Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240703

Of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more, including charter communications. Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers. We are just getting started. Building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. Charter communications, supports cspan as Public Service along wi these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Host is the wash journal for september 16. According to the American Library associathere were demands to reibrary books over concerned of content. Books under screwed in two with sexual content and many of those titles written by members of the lgbtqia community. When it comes to book fans, n titles and schools, is that something you support or oppose or perhaps you are not sure. If you say yport these bands, 202 7488000. If you oppose them, 202 01. If you are not sure, but want to give us your thoughts, 202 7488002. You can text us at 202 7488003. Post on facebook and on x. You can also follow on instagram. The American Library association on their website highlights what technically evolved when what is involved when books are up for review for content. What is the difference between challenge or banning. Challenging is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based on the objections of a person or group but banning is the removal of those material to reach challenges do not involve a person expressing a point of view, rather they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others through parents, teachers, students, and other citizens. Most challenges are successful in both materials are retained in the school click School Curriculum or Library Collection. They also publish under their challenge and right books are usually challenged with the best of intentions to protect others, protect children from difficult ideas or information. That is from the American Library association which also published some top books that were under consideration to be pulled from Library Shelves. They include a book called jen your queer, a member a memoir, all boys are blue by georgia johnson, a book called framer by mike dear otto which was also tied for looking for alaska by john green and the perks of being wallflower and he goes on from there. You can find that at the ala site. When it comes to this idea of pulling books because of content, where you stand on that do you support or oppose that . If you support the effort and want to tell uwh call in 202, 748, 8000 if you support that, if you support tt, 202 7488000. If you oppose it [indiscernible] npr asked many things along the topic of library content. One of the questions they asked were to what extent if all do you support or oppose each of the following. Under individual School Boards betting certain books and removing things from classrooms, 6 show supporting that, 15 somewhat supporting it, 20 percent somewhat opposing it and 45 strongly opposing it. When it comes to parents asked about School Boards betting certain books, 8 of parents supporting that, 36 strongly opposing that. Then it asks the question about state lawmakers, if state lawmakers were passing laws that ban certain books, removing them from classrooms. Only 5 of those responding strongly support that versus 50 strongly opposing that. When it comes to parents of students from k12, 6 of those parents saying they approve or strongly support state lawmakers moving to ban certain books, 42 opposing that movement as well. You can find that at npr. When it comes to book fans, it was the subject of a Senate Judiciary hearing that took place this week. You can find the whole hearing on our website at cspan. Org. But it was during the hearing that the illinois secretary of state was there to talk about not only his concerns over bands but how legislatively had state was dealing with it. Here is of the full portion of his testimony. [video clip] our libraries have become targets by movein that disingenuously claims to pursue fruit him freedom but is moaning authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes ban books, not democracies. Tragically, our libraries have become the thunder domes of controversy and strife across our nation. The likes of which we have never seen before. These radical attacks on our libraries divided our communities and our librarians have been harassed, threatened, and intimidated for simply doing their jobs. The need to stand up and fight for our freedoms and libraries, especially at this perilous time for our democracy, is why i initiated house bill 2789 in illinois. This legislation, the first of its kind in the United States of america, is a win for First Amendment rights and most importantly a great victory for future generations to come. Under this legislation, illinois libraries will not be eligible for state funded grants if they ban books. This right to read legislation will help remove the pressure librarians tragically had to endure over the last couple years. This legislation is important because both concept and practice of banning books contradicts the very essence of what our country stands for and our democracy was founded on. It also defies what education is all about. Teaching our children to think for themselves. If the book banners care to, they can go to our librarys and check out the federalist papers, the u. S. Constitution, and Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment. What they will learn is our democracy depends on the marketplace of ideas. The market place of ideas will not function if we ban books because we will be banning ideas and preventing our children from thinking for themselves and having the ability to debate and to learn and understand different specters as we will be banning knowledge, culture, empathy, understanding, and diverse and differing worldviews. Host the full hearing is available on cspan. Org. It featured a lot of different perspectives when it comes to the topics of book fans. We are interested in hearing what you think about it, whether you support or oppose them. If you support, 202 7488000 is the number to call. If you are opposed, 202 7488001. Perhaps you are not sure, 202 7488002. You can always post on our social media sites as well and text us. One from california texting us saying he supports book banning of unnecessary material that most kids dont understand in the first place. There will be plenty of time to be an adult, why rush it he adds. From mike in woodberry, minnesota with the word oppose totalitarian states ban books he writes. From our Facebook Page, Tricia Kessler saying she supports the many books sexualizing our young books has no business in school. Quite disgusting she adds. Then sharon cap with our Facebook Page says she opposes it. Book fans are way to control people. It is the fascist playbook, another on thought control. You can add into the mix including texting us at 202 7488003. The same npr poll took a look at the idea of passing laws and making moves on book hands by Political Party when respondents were asked about state lawmakers passed passing laws, only 12 of republicans say they support the move, 24 somewhat supportive of it, 20 say they somewhat oppose and 31 saying they strongly oppose it. Democrats less than 5 saying they strongly oppose that and 70 say they strongly oppose it. When they talk about individual scoreboards School Boards banning books, republicans 12 of them saying they strongly support that move, 29 strongly opposing it, democrats saying about 6 of those supporting that, 55 opposing it. That pole was conducted by npr. If you want to find online, it is npr. Org. Your thoughts on socalled book fans, if you support or oppose them. Judy in maine on our oppose line. Good morning. Caller good morning. It is rudy. Host rudy, i apologize. Caller no, thats ok. I oppose it with one caveat. You must play senator kennedys remarks last week of him reading from two of the books. If you do this, right now, on cspan, i am against it. Otherwise i am for it. Host i dont understand your reasoning there but can you clarify . Caller sure. Senator kennedy read from two of the books. If you can read from two of the books on the senate floor, why cant you . If you cant, then im for banning them. So i recommend you read them so everyone can hear some of the content of those books. It had to be bleeped out online on Network Television because of the content but you dont want to ban them. Host if you want to go to the website, our cspan website, we aired that hearing, senator kennedys comments included for anybody to hear, go to our website at cspan. Org. A lot of different perspectives when it comes to the topic. You can add yours to the mix on our support, oppose, or not sure line. On our up hose line, this is ralph in michigan. Hi. Caller yes, what prompted me to call was the clip you had of the man talking about book banning and authoritarianism. I have to agree wholeheartedly with the idea that we have an authoritarian movement, which to me is the Trump Movement basically. There is an authoritarian movement in the United States in the Republican Party. So much so that my feeling on the Republican Party is no longer what i would call traditional republican. Host lets apply it to book ban specifically. Why do you oppose them . Caller the problem is that is the first step toward an authoritarian state. Correct . So lets go back to hitler and not and nazi germany. One of the first movements of the hitlers Political Party, i cant remember it, the national socialist, right . The nazi party was to ban books. To me, it is an initial step toward an authoritarian thing. And i think they are doing this in florida and florida is banning books and words, so it was my understanding that in florida, what is the governors name . Ron desantis headband the phrase Climate Change from any government Florida State document. Host troy is next in maine on our support line. Caller hello . Host you are on. Troy, from maine, go ahead. Caller ok. Im watching tv. Anyway, i dont think books should be banned. I think everybody should be able to read whatever they want. Host you are calling in on our support line, why is that . Caller im watching cspan right now. Host you are calling in on the wrong line. We have labeled it out if you support book hands it is book bans is 202 7488000. If you oppose it, 202 7488001. If you are not sure, 202 7488002. One of the people pushing back against some of the ideas secretary of state brought up at the scene hearing, a gentleman with the American Enterprise institute talked about what his thoughts are on what ban means and if it is occurring in the United States. Here is a portion of his comments. This conversation focuses on School Library availability. If ban means made unavailable, virtually every book every publisher has been effectively banned from School Libraries. But that is not even what this word means. Indeed a book can be both banned and available in School Library. That is because the media expanded the definition of ban offered by penn america. If a book has been taken off the shelves, reviewed, and placed on the shelves, it has according to penn been banned. If a School Places a per mentor parental permission requirement on a book, it has according to them has been banned. If a school moves a book to a Guidance Counselors office, it has according to them been banned. Their report banned in the usa draws parallels to these two nazi germany. My public School Library did not carry mein kampf. Was it banned . I dont know but i know i have read a few books and so far missed the part where the nazi party forced schools to relocate books to Guidance Counselors offices. An honest account, the heritage foundations j green and i set out to assess how many of 2005 under 32 books in the 2022 report banned were removed from School Libraries. We did this with one trick, we checked the card catalogs. Nearly three quarters of the books labeled as banned were still in School Libraries. A careful analysis relies the claims that books are being banned for race or lgbt issues were penn america labeled the black lives matter inspired the hate you give as the fifth most banned book, we found it available on every School Library in question. When the Washington Post examined 1000 review requests by parents, less than 7 mentioned lgbt without also containing the word sexual. Although those requests may have contained words like pornographic or obscene. That is what this issue is really about. The provision of sexually explicit material to children by public employees. Host there were a lot more perspectives from the hearing. We will continue to show you them as we go on. Your idea or your thoughts when it comes to this idea of book manning, you can call on the line and post on social media. The report mentioned can be found online at the aei website, aei. Org, and the report is called the book ban mirage if you want to read some of those findings for yourself. Stony brook, new york on our opposed line from janet. Go ahead. Caller hi, pedro. Nice to talk to you. I am a librarian and i work in somewhat conservative Public Library district. I am not sure if we have the book on the shelves because im an adult librarian but i did listen to the hearing and although the passage was upsetting, i have to say from all boys dont wear blue, the woman who was i believe she was from arkansas, she was saying that she was a victim of sexual abuse and if you read the entire book then you would know that that scene depicts sexual views. I think that is part of the problem in society and the press is everything is taken out of context. Now theres a soundbite of kennedy reading that which is fine but if you read the entire book you would know that that was meant to warn a child or somebody in a new relationship that that is not ok what was happening. Host you said you are a librarian and you work with adult but do you know if your library has a process of dealing with books that parents or other people may want to challenge . Caller we absolutely do. What happens is somebody would have to write something in writing, and emailer letter, then the book is examined. I do not think that our children or librarians are putting things they deem inappropriate on the spot so i dont thing this happens very much. We do have a parent correction so only some 18 or older can take it out so another word the parent would condone the child reading the book. There is a lot of ways you can make sure like a sevenyearold is not reading that. Host lets hear from sam in massachusetts, supporter of these efforts. Caller hi. I support the book and because i do not believe that pornography should be taught to Young Children by democratic liberals. Im a christian and i strongly support the kind of book ban. That is all i have to say. Host from penn america, which you heard the previous person at the hearing say they keep track of socalled bands that have been taking place. This is from Education Week if you want to find it online, book fans and regional. Since 2021, penn america tracked more than 1000 instances of book challenges and bands during the sixmonth period. It charts it from july to december 22 anyone, 1383 instances from january to june 2022. 