along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what is available be every weekend on c-span 3. tonight a look at the history between the united states and france. we begin with author kristie paricoro. she explains their experiences fighting for enlightenment ideas and led to the revolution in transit self within a decade. the revolution institute of the society of the cincinnati hosted this event. watch tonight, beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern, and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. hawaii democratic congressman joins us tphous, and 80% of his constituents can trace their heritage to asia or

the pacific coast islands, and explain the significance of a bill being passed in congress that addresses the hate crime. >> this was a very, very important and moving week. asian-americans in our country have had a long and incredible history throughout our country of contribution, of sacrifice, of moving the generations forward of contributing to the overall health and welfare of our country and yet they have suffered from continuing discrimination, continuing hate up to and including violence and death. certainly in my district of hawaii, you pointed out i have the highest asian-american population in any of the 45 congressional districts, and they have their heritage and asia and the pacific, and the

fact that we are continuing to see a discrimination and hatred and violence against a single community as a result of their ethnicity is absolutely unacceptable in this country. this bill was authored by my colleague from hawaii and was passed in the house with my colleague, grace meng and our asian pacific american caucus, and it's important thought only to set up far stronger mechanisms to prevent and prosecute these kind of hate crimes but to send the basic message that this is not okay in this country? >> the phone lines, if you want to join the conversation. congressman case, speaking of some of your constituents, your tweet saying such a big mahal yo to our troops coming home this

weekend after a month's long deployment, and i gave them a personal tour of the capitol to remember us by. what did you tell them when they asked you why they were here and what happened on january 6th? >> well, we told them that some of our own fellow citizens attacked the capitol on january 6th with the intention of disrupting the peaceful transition of power, disrupting the democratic process, and it was highly unfortunate that we had to ask them to come to our own u.s. capitol to help secure a democracy, help secure our ability to govern and that was tragic in and of itself, much less the loss of life, the tremendous damage to property on that day, but that we had an obligation collectively to ensure that democracy continued. they were part of that. this was a different mission, and many of my national guard troops have been deployed

overseas, to afghanistan and iraq and kosovo throughout the last couple of decades, and this was a different assignment and they understood what it was about, and many of them -- although they had been here securing our capitol and washington, d.c., they had not been in the capitol and had not had at opportunity, and i thought if you are going to come and take care of us, i want you to see, feel, and understand the history of the democracy and the fragility of the democracy and take that home with you as some measure of thanks. >> not to put you on the spot, but what are the two statues hawaii has? >> king kamaha, and it's a stop in front of king kau maya maya's

statue. it's very moving and emotional to us from hawaii that the king is here as well as father damian, a true hero in his own right. >> you remember the appropriations committee on the house floor today, as the house finishes up its work to secure $1.9 billion in funding to secure the capitol complex, and why do we need another $1.9 billion here? >> well, first of all, an attack on january 6th had its own tragedy but it was an incredible extra expenditure of funds on all funds to address that attack as well as to secure the capitol in months since. so going back to the national guard, we mobilized guard troops from across the country to come to the capitol and help us secure it, and that costs a lot of money.

we don't think that should be borne by the state guard, so $500 million of that $1.9 billion is to reimburse the national guard troops for their costs. we have many costs by many agencies, and one thing i don't think people always focus on is how many different agencies throughout the government were involved or needed to be involved in terms of the january 6th attack. we had, of course, the fbi and we had the u.s. capitol police, and we had incredible damage to our capitol proper that is governed by the architect of the capitol, and we know that our capitol was not secure in a physical sense, and that was obvious from anybody that watched the images on tv how easily the folks were anyone to break down doors and windows, so much of this is just tryinging to get the capitol more strengthened and secure, and then we have other agencies, for example, the u.s. -- not only

