♪ host: the waning days of the year in congress not only pose a challenge to senate democratic leader chuck schumer, who tried to pass the to trillion dollar social spending plan, but they further revealed the rough patches all congressional leaders will continue to navigate in 2022. speaker pelosi's efforts to hold her wing and support. kevin mccarthy's refereeing of infighting. and a request to retake the senate in 2022, republican leader mitch mcconnell's delicate balance between himself, former president trump and his supporters, and the gop candidates they will vote for. good morning. tuesday, december 14, 20 21. welcome to "washington journal." we will ask you to rate your party's congressional leadership.

for republicans, (202) 748-8000. for democrats, -- for republicans, (202) 748-8001. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. all others, (202) 748-8002. text (202) 748-8003. we are on facebook, twitter, and instagram, @cspanwj. both the house and senate in today with key items on both agendas. we will talk a bit about that, too. first, speaker pelosi, a piece from cnn with the headline, pelosi will stay around to lead house democrats through the next election and perhaps beyond. speaker nancy pelosi rights, will stay through the midterm election, extending her nearly 20-year run, and after she turns 82 and perhaps beyond. she is planning to file and run

for reelection next year in her san francisco district. after the elections, she will likely have won an 18th full term. sources familiar with her thinking says she is not ruling out the possibility of staying in leadership after 2022 after an actual vows to leave as a top democrat. she will devote much of next year to raising money for democrats as they tried to hold their narrow majority. over to the senate side, with the senate and house set to take up the debt ceiling legislation, with a debt ceiling deadline set for tomorrow. this is the headline in the "new york post," trump lashes out at mcconnell for allowing that ceiling entries. the former president lashed out at mitch mcconnell friday night after the kentucky republican declined to take trump advice to

use the federal debt spilling -- stealing. mcconnell brokered a bipartisan compromise were republican senators would get out of the way and allow democrats to raise the debt ceiling with a bare majority to ever to federal default around the summer 15. "mitch mcconnell, the broken old crow, has just conceded for absolutely nothing and for no reason. the powerful debt ceiling negotiating block was the republicans' first class ticket for victory over democrats," trump said. rate your party's congressional leadership. (202) 748-8001. that is for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. the status on president biden's build back better, this is reporting from political,

manchin keeps dems guessing on their mega bill, mentioning joe manchin remains on the bargaining table despite deep concerns on the climate and social spending bill. after speaking with biden monday afternoon, manchin said he was still engaged in discussions. he made clear he was not ready to commit to voting for against a bill that is still coming together behind closed doors. listen, he said, let's at least see the bill. we need to see what they write in print. that tells you everything, he said. politico says that with senate majority leader chuck schumer pressing for action by christmas , a phone call between biden and manchin came at a critical moment, when manchin has mentioned he is not yet sold on the $1.7 trillion social spending bill. this is what democratic leader

chuck schumer set on the floor of the senate about passing that legislation before christmas. [video clip] >> the process requires a lot of precision and pieces moving together. i want to thank my colleagues and their staff and especially the parliamentarian and her team for their dedication and focus as we approach a vote on the floor. the work is not yet finished, but we're working hard to put the senate in a position to get the legislation across the finish line before christmas. host: senator chuck schumer on the floor of the senate yesterday asking you to rate your congressional leadership in this first hour of the program. the january 6 committee met yesterday. here is the headline from roll call, january 6 committee requests meadows be held in contempt of congress. they are investigating the january 6 attack on the capitol, voting 9-0 that mark meadows be

held in contempt of congress. they pursued contempt against meadows after weeks of back-and-forth negotiations after he was subpoenaed to the panel. on tuesday, today, the full house is expected to vote on contempt resolution, and then the justice department will decide whether to pursue an indictment. roll call writes it on monday evening before voting, a chairman noted that meadows served in congress for more than seven years, representing north carolina as a republican, and was briefly ranking member of the oversight and reform committee. one of the things that also came out of the committee, reported here, is the tweets by several members of the media and members of congress. headline, top fox news host don , jr., frantically wrote to

meadows, begging trump to act, he is destroying his legacy. the fox news host and donald trump, jr., sit messages to meadows before the riot. it is recommended that the department of justice charge meadows with criminal contempt for refusing to cooperate with the committee. fox did not air the hearing, though cnn and msnbc did, as did c-span, of course. that meeting last night of the january 6 committee available on our c-span now app and also online at c-span.org. let's get to your calls, reading your party's leadership republican line first, (202) 748-8001. nick from delray beach, florida. good morning.

caller: yes, good morning. a couple comments. first, as far as the republicans, -- not changed in roughly 11 months, then it turns and c-span, which i guess stands for china-span, are going to start to change. why doesn't c-span have anyone on about the hunter biden dealings in connection with russia? you have people like robert acosta, who writes these books, third-party hearsay testimony against things about donald trump, but yet, when we have actual audiotape of hunter biden in his dealings with these foreign governments, c-span does nothing about that. along with that, you brought up the january 6 committee, why

doesn't c-span ever investigate why congressmen like jim jordan were not permitted to sit on that committee. it is the republicans to get to choose -- when you have a select committee, republicans should be able to choose exactly who they want on that committee speaking for them. yet, for some reason, nancy pelosi was too afraid to allow that to happen, so she chose adam kinzinger and liz cheney, who are basically nothing but democrats. so i am wondering why c-span does not bring up things like that on this channel and ask those kind of questions or are you too afraid to actually get to the truth? as far as january 6, which you brought up, i would say maybe people at c-span need a lesson in history. there is nothing new that this

january 6 riot was conducted by the fbi, with the help of antifa and blm. look back in history. 60 years ago, the intelligence agencies in this country's rent operations, like operation chaos -- warren operations, like operation chaos, and fbi operation, and look at those from back in the 1960's and 1970's. host: ok. a couple comments on twitter. rating congressional leaders, you have the democrats are often portrayed as weak. but you have republicans who refuse to govern. oakland congresswoman barbara lee was the lone representative that did not vote for the wars in afghanistan and iraq. on twitter, especially when your party wants to select their members on the corrupt january 6 committee and policy says no, republicans must see cheney and

kinsinger, load of crap. a call on the independent line. good morning. caller: i rate the congress poor because of cdc. if you look at the history of cdc, you have heard of the tuskegee institute, the study of african males, but we did not hear that it was run by the cdc since the beginning in 1946. host: ok, we're focusing on congress, congressional leadership. vivian on the democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you all doing? host: just fine. caller: i was calling to say joe biden is trying to do everything he said he was going to do.

but we even have some members that are moderate progressive, joe manchin going against everything that man is trying to put out. it is not him, it is the democrats, the moderate democrats, and the republicans, and the so-called progressives not doing what they're supposed to. please don't cut me off. they cut that deal down from $6 trillion on down. right now, look what came through these states. they kill people. now people are asking for help when they were against help. they need to wake up. there is one thing our republicans need to do. he is good at town hall meetings . they need to get together and get those moderates, those

progressives, joe manchin, kyrsten sinema, and republicans to a town hall meeting and let the people see who is trying to help them. have a nice day. host: on facebook, this is what terry says about congressional leadership -- does any party have leadership? they all lost their credibility and through law and ethics out the window. there should not be parties in congress, he says, they should represent the will of the people. worchester, massachusetts, robert is next up. good morning. caller: when donald trump became president, if you will notice, he always had the police union behind him. he always had the police union's to do his game. the campus police is the campus police, like the campus of a college. these campus cops cannot fight off this insurrection people. donald trump keeping the

national guard away from washington, d.c. he knew that the mayor of washington could not call the national guard because they are not a state. then he took a general's brother from the -- he told a general's brother from the pentagon to make sure the national guard was not involved. they were going to kill nancy pelosi. they were going to kill mike pence. mike pence is the number two man in the country. nancy pelosi is number three. so you have the number two and the number three, he wanted to kill. he would have called a state of emergency. you ever hear the emergency broadcast system, this is the emergency broadcast system? donald trump was going to -- the president has a right to take the whole tv station over, nbc, cbs, and abc, so this is what he

was doing. and if you do not know about thompson, you republicans -- host: the national guard was mentioned. in a unanimous consent vote yesterday, our capitol hill producer points out this, the senate unanimously passed legislation to empower the chief of the united states capitol police to unilaterally request the assistance of the d.c. national guard or federal law enforcement agencies in emergencies without prior approval of the capitol police board. the speaker, nancy pelosi, talked about the impact of january 6 on both political parties on capitol hill. [video clip] >> a lot of conversations among members and staff about the breakdown of diplomacy in congress and the tensions between the two parties, 400 staff members sent a letter to

leadership today saying that they do not feel safe. forward-looking, how do you address that, and how do you fix it, and can it be fixed? >> well, i will never forgive former president of the united states and his lackeys and his bullies that he sent to the capitol for the trauma that was exerted on our staff. these are largely younger people who come with idealism to work in the capitol on either side of the aisle, whatever it is. and for us to sign up for this when we run for office, it is bad enough for our families to see the danger we are in. but for these young people -- when i came back to the capitol to say we are going to open up government, in the capitol that night, we were going to honor our constitutional responsibility even though they

had an assault on that january 6 date fraud with meaning from the constitution, when i saw -- that january 6 date fraud with meaning from the constitution, when i saw the way it traumatized the staff, it was frightening. that is something that you cannot just say, well, we will do legislation to make sure this or that does not happen again. you cannot erase that. so i had a lot of communication with staff, with capitol police, and the rest, so i know pretty much what people are thinking -- not everything. and we must always be -- it is like a horizon, you are always moving to make it better, to make it better. it would be a good place to start if they did not start threatening members of congress, and their members say nothing about it. host: we're asking you to rake your party's congressional leadership.