1140 nine instances. From july to december, 2022, 1477 instances. That is found at the Education Week and they include some of the illustrations of book bands that, over the years, the titles under consideration we have already mentioned and you can read that online. Kevin joins us on our not sure line. Hello. Caller hello. The reason im not sure is because who would be determining look its on the shelves and what doesnt . Because some people are out of their minds in either direction. Host if there were an outside body else out of the library and outside of ahrens, i guess who would you like to see make these kinds of decisions . Caller parents should be able to make it. I wouldve loved to have got my hands on the anarchist cook look in fifth grade. My parents, not so much. You know what i mean . That is my point. There you go. Host our next is in boston on our opposed line. Caller good morning. I was thinking there are two separate things. Theres age appropriateness versus the topic of the book and what is discussed in it. There is also another differentiation here. There is a book ban or a regulation of topic and what is taught in school. I cannot believe it is 2023 and weve got a listen to sam from massachusetts call in to say i support book bans in the usa. What the hell is that . I dont care if you are christian, i dont care what father figure in the sky you look up to. I dont care. Host specifically, why do you oppose it . Caller why do i oppose the book ban . Its almost everything that america stood against. It is unconscionable that we have people, especially older people, calling in supporting a book ban like it is nazi germany. Moved to iran. Host that is ted in boston. Some of the perspectives on this topic an oped form have appeared. It was earlier this year that the education secretary cardona weighed in on his thoughts. You can find his th on line in the oped but he reads in part it is just as deserving as some politicians want to read over the last year,edom to Million Students have had their Reading Center ak bans with the majority of bands centering stories of colored americans. Imagine being a parenthose kid has never read a single book in ol about a family who looks like theres. Censorship is not only against our values as a nation, it makes it for makes it harder for children to learn. The families i met want more not fewer books on the shelves of their school and their local libraries. That is Miguel Cardona with his thoughts. Also giving their thoughts on the matter was martin swain of the wall street Journal Editorial Board on a piece published in june in which he writes the American Library a report of 2571 books wimed in challenged in American Librarys thr. Thosehallenges would be with the ala called attempted book hands. Nearly all of which involve a request that a patron that a it from its shelves because it is obscene. Young Adult Fiction has become shockingly course th two decades. Attacks bear supported library not facilitate childrens to a sexually explicit book is not to ban it, any interested patron may buy it and read it in public if he wishes. Those are two viewpoints there. From various oped pages. The topic, from west virginia, we will continue on with your viewpoints and calls on our opposed line, carl, hello. Caller hello. I oppose. There are all kinds of equipment being invented for your body. Feeling thing that is invented for your mind is a book. The book helps you articulate words better, helps you actually think, so if you dont read, you fall behind on everything. The book is a mind exercise. You exercise your arms, exercise your legs, but the only tool is the book to exercise your mind. Host ok. We will hear from mary in clearwater, florida, support line. Hi. Caller hi. Being from florida too, i support this. Children should be learning language, math, science in school. That is why other countries are running circles around us because we have to have these idiotic conversations about and it is not book banning. If you want to talk about nazi germany, that is a joke. This is what is ageappropriate for our children and i dont care what adults do in the bedroom. I could care less what i dont want to teaching my kids about it. Down here we have had it in the kindergarten area of the library, gender queer, etc. , and that is what i am opposed to having in our libraries. Host that is mary giving her thoughts from florida. Fox news reporting this week reporting this week the Biden Administration hired a news are to monitor efforts to remove certain books from School Libraries as officials face the backlash for that. Former Obama Administration official and nonprofit leader begin the work as a Deputy Assistant secretary for the office of civil rights and will be training lead training sessions on book bands. His past work focused heavily on the lgbtq community. Across the country, we are seeing an effort to ban books, the historical events and more according to an Education Department official that was sent in email. These efforts are a threat to student rights and freedoms. You can find that the fox news story on our a story. On our not sure line, our next ller is up next. Chuck, from tennessee, hello . Caller good morning. Thank you for taking t cl. I just wanted to say on here what really concerns me about this is i believe this is an issue being driven by some unknown, centralized advocacy groups that spread the word out to local communities that you need to take this issue up with your local School Boards. It is just another example of some unseen force and group of people with an agenda creating division and discord in our country. The far greater risk in my opinion to young people is what is on the internet. You can have a book in the library that has problematic material, pornographic material, adult themed material in there and the library, there is so much in the library. It takes a lot of courage or a lot of moxie if you will forget to go to the library and check out a book when they know the library knows what is in it and they are looking at it for curiosity. The thing in the kids pockets, in their backpacks, the smartphones allows a kid far worse material, far greater access to things that are abhorrent to any values out there. That is where the focus needs to be. Host chuck in tennessee offering his thoughts. Joanne on facebook as well saying i believe kids live in the real world with all kinds of people. The more they know the better. With religion in school, either teach all religions are no religions. Real history and not cherry picked history. Facebook. Com cspan is how you post there. You can also post on x at cspanwj. You can text us your thoughts at 202 7488003. Texas is next on our opposed line, this is nate. Hello. Caller how are you doing . Host fine thank you. You are on. Caller if you think that banning mark twain and Ernest Hemingway from kids libraries is your thing, then i would probably say you are wrong. I mean they tell good stories, everybody depends on them, all the stories used, and i just dont get how you would take that out of a kids education. You know what i mean . Host that is nate there in texas. Pulling up a quick search from the uc press fomr u cpress. Org. This is part of our mission to advance knowledge and us in the uc press are excited to acknowledge ban book week. It would be a challenge to recognize banned books without taking a look at one of the most challenged of all time, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Over 100 years after mark twains death, still controversial as ever. One of the editors of mark twains autobiography addresses the history and you can find the full interview. Mark twain making the list at times for his book the adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Maybe want to mention a specific book whether process of which these are banned or considered or challenges are considered and you heard our various guests from those Senate Hearings talking about continuing on with her because if you support the idea of socalled book vans, bans, 202 7488000. If you oppose it, 202 7488001. If you are not sure, you can call us at 202 7488002. Then you can always post on our social media sites if u. S. And if you wish and text us at 202 7488003. Paul from wilmington, delaware on our not sure line. Hello. Caller the reason im not sure is because the question is like are you opposed to salt. I think most of people calling on your opposed ban books [indiscernible] it mentions a lot with White Supremacy. I am against Huckleberry Finn being banned. It is like salt, you cant be for or against a, it is situational. Caller so what is the key question you have to ask if you are for or against it . Caller you have to ask are you against banning mark twain, against banning a book that tells you how to build bombs, are you against a book that are there no books anyone would want to ban on the opposed line . The people on the support line, i dont know. Host all right. People want to mention specific books on the support or oppose line they can do attitude. This cmonday cspan launches its brandnew series, books that shapeca every week discussion taking a look at key books not only for the ntent but how they impacted the United States and the exploration of literature from the American History that provoke thought and won awards and led signt social change. It is produced in partp with the library of congress in starts this coming monday at 9 erie there are several ways you can see it, cspan, cspan the channel, cspan now our app, our obile video app, then if you go to cspan. Org, it will give you a listing of the books thatbe discussed over the next 10 weeks. A wide rangepics, especially if you are a book and you like tod. Start with the series that kicks off this coming monday. Find out more on the website at. Org. Lauren in maryland on our opposed line. You are up next. Hello. Caller hello. Im the School Library and School Librarians strive to put ageappropriate cereals in schools. We look at books and choose books that have positive reviews and look for the recommended ages when selecting books for our library. Book vans do not impact Elementary Schools as much as they do middle and high school. Several of the banned books our memoirs so those are personal experiences and that can be very helpful for a lot of students for them to be able to see themselves in and their experiences. Books, studies show that most students first interaction with honor graphic or sexually explicit material is from cell phones not books. We have to remember that books take perseverance and intuitiveness. They have to go to the library, check out the books, then sit down and read it read lets put the onus on the parents. If you do not want your child to read a certain book, then tell them not to check out that book where that particular material. Dont try to restrict other peoples children. Host thank you for the perspective. If i could ask you a question, for instance oh to speak. What happens when a parent comes to you or your library about concerns over a certain book and asks about its appropriateness. What is the process . Caller there is a formal challenge process and the parents would need to fill out forms and then there is a review committee made up of community members, teachers, and others, and everybody has to then read the book that is challenged and there is a formal process that we go through to decide if the book should remain on the shelf. Host do you find once the processes done that the book stays on the shelf or is taken off of the shelf . Caller so far most of the books have stayed on the shelves after they have gone through the process. Host lauren in maryland giving us her perspective as a librarian, second librarian to call today. You can add that to the mix if that is your background. In new york, this is fall on our opposed line. Hello. Caller hello, pedro. And cspan. I am practically totally opposed to banning and restricted reading of books in the United States of america. I think against reading a book is like a person. And i think handing books is like saying some former leader in the United States said the free press is the enemy of the people. Banning is the enemy of intelligence, thoughtfulness, freedom, and democracy. I think we learned in our history that the stopping of people from exercising their intellectual at least their intellectual understanding should be allowed to make the choices. As librarians responsibly make the choices of what children should use in schools. [indiscernible] it was exemplified by the nazis in the 1930s, mussolini and the 1920s, stalin until he passed away in march 1953. Host ok. Jp is next in mississippi on our not sure line. Hello. Caller good morning. Frankly, i find the topic bear with me, im trying to think of the right word ill go with the simple one, asinine. You are using the word ban wrong. The argument is to restrict, and i believe the goal in using the word wrong is to continue this argument of not being able to adequately topics by using imprecise language. Host you still called in our not sure line. Tell us why you are not sure regardless of the language or semantics. Caller if you argue oppose or not oppose how can you argue oppose or not oppose of the argument is not precise . Host you have some thought on it im sure because you picked up the phone. When it comes to books on a shelf being up for consideration for content, what you think of that . Caller i think content is up to the people and it needs to be discussed. If it is considered not appropriate for certain ages, it should be restricted. People have mentioned not to germany and in nazi germany when they banned books they took them out and burnt them. We are not burning them area we are saying restrict to the age appropriateness. Using imprecise language, youre muddying the waters and creating a way of not being able to adequately discuss ideas. Host you just expressed your ideas and we appreciate you doing so. Jody in tennessee, hello. Caller hi. I am looking at this list of books and the most 100 challenged banned books in the last 10 years. Many of these are required reading in an ap english class. At the high school i went to, i was fortunate enough my fair my parents could sacrifice a lot of their own money to send me to a good school. I used to be a teacher. I had to quit teaching because we are failing our students. We are failing them, we are not setting them up for college, we are not setting them up to do well in life. Look at this list. My angelo, toni morrison, margaret atwood, harper lee, john steinbeck, tim obrien, and frank, george orwell. These are the authors that change lives. These will change your life if you read them. If they dont change the way that you think about the world, you are not reading them properly and you need to go and read them again. Host jodi in tennessee. One of the books that consistently shows up about concerns over content and liber is considering if it should remain on a shelf is all boys arent blue by George Johnson. According to the ala, 86 challenges they saw, challenged for lgbtqia plus content, claiming to be sexually explicit. There is a book cover he spoke there is a book cover. He spoke at the Los Angeles Times book festival earlier this year. Cspan cameras were there to cover it. He spoke not only about bands on the book but the content in the book. Heres a bit from George Johnson earlier this year. [video clip] the first thing i would say is one it is really not an attempt at my story personally because they have not read the book. So you can be trying to attack my story if you have not read the book. I say that and i know they have not read the book because the parts they are upset about, in chapter 11 but i know they would have been more upset if they read the book and saw what i said about Abraham Lincoln and thomas jefferson. [laughter] [applause] so i know that it is not an attempt at blocking my story as much as the ideology they are trying to protect. An ideology around we can call it what it is White Supremacy, ideology that says lgbtq people dont have the right to exist in this country, that we should be looked at as a lower class of citizens. My biggest reason for defending not just my book, all of the books, the right to read, is when you look at generations because all of this is stemming out of