view of government, created by america's cable television companies. today we're brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span3 to viewers as a public service. ♪♪ weeknights this month, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight, we look at asian-american history, declared a national historic landmark district, little tokyo near downtown los angeles has been the center of japanese-american culture since the early 1900s. we went on a tour with a dosient. he was born in little tokyo in 1930 and during world war ii was incarcerated by government order at wyoming's location center.

and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. next up we're joined by congressman french hill who represents the 2nd district in arkansas, little rock, and its suburbs. welcome. >> bill, it's great to be with you this morning. thanks for the invitation. >> before we dive into some other topics we plan to talk about, we want to get your thoughts on some of the things we've been talking about earlier this morning. one, the president's reported decision on withdrawal of u.s. troops from afghanistan and yesterday's decision by the fda. we've been talking with our viewers about on pause the use of the johnson & johnson vaccine. any quick thoughts on your part and what you're hearing from your constituents about these issues? >> well, first on johnson & johnson, it gives me an opportunity to encourage all americans to be vaccinated and to follow the cdc standards during this course of getting our country vaccinated. i think it's always prudent if you spot something that looks like it could potentially be a

pattern like these blood clots with person patients to take a pause and look and see what that pattern is so that they can provide advice and guidance to primary care physicians to better prepare patients to take the johnson & johnson vaccine. but the bottom line is all these vaccines are safe, all have been effectively tested. all were doing an outstanding job in protecting americans and people around the world from the ravages of covid-19. >> this is the headline from the "arkansas democrat," hometown newspaper about a trip that you took with your colleague stove womack down to the border, mentioned that this is your sixth trip down to the u.s./mexico border since 2015, your most recent trip. what did you see, and what has changed from your previous trips there? >> well, this was actually the seventh trip. i went back to mac allen, texas, and the rio grande valley sector. i was there in april of 2019 when we had a previous caravan

surge of migrants coming across the rio grande river in the lower river valley there in texas. there, meeting with catholic charities and with the border patrol, they were concerned in a thousand migrants being apprehended per day presenting themselves at the border, not at a port of entry but coming across the border illegally, that that was a problem, a thousand. we went to the donna processing facility where for covid-19 they should have 712 people in this facility for social distancing and cdc purposes. there are 3,500 people in that facility and an average of 2,200 people are apprehended coming across the border every day. so, the crisis is real, and, in my view, a large portion of that is due to joe biden's precipitous decisions to do away with the trump border policies. i was in business for 40 years. you don't change a policy without replacing it. you don't end an activity

without something to take its place. and i think this was a huge mistake by the biden administration to just end president trump's border policies in construction of the wall and just do that with precipitous precipitous action, through executive action with no alternative. and now they're scrambling. >> you and your colleagues are calling on the president to reinstate president trump's policy, they remain in mexico policy. why do you think that policy worked? >> i think the remaining mexico policy worked because it was a cooperative arrangement with mexico and had impact with the countries of honduras, el salvador, guatemala for example. it allowed migrant families to stay in mexico and see if they could be eligible for asylum in our nation instead of coming in and being released into the population. that is our policy. once you cross into the american border and say you are seeking asylum, you are released into the population, pending a court hearing.

only about 1 out of 10 of those actually have a legitimate asylum request. the remaining mexico policy in cooperation with mexico and the other countries, allowed a more orderly assessment of the families and they are not just released into the american population. further, the public health issue, we have a public health crisis. of the 117 -- of the 2,000 people that cross the border in february illegally, none were tested for covid-19 unless they are manifesting symptoms. we are hearing in chorizo springs, 20% of the people at the hhs holding facility have covid-19 after they were there. based on symptoms, in mcallan, texas, it was over 10%. this was concerning. i think president biden should reinstate that. i noticed the ambassador, roberta jackson, was fired friday from her responsibilities

of coordinating her response on the border. perhaps president biden is getting the message. >> the administration has paused construction on the wall under the trump administration. what are your thoughts on that? >> yeah, this is again something congress debated and approved funding for replacing wall construction between san diego and texas. and also building new sections of the wall where vulnerable crossings were, key places like in arizona or south texas. in south texas, where we were, 110 miles of border were approved by congress. and only 21 miles were completed. and yet think about this. joe biden paused the construction, everybody walked off of the job and left their equipment, all of their materials, and are still being paid, plus a fine for not pursuing the contract on the part of the government. so it is a bad financial decision and i think it was a bad national security decision.