-- to rate your party''s congressional leadership. a text, mcconnell is a disappointment and he and pelosi both need to be replaced. on facebook, the maryland reps are terrific, a great representation. excellent schools, gun safety, accessible health care, strong support for renewable energy, virtually no idiotic culture wars, and a aaa bond rating. it is not complicated. vote blue, says steve. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. charles in virginia, independent line. caller: you do a good job. i do not know how you guys do it. the first caller, he did not even answer the question. i have voted towards democrat and have voted republican. i think democrats have done what

they can with an obstructive republican party. i want to say to these trump lovers and constitution haters, you know, we do not want a dictator. we want a constitution. to you c-span staff, please stop being intimidated by these trump lovers and supporters. the majority of the country want a democratic country. we want to follow the constitution. we do not want and overthrow or attempt to overthrow like what happened on january 6. and stay strong. this country is going down unless the republicans act like they want to govern. thank you. host: james is also on the independent line in tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning. you know, when it was said that trump wants to make the country

great again, wants to take it back like it used to be, that was telling us something. then january 6 came off, because they want to take it back to the 1940's and 1950's, but we won't go back there. believe me, the young black -- i am an old man, i will be dead, but they are not go back there. try it and you will find out, the country will burn. host: to the republican line next, newark, ohio. hey there. caller: how you doing this morning? host: doing fine. caller: you know, i think democrats and republicans both are doing just a horrible job, just pathetic what is going on today. across the board. there should be more term limits. they have thrown the constitution of the window.

they will not let police police no more. it is just -- i never thought it would get this bad. host: do you think that the problem in congress is largely due to its leadership or is it because of the -- does the leadership reflect the rest of the country in that regard? caller: no, no. these people get in there and within a couple years, they are millionaires. you know. it is just a joke. you know, they write books, invest in the stock market, which there is nothing wrong with that, but they do not even investigate insider trading. nancy's house, they don't look at that. and back to the january 6 thing. they had been riding all summer long, everybody knew something was going to happen -- they had been rioting all summer long.

host: this is from businessinsider.com. headline, conflicted congress, key findings from a five-month investigation into lawmakers' personal finances. some of the highlights from that report, and this report is by dave leventhal. dozens of federal lawmakers and at least 182 top staffers have violated conflict of interest law, numerous members of congress presley invest in industries they oversee -- personally invest in industries they oversee and face few consequences, legally or otherwise. our caller mention this, and dave leventhal, the author of the piece, will be our guest tomorrow morning here on "washington journal" at 9:15 eastern, so we will get further in-depth depth on his report on the finances from embers of congress. we're talking -- for members of

congress we're talking about leadership. a tweet from senator o'connell on the horrific tornadoes that have touched down in his estate. thank you to the president for your rapid approval of kentucky's major disaster declaration. our entire congressional delegation came together to support governor andy beshear's request. i appreciate the administration's quick work to speed resources to help deal with this crisis. a tweet from litter mcconnell yesterday morning. president biden will be heading to -- a tweet from leader mcconnell yesterday morning. president biden will be heading to kentucky tomorrow. this from the floor recently. [video clip] >> i am working to ensure every resource possible is deployed to the state. kentucky's congressional legislation has sent multiple letters, and in response, president biden cut through the red tape to improve our request

at an accelerated pace, providing rapid support we need to recover. i am especially grateful to the work of the dhs secretary and the fema administrator, who visited kentucky yesterday to survey damage and help relief efforts. fema has already sent two incident management teams and --, an urban search and rescue team, and an army corps temporary power team. they have turned to fort campbell into a staging ground for relief and supplies. i cannot be more grateful for their swift and decisive response to this crisis. even in the face of such tragedy, we can be confident that kentucky will bounce back. we are strong, we are united, and we will come back bigger and

better than ever before. host: the leader on the floor of the senate yesterday. president biden heading to kentucky tomorrow. a capitol hill producer for fox news writing about today on the hill, policy and other congressional leaders to hold a moment of silence at the capitol tonight for 800,000 american lives lost to covid-19. asking you to rate your congressional leadership. larry in houston, texas, next up on the democratic line. caller: thanks for taking my call. really, the democrats, i am kind of disappointed. joe manchin and kyrsten sinema need to change parties, period. i keep hearing people hollering about the debt, the debt. republicans that was in office are responsible for 62% of the

national debt. and it is like the democrats do not know how to go ahead and let people understand. republicans will do anything to stay in power, which we have seen with the january 6 insurrection. you know, you get these people that make america great again -- when was america great? for who was a great for? because it was not great for everybody. you know. but as for nancy pelosi, they do need a term limit. the next thing is, keep that dark money out of politics come out of congress. that is the whole problem. every time we try to pass a bill, republicans do not want that bill. they don't want that bill. because they finance all these little caucuses to put out all

these crazy stuff that they want, how they want america to be. and the democrats just don't fight back. you got to fight fire with fire. we see with the republicans do. they will start a war to stay in power. host: to sean in lakeland, florida, independent line. caller: yes, sir, i am disappointed, as i have always been, with both of these parties . i have been listening you all for years. i have called in sometimes, too. and i seen it, i don't understand why nobody else sees it, but i do, because everybody wears jerseys. if y'all take them jerseys off and listen to the people actually calling in here and what they say, the people that call in and talk about republicans, they are actually saying some true stuff. the people that call in and talk about democrats, they are actually saying some true stuff. then you is, people do not want

to believe that both of these parties are playing off each other. only two. thing is, we need another party. the two-party system, all they have to do is deny what the other party puts up, and that is it. nothing gets done. they have this down so perfect, and they do not represent the people, they represent the corporations, the money. those are the people they getting their funds from. so as long as they keep getting funded, like the other guy was saying, with this dark money and these two parties just play off each other and never get anything done, it is the same party. it is not two parties, it is one party, they just have different faces they play off each other with. and when you are doing this and then you throw the money in there, this will never be right. i am so not optimistic about what is going to go on. i have a guarantee that this is going to get way worse than it is. and i hate to see what happens when it actually ends. host: another story from inside

her about the leadership on the republican side of the house -- from insider. kevin mccarthy does not have the votes for full support from the house to be gop speaker. the writer -- marjorie taylor greene also says kevin mccarthy -- kevin mccarthy called her out. this is leader mccarthy speaking about the democrats' agenda in the house. [video clip] >> in the last 12 months, what have they been able to do with one party rule? the $5 trillion socialist spending bill is unpopular with the american public, so unpopular -- you do not have to take the republicans' words for it, just look to their own conference. the congresswoman from virginia admitted she even avoided bringing it up when she is back home.

leadership said they just need to get out and explain it more, and she says she avoids even talking about it. how's democrats -- house democrats, very exciting action taking place this week, they scheduled the least number of voting days in modern history. you take next year and this year, 202 days, the least amount we have been able to do in the last decade. when republicans were in the majority come i think we were averaging about 250. should we be upset about that or should we be relieved? if they are here less, maybe they can do less damage. not sure. host: reaction on our topic on social media. this tweet says i would like to see democrats advocate more strongly for popular proposals like student debt relief and also swifter action against representatives who incite violence and post threatening and inflammatory social media. a tweet from illinois, hard to

rate the independent party, better than the republican and democratic put together, and still, we have nobody to represent us. and robert in michigan, i am satisfied with my representation, and in 2022, i will vote a straight democratic ticket. to answer your first call, the tempers are not getting enough kudos from c-span. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000 and your call's welcome. . independents and others, (202) 748-8002. to rate your congressional leadership. paul and charlotte, north carolina, on the democrat line. good morning. caller: what a mess. i am a 50-year-old >> caller: good morning. >> morning, paul. >> caller: what a mess.

