018 when we started, democrats approved of the job the Supreme Court was doing because democrats had sort of a view of the Supreme Court that was somewhat rosy based on civics lessons we learned in history from brett brown versus board of education and there have been recent rules like the decision to uphold the Affordable Care act on the decision to recognize samesex marriage that caused progressive to think that by and large the Supreme Court was doing an ok job. The events of the last five years with the confirmation battles and things like the dobbs one have caused democrats and independents, they are underwater with those two key groups. Its not surprising that two thirds of republicans are supporting it because they are getting what they voted for in terms of rulings like the dobbs ruling. Democrats and independents being against the court in such large numbers is not a viable situation longterm for the Supreme Court. Host lets go to calls in our first one is james and mount airy, north carolina, democrat. Caller brian, who used to work for Chuck Schumer, right . Guest i did. Caller i can tell you the biggest problem we have right now in the u. S. Senate is Chuck Schumer and the senate democrats. A perfect example of it is Amy Coney Barrett. She got put on the court at the very end of trump presidency. She could have been blocked. At any point during the confirmation any democrat could have come to that floor and said mr. President , reserving the right to object and they didnt. Chuck schumer made a joke of it. I dont know if you saw that. People behind the scenes, the big money behind the scenes were telling him block her. Use the right to object. He came to the floor and made a mockery of that. He said people are telling me to use the right to object so i will with a big smile on his face. And he said something about asking permission for the following committees to me today. Procedural type things. Then he goes, mr. President , i object. He was objecting to his own request. Guest host host lets get a response. Lets get a response. Guest makes a point about democrats not using every tool at their disposal in 2020. We were centrally involved in trying to organize the opposition to Amy Coney Barrett. We had a lot of meetings with Chuck Schumer and democrats urging him to use the objection and we urge that they boycott the hearings. At the end of the day, i had to say that while there was some guidance from us that we were giving, maneuverings they could undertake to slow things down, the ability to out to outraged up the nomination is not something they democrats have in their power. I wish that was the case but if they had the power to do that, we would have been harping on them to do it. They had the ability to slow things down at best so its frustrating and expense as that was, i think Chuck Schumer was doing as much as he possibly could in that moment. Host david is a republican in woodbridge, virginia, hi, david. Caller good morning and thanks for taking my call. For me, there is a lot to unpack here. I dont understand the big push back that organizations like the gentleman works for has against judges and people who want to follow the constitution. Whether they are conservative, liberal, follow the, follow the constitution and the law of the land. Democrats seem to want to hang their hat on that topic no matter what time of year. I would rather have an even ginsburg was not in favor of this becoming a law. I would rather have the states have the Supreme Court and give it back to the states which is what they did to you can have local jurisdictions and legislatures make your role and you can vote accordingly. Your thoughts on that . Guest for years, folks that worked at the Federalist Society and conservative judicial nominees, for confirmation hearings would sort of say their theory was the one true way and they were not taking an ideological approach, that they were interpreting the constitution very strictly according to the text of the document and that all these complaints about the rulings being issued i republican appointed judges was really just sour grapes of a question that had been settled earlier by the Founding Fathers in the way they wrote the constitution. There have been decision after decision in the last few years that have you lied that narrative and exposed the socalled originalist approach that republican appointed justices like to take and mostly bunk. Take a look at the gun issue. You have the heller decision a little over a decade ago written by Antonin Scalia a, a great conservative lion, adored previously by Federalist Society types. He said there is a fundamental right to bear arms in this country but in that same opinion, he said there was room for reasonable regulation on that right. In the interest of Public Safety and in recent years, the justices from the far right that are still on the court said no, this is basically an unfettered right and there is not room for any of those reasonable restrictions. They continue to move the goalpost closer and closer and ideological vision they have. It is sort of exposed that this is the one true way its grounded in a textural list interpretation of the constitution. Host eric, independent in cedartown, georgia, good morning. Caller i would like to make a comment. The court makes no difference whatever laws the democrats passed in the house and the senate and the president. The Supreme Court can overturn it. You are actually taking black people getting their rights taken away with other groups of people getting the rates expanded. No matter what the democrats say , unless they add members to the Supreme Court, minority rule will continue in the United States. Instead of you saying whatever you want, the right wing extremists are implementing minority rule in the United States just like what israel is doing. We are sitting back and listening to it and taking it. Joe biden and the democrats, Chuck Schumer and all of them, they are maintaining White Privilege in the United States. This is exactly what is doing so a lot of democrats have done this because of their kids and grandkids in their lives just like affirmative action. You took rights from black people in the United States. Its generation after generation. Dred scott is a change you want to talk about. Its still in effect. In my right that the Supreme Court can overturn any rights that the democrats pass in the congress if they have the house, the senate . They will not change the filibuster. Am i correct or not . Host we will get an answer. Guest i agree with the caller. This really feels dish fuels the passion but the caller talks about the Current Power Supreme Court wields which amounts to minority rule in this country. That is a point that i very much agree with. People might ask, how to we get to this point where the Supreme Court can issue a decision that is so wildly out of step with Public Opinion like the Dobbs Decision which upwards of 70 of the public disagrees with that decision. There is a reason we got there, its not a coincidence. We have a process that is sort of entrenching minority rule. If you think at least four of the justices were selected by president that didnt win the popular vote because of the vote we have with the Electoral College and our way of electing a president and then they put forward these nominees that get confirmed by a republican majority in the senate that represent the election cycle, because of the way we structure the senate, giving two senators to every state regards the population, by some estimates, you can have 51 republican senators represent as little as 40 or 35 of the population. You have president s that are not winning popular vote, getting into office in appointed people confirmed by Senate Majorities that represent less than half of the country. Then they get to serve for life and issue decisions that overturn laws that are passed by the popularly elected congress, overturning rules and regulations issued by the popularly elected president and his executive branch and thats how you end up with a system of an unelected body that will so much power and do so in a way thats wildly out of step with Public Opinion. We support a big set of holistic changes and we like to reform the Electoral College, the filibuster to bring the decisionmaking structure and our Democratic Society back in line with where the majority opinion is. Host let me ask you about Supreme Court ethics. This is an article in politico from yesterday. Before you answer that coming here is a tweet what are your thoughts on that tweet and also the Supreme Court ethics . Guest the summer is traditionally a time where the justices get to let their hair down a little bit and they are in recess so they are not hearing cases over the summer and they do a lot of appearances. This has now become an annual ritual they sort of trade barbs. The justices have a debate indirectly by dueling appearances they have over the summer. Justice kagan was at an appearance this past week was asked about a recent interview that her colleague sam alito gave to the wall street journal where he sort of weighed in on this debate thats been happening in congress about whether to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court. Sam alitos position was that congress does not have any power to regulate the Supreme Court in that way. Kagan was going on the record somewhat remarkable that sam alito gave the interview to the wall street journal and somewhat remarkable that elena kagan has decided to respond to him. She basically said thats not true. There is all kinds of evidence to the contrary and all kinds of rules the Supreme Court has to abide by that are the product of laws passed by congress down to the fact that their session begins in the first monday in october, that derives from a statute passed by congress, the size of the work has been changed by Congress Many times in the nations history. The interview that sam alito gave at the wall street journal, the individual that conducted the interview and publish the piece was actually a lawyer and was arguing a court at the Supreme Court next year so there are propriety questions about sam alito giving an interview to somebody who will appear before the in a case next term. The fact that sam alito gave the interview and what he said makes the case for a need for an ethics law to be passed by congress. Elena kagan somewhat agrees with the comments she made in her interview this week. Host lets go to cleveland, ohio, democrat. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am actually a member of the Student Organization that discusses a lot of issues relating to the Supreme Court ethics and judicial reform in the country. One topic that we often discuss is as people have discussed already, the number of justices on the court has changed historically depending on political needs of the politics of this country. When people today talk about packing the court or getting the court to expand its reach to make it more representative, there is often pushback against that. There is a clear precedent for it and i wanted to know your thoughts on that. Guest the caller is right. Maybe some folks dont know that when joe biden came into the office in the aftermath of the Amy Coney Barrett nomination, he said he would stand up a president ial commission to look at Supreme Court reform ideas. That commission did not come to a consensus around any one particular idea. They were not really empowered to make formal recommendations either. One of the ideas they did look at was expanding the court size. While they did not endorse any one proposal, they clearly came to the conclusion that it would be on sound constitutional footing for congress to undertake such a measure. It has happened multiple times in the nations history. While there is some debate about ideas like term limits and whether that could be done, statutorily through an act of congress, there is no dispute among scholars that congress would have the ability to alter the court size as it has done many times before. Host steve is calling us from highland park, illinois, republican. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask about your Organization Demand justice. Is that organization i am in chicago and im in the suburbs. I am in commercial real estate and ive been all over the city and usually, i see the signs on boarded up buildings that say demand justice in red and green and black colors. Is your organization the ones that put those signs up on the side of a building in bad neighborhoods . Guest i doubt it, no. Demand justice is a pretty common catchphrase in terms of various progressive causes. Its probably Something Else thats not related to our organization. Host carol is in new hampshire, independent. Caller yes, thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate you being on the show. I would gladly contribute to your organization. Demand for justice. The republicans, really are the losers with having such a packed court because they will be losing elections because they are overturning very popular laws. Thats all i want to say. I appreciate you doing this because it just makes me very angry that the courts have been packed the way they have been. Thank you. Host any comment . Guest thank you for the kind comments and i think the Supreme Court will be a political weight around the ankles of republican candidates in 2024. Host clyde in oklahoma, democrat, good morning. Caller this is clyde. Ive got a question on the separation of church and state over this abortion deal. [indiscernible] why are they butting into what the people are doing . Its between a man and a woman and a doctor. Thats called church of thats called separation of church and state so why are they butting in . Thank you. Host do you agree with that . Guest the arguing point on this is regardless there is a heated position on both sides of the abortion question but there is a thing in constitutional law is decisive. Its a principle that tries to give stability to the rulings that come out of the Supreme Court. If all else fails, if something has existed for a long time and the American Society has sort of been built up around previous rulings on the Supreme Court, theyre supposed to be some sort of deference to that. The roe v. Wade ruling was on the books for 50 years and there is no question that American Society had been ordered around the idea that women should have bodily autonomy and abortion should be legally available. Two up and that really violates, if nothing else, the justices are acting in an arbitrary way for that reason. Host we have a question for you on twitter guest at the end of every term, there is a lot of empirical analyses of previous Supreme Court rulings. They here between 6080 cases every year. The twitter question, the premise is correct that a lot of those 60 or 80 or 80 are not the ones you read about in the term. There is a reason that those polarized cases and upping the ones that get released at the end because they are the ones that involve some of the biggest questions that have such farreaching impact over the country. They are the ones that are most bitterly divide the court and they are the ones that do so much writing time where they pen 60 page decisions or dissents. I think there is a lot of focus often about out of the 80 cases this year, 85 of them were decided not along party lines. You can tell yourself a feelgood story about the fact that that means the court is more united than people think but there is a reason why those cases you hear about at the end of the term take so long to decide and capture the publics imagination more than all the other mundane cases that the court hears. Is because these are the Big Questions that people decide elections about and elect their leaders to help decide for them and people are rightly frustrated when an unelected body is deciding questions they think they are voting for. Host lets talk to a republican in tennessee, good morning. Caller good morning. A lot has been made of the fact that Merrick Garland was prevented from being a member of the Supreme Court because of actions of Mitch Mcconnell. Is it not true that the majority on the court would still be held by conservatives 6 at4 even if Merrick Garland came in the Supreme Court . Host you mean 54 . Guest its 63 now. If Merrick Garland was on the bench, it would have swung the balance. Ruth ginsburg passed away in the meantime and other things took place in that if you assume that trump would have won in 20 anyway with Merrick Garland then yes, it would swing back by this point now. Caller thats what i was talking about, the current situation, thank you. Host isaiahs in virginia, independent. Caller good morning. Host go right ahead. Caller my question is a comment its to express to the rest of the cspan audience that i see the root of all of our problems including what would the subject matter today. Its that the country is suffering from minority rule. I say that from the perspective that the popular vote in the last few elections did not support the eventual winner of those elections. Yet, those people that won the elections got them just got to nominate people on the Supreme Court. My solution or an idea to put out there, nine people in my opinion is insufficient to represent 300 million attitudes. I would hope that we can get to a point as a country where each independent state gets to nominate one person from their state to a new Supreme Court consisting of 50 members. Then i think we will get as a result, opinions from the court that represent majority rule with certain protections by the minority. Host what you think of that idea . Guest an earlier call or raise the issue of minority rule and we talked about that. I obviously agree with that statement of the problem. I think some people think were just here to complain about the Supreme Court because it happens to be controlled by republican appointed justices now. Regardless of who controls the majority of the court, the reality is the court is too powerful in general. Its deciding to me questions that are not decided by the elected branches of government and there should be agreement on both sides about that idea. Most countries, a lot of other countries, other democracies have Supreme Courts for larger memberships. Nine is actually on the low end in terms of the size of the Supreme Court in comparison to other democracies. There are various proposals to for instance have a rotation of Circuit Court judges to do stints on the Supreme Court to try to make the nine folks that sit on it now less powerful. Right now, those people are completely unaccountable. There is no way to police any infractions they have and they get to decide to many of the questions the body politic is divided on. The idea of introducing more opinions by enlarging the size of the court may be having term limits or frequency of turnover within the court happening more often, i think those who be good, healthy things that would that it would make more likely the Supreme Court being in step with the Public Opinion. Host whether the details on term limits, how long guest guest should the term be . There is a proposal and there is not consensus around anyone proposal. To take one example of the design of how you could do term limits, one of the leading ideas is an 18 year term limits in the argument is that the constitution of United States as judges get to serve for life as