>> president-elect joe biden announces his nominees for elven ministration including health and human services surgeon general and the head of the centers for disease control and prevention. --2:30, the senate time here's from the vice combatant -- vice commandant. in an hour, nebraska congressman don bacon on the 2021 defense policy bill and efforts to forge a compromise on covid-19 relief legislation. at 8:30, henry cuellar, and member of the house appropriations committee, discusses the upcoming

government deadline and efforts to get a deal on covid-19 relief legislation. tom colicchio on lobbying federal aid and supporting the restaurant industry. ♪ ist: good morning, it tuesday, december 8, 2020. yesterday, multiple news outlets reported president joe biden has picked his secretary of defense. if confirmed, he would be the first black defense secretary but also the second time in .our years we are asking for your view on the principle of civilian control of the military. does picking a recently retired four-star general to lead the department of defense undermine that principle?

phone lines are open to call in. republicans are (202) 748-8001, democrats are (202) 748-8000, and independents, (202) 748-8002 . a special line for active and retired military, (202) 748-8003 . that is also the number you can send us a text if you do send a text. please include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up assaults -- catch up with us on c-span.org. a good tuesday morning to you and you can start calling in now. it was on politico -- it was political yesterday that broke the story about the generals pick -- general austin pick to be the next defense secretary. withding to three people knowledge of the position, if confirmed, he would be the first black person to lead. biden chose a barrier breaking

four-star officer who was the first black general to command an army division in combat in an entireto see theater of operations. -- first to oversee the entire theater -- an entire theater of operations. u.s. central command before retiring in 2016 and emerged as a top-tier candidate in recent days after recently viewed as a longshot. obama's former policy chief was officially -- originally viewed but herrontrunner name was absent two weeks ago. reporting yesterday from politico. as we said, if general austin is to become the next defense secretary, it would require a waiver on a rule that they general in active duty member needs to wait seven years before being confirmed to the top job at the pentagon, and that is the question we are asking about this morning.

the role intended to promote the importance of civilian control of the military. we are asking how important that principle is to you. timesby at the new york looks into this issue. arguing that the role should stay in place, the general austin should not picked for this job because of how recently he had served in the military. this is what jim goby writes in his new york times column, president-elect hyden had announced his nominees and the new york times is reporting he will seek a congressional waiver to nominate the retired general for secretary of defense. it is only the third time a president requested a waiver since congress passed the national security act in 1947, which required a perspective secretary to wait seven years after ending active duty as a commissioned officer. truman appointed george marshall in 1950 and mr. trump chose james mattis. commander but

only retired in 2016, not long enough. a civilian not a recently retired general should leave the pentagon. we will go more into the column later on in the segment, but we mostly want to hear from you about that principle of civilian control of the military. here is how phone lines are split up, republicans, (202) 748-8001, democrats, (202) 748-8000, independents, (202) 748-8002. that lines where we begin this morning from independent in oxford, massachusetts. good morning to you. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i want to say while civilian control of the military is all important, it is the most important thing. the only problem is that the military and government is controlled by lobbyists, by international businesses, and they are paid off. they have to make a profit.

you manufacture a bomb, you have to explode that bomb in order to produce more bombs to make a profit. going.o keep the economy that's the problem. host: so is it more concerning years then his four retiring from active duty, is it the fact that the general, after he retired, joined the board of directors at the defense raytheon, which is also gathering criticism for those not happy with this pick. is that more concerning? caller: there is -- that is concerning, but a lot of these people, once you are a military guy, i think you are a military guy forever. it is all the same mentality to -- like eisenhower said,

the military-industrial complex, they have to produce to make profits, and that money goes over there. we are killing innocent people, really. instead of building up our own country. .ll the problems we have here that is all i have to say. host: that's carl in massachusetts. this is cliff in texas. a republican, good morning. caller: good morning. civilians should be in control of the military, like it has always been, but i take offense at the constant " well he's black." what does that have to do with it? as a civilian, i want the best there is. it really goes against his interest, the general's interest, because if he does not take it, everyone will say it is because there were racists that

did not want him in there. it muddies up the water to constantly be pulling the race card on every issue in america. and i roomedold, with arthur ashe. i didn't see art as black, white, purple, i saw him as a great tennis player and man. finally, i would like for the so-called "woke" people to think about what they are doing when it is constantly first black. black people ought to be saying, "hold on here, i don't want to have that mark on me constantly." we all know he's black. pointt divides us to the where -- you know, now, unfortunately, and this is my last comment, unfortunately, because race has been brought into the conversation, to such a

degree, i'm a bad guy now because i'm an old white, rich man. that is wrong, too. anyway, i'm here -- host: before you go, when did you room with arthur ashe? was this in school? caller: he and i won the davis cup together in 1970 in cleveland. [indiscernible] my name is cliff ritchie. i'm not calling in for that, but arthur and i are good friends. arthur wrote in his book, "the old southern boy cliff ritchie and i were good friends. he was aware of the racial thing and i saw the racial thing happen to him." all the 15 years that we saw a tour together. i'm antiracist as they come because i had to see a friend of mine put up with the kind of d -- had years ago. we still have some problems

today, everyone knows that, but i think even a guy like arthur, he was for excellence. , what could you do, what are your skills, what are your talents? he was advised by his advisors to get more racially involved, and he wanted to. he wanted to stay apart and separate, and show the world he was [indiscernible] mr. johnson said you will have problems being a black man, particularly in a sport like tennis. but go out and be good, and have him applaud you for your talent. they would rather have not had the race issue, but they had to put up with it. anyway, sure, we have the race issue, but i tell you, i would love -- sure show this morning -- your show this morning with this comment about this gentleman being considered as

the first black, i think it is better off not to say that and to say here is what he has done in his career. we see he is black. i think our country would be better off. that is my comment. host: that is cliff from san angelo texas. a little more about his career, from the new york times story about the pick of general lloyd austin, he retired as a four-star general in 2016 after 41 years in the military, respected across the military, especially african-american officers ending wristed -- enlisted soldiers, as a rare black man to crack the ceiling that has kept the upper ranks of the military largely the domain of white men. 43% of active-duty troops are people of color but people making crucial decisions are almost entirely white and male. the story goes on to say the general became a top commander of american forces in iraq in 2010, when the united states had roughly 50,000 service members there. much of the tension moved on to other hotspots in the middle east.

also the direction of iraq, including weather and many -- whether american forces remain there. the commanders on the ground were ultimately overruled by the obama administration, which pulled out all american forces at the end of 2011. years later, the decision would be blamed for the alarming state ability to see wide swaths of the country. watertown, of tennessee, independent, retired military. al, this idea of civilian control of military, the prince of we -- principle we have, what does that principle mean to you? caller: it means to me that it is important and we have a rule to make sure that happens. but we are going to go around the rule, aren't we? and were going to do it for a couple reasons. one, the person is black, and in that regard, we will not be able to critique his performance or

you will be called a racist. the most important thing, he is a deep stater. and they are interested in diversity and strength, women in combat, all social justice warrior efforts and none help our fighting efforts. host: this rule you talk about, they go around, the seven-year off period as it is called from active-duty service, we went around it four years ago for general mattis. where you against congress doing that for general jim mad dog mattis, as he was known? caller: it was wrong then, and it is wrong now, and it was on the books for a reason. my experience was, during the mccaffrey years, i sat in the same briefings he was responsible for, and he knew the mexican government was involved in the drug trade but they assigned him to be the drugs are because they knew he would sign -- czar because they knew he

mexicansn off on being participants. why did they do that? this deep state thing goes back a long way. host: what was your job back then? why were you sitting in those meetings as well? caller: i was a reconnaissance pilot in south america. i knew the drug roots and he was a commander. -- routes, and he was a commander. he knew they were involved but signed off on it for financial reasons. me do this finally, historically, to clean up a mess we have right now where you have these two, 3, 4-star generals part of the deep state, all over the world this has been the case, historically, a revolt has been led by a lieutenant colonel or colonel with excellent leadership skills. you will not end up with a trumpent like biden or being able to clean it up. you will have to have tremendous

leadership in the military but it's not a deep state or -- deep stater. host: going back to the waiver granted to jim mattis at the outset, just before president , after he let it be known he would be picking jim mattis as his secretary of defense. newsweek with a wrap up of what happened back in that january of 2017, talking about this rule meant to ensure the secretary always favored military when it comes to services required for current and future soldiers. mattis writes democratic rhode island, the top ranking democrat on the arms service committee says he would put wavers after matus because congress should only issue waivers no more than once in a generation. only one senator voted against that, senator kristen gillibrand

of new york. she said civilian controlling the military is a fundamental principle of american democracy. josh allen of missouri, and members of the armed service come -- armed services committee says i think it is important that there is civilian leadership some nonmilitary americans will they have representation in defense matters at the highest level of government. they go onto quote in their interview with josh hawley as him saying the past four years has been critics to calling for military leaders to defy the president's policies was alarming and incredibly dangerous and said they demonstrated the need for elected civilian leadership to the position. that newsweek wrap up of this conversation about a waiver for the schooling off period, this seven-year cooling off period, required by law, for those active-duty members who would be appointed to the top job at the pentagon.

that is what general lloyd austin would be appointed to, would be confirmed to as the senate confirms him. first, it would require a congressional waiver. you areepublican, next. caller: about the constitution with george washington, civilian leadership, 1934, rockefeller junior tried to get a retired general but he was exposed. look up operation mockingbird. there's a lot of deception. joe biden is not the president-elect, despite what they say. , they willice leo examine the day for the electorate, so this is not a done deal. there is a deep state, the cia, some military, so it is a coup that is going on right now. think about that. host: larry in maryland, and

this is carolyn in virginia. caroline, good morning. caller: good morning. i feel we should have change, new ideas. the world is changing, so we need new ideas. he got everything fresh in his mind. after seven years, people forget things. i think it is a good thing to bring people back to already .now about the military give them any a chance. every time a black person gets in office, we got so much to say about it. give him a chance and see how it would work. i do not think there is nothing wrong with it. the world is changing, and people got different ideas and different views. people are coming and just like obama said, we got to give the world a chance to change it. the white man has always been in charge of everything. every time a black person gets in there, it is always

confidence. host: do you think we should do away with this rule entirely, the seven-year cooling off period between active service and the top job at the pentagon? caller: no, because after seven years, people forget these. after seven years, they forget how the military or how it works, and this and this. i think a year is good. a year is good. host: that's carolyn in alexandria, virginia. beaumont, texas, democrat, good morning. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: this is helen. i wanted to say the seven-year rule should be deleted. i feel general austen is an excellent choice that president-elect biden has chosen. i feel yes he is a black man, in general, and he knows exactly how the military works.

like the last caller said, anytime there is a black person in a significant high-profile job, there is always people that want to say that maybe he is not qualified. he is very qualified, and i think the seven-year rule should be obsolete. ,t is very anti-chromatic inappropriate for a time where in. general austen is an excellent choice. host: that seven-year rule, at one point, it was a tenure rule -- 10-year rule. in the mid to thousands, it was lowered to a seven year rule. -- seven-your rule. of the 17 democratic senators back in 2017 who voted against the waiver for that role , leo sheen often a guest on

this program, and it is 16 democratic senators and one independent, bernie sanders being the independent. of the 17 democratic senators, i can run through some of them for you, including among the lessee put out yesterday senator baldwin of wisconsin, senator blumenthal of connecticut, or of new jersey, duckworth of illinois, durbin of illinois, jell-o who voted against matus's --firmation -- jill a brand murray of washington, udall of new mexico, van hollen a maryland, warren for massachusetts, and wyden of oregon. senators voting against waving that seven-year cooling off 2017 with jim mattis who needed this congressional waiver before eventually going through with his confirmation to become secretary of defense.

