His examining politics podcast and news of the day. We will take your calls as always it you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Washington journal is next. Host this is the washington journal for august 5. The flag at the u. S. Capitol at halfstaff after the shootings that resulted in multiple deaths in dayton ohio dayton, ohio, and el paso, texas. President trump expected to make statement at 10 00. Some are calling for the president to strongly condemn White Nationalism and some are calling for the senate to come back into session. In the first hour of our program this morning, we are asking you how washington should respond to the recent Mass Shootings. Here is how you can let us know. Republicans, 2027488001howdem. And independents, 2027488002. If you are a gun owner and want to give your thoughts on how washington should respond to the 24 plusf the last hours, you can join us on twitter and post on our Facebook Page. On the senate side, several members of the senate calling for a stop of the summer break to come back and take care of or address the issues of issue of the shootings by legislation. Chuck schumer calling for the majority leader to call the senate into session. Senator mcconnell, a enough is enough, stop blocking gun safety reforms. Immediate action on the bipartisan housepassed universal background checks legislation. Lindsey graham this morning saying the el paso shooting is sick and senseless. Time to do more than prey. Time to enact common sense legislation and congress to. Mpower states usa today takes a look at the legislation referenced saying it was february the house of hr 8. Entatives passed democrats the bill would prohibit most persontoperson firearm transfers unless a background conducted. E not taking any action on the bill since the house passed it. Would extend 10 days the amount of time firearms dealers must wait for a background check before they can make the sale. That bill passed february of 240190. The Senate Taking no action on that. When it comes to red flag laws, some republicans have spoken in favor of these laws which allow family members or Law Enforcement to limit a persons access to firearms if they are deemed a potential threat to the public, including senator Lindsey Graham tweeting in favor of such laws and there is the assault weapons ban. That lapsed in 2004. Legislation banned the of assault and sale weapons and large capacity magazines. It was in part bump stocks or attachments that allow auto michael semi likeatic weapons to behave automatic. Speak on the issues 10 00 about the events of el paso and dayton. You can also listen on the cspan radio app. How should washington respond to these Mass Shootings . 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488000 free democrats. Aunt for democrats. And independents, 2027488002. If you are a gun owner, call and let us know your thoughts at 2027488003. Wanda starts us off in lancaster, california. It democrats line. How should washington respond . Caller i think they should ban those assault weapons and i fore fox news and trump these racist attacks and i think trump should be man enough to step down. He should not have to be impeached. Host when you say banned the assault weapons, why do you think that is the way to go . Caller they are too dangerous, there is too many people they can take out in a minute. Host that is wanda in california. We will hear from mike in maryland. Republican line. Also a gun owner. Caller good morning. I was wondering if we can talk sex for a second. There is no difference in semi automatic ar15 than any other rifle. These laws do nothing but curtail our rights. Lets talk another fact. How many guns purchased at gun shows have been used in a mass shooting . The answer to that is 0. We need to talk about facts and stop talking about emotional issues. Host as far as the response from washington, you are saying none should be done in light of these recent shootings . Caller absolutely not. Any difference in the two Mass Shootings . , acould have used a van truck, could have used another gun. Is there going to be any discussion of facts . Would you accept red flag laws where there is no due process question mark we would not accept that with freedom of speech or freedom of religion, why would we accept that with the basic right to defend ourselves . Host lets hear from bob in wisconsin. You are next up. My prayers go out to everyone out there right now. I am a veteran. If you go on the internet, you can find ways to run people over, how to make chemicals to kill people. More gun laws have not stopped any mass shooting. I disagree with the woman who called first. This is not about racist react. Obama did nothing to stop the violence in chicago. More gun laws have taken away my rights as an american citizen. They dont stop any mass killings. Stop pointing the finger at each other. Still tell grandma threats tell democrats to stop pointing the finger. Have you say more gun laws taken away your rights. How have your rights been curtailed because of gun laws . Caller lawabiding american citizens are losing the right to have a weapon. I have never committed a crime with a weapon. I have never thought to kill anybody because of a collar or religion or anything, but look has turned toy has turned to that. Lets get mad at a black person. Host just to clarify, gun laws have they curtailed your right to own a gun or not . Caller yes. Host how so, specifically. Caller you just said ban automatic weapons . How is banning an automatic weapon that is my light my right to have one. I have never broken a law. Why am i being punished . Host lets hear from jim in little valley, new york. Independent line. Caller good morning and thank you for doing what you do. M a godfearing american native american scotch irish born. I use them for hunting and defending my house. This new legislation they are coming out with, all they are doing is restricting our rights of freedom of choice. They dont have the right to do that. They only reason the only reason they want to take guns away from lawabiding citizens so these corrupt politicians, i am not naming either party, can have the people of the United States under their thumb like you nameler, stalin, it, so they can run us. Theyd kingdom, australia, banned guns. Then they started having more knife attacks, bombings, people running over people with cars and trucks, so what good did it do . Host the legislation that was considered in the house, that went to the idea of background checks or expanding the current round of background checks. Is that something you can agree with . Caller i have a background check any time i would buy a rifle or pistol for my house. I am disabled and my wife is disabled. We live in a rural area. They come out here and invade my home, how long would it take police to get here . My wife had an aneurysm february 14 this year. Emtsk the emptys alone 45 minutes to get to my house and they had to drive fly and our to do emergency surgery. The police cannot be here to protect me. These gang members that do the killings and steal the guns from lawabiding people, they are the ones committing it. Lets take murderers off the street and instead of supporting them and letting them live in penitentiaries, execute them. York. That is jim in new the president sending a couple of tweets on this topic saying we cannot let those killed in el paso, texas, and dayton, ohio, die in vain. For those wounded, we cannot forget them and many who came before them. Republicans and democrats must come together and get strong background checks. Perhaps marrying the legislation with immigration reform. We must have something good, if not great come out of these events. The president set to speak at 10 00 on the issue of those acts that on cspan. You can also listen to it and monitor it on our radio app. It is the Washington Examiner this morning putting out this editorial about the events of the last couple days and what the president should do. Ae president should deliver primetime speech as soon as possible that names the people at play and denounces it. He has rightly condemned the actions in el paso and now he needs to address the nation and condemn the motivation. The president needs to make clear he hates White Nationalism as something unamerican and evil and ought not dilute the attack by talking about many or both sides. That is from the Washington Examiners piece this morning. Tim is next, democrats line, virginia. Go ahead. Caller thank you, pedro. I used to own a bunch of assault weapons. Andd an ar15 and ak47 some other guns. After the shooting last year in las vegas, i was so disgusted i called the police and had them confiscate them. But were legally purchased, i had told them i dont want you guys to keep them, i want them destroyed. I had them for years and i enjoyed shooting and stuff, but i thought about it i used to go hunting. I thought about it, why do i own these things . Host going forward, is there a specific washington should focus on when it comes to this issue . Aller background checks have countries psychological profiles, et cetera. Should not be able to just go to a gun show and by one. Selling one that is not registered, that makes no sense. The problem is people are stuck in their ways and we have 40,000 people a year being killed. Politically,lt it will take 100 years, but eventually we are going to probably have a country where there is not going to be guns. It could take a long time. Host ted in washington, new jersey, republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. This is a very serious issue and a very serious at a very serious time and what disturbs me is the New York Times and cnn, they will not highlight the Mental Health access for many people. These killers, they know where ever they shoot, wherever they attack, they know the people are defenseless. At these events, these awful, tragic events, who had a gun to fight back . I wish Chuck Schumer and the others would say one 800 Mental Health. If people dont have good insurance, they cannot get Mental Health care. That is the problem. The guns are the guns. The knives or cocktails will always be there. People are not in church they are not learning we need to get along with each other. Trump needs to tone it down a little bit, but he is not the fault and it is not the fault of white supremacist. I have never met a white supremacist and i am a white guy. I worked with children, i worked in schools. A lot of young people today are lost. Caller the expansion host the expansion of Mental Health services by the government should be the focus . Caller it would be a start. Right now, there is none. A lot of these kids these days, these people who are disturbed, there is nothing they can go. If you call a Mental Health clinic, the first thing they ask about is your Health Insurance and they dont even take you in. It is not just the guns, it is. He fact these people are angry you want to say crazy, it is crazy. To kill people is crazy. I wish schumer, any of these democrats a listening, running for president , lets look at the Mental Health, too. Int lets hear from john annapolis, maryland. Independent line. Caller thanks very much for taking my call. Just wanted to say i think the weapons are the issue. People are angry, but if they did not have the assault weapons, there would be fisticuffs. They would be driving cars on sidewalks. Assault weapons have no place in civilian society. Their only purpose is to kill vast numbers of people. We have to get them off the street. Host you heard the tweets from the president on this topic and what should be done about it. He is set to speak at 10 00. Castro talking about not only the shootings, but other issues related to it and here is some of his thoughts from yesterday. [video clip] anybody who has the ability to see and hear and understand what the president has been doing since he started his campaign in 2015 knows that division and bigotry and fanning the flames of hate has been his political strategy. That is how he believes he won in 2016 and it is no accident just a few weeks after he announced his reelection bid, there he was indulging and entertaining this send her spokenhant and he has about immigrants as being invaders. He has given license for this toxic through of White Supremacy to fester more and more and we are seeing the results of that. Host we are getting your thoughts on what washington should do in response to these Mass Shootings. A gun owner, hello. Caller if an assault weapons it were enacted, i think would be a deadly, costly mistake. There are 125 million gun owners and very easily a million of those simply are not going to obey the law, period. You think of them as one million gordon pauls on steroids. They are not going to stand by and obey the van. Ban. Host anything else needs to be done as far as washington is concerned . Caller there are laws that should be strictly enforced. I went and bought a gun pistol three months ago. They did a background check on me. If something had come up, they would not have allowed me to have that done. Host how long do the background checks take and what do they ask for . Caller you need to fill out the form. You have to show your drivers license and the dealer calls it tobacco andreau of firearms. It took roughly 10 minutes. Think abouto you this idea of expanding background checks . Caller me . Host pf. This idea ofll, expanding background checks and that process. What do you think of that . Caller what more can possibly be done . Drivers license number, if you have a prison record, that should show up. If you abuse your wife, that should show up. If they are going to use it to ban weapons, that will be a costly, deadly mistake. Like i said, there is probably going to be one Million People who simply will not obey any law like that. Host that is gary in north dakota. , the bipartisan background checks active 2019. It would prohibit most persontoperson firearm transfers unless there is a background check to be conducted. It aims to close potential loopholes allowing the transfer of firearms without a background check at gun shows. This is mary, democrats line from south carolina. Caller good morning. Check you talked about, i dont believe it will help. America has become so full of hate against black and brown people. Until you can get to the root of the hatred, you can do all the background checks you want, it is not going to help because the fact that we are living in a society that people feel as though they have the right to do what they want to do to people of another race and color in this country. Until we can stop this nationalist the president that spurs hate in this country, nothing you do is going to help until you stop the hate in this country. Get rid of the kkk. I lived through it. I am 73 years old. Host it was mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff who appeared on abc yesterday addressing the issues of the president downplaying threats of White Nationalism as he was asked by the host this topic. Here is his response. [video clip] look at what he said yesterday. He condemned this without any reservation whatsoever. I dont think that is fair. Can i read the president s words because in march, he was asked do you see White Nationalism as a rising threat around the world . His answer, i dont, really. I think it is a small group of people who have a very serious problem. He downplayed the threat of White Nationalism. Was he wrong to do that . I dont think that is downplaying. He was asked directly, do you see today White Nationalism as a rising threat around the world . . I dont, really. I think it is a small group of people who have a very serious problem. This is not the same as Nuclear Weapons, this is a serious problem, but they are sick people. I dont think it is fair to lay this into the president. There are people in this country this morning thinking President Trump was happy by this. He is angry, he is upset, he wants it to stop. I dont think it is fair to say he does not think White Nationalism is bad for the nation. You cannot be a white supremacist and be normal in the head. You know it, i know it. We have to figure out a way to fix the problem, not figure out a way to lay blame. Host the New York Times saying since 20, white extremists have carried out at least 8 active shooter attacks in the united including el paso, tallahassee, santa fe, and parkland. The National Institute of justice, the government website out of the Justice Department adds this as far as context when it comes to Crimes Involving firearms saying most homicides in the United States are committed with firearms, especially handguns. Reaching a low of 10,000 1117 to117 in 1999 before falling 10,869 in 2008. If you want to see more of those ov. Tistics, nij. G dan inlican line texas, republican line. Caller actually, i am in virginia. I do guns and i do own and ar15, which i have never fired, let whaty dont happened in el paso and that sick kid mask that there have been other Mass Shootings against homosexuals and kids in schools. There is a problem there. Anything for people to get most upset by his lawabiding gun owners. That sickness needs to be eradicated. You need a deterrent. Shame these guys. Go medieval. That is the only way you will get rid of this. Host bob is next, a gun owner, independent line. Caller i do own 8 guns. Two handguns, 6 long guns. I dont believe anybody is coming to take my guns. One of the shooters the other with a an ar style rifle. 