oh, you think this is just a community center? no. it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnerring to create wifi enabled lists so students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. washington journal. watch live at 2:30 eastern on c-span 3 or watch full coverage on c-span now, our new video app. in a call to the russian president, president biden

warned the leader that the u.s. is prepared to protect the ukraine, telling him things we did not do in 2014 we are prepared to do now. good morning, everyone. we begin with your thoughts on russian aggression and how the u.s. should respond. if you are a republican, your number, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can also text us with your first name, city and state, at (202) 748-8002. we will take your thoughts on facebook.com/c-span or send us a tweet with the handle @cspanwj. we'll begin with national security advisor jake sullivan at the white house yesterday briefing reporters on that to our video conference call between the two leaders. [video clip] >> president biden was direct and straightforward with

president putin, as he always is. he declared support for ukrainian territorial integrity and said that if russia further invades ukraine united states and european allies would respond with strong economic measures, providing additional defensive material to the ukrainians above and beyond that which we are already providing and we would fortify allies on the eastern flank with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation. he also told president putin that there is another option, de-escalation and diplomacy. the u.s. and european allies would engage in strategic issues, including strategic concerns with russia and russian strategic concerns. that we managed to do this at the height of the cold war and we developed mechanisms to help increase transparency and did this in the port -- post-cold war era. there's no reason we can't do that going forward, provided we

are operating in a context of de-escalation rather than escalation. the united states, as we have been for some time is prepared to support efforts to advance the minsk agreement in support of the normandy format, including a cease-fire and confidence building measures to help drive the cut -- the process forward. as i said before, the discussion was direct and straightforward. there was a lot of give-and-take, some finger wagging, and the president was crystal clear about where the united states stands on these issues. we believe that there is no substitute for direct dialogue between leaders and that's true in spades when it comes to the u.s. russia relationship. host: national security adviser jake sullivan yesterday, briefing reporters on the two hour video conference call between president joe biden and the russian leader.

now, that was closed to the u.s. press. our question for you this morning is how do you think the u.s. should respond to russian aggression and mark according to news reports there are 70,000 russian troops massed along the border with ukraine and according to intelligence officials, that number could grow to 175,000. the biggest test of whether the video meeting changed the mind of mr. putin will be, according to "the times," if there is a military buildup that abates. let's listen to the republican take. here's ted cruz on the senate floor. [video clip] >> joe biden was sworn into office january 20 of 2021 and four days later vladimir putin began building the put -- pipeline again. why? because the button white house made the decision to waive the sanctions on nord stream 2 and

give vladimir putin a multibillion dollar gift for generations to come and in doing so, to set the stage for the invasion of ukraine by russia. when biden waved sanctions on nord stream 2, ukraine and poland both said it was creating a security crisis in europe. increasing dramatically the chances that russia would invade ukraine. this invasion that we are facing , the very real prospects of, is joe biden's fault. but you know what? it's also the fault of senate mcgrath's. for two years we had bipartisan agreement to stop nord stream 2 and we succeeded and when there was a republican president in office, donald trump, i and other republicans were perfectly willing to hold him to account to press him to stand up against nord stream 2 and he did. as soon a democrat got in the

white house, our democratic colleagues decided partisan loyalty was more important than national security. that partisan loyalty to the democratic party was more important than standing up to russia, more important than defending ukraine. suddenly we have seen the democrats in this chamber bending over backwards to avoid stopping nord stream 2. mr. president, i want to be very clear. a lot of discussion about joe biden having a phone call with putin today. that phone call is real nice, but it's not going to stop and invasion. i will tell you what will, joe biden could stop the invasion today by simply following the law and sanctioning nord stream 2. host: ted cruz there. do you agree with him? with the white house? john, illinois, we will go to you first. how should the u.s. respond to

russian aggression? caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. cruz is correct, joe biden could do the nord stream 2 sanction dance and he seems to think that like ted cruz and joe biden are on the same page there in terms of threats of aggression if it is just a matter of sanctioning the gas pipeline. but ukraine has the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world behind ours. they disarmed because we told them we would protect them and here we are, russia invaded what, six or seven years ago. obama didn't do anything. should have. now it's just like putin has it. i think we should just bring ukraine in. sounds like ted cruz would be in favor of bringing ted -- bringing ukraine under the

nuclear umbrella and protect these smaller countries from these thugs, including china. host: also, bring ukraine into the nato alliance? that's what the russian president sees as provoking him, he wants, he does not want ukraine to be a part of that nato alliance. caller: we made a commitment to ukraine a long time ago [indiscernible] host: you broke up a little bit. are you still there? caller: yes. can you hear me? host: we can hear you now. a commitment? caller: that if ukraine got rid of the nuclear arsenal, we would protect them. that's the agreement. they did that and we need to protect them against this aggression. of course, he'll back down. putin will back down. they stand up to our values but he understands that we don't

stand by our word anymore. host: what about sanctions? does that -- go ahead. caller: i'm all for it if it worked, but i don't know why anybody would, i don't know that joe biden would reconsider this. what's germany's position on that? maybe it's a more complicated matter than that but it sounds like we have at least bipartisan support for defending ukraine and ted cruz, apparently, would support it. host: ok, john, illinois. john who is a republican in bridgewater, new jersey. hey, john. caller: i would like to be more subtle, of course. we don't want to see russians using the word aggression. the problem is that ukraine has been a part of russia for hundreds of years, if not more than that. they are concerned about missiles being at their border.

i compare it to when the cuban missile crisis, when we objected to russia putting missiles in cuba, 90 miles away. it's not that simple. to say who's right to recognize, i think, the complexities of these things. they are just not black-and-white. we like to make them that simple for political purposes. like you say, i'm a republican. obviously, you know, i don't want to see any wars. but we have to be sensitive to this. it's a real issue for them. host: this is from open your times." "the most extreme -- "the new york times."

"the most extreme step would be cutting off russia from swift, but some think it might be too harsh of a response. jake sullivan held out an alternative pathway to make progress on diplomacy, describing in essence a return to a diplomatic process that russia engaged in six years ago but has largely ignored. officials say the tone of the call was honest and businesslike but the key message, the kremlin maintained, was that western military activity was a threat to russia in the united states was raising tensions in the region by increasing the military potential near the border. what mr. pruden sees as redline, ukraine and the west see as reasonable defense for a country that already lost control of crimea, still occupied territory in the u.s. description, engaged in a war of attrition in the east."

as i said, the call between the leaders was closed to u.s. press . russian state media released this video of the beginning of the call. take a look. [video clip] >> [speaking russian] >> there you go. >> hello? >> good to see you again. host: from russian state media. this photograph was released by the white house of the video conference call. you can see the president there flanked by his top advisers meeting with the russian president. this morning we are asking you how the u.s. should respond to aggression along the border with ukraine. sean, democratic caller. good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for

taking my call. exactly what joe biden is doing, we have to have diplomacy first. russia doesn't have that big of an economy that we need to worry about their economy. vladimir putin runs his nation where oligarchs rule everything, they take everything from the people. to this day i would like to know what all of the officials were doing in russia. on our fourth of july celebration, you can't get an answer. i can't get an answer from my congressman. went to russia and came back, i called my congressman, my senators, no one knows. no one gives me an answer. but were the senators doing their? we don't want to be like oligarchs, do we? host: this from twitter, so what if russia takes back ukraine.

i'm not willing to die or spend a dime for it, what value does it add to america? from the article in "the new york times," "the u.s. has provided $2.5 billion in support to ukraine including host: doug, republican line, new jersey. caller: i just don't trust this administration. china and russia have been doing joint exercises for the last five years together. i believe china will invade

taiwan and simultaneously putin will invade ukraine and that's probably a two front war that we could lose and it's a set up and they both know they can get away with it and that's why they're doing it. host: tom, democratic line, florida, good morning. caller: that last caller, it's actually trumpets week. not only was he weak, he was like a puppet. putin was the boss and trump was the puppet. let's be realistic. you have to understand the history. vladimir putin thinks he's tough. most russian people don't like him? why? let's see, he's corrupt. he killed his opponents. that is what trump wants to be.

the trump ideology is to be vladimir putin. he wants to be like putin. then again, trump is not smart. i mean let's be honest. he brags he's a stable genius? come on. host: pearl, nashville, georgia, what do you think? caller: good morning, how you doing? yes, my name is earl from georgia, deep south. excuse me, just got off from work. i think that what president biden is doing is a good thing and i think we should sit back and look and wait. here's the mandate that i think we should do. we should cut off all ties from russia. it's like they said in desert storm, cut off the head, can't

run. cut off supplies, can't eat. that's what we need to do. the oil, cut it off completely. that will bring russia to their knees. host: all right, earl, georgia. "the daily mail" has this headline, ukraine -- "ukraine warning of a bloody massacre and 5 million refugees fleeing into europe if russia invades." those words spoken by the ukrainian defense minister. take a look. [video clip] >> i do not believe they will have a victory. it will be a bloody massacre. the russians will come back.

>> there is also belief in ukraine that russia, which denies plans to invade, can with the help of the united states and its allies, still be deterred. host: philip, michigan, what do you say to this russian? u.s. response to russian aggression? caller: as i told the guy before when i got on, the elephant in the room is this hyper speed intercepting rockets. russia has developed one. they tested it. china just developed and tested it and shot one around the earth twice and it landed in china and a hit the target they were after. i called to her three years ago to talk to a guy from the dod and said look, we have got to get this hyper speed interceptor , we've got to hurry up and develop these.

they are going to make icbms obsolete. once they are mounted on the flat tops with the launchers like on the ford right now, they'll be able to launch them and if they are near north korea they could take it out before it even hardly gets there. just as soon as it enters a little bit of height, these hyperspeed rockets can take it out. if we don't hurry up and develop these things like china is doing , our icbms will be worthless. it's like we really need to start spending money on things that will make a difference. biden should have used the pipeline as a bargaining chip. he should have used their pipeline as a bargaining trip -- bargaining chip, some think trump would have done off the bat. host: you are talking about the nord stream 2 pipeline that goes around ukraine and go straight

into germany to supply them. talking about that pipeline? caller: that's the one. host: listen to the president on the call with a russian leader, victoria nuland of the state department was preparing to testify before the senate foreign relations committee yesterday afternoon about the policy towards russia. listen to this exchange between ron johnson, republican, asking the under secretary of state about the possibility of sanctions on the pipeline. [video clip] >> one thing i believe the foreign relations committee is unified on, might not unanimous, support for sanctions against the nord stream 2 pipeline. many of us were disappointed that those sanctions were not fully implemented and that the construction continued. i can't think of a more powerful way to punish russian aggression than by rolling back the progress that has been made and,

if at all possible, prevent nord stream 2 from ever being completed. is that something that is being discussed with allies or contemplated? >> absolutely. as you recall from july, that was very much in the statement. any moves against ukraine would have a direct impact, that's our expectation and the conversation we are having. >> direct impact is one thing but i'm literally talking about rolling back the pipeline. loosely defined, taking action to prevent it from ever becoming operational. >> i think of president putin moves on ukraine the expectation is that the pipeline will be suspended. host: the undersecretary for

political a fails -- political affairs testifying on the policy towards russia. your turn to tell washington what you think should be done on russian aggression. from "the wall street journal," they note on the pipeline that strains have complicated efforts to forge a common position over russia and chief among them is the nord stream 2 two gas pipeline that germany and russia are moving to complete and that the biden administration has begrudgingly accepted, delivering russian gas to germany, bypassing the ukrainian pipeline network. opponents, including biden critics, warned that the project gives mr. putin the ability to manipulate the european gas markets. in july the government of angela merkel, the outgoing german chancellor, co. signed an agreement with the biden administration committing to taking action against russia should they attempt to use

energy as a weapon or commit further aggressive acts against ukraine. lloyd, west virginia -- ukraine." lloyd, west virginia, your up. -- you are up. caller: biden can't even take care of his own country, let alone get involved in another country. he don't know what to do with the border. he didn't know what to do with afghanistan. and so he needs to stay out of russia's business and he needs to do more to help his own country and he's doing it in the wrong way. trump was a whole lot better president. thank you. host: all right, we are asking you to dial in with your thoughts this morning. republicans, (202) 748-8001. how should the u.s. respond to russian aggression? democrats, (202) 748-8000.

