, you're back in the third district of arkansas, make sure i get a call. let me know. mr. hovland: all right, that sounds good. rep. quigley: i want to thank all who helped put this together. although top -- all who participated, the staff was outstanding. these are difficult times, we look forward to seeing you all in person as we do this next time and we will see you all soon. we are adjourned. thank you. announcer: coming up life today on the c-span networks, the house services committee looks at the defense department covid-19 response come at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. on c-span 2 at 10:00 a.m., a house judiciary subcommittee holds a hearing slavery reparations commission. at 10:30 a.m., the monthly fcc meeting looks at the availability of broadband during the pandemic. coming up, taxpayers for common

sense president stephen ellis & congressional institute president mark strand discuss the potential return of aramark's -- earmarks. clyde prestowitz discusses his book about u.s.-china economic relations. ♪ host: joe biden was sworn in as the 46th president four weeks ago today. last night, at a town hall, his first national tv audience since the inauguration, he reiterated his focus on the coronavirus pandemic, expanding vaccine distribution, pushing for schools to reopen, and negotiating with congress on his 1.9 trillion dollar pandemic relief plan. good morning. it is "washington journal." welcome to the program. we will spend the first hour asking you about the administration efforts so far,

how would you rate them? republicans should use 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. send us a text message, and include your name and where you are texting from at 202-748-80 2 3. on twitter, @cspanwj. and we will look for your facebook post as well. and we will play you some of the comments from president biden last night at the cnn town hall. this is a reporting of the milwaukee journal sentinel online. the headline, milwaukee takes center stage as joe biden pages $1.9 trillion relief, seeking to reassure americans. he took center stage at the pabst theater to make the case for his one point $9 trillion coronavirus relief package and

spur americans to remain vigilant against the pandemic. in his first major political trip outside ofd.c., he vowed he was committed to the relief legislation, saying "the economy now has to be dealt with. now is the time we should be spending. now is the time to go big." he said on cnn. your comments, how would you rate the biden response? the administration's response so far? 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. for independents, 202-748-8002. from the wall street journal, the president did this before leaving from milwaukee, mortgage relief extended through june 30. the biden administration extended a federal moratorium on home foreclosures for another

three months and expanded assistance for those behind on their mortgage payments during the pandemic. the white house said it would extend the ban on foreclosures. and federally backed mortgages. the president had extended the moratorium earlier, which had been set to expire at the end of january, until the end of march in executive orders on his first day in office. they city administration also said it would give homeowners more time, through june 30, to enroll in the program to request a pause or reduction in mortgage payments. the federal cares act, signed last march, postponed payments on federally backed mortgages for as long as 12 months. the focus was the covid relief and actions by the administration, the president talking about vaccines in the. [video clip] pres. biden: we came into office

and there was only 50 million doses available. we have now gone by the end of july, will have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single american. [applause] >> when you see by the end of july, do you mean that they will be available or that people will have been able to actually get them? pres. biden: they will be available. weh we did -- what we did, we got into office and found there was no supply, nothing in the refrigerator, literally speaking. we upped that in the first three weeks. and we have moved out, went to pfizer and moderna, and he said, can you produce more vaccines

and more rapidly? they not only agreed to go from 200 to 400 to 600 million doses, and we got them to move up the time because we used the national defense act to be able to help the manufacturing piece of it to get more equipment and so on. >> if at the end of july, they are available to actually get them in the arms of people, that would take a couple more months? pres. biden: a lot will be vaccinated in the meantime. it will not be all of a sudden that 600 doses appear -- 600 million doses appear. we will have reached 400 million by the end of may, 600 million by the end of july. and the biggest thing, though, as you remember -- when you and i talked last, we talked about how there is one thing with the

vaccine, but how do you get it into someone's arm. you need the needle, the mechanism to get it in. you have to have people to injected. >> that has been -- inject it. >> that has been one of the problems. pres. biden: now we have made strides increasing the number of vaccinators. host: the headline of the washington times, "biden says vaccines will be available by the end of july for all, get it when you can get it." a couple comments on rating the response so far. jim says, "the washington journal asking biden's response to the flu. unlike the former guy, who built a response team of doers, the former team was full of brown dozers.

have you seen the current vaccine numbers?" the line is 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8002 for independents. willie in annapolis, maryland. the democrats line. caller: i give the president high ratings. he has had a townhouse meeting. he addressed the american public. and he is acting presidential, not like the thug we had previously. i would give him "a" ratings because he is acting like an adult. and that is why i give him a high rating. host: cy in akron, ohio. caller: uc davis, the university of minnesota and other researchers have found that farm animals can get covid.