the u.s. capitol police but sergeant-at-arms and the national park service which has a piece of this from the mall perspective as well as the d.c. metro police, so when you actually take all of the expenditures that were required there january 6th and add them up it does come to a very, very legitimate and large amount of money, and that should be some lesson in and of itself. >> we will start in new hampshire, and is it osippee new, new hampshire. >> about the capitol, i didn't see what you see, i didn't see a attack on the capitol, it was just a bunch of angry americans, and i saw the capitol police letting them in. if you stop fortifying the capitol, america is over. i got something important to say about israel and hamas and the

palestinians, and israel has stopped taking their land by the international community, and they have been killing them and moving them out, so how can the palestinians protect themselves? they don't have a right to defend themselves and you keep calling them hamas. >> as to the capitol, we do have to find the right balance and we are trying to find the right balance between legitimately securing our capitol and allowing it to continue as the open beacon of democracy. nobody wants to shut the capitol down so that the public cannot come to the capitol. it's their building. it's their democracy. it's their process. nobody is interested in doing that, but the reality of january 6th, and i respectfully disagree, but our citizens did in fact attack the capitol. i don't know how you can

characterize that, and, yes, they were angry but that doesn't execute the attack on the capitol and interruption of democratic processes, and i hope it will be fully investigated by an independent nonpartisan commission such as what we passed yesterday in the house. i hope that they will take a look at what appeared to be an assumption by many of the folks that were responsible for securing our capitol that that wouldn't happen. to israel and i don't think any of us can disagree with the incredible tragedy there, and the frustration that we feel that after 60 years come as you pointed out, we are still where we are here today. thankfully, i'm not going to get into who was more right or more

wrong in this particular situation. israel has a right to defend itself. the palestinians have a right to live in their own homeland and to be safe and secure come as any of us would want. hamas does not represent all palestinians. it represents a distinct minority of palestinians. the beef is with hamas, not with the palestinian people. so frankly, we have to come as an international community, reengage in this incredibly tragic and -- and this yo-yo of a situation there and try to help both sides come to some lasting solution. host: georgetown, texas. this is bill, a democrat. good morning. caller: i was calling in response to the conversation this morning, and i think this insurrection of january 6 is just

i phraef obviously, and they feel that element in their party is a tremendous problem not only to the country but to the party itself, and however having said that, i also will agree with you that there was, in fact, from all appearances some element of white supremacy on january 6th, and that's why we need an independent bipartisan commission to step up above all of the details that, for example, the u.s. capitol police or the fbi or any of the other agencies that are involved, step up above that all and take a broad look and ask ourselves, those very, very hard questions.

why did our own citizens do that. how much of it was related to some organized effort by white supremacists that obviously aren't in our country, and how much was related to generic anger that came into focus and was incited by events. we need those answers. we did this after 9/11, and the commission we passed with bipartisan support, and 29 republicans and 29 democrats committed to pragmatic solutions for our country, and it's exactly the same model as the post 9/11 attack commission. it's completely bipartisan. it's got its own mandate. that's why we need to answer the questions that you're raising because it's not good for the country not to have real honest answers, as difficult as they may be, and closure about why so

that we can move on together. >> you can join us on the phones, and keep calling in. congressman, coming back to your work as an appropriator, to authorize eyes $110 billion for research programs to compete with china. one of the amendments being voted on today by a committee that would provide dollar for dollar parody between increases in defense and nondefense spending, and that debate will happen on the senate floor. in general, where do you see the right balance between defense and not defense spending. should it be a 1 to 1 ratio?

>> i don't believe in a strict formula, and it's not something that i think i could support and it's too arbitrary, and we have a very disturbing trend in many parts of our political discussion that i don't believe does recognize the importance of national defense. i don't believe does recognize the reality of china. i live in the endo pacific, and i deal with china every day. if i go home to honolulu today, which i am going to do, i am already halfway to china. i am just about equal distance in honolulu between washington, d.c. and china and that's my world. what china is doing is real, and it's a long-term concerted across the board kind of strategy to essentially