the census from 20 that basically said gen z was almost about to be more nonwhite than white and gen z was identifying 20 lgbtq. So bunch of people in the country got scared because that is what they do because this country has always been based on fear, not faith, so because of that irrational fear, thinking oh well if this is the next population that will be in power, that means lgbtq people will in essence be in power. That means more nonwhite people will be in power and that means the white kids within generations he will have empathy for the rest of the people because they got to interact with people who did not look like them and got to read books about people that had different experiences. So when they become the next governors and senators and people in power, they already go into these systems wanting to dismantle them, understanding you may have to abolish and not reform, and they go into it with the mindset of thinking everybody is allencompassing of the Actual Community that exists in. So that is why i chose to be a fighter in this because it is that important and is that important that the Younger Generation and young adults now know that they have the law on their side because they are respected and protects yall to have the right books they want to read and that you have the right to change this world and we are watching it in real time and i want to be a part of that change. Host the los angeles festival of books is where George Johnson spoken several other authors had the books considered and challenged, speaking at that form also. If you wanted to see that, go to the website at cspan. Org. David in ohio, on our support line, thanks for waiting. Go ahead. Caller am i on . Host yep. Caller i am calling to support the book banning because i dont lieve in sexualizing kids. It should not be in School Library. Host ok. Do you have anything else there dave . Caller i believe people should read what they want to read and go buy a book on amazon or something but it should not be in the School Library. Stop sexualizing children. That is my belief. Host dave in ohio, kenny in North Carolina on our not shoreline. Hi. Caller yes. I dont understand why they are ringing this up and making a big problem out of it when we never had a problem with this before. If they were really concerned, they would look at the internet. They could go on the internet and view anything. We have not had a problem in our schools when they did take ask out, civics, they took that out of school and look at people today. They can even vote right. They dont even know the three branches of government. So this is really terrible, really terrible. There is a problem being created and it is a problem that is not there. It is a political issue and that is the way they do it. Mainly the republicans. I dont understand. The other thing is it is usually democrat, republican, independent. This morning youve got those other three lines but the majority of pull dont want these things banned. If you had democrat and republican, i dont know why you switched it, you would get a better view of what america things. Host support, suppose, and not sure and we have heard from all three including several that said on the not shoreline. On our post line, lisa is up next. Caller im sorry . Host hello . Caller thank you so much. Lisa here. Love all the librarians who called in and they taught me the do a decimal system so i love librarians but i do wish there was a book i could tell me about my 13yearold body. I am 56 now, but my 13yearold body back then, a book that could teach me the ropes. I did not know that. I would also like to comment on the gentlemen, i think he was just on econ the, and he said he was reading against the law or Something Like that. I dont know what he was getting at but, guess what, back in the day, and we all know this, legislation was black folks, enslaved, and descendants, could not read. Do not teach them literacy. Host let me go back to your first point. Do you think there should be age appropriateness and books, particularly in a public or School Library . Caller yes i do. I do believe that. And had i known that, i think age appropriateness, yes, exactly. I do not want to mean that on the librarians to do that, so do i want to say that the government is supposed to do that . It is huge. Host lisa in maryland giving her thoughts. When it comes to the challenges, you can find everything i am reading on their website, often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from inappropriate sexual content, or offensive content. The following are the reasons for challenging materials, number one, the material was quote sexually close explicit. Expressive language, then number three, materials were unsuited to any age group. Going on to say although this is a commendable motivation, access to Library Resources and services for minors and interpretation of the library bill of rights states libraries and governing bodies should maintain parents and only parents have the right and responsibility to restrict the acts of their children access and of their children and only their children to Library Resources. Whether for protection or any other reason relates the First Amendment. More at the ala website if you want to read it there. Our next caller in michigan, support line. Caller thank you very much. I would like to say that i think the word ban, banning books is the wrong language. It is more like regulate certain books and access as you mentioned. By the way, i am in favor of this and i vote democrat as well. Im africanamerican. I do not believe that lewd and the savviest materials or that which could be classified as erotica in words should be available to any minors, especially when you talk about books that have pictures and in the state of michigan, we have books that say minors cannot given pornographic material and this is a criminal statute. I was looking at the qualitative difference when the library of michigan and internet. We are talking about Public Schools. This is taxpayerfunded money. What someone does at home and in which their parents and children are not being properly supervised or given a phone too early, that is one thing, that is in the home but i do not think our taxpayer dollars should be funding inappropriate books that sexualize children and some of the books like this book is gay or the book called the blamer, there are tutorials about how to do certain sex acts , lewd and lascivious behavior and language, pictorials of group masturbations for minors. Totally inappropriate and im not a conservative, im not a republican, and nor am i much less they white supremacist so a lot of these debate points i think are red herrings and not dealing with the fact in the ground. Im a father of five and i think it is totally inappropriate for my children or any group of children to be subjected to erotica as minors and when they become adults, if parents want to be a responsible and by their minors erotica or show them pictures of heterosexual, homosexual intercourse, that is on them but not with our taxpayer dollars. Host that is if you are in michigan, lets hear from a viewer in maryland, the opposed line. This is ed. Basically this whole issue is being blanketed, a front regarding the lgbtq sexuality situation. Which the problem is many of the books banned are being banned because of their association with crt. You look at books like Frederick Douglass books the narrative of life of Frederick Douglass, if you look at ida b wells, crusade for justice, southern hearts, reporting on race and Everything Else. What theyre trying to do is prevent young black kids, not their children not the right wing children from reading these books but they dont want the black children having access to these books. A lot of these childrens are in title i schools with free lunches and free breakfast or lunch and they dont have access to these types of books otherwise. My solution, i always believe in issues impact solutions. The issue is they want to ban books that inspire black kids based upon how Frederick Douglass and others dealt with the race issue in their day and the impact is a lot of these kids wont realize how determination and Everything Else plays into how to deal with these challenges and the solution is in florida and these other places where they are being banned, i think likeminded people, especially Football Players and people should purchase these books for these children in title i schools and have them develop their own personal libraries where they can read the books, to follow up, have discussions. Host lets go to george in virginia on our not sure line. Hi. Caller im not sure. Am not sure whats going on. We were talking about School Libraries and possibly what was being taught in school. Not Public Librarys. The biggest problem is nobody can make up their mind. They are talking about it seems that it references very strongly a personal preference. Im german and when i was in germany, sawyer and what is the other guys name . It has been a long time, im 80. Host why are you not sure about this idea of removing or putting aside some books from some children in school . Why are you not sure . Caller im not sure. When i was say about 1213, i read this book. I did not get it from i also read other things i like to read other things. There is no common sense from most of what these people talk about. Host george in virginia, looking at florida was a story earlier this week that highlights the florida experiences with this thing, School Districts removed approximately three him 300 books from Library School last year Library Shelves last year. The removals were prompted by more than 1200 objections by parents a Public School students or other florida residents according to a 16 age document and included a book with discontinued titles including books containing lgbtq themes and characters including the awardwinning memoirs gender queer and all boys are in blue as well as the illustrated childrens books a day in the life of marlon bundle and goes on from there. Including on the left, Toni Morrisons beloved bar Nine National book winning novel the fixer and Margit Atwood the testaments. In a response from nbc news, seeking comment on the list and referring to the titles as banned books a spokesperson for the Florida Department of information said florida does not ban books, information is provided by each book based on objections of a parent or county and using the district process, adding this is the first year the state Education Department collected information on book objections that the School Districts received. There is more there on the piece from nbc news if you want to read it for yourself we will hear from carly in pennsylvania on our opposed line. Hello. Caller hi. So you are talking to another librarian as well. I was an Academic Library in and i was actually more or less fired because of supporting the inclusion of banned books. That is a problem. That is a problem not enough people, librarians are being fired and have been because of challenges to ban books. Banned books are good. Reading them is good. Having them is good. The problem comes in as im sure you are understanding is when people do not read them. A lot of people that are calling in on the support line have not read these books. I would like you to ask them if they have read any like gender queer, if they have read we host im assuming you have read them all . Caller i have. Host what would be the justification for the inclusion in the Library Collection book . What would you boil that down to . Caller other librarians have said this on the calls today but kids see themselves in the books, they help them grow. Host ok. Caller that is a good thing. And another thing people are pointing out is kids, teenagers, they may or may not be having sexual like actions with other people in their life and having books that touch on these things is good. Host daniel in cincinnati, ohio. Support line. Caller hello . Host daniel, hello. You are on goahead. Caller yes. I feel if they want to teach these things through these books in schools than they should support it with their money, taxpayer dollars should not go towards teaching these books. You can always go to a library and take these books out if you want to. You dont need to have them in the school area that is my thoughts. Host one more call in North Carolina on our not sure line hello. Caller i am a black i would say democrats and im not sure because the way i see it, i think that, not to be funny, i think gangs are using blacks to get their agendas out. They banned books im not sure because one guy said, i do not want my kid to read a book about reading, writing, comprehension, exposing things that has nothing to do with come branding the material. They can retain the material and understand all that other stuff. Save it for college or later on. Let me decide will my child looks at. Literature is different. Those things are fundamental, but lets deal with the fundamentals while in school. Deal with the fundamentals, teach semiconductors and get the same information on gay rights. Host all right, our last color finishing off the caller. Thank you two guests joining us. Sharon luyre from Associated Press, their Education Data reporter. You will take a look at analysis of chronic absenteeism in schools, especially since they reopen since the pandemic. Then on our spotlight on podcasts segment. Voxs noel king. All that a watch the new series books that saved america. Join us on a captivating journey with select arbery of Congress Library of congress. The books featured have provoked thought, won awards, led to societal changes, and are still talked about today. Here from were not experts renowned experts. Among our featured books, thomas payne, mark twain, nelson and rose friedman. Watch the 10 part series starting monday september 18 on cspan, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. Sunday on q a, a Georgetown University law professor talks about the civil rights and Civil Liberties cases taken up by the u. Supreme court during world war ii and the state of the court today. The stain of antijapanese cases which is very deep stain as well as the nazi separatory case and the rushed justice in those cases. Those cases i think have important lessons for us. One is the danger of excessive deference of the claim of national security. The other is especially important today is the danger and catastrophe that can result when justices are unwilling to stand up to the president who appointed them or to their political patriots. That is an especially important lesson today at a time when more than at any time in our history, the position of the justices correlate with the plug party of the president who appointed them. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on q a. You can listen to q a and all of our podcasts on our free cspan now have. Washington journal continues. Continues. Host a discussion on absenteeism in u. S. Schools. Joining us is sharon luyre from the Associated Press, their Education Data reporter. Thank you for giving us more time. Guest thank you for having me. Host what prompted a look into absenteeism . Guest it has been clear since the pandemic happened that there have been seismic changes in the nation school. A lot of that has to do with increasing disengagement from school. At the Associated Press, we had previously done reporting on students who were missing from Public School with professor thomas dee. We wanted to do a followup of students that are perhaps in school but are missing many days. My colleague, bianchi vasquez, works to write an article based on Data Collected by professor thomas dee of stanford that looks statebystate at what is known as chronic absenteeism. That is when you miss at least 10 of the school year. That is around 18 days since a Typical School year is 180 days. That can be missing school for any reason, excused or unexcused. What this article found is we looked at 40 states plus d. C. , with collectively account for 92 of the kindergarten through 12th grade Public School population. The average chronic absenteeism rate in the schools rose 13. 