i'm 50-year-old guy and i grew up in upstate new york and actually my neighbor at the top of the hill used to pave driveways and his name was terry mcauliffe. he was going to college. my family was raised republican and my point is there's a word that's a dirty word on campus or the capitol, called compromise. and also there's two things that are making compromise almost impossible. one is the decision by the supreme court citizens united, which gave a funnel of money from all kinds of corporations into the pockets of superpacks and things that aren't being regulated. so, there's a ton of money in there. and also, eight years ago, nine years ago the invention of -- or the -- not i shouldn't say the invention. but the algorithm, which has

really polarized this country. there was a great article on the world by omar duwagi november 10ing. on npr in the afternoon and it just talks about people getting trapped in these algorithms. hearing some of the previous callers. these are the things that resonate with people and create rage. it happens on both sides. so, i feel that we're going to continue to go down this path if we don't address citizen's united and don't address these companies taking advantage of the algorithms and getting the people all this misinformation and really -- and then you hear the echo chamber in congress. i'll rated my democrats at a five. they're trying to legislate but there's obstruction. and they have too many issues and they don't speak with one voice. republicans, are very, very good

at staying on message and that's how they -- but their message is what is populous in these echo chambers and it creates rage. and unfortunately, you have a party of fear and a party of everybody else. to the previous caller, third party definitely would be a beacon and wanted but until citizen's united and the social media comes under wraps, i feel like we'll continue going down this hill. >> thanks for your call. paul, we'll go to eddie, massachusetts, republican line. >> caller: just to response to democrat who said the republicans are just obstructionests. and i just want to say to him republicans want to be fiscally responsible. want to live within our means. this borrowing money constantly is awful. now they want to have a committee on the supreme court. they want to pack it again.

now we have a committee on the filibuster. they want to get rid of that again. these are checks and balances to make a safe and healthy country. thank you. >> to tennessee. it's vicki on the republican line. >> hi. >> hi there. >> caller: you rattled off just a few minutes ago that stated that something about insider trading. now i know why the democrats want our jobs to go overseas. they can insider trade and it's legal for them to do it there but not here. did you hear what you said when you read off that? >> yeah, we read a piece by dave levanthal. he's going to be a guest on the program tomorrow. so, we'll get more in depth into his reporting on member's finances.

>> caller: yeah, well, i mean, the thing is everybody wants to know what the president's make, how much money they've made. everybody wants to know their finances. what about the republicans and the democrats that are in congress? i mean, is there that we can do to get their finances and know what they're spending their money on? >> tune in tomorrow. we'll have more about that. thanks, vicky. here's an opinion piece from "the washington post" on leadership in the u.s. house. the piece by katrina vanden huval. pramila jayapal has made her case to be pelosi's successor. katrina writes, the house's passage of the infrastructure bill and the build back better legislation was another example of speaker nancy pelosi's legendary ability to keep her caucus united. what made this time different, however, was the emerges of a new force in the house, the congressional progressive caucus. the cpc and its chair, forced

them to pass the expansive bbb, and got jomanchin to embrace a framework that gives it some hope of surviving in the senate. they displaced a new coherence and collective discipline that bodes well for the future. she writes, progressivism in the house and senate came out of the 2020 election with new confidence and new members. they had a clear agenda, largely defined by senators bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. to their surprise, president biden seemed open to much of that agenda. in cincinnati, tanya on our democrats line. it is tanya in cincinnati. good morning. >> caller: good morning. good morning. i, too, appreciate c-span. and i just really want to talk about the damage that's been done to this country, to our very foundation by lies.

lies have caused people to invade the capitol. lies have caused people to do all kinds of things. and donald trump is directly responsible for the attack on the truth in this country. and it's the worst thing i think that could happen because now we don't know anything. >> marcie is up next, independent line, in advance, north carolina. >> caller: yes. my opinion is they're all politicians. and mccarthy could have kept jim jordan and what was the other one? he could have kept them on the committee. he was playing politics. and the democrats have joe manchin, but we have susan collins and losa murkowski. we need to judge our own

parties' politicians by the same standard we hold for the opposing party. we get -- it's like we're in a game. i've got richard burr and thom tillis, so i don't feel like i have anybody representing me. for four years, we heard trump, never served in the military, we got biden now evidently serving in the military isn't that important. until all three of our branches get back in their lane, we're going to have chaos. and all the politicians, all the congressmen and senators that are retiring this year, they're going to end up -- they're going to end up being lobbyists. so they just move from one thing to the other. but the people don't need to be fighting between each other. the politicians are causing

this. we're americans. we need to decide what we're for and hold our own party to that standard. >> marcie, appreciate the input this morning. a headline here from the "wall street journal." fatalities from tornadoes rise to 88. a total of 88 people were confirmed dead on monday. in this weekend's tornadoes that tore through six states. the vast majority were in kentucky where at least 74 people died. governor andy beshear said. in illinois, six people were confirmed dead at an amazon warhouse. president biden will tour kentucky tomorrow. he spoke yesterday about how the administration is responding so far. >> and so we continue to pray for everyone in kentucky and the other states that were affected, and particularly my heart goes out to the governor of kentucky,

who has lost family himself. it's pretty rough stuff. but we're going to get this done. we're going to be there as long as it takes to help. and the combination of state, federal, and volunteer organizations do everything from eventually not only clear the debris but provide necessary means to move, get schools reopen, making sure that homes are able to be rebuilt, et cetera. there's a lot that needs to be done, and it's mostly kentucky here, but not only kentucky. so that's just want to let you know that's what i was deciding. i haven't decided where i'm going yet. we're working on what i indicated to the governor when we talked about this two days ago, was that i don't want to be in the way. there's a lot going on. and when a president shows up, there's a long tail that follows. an awful lot of folks. i just don't want to do anything

other than be value added. i want you to know that this administration has made it clear to every governor. whatever they need, when they need it, when they need it, make it known to me. and we'll get it to them as rapidly, as rapidly as we can. >> just a tweet follow-up to a caller's comment about the supreme court citizen united case. this one says a packed supreme court will never put an end to the abomination known as citizens united. that's the biggest factor in our shift from a democracy to a fascist state. and this one says, i have no use for establishment republican party and even less for the democrats. to our democrats line, our question to rate your party's leadership, carl is in alabama. there we go. carl, good morning. >> caller: yes, good morning. i think for the most part, the democrats, they want to do what's right. they try to do what's right.

and they try and stick to norms. but the republicans, you know, they don't have any rules, any guardrails. anything goes. just kind of sad that i think there are a lot of decent republicans, and it is sad to me that i think most of these people have allowed donald trump to corrupt them. and that's my -- it's just sad. you know, everybody comes in contact with donald trump, they become corrupt. >> all right. go ahead, carl. didn't want to cut you off there. go ahead. >> caller: there's always been partisans, but everything, everybody that deals with donald trump, you are going to become corrupt. it's just a fact. >> all right, to our independent

line. aurora, colorado. this is bill. >> caller: good morning. i have one comment concerning the filibuster that i really would like someone to explain to me. how can they, last night, i believe, they did the filibuster to pass the budget thing. and they also did something earlier in the week to change the vote where you only needed 50 votes. they did it with mitch mcconnell to get the supreme court judges on. how does that work, and why is it they keep saying they don't want to change the filibuster when they change it when they needed? and evidently, both the democrats and the republicans go for this when they need the 50-vote majority to win? i don't understand. so if someone can explain that to me, i would really appreciate it. >> so you see that both parties in the senate using the filibuster as a matter of

convenience when they need it for their uses. >> yes, yes. but they don't want to change it for voting rights. a lot of things. but that's my comment. thank you so much. >> okay. to kingsport, tennessee, on the democrats line. senora, hello there. >> caller: i think both parties are getting very wealthy off of america. there's a lot of wheeling and dealing, and there's a lot of crookedness going on on both sides. and we're dumb enough to fall for it. and i think that we have some very, very low down republican people in there, and the only thing like it is the white sheet. we have put those people in positions, and we even have a corrupt supreme court now. and i think that as a person that's been to war, what i see

for america is very frightening. and it's going to happen to us unless we start taking the decent people that's in america and we stand up not for party but for what's right for america. >> thanks for that. this is a headline from townhall.com on the build back better plan. their headline, bernie, build back better has, quote, overwhelming public support, you know, npr poll, nope. they say democrats have convinced themselves their build back better spending spree is popular with the american people, and in fairness, some polling has shown support for the overall package and various individual elements. poll questions that include potential trade-offs like tax increases and growing deficits tend to yield far less enthusiasm. unsurprisingly, with senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema already blanching at the massive price tag, much higher than the

manipulated score per cbo, inflation has hit a nearly four decade high. advocates for the new tax and spin binge continue to insist that it will cure what ails the economy and that people will cry out for it. first, i find it somewhat fascinating that a socialist like sanders is so enthusiastic about a bill that gives massive tax breaks to millionaires while raising taxes on millions of middle class households. they write about the npr poll and npr/maris poll that show most voters are skeptical of the proposals. 41% only say they support the build back better bill. the roughly $2 trillion currently being negotiated in congress. in tennessee, republican line, we hear from debbie. good morning, debbie. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. >> sure. >> caller: i called earlier this year about january 6th.