president trump's first secretary of defense. out of new york, the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, sir. caller: there we go. host: go ahead with your comment. what do you think about this idea of voting and control the military? caller: i'm very much in favor of the principal. it has been grounded in our political life for over 200 years. i think the military has been an exemplar of the theory that ,ivilians control the military that they have been pushed to the limit by the -- you have to somethat off -- by politicians in recent days. i feel the law is grounded in

sound theory and is worth keeping. host: what would you say to the caller before that said let's do away with the rule, putting them too far removed might keep them from the knowledge -- too far removed from the knowledge they need to run the military? what would you say to that person? caller: that brings me to the next point i was going to make. first of all, constant waivers undermine the theory. secondly, it is a big country. be individuals who can be called upon by any incoming president -- an incoming president that will have the recommended skills, and therefore, i feel we should keep the rule in place and not willy-nilly grant waivers, because it kills the whole concept we are trying to

strengthen. host: one more question for you. if we grant two waivers here in four years, how anymore do you think we will have in the future? do you think it becomes a formality at this point if we do a second one here within four years? caller: exactly. reason toere is some support the idea that people familiar with the workings of the military can bring something to the table, so if anything, maybe we should consider period from seven to let's say something like four years. then you get people relatively out of the military, but still with what is important. host: james in new york this morning. we started this segment with a column in the new york times,

about this waiver for general austin if it is to be granted. more from his column, the pentagon now needs to establish a tradition of national security processes and return to a sense of normalcy. appointing another retired general lead the pentagon will not help return things to normal. even if they retired general like mr. matus was the right person for the trump era, that era is over. it legislative exception granted at an exceptional moment should not be the new rule. after four years of erratic autonomy under trump, military leaders may chafe when civilian national security leaders ask to check their homework. healthy.hat is a certain amount is needed for proper government. -- governments. that is in the new york times if you want to read that. tom on the independent line for

retired military. good morning to you, sir. caller: how are you doing, john? host: go ahead. caller: please give me enough time. all i want to say is that waivers have always been granted in this country for everything if you are a white person. we have ae first time person of color, and all of a sudden, let's do away with the waiver. no one said anything about general mattis and the other white secretary of defenses -- defenses. this country has always did things in favor if you are white. the only thing you have to do in this country to get a waiver is be born white. so yes, i think they should do with a -- do away with it. for all of you trump supporters and republicans that are always coming up with some excuse, if a black person is nominated for anything, get over it because he

will be confirmed. host: that is tom in colonial heights, virginia. michael steele, a former republican party chairman with this tweet yesterday about the nomination of general austin, saying from the 54th massachusetts, the buffalo tuskegee to airmen, joe biden's pic is historic and important. president truman and eisenhower are smiling. that tweet is from michael steele last night after this -- first out agains reported by politico. the new york times with more about the historic nature of a general austin confirmation to defense secretary. they note it would be particularly pointed for black rest point graduates. he was reared in thomasville, georgia, the same town that produced10 --

henry flipper, the first african-american graduate of west point. that is how the end of their column today -- that reporting today on this appointment that is expected to come at some point today. we will look to the announcements from the joe biden -- president-elect joe biden's campaign, the office of the president-elect is what they are being called these days. greg is in mechanicsville, pennsylvania, an independent. caller: good morning. interesting comments here. number one, i am a west point graduate. probably the same time general austin graduated. i am the class of 1970. i think it is interesting that everybody wants to play the race card. this guy is being nominated for a position to be secretary of

the department of defense, not to be a politician, not to carry -- black lives matter fk matter flag, not to do everything, play the race card. his job if confirmed is to run the department of defense. the president is in control of the government, which is above the department of defense. we should do away with this restriction about seven-years. if you cut somebody who is confident -- got somebody who is confident and is the best candidate -- and i'm not sure general austin is. it seems to me that the pressure forbid, joe biden is inaugurated the next president, the pressure on him to appoint people simply on the basis of their color is stupid. stupid. it will result in bad policies.

this guy, if he spent 41 years in the military, he knows the military. therefore, he would be very good at dod. i don't have a problem with that, but the black thing, finally getting back to the new york times article, i thought it was interesting. , mr.irst reading you did golbyaid mr. trump -- said mr. trump. you said president trump, which is what the article should have said. host: that is new york times style when they are writing about people in second reference, they use mr. and miss and miss is in their second reference. that is their style. that's greg in pennsylvania this morning. juan's next out of pennsylvania as well, the line for democrats.

caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. two points i guess. issue general austin is black i think is ridiculous to even be part of the discussion. obviously, the man has a very prestigious and accomplished career in the military and is to betly qualified secretary of defense. is that heond point is on the board of directors of raytheon. the issue is of the continual revolving door high-ranking generals retire, they go to work for defendants, for the military-industrial complex that eisenhower warned us about, they put in their time there and come

back into government. is really kind of -- gives a bad smell. host: if there's going to be a restriction that waivers need to be granted for, do you think it would be more for what their job is after they leave the military than how long they have been out of the military? caller: yes, sir. i think that would be a perfect solution to it. i think he deserves the waiver only to be consistent with prior practice. however, going forward, supposedly, what i have read is opposed tortunately our cells in saudi arabia. we are contributing greatly to a great genocide in yemen. is lobbyingortedly

hard to continue those arms sales. is is one issue to keep on the front burner. being as general austin black individual, absolutely that is a nonissue, but i think it is a revolving door between government and the military-industrial complex is the real issue in my view. that is one out of pennsylvania. it is just after 7:30 on the east coast, taking their phone calls on the "washington journal" today on civilian control the military. how important is that principle to you? phone lines split up as usual, republicans are (202) 748-8001, democrats are (202) 748-8000, ,ndependents are (202) 748-8002 and a special line for active and retired members of the military, (202) 748-8003. in, twoeep calling

obituaries are wanted to note this morning. the first is about the death of former senator pulsar bay -- .aul sarby huge investor losses in major corporate bankruptcies in 2001 and 2002 and he died on sunday in baltimore. he was 87 years old. judy keegan said he died while watching the georgia senate runoff debate on television at a retirement community in which he lived. she did not specify a cause. is best remembered by an act adopted and response -- in response by enron and other companies. it created a federal oversight board for the accounting industry. in the wrapup of paul's death,

the washington times notes he drafted the first articles of impeachment against republican president richard nixon during the watergate scandal when he served as a congressman before going on to the senate. he was 87 years old. the other obituary this morning, this news coming overnight, chuck yeager, a dairy test pilot in world war ii and a daring west virginia has died -- a daring world war ii pilot and a daring west virginia in has died. he was the first -- his understated swagger personify the right stuff associated with test pilots who followed in his footsteps to become the first astronaut in the american space program. he thrilled west virginians by -- "chuck yeager was an american

hero, west virginia's native son was larger-than-life and it an inspiration -- and an inspiration for generations." that is a quote from joe manchin. abouto your calls civilian control the military. jeff is a republican out of norton ville, kentucky. good morning. you are next. kentucky.ille, good morning. you are next. caller: i would like to comment. i don't know a whole lot about this man, but what i'm concerned about is why it has been turned into such a racial thing. everything it seems like anymore, just because the man is black has nothing to do with it. it seems like every caller has called in and it is a black thing.

i would like somebody to answer my question. -- can't we say he is american, qualified or not qualified. why does it have to be black on everything said? distance fromhink active duty service should be a qualification? caller: somebody can answer my question on that. host: our next caller is out of georgia, good morning. caller: good morning. i wish she would give me as much time as you do these white boys i call in here. seem direct and answers to them in response. let me tell you, my husband is a lt. col. in the army. been sond has never disappointed at that trash in the white house, that man that occupies the white house. harm to blackre

individuals in this country than any single human being. john, let me tell you something. him,talk about "we hate how we don't recognize him." when my black president, president barack obama was in there, they did everything they could to destroy his credibility , because they could not stand the fact that he was a black man. something,tell you what's good for the goose is good for the gander. no. i don't respect your white president. he is not mine. i have nothing to say about that man. host: michelle out of georgia. raymond is next out of orangeburg, south carolina, line for members of military active or retired. what are your thoughts on this principle of civilian control of the military? caller: good morning. host: good morning.

say this called into country is showing its true colors. say this country is showing its true colors. there was no color in the vietnam era. host: you are still on, raymond. hello? caller: in the vietnam era. i went into service and had narcolepsy and asthma. did they ask me about a waiver or anything? no. i served. many times i was asleep on duty, but i served. i served the best i could. i did everything to stay awake, is showing fory color. black-and-white. if you are black, you are in trouble. this is what this country is about. one day, i hope and pray that we get over it. yes, this man is not my president.

he is my president because he got in office because they said he won it. eut for me, i could not vot for him, but i still served in the service. race andthe issue of as it is playing into joe biden's picks for his next cabinet. -- had beens receiving criticism from african-american groups around the country about not having enough picks into his cabinet from the african-american community. whatith their wrapup of this could mean -- ask cs -- this could get biden more leeway in picking a white person to serve as his attorney general. and mayor sally yates garland are all possibilities, all three of those individuals.

is the story on their website, the wrapup of their pick in this upcoming battle for austin to become the head of the department of defense. don is in arkansas this morning, independent. you are next. caller: good morning. i guess i want to get back to your question. it sounded like you are asking ofut the civilian control the department of defense. the way i understand it, i would like to know, one, the reason for the seven-year or what would to be a trueassume civilian. i think the reality is you would not just have -- not just want to have civilians controlling the department of defense. i think you would want someone with military experience. a caller mentioned someone from

west point talking about this nominee being black. unfortunately, everything we talk about now overflows into color. not that color is not important, but you have to weigh your decisions on a person's talents and skills. unfortunately, as the president-elect, as every president, as we all look at everybody doing this count of how many, and yes we do want diversity and people of different color, people of different experience, but we want the most experience. it is hard because, with the tensions so high, people get away from that quickly and talk about the race issue. when in fact we need to worry about, is the right person over the department of defense. goes back to rule 1947, the 10-year rule. originally it was 10 and was lowered to seven in the mid to

thousands, but a waiver came a couple years after that rule was late on became law in the 1940's. george marshall becomes the first retired general granted a waiver to that rule in 1950. the rule holds all the way until jim mattis was selected by president trump to be has secretary of defense, and this waiver was granted a second time in january of 2017. that would be granted a third time before general austin would become confirmed to be secretary of defense. that's the history of it, don. caller: right, so i'm curious as to what active military generals say about their feeling about this. they feel like there is importance of people who have been retired or separated for a certain amount of time. host: we have a line for active and retired military and we will get a sense of that. this is alan on that line in

lutherville, maryland. republican. good morning, alan. caller: yes, this is thomas. i did say i was republican -- did not say i was republican but good call. the military has always been the grand social experiment about integration and bringing in transgender, gay, but the military has dignity, we whatever is se -- so mandated. but they select the best individual for that position, and that is related, performance related. thater point -- is-related, performance-related. another point is that it is controlled by civilians all the way to the president, be it military or not. the military has a high moral code, something called mission

command. that means once we are giving -- given our left and right --its for emission, i have a former special forces background and we don't need to and there will be security leaks in some places. to summarize, during world war ii, they lost the battle plan for europe. it blew out a window, and a british postal -- brought it back three days after the nation said i didn't know what this was but it was stamped most secret so i had no right to look at it. i challenged the press corps today to respond to that in that way. they knew it was not their information and had to be safeguarded. what happened to the idea of propriety? thank you. host: and on the same line, active and retired military, a stafford at virginia. morning. caller: good morning. i do believe there should be

time and distance, at least time, between active-duty service or maybe even reserve secretaryd serving as . there are a few reasons why. one, i think it allows the person some time to serve in other capacities or work in other fields such as academia or industry. ideally both. that broadens their perspective of what they knew being in the military. i would say i have a diverse way of thinking, but more years and time and experience would broaden me and make me i think a better candidate or better able to serve in that capacity. to where maybe by attachments to whatever my thinking was or i don't want to say specialty but whatever my core competencies were, might be a little too narrow.