5 Percentage Points to 23. 8 over a quarter of students. When we projected this percentage change nationally, that is equivalent to 6. 5 Million Students falling into chronic absenteeism who otherwise would not before. We are comparing 2018 to 20 year, for the pandemic 20182019 school year, before the pandemic, to 20212022. Host an estimated 6. 5 Million Students are chronically absent according to the definition they worked with. As far as looking at the whys, what did the team find . Guest there is a lot of there are many different factors for the increase in absenteeism. Part of that is because the norms of school changed. It used to be considered more acceptable to send your kid to school if they had a slight cough. But schools since the pandemic or giving the message of if your kid is sick, keep them home. There is also less of a sense of you have to be ins will in person. A lot of kids were remote for the pandemic, and now here is like, why do they have to go to school in person . And there are affects of the Mental Health crisis on children. There has been a huge increase in symptoms of anxiety and depression in young people since the pandemic. It is a real crisis end a lot of students are staying home because they dont feel mentally well enough to go to school. There is also an increasing sense among some families of not being welcome in the school buildings. A lot of schools did not allow parents on School Campuses during the pandemic for safety reasons, and some have continued to not allow parents to step foot on the campus, so that creates a divide between families and schools. There is an increasing sense of families and schools not cooperating together and not being on the same side. You also have issues related to housing instability. Students who experience housing instability, it is much harder for them to go to school. Also physical health problems. And sometimes schools dont speak the same language as the parents which creates difficulty in forming relationships between the school and home. Host lets invite viewers into the conversation about absenteeism. If you want to find the Associated Press report, you can find it online. Some students are missing weeks of school. Parents, if you want to give a perspective, 202 7488000. Educators, 202 7488001. All others, 202 7488002. You can give a comment or question by text if you want at 202 7488003. Ms. Sharon luyre, if they are not going to school, is there a case to be made that they perhaps decided to attend a private school or when to homeschool . How does that factor in . Guest in this case, we were looking at students who are still enrolled in school, but they had usually around at least 18 days of absences out of the school year. These are students who are in school, but when you miss so much, you often fall behind. It is extremely hard to catch up academically and you miss out on other things that happen like social support, meals, often helps support. And often Health Support. The reason schools track chronic absenteeism is because it is a good measure of when students are vulnerable and likely to fall behind. Host if that is the case, what students fall into those categories . Guest it can be any student that falls into those categories. The study did find that the chronic absenteeism rate grew particularly high for latino, black, and low income students. Some factors i mentioned before in terms of housing instability would particularly affect low income students. The issues of maybe the school not speaking the same language as the parent issues, or maybe the school does not feel engaging in culturally relevant to the students. There was an interesting part of the article. We found the area with the highest rate of chronic absenteeism was alaska. In particular, almost 50 of all students. A really huge number. A lot of this had to do with the rural area of a lot of schools, difficulty in getting schools. We heard from students who could not get to school because there were wolves and polar bears on the road. One of our reporters in alaska spoke to a teacher there who was native alaskan. The rate is particularly high for native alaskans. She noticed there was a live disconnect in the School System and it was not culturally relevant in a lot of ways because even the School Calendar was not well aligned with the traditional activities her students did like hunting, fishing, and gathering season which are will be crucial for cultural reasons and so you have food for the winter. She had a great quote, her name was heather powell, who set our families are not valuing education because it is not something that ever valued us. That was a good quote to show by families from more marginalized backgrounds will feel that if they do not feel valued in schools, it is not a value for them to go. Host maybe you were a student impacted by the covid School Closings and were dealing with chronic absenteeism or a parent of one of them. 202 7488000. Educators, 202 7488001. Others, 202 7488002. I know you looked at the data but as far as your team, what do educators say in general . What is their concern of their degree of concern and how are they responding . Guest i believe that a few days ago the Biden Harris Administration announced it was going to focus on chronic absenteeism as an issue in schools. I think people recognize this is an unique issue because at the end of the day, if you are not in school, will not learn. Unless you are being homeschooled but this is not that case. Theyre just missing school. At the same time, it is a very difficult issue to address. It is not an issue that can be addressed with addressed in one year. It will take a longterm commitment. But there are some methods that have been shown to be successful in the past. There were studies of helping kids become more engaged in school which includes texting or sending postcards to families to let them know about their childs attendance record. Although 18 days is a lot, that is really only a couple days per month so parents may not even realize their students are chronically absent. They might think it is just a day here or there but it adds up. Another thing is Health Support at the school and social services which helps build engagement. Connecticut had a Successful Pilot program where they sent school staff or a trusted member of local Community Organizations to visit families in their homes if their child was on track to be clinically absent. They tried hard to make sure it was people who spoke the same language as a family and there was no punitive element like you were going to get in trouble. It was just, how can we make sure how can we help you make sure your tickets back in class . And there was a lot of success in the districts where they tested it. Host sharon luyre from chronic absenteeism. From Associated Press. Our first guest is sylvia. Caller i have a cousin who has daughters. I worried about her because of all these shootings going on in schools. The parents should be afraid of sending their kids to school. Host in a broad sense, where the School Security factor into students staying home or a parent wanting students to stay home . Guest that is a factor. There are parents out there who are really scared of School Shootings or just in general of danger on School Campuses. There has been reports of increased behavioral issues in school since the pandemic, since students have started coming back. I think that is very much an issue on a life parents vines. The main family that i interviewed for this story did bring up School Shootings as a concern. I also talked to families that entirely switch to homeschooling because of concerns about security. Host this is a viewer off our texting service. She asked, do you think part of the reason teenagers stop attending high school is the structure format and information they receive is irrelevant to the lives they live . Is that because some of the students because of covid learned from home and that changed the way they approached all, do you think that is factoring in . Guest yes. I think covid fundamentally changed our ideas of what school could be. It did introduce parents to the idea that you do not have to go to a physical classroom every day for your child to learn. Of course, a lot of families do not enjoy Remote Learning and preferred being in a physical classroom. But there were families who were like, actually, i could do this. It is fine. Host jean from maryland, an educator. Thank you. Caller i am a retired teacher. The states have done away with seat time and counties adjusted lc policies. Back in the day, if you missed five or more classes, you could lose credit for the course. This is something School Districts have done to themselves. It is a trickledown effect. Students are like, i dont have to intend and when i do want to come back, students bend over backward to get them ready for actuation. For graduation. They changed policies because people of color and low income students were being harmed by this. They were losing credit. This was to boost graduation rate. Host from maryland. Caller guest we saw a wide variation in how states approached attendance policies. For some states, if you missed a certain percentage of the day, so if you didnt show up or left halfway through, they counted that as absent. Other states were more lenient. It does vary widely by state. Host i am looking at showing people the website and part of the graphic shows the 10 of students that were missing school a year. You talked about alaska. 29 of those students from 20 182019. Then that sums up to 49 that jumped up to 49 from 20212022. Guest it varied widely by state but in every state we looked at, it went up. There were no states where it stayed the same or went down. In some states, it grew astronomically. We were not quite able to decipher the reasons why certain states grew at a higher rate than others. Professor dee looked into the masking policies and different covid rates states had, but neither of those explanations explained why some states grew more rapidly than others. What we do know is every single state that increase in chronic absenteeism, and even states we did not include, we generally did not because they had a year of data missing or because they used a different definition of chronic absenteeism, like a Different Number than 10 . Even in those states, chronic absenteeism still went up according to their definition. It is a universal trend. Host if you want to go to the website, there is a chart about chronic absenteeism and how it grew in every state. It is at projects. Caller i would like to know what your definition of chronic absenteeism is. If a student is sick, they can still go online. It should be mandatory that all students teach physically in the building and online at the same time like they did during covid. Then students who are sick have the opportunity. I just need to know your statistics, and whether you count online as being absent from the physical building. The other question i have is how much money are we losing, our tax dollars, for kids that dont attend schools . Dont we spend 100 or 200 a day per student if they are there . Guest in terms of the definition of absenteeism, i believe if a student is still logging on and attending class that that would count as present. But there are a lot of students who if they are sick need to rest so they would not be able to attend online class either. But there are technical issues often schools have with setting up the hybrid model. Then the second question in terms of how much money does this cost . We did not calculate that amount. If it is effective not just in terms of the literal cost per student of schools but also you have to think about the longterm effects of a student who is chronically absent who is then in the long term much more likely to drop out which has a lot of cost for society as a whole. Because their life outcomes are then lower. It is in the best interest of society to make sure kids go to school. I would say there are also some methods of addressing chronic absenteeism that are very cost effective. For example, texting and sending postcards which has been shown to work pretty well. That is pretty t. Cheap. There are other efforts that would require more can still be pretty effective. Host as far as you and your team are concerned, if you are seeing these trends now, where their concerns amongst your team that they would continue . Guest yes. You were able to get data for the school year that ended in spring of 2022. We really would like to get data for the school year that just ended, spring 2023. But at the time that we published, only two states, massachusetts and connecticut, had published that data. But we are continuing to track that has it comes out throughout the. We hope to do an update. Host 10 in pennsylvania on our line for parents. Caller good morning. I will be 75 x month so i only have grandchildren, but who is the genius who started this problem and when did they start to do this study . Host you will have to clarify. What are you looking to find . Caller what i am looking to find is, when did this problem really start . Does anybody know . The way they treat people nowadays. And who is making money off feeding these kids . If everything is about money, no one really cares about the children. You say you do but you live. Host who will go back to the original question of, went to problem start . Guest we were only comparing two points in time so i cannot come air prior to 2018 if this was trending upwards or downwards before, but we can definitely say the pandemic itself caused a huge spike in chronic absenteeism. He did not look at data in the peak years of the pandemic we we did not look at data from the peak years of the pandemic because there were so many issues of counting. So we did not count the 2020 to 2021 school year. But we picked two points in time that showed a clear pattern that chronic absenteeism exploded. Host from the report that you can fi online, some analysis es tsge that shows riad ofeaso. Ing home for a financin housing, transportation, school staffing, anxiety and depression, school relationships. After most at home, parents dont see the point of regular attendance. If that is the case, how have schools counteracted that to meet these issues that have been exposed because of the pandemic . Guest i think that schools have varied very widely in how they are addressing this. When you look at a system that has been success, such as the Pilot Program in connecticut, it seems to have been successful to have a strategy that really focused on building relationships between families and schools, making sure you send someone who speaks the same language and that is not focused on the punitive approach like we are going to punish you or you will get in trouble. Chronic absenteeism is different from truancy, because as i said, it can be excused or not excused absences. So it is really about, we want them back in class. But there have been a lot of setbacks. There were a lot of classes who were trying to send people out to homes to try to engage with families, but because of pandemic restrictions, they were not able to actually go inside the home. Even in the program in connecticut, in certain cases when they could go into the home, they did zoom or phone calls and found that was less effective. It really helps to be physically in the home with