Host good morning. It is saturday, march 9. The Senate Passed a 468 billion spending bill, funding for about half the federal government set to lapse today but the white house has put preparations for a partial Government Shutdown on hold since President Biden plans to sign the legislation today. Decisive wins on super tuesday by President Biden and former President Donald Trump. We want to hear your top news story of the week. Our phone number for republicans is 202 7488001. Free democrats for democrats, 202 7488000. Independents can reach us at 202 7488002. If you would like to text us that number is 202 7488003. Include your name and where you are writing from. On social media, facebook. Com cspan and on x at at cspan wj. Nikki haley decided to suspend her campaign. Here her comments. [video clip] i am filled with gratitude for the outpouring of support we have received from across our country. The time has come to suspendcampaign. I said i wanted americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets. And although i will no longer be a candidate, i will not stop using my voice for the things i believe in. Debt will eventually crush our economy. A smaller federal government is not only necessary for our freedom. It is necessary for our survival. The road to socialism is the road to ruin for america. Our congress is dysfunctional and only getting worse. It is filled with followers, not leaders. Term limits for washington politicians are needed now more than ever. Our world is on fire because of americas retreat. Standing by our allies in ukraine, israel and taiwan is a moral imperative. But its more than that. Further, there will be more war, not less. While we stand strong for the cause of freedom, we must bind together as americans. We must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division. I will continue to promote all those values as is the right of every american. President , but in our great country, being a private citizen is privilege enough in itself, and that is a privilege i very much look forward to enjoying. In all likelihood, donald trump will be the republican nominee when i congratulate him and wish him well. I wish anyone well who would be americas president. Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us. I have always been a conservative republican and always supported the republican nominee, but on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind. It is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not supportthat. At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause not turning them away, and our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing. Host some of the other big news stories we have been following at cspan include the fact that that bidenfrom rematch is set but also that no labels have decided to push ahead with a unity ticket. We also had news of the Supreme Court restoring donald trump spell it Donald Trumps ballotsweden joining nato as well as usaid the higher gear with those air drops. The state of the union was thursday night and during that speech President Biden highlighted the american economy. One of the pieces of news we had related to the economy included the latest job numbers. Heres a story from the Washington Post. The u. S. Job market remains resilient. The 39th consecutive month of gains but unemployment rises. The u. S. Economy added 275,000 jobs in february, a sign of continued strength for the jobs market. The Unemployment Rate rose from 3. 7 in january to 3. 9 according to the labor departments jobs report friday, extending the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 in decades. The report marked the 39th straight month of job gains in what economists an exceptionally strong recovery from widespread job losses wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. We are starting off with ray in ithaca, new york on our republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. The number one story of the week is the Supreme Court with a 90 decision that allows President Trumplots. You would of anger and if any candidate was taken off. Host thank you. Next duke in stonington, maryland on our independent line stonington, maine. Good morning. Caller good morning. My top story of the week as far as im concerned is the state of the Union Address. I have never entirely listen to an entire state of the Union Address in my life. I have always listened to bits and pieces or see with the news had to say but as far as im concerned joe biden knocked it out of the park. I was on the fence as a nikki haley supporter. I never in one million lifetimes would vote for donald trump. Like i makes me sick. I cannot stand to look at him. He wants to be a dictator. Joe did a good job. Im throwing my support behind him. Is he perfect . No. Not by a longshot. But i will tell you hes the lesser of two evils and i will vote for joe. Thank you. Host thank you. On x mlb agrees with you in that regard. President s state of the Union Address is the biggest story. The president made it clear that he sees the election as an existential struggle between democracy and extremism. President ess thursday to launch a series of attacks against former President Trump, a competitor he did not mention by name but make clear what the dire threat to american democracy. Energy has allies and aides had hoped he would display to warn what could happen should ukraine continue to lose ground to russia, invoking an overseas war of his address, an unusual introduction to his speech that was in many ways a political argument for his reelection. President biden thursday night did make that in his vision for the country versus that of the former president. Heres a portion of those remarks. [video cli i was told i am too young. I have been told im too old. Whether young or old i have always known what indoors. I have known our northstar. We have neve lived up to that idea but we have never walked away from it either and i will not walk away from it now. I am optimistic. I really am. I am optimistic. My fellow americans, the issue facing our nation anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas but you cannot lead america with ancient to lead america, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. That was President Biden thursday night at the state of the union. We have tyrone in new york on our democratic line. What is your top news story of the week . Caller the money he is getting for his bail. Its crazy to me that a man out on bail is running for president and can win. Theres people i gave him this money for this the people that gave him money for this e. Jean carroll situation have ties to russia. People need to Pay Attention to where hes getting this money from and who he will be beholden to. We need to Pay Attention to the people we are putting in office. Its unbelievable to me you can become president if you have felonies but you cannot vote if you have a felony charge. We need to Pay Attention to the people we are putting in office. Host thanks. More information on that story that tyrone was mentioning. Heres a piece from abc news. Trump secures a 91 million bond for judgment in e. Jean carroll Defamation Case. He also filed a notice of appeal in the case. It says former President Donald Trump has secured a 91,630,000 bond for a judgment in his Defamation Case brought by the writer e. Jean carroll. He obtained an appeals bond from an Insurance Company to cover the 83 million judgment in the case interest according to a court filing friday morning. He also filed a notice of appeal of theudgment to the u. S. Court of appeals for the second circuit. Either paying the judgment or posting a bond for the full amount was required for him to move ahead with the appeal. Now lets go back to your calls. Mary is an fort washington,land on our democratic line. Caller good morning. Like the previous caller said, number 45 is so bad and dangerous we dont have any problem only against him. Myary genocide going on in gaza now. I dont think 30,000 civilians had anytng to do with th on that day from hamas so this is just absolutely disgusting. They vetoed three cease fire moves. Why are we complicit in this . Then we have the russiaukraine more going on, which has been lost a year ago. They have no one to fight anymore. They have ongoing corruption. I hope they dont send any money anywhere because that is what is needed to stop this tragedy goingi cannot bear it. I watched the video of a mother hugging her child who died of malnutrition. Israel will not even allow maternity kits to come through. I want everyone to imagine themselves in gaza. Thats was going to be needed. From the river to the sea, Everybody Needs to be free. That does not make me antisemitic. Thats all i have to say. This war needs to stop. Killing needs to stop and America Needs to vote blue to make sure this animal we have running for office does not get in. Host i want to provide a little bit more information. President biden also brought up aid to gaza during his state of the union in made an announcement there would be new temporary aid port set up. Heres a story from the associated press. Biden orders the u. S. Military to set up a temporary aid port to gaza. He ordered the military to set up a temporary port off the coast of gaza, joining International Partners in trying to carve out a route to deliver food and other aid to desperate Palestinian Civilians cut off by the war and by his really restrictions on humanitarian access by land by israeli restrictions on humanitarian access by land. Biden renewed calls said is really Prime Minister netanyahu to change how he conducts the war, including by allowing more aid to gaza and more to protect humanitarian workers. Theres also a text message we received from tony in michigan. The horrific conditions being caused in gaza by the u. S. , the ridiculous stunt building a pier off the coast. That last bit is referencing news that one of the eardrops of the airdrops killed some people in gaza this morning. Next up is john and michigan on our independent line in michigan on our independent line. Caller good morning. My top story is that the rnc is being controlled by trumpers. I dont know how all that will go will work out. Theres my top story. That is it. Host f thank you thank you. Good morning. Caller uz good morning. Joe barclay. That is how you act. Trying to put trump and in jail. Tara reid. We never heard her story. But thank god for Marjorie Taylor greene. Those documents are in the capitol. Lets show the American People what a creep joe biden is. Host lets go to jim in florida on republican line. Caller i would like to congratulate the president on his speech. He touched on all the things the American Public are concerned about, immigration fentanyl, energy problems, inflation. All those things he talks about and hes going to fix. He should fix them because they were broken on his watch. Thank you. Host we have sam in michigan on our democratic line. Caller the big story is global climatehange. My story of the week was the state of the Union Address. I think he did a wonderful job. Crat my whole life and intend to keep doing it. I wonder if anybody could tell me who the grayhaired woman was that seemed to almost be leading the president into the house chamber. She was at the camera and joe was behind her and she kept coming toward the camera and i dont know who she is. Thank you. Host dont know the answer that. Alvin is in cumberland, virginia good morning. What is your top news story . Caller good morning. I watched biden the other night during his speech. He touched on a couple good things. A couple different things. But as far as the war and stuff and fentanyl and illegals coming across the border he is the onewed this to happen and hes getting on there and trying to say that its all republicans falter, which it is not. It has all been on his watch. And the little girl that got killed, you he did not know what to say when the lady told him that, you know, that she got killed on his time. And he is still letting the men. Hes talking about how the republicans blocked his bill about protecting the border. He is saying all this stuff now that its time for another reelection. Why wasnt this done in the beginning . Why now . Different things. He is too old to be running. He has to be coached every little word he says. Hes not doing it on his own. Of course hes going to say what Everyone Wants to hear. Im going to vote donald trump all the way. The economy was good, gas prices were down, the minimum wage, they raised it and every time they