tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern to work on legislation on postal delivery during the upcoming elections. votes are expected later in the morning. watch live house coverage here on c-span. q&a,ncer: sunday night, on catherine gale with her book "the politics industry." >> the division that we see, the gridlock that we see as a result work far apart from each other and our incentive to keep everybody else out. ever, becauseise it works better for them to leave a problem unsolved than compromise to -- then to to compromise and keep

it is an issue for the next election. announcer: catherine gale, sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. announcer: the washington post hosted a discussion on this week's democratic national convention in the presidential race. reporters and columnists discussed joe biden's speech and what to expect that next week's republican convention. >> good morning. welcome to first look. the one-stop shop for news and analysis all about the democratic convention. join me each morning for up-to-date information from washington post reporters, followed by commentary from prominent washington post columnists and contributors. we are starting this morning after the democratic convention with the man we started with.

joining the conversation is washington post fact checker. good morning, welcome. >> good morning. with you.start give me your initial reaction to the speech last night by former vice president and now democratic presidential nominee, joe biden. >> i thought it was a very strong speech, probably one of the best speeches of a former vice president and democratic money has given his long career. this has been a pretty successful convention up to last night. but all conventions eventually depend on the performance of the nominee. there are questions about whether biden was going to rise to that moment. i thought it was a medically strong. i thought there was enough policy in their, but not too -- the medically

strong. themeatically strong. i thought there was enough policy in there, but not too much. this convention has reinvented what conventions will be in the future. one of the things that this convention showed is there is a value in short speeches. this would be one of the shortest acceptance speeches in modern times. fromught biden benefited that. he was able to keep it on a level and on a plane that i thought was more effective than if he had gone into a lengthy laundry list of the kind of thing we have seen one speeches go one for 30 minutes or 40 minutes, or in the case of bill clinton, 50 minutes. >> i want to get you to look to the republican national

convention. after having seen the foreign act of the democratic convention, what are you expecting to see from the republicans next week? quiteguess is it will be a different convention. for one, they have not done the kind of production work that the democrats spent months putting together. a muchll be next week, more live event. and without some of the packaging and entertainment value of it. is thatr thing we know although it is called the republican national convention, it will be the trump national convention. trump will be the centerpiece throughout. they will probably have tricks up their sleeve to top what the democrats did. the other aspect we should anticipate is there will be a relentless attack against joe biden. and kamala harris, and the

democrats in general. there will be a lot of negativity. -- spect the tone of it >> the speech had policy, not .oo much and not too little what did you pick up on from biden's speech? >> as a fact-check are this .eek, i was frustrated every convention, we have about 12 items that we could pick apart. but because of this convention, there is much more generality.

instead of saying 500,000 people a year go bankrupt because of medical bills, which is a problematic claim, they just said many people face financial problems because of health care. that was a problem for us. speech lastbiden's night, there was one case where he used a figure, the number of deaths in the u.s. to say the ..s. is the worst the world many of you look at it the way public people look at it. the fourth nation most affected by the coronavirus. vice president, biden, brought -- vice president biden brought up charlottesville.

president trump forcefully andunced white supremacists nazis, which he did at one point and seemed to take it back. which is much more subtle. it just was not great for us fact checkers this week. >> i can hear and see the frustration on your face and in your voice. that you have a job to do and it is frustrating when someone makes it difficult for you to do your job. that is what -- i will have you do a stand-in. to look into the future. do you think you will have more work to do? >> i would think so. definitely. action and politics results in a reaction. of course, we have been documenting the many misleading statements at has made during his presidency. rewrote a whole book

-- we wrote a whole book called "donald trump and his assault on truth." think democrats have tried very hard in this collection to say, we are up against a guy who misleads all the time, so we are not going to do that. they adjust their language to make it more difficult for us to call them out. >> in the case of the republicans in trump, i imagine that the president, in his acceptance speech, it will not be much different than the many other speeches we affect checked. generally, there are 50 to 60 misleading or false claims that he makes per speech. i have no doubt he will not disappoint me and living up to that reputation. have my notes from your column today. you have a disclaimer at the top about the reason for not giving

pinocchio's during conventions. do i have that right? >> right. we have these roundups. have pinocchio's in a stand-alone condom were we dig deep into a particular statement, which also allows for the person being fact-check to make their case. in the instance of a convention situation, it is often hard to do that, so we are just doing quick little takes, two or three paragraphs. just be fair to everyone, we don't award in of you -- award pinocchios at the convention. 65% to 75% of the statements donald trump has said have four pinocchios,