long as they have good behavior. The idea would be that you would have justices that would be appointed to 18 year terms and after that, they would continue to hear court cases at the Appellate Court level. They would still have life tenure, not just necessarily be guaranteed the opportunity to rule on aces at the Supreme Court level for life. 18 year term limits would guarantee that every president in a four year window would get 2 pick some thats a problem we are solving. Jimmy carter was a one term president and got zero Supreme Court picks and donald trump was one term president and got three picks in his four years. There is something unfair about that. The idea of introducing some regularity and parity across president so everybody has an equal shot in shaping the courts composition seems fair. The other thing is it would drain some of the drama and the gamesmanship out of the Supreme Court confirmation process. Everybody knew that each president is guaranteed 2 picks in there for your window, there be less of a desire to try to hold up a pick like Merrick Garland in hopes of carrying it over to the next president s term. It might actually drain some of the drama out of these confirmation processes would be a which would be a good and healthy thing. Host one more call from new york city, democrat line. Caller yes, i like to make an apology for anybody that might be offended by something i might say. I am grateful you are having mr. Fallon on. There was an oklahoma caller on the republican line mentioned separation of church and state and thats what i want to talk about. Mr. Fallon and others in the audience, i believe that the Supreme Court has been taken over by a catholic cabal. Alito, i will go down the list, you can comment if you like. Alitos father was a federal judge in southern new jersey against affirmative action. He has made that and has reversed all the laws, the voting rights, abortion rights, gay rights and wedding cakes. These are all religious issues or religiously affected issues and the Supreme Court, all of them, cavanaugh, coney barrett, they are all religious zealots. Guest host we got your point. Your response . Guest im a catholic so i am a practicing catholic. I dont want to be accused of any catholic bias here. The way with that i would where the criticism i dont know if the caller would agree with this characterization but the way i would word the criticism is that the right wing majority thats on the Supreme Court is right now sort of using religion or weaponizing religion and treating it as a pretext to justify things they are trying to do for ideological reasons. For instance, we had a case that was determined this past term that said that a business, if they have a religiously grounded belief that samesex marriage is wrong, that they can deny service to patrons that might come into their store because they disagree with a gay couples ability to get married. In that case, they are using or weaponizing or twisting or contorting the idea of religious liberty as a pretext for justifying certain people to carry out discrimination against people in samesex marriages. We saw a few years ago, a carveout to theaca mandate to provide Reproductive Health benefits to women. The Supreme Court said an employer has a religiousbased belief that they dont want to provide or contribute to Reproductive Health benefits, they should be able to not do so. My argument would be that they are twisting the idea of religious liberty and using it as a legally based argument to justify conservative outcomes they are trying to reach in these cases. Host brian fallon, demand justice cofounder and outgoing executive director there on the web at demand justice. Org. Nice to talk to you. Guest thanks for having me. Great rest of your day. Host after the break, we will be joined by mark mx. , the president of the national right to Work Foundation and we will talk about whats driving recent labor unrest across the country. Stay with us. Cspans campaign 2020 for coverage your front row seat to the president ial election. Watch her coverage of the candidates on the campaign trail, with announcements, meet and greets, speeches and events to make up your own mind. Campaign 2024 on the cspan networks, cspan now, our free mobile video app or anytime online at cspan. Org. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. American history tv saturdays on cspan2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. At 3 p. M. Eastern, watch the second part of the Calvin Coolidge centennial Conference Marking the centinela of the 30th president s ascension to the white house. At 930 p. M. Eastern on the presidency, the former white house photographer for president Ronald Reagan and barack obama talks about the daytoday workings of the president including the history making moments he witnessed. Exploring the american story, watch American History tv saturdays on cspan2 and find a full schedule in your Program Guide watch online anytime at cspan. Org history. The books include empire of the summer moon and his latest, his majestys airship. At 10 p. M. Eastern on afterwords, matt lewis of the with his book explores have american politics was fueled by wealth and offers suggestions on how to hold Election Officials more accountable. He was interviewed by the real clear politics journalist. Watch it every sunday on cspan2 d find a full schedule in your Program Guide or watch online anytime at book tv. Org. In 1848, husband and wife william and ellen kraft barked embarked on a journey of self emancipation disguised as a white woman with a servant and they left georgia while trying to conceal their identities. The author of master, slate, husband, wife recounts their harrowing journey north and the impact of the fugitive slave law passed two years later. Sunday night at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a which you can listen to on our free cspan now app. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back. I am joined by the president of the national right to work Legal Defense foundation, mark makes, welcome to the program. Guest good to be on with you, thank. You for the opportunity host remind us of the organization and what you do and how you are funded. Guest weve been around since 1968. Our mission is to provide Legal Services to employees whose rights have been violated by compulsory arrangements. That manifests itself in lots of different ways but since 1968, we literally help hundreds of thousands employees to exercise their rights in the american workplace. We have 20 lawyers that provide Free Services to workers across the country. We have anywhere from 200250 active cases on behalf of employees. We see we sue unions and employers when they violate rights. We been to the Supreme Court 18 times and once a major victories an individual employee rights. We believe everyone should have the right to join a union but no one should be forced. Host i will remind our viewers that if you would like to call in and make a comment, you can do so and our lines are republicans, 202 7488001, democrats 202 7488000 and independents 202 7488002. We also have a line set aside for labor Union Members. If you are a union member, you can call us at 202 7488003. The number of strikes have been increasing. I will show a graph here from axios from 20212023 and you can see those numbers increasing. This is the number of strikes going from 80 in 2021 up to one of the 46. This is the estimated number of striking workers increasing. What you think is behind that . Guest i think workers across the country have looked at the conditions of the economy with inflation and other things. Not keeping up with inflation is an important part of ones financial stability. Unfortunately for the last couple of years, inflation has been running rampant because of dramatic increases in government spending. Stimulating the economy in a way that encourages people to stay home and not go to work is something i think reflects that as well. Theres been an increasing number of strikes and labor disputes and part of the reason is because joe bidens department of labor and the National Relations board have decided that they are going to use the tools they have to basically encourage unionization. Joe biden said that and said he wants to promote unions, promote unions and i think a lot of Union Officials understand that and they think when they think of the department of labor and the National Relations board against them, its probably something they dont expect so they can be more aggressive than they have been previously. Host on this show, this map from your website, this is a map of right to work states. You can check your state and the darker blue is a right to work state. The gray is what you call a unionism state and explain more about how that works. Doesnt it depend on what kind of job you have, for example federal government workers all have the right to not join a union including postal workers. What about the private sector . Guest in the private sector, there is a low going back to the 1930s that compels individuals to Pay Union Dues or fees on a condition of keeping a job. It was the Roosevelt Administration that twice passed a bill that basically gave Union Officials the power to force their representation on workers. Even if you didnt ask for it or didnt vote for it and didnt want to union, you could be compelled to associate with that union. To add insult to injury, you can be forced to pay dues to the union to keep your job. The context of compulsory unity unions as a result of federal action. The right to work states, one state michigan repealed their law but those laws are very simple. They say you cannot be compelled as a condition of your