monopoly, and i don't buy into the element of the political discussion, including my own party who wants to significantly reduce defense spending. as you know, president biden and his initial budget proposal to congress did propose a significant increase in nondefense spending, and he also proposed a smaller increase of about 1.7% in defense spending, and in that he said no to that element in my own party that wanted to reduce defense spending by 10%, which i don't support. i don't think our appropriations committee supports that either. so the bottom line is, as to the specific proposal of one-on-one, you know, anything, i don't think that's the way to do it, but the concept is there. we have to maintain our defense posture. by the way to the underlying bill in the senate i completely

support that because one of the realities that folks don't focus on either is china's incredible investment in science and technology, and of course that's part of president biden's biden's proposed plans that are before congress right now to do the same thing, so i am supportive of that. >> back to the calls, this is tina from elk city, a republican. >> caller: thank you for taking the mantle of representation. i watched a youtube live stream during the protests and during the actual gathering on january 6th, and as this fellow moved along went from the washington monument and went towards the capitol and i saw other feeds of the people leading that surge into the building. they used a tour, vocabulary that every protester in seattle,

minnesota use, and i am thinking that's not the republican gatherings of anybody that i have ever heard, but it's a mark of antifa. >> what were the words that caught your attention, tina? >> the first word begins with f, and the second word is you. when i keep hearing that, and i see these fellows, i think they were massacring as republicans but they were there for a different purpose. >> first of all, i would observe those words are not universal or isolated to either of the parties, and unfortunately they are used across the political discourse including in public, which is tremendously unfortunate. this is exactly why we need an independent commission. what you say in all honestly

doesn't ring true to me, but that's not really the issue here. the issue here is that you have a question about this, a question that is being resinated throughout much of this country, just as is our similar questions in other political spectrums, and these questions need to be answered because the american people are owed an answer, otherwise these allegations just kind of bounce around inside our political discourse and frankly poison our political discourse. that's the point of the commission is to answer directly is what you are saying true or not. i am not defensive about a commission that asks those tough questions even if they are contrary to what i think happened or why it happened. i think all americans should embrace the idea of a commission that is constituted and led equally by republicans and

democrats. that's exactly what we did with the 9/11 commission and that's why we did it that way, because we owed the american people an answer across the board and we didn't want it to be a political answer, and nobody doubted that commission's outcome on the basis of partisan politics, not then and not today. that's where i want to be as what happened on january 6th. >> john, a dem, good morning. >> caller: i would like to make a comment about, these talks were in double time, and one minute he says trump didn't create this problem, and now today he's telling people not to vote -- what is going on with this republican party? it's a disgrace. >> well, first of all, i'm not

going to try and explain leader mccarthy's words and actions in any kind of sequence. that's -- that's, you know, for you to judge. it has been a little taeupbious to me, and i think the republican party has a tremendous soul searching facing it straight in the face. by the way, i will not excuse my own party, we have our own questions and internal discussions, so i am not presenting this as a partisan issue, but i am sitting here observing a party, and i want a two-party system, and i think that's good for democracy, and i think that's good for government, and i think it's good for the american people. i think we should have the great debate of policy and ideas, but it should be always focused on the overall good of the country, and it should always be

constructed under an assumption that democracy is sound and that elections matter, and that systems that we follow are inclusive and not exclusive. i think many would say the same thing of the democratic party and i accept that criticism. the fact is that there is a day of reckoning to be coming in the republican party if it's not already here, and we saw that with my colleague, mrs. cheney, and others. yesterday on the vote, on the january 6th commission, which was supported by 25 republicans, that bill came to the floor because a republican tried to work out an acceptable

compromised deal as he succeeded in doing with the democratic side. so that's the question for the republican party. >> what is a hard internal question your party has to reckon with? >> certainly we have, you know, we have a hard -- we have a couple of hard internal questions that we are trying to sort through right now. i mean, one of them, for example, is the age-old question of the proper role of the federal government. is it a significantly substantially ramped up role which comes far more into the lives of american people than anything we have seen, or is it an approach that we have followed? so that's a clear question that we are asking ourselves. we have questions as to our foreign policy that we are sorting through. i already have spoken to that. should, in fact, we be investing the same level in the defense of our country or should we substantially reduce our defense