i think that time would be better -- a little time and maturity and what life does. everyone 40 knows they were different from when they were 30 and when you're 60 you're different from 50, maybe. not saying there is an age, but definitely experience. host: are you active now? caller: i am. host: what would be the feeling when jim mattis gets this waiver and takes over the department of defense? was there a different feeling about mattis versus other secretaries of defense? caller: well, i may be a little biased because there ours -- there is specific service to it, where the current proposed future might be say army. if i'm not in the army, it may be a little more stranger to me. if i was in the marines and you said mattis, it's might resonate

with me and mean something. so i think it depends on what service you are in. if it was a guy from say a former admiral of the navy, the name might have a response. i think it is service-dependent but also reputation. if you would have set another name from another more recent general in the army whose name might resonate more amongst all service members of reputation. i think it depends. i think that is why timing is important. host: who's an example of somebody who would resonate more than general lloyd austin? petraeus is one of the guys. i'm not in the army, but his name resonates with a lot of folks. host: out of washington next, democrat, good morning.

caller: [indiscernible] host: you gotta turned on your television. just talk to your phone. caller: [indiscernible] host: frank, one more time, turned on the television for me. caller: sure. born on didn't -- i was an army base, so anytime i hear anything about military, i always [indiscernible] we the people of the fabric of this nation. know, our military -- we are a strong country, each and every one of us make up the strength of our country. our military is only as strong as we are. vote, we pay our taxes, fund

we military, our military, -- our military is our next-door neighbor. you know, the guy down the street. our military is not -- we are not a dictatorship, -- we thea -- our military is -- strength is -- the heart of our country is not -- we do not advocate violence. barbaric -- when it comes to military and civilian control, it is very important because our military is only as andng, ethically, morally, american as we as the people of united states of america are. host: that's frank in washington this morning. about 10 minutes left in the segment of the "washington journal," asking for your view

on how important civilian control of the military is. you can keep calling in on those phone lines, and we can put the numbers on your screen for you. we have the special line for active and retired military, (202) 748-8003. we wanted to give you an update on the story we have been talking about, the ticking clock on a potential government shutdown. it seems more time will be put on that clock. here is the story from the washington post. congress will vote on a one-week stopgap measure to fund the government to give more time to reach an agreement on government funding in the emergency stimulus legislation for the u.s. economy. the federal government had to shut down after december 11 if congress fails to act. the stopgap measure, the one-week measure would be voted on and give appropriators more time in mitch mcconnell's backing that approach in a floor speech monday afternoon.

it looks like those negotiations will continue into next week. we will keep you updated on those as they do. also, we want to update you on what you can watch on c-span networks today. this morning, the senate homeland security and government affairs committee hears testimony on the medical response to the covid-19 pandemic and the development of outpatient treatments. you can watch come alive, 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. you can also watch online at c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. also today, the white house vaccine summit will take place at 10:00 a.m. eastern. you can watch our streaming coverage on our homepage of that, c-span.org is where you can go. tomorrow, -- sorry, thursday, the food and drug administration is set to host a virtual open meeting to discuss the emergency use authorization of pfizer covid-19 vaccine -- pfizer's cove 19 vaccine. we will show that on c-span3,

online at c-span.org, and on the free c-span radio app thursday morning. some of that is coming up that you might be interested in. back to your phone calls and the a question of importance of civilian control in the military. indiana, this is robert, a republican. good morning. caller: yes, sir. i say we have chaos in this country. we can't even run our own country let alone military. we need somebody in there that needs to know what they're doing, and we are fighting amongst ourselves. was half black and half white. which side of him is racist? that is all he talks about. he is behind all of the scrap going on. job, and wene his have no doubt that it was a corrupt election. i'm telling you, this country better get straightened out, head, i wouldmy

like to tell you what we are facing right now. biden has already said -- he called the pope and the pope is nothing to do with this country. they take him as godly. or i'sno more than you -- i. andove god, most of us do, half love god and half don't. this country needs straightened out. we've got nobody in their right now. when biden gets in there, we are doing it. host: that's robert in indiana. back to the line for active and retired military. riverside, california, good morning. caller: good morning. thatt wanted to say secretary of defense robert gates has a good book out. if you are ever curious what the secretary of defense does in that role, it is a great book to check out. it is called defense.

he gets into that she kind of highlights why you want to might -- what you might want to have someone who is more civilian with experience, because i think his experience with working with texas a&m and being in a different culture helps his perspective on what was important in terms of doing things with getting more met eva evac andg more -- med- doing more than if it's for the military. host: are you active now? caller: yes, sir. host: were you active when jim mattis became the secretary of defense with this waiver? caller: when was that? host: four years ago, 2017. caller: yeah, i was. orders from the people above you, and you don't put a lot of focus into it. you are there to do the job, not tell them how to do the job. you just hope that you have people electing good leaders, which -- [laughter]

i hope america keeps doing that. and you do with those leaders say is going to be important for the country going forward. host: but you don't thing the secretary of defense matters much to the boots on the ground? caller: jim mattis had to but heads a couple times with the don't above him, but -- i get too much into that, no. host: that is robert in california. kathy in albuquerque, it democrats, good morning. caller: good morning. -- a democrat, morning. caller: good morning. i think a person would be fine in this position. i wanted to comment on the people that say it should not be mattered -- based on his color. a lot of these people of color were not allowed to have the opportunity to be in these positions. they need to gain experience somehow. i think that is thinking in the wrong -- i think they should just look at this in a different way. they are never given the opportunity and they will never

gain the experience, but i think you will do fine. thank you. host: brenda, greenville, north carolina, democrats, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm so thankful you brought this forth. i'm surprised everyone is considering he is the right person to hold this office. this persono choose then the president of the united states that i voted for in my whole family. we are democrats. the thing is, sometimes i forget we don't necessarily refer back to our own history. there was a time and period where we were called negros and there was a such thing as the negro war and they were present. can i just read these comments they made back? [indiscernible] and you've got pictures of our black men that served in the military. they have always been there from the beginning. we have always volunteered to serve our country.

and why not general austin? he's more than qualified. this man has knowledge and experience. that's what the president and this country needs. i know. my husband was in the military, air force. the vietnam war, it was not a pretty deal. sometimes, it doesn't work out, but to this extent, i think we president --the allow who the president has chosen 100%. host: a few other comments about general austin's selection, this from senate candidate jamie harrison losing the south carolina race. he wrote last night, another historic selection. richard paneer, a former ethics lawyer -- former top ethics official in the george w. bush administration saying shocker someone who had a career in the military and knows what he is doing will be charged with the defense -- be in charge of the

defense department. a series of tweets from rosa professor at a georgetown university, also revia's lease served in the defense andment of state department. she says if this waiver is granted so soon after mattis, it will eviscerate the statutory requirement of the seven-your cooling off. referring to the gym gobi new golbyimes story -- jim story. he needs a congressional waiver to serve and the opposite message, she writes on twitter yesterday, i've been delighted by biden's cabinet picks until now. i think biden has been badly advised. i'm god smacked his inner circle does not see what terrible message it sends to the second recently retired general in four years. is out of washington, and independent. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: doing well.

caller: fine. i think you will be a great pick. be a greate will pick. he has been in the military for what, 47 years? host: 41 years, and then out of the military for four. caller: yeah, i think he would be qualified. he hasn't been out of the military that long. , and i seattle fireman still remember a lot of things about the fire department. dad -- one thing, my dad, he served and was born in 1913. he was in the navy, and the army was segregated at that time. i would like you to have a segment, one of these days, and talk about what it was like to be in the military during world war ii. was.ow segregated it i was born in 1950.

my dad had me when he was 38 years old, and the stories he told me about what it was like in the military, being a black man, it wasn't very comfortable. nazis know, they treated even better than they did. you should have a segment on that one of these days and talk about how the military was segregated i think until 1948. you should have a segment on that. running out of time, but what is one of those stories that sticks out in your mind? caller: you know, he was a cook on this ship, how they used to treat him, you know. i don't really want to get into it, it wasn't really nice. it was kind of like a tit-for-tat thing. they would call them a lot of names and i wouldn't want anybody doing that if i was cooking, you know, someone was cooking my food or something like that. you should have a segment on

that and let some people that might have been served in that time, i know it's not too many, the last guy was 97 years old, but you have got a have a segment on that one of these days about how the military was segregated during that time. thank you, have a good day. host: thank you for the suggestion. that will do it for the first hour of "the washington journal," but stick around. up next, we will be joined by two members of congress. first we will hear from don bacon, a member of the bipartisan problem solvers, -- problem solvers for covid-19 relief legislation. later really be -- we will be joined by texas democrat henry upcoming funding deadline. stick around, we'll be right back. ♪

>> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. listen to c-span's podcast, "the weekly." us to discusss the constitutional steps that need to be finalized before joe biden is sworn in. find "the weekly," where you get your podcasts. "washington journal" continues. ist: congressman don bacon with us, a member of the bipartisan problem solvers congress -- caucus, responsible for the covid relief bill that has gotten some momentum on capitol hill. will it have enough momentum to get through a nancy pelosi control house and a mitch mcconnell controlled senate and signed by the president?

will get somewhere close to it. for a long time, speaker pelosi demanded that there be 2.2 trillion or something thereabouts. speaker mcconnell had it, then they went down to about $500 billion. i think that this plan is close enough to leader mcconnell that we can get him on board. joe biden said he supported the proposal and speaker pelosi retreated. i think we are very close. i think it's very needed. farl businesses, so industries need this now. it's two or three months overdue, if you ask me. i think we are very close. i'm excited about the work they did to get this to where it's at right now. $908 million, you say that's a magic number. -- $908 billion, is that

something -- most people seem to agree on it. why not pump more money into that? guest: i think we have enough with the pvp, but there are other areas that need help, like the airline industry. if we do not get involved now, they are flying about 40% occupancy. where the world's greatest power, we need an airline industry. but there are other areas like that that need help, some unemployment support. we have a whole series of subsets to the bill that will help in various areas. for example we have some money set aside for states and cities that have larger covid expenses that need to be covered. i think this bill does what's needed. it's not too expensive to where the senate republicans walk away. i think it's in the right spot to get a compromise and support. it does it works, if

pass, what does it mean for the power of centrists, looking forward to a joe biden administration? guest: this problem solvers movement is overdue. i have been in it for four years. you see the majority of whatever party drives goals perfect for that party, making it very partisan, than it has zero chance in the senate. the problem solvers, we try from the beginning of the bill to put together legislation that both sides can support. i don't want to compromise my values, but i can find some areas of agreement with the democrats and now we are working with senators as well and i think it could be the wave of the future if we want to get things done, break the gridlock, move our country forward not only on covid, but hopefully on immigration, health care. there are so many things over which we've had gridlock over

the last 10, 20 years. i'm very excited to be a part of this. host:4 congressman -- host: congressman don bacon is our guest. phone lines this morning, republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. he's with us until the bottom of the hour, eight: 30, go ahead and start calling in now. i don't know if you were listening to our last segment, but we were talking about the pick of general lloyd austin for the defense secretary. i wondered your thoughts on that pick and this issue of the waiver that would need to be granted, since he has only been out of the military for four years. guest: i plan on supporting the waiver. it doesn't bother me to have a retired general be the secretary of defense. he is retired, he's now a civilian. it's still civilian control of the military.