00 round barrel clip that is not used in hunting. There is no need for rapidfire. Unting rifles like that especially such highvolume clips, that is ridiculous. You had a guy who called in and said they are no different than hunting rifles, they are way different than hunting rifles. The bullet shot of a rifle is measured in grade grains. Grainassault rifles, the does not weigh enough to be used as a hunting rifle. Hunting rifles only hold 5 rounds. They dont have a 100 round barrel clip. Host if i am hearing you, if an approach is taken by washington, should specifically apply to the clips involved or go further than that . Caller yeah. I used to say the same thing of some of these zealots calling in, somebody is going to take my gun. I have gotten older, i know better. Control inassed gun the same problem is Mitch Mcconnell would not even bring it to the floor. He is doing all of this so people think democrats are doing nothing, but they passed over 250 laws that Mitch Mcconnell will not bring none of them to the floor. These people screaming they are trying to take my guns, until their family gets killed, they are not going to understand the problem. Host judy off facebook saying nobody needs highcapacity magazines or ak47s or ar15s. We need a president that does not condone or promote hate. When it comes to washington and how it should involve itself in this issue not further restrict my ability to defend myself and my family. Saying jen smith saying stop identifying shooters. Karen saying when it comes to legislation, it must be immediate. Stop the sale of assault rifles and highcapacity magazines. Raise the age of gun purchasers. We have been asking you what washington should do in response to these shootings. You can call and continue giving your thoughts in the next halfhour. 2027488001 for republicans. Free democrats. Free democrats. Independents, 2027488002. If you are a gun owner, you can call us and give us your thoughts at 2027488003. The Facebook Page available for you as well at cspan. Org. Our twitter feed is cspanwj. At 10 00 is when the president will address this issue and if you want to watch it on cspan, on cspan. Org as well. Gaye in north carolina, democrats line, good morning. Caller good morning. I agree on cspan. Org as well. With the gentleman from missouri who said the senate should be recalled and at least Mitch Mcconnell should allow all the gunuss safety, bipartisan bills that have been passed by the house. Needs anelieve anybody ar15 or whatever, i am not a gun owner to protect their house or go hunting. I remember when people used to and car seatsts for children arent going to. Top the car wrecks they did not and taking these guns are not going to stop a lot of these killings. Thety belts have diminished number of deaths caused by car wrecks and the severity of the injuries. Every little bit we do should help. Host a reporter this morning sending out a tweet saying according to the faa advisories, the president will travel to el paso, texas, and dayton, ohio, wednesday in the wake of the Mass Shootings. Florida. Next from caller yes, sir. As far as these guns, i believe a fully automatic weapon is legal. There is a difference between a fully automatic and semi automatic. Besides the gun, what i really called about is the younger generation. What they ought to do is start teaching history in schools and put the American Flag back in the classrooms and pledge allegiance to the flag every morning like when i went to getol and these kids together, they dont even know the history anymore. Ask them what are the great lakes and they dont even know. Aside from that, washington should not do anything in light of these Mass Shootings . What theydont care do about it. Taket dont want them to my guns away. If you really check, i bet most of them are a lack of education of what goes in goes on in this country. They dont know the facts of life. Host why are you convinced someone is going to take your gun away . Caller that is what democrats want eventually. They just want a little bit at a time. Louisiana. E is in am a gun owner and when i was young, i enjoyed shooting at targets. Now we need gun control. Ak47s, allutlaw gun sales should be registered and insured. Resales should be handled much like auto sales. So do licensed adults who have been currently verified by medical doctors as to Mental Health and reasons why buying a gun and a certificate from a gun club signifying safety issues and knowing how to take care of guns. You to take this position, especially as a gun owner . Of the i am tired killing. Nonsense inf the washington. This killing. Senator sharad brown on cnn yesterday talking about what the senate should do. [video clip] political career, i know the nra spent a lot of money against me. They attack politicians like me and i know my republican colleagues that are supported by the nra know that. I dont know that they lack courage, but they have shown no sign of standing up to the gun lobby. I dont know what to say to that question about what the chances are. I hope Public Officials will do their job and their job is to stand up for Public Health and. Afety i will say how important it is Mitch Mcconnell called the senate back on monday. People can get back on a plane homes. Back to their in a sidebar story, rollcall reporting Mitch Mcconnell fractured hiss shoulder his shoulder. He tripped at home, suffered a fractured shoulder. He has been working from home in louisville. The president sending out a tweet this morning on the topic newsg the media fake and tribbett into the anger and rage contributed to anger and rage. These terrible problems will only get worse. Johnny in georgia, democrats line. America has got to become ernest with the thing. Not only taking away guns is not going to stop it, background checks are not going to stop it. We need to be ernest. Hite people racist. Of every 10 is they talk in their homes, their children here it, their children get older. Their children get with other children who have heard it and their children become either clue nationalists or clocks klansmen Ku Klux Klans men. Host what convinces you of that . Am 75 years old. I have lived in this country 75 years. The only time i left this country was to serve this country and i have served this years. For 23 know how many there is and i know how many racist i have met. White people have to own up. North carolina, republican line. Caller the Mental Health issue, outle just throw that there. They need to tone that down a little bit and then they can figure out what they are going to talk about. As far as assault weapons, it is weapon. Utomatic the handgun is going to put out as many rounds as you can pull the trigger. If they dont want assault weapons, what would they rather be shot with . If i have 10 magazines in my pocket and it takes out a second repeat fire, have a hundred rounds the same as this guy had this because he had one magazine that held. The only difference is the ability to change the magazines. It drops the magazine and you inject another one. If people dont have assault weapons, they are going to use handguns. Host are you saying there is no need for washington to act on these . I dont want to put words in your mouth, but do you think that is the case . Caller they have some infatuation with assault weapons because of the weight it looks. It has that militaristic look. They are more powerful rounds, but they will do more damage hitting thanks. They telling people. Re out there by the millions the type of gun the bullet flies out of, it does not matter. Their scariness the people look they have to it. Host lets hear from another republican in pennsylvania. Caller good morning. I am just completely frustrated with the mentality i am hearing from the callers. They want to treat the tools they dont want to treat that they dont want to treat the people who use the tools. I have news, there was a caller from louisiana who said she just wants the killing to stop. If you ban guns, you are not going to stop the killings. I hate to be the one to break the news to these people, but banning guns is not going to fight the problem. The problem is human beings, our society that has taught moral relativism in our Public Schools for 60 years. If you think it is ok with you, it is not wrong. If you think it is right, it is right for you. There is a universal, eternal standard of right and wrong and it does not change depending on how you feel about it. A lineow do you draw from that to someone who commits a shooting . Caller these people are not taught. They spend their lives, a lot of these younger people especially, they spend their lives being told their greatest threat to this existence is nonsensical, manmade global warning and they are not taught you kill people you dont kill people, you obey, you exhibit manners, basic common sense stuff. We have a constitution and the constitution guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. Surrendering our liberty to the federal government is not going to save us. Brent from West Virginia adding his thoughts to the mix of what washington should do. It was back in june 2017 several legislators were at a ballfield not far from washington, d. C. , a shooter taking aim at them, shooting several, including Steve Scalise and he, in response to the events of the recent days putting out a series of tweets. There is a sickness in our nation, religion, and community institutions. Politicization of every aspect of life rises. These shooters turned to hatred and violence. As a result, dozens are dead. These events should be classified as domestic terrorism. The fbi is tweeting it as such. We must better equipped Law Enforcement agencies to equipped massacres before confront massacres before the happen they happen. Instead of seeking professional health, men are being radicalized in online forums. Ediate culture that dangerous divisions of hatreds those you disagree with is the outcome that can lead to violent consequences as i have experienced. Several tweets coming from Steve Scalises twitter feed. Virginia,l be next in democrats line. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. We need to identify the friends and associates of this these individuals who have committed these types of atrocities and look at the fact that it is not just the individual behind the gun who is guilty of these atrocities, but the people they are associated with that have poisoned their minds and their thoughts. They are the ones causing this problem and we are not doing anything about those individuals. This country was real quick to eliminate the black Panther Organization because they , but they was violent have not done a damn thing about the ku klux klan. Anyone affiliated with hate organization,e they should not even be allowed to have one gun because they are the people inspiring all of this action. It is not the gun, it is the people and the mentality of those people. Its not mental illness, it is mental deficiency. Host lets hear from walter in california, a gun owner. Good morning. Caller my name is foster. Host sorry about that, go ahead. Caller it is not the gun owners, it is parents dont teach their kids about weapons when they buy a weapon. They buy them online. People in office and they are not doing what we put them in there for. How can you say white and black and then they you are going to say ku klux klan . They are all over the world. We worry about other countries carrying guns, but we cannot do anything about our own. Police are shooting people with no guns on them. Host to show you a story in light of the viewers call, this is how does europe compared to the u. S. With gun ownership . Gun ownership in the u. S. Is three times more than europes highest country. Around 46 of the 857 million guns in civilian hands around the world along to people in the United States. The gun ownership among civilians at 84. 6 dwarves state militaries and Law Enforcements 2. 2 stockpiles and that number has grown by more than 200 million cents 2006. More than euronews. Com if you want to check that your self. Nra putting out a statement. It reads, our dentist deepest sympathies to the victims of the tragedies and the entire communities of el paso and texas. We salute the courage of First Responders and others. The nra is committed to the safe and lawful use of firearms. We will not participate in politicizing these strategies tragedies. We will work for Real Solutions to protect our all us all. Anotherthe nra and group putting out a statement as well from yesterday saying this is a Public Health crisis. We are heartbroken for the communities of el paso and dayton and dozens more americans who are shot and killed every day, but whose stories do not make the headlines. Americans are angry and we demand action from lawmakers beginning with the Senate Passing legislation to require background checks on every gun sale and strong, federal, red flag legislation. Republican nine republican line in beaumont, texas. Taking myank you for call and first of all, lets never forget these people that have died. They are real people, real families. That is real blood and they are forpawns on chess boards political reasons. This is not a simple issue to answer. The video games kids nowadays this kid was 21 years old. What does he know . What he had been taught in school. When we take the 10 commandments and education out, they have nothing to build their life thoughts to move forward on. This country was built by my ancestors and others that work hard to turn this into what it is. When you take a look at what is happening in d. C. , it is atrocious. The thing that is driving this, disbelieveet anyone this. Stand back and look. Thee is a cancer and it is democratic when you have nancy pelosi saying there is no problems at the border and nadler saying trump is a liar, he is this, that, and the other, this is the president of the United States. Their whole agenda is to tear this down. They have no interest in doing anything for this country other than to destroy it to get back in office. There are lots of issues that need to be addressed, but it is not being done. Host stephen in connecticut, independent line. Caller i dont believe in this Mental Health issue thing anymore. I think whole nations can be radicalized. In the 1920s, we had a lot of tommy guns and the gun rate went up. We had massacres like the valentines day massacre and they banned the tommy gun. Through the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s, the gun rate went down a lot. I am not buying this Mental Health issue anymore. Think radicalization there are a couple different trends. This white, radicalized terrorist individuals. And are white terrorists white nationalists. And they buy high capacity rifles. I am a gun owner. Designed toe were kill people in vietnam. The armor light rifle was designed to kill people in vietnam. Host with that said, what is the best approach for washington in your mind . We need to wipe those conspiracy groups off the face right and it was prematurely, precognition, they knew this thing was going to go down. Host the New York Times listing the names of the shooting victims. John in arlington, virginia, good morning. Republican line. Caller i am in favor of the universal background check and i am also in favor of a ban on military style weapons and large capacity capability for those weapons. Gun innned the machine the 1980s, finally, and that has been accepted by people. There are a lot of people that use regular rifles and shotguns to go hunting, but these military style weapons, all you had to do was ban they are sale and if people have them, they have them. Gradually the interest will diminish for them. At a minimum, they have to ban the sale. Host will that diminish Second Amendment rights . Caller the machine ban did not. You cannot own an atom bomb. Bannedu see they the machine gun. If the army shows up at my doorstep, it is not going to be much of a contest. I think this can be done and maybe limit them to shooting ranges. At least ban the sale of them Buyback Program or Something Like that so people dont really feel threatened. There is a lot of people that own these things that are good people and you want to emphasize that. Make it difficult for them to buy them, anyway. Host line for democrats, hi. Caller thank you so much for taking my call. I want to talk about interview with fox news. He blames videogames for the Mass Shootings. Makingeople need to stop things up. There are no Mass Shootings in japan because there are no videogames there . It is hate spurred on by a president who loves white nationalists. I want to say this to trump supporters. Are we great yet . 