budget and reinvest it elsewhere, and do we care about the federal debt and deficits, and that's a major question i am facing and i am the cochair of a blue dog coalition and it's a group of about 19 democrats who believe that deficits do matter, who believe that we have to operate from a fiscally responsible and sustainable base, and in all honesty, some of my colleagues in the democratic party are not particularly focused on debt and deficits, so those are questions we have to answer. i think the difference here is that we're not questioning the overall construct of our country, and we're not questioning democracy, we're accepting that we have disagreements even within our own party but there's a system and a process and a structure that is set up for us to reconcile those differences. >> last call for you. this is tom that has been

waiting in lancaster, pennsylvania, a republican. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i -- first of all, sir, i really appreciate your words, and i called on the republican line because i have been a republican since 1971 and i will admit, i did vote for trump, however, after seeing that display of behavior on a daily basis of tweets, a lost election and then finally seeing what was so horrific on january 6th of our crown jewel being attacked, i immediately went down and registered as a democrat, not that i -- you know, not that i necessarily support the democrats but i will not vote for another republican. you know, it's -- kudos to liz

cheney, the only one that can speak the truth. i am so disgusted with -- and i watched that oscar award winning performance prior to you coming on by scott curry and how he just we're running out of time here. what's your question for the congressman? >> my question is, not really a question, but i'm there with the democrats. so that's really what my message is. >> congressman case, give me the final minute. >> you're not alone, sir. there are many, many, many people throughout our country who have been dissatisfied with a absolute presentation of political philosophy by both parties and looking for the best answer, the most pragmatic party, and the one that can actually deliver results for the american people because after all, that's what this is result, results for all of the american people, not for any one segment. i'm a democrat, i'm proud of it. i believe our party can do that. and i welcome you.

but we also need to speak to many, many people throughout this country for whom congress is not a friend. and we need to deliver for them. and i believe that in our democratic party, we can in fact offer that. working where we can with whoever wants to work with us to get that job done. >> congressman ed case, democrat of hawaii, and appropriations committee member. we always appreciate your time, sir. >> thank you so much. aloha. every monday at this time we take a closer look at the coronavirus, the pandemic that began in late february, early march, now well into a year. today we want to focus on various treatments. joining us from mill burn, new jersey, is ed silverman, a columnist and senior writer for stat news. let's begin with treatments and therapeutics versus vaccines. outline the differences, if you could, please. >> hi, good morning. thanks for having me. so basically the therapeutics are -- these are monoclonal

antibodies. and they're designed to mimic, restore, or enhance the body's immune system. the antibodies, rather, in the immune system. so it's really an artificial way of triggering the immune system to attack or help attack a disease. a vaccine stimulates the antibodies. so they're working in certain ways to -- in different ways, but ultimately to do something similar, which is get the body's antibodies moving toward a disease that needs to be fended off. >> let's look at the numbers. operational warp speed put in place by the trump administration. you can see the difference, courtesy of gao, available on its government website. the vaccine development and its manufacturing totaling nearly $13 billion. you compare that to therapeutics

development and its manufacturing at just over $2 billion. why the disparity? >> well, first of all, the gao report that you cited was issued i believe a few months ago. not all the numbers were in. the numbers have gone up for both categories. i know that hhs has an office called barta that has awarded contracts for therapeutic development, and says that the number is above $8 billion at this point. but the reason -- but vaccines have gone up also since then. and the reason that there's a disparity is that -- well, there are a few reasons. one, in an ideal world, it would be great to have a preventive tool, which a vaccine is supposed to be, rather than therapeutic because that suggests people are already sick, of course. so let's emphasize whatever we can do to develop preventive