raise minimum wage, it triples your groceries in the prices. How can you say the economy is going good and those people in our country that are hungry and starving . You cannot afford a 400,000 homeicle. What about my grandkids down the road . Host i want to brirom former President Trump speaking to supporters after his strong showing on super tuesday this week. He did take some shots at President Biden during that speech as well. [video clip] they call it super tuesday for a resume. Thig one. And they tell me that theres never been one like this. Theres never been anything so conclusive. This was an amazing night, an amazing day. Its been an incredible period of time in our countrys history. Its been sad in many ways but i think it will be inspiring because wedoething nobody has been able to do for a long time. [applause] we have watched our country take a great beating over the last three years and nobody thought a thing like this would be possible. We would not have russia attacking ukraine. We wouldnt have israel being attacked. Iran was broke when i was running things. They did not have money for hamas, they did not have money for hezbolwe had no inflation. Inflation is destroying the middle class. Its destroying everything. If you look hundreds of years back, inflation is called a country buster, and thats what its doing to our country. Whathappening with inflation has been unbelievable. Experts say the only thing doing well is the stock market and thats because our polling numbers are so much higher than joe bidens. Host theres news also from the Republican National committee after super tuesday. Heres the story in the Washington Post. The rnc installs trump leaders in a merger with his campaign. Top advisers will steer a Party Committee facing a dramatic fundraising shortfall. Donald trump, likely to be the nominee, and stay fresh overhaul of the partys central committee. The Republican National committee elected trumps choices of Michael Watley and laura trump the former president s daughterinlaw, who accompanied by eric trump as the two highest ranking officers at the rnc friday. If we scroll down further into this story, it mentioned that now, with the rncs mergers with the Trump Campaign, advisors hope to make up the deficit through fundraising vehicles allowed to col checks. They are expected to work jointly with the Trump Campaign on Field Operations in swing statesut the vote efforts, and legal challenges to trump procedures. The rnc. Paid millions of dollars of trump oscar legal bills in 2021 and 2022 until he declared his candidacy. The committee declined to consider a proposal from henry farber to prevent the committee from resuming such payments. Next, we will hear from richard in newport, North Carolina on our independent line. What is your top story . Caller guest good morning caller good morning. First of all, its not the Democratic Party. Thats a it is the democrat party. Its always been known as the Democratic Party. Thout. Next, joe biden. I wonder how much drugs they pumped into him to make him bounce around like that on the stage. Host thats your top news story . Caller pardon . Host thats your top news story . Caller no. Biden should be charged with accessory to murder for letting all these illegals come over with the drugs and killing people. And they are coming out shooting and beating people in the head and everything and killing them. Its all in his head. Hes accessory to murder. Anyone tha man should be put in an insane asylum or something. Host paul is in new albany, indiana on our democratic line. Caller yes. I was glad to see joe biden speak at the state of the union. Thats my top news story because he spoke facts. Some of these people who complain about the illegal aliens coming to this country unless these people are native americans, they have no room to talk because they came here and took and bought stolen land from native americans and so they really dont have any standing to talk about that. Host bob in hermann town minnesota says speaker johnson and republicans in congress are standing in the way of a great bipartisan border bill and playing politics with National Security just to give trump an issue to run on. James is in meridian mississippi on our independent line. Go ahead with your top story. Caller i was a truck driver. First year of joe biden, it doubled. So the consumer at the Grocery Stores. They will pay for this fuel. They will pay for joe biden raising the diesel fuel. It is four dollars a gallon. I was hauling building materials. People quit building or remodeling houses. Next time, i saw a bunch of Railroad Cars that haul lumber sitting on the tracks. It was 95 at lowes. If you want to keep paying high prices on consumers in Grocery Stores, beau biden stores, vote biden. It is not the Democratic Party. Its the democrat party. Last three letters is rats. Thank you. Think about that. Go ahead and sign it. They are shutting the people from shutting the border. You are going to vote for donald trump. You are voting for a convicted rapist. Would you do that if that was your wife, your daughter, your sister, your mother . Thank you. Host kevin on x says democrats on the immigration crisis. The act to give state governments more tools. It passed overwhelmingly, 251 170. Only 37 democrats joined all republicans in support. Mike is in humboldt, texas on a republican line. Caller good morning. E border. This started when biden went up on his inauguration to his office and signed a bunch of bills that did away with all his work. Yand they could stop him now. All he has to do is sign an executive order now. He did everything he could the was getting along with the foreign leaders. Everything was cheaper and better. You need to think about that. Are you idiots to vote for an idiot . Think about what you are doing. Host patty is in indianapolis on our independent line. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have three things that are main topics. In indiana we have people asking what democracy have we lost . We have not lost any democracy. One, the bills that have been passed for i roe v. Wade belong at the state level, not the federal level to pay for something that we do not accept. Two, the media is the main cause of saying democracy is being we have not lost any. We did not lose democracy. What democracy did we lose with dona trump as president . Stop saying that. My third thing is, when you talk about democracy being lost, that was on biden. We were forced to day vaccines. Lost our jobs and eligibility. The other things we have lost with joe biden, parents were not allowed to express that they wanted what their children to learn in schools. We need to talk about biden versus democracy. We lost it with biden. Host ok. Patty mentioned the debate going on over ivf. Speaker johnson was asked about alabamas move to protect ivf services in our state and an interview thursday morning with cbs morning. Heres a clip from tt. [video clip] i know you said you support ivf but theres this question of embryos. In the process they are destroyed, disposed of. If you believe life begins at conception, do you see that as murder . It something we have to grapple with. Its a brave new world. Theres an estimated 8 million americans who have been born because of that technology. We support the sink to the of life and ivf and access to it of alabama is a good example of that because they want to protect that and make su handling of those things. In some states, theres a limit on the number of embryos that can be created, because they are sensitive to that issue. Its something every state has to wrestle with. But i have not resolved this question. If life begins at fertilization people, practitioners, hospitals, until you clear them from the disposal process, if you are saying thats a child and you dispose of that child its a death, they are uncomfortable with that. Can you clarify that . Policymakers have to determine how to handle that. We have to determine the ethics around that issue but its an important one. Some of these questions and issues are unprecedented so it takes debate and consideration but we believe in the sanctity of life and if you believe life begins at conception its an important question to wrestle with. I think its a state issue and states will be handling them. Host we will go to eddie in massachusetts on a republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was disappointed that the president cap the congress, the Supreme Court. He was harsh. He kept talking about the rich dont pay their share. Social security could be raised from 150 thousand dollars to 400,000. Corporations do get stock options. They could be taxed but that wont do it. You have to have Something Like a carbon tax. With a carbon tax you could get the solar panels built here. Its a waste that we send all or scrap metal our scrap metal and plastic and cardboard to asia and have it sent back as solar panels. We could subsidize manufacturing here. Thank you. Host thank you. Penny is in Camden Wyoming delaware online for democrats. Caller good morning. I would like to congratulate the president for coming out strong. He usually takes a lot of abuse and he did a great job. Secondly, i would like to point out that everyone seems to be shortsighted. While they were believing that the main event was the speech that he gave, at the same time, trump and his supporters arealready planning to deny if he should lose the election. They have already said that they will rise up, take back the capital, go after the pentagon. If he were to lose, they have already said there main philosophy is it is too big to rig and i believe they would try to place him in power by force and once he gets in there there would be no removing him once hes able to undo our institutions and checks and balances. I believe that as a threat coming up and we should be looking past thection to the future of this country and our democracy. Host related to that Campaign FormerPresident Donald Trump will be speaking to voters at a get out the vote rally in rome, georgia. Our coverage will begin at 5 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now, our mobile video app, and online at cspan. Org. President biden will also be in georgia for a Campaign Event in atlanta at 6 p. M. Eastern live at now. If you miss either event, you can see them later in our schedule. Ronald is on our independent line. Caller good morning. I must say that its disturbing to me to hear so many people being terribly unfair to President Trump without any recognition or appreciation of anything decent or good that he has done, for example, we had peace in the during this administration. Isnt that better thanow . And he did not take money for being president like his predecessors including Franklin Roosevelt and john f. Kennedy. He gave unprecedented amounts of money to black colleges and universities but has not gotten credit for that. And we did not have the high inflation thats really hurting so many people during his administration. Also its terribly ironic that democrats are worried about trump being a threat to democracy when on the other hand democrats have wanted not to have trump on the ballot. Is that not a tremendous threat to democracy . Its terribly ironic and unfair. Finally, i watched a film about the 2020 elections and i urge all americans to watch this film because it shows how the election was rigged and it was est. And what about Holding Biden and his followers responsible for election interference and fraudulent and a fraudulent election . At the very least, biden should apologize for this. Host another development in the campaign is that no labels, a group thats been talking about potentially fielding a candidate , has voted to move forward with a bipartisan president ial ticket. Heres the story. No labels Nancy Jacobson said finding the right candidate is the last piece. The thirdparty president ial movement voted friday to move forward with the president ial ticket though a hunt for candidates to lead the ticket continues. After flirting with a thirdparty president ial bid over the last year, no labels 850 delegates met virtually to discuss the future of the movement and whether it would enter the 2024 president ial election. The group deliberated if a unity ticket consisting of one republican and one democrat would be a viable option. No labels chief strategist was on this program after super tuesday. Heres his answer when asked about criticisms that no label will act as a spoiler in that race. [video clip] the thing is you have got to look at past elections and certainly over the last decades independents typically dont get much traction. For you to think they could get traction you have to believe that this time is different than previous elections, and we believe that and voters believe that. You can go down the list of metrics but we have never been in a situation where both parties are this unpopular where the presumptive nominees are this unpopular where people are this pessimistic about the future of the country. When we startednkling of an opening for this was two years ago. Consistent a consistent poll question we were asking, if it were a trump like a biden race, would you be open to voting for an independent alternative . 