24 people died at the border in concentration camps, and eightyearold died in the camps , sevenyearold died in the camps. An american citizen was illegally imprisoned for over nine months. Children separated from parents despite court orders. Host i am going to leave you there. Anna in texas, democrats line. Caller good morning. First of all, when they talk kidt psychiatrists, the needs a psychiatrist, his dad is a psychiatrist. He lives in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods. He does not live in dallas. He is in allen, texas, one of the most the wealthiest places in america. Nobody is trying to take anybodys gun away from them. Why doesnt the president have the same thing he had for collin aepernick colin k about taking a knee. When it is a white kid that does it, he has a mental problem. Man thatis a black does it, he is a lowlife thug. All my life we had to go up against the ku klux klan. They would shoot in your house. Now their kids, grandkids, i am 71 years old and sick of this. My grandson is a Police Officer and he comes up against this crap every single day of his life. We grew up with guns. My brother and i would hunt in the woods. We would not hunt people, we did not hunt white people. Stop the crap. Host lets hear from chris in california, democrats line. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I wanted to voice my opinion. Backr 1, a few calls someone said they thought they outlawed assault weapons. They were outlawed in 1935 and they have been outlawed ever since. It is what they look like that scares people. I saw this coming when they outlawed and started the outlaw in all the states, the death penalty. If people knew they would be punished rather than spend the rest of their life being taken care of, that might have done something. Also, 30 years ago when i saw one of the most violent things i ever saw on any tv show or movie show, these crazy videogames that eightyearolds and 10yearolds were playing where they showed a Police Officer, you got to shoot a Police Officer and his head exploded. To used to use violence. The last one, sorry for taking up so much of your time, they talk about these rounds that hold 100 bullets. It is just like a car. Some people have a 200 horsepower car, some people have a 1000 horsepower car, it makes no difference except maybe in the car, some people like to have it. Host that is chris in california. The last call for this topic. We will show you how some of the newspapers are taking a look at this issue. The el paso times, their headline hate crime terror, charges sought. This is a miami valley tragedy. Las vegas review journal thehting the Baltimore Sun taking a look at crime scene photos that have resulted because of the incidents over the weekend. Pulseo, you remember the shooting, short timeline of violence, register going back to sandy hook, epidemic of domestic terrorism. The Movie Theater shooting in denver, years ago. You cant just not go. San bernardino, shootings radel the u. S. Gun controlix, republican,zona unprecedented 24 hours. Dont forget, 10 00 today, President Trump set to make remarks on the Mass Shootings in el paso and dayton. Watch that on cspan. Listen and monitor on www. Cspan. Org. You can listen on the cspan radio app. We change topics and talk with our next guest, about an withent he encountered, prescribed opioids. Author, his next. Week, the floor last New Hampshire senator speaking about the scope of the Opioid Crisis and the role pharmaceutical companies play in the spread of prescription opioids. [video clip] we are constantly learning more and more about the unconscionable Ways Companies fuel the crisis, they crisis that is killing more than 100 people a day in the United States. By drugata released Enforcement Administration shows between 2006, 2012, six years, companies distributed 76 billion pills of oxycodone and hydrocodone throughout the country, including 290 million pills sent to New Hampshire. A state with only 1. 3 Million People. That works out to 30 pills per person per year in the granite state. As they distributed those unfathomable amounts of opioids, pharmaceutical Companies Pushed these through deceptive marketing tactics, despite the known risks of addiction to maximize profit. One of these tactics including pushing the unproven concept of pseudoaddiction. This false claim asserted patients showing signs of addiction were not addicted but needed higher doses of opioids. The solution these scam artists pushed was to encourage prescribing of even more opioids. Instead of providing actual treatment to those suffering, some patients just received more drugs. That kind of strategy enabled the industry to dual out billions of doses of opioids and profit and armies like profit and or mislaid leaving and Opioid Crisis that is devastating communities. Washington journal continues. Is travis uest reider, the author of in pain. Good morning. Guest good morning. Host to talk about your experience, you start the book in great detail talking about an accident you had. Guest on memorial day weekend, 2015, i was going out for and i didntde make it three blocks from my house, i got tboned from the left side by a van and it crushed my foot. Limb salvage situation. We were not sure whether the foot would be salvageable. Host you go to the hospital. You start relating the pain involved in the prescribed effort from the doctors. Pain isiscussions of important. When you talk about opioids, there is a response, today oh, you will just be fear mongering about opioids. I had traumatic pain. Friendss were my best in the world. Life was not livable without them for weeks. Five surgeries over the first month. The aggressive prescribing they started in the hospital was not assigned to anyone for long term and followup. Discharge from the final visit, i get home with escalating doses of powerful drugs. No one is watching me. I keep following the advice. Stay ahead of the pain every four hours. Host what kind of doses . Guest oxycodone, immediate release. 46 hours. Oxycontin, every 12 hours as extendedrelease. Every 12 hours did not get me far. Every 4 hours like clockwork, i popped pills. Host when do you have to start weaning yourself off of these . Guest im not thinking of anything other than recovery and avoidance of pain and trying to be present for my family. It comes as a surprise, two months or so after the accident, i go back with the trauma surgeon, he looks and says oh, this is way too much. You need to get off the meds now. He doesnt have any advice for me. He has not been managing prescriptions. He sends me to the surgeon who had been, a Plastic Surgeon and he says, not a big deal. Divider daily dose into 4, drop one each week and you will be off them in a month. Spoiler alert. Fantastically bad advice. I tried to taper really high dose opioids over 4 weeks, dropping a quarter each week which immediately sent me to withdraw. Host what happened in week one to week 4 . Guest week one, i said i was miserable. I would describe it to my family and say, it is like the worst case of the flu times 1000, you sweat, nauseated, get goosebumps. Withdrawal is the opposite of the drug effects. If you get euphoria with the drug, you get dysphoria. That you get pain related relief, you get intensified pain. Everything hurts. Terrible. Violently ill. Those purely physical symptoms were nothing compared to what came next. After i dropped the next dose at the end of week one, that is when dysphoria kicked in. Depression, zaidi, i started crying all the time, anxiety. By week 4, i was thinking i will have to kill myself. If the withdrawal symptoms didnt come out right, i cannot live like this. Host was there a moment when he realized this was a problem . Guest right away, when you are that sick, you are thinking this is not right. She called thea, prescribing doctor in the first week and he was like well, take care of your bowels. He was not concerned. After i started the depression and spiraling down in the following weeks, that is when we called him back and he got worried because he is clearly out of his depth. Go back on the meds. I cant do this. You need to find an expert. If i go back on the meds, i will have to do it again at some point. I feel like im dying. I will never do that again. We start calling anyone who we could think of who might be an expert. Three different hospitals, a dozen clinicians. No one will help. Oh, is when we realized, they put me on this medication that is dangerous and hurting me and theyre not going to help. That was the terrifying moment. Host the book is, in pain. Travis joining us for the discussion. If you want to ask questions about his experience and the overall topic of opioid addiction and opioid issues, 8000, eastern and central time zones. Mountain and pacific time zones, 202 7488001. If youre part of the medical community, 202 7488002. You are a bioethicist by training. Describe what that is and how it relates when you examine addiction and opioids. Guest a bioethicist is someone who thinks about the ethics and policy issues raised by medicine and Public Health. I dont recommend this as a strategy. Becoming impatient is a good way becoming a patient is a good way for a bioethicist to study something. You see all these gaps, deep chasms in the Health Care System. You see failures and you are trained to identify them. The journey i described in the book, not just a journey of withdrawal and coming to recover from that, is also about realizing, i have a unique voice because im specifically trained to identify these problems. I spent 4 years since then working on this. Host what is the top line about what you discovered . Guest two clauses. We think about how broken Pain Medicine is. Overprescribing is the language you hear in the media, for the last decade, that is too simplistic of what has been going on. Alongside overprescribing, which is reckless or irresponsible, you have under prescribing which is miss identifying someone as drugseeking or suspicious. Doctors, especially as we have gotten fearful of opioids, withholding medication from patients who need it and that has been causing problems alongside the crisis of addiction and overdose deaths. That simplistic message of overprescribing has got to go. We need to think about ethically responsible prescribing, weighing the costs and benefits and not letting the fear get the better of us. Ist you write that pain puzzling to deal with. We demand that doctors help us deal with it and our best tool to communicate it is deeply flawed. We simply cannot make it work. We cannot turn a private, subjective experience into an objective phenomenon. Can you expand on that . Guest if you are my doctor and i go to you and you say, what hurts . My foot. How bad . What can i say to you to give you data that is actionable . On the one hand, nothing that is truly accurate. Because, my pain is purely subjective. It burns. It feels like fire and acid. The longer you work in pain, you get good at identifying what words correspond to different sorts of pain. That is one of the skills of an experienced doctor. We need to know Something Like, how bad is your pain . How important is it for me to do something about it . We developed a simple tool which is the pain scale. Anyone who has been in the hospital in the last 20 years has heard, how bad is her pain . 010. That has helped. I got good at using the scale for me. Below a five, i would not medicate because the medicine has costs. If i say to you, my pain is seven. You may rightly think, i am tougher than you, it would be three for me. There is nothing we can communicate that tells you, oh, here is the meter, the accurate reading is five. That is the deep puzzle of pain. Because that is true, because pain is subjective and because one of the key medications for treating it is liable to abuse, that causes euphoria and addiction, pain is deeply deeply suspicious. That is the central problem of Pain Medicine. Host is there a better way than the scale . Guest i learned interesting things in the literature. One of the stories i tell in the epilogue is i talk to these military doctors. They have built on several years of research about how that simplistic scale is too simple. If im asking you only to rate intensity of pain you are thinking, it is really bad. How bad is it . Your focusing on . Youre probably making it worse. What is important is, can you function . Can you go out with friends . Can you be a decent partner . Can you hold down a job . Can you sleep . What is your mood like . There are all these functional aspects of how pain interferes with your life. Those are just as important is, what is the intensity . There is a new pain scale being developed in multiple ways. Pain, is thest, in book. Nikki is in pennsylvania. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Kind of interesting. Religion was the opiate of the people years ago. What was said by that legislator, make sense as to what might be happening with cognitive dissonance of the people, especially men and women coming back from overseas. Since silver was taken of the coin in 1965, they have become a mercenary for corporate entities to use at their disposal in Foreign Countries to protect corporate interest. We have a mercenary force at afterbasically, because the silver was taken of the going host the question directly related to opioids . Actually,e opioids, if religion was the opiate of the people way back when, and then the opiates of course, you know, i have a problem, you know, when people have a problem with pain, people have a cognitive dissonance, so this kind of mess, the cognitive money has, and, it, become the opiate of the people. Host got you. We will leave it there. Guest . Religion inioids of terms of Pain Management . Guest we have become opioid centric over the last 20 years. I dont know that it is appropriate to call a religion. America, we have been sold the idea that we deserve to be pain free. Acetaminophen. N, the extension of that is here is a more powerful pill that will take care of all that ails you. The effects of opioids dont pain,ork on physical they also work on emotional pain and traumatic pain. Opioids can cure a lot of problems, emotional and physical pain, so if we think that is happening in the u. S. A lot, that may be part of the explanation for why we have such a big problem. Host washington state, peggy. Caller it is not really a question, just more a statement. 