pelosi, i was watching it happen, and she sat up there and said, we don't need the national guard, and i'm calling about that and i haven't heard anything else about it. i was wondering if anybody else had said anything about it. >> ask you to rate your congressional leadership, your party leadership in congress. the lines are 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. and independents and all other, 202-748-8002. about ten minutes or so left on this topic. from cnn politics, mcconnell/mccarthy divide grows as trump aims to keep his grip on the gop. they say that senate minority leader mitch mcconnell and representative james comer were sitting near each other at cardinals stadium last month watching kentucky and louisville's football rivalry turn into a one-sided affair,

and one topic came up. kevin mccarthy. the two bluegrass state lawmakers spoke at lengthuct the gop leader from california who has broken with mccannal on a range of issues over the last several months but who will be forced to work in tandem with him to governor if republicans take back congress next year. quote, we talked a lot about mccarthy there, comer said. he said mcconnell speaks highly of mccarthy. the cnn piece says with control of both chambers at stake in next year's midterms, the two top republican leaders have increasingly taken sharp divergent stands on different issues reflecting both the different institutions they lead but also how they view the gop's posture, heading into a hugely consequential election season. next up is suzy on a republican line in greensboro, georgia. go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i just want to make a comment

about the heatedness between the two parties. back some years ago, i heard charles krauthammer, wonderful man, speak. and he made a statement that shook me to the bone and is still true today. he said, republicans look at democrats as being wrong. of course, that has to do with policy, being wrong. however, democrats look at the republicans as being evil. and that's what i continue to hear from the democrats. they have to do away with anybody that supports trump. they have got to do something with trump, do away. got to kill those people, is my viewpoint. >> do you think that, suzy -- do you think that started with president trump and you're

talking about charles krauthammer's view, his view that democrats view republicans as evil, do you think that predates president trump? do you think the demonization of the view predates president trump? did they hate george w. bush as much? >> caller: no. >> tell me. >> caller: no, i do not believe that. it came -- and it's still running today. and even my own family who are democrats just there's nothing but hate that is seized from them when they even speak of the republicans, and they have got to have trump out there to beat. and to show us that that's how they are better than we are. it's horrible. why can't it be policy? what biden did with policy when he came in was anything trump

did, it's got to go away. and those things were good. i have had people in the democratic party say to me, they supported 85% of the policies that trump did, but they hate him, and they hate the republicans that vote for him. that's not good for the country. >> all right, suzy. appreciate your call this morning. this is about leadership in congress. a headline from the hill. clyburn to democrats itching for leadership role. if you want my seat, come and get it. house majority whip james clyburn of south carolina responded to democrats itching to replace older lawmakers in leadership roles, saying if you want my seat, come get it. asked by axios's alexi mccammond in an interview when he thinks it will be time for the democratic party to, quote, create a path for the next generation, noting that

president biden will be 82 in 2024, clyburn said the path is there for the next generation. before questioning why people have told him he needs to step aside to clear the way. quote, i never asked anybody to die for me, the 81-year-old said. i don't know why people come saying you need to step aside for me. no, if you want my seat, come get it. that's at thehill.com. greg, independent line in pennsylvania. >> caller: good morning. i would like to know, do you pick which line to go to next? >> no, generally not. we try to go the lines in order as they come on the screen. >> caller: okay. sometimes, that's hard to believe. but as to the question today. you include independents. who is the leadership in the independent party? i'm an independent. i have been one since i came

from vietnam in 1975. >> that's a fair point. >> caller: why include independents in the question today? now, do i think there ought to be a third party? yes, i'm in support of that, but rotate independents to the top of the list. the question specifically about independents. so if you're an independent, you have to pick one or the other two parties. if i had to pick one or the other two parties, i would pick leadership republicans. mitch mcconnell is the smartest politician in washington, d.c. smartest, by far. yesterday, listen to what he said about hunter's dad's administration. when was the last time a democrat leader said anything, anything positive about a

republican? why don't you ask that question? when is the last time a democrat leader praised a republican president? >> okay, greg. lamont, illinois. republican line is next. teresa. go ahead. >> caller: you know, a black mayor of washington, d.c. is torturing white people that participated in january 6th. she is totally abusing them. this is about the most horrible thing that i have ever seen. i cannot believe that this is happening in the united states of america. i think that something should definitely happen to overturn this. they have got a democratic kangaroo court trying to try

these people. they do not allow them attorneys. they keep them in jail without any representation. without any medical aid, without getting them haircuts or shaves or anything. this is so appalling to me. i do not believe that this is the united states of america. >> this is from the washington times this morning. harris announces company investments in central america. pepsi, cargill, and several other companies, writes the washington times, will make new investments in central america. vice president kamala harris announced on monday, saying it was the latest success in her efforts to try to create opportunities in those communities that might keep future would-be immigrants at home. you can read that at washingtontimes.com. on the independent line, mark in the nation's capital here in washington, d.c. go ahead. >> caller: hi, thank you so much for having me.

this is my second time calling in ever. and i'm a frequent listener, so it's always great to be back speaking. so i want to kind of respond to a republican caller who kind of talked about demonization of the republican party via democrats. so i think she kind of hit some great points. in my opinion, i think republicans in general have normative policies. you know, fiscal conservatism, kind of just by the numbers, and democrats typically have positive policies, worried about social issues. so i'm an independent because i think there's a real way to be concerned about both of those. and not demonize individuals for being concerned with social issues, maybe heavily versus normative policy issues. so i think that's a real quate way to bring the country together.

and unfortunately, as some callers have mentioned, there isn't really clear leadership in the independent party, if that's even something conceptually that's a real thing. >> what happened, mark, when those normative policy areas you talk about, so spending areas, they're often conflated with issues of social issues. and the spending directed at some of those social issues? >> caller: yeah, i think that's -- i listened yesterday, and there was a discussion about democracy and i think there were some parallels there with that question. look, i think we have programs such as welfare, which is an automatic stabilizer for the economy, right? and one can argue that that's a very democratic program. and one can also kind of think about the level of spending and

increasing that program or decreasing that program, so i think that in america, those lines are blurred. but you know, they're there. we have to have welfare. that's something that social welfare, through -- i think that's just something that's there, and that's kind of required. and we don't need to demonize people for something that's already there. >> thanks for your call this morning. it is "washington journal" for a tuesday morning. we'll spend an hour talking foreign policy coming up here on the program. and the myriad of foreign policy challenges facing the biden administration. our guest in the next segment, we'll be joined by the hudson institute's brian clark and the center for american progress's max bergman to talk about that. later, business journalist, author, and johns hopkins lecturing, kathleen day, will talk about the history of the

debt limit with that vote coming up today in congress. and how the debt limit has been weaponized by both parties over the years. book tv, every sunday on c-span2, features leading authors discussing their nonfixz

books. at 7:30, we talk with pamela paul about her latest book, 100 things we have lost to the internet. and some of her notable books of the year. plus, the latest nonfiction releases and best seller lists as well as industry news and trends. and then, at 10:00 p.m. eastern, on after words, ohio republican congressman jim jordan talks about his book, do what you said you would do, which looks at the investigations by congress conducted during his time in office. and the trump presidency. he is interviewed by former virginia republican congressman dave brat. watch book tv every sunday and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at booktv.org. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday, you'll find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books

and authors. it's television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. >> and this hour here on the program, we're going to talk about the foreign policy challenges facing the biden administration. we're joined by two guests, max bergman is a senior fellow at the center for american progress, and brian clark, senior fellow at the hudson institute. gentlemen, welcome to "washington journal." >> thanks so much. >> thank you very much. >> let me start by asking both of you, and we'll start with you, max, about your organizations and their general overall view on foreign policy and your view almost a year into the biden administration and how the biden administration foreign policy has differed from that of his predecessor.

