beenr 40 years c-span has providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public-policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in 1979. c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. your unfiltered view of government. >> "washington journal" is next. coming up, cnn national security analyst and new america vice president peter bergen discusses his new book, "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos." an later, cns news editor in chief, terry jeffly, -- jeffrey, will talk about the rising federal deficit and efforts to

educe the national debt. as always, we'll take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. washington journal" is next. host: good morning. it is 7:00 eastern time here in washington. the start of a holiday week. congress returning in two weeks. president trump spending christmas with his family in florida. it is monday, december 23. we begin our first hour with foreign policy. the leaders of china, south korea and japan meeting today in beijing it. comes as the pentagon and u.s. officials are on, quote, high alert, after new threats over the weekend by north korea. in the past president trump has said that he and president kim jong un fell in love. but since that comment back in february, talks have broken down. we want to get your reaction to

these developments in north korea, what it means for the u.s. and for the region. 202-748-8001, that's our line for republicans. 202-748-8922 for democrats. 202-748-8002 if ou're democrats. or on twit or facebook. good monday morning. a lot talk to about. want to begin with the developments in beijing as the leaders there discussing the situation with north korea. this is from the associated press and a photograph of the leaders of south korea, japan and china. needing -- meeting in that country. the leaders of these three countries holding a trilateral summit in china amid feuds over trade, military ma nuferinge and historical animosities. economic cooperation and the north korean nuclear threat are the main issues binding the northeast asian, writes the

associated press. no major breakthroughs are expected at the meetings, the opportunity for face to face discussions between the sometimes mutual an tag nist is alone considered to be significant -- antagonist is alone considered to be significant. this headline from "the ashington post." host: that detail this morning from inside "the washington post." and the president earlier this month in london talking about north korea and kim jong un with these remarks. president trump: i have confidence in him. i like him. he likes me. we have a good relationship. we'll see.

he likes sending rockets up, doesn't he? that's why i call him rocket man. reporter: was that helpful, do you think? president trump: we have a very good relationship. we'll see what happens. it may work out, it may not. in the meantime, been a long time. president obama said it's the number one problem. we'd be in a war right now if it weren't for me. if i weren't president, you'd be in a war right now in asia and who knows where that leads. that brings in a lot of other countries. reporter: you've met with him three times and he continues to build his missiles. president trump: you don't know that. i've met with him and in the meantime we have peace. i have a very good personal relationship he has with me. possibly the only one he has that relationship with in the world. they call it the hermit kingdom.

i know a lot about his hermit kingdom. but i have a very good relationship. if would you listen to president obama, we'd be in a world war iii right now. so we'll see what happens. host: that from the president at he nato meeting in london. over the weekend u.s. officials on high alert. we want to get to your phone calls. our lines are open at 202-748-8001 for republicans and 202-748-8000. here are the detail from fox news.

host: and this from park storm saying kim and trump fell in love. calling trump a joke. let's get to your phone lines. jane, you're first up from aberdeen, south dakota. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for having me. host: sure. caller: i think north korea is a very tight situation. you can't go one way or the other, it's a communist country. i do believe that trump's doing a very good job in trying to negotiate and keep us from war.

and i think a big part of north korea being a communist country a lot ofe of china and the countries down there are trying to keep their own seas and the navigation in international waters. host: if there's some sort of a test by north korea, a missile launcher test, how do you think the u.s. should respond? what would be your course of action? caller: i wouldn't do anything. i actually wouldn't do anything as far as striking the country. i would not do that. i would not cause a war. i think trump's doing the right thing with sanctions. i do believe he's on the right path with that.

because that does damage to their country. you know, north korea doesn't care about their own country. but there is some benefits of it to put sanctions on it. host: thanks for the call from aberdeen, south dakota. this headline from the "new york times." there's been another fatality. a u.s. soldier killed in afghanistan. the details available at nytimes.com. that american service member was killed in combat earlier today. without providing any details, the military saiding -- saying the taliban claimed they were responsible. with the roadside bombing in the northern province that killed the soldier, the latest fatality bringing the number of u.s. deaths in afghanistan this year to 20. there have been three noncombat deaths this past year, with more than 2,400 americans who have died in the nearly 18-year-old conflict. details this morning at nytimes.com. back to your calls on north korea with u.s. officials on, quote, high alert. how should the u.s. respond,

what is the best course of action, join in on the conversation. rick in boston, good morning. caller: i just called to say about this trump and this north korea talking about i'm in love with this guy. that's why we don't need somebody stupid in the white house. and this putin thing going back and forth with putin. telling him that he didn't send and trumple over here -- [indiscernible] -- we have to get this fool out of the white house. as far as i'm concerned, i believe if we don't get this fool out, we're going to see a 1963 all over again. you know what happened in 1963. because this fool can't stand that, we can't get this fool no second time. host: thanks for the call. dan out west in colfax, california. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, dan. with president

trump is a sham. everybody needs to leave him alone, do his job, or we're going to end up in world war iii. host: thank you for the call. also, a story that broke late yesterday with jonathan swan of axius.com, an interview with john bolton, former national security advisor to president trump. in the interview he's going after the president for bluffing on north korean nukes. here are some of the details courtesy of axius.com. quote, in his sharpest criticism yet of his old workplace, john bolton suggesting the trump administration is bluffing about stopping north korea's nuclear ambitions and soon might need to admit publicly that its policy failed badly. driving the news, bolton toad --

host: again, that from john bolton and the interview is available online at axios.com. jim is joining from us little valley, new york. good morning. caller: how are you this morning, sir? host: fine, how are you? caller: i'm frustrated. real frustrated with the democrats. but that's another story. this thing with korea, if i was president trump, i'd wait until they're all at home for their holiday and drop a bunker buster on the leadership of that country. that's all it would take and that would stop all this crap. with north korea and their nukes. thank you. host: thank you for the call. aaron is next in washington. washington state. good morning, aaron.

caller: good morning. i don't agree with dropping a bunker buster on them. but i think we need to take significant action. my problem is our congress is doing their best to undermine the president's ability to cut a deal with foreign countries. all of the sham impeachment tuff that they've done makes him look weak and people like kim will take that to heart. says oh, he's weak, he has to get a deal, he's going to have to cave in and give us what we want. and i think we need to hold the line, turn the screws up on him if we have to, and make him come across with what we basically agreed to before. host: when you say turn the screws, specifically what do you ean?

caller: oil, tariffs, other trade. the whole nine yards. whatever we need to do, whatever we can do that will cause them trouble, including the banking system. there's a lot of high ranking officials that have money in other places. host: thank you for the call. greg, you are next. pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i've called before, i'm calling about the -- i'll stay on topic. i think what we should do is let the president do his job. no one negotiates like him. this guy's been negotiating with people all over the world for 40-plus years. and yet the establishment, including c-span, including most

of your hosts, i've criticized you when i called the comment line, it's amazing how many times you want to cite to the "the washington post," "the new york times", yes, you did fox news today. yes, you did. good. keep doing it. saying that you've done multiple media sources, but 90%-plus of "the washington post" and "new york times" -- it doesn't mean you're quoting multiple media sources. host: what about the situation in north korea. let's stay on topic. caller: no one in north korea talks to the leader the way he does. probably no one in any other country. donald trump has been successful negotiating that way his entire life. so far he's done a pretty damn good job, i think, in everything he's done. so let him do his job. now, history will judge him. if it turns out poorly, fine. not fine. if it turns out poorly, not

fine. maybe the christmas surprise is going to be a good thing. it might be a good thing. no one is saying that. that's a possibility. isn't it? host: great, thank you for the call. one of the individuals often quoted on the situation along the korean peninsula is victor chaw with csis and that think tank here in washington releasing this assessment earlier this year on the situation in that region. >> my testimony was before the senate foreign relations subcommittee on east asia. after the absence of an agreement between the two leaders in hanoi, vietnam, one of the things that we talked about was how the united states should fashion a policy going forward that addresses denuclearization of north korea, but at the same time coordinates our policy with our allies and with other partners in the region so that we can reach a mutually acceptable solution. one of the things that became clearly to me from -- clear to me from our discussion with the senators in the foreign

relations committee was the intent interest they have in addressing this perennial national security challenge to the united states. one of the lessons i think we learned coming out of the hanoi summit was both north korea and the united states feel that pressure works. the united states felt pressure from north korea's efforts at reassembling parts of their disassembled w.m.d. programs. north korea wanted economic sanctions lifted by the united states. in the end, we want the north koreans to re-emerge on the diplomatic stage ready to continue negotiations rather than moving back to a cycle of provocation. for more on my testimony on this ritical issue, visit csis.org. host: that from victor cha and his assessment on north korea and this is from steve hammond who sent us this facebook message.

host: matt is joining us from maryland. good morning. caller: hi, how are you doing? host: fine, thank you, how are you, matt? caller: ok. this is amazing. i'm for the white house every week. every weekend. on saturdays. i had a sign that reflected it, what's going on. to me -- the sign basically asks what 9/11 type scenario will the right wing drama queens dream up now that the impeachment issue is out. to me that's what all this is. i urge people not to fall for it. thank you very much. caller: thank you. this text message -- president trump will sign any kind of deal with north korea to make it look like he's doing something. he's also going to give up on the trade agreement with china, accepting anything before the

election to tell his followers that he won. that from a viewer in kentucky. frank is joining us in tulsa, oklahoma. good morning. caller: i want to congratulate nancy pelosi and all the democrats and all the haters out there that have weakened america for the last three years to ring us to this point in time. i hope everybody's proud of themselves. but god decides who rules and -- in the kingdom of men. look at daniel, chapter 10rks i elieve it is, where the most powerful man in the world at that time said that daniel's god as the god of gods and he sets

up the by a -- basest of men to le over other men but nobody -- the christians, call it christians of the united states, some of them are willing to let god rule and put in his man, others are not. host: thanks for the call from oklahoma. don with this tweet -- host: sophia is joining us from the bronx in new york. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. i'm so surprised you work monday. it is nice to see you, sir. i watched yesterday, your program.

you always brought someone, you're always being fair. those people that called, two or three people a day, they are rush limbaugh, sean hannity people. you be strong there and don't change the way you are. anyway, i wanted to comment about what's going on right now. i really feel it is so brilliant of nancy pelosi and adam schiff, what they're doing. please keep it up, i'm praying, you know, i have been calling every time you work. you always catch me crying. i'm not going to cry anymore. host: good. caller: good things is going to happen. about north korea, he already -- has wonear-old dictator way about a two years ago. so we keep on going before you,

sir. please, be strong and you've been handling them perfect. you have this guy yesterday from , whatever, he's a black guy, came in, and he questioned the caller -- he didn't answer, he answered not the politician. you question him, he didn't answer. what else can we do? but just keep on doing what you're doing. god bless you. host: thank you. have a great holiday. by the way, the video you're looking at with kim jong un and president trump, that was from february 25. as president trump literally walking across the d.m.z., stepping inside north korea for a brief moment. and a meeting that took place -- that was the third such meeting that took place, also sessions in singapore and hanoi. the president trump with kim jong un earlier this year and we're asking the question about u.s. officials on high alert. we welcome our listeners on c-span radio, coast-to-coast on

sirius xm and here in the d.c. the dial.m on dan in michigan. caller: i just want to remind everybody, you know, we're on high alert with north korea. but the fact is, north korea is china and china is north korea. they're in the start of the korean war, which isn't over yet. it's in a ceasefire. china launched a sneak attack in a reservoir against our troops and they killed thousands of them. if we have a war with north korea, you can bet your dollar that it's going to be with china too. and china's military, they're building it up every day we speak, and i know where they got the money to do that. because all of our jobs went over there and so now they're title of the bill boost their military. but like i said, china's north korea, north korea's china. because they're building a railway, high speed right now,

that connects both of their countries. i wonder what it's there for. maybe moving troops. i don't know. but this is scary times. you have a wonderful holiday. host: thanks for the call. one correction. the video we talked about was in june, not in february. this is from chris in leavenworth, kansas. host: more from the interview with john bolton that's available this morning at axios.com. talking about north korea. here are some quotes from the former national security advisor who was either let go or quit back in september, depending on who you talk to. the idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on north korea is just unfortunately not true. that from john bolton. as he sees it, the administration now has more of a rhetorical policy that is

unacceptable for host: more details at axo -- axios.com. this is dee from texas. caller: good morning. we just need to wake up and realize we have a fraud president. he knows nothing. his approach to this whole thing is to write a love letter, fall in love with and everything will be fine. this is crazy. the putin thing, the impeachment thing. he needs to be gone. i mean, period. he knows nothing, he's not trying to learn nothing. he only cares about himself. what is wrong with people?