2001, had aback in severe back injury. He was going to the v. A. Given morphine. He was on it for several months. Someone broke into his house on a friday, stole his morphine and he had to wait until monday morning to get more from the v. A. Guess he hadg, just had enough. Killed himself. So. Just a statement. Thank you. Guest so sorry to hear that. Another testament to just how devastating withdrawal can be. If you are cut off from your despair is depth of pretty bottomless. In my experience, and the experience of other folks, it is a good reminder of why we have to have compassion for people who are already on opioids because if they are cut off, that is the kind of despair, suffering they may have and waiting. Who the Hospital System is responsible for determining how withdrawal is handled . Guest the milliondollar question. Right now, no one is given that responsibility. That is one of the problems i identify. The first thing i published on this topic was a journal article in 2017 and that was the upshot. I had this experience that people were willing to prescribe, i am the doctor, i allow you to access the substance, but then they think, hands off, that is the extent of their job. That cannot stand. If these substances have risk harm downstream, someone has to manage the patient over the long term. It prescribers tend to think is not necessarily them in complex systems. Maybe with the family doc, in a small town, maybe the only course that make sense, of course they are the ones responsible, they have to learn about dependence wish all withdrawal, tapering plans. What about a big system . No one designing a Health Care System will say it is worth the orthopedic surgeons time to do followups on pain medication. Someone has to fulfill the role. It is an institutional question. Maybe we train pas. Maybe we train nurse practitioners. Host power those people trained how are those people trained on how to prescribed opioids . Guest the training has been lacking. One of the things in the last 10 years as we have started getting data on how doctors are educated on this topic. Terrifying. Average medical school gives seven hours of Pain Medicine to for justins to physicians in training. Several folks have put that up other data point, which is canadian doctors get more than 80 hours of Pain Medicine trading. We must assume they are getting training. What they are largely getting is, procedure for 60 tabs of percocet. That is not real education. That is a strategy for handing out scripts. There has to be a serious revolution. The way i think about it is, understanding these pills are complex. We think every physician, by virtue of md, gets to prescribe antibiotics for infections. We have treated opioids the same way. If you have a basic education in medicine opioids are hard. Pain, ae book, in bioethicist personal struggle with opioids. Dan in massachusetts. Good morning. Caller thank you for having me on. Think a lot of the problem is, our medical system is capitalist. Right there you have a big problem. Formotivation pharmaceutical companies, and you could say for hospitals and everybody else in the industry, is money. Say they this oath to will have patients, in their best interests, but recently, the doctor prescribed for me something i did not want. I asked for something i had in the past to take care of this fungus problem i had, i thought back. Fought back. He told me i would not get it. I ended up taking it, had a severe allergic reaction, which i am still so upset, i am in the process of writing a letter to the two doctors that put me in this position. Again, our medical system is a capitalist system, ok . Look at the history of opioids. Handinhandes with the invasion of afghanistan. What is in afghanistan . Opium plants. We went there and took control of the opium. As the earlier caller stated, where our military has turned into a mercenary for corporations, i think it is very clear. Until in america when we start looking at the root cause of all of our problems, rather than constantly trying to run around and put out the fire, we will continue to have these problems. Host leave it there. Guest the capitalism point is important. Where does money get involved with opioids and Pain Medicine . One of the things in the book is i trace a handful of the most obvious ones. One, pharmaceutical companies. Most common narrative, it is too simplistic but it has a kernel of truth. One of the main reasons we are in this mess is the pharmaceutical companies trained an army of marketers, pounded the pavement, told all the doctors that opioids are riskfree and good for all pain. A little too simplistic but a kernel of truth. A lot of misleading marketing. Farm is being sued. Pharma is being sued. Then you have treatment options. What are the most costeffective from a patient and hospital perspective . Morphine are ae penny a dose. Other medications are far more expensive. Acetaminophen, which is complicated, the evidence is mixed, it worked well for me, i wanted more and it was not given to me because it is orders of magnitude more expensive than morphine. When youre dealing with chronic pain at home, a lot of patients ought to hear from their physicians, and have not for 20 years, the best thing for a bunch of Different Things as physical therapy, yoga, mindfulness, acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Especially physical therapy, yoga. Insurance is not paying for yoga. Physical therapy is not covered often. Five dollar copay for opioids or for me, 100 per month for physical therapy. Money is shot through the problem and a bunch of ways. We are only scratching the surface. Doctors who prescribe higher get more funding from pharma. Look at the data sources in the book. It is an important point, as long as money is so shot through the problem, it will be hard to work out. Host paul from new york. Caller quick question. What is the percentage of people prescribed opiates actually get addicted . I listen to stuff on television and i dont actually hear an answer to that. Also, im looking at the cost of intravenous acetaminophen. 40 for 1000 milligrams dosage. I am wondering how that compares to what you were talking about . 1950s,hree, in the they used to send people to a farm in kentucky for about a year to get off opiates. There wouldnt be any around. This was sort of a way of getting them off it. Invariably, in many cases, a huge recidivism rate. I am wondering if you could describe that. I would be interested to hear, what percentage of people prescribed opiates actually become addicted . I was prescribed a bunch of them for a long time. Never got addicted. I did not use them chronically. Im interested in what the data is . Guest important question. Hard to get a singular answer because definitions of addicted vary wildly. We used to use addiction and dependence for Different Things. Now we use opioid use disorder. To 8 ofess than 1 people prescribed opioids develop a new addiction that was not already underlying. This is viewed as a claim that that is a low number, so, as you said, that is most people story. We should be clear. Most people do not get a new bottle, take pills and have this take over their life. The other way to understand it is, look at it from a Population Health perspective. Millions of people being exposed to opioids. If you have 6 chance of developing new addiction, and we prescribe aggressively when they are not needed, 6 of people who never needed to be exposed to this are going to develop this devastating, potentially lethal complication that is addiction. There is more data here. It would take me too long. There are sources in the book about new longterm opioid use, that is not necessarily addiction. That can be harmful in its own right. Do you want me to go on . About the iv a seven minutes and cost. Offend a set admin correct. Phen, 40 is you think it doesnt sound like much. I was asking for daily doses in the hospital. For me, it felt like it was as good as morphine for my traumatic pain. What they had to do, they did not say this, they had to think, as a hospital, if we gave every patient who asked this unlimited doses, to keep it low enough that it would not destroy the liver, what would that cost . There are several papers that say hundreds of millions of dollars over a year if hospitals did this. On the one hand, it does seem them, ii was telling will take morphine if you give me more tylenol. They said, no. That seems absurd. I was angry. It is not obvious. We have to contain costs in the Health Care System. Someone is crunching the numbers saying, is the data there to support the expenditure . Dependenceological on opioids is not the same thing is addiction. Addiction involves something else. What precisely . It turns out this is hard to answer. Why is that . Guest this goes back to my response about how many people report addiction. People hear my story and say, boy, that is too bad you got addicted after a short amount of time. That is not a great description. Addicted, i i was would talk about it, i think we should destigmatize addiction. It is important we do not confuse physiological dependence on addiction. There is what happens to every persons brain if they are on opioids long enough. The brain tries to readjust. That is called the formation of tolerance and dependence. Because the brain has tried to readjust and doesnt want to go crazy every time you get a shot of morphine, if you take that morphine away, they going to really terrible withdrawal. The longer they have been on, the higher doses they have been on, the worse the withdrawal is. That is not a sign of addiction. It happens to every single person. How may people get addicted . If withdrawal was evidence of addiction, the answer would be 100 . That is not helpful. Something else is present with addiction. Maybe they lose a family, their job, they cannot keep their life together, even if they are holding down a job. They chase this reward to the exclusion of all else they should find meaningful by their own life. Even in the face of negative consequence, they impulsively chase this thing and crave it all the time. That is the behavioral aspect. We should think about someone as addicted if they have this aspect. Does away with this dependence and addiction and puts it all under Substance Use disorder. They can be moderate or severe. We have to teach this. When you see someone in withdrawal, you do not necessarily see someone addicted. It has different policy locations. Every single one of us needs dependence treatment if we are on opioids long enough. A smaller number, which is more costly, need Addiction Treatment. Host eric from pennsylvania, next for our best, travis. Go ahead. Caller travis, this is interesting. I was ahead of the curve. I became a convicted felon because of this stuff in 2001. Theve gotten introduced, in 1980s as a migraine patient, and it went from there. Assumptions and presumptions about who gets caught up in this, what is your Research Bear out regarding the changing phrasing and attitude, now that there is welltodo suburban white kids getting caught up in it, it is an epidemic, it is a medical problem, but not too many years ago, you are seeing, if you were involved in the stuff, you are seeing it as a common drug, criminal with potential for violence and all manner of criminality just because of the class of drug it was. Guest yeah. Super important question. I am grateful to talk about it. I say at the end of the book, you cannot responsibly have this conversation without saying explicitly a bunch of the things you just said. Serious drug problem in this country for decades before anyone was calling it a crisis. 1990s,ned starting mid 19992010, overdose rate from prescription opioids quadrupled, same time that prescribing quadrupled. Where we shifted the kind of patient that was seen with addiction, Substance Use disorder, but it is really on us that, who was getting hit by that change . We had this older opioid epidemic, largely heroin in inner cities, disproportionally affecting minority communities and when it switched to white,ption, it affected rural and suburban patients. We are now in a third wave. Everyone is a victim. There is no discrimination among demographics anymore, partially because there is a huge amount of prescriptions, there is heroin everywhere and it is laced with fentanyl, which is super potent. It is everywhere now. The story is important. If we act like, this is only worth tackling now because a bunch of white people and people who have more power, politicians are now personally have family members and friends who have died from overdose, if react like that is the only reason to address the crisis, then shame on us. Were are just admitting our response is shot through with racism classism. That means, looking forward, one, we have to own it looking backward and looking forward, when we devise policy solutions, we cannot be thinking only about the kind of patient we like for the kind of victim we like. If you think, oh, this is worth it because the white suburban High School Football player gets addicted and dies, we cannot devise only prescription restrictions. We have to do something more comprehensive. Host they viewer on twitter saying imperative that government contribute to Pain Research. Is anything happening . Guest there is Research Money going into Pain Research Addiction Research new interventions, something called the heroin vaccine, using the bodys immune system to respond. There is Research Money going in. The person is online, the person is correct. It is imperative. Im not 100 sure this is the best use of resources. We have a ton of things we can do now on the pain side and the addiction side using resources we already developed. For Pain Medicine, we could educate physicians. That would go along long way and does not require new research technology. We can scale up Addiction Treatment facilities, using methadone, the Gold Standard for Addiction Treatment, introduce Harm Reduction services where they do not exist. We know how to do those things and we could start them now. Research, absolutely. That is a longterm plan. There is stuff we can do now efficiently. Host what was the experience for your wife and daughter . Guest traumatic. Ought, she wants to, this is something she could do, to family members going through this. It was traumatic for me in a particular way that i have this personal view. It was traumatic for her in a completely different way that she had to watch this happen to me. She knew i could recover, that i could be whole again. She couldnt convince me of that. She watched me believe i was dying. She was trying to raise our 1. 5yearold. She could not leave her job. She is a research scientist. She had to hold down a job. I am grateful my daughter was only 1. 5, because she does not remember it. I said to her, every day, god, i hope you dont remember this. It is secondary trauma. Us, howd remind, all of lucky i was that i only wrestled with withdrawal for one month and two months of exposure. There are people whose lives are destroyed and the trauma must be orders of magnitude greater. Host when did you know you were off opioids . Week we stuck to the 4 weaning plan because we never got better advice. I didnt know that if i change anything, it would get better. No one would tell me that. I believed if i would go back on the meds, i would never get myself to do it again. Month100 free after one of the medication and the acute stage of withdrawal lasted a week. Up, mye acute phase let life started to recenter and i started to think, i will survive this. Withdrawal symptoms can flareup for months, postacute withdrawal symptoms. That is a scary thing. If you have been traumatized like this, months later you can get tremors again. Host do you still have pain from the accident and how do you manage that . Guest i do. It was a limb salvage situation. You dont fully heal. It depends on how bad it is. I will need another surgery eventually. Surgeonve an orthopedic clear out some of the painful components. I sometimes use ibuprofen. I try not to use it everyday. All drugs have side effects. First rule of pharmacology. Ibuprofen and a set a minute for they work really well for me. Things like physical therapy, shame on me if i dont put this into practice. Over the course of six months, as i was finishing the book, i ramped up my regimen and it is borderline magic for me. The kind of pain i have in my foot responded well to exercise. If i am too busy and i neglect myself, the pain goes up. Host williamsburg, virginia, randy. Caller good morning, america. My condolences to the families of the tragedies this past weekend. , good morning dr. , that is wonderful youre bringing up exercise as a recovery tool. In anlf was injured industrial farm accident in 1998. I was thrown from a roof and broke my neck. Ended up with seven screws, two plates of steel and part of mybutt and neck. When i was well enough to volunteer, i did so on the pediatric injury for an brain injury. 