max bergman. >> well, the center for american progress is a center left organization, advocated progressive ideas and progressive values. and i think when it comes to foreign policy, want to see the united states have a strong leadership role in the world and also stand up for its values abroad. and i think what we have seen from the biden administration thus far is an effort to do that, is an effort to kind of especially focused on rebuilding alliances, affirming support for nato, and there's been a strong effort to also stand up to china. we have seen this administration really want to implement something that the obama administration started, the pivot to asia. and really focus on standing up to china, reaffirming its commitment to its allies in asia, japan, korea, australia. and so i think what we have seen is an administration, you know, trying to get the u.s. government also back up to speed. i think there was a lot of issues with the trump

administration, and frankly, just how its approach to governing, the state department, the defense department were kind of at 6s and 7s. they weren't running up to speed. a lot of issues, especially at the state department. so to try to get the u.s. government functioning again. and i think we have seen some of that. i think there's been some issues with obviously with the withdrawal of afghanistan, but i think part of that was simply to pivot back to what the united states really needs to prioritize and focus on, which for the biden administration is china and really sort of rebuilding ties to allies and alliances and not getting bogged down in conflicts such as afghanistan. >> brian clark, let you weigh in here. same thing, your organization, the hudson institute, and your take on the biden administration foreign policy so far in his term. >> the hudson institute is more of a center right organization but there's a diversity of opinions in the institute, as you would expect. we stand for a lot of the same

things that c.a.p. does, so strong u.s. foreign policy, standing by our allies, standing by american values and interests. i think we see a lot of similar trends in that the new administration has been very competent in trying to restore a lot of the mechanics of foreign policy and of national security that it somewhat had come undone under the trump administration. so more of a coherent approach under the biden administration. and pursuing a set of objectives that they have not yet defined because the national security and defense strategies aren't out yet, but they have let on in terms of their interim guidance. you have seen a move toward a more traditional, more coherent view of national policy. one effort that needs to be done is focusing on national security, particularly the military. people complain about the militarization of foreign policy, and that's correct. we have put too much emphasis on the military, but with the biden administration, we have seen a

deemphasizing of the military dimension of the military tool, to the point where i think we're losing some of its effectiveness so that the pivot to asia that max mentioned hasn't really been enabled by any major force posture changed. we saw the effort in afghanistan, which it was certainly the right thing to do to reduce our presence there, to pull out, but the way it was done was obviously not the best, and now we're seeing with the challenges from china and russia an unclear effort to try to use the military tool to try to deter both of those aggressors. definitely an improvement in terms of coherent approach and bringing diplomacy more into the fold, but maybe emphasizing the military dimension more to get a more effective approach. >> we have a plate full of issues to address. we'll let the callers weigh in in a bit. republicans 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000.

and independents, 202-748-8002. >> the ongoing problems with russia with troops amassing on the border, and max, you can follow on to this, the president meeting virtually with president putin last week, what's your view on the immediacy of that challenge? >> it's certainly the most urgent challenge the u.s. faces. arguably the china challenge is one that's mid to far term challenge of the next several years. but what the president did i thought was a pretty effective approach to say sanctions are on the table. there's going to be significant economic costs associated with this. since we used a lot of those tools already, it was important the g-7 come onboard and show there's a multilateral dimension, a lot of countries getting on board of sanctions that have previously not been sanctioning russia. imposing those economic costs is important, but the other thing is the military aid that has to be provided to the ukraine or ukraine has not been provided so

there's a couple hundred million dollars of lethal defensive systems that are being delayed by the administration in terms of getting to ukraine, which i think is something that needs to happen. >> max, your take on the situation in ukraine. >> well, i think it's incredibly serious and dangerous. and i think when you see russia amassing more than 100,000 forces, a raid along ukraine's border, it's an invasion, potential invasion for the same size of which we invaded iraq in 2003. and the rhetoric and writings of vladimir putin and from the kremlin over the last year, i think, indicate this is a very real possibility. and it's not one that the administration really wanted. the administration didn't want to sort of get in a conference tashz with russia. it made very clear it wanted a stable and predictable relationship with the kremlin and wanted to focus on asia. and i think russia shows it has a vote in that. and what we see is i think an

incredibly significant crisis. i think biden's call with putin was extremely important because, you know, the united states did a lot of sanctions with its european allies after russia invaded ukraine in 2014. but it also left a lot on the table. it didn't sort of going forth with many options that would be extremely devastating to the russian economy. and i think to avoid potential miscalculation from the kremlin, it was important for biden to say, you know, we're going to go very far, and it will be economically devastating to your economy if you do this. and i think also, i agree, rallying allies, because u.s. sanctions only go so far. it's really important to do this with our european allies. when it comes to security assistance, i think the united states has provided ukraine with more than $4 billion in security assistance since 2014. ukraine is one of the largest recipients in the world, and this was an account that i

helped oversee when i was in government in the obama administration. sometimes it's not straightforward to get high-end military equipment to allies rapidly. there's just logistical constraints that come into play. there's technology issues. so i think ukraine's military is much stronger than what it was, but i don't think there's sort of a kind of unicorn security assistance solution that ukraine is going to miraculously be able to do to russia. i think it's going to require a strong commitment from the united states and europe and nato to sort of say that there will be extreme consequences on russia, especially in the economic sphere. and also, that it will have implications for nato -- for u.s. force posture in europe, which is something that always sort of riles the kremlin. this is a really dangerous situation. >> as max bergman mentioned, part of his experience living six years in the obama administration in the state department, including speechwriter for former secretary of state john kerry,

brian clark served on the staff of the special assistant to the chief of naval operations as part of his background. brian, let me ask you, you touched on it briefly in terms of the withdrawal from afghanistan. do you think the image of that helped or hurt the u.s. image overseas? >> well, i think the withdrawal did affect the u.s. image overseas because it didn't show competence. one can argue about whether it was a good idea to pull out or not. i think clearly, there's been a good case to be made for why we should have withdrawn. but the way in which we did it didn't show a very competent administration, a very competent military, when at the same time we need to be instilling in our allies a sense of credibility in terms of our assurances as well as the ability to deter adversaries. it didn't help when we did that. >> you talked about this shift

to asia. some other issues have somewhat delayed that. what does it look like long term for the biden administration? what are they aiming to do? >> well, they're looking to try to come up with what they call integrated deterrence. an approach that aligns diplomatic, economic, military efforts as well as some information operations efforts around the idea of convincing china that their ability to invade or to act aggressively toward their neighbors is going to be responded with costs. there's going to be both the cost in terms of the cost of the operation as well as economic and diplomatic costs afterwards, and also to create uncertainty on the part of the chinese as to whether they'll be able to be successful on those terms of aggression on terms the chinese would find acceptable. it's an integrated approach. it's trying to be a whole of government effort, which is something the u.s. government has pursued in the past. it's not gone very well usually because it's difficult to align and coordinate the various tools of national security across

diplomatic and economic military realms. but that's the approach they're looking to take. it's not going to be necessarily a massive increase in force posture in the pacific, which is maybe what the implication of the original pivot to the asia pacific was. it's instead going to be this effort to try to create a multilateral problem for china that creates costs if they act aggressively toward their neighbors. >> max, you had a piece at center for american progress.org after the vinchual summit, the democracy summit the white house held. the headline was the summit for democracy is a good start, but what comes next? what would you like to see come next from this administration? >> well, i think what i would like to see come next is another summit. i think the larger question, a lot of questions were raised about what's the point of the summit. to me, i think the larger question is why hasn't the united states been hosting these summits in the past? it makes, i think, eminent sense for the united states to want to convene democracies from all

around the world together. rich democracies and poor democracies, developing democracies. and i think part of what is needed, and i think to sort of recognize, is that democracy around the world faces a real challenge in that democracy should be talking with each other. i think the summit was a really good start. i think the next summit should perhaps not be so much focused on just talking about democracy and human rights, but also just talking about the global issues of the day. covid-19, economic recovery. because i think part of what is needed is that democracies around the world need to feel included, need to feel they're valued by the united states, when we talk about something like security assistance. most of the security assistance doesn't go to democratic states. it goes to states that are failing or autocratic or in trouble. i think trying to sort of put our money where our mouth is and start providing more resources