the cdc and other outlets reported that slaughterhouses have the highest percentage of covid infected workers, many of whom are immigrants, legal and illegal. why is this? from animals can give it to humans, and humans can give it to animals. we know around the world, samples of pork, chicken and seafood have tested positive for covid. the safest thing to do is to avoid meat and fish. we know bolivian and new zealand beef have been found to have covid, which can last up to three weeks in frozen or chilled form. host: in pennsylvania, your thoughts so far? joseph, good morning. caller: good morning. i think it is 10 times better than what it the last administration. and i consider joe biden to be the next fdr.

host: you compared him to fdr, why? caller: because he seems like he is for the american people. and the country. host: here is loreen in redwood city, california. caller: good morning. i just want to say that, yes, i agree with the last caller, joe biden is doing 100 times better than the last president. and i think that he needs to continue talking straight to america and avoided and they gop politicians as much as possible, their rhetoric is much as possible. kee tryingp -- keep trying to work with them, but if they do not come along, he needs to do what he needs to do. i think his response pretty much has been flawless so far. and i am wholeheartedly behind

joe biden and what he is doing. host: congress is out this week on the president's daybreak. the -- day break. the main focus next week will be the proposed $1.9 trillion american rescue plan, the coronavirus endemic response. some of the highlights included $400 a week unemployment insurance supplement, $400 billion to fight the virus and reopen schools, $350 billion for state and local governments, a $15 hour minimum wage, extended paid sick leave for workers, and increased tax credits for families with children, and direct payments will be involved in this effort, including a $1400 check, eligibility for that phasing out at $75,000 for individuals, and indirect payment for children and adult dependents of $1400.

on the $15 an hour, this morning from the washington post, biden since he is willing to negotiate on the minimum wage. he indicated he is open to the negotiation on the proposal, a centerpiece of his relief bill that has emerged as a flashpoint as democrats push legislation forward. biden suggested he could be open to a longer phase in. and indicated a lower number, $13, could be beneficial while having less potential impact on business owners. bill in florida. welcome. caller: good morning. i wish the best for biden. [indiscernible]

host: you are breaking up a bit. caller: can you hear me now? host: yes. caller: the country, how are we supposed to trust doctors after the epidemic? they wrote thousands of prescriptions in the opioid epidemic. so, for the life of me, i am baffled. i do not know how this country is going to have any type of trust with the american -- with the american doctors. host: doug on the republican line in las vegas. caller: how are you doing? host: great. caller: my biggest problem with this is how stupid the american people are. how you just showed joe biden saying how we need -- hello?

host: tell us why. caller: he said we need 600 million shots. there are only 350 million people in our country. where is the other 250 million shots? what country are they going to? hello? host: ok, we will go to gary. he is in bowie, texas. caller: i hope the best for joe, but he is not doing anything trump wasn't doing. he's talking 600 million doses, uh, sorry -- it's not made yet. that's all i have to say. host: in connecticut, we're hearing from stephen. caller: i feel the same way as the last two speakers, donald trump's operation warp speed was

a success. and joe biden is riding on his coattails. and he is throwing money around, buying things to look good. the doctors are the failures in our country. in addition to that, we have already wasted 350,000 or galatians -- inoculations that were thrown in the trash. we goods been $5 billion more and look great, but this operation was already in place. we had 200 million available, 350,000 were thrown away. i'm not pleased with the doctors in our country, they did not take concern on making sure that this was done properly. host: some comments on facebook. roger says, "biden is hanging onto donald trump's shirttail. hell would break loose if he had

to perform." "as low as can be expected at this point. i think the teachers union is winning with opening schools up. i'm glad i don't have to make such decisions." "biden believes in science. it's a concern for him. he talks about it every day. he has never undermined the seriousness of the virus." "the trump plan is now called the biden plan." "the administration has moved the needle in the right direction to ensure equity, i.e., the retail pharmacy, fqhc programs. but i am concerned about greater transparency when we have been in a blind spot regarding shots distribution." the president talked about the $1.9 trillion plan that will be up for debate next week in the u.s. house, possibly the senate

as well. [video clip] pres. biden: there is consensus among economists, including the imf in europe, that the overwhelming consensus is in order to grow the economy a year or two, three or four years do wn the line, we cannot spend too much. now is the time to go big. now is the time to be spending. i managed the last experiment we had with stimulus -- [applause] it was $800 billion. we thought we needed more. and we think we did. and it ended up working, but it slowed things up by about, depending on who you talk to, six months and a year and a half. we could come roaring back. it's estimated by most economists, including wall street firms, as well as think