and in the lower rio grande valley issue, the border was being constructed on the river levee, meaning you are flood control and disrupting irrigation for crops. >> our guest, congressman french hill, with us until the top of the hour. we welcome your calls and comments. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, and (202) 748-8002 for independents and all others. on to other topics, you were a member of the commission, the oversight commission created last year after the passage of the c.a.r.e.s. act to oversee the spending. on that piece of covid legislation, last year, what is the status of that spending and what have you seen so far? >> i represent house republicans on the oversight commission, and it was specifically overseeing the actions of the u.s. treasury and the federal reserve, using appropriated money to help the businesses

recover and the markets recover from covid-19. this was a very specific task about the fed's interventions and treasury's interventions. that work continues. we are getting ready to release our april report and we continue to look at the decisions taken by treasury and the fed, how they were priced, what they were doing, and we are looking at the aftermath, the loans they made, and how the loans are performing. >> in general, would you rate that piece of the c.a.r.e.s. act a success for american business? >> two pieces of it. the fed's actions in march were extremely effective in getting the economy and markets functioning. in the aftermath of their actions, we raised an outstanding amount of private capital in the debt and equity markets to save american business. and to keep american business going in the face of the pandemic with a complete unknown. so the fed's quick actions were important. the c.a.r.e.s. act investment they did helped the airlines, helped many people in the transportation and cargo business, helped companies that were connected to national

defense, and the main street lending program helped hundreds of businesses. i think they could have made it more effective, and i made that case in our report. they could have opened up that program better, helped more businesses, but the work they did was effective, and jobs were saved as a result. >> where do you stand on the additional spending happening in the biden administration, most specifically the $1.9 trillion measure passed last month? >> i voted against the $1.9 trillion measure passed last month? i voted against it. we had money that bipartisanly was appropriated in 2020 that was not in the economy that was finding its way to the american people in rental assistance and paycheck protection and unemployment benefits. i thought the $1.9 trillion was

too much and untargeted, which is why i voted against it. i believe the work we did in 2020 laid the foundation of getting this economy back and getting the virus killed. my hat is off to the science that led to the quick adoption and implementation of the vaccines. >> let me ask you about one other issue. we are seeing reported, we have an advance of this headline, unveiling of the special drawing rights oversight act, a bill you introduced along with your colleagues on the hill that would, quote, ensure a proper check on the executive branch and greater accountability regarding special drawing rights and the international monetary fund. explain what you are trying to get accomplished here. >> you bet. in the name of the global pandemic, the covid-19 pandemic, the biden administration wants the international monetary fund, the imf, created after world war ii, to issue hard currency reserves to all 190 members instead of targeting that relief

to the poorest countries in the world, the poorest countries that are suffering from the pandemic. i think that is a bad policy. my colleagues and i have introduced a bill to put a check on how the administration and imf do that without the oversight of congress. because when you do it in the way the biden administration proposes, you are giving direct money to the regimes that we have trouble with, venezuela, cuba, syria, russia, china. billions of imf reserves in hard currency, in dollars, euros, yen to those countries. i think it is a bad idea, bad economic policy, and it is not targeted to the pandemic. >> where to those imf reserves come from? where does the money come from? >> the imf issues the special drawing rights and allows those countries to have access to the money for borrowing and collateral purposes. it is based on the capitalization of the imf, that the developed countries of the world have contributed, and the

190 member contributions. it is self-funded but taxpayer money supports the american contribution to the imf. >> let's get to calls, to joanna on our democrats line in maryland. good morning. >> caller: congressman, first, i have to say you have not had a nice thing to say about joe biden at all. that's amazing. but i want to correct something you said and ask you a question. first of all, the children -- unaccompanied children are the ones that are being allowed in the country. adults are not. and children with adults are not. but i want to ask you a question now. are you suggesting unaccompanied children 2 years old, 3 years old, 5 years old, 8 years old, 12 years old, should be thrown over the border to fend for themselves? is that what you are suggesting? >> thanks for your call.

thanks for your call. 18,000 unaccompanied minors were in that 170,000 that crossed. isn't it tragic that cartels are bringing unaccompanied minors over to the united states and charging someone for that service, either cash from a relative in the united states who pays through venmo, or kids are released into the country with a telephone number. and it could be a human trafficking issue or the children are put into debt bondage. when i say children, i mean, as you say, we have 18-year-olds and adults posing as under 18. $400 million estimated by the customs and border patrol trafficking humans across the border. so it is horrible for me that those kids are essentially dumped on the border in the middle of the night. i watched them coming across the border last thursday night at midnight, and it is a tragedy

that those families are coming as well. the u.s. government, once they are in the country, does the best they can in assisting them. that is why i believe the remain in mexico policy was better for the families and better for the unaccompanied minors and getting them placed properly and taken care of, whether they have an asylum claim or back to their country in the right way. that is why i think the remain in mexico policies are a more humane approach to taking care of these family migrants. but president biden has encouraged people to come across the border and be released into the country without that. i think it has created a public health crisis, a humanitarian crisis for those moms and kids, and potentially a human trafficking crisis for those unaccompanied minors who are coming that we don't know who they are or who they are staying with here in the u.s.