59 of voters said they would be open for that. Why is that important . Its not because we think an independent would ever get 59 of the vote butto get anywhere close to that. The Electoral College is winner take all. If youre in a multicandidate race and get 35 of the vote in a state, you get 100 of the votes that come with it, electoral votes. Host commentary related to no labels comes from kent in norfolk, virginia. Biden did well to twist of the state of the union into a Fiery Campaign speech. I want to hear who they will run. Bradley is in clear fork, West Virginia on our line for democrats. Caller good morning. Good morning. I have been a demoat since i was 17 years old. Im ashamed of the party. I dont know how long i will be in it. Im a vietnam veteran and these people raising cain about us being in israel, support against gaza, if your child or grandchild got stuck in an oven and got cooked alive, they would change their mind. Another thing. These people, women and men bitching about trump sorry, these people that are bitching and raising cain host we will go to brian. Go ahead. Caller i have been a republican allere would be no way i would vote for donald trump. You people that are thinking about voting for donald trump you have to remember just four years ago how he was complaining about Hillary Clinton getting red of getting rid of 30,000 emails and here he is convicted of four felonies, actually 91 counts of committing crimes and stf. We need to save america from donald trump. Lets make America Great again by putting donald trump in jail. And you people that think its ok to tell a woman what to do with her body, what if the government comes down and says you are 21, we are going to take drivers license and they just say we are going to do it. We have to let these women make thei wrong. The way they go in front of god is the day the answer for what they do. But ones that are thinking about voting for donald trump, think about the felonies and crimes. He brought this on himself. When he was he was told by the attorney general and all the attorneys in the white house not to do this becae yo going to commit crimes and you are going to jail. He did not listen to them. Now hes whple to bail him out and all you losers and suckers that want to that want to vote for donald trump, go aheadoting for a loser and sucker that calls military men and women losers and suckers . Host we have a that says even g kudos to President Bidens overwhelming fitness for the nikki haley aside, the go and support our democracy. Michael is in minnesota for our democratic line. Ahecaller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I would like to set something straight. The Illegal Immigrants have been coming to the country since Ronald Reagan. I have worked for a company that was the largest producer otrucks and we have about 2800 people and i would say probably seven or 800 of them wereso to say that biden is the cause of immigrants coming into the country is partially true, you know, it is a fact, but Ronald Reagan is the one that started this after hens because he was doing it for cheaper labor. Thank you. Host thank you. James is inn our line for republicans. Good morning, james. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. First of all when donald trump was in office, on his watch, we had no military soldier killed. We brought them home. And the economy was booming. I mean, you could go to the Grocery Store what you needed. Now that biden got in office, all these people thats been killed and all thats on his hands. He dont even know where hes at half of the time. I thinkn from in office and get donald trump back in office, we can get everything back like it should be and i will be honest with you, some of the colors that call in the callers that call him that dont like President Trump, let me tell you something. When he was in office, i made more money and took care of my family. I had no worries. And another thing. All these leaders in these different countries, it was not that he was friends with them. He was firm with them and they knew he meant business. China was paying more money than they ever paid. He had them paying money. So, you know, as americans, we all need to come together and quit arguing. We need to figure out we need to get our country back because were so close to being a third world country and i want to tell everybody, you know, i love everybody in the United States. God said love everybody so we need to quit judging and pointing fingers and Everyone Needs to sit down and realize what biden has done to this couna thermal country a third world country. Host he was referencing President Bidens age in this has been a big topic for the Trump Campaign. Heres a story from the hill. A protrump super pac add questions if biden can survive a second term. A super pac aligned with former President Trump debuted an ad thursday that attacked President Biden over his agent questioned whether he could survive a second term in office. Make America Great again inc. Aired the ad titled jugular on msnbc on the morning of bidens state of the Union Address. Here is that ad by make America Great again inc. Call jugular. We will watch it now. [video clip] i guess i should clear mind mind here a little bit. We can all see joe bidens weakness. If biden wins, can even survive until 2029 . The real question is can we . Make America Great again inc. Is responsible for the content of this advertising. Host and a comment from text message. Terry says are these the best choices we have . The people in the country and these are the best two . Disaster. Shirley is in bloomington, illinois on our democratic line. Good morning, shirley. Caller yes. Good morning cspan. I would like to bring up a subject that nobody has touched on. With this climate change, they want everybody to eventually have an electric car. Number one, nobody can afford them, they are too expensive. Number two in case people know, the lithium they need for batteries for these electric cars, what is needed is thousands and thousands of gallons of water to process that lithium to make the batteries for these electric cars. Now, in the years to come, when everybody owns an electric car al ured backed into the lakes and streams. How safe is our Drinking Water get to be and water going to be and how safe is the fish for us to eat is going to be . So that is my comment and thanks for cspan. I love you all. Host thanks for calling in. Donny is in kill devil hills, North Carolina on our independent line. What is your top new story of the week . Caller my top new story is the fact that this country according to our constitution, article four, section four, the United States shall guarantee to every state in the union a republican form of government. The word democracy is nowhere in our constitution. I would like everybody to read the constitution so they can understand america better. And i think that would help everyone learn to get guse when you hear democracy democracy, democracy, nobody knows, because we are a republic. We areso inform yourself. Dont let everybody lie to you. Inform yourself and get the truth. Host how do you think that would change the way people perceive the country . Caller i think it would get people to realize that its not a fight. Its a republic where everybody governs themselves and our form of government is a republican government because we did not want a massive government telling us all what to do. And when i h about you are destroying our democracy, well, let it be destroyed because we are not a democracy. We need to get to the truth of the matter. I think ouronstitution to every person in this country free so everybody can have a chance to learn it. Read it and adore it can go by. I think if people could get on the same page, it would work. Host democratic line, david in concord, North Carolina. Go ahead. Caller thank you. I have been listening to your comments. I want to say this. Our president took over a to make a 67 minute speech and without somebody handling him he could not have done it. Also, the people who are calling we are one nation. We are not africanamericans. You are an american. I get so sick of people trying to take their ancestry back. Hey, im a white man. Im american. I fought for my country. I would have died for us. Thats what i want. I want everybody to live. Joe biden, when he took all the people out and left afghanistan did, the man is incompetent of doing his job. He should be impeached. Thank you. Host donald is in spokane, washington on our republican line. Good morning. Whats your top story . Caller i had a couple of things i wanted to touch on. I will take my quick 30 seconds. Thank you. I just want to touch on i think its nice to hear people coming around to the truth of whats really been going on. I just want to say i voted for President Trump in 2016, 2020 and have dropped my ballot in for 2024. My top new story for me personally of the day, i just wanted to speak to the citizens of Montana State as a big ruling from the montana Supreme Court has recently come down since judiciary stuff does appear to be on the last few months concerning many different topics. I will not get into that. We have all seen them paired the one in montana is a judge that seen them. The one in montana is a judge that has gotten hers quite a steaming heap of trouble, rightfully so, as i have been personally calling cspan mentioning my child for the last eight years over parental rights. This judge of montana has now been sanctioned, if thats the correct word, by an overruling panel of the montana Supreme Court in her egregious actions against children and parents in parental rights. I urge montana to look into this case out of lake county, paulson, montana, judge christopher. Judge deborah christopher. You guys have to wake up and protect your city and get these leftleaning, america hating communists out of the bench. Host anthony is in los caller everybody said donald trump saying that they cheated the election but what about the, all the three talking about the russian collusion. I didnt see anybody in prison. Host is that your top news story for this week . Caller yes, i wanted to talk about the russian collusion and why nobody is mentioning that, the millions thats been wasted during that time. All the media talked about it and we came to find out that it was all fe and no one went to jail. And trump says, ok, he thinks it was stolen from him and everybody wants to throw him in prison and jail. There was no inquiries, there was no all this money wasted. It was just the thats it. So i think its very wrong of people to judge trump because he thinks, i think e the was stolen. If you have mail in ballots people will cheat especially the Democratic Party. We already now how they are. That is the party of slavery and that is why the border will remain open as long as those people are in charge. Host thats all the time we have for your calls right now but next on washington journal well have greg garcia of Cyber Security directive for the Health Care Sector coordinating council. Hell join us to discuss recent cyber hacks and efforts to combat them. And late err civics learning week and the importance of Civics Education. All that coming up. Well be right back. Host welcome. Im joined by greg garcia, the Cyber Security executive director for the Health Care Sector coordinating council. Welcome to the program. Guest thank you. Host can you tell us me what your organization does . Guest its an organized industry to the government and rest of the working together to identify and mitigate systemic threats to the Health Sector and in this case cyber attack. Host can you tell us whats happening in the news that makes this discussion so relevant guest this one is a significant and existential, if i may say cyber attack on the health system. Its exposed a major