look at him. he sits up there, photo op with this clown over there in north korea. he looks like -- i can't believe he represents the united states of america. it's so laughable. you wake up every morning and it's terrible. he -- [indiscernible] -- it's just ridiculous. let's just get him out of office. before we have a war or anything blow us up, he don't care. people, wake up. host: thank you. they have tested many missiles over the years. kim jong un played trump like a fiddle. i hope trump learned his lesson and why other host: john in illinois. good morning. caller: yes. i would suggest they ask hillary for the next step in north

korea. it was her big idea to take out gadjovich after he surrendered all his nuclear business and tried to help us. so i think the guy in north korea would be a damn fool to go along with what's planned. this president tried to use a little sugar and honey instead of 30 years of threats. so i'm not going to knock him for that. but right now we are in a predicament. and for one thing, i think china's going to help this guy, if we start a war. so the war mongers might look into that because they helped them before. at the same time they don't want nuclear weapons over there. so i don't know. but it is a predicament. i read we're 60 neocons put the pressure on hillary to take this guy out, gaddafi, so those people should be asked, instead of blaming everything everything on this president. thank you. host: thank you for the call. the president with a tweet late

yesterday. host: the first family celebrating the holidays in florida. patricia from new england. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i have a comment to make. for north korea. i believe that president trump is doing exactly what he should be doing. with north korea. i believe that north korea is shaking the tail at the united states, because they are being backed up by china. china is behind north korea 100%. people that are calling in, voters, whoever, don't realize

what is going on. and i believe that president trump is at hand with everything and he is the best president that the united states ever had since president reagan. now, if these people in the united states don't wise up and put their attention on what the president is doing for this country, then they are in bad shape. but in any event, i believe that president trump is doing the right thing with north korea. host: thanks for the call from new jersey. speaking of china and trade, this is the headline, front page of the "wall street journal." china to cut tariffs on a range of goods among a push for the china deal china will cut import tariffs for frozen pork, pharmaceuticals and high-tech components. a move that comes as beijing in washington --a wand trying to complete phase one of a -- and

washington trying to complete phase one of a trade detail. we're talking about the situation along the korean peninsula as u.s. officials are on high alert. more details courtesy of "time" magazine and time.com.

host: back to your phone calls. lily is next. st. louis, missouri. good morning. caller: back here they say he shot one of those before and the president didn't do anything about it. he's been saving all of this for this to happen. lee gets in trouble, he pulls something like this. it's nothing going on here. knows what's going on. every time -- he studies every night, what can i do and say, sw when something happens to me, that i can get out of it. he puts this here because they impeach him and he knows his trial is coming up and he's been waiting for this. he's been saving for this. where he can pull this here and scare everybody and get out of it. that's all. thank you. host: thanks for the call. maggie from bay city, michigan, with this text message -- host: jack, good morning. virginia, independent line.

caller: hi, good morning. host: go ahead, please. caller: this is the first time i've spoken to you. i've spoken to the other guys before. you're one of my favorite hosts because you are the master. you see, i watched you almost every day when you were on there. like somebody calls up with a positive issue about donald trump, and immediately after he hangs up, you go to "the washington post," "new york times" or another caller to put hem on, to defeat the purpose. now, i want every news organization that you have there, "new york times," "the washington post," cnn, all these guys to ask john bolton to apologize about the iraq war. now, until he does that, he has no credibility and i'm glad donald trump fired him. bye.

host: jack from virginia and this facebook message -- host: craig is joining us here in washington, d.c. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. how are you this morning? host: fine, thank you, how are you? caller: pretty fair, man. i'm just trying to listen to everybody talking. trump is a big phony. for real, this oiore guy was on stating that he's such a good negotiator and everything. he's not -- if he's so much of a good negotiator, he wouldn't ave been bankrupt seven times. and trying to get -- and no banks wanted to loan him any money. that's why he got affiliated with putin. and some other old people's -- dealing with wrongdoing. so -- and then this thing with kim jong un. i think he's just trying to get publicity pitches to do something to some other

president has never done. as far as really negotiating with that man, he don't really care. he doesn't care about anything but himself. he won't turn his tax forms either. people should realize how wrong he is. they're fine also. thank you. host: thank you for the call. marlene in washington state. good morning. caller: top of the morning to you. host: go ahead. we're glad to hear from you. caller: oh. well, i'm 80 years old, been watching them build this military for years. i'd like to see the fireworks before i die. china to should tell heave to and send all their ships home that's bringing all this crap into the united states. and then hit north korea as hard as we possibly can. if we have to eliminate them, i

guess that's the way it is. now, we paid for all this money for our protection, let's see it happen. host: thank you for the call. from ohio, dave, you're next. good morning. caller: top of the morning to you, sir. host: good morning. caller: i spent 13 months on the z in korea. and we went on high alert four times a year. once for kim jong un -- or kim jong il's, the founder of north korea, and we went on it for when they honored their army and two other times. but this is nothing new. everybody's sitting here talking about nuclear weapons. north korea's got nuclear weapons, understand one thing. they're not going to get rid of them. that is part of their philosophy. it's called -- [speaking foreign

language] -- and it's basically self-reliance. they basically -- when they came out of world war ii and they split into two countries, north korea basically stated that they were going to be self-reliant on what they do. and all this stuff about china and north korea, china came into that war because we were on the sea which is the border of china. and china thought that macarthur was going to invade. you have a nice day. host: that you are to -- thank you for the call. james is next from georgia. good morning. caller: i think the north koreans are just stirring up the pot to try to get trump to give more assistance or money to them. and i don't think he should. i think he should keep the tariffs on north korea. the also want to say that southern states will stand with trump 100%.

thank you. host: thank you for the call. a tweet from the president yesterday, turning to impeachment, referring to speaker pelosi as crazy nancy, wants to dictate the terms -- >> i think her position is really untenable. the reality is that she said in the house that this president poses such a grave danger to the globe that we have to tramp on his constitutionalal right, not allow us to have any witnesses in front of the intelligence committee, not allow us to have counsel or have evidence in our own defense. we're going to trample those rights to rush this through and now we're going to hold it up to demand a longer process in the senate with more witnesses. i don't know when they became so

concerned about due process after trampling over the president's rights. but to your opening segment, i think the president believes that we're are ining -- winning right now. he believes we've won on taxes. the economy is booming. unemployment is at record low. >> i get all of that and there's pleasanty of time for the campaign. but answer my question. is there anything you can do or do you just have to wait for pelosi -- >> it's not just the campaign. we have to impeach -- >> i understand that. i'm asking a specific question. is there anything you can do to move this trial along or do you just have to wait for pelosi to do what she's going to do? >> we're quite confident that this position sun tenable and she's going to move it along and schumer and mcconnell will reach a deal. host: that from the chief of staff to vice president mike pence. an update from christian -- christianity today.

host: an update from christianity today and some pushback from those who disagree with that editorial. something we talked about last week here on the program. back to your phone calls on the issue of north korea, on high alert. linda is next from orange, connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning. happy holidays to you and yours. i'm kind of in a whirl wind listening to north korea and all the accusations going on with the fox news clip you aired. but we do come down to one basic thing. no one, not a businessman, not a government official, no one walks into a meeting after

having called someone crazy nancy or rocket man and expects positive results. that's not business, that's not government. that's a character flaw in this administration. and it's almost gutteral. it's to the point where we don't let children on playgrounds speak like this. and yet we're being asked to accept it from the leader of a beautiful nation like ours. and north korea, we're not going to get anywhere by calling names. the sanctions work. this is what they don't want. yes, china subsidizes them. this is common knowledge. he only way to effectively sub due them to any extent is to stay the course with the sanctions. and for the rest of this stuff, it's like a bad reality show i'm hoping will end after the next election. merry christmas. happy hanukkah. happy new year to all.

host: thank you. reuters has this headline -- host: again, that comes as the leaders of south korea, china and japan meeting today for a summit in beijing. frank is joining us from bay side, new york, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, the woman from connecticut is exactly right. second of all, you can't negotiate with somebody after you call them names and insult them. and you're talking about a world leader, even though he's a nut himself, but my fear, my take on it is that they should just -- e should just be stronger on

them, put the sanctions on them, keep them on them that are hurting them economically. that's it. and give them a straight warning. look, if you touch south korea r you touch any one of our allies, we will hit you back very hard. but you know, i just want to make a point. the reason why he won't do that and the reason why he panders to guys like him and putin, and nobody ever talks about this in them. ia, he's afraid of he knows they have the power to have him assassinated -- [indiscernible] -- host: thanks for the call. this is a photograph available online at nbcnews.com. some satellite images that also generate a lot of headlines over

the weekend. here are the details courtesy of nbc news. north korea has expanded a factory linked to the production of long range nuclear missiles. that according to a new analysis of satellite photos provided to nbc news that bolsters a growing expectation. the country soon will resume testing a -- host: again the photograph from

satellite images and the details at nbcnews.com. if you just tuned in, if you're lessingen -- listening on c-span radio, we're asking about the situation along the korean peninsula, with u.s. officialsering according to fox news and cnn, on, quote, high alert this christmas week. peter is joining from us brookfield, wisconsin. democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. -- just wondering how [indiscernible] -- trust us, while we have violated a nuclear deal with iran, while our president has violated even our own national security through that phone call with zelensky. kim jong un over and over said trump's not reliable at all. he breaks his promises easily. tries to make others, to do whatever he wants. we are misusing the pressure to sanctions too much, which will decrease its effectiveness soon

and endanger the value of the u.s. dollar. because it makes those countries to sync up. we should do something before it gets so late. and how we expect north korea to trust us while our own allies like macron laughed at us. trump doesn't know anything about international laws. thank you. host: thank you. let's go to barbara next indiana. good morning. caller: good morning. i think that the officials should keep the pressure on korea and do not let them know that no one is afraid of them. because when you back down from people, they will turn that into a scare tactic. and i think that they should keep the sanctions on them and let them know that the united states are not going to tolerate that. host: if there is a missile test

by north korea, what do you think would be the best course of action for the trump administration? caller: i think the trump administration should retaliate with another missile. because they're not talking to these people. you can't talk to them, you can't reason with them. the only thing they know is destruction. host: thank you for the call. coming up at the top of the hour, peter bergen is going to join us, he's out with a new book titled "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos." and there's an excerpt that deals with the situation in north korea. let me just read to you part of what peter bergen is romping -- reporting in his book. he says, during an oval office briefing, president was shown a well-known satellite image of north korea at night. on north korea's northern border with china, awash in pin pricks of light, while the south was -- south korea --

host: that again from a book that we'll be talking about at the top of the hour. let's go next to alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. host: how are you today? caller: doing good. thank you. good morning to the divided states of america. this is yet again from my perspective, not korea, it's not the issue. the issue as i see it and continue to see it is the

efforts, the intents by people, some individuals, and corporation, establishments within the united states, to undermine and delegitimatize this president. and all his efforts, all the good work he's been doing. north koreans aren't the problem. the people within this country trying to undermine and delegitimatize this president are the problems and that is what we should be focused on. i'm still waiting for a c-span review, a complete and comprehensive c-span review of the i.g. report. that is the bombshell which has not yet been focused on. that is what worries me. not north korea. thank you very much. host: thank you for the call. let's go to john joining from us akron, ohio. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. the u.s. officials are on high alert. what officials would those be? those from the embassy?