that was not feasible during the height of the pandemic. Host mike, detroit, michigan. The last call. Caller i wondered about the atmosphere in the classroom. You have these situations where you talk about School Shootings with the idea of reforming of justice, where they take these violent children and restore them to the classroom even though students were afraid of them. A number of School Shooters fit that category where they would send them to another school. Also the issue of parents rights, like Child Development 101, with teachers interfering with parents rights to a degree that is absolutely incredible as far as the entire gender bending alphabet soup situation in the classroom. Host just to show you folks at home, michigan experienced 20 percent of those in 2018 and 2019 that missed school. Then it jumped to 32 in 2021 and 2022. Guest and do think the environment in the classroom and whether students feel welcome is a huge issue in the chronic absenteeism issue. A lot of issues around chronic absenteeism really relate to issues of Mental Health and a feeling of belonging in the school. The Mental Health crisis is affecting a huge swath of american children. It is not just the spa minority of children who have extremely Serious Problems that cause them to be violent. It is a lot of children who are not violent or acting out for are struggling with anxiety and depression which makes them stay home, or feel a sense of not belonging to the school which can be exacerbated if they dont see themselves reflected in any of the books or materials available in this in the school. But i have been hearing a lot from parents on all sides of the political divide that there is a sense they dont feel like they and the school are on the same team. I think that is part of the reason you are seeing a big increase in the Parental Rights Movement because you have a lot of parents who feel like now they are at odds with all and do not feel like they are cooperating on the same team anymore. Host all this data. What were the largest challenges of putting this into a place where people could read it . Guest thankfully, chronic absenteeism is a metric that is pretty widely published because every state under the every Student Succeeds act is required to have some kind of accountability system of various metrics of quality. Chronic absenteeism is pretty widely adopted. It was a matter of just going to every state department of education website and this information. In some places, and professor dees team was filing a public records request and things like that. It was data that had not been collected in one place for a was all out there. Also, if anyone is interested in the data, if you go in the article, you can click on the link to the study published and download all the data yourself, and also see all the places where we got our data from. Anyone can go and see the numbers for themselves. Host sharon luyre, Education Data reporter for the Associated Press. You can see her work and her colleagues at ap news. Com. Thank you. Coming up, voxs noel king and her podcast segment. Weill talk about her podcast in the new limited series taking a look at capitalism. But until then, open forum. 202 7488000 for democrats. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. Those calls would washington journal continues. Join us for the premiere of the new series books that shaped america. It will go over books that won awards, led significant societal change under still talked about. This year will feature common sense, written by thomas paine. Richard bell, history professor at the university of maryland, talked about how he strongly urged independence from the british monarchy and later the declaration of independence was signed. Watch books that shaped america, featuring Thomas Paines common sense. The story to scan the qr code to listen to the companion podcast to learn more about the authors that the book featurs. Announcer next week, the house incidents are in with both continuing work on the september spending bill to avoid the government shutdown. Monday, attorney Merrick Garland testifies. In transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg transfer then transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks before the housing committee. Watch next week, live on the cspan networks or on cspan now, our free mobile video app. And head over to cspan. Org for scheduling information or to stream video live or ondemand any time. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Announcer a healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this. Where americans can see democracy at work, where citizens are truly informed, republic thrives. Get reformed, straight from the source, on cspan, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, from the Nations Capital, to where you are. Because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Announcer washington journal continues. Host for the next 45 minutes, open forum if you want to participate. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. If you want to text us, you can at 202 7488003. On the front pages of most newspapers, the strike that was lost yesterday at some plans by the United Auto Workers. The headline of the wall street journal. This is laura and ryan writing that 12,007 hundred workers went on strike across plans in missouri, ohio, and michigan in stripes that in stripes are a major challenge against multiple workers. Shawn fain is taking on multiple automakers with walkouts. There was a response from President Biden yesterday at the white house. [video clip] pres. Biden after negotiations broke down, they announced a targeted strike. Lets be clear that no one wants a strike. No one wants a strike. But i respect workers willing to use their options in collective bargaining and i understand their frustrations. They sacrificed so much to keep the industry life and strong especially during the pandemic. Especially wanting to share benefits that they helped create for the enterprise. I do appreciate parties working around the clock. When they first talked about negotiations, i said please stay at the table as long as you can to try to work this out. It was around the clock and the companys main significant offers but i am sure record profits mean record contracts for the uaw. Record corporate contracts record corporate profits, which they have, should be shared by record contracts for the uaw. It is my hope the parties can return to the negotiation table to forge a winwin agreement. Host President Biden at the white house yesterday. His story in politico talking about how the head is the Auto Workers Union reacted. Shawn fain expresses his frustration with President Biden and other democrats, wanting them to come out with more support. One of the five described him as not happy with the situation and he is not the only person not throat with the way President Biden mishandled the labor dispute. Saying, we agree when he says record profits mean record contracts that we do not agree with you says negotiations have broken down. We are hard at work at the party table. We are standing strong on the picket line. That is just some of the political things going on around the uaw strike that was announced yesterday. You can mention that were other things in the open forum. Marilyn, republican line, billy. Caller i was calling in about the previous guest you had. I found some things interesting. She said they did not have data prior to the pandemic but there was a leak in absenteeism. How do you establish that there is no data . She seems like a very wellinformed lady but missing the fourth for the trees. I am a retired teacher of 35 years, just recently retired. The obvious problem is that lost credit due to absenteeism is what they tried to avoid. We gauge our high schools i am going by high school here by graduation rate. If you hold students accountable for absenteeism, there will be more failures and less graduation. If we toe the line and said will have an attendance policy, yes my high school had a 96 graduation rate. Maybe we dropped to 80 but then students would realize they had to attend. That is a problem. Also students after the pandemic i am not an expert on that, but a lot of kids were in their bedrooms laying video games until 3 00 a. M. And got used to that style. They lost a lot of social skills and the want to go to the classroom. When they graduate, they will have to interact with people and they need to have that experience. I sometimes got in trouble from my principal was not making everything where kids could do it from home. Host a maryland teacher with a perspective on what we were talking about. William in ohio, independent line. Hello. Caller how are you doing . Host good, thank you. Caller this is open forum, right . I am a good union worker and i stand behind United Auto Workers because i need to show solidarity in all union work. As i am mad about is these republicans are trying to have minority rule. It is disgusting. They are trying to take our rights away. The American People will not stand for it. I just want them to know that if they keep pulling on this, they will lose big time. Thank you. Host in new mexico, independent line, jorge. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. I have two things really quick, if i may. Human workers who have lost their jobs to ai must file a class action discrimination lawsuit. Humans are disabled compared to ai and have been discriminated against because of this. Ai can work longer, 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days. There is a judgment that is important because either ai gets entity status and will be subject to laws or ai will be considered a tool, an nonentity, and will be a companys liability. The second thing is integrated circuits. Not everyone knows about quantum entanglement. There is what is called the electron to photon entanglement. What this means is that the ic that controls the screen when you feel like the smartphone is reading your mind, it is, because the photons are entangled with your brain. Host there was a hearing a couple days ago on the topic of regulation of artificial intelligence. You can find that on the website at cspan. Org that featured microsoft president brad smith. There is the page if you are interested in hearing the thoughts of legislators on the topic of ai. New orleans, independent, don. Caller my 95yearold dad is a lifetime member of the divers union, 50 years. Him and my oldest brother are both retired. My dad went up north to join a union and then came back to new orleans. There has only been 46 president s, correct . Thats is a very selective group. To have joe biden as president , dont take it for granted that he is able to reach that level of excellence to become the president. My final thought is this issue of these swastikas and White Supremacy and discrimination against jews and blacks and everyone else. The swastika is european, from germany. Then the treaty of versailless after world war ii, germany signed an armistice and had to pay reparations which they just finished paying in 2010. Then the year they unified west germany and east germany. I dont understand how we are allowed to bring swastikas to the United States of america after being defeated twice in world wars, signing the treaty oversize, and yet they are sending hate. Host jerry, democrat line. Hello. Caller hello. I am a democrat and i am definitely serious about where we have gone. I think what we need to do is come out and vote. I believe voting is the problem. We are not coming out and voting. People have given up everything they had for this right. I think about the last election we had. It was amazing that people came out. They came out a little less than 30 which is ridiculous. I think that people do not realize if they would come out and vote, they could change things overnight. They would change right now. If people would star in their families start with their families. Get your family voting. Get your familys neighbor. Vote for your children and grandchildren. Vote for the next generation. Host pew research did a survey taking a look at Voter Participation. They found under the headline that most americans are not consistent. They looked at voters turn out in three consistent elections. 18 or older, 30 percent voted in 2018, 2020, and 2022. 30 of those 18 or older not voting in any of the three elections, 40 leaned democrat, 41 were democrats. If you want to look at Voter Participation rates and that kind of thing, it goes on. From paula in connecticut. Hello. Independent line. Caller good morning. Unfortunately, i missed your segment on the chronic absenteeism. But i am a social worker in an Elementary School in stanford. Our chronic absenteeism is due to parents. For many reasons. Some parents cannot get their children to the bus stop. Some parents are overprotective and if they have the sniffles, they stay home. One parent, her son had asthma. Any time weather was bad, he would not send him to school. Crying absenteeism has to do with the parents, not the children. Host our guests referencing several times connecticut and the School System and what they are doing to counteract that. If you want to see that segment, if you have our seas and now app, it is available right now our cspan now app, it is available right now. Or if you to watch later, cspan. Org. Donald trump apparently made inflammatory close about his lawyers or other people. Special counsel jack smith said the motion fell friday that such a narrow and welldefined order was this his theory to preserve the integrity of the case and avoid was necessary to preserve the integrity of the case and avoid calling out the jurors. They have set for weeks that they are concerned about Donald Trumps verbal attacks that friday is the first time they propose formal action to reign in speech that they say risks tainting the case. More on this action from Associated Press. That action was initiated after the former president on his true social site said jack smith has asked the court to limit the 40 fifth president , the leading republican nominee. Going on tos campaign for president against an incompetent person who has weaponized the doj and i am not allowed to comment. They lie and will not allow me to speak. How else will i explained that jack smith is deranged and crooked joe is incompetent . Those are the comments on his website. Connected to one of four indictments he is carrying. Marjorie, republican line. Caller good morning. I am 85 and i saw this on my phone so it may or may not be questionable. As far as the strife is concerned for the autoworkers, one of the issues they were talking about is their wages 37 an hour. They want it to build up to 46 an hour. This is mindboggling and probably the reason why companies are leaving the country. In northwestern pennsylvania, you have to hope you will get a job for 15 an hour and a for 20 an hour. And aspire for 20 an hour. It is mindboggling what they ask for. I am a republican. My dad back in the day was the president of the electrical Workers Union so i know about unions. Since this is open forum, i would like our esteemed viewers in wyoming to tell me if there has been any followup on the 30 tons of Ammonium Nitrate that went missing between wyoming and california. Host is margie in pennsylvania. Nbc highlighted the fact that when it comes to demands of united autoworkers, they want a raise over four years amounting to 40 compounded, including pensions on par with what autoworkers previously received, and full pay for a 32 hour work week going down from 40. Democrat line. Caller i would like to see the nation take a pay cut with the businessman and Small Businesses and large businesses. And the dow and nascar and s p all take a 20 