tanks, political think tanks, it's estimated that if we pass this bill alone, we will create 700 million jobs this year. 700 million jobs this year. [applause] and so the thing we have not talked about, i want to hear your question, i apologize, but we have not talked about -- i remember you and i talking during the campaign, and you had the former guy saying, well, we will just open things up. that's all we need to do. we said no, you have to deal with the disease before you get the economy going. the fact is the economy now has to be dealt with. now look at all the people, to million people unemployed. we need unemployment insurance. we need to make sure that, you

know, you have 40% of the children in america are experiencing a food shortage. did you ever think you would see the day of milwaukee, the last six months with people lining up in their automobiles for an hour to get a bag of food? what? this is the united states of america, we cannot do that. host: we have asked you to rate the administration's pandemic response so far? usa today, the headline, "the feds looking to get the biggest lift yet. states will receive a 23% increase over the previous week, and a 57% increase since joe biden took office." administration officials told governors on tuesday that the white house announced it's doubling to 2 million, the number of doses sent to pharmacies. "this program will expand

access to neighborhoods across the country," said a coordinator. "cities are scrambling to vaccinate residents. that's not only necessary to speed recovery but also to slow the mutation of the virus, although vaccine this tradition has increased, vaccination sites all over the country are shutting down while hundreds of thousands of people are on waiting lists." reaction on social media, from bill regarding the previous comment, "the american people are stupid. he does not know what he is talking about. there are only 300 million people. duh, everybody gets two shots." " pretty poor," says tom. "a million people out of work by this trick of his pen."

"they are violating second amendment rights. should be encouraging the reopening of schools since the cdc says no reason they cannot return." "biden administration promises one million shots in the arm a day, donald trump that. he wants an army to put shots in arms, but they are waiting for the vaccine. guess it is not easy as he thought." now william on the republican line. caller: the previous administration, they played a part in getting everybody vaccinated. the biden administration is doing a wonderful job. this is not going to happen overnight. everybody has got opinions, but that is what killing this country. division. that's what it boils down to, division.

the previous administration and all, it's just a lot of things going on. everybody needs to bury the hatchet and come together. host: mary in wolf point, montana. caller: first of all, somebody else stole my thunder. right now, we are only talking about the moderna and pfizer vaccinations, which require two shots. so, if you get 600 million, you get to shots -- two shots, that 600 million. the other part is when you do not arrange the proper storage and do not arrange the proper appointment schedule, you have things that expire in usefulness. so they have to be thrown away.

they are nothing but garbage when they have been out too long. i get my shot today at 10:30 a.m. i do not know about other people, but i spoke to ups guy yesterday, and he said they have been delivering boxes of vaccines around this area all the time. so, it depends on who your state is listing as important, and who your state thinks is important. if your state does not think teachers getting vaccinated is important, they will not be at the head of the line. in my case, i am over 70. host: is this your first shot? caller: this will be my first shot, so i have to plan for three weeks down the road to get to the second. -- to get the second.

it's not as if you cannot do it. you need coordination from the manufacturer, they have to make the dosage, then that has to be shipped, stored the proper way, and somebody has to plan the logistics. host: the president will be touring a pfizer plant in kalamazoo, michigan tomorrow. other news, the washington times, "trump blasts mcconnell." he unloaded on mitch mcconnell on tuesday, calling him a "s ullen and unsmiling political hack." vowing to support candidates that will challenge gop lawmakers in the primaries. the remarks came in a statement after mr. mcconnell penned an op-ed, saying while he voted to acquit president trump for

constitutional reasons, the former president "bears responsibility for the attack on the capitol." mr. trump did not address the arguments about the mob. instead, questioning the senator's "chinese business holdings and the loss of the majority in georgia." let's hear from paul in illinois on the democrats line. caller: yeah, i think that the biden administration is doing well. with the covid situation. there are a lot of things outside of their control, but the thing that the administration can control, working with the cdc, working with the pharmacies, and working with the manufacturers, working with the state and local governments, i think they are doing a good job. my wife is a local member of the school district here and they

have already received their second shots. host: is she back in the classroom yet? caller: yes, they are back in the classroom. and they had been back in the classroom since the start of this year. and layer on a modified schedule. -- they are on a modified schedule. host: the president was asked by a teacher about the push to reopen schools. [video clip] pres. biden: there are things that make it rational. one, making sure that everybody is weighing protective gear, that is available to students, as well as teachers, janitors, the people working in the cafeteria, and the bus drivers. secondly, organizing in smaller pods. that's why we need more teachers. instead of 30 kids, you have three classes of 10 kids each.