choke point in the infrastructure of health care that is how we get our prescriptions filled, how we get prior authorizations from our Insurance Companies. How hospitals get reimbursed. That has all been cut off by what is known as a ransom ware attack where attackers are able to get in and shut down major systems, the network software, data, until the a ransom to the criminal group. And this is rampant now across the Health Sector because its criminals. Host a bit more information. Heres a story in the spread pain across hospitals and doctors nationwide. Can you talk about who exactly is affected by this and how its showing up in the industry . Guest any Health Care System that uses the change Health Care System is going to be affected and that includes the payers who are receiving requests for claims and reimbursement to the Hospital Systems that are submitting those claims and to the patients who are waiting for their presc brought up something that said this didnt affect direct patient care but ransom ware attacks do affect we have other stories in the past where patients are actually affected, where a Major Health System in san diego, for example, was attacked such that their data was locked up, their scheduling systems, their reimbursement, all of this was shut down. So ambulances on the way to the hospital had to be diverse the to another street and theres a patient in that hospital. So this is, when i say existential, thats not hyperbole. We are seeing that Cyber Attacks like this can affect patient safety. It is a threat to life. Host the Washington Post hah a little bit more. So United Health care group said earlier this week that a wellkwn russianbacked ransom ware group black cat was responsibl i want to play a piece of audio from the biden administrations deputy National Security adviser for cyber wn event here in washington last fall and was asked about efforts to combat ransom ware attacks. Here is a clip of that. Whats actually work sng is it arrests disruption, crypto currency . How now this is the third year numbers are still going up or goij down . Give us a sense of how were doing on ransomware. By the numbers, the numbers are going up. I refrpsed a couple of sts despite a lot of concerted effort. We kicked off the International Counter ransom initiative to get the energy flowing with stories, so we had for example the department of justice, f. B. I. , and the dutch and german colleagues brief on a takedowns, specifically the hyde, the genesis marketplace take down. Lots of related arrests. There have been focused efforts to disrupt the infrastructure, arrest the attackers. And efforts to improve resilience. One of the key take aways is in the u. S. System, the leader of the office of director of national snjs, she convened a discussion with key ransom ware negotiaters. And one of the things we learned they said is that companies that had good backups were able to recover more quickly in days versus the weeks for companies that paid a ransom. So the resilience efforts are paying fruit as well. However, the data shows the number of attacks are going up and frankly the disruptive impact. In any given month ill get a latenight call about a prospect health, sl hospitals across four states still working to recover from a disruptive attack. We saw the impact of color ox manufacturing process. Certainly we saw the impact on other companies, two major casinos operations as well although some would talk about that. In any event, and i think the core reason is because of the reason david rernsed as well which is it pays when in the United States we paid in a one years time 1. 3 billion in ransom, with everyones efforts on disruption and improvements made on resilience it still remains a problem. Host whats your reaction to that . Guest were perfectly aligned. The Sector Coordinating Council has been working with the white house, with the u. S. Department of health and humanservices, with the department of homeland securitys Cyber Security and infrastructure security agency. C private partnership. We need to exchange that kind of information as to what are the best ways that we can first those kinds of attacks and then secondly she mentioned resiliency. How do we maintain operational continuity . So that is a industry and government and Law Enforcement as to what the best way to protect ourselves and how do we respond when it happens . And thats matter of operational cooperation but also policy. So h. H. S. And the white house others are thinking about what kinds of basic fundamental Cyber Security controls ought the Health Care System have as minimum mandatory types of controls . And were talking with them about that now. Host story to share if you think you might have been affected by a cyber attack you can give us a call. The numbers are on the bottom of your screen. We are also on social media. It feels like these Health Care Systems are stuck when it comes to these attacks, they can be completely immobilized at the same time theres a risk to paying off hackers, right . What is the impact when they doi do that . Guest it varies. Sometimes most of the things when they do pay theyll get their data back. The hackers are business people. If they impose a ransom and the ransom is paid and they dont give the information back, they dont unlock the systems thats bad business. They do it because it pays and they want that pay spigot to keep so impose the ransom and give the data back. But there are sometimes where its worse, where once they pay they give the data back but they keep it and they use that data. Our personal health data for example to individuals. Now ive got your data now if youll just pay me this i will release the data back to you or braklackmail where they extend the reach of their hacking activities. Host is there any indication whether or not this hack affects patients individual data . Guest absolutely. They can steal the data and then they can sell what is your data . Your data is your name your address, your Social Security number your credit card, your email. All of this stuff can then be used for theft. And thats thats a horrible state of affairs for individuals who have tho to get their identity back when it has been open new credit card accounts to buy luxury goods, and that is the downstream affect of these hack attacks. Host i want to read a statement from the American Hospital association related to this issue. It says . Ess or other parts of the federal government be doing about this . Guest well i would start on response side. If you think you have been affected by this i would first go tohhs. Gov to understand and track whats going on. H. H. S. Is building its capability and its organizational structure to support the industry against cyber threats, both on the what we call left of boom the preparedness side and the right of boom when something has happened how do we collectively respond . So that is the principleresponsibility of h. H. S. To the primary partner to the can being industry. Congress can support by making sure that they have the resources to do that the resources to provide technical support, Financial Support to some of those small rural hospitals who are operating at zero to negative margins. How are they going to be able to actually prepare themselves against this and to respond after so h. H. S. Is in the role of providing that support. Congress needs to give them the resources to do host we have a comment here. What can businesses and people do when the scale and the sophistication of these attacks is so great . Guest theres a saying we have in Cyber Security that to play defense, which is what we are doing in the industry against hackers, youve got to get it right 100 of the time. To play offense, that is the hackers, youve got to succeed just once to get into a network to wreak havoc. So its sort of the question when are we going to stop crime . Well, when are we going to stop hack sng so the Defense Mechanisms can be very basic to very sophisticated and costly. So for every Critical Infrastructure organization which is what health care is, we need to measure the risk and the threat and to develop and build a Cyber Security program thats optimal. So its hard to do and thats why we need to have this partnership with the government. Theyve got a lot of classified intelligence about where some of these attacks are coming from and what the are. We are the owners and operators that are on the hook for making sure that our systems stay working, so its a chess game that never ends. There is no checkmate. Host lets go to a couple of calls. Allen in hawaii on our independent line. Go ahead. Ok well, a few things. I discovered recently that an Insurance Company thats very large in hawaii, that their subsidiary or whatever they were, and i think that was a ransomware and its massive. I have many friends in different parts of the u. S. Who have been affected in different ways. I would you could keep me on the line for a followup about the concept, what they call ransomware as a service and the fact that this Business Structure which has a hot line, 800 number, and Customer Support on how people can pay with bitcoins and stuff. They also have possibly a mechanism that they pay bribes or they pay commissions to people to go even do social network to get into these things where if they cant hacking they actually have they bribe people to give them these. Host lets get the response. Guest its a great question. Youre exactly right. This is organized crime. And criminals are resourceful. If theres a ng to do it. Either directly by hacking into asome or theyre going to sell the capability. And it isnt just ransom ware, its hacking as a service. Theres all kinds of different methods. Ransom ware is simply one ma when a hacker is able to get into a net work. So theres all kinds of ways that you can hack into a system and you can sell that. Its like selling anything else any other service. Host what was your followup . Caller csia apparently was also hit and i dont think it was a ransomware but they wont maybe disclose. The big problem is that at the level and scale this is occurring what it makes most small and Medium Business holders realize is that they dont have a chance because they even theyre trying to fees for these things and the Insurance Companies are telling them well you know your premiums are going to be high and if you want to limited, you know, so theres a lot of things that need to be addressed and i just dont know if anybody in the u. S. Government has an understanding of the scale this is going towards right now. Guest we certainly understand the scale botin industry and in government. The difficulty is in martialing all of those differing resources. You mentioned insurance can be a market influencer in terms of our behavior as businesses. But because of the scale and the cost of ransom ware these days, Cyber Security insurance is starting to become a attractive way to manage risk because they are increasing the premiums and reducing the coverage because its becoming so costly. So it becomes a matter of how collectively organizations in the Health Care Industry orcritical sectors are working together to create a collective defense. Host theres also potential ns. Im looking here at a story. What is your assessment thus far of what kind of Economic Impact this cyber attack is having . Guest it is a cascading impact down to the people who have to be paid, their rather low salary in a hospital as a nurse or have you. You know, on the legal question the legal ramifications, that continues, that needs to be a greater concern to organizations, class action lawsuits for example. And the need to determine what due dilig in organization that was hacked did they do everything they could do and still got hacked or did they genuinely not do enough . And that needs to be assessed. You asked earlier about what the congress can do. They did something good a few years ago as an incentive. They told h. H. S. That, which en hippa, the hippa privacy rule, thats the Health Insurance portability and accountability act. If a hospital gets breached and they lose that data th and i talked about a short time ago, h. H. S. Should look at the extent to which that hospital has done the right thing in Cyber Security. Theyve implemented generally recognized Cyber Security controls. If they did maybe take it a little bit because theres going to be fines and audits. But if theyve done the right thing and still got victimized how can you punish the victim . But if you havent done enough they should suffer the