the worst rating. > what is the biggest whopper told by the president that he keeps repeating, if you have a top of mind? thane one he has said more 350 times, he created the greatest economy in the history of the world, before the coronavirus. that is just absurd on its face. many recent presidents, dwight eisenhower, lyndon johnson, bill clinton, on just about every metric, had better economies than what president trump had in his first few years as president. and actually, before the coronavirus, the u.s. was headed into a manufacturing recession. that is something he says constantly, and it is simply false. more specifically, in the campaign, he keeps saying "joe biden wants to defund the police." that is the exact opposite of biden's policy. >> i will give you the last word. what is the watchword we should

be looking for when it comes to the republican convention? think the key to the republican convention and the key to the term campaign going forward is whether they can find a consistency in their message. whether it is a consistency in their line of attack against joe biden, which they have not yet been able to settle on, or a consistency in a discipline on the part of the president. a lot of democrats are mindful 2016, andt that in the final stages of the campaign, donald trump became a more disciplined candidate was never going to be entirely disciplined, but compared to what he had been earlier on in the cycle, they regard him as somebody who found some discipline and stuck with it. that's been missing in this election year. that is the key that he's got to figure out and settle on in order to bring himself back into the thick of this race.

>> achieve national the chiefent -- national correspondent and washington post fact checker, thank you for being here this morning. colleagues on the washington post of any, contribute and columnist -- contributive columnist, and donna edwards. good morning. hugh, inserting with you. last night, joe biden's acceptance speech, what was the highlight for you? >> i think he did really well. i just finished three hours of radio. everyone i had on agreed. .e gave a very solid speech chris combs was the start of introduction the president needed, emphasizing what a good guy he is. my experiences with him are the same. if anyone had a doubt about joe biden being a good guy, that's

gone. i also think it was a little bit dialed back when i can to policy. this is going to be a [indiscernible] campaign when it comes to policy. he came out of it without a mistake, but the best thing for to go with would be, that low bar of expectation. he delivered a good performance. therefore, that low bar of expectation is gone. i am looking forward to the debate. i hope they learn from what the democrats did. staying in the blue bubble of the democratic party. i will tell you one thing, i played four times this week aoc's entire speech. four times on my conservative radio show. i played her entire speech. i love the speech. i would play it for a republican convention, because that is the democratic party. >> seriously, hugh?

>> yes, i plated four times, because she represents the democratic party. >> i'm arguing with your notion that she is the entirety of the democratic party. you are democratic congresswoman from maryland. what was your reaction to the speech, and reacte to hugh. >> joe biden really did deliver the speech for the moment. at theht that he struck ideals of the country and i think everybody wants to feel that inside. he struck that court. about that without actually saying i have integrity. he talked about his life in a way that we understood his integrity, his sincerity, and his competence to get the job done. i thought it was a terrific speech. i thought a lot about this. i think some of these speeches

were totally ideal and appropriate for the kind of convention that was conducted an md room.most and i think that joe biden's speech went over so well in living rooms and dens and kitchens, that it may not have come across that way in a crowded arena. i thought it was great. i am a progressive. i completely can embrace joe biden and kamala harris. and i think that if you look over the course of the four days, you really did see the of theand the breadth democratic party, the diversity of the party, not just in race and the but in gender, age. across the board. i think that is reflective of who the democratic party is. add to that the sprinkle of

republicans who are also supporting this candidacy. it shows the breadth and depth of the united states of america. >> last night, our colleague, joy reed, had an interesting take on who joe biden was talking to an his acceptance speech. she said he thought he was talking directly to white working-class voters. talking to them about why he is ok. why he is a viable option for them to either come home to or to turn away from president trump. what do you make of that? what you think joe biden was talking to? he wasink she hopes that listening. there was a today show interview with greg melvin this week where he talked to an unemployed steelworker.

there is no chance of ohio flipping to joe biden. i think western pennsylvania will still be blue. i think joy is expressing her hope. the reality is, we are replaying the 2016 election. it will be a turnout election. the minnesota poll has got to scare people. it was stark joe biden. heard glenn, fact checking is a very subjective business. i believe of the charlottesville, comes up on a -- charlottesville comment comes up on a debate stage, we will see how long this indoors. you've got to make sure you are doing a fact-check against

reality. >> hugh, charlottesville canard? what is the canard? >> the canard is that he did not say there were good people among the neo-nazis. he denounced neo-nazis in the same press conference. any fair representation of those remarks would point out the president explicitly denounced the neo-nazis. >> i would go to glenn's fact-check, he writes about that in the point of the president's remarks is that there were very fine people within the new nazis and glenn points out that actually, there were none. that is not what he said, but we can put that aside for another time. >> and telling you what glenn wrote in his fact checking column in the washington post today. what do you make of joy's analysis that vice president biden was aiming his message