independents, (202) 748-8002. remember, you can also text and we will read some of them. just include your first name, city and state, at (202) 748-8003. had to facebook.com/c-span and you can also send a tweet @cspanwj,. earl, you are next. caller: first of all, russia is not a country, it's an organized crime entity that has tentacles wrapped all in the american system. they are all over us. we had a president who laundered millions for these guys? how do we expect to compete or fight or whatever? they are all over us. host: all right, earl. adele, springfield, illinois, what do you have to say? caller: good morning merry

christmas, i forgot to wish you happy thanksgiving but you are on your break at the time. my response to this question would be that this is all a military-industrial complex issue. i have been calling for years. there is no military solution to russia or a war with china. that's armageddon talk, right? that's not going to happen. my position would be that they are responding to our and nato's coming to their borders on their southern and eastern side and feeling that this is a response to nato and our actions. in a way we are somewhat violating a treaty that we had that we did under gorbachev. it would be as this if there military surrounded us on

multiple sides, how would we feel? we would respond in a similar manner. the ukrainian build over russian troops is directly responding to that, saying that if you allow ukraine to be in nato, this is what's going to happen. they took a crimea, it was wrong for them but i did hear that there were a large number of russians in that population in crimea that wanted a more russian ethnic. that was their response. guess what? we didn't make a military reaction and we did the same thing with georgia. the russians did it with georgia and we didn't think anything of the reaction. in china, taiwan and stuff, it's just ludicrous. it's not something that is for humankind. that's my response. merry christmas, happy new year.

host: all right, adele. this piece from the journal talks about the fight for ukraine from the view of vladimir putin. he writes that "the master narrative rests on the interpretation of 1000 years of russian history, from which he derives the conclusion that russians and ukrainians are one people, a single hole -- whole

host: keith, lake land, florida, good morning. caller: getting back to the callers before, even more so, it's correct, the pipeline, i believe he used biden with the pipeline to see how he would react and if he gave into the pipeline i believe that is what gave him the gonads to go to do this. i have seen this coming for years and years. talked about it, read about it, studied on it. i knew that this was going to happen like five years ago. and it has and i can't believe it has gone down exactly like i had envisioned it that i believe the feist -- the pipeline was the first. he had to see what biden would do with that and as soon as he agreed it was over and it will be hard to back out of this. host: you have been reading about this for a long time.

what interests you about this? where does it come from? caller: then interested in politics since i was a little kid. i don't know. i actually have a big interest in russia myself. there are a lot of things that we have in common as countries. things we don't have in common, but more in common than not and as a little kid i always thought all of these movies about russia, why can we not it along? i see now why we cannot. i'm in the hospital in about to go for x-ray. that's all i have. thank you. host: thank you. don, democratic caller, south bend, hello. caller: yeah, i'm trying to get my head around this. if i remember right, the pipeline, the european union countries wanted the pipeline to come in from russia to heat their houses and everything else because you know, a few years ago they were cutting it off, they were doing this and doing

that, he was manipulating the prices. what do you think our oil companies do? they don't manipulate prices? the pipeline coming from canada? it's just sewage. it's not even refined, it's so thick and tary, they put it on a ship and send it some place else. it ain't nothing for us. those european countries told us they wanted that, they needed that, so we let them have it. now all of a sudden everybody is up in arms about this as manipulating prices? we do the same thing. ok? and when you have people like trump out there patting him on the back telling him what a good job he's doing? putin loves it. who stood on the stage in helsinki and shook his hand and through 16 intelligence agencies under the bus. trump did.

come on. it's a joke, it's propaganda. it's all a game for these people. ok? do this, do that. european countries, if they wanted us to come over there to do that, they would have said. so far they haven't said it. host: let me get your reaction to this bbc article about this pipeline. the bbc, this is from september of 2020, they say it's not that merkel and her conservative party were enthusiastic cheerleaders of the pipeline. she inherited it from her predecessor. mr. schroeder enjoys a backslapping bromance with vladimir putin who he famously described as a democrat through and through. they noted, the bbc, the article

caller: no, it can't be stopped. natural gas over here, the fracking and everything else, goes on the ship and it goes over there, the business people in capitalist people over here say hey, there's an opportunity. take it all and throw it over there. give it to them, help them out, we can make a lot of money. you think it's staying here? it's not staying here. no. it's not staying here, it's going over there. that's what cracked me up. it's a political game with all these people and you listen to ted cruz on the floor? who would want to listen to

cancun ted? this is bull. it's propaganda. it's fear mongering. the same thing that we had way back in the day with whatever you want to call it. call it a rack, iran, call it who cares. send some diplomats over there, get the deal done. trump is the dealmaker, right? his people were dealmakers. that's why they were there in russia on the fourth of july, making deals. they were hoping they could create something. once to get reelected again. why else would they be over there? they are going to be like hunter biden was, make a deal over there and lined their pockets with money and then get out of there. have a nice day. host: fraser, michigan, republican, good morning. go ahead, sir. we are listening. caller: well, i'm listening to

all of this. it's a big stirring up of stew just for political business, trying to give mr. biden the impression to the american people of how politically involved he is. because of his attitude around what he's done to this country in the border and some other issues we are looking at, we are going to have to be facing, paying more money through it. how he drafts the, the, the proper drugs into our bodies. we are wondering why it is all occurring now that he's president? in he so heavily screwed up in afghanistan?

screwed up at the border? wondering what they think the internal politics of this country is that? he's over there trying to deal with the russians? they will take them to school. that's all i have to say. i'm not going to, i'm not going to run down which party, which, which, which country is doing it and we are trying to interfere with what germany's doing with the russians. host: ok from the hearing yesterday on capitol hill with the victoria nuland on the policy towards russia, i want to show you this exchange between bob menendez, the committee chair from new jersey, asking her about ukraine and xavier becerra bonding to the buildup of russian military along the border. [video clip]

>> would it be fair to say that the buildup of russian troops there, amassed along the borders, that it is in fact causing ukrainians to mobilize in a way they might not have before? >> that's right. as i said, close to 100,000 troops now and many, many more planned. ukrainians have had to think if it lee about their own security and in fact some of the defensive support that the u.s. has given ukraine over the years they have had in storage containers and we will now see them have to put them out and they will have to think very hard about their own civil defense. >> finally, if hopefully president putin takes a different course and doesn't invade ukraine, that doesn't mean that ukrainian stability is reasserted. there are other ways to try to

destabilize the ukrainian government. are we working with the president of ukraine to try to firm up their stability institutionally as well as against cyber and other efforts to undermine the government of ukraine? >> we are, mr. chairman. as i said in the opening, there are significant efforts to destabilize ukraine from within and oppose catastrophic risks for the government. we have been very clear in sharing our concerns and our intelligence that we have with ukrainians and in supporting efforts they are making not only in the cyber realm but in the civil defense realm to protect their inns. host: you can find yesterday's hearing on our website, c-span.org and download the free mobile app, it's called c-span

now. context from the atlantic council, "in recent years russia has combined military operations with disinformation campaigns designed to justify aggressive action

host: nancy, virginia, republican. what do you say on this? nancy, are you there? good morning. we can hear you now. caller: i'm just overwhelmed over mr. biden and the decision that he's made with opening the border and what he's done in afghanistan. all i can do is pray. host: what are you concerned about regarding russia? caller: well, who knows what they are talking about over

there, making deals. undercover deals. with his son being over there, it's hard to tell what kind of agreements biden has already made. host: chris, tipton bill, good morning. caller: i think it's about a kind of control. can i tell you something about what's going on in northwest tennessee? we've got guys chasing each other around with guns. host: tie this to russia. caller: it's all about control. i think they are wanting to control these people. you know? i think it's kind of all about control. host: all right. johnny, georgia, democratic caller. caller: good morning, how y'all

doing this morning? i'm sitting here listening to this and as a veteran, i know that when i was in the military i knew about fighting the russians in all this. the biggest problem we have in this country is division. you can sera -- countries like russia and china, you know, united we stand, divided we fall. that's all i gotta say. host: cj, we are getting your ideas on how to respond to russian aggression this morning. go ahead. caller: good morning to you, good morning to america. the russian situation, it was around christmas time when we headed into a new year with a president coming off his first year and some of those people who are still filling out the papers from the last election still can't forget about all the things that trump did. so, right now the russian

situation i think is just a lot of hype. i don't think it's really gonna go nowhere. no one wants to go into a whole bunch of details about it. that's what i think. host: all right, here's the piece from "the new york times," "pandemic beating putin." this is from the opinion section of "the new york times" from the independent news outlet. "the kremlin has itself to blame -- fatally eroded the public's trust, oscillating between trump

and scare monerring and half hazardly apply containment measures. the result is a mistrustful, skeptical public. their vaccine rate is at 41%. in the country. again, that headline, the pandemic is beating putin. democratic caller. hi, dennis. >> caller: hi. how are you this morning? i was listening to people talk and no one is taking into consideration that mr. trump is a security risk is the way i feel. he has a relationship with putin, his son has a relationship with putin. his whole family. we need to be concerned about this, number one. number two -- >> well, dennis, what does that have to do with the situation now in russia and ukraine? >> caller: next president is in one ear and the new president is in another ear. guess what? you're not going to make any deals.

my understanding is trump can't get any money from any banks in the united states. mr. biden needs to check on trump. maybe he's making deals with them as we speak and we don't know about it. maybe we should check. maybe we should do some real thorough research into the situation. and i'll tell you something else. i represent a lot of veterans. i do work for them. they're mad. the afghanistan situation has not been dealt with properly. we get all the people out of there and we make a big stand on them and i mean militarily from the air. and wholly take it out. leave a message to putin and the rest of them that we've had enough of this crap. it's over. let it be done and be done with it. that will send a message to putin that we're not playing around anymore. that we need this done.