2000, that is when i saw how well, how, not only, there was little equipment for children to get back some of their physical abilities. I also found out how in school, we dont teach fitness so much. That is what really saved my life. I was an endurance athlete. I knew the difference between injury pain and training discomfort. That is what i relied on for the first two years out of the hospital, which i spent 10 weeks in. They said i would be there six months at least. Sir, i will get right at this and that is what i did. Stationary bike is what brought my lower extremities back. More andn, more and more and more work in the gym and i was able to separate the discomfort of improving my health from the discomfort of the injury itself. We are not teaching that in school. As a result of that, please let me finish, ive built a mobile fitness facility which i have been sharing on cspan for 20 years now. This murderwith all and mayhem on these blocks, psychologically and physically, fitness is a great respite for those directly affected or for those in the community. Host thanks. Right to is exactly talk about the importance of fitness. One of the interesting things i learned in my research was we have these tools we recognize because we use them. Another one is breathing. The first thing i thought when i read about this was, no, how can breathing be that important . Doctors said, your wife gave birth, right . Yeah. What did they teach her to do in the pain of childbirth . Pain management and focused techniques. One of the interesting things i found was evidence for things chi combined tai elements of good recovery techniques. You strengthen the body with exercise and do mindfulness meditation, focusing on your breathing and all of those, it can sound hokey if you are not on board but a lot of those are evidencebased. They are good tools for recovering from pain. Host doug in washington. Caller good morning. I was hit by a tree. Paralyzed from the chest down. Spinal cord injury. Lots a hardware. I tried everything for the first two years. It has been 12 years. I tried everything. Now my management is, i was lucky enough to get the ring of fire. It burns and hurts around my chest. Anyway. For the last 10 years, all i oxycodone milligram and lyrica. I only take eight pills a day. I choose to only take 10 milligrams. I could have gotten a higher does all this time but i choose not to. Because i was told you will get used to it anyway. The pain never goes away. I am always in pain. It takes the edge off. It manages it. Fouroblem is i have lost teeth, they just crumbled, and my question is, what is my longterm issue going to be from the oxycodone and the lyrica . That is the only thing that bothers me. I listened. I will go ahead and let you tell me. Guest i cannot give medical advice. I am not md. I would not do it on tv anyway. And that storys there is a population of patients stable on low doses of opiates and a big question for the community for academics and policymakers and people trying to figure out the american response to the crisis, a big question is, what do we do about that . Youre getting evidence saying Something Like opioids are not great for longterm chronic pain because of the way they were, we just dont have any good reason to think they work over longterm. Then we have patients who are stable. Do you try to get them off if they feel like it improves quality of life . There is a lot of disagreement. Im not willing to say anything but a lotnt right now of colleagues i deeply respect think if the evidence as, you are not being helped after 10 years, we should get you off this whether you want to or not, im not sure that is responsible. The dose is relatively safe, the patient is stable, it improves quality of life subjectively and the medical establishment is, who put them on without good reason . I think exposing them to potential suffering of withdrawal, the emotional suffering of anxiety of having to get off, i am not sure that is justified especially at the doses the caller is talking about. There is a question about longterm data. We do not have it. Lyrica is not an opioid. If you are on it for 30 years, we dont have any idea what the longterm effects are because we have never done those studies. It is not evidencebased. It is part of that lack of evidence all around, is part of why we are getting more cautious about prescribing. We have put patients on opioids with the intention of leaving them on it forever, apparently, without any evidence that was good or safe to do. It is a concern. The country is struggling with it. I do not know the outcome. Host how has the medical community changed attitudes toward prescribing today . Guest by large, it is different for different pockets. I work for jon hopkins which is not representative. My colleagues are by march, brilliant, insightful, and doing good responsible Pain Management. There are doctors everywhere, probably including hopkins, that i do not know, who are just scared now. That seems to be the overriding factor. 2008,ng in the late 2000, you start hearing things like, there is an epidemic. Doctors are killing people. Now the easiest thing to do is to say, got it. Not prescribing. That has led to inadequate treatment of pain. Have ahead of the time, i will not listen, i will treat them with suspicion. We become suspicious of oxycodone. If you already have patients, they could be abandoned and face withdrawal. Basically have to figure out how to handle things like, when we know we need opioids for trauma surgery, then what do we do . That is more nuanced. It is more than just, should you prescribe . We know we will prescribe. Now we need to know how we will actually manage it and get them off . The general answer is, we have been scared. A lot of physicians do not have a nuanced answer at all. They know how to write prescriptions. The only way to move forward is to do something more careful. Host jeff, springhill, florida. I am 64. Es, i first hurt my right knee when i was 25. A. C. L. Acl inwas 35, i tore my my left knee. Ive had six operations including my right knee replaced and im currently now going through having my left knee full replacement. Couple questions. First of all, the tolerance i have. They keep wanting to give me narco and things like that which are about the equivalent, i have never been addicted to opioids. Ive always had an easy time quitting once the pain is gone. Second question is, is there a difference in the pain level betweennd or addiction synthetics, semi synthetic and straight opioid . Because, they keep wanting to give me things that just wont work. They wont give it to me because of the situation. Host thanks. Guest it is not so much a distinction between synthetic and natural occurring opiates, which is what we call derivatives from opium. It is more about potency. Norco, which is a hydrocodone percocet,en that and common brands, you have different opioids. Hydrocodone versus oxycodone. Is about as potent oxycodoneligrams is about as potent as 1. 5 milligrams of hydrocodone potency. Others are stronger. Hydromorphone is even more potent. Fentanyl, which everyone has heard of because of the illicit version overseas mixed into licit, but there is a version. It is 100 times more potent than morphine. There is a difference in potency. Only increasest the pain relief but also increases euphoria, which taps the reward system. , thank you for your time. Guest thank you for having me. Host this week we will feature political podcasters. Joining us today, first in the lineup, Larry Oconnor, podcaster and radio talk show host with the examining politics podcast of the Washington Examiner. Tonight, we talk about the future of broadcast television and challenges local broadcasters face with Online Platforms like netflix and , with gordon smith. Still, as the answer to what happening to what is happening with journalism, we are still reporting, still investigating, Still Holding people accountable. The future for broadcasting is not just one that we will survive, we will thrive because the people need what we do, even though they sometimes take for granted that we will be there. We occupy what i would describe as of your replaceable, indispensable niche in communications. Watch the communicators, 8 00 tonight eastern on cspan2. In 1979, a Small Network with an unusual name rolls out a big idea. Let viewers make up their own minds. Cspan opened the doors to washington policymaking for all to see bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. A lot has changed in 40 years. Today that big idea is more relevant than ever. On television and online, cspan is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind, brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Washington journal continues. Host all week long, washington journal will feature political podcasters talking about a variety of topics. Mark leon goldberg will join us wednesday. Briney, who looks at congress, will join us friday. Joining us today, Larry Oconnor, host of the examining politics podcast from the Washington Examiner, and talk radio in at wml washington dc, good morning. Guest good morning. Host how would you describe your podcast . Guest there is such a heightened interest in american politics now. Minute byis paid on minute conversations in washington dc and around the country. Tose conversations translate sidelines of soccer fields and kitchen tables. We like to be a daily clearinghouse of all the topics everyone is talking about. Focused andbe host undermining my own authority on the podcast but it is not really about me. It is about the conversation. I try to make it interview centric. I bring in different pundits, journalists, policymakers, elected officials, and we have them all come in for various interviews and draw information from daily events and politics and policy through those interviews. Our listeners really capture what is going on from the horses mouth and from conversations we have rather than a guy with a microphone pontificating about what he believes. Host as you talk in your interviews, what point of view politically do those usually take . Guest my point of view is centerright, i should say rightcenter. Im a conservative man and talk show host. At the Washington Examiner, our brand is straight news, conservative views. Our editorial pages take a rightcenter perspective. I always try to lead with facts and then draw opinions from those facts. An important ethic in terms of how we communicate ideas and positions. I will take things from all sides of the equation. Last week, full analysis of the democratic debates, we have plenty of democrats. I had Leslie Marshall on. Observers, congressmen, from the left, from the democratic perspective, because that is important. Even if i disagree with them, by the way, that is an important part of what we do here. We have reached a point in this country where it is almost a unicorn idea that people with opposing political ideas perspectives can have a lively and informed conversation. It is important to me and the Washington Examiner that we display that and put it forward that we disagree but we have to get something done through our words, not through any kind of vile, vitriolic rhetoric, sadly that we see so often. Host how often do you produce a podcast . How do you determine the content . Where can people find you . Guest this is a daily podcast. Many podcasters work weekly or biweekly but we do a daily download. I am a radio talk show host in washington on wml. I also have a separate program in los angeles on kabc radio. That is five hours of content. I usually talk to 58 guests per day depending on the cycle. We curate the best of those interviews everyday for 3040 withe podcast put together the best and most informed interviews i have conducted on radio and i preface it with my own opening specific to the podcast. I talked about what happened today. How we approached it. Reactions. It is relevant to the 2020 election. We take the focus of almost everything in the cycle now with huge ramifications for the election. Not just the road to charlotte for the rnc or to milwaukee, and then to the general election. Every day we get ready at 6 30 p. M. Eastern and people can get it at apple podcast, google, and that our website. And ifur guest with us you want to ask him questions, call and let us know. 202 7488001 for republicans. I 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. Weet us at cspanwj mentionedor, you current day events. The shootings of the last 24 hours, how do you look at that and what do you think you will be talking about from that perspective on your podcast intro . And show . Guest we are waiting for the president s remarks at 10 a. M. Eastern and that will have a big impact on the conversation. As a radio host, i deal with this anytime we have a horrible event like this, it is challenging, obviously, because so many times people want to immediately jump into the politics of it. I find that horrific. I am a father of children. I like to put myself in a position of what those families are going through. I wish we could have a moratorium on politicizing events like this and trying to draw grand political conclusions, especially in our new cycle, when so much info we get following these events becomes ingrained into our public psyche and we find out a week later it was not accurate. To have we are going much conversation today about gun control. That always seems to loom Something Like this happens. As you have seen already, there is the idea that in some way, political rhetoric and our National Political conversation about various policies in our country is in some way mad men andof these horrible, people ask. I think it is a disservice to the American People and people who all positions one way or another on the issues. There are hundreds of millions of people in america. We all have different political ideas. We feel passionately about them. We are not picking up arms and slaughtering innocent people in the name of those politics. To suggest that political positions and political ideas should not be discussed because somebody might be inspired to do something violent is a horrific idea. Im going to try to have that conversation. When people want to bring politics into it, i will maintain the importance of our First Amendment. By the way, i have heard republicans talking about violent video games and that videogames had something to do with this. I protect the Second Amendment and i protect the First Amendment too. There are tens of millions of people who enjoy video games without ever getting violent. I think to suggest that there is some sort of direct connection to violent art and entertainment and these horrific acts is misguided as well. I always lean toward freedom and liberty and isolate those people who have Serious Problems and give them the help they need so they cant do others harm. I think that is the solution going forward. I hope we have that conversation. Host the president mentioned in a tweet talking about general issues but bringing up the idea of background checks as a possible way forward, where do you think that falls, especially from the point of view of conservatives or republicans or what have you when it comes to background checks, when it comes to guns . Guest we will see how that conversation goes and what the president is proposing. Most of the people who are strong advocates for the Second Amendment are not against the idea of a background check. The way it ist on simple needed. Whether it is a legitimate or secure way. False positives are not the standard of the day. That said, i wonder if we often walk down this path of feeling like we have to do something. This is such a senseless act of violence, what we saw in el paso and dayton. I think our initial reaction is we have to do something without stopping to say that something that we