employment to pay dues or fees. To a union its that simple. Right to work laws say nothing about your ability to join a union or to participate in a union or purchase of it if you choose to do so next the operative point. The states that have them, the 27 states that have laws in place now protect your right for Union Activity to also protect your right to say no to the Financial Support of a labor union. Host lets talk about where americans are on this. Gallup polling shows most americans expressed support for unions. However, the numbers are going down as far as whos joining. Its from 1983. It was 18 million workers which was 20 and in 2022, only 10 of workers according to the bureau of labor statistics. How do you jibe at those two numbers, support for unions with membership going down . Guest thats a great question. The answer is because Union Officials have continued to rely on government power and Government Action to maintain their members. Over the last couple of decades, Union Officials are more interested in bodies than the minds of the workers they claim to represent. When they provide a product that workers want to buy, they will buy it. Voluntary unionism was at the core of the Labor Union Movement in the late 1800s. Samuel gompers, the president of the afl in his final speech to Union Delegates in el paso, texas in 1924 urged the delegates to contain and maintain their view of voluntary unionism. He said if youre going to course workers, youre going to lose the energy that naturally exists within an organization that brought together through voluntary means. When you have adherence as opposed to bodies, Union Movement can be stronger. Instead of spending time organizing workers, their spending time playing politics and a lot of workers must country disagree with their political stance and the fact that there are literally hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars playing politics every two years and that turns workers off. Gallup shows that 71 of americans have a favorable opinion. The important part of that pole was the next question are you interested in joining a union and 58 of workers said they had no interest whatsoever. Well they are popular in the idea and concept is something people support, the idea of compulsion and forces something americans reject. Host if a union does decide to strike and there are some members of the union and some are not members, what happens . Is everyone forced to strike . Guest its one of the areas where the national right to Work Foundation make sure that employees know their rights when it comes to a labor dispute. The Railroad Worker strike that threatened last year and the ups strike that ended a week before the contract expired. We got a uaw strike potentially in september for 144,000 auto workers expired in the present of the uaw said they were willing to take the workers out on strike like the teamsters. As a nonmember of a union, you can cross a picket line. If you are a member of the union and cross the picket line, you will be subject to discipline by the union through their internal process. We had Health Workers across the country whether it be caterpillar or ups or Grocery Stores who decided they wanted to cross the picket line and go to work and feed their families. Yet they were punished with fines up to three or 4000 for the grocery workers, up to 40,000 in penalties and fines for manufacturing workers at caterpillar and other places. The foundation tries to make you understand you have to resign your Union Membership before you cross the picket line but otherwise you are subject to those funds. On our website, we have Legal Notices for workers where strikes are imminent where they can find out what their rights are and walk through the process to make sure they are not penalized. If they want to go on strike, have at it. When it comes to a union penalizing or disciplining you, that something you need to understand the rules before you make a decision. Host this is from text from bakersfield guest i do, absolutely. Unions are private organizations and advocating for things they believe will help their members is something they are supposed to do and something their missions as they are doing but when you force workers into these organizations, thats where we disagree. I dont know if you disagree with that but supporting unions, absolutely. I growth in a union household. We understood the value of that. Sometimes there is little less value like in terms of strikes but if they are advocating for host lets talk to zack in baltimore, maryland. Independent. Caller i have two things i want to say. One, the guest referenced his victories in the Supreme Court, which i thought was funny to immediately do after our prior guest demonstrated the Supreme Court has a lot of flaws. Second, i think it is important to stress labor unions need. To assert power. If it is 50 union and 50 right to work people crossing the line, they cannot exert power if they are not able to completely remove labor from the equation in order to bargain and get what they need to get. Guest yes, look. Full participation predicates on force. That is the idea. You would have us believe no worker would oppose something unions do. I say there is a lot of opposition of Union Officials are doing, and protecting individual rights to that degree is important. You talk about the Supreme Court. Our Supreme Court victories go back to i think we have been arguing since the 1990s. The flow of the court has changed dramatically. It has not been this court or that court, but these issues are about individual employee rights. Our supporting Supreme Court when justice scorches words there, cited workers had a First Amendment right to object to government and government unions using money to advocate government policy. And said, this is a First Amendment question. The idea of giving force to a private organization to compel 100 agreement in what they are doing does not make sense to me and is the antithesis of what it means for this country. Host phil is a union member in colorado springs. Caller hi there. The right to work is a right to work for less. In the states that have the right to work, their wages are usually lower. If you do not want to join a union, do not go to work in that particular business. If you want to join a union that has benefits, retirement, health and welfare, some security, things like that, that is why you join. The right to work is a right to work for less. To say that he is in favor of unions and in favor of right to work is totally bogus. He is blowing smoke. Host what do you think, mark . Guest you are wrong about that. When you look at the cost of living and say it has an impact on the wages you may, we know workers and a right to work state have almost 3000 more in disposable income to spend than their brothers and sisters in forced union states. A lot of organizations that want to make this statement that workers make less do not adjust for cost of living. When they do, they found out workers and write to work states are better off. Do the math, compare apples to apples and i note occurs in right to work states are doing fine. The idea of forcing someone in is something we object to as a country. We give government certain abilities to use force, but not to private organizations. The notion a private organization could force you for one hundred percent compliance for everything they believe is wrong. Most americans, a large majority oppose that. Right to work does not stop anyone from joining a union. It does not stop anyone from giving their entire paycheck to a union if they choose to. It will not contemplate the idea of compulsion and force and firing you if you choose not to do those things. Host i want to point out to our viewers since we are talking about workers and jobs, the jobs numbers have just come out from the department of labor. U. S. Economy creates 187,000 new jobs in july as the labor slowdown continues. There is a continuing cooling. The on employment rate has fallen to 3. 5 percent. Economists had expected job gains to total 200,000 with unemployment remaining unchanged at 3. 6 . Cornell is our next caller, waterford works. Democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning, mimi. Good morning, mark. That, what you are doing, mark is just a backdoor way of unionbusting. Anytime i am paying union dues and the gentleman working next to me is not paying union dues, which those wages that were negotiated through the union he is getting the same benefits that i am getting, but he does not Pay Union Dues. Also, someone early called it the word union. To be one, it is imperative to be one. As far as since Ronald Reagan busted the air traffic controllers, unions been on the decline. The unions are the ones that created the middle class. The unions created the 40 hour workweek. The unions created sick pay and health benefits. All of those things are on a decline. Every time there is a bill that is to raise the minimum wage, it is the republicans that are against it. You are a republican. You can talk about your family as a union worker, you are a disgrace to your family. Guest my family still likes me. They invite me to thanksgiving dinner. We share turkey. We have debates about issue. Your view is you are a voluntary union member. You believe in the Union Movement but cannot force me to believe that. You cannot force anyone else to believe it. Your notion about the benefits, the socalled benefits. This is a power Union Officials had, to force every Single Person into this monopoly they have. You call this exclusive representation, it was created back in the 19 30s and gave the union if they gave you 49. 