in our foreign aid to democratic states and allowing nascent democracies to have a seat at the table to discuss some of the big global issues with not just the united states but other big developed, rich countries. i think that could have tremendous value, create incentives for countries to stay on the democratic path, and hopefully over time, becomes a useful forum where the united states and other democracies can get together to talk about issues such as the threat china poses or russia's aggression. i think this is a process, and this was a good first step from the administration. >> we had a call on this yesterday. there were critics at that summit or because of the summit saying, hey, some of the nations participating in that summit shouldn't have been there. they really aren't democracies. did you hear that? >> oh, yeah, and i think one of the major challenges, one of the major reasons why the united states hasn't held similar summits is because deciding the guest list is very difficult. it's just sort of like a wedding, where, you know, you don't know which relatives you

don't want invite or shouldn't have to invite. there are some countries that probably shouldn't have been invited, but it makes sense to have a big tenlt approach initially, and then once you sort of establish that this is actually a useful forum, a forum that countries want to be part of, you can start making it a bit more exclusive. what i would like to see, i think, going forward in the next year are questions over tightening of the guest list, of serbia doesn't hold a free and fair election, they shouldn't be invited. i think that's where i sort of see this going. so i think that criticism is totally warranted. it's actually useful. i think that's part of the whole process, is to sort of put scrutiny on countries about their democratic processes, and then i think the guest list should start to be tightened as we move forward. >> we have calls waiting. we'll get to them in a minute. brian clark is with the hudson institute, senior fellow there, and max bergman with the center for american progress. one quick issue before we get to

calls, gentlemen, you can both touch on it. the meeting yesterday between the israeli prime minister, the first ever official meeting between the israeli prime minister and the prince of the united arab emirates. a meeting that was really because of the relationship between, because of the abraham accords that was part of the trump administration foreign policy with israel. how does the biden administration, if you want to touch on this, how does their policy change or has it differed any from what was affected under the trump administration? brian, if you want to start there. >> the biden administration has largely kind of followed the lead the trump administration established. abraham accords were one of the success stories of the trump administration in bringing israel into the fold of its neighbors which are arab countries. it's a very important meeting, obviously. we're seeing much more cooperation between israel and its arab neighbors militarily, diplomatically. and they're presenting a more united front against iran, which

they perceive as being the potential threat to all of their stability and security in the region. so i think this is really important. it will remain to be seen how far this goes in terms of actually their alignment. the trump -- the biden administration has not been necessarily as aggressive and pushing these connections as maybe the trump administration had been. they have kind of left it to the local countries to work it out as opposed to acting as the interlockter, but they're allowing it to continue. >> max, your thoughts? >> so y think the abraham accords that were overseen by the trump administration was one of the major foreign policy successes of the trump administration. it was sort of an open secret for a long time that the israelis and emiratis, the uae, had sort of secret back channels, intelligence communities were engaging, but they refused to do so publicly. the uae in particular sort of

very reticent to any sort of official recognition of israel. i think this is a major step to normalization of reality, of that israel is a country that exists in the middle east and it's time for the middle eastern countries to acknowledge it. i do think that part of establishing of good relations is one of the major failures of the trump administration, the ripping up of the iran deal, the iran nuclear agreement, which the biden administration has sort of tried to salvage. i think it increasingly looks like it's not going to be successful in salvaging the iran deal. and i think the security of the middle east, now without a verifiable nuclear agreement that prevents iran from getting a nuclear weapon, is now seriously in doubt. and i think that's leading to one side benefit is a closer relationship between the uae and israel, but i think overall, security for the middle east

with iran potentially heading towards a nuclear weapon is not a good situation. and that tearing up a verifiable nuclear agreement was not a smart play by the trump administration. >> let's get to your calls on the biden administration's foreign policy. we'll go first to nelson in pembroke pines, florida. republican line. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. can you hear me okay? >> yes, we can. >> caller: i just want to point out, i'm a combat wounded vietnam veteran. i'm 72 years old. and i have been voting regularly since -- since the very early '70s. i have watched the united states of america abandon its friends for a long time, going back to 1961 at the bay of pigs in cuba. we have abandoned cuba. we abandoned nicaragua, we abandoned iran to the ayatollah

khomeini. we have abandoned other friends w but the most we abandoned vietnam, of course, with the most egregious abandonment i have observed so far is what has happened to afghanistan recently. throwing a whole half of a population, mainly the women of afghanistan, back to what is essentially sexual slavery and not even allowing them to do something as simple as being able to go to school and get an education. i am astounded that there are people in the world that still want to trust the united states of america. as much as i love my country and as patriotic as i really am, based on this recent history. and so i listen to you gentlemen and i think to myself, why would

anybody out there want to put their trust in us? we are about ready -- we're getting ready now to probably abandon the ukraine, and the question of taiwan is up in the air. and with all due respect to the president of the united states, i believe that he is a sick man with dementia who really doesn't have the confidence to handle all of this. >> nelson, thanks for your call. thanks for your service. gentlemen, the issue of trust in the united states. >> well, i'll weigh in first, bill. we talked about afghanistan earlier. i think -- i would argue that we should have kept bagram air base and should have kept some forces there to help assist with the counterterrorism mission and maybe facilitate the retention of some of the rights that women had gained during the time that

the united states had been occupying afghanistan. i think the fact we left so abruptly and in such a chaotic manner hurt our credibility as well as hurting the potential for the future lives of those women there. i think on ukraine, i would argue the u.s. has been very supportive. max mentioned we sent a lot of military aid there. there's more in train, and i think we will stand up for ukraine. i think the question is are wiig go to send military troops? probably not, but there are advisers there, u.s. troops already in ukraine helping to bring the new equipment that we sent to them up to speed and train them on how to use it. it's not like the u.s. is not involved in that country. and i think similarly, in taiwan and the western pacific, we have troops there that are actively involved in helping those countries defend themselves or prepare to defend themselves. >> max. >> on afghanistan, look, i think the caller hits on something that is very true, that it was a completely gut-wrenching

experience watching what was happening. the collapse of the afghan government and the taliban successfully taking over the country so rapidly. i do think there's a larger question of how long, whether the present situation in afghanistan or the situation that the biden administration came into was sustainable. the u.s. force levels had been declining. the trump administration had negotiated a deal with the taliban that basically the u.s. would withdraw, and the force levels were low, and i think the biden administration was looking at a situation where the status quo wasn't sustainable. it was a decision of either to surge more u.s. forces into afghanistan, potentially going up above 10,000 troops again, or completely withdrawing. if you're going to stay, you had to go bigger. if you were going to get out, you had to get out, because the

taliban had gained so much momentum, not just over the trump administration, but over the last decade. i think the biden administration made a reasonable decision, but then i think the execution was poor. the one thing i would say is i think there were two facets to what happened in afghanistan. one was the decision to withdraw, which then created a vacuum. then i do think we saw the best of america over the weekend, where everything was collapsing, where the u.s. sent forces back in, where u.s. troops protected an airport, where u.s. forces lost their lives in protecting an airport, and more than 100,000 people got out. i think the u.s. used whatever diplomatic back channels it had to the taliban to tell them to stay away, to hold off, and i think successfully completed a humanitarian mission. now, when it comes to u.s. allies and u.s. credibility, i think the one thing i would say is i think no doubt, there situation in vietnam, when the u.s. pulls out from a crisis, it's never a good situation. however, the extension of nato

further east, when you look at the baltic states, countries that would no doubt fear potential russian invasion do not fear that because of the united states, because of our solemn bond to them to come to their aid, because of the article v commitment. >> let's hear from alexander in brooklyn, democrats line. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. interesting topic. i guess my question would be, you know, the united states can't even really handle what's happening here as far as the erosion of democracy. and you know, there's a real fear about russia creating chaos further in eastern europe by creating instability, taking advantage of migration trends. so what do you really see the outlook in the world where it's

not really about how do you defend democracy abroad but really about countries being able to fight for their own democracies within. you have in france a very populist trump like figure that might actually win the election there. and so you know, all of these countries with massive arm power like the united states, and democracy is being eroded from within. where do you see this 20, 30 years from now where climate change will really affect millions of people from northern africa, from the middle east, wanting to go further to the west and populist figures rising and being able to have this nationalist tendencies that will erode democracy even further? >> brian clark, you want to jump in there? >> yeah, so it kind of shows that, you know, for one, military solutions are not always going to be able to fix