>> the administration announced they asked honduras, el salvador, guatemala to step up their military efforts in border efforts in controlling that population heading north. do you think that will help? >> i do think that will help. but this goes back to my earlier comment about the precipitous nature, the president signing executive orders to end these trump policies on his first day in office. i would not recommend it to president biden. i recommend he leave those in place and change them over the course of time through proper communication with customs and border patrol, working with government relations with mexico and the triangle countries. i think he is on his back foot, going back to finding a way to support those more effective trump policies. >> here is robert in new york on the republican line. >> caller: i have a couple points. one point is, isn't there such a thing as child support? and they're dumping the children

over here. everybody is supposed to have broken heart for these children but nobody over there seems to give a rat's -- i don't understand why we have to be the burden of these children. why is it that they can't be held accountable and take away some of the monetary funds that we supplied to them? >> this is why i understand your point. this is why i suggested the most humane thing to do is to improve economic conditions in the triangle countries, keep the families together there. for all of these families traveling the 40 days on foot, bus, or rail across mexico and then gathered at the american border with cartel support, the remain in mexico policy allows a more humane way to determine who has a legitimate asylum claim in the u.s., according to u.s. law, and who should be returned to one of the countries in a safe and health-conscious way. so the kids that do come here are released into our country,

they have a court date, they are released to someone's oversight, but frequently that ends poorly. and they become part of our foster care system. they can be part of a human trafficking situation that is tragic. i don't want to be repetitive, but that is my best way to help these kids, is to keep them at the border of mexico and ascertain what the best cause of action is. >> let's get back to federal spending. the president announcing his budget last week, $1.5 trillion budget proposal and his cabinet members will begin to testify today, with tom vilsack on agriculture. a piece in the hill talks about inflation. their headline says inflation rears its head amid spending debate, saying the consumer price index for march released tuesday jumped to higher than expected 6% from february, the biggest monthly increase

since 2012. prices were up 2.6% compared to march of 2020. the economist agrees some degree of inflation should be expected but the economy recovers from the worst recession since the great depression. congressman hill, you mentioned this briefly earlier. how does the rise in inflation complicate the budget process on capitol hill? >> that's a good question. we had a $1.7 trillion deficit last year. we are projecting a $2.1 trillion deficit in this fiscal year. that is a lot of spending generated by a government in the economy. it is the most ever since world war ii. we are running extraordinary deficits, adding debt, and on top of that, the federal reserve is buying about $120 billion of that debt every month. they are injecting incredible reserves. those things traditionally in economics breed inflation. officials argue that it is not

permanent, that it will not create higher inflation expectations, but i have concerns about that. you mentioned the cpi up 2.6%, and that does not even account fully for about a third of the cpi in housing, which is up 12.8%. it has a little bit of a lag before it catches up to the cpi. wholesale prices were released a couple weeks ago, at their highest levels since 2011. so we don't want inflation expectations to get out of hand. that is what is concerning to larry summers, the former treasury secretary for the democrats who thought the $1.9 trillion was a mistake. and that is a concern for a lot of republicans. they are pressing jay powell and janet yellen for how they will respond to unwelcome inflation expectations.

>> our guest, former deputy secretary and founder and ceo delta trust in banking. congressman french hill. we go to grovetown, georgia, for our next caller. democrats line. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. representative hill, i want to ask a question that, sometimes we just sort of accept politics the way they are. but there is something that has always concerned me, two things. one, why do we not negotiate for medicare? the second one is, the right to work states, for years and years -- i'm pretty old so i remember when right to work was a big thing and would make everybody wealthier and all of the employers were going to make more money, and i'm reading right now that mississippi, louisiana, kentucky, arkansas, west virginia, alabama,

oklahoma, tennessee, and south carolina are all the poorest states. if the right to work was a success, they would not be poor states. can you explain to me or rationalize somehow why you guys are still poor? >> arkansas is a poor state. there is no doubt about that. some of the states you point to have historically had a lot of poverty over the past 50 years. lyndon johnson said he would eliminate poverty with the great society program in the appalachian states. so it has been a challenge for the governors to offer up economic policies that increase jobs. i would say to you, what with those states, including your home state of georgia, look like without the legislation since the 1950's that recruited industrial production. what would be the marginal impact? i think the right to work