directly at what working-class voters -- white working-class voters? >> i think there were a lot of messages in there. to the extent he was doing that, he did it without alienating the base of his party, without alienating black women, without alienating young people, without alienating progressives. he spoke to the hopes and dreams and aspirations of people that are shared across these lines. look, the selection is going to be on the margins. i know coming out of 2016, i don't pay that much attention to public polling, but the fact is, the 2016 election was won or loss on a margin and a couple of states. and i suspect that the selection is going to be about -- this election is going to be about how joe biden and kamala harris can inspire am turn out their voters, lakeshore that people

vote in whatever way makes them comfortable, that they can cast their vote. that because of who joe biden's, who kamala harasses, that this is going to who kamala impact -- harris is, that this is going to have a deep impact. they are willing to figure out a way to cast their ballots in 2020. when you look at joe biden's speech less like him i think he spoke on a higher plane. he was not in the dirty details. he was saying, who are we as americans? how do we own our democracy? i think people are going to respond to that. >> let's look ahead to the republican national convention next week. , he talked about democrats being in the blue bubble. what is the red bubble next week going to look like? >> a lot of china talk. suggested --

good pick up, jonathan. need to do, they better than the democrats did in terms of putting more people on the set. there's a reason we have three people on the site right now, it is because broadcast requires more than direct camera messaging. my suggestion is to put the president in a room with sally, the airr, and crenshaw, force, the army, the marine corps, the navy, and talk about the reasons rebuilding that had to be done after president obama's tenure as commander in chief. i would have them in conversation a lot more than they use joe biden. when it comes down to what, it is a choice between the vice president and the president. highlight a lot more withes in the primetime the president then democrats chose to highlight joe biden.

i can't wait for that debate. kamala harris has been my choice for this ticket for 2.5 years. i am so glad she finally redeemed most of my predictions. she gave a very fine speech. that is going to be a lit debate. [laughter] me, actually,s that you are rooting for kamala harris to be a part of the ticket. and not in a good way. i think she was the strongest candidate by far. in the field. i have watched her for 10 years in california. she is much better than the campaign she ran. much better than the campaign she ran. found a nugget of something to agree on. i absolutely agree with you. i'm sorry to run -- to interrupt. donna? >> one of the challenges for

republicans, if you contrast that with democrats come other were so many kind of real people telling their stories, they were uplifting, they were hopeful. we got to see them and we got to see them as they defined who joe biden is. i'm not really sure the names have come out on some of the characters that are going to be in the republican convention, whether they have that contrast that really tried to uplift his character to the extent that anyone can do that. so i think for republicans, i don't agree with you at all. this is not a choice election. this is a referendum on a president who has been described by a number of speakers as a failure and described by vice president biden as a failure. he is going to have to explain to the american people and his handling of the covid

response, his handling of the economic recovery. he is going to have to explain caging children. all of these things, i think, are displaying that there is going to be a referendum on donald trump. and i think the beauty of the democratic convention was not just highlighting the downside of the donald trump upliftingtion, but the voice that joe biden and the leadership at joe biden is going to bring in competence to government again. i think all of those things are going to be in stark on trust with the republican convention. and it is going to be noisy. >> i'm going to have you pick up just talked about. real people telling their stories. it made me immediately think

about the couple in st. louis who had their guns on their lawn at the black lives matter protest. what kind of story is the republican party and the president trying to tell by having that couple speak at the convention? >> the second amendment is a huge issue in western pennsylvania and wisconsin and maine. maine is the highest per capita going -- gun ownership in the united states. colorado, arizona are pro-second amendment states, wisconsin and minnesota. what everyone thinks of what this couple did, i have not studied it very much, i do believe democrats have more explicitly embraced gun confiscation. here is the interesting thing about next week, whenever i

write a column for the post, the comments always are about what i did write about -- what i didn't write about. the republicans get to pick with they get to talk about next week. they will talk about it will work being in charge of -- about beto o'rourke being in charge of policy, no fracking in pennsylvania, no guns in wisconsin, no shipbuilding. we get to talk about what we want to write now. the republicans are going to pick what they want to talk about. it's going to be those three debates. and i hope the debate commission provides us fair moderators. >> i hear you on that. and i hear you on the point about the second amendment. hugh did, one thing not address when it comes to the couple with the guns on the front lawn is who they were pointing their guns at, the black lives matter protesters. to your mind, when you saw the news that they were invited and