future president joe biden, he will still have civilian control, to. i think the general will bring 41 years of experience into the pentagon and i think that's very good. i thought jim mattis was also a great choice. let's not forget general george c marshall was also the secretary of defense back in the 50's. i don't have a problem with general austin being the secretary of defense. the years of central command when isis took control in syria and iraq, he will have to answer some questions there. from my perspective, i think he's going to be a good choice. a middle-of-the-road moderate option. i thought the candidates that he had were all good, by the way, but i look forward to working with general austin as part of the armed services committee. your i should know

military service, serving for 20 years, retiring as a brigadier general, and from nebraska. maliki is up first from arlington, texas. good morning, you are on with congressman bacon. caller: first of all, it's laughable that any republican would consider involvement with donald trump considering he called it a hoax. he then went on to downplay the severity of coronavirus. he also made some foolish statements about injecting disinfectant into people's body to cleanse it from the system and that it would magically disappear. it was a multitude of trump sycophants who went on to camera to defend his comments. anything coming from the republican party, which has now morphed into a socially acceptable fascist movement, denying free and fair elections, calling seven more people to vote for joe biden when we had

the trump administration with more of his people denying that this ever happened. they are divorced from reality, i hope and pray that we get a system in here, an attorney general in here to prosecute these people. they have destroyed the election integrity of the system. host: got your point, want to let congressman bacon join in. what was president's involvement in this compromise bill? guest: initially he was not involved, but he has subsequently come out to say he would support it. that's very important, we don't want a veto from the president. he has always been willing to compromise on the covid relief bill. i disagree with the caller on that. he was willing to take a $1.5 trillion bill, even a $1.8 trillion bill, which i think would have been very hard for many of the republicans to support after all the other bills had passed. but the president had been willing to compromise on covid,

supplemental, giving credit to how hard he has pushed from the vaccine. this month we will get two different vaccines to the public , 20 million dollars to $30 million per month will be produced and i think that is ultimately what we need to get past covid and to get our economy opened up and safe for our people again. host: theresa, tennessee, good morning, you're next. caller: first of all, i do not agree with the stimulus package. firstly, there's no direct payments to individuals. now, while i'm sympathetic to the plight of the unemployed, the unemployed have been getting paid this whole time. there have been special carveouts for food assistance, rent assistance, unemployment the unemployed are doing quite well in this country

compared to front-line workers, who have gotten nothing. my family has worked this whole time. not wearing a mask, just working front lines. they are getting screwed in this package. host: what kind of work do you do? associate, a retail my husband is automotive, my children are in the automotive industry. i mean you are telling these front-line nurses to put their life in danger to save our people, telling them that they don't matter, they don't deserve any direct payments. it's not right. it's not right that somebody, and it happens a lot, we have a lot, you can't get people to go to work because they are sitting at home collecting more money than they ever did make working. host: congressman bacon? guest: there's not the federal money right now going into the unemployment like we had this

summer, $600 a week this last summer. we may still end up with direct payments to individuals. it may be part of the compromise that we have to get there. but our goal is to help people maintain their jobs and ensure that they stay on the payroll. those that can't, help them out with unemployment. but the goal really is not -- it's to help people keep their jobs. that's the most important thing we want to do out of this supplemental. a lot of small businesses are struggling right now. one of the primary goals of this $908 million bill is to keep small businesses open. restaurants, theaters, lifestages, travel industry that will shut down if we don't do this. there's so many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions that have their jobs in these industries. frankly, this is helping to maintain these folks livelihoods

to put food on the table. i think this bill is very important. right now ifllion, it were to include a direct payment to the tune of $1200, what with that raise the price tag to? host: it would probably -- guest: it would probably take it up to 1.2 trillion dollars. it still may happen. i know the president has expressed interest in direct payments. so has leader mccarthy on the republican side. it still may end up in the final package, i'm not sure. of maine,lie is out democrat, good morning. iller: i'm calling because am, most of my life i've been a democrat. . didn't vote for nancy pelosi i didn't vote for mitch mcconnell. people need to change the rules. why do these people have so much power? the citizens didn't vote for

these people who have so much power. all of these other distinguished people that have been there their whole careers, hopefully trying to be good politicians, are pushed to the back in the country suffers. we have got to do something about this. it's not right. it just stops everything. i think the caller for his input. there's no doubt that the speaker has a lot of power. so does the majority leader in the senate. it's a virtue of their position. this problem solvers movement, i'm a member of the four country half republican, half democrat, we are trying to find agreement and consensus. i believe that's what we need to move our country forward and break the gridlock. i would share the caller's concern. speaker pelosi held up covid

relief since august and admitted in the last week that she changed her position now that president trump lost. i don't think that was right. we should have been able to get this trillion dollar plan, $900 billion plan done last august and we've spent the last three or four months in a gridlock situation for partisan reasons and it was wrong. a headline from today's "earmarks in 2021." what is an earmark? guest: that's when you put in language for a building or a bridge in your district, a new airport, something like that. we took that your marks out six or eight years ago, something like that. it was before my time. it got out of hand. then we saw illegal things being done in legislation where folks were getting money to get your

marks put into a bill. so, we took it out. we haven't been doing earmarks ever since. my constituents are not supporters of your marks. overall i'm not supportive of putting them back in. 2011, republicans eliminate your marks after recapturing the house in 2010. willie is next out of texas. good morning. hear me, can you hear me? why yourt caller is "problem solvers" conference is bogus to me, as a republican. that guy was a microcosm of what you have in the modern democratic party. they care nothing about the people. they are for implementation of all sorts of marxist policies and we are going to see it. for example, the money for the cities and states for your

stillness deal, the money for cities, states, local state governments, for example, that's another way that they win and we compromise. tot gives them that money lowsily runreir governments. frankly, sir, i can't understand why you as a military leader, as a former general officer, can't understand when the other side clearly wants to dominate. they have got their fists up and we continue to compromise. host: congressman bacon? legislation,k our we address your concerns. i appreciate your comments. you are right, speaker pelosi wanted $1 trillion to bail new york city, chicago, los angeles for issues that were before covid. we refused to do that.

nebraska runs a balanced budget. i don't think the nebraska taxpayers want to bailout new york city or issues that have nothing to do with covid, but in our compromise bill, we are providing money to states and local governments for expenses caused by covid and they have to prove it. it has to be directly attributable to covid, otherwise they don't get that money. i think that is a fair compromise, because there are expenses out there that cities and states are having because of covid. our money will not go towards issues that happen because of covid, but only the paper costs because of covid and that's a fair approach i think. whatur broader concerns, we are hearing from former callers, we have deep anger from the left. this thing of calling republicans racist and every name in the book. i gotta tell you, my supporters don't want to reconcile right now, they are angry about being

called racist, anti-semitic, deplorable. but then you see, you have got this on both sides. at some point, we have to remember that we are americans first and that we live in the greatest country in this world and i'm not interested in making a deal with the far-left. but there are moderate democrats who want to come together to find areas of consensus. whether it is immigration, covid, health care. i think we need republicans and democrats to come to the table and not compromise their values, i won't do that, but there are things we can agree on, let's move forward and get those done. the hate on both sides does not serve us well. it's going to hurt our country. we are pulling apart at the scenes. as a retired general and elected official i'm going to do my part to stop it. host: who do you work with that

you trust? guest: a bunch. one of my best friends is from california. jimmy panetta, i work with him quite a bit. jim lang's men from the root -- from rhode island. abigail spanberger, virginia. there are like 20 or 30 democrats that i work with quite a bit and we get a lot done. i think we are just starting. we have shown in the last two years to three years the potential. now we've got to build on it, make it better, and hopefully grow in the middle so that we don't have a congress driven by the far-left or the far-right. i'm a conservative but in the end i can't just dictate conservative views out of the house and expected to be passed by the senate and have a democratic president sign off on it. you have to find ways to agree to get things done and that's what i'm trying to do. what does your republican

leadership think of the problem solvers caucus? generally pretty supportive. there are times where they may want us to support the party physician. i won't do it, i try to work with the modern democrats to come up with a better solution. i'm here to represent our district. i don't work for any individual in the house or the president. i work for 680,000 people in omaha, nebraska. i find my district once someone that works across the aisle to get things done. it's why i've been elected in three very tough elections. we are one of the most purple districts in the entire country. i know there district is a little more center-right, but they want someone who will work with democrats to find areas of agreement and for the country first. host: to rockaway park, new

york, nikki, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span, for your service and your friendship. i appreciate the fact that you are trying to work with each other. do you people call each other names? to each are talking other? do you use derogatory terms when speaking to each other? cannot respect another person no matter what they look how, what race they are, can you get any further down the line? , i'm disappointed that so many people -- i'm an independent. i don't like mob violence. unfortunately, people on the left and on the right, armed people are threatening election

officials. it seems to me that the america that i grew up in, it seems to me more like nazi germany. host: congressman? caller, agree with the calling names is not helpful. we have lost a level of civility and that's hurting our country. we need to regain the civility, treat each other with more respect, absolutely. i do not call the democrats names. i have a very good relationship, personally, with many of them. i think the caller is absolutely right. when you call someone a racist, it's hard to work with that person afterwards. on both sides we have got to table some of that name calling and, really, the character attacks. in we have a lot of that going on right now. there is anger on my side. as i mentioned earlier, when you're called racist, anti-semitic, people get angry,

angry about that, they don't want to compromise and work the other side. we have got to do better. i'm going to try to do my part with my colleagues in the house building that very good relationship so that we can make tough decisions together. host: you mentioned military service. ,an you remind us what the ndaa national defense is? do you think that this year it will be passed in time? we are going to vote on it today. i'm on the armed services committee. we worked with the senate to reconcile the differences between our bills. i think we are going to schedule a vote to pass out of the house this afternoon. i think it's a very good bill. we are not significantly increasing spending.

we are going to maintain our nuclear deterrence, maintain our f-35 purchases, our new shipbuilding. trackeeping everything on to provide arrays to military members. we will keep modernization on track. i plan on voting yes for this bill. i hope it will pass with an overwhelming margin. you say overwhelming, is that vetoproof? i hope it will be vetoproof. i share the presidents concerns, but what he wants to do is put this in the defense bill and it should be a separate bill. it should be a separate bill that we debate. putting a social media bill into the defense authorization means it will pass. -- won't pass. we won't get it out of the house or the senate and it needs to be treated separately.