are going to do, what did it have to do, would it have prevented what happened in el paso and dayton . I havent seen a whole lot of these recent Mass Shootings that we have seen that would have been prevented by background checks. Listen, i am open to have that conversation to see what the details are and to see if we can make a difference, great. Who doesnt want to make a difference in trying to solve this problem . Host several brought up the idea of president ial rhetoric on these type of topics, how do you weigh into that argument . Sad and think it is despicable that politicians try to blame their opponents for some senseless act of violence. I think it was beto orourke, who not only blamed the president but fox news as well. It is really insulting, frankly to so Many Americans who support the president and watch Fox News Channel that in some way that they are one statement or one tweet or one Television Program away from being a mass murderer. It polarizes us even more. In washington, d. C. , James Hodgkinson, who was a Bernie Sanders supporter and he loved Rachel Maddow and he loved msnbc. He took up arms and shot, almost killed represented steve scully duringhot congressman the softball game. I was not shouting up and down that we should condemn Rachel Maddow and that Bernie Sanders inspired this violence. That would be wrong. I dont know why it is equally not equally wrong for people to say the same thing about President Trump and his reporters supporters. Host Larry Oconnor joining us. He is the host of the examining politic podcast and a radio talkshow host in washington, d. C. Our first call comes from ron. You are online with Larry Oconnor. Go ahead. Theer has he ever read , does hearthur gelb know who that man is and how far you fall for him . Thank you. I missed the last of it. Host arthur galb was the name. Gelb was his name. Guest im not familiar. Host we will go to the republican line. Good morning. Caller you are talking about bringing politics into this disaster, how about beto orourke yesterday, he called the president a white nationalists. I will bet now, he wont be able to be elected a dogcatcher. Im so sorry, i missed the last part of the question. Host he referenced beto orourkes statements about the president as far as calling him a white nationalists and went on from there, saying he would not probably be elected a dogcatcher. I think that was a statement. Guest oh, i see. I missed the dogcatcher reference. Of whitehis whole idea nationalism and i am seeing calls for the president to condemn White Nationalism, this is politics. People are playing politics. The president has been condemning White Nationalism isn he ever whenever he demanded to condemn White Nationalism. Why must one condemn something that one has never endorsed or participated in . When someone says you are a conservative, you should condemn racism, i have never participated in racism so why should i be forced to condemn racism . We can actually figure out how to solve problems in this country. It is frustrating to me. Listen, i think youngest woman omar madengresswoman the same statement when she was asked to condemn al qaeda and condemn 9 11. It is frustrating when the same questions are raised and it is suggested that unless, on demand, you condemn the thing i demand you condemn, that you are in some way part and parcel to it, at what wade in what way do we have a substantive conversation when we force people to condemn things all the time. . Host this is a tweet asking you directly, how can you call yourself a conservative when your party raised the debt limit instead of reducing it . Guest it is a great question. By the way, many conservatives have been condemning the republican and Democratic Party about spending. Part of lot i was the Tea Party Movement during the obama years and it was what we lead with. I was disappointed and frustrated when speaker of the house boehner campaigned on pushing back on all of those things. It in a position of prominence and importance. T pushinggned agains back on those problems and it continued to get worse. Youhe tweeter said, how can be conservative when your party does this . I am a republican. If my conservative ideas and values run contrary to th what the Republican Party is doing, i call them out on it. I have a serious problem and we speak about it often. Is it a nonissue when it comes to republicans on capitol hill . Guest i think that anybody who has the majority on capitol hill loves to spend money. It is good for business and it is good for their constituents and their district. They are not keeping and i on the future, sadly. I have to say, we have been warned about the debt problem and the spending problem for about 50 years, now. Certainly my adult life, i have been hearing conversations from capitol hill about that. We keep saying and hearing it is a looming crisis and it is hanging over us. The whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down. It seems as though, as long as the economy is booming and people are working, everyone whistles pass that graveyard. I wonder what it is going to take for people to take notice of this and do something about it. Sadly, in politics today, nobody wants to be the person to say we have to stop this spending, we have to stop that spending, we have to stop the spending. As soon as you cut spending, you are alienating some powerful constituency and you are facing a death sentence for your political career. I think most americans were frustrated by that. We dont elect people so they can continue to get reelected. Choices,bold, tough even if it means you will lose your job. You are not hired to be a lifetime congressman or senator, you are hired to do your job based on what you campaigned on. If i can continue on that basis, i have had great admiration for nancy pelosi and the democrats in 2010, when they voted for the Affordable Care act, a whole chunk of them knew they were going to lose their elections. They knew they would lose their majority but they went ahead and made their vote because it ended up they ended up believing it. I wish republicans would make those bold, daring votes. I wish they would vote for the things they actually tell us they believe in, even if it means they will lose their jobs. Host from owens bill, marilyn, hello. Maryland, hello. Caller how are you doing . I am glad that you are willing to dispute other republicans and what they do. Lets talk ideology. The shooter had a particular ideology. An ideology and he wrote a manifesto on what he believed in. Im asking you, can you see the hypocrisy that we call out radical islamists and islamism for its ideology and your ideology for the mass shooter and how that coincides. And what he needs to do and how we can tone it down that frederick and make it rhet oric and make it better. And the things that get inside of peoples head and what they are doing. Host thanks. Guest i think that will be a part of the conversation. I think that you make some good points. Lets draw some distinctions. If you read the manifesto from this mass murder, people, horrific person in el paso, everyone is drying up he is a white nationalists and killed in the name of White Nationalism. He seemed to be an ecoterrorist and killed in the name of population control per he was thanos from avengers in game. I think people are drawing from this madman people manifesto that inspired him to do this evil act of depravity, drawing certain things out of this to win their own political conversation. I think that is dangerous. I am not against the idea of having a manifesto out there. The manifesto out there. Especially for we the people to be able to read it. Because the way it is being reported, they are picking and choosing what they want to emphasize, rather than looking at the entirety of it. So, to just take one sentence out of it and say this is what is wrong and this is what inspired if that is what we are going to do, everyone who is in favor of population control and thinks the planet is overpopulated has blood on their hands today and that would be outrageous today. To say. Radical of islamic terrorism, i think it is important to point out, with the acts of 9 11 and other violent terrorists acts that we have seen in the name of radical islam, there are organizations involved there. There are networks of terrorists. There are cells created. There is funding the highest levels, including funding from foreign governments or governments that are antagonistic to our israeli allies and to the United States of the america United States of america. They are funding terrorist networks to perpetrate the act in the radical name of islam. That is a much different thing than one, lone, terrifying, evil, psychotic individual who has been radicalized in one way or another deciding to take action and murder innocent people. I am not saying that one is worse than the other. I think one can condemn radical islamist terrorism and the forces behind it in a much more legitimate way as a nationalist security issue and as part of our foreign policy, then to extrapolate from this manifesto, and entire political ideology. I am not saying there is anything good about White Nationalism. My problem is when people say White Nationalism, this loan madmans act of people, and say this is the problem with conservatives in america and the Republican Party and people who support donald trump. That is a leap that i think is dangerous and is meant to silence people and keep people from expressing their political views. Host with that in mind, do you think there is a future conversation coming about websites that host these types of conversation and what are your concerns as a media person . Guest again, i am always in favor of more information, not less. My problem with the way the media handles stories like this is that the gatekeepers who are in charge of editing or producing these programs, they can choose the information and the direction of the conversation. In talk radio, we do the same. The difference is that when i do talk radio, if somebody disagrees with me, as you do here on washington journal, they can call the number at the bottom of the screen and have their say. If i am watching cnn or one of the broadcast networks and i think they are being biased or directing this conversation in an unfair way, who do i call . Can i pick up the phone and say no, youre wrong about that and here is why . That is why what we do on talk radio and eventually, what we do in podcasting when we allow feedback with our listeners as a little bitkes it more of a democratic conversation. I think that is important because people in this country feel like they dont have a voice from the Mainstream Media outlets. They are told what they are supposed to be thinking and, instead of actually being given information so they can draw conclusions on their own. Host Larry Oconnor joining us for this conversation. You can call us and ask him conversations. Democrats, 202 7488000. Ts 202 7488002. You can find out about the weekly at cspan. Org. ,l paso, texas is next independent line, this is jack. , independent line, this is jack. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I am calling in reference to the shooting about a mile away. And i would just like to say that so much has been said on the air that i dont feel is correct. What i mean by that is, they are saying what a Peaceful Community we have in el paso. And it is a safe community. It is not a safe community. People are forgetting that in the last seven or eight years, there have been over 35,000 people and some say 40,000 people, who have been killed from beheadings to et cetera, et cetera, they are still finding the bodies over there. Excuse me. [coughing] this is a dangerous community. Thisl like the blame for i have lived here my whole life and i am an old man. Has nolike the blame more to do with trump than anyone else. Our representatives, this never happened before. We have a new representative, veronica escobar. She is one of them that has gone to washington, d. C. And proclaimed his. She also has gone across the border to help bring some of , tellingple into texas them how to sneak across the border. I think that people like this, and she is one of the ones on tv proclaiming the evils of trump, i believe that there is people on both sides. Host thank you. Guest i think that, to take over what the caller had to say. , i dont know the specifics of what is happening on the daytoday basis in the city of el paso, and people referred to a quiet community, they are not talking about across the border in mexico. We know there is a lot of violence on the border because of the drug cartels. This is what we would register as typical street crime or burglars that dont occur much in el paso. Their mayor gets high marks and the people are happy with the community and what he has been able to do their, despite some of the concerns with the border situation. To spin off of it a little more, people have great concerns about our immigration policies in this country. People legitimately believe we have a right as a nation to protect our border. Protecting and securing our border means having some means of preventing people from crossing the border illegally. We hear a lot of conversation about wanting to secure the border and that means more electronic surveillance and drones. That is not protecting the border. It just watches people through electronic means of crossing our border illegally. Once they are apprehended, if they claim Refugee Status and want asylum, they are here and are allowed to stay here until they get that hearing. We know that is a broken system as well. People are frustrated about that. People are frustrated by the fact that there seems to be no desire in this city, in washington, d. C. To enforce the there is are there or, there is encouragement to allow anyone, literally anyone in the world to come to america, overstay their visa, cross our border illegally , stay here and become part of our nation. If we want to have a National Conversation about that, i know that beta or rec beto orourke says we should be criminalizing people in this country and they should get free benefits in the state of california. Said thatalready democrats in sacrament want to expand sacramento want to expand health care further. If that is what the democrats stand for, labor the cards on the table and discuss it. I dont think that is a winning strategy. By debating our policies and debating whether we have the resources to take care of literally anyone in the world who wants to come here, i think frankly for someone to suggest that we cant do that and that we should have a copperheads of immigration policy that is not only voted on and passed but then enforced, i dont think that makes anybody a racist, a hater or inspiring a human being who did this terrible deed. My concern about how we are discussing this crime in el paso is that, in some way, there is an interest in trying to train change the debate in this country. I am inspiringy a madman to kill people of color. That is horrific to suggest that. We hear some people making that case. Host you would want to hear from people that disagree with you. A viewer had more to say when it comes to this. This is mary saying i am shocked guest i am shocked there are people on twitter who disagree with me. That would help twitter along if they knew they could disagree with each other. [laughter] mary said people are radicalized by people like you. Dont be shy, take credit for your work. Guest by the way, i am curious. Did that person use their real name on their twitter handle . Host just mary. Guest interesting. It is easy to be anonymous on twitter and say such things. As a conservative in america, i have heard fro literally my entire adult life that because i articulate my ideas, i am responsible for violence. Rush limbaugh was accused of that after the Oklahoma City bombing. He was accused of that by the president of the United States. Sarah palins about eck. Glenn back by the way, i did not say that Bernie Sanders was responsible for James Hodgkinson and his attempt to shoot down a republican congressman on a baseball field in washington, d. C. That would be as despicable as saying glenn beck and sarah palin were responsible for jared loeffler. Articulate that