[talking simultaneously] let me tell you people this. north korea is being monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just like every other country in this world by us. we know exactly what is going on. there's no reason for any high alert and i think president trump is doing a fantastic job and as an independent, he's getting my vote. thank you. host: thanks for the call. the heed line from fox news, u.s. on high alert from possible christmas missile gift from north korea. and the associated press, with the meeting of the three countries, holding a trilateral summit in china this week amid feuds over trade, military maneuvers and historical animosities.

host: for all of these reasons we're devoting the first hour of in the program to your calls, your reaction, the potential of some sort of action by kim jong un in pyongyang. dan is joining us in jasper, indiana. good morning. caller: if all the countries would be intelligent in the world, they'd all profit, period. thank you. host: dave in harrisburg, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't see north korea as a threat at all. i think trump gave him his 15 minutes of fame and kind of propped him up artificially so he's feeling emboldened. when it comes to trump not recognizing the map they were showing him this guy also

thought a hurricane was going to hit mississippi. he also thought about dropping nuclear bombs into hurricanes. so this is what we got. this is you what guys wanted, the electoral college gave, and this is what we're stuck with. host: thank you for the call. this from barbara in the queens, new york. you can send us a text message at 202-748-8003 and also send us a tweet. good morning. caller: for some reason i woke up early and i'm watching this and -- [indiscernible] -- difference between -- [indiscernible] -- this is

what's wrong with the democrat party today. they just can't get over it. trump won the election. and get over it. either get him him -- behind him or shut up. this is ridiculous. host: we got a little bit of feedback earlier but we heard the last part of your point. this is from another comment -- host: bob in delaware, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. host: how are you today? caller: ok. thank you for taking my call. host: bob, turn the volume down because we're getting feedback and we're going to hear you a lot better. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: they say congress and the president decided what to do about north korea. that's all i have to say. host: thank you for the call. a story from the "new york post" about the death of kamal can

showingy. there are five saudis who have been sentenced to death as a result of their involvement in the death of jamal khashoggi. more details available at nypost.com. we have 1340r minutes left. our question with u.s. officials on high alert. tell us what you think, 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for democrats. rich is joining us next from westport, massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. in general terms, the problem with north korea really needed to be handed -- handled many decades ago. this is going to continue to go on in the family and the dictatorship of kim jong un at this point. are probably not controllable. not a lot different than what we see in iran. we are definitely at a tipping point in global politics and the global nature of our economy.

and there's no real way to keep these folks in check. china is really the only chance to do that in my opinion. the u.s. is not going to be able to do anything to really impact is -- host: thank you for the call. senator dick durbin was on cnn. one of the shows we re-air every sunday on c-span radio. we'll share with you what he said about impeachment this morning. what to expect at the senate impeachment trial, pointing out that the rules are not set in stone. usatoday.com. andy yesterday, dick -- be. >> i'm going to take an oath of office when i took the oath. i promise impartial justice. so help me god. and i want to stick by that. i want to hear the evidence, read the documents, make a decision that's right for

america. >> so it is it a mistake for your fellow senators on both sides of the aisle to say how they're going to vote before the trial starts? >> i really think it is. i think they've gone too far. how can they hold their hands up and say, i swear impartial justice and i'd like to sit at the manager's table with the president's team? you can't do that. they shouldn't have done that. >> democrats have done it too. >> they shouldn't. as far as i'm concerned, they can tell which way they're leaning and how they feel in terms of probability, but in terms of saying i've made up my mind, it's all over, that's not what the constitution envisioned. alexander hamilton said, we give this job to the senate because they are, quote, independent and dignified. for goodness sakes, let's do our job to meet those standards. >> so, speaker pelosi says that she's waiting to send the articles of impeachment from the house to the senate until she's confident that there's going to be a fair trial. you heard senate majority leader mitch mcconnell say it doesn't matter, he doesn't even need to have a trial anyway.

so what leverage do you and your fellow democrats think you have here by holding the articles in the house? >> i can tell you, i went to the floor of the senate, i was the only member of the senate sitting on the floor and listened carefully to what senator mcconnell said the other day. it was very clear to me, he's made up his mind, he's not interested in evidence, he's not interested in the facts, he wants to get this over with and move on to appointing more federal judges. that's a serious problem. i think the american people expect us to carefully consider the evidence. not conceal the evidence. they're looking for a fair trial, not a fake trial. host: that from cnn's state of the union and more on the impeachment trial and of course if and when that happens, likely in january, you can watch it live in its entirety on c-span2. a tweet on north korea from steven green saying north korea is another trump failure. host: from georgia, parker is

next. our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. i was just talking about, yeah, we got north korea -- we got them covered for supposed to have, don't worry about them, it's just the media running their mouths. on the impeachment, i'd like to ee all the evidence that trump blocked, if he's not -- [indiscernible] -- put the evidence through the senate and let's get this thing done. if he's guilty, send him home. host: thanks for the call. again this heed line from the "new york post" and the develop storgry this morning regarding jamal khashoggi. the journalist who was brutally murdered. according to a jaud court, five individuals have been -- according to a saudi court, five individuals about been sentenced to death for the killing of the journalist. three others were sentenced to prison. all can appeal the verdicts and

the crowned prince drawing condemnation for the killings because several saudi agents involved worked directly for him. the kingdom is denying the prince had any involvement or nowledge of the operation. maryland joining us next. caller: good morning, how are you? i wanted to say and i am an avid viewer of the c-span journal here, but i'm an advocate and i want to say that when i was 26 years old, i worked at the pentagon. and i voted for trump because i knew that he was going to come in and shake it up. and he's doing exactly what i voted for him to do. i left the agency when i was 45 because of the absolute corruption. right this moment i'm still in the f.b.i. in washington, d.c., because of their failure to investigate public corruption. donald trump is absolutely correct when he says that the united states pretty much is corrupt.

they are. and i worked in it and i resigned after it. i congratulate him. the impeachment going on, they already knew who he was before he even -- during his campaign, actually. that bush man, remember he wound up having to be fired because he was communicating about touching women and stuff like that. the bottom line is they know what they got and i'm glad he's doing what he's doing. he's shaking up the united states and the world is looking at it and i'm happy about it. host: thank you for the call. richard is next from rockville, maryland, on our line for democrats. u.s. official on high alert because of north korea. your reaction to the weekend developments. caller: my concern is that many of the listeners do not realize that north korea has some ungodly number of missiles aimed at south korea. not nuclear. my understanding is it's something like 20 million south koreans are at risk as we provoke a war. and i think we need to be very concerned about that and i don't

trust our president to have any idea. host: thanks for the call and thanks for listening on c-span radio. steven, you get the last word. from aurora, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. donald trump has done nothing but exacerbate the issues with north korea through his own corrupted personal life. i'm sorry to hear so many people that seem to think that this man has done such great things when he's betrayed america in the oval office. he outed a c.i.a. operative that we had in russia. he hasn't accomplished anything but giving away $1.6 trillion to the rich. he inheritted a recovering economy. this isn't his economy. it was seven years into success when he was elected. he's offset our trade deficit, some $318 billion that americans are now paying for. previously it was $88 billion that i had understood. but now i see that it's escalated. trump university was a fraud. he got fined $25 million. his charity was shut down.

he was just recently charged $2 million there. he's generated over 15,000 lies to these people. i think it's really a sad affront to the intelligence of the american people because your previous caller had it right. he has also created a direct threat to south korea and our influences with japan and our agreements with those countries. host: steven from illinois. to you and all of our calls and comments and tweets and text messages, we appreciate the first hour of this monday, december 23. again, the house and they are back in two weeks on june 6. peter bergen will be joining us. he has a new book titled "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos" and later we will be the debt and deficit is on the rise. what does it mean for you and

taxpayers? you are watching washington journal. it is december 23. we will be back in a moment. ♪ >> the house will be in order. c-span hasears, provided unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, supreme court and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country so you can make up your own mind. 1979, c-spanble in is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. tonight on the communicators. >> intellectual property theft

is an important issue for the technology industry and china has other policies that make it difficult for u.s. companies to compete fairly and effectively in china in a way that we don't make it difficult for them to compete. card networks can't offer service in china but chinese companies can do here in the u.s. cross-border data flows are restricted. maintainse government the ability to take information at will. all of these fundamental issues need to be addressed. ceo of theident and information technology industry council, tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. washington journal continues. host: we want to welcome back peter bergen. the author of the book "trump

and his generals: the cost of chaos". good monday morning. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me on. from northhreat korea and u.s. officials on high alert. how concerned should we be? guest: i think we should be concerned. we are back to where we were in early 2017 where north korea was testing missiles that theoretically could reach the united states. koreansats that north are making, this should be taken seriously, when taking about sending a christmas present to donald trump. i don't think that is a box of chocolates part they will probably test a long-range missile in coming days. they have ramped up the rhetoric. there has not been much agreement between the two sides. president trump has met three times with kim jong-un. not much has come of that.

sidesly because both fundamentally disagree about what they want from each other. the united states is looking for a total denuclearization. kim jong-un will not denuclearize. he might offer some more inspections but he wants sanctions limited. host: president trump has said he likes to sit down and talk face-to-face. yet previous presidents have said we will meet but only if we have an agreement to begin with. trump,i think president and i say this in my book, one of his advisors i quote, president trump puts an emphasis on interpersonal relationships, they can certainly be helpful. ultimately, diplomacy is about a country's interest. if i have a friendly relationship with you, that is great. but if we are in a negotiation

over fundamental things toward me, that will not make me throw out my own interests. the north koreans will not give up their own nuclear weapons. they never have. we need you think about the kind -- is it an situation where we allow more intrusive inspections? they want the sanctions to be lifted. the north korean economy is hurting. there is something we can negotiate about. hammered outs is before the leaders meet and there is a photo op. presidentdo you think should respond? guest: how should he respond and how will he respond are two different things. i would just talk about the will. i think that is unpredictable. one thing i say in the book is president trump has been lucky with no foreign policy issues on