pay cut. Maybe that would bounce things out. Host why do you think that is . Caller i think things are getting too crazy and too out of hand. They are getting too big to fail. We need coop workplaces, not unions or not selfemployed. If those people owns part of the company, they would be on the board. And they would make the decisions instead of outsiders. Host rowlands in michigan, independent line. Caller hello. Grand rising to you. I want to say that i think these strikes going on are a part of the plan to eliminate human capital, in favor of technology. Can you hear me . Host yes, you are on. Caller this auto strike in detroit, for instance, i think the workers are going to fail in their fight against these big billionaire entities. The Writers Strike in hollywood, they are not going back to work either. Ai and technology is here. These strikes indicate the journey to eliminating human capital. We got to really be conscious of that. I think the uaw is complicit in this strike. They know what is going on. Their demands are so high and they know that the big fellows at ford, gm, and stellantis will not give them that money and this is a plan to eliminate human capital. America, beware host caller america, beware. Host barney. Caller i would like to give a shout out to all the black women that got trumped up for indictment. It seemed to me they passed that to the black judges and stuff because they did not want to be assaulted and Everything Else, the way they are handling the donald trump situation. The white lady in florida that is prolonging Donald Trumps case is ridiculous. Host why make all these things a race issue . Caller because what do you see . Hello . Host i am on. Go ahead. Caller what do you see . They just let this man run over all the United States. Host but how does this relate to the race issues regarding the judges . Caller what does it look like . Why didnt the white guys stop him the first time or second time . Nobody said anything to him. What is the problem . Is he some kind of superhero . Host who are you talking about . Caller donald trump. Host then who are you saying is supposed to stop them . Caller Mitch Mcconnell and all those who let him get away with this. Let people storm the capital and run up and did nothing about it. Host ok. And it comes to the impeachment inquiry announced this week, a couple things in the paper. This is t is the Washington Post about President Biden firing back and responding to the republican effort on the impeachment and query and query. They writes that voters will be impatient with what they feel is an unwarranted Political Drama in washington. They cite the impeachment of bill clinton in 1998 which led to a spike in bill clintons popularity. They are trying hard to tie the impeachment to trump which is unpopular with many swing voters. The bite inherits 2024 Campaign Spokesperson the brian Harris Administration putting 24 Campaign Spokesperson said publications are trying the same conspiracy theories they investigated for years as donald trump ramps of his demands for an impeachment inquiry. They are trying to turn the house of representatives into an arm of his president ial campaign. A joe biden spokesperson pointed to some Congressional Republicans said they have seen no evidence of wrongdoing by mr. Biden. That is in Washington Post. One of the editorials in washington journal takes a look at this evidence that has been produced by republicans under the headline, there is evidence for an inquiry. Editors write that it is true there is no proof so far but there is plenty of evidence that others in the joe biden family and hunter biden have received money. The house has good reason to follow about a president who is asking to be to remain in Office Another four years. The Vice President use different enough pseudonyms, there were at least 20 shell companies, and there were some with james biden that were flagged for treachery. If you want to hear about the impeachment and query announced this week impeachment inquiry announced this week. Larry. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to talk about voting. For years, i voted predominantly democrat. But the past that we voted in virginia, i took a great look at the candidates and what they can do for me and my family and all virginia families. I came to the realization that we need to vote for the person we think will do a better job or the best job. I vote for craig nelson for virginia. He is doing a good job and i wish you would vote for president. I think we need term limits. Watch the person in charge for the senate react the way he did on our television. We really need term limits. These politicians are destroying our company and i believe we need to be able to vote on who we pick and the best person in the office and not just vote for democrats because i am a democrat lifelong. Vote for the person you think will do the best job for you and your family and this country. And i believe we will be in a better space. Host kathy in ohio. Caller good morning. I just want to say, when i found out the uaw workers were complaining about President Biden going in there and negotiating with the automakers, and they were bad, did they expect them to be the goose that lays the golden egg . I dont know. They are never happy. And good luck to donald trump if he becomes president. Host with the president s comments yesterday, what did you think of them . Caller i did not listen to him. I dont know what he said. Host oh ok, you can find it online. I thought that you may be have seen it. Ramona, georgia, democrat line. Caller good morning. This is ramona oakley. I would like to say that i have a brother who worked at chrysler for 20 years. When covid hit, they gave up a lot of concessions. They gave up a lot of benefits. And they gave up a lot of stuff. They just want it back. He stayed in the hospital because the job that they have is very excruciating and repetitive. They are prideful of the product they put out. I would like to know if you, ifu can, pedro if you can see how much the ceos make now and how much they are bringing in. And how much the companies have profited since postcovid. And, they just want to back what they gave up. And he has stayed in the hospital with his back and arm problems and everything. That is just it. Host ok, ramona in georgia talking about the strike called by united. Npr out of New Hampshire out of boston took a look at these issues in the impact it could have on these things. The impact on supply chains that automakers do not open operate in a back room. Companies that supply them could feel the effects of the strike but not why dont not right away. They have led to several years of parts shortages. And parts makers might be raring wary about laying off their own workers. The impacts on would be car buyers, more cars are on the lots than a year ago and this but if you want a specific model from one of the big three the strike could make them harder to find. Ford has enough hands to ford has enough on hand to last two months. Gms is a bit smaller. The impact on Economic Growth saying that they were not as dominant as they once were. Even if all members were to strike for six weeks, the fallout for the broader economy would shave an estimated 0. 2 over off of gross domestic product. Lewis in ohio, democrat line. Caller hello. I just recently retired from stellantis in ohio. I had 38 years in there and i had not had a raise for over 15 years while i was there. And we have gpts working there 5270 hours a week, 50 to 70 hours a week and they are not hired in. And it is unfair for those kids to be working that long and not be hired. There were a lot of concessions that we gave up when we had the bankruptcy and bush and obama saved us. I want everybody to make to know, we make 31 an hour. Host what do you think about the demands that the uaw is asking when it comes to pay, shorter work week, and Retirement Benefits . Caller i think they are shooting for the moon and i do not think they will get that, but you have to start somewhere. I think that is what they are doing. I think they will come to an negotiation that is reasonable and they will be ok. Host my mistake, wbhm is out of alabama, birmingham. My apologies. Mike in illinois. Independent line. Caller god bless america. As i get ready for a trap shooting tournaments, i decided to call cspan. What a great country. And my spotlight on the ca and ukraine. It is like a runaway train. I would like to do a shout out to all of the Foster Parents out there and anyone who could be a Foster Parent may be fostering a dog or actually a parent. If you are an empty nest or you could be a Foster Parent, but teach them also independent living skills from checking, savings and laundry. Give them 50 to feed themselves for a week. There are kids that age out at 18 in the program that are not ready. If anybody out there can open their doors to possibly help, i want to shout out down to oak park where they have a license for 12 kids. They helped many kids and had six of their own. Host ok. That is mike in illinois. He mentioned the issues of ukraine. President zelenskyy will be in washington to meet with the president and address congress. Look out for that. Massachusetts, republican line. Caller good morning. The country needs to get back on track. What is going on is crazy. And gas prices are up, food is up. Here is one thing. They want to impeach trump and put him in jail. What about Hillary Clinton who leaked classified information to ukraine or whatever . And the fbi said they did. Why arent they going after her . Host duane, jamaica, new york. Independent line. Caller i am so sick and tired of hearing i am tired of the progressives and the attacking of biden. I bet that no one on cspan knows who david is. And the right wing is running with his name saying that biden is too old. Biden is running the country and the country is not upside down. The rightwing wants it to be upside down. We are living in a peaceful country. We are not at war. Yes, we have inflation but everything has to come to a head. The congress, speaking of mccarthy speaker mccarthy, he needs to get his people in check. This country will be fine under biden. Host before you go, you mentioned david, you do not think he had an impact as far as being a Washington Post columnist and writing what he did . Caller he is about politics as far as military. Where does he comes into the where does he come into the domestic side . He is a first time he has been mentioned. What did he have to gain by mentioning this . It is a little weird to me this man of all people. Host glenn in illinois. Democrats line. Hello. Caller hello. Let the republicans know ahead and chuck biden out for everything, but do you know what their going out . He has done more than trump has done in four years. Thank you. Host saulsberry, North Carolina. Democrats line as well. Caller good morning. I would like to talk about bidens son hunter. The three charges he had. One of them were the courts about something going to the Supreme Court about a drug user cannot have a gun. The Appellate Court already ruled that a drug addict had his Second Amendment right to own a gun. They say if that holds up that charge will be dropped. The other two charges he had with guns, they are minor crimes, they do not carry a stiff penalty. I believe it is all political and that special counsel is trying to set up the republicans. He should be following the law. He knows the charge about a drug addict having a gun is going nowhere. Why would you charge him . Is that political or what . I think it is just unfair. Hundreds of people are charged with the same crime and get probation. Host ok, let us hear from i believe it is mose or mose e in detroit, michigan. Caller i want to comment about the strike. I am a retiree from General Motors after 32 years. Now, when you are working at a uaw plant, you have friends and benefits and you are building that every hour. Now, what happens is that it is calculated over 30 years. I started in 1965. It used to be you get a pension when you are 65 years old but we struck for 1970. And after 30 years you were entitled to a full pension. And at 60 time and at 65 they penalize you for retiring early. And when you get to 65 you are suppose to get 5 of your pay of Social Security. They penalize your Social Security. At 67 you are supposed to get the other 5 . What happened when george w. Bush got to be president , he killed Social Security, the degrees that we would getting if we were tired before 62 years old retired before 62 years old. He killed that raise. Host how does that apply to what uaw is doing today . Caller that is applying right now. They are moving that. If you retire early you get penalized, and when you reach the age you are supposed to get that money, but they killed that money. Host catherine in new york. Independent line. Go ahead. Caller i want to talk about the union strike, i think you are doing a great job, sometimes you have to get high to get what you need. Corporations are making a tremendous amount of money and they are not sharing it. That is when you have to do what you have to do. I give them kudos for doing what they are doing, hang in there and you will get what you need. As far as our government is concerned, when trump became president he opened up a box and everybody came out and it divided the country unbelievably. And the country keeps getting divided as the news programs on Television Just call out whatever their favorites are. As an independent i make sure my circle of msn, cnn, fox, and newsmax, and they can tell they are just pushing their person. And, something you do not see on fox you will see on cnn. And things that you cannot believe on some of the other stations you never see on cbs, nbc, or msn. So the journalism will push the stations will push you they want. My mother is an avid fox news person, when i explained to her things that i know from cspan, i watch cspan all day, she does not believe anything i say. She only believes what she sees and hears on that station and that is her problem. Host we appreciate it. From kentucky, republican line. You are next up. You are on. Go ahead. Caller i just have one thing to say. We have had liars for the last two president s. That is all i have to say. Host we will hear from mark. In ohio, independent line. Caller good morning. I really need a former republican line, because that is what i am. I think my brother hit the nail on the head when he figured out why donald trump, the worst the least qualified candidate to ever seek the presidency beat the most qualified person. I mean her resume is wonderful. He gave something to americans that no politician ever did before. He gave us permission to be our worst selves. He made jerk a patriotic act. And americans who have held back this or that feel like they can act out now and you have never seen it like you have never seen it before. I hope that somehow republicans can find core values and a moral compass after this catastrophe. Host one more call. Johnny in minnesota. Democrat line. Caller good morning. I want to talk about the uaw strike. The strike is wonderful. We have to have solidarity with our working class. From the little to the big, we have to have solidarity for all. And with solidarity we can go further. It is a working class that makes america. The working class is america. Host ok. Johnny in minnesota finishing off things. I appreciate all of you who continued and called. Up next we will be going to hear it noel ki who has a podcast called today, explained and we willook at related news of the day. And then a discussion about a limited series that she hosted taking a look at capitalism. That coming up next. The papers reported yesterday, several of them that Catania Brown