it's my hope that we get a vetoproof ill passed and i hope the president has a change of heart and signs the bill. host: what are your thoughts on names fromonfederate military bases? guest: i'm with the leader on that. i have two forefathers for the south, another who pop for the north. i do nothing gets right to have confederate name to bases of folks who violated their oath, who led the civil war that led to 600,000 people dying. in some cases they were members of the clue clocks clan after the war. my view of it is that we should have medal of honor recipients named for these bases. i can give you an example, sergeant benny d does what shot 31 times in vietnam, rescued eight soldiers. he survived and was a medal of honor recipient. i would think that would be a lot better name than some of the

confederate bases. i'm a supporter of taking these things off. i don't think it's respectful to minorities. i want to have names that bring toor and also are respectful all military members regardless of race. host: a few minutes left with congressman don bacon this morning. wayne has been waiting. go ahead. caller: hello. what you saying, you saying a lot of good stuff. but see, this is what you not saying. you don't work for the house or the senate, you work for the people of america. of the women elected to the , are they going to walk in arms with the republican party because if they are, they not doing their job for america. do your job. an example of doing

their job? what do you want to see congress do? to see theant stimulus package passed. and then you have to help each. florida, you have to help. it's people that's living in states. just because your state are doing good, that don't mean nothing. host: congressman bacon? caller: i think we should have it -- guest: i think we should have a supplemental that deals with covid and covid expenses. if it's not a covid related expense, i don't think it should be in the bill. it should be a separate legislation. work for 680,000 nebraskans out of omaha area. i don't, you know, the fact is i represent their interests in this and i think there is support for a supplemental bill to help out industries who are

struggling. we want to keep people on payroll. we want to keep people earning their salaries and for those out of work, to help them. but we want to keep our economy as strong as it possibly can be until these vaccines get put out and we defeat covid through the vaccine. i cannot agree to expenses that are caused, suffered from covid, put in the covid bill. i don't think it would be right and it wouldn't pass. we have to work with the art of the possible and what we can get done. host: lynn, from twitter with a question. to bring this country together, do you think that trump should concede and admit to his supporters that he lost? guest: he has every right to challenge allegations of fraud. i think a lot of my supporters know that fraud allegations will be looked at and prosecuted where there is evidence. but in the end i share the yourney general's view,

know, that fraud allegations will not change the results of the election. i think that once the court cases are looked at, once the electoral college is certified, it would be my request for the president to concede and take the high road. we been doing elections since 1788. we need to protect our representative government and honor the will of the voters. i didn't vote for joe biden, but in the end, if he was the winner of the electoral college, i'm going to honor that. but i also feel blessed that we live in a country with checks and balances, you know? the president is one third of the federal government. iran on issues that are voters want me to pursue. i think our country will go on. we will remain the strongest country in the world. once the electoral college is certified in the court cases are done, i would ask the president to take the high road and do

what's right. host: congressman, always appreciate your time on "washington journal." guest: thank you. host: up next, and appropriations member of congress to discuss the moving funding deadline. later we will be joined by a top chef judge this morning to discuss the efforts to lobby congress for additional federal aid to help support the restaurant industry. stick around for that discussion with henry cuellar -- with tom colicchio. we'll be right back. ♪ >> with coronavirus cases increasing across the country, use our website to follow the trends, track the spread with interactive maps, and watch updates on demand any time c-span.org/rotavirus.

c-span.org/coronavirus. >> "washington journal" continues. host: congressman cuellar joining us just ahead of another possible federal shutdown. how is congress trying to give itself more time on that deadline with that continuing resolution, as it's called? guest: you know, for so many years we should have been doing this agreement and ofropriations by the end september 30, october 1, when the new fiscal year starts. but as you know, it's been happening under democrats and republicans, so we've got this cr continuing resolution. it supposed to go through december 11 and then we will probably vote on this to extend it to the 18th of december to give ourselves one extra week we work out the differences between

the house in the senate negotiators. host: do you think congress can get a deal done even in another seven days? we are talking not only government funding, but ongoing negotiations over covid relief. guest: i feel that we can. there are a couple of things that have to be worked out. on the relief bill there are two big items that have to be worked out. one, sending moneys to cities, counties, and states. generally the republicans are saying no, democrats are saying yes. i think that can be worked out. if the republicans have a problem it's the sense that they don't want to help the states that accrued debt that had nothing to do with the virus itself. we can go ahead and separate that. i would be with them on that part. we would only provide assistance to cities, counties, and states dealing with the virus itself. the other part has to do with limited liability to businesses

and universities and, again, i actually filed bipartisan legislation to do that, limit the liability for small businesses, for universities. if you follow the rules, you should not be hit with a lawsuit. imagine trying to run a small business and you are hit with a lawsuit. we can do that in a limited way for a short amount of time to address that. yes, i think we can address that. on the issue of, you know, the, the, the regular appropriation bill, it has to go to the wall again. you know i represent the border. the wall, we don't believe in taking away private property rights. what we believe in is strong, sensible border security with enough technology and personnel to secure the borders. would like to join the conversation, republicans, it's (202) 748-8001.

republicans -- democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. on the government funding negotiations, how involved are the individual members of the appropriations committee at this point? when it gets to these 11th hour discussions, does it get kicked up to leadership? guest: i'm the vice chair and we do the basic work, but once a gets to negotiations between the four corners, pelosi, schumer, mitch o'connell and mccarthy, they are the ones who work this with the white house coming in and giving their input to the senate republicans. so, the four corners are working out the final details. but the basic work has been done by us and yeah, the subcommittees that we work with. host: why do we always seem to

get down to the 11th hour of continuing resolutions with these four corner negotiations? why can't we get through this process under regular order, as it's called? guest: it amazes me. in the state legislature in texas, we had 5000 bills and out of them, 1000 would pass and out of those, another 1000 would pass. appropriations was the most important. everything else was 43 and fluff . here in washington, you know, it's the reverse. we always leave the must pass bills, like the appropriations bills, to the very end. i think since 75 or 76 only three times have we passed all 12 bills by september 30, starting the new fiscal year on october 1. i just don't understand. you know, i'm not in charge of the house or the senate and if i was, i would say that the appropriations bills had to be

done by september 30. i don't like crs. they are a sign of failure by congress in general not doing its work, but unfortunately this happens under democrats and republicans. democrats and republicans. host: before we get to the caller, if that compromise bill comes to the floor as it is, would you support it right now? guest: i would have to see the details, but yes, i want to see a down payment to get this done. a lot of small businesses are struggling right now. some have shut down and i feel so bad for those people who shutdown where they invested their life savings into a small business. i want to help the small business owners, help the people that don't have a job. certainly, make sure that we have money so that we can distribute in a fair way the vaccines across the nation. there's a lot good that we can adhere.

it's not what we had done back in may, the middle of may, the house did, but again this is something that we need to do before the year is over. on the concept, without looking at the details, yes on the concept. let me get to those colors. debbie, you are next. caller: i tried to get through when mr. bacon was on. he said something about the people from nebraska not wanting to bail out new yorkers. i know that coming from texas, you are one of the states, texas, california, michigan, new york, new jersey, florida, where we all send by far more money to the federal government than any of these flyover states. i don't understand why in the middle of a pandemic they can't take that into consideration. those people in the flyover states would not have the roads they have, the sewage systems they have, if not for these democratic cities that they

insist are people in horrible. and while you got me on, i know you are not at fault, but i've got to tell you, i'm so glad on.t joe biden w after four years of donald trump getting up every day to talk bad about democrats, this guy never figured out that he was the president for all of us. i used to write down all of his adjectives, you know? people, murderous, stupid. you know, just horrible names for democrats. you know, we are the big half of the country. at the end of the day, i think hillary was wrong. those people are not deplorable's, they are delusionals. have a good day. guest: thank you so much. two points, yes, look, after i won my november election, i represent democrats,

independents, republicans, the president needs to do the same thing. once he's elected, he's got to represent everybody. you are not a republican or democratic president, you are an american president and you represent everybody. i agree with you on that. the second part, i always, and it's interesting what you said, i find it interesting in the part where some of the folks that represent red states or red counties, red districts complain about government spending, there are so many red areas, if i can use that word for this purpose, they receive government funding. they receive money in so many ways. they complain about certain things, like the state of texas, you know, we are a donor state. we send so much money to the federal government and we don't get our fair share. this is something that we need haveke sure that we formalists out there to distribute money fairly to the people that need the help on that.

that point that you have brought up, i have looked at that. people that live in certain areas are the ones that complain but they get a lot of federal funding. they complain about it except when it comes to them. washington,shores, cameron, good morning. caller: i would like to say to the representative here, people in the democratic already need to look at other media outlets than the mainstream media. clearly shows all the cheating that went on during the election cycle. for instance it shows a, on newsmax there's a video of 12 different squares of video screens put together like hollywood squares and the author of the video rewound it so that all of them start talking at the same time. 12 different video media outlets

are saying the same exact words written on the teleprompter, coming from above, is my point. coming from the corporations that own them. it's impossible to have a free republic when the media is so owned and dictated to as to what they are going to say. they are no longer objective journalists. they are just taking orders from rich people above as to what they are going to say. host: thoughts? guest: certainly. i think the fraud that people have been complaining about currently right now, the courts have looked at it. there have been counts. people just have to face reality , president trump lost. i know it's hard for the gentleman to accept that, but he lost. he needs to move on, number one. number two, i was a texas secretary of state under a republican governor. we did this in a bipartisan way. i'm a democrat. even years ago people complained about fraud, fraud, fraud. the work that we did there, that

we looked at, we couldn't find the fraud. there might be one or 2, 3 different cases, it's the same thing here. people complaining about fraud. fortunately, the system has worked. they have done recounts, gone through the courts. even the courts, with judges appointed by trump, have found no fraud. i know that reality can be difficult for people, but people have to face reality and move on. greensboro,m, independent, you are next. caller: yes, sir. you know, everybody complain about new york wanting a bailout, california wanting to be bailout. but actually, those states send a far more money to the federal government than they receive. really, these states that are complaining are parasites on

the federal government. what they should do is get a level for the last 10 years so that these states that have been these negative contributors, it's time for them to step up. host: congressman? guest: good point. look, i would ask you john, on one of the next shows, and i would be happy to provide you with the information or if you want to get the information, look at the states that are donor states. states that send money to the federal government and how they get it back. look at the areas that are republican and see how much money you will get. i have seen different pieces of work that show that a lot of those red states, those areas that complain about federal government are the ones that get more of the federal-aid.

it would be an interesting exercise. if not only for what the gentleman said, and also the lady from michigan also said, even the gentleman from the republican from washington, just look at that. present that out in a fairway and see what you find from the information on that. but it's interesting, the people that complain about federal funding, they complain when it goes to somebody else, but when it comes to them, it's ok. host: i know another issue we have worked with you want to delve into is border security. coming back to that point, intrepid1 has a tweet responding to your comment from earlier, " walls are a 19th century solution to immigration, democrats should come off it. i'm a democrat but i support border security. i said 14th century, not