9/11, no saddam hussein invading kuwait. president trump is afforded that. a real escalation with north korea would qualify as a major foreign policy crisis. what are your military options? the military options are somewhat limited. you could imagine a small special operations attack directed at their leadership. the point is the north koreans have a giant military, south korea is across the border, 25,000 american troops and american citizens and all of the citizens of south korea. as bannon was leaving the white house he said something along the lines of, explained to me what ifcan avoid a war, they're dozen seem to be a

military solution? that was the time the military tensions were at their highest. you could imagine going into 2020 the thing is really and thing up. host: this is a quote from john tells the source the idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on north korea is not true. he said the administration has more of a rhetorical policy that it is unacceptable north korea to have weapons. nose at the his u.s., he hopes he would say we have tried, the policy has failed and we are going to make it clear what we say about it being unacceptable, we are going to demonstrate we will not accept it. guest: i'm not quite sure what the policy -- i think the wections with john bolton,

the united states together with the united nations ramped up the unit -- the sanctions. together with the russians and the chinese being on board, that industry,heir coal their seafood industry. for bolton is often calling regime change. that does not mean we should resort to a military option. president trump as i lay out in the book is reluctant to use military force. and appropriately so. host: a developing story this morning, a headline from the new york post, the five individuals linked to the death of jamal khashoggi have been sentenced to death, three others facing prison and the saudi crown prince denying any involvement

in the death of jamal khashoggi. you knew him. guest: i did not know him particularly well but i knew him well enough to know some of the portrayals of him after he was murdered not make sense. some people try to describe him as a muslim brotherhood follower. to osama bin laden when he was a young man, he covered him journalistically, back in 2005, he changed. more liberal in his views. he moved to the united states, two of his kids were american citizens. the fact that the saudis sentenced these five guys to death, i think justice is being served. the crown prince who oversaw this, there is no smoking gun. lindsey graham said there is no smoking gun, there is a smoking

saw. factng directly -- the that it was his group of guys who did this and one person who has not been indicted is one of whomost important advisors, appears to be walking free in saudi arabia. host: why would they want him dead? scene,there is a great dispute and ata one point he says to his knights likemeone said something this guy is kind of a pain. people interpret that as, bring him back to re-add and if he puts up a struggle, we will kill him. they did it in a saudi consulate in istanbul.

if you were going to organize professional spy organization, he would've had an unfortunate fall off the building that was deniable. this is the opposite of deniable. there was a lot of evidence. have --is book, "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos", when donald trump was elected he famously said i love the generals. what happened? guest: president trump went to a military style boarding school in new york. it was an experience he enjoyed. one of his favorite movies was patton. this is the first american president in history who neither served in public office or in the military.

the other point is about 100 leading security heavyweights in the republican party basically took themselves out of consideration. when a new administration comes in, there are people that are ready and willing to serve. in this case, most of the people he wasesident trump, if elected, certain military officers retired. certain did not sign the letter. john kelly, the chief of staff said publicly he would serve hillary clinton. i think there was a strong component of duty. none of these guys did not know president trump. john kelly said not only did he not know president trump, he did not know anyone who knew president trump. spot,ered the job on the same with the national security

advisor who was a military officer at the time. over time, the programs between the generals and president trump fizzled. often this is what happens in a relationship with president trump, you are the world greatest person until you are not. this was a very impressive group of people he brought on board. including the head of his council on economic advisors, who had been the chief operating officer at goldman sachs. over time, the policy differences with the president began to add up. there is an opening scene where they meet at the pentagon during a story conference room or fdr made plans. meeting on onee

side, steve bannon, on the other side is rex tillerson, and others who represent the internationalist wing of the party essentially laying out american commitments overseas. 190,000 troops around the world, why do we have trade agreements? trump end, president blows up and uses a lot of words i can't use on c-span. this is not what we are going to do, our allies are ripping us off. overextended, we are overcommitted, trade deficits with china really matter. we stopped winning wars. in the sacred space of that room, it is unusual for the president to take on his generals. steve bennett goes back to the

white house with jared kushner after the meeting and says this is like lincoln and his generals. the point he was trying to make generalsoln fired his when they were not fighting well during the civil war. here was president trump laying out his america first plan and saying basically you can stay on the bus or if you don't agree with this, you can jump off or i will push you off and really laying down the law in front of his cabinet. host: there is another moment in the book i want to get your reaction to involving the vice president and mcmaster, saying they plan for a wargame so they can better understand the military operations they had in north korea. request sored their

the session never happened. mcmaster also one of the u.s. navy to provide options about north korean ships that might be sanctioned. mattis refused because he thought they might lead to widespread conflict. tillersoncmaster, rex and john kelly. mattis, i quote him as saying we have to make sure reason is not trump impulse. his view of donald trump is this is an impulsive guy. in some cases, i will not provide them, as is the case of the wargame. you can't have a wargame if the pentagon does not provide war planners. mattis refused to provide military options. house began to realize the pentagon was slow rolling,

which the pentagon does with all sorts of things. in this case, it was clear. tis was concerned about getting into a war with iran and the middle east. even though he had been an iran skeptic, he thought the iran nuclear deal should stay in place not only because it was working but because we negotiated with her allies. the french and the germans, we should keep our word as united states. similarly with north korea, it is a fact that wars can happen inadvertently. a small incident can spiral into something much bigger and he did not want to take the risk. host: on iran, the planes were leaving when the president called off the mission. the president tweeting 10 minutes before a strike, i stopped it. brinkpulling off from the

of conflict okayed by john bolton. guest: i think this is where jim mattis might have misunderstood the president. we were close to using force against iran. iran is not iraq. the population is three times larger. iran has ballistic missiles. it has a relatively capable military. iran wouldtion with be problematic. the united states has overwhelming military superiority but trump called it back. he is pulling back in afghanistan and syria. he has been known to ramp up tensions with north korea, let's see how he does in the coming weeks.

overall, this is a president who has not been quick to use american military power. --also host: our guest is peter bergen. previously he taught at harvard, johns hopkins university and nyu . he is a former contributing editor. our phone lines are open. is our line for -- message or tweet. bloomfield, west virginia is first up. good morning. caller: thank you. about what our future will be. i think i need to begin by

saying that most people recognized that trump was sort china shop,ll in a but they also recognized the china shop was a very corrupt and self-seeking oligarchy. increasing its power at what might be considered next potential rate in terms of controlling people. and limiting democracy. expect this was part of what they feared when they set up the constitution so a particular beulated section would not able to roll the majority -- to rule the majority of the

country. host: do you want to phrase that is a question? caller: you mentioned a number of things of which i agree. , as iondering if you feel trial, which i from a lowers the bar .riminal prosecution guest: i wasn't clear what the question was. host: let me take it a different way. how'd do our foreign adversaries or allies view this in the u.s.? an interesting question. in diplomacy, people want to know what your red lines are.

the thing that has been confusing about president trump, he changed his mind about things that right now are not valuable. in afghanistan, we are going to stay there for an unlimited time, we will have a troop surge and then start pulling them out. we are talking to the taliban, now we are not, no we are. our afghan policy is unclear. we are going to pull out, that we are not, then we are going to pull out a few months later, we are not. i think our allies and our enemies are confused about what exactly our policies are. in general, it does not matter a huge amount providing you do not have a foreign policy crisis. but with north korea, we seem to be heading into a period where we might have a crisis. the want to respond to caller in one way.

i think president trump came into power because the elites in this country did not deliver on two very important issues. they got us into a war of choice and iran in 2003 and they got us into a financial crisis in 2008. whoever is going to win the next election, weather president trump or a challenger, has to help try to answer the question, why is the system rigged in the sense that inequality is increasing and that ordinary working people that aren't necessarily feeling the benefits of one of the longest economic expansions in american history. host: did you see the video of the american prime minister and boris johnson at the nato summit in which they were basically mocking president trump? guest: there is an irony because

one of president trump's big themes is everyone is laughing at us. when he came into office, people tickets more seriously. booke a great scene in the related to this, which is the first time german chancellor angela merkel comes to washington -- host: let me put this on the screen. our guest is peter bergen. of 2017, german chancellor angela merkel arrives in washington for her first official visit. they did not enjoy a warm relationship she had enjoyed with obama. trump interpreted the under spending on defense as if he were a landlord collecting rent which drove the germans nuts. trump waived an invoice at youel who told trump, don't

understand, this is not real? might notmp understand how nato factors in spending. germany only spent 1.4% on defense spending. her. waves an invoice at it is not how nato works. the question is does he misunderstand how it works question mark jesse pretend -- does he pretend to not understand? putin, kim jong-un, our allies are actually ripping us off which has been a theme with the president since 1987. he took out a full-page ad saying we were being ripped off.

host: what is the cost of chaos? guest: high turnover in the cabinet. the reason it is important because if you lose your better advisors or some of your star advisors and you replace them -- the unitedm states is a powerful country and it does really matter, but you face a genuine crisis. you want a team of rivals, the kind of people who challenge you. s, johnson jim matti kelly and others have been forced out or reside if they disagreed with the president on substance. the only elected official in the room. on the question of what to do in afghanistan, the generals were mostly in the view we should make a long-term commitment. the president did not agree

initially but over time his views changed because he saw the evidence if you just leave tomorrow, it would sink into a civil war and into ,he vacuum would be more isis al qaeda, etc. anyone needs advisors who will disagree with you on the facts or the substance. , think the group in there now they are perfectly competent, but as i say in the book, he is running the country like he ran his real estate business, a one-man show with a group of yes men and women and family members. that might work for a real estate company, but he will be less successful with national security of the united states. host: four of the last five 43,idents, reagan, bush clinton, obama were all

reelected. what is that going to look like if he has a second term? guest: it is hard to make predictions about the future. predict because, let's say, he felt the second term was a legacy building effort. , thei say in the book president could take a position on climate change that scientific consensus is wrong on climate change, that it is because -- it is caused by human beings. he could say it is happening and i will get behind it. to protectprojects places i know well, palm beach and manhattan. he has not said that. maybe in his second term he would be more prepared to sit at. i just don't know.

host: the book is called "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos" and joining us here in washington is the author, peter bergen. edward is joining us from greenbelt, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing question -- how are you doing? no adults in the room in the white house. is, we have chaos because there are no generals in the room. i wanted to say one thing, points, theof the united states of america should be concern for two reasons. said thatr 45, he person is his best friend. we don't know what transpired with them because trump took the

dialogue away from the translator so we did not know what would happen when he was in europe at the time. elected by the electoral college. the intelligence agency in the united states of america found the election was hacked. i am a phd scientist and i worked at the state department. know how the system works. host: thank you for the call. guest: i did not know where the question was. iif you look it was more successful.

isis was largely defeated in 2017 geographically. united states respondent very -- fairly robustly to the use of chemical weapons by assad and syria. trump made a fairly successful speech in riyadh. a process that the national security advisor had, a more conventional national security process with meetings and options laid out for the president. the nationaln, security advisor come as a competent lawyer but is not have the stature of h.r. mcmaster. there is a competent official who would be under secretary or assistant secretary in a normal administration. acting chief of staff mick mulvaney is certainly not john

kelly and has made it clear he wants to leave. guest: mark meadows may take over. yeah, wellmeadows, anyway, the point is this was a group of people who imposed a certain amount of discipline only president, which he does not like. he hates being managed and being lectured to. it is his prerogative to have the people in place that he likes working with. theyhe question is, are the people who will sometimes challenge him as is necessary when you are president? think about obama and the bin the secretary of defense said we should not do it in vice president joe biden said the same thing. at the end of the day, it was the president's decision, but he wanted to hear from naysayers as much as from people endorsing the raid.