i'm making the number up. but it has to be less. in addition to that, we have indicated that it is much better and easier to send kids k-8th back, because they are less likely to communicate the disease to somebody else. but because kids, the sophomores, juniors, seniors in high school, they socialize more and and they are older and they transmit more than young kids, it is harder to get those schools open without having everything from the ventilation systems and having -- for example, school bus drivers. we need to make sure that you do not have 60 kids or however many, it depends on the size of the school bus, two in every single seat. so there are a lot of things we can do. i i think we should be vaccinating teachers.

we should move them up -- and i think we should be vaccinating teachers. we should move them up. >> your administration set a goal to reopen the majority of schools in the first 100 days, now you are saying they may be open only one day a week. pres. biden: that is not true . what i'm talking about is i said opening the majority of schools in k-8th grade, because they are the easiest to open, the most needed to be open in terms of the impact on children and families is staying home. >> when do you think that will happen five days a week? pres. biden: at the end of the first 100 days. we have a significant percentage of them being opened. i guess that they will be pushing to open them all summer, to continue like it is a different semester. >> you think it will be a week? pres. biden: the goal will be

five days a week. host: president biden from last night's town hall. a couple notes about our programming coverage on the c-span networks today. a. is coming up this morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on examining slavery reparations for african americans. the house judiciary subcommittee on civil liberties will hold that at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2, also on the free c-span radio app. at 11:00 a.m. eastern, here we will show you a hearing looking at the defense department's covid response. they will be discussing it at 11:00. and we are asking this morning about the administration's response broadly to the pandemic. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8002 for independents and others. we will go to the independent

line, this is a caller from massachusetts. caller: i have a question about permanent social distancing. i do not think it is appropriate social distancing and wear a mask. if yo tell us -- you tell us we will get a vaccine, with social distancing, i would like an answer to ending social distancing in the name of blind people. host: on the republican line, joe, good morning. caller: good morning. my question is, where we still buying from a country that is communist, communist china, when they give us the virus? would it be wise for walmart and big companies stopped buying from a country that is a communist country that gave us this virus?

host: are you talking about buying goods in general or personal protective equipment, masks, covid related? caller: almost anything. host: the question is, where we continuing to buy from china? caller: yes, when they gave us the virus to start with. host: kim in wichita. on the democrats line. caller: i'm -- i think biden is on his way to being known as a president, he's the president, but he is doing so much that trump never did, so that he will be known as he took on both years, and their administration

did not do anything . biden is going over the top and getting this done. host: a caller from kansas right in the middle of the winter freeze affecting a good portion of the country, as you can see in the map. bitter cold from canada to the rio grande. the huge winter storms plunged a large part of the central and southern u.s. into an energy crisis with blasts of arctic air crippling electric grids and leaving millions without power amid dangerously cold temperatures. the new york times writes the failures were most severe in texas when thousands will blackouts on tuesday morning. separate grades in the midwest also faced a serious strain. as of tuesday, 23 people had died in the storm or in its aftermath. in delaware, margie on the democrats line.

caller: yes, good morning. i'm a senior citizen, 78. i've live -- i live in senior housing. and i have had both my shots. the first was given on january 15. the second one was february 11. we are very fortunate they gave us the shots. so, i hope everybody else gets there shots. t-- their shots. host: kenny on the independent line. caller: i watched the town hall last night and they had a little girl that teared me up. it was good to see the president, how he was so reassuring to the little girl. if you watch the mom, she was beaming. the president talked to her like

she was his own granddaughter. that is a president for all america. i was so proud of him. host: lea in illinois on the republican line. caller: hi, yes. good morning. i was listening to your kansas caller saying biden did everything about covid, when it was president trump who got the vaccine out. it's so disgusting to listen to the democrats make excuses for joe biden. according to the rules, he is responsible for every single american that has died from covid since january 20. they made up those rules. they said donald trump was responsible for every death during his term. and they just use covid as a political tool. it's so disgusting to listen to them slather all over joe biden, when he has done nothing. he said he had a plan coming

into office. he said he had a plan in november and donald trump to have a plan. he gets in office and says, there is nothing we can do about it. it's sickening to listen to the democrats. and i am so sick of the biased media. thank you. host: here is a look at the numbers, the cases worldwide, from afp. new cases down 16% last week, according to the world health organization. cases fell 10% week on week to 81,000. that's what the world health organization said last tuesday. five of the six regions in the world reported a double-digit percentage decline in new cases with only the eastern mediterranean showing rise of 7%. here is roy in montana on the

independent line. caller: yes, i wanted to say that i'm concerned over the republican's party feature. the -- future. th laste election was a campaign of hate. and e continues to grow and separate -- it continues to grow into separate legacy. and it is very serious that we have reached that. but it's the democrats that have elected the president with a swing vote. an incumbent president like donald trump, who should've won, but he got extremists,

unjustifiably, and it invigorated the democrats to go out and get people who were usually nonvoters to vote, so a small minority of anti-white supremacists who really put joe biden in office. so the republican party wants to standby trump to face him in the next election. to me, that is what caused donald trump the election -- cost donald trump the election. host: the question is how would you rate the biden administration. sam tweeting, saying, "th number of casese -- the number of cases are dropping. so far it is good, but a long way to go."