his approve ratings will go through the roof then. he needs to deal with this situation and deal with it quickly. >> all right, dennis. in silver spring, maryland. you are next. good morning. to say, i don't even know what to say. the last thing he said, bombing kabul? that's insanity. vladimir putin doesn't care about kabul. i don't know if you noticed, every time you ask a question on c-span no matter what it is about, people start talking about trump and biden and the main thing that's on everybody's mind, democracy. half of this country thinks we are losing democracy because the election was stolen from trump. half of the country is worried about democracy because they are worried that they will steal the election of from biden last time but you keep asking questions about other things hoping that if you give more people more information about the fact that if there was no deal ever made, that ukraine was not going to go into nato, it's a fact. you just told people that there

was no deal made that ukraine would not go into nato. what did they do? they talk about trump. the guy two people before was right. they hear biden in one ear and trump and the other. c-span is tone deaf. you have to understand, half the people in this country believe alive. host: so what are you suggesting we do here on this program? caller: i don't know. in my opinion trump people are vaccinated against truth. they can't hear truth anymore. i don't know what c-span is going to do but i don't like that c-span can't seem to tell people know, that's not a fact, yes, this is a fact. no matter who is saying the lie, please tell people that's a liar that's true, but get to the point. we are losing democracy. host: it's impossible for whoever sits in this chair to be a real-time fact checker.

it's not possible. but the beauty of the show and that i have said this many time is that people like you can call up and dispute what seminoles has said to. it's a conversation and we are having it live on national television every single morning. it's your opportunity to tell the lawmakers who are coming to this capital and the other decision-makers here in washington what you think about what they are doing. on capitol hill yesterday a deal was made to raise the debt ceiling. this was "the washington post." "top democrats and republicans signal that they have clinched a deal to raise the debt ceiling in the country, settling on a complicated legislative maneuver to help them stave off another high-stakes battle to prevent the u.s. government from experiencing a catastrophic default --

host: the political front page says mcconnell secure his support for the debt strategy. let's hear from louise. caller: hello, good morning. i just wanted to comment on the maryland caller and the ohio caller. they can't see the truth. i wanted to mention the thing about russia. it's a red herring. i don't go into the store and purchase made in russia. but i do hunt i go to the store, everything is made in china. i think they are trying to concentrate on russia, look over here, and ignore the big giant monster in south asia.

that's what i think is going on. it wouldn't surprise me that they would start a war because i think we are going to go into a great depression. start a war. it's what happened in world war ii. so you know. i'm a fan of putin myself and i will tell you why. five people owned 90% of the resources of russia when the wall collapsed and the corrupt clinton administration came in. vladimir putin came in and took the money away from them, put it in the treasury and built-up russia to where it is today. so, yes, he is a strong man. he is a smart man and i hope to god that nobody would go to war with russia when we are being taken over by china and i think biden is into the other guy. i think biden is compromised by china. all the deals that he and his

son and his brother have done over the decades with china, i think he is throwing us in to look at russia so that we don't see china. host: all right, we have heard your point. larry, hello. caller: they were calling you about trump and trying to tell you how he was in with ukraine but what he was saying was this, we know that trump had secret meetings with vladimir putin and nobody could get in. then donald trump had a thing where he let putin take 20 miles near crimea and he pulled out and trump pulled out. after he did that, a lot of people were killed.

he's doing the right thing, biden loves his power. it's about what is his intention because the american peoples are not going to stand by and let him go in and take it over, crimea, when he knows there is a lot of oil there. the oil is running on the ground and he knows he could take over those things. host: ok, larry. more legislative action this morning, this from "the wall street journal," house and senate negotiators tuesday

unveiled a 778 billion dollars defense policy budget bill that authorizes 25 billion dollars more in military spending, or rested by president biden, creating a commission on the war in afghanistan three months after requested by president biden, andd creates a commission on th war in afghanistan, three months after america's longest war ended in a chaotic and bloody withdrawal. the nation defense authorization act or ndaa, as it's known in washington, includes pay raises for troops and money for military construction, ships and aircraft, and typically passes congress with broad bipartisan support. this year's lawmakers agreed to make major changes to the military justice system, scrap plans to require women to register for the draft. the bill boosts military spending by almost 5% over last year's budget, exceeding mr. biden's request of $752.9 billion for the defense and energyoh department's national security programs.

john in chicago, an independent. john, what do you say about russian aggression on the ukraine border?ll >> caller: yes, greta, thanks for having me. i appreciate you. for my part, i think we should be. approaching things carefull and proportionately. the conflict has been going on there underground for six years or more. it hasn't been a quick buildup. it's beenn happening over many months, and military service, i understand, have had their finger on this for quite a a while. kind of surprised that the politicians seem to be behind the ball a p little bit here an also thely media. for my ispart, i think that the problem need to be accurately defined, as an energy crisis in europe, as putin feeling internal pressure that he needs to do something to redirect an internal audience, an outreach somehow to the west to prevent a buildup.

my understanding in the baltic, that those states there have developed their own cyber capabilities intoto prepare for ukrainian invasion, and so i also wonder the degree to which the near east b to russia, so t near west to russia, those old soviet bloc states would respond to this. so i think it needs to be careful and proportionate. ine would recommend that folks check out bloodlands, a history about the time between the second world war when that part of the world where ukraine sits was between hitler and stalin. i think a lot of people will know the ukrainians within living memory had millions stabbed to death, and they had internal immigration forced by stalin north. there's so much unity between ukrainians and the soviets, which also causes me to wonder how far this could go in terms of escalation because

there is that history of badni blood. >> i hope you stay with us this morning because up next in just a few minutes, we're going to e talking with congressman don bacon, republican of nebraska. he's also the cochair of the house baltic caucus. and so i'm going to ask him about what he's hearing from those blocs of countries. i hope you stay with us and hear that answer. bernard in mt. pleasant, pennsylvania, republican. good morning. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, greta. today? you >> i'm well. how do you. think the u.s. shod respond to russian aggression? >> caller: well, this could have been settled, greta, at the g-20 presidential debates. there was no talk brought up to either mr. trump or mr. biden about foreign policy. through all these debates. and. also, no topics of economy. i believe that mr. trump was a

good president. he had pompeo behind him to handle allll the foreign policy. and i'm hoping that president biden and his people can also somehow be able to handle foreign policy because that wasn't really president biden's strong suit. >> llokay, alex, silver spring, maryland. democratic caller. hi, alex. >> caller: good morning, greta. i'm going to b make your mornin and i'm actually going to talk about russia. not even going to use the t word, not going to use the b word. but for starters, i'm going to just express a little bit of disappointment that you're w phrasing the question for your viewers as responding to russian aggression, but it would be a little too much time tolo go in why i feel that way personally. i'mle just going to reference, d i know that there's not a lot of time leftme for the segment, a

particular article that you might want to a maybe put up fo your viewers or something that i would recommend called, it's titled "america's ukraine policy is all about russia" by the nationaly interests.od i would give a brief summary on a couple of the, at least from my opinion, a a good summary of some of the events going on right now in ukraine. and how russia and america are both thresponding. but as far as the current crisis goes, i'll just leave people with two questions to consider. one is do we think that putin was more or less likely to invade before or after the american press started releasing all of the intelligence reports that russia was planning on invading ukraine? because it wasn't the american government that said that. it was all released by the press

saying that the american intelligence agencies had this information. and as far as intelligence en agency's report goes, what little we knowia of it, are americansu intelligence agencie stupid or are the russians stupid? because the nointelligence briefing we know of was suggesting that the russians were planning on invading some time between now and january. which is the winter in russia. i think that is extremely unlikely. and so i'll just leave it there. thank you very much. >> all right.. anthony, potomac, maryland. democraticnk caller. hi, anthony. >> caller: hey. thanks for taking my call. i was prompted to call when you asked, you know, what does trump have to do with russia, and forgive me for going down this hole. in the report in this section on paul manafort, there's a small section about his dealings in that part of the world.

and it's actually pretty frightening when you kind of read reinto what he was trying do there and helping russia get acceptance from the american president for t them to come invade. it's just something to look into. i would encourage everyone to read into it. >> we're going to take a short break. when we come back, we'llon continue this conversation. we'll talk with representative don bacon, a veteran and member ofpr the armed serviced committ andy we'll talk about the national defensese bill and oth foreign challenges facing this president, and then later, kimberly robinson will discuss the findings of a white house commission report examining potential changes to the supreme court. we'll be right back.

>> the ceo of instagram, adam mosseri, testifies today on the impact of the social media platform on young users. watch the senate commerce subcommittee hearing live at 2:30 eastern on c-span3. online at n c-span.org, or watc full coverage on c-span now, our newh video app. >> stayt. up to date on the latt in publishing with book tv's new podcast, about books. with current nonfiction book releases, plus, best seller lists, as well as industry news

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serving his third term in congress, represents the second district of nebraska and the omaha district. aha veteran himself. congressman, your assessment of u.s./russian relations right now? >> thank you,u, greta, for havi me on. i think the relationship between us and russia is in a very bad state. it's dangerous. the fact that russia has amassed approximately 150,000 troops on ukraine borders and appears there arere going to be more troops on the way, and our intelligence iss saying that its a very threatening situation. it's shocking to me that putin will risk war there, and so when i talk to my colleagues and other folks in the national security arena, we're very -- we're taking this very serious. if we don't handle this right, we will see china will do something similar with wtaiwan and then the baltic states will be under threat. so i guess i'll just say i have taken this very serious and we have to get this right.

and i think president biden, he's paying for i think some of the feckless behavior that we saw with afghanistan. i think the russians see an opportunity here. but he hasth to get this right working with putin. >> so, congressman, from the read-out of the call yesterday between president joe biden and russian leader vladimir putin, what, and what you heard from jakeit sullivan, the national securityth adviser, was it handd properly?? >> i think it's headed the right way, but it's not enough. i do think if they threaten ukraine or go into ukraine, we dosi need to take serious econoc sanctions to include swift, where we cut off all the financial transactions. i thinkik russia is willing to y that price. president putin harkens back to the days of the romanov dynasty. he would like to rebuild the empire ofay russia the way it ud to be. i think he's willing to pay an economic price. it's going to have to be more than that. i think the ukraiians need air

defense weapons, anti-tank weapons, and we need to get them there fast.ee we need to help train the ukrainians how toul use them. bottom line, we have to help ukraine defend themselves, and to make it so painful for russia that they'll decide not to do it. >> a what is our military postu in that area right now? >> the american posture? > yeah. >> we have some forces in the western part of ukraine that are helping ukrainians train. and that's tgood. we should help them with new weapons. and i'm not suggesting we should go in there and fight their battle. i don't thinkai americans are ready for that, and we would have to think through that, but we should help ukraine be able to defend itself, and ultimately, it's about deterrence. we want russia to know this is going to hurt. if you invade ukraine, you're going to lose thousands of thousands of your own forces. and we wantin to make it not woh that. there will be an economic price toic pay. but i'm of the opinion that putin is willing to pay that economic price if he can get

back whukraine. >> how long can he pay that price? >> cwell, we were talking abou crimea when theyy invaded crime under president obama, most people today have forgotten about o that. and you know, president biden on his first actions when he came in, approved that pipeline that goes into western europe. i think the russians probably believe if we put sanctions on them, with invasion of ukraine, maybe five years later or so, that people will move on. they are willing to pay that price. so ihrhr don't know that presid putin takes president biden's economic threats that seriously. bottom line. >> the nordstream pipeline running around ukraineha into germany, does that have any -- does the united states have any power, and does it have any impact on russia if germany were to agree to shut that off? >> ies think it has some impact but i think the bigger issue was