consequences because they know that there are right things to do in Cyber Security and they should be shielded from lawsuits. Host michelle in maryland on our independent line. Good morning. Caller good morn this is a very serious issue. I wanted to suggest that to address this issue that we start looking at the immigration from russia and Eastern Europe in our it community particularly those coming over and getting jobs as it contractors on federal contracts. I work for agency and one day i was in the office and there was a russian contractor working on an it contract at a federal agency. He and i were in the office and i started engaging him in conversation and he basically laid out a putin agenda very definitely pro putin. And im an African American woman, sometimes, you know, a white person will feel free to speak to me about these issues. And i was just shocked that he would have a position at a federal agency on an it contract. And ive had that experience before, and so thats an entry way into the our systems, through our proto and firewall. Host i want to give greg a chance to respond to the point. The plan noted a shortage of qualified Cyber Security professionals. I wonder if you can talk about what the industry looks like in response raising. Guest thats a good point. The workforce, we continue not just in health care but across the board and in government to fa a shortage of good Cyber Security skills and talents. Not just the technical people but you and i as users of it in a Large Organization do we know the rightd3 do and wrong things not to do when we are interacting with our laptops and other technologies. So getting the fiveyear Strategic Plan that you referenced tries to drive towards the next five years how do we build thatcity both as the user and the Cyber Security experts, and that takes more training in the education post grad but the in universities for the stem disciplines, Science Technology engineering, and math, and to make Cyber Security cool. And its more cool now than it has been in a long time. To the callers point, one thing we noted is insidious about and beneficial about the internet is it i think we heard that in the clip with ann that you dont need to be in the United States to be waging cyber attack on the United States and on United StatesCritical Infrastructure. If you are an immigrant working in the United States presumablyou have gone through the appropriate vetting process through the visa program to ensure that you are no any way, and of course that system is not foolproof. But thats where you have you have to be concerned. Host to be clear, are most of these Ransomware Attacks coming from outside the United States . Guest i think most of them are. Criminal gangs from china, from iran from russia and elsewhere who do not have the same network of laws internet for malicious purposes. Host we have a question from connie in parker, colorado. Mr. Garcia, would you have any sense of what kind of entities these are, for example, if they are financing terrorist groups, interference from Foreign Countries or even financing candidates . Guest probably all of the above. We know that the internet is usocial media is used for a whole range of disinformation campaigns and social engineering. Social engineering is a way of saying tricking you out of your money. Click on this site and weve got you. We have just owned your computer and we have your data. So, there are any number of ways that the internet can be used to exploit people, their beliefs and their g fear. The internet has great promise and it has great peril. Host eff is on the internet line. Caller g reading my mind. I was going to ask about foreign actors and what if we can do anything about it. It seems like we dont really have police that can go there and arrest them and, affectively, the local co. Stabbed larry has to do that. Whether they are interested is hed a light on whats being story. I dont know if you can shed a light on whats being done. Guest that is a good questio there are neutral recognition agreements among countries, the United States and any other countries, that criminals or criminal groups that are culpable for attacks on the u. S. Infrastructure. That deported, can be prosecuted as a cooperative arrangement between countries. There have b at a broader, multilateral scale, to develop norms of internet behavior. Get some uniformity and coherence among internet laws. It doesnt work across all countries because there are different forms of government. You know, one thing that the u. S. Has been working on and very much so on the classified level, is developing principles of deterrence. So, if Cyber Attacks from a nationstate, Cyber Attacks on Critical Infrastructure are waged against Critical Infrastructure, the action will have a connecticut effect, such as an attack on the electric grid, which actually causes a blackout. That can be considered an act of war. We dont know that that has been determined by the government. But, it is a consideration. So, at what pointa cyberattack equal dropping a bomb on the United States . Host this a couple of years ago. Guest yes. Nato and other cybersecurity specific multilateral agreements. Enforcement is difficult and being able to actually identify who did it. Because, sophisticated cyber actors, nationstates can cover their tracks. And you cant necessarily pin the blame on one person, one country, one group if they have successfully covered their tracks. Host bernie is on our line for democrats. Go ahead ernie is on our line for democrats go ahead. Caller every two or three years, i get a notice that weve been hacked. Because we have been hacked and your personal identity information has been stolen, we will give you 23 years of identity protection. Im asking about United Health care, which im not a big fan strips of care dollars out of the country. The ceo makes 450 million a year. What is their obligation to the subscribers, that they should print provide a Protection Plan for each and every subscriber. Lets recognize that united has one of the biggest lobbyists in the country. Any penalties comingare probably going to be offset by their industrious work with the lobbies. Guest accountabilit is increasingly an issue that we need to be looking at. Both from the industry side, as a collective, and from the government. As a health insurer, United HealthGroup Certain responsibilities for cybersecurity under Financial Services regulations and also because they are handling protected Health Information that they are responsible for complying with the hipaa privacy hi whether the penalties that come from the impact of a cyber incident are persuasive enough for any organization to invest more, that is not something we into, into a company as to what their Risk Appetite is. But, we also have to note that, again, as i said earlier in the program, to defend yourself, you have to get it right 100 of the time. They have to get it right wants to get in. The hacker has to get it right once to get in. You and still get victimized. Other times, you can be negligent and not be doing enough. That is when penalties should prcountability should be held. Host theres a question from barbara in whiting who c your paper and handed to a pharmacy. Any records to a hospital could be faxed over or handdelivered by the individual. Was the change to cd just to make money for Certain Industries . Lets go back to privatizing information and papers. Guest what a great question. We talk about Going Digital and going electronic and its going to save all of this paper. It doesnt always do that, does it . I think a lot of Health Care Systems will say that the emergence of Health Information techlogy and medical Record Technology and software has made the transmission of Health Care Data quicker. More easily distributed. We have not yet gotten to that nerve ana of total interoperability of health data across the country. Nirvana of interoperability of health data across the country. It is a mixed bag. We see the doctor looking at the computer and not looking at us and they are looking at the data that they are entering. When we no longer have that data because it has been ransomed out of commission, hospitals have to go to a paperbased system. And many young doctors coming out of medical school never actually learned how to write a prescription with a pen and a pad of paper. Its all on the computer. Moving to a paperbased system now, i think that cat is out of the bag. It might be very difficult to go back to a paperbased system. Host a couple more calls before we have to let you go. Rachel is in houston, texas on our independent line. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I was wondering when hackers return the data, how do we know are they able to alter that information . Guest yes. Thats a great question, rachel. They are able to. It is not necessarily in their interest to do so. Their main interest is in the money. There have been hacker groups who have said we g do anything that would affect patient care. They present themselves as morally sound and to return data, that changes my blood type or removes somebodys warning that they are allergic to penicillin, of course, is malicious. That would more likely be for the purpose of a direct attack on somebody. Somebody prominent that you could get into a major public Figures Health data and change it so that when they have a medical emergency, they would be administer something that would actually cause harm. We dont have any instances, any data that shows that that is happened. Host harriet is in maryland on our republican line. Go ahead, harriet. Caller good morning, mr. Garcia. My concern is the amount of information required at the doctors offices and medical places we go to. Thers maiden name, my Social Security number, then they want to scan my drivers license. My whole identity is required. I mean, i would show them my license and let them know who i am. This is sounding like its an open book and they assure me me, they tell me the federal government requires it. It sounds like its an open book for any mobster. Guest you are exactly right. It seems like you had to give go to the doctors office. Didnt i just give this to you last time . Yes, we do need to find better ways to have a National Identity system that is not based specifically on your Social Security number. Think it is not legal for organizations to ask for your Social Security number as proof of identification. Perhaps in some Financial Services settings. But yes, we do need to think of more creative ways that we can manage identities on a national scale, that doesnt expose individuals to so much risk. Host qatin care tells me im fine. The half spittle hospital tells me my information wasnt compromised. What can people do if they are worried . Guest there premuch every state of the nation that requires an entity that is doing business in that state or as an example, that if they get breached, if they have been hackedat personal data has been or is likely to have beenexploited, they have to inform everybody. Weve all gotten those letters havent we . That says your data may have been exposed or, in some cases it was exposed. We advise that you change your passwords, do this and do that and you are going to get Credit Rating protection. So, they are under obligation by law to inform their customers as to the possibility of breach. Otherwise, you can go to the uired to report as well. Host barbara is in bronx, new york on our line for democrats. Go ahead, barbara. Caller yes the first question i had when i heard this story is why does one company have such power . Why do they control all this information to get it hacked . And i think one of your crs dave me an answer. That is the lobbying. I guess we dont have antitrusts anymore. One Company Keeps gobbling up every other company and we end up with just we make it so easy for the hackers. Can anything be done about that . Money and politics, we know is hopeless. But can anything be done about it . Guest you raise an interesting point. For me, less about the antitrust and that is a separate question that has been could occupy thousandsbut, about that concentration that you mentioned. This is something that the Health Industry needs to do. His changed health care company, the software program, it serves one third of the market. That is a concas an industry, the Health Care Center needs to look at what are all of those chokepoints . What are those Critical Services that are provided to the Health Care System that a certain part of plumbing, that