9 people voted against the union and the rest voted for unionization, every single individual worker was forced into that association. Using force for a private organization is wrong. We know politically, a large group of Union Members vote against the candidates of the union recommends. You talked about Ronald Reagan and the air traffic controllers. Federal law says it federal employees go on strike, they could be fired. Ronald reagan gave them 24 hours to go back on the job, they did not do it and he followed the law. Ronald reagan did that. He did not break the union. He said, we are going to enforce the law. If you do not agree, you are going to lose your job. Im sorry you think i am a disgrace to my family. I believe in individual freedom. I would protect your right to join a union if you choose to do so and if an employer says you cannot, we will fight for you, too. Host we got a text from nick in pennsylvania who asks, did union action help because the collapse of yellow fright . Guest that is a great question. As we look at 22,000 teamsters out of work, when you look at the yellow freight situation, yellow freight was in trouble financially. They had offered a reformation plan for the company that the union agreed to on the west coast called yellow one. I am not going to stand up for the management of the company. They lost money and are in real financial problems. When the union says, when sean obrien says we are going to let them go, you wonder. Frankly, i think it was one of their Union Officials who said if you cannot afford the cost of labor, get the f out of the business. That attitude when it comes to 22,000 jobs for teamster members are something i think most people would disagree with. They did shut down. Well see what happens in the future. Hopefully, those workers can get new jobs. What is interesting about the teamsters and the central pension fund, the reason the teamsters said they are going to go on strike was yellow wanted postponement of the contribution to the central state Employee Pension fund. The teamster unions got 36. 5 billion of taxpayer money to back up a failed Business Enterprise they were in charge of. On one hand, the taxpayers give them 36. 5 billion to bail out a pension fund that was going to go broke on behalf of 300,000 retirees in 2025. When yellow says give us a break on the pension fund part, they said, no. That ended the demise of the company. Host bob is a republican in waxhaw, north carolina. Is that how you pronounce it . Caller that is it. Birthplace of andrew jackson. Host go ahead. Caller hey, mark. I would just like to say, keep up the good work. I want i 100 support what you are doing. I will not get on a soapbox like the guy a couple of callers go dead. One of the things i would like to emphasize is, we are basically in a Global Environment in a competition standpoint. Unions did an awful lot of good in this country. There is a lot of problems in manufacturing from a safety standpoint, from favoritism being showed two different people. Unions working together help that out. Over the years with nothing but the want, want, want attitude a lot of union folks have had, a lot of manufacturing, a lot of plants have gone overseas. Because, we are in a Global Environment. A lot people do not realize that. They had they want more money here . Ok, we will bring something from china and the product will be sold for a better price. With that being said, and i can tell you Horror Stories about a union which you have heard yourself. What is your opinion of companies, particularly in manufacturing, proposing things like a scanlon plan, which may provide employees buyin to raw Profit Sharing of the company and the overall improvement of a specific plant . I was involved in helping form one of those, probably about 40 years ago. As far as i know, that plant is still using it and is still a nonunion plant. Host lets get an answer. Guest that is an interesting point. Oftentimes, when those types of its surface and people Start Talking about having individual employees or employee committees working with management when it comes to what is going on in the plant, whether ownership in a 401 k plan, innovations to get employees more involved in the operation of the business and helping them participate from a profit standpoint and management standpoint, it makes sense. One thing that blocks that it has been tried. I think it was xerox tried an employee committee. You know who blocks that is the union, they want to be the sole voice in the workplace. They want to be in between individual employees and management. That type of monopoly power gives them dramatic control over the workers. The power unions have over employers is the power they have over employees and forced unionism does that. Having employees and management Work Together the scanlon plan, i had not heard of that. But it makes sense. Employers understand that. They know if they are harming their employees, those employees are going to work someplace else or someone else will come into the marketplace and replace that employer. That is way the way the market system works. Employer systems need to take care of their employees. Host President Biden likes to say he is the most prounion president in u. S. History. Tell me about the impact his policies have had on unions. Guest that is a great question. He has said he is the most prounion president. Let me translate that. It is about Union Officials that afford him politically. Lets take the Keystone Pipeline, a Major Construction project coming from canada to the middle of the United States. That was a Union Project only agreement. Before the election, joe biden said he would stop the construction of the Keystone Pipeline. Yet, the operating Engineers Union endorsed joe biden, and a week after he gets into office, he shuts it down and those Union Numbers are out of work on the unemployment line. That is not helpful to rank and file workers. He is in favor of big unions. The programs he supports, whether the socalled Inflation Reduction Act or the cares act, those things have empowered Union Officials. There is rumbling among rank and file workers when you talk about electric vehicles and the Infrastructure Investments there. There has been a letter from several members of the senate across the street talking about, why a right to work state should not participate that in that. Union officials really like him. Rank and file workers, not so much. Host lets talk to james next. North carolina, a union member. Caller good morning. I do not know why you got him up there. He do not even know about his second family is a union member, but he do not act a union member. I am a union member. A union out of hackensack, new jersey. I retired as a truck driver. My wife getting a long good, she passed away. We still take a trip, i am getting ready to go on another trip to hawaii. I do not know what he talking about. We got the best benefits. Born here in north carolina, was a teamster member. Host ok. James . Guest he is from north carolina. North carolina is a right to work state. He is a teamster member. More power to you, james. Your teamster pension was going to go broke in 2025. This was from 1955 where they took multi employer money invested in Florida Real Estate and casinos and las vegas. Lots of things that were not prudent and ended up under oversight by the government because it was going broke. It was going to go broke in 2025, until the taxpayers had to bail them out to the tune of 36. 5 billion. Your pension is now intact angst to the taxpayers of the United States. You are a happy union member. There are lots of happy Union Members. There are also a lot of bodies out there in the sense of those workers that are forced to accept the union as their spokesperson in the workplace and forced in 23 states to Pay Union Dues or fees to keep a job. Host we have a tweet from gigi that says, if someone does not want to be in a union, they should not benefit from the higher wages, health care and other benefits that unions get for its members through collective bargaining. What do you think . Guest that is a topically attractive argument, one that people make all the time when it comes to forced unionism and the idea of unions. Here is the facts. Union officials enjoy and demand and protect their right to be the exclusive bargaining agent in a unionized environment. That means they are the single, sole voice in that organization. Workers cannot get out, they cannot represent under federal law and in rare circumstances are there opportunities for individual workers to represent themselves and speak to the employer directly. They cannot do that under the law. It is an unfair labor practice if an individual tries to get out. We agree with it, they should represent their members only, the people that willingly joined and want to amplify their voiced unionization ought to be able to do that. No way, know how should a union be able to corral workers who did not ask for, did not vote for and never wanted a union to force them to accept the union as their bargaining agent in the work place. That is the first injustice. The second is forcing workers to pay for their violation of First Amendment rights. Host st. Petersburg, good morning. Caller a couple quick things. In the last 15 years or so when republicans have gotten control of the states, they turned the state in the right to work state. A couple of instances of misery saying one, 50 of the people misery misery missouri, the people were able to put it on the ballot. It was overwhelmingly rejected, or turned back into a union state. If you look at the top 10 lowest medium state income states are all right to work states, i believe the top 10 are not right to work states. Your top 10 states on welfare are right