on facebook, "he wants to prioritize vaccinating teachers." "he's had less than a month to address the situation. he is doing great. 600 million vaccines by the end of july." dominic says, "he went in day one to start working. he had nothing in place to work with. intimidated -- and initiated an immediate plan and increased distributions of all-americans could be serviced with the vaccine." tony says, "what covid response? he was busy with trying to impeach of the person responsible for having the vaccine in the first place. ? now he is letting thousands of illegals cross the border with no screening." the press secretary yesterday was asked by a reporter if president biden now owns the pandemic response?

>> you have described the shortcomings of the trump administration as it relates to the response to covid. a mother into the administration, -- month into the administration, does the biden administration on the response? >> of course, that is why he is focused on it every single day. however, it is important for the american people to know what we inherited when the president came into office. he inherited not enough supply, not enough of vaccinators, not enough places for vaccinations to happen, communities left to fend for himself -- fend for themselves. if he was here, he would say he wakes up every morning and is focused on the issue because addressing it is what is on the minds of the american people. and it is his responsibly. host: from the washington post

at this morning about a potential hack of a vaccine maker. they say north korea trying to hack into the servers of pfizer to steal coronavirus vaccine information. south korean intelligence reported this on tuesday. despite the profession from kim jong-un that they are untouched by the pandemic in north korea. now a caller from wisconsin. caller: my question is, please, i do not hear anything about the johnson and johnson serum anymore. did something happen that they are not making that? i thought it was going to be a one-time shot and it would really help out with the pandemic. secondly, i'm 78 years old, a veteran, and i truthfully believe that if the people that

were elected to congress, and to the presidency, under the 22nd amendment would hold true for both -- two terms only, we would never have the problem we are having today. these people in congress do not care about us anymore. it's all a power grab for them. and if this would have been enacted, where they would only have two terms like the presidency, then i believe we would not be in the pickle we are in today. i will hang up. host: thank you for the question. on the question about the johnson & johnson vaccine, a pi ece hear from channel -- f rom channel 10 news. this is news in san diego. the scientific advisory

committee will vote next week on whether to recommend a third covid-19 vaccine for authorization. it will be the first vote amid the backdrop of variants that may be more transmissible. the staff scientists are reviewing data from clinical trials on johnson & johnson's single-dose vaccine. once the analysis is complete, the agency will turn over detailed summaries to the vaccines and related biological products advisory committee, a group of experts, that will review the data and devote on the application -- and vote on the on january -- october 26. i went up -- on for break 26. -- on february 26. i would not be surprised if that is carried live. it looks like they date will be a little over a week away. let's hear from rhonda on the

republican line in roseville, ohio. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i do not believe biden actually cares about covid. i think he is an extension of obama, letting illegals into the u.s. while our children are not going to schools. businesses are shut down and the only thing he is worried about is continuing what obama started. i do not think that biden cares anymore about the covid vaccine, anymore than he cares about --. they were more interested in getting trump out. they are more interested in finding fault in everything that trump did. and the first thing he wanted to do was open up borders and letting in immigrants, while we

are waiting for our curfews to be lifted, our schools to be opened up, and he is worried about bringing people into the country that have not even been checked. i think that people have made a serious judgment, lack of judgment, when he was voted to be president and we have nothing but four years of -- to look forward to. host: now a caller on the democrats line. caller: i have a couple comments on diversity, certain things that biden has done to bring us back into the world. the world health organization. i watched live streams from them once i got news about what we might be doing to work with the world health organization again about what they usually term as an antimicrobial resistance.