president putin saw how joe bidenea handled afghanistan, ani thinken there's an assessment around the c world that there's weakness in the white house right now. and i think president biden can recover from that, depending on how he responds here, but i think afghanistan, whether it's russia, whether it's china, whether it's iran, or north korea, they saw weak -- weak leadership out of the white house. i think this is ar response to that. they're going to see how joe biden haresponds. this is a test for joe biden, bottom leline. that's what putin is doing. >> we had an earlier caller ask about thehe neighboring countri, the former countries of the soviet bloc.s i noted for that viewer that you're co-chair l of the house baltic caucus. and you deal with the delegations from estonia, latvia, andy lithuania. i wonder what they're telling you aboute russia. >> i have met with all of them in the last several weeks, and they're varserious about what

they're seeing with ukraine. this is a threat to them in the long run. so we have to make sure that we have a strong deterrence posture in both estonia, latvia, lithuania. they would like to have a more permanent u.s. presence. i think that is the right thing to do.rt they're apartment of nato. we have a permanent presence in nato. we should make that also as part of the baltic states, as they are partt of nato. i think we also have to help the baltics have better capabilities themselves to defend themselves. i think like air defense systems that could compete in that part of the world. but they're very concerned, i would say gravely concerned, about what they see. and they want to insure that gravely s also concerned in responding. so they're watching this very closely. >> ron inn. springfield, virgin. independent. we'll go to you first for the congressman. go aahead. >> caller: thank you, good morning.t yeah,, i mean, we invaded and occupied multiple countries in the last 20 years. and we are bankrupt with moral

authority, so this idea of lecturing another country for interfering in theircr neighbor when like i said we have occupied countries 5,000 miles away is just ludicrous, but i want toiv say it's perfect timi for the requiring women to be dropped out of the ndaa, which, oh, my god, is like a godsend that's happening now. >> ron, we'll take those points, butt congressman, why should we care if russia takes back ukraine? >> well, first, i totally disagree with thehe caller. people are trying to white wash happened in afghanistan. let's not forget, they provided a safeig haven for taliban, and they killed nearly 3,000 people on our soil, murdered them. we had every right to respond in afghanistan. and kick out thebo taliban and after osama bin laden. and there's a.. broader debate perhaps with iraq, but that was a situation that developed all the way back from 1991 when iraq invaded kuwait. i do believe america has moral

authority. we are a democracy, a representative government. we have the bill of rights. we defend human dignity around the world. and i think we're a good example., and we shouldn't look down upon ourselves like theca caller was saying. in my view. so i wanted to respond to that. we should care about what goes on in ukraine. if we respond weakly, with a russian y invasion of ukraine, will tell s you, china will the likely invade taiwan, and then you're going to have the baltic states themselves under threat, maybe the country of georgia on the southern part of russia. this will not stop if we don't show some spine here and make -- and really, we want to improve deterrence. we want to convince russia it's interest to invade ukraine. if we fail at that, ukraine will not be thell last country that this happens to. >> congressman don bacon taking your calls this morning. roger in hurley, virginia. democratic caller.

you're next. >> caller: good morning. i'm at little bit nervous. it's been about five or six years since i called. >> don't be nervous. roger. go ahead. >> i'm nervous too, roger. t >> caller: since putin saw donald trump surrender to the taliban and didn't in afghanistan, why wouldn't that make him afraid of america? >> so -- go ahead. i'm sorry. >> no, since donald trump surrendered to the taliban in afghanistan, hang on a minute, and didn't invite afghan leaders to participate, and then when we got out, there was no support here at home from the republican party to try to help. so why should putin be afraid of america? >> well, there's a couple --

>> go ahead, congressman. >> there's a couple broader issues. ith appreciate the caller's comments. first of all, i disagreed with president trump negotiated with the taliban without the afghan government. i thought it was wrong. i thought it sent a bad message to theor afghan government and the taliban. thee agreement was conditions based.d it had to meet certain conditions for the withdrawal. in the foend, they did not meet thosehe conditions and joe bide decided to withdraw our forces anyway. that's an importants point. i believe in b the end, the withdrawal of afghanistan ultimately does fall on the h shoulders of president biden. he made. the decision. he didn't have to sustain or maintain that agreement that president trump made. it ended up being a feckless withdrawal. i think it was a colossal disaster, how it happened. we still havee hundreds of americans still behind. we have about 5,000 afghan interpreters, oursa allies, who are being murdered today. they were stranded. we sent a terrible message to our adversaries which we're

paying for rightld now. even our allies were disgusted. i talked to many of the leaders in europe and all over the world, wondering how -- the question is can they trust us to be good to our word. and so the afghan withdrawal has impactses to. i'm not going to defend president trump's negotiations without the afghan government. i thought it was wrong, but we should stress it was conditions-based, and the taliban diddi not meet those conditions. joe biden decided to do it anyway. and it was a disaster. >> mike, wake forest, north carolina. republican. >> caller: good morning, congressman. thank you for being there. >> yes, sir. >> caller: i would like to talk about two subjects if you don't f mind. i want to talk about the russian collusion narrative that the media helped with the dnc push for four years, which was a lie. now hillary clinton's own people are being arrested as we speak. a russian has been arrested as

we speak, indicted. and i- would also like you to talk about the hunter biden story that a c-span will not anyone that calls in that wants to come on c-span with a book anti-trump, they're first place they'll go is c-span, cnn, and bsdnc. there's a book out right now as we speak, number one seller. laptop from hell on amazon. number one book in america. and c-span won't even talk about it. will you please talk about the collusion with the media and the dnc to help joe biden rig an election which is a fact? and the hunter biden story, which is a fact. thank you, sir. have a great day. >> thank llyou. youth know, i got elected in 20, and that was the story for about two g years. russian collusion. and there were two separate issues, and. they often got

conflated. russia does try to interfere in people's elections. and not just ours. we see it all over the world. but then thehe other part of th story was t that president trum illegally colluded with the russians during that process. and that was the story for a couple years. and whatt we found is the story was planted by the clinton campaign throughbe the dossier theyne helped fund and produce. and thebo scary thing was that some members of the fbi leadership knew about hit, and they let that story go on. but what i like about our system of government, we did have the mueller report. i don't think -- you know, director mueller was necessarily a good friend of president trump, buttr that report showed there was not illegal collusion between president trump and the russians. butst it did point towards russn interference in our delection. i think we do have a free media. i c know a lot of the mainstrea media may not have covered this well, but in the s end, it did t the coverage.

we see it, we have competed media, which allows if someone is not o covering it, other fol will.. therefore, the story is still getting out there. it tookt longer than i would like, but s it's out there now. when it comes to hunter biden, there has, i think prior to the last coelection, there was silee by theo mainstream media about his computer, about what was on that computer, and i don't think the american voters were well served by that silence. some of it pointed towards his father and his father's actions and decisions. so ist think it should have bee moreat clearly broadcast by various media. thank you. >> mike in wheeling, west virginia. democratic caller. >> caller: yes, i would like to say two things. first of all, i do agree with representative bacon that we should havedi a strong presencen ukraine. secondly, what i would like to say, i think joe biden, president joe biden did a fantastic job of getting us out of afghanistan.

war is fowar. we lose troops. we're out of there. and of course, the republicans are blaming democrats for everything about afghanistan. but they seem to forget, i'm a veteran, and i fought in vietnam in combat. ith remember in 1975, when the republicans, it was nixon and ford, and ford was the one in charge at the time. theyf pulled all the troops out of vietnam. if you can remember on top of the0, embassy with the helicopters.it we left 1.5 million people that fought with us over there with no protection. hundreds of thousands of them were slaughtered. some of them were saved. if you remember the boat people that we rescued and brought to our t country. so don't blame biden for what he did. he did a fantastic job. we're out off there. and i do agree with representative bacon.e we do need to have a strong presence in ukraine, and if we t don't, it's going to be like the '50s when i grew up in the early '60s.

soviet union took czechoslovakia, and they'll move down the line again. >> i appreciate your comments about ukraine and thank you for your service in vietnam. i have come to know so many vietnamese that escaped out of vietnam, we otadopted one in ou family when i was 13 years old. he became my brother. so there was many blessings out ofof that whole experience. though still a tragic experience. but we lost b58,000 americans there for a lost cause. interesting enough today that vietnam wants to be our best friend in that region. so we have come about full circle there. but i have to disagree on the afghan thing. f it wasas a colossal disaster. just looking at the video at that air field and people falling off airplanes, the decision to withdraw out of bagram air base before we had our citizens out and our military out was a mistake. the way it was done was about as ineptly done as i have ever seen anything, and it cost us

american lives, and today we have our allies being murdered every single day in afghanistan. the taliban are going around finding people who served with us. and it's a real shame. but we're paying for it today. we see what's going on with ukraine andrc what china is threatening with taiwan. the other day, the chinese flew hundreds of aircraft right off taiwan. . to intimidate the taiwanese.e. we're being tested. and make no doubt, this is because of what happened in afghanistan. >> congressman, a little more fromly you on the adoption that you were justam talking about. how do you think that shaped who you are? >> well, it really shows the american dream. this man who became my brother, his name was nea tran. we called him dan. he came here with one suitcase. he was like 25 years old, a marine in the vietnamese marines. he c came with one suitcase. he spoke no english, very little english. he went on to become a ceo of a

major company in buffalo, new york. very successful businessman, and subsequently passed away with issues that may have been agent orange, i really don't know, but he's a man i loved and he showed the american dream better than anyone else i have seen. >> how dide the adoption come about? >> through a church. he d was -- there was all these refugeesy in 1975. and they were looking for people to helpom them. my dad made this decision, a funny story in my family, he didn't tell my mom this. he said we're bringing in a vietnamese 25-year-old marine to the house. i remember a pretty vivid discussion in my house about an this, but it really turned out well. hean was such a gentleman, and lived with us for about two years and then he went to college near where we lived and he got a cpa license. accounting ofdegree, and then a license. and became i a very successful businessman, and really one of the joys of my life, but really, here's a guy that couldn't speak

english when hee was 25 years od and retired as a mull millionaire business owner, and that's the american dream. hard working character allows you to achieve your dreams. >>ap tom in norwalk, connecticu. independent. >> caller: yes, i don't think that could happen in china or russia, there isn't any freedom there. ever sinceweht world war ii, wee been conscious of tyrannical powers andnd fighting them. and right now, we see these two big powers, china and russia, getting ready for aggression. i a don't think ukraine has got their army on the border. so iton looks like we're in a b fix right now. and if we're going to start printing money, trillions of dollars, we better start putting that money towards a strong defense. we need to check the chinese who

have these super technologies that we need to check. >> i think tom's referring to the hypersonic weapon, congressman. >> absolutely. this a greatp. input from the caller. it speaks to e a broader issue. china is nearing our gdp. their economy is coming close to matching ours. in some areas, their technologies are where we're at and likeha hypersonics, beyond where we're at. and i think the americans are going to have to realize that if we don't't start working togeth, wes. can't have this gridlock where we're not moving forward, we're fighting each other versus trying to find solutions in areas of consensus. china is going to surpass us. in 20. years, maybe it will be the chinese currency that's the world currency and not the american dollar. and they don't serve values. they have genocide going on with the uighurs. they're threatening taiwan, theirrche neighbors. they persecutete christians who don't believear and who don't g

to the official churches. they don't have freedom of speech. if you speak iout, you could g arrested. this is the values that they want to put on the world. and russia is no better. russia's economy is nowhere near china's or ours with their military, so what do i take from that is this. we're going to have to workla wh the free world, our allies, and worth together. wewe need to have economic relationships and agreements. military agreements, and countries who share our values, we're going to have to work together to stand up to these other countries because we can't do it by ourselves. america can't fight everyone's wars but wee can work with the free world and provide that deterrence and make it a safer world byy working together, andi totally agree with the caller that we're one of the few countries where you can be born in a very poor family and work yourself through hard work and character and achieve great things. many countries do not allow that to happen. could be cultural, could be