states increased the industrialization of the south, increased job opportunities, increased wages, and did increase the business profits you outlined. i see that as i look at the economic development in the south. i was just in mobile, alabama, where amazon was unionized, and the folks who work for amazon voted 3-1 not to immunize. and i noted how robust the economy is with boeing moving there, and walmart, and some significant business announcements. i think that is a constant process in our rural, mountainous areas where people have migrated to the cities. those counties struggle with poverty. we have that arkansas have been working to tackle it. >> let me ask you about that amazon vote. do you think that is a one-off election or do you think that is a broader lesson for the administration in particular, because in their spending proposal, they are calling -- in their proposal for

infrastructure, rather, they are reportedly going to call for more unionized jobs. >> yeah. if my memory is right, the unionization of the private sector workforce is less than 10%. it has been declining over the last five decades. pretty mightily. employees in this country have choice where they work, who they work for. employers have to have fantastic employees. in fact, they need more employees. everywhere i go there is a help wanted sign. they offer good benefits and good pay. we have seen rising wages over the last four years. particularly at the low end. and so i think employers are responsive to market conditions and are having increasing wages and benefits. i don't know if it was one-off, but but it was a bell mark election. amazon is a new powerhouse in corporate america, in the high-tech distribution wholesaling business. they have a big transportation sector in their business in logistics. and so i think it was a major

election. i don't know if it was indicative of anything, but it was a major issue for amazon and for the folks working there. >> here is josephine on the independent line. livingston, new jersey. >> caller: good morning. congressman, i wanted to know what the republicans are going to be doing about the -- i might be inaccurate with the number, but i believe it is around 650 children who were separated from their parents, what you all are going to be doing regarding that matter. because i know catholic charities down in mexico has all of the starving people under trump's policy of keeping them there, and keeping them humane. catholic charity says the exact opposite. they want you to come down and look at what they have to handle. the reason i felt these children came over, i knew as soon as two

hurricanes, two hurricanes hit last summer to these three countries, i said, uh-oh, we are going to be in a problem. when nobody in this country took initiative to send food and water, and housing, what did you expect? >> thanks, josephine. of course we do have tremendous humanitarian support for countries ravaged by hurricanes, and we have a lot of economic aid that goes to those triangle countries. president biden i'm sure will propose his own strategy on helping there as well. i visited with catholic charities in texas on the u.s. side of the border, sister norma there, i was with her in april 2019 when she was overwhelmed with 1,000 people coming across the border every day. now it is over 2,000 people coming across the border every day. it is a huge burden, and i recognize your comment, that the conditions in mexico are not ideal either.

my point is that they are able to be taken care of there before they are able to come into the u.s. and that that is a place where we should put help and emphasis, both with the nongovernmental sector, and our own policies that aid mexico. i think that is the right balance in helping these families but also letting people into the country that have a legitimate asylum claim or some another reason to come into the country legally, not illegally. >> capturing some of the frustration on this issue on both sides, david orlando with this text. we see the wall is not working as they drop children over the wall. let us stop ridiculing and find a way to work together and more security on the border. monique, next up in st. louis. go ahead. good morning. st. louis, missouri. are you there? >> caller: i'm here. >> you are on the air. >> caller: i had a question for mr. hill. my question is, why is everyone worried about outside of the

country when we have property right here in the country? every state has a low poverty, homeless, starvation, kids, and the s.n.a.p. program but they don't use the s.n.a.p. funds for the poverty in america. what about the vet that is homeless, nowhere to live, and they served and are given no benefits with no housing. what are you going to do about that? >> that's a good question that a lot of americans talk about, which is helping our folks here at home first. and both the trump administration and i'm sure the biden administration have been very generous, particularly during the pandemic, to provide food assistance through enhanced s.n.a.p. eligibility, homeless benefits, that have been extended and more generous in the pandemic. specifically for veteran homelessness.

even outside the pandemic, communities work together with the nonprofit sector and with government support, local and federal government support to provide food for those who need it, health care for those who need it, and shelter for those who are homeless. in my hometown of little rock, i see that every day with our homeless shelter, with our our house program, we all work collaboratively to help the least among us, and the federal dollars are important leverage. we all work together, all of us in all of our communities have that obligation. you are right, we need to be focused on it, and i think we are every single day, but it does not take away from the humanitarian challenges at the border. and to the gentleman with the text, the border wall is not indicative of a -- it's just a portion of our border security, it is not the first or second issue.

we have technology, manpower, better telecommunications. i've been to the border seven times. i've asked the judges, priests, policemen, and the border patrol, does the law work? the answer is yes. you say, why? because it shapes the terrain. it shapes the terrain. where the rio grande needs about 100 miles of fencing to better shape the terrain, in my view the biden administration can complete that task and help improve the security for customs agents who are absolutely overwhelmed. >> congressman french hill, thank you for being with us. >> bill, thank you. we're joined next by caitlin emma, from politico, to talk about the president's budget.