tools. and that's the philosophy, if you will, behind vaccine investment. but the reality of course is people get sick. you need treatments. but what happened in the covid pandemic over the past year is that initially the thought was, let's look at existing drugs, monoclonal antibodies, see if we can repurpose one or more of those for treating covid-19 patients before they're hospitalized, for instance, but showing signs that they've developed serious covid and have to be hospitalized. so it makes sensing to after that sort of product. and initially the federal government wanted to do that and pursued it with "x" number of contracts with different companies to either repurpose and develop something that was on their shelf, and at the same time, though, there was a lot of interest, as we subsequently have seen, in vaccines for the

reasons i mentioned. you want a preventive tool. of course there was at the time a need to place different bets. vaccines, producing any kind of product of this sort, whether monoclonal antibodies for therapeutic or vaccines for prevention, is very time consuming and expensive, so you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. the thought was initially let's go down two tracks simultaneously, particularly because vaccine production usually takes a lot longer than "x" number of months. but that did happen in this case with the covid vaccines. so a year on, or a little more than a year from the time that a lot of this activity began, we have now seen we have various vaccines that are able to help prevent the coronavirus in varying degrees.

but that's of course lessened the need over time to look at monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutics. in fact just last week the hhs barta office that i mentioned had said that they're going to stop accepting what they call pitches or bids from companies that want to get funding, federal funding for developing some of these therapeutics. and they didn't really offer much of an explanation for that, and it was a little surprising, because the federal government, in two different ways, has earmarked, targeted, billions of dollars, through the c.a.r.e.s. act, for instance, to develop different products, including therapeutics. but i do think it reflects this belief now that we have enough vaccines, at least enough choices -- i'm not talking about supply, but we have enough choices so that if there is

enough vaccination, hopefully there will be fewer cases of covid that develop. it's a little hard to know if that's the right bet, because as we've heard discussed many times over the past several months, there are new variants of the coronavirus developing or emerging, rather, all the time. we really don't know what to expect. so saying we may not need therapeutics or as much investment, rather, in therapeutics later on, i would think that we may want to keep our eye on that just the same. >> we're talking with ed silverman. he writes for stat news and for the last 25 years has covered the pharmaceutical industry. he's also written for "the wall street journal," "the star ledger of new jersey," and "new york news day." we want to focus on the treatment for coronavirus. if you have tested positive for covid-19, we ask you call.

for all others, and we take your tweets and comments on our social media pages. regeneron is out with a new ad. one of the new treatments for coronavirus. let's watch. >> hi, wanda, how are you? >> honey, i have covid. >> oh, my. when did you find out? >> they just called. >> where are you? >> i'm home and i'm scared. >> what are you doing now? >> i don't know what to do. they told me to quarantine and call if i get worse. >> did they tell you about monoclonal antibodies? >> mono what? >> monoclonal antibodies, a treatment that can help keep you out of the hospital. >> we'll see. >> no, aunt wanda, you have diabetes. time matters. covid can change fast and you could be in trouble. you need to call your doctor now

and see if you can get monoclonal antibodies. don't wait. please call your doctor now. >> i'm calling now, honey. >> good. >> i'll call you back and tell you what she says. >> i'll be waiting. >> ed silverman, what is your reaction to that ad? and why is it necessary for a drug maker to advertise something like this? >> well, there are a few things going on, of course. you could take the view that, to an extent, it's almost a public service announcement because there is a need for greater awareness of the threats of coronavirus, whether it's testing or vaccination. i think it could fall under that category, if you like to view it that way. the company is still a company, and it has the opportunity to promote its product. whether or not any one company

decides to accept a lower than market price, and i'm not suggesting that's what regeneron is doing here, but they're also promoting their brand, they're ability to deliver, not just necessary products but doing so in a crisis. that's good for their image. so that builds confidence, or the idea is to build confidence among investors. i also think that there's an element of just old fashioned marketing that the pharmaceutical industry is trying to change its image more broadly, because of all the criticism it's taken for pricing debacles over the past few years. so regeneron has not really been targeted that much as other