illegal reasons, but in america, you can. >>e congressman, the ukraine defense minister told cnn in an interview yesterday that he warns of aes bloody massacre, a 5 million refugees fleeing into europe ifre russia invades. your reaction. t >> i thinknk it's true. i cannot believe that president threatening a major war. shows how risky and dangerous heat is. we should not underestimate him. i have sat through the intelligence briefs. i'll say it again, we should not underestimate what is going on here. and president biden is going to have to get this right. and it can't just be economic sanctions because i'm pretty sureig russia is willing to eat those sanctions and think in five years they'll be all right. they would rather have ukraine under their control and they'll suffer those five or i six year of economic sanctions. that's whatt they would anticipate would happen because that's what they have seen with crimea, right? that's the truth of b the crime

sanctions,on frankly. and so there's going to have to be more than just economic work here. we have to help ukraine prepare their own defenses, and russia has to look at ukraine and say, this is going to be too painful. there will be thousands of losses. we'll create a disaster, a hume manitarian disaster in europe if thison happens. >> henry in michigan, democratic caller. we'll go to you. >> caller: don here is a typical republican fascist liar. he's a propagandist. don knows full well that putin is f emboldened, and xi is emboldened because of donald j. trump. donald trump took us out of the tpp and gave the pacific customer base to china, which enriches china. putin has donald trump in his

pocket. donald trump has our population, the 74 million mentally ill murder/suicide pact republican fascists on the verge of trying to take over our democracy again by cheating at the ballot box and by talking in code and planning another attack on our democracy. henry, what evidence do you have ofdo this? where are you reading this? >> caller: it's very, very, very simple. you don't have to read it. you canan see it in real time. people are going to dallas. republicans are going to dallas to see john f. kennedy and john f. kennedy jr., they're lining dealey plaza. >> i'm going to tf leave it the. congressman, i don't know if you want to respond to anything there. >> ano lotth of falsehoods ther but i didn't agree with president trump, like i already said, with theth negotiations wh afghanistan.

i do think atgh t times preside trump was not -- he did not respond rightfully or adequately to putin. but his policy was stronger against russia than joe biden's. it's interesting, joe biden talks big, but he's carried a little stick when it comes to russia.y president trump conversely, i don'tt think he spoke adequatel, but his policies were much stronger. he carried a bigger stick through the o policy. i'll give you one example. we did all those sanctions on the russianen pipeline. day one or day two or whatever it was, very early in biden's presidency, he removed the sanctions. hest showed weakness day one wh it comes to russia. and they don't just look at that.. they look at what was done in july ande august with afghanistan, and it was a disaster. so i e redisagree with the calln that. and i'm of the view, i agree with president trump where i agree and where i disagree, i

disagree. i don't believe with this 100% for him or 0% for him. i think we have to have a compass here, and i'm willing to call balls and strikes when it comes to the things that were done under his presidency and also under this presidency. >> congressman, you were one of 13 republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill. disagreeing with the majority of your party and the former president. in a response to that vote, president trump called for a, quote, good and smart america first republican patriot to challenge you in next year's primary election. how do you respond? >> nigh job is to serve our district and our nation. i put our country and my district first. you know,, i'm a christian firs. i believe in the constitution. and i'm going to serve what i think and do the right thing. i'm a party person third or fourth. down that line. i did what i thought was right. i also voted to certify january thought that's what the constitution requires

states to certify their elections. the governors did it. i studied the constitution, i studied the law that was put out in 1878 or 1879, and the congress had a role to count those votes. if you had two separate slates by a state, and we saw that happen multiple times in the 1870s, that was not the case last year.ho you know, this past year. the states certified one slate, and i felt like that was our duty. so in the end, i'm going to follow the constitution and the rule i of law. and i'll stand by that. > david in eau claire, wisconsin. republican. >> caller: good morning, congressman. i thought a good idea for us right now with our current administration, we should just probably stay out of europe, let the europeans take care of europe. because we have enough on our plate right now with china. that's enough, i think, for us

to handle right now. with our current administration. thank you. >> that's a good point, sir. we can't do it by ourselves. i do believe we're indispensable world. free but we can't do it by ourselves. i do think nato has to do more. many countries on the eastern part of nato, they're paying more than 2% of their gdp towards defense. we have other countries that are doing less than 1%. and they should do more. so we should expect more out of the european countries, for the defense of nato and in europe, but we're going to have to be there. you'll find ifen we're not leading, or providing a sense ov direction, it will not happen. but the burden has to be shared more broadly. by the way, the previous administration did a great job of that. the nato countries paid up somewhere around $80 billion more for their own defense by the time president trump, you know, hadia pushed them. so he's doing that, we're seeing japan wanting to do more.

we're seeing an alliance developing between japan, australia, and indiadi called t quad. so to your point, sir, we're indispensable but we can't do it by ourselves, and we have to have other democracies and strong countries step up more. and that's the only way we're going to be able to stand up to china, russia, iran, north korea. >> w anthony in miller place, n york. democratic caller. >> caller: thank you.u. we're talking about russian election manipulation, correct? myl concerns, i have a great my concerns. i am a democrat, i have been forever. and i feel like both parties are like bad children, not acting bl correctly. i have lost o confidence in the entirety of the democratic state or the republic that we consider ourselves. i would like to ask the moderator, ms. greta, if you might pull up an article.

back when barack obama was president, when donald trump was elected, and this goes back to a last caller you had. barack obama, the day after the election, he had threw out a bunch of dignitaries, diplomats from glen cove, long island, from the embassy, the russian t embassy. he closed it up, and he evicted everybody out of there. they own theit house, but he wa able to. it wassi part of the russian ho collusion. i feltd as though it went righ up to the president's office, then' russian hoax narrative th was perpetrated to cover up hillary clinton's blackberries and private email server, which was agu violation of law. as well, too, there had been a man by the name of mark klein who had been a guest on c-span multiple times, an at&t executive. he pointed out the tech sector, the telephone industry had been spying on american citizens

unconstitutionally. there had been a lawsuit, a standing class action lawsuit against at&t, i believe it was. or the telecom industry. with one stroke of the pen, barack obama made that lawsuit go away, thereby depriving the american citizenry redress. >> we're running out of time. congressman, your response. >> the evidence is clear that the clintonth paid for dossier s known about highid up in the oba administration, and it's no doubt that president obama knew facets of this because he approved some of the wiretaps and things like that. there was a general conspiracy here in my view to tarnish donald trump with a fake allegation. and it took us a couple years to get through this. and again, i'm grateful that the mueller report was done, because it was an outside independent investigator that put a spotlight on that.

and so i think the caller was accurate that this conspiracy, for lack of a better word, went all the way uptw to the very to obama administration. it was wrong because itth creat that narrative forak about two years and the trump administration had to deal with that. and that was the intention. it was to weaken him, and unfortunately, it was effective. it was wrong. >> congressman don bacon, thanks for the conversation this morning with ourur viewers. >> thank you. gl coming up next, we're goi to turn our attention to a white house commission report examining potential changes to the supreme court. we'll talk with bloomberg law supreme court reporter kimberly robinson. and then later on in the show, congressman ruben gallego, democrat of arizona, joins us to discuss his book "they called us lucky, the life and afterlife of the iraq war's hardest hit unit." we'll be right back.

>> many people don't want to believe that the citizens of the southernrn states were willing fight and die to preserve the morally repugnant institution of slavery. there has to be another reason, we're told. well, there isn't. these evidence is clear and overwhelming. slavery was by a wide margin the single most important cause of the civil war. thesees are the words and opinis of retired southern born army general ty seidule, who taught at west points for two decades. he lays out his views in robert e. lee and me, subtitled a southerner's reckoning with the myth of the lost cause. >> on this episode of booknotes plus, it is available on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> jim byron began working at

the nixon foundation as a 14-year-old marketing intern. now, at age 28, he's the foundation's president and ceo. sunday, on q&a, he talks about the life and career of president nixon. and the work of the foundation. >> we're obviously looking ahead to the 50th anniversary of president .nixon's trip to chin, trip to russia, the ending of the vietnam war and the signing of the paris peace accords, 50th anniversary of watergate.of so we as a foundation build educational experiences and events,ri conferences, around these types of programs. or i should say around these 50thth anniversaries and make tm into types of programs. and then we push those out all across social media, and we are connecting. it is working.ly we do hear from young people that easay, you know, gosh, i didn't knowle about that. or you know, i had only heard thato there was this thing calld

watergate. i didn't know that president nixon was the first president to negotiate an arms control agreement with the soviet union. there are real learnings that are being had, and again, that's in support of our mission.&a >> jim byron, sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our new c-span now app.p. >> washington unfiltered. c-span in your pocket. download c-span now today. "washington journal" continues. >>in on your screen this mornin kimberly robinson, supreme court reporter with bloomberg law.nv kimberly robinson, the president up a white house commission to investigate possible structural changes to the supreme court. remind our viewers what led to this commission.

>> well, i think that really depends onio who you ask. but i do think that part of what was habehind appointing this commission was some of the rancor that we have seen surrounding supreme court confirmations in the past few years. in particular, in 2016, we saw majority leader mitch mcconnell holdld open the seat, saying th it was an election year, and the public should really be able to have a say in who's going to pick the next supreme court justice. but thenth fast forward to just last year, when ruth bader ginsburg passed and republicans filled the seat despite the fact that, you know, the election was just a monthci away. so i think there was a lot of angst from progressives surrounding those circumstances. and some push to make some changes to the supreme court and be more responsive to what they see as the american, you know,

voters kind of desires to see who goes on the supreme court. and so that wass really pushin it. i do think progressives really see this commission, though, they saw it at the start and now once we have this final report, as kind ofs a way to kick the cn kind of down the road so that president biden, who doesn't seem to favor a lot of these structural changes, can kind of wait before making any decisions on them. w >> the commission approved, had ais final vote of this report. what were the highlights of it? well, i think it's really important to note a that this report was not meant to make anh recommendations to the president, to adopt any changese so there's not any recommendations in there that they impose any term limits or they expandll the number of the court. instead, it's more of a tool for people who arere going to be it congress, who is going to be writing legislation for the public who wants tots be more informed aboutt this. so it's really more of a book report, kind of the highlights of what are the pros and cons of

the different proposals. >> what happens next, then, with this report? what will the president do? >> yeah, that's a really good question. we sawaw white house press secretary jen psaki say she doesn't really know what's going to happenne yet. the president will review this report, and then there's really noem expectation of what's goin to follow next. i do think with some of the things that the supreme court is considering this dterm, there' going to be a lot of pressure from progressives to actually take this report and do some of those structural changes, whether it be legislation in congress or a push to adopt a constitutional amendment. i do thinkth there's going to b some pressure fromwr progressiv in that way. >> from the report on expanding the oncourt, they wrote, althou there is t widespread agreement among legal scholars that congress has the constitutional authority to heexpand the court size, there is profound