these problems. especially when they're domestic. so what we have been looking at is the current administration is talking about this more integrated approach to defense. so defending themselves through information actions, so combatting misinformation at home and helping our allies do it abroad. realigning defense military systems to be able to operate at different levels of escalation so we're not just able to fight the big war that may never come but we can also fight in the gray zone that is happening every day. using diplomacy, the summit of democracy was a great opportunity to share best practices and figure out how adversaries like russia and china are employing information systems and populist rhetoric to be able to undermine their neighbors and undermine the democracies of opponents to them. so we have to broaden our approach instead of thinking about only fighting world war iii, we have to be able to fight

on a lot of fronts that are much below that in terms of escalation. including thinking of doing this at home as well as abroad. >> max. >> i think the caller brings up a great point. it's a real challenge that you can't just stand up for democracy abroad if your democracy is eroding at home. one of the things that russia and other autocratic states have seen, that fear democracy, that fear popular uprising is they want to weaken the image of democracy abroad. hence, russia's sort of political ware warfare tools, realizing it's quite easy, especially in the age of social media, with money and politics, to insert money, to pollute or corrupt our kind of political discourse, can undermine our political unity, our democracies. but i think what we have to sort of realize is democracy is the best system. right now in russia, there's no real sense of who's going to

follow vladimir putin. what the line of succession will be. the reason we created democracy is we want to have people have a say, have a judgment on leaders, and also, it makes sense to change leadership, to have political transitions that are peaceful and are populary chosen. i think we have to have faith in our political system, and we had a rough decade. a decade after a financial crisis, and i think the hope is that we are kind of at a low point for democracy, but that hopefully the global economy will begin to recover, the pandemic will subside, democracies will start showing that they can deliver the goods economically, and democracies can start working together to focus on their internal problems and strengthen themselves internally. i wouldn't lose faith in the ability of the united states to have a strong foreign policy, and i think it's important that the united states focus on improving itself internally, in its own domestic issues as well.

>> a caller touched on taiwan moments ago. if you would give, both of you, kind of a snapshot of where you think, one, how vulnerable taiwan is and what signals is the biden administration sending taiwan? >> so, maybe i'll start. >> sure. >> i think on taiwan, the u.s. has always had a vague policy, intentionally ambiguous policy of our commitment to taiwan, where we don't have a military alliance with taiwan to come to their aid. there's no sort of treaty agreement, and it's been left unclear. so basically, china, which wants to reincorporate taiwan, is meant to be left guessing over what u.s. intensions are. i think the biden administration has actually done a very good job at making that policy -- keeping that policy intact with the president biden at times seeming to sort of commit to taiwan security and then white house aides rolling it back. there's nothing more ambiguous

than that for beijing. what the united states has done is, i think, diplomatically really supported taiwan. there's been, i think, a lot of military attention on providing arms to taiwan through taiwan arms sales and other assistance. i think what the administration hopes to do is make taiwan essentially what is being called a national security community, a porcupine. it's too difficult for china to fully take over taiwan militarily. there's ways for taiwan to go to really make itself strong enough to deter china. i guess the last point is i think the chinese are actually looking at what's going to happen in ukraine closely. if russia can take over and invade parts of ukraine or if not the entire country or most of the country or half the country, and sort of seem to be getting away with it, with only sort of a slap on the wrist,

that makes a potential invasion of taiwan much more likely. >> and brian clark. >> yeah, so taiwan is a difficult challenge, if the chinese want to invade it. max mentioned an attempt to make it more like a porcupine. that hasn't been very successful. the taiwanese are not interested in making their country into a fortress. so they have been reticent to turn their country into this fortress formosa, if you will. but it is a challenge because it's a 90-mile ocean, a relatively large operation. china has thus far been deterred because of the complexity and difficulty of invading taiwan. the u.s. has been building capabilities to try to prevent that invasion from being successful. the bigger challenge is all the other ways china could get taiwan brought to heel. so blockades, cyberattacks,

economic warfare, political warfare, those are the tools china has been using to various degrees to convince the taiwanese government to if not reunify with china, at least be less open about its desire for independence. so you saw in hong wong, for example, how china was able to beat down the democracy protests there, bring hong kong under the, you know, aegis of china's laws. they might attempt a similar effort in taiwan. part of this is also empowering taiwan in all these other ways and having a u.s. military and allied military, japan has also voiced support for taiwan, that's able to deal with the other challenges like blockades, like aerial bombardments, like tagging small slices of taiwan. that's part of the u.s. has, trying to realign its military capabilities to deal with all these other opportunities china has. and i think as max said, what we see in ukraine is going to be

maybe a signal for china, what their opportunities might be in taiwan for some of the smaller scale operations that can over time erode taiwan's sovereignty. >> back to calls for brian and max. this is dave on the independent line in michigan. >> caller: yes. good morning to you, both brian and max. we haven't swayed much to what your theme is here, but is this -- the way i see it, is this some sort of resource power grab that's hinging on all this military stuff? does it circle back with our reindustrializing america with the rest of the world? and i guess i can just point out that that's where i'm going with that. is that kind of a circling back, all sitting down at the table trying to figure out who's going to get what and the most and where. and let's just speak on that a little bit. thank you very much. >> thanks, dave. max, you want to jump in on

that? >> sure. maybe i'll start. i think when it comes to -- maybe i'll start with i think there's two different aspects to this. one, you know, the u.s. defense budget that we just saw is extremely large, especiallyis, large especially for a peace-time defense budget in which we just withdrew from afghanistan and i think part of that is for, you know, to maintain our sort of military industrial lead, need to invest in the next generation of technology and equipment. i do think when we're spending more than $7 trillion the next ten years on defense, yet struggle to spend roughly 1 to $2 trillion on social issues that, you know, there's a need to look at our priorities there. and sometimes we freak out about social spending but don't do the same on defense spending, it demonstrates, sometimes i think our priorities are out of whack. i think we should be doing both,

but when it comes to the broader question of competition for resources, i think this is, you know, going to be a potential real issue over the next few years. and as we sort of transition, hopefully, away from a fossil fuel-based economy to one focused on the clean energy transization i think that will make certain material and see raw earth metals and other resources will become increasingly valuable and i think this is where there needs to be some cooperation with europe, with china, where we don't want to get in a situation where the u.s. is losing access to certain materials and resources because we're in sort of a competitive environment and that then leads to something that is bad for the overall climate change effort. so, you know, i think that's where competition and cooperation need to sort of go hand-in-hand. >> bryan clark? >> yeah, so i think there's a good question as to whether the

defense industrial base or the industrial base more broadly in the united states is holding back to new technologies because they want to keep building the things they build now. as max said, the defense budget this year that it's biden administration is trying to dives it to invest, which is stop buying what they're currently buying in order to make investments for the future. to cap at the level there is, you do need to make those kind of trade-offs and i think they're reticent to make that jump and congress is as well, adding defense budget as they did this week, and so that's part of it. also, as max brought up, i think as the defense budget to diversify the supply chain for key components like

semiconducters, trying to bring more of that production and application over to the united states, trying to get more rare earth mineral processing done in the united states. over time, which some of these products are made in a small number of countries that determined that would be nir national industry and now our supply chains are somewhat fragile because they're dependent upon a single country and shipping can clog at ports so it means we need to start investing in these industries at home and a need to transition to different military operations means we start making changes on what we invest in on the military side and both are disruptive to industry so it's important to rally the commercial interests around these changes as opposed to having them be adversaries to it. >> that bill authorize said