this is something that has a large language barrier, i know, but i feel like i've heard people getting vaccines and i know that we are getting the vaccines out. i think it has been a good effort. so i will leave it there. and i will take things off fair. host: -- off air. host: bob in chesapeake, virginia. caller: good morning. nobody has done more damage in one week since the japanese bombed pearl harbor that joe biden has done. he's spendin away our grandkids' future. by the time he gets out of office, our many will be worth $.10 on the dollar. host: next week in the white

house, they are scheduled to move back a bit to begin on tuesday and work through the weekend on coronavirus relief and other issues. on the independent line, a calle r in north carolina. caller: good morning. host: good morning. go ahead. caller: yeah, i think the last caller and girl from ohio still what i was going to say. i do not see biden doing anything except trying to launder money. host: and compared to what the trump administration did? caller: exactly. trump set him up, now we've got -- this was supposed to be the united states, right? no blue states or red states. but we still have these democrat governor slowing the process. host: you are talking about

slowing the process of the distribution of vaccines, opening schools or all of it? caller: all of it. all of it. we can open borders, but we cannot open schools. host: we will go to joe in buffalo, new york. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: how are ya? i, uh, i'm just getting over being sick. i'm grateful for the people that have helped me. host: how long were you sick? caller: i had a stroke. host: i apologize. i'm sorry about that. caller: that's ok. i just want to thank everybody. i'm having trouble talking. but i want to thank everybody in

buffalo who helped me. i feel bad for the people in texas. i think joe is doing ok. i'm so glad i am not a republican. i do not want to hate anybody. you know? it seems like [indiscernible] -- when things get started up, please help us. i don't want to hate people. host: joe, thanks for the call. the hill reporting on the effort from nancy pelosi to probe into the attack on january 6. scott long writing this. the probe likely to focus on the mccarthy call.

wary of tensions in his own party, kevin mccarthy is staying silent on his call with donald trump as rioters rated the capital. you may not have that luxury forever. the phone call, which was made part of the impeachment record, is almost certain to be investigated by the commission that speaker nancy pelosi is promising to examine the events surrounding the insurrection. leadership sources said and bill to create an independent commission could come this week. we will go to william in winter park, florida on the republican line. caller: after all these arguments and all of these blame things, there are only three people in this country that are responsible for all of these deaths, riots and everything else. it's amy coney barrett and the other republicanstwo -- two

republicans put on the supreme court. they lied and it did not allow the other people sworn in under penalty of perjury to interview. host: you are talking about the election count? caller: yes, i am talking about the election. how do you get 160 people swearing under oath, under penalty of perjury, and not even listen to them? host: the question on the response of the biden administration to the pandemic, how would you rate it? in kansas, roger on the democrats line. caller: yes, i believe that our president now had everything in line for him. i believe you had on one of the gentlemen who was putting

everything together. donald trump got a vaccine. he had the military ready to deliver it. everything went clockwork. and he said when it hits the state lines, that is when the states were supposed to take care of it. the last 200 miles of every load that went out is where the troubles came. when it got into the states' hand and its they were not ready for it -- and they were not ready for it. but biden was handed a great situation on covid. the last caller that said he has ruined us more than ever is probably the most correct one. all the things he signed right away have not helped, they do not help the u.s. at all. they help big companies, big corporations. and it shocks me still that his

son is still sitting on a board in china and we have not, the world health organization, why did we get back with them? they are liars. we have every other country that is fighting us and we act like we are trying to be buying their friendship back. we cannot do that, we need to rule our country. and then try to get along with the rest. keep trading with them, but under our terms, not their terms. like donald trump said, we are the piggy bank of the world. host: asheville, we are hearing from melvin on the independent line. caller: what the gentleman said, in other words, we are the piggy bank of the world. we have stolen so much over the years, yet we have a lot of

resources, and we still have gangs. that's what it is. host: reaction on social media. joe is a snowbird in florida, from kentucky, "joe biden has done more in four weeks for the american people than donald trump has done in four years." joanne says, "not good. our kids are suffering and he will not stand up to the teachers unions." jennifer says, "pelosi has brought to failed impeachments. and biden is just swinging off the trump admission warp speed vaccine program." another reviewer says, "he's pointing fingers in month into office. that's lame. it only takes a month to get

plans into action. biden cannot say it is all trump's fault." april in california on the democrats line. april, go ahead. we will go to greenwich, new york, the independent line. caller: good morning. you know, i believe that joe biden is doing what he needs to do to help the american people. i'm so dismayed at a lot of the republican supporters thinking t hat trump did what he needed to do. the facts are there that he knew it was airborne and he really did nothing. we have almost 500,000 americans

that are now deceased due to the incompetence, the lack of doing anything by the trump administration. i believe if trump had done what joe biden is currently doing today, well, it's a fact that we have a lot less people, americans, that would have died. i mean, there are people like glenn kirchner, looking to charge donald trump with some type of manslaughter charge. there are a lot of americans at that feel the same way. i speak to a lot of different people and they are very concerned. well, um, the family members who have died, the reasons why actually happened. until 2018, we had a global pandemic response team that donald trump defunded. and that would have been such a

big kick start to saving american lives. and also, they had -- who was it, glenn kirchner, he had a plan to help save lives in america. but there was no plan. the trump administration had no plan. at least now, biden has a plan that is organized well enough to help save lives, but that's what i have to say. host: the story this morning in the new york times about a suit against the former president. the naacp files suit against donald trump and rudy giuliani. on tuesday morning, federal lawsuit against donald trump and his personal lawyer, claiming that they violated a 19th-century statute when they tried to prevent the election certification on january 6.