19th-century. i do not believe in open borders. i believe in law and order at the border. i believe insensible border security. having the right number of border patrol and other officials at the border, making sure they have technology right now. making sure they have the right equipment. making sure that we work with our neighbors to the south so that we can provide sensible border security. i believe in that. now, if somebody doesn't believe in private property rights, then you are for the wall. i believe in private property rights. there are people who have owned land for a long time where they take the property away. i want to make sure that we provide smart border security on thoserder along with 14th-century solutions. you could have any border patrol

chief, you ask him how much time the border wall buys you. the answer is this, the answer is this, it will buy you "a few seconds to a few minutes." this is why if you want to use the taxpayer money in the right .ay, build one mile of fencing that will costs $26 million per mile. to put up a mile of technology you go from 64,000 to about $1 million per mile. this is the best technology available that the military has used. if it works for the military, it should be used for the men and women at the border. was 2016 when we went to talk about these issues in congressman tom colicchio -- congressman cuellar's district. it's available on your website. this is vivian in collierville,

tennessee, democratic line, good morning. caller: i'm going to make some quick comments for you, sir. this is what i don't understand about the democrats. they put it out there earlier, the stimulus package. why do you all always cave into mitch mcconnell? that's one thing i don't understand. one thing about the republicans, they stand together. they don't care. they see people dying from the covid virus. people got it because their president lied to us. you all getting out there and putting it into the public. that makes me angry. guest: i was trying to understand her point. why democrats are not united, i guess. look, we do have diverse thinking in the democratic party. i'm a moderate. we have got some liberals. but we believe in basic principles of the democratic party. we will stay together and we have stayed together. just show you when boehner and

paul ryan where the speaker of the house, they couldn't pass legislation without the democratic support of them. that's a fact, that is a fact. under pelosi we are able to do that, we are able to stick together and get legislation passed. we are united even though we sometimes have some differences between the more progressive folk and moderate folk like myself. speaking on the senate side, you probably have to ask your senator about that, but the bottom line is i'm a democrat and there are republicans out there, but on the house floor and on the senate floor we should be americans and try to figure out how to get a consensus to get the job done. there are a lot of problems out there. people don't want to say you know, here are the political talking points for democrats and republicans. they want solutions, practical solutions to the problems they are facing now. host: what lesson should

progressive and moderate democrats take from the results of the 2020 election in the majoritye more narrow for house democrats? how concerned are you about losing the majority in 2022? guest: we have an election coming up and we have seen what the trends are. usually the house loses when you have the same party as the president. but this is a different situation, we will stay at the majority. again, for those progressive friends, we've got to understand that we are all democrats and we all want to get to the same place. we have different ways of getting there, but the same goals. we want to make sure that we we stick together as democrats and we will. maryland,imore, democratic line, good morning.

go ahead, turned on your television and talk through your phone. us? caller: yes. host: go ahead, sir. what's your question for the congressman? question,don't have a i have a statement to make. host: and what's that? i tell you what, we will let you figure out the difference there on the phone in the television as we go to david, also in baltimore, maryland, on the line for democrats. go ahead. host: good morning. congressman, is that right? or senator? guest: congressman. caller: congressman, good morning, sir. aware ofent, are you what needs to be done retroactively, with something being passed? and if so, are we expected to see anything before christmas? , it goes right by your

head. guest: yes and you are right, people are hurting. we have to get together. i feel that we will get it done. there are some differences, as you know, the house has a different position from the senate. house democrats, senate republicans. but i think we will get this doe and i hope that we can it as nancy pelosi has mentioned. ohio, patrick,, independent line, good morning. go ahead, patrick. yes, sir. i want to know how scr affects the military monetarily. or do they? the continuing resolutions, if i had it my way we would do everything by

september 30 and start october 1 the new fiscal year. that's the way i wish we had done it. i think i mentioned that since 1976 or so there have only been three times that we passed all the appropriations bills. other times we have done those continuing resolutions, basically meaning that we keep the money the same, spend rates the same as the previous year and it's not good for the military or any other agencies. it's not fair to the men and women who have a uniform to keep it there, because they can't plan for that particular year. so, therefore i hope that we, sometime in the future, get away from them and understand that we have to pass every single appropriations bill by september 30, start new october 1 with a new bill. like i said, i think it's only been three times since 7576 and we -- i wish we would do that every year and be fair to the men and women in uniform.

in terms of impact on the military, the veto of the authorization act, how would that affect the military question mark 15 minutes ago the president said that he hoped house republicans vote against the week acted that he would veto and that it must include determination of section 230 for national security and preserve national monuments, allowing for 5000 true productions in foreign lands. guest: overall it's good for the military, providing a 3% increase in pay and the funding that they need. it is good, but unfortunately the president is looking at a couple of things that really have nothing to do with the overall movement of

modernization or funding of the military, but he is using that and i hope, i hope that we can overwrite the president-positive veto if he goes in that direction. edgefield, wade, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. a comment about how the headed, we have thousands of people lined up around the country for food, people risking losing their homes at the first of the year. the democrats and the republicans have both been kicking this thing down the road since august 1. you tie one bill to another, you keep kicking it. they tied the government shut down bill to it. pretty pathetic when you compare it to what happened in 2008, when the banks was losing their money, how fast the government on both sides had

them up and going. here we are, months later, still nothing, adding bills to it, kicking them down the road constantly. i'm going to end this call like i did the last one. i think that the american people politiciansp with and their pathetic nest that it's just, it's just sorry. host: congressman? guest: look, i feel his frustration. the whole show i have been talking about how frustrated i am with a system where if i was in charge of the house and senate i would say let's pass those bills by september 30 and start on october 1. same thing with the stimulus package in the house. you know we passed the house version back on may 15. may 15. may 15 of this year. the house passed its work that

we have been waiting for from the senate. there was no reaction from the senate, it really started happening after the november election and here we are. i understand the frustration. it is, it is very frustrating for everybody. including myself, where we want to get this done. but unfortunately we are still waiting for certain people to get on board. you just saw the republican leaders in the senate say that he doesn't support the bipartisan plan and here we are. i understand exactly how that gentleman feels. i feel for that. i have talked to people that don't have a job, i have talked to small businesses that have been closed. to people who are about to close their businesses. i understand. we sent that over to may 15 and we are still waiting for the senate to get there. i agree with you 100%. host: sheila, florida,

republican, good morning. yes, good morning. i wanted to ask why it is always forblicans that to blame something in congress when the democrats, and also, i would like to ask, you guys don't worry about anyone on social security, yet we keep flowing people into our country that we can't even afford us. and i believe in immigration, i do. and also, one other thing. if the democrats are so about everything being right, why is , not a with hunter biden peep from any of you. and you know it's the truth. i will leave it at that. have a nice day. host: congressman, i will give you the final minute here. guest: i wish that lady a

wonderful day. i believe in legal immigration. my father became a u.s. naturalized citizen. i believe i -- i believe in doing it the right way. i agree with you. i don't believe in illegal immigration. i agree with you on that. but i hope you understand and agree with me that there are people here that are not here legally and are actually supporting your social security because your payment to the social security trust fund, they put in billions and billions of dollars to help your social security and they can draw that out -- can't draw it out. understand that they are supporting you in that way also. look, nobody is blaming one side or the other and i have been very careful not to blame democrats or republicans. as you know, i said both democrats and republicans need to get together to do their job. i want to make sure that people understand. i'm a democrat, i'm a proud

democrat. election, iin this represent everybody. democrats, republicans, independence, and others. i think that's what we need to do. we need to -- we are here as americans to present the american population and that's what i'm doing. i hope that my republican friends and democrat friends join me in that type of thinking. cuellar,gressman henry we appreciate your time. guest: we will see when laredo one of these days, we were talking about great mexican food there. host: i will have to come down. thank you. up next, a conversation about the restaurant industry where we are joined by top chef judge tom colicchio. we will be right back. [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. 2020] ♪ >> listen to c-span's podcast, the weekly. our guest is don ritchie, he joins us to discuss constitutional steps that still need to be finalized before president-elect joe biden this morning. you can find the weekly where you get your podcasts. you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. created by america's cable television company as part of it a public service. in brought to you by television provider. washington journal continues. host: let's focus now on the restaurant industry amid the coronavirus pandemic trade our guest is tom colicchio, people know him from top chef and his several restaurants. he is also the cofounder of the independent restaurant coalition

. mr. colicchio, when and why did you found the coalition? 15st: it right around march -- get formed right around march 15, i received a phone call from a friend whose company had a foundation and they were helping out restaurants. i said i don't think it's big enough and we have a major problem. i spent a lot of time on the hill working with various lobbyists, i spoke with a friend andine who was a lobbyist jokingly said independent restaurants need a lobbying firm. and he said let's get going. and itmy friend back started as a small group. there were about a hundred

strong restaurant groups that in seattleping up and portland and san francisco and chicago, all over the country. and very quickly pulled together and we started getting calls with the single goal of trying to get congress to help us. c-span viewers are pretty familiar with the national restaurant association, how is your group different question mark guest: we are very different. the national restaurant association is mostly comprised, -- they can most of their funding from chains or fast food. we felt we were in a different situation and we felt we needed a voice for independent restaurants. host: how does the irc feel about bar and restaurant closures? are there places where you think state and local government has gone too far? guest: i believe in the science.

and quite frankly, i thought in march and april there should have been more stringent restrictions and we could've gotten our arms around this. in melbourne, australia, there are no cases and restaurants are fully open and concerts are fully open. i think if we had stronger leadership early on we would have been through this already. so no, my feeling is if we need to close to keep community safe and the science tells us that, that's fine. that's exactly what we need the federal government to step up and help restaurants. specifically target restaurants. that's why they depend restaurant coalition, we focus -- on the independent coalition -- the in restaurant coalition, we've acted over six months to get a bill through the house and senate. we have bipartisan support, congress and bloom wrote the bill in the house, and senator wrote it in the

senate. if this were a stand-alone bill, it would pass easily. we are part of the heroes act, and we did our job. we just need to get over the goalpost. we are very different in some small businesses. we were forced to close. we did it. and we have been forced to close again. los angeles never opened for indoor dining. minneapolis closed, chicago is closed, governor cuomo said if the numbers don't change, new york is shut down. we will do our part of this is why we need help. host: so let's put the notes on our screen, they provide 120 billion dollars in grant programs to independent bars and restaurants, covering the difference between revenue in

2019 and projected revenue for 2020. it's less restrictive in terms of the ppp loan in terms of what's eligible for that. you said this would pass if it was a standalone bill? why isn't it? using regularped order in washington. right now it's tied to stimulus so that's it. mitch mcconnell decided to bring this to the floor -- you have john cornyn signing onto a bill and elizabeth ward signing onto the same bill. and elizabeth warren signing onto the same bill. senator wicker and senator sinema have been real champions on the senate side. relentlessly pushing and fighting for us that's what we need. we need leadership and people to

understand that we are singly set out. au mentioned ppp, if you had business that was depressed by 20% and he laid off a handful of workers and you got ppp, that was great because you could find your entire payroll and i gave you a leg up. you are in great shape. if you were depressed by 100% it did not help. i received ppp, the only way for me to use it was to hire a bunch of people back and lay them office and is it ran out and if , then we wouldat have additional debt and that's the last thing i need. was also restrictive. ,ou can only use it for payroll rent, and utilities. i have bills the quebec to april right now -- bills that go back to april. probably even later. there's no way to pay bills. my suppliers are left hanging right now.

we need a bill that's less meetictive, we need to payroll and rent. and i need it for a period of time so that when we get through, this is important, we need to get through the pandemic. once we reopen, maybe come public isn the vaccinated and people feel free to go out and the restrictions restaurants,out there's millions of jobs people won't have. and i'm not talking about the jobs like the waiters and the busters and the cooks in the chefs,t -- the sous that's about 11 million but also cheesemakers and winemakers and .lectricians all of those thing service our restaurants. we are looking at 15 million people. those jobs won't be there.