and make that case, they dont actually want to win over people with their ideas, they want to silence and shut up people who disagree with them. That is not winning in america. You dont win a political argument by scaring your opponent from speaking out. That is despicable and frankly, it is fascist. Thank you for your comment, i look forward to responding to you on social media. Can you briefly describe the can you briefly describe that road . Years worked for 20 i was the general manager of a theater. I worked in the entertainment world behind the scenes, not as a performer. I was a conservative republican through the bush years and clinton years, in the theater business, which, i was relatively alone in that industry as the entertainment business liens to the left. Theater leans so far to the left that they cant get up. They were open about their ideas and politics but we had to come indicate those things and discuss them with our friends and colleagues in a way where we could Work Together and still be friends. I am proud of the fact that i was able to make it through that time of my life and maintain lifelong friends who vehemently disagree with my politics. I think that aided me when i took up this new career in broadcasting. Started andrew breitbart, the late, great andrew breitbart, when he was working out of his basement, he started a big hollywood website focused on the Entertainment Industry and asked people who were conservative to be a part of that website. I wrote for him for free for about a year and then he hired me. Aom there, i started livestream and podcast of a Radio Program back in 2010, when before it was cool. That was strained at the breitbart sites back then. Andrew passed away in 2012, as we know. At that same time, i was hired by the p. M. Al in washington, d. C. After being a host for dennis miller. I have been focusing almost entirely on talk radio since then. I am new to the talk radio game but i have been doing it for about eight years. Host lets hear from ginny from phoenix, arizona on the republican line. Caller i wanted to point out that i watched the shows weekend. There were five prominent democrat candidates who were quick to point the finger at President Trump for the shootings. Weekend alone, there were seven killed and 46 injured in chicago. The weekend of the fifth of july, five shot, 63 injured on the weekend of six 21, 10 people kid and 50 people shop, they are having Mass Shootings every weekend in chicago. I dont know where the statistics are what the statistics are in baltimore. Where is the outrage . Why are we not able to get this out . Guest it is a good question. Most of the shootings in the city that you mention, when the police finally do if they ever do get the perpetrators, they will find that the weapons used were attained obtained illegally. If somebody is willing to break the law against murder, they will probably break a law to obtain a weapon. I think, to be fair, i appreciate the question, it is often raised for political purposes, an event like this, where a person who has had no history of violent acts in their past, this comes out of the woodwork with a firearm and walks into a place where people a walmart andt starts opening fire, that is a shock to the system that i think it is natural and understandable that this becomes a dominant ongoing,stead of the everyday crime that we see in cities. I am not saying that it is appropriate or correct. I think the loss of any human life is a tragedy. We should focus on the takei in societyety dk in our is they, whether it ongoing crime in cities like baltimore and chicago, i understand why this dominates the media conversation. Host you talked about the democratic debates earlier, what did you learn from this recent round . Guest it is funny because i was born in detroit and lived there until i was 13 years old. I have family members there. I was surprised that more people did not make excuses for why detroit is in the state that it is despite the fact the democrats have had control of that city without any challenge from republicans for over 50 years. As a republican watching the discussion, the fact that they were on stage at the fox theater in detroit, it seemed like that was the elephant in the room. If these policies are so great, why havent they succeeded in making detroit a utopia . I was also intrigued by the fact that conversation the first night was incredibly substantive , i thought for the idea of medicare for all, i thought it was enlightening to see where Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were on it and the discussion i think they had with john delaney was important for democrats to have. They are going through this process as a party and need to appeal to their voters. Democrats need to decide whether singlepayer government run health care, that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are proposing is really the way to go. I think that was a healthy discussion for their party to have. The second night, i dont think it was as substantive. As much as i enjoyed watching Kamala Harris and Tulsi Gabbard go at it with each other and have told see gabbard Tulsi Gabbard bring senator harris down, it was a debate that i would not have enjoyed. It was as if the moderators were throwing out specific questions and challenges to egg on the candidates to attack each other. I dont think the Democratic Party is served by that. I was not happy when the republican debates in 2016 got down in this ditch and ended up being like that. Moderators, the andnalists, whole posts Television Shows love the idea of getting people to start debating with each other. They start having attacks on each other. What do you think about it . What is your response . They love those soundbites but i dont think it helps the voter understand where the country is going and who has the best ideas. I dont understand why the Political Parties allow journalists and Cable Networks and broadcast networks control the terms of their debates. I think they should hold their own debates and select their own questioners. I think democrats would have been better served by, instead of having a panelist of journalists asking the questions , why not have john kerry asking some questions, have a professor at a university asking some questions, have somebody from the health care and Health Insurance industry on the panel, asking challenging questions, why do we have to anoint journalists as the people who control discussion for something as important as choosing a president . Host a republican from virginia, this is andrew. Caller hey, larry, nice to see you. Socialh do you believe media has been driving these the evertings and glowing need for notoriety and infamy, i really believe that has a lot to do with why we see these nationalists. Becomedys theme is to instantly famous. They are out there. Everybody knows it. Guest i think it is a fair point. I think we have seen shootings like this. We have seen people do horrific acts for decades. I think, in many cases, they do it for notoriety. They love the fact that their name is discussed and they are the center of attention. I think the advent of social media and this whole universe that everybody is allowed to have their moment where they are internet famous for something, i think that it does drive a part. F our psyche i think it is more complicated than that. I love the internet. I think the internet is incredible and has been one of the most liberating and incredible devices for people of the world to be able to connect and get informed and be able to have social interaction on the internet has been incredible for people who cant get out or are precluded from seeing their family, it is wonderful. With most wonderful things, there are dark corners of it. The internet has become a place people with terrible ideas have been able to fester and thrive. As we know, there are horrible parts of the dark web that cater to people who are into pedophilia and into violence and into witnessing acts of violence. I think that builds upon itself and i think that is a component of this. In the same way that we need to balance our rights for selfdefense and gun ownership with the Second Amendment, at the same time, balance those rights with some aspect of safety concerns or our society, we have to do the same thing with the First Amendment. It is a concern. It is part of a very broad and complicated conversation we should be having that, sadly, too often, it immediately devolves down into the nra is a terrorist organization and people should not have guns and then the reaction from people who have want peaceful gun overs, is how dare you say that about me and we have people yelling at each other instead of looking at the problem. Host here is james from new jersey, democrat line, go ahead. Caller Dwight Eisenhower warned the country about industrial military complexes. Richard nixon was running for president and a reporter asked eisenhauer what did he think of Richard Nixon and eisenhauer replied i always believed if he didnt you didnt have anything good to say about somebody, dont say anything at all. The reporter asked about richard and eisenhauer and eisenhauer e nothing to say pray that is how i feel about the Republican Party. I have nothing to say. What have they done for the middle class . Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They are against social security, they are against medicare, medicaid, they are against food stamps. This party is unbelievable. They are despicable. Every one of them. I would not vote for a republican for government governor, counselor, mayor, if it says republican, i dont vote for them. Host that is james. Guest for somebody who doesnt have anything to say about the Republican Party, he had quite a bit to say. [laughter] this is the problem with how we talk about politics. I know james doesnt realize what he just did. He has to understand that there are 50, 60 or 70 million americans that he was talking about and describing who, not only take great offense to that, but he is antagonizing them, he is making them angry and he makes them more entrenched in their ideas, thats what you think of me . I will double down on what i believe. I will show you. Democrats, we have had nothing but republican president s. We had reagan for two terms. 1 four two terms. One term. We had bush the second for two terms. When you have somebody says i despise this entire party because of this, this, this and this. I dont see how we come together and heal the issues. I know everyone likes to point at this president , donald trump of say he has been a part these divisions. I remember Ronald Reagan and i remember people saying he was a sympathizer. That he was going to get blown up and do a first strike on Nuclear Weapons and we were going to have a Nuclear Holocaust because reagan could not be trusted with the pentagon. We dont get anything done when we talk to each other that way. This is why i love when we talk radio. I both of my radio stations, have nine lines that are wide open and anyone can call in. We cant grow a radio show in d. C. And in los angeles without appealing to democrats, without appealing to nonrepublicans. Those are strong democrat cities. Theyve conversations and are not like james in new jersey. We talk about things without yelling at each other and calling each other names. James feels that way. I am even sadder for the people who are in his life or could be in his life who are republicans who he discounts because of their party affiliation. That is a terrible place for our country to head toward. I feel that through podcasting, i feel like what we do is examining politics with our podcast and also with a lot of other podcasts out there, we are delivering information and ideas to people outside of the round of a huge realm of a huge producer who can say these ideas are good or these ideas are bad. My daughter is in the naval a view of hermet midshipman. Benof them said i love the shapiro podcast and i love pod save america. We dont shut down the opposition. That is how our founders were. That is how the american colonists were. That is how we need to be. That is part of what podcasting does, it allows we the people to from all areas instead of having one direction sent to us. Host what do you think about the future of podcasting, aside from the growth of numbers, what do you think is its future as a broadcast medium . Guest i think it has to do with the delivery system. The idea of audio on demand is here to stay. It is information on demand. The fact that someone can push a button and say this is what i want to hear right now is incredibly powerful. We are seeing it with streaming video through netflix and amazon prime where you can forget about waiting until may. Remember when you had to wait until next week to see the next episode . It is fantastic we can demand those things. Era of podcasting is here right now. Media knows they have to have a strong podcasting footprint. That is why we see so many big behemoth Media Companies include podcasting in their lineup. As long as the American People or the consumer is making choices and saying this is the information we want and we want more of it and it is longform conversation, being able to get indepth and not worrying about the next commercial break and diving deep and learning more about information, that is a good thing. I am told our society is getting dumber and dumber. No, we are getting more and more informed. When we can choose where we are getting that information from, instead of choosing what information having somebody else choosing what information we get, we are better for it. Host Larry Oconnor is host of the examining politics podcast. Before we let you go, where can folks find your podcast . Podcast, google podcast, spotify and at Washington Examiner. Com podcast. You can search my name, Larry Oconnor or search examining podcasts. And at ricochet. Com. We are there too. You can get it wherever you can so that everyone can hear it. I love feedback too. As you see in this washington journal, i love hearing from people who disagree, no matter how obnoxious they are. Host thanks for your time. Guest [laughter] thanks. I really appreciated. Thank you to cspan. Host tomorrow, rachel, a producer from the new york ,imes, there podcast the weekly mark goldmark is the host of the global dispatch podcast. Chris with fox news will join us. Jennifer briney will join us as well. Tune in at this time and find out more information on these podcasts at cspan. Org. The president is set to speak at 10 00 this morning, relating to the shootings in el paso and dayton. Up until then, we will take your calls, starting with the question we started with a show this morning. When it comes to washington, how should washington respond to the recent Mass Shootings . You can let us know on one of four lines. Epublicans, 202 7488001 democrats, 202 7488000. Independents 202 7488002. Owners, 202 7488003. We will take those calls when washington journal continues. Tonight, on the communicators, we will talk about the future of broadcast television and challenges local broadcasters face with Online Platforms like netflix and amazon, with National Association of broadcasters president and ceo gordon smith. We are there, still, as the answer to what is happening to journalism. We are still doing the reporting, we are still investigating, we are still olden people accountable. And so, i think the future for broadcasting is not just one that we will survive. We will thrive because the people need what we do. Even though they sometimes take for granted that we are going to be there, we occupy what i would describe as an irreplaceable, indispensable niche in communication. Theuncer watch communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. Some, a Small Network with an Unusual Network rolled out a big idea. Let viewers make up their own minds. Bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. A lot has changed in 40 years but that big idea is more relevant than ever. Cspanvision and online, your unfiltered view of government. Brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. Announcer washington journal continues. Host the flags at the white house at halfstaff, in remembrance of what happened in dayton and el paso. The