the civil rights organization brought the suit on behalf of representative bennie thompson, a democrat. other democrats, including hank johnson of georgia and bonnie coleman of new jersey, are expected to join the suit in the coming weeks. the lawsuit contends that mr. trump and rudy giuliani violated the ku klux klan act, a statute that includes protections against a violent conspiracies at the interfered with congress's constitutional duties. it also named the proud boys, the oath keepers militia group. the legal action accuses the groups to incite a violent riot at the capitol building with the goal of preventing congress from certifying the election. in alabama, we will hear from robin. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. i think that biden is quality control on a production line.

trump put the product out. biden administration is quality control of it. and also, i think republicans, democrats and independents showed all look for kevin nunez to be the presidential candidate for republicans in 2024. he would probably be the best bet for president. and all these people talking about republicans and democrats, i just do not know. this is a parallel universe or something, because people that say trump did all of this stuff, i just do not believe he did all this stuff. all the good things they say he did, i just do not know. i do not understand how people see stuff. i mean, it seems like they are in a different universe. i do not understand why

democrats and republicans and independents cannot all agree on one thing, one little thing, something, anything. the guys cannot get along on anything? host: a republican caller in taos, new mexico, good morning, andrew. caller: thank you for taking my call. really, i do not understand how anybody could even complain about the biden administration and what they are doing, considering the trump administration did absolutely nothing to try to control covid-19 or to try to ease the public's worries about covid-19. i agree with the last caller about democrats and republicans should start to agree on stuff. it's about that time. we are either going to go down a dark path in this country or a good path, and i think that if

we can come together, we can do that. but, man, i do not know. host: do you think that getting the nation vaccinated will go a long way to doing that, and a lot of this will -- caller: i do not think it starts there, i get starts with the beliefs of the democrats and republicans to believe that this is a real thing. and we need to control the pandemic, because a feature pandemic may not be as forgiving as this one is. it starts with ideologies, and i also think that other media companies, not c-span, have people talking heads on there that choose to divide, rather than unite. unfortunately, that is where we are at now. i'm hoping it gets better. host: on social media, this one on twitter, "it's slowing down the process by rewriting the

book. trump was on course to get it done. biden is cherry picking what was done right and renaming it." this one, "there's a beautiful sunrise behind you. from tiffany on facebook grading the administration with a big 'f'opening the borders at the height of a pandemic, also being political. trump did all the heavy lifting with operation warp speed. frank, democrats line. caller: a little further, a house divided cannot stand. take it further than that. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: a house divided cannot stand.

our house was built, i hate to say it, in slavery, people, the original sin. our nation that was built with that legacy, i mean, oh my god. i think back to great great great grandparents, 400 years of slavery. how can you think, our country, like the lily pad, compared to china, like trees in the ground for thousands of years. literally, we are what we are. we are that house built on a very weak foundation. when i hear republicans and people talking trump in this and that it is like saying, you built this house. ok, how did you get all the materials on the roads? this house was built on a very weak foundation. host: thank you, frank.

up next, a topic that has been taboo for a decade or more on capitol hill. earmarks set to make a bipartisan come back. we will look at it with steve ellis and mark strand, talking about the return of earmarks. later we will be joined by a veteran negotiator with china, clyde prestowitz, who has a new book called "the world turned upside down." ♪ announcer: on thursday, house financial services committee hearing on recent volatility in the stock price of gamestop and decisions by companies to

restrict trading. discussions include the robin hood ceo. watch live thursday beginning at noon eastern, on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. announcer: listen to c-span's podcast. this week, u.s. foreign policy and nato. they talk about nato's role today. >> there is this idea that at the end of the cold war, there was this peace dividend. end of history mindset. no existential threat from

russia anymore. waywardness about what is the role of nato? did the u.s. still need to maintain large garrisons in europe anymore? the conclusion was no. the u.s. maintain bases in europe but a significant number closed or consolidated. the number of troops was brought down significantly. announcer: the weekly, where you get your podcasts. announcer: washington journal continues. host: for many years, earmarks was a regular topic on washington journal. it has not been for a while. it is coming back. we're joined by steve ellis, president of taxpayers for common sense and mark strand, president of the congressional institute, to help us understand what earmarks are, why they went away and why they are coming back? guest: thank you for having us.