disagreement overr whether cour expansion at this moment in time would a be wise. we do not seek to evaluate or judge the weight of any of these arguments, and the commission takes no positionai on the wisd of expansion. profound disagreement, kimberly robinson. explain. >> that's right. so i think onee of the things that really emerged from this report is that kindnd of the mo controversial changes that could be made,, this idea of expandin the number of justices on the court, is really one of the easiest thingsha that can be accomplished. it's somethingng that as we hea the report says congress has the authority to do and has done in the past. but it's one of the least agreed upon things, and then we take the flipside of that, something like term limits, which has reallyat broad purchase from conservatives and progressives, but that's actually one of the h hardest things to do. and so that's one of the things that really emerged from this report with regard to expanding the court, w i think the cons tt

the report really lists is what do we do if you're looking at it from a progressive standpoint, what do youar do when a conservative is in office and when they take over the house and senate? is it just going to be tit for tat? we're going to getwh to a point where we havee 40 justices on te supreme court? and really, what is going to be thee long-term implications of expanding there court? >> what types of proposals were given on term limits? >> well, i think there are many different ways that you could accomplish term limits. kind of the one principle proposal that had the most purchase seems to be this idea of having staggereds 18-year terms where the idea is each president gets two appointments per term, and the thought is that it will really lower the stakes of each, you know, individual nomination to the supreme court. and maybe kind of lower the temperature in congress. but whether or not that can be done via legislation or if it's

going to a take a constitutiona amendment isco really hotly debated,rl and i think at this point, a constitutional amendment is something really hard tosu accomplish. >> kimberly robinson joining us thise morning. she's a supreme court reporter withco bloomberg law. she'll take your questions and your comments about this commissionpr as well as action the supreme court and oral arguments, the cases that are before the high court this term. if you're a republican, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. and independents, 202-748-8002. you can also text, include your first name, city and state, to 202-748-8003. kimberly robinson, what was the overall reaction or different reaction from w this commission report? >> well, i think as far as conservatives were concerned, they were happy that the report did not recommend things like

termot limits or expanding the court. again, that wasn't this commission's charge. but they did point out that the reportec doesn't really speak favorably for those things. for progressives, it's what they expected all whalong, something that isn't really going to move thee needle with regard to thes proposals. >> and what's the reaction from the white house? >> well, we haven't really heard from the white house. again, we saw the press secretary say yesterday that they're going to review this report, but really, after that, they don't have any guidance as to what's going to be on their plateil for the next steps with this report. >> and what is the interest leveles on capitol hill to reac toen this commission report, possibly expand or have term limits?eg >> that's something that's reallyly been increasing. we do see a number of pieces of legislation beingan introduced expand the court, to provide maybe even more modest changes to thehe court, things that wou increase their transparency, things likee live streaming of

the audio. and so there is some interest, but whether or not it can really get over the votes that's needed to e pass, i don't think we're there yet. >> and the justices heard last week one of the key cases in this term, d and that's the abortion case, mississippi's abortion law. what do you think, just from listening to that oral argument, what do you think the outcome could be? >> going into there d argument, thought that the supreme court would do something that it's frequently done under the roberts court, come up with this middle ground where they don't overturn roev. wade and the right to an abortion, but they kind ofrg chip away at it. coming out of the argumentsuric don't think that's going to be the case. we only really saw chief justice roberts tryre to push that idea and heid didn't really get any favorable reresponses from eith side, either from the more conservative justices or the liberal p justices. and we even saw the attorney who is arguing for the abortion providers saying,r really, there's no middle ground

here. it's either affirm roe v. wade or overturn it. >> andnd what do you think -- wt did you hear from the conservative justices on the court during that argument? >> well,he i think we have a pretty good idea about where kind of the most conservative justices h are, and i was looki in particular to justices kavanaugh and justices barrett, two trump appointees to see where they were on the s questi, and both really seemed like they were a vote to overturn roe v. wade. we saw justice barrett have some concerns about whether or not there really is this kind of burden of forced parenthood given that all states allow a woman to turn over their child under these so-called safe haven laws. on the flipside, we saw justice brett kavanaugh say where the constitution is k silent on thi very hard question, shouldn't courts really stay out of it? shouldn't this be something for the states? so to n me, that seems like bot of those are a vote to overturn

roe. >> iou kenny in ellenboro, nort carolina. democratic caller. >> caller: yes, i'm old enough to remember when khrushchev said we will take over america from within by using your own laws against you. that's what they o have done. mcconnell put in over 300 judges up and down the appellate court and circuit court. all of them, even when the supreme court wouldn't even dissent about the election, we have already been overthrown. people don't realize that when amy barrett says, oh, we're originalists, like all of the conservativeri judges, they don really believe in the constitution. they think the constitution should be written hard in law and never changed. it's not a living document.

in other words, they would like away with every amendment. even newt gingrich said that we want to do away with every program fdr put in, including social security and medicare. these republicans that are on social security and medicare, do they not realize that? and as far as roberts saying that he will uphold precedent and the i first thing he did wa pass citizens united, no, i'm not sorry.t corporations are not people. and unlimited secret money is not the way this democracy was set up. and yes, i feel like we have beenen overthrown. you know,t look at the electionu >> okay, kenny. a lot there for kimberly robinson. go ahead. >> wayeah, so one thing that yo

mentioned was our very way of life, the american democracy, and i think thatem the justices very much have that in mind. andd the supreme court's role i thatnt democracy. but the way that they view their actions in these cases and the way thatmp it kind of plays int this is very different. and so i think this abortion case is a really good example of that. so fromert the more liberal justices, we see them saying that,se you know, the integrityf the supreme court is at stake if the public sees it as just a political institution that changes with the whims of the political process at the time. and you know, if the composition of the court can sway abortion rights in this major way, then that's really going to be a blow to the legitimacy of the court. on the flipside, you see conservatives say that, you know, theyco also think that overturning roe is crucial to the legitimacy of the court. they say this is something that

courts weren't made to make the decision for. and it should be turned over to the people and given back to the states. so j there'ss. a legitimacy tha very much playing on the minds of the justices here, bothen at the supreme court and its role in our democracy. >> elizabeth, millsboro, delaware.an independent. >> caller: yes, good morning. first of all, i believe the courts should be expanded to four or six more justices. right now,w, what we have is a partisan republican court who does not believe in the rt constitution. these people are -- i'm talking about the barrett and justice roberts and people like that. they are j not for the constitution. and what we need is we need more justices that can bring to the table more opinions from the american people. because the american people, our

views are not even considered in these courts. they are in there for life. they could care less about whether or not we believe in them. right now, the majority of people don't even believe in the supreme court.y we don't believe that they are standing for justice and democracy. which they obviously are not. but i believe that professor clanmand from harvard universi has it right. right tsnow, we need at least s justices, and wee definitely ned term limits. and the term limits should be at least 18 years, no more. that way, they would think hard. >> ms. robinson, sorry about that. i don't know what happens there. >> we started off this conversationok talking about th white house commission and the report that it justwo approved. and you know, it does look at some of theseot things that ter limits would do and expanding

the court would do. i do think there's a lot of support behind the idea of ter limits, but one thing that the caller mentioned was that it would make these p justices reay think hardd and fast about what the public thinks. and aea lot of people see that a con of this proposal for term limits because the whole idea of the supreme court and life tenure is so that judges and reallyd federal judges throughot the federal judiciary can be independent from what the public thinks and can really make hard decisions like desegregation, which was t deeply unpopular in the south, but providing them with these life tenure does give them some kind of protection. and you know,rb there are real concerns with doing away with that,er with something like ter limits. >> we'll go up to ann arbor, michigan. esteban, democratic caller. you're ntnext. >> caller: hello, this is esteban.n. i'm calling as a statement and also as a question. my statement is about the

legitimacy of the court, and its historical e perspective. my question is, can you name any particular cases in which supreme court justices of the united states were actually recused and united states were actually the court and what you canre suggest about how tha can be done today in 2021? >> yeah, so that's a great question and something that the court did actually make a recommendation on so again the charge wasn't to make recommendations but does look very favorably aboutut the ideaf an ethics code and listeners may be surprised to know the supreme court justices aren't actually bound byy any ethics code. they say theyo consult the eths code thatt other federal judges follow but not really bound by anything and not really a way to hold them accountable to things liket recusal like the caller

mentioned so the court does recommend the supreme court or congress adopt an advisory ethics opinion that these issues which do pop up from time to time. >> also with cameras in the court, something cspan and others have a pushed for and th is what they write. as anev alternative to cameras the courtroom, the court could continue itsr current practicef liveul streaming audio and oral arguments, given the court's long standing opposition to camera as continuation of audio could be an accord with the law and the court, perhaps more experienceng will allow the cou to tryly cameras as well. >> yeah, so cameras in the courtroom is something we've heard the justices be asked in confirmation hearings and almost

unanimously for it but then when they get on the court are against it. somo cameras in the courtroom seemse like a far venture at ts point, but the court because of the coronavirus has been hearing arguments remotely, they've returned to the court but continue to do live streaming which allows, you know, the public to hear in and so far it's gone off pretty well. r i think it's going to be hard for the justices to roll that back andth we saw the commissio in its report recommend that the court, you know, keep that in the hopes that as you mention, they do eventually come around to cameras in the courtroom, although i think with the current justices in the court, that's probably not going to happen. >> marty, democratic caller here in washington dc, welcome to the consideration. >> caller: yes, as far as the court isis concerned there appes to be, one of the reasons for even thinking about changes of what should be done in the court, it appears more partisan these days as opposed to being

an independent body relying on the constanttation. as youy. mentioned, the desegregation was unpopular but they made the right decision constitutionally. now you have a supreme court saying it's all right to use the n word, you have a supreme court that has put forward united about thehe campaign finances a also where a person's property can bebe taken for a greater private good and i wonder sometimes if they would, you know, help out and would it really be where you can take a person's privaten property. but i was wondering if there was a commission to whether the court isee bipartisan or is it just the perception of the american people. did they makeco a finding regarding that? that there is a need to make some changes to the supreme

courtt because of what seems to be a lack of independence of the body of the supreme court body itself? >> yeah so i think this is one of the big points from progressives who are frustrated with this commission from the start was that it's really made up of d a lot of law professors people who are invested in the institution. soe while some commissioners m differ on howl they see the cot andhe politics playing into it, think ass a whole the commissio thinks it isn't a political institution. whether or not the american public sees it that way is something different but the report as a whole and commission as a whole i think takes the opinion that it's not a political institution and we've actually seen the justices do somewhat of a p.r. campaign latelyly knowing around in the various speeches to law students and things like that trying to counter this, idea that they a

a political institution and insteadd saying they're not motivated by politics but by their judicial interpretive style,si their judicial philosophies and while that may end upp matching up with politics, they're not just junior varsity politicians in robes. >> janice, colorado springs, republican. >> caller: i'm calling in regards to the abortion. i believe rape andr, incest is number none, if you can't get abortion on them, childea rapedy a father or outsider, it's ridiculous you can't get an abortion. you should be able to get that through rape and incest, i don't if it's a child or woman. there should be something done aboutga that. gode bless. >> yeah, so the issue with the supreme court is not really witt regard to the specific exceptions states have to enact

with regard to rape or incest as you mentioned, instead, the issue h for the court is somethg states should be able to decide or something that is a fundamental right that women shouldn't have to w appeal to t states and the people in order to have so, you know, the supreme court isn't going to get into whether or not the specific exceptions are goingt? to be required but reallynd answering this question about who decides, is it the states or the fundamental right? >> john in wisconsin, independent.12 >> caller: i don't think any state wants to make it totally illegala to get an abortion. in my mind, 12 weeks, maybe a couple more first trimester, just my opinion. as far as the supreme court, term limits, i don't know if i would agree w with that. ii would agree more with term limits on all of congress and

all of government, if we should have term limits we should have them on everybody. the supreme court i think, the way it's up right now, should stay the way it is. this commission i think was some way the democrats are trying to find out if they'll be able to get the court packed and find out how much tenure is with their decisions. >> go ahead, doug. >> caller: that caller just took all my steam away. >> stole your thunder? okay. >> caller: yeah, i think the court should stay the same also. >> okay, kimberly robinson. >> yeah, that's the very thing this commission was meant to consider and i think, you know, even though our callers probably don't consider themselves progressive they identify what

progressives are reallyha frustrated with, this report, is that it doesn't really back these changes and reform proposals. instead, it doesn't really move the needle at all.n >> kimberly robinson, supreme court reporter for bloomberg law. you can follow her reporting if you go to news. bloomberglaw.com at twitter at kimberly robinson also at e-law. >> thanks for having me. t >> short break. when we come back, we'll go into an openn forum. there are the phone numbers on your♪ screen. back to that in just a few minutes.

>> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. there are many of those conversations on cspan's new podcast, presidential be recordings. >> hear about the 1964 presidential campaign, the gulf of tonkin incident, the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were

beingbi recorded. >> certainly, johnson's secretaries knew because they weree tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact, they were the ones makingt sure they were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between hif office and theirs -- >>eo you'll also hear some blun talk.ed >> jim. >> yes, rsir. >> i want a report of the number of people assigned to kennedy on the day he died, the number assigned to me now, and if mine are not less, i want them less rightif now. if i i can't ever go to the bathroom, i i won't go. i'll stay right behind -- >> presidential recordings. find it on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> how exactly does america get up to its neck in debt?

>> we believe one of the greatestst characteristics of being american is striving to provide equal opportunity for allen citizens. >> c-span's video documentary competition 2022, students across the country gig us behind-the-scenes look using the hashtag student cam. you cansi join the conversationy c-span student cam competition. create a five to six minute documentary t using c-span vide clips that answer the question, how doess the federal governmen impact your life? >> bend passionate about what you'rere discussing to express your view no matter how large or small you think the audience will f receive it to be and kno in the greatest country in the history of the earth, your view does matter. >> to all the film makers out there, rememberot content is ki and be as neutral and impartial

as possible in portrayal of both sides of an issue. >> you have a shot at winning the grand prize of $5,000. entries must be received before january 20th, 2022, for rules or how to c get started, visit our website at studentcam.org. >> and we are back in open forum for the next 30 minutes. anjela in virginia, democratic caller. what's onri your mind?ng >> caller: yes, ma'am.

i'm concerned about the packages that are in congress right now. wondering if we're, on the, the disability recipients, all the people on low income will ever get anotherer stimulus because we're all out here suffering as far as being able to pay our bills and get things out of the stores and stuff like that. i understand there's a supply line problem and, you know, i'm pretty sure that everybody is trying their best to work on it but we all out here, there are multitudes off low income peopl outly here that need more stimus and if we could get a $2,000 stimulus or on going monthly stimulus that would be a wonderful thing for all of us out here on low income and no income. >> angela, how far would $2,000

take you? how long would that last? >> probably take me about two months. but, you know, i'm only speaking for myself, but a lot of other people are out here that are on low income and no income that could really utilize that money tode survive and get things tha they desperately need. >> okay. leon, sunny side new york. >> caller: hi, i'm calling to ask you guys to do more on climate change and if possible, have like a regular segment per week that you address climate change, because many of these issues such as talking about the supreme court, it's really, nothingas happens until somethi happens, but climate change is happening every day all around. justst do a regular segment on

climate change and i'd be very happy. thank you.t >> deborah in nevada, republican. >> caller: yes, this morning, i am concerned about our humanity. as americans. i am appalled at what i heard on c-span yesterday about the treatment of political prisoners inside the united states of america. these are american citizens that are being kept in isolation and tortured all because of january 6 which was, if anybody would just stop and think, what an

unusual situation we were in at that time. we had had an election and we voted and we voted and we voted and we voted and you wonder why people questioned the integrity of what happened, now these people were emotional. they were being stirred up. >> okay deborah, you mentioned the news conference held yesterday by four republican lawmakers, led by marjorie taylor green of georgia. sheat talked about findings tha she did on those that, defendants thatp] participated the january 6 capitol attack, the treatment of them in jails inbe dc. take a listen. >> you see this jail in

washington dc has been known, it's had many reports of being a despicable place early as 1976, u.s. district court judge ruled theas conditions inside the jai the ban onak cruel and unusual punishment. in 2015, the report file showed it was plagued by mold vermin and water leaks. had to move inmates due to excessive heat. in novemberer 2021, cdf found i inhospitable, but people are stilll housed there. people beaten by the guards, called white supremacists, denied religious services, shaving, theo ability to trim their finger nails. more outrageous things happening there. they are denied time with their

attorneys. they're deniedth time to even s their a families and have famils visit. they're denied bail and being held there without bail. many of these people have never been charged for a crime before. some of them are veterans and thee treatment is unbelievable. they areth told they have to denounce president trump. they are told their views are the views of cult members, even thoughid these are men that eve single night at 9:00 at night they o put their hand over thei heart and single national anthem voluntarily. >>, marjorie taylor green from yesterday's news t conference. new york times wrote this piece. problems at dc jail ignored until six defendants came along. the issue at the jail where most inmates are black did not get am much attention until the largely

white rioters were held there. also on capitol hill yesterday, the inspectorta general was testifying before lawmakers and here's what he had to say about changes made since the january y attack. >> ourde eighth and final flash report is a summary of the status of 104 recommendations and security improvements made to the department since january 6.vi although the department has made severall changes to include updating policies and procedures, additional training to cde and civil service units, planning in coordination of large events, department still has more work to achieve the goal of making the capitol complex secure. out of the over 200 enhancements, only 61 of those items havee documentation to support those enhancements to

occur. some other enhancements they have instituted has been intelligence briefings to the rank and file as well as to departmentnt leadership. department stillll lacks overal training infrastructure to meet the needs of the department. the level of intelligence gathering and expertise needed and overall cultural change needed to move the department into protectivee agency as opposed to traditional police department. >>an think on capitol hill, you can watch the entire hearing at our website, c-span. org. alsosoll download the free c-sp video app called c-span now on any mobile device. carl, nashville tennessee. >> caller: yes, my question is this. why do men in this country going to call the shots for women? women have babies. why in the world do men want to

come in between the decision a woman have to make? we don't have, well i'm a man and wewo don't have children an that's, it just puzzling to me that man call the shots for woman, talkk about what they ca have with their bodies and they can't. hey, it's their, they got a problem, andnd there's a proble in this country that manan has done things so wrong, so stupid, that hey, women need to take over.on thank you. >> jerry in new jersey, democratic caller. >> caller: yeah, i have a concern. major one that's connected. i'd ask you to have the author of laptop from hell on, i see the books against trump, i say that becausebe i think everybod

needs to be what's going on. i bring that up because i think biden is compromised. i'm concerned we have no chance withhe china or russia because they own biden and the whole family, so please, this is very important to the country. i think everybody isgh concerne. really, our security is of re utmost concern and i don't think the president isca capable of making the right decisions if you could have that author on.n >> we'll go to etland, virginia, sylvia, republican. >> caller: good morning. the reason i'm calling is about the abortion issue. i'm not sure why they will say, you know, after 12 weeks god knew us before we were even conceived. the reason why i voted for yungkin is he was pro-life and

mccollin had all these ads about abortion and how they're safe and it really turned mee ca off. i really believe that babies need to be born and god leads women to take care of them and other people will take care of them as they go through the process of raising a child. thank you so much. >> sylvia, did you vote, who did you vote for in 2020 for president? >> i voted for president trump. >> and in 2016 as well? >> yes, i did. and i also -- but i dearly have loved our dr. northrom do you really the pandemic. i really feel he was our governor for the time during the pandemic, kept us very safe. so i vote for democrat or republican, whatever i think is safe for all the people. >> got it. jamesll in aberdine, south dako,

democraticrt caller. >> caller: boy, there's a lot going on there, listening to the callers. here's how i stand on abortion. what about the baby's choice? i mean you got to have life. if you don't have life, what do you have. as far as bidens concerning, i think biden is just incompetent. he won't even address the border crisis. he won't answer questions. he can hardly talk, hardly walk and i'm like what's going on? i kind of think okay, you call o president, what kind of president is that? give me a break. ist could do a better job, any day. >> james, all right, we'll leave itit there. happening on capitol hill today, the instagram ceo will testify before the senate commerce consumer protection nsubcommitte about the safety of teen users. you can watch that hearing at

2:30 p.m. eastern time today on c-span 3 on our website or download video app on your mobile phone. c-span now, it's free. bryan in michigan, independent caller. good morning. >> caller: good morning. can you hear me? hello? >> we can hear you, brian. >> caller: i did work for our government and i did know from the g start, i think i called io c-span to ayou, we can't solve from the phone, but i know from the starte where we're utilizin our intelligence agencies against an american citizen namedyo donald trump. part of thatt came out of the patriot act after we got slapped upside the head in 2001 we lost a lot of right and see you're seeing this played out now. in fact, they utilize the media company cnn, you see how it's

disintegrating now. now c-span can play a vital role in thishe by just questioning t whole investigation of robert muller and even put that forth to the whole so-called impeachment oret whatever was being tried against trump, put h kavanau into that mix, in fact, greta, let me say this and i loved your program since 1979 when i i was home on leave so ts goes back a way and with brian lamb of course, but we got to get down to honesty in our country, the liberal side of this country has control of the media, and we're going to have to figure out a way to get through that propaganda. your whole network had a fellow that i did q respect, i think h name was steve. he was m even involved in like e debates, on the questioning, bring on tony blubinski.