if that one service, maybe there is only two or three of those services that do business in the United States, that facilitates the m. One of those 1, 2 or three services were hacked and brought down . That shuts down the whole Health Care System. So, we need to know what companies, what services, what software, what technology is indispensable to the healthcare industry. And to any Critical Infrastructure, whether it isncial services transportation, this is why we have this partnership with the government, to be able to collectively assess concentration, threats and risks. Host ken in richmond, virginia on our independent line. Caller yes, greg. Ive been listening to the commentary and it is quite nega say. Id like to know if you have some examples of thegovernment or state governments apprehending, prosecuting, convicting and punishing individuals who have engaged in whats disrupting the Health Care System. I see you smiling right now. But it doesnt sound i want to hear some deterrence and some retribution. What can you say . Guest there is plenty of that. The fbi in particular for domestic crimes in the United States has an extensive and sophisticated Cyber Security division. When an organization is hacked from any sector, its fairly typical that they go to the fbi. Rst because they are going to make is to the Regional Field Office of the fbi, where they start an investigation. They will bring in the company. The hacked company will bring in a cyber Forensics Company to try to track down where did this come from . Where are the footprints and the fingerprints . The fbi is involved in that process as well. There are many cases where prosecution of the criminals is brought to bear. But, when are we going to stop crime . Its overwhelming. Any local Police Department will tell you that. The fbi will tell you that. I think they do the best they can. Host craig garcia is the cybersecurity executive director for the Health Care Sector coordinating council. Later, we will hear from louise dube, who will tel us about civics learning week and the importance of Civics Education. But first more of your calls on our open forum. The numbers are on your sc start calling in right now and we will be right back. American history tv exploring the people and events that tell the americanthe civil war, coverage of between 23 lincoln. 2023 lincoln. How the civil war is dead were remembered. Wars dead were remembered. We will interview stacy schip about americas first diplomat, benjamin franklin. To choose, coproduced by Milton Friedman and his wife in 1980. The episode is titled how to cure inflation. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv every weekend and find the full schedule on yournline any time at cspan. Org history. Next week on the cspan networks, the house and senator into early in the week. The house will consider legislation to force bytedance to diverge from tiktok or face a ban. On monday before the they will testify on tuesday before the House Select Intelligence Committee for the 2024 annual threat assessment. Also on tuesday, robert heard is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on his report on President Bidens handling of classified t committee will hear testimony from Shalonda Young on President Bidens 2025 proposed budget. Watch next week, live on the cspan networks. On cspan now, our free mobile video app. Head over to cspan. Org for scheduling information or to watch live or ondemand anytime. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. For cspans voice of 2024 we are asking voters across the country, what issue is most important to you in this election and why . The most important issue this political season is immigration. I think that homelessness is an issue that needs to be addressed. We invite you to share your voice by going to our website cspan. Org campaign 2024. Select and record your voice tap and select a 30 minute issue and tell us why. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back. We are in open form, ready to hear your thoughts on the big news stories this week or other issues that you want to discuss in policy. A big new story here in washington this week came out of the Supreme Court, which, as reported here on the hill. Com, handed Trump Victory in the colorado 14th amendment battle challenge. The Supreme Courtly ruled colorado cannot disqualify former President Trump from the allen under the 14th amendment insurrection band. Ban. A historic decision that allows President Trump to seek a second president ial term. Mondays ruling ended the longterm efforts to prevent trump from reentering the white house, handing trump a monumental victory on the eve of super tuesday. Former President Trump addressed the Supreme Courts decision on the colorado ballot from maralago on monday. Here is a portion of his remarks. Ie Supreme Court for its unanimous decision today. It was an important decision, very wellcrafted. I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs. And worked long, they worked hard and frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years from now, 200 years from now extremely important. Essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an important opponent would like to have it that way and it has nothing to do with the fact that it is thewhether it is a leading candidate or a candidate well down the totem pole, you cannot take somebody out of the race. The voters can take somebody out of the race very quickly they shouldnt be doing that and the Supreme Court said that very well. I belieor. While most states were thrilled to have me, there were some that didnt and they did not want they did not want that because of poll numbers, the poll numbers are very good. We are beating President Biden the New York Times came out with a big pole. They didnt like that and you cant do that. You cant do what they tried to do. Hopefully colorado is an example that will unify. I know there is tremendous support. Because people thought people in colorado thought it was a terrible thing that they did. Host a bit more information about that case from the hill. All nine justices sided with trump but the courts three liberals and conservative Justice Amy Coney barrett wrote separately to criticize the majority for going further than it needed to. The court ruled 90 thatunilateral authority to disqualify that are all candidates but five of the courts conservatives went on to specify that the only way for the provision to be from a statute in congress. Sonia sotomayor, elana kagan and Ketanji Brown jackson said the majority improperly decided novel constitutional questions this court and trump from future controversy. This case, crying out for judicial restraint, it abandoned thattices said of the majority. Amy Coney Barrett wrote the court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a president ial election. Particularly in this circumstance, relying on the court to turn the national to turn the temperature down not up. There was also Jenna Griswold on monday. Here are her comets. I would sayod the court issued the decision. Americans have been voting across the nation in early voting and in those super tuesday states here in colorado. In colorado, the americans deserve to know whether trump is a qualified candidate. My larger reaction is disappointment. I do believe that states should be able, under our constitution, to bar oath insurrectionists. Ultimately, this leaves open the door for congress uthorizing legislation. We know that congress is at nearly a nearly nonfunctioning body. Ultimately, it will be up to the save our democracy in november. Host this was a unanimous decision and it seemed pretty clear where it was going after the oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court. Is there anything within this decision that surprised you . After oral arguments, im not too surprised. I would have liked the decision a little sooner. As of thursday over 400,000 ballots were already cast in the republican primary for president. I think the larger picture is t is clear as day what donald trump did. He incited that violent mob to rush onto the capital to stop the peaceful transfer of president ial power. And his attacks and his allies attacks on our democracy have not stopped. There lies and disinformation have led to massive Voter Suppression efforts threats against election workers and attacks on our election infrastructure. And they are alreaaying the groundwork to undermine only 24. Regardless of this decision american democracy still remains very much under attack. And that threat in this upcoming election will be crucial for democracy survival in the United States. Host lets go to your calls in open forum. Doug is in watertown, new york. Democrat, go ahead. Caller good morning. Neither of these two men should be running. Not because they are too old. But because of the conflict they are causing and will cause. There is going to be physical conflict going on and they should use their heads and withdraw both of them. As far as th when there is a hack roll the bills over to the government. Let the mandated services continue. They y in chico california on the republican line. Caller if all the hospital computers can be hacked with health care and nobody can stop it that proves that elections can be hacked, the 2020 election was hacked and that is why biden is president. Host annie in sugar grove North Carolina. Caller say her name. Does anyone remember this womans name . Mollie tibbetts jogging in iowa murdered by an illegal alien. She was murdered 20 18 who was president then . Then no soldiers died during the Trump Administration . No, that was wrong. Four marines died in niger november 2017 and 33 soldiers died in 2017. Who was president in 2017 . The one marines that died trump said to his widow, he knew what he signed up for. Her baby bump was showing after she laid over his coffin. The president ial salary he donated, he made an announcement about that and there is no proof, no documentation he did that. There is documentation he sold 140 million tax dollars so he could play golf. We are better off than we were four years ago. Thousands were dying every day gas was chbecause we could not go anywhere. Do you forget the food lines and all the fancy suvs and hondas in line waiting to get food, unemployment through the roof . Trump was the only president losing jobs. Host n stephen in indiana on the republican line. Caller i have three things i would like to talk about. I would like to talk about when President Biden first went into office he shut down all oil in the united s. Up there, on the pipeline. He got the war started, got worse started in in gaza and funded that war over there. Sent billions of dollars over there in that war. Basically, he is shut he has shut all of our oil down for global warming. If they cared about global warming, they would have china. Host what were your other two points . Caller the war ukraine. They allowed russia we funded russia over there. We give them a billion dollars a day for our oil and shut down our resources here. Host lets go to charlie in new york on the independent line. Caller we are supporting a genocide with our tax dollars and its going against american values. People need to be aware of this. Eisenhower warned against the industrial military complex. On the domestic front, we have been expresident who was indicted four times. If any american citizen was indicted four times i dont thet this far in the president ial election. But he is privileged and rich. We have a problem with trump and we need to voice our opinion about it. Host next up we have steve on the democratic line. Caller i want to apologize i accidentally called in on the wrong number and i would apologize for that. What i would like to address here quickly is the misinformation out there someone called it earlier and talked about the democratsi was born in tupelo, mississippi and both sides of my family were all solid democrats until civil rights and they left the Democratic Party and became republicans. All you have to do is look at a map and youoss the south. The idea that the democrats of the party of slavery is totally wrong. The next thing i would like to head on is a lot of these colors are making decisions based on emotion and not facts. The man from indiana said wenot right now we are producing more oil than we have ever produced. What people believe out there is not totally true. What i would like to ask you, if you talk take aperson the level of education they have. I think it would be interesting to see what people believed i hope you have a great day. I love cspan, thanks so much. Host elaine in olympia washington. Caller excuse myoiav. The thing that bothered me this week i could not figure out why biden would want the border open like it is. We have taken in 6. 