when it comes to tough decisions, you want people who will give you a range of device with which you will make your own, rather than just saying, yeah, you're right. guest: if you're listening on c-span radio, our conversation is with peter bergen. anna is next from philadelphia, independent line. caller: i have three questions for your guest. i would like him to comment on an agreement where five countries of the british commonwealth and britain and share alltes which intelligence, military and otherwise, and it also included israel and singapore as observers. i think this is a foreign entanglement. i would like him to comment on the pattern we have of assuring people if they give up their weapons, everything will be fine. the next thing you know, the leaders are assassinated and the countries are keep i.

an -- the countries are occupied. there is an example of that after world war i, which started the horrible mess in the middle east. and how come nobody is covering the fact that the pentagon who refuses a full audit? we do not know where these trillions of dollars are going. i say god bless president trump if he gets us out of any wars, but i think the foreign entanglement has to stop now. thank you very much. guest: final point with regard to the pentagon as this was one of the reasons donald trump was elected. has done veryagon well under president trump in terms of finances. $738 billion is the size of the pentagon budget that president trump has overseen. ampare that to $600 billion year on average under president

obama. in terms of money, the pentagon is getting a lot of money. the defense strategy and national security strategy both critically identified china as competitor that we need to contain. book,nly, as i say in the i think historians say president trump got the measure of china largely right. they might disagree on tactics on the chinese trade discussions but the idea that somehow china would liberalize economically and then it's politics would liberalize at the same time, that is proven to be not true. china is becoming more authoritarian as it becomes richer. having a robust response to why china is not advocating for any kind of war with china but at least taking that measure. president trump has had more freedom of navigation exercises throughout the china sea. terms of the, in

way he has treated the pentagon, he has largely been right. losthere the generals faith with president trump was on his treatment of nato, the most successful alliance in history according to jim mattis. the first thing he did when he assumed office was to call all our allies the day he took office to say we are with you, they know nato allies have fought side-by-side with us in afghanistan and have lost hundreds of troops, something trump never acknowledges. he never talks about the sacrifice of the hundreds of french and british and german soldiers who have fought and died there. the war was precipitated by an attack on president trump's hometown. on nato and vladimir putin, the generals are skeptical and have said that publicly. guest: new york city is next,

michael, democrat's line. caller: good morning. great book. scared the hell out of me, actually. guest: why did it scare you? caller: to realize what is going house and tote reflect all of our lives is frightening. i mean, trump has no care or consideration for the united states of america. he just cares about himself, as we all know. peter, i have a question, do you feel that we should be able to hadthe call that trump has mbs, basedin and the on what we have heard from that tiny little call with ukraine? because i think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

in trump, like i said, our national security is at risk every single day. he does not care. we need to know that trump rips up notes that he has with putin. it is all about money, as we know. and this is about the future that trump is trying to set up so hemself and his family can put his stupid hotels -- it just frightens me that we are in this position with this man. and have new york city known trump, seen him before. the guy is a fraud and we all know it. i just don't understand how the himblicans, the gop, allow to do what he does, to put this nation in jeopardy. host: we will get a response. guest: yeah, so one of the

scenes in the book -- you know, some of these calls, there were no transcripts. was murderedhoggi in istanbul, and there were a number of calls with the king of saudi arabia and been salmon, and these calls were tightly held. a transcript was made. trump was publicly supporting the saudi's. said the crown prince, mohammad bin salman, i have been in tough negotiations but never brought a bone saw to one of them. actually a funny comment. but it was a bone saw used on jamal khashoggi. host: and they never found his body. guest: never found his body. and he said on this issue, we need the body, give it back to the family. mohammad bin salman said we give it to some syrian.

trump says skeptically, just some syrian guy walking around istanbul? back toays, i will get you. at the end of the call, president trump says, look, we have your back, essentially. this has basically been his point of view. he is willing to give them a pass pretty much for anything. they invaded yemen. they kidnapped the lebanese prime minister for two weeks. imprisoned dissidents, businessmen. qatar,ockaded oil rich their neighbor that is a close american ally with a very important american military base. and he just stood by them through thick and thin. jamal khashoggi, is murder, a "washington post" contributor were two american kids living in virginia, he stood by them on that.

there is a heartening example of believing your own propaganda. trump has repeatedly said that we would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in arms sales if we criticize them. that is not true. our arms trade with saudi arabia's long-standing. b, the numbers are not the hundreds of billions of dollars that he thinks. riyadh, thet to state department physically certified formula dollars in sales to the saudis. nimportant but not hundreds of billions that he thinks he has generated. "st: turning to afghanistan, the washington post" had an extensive 67 part series. another soldier died today and the taliban is taking responsiblity. guest: i was in afghanistan two

and half weeks ago. the author talked in a 17-minute video that is on washingtonpost.com. here is part of that documentary. [video clip] >> these are the people in charge of the war essentially saying it was a disaster, and he knew it. i do not see these comments in the report. why didn't you include those? >> that is the imitation of where we go. as an inspector general, i do not do policy. what all of you quoted were people talking about that policy. >> why did your staff interview all these people i just quoted if they are not going to be used? >> oh, they may well be used. >> but they weren't. that is the whole fundamental

reason and questioning why the united states is there. >> the stuff is available. we are still producing these reports. >> we tried to get our hands on it. >> i do not know if quoting the general saying that we screwed up her we did not have a plan would be any more useful than the audits and investigations and other reports that we have, which make the same point. host: that was craig whitlock. "the, "the history -- secret history of the war" is on washingtonpost.com. guest: hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war. and under the taliban, what remained of the afghan economy disappeared and half the publishing were imprisoned in their homes and cannot have jobs or be educated. was not in this report, which is a very good report in many ways.

anybody who knows anything about afghanistan is not surprised by the afghan police are corrupt. there is a big drug problem. what was surfaced in these reports was pretty well known. i think what the post was trying to say is there is a big disconnect between what people were saying publicly in professional testimony and what they were saying privately. host: was it a modern-day version of the pentagon papers? guest: i think they are two very different situations. looking at the amounts of americans that died in vietnam and then afghanistan, way too large a number, and civilians, but the scale is completely different. was a draft there and much more political pressure. we haven't all-volunteer army -- army.e an all-volunteer

signed up new who they could go to an actual war. the situations are very different. the report is accurate in all respects, but it also does not take into account the many things that have gone right. i was in afghanistan just millennialsd the make up 70% of the population. women make up another 50% of the population. minorities make up 15% of the population. believe me, none of those people want the taliban to come back. they all want the united states to stay. we are there on invitation of the afghan government. situation, you can imagine going forward, which i think president trump is moving towards, whether the small contingent of american soldiers

who are not on the front lines there on and advise and assist position and providing intelligence, we're not spending a huge amount of money and where there is a form of life insurance. a general had a contentious meeting about afghanistan and said no one likes to take out life insurance, but you do because it is stupid not to, which is basically the argument of the only thing worse and staying in afghanistan is leaving. look at what happened with president obama and iraq at the end of 2011. the security services were not at all ready for the threat produced by isis. isis wasmmer of 2014, close to baghdad and take over much of the country. so that is alive in their thinking about what to do in afghanistan, and that was the argument that it persuade the commander-in-chief, president trump, that we should not just leave. host: let me give you the

response from tina colonel thomas campbell from the defense department, pushed back from that in-depth series by craig whitlock, saying that there has been no intent by the department of defense to mislead congress or the public. dod officials have consistently briefed the progress and challenges associated with efforts in afghanistan, and dod provides regular reports to congress that highlight these challenges. the information contained in the interviews was provided to the special inspector general for afghanistan for the expressed purpose of inclusion in the public reports, and most of the individuals interviewed spoke with the benefit of hindsight. us from southg carolina. thank you for waiting period good morning. caller: thank you. mr. bergen, did you actually talk to any of the generals, like mcmaster or kelly or matti s? guest: i talked to about 100

people who worked in the trump in thetration or work trump administration or did business with the trump administration like senior foreign officials and also a range of military officers. most the people i spoke to i spoke on background. suffice to say, i spoke to quite are inr of people who the administration, work with the administration, or were associated with the military. i also traveled to countries, to afghanistan and saudi arabia, iraq, qatar. so it is not simply me sitting at my desk in washington. i also did reporting in the field. i appreciate the question. some of the people i spoke to i spoke to on multiple occasions. i recorded almost all of my interviews. i also try to be fair.

i am very conscious of the fact that people i admire work in the trump administration and half the country voted for him. i try to be as fair as possible. that is probably not satisfying to readers. they want a i hate trump book and hear the reasons why or i love trump and hear the reasons why. it is much harder to do something that is fair. but that was my intention. whether i succeeded or not is something readers can't decide. host: general john kelly served as homeland security secretary and moved to the white house as chief of staff. how frustrated was he as chief of staff? he said his best job in the administration was homeland security. guest: i think he very much enjoyed the job and was well for it. he ran southern command south of the border. he served as a marine liaison on capitol hill. he knew how washington worked,

familiar with the issues. in the white house, i think he was frustrated because it was marine a very orderly force style general dealing with a chaotic situation and he tried to bring order to it. over time, he and the president stopped speaking to each other. host: which is incredible. guest: yeah, but i think it was a long time coming. president hates being managed. as soon as he feels like he is being managed, that is it. think -- the other thing, jim mattis resigned at the end of december 2018, right around the same time john kelly left. they were very close. john kelly was the deputy to jim mattis when they lead the marines into baghdad in 2003. that is a very, very tight relationship. with jim mattis gone, john kelly

left, as well. host: fall river, massachusetts, andrew. good morning. peter bergen and his new book, "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos." good morning, andrew. caller: trump and his generals is just like the way he runs his business. he uses the string and then when it goes sour, he throws it away. in his business, he owes tons of money to people, files bankruptcy, and blames it on one of the strings, tosses it out, and puts a new one in. been incompany has business for four or five generations in the family, and trump sits there -- oh, i filed bankruptcy and i am ok. a war herouy insults w like john mccain, and the

republican sit on their butts and don't jump all over this clown. host: thanks for the call. let me take his point, the sentiment he has and those who do not support trump, and ask you this question, how did we get here? guest: the election of trump? host: the election and also the presidency of donald trump. he mentioned republican frustration that they allowed the war in afghanistan -- guest: i mean, i think, you know, americans are looking for -- what is interesting to me is, since 1992, we have only had one president who was kind of a machine president, and that was george w. bush. barack obama was sort of outside of this machine. donald trump is sort of outside of the machine. bill clinton was sort of outside of the machine these are outsider candidates. america was not looking for these insider candidates. they did not want bob dole.