the restaurant industry outside of the federal government employs more people than any other industry. host: tom colicchio as our guest, you know him from top cofounder of the independent restaurant coalition . here's how we split up the lines. if you are in eastern or central united states (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain are pacific regions, (202) 748-8001. an especial line for restaurant owners and employees at -- and a special line for restaurant owners and employees at (202) 748-8002. tom will be with us until the bottom of the hour. we have jenny in greenville, south carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing. could you give me feedback on we are not wearing masks at

all the restaurants? if it was shut down in the beginning, like the first 30 days with masks and a complete shutdown we would not be in this situation. but since we are in this situation why can't we do a 30 day shutdown like we should've done in the beginning? guest: thank you for your question. my restaurants are in new york and los angeles and we are wearing masks in our restaurants. it's mandatory for employees to wear masks, and also in my restaurant for guests to wear masks unless they are eating or drinking. if they call the table i wanted masks to go back on. my goal -- if they call a waiter to the table i want to see masks go back on. already in a

precarious position, federally on it -- federal unemployment ran out and they had to come back to work and put food on the table. it's my job to keep them safe. i don't know what's going on in north carolina, i'm not there, but we already have dangerous rent we are seeing. hospitals are completely filled in my goal is to make sure that staff is a safe as possible. host: asserted was released yesterday by the national restaurant association, more than 110,000 restaurants across the country have closed permanently or long-term as the industry grapples with the coronavirus pandemic. that's up from about 100,000 shutdowns in a september survey. mr. colicchio, have you had to shut down any of your restaurants are you considering shutting down any? guest: -- it all depends. i want to hang on and see what happens with the government but --hout help from others prop

but without help there is probably one or two that may need to shut down. i did not -- i laid off about 470 employees. host: a question from kevin, it's not clear to me that restaurants are the primary source of covid spread, is there any red -- evidence you've seen of covid spreading widely at restaurants? guest: a study came out of stanford university that you may want to look up and it makes a very good sound science argument for how the virus does spread indoors in restaurants especially. i urge you to take a look at that. host: dave, you're on with tom. youer: good morning, thank for taking my call. i tried to get on for the other two.

wonder if congress has entertained anything about income taxes, given that this is is therency situation any relief or taxes, where employees as of -- an incentive don't pay any income tax, payroll and contacts, business income tax, anyone that has something to do with the food industry, has orc -- for agriculture because food is essential, i was wondering if you could elaborate if that would help that industry out and get them on more of a fair basis where they could pass some deal. i'll take my answer off the air. guest: there hasn't been discussion that i have heard on

suspending income tax. there has been discussions about employer tax credits, meaning employers would get credit for everyone they employed and brought back. there has been some discussion there. but i have not heard discussions of tax holiday. i think there's a lot of cities and states that have been discussing that but i have not heard that. if you make us -- make under a certain amount of money there's an income tax credit that you can apply for but that does not apply to everyone. i have not heard anyone talk about spending federal taxes. host: tony, and santa fe, new mexico. caller: good morning come i was going to call earlier as well. i want to know where the direct payments are, how about just feeding children and what

independent restaurants are going to do about it and what tom thinks about mcconnell's plan to grant a pardon to all so they are not like tyson, who had an outbreak of covid because of the lack of proper precautions. end is that what union leaders are supposed to do? -- and is that what union leaders are supposed to do? guest: there were a couple of questions there. first, in terms of protections for businesses, i don't think carteshould be carlock -- blanc protections for businesses but i think getting some protections are fine. i don't think it should be cannot suewhere you

anyone. in the case of tyson you had employees betting on who would get covid. and the federal government came oshath meatpacking and cut out of the process. they were looking at what was happening in these plans and the president just used his power to force employees to go back to work without protection. it should not be open-ended and it should not be carte blanc. in terms of restaurants feeding hungry people. restaurant have always been on the feeding at -- the leading edge of feeding hungry people. i'm reminded of jose andres and his work. and prior restaurants to the pandemic he was in areas where fires are common. he gets chefs to open restaurants to act as feeding centers per that has happened across the country.

organizations, there is one that gives restaurants money for about eight dollars a meal and the restaurants provide meals for the community. so that's already happening. there is some thing called the i'm act, senator cruz and trying to think of the -- and i'm trying to think of the republican senator is of course, they are trying to get federal dollars to support that type of work. so that is happening. and in the heroes act, snap food stamps, there's a 15% increase and that's not being talked about right now. we are talking about a small includes ach only $300 bump up for federal unemployment as opposed to $600

and it not include any additional money. in the omnibus bill which has to get through by december 12 two from the government, there are some provisions for additional snap dollars and other feeding programs. meat -- a lotof of need out there. we have seen cars lined up for five hours to get food. and i'm seeing lexuses and bmws and mercedes, that's telling you that these are also people in the upper-middle-class who have lost their jobs and are struggling. what i hope comes out on the hunger side is that there is a deeper sense of empathy for those who struggle. for too many years we have heard that people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or they made mistakes they are not deserving. and now we can see that something like a pandemic, could

have a major impact on people who are middle-class. so hopefully there's a deeper sense of empathy for people struggling when we get through this. host: on that line for restaurant owners and employees, frank is on the line out of new york. caller: tom, i love your work, and c-span, thanks for being what appears to be the last unbiased new source in america. i do want to say that there are some people who are gaming the system and obviously we are not health care workers, we have had brandcades to build our and our clientele and i also want to mention to think about the guy who put his house on the line and all of his relatives do to start that little restaurant in march of this year and just lost everything.

we are down 60 and 70 and struggling to come back up but i always think about that guy who never had a chance to get a foothold. sayhe same time, i want to there's an increasing number of my friends and colleagues, and i would love your opinion on this, who really don't want government help or handout. it's not really in my dna. of the diningront room, sleeping, doing dishes, we are on the line, we are doing everything and i'm so grateful for our employees who stayed with us, even when the government was staying leave work and we will give you more money to stay home. and the schools were staying -- then you need to stay home. a few people stay with us, but myself and many other say don't give us a handout. just let us open our businesses,

be free, and be responsible for our safety and the safety of our doentele as they are want to . these capricious shutdowns in many states, up and down on-and-off, give us the blues. disagreewas slightly -- i respectfully disagree. you are down 80% and you been open all summer long. we pivoted like you, doing and spinningboxes around in circles at this point. , andre forced to shut down if we where i believe that we should get help. i not asking for a handout, i'm asking for some runway so we can stay open. and you're right, there are tons fighting and we are

for not just people like me, but that newly nationalized citizen who spent all their life savings and the mom-and-pop shops. does not go to the fda, this is income replacement. i can open my restaurant 100% have now and i will not customers because people are afraid to go out and they should be. the pandemic is dangerous. people are dying. mine, ariend of fantastic chef who is in his 50's, died of this. letar what you're saying, things happen and open up. it won't make a difference if you open up. it won't be there. maybe europe by 55% but you won't make it -- maybe you are

up by 55% but you won't be able to make it. if the federal government can bailout banks and airlines, we employ more than both. 900ink the airlines employ -- about 900,000 people. theoblem this big is where federal government should step in. billion,ment of $120 this will payout about 270 billion dollars in tax money and economic activity once we are through the pandemic. it's in the best interest of taxpayers. everyone was up in arms when obama helped the auto industry, that money has been paid back with interest. this is an investment of the federal government is making into small businesses. it's not a handout and we have to stop looking at it as a handout. it's an investment to small businesses so when we get

through the pandemic we are open and we can employ all of the people that we employ prior. host: you talked about hitting ng, did you-- pivoti pivot to take out? did, and it's not viable. get throughen we the pandemic all of these additional income streams we will probably hold onto. we will do probably take out which is something that we have never did. and i think that's how the industry will change a bit. host: can you find what a has? -- can you explain what a cloud kitchen is? guest: it's a kitchenette set up, usually a small kitchen set

up in a warehouse or something and you set up business for delivery only so you don't have any of the costs associated with a brick-and-mortar. it's much smaller and it's just for delivery. was a lot ofthere talk about that. this is stillced young business. to me the only people making they are those running kitchen themselves. with a few minutes left tom colicchio. this is john, out of virginia. good morning. let me preface my comment by saying i'm a political junkie after listening to c-span for 30 years and i have never felt an obligation to call. i have owned a restaurant for 16

i started in a well-paying technology job and i opened in february 2005. i did have to close this past september, mainly because the covid epidemic. i started with 32 seats. the restaurant i closed was almost 6000 square feet. .he overhead was just too much bit,ou touched on this a .'m $154,000 in debt we are still working on trying to get ppp forgiven. with everything that has happened, i want to eventually

reopen. is there going to be out there to help someone like me, not only to get me open but the money we got in the disaster loan was not used to grow profit , it was used strictly to survive. is there any of that that could be forgiven because it was not for any business growth or anything else. it was just to survive and because of the size of my location and all that has -- i am, unclosed closed. hopefully i can get some contact information at some point. i'm sorry for what you are going through right now. this is the story that i hear from restaurateurs across the country every single day. your deeper into debt. -- we are deeper into debt.

overhead, that's important. i have one restaurant in new i havef i close my doors $40,000 of fixed costs every month. this is what people don't understand about small businesses, when the cash flow is cut off we cannot pay her bill. we are not sitting on a ton of money in the bank. restaurants at best in the last couple of years, your profitability is somewhere between five and 12%. and right now, the fourth quarter is where we make all of our money and we are seeing restrictions and we have to close down. we are in a bad position. to answer your question, we are pushing hard, that if there is only going to be a ppp fix in this next round, we are pushing that. if your business is impacted, i think the number is 35%, all of that would be forgiven. that's what we are pushing for.

we are demonstrating what -- we are demonstrating that it doesn't work. really that money was to pay employees and for some employees i just didn't have a job for them. i just hired them back to get the money out the door. if yourstanding is that dissolve an llc, you are ok. you want to talk to your attorney about that but if your business is out of business, you should talk to your attorney. host: one last call out of orlando, florida, on that life restaurant owners and employees. caller: everybody is talking about the difference in business pre-covid to now but nobody is talking about the areas that are dependent almost solely on tourism revenue. vegas and here in florida.

florida is the perfect storm. our unemployment compensation is only $275 a week. that's tied for the fourth lowest in the united states. the airport has put out a projection of five years, the hotels are completely bypassing 2021 and projections. people are just not coming. rebound. not mean we are far from it. most everything is running at 20 to maybe 40% on a great day. host: tom i will give you the final minute. guest: this is the point i was making to the gentleman in new york earlier. just because your doors are open doesn't mean people are coming. people are nervous. of theecially in terms hospitality industry. in new york city we rely on

tourists, especially this time .f year but your question should go right to your governor. i suspect that the states are getting arms around this, we will see spikes continue. just because there's a vaccine right now doesn't mean will get vaccinated. this will take a long time. you need double doses, there are tons of people who won't take a vaccine. until we get to 60% to 70% of people vaccinated people won't .eel safe there are some concerns about .hat right now the efforts that we have our 65% to 80% of restaurants will close. arependent restaurants different than fast food who are doing well. if you have a drive-through window you are killing it.