5 one and one thing i read in an article yesterday said there is nothing in the u. S. Constitution that says a citizen to vote. There are 20 states controlled by the democrats and if they pass a law allowing immigrants to vote, thosemmigrants can change our elections. It also affects the Electoral College because of the influx of people. I just thought that was very host you mentioned immigrationng the state of the union he blamed republicans for not passing bipartisan legislation. Whatd you think of those comments in that legislation . Caller it mante 1. 2 5 Million Immigrants a year. Which is about what we are getting now. It is of no help at all. That is why the republicans are not passing it. That is an absurd number. Host next up dylan and sturgis, south dakon the republican line. Caller good morning how are you doing . Have important meeting so here, they are on the streets with sides, begging for money the homeless. In south dakota, there were 300 cars waiting for boxes of food. This is supposed to be america . I wonder why we fought in vietnam . Now we are buying goods from them. Its ridiculous. Things change in this world. I am 73 and ive been through a lot. I appreciate it. Host mary in las vegas n nevadhe i have a bachelors degree in business and science management. From 20182021 trump proposed cuts to Social Security and medicare and promised to cut programs for seniors if he gets back in office. Ut the social safety net but this would cut off the taxesthe safety net. There were 10 juction of justice charges. William barr came out ahead of time and put another slant on what happened in that report. Going back to biden trump looking back to the people he parted they granted pardons bypassing the justice department. Matt slapped schwablappis kids they sentenced roger stone to over three years and trump granted him clemency. These people will be in your government. There will be no backstop. Host lets speak to tom in new jersey on the independent line. Caller this actually goes out to the young lady mary. I just want to let you know about drones. You notice how drones are everywhere in the world right now. Obama and biden gave our Drone Technology to iran. Itinnocent people. The bomb sub blood on obama. You can google it. In world war ii, there were 415,000 military deaths that were america under joe bidens leadership, over 416 deaths happened to American Children with fentanyl. Host barbara in oklahoma city, oklahoma. Caller i wish cspan would get certain facts and not let them call in every day and tell the same lies y day. It was all republicans that tried to get trump off the ballot. I was so proud of bided. Host you live in colorado . Caller when you say that no democrats wanted him off the ballot are you not referencing the colorado case . Those werent democrats those were republicans. Host i think there were some democrat affiliated groups involved in those efforts. Did you have another point . Caller our Social Security. That is not a tax. That is the trust fund and the republicans always again, i watch them take money out of it. P trum out, every time they get in there and it started with reagan taking trillions out of our Social Security. And you need to get these lies out of here. Host tommy in belcher, kentucky. Caller i just dont see anybody can say that trump is a strong man. He took six deferments from the milita says why does he always hugged the flag . I cant stand to see a draft r dodger haga flag. Being convicted of being a rapist. Victor orban from hungary, what is wrong with people . Why cant they see it . He wants to make a democracy to republican why is he bringing all of this into our country. I think they need to find some way for arresting him for bringing that guy in yesterday. Host a followup to the point we heard earlier about the colorado ballot case heres a story from public radio republican lawmakers want to impeach the secretary of state over her for removing trump from the ballot. Impeachment could be coming soon. January 6 was one of the darkest days of our history and donald trump cited an insurrection and tried to steal her presidency griswold said on day the Supreme Court heard arguments on the case when this article first ran. That is all the time we have for open form toda journal we will hear from icivics ceo louise dube who will talk about the importance of Civics Education. We will be right back. 4gonce a beloved actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin became target to right wing politicians. Biographer scott recounts the silent film stars fall out with the u. S. Government during the red scare because of his liberal political views. He had a very refined. His mail was opened personal work on through looking for something, anything that could get him and they didnt find anything. Scott eyman and his q a. Next week on the cspan network the house and Senate Earlier in the to force tiktoks Parent Company to divest from the app. They will look at resolutions to to announceand fbi wi senatcommitteealso on tuesday, special counsel is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. In the Senate Budget committee will hear from Shalonda Young on President Bidens 2025 proposed budget. Watch live on cspan networks or csp. Org on cspan channel. Cspan your unfiltered view of government. A healthy democracy doesnt just look like this, it looks like this where americans can see democracy at work. Get informed on cspan unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you are when the opinion that matters the most is your own. Host welcome back i enjoyed Alex Thompson icivics. Sandra day oconnor served in legislatures and had been a Civil Servant in the governmentdge. She had experienced this issue from a lot of different places and understood how interrelated these things are. All of that is one system of governance and it on several people and she realized tre had been less and less Civic Education being done since she was a child after she stepped down from the court. In 2009 she incorporated icivics and went on and became a standard bearer for the of Civics Education as a requirement to a healthy democracy and that a submission we have been on. We lost her in december last year she had been able to serve the nation for many years and we have taken up her mantle. This is the largest Civics Education site in the country and we have assembled a coalition of 330 members and we make the case that we need to invest in Civic Education. The situation we have right now is difficult and dangerous we cannot have sufficient Civic Education, is the least invested subject in school and we have seen results. Host she testified before congress back in 2012 about the importance of Civics Education as well as i civics. We have learned our American Students when tested on math and science are not doing as well as students of an equivalent age from other countries and i think that distresses us because our country has been pretty advanced in math and science we dont want to see her students lag behind in less is promoted an increase in education. There are so many hours in the schools have to concentrate on something and they tend to do more math and science unless and civics and i want to make sure we continue to teach civics to students as they go through my own concentration has been at the middle school level because the brain is formed and they are eager to learn and they can get it and us not too early to start. Students want tow the Government Works, they want to be part of it. Host can you talk about how you are funding and who you are woguest it was lovely to hear her voice and she is right on as usual. We picked up where Justice Oconnor left off. A policy team to advocate to have more Civic Education in the school curriculum. We now work at the high school and elementary level. We believe Civic Education can be a real force for good for our country if we invest in that in this problem that she pointed to witches by pushing the importance of one displine at the expense of another it really doesnt work because these things reinforce each other and that the core of it every child will be a Community Member when they come out of high school. We will all have to live for each other they want to know how to behave, how to solve problems civic community. That is what we try to do to with knowledge, skills and disposition. Host can you give us a base level understanding of when we talk about what we mean with Civics Education and how it is changed over time . Guest Justice Oconnor referenced her upbringing where she got much more civics training. Everyone remembers schoolhouse rock, they can sing it. There are different versions of it the investment in Civic Education started to decrease which is the best measure of whether students are getting civics or not. It is not possible to provide a high quality Civics Education in that little of time. When you dont get it in Elementary School you cant build on it and middle school and in high school you dont have the base for conversations about issues that are relevant in your lives. What we talk about . Civics is a little bit different than other discipline and that is for of a sport. It gives you the knowledge you need to know if i want to fix my school and i dont like the amount of money or resources my school gets i must go to the state and local school board. That is federalism 101. And you need to understand how these things are governed and that there are three branches of government and those sorts of things. What kind of skills you need unt today than it was 20 years ago. One of the skills of this critical is to be able to talk to other people you disagree with. We need to understand democracy as a systemesigned for disagreement because side is what has happened. Thus what happened when people try to solve problems in disagree. That means we need to listen to each other to try and find common agreement. We need to have the structures to discuss those things one of the most important civic skills is misinformation as a surprise to no one in the audience we have a digital democracy. The traditional channels of absorbing information are no longer the case. That puts an emphasis on the consumer to understand what is going on what people dont know is there are simple and clear ways to teach people about how to consume Digital Information get much better at consuming truth if you are trained. That should be done at scale for every student in the third one is a definition. We belong to one community and that since you need to be involved and you need to be a part of the solution important for students to have the need to practice that. Whether bang Community Gardens or solving for accessibility issues on School Grounds or providing meals. We need a way to have students feel that they are part of something larger than themselves. A host i want to go over some statistics they did as civil statistics survey6 of of 7 only one in 17 could not name any branch of governmin the summary of this the Civics Knowledge survey finds while two thirds of americans can name all three branches of government fielded in a year of high profile events and this was a National Survey of u. S. Adults, not children. I wonder what you think the impact is for that level of knowledge in the United States . Guest this is a serious problem and as a result of the policies we have had for decades. Weve five senses civics compared to 50 per student per year. It is not a surprise and a direct consequence of the choices we have made. It is important to understand how these things are tied. If they dont understand how the system of Government Works are less likely to understand policy issues and the thi or some sort of entertainment as opposed to something that will have an impact on their lives and the time has come to put those two things together. We absolutely must invest in the Civics Knowledge and skill disposition of americans if we have the leadership we deserve. I wantbi they took a civics course that focused 33 said they had taken a College Course with the system of government and this gets back to what you are mentioning people seem to have access to Civics Education. Guest some areas get a whole lot mor some districts have debate clubs and visits to museums, local historical sites. These are all things we