so they elected president trump i think to sort out some of these issues that relate to getting into endless wars, which is something president trump -- and president obama. the book shows scenarios between president trump and president obama on the position of getting out of these wars, and both were elected to do that. president obama tried to get us out of afghanistan and was going down to zero in iraq and that was not the right approach. right now, they are exactly in the same place as afghanistan. a drawdown obama drew down right at the end of his second term, and president trump is about to and i same number, guarantee he will not go to zero because of the physical costs of just leaving completely and then having a terrorist attack that could be traced back to the afghan pakistan region is very large. , in different

ways, have relied on special operations forces, drones, cyber warfare, not putting big conventional armies into the middle east for conflicts, so in that way they are similar. of course, there are a lot of differences in rhetoric and iran nuclear deal, climate change, and others. host: who is the most influential advisor when it comes to foreign-policy and national security? first, we will go to mike from anderson, rep -- henderson, nevada. republican line. caller: good morning. go ahead with your question. -- host: go ahead with your question. caller: i was just wondering, it sounds like to me on why you're writing your book that the generals were more like babysitters trying to keep an impetuous child under control, somebody who had no thought of

the ethics behind his decisions, just his normal everyday thought the vergehich is on of sociopathic at times because .f his statement but it sounds like the generals had their hands full not only trying to manage our american -- our military situations around the world, but our own president at home. host: thank you. we will get a response. view and imattis' think john kelly's view, a lot of them saw their time in office as defined by what they succeeded in preventing happen like saving nato. they tried to keep in place the iran nuclear deal. theainly they saw that as

president was not well-informed and they were trying to inform him about the world, that he was impulsive, and now they are all gone. the president is actually quite comfortable in his own decision-making. a good example of this is he greenlighted the operation that killed the leader of isis in october in syria. that was a risky operation because the special operation forces had to cross syrian airspace controlled by the russians. president trump greenlighted it, and it was a successful operation. write that what trump did in his office was what he said he was doing when he was campaigning, so it was only a matter of time before trump would kill the deal. mcmaster went to trump twice to present options on the iran deal that included keeping it in place. mcmaster said the u.s. want --

if the u.s. walked away from the deal, the whole conversation would become about americans rather than keeping the focus on iran's maligned activities in the middle east. for the trump national security team, the iran deal, the fact it did not come with ballistic -- did not cover ballistic missiles, did not cover iran proxy forces around the region, those were the weaknesses of the tim. -- of the deal. defenders of the deal say if trump ever does a deal with north koreans, he would get something that looks like the iran nuclear deal very inclusive inspections. trump, he repeatedly called it the were deal in history on the campaign trail. he was very frustrated that he had to keep recertifying that the deal was working. if you recall, the expectation

was hillary clinton would win the election, so republicans put a provision on the table saying that every three months the president had to certify that the deal was working, thinking it would be hillary clinton in the oval office and of course it was president trump. trump hated having to certify that. so it was kind of inevitable that it would end. iranians are now enriching uranium but not up to a high level, but they're pushing back. on the other hand, the sanctions in place against them will really damage their economy, and you look at people's dying as a result of the protests. it shows how terrible the iranian economy is. will it produce change? who knows. iranians have been around since 1979, the regime they seem to have survived. host: joe in covington, georgia, independent line. you are on the air with author peter bergen. caller: good morning.

thank you so much for the very interesting show. i am calling because i have not heard anybody yet talk about the hypocrisy of the democratic house of representatives this past tuesday passing a spending trillion for trump to have with no budget ceiling until september 30, including over $2 billion for the wall. and we know it has already been approved that he can do whatever he wants with our money. and the very next day they vote to impeach him as unfit for public office. that is so ridiculous, like this impeachment is a cover-up for, you know, a distraction for what is going on. host: thank you for the call. we will get a quick response. andt: i think democrats

republicans want to know that congress is working, and a way to show it is working is bypassing this budget authorization. the moving towards passing free-trade agreement with mexico and canada. wants toancy pelosi demonstrate that we can do more than two gum and walk at the same time. host: back to the book in my earlier question, who is advising this president? guest: i think the most important advisor is mike pompeo. he has been around since the beginning. he has proven to be very loyal to the president. he helped lead the north korean negotiations, which is coming back as an issue. he is obviously a smart guy in the sense that he came from west point. his long-standing tenure in the administration and

also by his loyalty to the president, i think it is the most important person in the room right now. host: peter bergen, the book is "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos." thank you very much for being with us here on c-span. we appreciate it. a reminder, we continue all this week our author series as we bring leading authors from a number of different perspectives to share with us their work. peter bergen with us today. coming up, the nation's debt and deficit continues to grow. the referral deficit, more than 23 trying dollars, the debt exceeding $1 trillion. terry jeffrey will be joining us journal"ashington continues. we are back in a moment. ♪ our c-span campaign 2020 bus team is traveling across the country, asking voters what

issues should presidential candidates address. >> my top issue for the 2020 campaign is someone a candidate who will advocate for everybody, regardless of how old they are, what kind of background they come from, what race they are, what religion they are, what their sexual orientation or gender orientation may be. i feel like that has not been happening in the past few years, and i feel like we need to get back to a president that will advocate for everybody. >> my top issues for the government for the 2020 election is social justice and what you plan to do to resolve the issues across the nation. is wealth2020 issue and how it affects american politics and how money influences policies. student loan debt, we need help on those student loans. >> my top 2020 issue is not legislative but an ethics issue.

i think political transparency is our biggest issue in washington and government in general. i think something they need to focus on is making sure that the american public really knows what is going on. there are a lot of committee hearings and meetings we cannot know about that i think are really important when it comes to our perception of politics. so if the candidate can focus on being upfront on their views, and once they get into office, stating what is actually going on and allowing the american public to be more involved in the democratic process, and things would be a lot smoother in washington. >> this is from the road, on c-span. "washington journal" mugs are available at the new online store. store.org.an check out the mugs and see all of the c-span products. " washington journal" continues.

welcome back terry jeffrey, a syndicated columnist and editor ed chief of cns news. this is from the editorial page this morning of the "wall street journal." the bipartisan spending party. it begins, congress has left town for the year, but alas, not before another bipartisan spending party that has typified the trump presidency. the numbers are likely to have more long-term impact than impeachment. a discretionary spending bill, and this year's debt exceeding $1 trillion. guest: crazy. that editorial is exactly right. you have a bipartisan agreement on the hill, and it is not a new one, where they are allowing the government to grow out of control. and it has a lot of federal spending that is driven by social security and medicare, and you have the baby boom

generation retiring, increasing the amount of money spent on those. social security passed more than $1 trillion last year. that is spent by the department of health and human services. in addition, you have massive and bothnary spending, parties in congress are doing absolutely nothing to try and roll that back. host: in the number we have been referring to, courtesy of debt clock, the nation's debt, $23 trillion. how much money is that? and don't just say a lot. guest: i tell you, put it this 2019, the debt increased about $1.2 trillion. millions not quite 128 households in the country during that year, according to the census bureau. the federal government, just in -- if americans

can imagine, if they own credit irds and you charge $9,000, think they would be a little upset. in addition to the spending the government is paying for with the taxes they take from us, lest you they spent more than $9,000 per household in this country with money they had to borrow. in an interview with the president in july he said the reason he had to increase spending was to rebuild the military he said was decimated under the obama presidency, but he said he would deal with the debt and deficit in his second term. do you believe him? guest: well, i hope he will. if he is going to do that, he needs to make -- let me put it this way, when president trump i think social conservatives particularly were not sure, is this really the guy we want in the white house, and can we trust him? one of the things he did to earn their trust was put out a list

of the people he would name to the supreme court if elected. i think president trump intends to rollback federal spending and deal with the federal debt in the second term, and he should put out a concrete plan that the nation can have a referendum on and that he is promising to do. and he should challenge democrats and republicans to be with him on the plan or not. host: do deficits matter? dick cheney famously said they don't. guest: well, they do. you look at federal spending, and you mentioned that trump was worried about not having enough defense spending, the number one thing spent on is the department of health and human services, which includes health care spending. the second thing is social security, which you have the baby boomers retiring. the third thing is the department of defense, which last year spent more than $615 billion. a lot of money. not like we're spending a little money, we are spending a lot of

money on defense. does the federal government have a great many things they can cut? without question. host: the issue is, is this sustainable? the issue came up in november with jerome powell, the fed chair. you will hear from ohio republican bill. here is what happened. [video clip] >> i would define sustainable as the debt is not growing faster than the economy. our debt is growing faster than our economy by a margin. so i think, by definition, that makes it unsustainable. continue toebt indefinitely grow as a percentage of gdp? at what point do we reach that tipping point where we are unrecoverable? >> it is not a question to which the really is an answer, the specific tipping point. there are examples of countries that have much higher levels. what you do know is that over time as the debt builds up, you will be spending more -- more

accurately, our children and grandchildren will be spending more their tax dollars. they have grown interest on the borrowing we have done. as opposed to things we need like education, health care, social security. host: what are you hearing from the fed chair? guest: good point. after the defense, the next thing was interest on the debt. currently some of that interest goes back to the government itself. the government has debt held by the public, treasury securities uy, and they also have intergovernmental debt, money basically stolen out of the social security trust fund, and the treasury owes that money back to the social security program. some of the interest now was being paid back. the government pays interest to itself on paper. but more than $300 billion of that interest is cash interest they have to be on treasury securities. the average interest rate on treasury securities now is about

2.5%, which is historically very low level. up $1 trillion in new debt every year, and at some point interest rates will go higher because people will be more reluctant to buy our debt. for example, the treasury department publishes the major foreign holders of u.s. debt. for a long while, china was a major holder, buying more treasury securities than anybody else. in recent times, they have been eclipsed by japan, and now japan has a little bit more u.s. debt than the chinese. the chinese ownership of u.s. debt pete in 2013. if you looked at the people's republic of china, this communist regime around the world, as one of our principal lenders -- they borrow money from the people's republic of china. six years ago, the people's republic of china started saying, maybe there are other places that are better to invest than u.s. treasuries. they're still our second-biggest

holder, but they are down in the last six years. that is a sign that you will find more and more people reluctant about u.s. treasuries and we will have to raise the interest rate. in portland,ves oregon, and you can send us a text message at (202) 748-8003. abouts, why is it always spending and not tax cuts to the rich? guest: if you look at individual income tax rates, the individual income taxes americans paid in fiscal 2019 where the highest ever. on $.7 trillion in the individual income taxes -- $1.7 trillion in individual income taxes. corporation taxes are significantly down. corporate tax revenues were up in 2017 to 2018, but there significantly down from 2007 when they hit their peak.

it is not like the federal government is not taxing people. the federal government is imposing a higher income tax on the american people now than they ever have. but they are spending so much more that the debt increased $1.2 trillion the same year that the federal government was collecting more individual income tax than it ever had. this lisa merriman has point, that spending should be cut across the board. that is a tweet. good morning. welcome to the program. caller: good morning. i believe in truth, facts, results. pinocchios and every bit of pants on fire. i was watching predictions about all this going on with the debt. perothed cnn savage ross in the past. it distorted what he said.

now i am watching cnn tell distorted lies about donald trump. if you want an example, yes, we did lower taxes, but he also failed to mention he took away most of the rich people's write-offs. again, truth, facts, results, far beyond your concept. i voted for barack obama. and i watched him say -- [indiscernible] never coming back. i want cnn to say, why aren't they ever coming back? i don't know. you got me to the point where i blocked cnn on my fios. truth, facts, and results. you'ree donald trump, fired. host: thanks for the call. terry jeffrey. removal one was the

limits on some of the deductions on tax cuts that president trump signed. and quite simply, you have more people working, a record number of people working in the united states. unemployment is at a recent historic low. more people working, more people paying income taxes. cut it is true that the tax benefited corporations more than individuals. robert is next on the phone from greenville, texas, independent line. caller: good morning. a hypothetical here, why can't we have our budget that congress be basically transferred over to the irs to adjust its tax rates on a year-to-year basis, to actually come to some kind of a balanced budget?