to work states. Guest not true, not true. Look at california. I think 30 of all welfare recipients are in california today, not a right to work state. Caller i am talking about the top 10. What about the other nine . Guest look at the you are probably siding a study about the wages. That study has been defunct. It is the Missouri Economic Research committee that does the costofliving breakup between right to work states and nonright to work states. When you use the merrick data, you find out right to work states are better off than worst union states when it comes to disposable income. The idea of an apartment in manhattan being onebedroom being 4000 a month and a house in utah only costing 2000 a month, even though the worker in new york makes 95 a worker a our, who is better off . In america, your Government Institution did that study. If you look at their data and apply it to the right to work states versus the nonright to work states, you will find out workers who can exercise their freedom and right to work states are better off. Private Sector Employment growth is doubled in right work states. Manufacturing growth in right to work states has quadrupled. Economically, host we will debate you any day of the week when it comes to right to work states, freedom versus coercion. I think freedom wins. Spencer is a union member in alabama. Caller good morning. I just listened to this man. I bet he has never worked a union job in his life. He has never worked a nonunion job. He has never got his hands dirty. I worked for a nonunion company one time. What they were doing, we when we would work overtime, they would cut our hours in a third and pay us straight time. They never paid us over time. I paid i turned them in and we got our money. We need to find out who did this, but we find out who did it, they going to fire us. But, i worked a union job now for almost next may, it will be 50 years. I was able to put my son through College Without borrowing. I was able to put him into law school. Who is better off . A nonunion worker or a union worker . A union worker is better off toone. I do not care what this guy says. He is a lunatic. Guest [laughter] host no need to get personal. Guest spencer lives in a right to work state. He is a happy, volunteer union member. Good 4 u. You do not know who i am or where i came from. The notion i will have you call some of my friends in new york state and they will verify i worked midnight to 8 00 in a ceramic plant in my college days. Worked at a grocery store, worked selling feed in alabama. You have no idea who i am. You cannot make those comments. I will protect your right to be in a union. You may not protect my right to do what i want to do. My passion is individual freedom for workers, never allowing a private organization to compel them to pay dues or fees to get a better job. Host weve got a question from mark in new york on text who says, what is the guest view on ceos getting thousands and thousands of times higher pay and the employees . Guest you know, i do not think about it. It is probably wrong. Making that much money, 35 million a year is too much. I think employees take offense to that. There are opportunities for employees and management to Work Together. That is not the issue i want to talk about. The issue i want to talk about is forced unionism. The idea of ceo pay is something the union talks a lot about that. They have their executive pay watch. Host the Supreme Court put out a ruling this term on making it easier for companies to sue over strikes and recover damages for economic harm. Obviously, that is a setback for unions. What is your guest not at all. The sent it to Washington State. The issue was, a unionized a union decided to call their workers on strike but did not let the employer know they were going to do that. This was a cement company in Washington State. They loaded the trucks up with cement. They went and drove around and brought them back to the yard and left cement trucks sit there with the drums rolling. Cement has a shelf life. The employer finding out they were nine trucks they did not know where on the lot said, we have got to get rid of this cement. The question was, can the employer sue the union in state court for the intentional destruction of property the idea under strike laws in the country, there is different strikes about lawful strikes and unlawful strikes. The idea the union has to protect property is something that comes with the National Labor reactions Labor Relations act. This was the intentional destruction of property. The question was, can the employer sue the union for this intentional instruction of property . The Supreme Court in Washington State said no. The u. S. Supreme court said, if they are going to intentionally strike property, we believe that should be relooked at at the state level. If you are going to intentionally destroy property, you may be held liable under state law. Host denny in dover, pennsylvania. Republican line. Caller good morning. First time caller. I was a union member for 34 years before my company went out of business. President biden is such a Union Supporter, but right now, the union, just like yellow going out of business there is an awful lot of low wage people coming across the border. He is talking on both sides of his mouth. He is supporting the union, but on the other hand, he is letting these low wage earners come in to the United States. And, kind of forcing the higher wage earners out of business. Guest that is a interesting point. When you go back to the 1980s and we talk about Immigration Reform under reagan, it was Lane Kirkland that was probably the most adamant about protecting our borders and rank and file workers in the country from that type of migration into the country that would replace those workers. Now, Union Officials in washington, d. C. Are very much in favor of this open border immigration policy. I think rank and file Union Members across the country say, how can this be an official to us . There is a growing separation between rank and file Union Members and Union Officials in the country. I think joe biden is more of a fan of Union Officials in the country then he is the working men and women of the country. I think his policies have proven that out, including the immigration issue. Host james is a union member in lawrenceburg, tennessee. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host what do you think, james . Caller good morning. I would just like to see if the guest could clarify something for me. As a union member and as a bargaining official at one time, why is the union forced to if someone gets in trouble with management, and they file a grievance or something, and the union is forced to represent that nonpaying union member if not, that union is subject to penalties and lawsuits for not representing a nondues paying person in the Bargaining Union. Why is that . That is a double standard. You talk about the unions being a private muniz city. But, the union is forced to represent someone that does not want to pay dues. Once wants the benefits. Guest james lives in tennessee, a right to work state and is a happy union member. The idea of grievance, if you were on the Grievance Committee or you look at your contract, the contract that lays out the terms and conditions of employment or workers in the Bargaining Union desk unit, you will find the union controls that grievance process. That is part of the process of the contract. The union can decide if they are going to take it. Phase one, the union has to be involved in most instances. Generally, the union if somebody gets in trouble or has a problem, the union must listen to them and sit in on grievance procedures. The union is to decide if that grievance goes forward. A grievance is the argument of the conditions of the contract that were negotiated by the union. They have invested interest in being involved in this process. Imagine a worker found out there was a problem with his or her paycheck. The employer said, we are going to give you another 100 bucks this week because we screwed up. The union is going to object because of a violation to contract. The union does not decide to represent those workers. The duty of representation was a creation of a judicial case in 1944 called steel versus louisville. This was an instance where Union Officials white Union Officials decided they were not going to her present black Union Members because of the color of their skin. They said, if you are going to be in control of the livelihood of every worker under this union contract, you are going to represent those workers whether they are white, black, Union Members were not. You have asked for this exclusive monopoly privilege. You have been granted a power almost people to that of a legislature. If you are going to take that and hold onto that privilege and power, you are going to represent the nonunion workers when it comes to grievances. Host all right, mark mix at an rtw. Org. Thank you for coming in. Guest my pleasure. Thank you. Appreciate it. Host more of your phone calls after the break in open forum, your chance to weigh in on any Public Policy or political topic on your mind. You can start calling in now. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. We will be right back. In 1848, husband and wife william and ellen kraft embarked on a journey of self emancipation disguised as a wealthy disabled white man with his servant. They left georgia avoiding slave traders, Law Enforcement and friends while trying to conceal their identities. The author of master slave husband wife recounts their harrowing journey north and the impact of the fugitive slave law passed two years later. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q and a. You can listen to q and a and all of our podcasts on our free cspan now app. Cspan shop. Org is cspans online store. Browse through our collection of products, apparel, books, home to core and accessories. There is something for every span fan and every purchase help support our nonprofit operation. Shop now or anytime at cspanshop. Org. Book tv every sunday on cspan two features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. Live at noon eastern on indepth, bestsellinguthor and historian sv gwen will be your guest to talk about native American History, the civil war and more. His books include empire of the summer moon, rebel yell and his latest, his majesties airship. At 10 00 p. M. Stern on afterwards, matt lewis of the daily beast with his book. Explores how american politics is fueled by wealth and offers suggestions on how to hold elected officials more accountable. He was interviewed by a. B. Stoddard. Watch tv every sunday on the span to and cpa or watch any time on book tv. Org. American history tv, sadder saturdays on cspan2 exploring people and events that tell the american story. At 3 00 p. M. Eastern, watch the second part of the Calvin Coolidge centennial conference talking the centennial of the 30th president s ascension to the white house. At 9 30 p. M. Eastern, preet pete souza talks about the daytoday workings of the presidency including the history making moments he witnessed exploring the american story, watch American History tv saturdays on cspan2 and find a full schedule on your Program Guide or watch online anytime at the span. Org cspan. Org history. Host washington journal continues. Welcome back. It is open forum. I am taking your calls until the end of the program. Another 25 minutes on whatever you want to talk about. Lets get started with johnny in charleston, south airliner. Democrat. Caller good morning. I just to Say Something about this union fellow who was on your program earlier. He is correct. You are supposed to represent someone, even if he is not a union member because that is in the contract. He is right about that. Another thing. Your first caller from georgia, they are always fired up about something. He was fired up. Maybe he can get some sleep now because donald trump is going to jail. Host all right. Lets talk to mike next. Elk grove, missorui. Independent. Caller good morning, mimi. You full as ever. Host thank you. Caller it makes me want to throw up every time i see his face on cspan. The right to work means you have got the right to work for less. Nobody forces you to be in a union. You make the choice between better wages and make the choice between health care and the choice between when you are older and having a pension. Those rings cost. People come together in a union and agree to pay to get those things at the end of their life and have money at the end of their life. I am a union member. I live on my pension. Thank god there was a union for me to be in. My main thing is, no one forces you to be in a union. It is a choice. Do you want to make less per hour, do you want to not have health care and do you want to try and live on Social Security at the end of your life . Those are the choices you make. If you want those things, you have to be part of the group that pays those things. You know, that is just the way it is. Ive got one other thing to say about hunter biden. I wish the republicans would either come out with some proof, or shut up. All they are doing is throwing accusations out with no proof. We lost our witness, our witness went to jail. That is a bunch of baloney. Thank you for taking my call. Host frank is a democrat in utah. Good morning. Caller i would like to comment on the gentleman on their earlier who talked about unions. He did say he worked for a while in a situation where he had to work in the heat. I worked in a steel plant for 25 years. I know about heat and dangerous conditions. I noticed most of his discussion did not mention danger and Health Issues and stuff. The union at the steel plant, we would not have hardhats or safety glasses. That was all provided by the union. I have two relatives who were killed in that steel plant because they cut procedures. You had the lockout of equipment the company said, no, we do not want to take the time [indiscernible] and work on it without being voted on. Both of them got killed. There are a lot of things people do not think about when they put down union. Host all right, frank. From this article from reuters, this is exclusive new reuters about half of u. S. Republicans could spurn trump if he is convicted. It says, about half of republicans would not vote for donald trump if he were convicted of a felony. A sign of the severe risk his legal problems could pose for the 20 for president ial bid, according to a poll that just closed yesterday. A couple of programming notes to be awaref. First is tonight, former President Trump will be in summary, aba to speak at a dinner hosted by the republican alabama republican party. It is his first public event since being arraigned yesterday in federal court. We will have live coverage on csp at 8 00 p. M. Etern, it will be on our app, cspan now and online at cspan. Org. Today, the command of u. S. Southern command army general Laura Richardson will look at security challenges facing Latin Americat an event hosted by the cent for strategic and international studies. You can watch that live after this program at 10 00 a. M. It will be on our app and online. Today, a discussion on the economic challenges facing the u. S. , including inflation, Interest Rates and a potential recession. The Aspen Economic Strategy Group will be the host. You can watch that live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, the app and online. Rita is next in minneapolis, minnesota. Independent. Caller good morning. Your last guest is full of baloney. I used to live in montana and ive got history for him. In montana, there are big unions. They had the first union in the west, they worked with the iww and were good with the union. If republicans forget their past ron desantis is not big in the union anymore. He is more concerned about rigged elections. He does not care about unions. Unions are helpful. If you are not for unions, you get the fair share of the work you produce. In our freespeech world, we have the right to stand up and use our rights to unionize and speak out and do things. If the republicans want to be silly and say unions are bad, go forth and understand but unions help us in the times we needed them. You do not know you need them until it is too late. Unions help you. Host mary kay is in new jersey, democrat. Caller good morning. My concern is cspans coverage of the former guy. I do not understand. Could you explain to me why the question was asked this morning the way it was . Host what was bothering you about the question this morning caller first of all, it is always about the former guy. We have to remember the former guy is a convicted rapist. He has been twice impeached. He is now in his almost forth indictment. So, i do not understand why cspan would ask a question about the former guy. I think it is terrific that, this new poll about republicans not wanting to host support him if he was convicted . Caller sorry . Host yes. The poll states that almost half of republicans would not support him, may not support him, if he is convicted of a felony. Caller that is my concern with cspan with the question this morning, is enabling the former guy. Host dont you think it is important for us to talk about it . A former president got indicted and arraigned yesterday. Wouldnt you expect cspan to talk about it in the morning . Caller you could have been reading the indictment. Also, i have yet to see nancy pelosi talk about democracy. I have yet to see any democrat being interviewed on cspan. Host you have never seen a democrat interviewed on cspan . Caller cspan is dealing with the former guy. Host tony is in north carolina. Caller good morning. Like i said, i am retired. Washington, d. C. I am a lifetime member. Yall were talking about these different things. These numbers come from independent counties, not the state. Organized labor is where we get monetary value for workers in that area. It is different all over the country. Without Union Representation to help people that are not organized and have the Union Support to discover how much money they can make in those areas, and usually a handful of men that works for a Small Company and build that area, it is a very slow process. When we have so many people that say the union carolina freight was the number one union company. They have done the same thing these other companies are doing. Everybody knows, noble 16, they lost their money somehow. They merged with local five and 201. Host moving on to john in venice, florida, independent. Caller how are you doing this morning, thank you for taking my call. I want to say that everybody that is accused of crimes is innocent until proven guilty. I think they have been persecuting trump since day one. I am an independent. I look at both sides. I think the Mainstream Media and Government Agencies all cheated in the last election because they withheld things that would have mattered. One last point, why is nobody on the left screaming about White Privilege with this hunter biden thing . It seems to me like wesley snipes, ask him what he thinks about it. [laughter] he got put in jail for paying evading taxes. Pay your fair share. Host lee is a democrat in what may go, kansas. Caller thank you. Your last guest, mr. Mix, i do not know what planet he is from but the Keystone Pipeline is operational and has been since 2010. It is run by a company out of canada. It runs down to oklahoma and port arthur in houston. I would like cspan to verify to their satisfaction the Keystone Pipeline is operational and has been and to stop this stupid narrative of it being shut down and biden shut it down. It is running. In fact, it put 14,000 barrels of oil in a creek in washington county. I know the Keystone Pipeline is up and running. What people are talking about is the keystone xl pipeline. The Supreme Court did not issue the permits. It was a montana judge. United states is the number one producer of oil in the world. Let me repeat that for my republican friends. The United States is the number one producer of oil in the world, currently producing 12. 