you have more than enough evidence to realize without the russia gate, robert muller, all ofof those things, donald trump would have been thehe president. we wouldn't even be talking about biden right now. this is obvious, this is beyond belief. bring on tony bubelinski, let's get to the bottom t of this. we've weaponized the intelligence agencies in the united states and they have control of thecr media. we got to get through this, thank you, greta. >> deborah, st. louis missouri. >> caller: i didn't say, there was a man that said women should have the rights over their own bodies. well, she didn't impregnate herself. so a man should have that decision also. so i disagree with that man and

also, there's a woman who came on the line and she was saying thatop about biden and his whol family isal wrapped up in china. well, these people tend to forget that trump has been dealing with h china for a very longe time and got all his shirs and a whole lot of other things that has been made over there and when he went to china, when he was in office, he brought back 17 licenses for his daughter and himself. and i guess people must not read the newspaper or listen to the news on all different stations but they don't have their information andsp that's the sa thing about this. >> okay, deborah. yesterday, after the president spoke for two hours with vladimir putin, the russian leader, over a secured video

conference licall, the white house's national security adviser jakeas sullivan came to the podium before reporters and gave a read-out of that call. >> president biden was direct a straight-forward with president putin as he always is. he reiterated america's support for ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. he told president putin directly if he further invades ukraine, u.s. andnd allies would respond withes strong defensive measure provide material to the ukrainians beyond that which we're providingng and fortify o thepl eastern flank with additional capabilities in response to such escalation. he also told president putin there's another option, deescalation andan diplomacy, united states and allies would engage in a discussion covering larger issue including our strategic concerns with russia and russia's strategic concerns. we managed to do this at the

height of the cold war and developedd mechanisms to increae stability and transparency. we did this through the nato russiaia counsel in cold war er noit reason we can't do that gog forward, provided that we are operating in a context of deescalation rather than escalation. the united states, as we have been for sometime is also prepared to support efforts for the minsck agreement in support of the normandy format, in measures that helprw drive the process forward. as i said before, the discussion between biden and putin was direct and straight forward. there was a a lot of give and take, nog finger wagging but t president wasio crystal clear about where the united states stands on all of these issues. we believed from the beginning of thison administration, there was noo substitute for direct dialogue between leaders and that is true in spades when it comes to the u.s./russia

relationship. >> security adviser jake sullivan yesterday at the white house after the president spoke with russian leader vladimir putin for two hours, that conversation making headlines in today's paper this morning. open forum to discuss public policy issues. michael in san diego. >> caller:g, good morning, i'd like to thank c-span for giving americanss a place to vent our opinions. the abortion issue, one thing, where is there any law in the books that tells a man what he can or cannot do with his own body. any law with birth control or abortion, men should have no input at all. if there's a vote on any issue, ain man's vote should count hal what a women's vote counts for. i could vent for other things but this is my one call a month

and i thank you for letting me talk. >> len, did i pronounce your city right? >> caller: hi there. i read this book called dark money -- the hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right and after reading this long tome, some 700 pages it was haenlightening andy question is, do you recall interviewing jane meyer in her book, dark money? >> what's y your point, glen? >> caller: no, i'm just saying, have you -- >> have i -- >> caller: as part of your book reviews, have you had jane meyer on the program as you recall? >>u i see. you know, i'm not sure. if younn go to our website cspa.

search engine. i can't recall off the top of my head. raymond in colorado. >> caller: good morning. i would like to say that jesus christ came to this world to give us a choice, whether we going to sin or not sin. also, he came at a time when roam was the most oppressive country to the world, throwing live babies to the lion den. he never spoke of roam. he o said what did caesar give untog caesar and i'm here to s i'm independent, on the fence.. when you're on the fence, you're not on one side or the other. i'm p just stating fact. and to all the people in the world, they should read revelations, especially the part that talks about the beast on the land. so i would say that we need to

love one another and understand what's going on in the world. thank you, and have a blessinged day. >> roberts in virginia beach, democratic caller.s >> caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment on all thed recent labor strikes that have been going on. that's a very good thing for the country, for workers to band together and grab some power back from the bosses and also the office workers that are attempting to keep work at home going as we kind of gete a litte bit out of covid and for that reason, i think itt would be a very good reason if the senate would pass the pro act to help labor and workers but have three democratic senators holding that up and i think it's a shame the moderate democrat are putting big business overr. workers and their rights.

>> eric compton, california, democrat caller. >> caller: good morning, er america. i have a real thing that bothers me about equal protection under the law and i'll talk about the insurgence january 6. if i as a citizen went around campaigningro that election was stolenie and went to court and everything i went to court showed me it was wrong, then me and my friends got together and said hey we're going to go to washington dc and still campaign about this and we're goingrn to run upid into the capitol and t letter to the attorney general say w hey, you need to change these votes for me. then we went to washington dc and ran up and somebody got killed, i would be in jail for

something like that. then we find i had documents, i had people make up, and the president and all these people were involved in this stuff? i would be in jail. just simpled citizen doing thia mess. sook please, attorney general, r equal protection under the law, you all need to explain somethingg to me about this one. it sure g doesn't look right to me.. in jesus christ's name. >> pat in pennsylvania, democrat caller. >> caller: good morning, i'm so sick of hearing these people talk about private citizens being investigated by investigative agencies and donald trump. we weren't spying on donald trump's campaign. we were spying on russia and the campaign contact at russia. so these people got to understand reality. thank you. goodbye.

>> susanan in alabama. republic. hi,urur susan. >> caller: good morning. can you hear me? oh, i wanted to talk about all these audits on the election of 2020, how the election was stolen andnd all that. i hate to say garbage, but garbage. one thing the audits have proven acrossop the board -- well thers two things actually, these audits have proven across the board that people need to know, number one, have proven that the american voter, we the people, have plenty of integrity and number two, they have proven that weat the people, the amerin voter do not lie, cheat and steal elections. we do not commit fraud at the ballot. i don't care your color, i don't careod your party. and that's all i wanted to say.

thank you. >> okay, susan. we're going to wrap up today's conversation withh all of you i our next half an hour with congressman ruben gallego serve the seventh district, out with a new book called they called us lucky, the life and afterlife of the iraq wars hardest hit unit. we'll be right back. a. >> book tv every sunday on c-span 2 shows authors with their latest nonfiction books. watch the latest wisconsin book festival with their advances on science, criminal justice system. gregeg mitman talks about his

book, emfire of rubber, then, on her experiences growing up in miami, ordinary girls and attorney jarrett adams, redeeming justice. from defendant to defender, and then 10:00 p.m., afterwards, 1619 project, creator and r, pullitzer prize winning journalist jones looks at slavery andnd its presence in modern dayr america. interviewed by university professor steven han, watch on thursday too and find full guide or watch anytime at book tv.org. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span 2, exploring the people and events that tell theef american story, at 2:00 p.

eastern on the presidency, former lawyer-- ginsberg talks about the influence of people closest to the chief executive in c his book first friends, th powerful, unsung, unelected people who shaped our presidents.io then 2:50 p.m. a look back at pearln- harbor. hear discussions on the road to war from botham the american an japanese viewhi points and the effects of the attacks on africanfi americans. exploring the w american story.n watch america history tv, saturdays on c-span2 and a full schedule on program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> a new mobile video app from c-span, download now today. >> congressman ruben gallego

joining us, democrat from arizona and author of this book, they called us lucky. the life and afterlife of iraq war's hardest hit unit. congressman, you're talking about the marines you served with. describe this unit. how many were there and why do you call it the hardest hit? >> when i say unit, it's a company of t marines so roughly hundred and 6,200 marines depending on the scope of the war you're t involved in. isu was infantryman and we were the hardest hit unit, statistically speaking at least going back to berut bombing this took the the most casualties in

modern warfare a number not seen in quite a while. >> what wass it like? >> well it was hell, war is hell. one of the thing in the book, there's too much glamorification of bar and i want people to see it from enlisted men. it's not about me, it's these men from all over, navajo men, latinos from new mexico, white boys from ohio, we came together and fought together in six months in really harsh conditions tomp survive and ser our country and, you know, we had some good times and some horrible h times and more importantly, we y still have ha times even, you know, 15, 16 years since we've left the war. >> why did they call you lucky? >> well, for the first two months of active combat, we were always in active combat, we were ableed to dodge any casualties.

it seemed we had the luck running on our side, whether ieds that wouldn't cause harm, i was attacked by rpgs at one point and didn't harm my platoon. so the press and other marine units started calling us lucky and then just as fate would have it or, you know, irony came and we became probably the unluckiest unit in the iraq war. >> why did you decide to join the marine corp? >> i'm very lucky. i'm from an immigrantiv family, dad from mexico, mom from columbia, they came here with nothing and i got to live this privilegedor life, you know, i always felt that, especially as a first generation son of h immigrants, you have to repay in some form your t country. i'm not saying for everyone has to be the military but for me i thought it would be great to be

militaryno and i wasn't making huge sacrifice, just a reserve contract prior to 9/11, but, you know, i felt it was important i did my part. >> youon enlisted after going t harvard. actually, that's a misconception, i enlisted when i wasor kicked out of harvard. yeah. everyone's very nice about it but i got kicked out of harvard after two years going to i harvard. id was very immature young man. i drank a lot, partied a lot, didn't study as much as i should have and harvard said you know, you areif not meant to be here. you need to leave and after a year, if you feel you're ready, reapply and we'll see if you're ready to reapply or if you're able toso come back to harvard no guarantee but i decided if i'm gone for a year i'll do what i always want to do which is sign my country so i signed up for the reserves and did my

training, my boot camp, got that all done, reapplied to harvard and they let me back in. >> what were some of the challenges when you were in iraq?ng share one of the stories you share in the book. >> so the challenges. >> yeah, i mean what you saw, what your company saw. >> look, we saw everything. i mean men getting blown up in frontth of us, suicide bombers, direct, you know, hand-to-hand combat for some marines, you know, awful things. i had to watch over my friends' body parts and shoot at animals, wild dogs in the middle of the night trying to take away his flesh. living with thesu idea that i should have been dead. many times where something weird happened where i survived but tooke out for example my best friend. essentially triggered a mine we rolled over, then the real

feeling of that that took forever to get rid of, especially toward the end of the war when it felt like everyone was dying, this inevitablity that i was going to die and as a 25-year-old, a when you do that accept death it really b messed with your brain and soul but it's the only way i could of the war and continue doing my job with honor and not be a coward so that's the nature of war and i try to remind people, you see these generals, these politicians, you know, talking about war and all these actions you have to remember anytime any of these fancyst people with, you know, shiny things on their shoulders are a talking about war it's usuallyin an 18, 19, 20-year-ol doing a lot of these actions actually. >> and itthre seems a lot of th emotions still are resonating withinau you, congressman. >> they are. i carryal ptsd and will the res

of my life. the only reason i didn't write this bookof earlier is because couldn't. ier physically and emotionally could not write this book as really taken ahold of me. a lot of my other marines tried to write this book too and couldn't do it or couldn't find the publisher, all this stufb, and itce was really incumbent un and i was urged by my friend do it because look, i'm a member of congress, i have access to people who could help me get to the right places and i had to suck it up but it was a traumatizing thing to write this book but it needed to be written. >> and you note in the tight you will, the afterlife, can you talk about b that? >> right, the reason, the book has a certain portion dedicated to what happens to us when we return, because people forget that, you know, i think people wantnd to hold veterans and the military in a moment in time when in fact, we have this whole complex life that happens before the military and after the

military and what we deal with andd so i talk about what a lot of us deal with afterwards, specifically, the story starts with me talking to another marine, sergeant mckenzie, great man, marine out of the navajo nation suffering a bout of ptsd and got rejected from the va and i'm rushing from phoenix to albaquerque to meet him and i talk about his ptsd and also my ptsd and how i had essentially ignored it to the o point wheret endsds up becoming somewhat debilitating and i have to deal with it. >> congressman bellego, author of the book theyon called us lucky. the lifent and afterlife of the iraq war's hardest hit unit. he's ouria guest this morning t take your questions and comments what you're2) hearing from him

this morning on war and his book. if you're a republican dial in at 202748, 8000 and independents 8002, you can also text. >> greta, can i say one more thingak too? this is actually not a political book. you'll find almost zero political commentary on there because i want to make sure you saw the perspective of a young l corporal. so this ist not going to be. you'll find commentary on war, but none on policy. i don't really talk about what we do to fix things in the future because that'ss not whata 20 orr 25-year-old was thinking in the middle of the war. >> caller: good morning congressman and also, greta. i want to say