i know it would be a bitter pill to swallow, that $9,000 per household you are talking about earlier, but why not have it where -- because politics, these politicians, they would have to get their house in order real quick or they would be voted out if they don't figure out how to balance the budget. host: thank you for the call. we will get a response. guest: the constitution gives the power of the purse to congress. this power over this question, and the problem is that the american people do not hold congress responsible for the excessive spending that they do. some of the spending that congress does is targeted to please certain constituents. that deserves more exposure. one of the reasons i think that you see the sort of process where, as "wall street journal" points out, congress has the massive bills and we are now almost three months into the fiscal year, they should have

been passed before september 30, so that people cannot read them and study them and look at them and debate them and see where the money is actually going. the issue of spending and democratic proposals came up in the final debate of 2019, cohosted by cbs news hour and politico. a question to senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. [video clip] >> senator warren, every candidate on the stage has proposed tax increases on the wealthy pure you have an especially ambitious plan. apart from health care, hike taxes an additional $8 trillion over the decade, the biggest tax increase since world war ii. how do you answer top economist to say taxes of this magnitude would stifle growth and investment? >> oh, they are just wrong. [cheers and applause] let's start with wealth caps,

the idea of a two cent tax on the great fortunes of this country, $50 million and above. for two cents, what can we do? we can invest in the rest of america. we can provide universal childcare, early childhood education for every baby in this country aged zero to five. universal pre-k for every three-year-old and four-year-old, and raise wages to every child care and preschool teacher. we can do even more for our public school, for college graduates appeared we can cancel student loan debt. think about the economic impact of that. for the billionaires, they are not eating more pizzas, not buying more cars. reinvest that in early childhood education and childcare. that means those babies get top-notch care. it means their mamas can finish their education.

it means their mamas and their daddies can take on real jobs, harder drugs, longer hours, and we can increase productivity in this country, and we can start building this economy -- their mamas and their daddies can take on real jobs, harder jobs, longer hours. that is how we build it in rural america and urban america, an economy that works for main street as much as it works for wall street. host: the debate is available on our website, courtesy of cb -- pbs, c-span.org. paul krugman is saying to fox news that the deficit is vastly overrated, go ahead and deficit spend because it is an investment in the future, whether it is pre-k or the green new deal. guest: when the federal government borrows $1 trillion a year, you're stealing money from future generations that will have to pay the interest. talking about paying down the debt or paying off the debt,

when americans buy a home, they want to pay off the mortgage so they own the home. we have a government that continues to renew its mortgage and imposes deficits on future generations of americans. elizabeth warren wants a bigger government and wants more taxes. a: my did in october looked at i did in column october looked at a consumer expenditure survey, which had detailed data that calculated the average american consumer unit, and they mean basically a household but it could be an individual who lives with other people that keeps independent expenses, they calculated with the average household or consumer unit spends on areas different items. it turns out that the average american consumer unit, according to the federal government analysis, spends more money on taxes than they spent on food, clothing, and health

care combined. when you look at the numbers, you can add entertainment. so the average american is paying more to the government in federal, state, local taxes, more than $18,000 per year for the average consumer unit, then we pay for food, clothing, health care, and entertainment. i think people listening really think, is the government giving me more than my food, clothing, health care, and entertainment? they are not. i think we have a government that is disproportionately large and is overtaxing people. country whereree people like elizabeth warren not think they have the right to take additional money that you make. host: a tweet saying american households paid the largest federal income tax aggregate in 2019, meaning the largest drain of aggregate demand from the usa economy. i want to share from the "washington post company numbers from the treasury department, and look at the year-to-year

debt, which came down during the obama administration and is now increasing during the trump administration, approaching $1 trillion this fiscal year alone. andy from sterling, virginia. good morning. caller: i don't understand why c-span continues to have frauds like this gentleman or norquist come on your show when they are saying basically what mitch mcconnell wants to do. in order to pay down this debt and deficit, listen up, trump supporters, trump zombies, they are going to go after your social security, your medicare, your medicaid in order to pay for those huge tax cuts that trump gave to his billionaire buddies and to the corporations. this is what is coming down the road. this is what they are after. this is where they know were all the money is. better listen up, trump supporters, they're coming after you. thank you. host: how do you respond?

iest: if you read my column, blame mitch mcconnell for the spending. $4.4 trillion federal government, was a big enough? that is what it says. guest: there is a bipartisan agreement to spend more money. mitch mcconnell is not controlling the spending. republicans are not controlling the spending. the individual income taxes at the federal government collected in fiscal year 2019 were more than ever collected, but they still have a deficit of more than nine had a billion dollars in borrowed. it is the political establishment on capitol hill controlling the deficit or rolling back the debt of the federal government. an amendmentas offered that said to reduce the amount appropriated to be 2% less, the amount appropriated for fiscal year 2019, and that

felt significantly. guest: it lost. there were 25 republicans who voted against it and 24 who voted for it. trying toul was just cut discretionary spending in one fiscal year by 2%. i did the analysis, and if you look at certain government agencies -- the department of education, and the last 20 years, since 1999, the beginning of this country, it has grown more than 100% in real terms, federal spending on the department of education. it is discretionary spending. politicians are spending twice as much now as they were 20 years ago. congress -- there was a bipartisan vote with mitch mcconnell on the wrong side. saying,rk from new york can you please have your guest answer this, how many loopholes

were removed from the upper-class taxes so they could get this magnificent tax cut? guest: there were. i did not memorize all the details, but they did limit some deductions and removed some deductions. i think that is partly responsible for why people pay more individual income taxes last year. they increased the standard deduction which is for the lowest end of the income scale, but i'm not sure what it did for people in the middle class and people moving upward. the american dream is to work hard and make more. be more successful and make more money. why should the government try and inhibit that by penalizing people for making a little bit more money next year? you made more money, we will take it away and then spent and borrow more and your kid will pay interest because the extra money we took for me was not enough to run the government. host: baltimore next, steve on the republican line. caller: i have a question in

reference to mutual funds. the u.s. treasury money market and the u.s. treasury government money market, which a lot of americans hold -- i hold those through t. rowe price -- we currently have a prices debt crisis in the repurchasing market, putting in the $160 billion a day and have been for the past two and half to three months, into these repurchasing agreements. and what the federal government did was the interest rate, as the gentleman spoke, was 1.75%. it rose to 10% in less than one week's time, at which time mr. powell came in, federal reserve chairman, and we have but a cap on what you can earn on those two funds. they did that just for the reason we were discussing. we cannot afford to be paying s, repurchasing agreements, so we are right back where we were in the 2008 crisis

when banks cut in over their head. otherwise, why would we have mr. powell come in and cap those two marketplaces? in those two funds, u.s. of thosemoney, 30% funds, both have 30%, are of repurchasing agreements. i feel that that goes against everything when it comes to a little contract, which is a prospectus from t. rowe price or raymond james, because they all -- host: i will stop you and get a quick response. guest: i have not followed that mutual fund issue. host: a headline from the "wall street journal," u.s. deficit in the one truly dollars first few months of the fiscal year. that is a first. guest: in this calendar year, just like in this fiscal year, they have already increased the debt i more than $1 trillion.

we are not seeing anywhere in the future where this will be reversed. there will have to be significant changes. host: michael in imperial beach, california. thank you for waiting period caller: -- thank you for waiting the government was stealing from social security to pay other bills for years. i believe george w. bush said in his second term that one of his main goals was to invest that money into wall street to get a better return. we all know what happened to the pension funds, once they started doing that all over the united states. so is the united states government considering actually investing in wall street to get a better return on the money that they are stealing from social security? because handing over money to wall street, in my opinion, it is a disaster waiting to happen. your thoughts? president george w. bush

wanted social security reform, but i do not think he went far enough. there were other plans where the idea was to let people create individual personal internment accounts where they were putting a certain percentage of their , rather than into social security taxes, they were putting it into broad-based mutual funds to build up their own retirement funds that did not belong to the government, that belonged to them. the idea was that when a person retired, it is from their private investments that they able to get at least the equivalent of a social security benefit, and they would be on their own. if they did not, the government would make up the difference in guarantee they got that. i thought that was a better plan because you will not be dependent on government the way people are now. nowadays people and their employers play this massive -- pate this massive social security tax, and they do all their life until retirement, and

then they depend on the government to make those payments in social security to them. it is not a good thing in every public for people to be dependent on the government for their income. a comment saying, limiting the interest deduction on mortgages and an limit on state and property taxes had the upper middle class and rich more than media is stating, but mainstream media only calls the tax cuts for the rich. guest: right. i am a native of california and have lived out here since 1986. in the california, i grew up in the bay area, and life is expensive in that area. housing is expensive the cost of living is expensive. there are areas of new jersey and around new york city that are like that. in d.c., it is very expensive. so there are places in the country where someone, if they're going to have a middle-class life and be able to afford a home and raise a family, they will have to be in that income bracket.

host: alan greenspan on cnbc earlier this month, here is the headline -- as inflation is inevitably going to rise as the deficit balloons over $1 trillion. will it? guest: yes. if you look at the structure of the debt, we talk about the intergovernmental debt where the government is borrowing from surplus social security taxes and paying it back to itself, more and more of the debt will be publicly traded treasury securities. if you look at the way that is structured, a lot of the federal bills, whicheasury mature in one year. inis not like it is all 30-year bonds with a set interest rate that we will be paying for the next 30 years. as the interest rate rises, the government will be rolling over these bills and notes that they are now paying a very low

interest rate on, and those interest rates are going to jack up. that will accelerate the cost of the debt. host: a call from michigan. tim, good morning. caller: hey, steve, i cannot wait to hear your republican callers come calling in and saying how biased you are by having somebody like terry on. host: you must have been listening yesterday. caller: i was. i tried to get in and defend you. you are my favorite. name, she is not on. i saw her on the interview. help me out. host: greta? caller: no, no. she got boosted up. host: susan swain? anyway, she was doing an

interview on "q&a." host: right, susan swain. caller: yes, i miss her. she would when moderate. i like to put a plug-in for stephanie miller on free speech tv. untilhow was my favorite i discovered stephanie miller. getting to this guy. cuts too talk about tax the rich, and that guy from virginia, what was his name? host: you got me. go ahead with your question. rich.: tax cuts for the they give money away from them and then they create deficits starting with reagan and they take it out on people like me on social security. they have already done it.

they are raising the age wanting to cut the benefits, not to mention medicare and medicaid. now on abortion. mister?"so pro-life, bombing't these people the clinics? why aren't you out in force at the cages freeing the children that are already born and are dying in modern-day mini concentration camps? why aren't you manning those cages? i do not know how you can call yourself a christian. it --n atheist but that if that is your deaths -- definition of christianity, pal. mr. trump. a great businessman. rating, from a scale of one to 100, the trump organization is 16.

if you do my believe me, you can look up for your viewers or have one of your republican viewers call him thank you so much. unpack.lot to your reaction? on border security in the wall street journal editorial, they mentioned the new deal spends about $1.37 million for border security. legitimately wanted federal money, a moral policy for the border, you would secure the border so thoroughly that people were not try to leave other places, they wouldn't take their kid and move all the way across mexico and go out to the desert. home and legally

apply to immigrate to the united states. spends record spending -- , formerrry jeffrey senior advisor to that buchanan's presidential campaigns. now i columnist and editor in chief of cnn news not -- cnn news.com. thank you for stopping by. guest: greatly appreciated. more shake about the boeing as its ceo has been fired. after has been forced out two crashes, killing 346 people. the halting of the construction of the manufacturing, that developing story, the ceo has been forced out.