jackson to honor the Baptist Church bombing, an event that ended up with the death of four black girls, she talked about why she wanted to visit the state for the first time for a speech, and heres a portion. [video clip] i have been thinking about that question a lot, quite a bit. My motivation for accepting this kind invitation when there are so many others that i had to politely decline. I guess, the honesty the honest answer is that i felt in my spirit that i had to come. [applause] you see, i have been through something over the past year and a half. And it has been quite humbling and exhausting, and eyeopening as an experience. My journey has been highprofile by nature, and wonderfully supportive people from all over the country have reached out to me to tell me how much my appointment as the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States has meant to them. Some never said that they thought they would see this happen in their lifetime. What has happened, i think, is that all of the attention to my race and gender and the historical Nature Nature of my appointment has caused me to develop an intense yearning to better understand why. Why has our nation highest reaches and out of grasp for so many . Why has the opportunity to participate fully in the promise of america been kept from african for so long . Why has it taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a black woman to serve on a on the Supreme Court . [applause] so, i have come to alabama to wrestle with those questions in a community that knows firsthand how difficult the journey has been. A place where people remember what it cost to make it this far. I come with the understanding that i did not reach these professional heights on my own, that people of all races and states, people of courage and conviction cleared the path for me in the wake of the horrible tragedy that snuffed out the brief lives of those four little girls inside of this sacred space. I come to alabama with a hartfield with gratitude for with a heart filled with gratitude. Unlike those little girls i have lived, and have been entrusted with the solemn responsibility of serving our great nation, a service i hope will inspire people and young people to think about what is possible. To understand the law, and to recommit themselves to the constitution and its core values, the rule of law, democracy, freedom, justice, and equality. I have also come to alabama to bring a message about what is going to take to ensure that those core Constitutional Values withstand these challenging times. In a nutshell, i have come to alabama to commemorate and mourn, celebrate, and move forward. [end video clip] a healthy democracy does not just look like this, but this where americans can see democracy at work. And to see how the republic thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the Nations Capital to where we what to wherever you are. Because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back, we are joined by noel king who is the cohost and editorial director of today, explained the podcast. Welcome to the program. Guest thanks for having me. Host tell us about your role and your podcast, what is it about . Guest it is a daily new show that runs for about 25 to 26 minutes and we take one top news story of the day and we explain what is going on. I covered daily news for a long time and i started to realize that people could tell you, including me what was happening but what it was a lot harder to explain why. In this longer format, we call on experts and reporters in the field and reporters who really know the stories and we have them walk us through not just what is happening but why it is happening. Host there are so many topics that hit the headlines. How do you choose which topic to really dive into . Guest there are a couple of different ways. If something is breaking news and it is the biggest story in the universe that we will probably call probably cover that. My cohost and i are longtime hard news journalists. We have been working in journalism since we were basically infants. What we want to do is not make people despair about the world. We all have a lot of news coming at us these days. At certain times it can feel like too much because it is all bad news. If we have the opportunity to cover something with some positive aspect or is a little bit fun. Maybe it is in the culture. We will do that as well. We have a young audience, remarkably young. I think they have come to expect that. It is not always all bad news. If there is something that requires you to analyze it to understand it. There is breaking news where you can understand it by talking about it for a minute or two and then there are stories that are complicated and you do need 25 minutes to understand. Those of the stories we are drawn to. Host with that younger audience in mind, how do you selection how do you select which guests. How do you pick the people that are going to help you explain these topics . Guest this is something i learned when i went to vox, and i had been at npr for a long time. There is an idea that experts are a certain thing, who have been around for a long time and they know the story inside and out, usually of an older demographic. When i got to vox i realize that younger listeners like those experts too. They want to hear from people who they believe understand the story. They are very focused on where is the person coming from. So if we are doing a story on a situation let us say rural alabama. We are going to get a reporter or analyst in the town in rural alabama, not somebody who is a couple of states away in atlanta and looking at it through the lens of academia or through a microscope. We want people in the field and on the ground. That is something that young listeners tend to appreciate. They have grown up in a world where everything is at their fingertips so finding a guest in rural alabama should not be that hard. There are people on tiktok and twitter. We take seriously that we want people who have expertise because whether you are younger or older, you know what that is and you know what it sounds like. We do also try to get as close to the story physically as we possibly can. Host on today, explained you started a series on capitalism. Talk about it and why you decided to focus on that right now. Guest i covered economics first from 2013 to 2019 for some of the biggest radio programs. I worked for marketplace and then nprs planet money. So my mind was consumed by economics all the time. I began to realize i never used capitalism on air. I would talk about housing, oil prices and markets, always. Jobs and unemployment, but the system was not something we discussed. It was not even something we discussed behind the newsrooms. In the summer of 2017, i was watching a friends podcast taping and she was a cultural reporter and they were and her guests were cultural reporters and they talked about capitalism. It they were talking about jayzs new album and his bravado about money. What does he mean for the culture when he exhibits this sense of time rich, i got rich and i want to get richer . And they just and they started discussing capitalism, not just jayz, bankers or money itself, but the system. I realize that that summer i had been hearing an awful lot about capitalism but not about it in my newsroom where i was covering economics. I went running back to my colleagues and i said i think people are out here talking about capitalism and we are not. They were very dismissive and said that is just something that college kids do. They want to complain about capitalism, it was normal. And i thought that and said these are not college kids but smart young culture critics and they are taking on the system in ways that we are not. From there i became obsessed with why is culture reporters talking about it when we are not. So this is six years of me trying to figure out what has happened with the system that has made especially young people lose faith in it and then talk about it openly how we have lost faith in it. Host we want to hear your thoughts on the series on capitalism or your pots for your guests. For our guest. Democrats can call on 2027488000. Republicans on 2027488001. The independent line is 2027488002. And you can text us at 2027488003. We also have social media if you want to reach us there on x at cspanwj and facebook as cspan. I wants to come back to you. How long is the series going to run . Guest every friday in september beginning september 8. We have four episodes, two of them are behind us and then the other two will be the next two fridays in september. Host when it comes to this series there are so many headlines and we will bring up just a couple, headlines from al jazeera on u. S. Gun violence and from reuters which are blaming capitalist greed for workplace accidents and other hear from fox news about liberals blaming capitalism from soaring egg prices. Is it really fair to blame so much on capitalism . Guest it is an Economic System. At its very core it is an Economic System that has three basic parts, one is private property, one of them is firms and one of them is profits. So, if you look at it this way it is simple, this is a symptom system that does not have much of an ideology, it is the one we have. But when we see blame coming from all corners that people feel like capitalism is not working for them and that the Economic System is not working for them. They are having trouble paying the rent and mortgage, they are on strike were concerned that their job might go away. They are buried in student debt and concerned that they will not be able to retire or pick or caring for a parent who does not have a pension. They want kids, but kids are is too expensive. When we say capitalism we say the Economic System is not working for me. I am not able to get a foothold in America Today. And i think there is something profound about that and when we started doing that. For years and years, americans would, we would blame bosses or bankers, but after the financial crisis, that is when you started hearing americans on both sides of the aisle use the word capitalism. Sometimes to blame it or to praise it. It was at that moment when the Economic System became something we could not ignore because we realized it was impacting all of us in profound ways. Host we have a post from tecumseh sherman. Capitalisms proponents like to talk about the numbers that communism has killed. Capitalism has killed more. What the guests like to address that . Guest it is an interesting point and you will hear it from a certain type within academia or type of ideological perspective. Those of us who grew up remembering what the berlin wall was. I covered this in my series. I was eight years old when it came down. I remember being told that communism was the system that we had to beat and it was the worst thing in the world and an existential crisis. The berlin wall came down and i remember everybody saying that democracy is on the march and capitalism are on the march and these are good things. In the west we were not looking. Most people were not looking at the evils perpetrated under capitalist systems. Slavery happened under capitalism. Colonialism happened under capitalism. So the listener makes a good point. Capitalism does not capitalism does not have clean hands. Communism does not have clean hands. I dont know if it makes sense in 2023 to say communism did not kill as many people. As an individual i do not want to live in a communist society. I want to live in a capitalist society that we fix so that more of us can thrive. Host david is calling on the democratic line. Caller i want to thank you for this podcast. I love your background on Milton Friedman and jack welch. I worked for 30 years in corporate america. Your people not even making minimum wage and telling them how to get welfare checks and snap and all of that. We have capitalism untethered. Billionaires making too much money. Normal people worried about egg prices should have an entire social net helping us rather than giving it to bezos and these people. I want to thank you for your timely podcasted i hope people will listen to it. Guest an important thing to remember is that once upon a time in america, shareholder capitalism existed but it was not like it is today, so for the most part Large Companies have had shareholders. Companies used to look at them as part of the system. The workers and employees were part of the system. The communities were part of the system. I trace how in that 1950s and 1960s, a big company like General Electric would issue its report and not talk about shareholders. It would talk about workers, suppliers, the good it had done in the communities in which it worked. Shareholders have always existed but it is in the past 40 years that shareholder capitalism has evolved into what it is today. Most of us are implicated in the shareholder system because we are implicated by having 403bs and 401k. At one point in Time Companies cared more about workers and more about paying taxes to give back to society than they do today. Shareholder capitalism is on steroids, part of that is because all of us are shareholders. The focus on shareholders and only increasing stock prices, you can see in a visceral way. I like to watch what happens when a Company Announces layoffs. And they say we are cutting redundant workers, we are eliminating jobs, the stock price does tend to go up. There is something profoundly distressing about that, people are losing jobs in the stock market says they are eliminating fat and redundant workers so this is a company that will succeed. The caller mentioned elton friedman. I want to point out that later this fall, cspan will explore wilson friedmans book free to choose. It will be part of a series of that series will start this sunday with Thomas Paines common sense. Noel, you mentioned that there was a moment that all of this shifted. When did that shift happened . Guest i trace this shift to the late 1960s. We were seeing the evolution of several movements. The Womens Movement and the Environmental Movement in the civil Rights Movement all at the same time. Womens movement decided to start pressuring companies to take positions on social issues. Go back to a classic case, Eastman Kodak is a big company, everyone who works for kodak is doing well, they are getting dividends, benefits and vacations but they do not hire black people. Black residents of rochester decide to speak out. We are missing out on the golden age of capitalism. They start taking these protests to the streets to embarrass the company. We live in your community but we are not benefiting. Eastman kodak does back down. The vow to implement a hiring and Training Program for black workers. Other black residents around the country say maybe we can make mans of companies. As we approach 1970, activists have begun to Tell Companies you are not doing it right, youre damaging the environment, damaging people and communities. At the time ralph nader was in his mid30s and he was targeting General Motors in a specific way. He had bought General Motors stock and he is saying that companies have too much power in your harming the environment and your consumers. It is at that time that the new York Magazine commissions Milton Friedman to give his thoughts on the purpose of a corporation. Is it to be good to workers, to make sure they are well paid, that they can pay mortgages, or is the purpose to make sure that the environment in which it works is safe and healthy, or is the purpose Something Else . Im sure that the times knew what they were getting. Friedman writes this out and says the purpose of a corporation is to make money. Its a business. Why should a business take a social position on any issue . When you