$740 billion in defense spending, 27.8 billion for national security programs within the energy department. max clark and bergman talking defense budget and foreign policies. >> caller: hi there, thank you both for being on this morning and talking about these issues. my question comes almost piggy back to the other questions that have been asked earlier. first, on china raw, then, on collaboration, more broadly with our allies in both asia and in europe. going to max bergman, i read a couple of your articles in politico about the need, the share of the burden kind of

needed to hopefully kind of alleviate some of the financial burdens of supporting the european mission. amongst nato allies and partners, my question is, as we talk about china and as we talked about russia, kind of independently, what are the issues that might arise coming from potentially these two kind of flash points occurring, or these, you know, these two kind of difficult areas to the u.s., both experiencing challenges simultaneously. is there a worry that in china might exploit whatever russia does for their own interests in taiwan? is there worry that russia might do the same? vice versa situations? and what is the worry about collaboration between russia and china going forward in the

future? i know there was a joint control in japan not too long ago or at least kind of north of japan. is that a major concern going forward? and how does the u.s. go about addressing both of those issues simultaneously? does the u.s. have the capacity to address both of those issues simultaneously? >> thanks sam and max, before you respond, if you saw china's president xi and putin are set to meet tomorrow. go on, respond. >> thanks, i think when it comes to the challenge of china and russia, this is something i think foreign policy experts have been monitoring and here in the united states, quite nervous about, that beijing and moscow having increasingly close relationship and there's one school of thought that says, you know, by talking about democracy, by talking about values, we're sort of pushing them closer together and we

don't want to talk about a competition between democracy and autocracy because that pushing them closer together and should work to wedge them and i think that's good in theory but impossible in practice. and i think the reality is that china is a growing pure competitor, becoming more powerful and russia sees the united states as its main adversary, as its main enemy as it has, at least under vladimir putin as it has during the soviet union days so i think china and russia sees the united states and its allies are a problem for them and are going to have increasingly close ties. i think one of the mistakes of the trump administration was not realizing that europe can be a critical partner. in one of the arguments i've been trying to make is that the european union, the rise of the european union over the last

three decades and the eu had a lot of difficulties over the last ten years but really emerged as what will be i think a potentially pivotal player in the world. european union economically with 400 million people has the same size as the united states and same size as china and what was happening is the chinese were increasingly looking to do business in europe, to divide europe and same is true with russia and i think recently, the biden administration really pushed to establish close ties with the european union, to talk with the eu about china, to try to work together to address issues like technology, like trade, like climate change, and that the u.s. and eu, if we work together, can begin to sort of write the rules of all the economic road. now that may push russia and china closer together, but on the other hand, i think it will make united states and democracy stronger so i think that needs to be a major push of our foreign policy is look at the

european union and how we can strengthen our relationship and our ties because the eu looks -- the eu has competencies in europe for all trade and economic issues which are going to be critical to the competition with china and to the climate change challenge. >> bryan clarkson, thoughts on that? >> yeah, i agree with max getting europe to be more united is important, china and russia have intended to divide and to some degree, successful, for example the nordstream pipe line is an area where russia was able to pick off some european allies and leave other ones with the united states so i think there is going to be continued efforts necessary to bring europe together and keep it together in the face of efforts by china and russia to offer incentives to some and not others. another thing to think about with return to simultinaeity that may also be from an

information standpoint, an effort to portray it to the rest of the world though maybe not in practice because of the timing of the needs, for example, china not interested in invading taiwan with the coming olympics coming up, xi doesn't want the potential to reduce his chance to remain in power going forward. over in russia though, is a vladimir putin has domestic needs that need to be addressed and pursue aggression in ukraine so they can bring the country together in face of troubled economy so maybe not always auchgzs to work together simultaneously but the effort is to portray that to the rest of the world to keep the u.s. and its allies off guard. >> olympics headline in washington times this morning, few join biden for boy caught of beijing olympics, china shows strengthening ties around the world. was this the best of the worst possible options left

diplomatically for the administration, clark? >> yes, well it ended up showing the u.s. to be sort of weak in the end because it didn't really impact the chinese at all but made the u.s. seem like they tried something and failed. either i think you need to boy cott them entirely or stay and participated, i think they probably should have boycotted entirely, and that was the only choice available to them. >> clint in south carolina, republican line. >> caller: yeah, i've been listening to this. you know, i'm 70 years old and i can't remember a time in my lifetime when a democrat has had a successful foreign policy. i can't remember one of them. and that goes back to truman so this thing with, i don't know,

what the talking points of the day are but, you know, we're in a mess because we have a president that obviously has a bad case of alzheimer's. this guy can't remember, you know, i doubt he even knows who tied his shoes. i don't know what we're going to do. i think you guys got to quit talking like globalists. i am not a globalist. >> max bergman i'll let you serve, you served in the obama administration there. if you want to weigh in the on the claim that there have not been successful democratic foreign policies. >> yeah, i don't agree with the caller. judging foreign policy is difficult, ultimately managing situations beyond your control, when the arid spring opened in

2011 and suddenly the entire middlous east was in flames, it's responding to events the united states is reacting to and not necessarily shaping. i think the broader way you assess a president is whether they make goodings does is, whether the policies implemented effectively and where the united states is able to, you know, sort of leaves office with its head held high, i think that was true in the obama administration, i think after russia invaded ukraine or the united states stood up to russia, i think there was an effort to pivot to asia which i think was the right thing during the obama administration and also to focus on climate change and on iran deal to sort of settle a potential conflict in the middle east. so i think there was a lot of successes. there's always going to be failures in the administration and i think in some ways, we put too much honus on a president to make everything perfect and sometimes, i think, we're too inclined to say everything is on fire and everything is terrible. i think that's the nature of our political discourse is there

always needs to be criticism of the other side and i think there was some beneficial things that happened during the trump administration, i think really good things happening in the biden administration and some other thing weren't quite handled as effectively. so i would disagree. i think, also, just point to the clinton administration, i think, where they had a fairly effective handling of foreign policy, expansion of nato i think was the right policy and the world prospered so i think you can look back at democratic presidents and say good things happened and republican presidents and say good things happened. i think sometimes we put our partisan lens on foreign policy when that's not necessarily the right lens to put on it. >> next up, new york city, nolan on the democrats line, go ahead. >> caller: hi. i was listening to you guys respond to other callers and i do believe that american foreign

policy is reactive, but i'm wondering if, when you have a crisis like what a potential crisis with what putin is doing in the ukraine, why not look at it as an opportunity? i think that sometimes, the american foreign policy establishment just thinks of this as a head ache but there are a lot of other countries that have a bone to pick with russia, i would say poland, georgia and japan and if putin invades ukraine, there are a lot of, i think the american establishment should respond to it militarily and as well as kick back or use the opportunity to involve some other issues

that we have and other countries have with russia. so i was wondering what, i understand this may push china and russia together and we really have no obligation to defend ukraine at all. they're not nato ally, but i'm wondering what the thought of ideas like that. using it as an opportunity, putin, you know, as a chess player, pull him under the table with a club and hit him. >> bryan clark if you'd like to weight in. >> yes that's an interesting idea, i'd say not respond militarily to attempted invasion of ukraine but certainly flow the capabilities, the systems already to ukraine, the isr and targeting, a lot the u.s. could do militarily not involving u.s.

troops on the ground fighting russians. also ukraine has had a pretty capable military on its own. so i think in terms of ukraine itself there's an opportunity to increase the potential cost for russia, i think putin's experience in the past shown that if it looks like it will be too hard to digest or take over, he won't pursue it. crimea was easy, georgia relatively easy, but i think if you present the challenge of it, he will back off. more easily, i think there's a potential for ukraine to rally europe and asia allies around that fact and as we were saying earlier, unifying europe over the goal is important, as it should be, and might help with the you knewification around the fact russia has demonstrated its aggression. >> yeah, i agree with everything that was just said. i think this will be a real opportunity to push the sort of anticorruption, anticleptocracy

agenda that there are russian oligarchs who have pointed their money all across the western world, in new york, miami, london, south of france, who have their assets, luxury real estate and are sort of beneficiaries of the kremlin and have a lot of influence and corrupt our politics across europe and the united states so i think there is a real opportunity where it may have been politically difficult to move against a lot of this wealth in the absence of a conflict, if russia invades, i think that's all on the table and would be beneficial, both to the united states and to europe and to democracy, that these sort of ill, this corrupt money gets seized and that we put a real squeeze on the kremlin and cleptocrats everywhere, and this could be a real opportunity to talk about nato membership with countries like finland and sweden who have become stronger

military allies with the united states but aren't in nato so when you have a crisis it becomes inflection point and part of what is important then for administration to do is sees opportunities that emerge from a crisis, whether it's to forge new diplomatic partnerships, to strengthen our military presence or to take steps in the economic and financial worlds and i think crisis such as the one in russia would definitely present a number of opportunities to make our alliance with europe stronger and potentially to make our economies and democracies stronger as well. >> larry in new york on the republican line. >> caller: yeah, you know, i think as a country, we have a big problem in that, you know, the world sees a u.s. president who, you know, every time he speaks he reads from a teleprompter, pretty obvious. you know, it's like having a

poodle guard the house when we had a pitbull guarding the house. then, you know, his cabinet and the people around him like milley and austin, these guys are week and i think putin and xi are basically going to test biden's mettle and i'm not looking to a good outcome of that. >> thanks, if you want to weigh in on the leadership, secretary blinken and austin particularly at the defense department. biden administration leadership -- >> you can watch the rest of this at c-span.org. now we go to capitol hill on global covid-19 vaccination efforts. >> over