know work. If you look at the datach is thought of as the most serious standard for achievement by astudent k12. Students in history and civict level, 22 of students are proficient and civics. If you start looking deeper, those students who get quality education meaning their teacher is well trained to teach civics to a whole lot better. The reality gets a little complicated. Americans in general have not gotten enough civics. It is very uneven who gets it and how but mostly the quality of civics is the real issue. Do we get civics that makes it relevant to the student. Understand how all of these things how i can use them to r life is what we need to do. We need people to be able to tie the dots. Host we have regional phone line so we will start with jason in pennsylvania. Caller my name is jason stern and i am icivics member. I am so excited because these are my two favorite resources cspan and icivics. I have been a member for 10 years and is a fantastic resource i am so excited as a middle School Teacher to have these resources and i cant wait for civics learning week, we are so excited. N the country where civics can be a divisive topic and it can be more and more difficult in schools . I feel happy to hear both of you guys together. Guest to maintain an educated network, 400 teacher strong as an answer to your question. We hire educators and we know make a topic direct and engage students. We focus on educators who know their mater and actually make it fun for students. Thats what we think is really important. Its a divisive topic and we tried to stay away from that and remain 100 nonpartisan and it takes a little doing. Our best method to do that is to maintain andcouncil where we present materials, anything that could be divisive to folks with different viewpoints, just to make sure we can find a language that is unifying. Our goal is to unify the country. Ime, the effort to be able to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Host talk about civics learning week, Going Forward what kind of resources are available Guest National civics learning week coming up next week. We have programming all over the country the entire week, its virtual. Its organized by our civics now coalition which has 330 member organizations and they are devoted to making specific learning a greater priority in our country and we all agree we need to invest more so we can sustain a healthy democracy. It is our Second Annual civic learning week and we have a big National Form in washington dc and we are featuring many panels one on information literacy, one on how to make progress, how do you do this work in depth in communities where there are divisions and we are showing examples of people who have. At night, we will have a conversation with colleen and the secretary of education but the main program is a conversation with sotomayor and amy Coney Barrett. This is an incredibly important time to show people thought of as having similar points of view but who agree on the strength of our country, the reasons why we need to defended and the reasons why we need to find a pathway forward to work together. Host you can find those resources as civic learning we. Org. I also want to point out that cspan authors specifics education resource. You could find more information aboutcspan. Org classroom including free resources for teachers, students and the public as well as lesson plans and resources for educators. That is cspan. Org classroom. Lets go to ralph in washington dc. I want to congratulate this lady on her efforts. On civics and i am stunned by the lack of knowledge. If you dont understand civics you dont how hard it is to defend the skip. The first, there o speech. The government has a right to go when incidents are people on facebook and twitter and other media outlets. I am stunned people dont understand the significance of it. Of teaching civics were teaching the United States is evil you haveu victim and oppressor groups that are separated. This is the most divisive stuff ive ever seen in his stunning that is being propagated guest thank you for your call. We noticed a division in Civic Education and we are this popular because we stick to the facts and stick to teaching children in a nonpartisan way. In 2019, we began an effort to try to reduce partisanship are divisions as Civic Educations called educating for an american democracy. It is not a curriculum, its a set of question and no set of questions ask americans to take a look at what happened in the past and detmine how we should act now. Times people want to have a purely good view of something are purely negative, we dont think that is the world today. There are things we have not done right. We have great ideals contain in the declaration and constitution and those ideals we have sometimes lived up to and sometimes not. Thats just the facts, we just need to go on find ourselves in a community. The people could deescalate the divisions tfind a path forward we are a strong country we need to remain a strong will happen when people come together. Host what is your question for louise . Caller i can name the three branches of government. I never thought for a new york minute i would never be talking about my civics teacher fro oregon in my seventh grade year. I am just shocked that civics was not continued after we werent there anymore. One thing mrs. An taught us, she made us know the Supreme Court an 100 senators from the 50 states. She made us know the mayors of the town that we lived in. She made us know our county commissioners and for that, i knowe but she did a heckuva good job and i certainly hope you can do what she did and keep the divisiveness out of this. Keep politics out of Civics Education. Guest we could not agreek you so much for that. Thats all we wanted do we want kids to be community they live in, who does what and how it works. Thats really important and i amted by your call. There are so many great civics teachers out there then and now that want to do this work they just mean more time and resources in the classroom. Our coalition that is aligned to make that happen, have more resources and time in the classroom is called now. Org. If you are not a member, please join us. Host i want to read a couple of comments we are getting on social pack the boge htempowereenond up. Not sure what happened . Guest she is onto something. This is consequences. I dont think anyone set out to reduce the time spent on social studies and civics. There are only so many hours of the day. If you put time and resources and make the results of the test a consequence of resources coming to the school. You will drop the things not being tested and we have very few test in social studies and civics and nobody is arguing for more test but the inequity between disciplines is a problem. I will add someim not sure what weve done in the past for literacy has worked all that well. Relevancy of topics like social studies to raising reading rates and literacy is documented by research. These things are not a separate, these topics are not as separate as they appear. Host i actually want to bring in daniel pink is the author of books on science, business and creativity hased of naturalized citizens. Civics test moin require runnir a test that verifies their understanding of that foundational understanding. This is from a piece a few days agos which ties into a question and why dont all states require a passing of the test . Guest in various formats, 30 stateqthis is an effort that was started many years ago and its an easy ask of legislatures because it doesnt cost much and its a multiplechoice question and is not very hard. Some of the states take out a few of the questions. I havent seen much progress since the time this is happened. We have no objection to test but this test is so basic, i dont think it accomplishes what people want. I speak from it experience i immigrated to this country from canada and pass the test myself. Is it really enough for americans to understand hit is really pass and go and i dont think it will have much of an influence on whether people are able to see across differences to work together. It has been done and im not of it. Host vince in idaho falls, idaho. Caller how are you doing . Louise, youre doing a fantastic job from what i hear 5js;from your numbers. That is great im just gonna go out and sa it i think weve lost a couple of generations on this. The one behind me, im still pretty young at 70 but the ones behind me there is a faction out there, the only civics they know from my discussion, the constitution second amendment. Is there any correlation Going Forward about immigrants coming to the countryim around a lot of hispanics and they know more than a lot of my other associates now and i seem to know quite a bit host . T. Host many people coming into this country end up with the federal base for knowledge. Guest it depends on how they have learned and we are getting to a point now where we have to acknowledge the way educators are trained and the time we give them to receive professional learning is important. It really matters the way you are taught. Its not just a set of facts as facts that stick with you. Host benton from grand junction, colorado. Caller i was interested in the idea of teaching schools. Ive taught in International Schools around the planet and when in you country teaching civics he become acquainted with the country you are teaching in. That juxtaposition of foreign governments civics puts in stark relief the difference between the advanced western countries versus the more backwards countries. Caller host can you respond to that idea . Guest this is an idea being discussed more and more. You know, the state standards are set by each state so they dont deal of time for comparatives civics or democracy teary in the other types of systems of government and i think there is supposed to try to understand that better and to provide more time for the base of democracy they arent taught but they are given a small amount of time and that hasnt been the focus. We spent more time on the structures of government such as the three branches of government and i think there is a balance there the each state is have to find because it is not a tested the same way and i expect the kind of topics you are talking about will be taught a more as we entered into an election where those issues are in play. Caller i just wanted to say that since this country is so tied to their Motor Vehicles was put a basic civics on our drivers license test just a few basic questions and say, you dont get your drivers license. Give the answers like you do on a drivers license test so people are ready. It is going to solve every thing but it will reach a whole lot of people and at least give them some basic knowledge on how our Government Works. Guest im less interested than people. You would have to go statebystate and provide a fair amo support and if that is the case i am all in favor of a system in which we raise overall the level of civic understanding. Because there has been a trend of questions around the civic test. The immigration test is very basic. Are there three branches of government in the adult can answer that and have zero idea of what that means. Its not enough to understand there are three branches of government is how they move over time and how those things have reversed at what times are for what reason. Youre talking about a levelowledge that so bases that i dont think it will help enough. We would like to push it educating for american democracy for a greater depth of knowledge. We need more time in the classroom and we do need to address those decades of folks. Go look at the immigration test if you cant answer this and do nothing about it. Host we will leave it there louise dube the ceo of icivicsk you for your times. Guest it was such a pleasure to speak to you and your listeners, wonderful questions. That website is civivs cslearningweek. Org and i want. To fly before we go the cspan studentcam documentary competition and that is our annual documentary competition that encourages students to think critically about issues that affect our nation and this year we asked students to create a short video documentary on a topic that relates to this years forward while considering the past. You can look at the one hundred 50 winning documentaries and this years fan Favorite Award this wednesday morning at our website, studentcam. Org. Thats all the have for today stay tuned for another edition of washington journal coming up tomorrow. Have a great morning