will be speaking at the republican convention, what message did that send to you? shocking.pretty i think it sends the message protestersthose that, keep in mind, these are protests that span across the country, that are intersectional come across so many race and gender lines, that the couple was pointing their at an american. this has nothing to do with the second amendment. this had to do with intimidation , with a threat, and i think the message that that sense on the podium of the republican national convention is that in order to win, republicans are willing to threaten everyday americans for exercising first amendment rights. is the message. commentary surrounding

joe biden's speech and the democratic convention in general is that the whole message has been reaching out, reaching out beyond the democratic base, telling people to, on in the water, it is fine, but for joe biden. how does president trump expand beyond his base, or does he not toe to expand his reach voters who were beyond his hard-core base -- who are beyond his hard-core base? >> i think he wants to win the same states he won before and perhaps one or two more, new hampshire and minnesota. i think it is very important to keep those electorates in mind. he is with his fracking and his energy policy. i do have to go back and say, it is very dangerous to take the commentary you saw this past week. network april any trump boater or april to --

folder or april trump analyst talking about what is going on analyst-trump voter or talking about what is going on? not having mentioned china, not having mentioned israel, the movement of the embassy to jerusalem, the uae peace agreement. the reality of donald trump's four years, not his rhetoric, but the reality of his achievements. i know glenn is a wonderful reporter, but it think he is wrong about the best economy in history judged by gdp. i think donald trump is going to talk about the best economy in history, and i think he is right. not a pinocchio. the people who got a job in the last four years are going to

agree with trump. >> can your address the contentions the democrats were not dealing in reality? >> think that what you heard at the convention is the reality of 170,000 americans who are dead, the reality of 30 million people who were sitting at home sitting at-- are home unemployed who are going to be talking about republicans talking about the best economy in the history of the world. andink people's real lives experiences are going to be a direct and stark contrast to what they are hearing from the president and from his allies. the convention talking about that bubble. when i heard john kasich and dreer republicans and a ca of national security advisor supporting joe biden, i think a lot of progressives are like, i

can't believe that this is happening. at a democratic convention. but i stepped back from that and i asked myself, what kind of america does joe biden want to build? he wants to build one that is inclusive. i saw that reflected in the convention. even though if you look at the platform and the look at the policies, i don't have to change anything about what i believe or i support in order to embrace bringing people on. i think that is what is absent from donald trump. he shows no desire for 3.5 years of adding to his base, so i do not expect that is going to change in the last quarter. >> i'm going to give you the last word. next week, as i mentioned and we have been talking about, is a republican convention. the republicans get their turn to tell the american people why the president should remain in the white house. in one sentence, one short sentence, what should we be

looking for next week from the party and the president? >> emphasis on achievement. i love what donna just said about john kasich. john kasich, i know him, he is a friend of mine. he is not a swing voter. he did not vote for donald trump. it is the swing voter that you have got to get out and that you have got to persuade. i think the one line is, focus on that swing voter. who do you trust to rebuild the economy is second time? i think people have more confidence in republican economic policies than democratic. >> with that, we've got to go. thank you very much for joining me. have a great weekend. >> thank you. >> and thank you for joining us.

comeback next week, tuesday morning at 9:00, when we will give you your first look of the republican national convention. join us then, and had to washington post live for more washington -- for more information another programming. joining first look. we will see you next week. announcer: you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government, created by america's cable television company as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. -- uncer: >> on june 15th, i became america's 75th postmaster general. the post service plays a great role in the life of the nation. i also welcome the opportunity to lead this organization, because i believe there is an opportunity for the postal

service to better serve the american public and also to operate in a financial and sustainable manner. established the postal provide prompt, reliable, and universal postal services to the american public. in an efficient and financially sustainable fashion. our bill needs to fulfill that mandate in the coming years. changes must be made to ensure sustainability for the years and decades ahead. to do ar: the was testified today before the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee on u.s. postal service operations during the coronavirus pandemic in the 2020 election. you can watch the entire hearing tonight beginning at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. the u.s. house is back in session tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern to work on legislation on postal delivery during the upcoming elections. votes are expected later in the morning. watch live has coverage here on

c-span. the postmaster general will be on capitol hill monday taking questions about postal operations from the house oversight committee starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2, online at c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. announcer: sunday night, on q&a, institute for political innovation founder, catherine gale, with her book, "the politics industry." >> the division that we see, the resultk that we see is a keep everybody else out. and not to compromise ever, because it works better for them to leave a problem unsolved than

give a littleand on either side. they would brotherly the problem unsolved and keep it as an issue for the next election. catherine gale, sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. president trump spoke earlier at the 2020 council for national policy meeting in arlington, virginia. the president continued to criticize the use of mail-in voting during the pandemic. ♪ [applause]