4 Million Barrels a day. Though to eia. Gov and get that information. And they say biden shut the oil fields down, how in the world are we producing 12. 4 Million Barrels of oil per day . That is more than any time in our history except for the six months prior to the pandemic when it got up to 13 million by trump. They are forecasting we will be at 13 million by early next year. The oil fields are open. Either way, 10 of all oil produced in the United States is done on government property. I would like for cspan to verify to their satisfaction the Keystone Pipeline is up and running and push back on people who say joe biden Keystone Pipeline down. Host ok. We are going to move on to mary in california, republican. Caller hi, mimi. Good to talk with you today. A few points to make regarding our nation and where it is headed. I am originally from the midwest , minnesota, i graduated from the university of minnesota as a nurse in 1984. I voted for while dale and ferrero. A lot people do not know who they are. Host i remember them. Caller she would have been the first female Vice President. She came from new york. Had a tough life. She was an educator, as well. They are both gone. I did not vote or reagan. Looking back, i thought he was a good president. I have been to his library. I think people should check it out. Pretty neat. He was a good man. A few weeks ago, i was watching the journal. A caller said, i want all republicans to be killed. Should that caller go to jail for that statement . What if someone acted on that . Is that person responsible . No. Trump can incensed insist he has the right to speak his mind. There are plenty of losers who do not accept the Election Results of 2016. Many did not accept those results. I am going to move on. January 6, how many thousands of people were there . Most of them went home after they heard trump and others speak. The people who did harm that they are being prosecuted, being tried. Please think about what you are saying when you call up and say, donald trump has something to do with the capital being run over. My next point is host one more point, quickly. Caller donald trump did a lot of great things for our country. I think he will be elected again. If he is in jail, i will write his name on my ballot. Host larry and helena, arkansas, independent. Caller good morning. Larry here. Ive got a novel idea. I am an independent. Why dont Oversight Committee the chairman and the top democrat invite all of the whistleblowers, all the top officials of the fbi, including the one in delaware and the ones over the irs guys, biden, his son and his partner, invite them involuntarily to invite them in voluntarily to the committee, get them hooked up on polygraph machines and start asking questions. From there, maybe we can save the country a lot of money and all of these indictments and everything, lets find out who is telling the truth and who is not. I thank you very much. Host all right. Nina, alpine, florida, democrat. Is it mcalpine . Caller it is mcalpine. I have a rant. Every news station i put on is all about trump, all the time. Im just so tired of it. On cspan at 8 00 tonight, youve got trump on there. I know there is other candidates talking and going to places. If the media would quit falling into his pay book, we could probably move on in this country. I know he was a good president , i get that. I cannot take the drama anymore. We have got to move on and have him as a blip, a fiveminute blip in the news instead of to our News Coverage all the time. Please, have a wonderful day. I appreciate you all very much. Host lets talk to brian next in pennsylvania, republican. Caller good morning, mimi. Youve got a radio voice and atv face. That is not a bad thing. Host thank you. Caller when it comes to unionism, i am not antiunion. I am antiPublic Sector union. These Government Employees that have unions and are becoming stronger and stronger and there is no contrary to it. What i mean by that, every taxpayer is paying for these public unions, whether in iowa all the way up to any government worker. That is unionized. Even nonunionized government workers, we are paying for it. The bigger and larger a government gets, it is going to be unaffordable. I do not think some of these publicsector unions, whether teachers unions, trash people they are vital people, but i am not real strong about their unions. The taxpayers are paying for their unions in essence. Everything that they do, win them people go out and shop and buy things, it is because of the private sector, because of what our taxes provide them people a living. I just do not agree with Public Sector unionism and how strong it is and what it leads to, it will lead to pure socialism. As we grow and grow government. It is a problem. I hope it can be rectified. I do not see it being rectified. I think eventually, the United States is going to become a socialized country. Host lets go to the independent line. Georgia, al, good morning. Caller good morning, how are you this morning . Host good. Caller all these people that called the Trump Supporters are the limbo supporters. They brought all this hatred and animosity toward everybody. Trump did not have any good friends he could bring to the white house. If he was a good citizen, he would have brought good people that would defend his honor. The only people that defend his honor are the limbo supporters. This was always as a black man, my grandfather was a slave. I always thought this was the greatest country in the world. I do not feel that way anymore. I did not know john kennedy was a democrat or independent. Only thing i know, he was with the president that got killed. Until we can get back to where we feel good about who we are as a country, we aint going anywhere. This divisiveness is destroying the country from the inside out. I love this country. I wish these people would let this man this man came into the white house. He was building property over there so putin could have a free place to live. People, wake up. This country needs you to wake up. Thank you. Host lets go to syracuse, new york, republican, ray. Caller good morning, mimi. I agree, you are easy on the eyes. Your voice is a strong presence. I love your voice, especially a question you asked somebody in a somewhat dubious comment. You immediately asked a probing question. I appreciate that from you guys. You guys are journalists and you act like one. The other comments about trump, yes, everyone hates him. I do not care if he runs or not. If he is prevented or in jail, i am going to vote for him no matter what because he is still the best candidate. It is that simple. I think most people will be doing that. Host lets talk to iris in alabama, independent. Caller good morning. I appreciate yall and your forum. Mine is more of a personal statement. Usually, i am an independent for a reason. I like to vote for the character and the politics of a person. With trump, his character, i do not like his character. I had intentions of even probably voting for him in the beginning until he said what he said about john mccain. How could an american say that about anyone that served our country, and was in a pow camp for six years . How could anyone even vote for somebody like that, that had a character like that, he likes the ones that did not get caught . Mr. Mccain had not been over there fighting for us, he would not have got caught anywhere. While donald trump was on the golf with his spur on his foot and couldnt serve. We know they were paid off for him to not serve. Not only the things hes said about women. And if we have to question the state of mind of a man thats running for president , do you really think he needs to be president if we got to question a state of mind about a president . Are we what we vote you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Would we have a child molester running for president or accused of running for president . And let it be ok . Host all right. Lets go to edna in chicago on the democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking michael. I would like to make a statement. I would like to say to all young people who are 18 or older, registered to vote. You have to vote to save your country. Make sure that you register and vote these twolegged critters out of washington. We have a group of senators and congressmen in washington who have been there too long, too set in their ways. Vote. Thank you. Byebye. Host john in houston, texas, republican. Good morning. Caller let me say two quick things. They follow up on the last caller. Let me quantify that by saying, before that 18yearold votes, registers to vote, ask he or she how is it that, at 18, they can vote . And the answer is because during the vietnam war, when 18yearold boys were dying on the battlefield, the voting age at the time was 21. And that was part of the issue. They said if we can die on the battlefield in southeast asia, we cannot vote, thats wrong. So congress lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. So they can