president expects to speak in less than 20 minutes from now. We will take your calls up until that point. We will show you what the president has to say and after that is done, we will take calls on that too. 202 7488001 four republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. For independents, 202 7488002. And for gun owners, 202 7488003. You can put your comments on our twitter feed at cspan wj. At cspan to bj. Wj. We will start from herndon, virginia with john. Caller i think we are missing the point. I think what we need to do, as long as Mitch Mcconnell and Lindsey Graham are out there, excepting these gun laws, the reason is simple background checks, when someone is sick, he should not have a gun. That is common sense. The president is a part of the problem. The laws are the one that protect the people. Itwe dont have good laws, doesnt matter if your child has done something wrong, you should be prosecuted. If your kid grabs a gun and kills innocent people, you are supposed to be prosecuted because we have a right to protect innocent people. We cant go to walmart, we cant go to the park, where are we going to go . It is getting out of control and, as long as we dont have laws, we wont have a country. Host lets hear from brad in london, kentucky. Independent, a gun owner, go ahead. Seems im afraid, it like a long time ago, a certain spirit came into the country. I dont think this is a matter of left or right or white istionalism or radical ateam, a longtime of h has entered into the country and we have given in by not fighting against it. The u. S. Is the largest supplier of weapons into the world, into the rest of the world far and away. Havenly that, we sacrificed the future of our children by ballooning our deficit to defense contractors. Who wasry for anybody lost this weekend. I am afraid america host allen is next from michigan, publican line, also a gun owner. Caller good morning. I am 59. I have been an nra member since i was 12. I have many guns i use for different purposes. I think they need to up the age of buying a gun to at least 25. Most of these young people that go on these shooting rampages, there is something wrong with them. They are mentally unstable. Gun, it is the people. Kind ofas young, this thing never happened. Nobody ever thought about it. Is a wholet different thing. That is no reason to take guns from rightful lawabiding citizens. Host that is allen in michigan, the nra put out a statement saying our deepest sympathies are with the victims of these families as well as with the entire communities of el paso and dayton. We salute the courage of our First Responders and others Offering Services during the time. The nra is committed to the safe and lawful use of those exercising their Second Amendment freedom. We will not participate in the politicizing of these tragedies. We will work in good faith for Real Solutions to protect us all from people who commit these acts. Jerry is next, a democrat from jacksonville, florida. Go ahead. Caller good morning. How are you . Host on good. I am good. Mcconnell wont even bring the things past in the senate up to vote. It is his responsibility to let members make their decision. He should not be making decisions for the entire body. Secondly, i think these assault weapons should be banned. I dont have a problem with someone having a handgun to defend themselves. You dont need a gun that can kill 20 people in 40 seconds. It is absolutely ridiculous in my mind. Thank you, pedro. Host senator Lindsey Graham sending out a couple of tweets, saying el paso shooting is sick and it is time to do more than praying. It may not have mattered but laws have been proven to be effective in states that have them. From kentucky, we will hear from in jenkins, kentucky. Caller i have a couple of things to say. The assault weapons have to go. There is no doubt about that. There is no need for them in everyday lives in hunting or anything, there is no need. They are very, very dangerous. The frederick from cnn and msnbc, morning joe, they are sending hate out for the president and the United States. The president feels like he has to hit back. It has to stop the news people not newspeople anymore. They are just haters. That is the way we the people are seeing it. It has to stop. Host frank is next. He is in safety harbor, florida, independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Am i on . Host you are on. Go ahead. We do my feeling is that have too many weapons. We have too many weapons in the country. The main think is where we do and then the weapons arms will do next. We know that will happen because it happens overseas. Now that i am in florida, you cant have a handgun to defend yourself . They will put you through the ropes. If you dont get the proper licensing, you will become a felon in the states. California, massachusetts, new york, new jersey, they make us felons. But, in order for anything to change, we will have to do away with the Second Amendment. You is that something advocate for . The doing away of the Second Amendment . Caller i think it will happen because of the people that dont understand weapons and are afraid of them. They of these kids dont even know where there freedom came from. That is kind of stupid. Lets go to james in ellenwood, georgia. Republican line. Caller good morning. Let me first say that i dont think it is nothing washington can do but tone down oric. Het just like the lady said, msnbc, cnn, it is all about hating trump. I think there should be a law against any congressperson or the president to speak ill against a representative. And this is where the problem is. I go back to Maxine Waters, Maxine Waters statement where she told her constituents to get face,trump supporters that is ridiculous. She should have been fined for Something Like that. That,eople say stuff like it is going to cause President Trump to respond. Isyou dont stop it, that what needs to happen. Ony need to put a fine people that talk about other elected officials. Host does the president s own frederick rhetoric factor into this . Caller yes. The president does not need to do it since democrats are doing it. Ever since hillary lost, it is ridiculous. I am having a problem with my pastor. He cant preach a sermon without saying 45. All of it is ridiculous. What washington needs to do is put a moratorium on any elected official speaking ill of another elected official. Host that is james in ellenwood, georgia. Larry is in phoenix, arizona, democrat line, a gun owner, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I own a few guns. Half of them dont work, im sure. I am glad that some of the people who called in this claimed that there is some underlying problem in their country. I think people should look at that. The country is sick on meth. Young people, especially. People, mostly, who are doing this crazy stuff. Host that is larry in phoenix, arizona. A few minutes, scheduled at 10 00 for the president to address the nation from the diplomatic room of the white house on these shootings in dayton and el paso. People are setting up for that event. We will take you live when it happens. Up until then, we will take your calls. Bill in new jersey, independent line, good morning. Caller good morning. I am 76 years old. They are going to a point where livesare more human destroyed by abortions than there are by these shooters. People growing up now have no respect for human life. If they dont get a different outlook on things, it is going to get worse. Nevada. Is is bee in caller my concern is there has not been one word mentioned about the shooting in the inner cities. If i am correct, over the tax memorial holiday, there were 52 shootings in chicago, 11 murders, if i am correct. Why hasnt there been an outcry, as far as that goes . Matter . T all lives i dont understand what is going on. And i pray and i am sorry for the shootings that just happened, but there has to be all lives should matter. There has to be a balance, what is going on with that . Would someone explain to me . In california, democrat line, good morning. Most important, our president must watch his mouth when he talks. Because when it comes out, it shade and shade has results. He should be really careful. Thank you, good luck to all of us. Host from West Virginia, this is carol. Caller good morning. I think the problem is that we where it istyhe should nonsocialized. There have been a couple studies where so many people are out there that they dont have any friends because they stay on the internet and that is where their phones are. As far as the rhetoric goes, if you go back at least, 16 years, social media started getting popular, there has been hate here on the social media sites for years. It is becoming more of an issue. People it is because dont do the face to face can indication. Communication all over the internet. Both sides, republicans, democrats, independents, everybody has to watch their rhetoric. It is not coming from one side or the other side, it is coming from all over. Ashton, westn virginia calling us and giving her thoughts on what washington should do when it comes to reducing Mass Shootings. From centerville virginia, independent line. Caller good morning, how are you . Host good, go ahead. Caller there are places in the world that have guns openly and there is not a single mass shooting. I am not a gun owner myself and i dont believe in owning a gun. At the same time, what the last caller was saying was that the lack of Family Structure in america and going toward very severe individualism is what is getting us to this point. The lack of compassion that is being taught and the wrong image of being a man and being macho and having guns and killing people, that is what is getting us to this point. I dont think the guns are the issue. Familyue is the lack of structure in our society. Host the diplomatic room of the white house is where the president is expected to speak. We have been told it is supposed to start at 10 00. We will take it to you and show it to you in its entirety. Up until then, your calls on how washington should respond. If you do not have a chance to watch it live, you can go to our website at cspan. Org and watch it there. If you have to be mobile, you can listen to it on our cspan radio app. This is truly from miami, florida. Caller hello . Host you are on, go ahead. Aller caller ok. What i think should be done is eliminate all those ak47 and everything. And cut the money for those people. The n. R. A. Is giving money every time theres a shooting. Thats good advertisement for them because people go and buy guns and then they can give the money that they earn to all those people in washington. Washington is being run by big business. Were not run by the people. Host ok. Debbie is next in troy, ohio, independent line. Caller good morning, cspan. Its terrible about these shootings. I was up all last night. I live close to dayton. Is antifa. Ne from september 1, antifa from all over the United States will make a rush on the border and they said theyre coming to every town in the United States. Theyre quoting the squad, a. O. C. Burning and our president and they better not touch our second america, america, or youre not going to be able to defend yourself. These children, these young men are mentally insane. Those laws wont do anything. And were going to have a cherry government, which we already do. Look what he they did with the coup. You are going to be a sitting duck over these crazy things. Antifa needs to be stopped. Host ok. Lets hear from larry, savannah, georgia, republican line. Caller yes. Were not going to eliminate the killing if we got rid of all the guns in the world. There will be killings by knives and vehicles and so forth. What we can do is reduce it by eliminating assault weapons. Host thats larry in savannah, georgia. Again, just about 10 00. Were told the president will make an address, taking a look at the shootings and discussing that issue. We are expecting that to start any moment now. Again, when it does start well take it to you. Vivian, athens, tennessee. Caller i am amazed no one has called to ask about the parties. Were the parties involved in this . Thats my question. Host what do you think are the parties responsibility in this matter . Caller they should be responsible for this entirely. No one is talking about the parents taking responsibility for their children. Amazing. Talking about guns and the politicians. What about the parties . Host ok. Kevin is next in middleton, wisconsin, democrats line. Caller hi. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. I think the only way we can change our gun laws in america is us as americans. We have to change the gun laws. Im almost for sure if every minority, africanamerican, hispanic american went out and legally purchased a firearm they would definitely change the laws then. Thank you. Host tom from hollywood, florida, democrats line. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning. Everybody is correct. Its not one thing thats wrong thats causing all these Mass Shootings. Its all of them. Our lack of social contact. Our spreading hate on the social media. Our ease of getting guns. 20 years ago you couldnt 30 years ago you couldnt buy weapons of mass destruction. They shouldnt be allowed. All the weapons of mass destruction should not be allowed to be purchased by private citizens. Eople are not nice to each other. We dont see each other. Were on social media. Kids playing weapons of war on video games deval life. Its too easy. Its all these things together. But thats the way we need to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. Host independent line from eastern california. Well hear from rob. Caller yeah, i agree with people theres too much usage of the internet by younger people. They sometimes half live on the internet. Its easy to say hateful speech and go to chatrooms where people dont get along and theres not a facetoface interaction where people live by the golden rule. Take a historical perspective. We had 9 11. 9 11 was almost all people of color and they were from saudi arabia, most of them citizens. Weve been in perpetual war since then. Isis, they werent caucasians. They werent people from subsaharan africans. They werent indians. They have been people of color. We had movies like blackhawk down and other movies that show us at war with people of color. We have celebrated our warriors that go over there, rightly so, and they come back. So we have a culture of war now. We have a lot of people that have been over there and they have been back. They had combat tours. Theyre not fighting its not like the europeans fighting the europeans. And some of the conflicts like war world i and world war ii. So if you think, you know, you have degradeation of the family unit and people not dealing with each other and interacting as much and more hateful speeches is easier to do over the internet and wars since then. Isis is not a bunch of caucasian people from france that were cutting off heads. So if you think people that are a little bit mentally unhinged and, you know, theres not the full American Dream anymore and people get, you know, young people i dont have a future. I want to become famous. Host got your point. Lets go to steven in virginia, republican line. We may expect the president to come out anytime now but steven, go ahead. Caller well. I think, you know, i want to echo everyones comments on the social norms of interaction with people. I think that has something to do with it. My second point is the Family Structure. If you look at some of the high school shootings, youve seen where parents may not have necessarily been involved or just as a society, you know, with both parents having to work, you had a lack of people engaged with their kids. So that has something to do with it. And thirdly, you know, im from ohio. Im in the military as well. But growing up, you i grew up with firearms as a kid. So i think that sometimes you have a lot of people that dont have the same exposure or familiarity with the weapon to be able to make the effective decision we need to make. Host ok. Leave it there. Duane in wisconsin. Democrats line. Again, the president is expected to come out anytime. So go
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