companies have. but it feeds into that psychology. >> and before we get to calls, i want to share with you what the state assistant attorney general in washington state talked about during a congressional hearing last month, look at the some of the scams with covid-19 treatment. here is cynthia alexander. >> one area of particular concern for our office has been the marketing of unsubstantiated covid treatments. we investigated a number of individuals and businesses engaged in this conduct. we use a combination of enforcement tools including cease and desist notices from the attorney general effort in to stop this conduct. earlier in the pandemic, a washington company began promoting a virus-destroying drink to consumers. the company's chief research director said, "i think this drink is so incredibly promising

for protection from this pandemic that i'm giving it to my pregnant wife and daughter regularly." we received complaints from an allergy clinic. when our investigator called to ask what treatments they were offering, they said immune system boosting. these two matters we resolved with a cease and desist letter in one case, a warning letter in another case. >> ed silverman, that from the washington state assistant attorney general. how are state investigators able to track these scams? >> well, there are different ways. to a large extent it's the same with any kind of scam. you get complaints from people who are suspicious, even though they may not have ordered or tried such a product, but they've seen the marketing pitches. then you get complaints from people who took that step and

made the mistake to order something that is not proven, and they get concerned because perhaps there's harm or they just feel they got ripped off because there was no effect. then you have others who are watching it who are in the industry and know very well that certain efforts of the sort that she just described really can't have any positive effect and could even have harmful effects and want to alert regulators and law enforcement to that sort of scam. those are the obvious, usual ways that occur. it's like, as i said, any opportunity to make money is going to cause a scam to come up. we have a global pandemic. it's going to be like whack-a-mole, those scams will be popping up all over the place, unfortunately. >> we're talking about treatments for covid-19. our guest joins us from new jersey. charlie is on the phone from

heywood, california. good morning. >> yes, good morning. what a fascinating subject matter. i have a question as to if ed has any opinions about hydrogen peroxide, and if that is any kind of interesting process in this covid-19 pandemic. >> thank you, charlie. ed silverman? >> i don't have anything to suggest that we should be looking at that product to treat covid-19. i don't recall reading any medical literature that's indicated that there's evidence to that effect. >> but you have written about remdesivir. so specifically, what does that drug do? >> remdesivir is developed by gilead sciences, which is known

in the industry as an antiviral company. they develop treatments for very widespread infectious diseases such as hepatitis c, hiv/aids. remdesivir is a product they had been testing earlier for ebola virus. and the company decided to try it for covid-19. and the testing determined that it could help some patients who had contracted the virus. so it's not a preventive tool, though. it's a therapeutic. there's been some back and forth debate about the extent of its effectiveness over the years, over the past year. but the fda did get out early and authorize emergency use for the product. later, the world health organization seemed to be contradictory. but in any event, remdesivir is

now widely used in many countries around the world, emergent countries too. >> if our viewers have tested positive or recovered from covid-19, join in on the conversation and tell us how your treatment worked or didn't work at 202-748-8000. our focus this half hour at "washington journal" is on treatment for covid-19. let me ask you the role plasma has played in dealing with covid-19. can you explain? >> well, last -- i can't remember which month, but last spring, convalescent plasma popped up as a potential treatment to try and combat the coronavirus. but it was a very premature notion. there was some belief that by using that as a tool, it could have a positive effect. and, you know, science is not always perfect.

you have to have this notion of experiment and testing. you want to be able to prove a theory. in this case, it wasn't fully proven. but because of the fear, this was still in the early stages of the pandemic, if you could call a year ago early stages, it's really a compressed period of time, isn't it? but there was a lot of concern and fear and anxiety. the federal government, u.s. government, was first looking at where to invest, as we discussed a few minutes ago. treatments, vaccines. so convalescent plasma popped up. and it was embraced for a time. but it really never panned out. in fact just last friday, a few days ago, "the lancet," which is a widely respected medical journal published in the uk, came out with an analysis of the use of convalescent plasma,