but the smaller restaurants, mom-and-pop's, we struggle. and there's an application process to the bill, that process is only open to small businesses with four-port -- the first 14 days. and also minority owned businesses -- the first 14 days, for those under a certain income and minority owned businesses. this will help out people like you in florida and across the country who are struggling. the line used is great. just because we are open doesn't mean it's a rebound. we are far away from rebounding looking at this money not to line our pockets so that -- but so that we can pay our fixed costs and pay employees and keep our restaurants open so that when the pandemic is over

we could be a place for the community like we are now, a place where you want to go to celebrate your anniversary or graduation, you want to go to that place where they know your name and your cocktail order. you want to feel taken care of and we want to be there for all of these employees, the cooks and the porters and the waiters and the hosts, our office people. so that we have those jobs available to come back. the last thing you want to do is knuckle down, get through the and everything will reopen and people want to go out and then there's no businesses to employ people to actually serve the need. that's the one thing we really need to focus on. there's a huge economic impact not only directly to restaurants but to the entire community that these restaurants are in. colicchio, the

cofounder of the independent restaurant coalition. you can go to their website to find more information and you can follow him online. we appreciate your time. left, we areinutes asking for your opinion on president-elect joe biden's cabinet picks afar. more picks are excited to be announced today. republicans, democrats, and independents, the numbers are on your screen, calling now. we will be right back. ♪ >> with coronavirus cases increasing across the country, use our website, onavirus tocorno

follow the trends, and track the interactive maps. >> washington journal continues. host: this afternoon president-elect joe biden is set to announce his pick for a number of health-related cabinet positions. we will be covering that on c-span this morning. on c-span three you can watch that 1:40 eastern, you can watch on c-span.org or listen on the radio app. among those expected to be , thence is xavier becerra democratic attorney general from california is expected to be elected as health and human services secretary. you could watch that live. ahead of that event, we are asking for your thoughts and opinions. the phone numbers for you to isl lynn is -- to call it

for republicans (202) 748-8001. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for independents (202) 748-8002. in another announcement expected to come from politico, yesterday, joe biden selected a retired general to serve as secretary of defense according to three people with knowledge of the decision. if confirmed to be the first black person to lead the pentagon. in picking him he has chosen a barrier breaking former four-star officer who was the first black general to command an army division in combat and the first to oversee an entire year of operation. the announcement could, soon as this morning. people familiar with those plans getting youry, thoughts on any or all of these picks on the final 25 minutes of the washington journal. up fromen, first homestead, pennsylvania.

a democrat. caller: i want to actually respond to the first person who called in this morning, a texas guy who said you don't even know why he would mention he was a black person. was very firste person, we have had an army in .merica since colonial times and another guy from pennsylvania did seem reasonable with an objection that he worked at raytheon. we ought to just forget about this. it's easy to seem to forget about it, but i wonder if he had said that when he died i wonder we are nothat playing the race card -- i was he would say that

if he went to a segregated school. it's written that the former general is respected wills the army, and he lack -- crack the glass ceiling. 40% of active-duty troops are people of color. but the people who make crucial decisions are almost completely white and male according to new york times. general auston, after retiring from active service did join the board of directors for raytheon technologies, if he's to be confirmed as secretary of defense for joe biden he would need a waiver from congress on a rule that requires a seven year cooling off period between active-duty service and service as defense secretary. he has only been out of the military for four years and

congress laughed a vote on that waiver and if granted he will have to go to the confirmation hearing and be voted on in the senate. that's the process for the defense secretary pick. austin.if it is lloyd sandra is next out of washington, on the independent line. good morning. i'm sorry, i did not realize i was supposed to ask a question. i am worried about the waiver. i understand it's been done before but it is rare. host: this would be the third time since that law was put in place in the late 1940's. the most recent time was in 2017 for general mattis to be defense secretary. i wonder on your thoughts on -- ofdea of 6 million

civilian control of the military, is that important? caller: civilian control of the military does sound strange. host: the debate over that waiver to try to put some distance between active-duty military and the head of the pentagon, that's a lot of the debate right now over whether general austin should receive such waiver. this today,es has you can find this column online. the pentagon needs to reestablish traditional national security processes and return to a sense of normalcy. appointing another retired general to leave the pentagon will not help return things to normal. even if a retired general like mr. matus is the right person

for a trump era, that era is over. we are at an exceptional moment and this should not be the new rule after erotic autonomy. whenary leaders may chafe national security leaders asked to check their homework. progress,top or slow and that's true but a certain level is necessary for proper governance. texas, nancy, in austin, a democrat. good morning. say is what i wanted to that i think this is a great choice. i think biden is making wonderful choices for everything . .akes it diverse at the top what's it called, these positions at the top, his cabinet.

i think this is an excellent choice and i think you need a military guy in charge of the pentagon. i think it is good to have a little bit of outside influence. i think this is an excellent choice. the other comment i really wanted to make quickly was off subject. up with trump, he's 10 years older than me, i'm a trumperump are -- never . president obama is exactly right, he's uniquely unqualified. and he is acting like a four-year-old on his way out that lost his marbles and wants to make a big mess on the way out. but he has always said the truth about what he's gonna do.

and i think that he read both elections, getting the russians involved this time and -- russians involved in 2016 and he tried to disqualify many people who would not support him and i didn't work. and he tried to attack the postal service. and he went so far as to remove equipment and appoint that guy who would do whatever he wanted him to do and that didn't work. and i can't believe that biden can't get rid of that guy. that's crazy. court he set up a supreme to stack him and they have appointed all these conservative judges on every level. host: we got your point but we will stick to joe biden's cabinet picks. times, bidengton picks gun control lightning rods for key posts, noting that javier becerra -- xavier becerra

has spent the last several years hisnding his estates -- state's strict gun laws. c-span viewers will know that he served for decades in congress before becoming the attorney general of california. murthy -- vivek murphy -- murthy made the points that gun violence should be treated as a health concern. -- a health crisis. our next caller. caller: i wanted to call about henry cuellar, he brought up .hat imminent domain i'm sure he would have no

problem coming out to private and sincen the i 15 you have the gun control office screen. on the i'm sick and tired of democrats only getting through. host: we do as viewers to stick to the phone lines that were flex their opinion. on the republican line in pennsylvania now. caller: i would like to know to -- the little i heard about her, this woman has superb credentials and is respected by both republicans and democrats alike. she happens to be a woman. it doesn't matter. what happens is that we live in dangerous times. what matters is picking the right person for the job.

i thought that's what joe biden was going to do, pick the right person for the job. , notingchelle floyd that general austin was picked over michelle for neu -- over her, she meant toward generation of women in national security and many had pushed for her appointment as the first female defense secretary. that's the fifth paragraph about the selection of general floyd ott -- general lloyd austin. , out of massachusetts, on the independent line. dan actually.e is host: sorry about that. caller: i'm concerned about the rights of persons with disabilities.

will joe biden work with the american council of the mind? the nfb is the oldest organization for the blind in the world, we have a blind senator and a congressman that's blind. i did my set -- my research, the voted -- we need to have somebody with disabilities on the senate and congress and we need to make sure that the relationship with serbia is strong. i believe joe biden is a good candidate, but he has to have people who are visually impaired in his cabinet? this is an issue that i feel strongly about.

people with disabilities are not being heard, and i know c-span has done a lot of things with those with disability and i hope the 2021over convention of the american council of the blind. was actually interviewed by the national federation of the blind. one of the things that i heard about is the seminar in washington, d.c. which you guys have for people with disabilities. i think c-span needs to focus more on the disabled front because it's a population it's not getting enough attention. if we look at the disabled population, they are not in congress and i think the main problem is that the ada is not working appropriately. we don't have blind congresspeople. we don't have people with

disabilities and we need to redefine intellectual disabilities because people who are blind are behind in our education system [indiscernible] people with disabilities are not being heard. host: we got your point. this is mary, out of iowa. a republican. go ahead. caller: first ball, and my opinion, biden is not the president-elect. that's once the electoral votes come in. second, he does not take a that she does not pick a cabinet. whoever picks for him are picking on color, not merits or qualification. host: why do you think he's not taking his own cabinet?

-- picking his own cabinet? -- kamalabbalah harris is picking his cabinet. host: whitey think that? why do you think that? caller: i don't want to go into detail but his medical qualifications, every time you see him on television he cannot function. na out of des an soto, texas. a democrat. isler: first, general austin qualified after 41 years of being in the military. we have on the dod now? he's 34 and doesn't know if he's going or coming? are, 3% is quayle

not enough of an increase when you talk about their salaries. my brother-in-law retired about five years ago from the air force. that's not enough income for active duty military. i don't care if you're a democrat or republican, they get more than that. when they talk about the general with raytheon. you have john boehner and paul .yan, all of those guys democrats and republicans, they go out in the get these jobs -- and get these jobs after they leave the senate and congress and victims of money -- and make tons of money. and the lady talking about joe biden not being the president-elect, that's why we need mental health care, badly.

thank you john, i appreciate your show every morning. god bless you. you come up against some nuts. host: thank you. massachusetts,n and independent with a text about the selection of john kerry to be the envoy for climate. saying joe biden has stated that climate change is the number one issue facing humanity and that john kerry will fight climate change full-time, which is laughable seeing his extravagant and wasteful lifestyle. i plead mr. biden to choose people who practice what they preach. this is anthony, a democrat in new york, what do you think about president-elect joe biden's picks so far. caller: i am a democrat annoys have been but i have concerns lately. i watched a senate hearing, case study of crossfire hurricanes on

c-span. in its entirety, and you got should be incensed as much as i am about what's going on. the woman who called just prior which incited me to call, she -- senator johnson revealed that hillary clinton disinformationn against trump prior. host: bring us to joe biden's pick for cabinet. caller: i have concerns about the administration coming into office because of the corruption that has gone on since donald trump and prior to the election. new york.'s anthony about five minutes left this morning. we have some news on the vaccine

front to share with you, that's from nbc news, the covid-19 candidate from pfizer offers protections, according to documents released today, the information was made public before a meeting on thursday. this is related by the biological advisory committee. they will vote on whether to advise the agency to grant emergency use authorization. that meeting on thursday. that's at 9:00 eastern. c-span3 is where you can watch it. you can listen on the free c-span radio app. patrick,calls, this is a democrat from florida, we are asking about joe biden's cabinet picks. caller: thank you for taking my call. anything has to be better than what trump is put in.

between his family and his mega that are buying these positions, i think joe biden will do a great job. egomaniacou take an with an inferiority complex, what you come up with is a sore loser. nothing worse than a sore loser. host: are there any picks so far that concern you? caller: not really. i think is going to get intelligent people around him and listen to them. .omething trump is not done if anybody argues or says anything he gets rid of them. i live in florida, our government -- our governor is doing the same thing. a woman said something about the data coming in. by now they have arrested her. are we living in a police state

in these republican controlled places? it's been so bad. term iad gotten another would've been worried about the constitution and the democracy. host: patrick, from porta. jerry, from stevensville, michigan, republican. caller: my name is jerry klein. that hello? i'm listening. caller: if trump had got in again, i would have been worried, but i disagree with the says why do the moderators only let democrats on. i've been watching for 10 years and you guys are even.

between the independents, republicans, and democrats, that's another crybaby. i'm a republican, but i have changed, i'm an independent that wants the best for the country. what, i tell you whoever's the attorney general for biden, i was looking to see what he's done to the government and whose ease that who he has enriched. because like my grandma used to say, if you not done anything wrong you've nothing to worry about. he's worried to death about being a civilian because there's already a warrant for him in new dealings ands tax falsifying appraisals. he's dangerous right now. .e'll screw things up for biden host: that's jerry, in michigan, and this is valerie, and

on the democrat line. caller: i want to talk about general flynn, he was on trump's cabinet even though he had been as a dia director. he was brought up on charges and his case is still pending. there was no uproar from republicans concerning the cases of general flynn. but general lloyd austin is highly qualified. that's all i have to say. host: so i guess you disagree with the pardon for general flynn? caller: yes i do. host: is there anyone that the biden team has picked so far that you are concerned about? is there someone else he would like to see in one of this positions? caller: so far i'm ok with the announcements that have been made. i used to work in the department

of defense and i was happy to hear about general austin. i remembered when he was assigned. host: that also come in and just a minute or so, i wanted to start with the question we begin with, with concerns about the retired military going on to lead the department of defense and not being separated enough from their service. i wonder your thoughts on that issue with civilian control the military? caller: i am for the exception for general austin. i think he's highly qualified and he has been retired for four years. , thatk that the protocol seven year retirement, that window, that should stay in place. host: that's valerie out of maryland and our last caller on today's washington journal. we will be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern. have a great tuesday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. vi