we want to turn our attention to the issue of impeachment. whether or not you favorite republicans -- it favors the republicans or democrats. republicans,e (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. the day before christmas eve. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> our c-span campaign 2020 bus is asking voters what issues presidential candidates should address. >> i want a candidate who will advocate for everybody, regardless how old they are and what kind of background they come from, what race they are and what religion they are, what their sexual orientation or gender orientation may be. i feel it that has not been

helping in the past few years and we need to get back to a president who advocate for everybody. -- >> my topissues issues are what you plan to do across the nation. >> my 2020 issue's wealth and how it affects american politics . >> student loan debt. issue is not a legislative issue. an ethics issue. lyrical transparency i think is our biggest issue in washington and the government in general. something they need to focus on is making sure the american public knows what is going on. it is really detrimental. the candidates, if they would focus on eating up front and

what they do to get into office, and what exactly going on, allowing the american public to be involved in the process, it would be a lot smoother and washington. >> tonight, on "the communicators." china has other policies that make it anonymously difficult for u.s. companies to compete fairly and effectively in china in a way that we do not make it difficult for them to compete. our networks cannot offer service in china. flows are veryta strict. restrictions to do business without a local partner, if you will. the chinese government in fee ability to maintain information,

if you will. ceo of thet and information technology council tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators. " >> "washington journal" continues. inside "the washington times," there is this story. senators from both sides of the aisle appearing optimistic yesterday a deal would be reached by party leaders to hold an impeachment trial in the senate once lawmakers returned after the holidays. mcconnell was on fox and friends this morning indicating witnesses will in fact be called to the senate trial, which will be live on c-span two. let's get to your phone calls.

jim in., pennsylvania. .aller: good morning merry christmas to everybody. saturday nights, the parking lots are full. i am thinking, in august, i "donalde speaker say, trump is trying to goad us into impeachment." who did you vote for in 2016? caller: hillary. host: your economy flipped from democrats to republicans. caller: you are right.

i always thought hillary would be the best but this guy has done a darn good job as far as the economy. eerie, pennsylvania, and no one is talking about impeachment. when she held it up after the impeachment and held it up ,ending it over to adam schmidt i think it will have a real effect on the 2020 election. i voted for hillary last time but will definitely vote for trump this time. michigan. don, who is stronger, democrats or republicans? caller: i believe democrats are currently stronger but that is only because there is so much bias in the media.

i took a relatively simple calls and found that your programming was favoring democrats. can you respond? host: 20 mean? -- what do you mean? timer: there is more devoted to democrats than independents and republicans questio. host: i disagree. we hear from all sides and get all different points of view. have anyo you empirical evidence? have you ever compounded minutes, hours, and number of speakers question mar -- speakers? count phone calls. we divide between democrats, republicans, and independents evenly across the board. 56 calls, a third from each. let's go to price in michigan, good morning.

you saying republicans are stronger? yes, i believe republicans are stronger now. i was a democrat all of my life. i am very disappointed in the democratic party. i think they have wanted to push everything and now i think they are trying to do the same thing to the senate. thank you for the call. what to expect. individuals are not set in stone. the house has impeach the president and soon it will be up to the senate to decide president trump's fate. senators must vote guilty. it does not elaborate how the senate trial is supposed to work and what rules of evidence

should apply. who is stronger following the house impeachment of the president? for republicans, (202) 748-8001. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. who do you think is stronger? caller: it will come down to trump's lawyers defending his actions. if they turn it into a circus, it will make republicans look bad. the republicans will have all of the power and will kind of get all of the blame if they try and cover up and do not call witnesses. it has turned into a circus of he said she said. a trial is about facts. it is not about process. they may argue that in the media

. if they can prove his intent was clearly innocent, then i think he does not have a problem. with trump, it does not look like -- there is a reason he is blocking things. dots together and get certain witnesses, you get facts. not rhetoric. what happened in july, what happened. he can make it seem possible, then i think the republicans can win. if they cannot prove that and it turns out to be negative, it will be hard for trump to be reelected because he will not admit it.

host: thanks. in the washington post, the white house official having a hold on ukraine it came 91 minutes after the president was on a phone call with president zelensky of all ukraine. directing the defense department to hold off on sending military aid to the ukraine. less than two hours from a phone call. michael is a senior official telling the pentagon the president had become personally -- ukraine eight. democrats want to see testify in the trial. a former democrat and now republican who represents new jersey process a second district, switching as a republican. the president in the oval office friday. >> i believe this is a better fit for me. this is who i am.

it is who i always was. there is more tolerant of moderate and blue dog democrats. i think that is going away. you have my undying support. president trump: thank you very much. same way. i am endorsing him. we are endorsing him. i cannot speak for these two gentlemen but i will say i'm endorsing him. >> in the last thing i will say, , a lot ofheroes different people are on their -- there. mysaid i did not leave party. my party left me. >> now a republican running for .eelection

michelle in garden grove, california, your answer question ma? who benefits from and more? probably have to say republicans because i think that took process place with the previous impeachment inquiries with adam schiff heading the intelligence part of it and then going to the judiciary, i thought it was the judiciary that held that part of it. doneemed very improperly by the way it was written in the constitution. fair. not seem now i find it funny we have democrats trying to get their end of things be fair from the

beginning. why should it be fair for them. host: thank you. ofding the effort impeachment is nancy pelosi. she met with reporters after the impeachment. it seems like have a spring in their step. the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior. no one is above the law and the constitution is the law of the land. no one is above the law. the president has been held accountable. really is interesting to see the response we are getting. bipartisan across party lines. i want to say i have a spring in my step. you see a hundred members go to and speak about our

constitution and the facts of the case so clearly and patriotically. but so definitely. host: doug jones said yesterday that impeachment must be above electoral politics. carolina.outh who benefits more, democrats or republicans? caller: i would have to say republicans probably benefit. i watch these hearings and it is the way theyy handled it. what they are setting an example for is getting away from actual evidence. guyhearsay, that i heard a

and this guy said that. if that is acceptable information in a process in a trial, that is a very state -- scary trend and we are moving away from that. i think americans should be concerned with of those kinds of things. i think republicans hold a .tronger position i am not a trump supporter. guy going out there and fighting for the country. will leave it there. from this piece on the hill.com, from high crimes to misdemeanors, jt young, who served in the office of management and budget under the george w. bush administration, writing the following. " the senate will acquit him likely with majority bipartisan

support. for most americans, this will be vindication and were moving cloud democrats have held over his head for the entirety of his presidency. already climbing in the polls. 's portal ceiling should rise. for democrats already being unable to gain traction with their candidates, there inability to walk away will make them look even loweringeme and risks their floor even more." caller: good morning. democrats have an advantage don'te republicans always want facts amateurs. they will lean toward untruth.

because they have a majority in the senate, that is how they will play it out. the evidence is there. if you think someone has done some and wrong, you should ask the fbi to investigate. you cannot ask another country to meddle in our affairs. when we go tog the ballot to vote. furthermore, mcconnell has already stated some facts he .hould not be stating he should recuse himself. you cannot state you will not have anything or do anything. that is cruel and mean. if you have a trial, you're supposed to lead the trial go on. thank you. from new york city. the house republican reacting to

appeasement for gop for democrats as he met with reporters. said she had asi jump -- a swinging her step. because thetrue publicans -- the republicans will be stronger after today. republicans will replace. i think the question is, speaker pelosi, she promised her own the public would before it. we found that not to be the case. she promised they would be stronger and they will beast -- they will be smaller. don't find that any of this was healthy in any aspect that you measure it. it is definitely not healthy for our government but definitely not healthy for america itself around the world. host: kevin mccarthy of california. your phone call.

michael in pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning. believe that democrats will come out a little stronger because the base wanted this. they wanted to show that this president has a crime. the crime is there. republicans, if you tell a lie long enough, they believe it is the truth. trump supporters believe he is some type of savior. they will not let the president do whatever he wants. he basically believes there is no law that he has to be held accountable for. host: thank you. headline, four reasons why republicans will not turn on trump no matter what. writes, when you look at the trump administration, it is clear that sees the gop not as a

political party which exists as a vehicle to execute party -- policy provisions, but an asset that exists to be controlled and passed down to heirs. are feudal lords who may set up at the pleasure of the sovereign. less benignr a metaphor, the republican party is a family controlled syndicate which will run the business until a rival gang takes them down or the feds catch up with them. wilson, wyoming, on the republican line. good morning all stop >> how are you? -- good morning. caller: how are you? i think trump will not be convicted, which basically makes him the winner again. --spite of his route taunts rude taunts that many of us do not approve of.

the governance should trump politics. host: thank you. how is this playing out on the campaign trail? two as, one from the american accent -- action network. from the defendant might pursue supporting impeachment. let's watch. [video clip] >> a politically motivated charade that lets the washington elites decide the election and not us. it is time for them to ignore the issues we care about. like helping our veterans. enough with partisan games. get to work on issues that matter to us. --i solemnly swear >> that i will support -- >> and defend the constitution of the united states --

>> against all enemies -- >> foreign and domestic. >> we kept our oath. >> members of, -- congress have part.their >> risking national security for his own game will stop >> keep your oath and put country first. >> because no one is above the law. host: the politics of impeachment, which parties benefited from all of this. mike is next from connecticut. i would like to make a comment on your programming. your phone calls could not be more fair. but as far as the questions you ask, they are definitely anti-president trump and anti-republican. host: how so? caller: why don't you have a question like, is joe biden and his son guilty of extorting countries?

the china deal. how come we had -- we never have questions like that? it is always just negative about president trump. host: we would disagree with that point of view. we focus extensively on the biden issue as well but our questions are designed to be fair to all sides. kathy joiningto us from tennessee on the republican line. how are you today? caller: i am doing fine. i feel it republicans will come out on top. based on what i have seen in the news, the whole time president trump has been president, they've went after him and have tried to find every excuse to find a reason to impeach him. i myself trying to figure out, what is their actual job and how

do they and their paycheck, and how did they before president trump was elected? because all they have done is gone after him. i have never seen a president so disrespectful and that is wrong. thank you. all of your calls and comments and tweets and text messages. thank you for being with us on christmas eve eve. we continue our series focusing on authors and their leading publication from all points of view. you can check out the full on our website and reminder, take us along any time the free c-span radio app. safe travels to all of you, happy hanukkah, have a good one. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019]

♪ >> coming up on c-span, a summit hosted by the white house on efforts to deliver mental health treatment to people experiencing homelessness, violence and substance abuse disorder. at 11:00 we will break away from the white house mental health u.s. pror a quick forma session before resuming with the mental health. later, democratic president candidate tom steyer speaks in new hampshire. week, what is on c-span2 -- book tv is on c-span2. starting tonight with nikki haley and her book, with all due respect.

tuesday at 8 p.m. eastern, supreme court justice neil gorsuch, a republic if you can keep it. eastern, at 8:30 p.m. in-depth with naomi klein, her latest book is on fire. eastern,at 8:00 p.m. we discussed presidents with the book, the problem with democracy. front :00 -- friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the book catch and kill. watch the special airing of book tv this holiday week and every weekend on c-span2. house hosted a summit on efforts to deliver mental health treatment to people experiencing almost this, violence and substance abuse issues. in this portion of the summit, health -- mental health -- mental health professionals address reform efforts. the health and human certain -- the health and human services secretary a a