look at what happened with bud light and the furor o ver Dylan Mulvaney. They sent Dylan Mulvaney a couple cans of beer. The customers who buy bud light were infuriated. As a result they stop buying it. The share price goes down. A couple months after that bud light is announcing layoffs. We have to lay workers off because the stock price has gone down. I think Milton Friedman would look at that in say this is why companies should stay out of social issues. You dont have to take a position. Your job is to make money for shareholders. Make money to pay your employees. You dont have to tell us your thoughts on whether blackmer lives matter for example, or trans rights. You are a company, just be a company. Its an interesting argument. At the time im told the essay did not make much of a splash but a decade later we are entering into a new era of American History. Greed is now good. Shareholders are king. Corporations are pushing for less regulation. They take that Milton Friedman idea and turbocharge it. You have jack welch. When asked about social responsibility he would say that is ridiculous. My job is to make money. It is not my job to care about how my workers are doing. It is my job to make money for shareholders and employees. You see a profound change in the way americans think about the role of a corporation and i attribute that to Milton Friedman. Host lets go to martin on the independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I will tune into this podcast. It sounds great. Noel has mentioned some Amazing Things as well as teaching people you cannot badmouth wall street because a lot of us are in wall street for our retirement. There is another good podcast called capitalisnt. They touch on the same topics. The person i called in sadar you a democrat or i dont know what i would call myself. Probably an fdr obama democrat. Most people outflank on the left or right but better is better. We need to make sure people are paying their fair share. The semantics are important. Would you say we should have a wealth tax, that is stupid. Somebody who is a truck driver making 100,000 thinks they are wealthy. If you think we should have a billionaire tax, that is smart. We have to be careful. Obama wanted a singlepayer system but he knew that we were not there yet. It goes back to what is the matter with kansas. Until the country is smart enough, we cannot get there. When putin did this incredibly horrendous war and invaded ukraine, i went back and read lenins tomb by david resnick. Its a great read on many levels but that will show you that the commonest system is probably not something communist system is probably not something we want to embrace. Host would you like to respond . Guest it is an interesting point. One of the things i have been so focused on is the generational divide. I get to a young woman who is 24 in america. Collegeeducated but has student debt and is having a hard time making a living. She sees the system as opposed to her welfare and she identifies as a communist. I couldnt believe that. Im an older millennial. I remember when communism was the ever present threat. If you are 24, you dont. You look around now and say capitalism is in working, i will always be in debt, i will always be working for people who dont respect me. Im a communist. Usually i havent studied much commonest history so i dont understand what it means. That is my take. Many of them might clap back and say we have read a lot, we have read lenins tomb, we just think it is that bad. The caller makes an interesting point. I really wanted to speak to the concerns of young people and they really want to talk about things about why they see communists as a viable alternative one some but he says absolutely not. I called the smart friend of mine who is a man in his 50s and he worked with me and he worked with me in my days as an economic supporter. He said from my point of view there is a solution here, and the solution is people need to pay taxes. Billionaires need to pay their taxes. We could solve a lot of problems of people at the very top were willing to pay their fair share. This is a person who will never say lets be a communist country. He looks at it with all of his experience in economics and says something has gone very wrong. The way to fix it is by taxing people at the top of the pyramid. Many of whom are actively dodging taxes. Host bob is calling in from logan, utah on the democratic line. Caller yes, whether we like it or not, this is a capitalist socialist country. Take the federal, the county, the teachers, all the contractors working on the highways. How any people depend on Social Security . What the republicans say is government is bad, let private enterprise deal. How are they going to do that . They cant. We hear now that democrats are communist. They dont even know when a communist is. Like it or not, this is a capitalistsocialist government. Host he makes the point which lots of people do that even though we live in a capitalist society we have some socialist elements. Caller guest that is right and we dont have completely free markets either. I like to bring it back to Milton Friedman because i think he was one of the greatest thinkers of his age. He would look at America Today and say this is not capitalism, this is some distorted version where companies are behaving in a capitalist manner, but many of us are not employed by corporations. Many of us are employed by the government. To say america is a purely capitalist society it is not. There are many people who are glad that that is the case. There are famous examples in the United States. I think of Sandy Springs, georgia. They privatized all social services. There were no more government employees. People in Sandy Springs would tell you things were working 1000 times better. I think about that a lot. Not because i know it was right or wrong but because i cannot imagine that happening in atlanta. I can imagine new york city were nobody works for the government. I live in washington, d. C. Saying that if elected president he will cut the workforce into smithereens. I say, how . How do you plan to do that . Many people work for the government. Tha tmight b that might be a good thing. The caller is right. There are aspects that are not truly capitalist and never have been. Host jerome calling on the republican line. Caller on the environment, i live within 30 miles of a coalfired power plant. In visiting with them guys, they say they can run the power plant for hundreds of years with all of the trees that are burnt up in california fires. Host ok, noel. This is a response to this idea of corporations harming the environment, im guessing. Guest once upon a time the environment was a nonpartisan issue in the United States of america. The majority of the americans agreed that preserving the environment was a good thing. This is before we move into the ideological battles of more or less government, before we move into a period that many label as neoliberalism. I believe that caller cares deeply about the environment. Fundamentally most of us to. Those of us who have been in rural areas, we dont want to see the environment destroyed. It is when it comes down to people in my community might lose jobs if we dont do, x y z, that it changes into a different discussion. I can admire the beauty of the American West but i am not a person whose job is dependent on a certain type of extractive industry. Oil, coal, copper. People tend to operate in their own interests first and foremost and i think there is a lot of nonpartisan respect toward the environment and for the environment but unfortunately our politics have become very complicated. Host michael in plainfield, illinois on the independent line. Caller some of the previous callers stole my thunder here. I think i know the answer to this one but did your guest ever read anything written by karl marx . The reason im asking that is that people confuse communism as it developed in the Old Soviet Union under lenin and so forth and the bolsheviks with what marx was actually talking about. My first question. The second one is the system that we have has totally failed. You have previous programs where youll mention that half the working population cannot lay their hands on 500 in an emergency. Half the population has negative net worth. My point is, obviously, this system is not working for the average person. Its only working for the 1 and the few around them that they sweep the crumbs off the table to. The rest of us are s. O. L. What does your guest proposes the way out of this . Host two questions, did you read marx and the differences between marxism and communism . And what is the way out of a broken capitalist system . Guest i think a person would have to be nutty to talk about capitalism without having read marx. What the collar is pointing to is an interesting point, marx was a philosopher and a thinker. His philosophies were implemented by people who were in many cases bad people. Stalin did read marx. He decided that he was going to run the soviet economy the way he decided. Karl marx never called for killing hundreds of thousands of people. He never called for a glock gulag. Any time that you take any philosophy and apply it to the real world you will see perversions of the philosophy. Thats humans getting involved with ideas. The ideas may have great parts. Humans get involved and it gets more complicated. This is why sony people are angry at capitalism. As many people are angry at capitalism. The percentage is not great. The percentage of americans thrown out of the middle class because of a medical bill, something that was accidental and not their fault, this is why people feel the system is not working. The caller said it is not working for most americans. Im not sure that i agree with that but at one time the american middle class was bigger and safer, and that is the american that is the system that Many Americans grew up buying into. I will be middleclass. I will be able to afford a house and if i have chosen put them through college and take vacations once per year. That is what i was raised to expect. What Many Americans were raised to expect. It didnt happen for millions of us starting with the financial crisis and millions of us justifiably lost faith in the system. Host alanna is calling in from albany, new york. Caller what she mentioned is a good place to start. Unions were paying for those gains in their own blood and they fought against them for the early part of the century. One of the fundamental problems with capitalism is that there is that profit motive that does not go to the workers, but even if you are a person working for a company, you are not a capitalist, you are a worker, and no matter how hard you work, all of the fruit of your labor goes to the company and the shareholders, what socialists want is a system that is not all based on somebody extracting wealth from workers, but where the workers earn what they make. For how hard you work you should get paid more and be able to afford the cars you are making. The same goes for the housing market. All they are doing is extracting money from people who need a place to live and the product has to go up so the prices keep going up so they can make more money. Host do you have any response to that . Guest when i was doing interviews for the series i asked a smart economist named wendy carlin. Mi a capitalist am i a capitalist . She said do you own part of your company . I said no. She said, you have aspects of capitalist but you really are just a worker. This is the point the caller is making. Most of us are not the capitalists because we are not the ones making the profit off the company. To the callers point, if we go back to the golden age of capitalism, when companies were interested in taking some of the prophets, they were there to take care of workers to make sure they are doing well. The profit motive is always there. It is where are the prophets going profits going . Workers able to pay for health care and go to school and take vacations. The caller is pointing to this interesting and unbelievable transformation in how we run capitalist economies. The uaw strikes the workers are saying our ceos had their pay bumped up 40 , why not us. It is still the United States of america and the word socialism is really difficult for millions of americans. When i spoke to this economist in the u. K. , she said, we did have adam smith liberalism, leave everything alone, then we moved into more government intervention. We had cans in economics, the government gets involved. She said, we need a new ism. This is a woman with a doctorate in economics. She said the inequality has gotten so bad and the system is so broken that we need a new ism. Maybe it is not socialism because americans have trouble with outward, but this economist would call for a new way of thinking about how we do our isms. Host go ahead on the republican line. Caller thank you. Im interested in changing the profits. I think the way to help america is, capitalist, commonest, marxist communist, marxist. I believe a marxist has actually the guy said, the 1 . Like the strike of the uaw. They have the right philosophy. Sharing more profits. The American People will work. Going back to the the democratic party, they are like th emar the marxists. Theyve gotten so deep into the ownership, they may have started out as capitalists and like to call themselves capitalists, but theyre not. They are they figured out that marxist communism lives continue and they have did deceived the working class of america host i think i got your point, carl. I want to give noel a chance to respond. Guest it is a good point. I appreciate that he used the term the 1 . Our politics is premuch split down the middle. Half republican, half democrat. I look back to a time when Americans First started talking about capitalism. Using the word in the public square. That was during the financial crisis. American capitalism absolutely broke, it splintered our Economic System, and along the way it splintered our politics. If you look at the two movements that rose up, the tea party and occupy wall street, which we will cover in the third part of our series. Those movements were so focused on this dynamic. 99 of us can look at the situation where we have billionaires who do not pay the taxes they are supposed to pay and say, thats wrong. That should not be happening. Ceos should not be making 3000 times what theyre workers make. We started feeling that we really disagree with each other. Hearing that caller, it is something almost everybody regardless of party would agree with. There is a problem with inequality. There has been for 40 years. It has been getting worse over time. This is why people are fed up with the system. Host thank you, noel king. The new series is called blame capitalism. Thank you so much. Guest thank you for having me. Host please join us again tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern for another edition of washington journal and have a wonderful day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] cspans washington journal discussing the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy. From washington and across the country. Coming up sunday morning, we discussed the importance and impact of the u. S. Constitution and constitutional issues in the news with jeffrey rosen, National Constitution Center President and ceo. Then the senior fellow with the foundation for defensive democracy discusses the u. S. Iran prisoner swap and what to expand from the iranians president s visit to the united nations. Join the conversation live at 7 00 eastern sunday morning on cspan, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. 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