host: steve ellis. it feels like, if this were espn, and we are talking football, it is the t formation. earmarks have not been a topic of discussion in the halls of congress for a decade. what is a congressional your mark? -- earmark? guest: it is a line item provision inserted into legislation going to a specific project by a lawmaker. it could be a road project. in some cases, it was a teapot museum in sparta, north carolina. it could be the bridge to nowhere. that project in alaska. a provision into legislation. it was something very prevalent in our history until starting in the '90's, it exploded through

the mid-2000's and after some reforms, republicans took control in 2011, decided to enact a moratorium. host: was there a bubbling up of public animus toward this spending, these congressional earmarks? people said somehow this is pork spending. guest: it is always referred to in the third person. it is never pork in your own district because you are for your constituents. some projects were seen as excessive. randy cunningham's earmarks led him to prison. a few bad examples. the vast majority are just members of congress doing what

they are supposed to do according to the constitution, which is be responsible for individual spending in their district. the constitution clearly gives congress the powers of the purse. members of congress are the federal representative of their constituents in congress and their job is to advocate, be the top advocate for their constituents. most earmarks were very good, a very small portion of the budget. there were egregious examples that led to condemnation. host: after an article by politico, they write about the democrat effort to bring back earmarks. patrick lahey, the new chair for the panel will announce in the coming weeks democrats will reinstate member directed spending in the next fiscal year bill '22.

they will be transparent and disclose details of each earmark, who requested it and which entity would get the money. members cannot request earmarks to entities for which they have financial ties. what were some of the issues that brought about the moratorium of earmarks when republicans took power in 2011? guest: it is not surprising. they are the appropriations committee. the vast majority of funding was member of the defense appropriations subcommittee. they got the lion's share. that was one issue. when we started doing data basing and providing names with earmarks you could actually understand who was getting what, there was an award-winning story looking at our data and found that white democrats got twice as much as their black and

hispanic colleagues, who only got $6 million in earmarks on average each year and they even got less than the republicans. the average republican got more than $8 million, even though they were the minority party. there were other issues. mark brought this up. the power of the purse. the entire discretionary budget. $1.4 trillion. the idea of earmarks, around $10 billion the last year they had it, if that is the power of the purse, that is a puny power, and it distracts from doing oversight over the budget. that is what one of the chairman of the committee said. he hated that earmarks, they suck everyone in and try to get money to district and don't pay attention to the rest of the bill. host: this is not additional money. this is money appropriated,

directed to a member or senator's state. guest: steve makes a great point. this was a small portion of the budget. it was a lot of what made the budget process work. right now, you think banning earmarks stopped corruption in the federal government -- spending has not gone down in the last 10 years, it has gone up. congress only passes one big appropriations bill at the end of the year and it abandoned the authorization process, which the house and the senate rules require anything appropriated must be authorized first. congress waives that rule because it cannot pass individual appropriation bills. earmarks gives members incentives to make the budget process work, which actually creates accountability.

accountability takes place in the authorization project where congress holds the executive branch accountable for all this. by not having, two thirds of the nondiscretionary budget is unauthorized. congress just doesn't hold the executive branch accountable, resulting in a shift, dramatically, away from the congress to the executive branch of government. while earmarks are a small portion of that, they are enormous and getting full member participation and incentives to actually pass the bills required to make the budget process work. guest: the budget process didn't work when we had a ton of earmarks. when we passed the appropriations bills on time before the start of the fiscal year precisely four times since 1974 when the modern budget process was created. the last time they were done on time was in 1996. the last time they were done individually, not omnibus, and

on time was in 1994. the idea that earmarks, well before the boom in earmarks, this sort of magic pixie dust, is simply not the case. you have earmarks and other bills like transportation bills, water projects, tariff bills, and they found ways to move that legislation where they had large amps before without earmarks. it is about hard work. people want to think about a silver bullet. it doesn't exist. lawmakers have to roll up their sleeves and work together to get this legislation through. we are a budget watchdog. we want to see regular order. we want to look at bills. we hate huge, omnibus legislation jammed through like at the end of last year that carried along 20 other pieces of legislation with it. that is a terrible way to run the railroad. host: steve ellis and mark

strand, talking about the return of earmarks. we would love to hear from you. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. we will play this out a little politically. to make it happen, i assume the ranking members of the appropriations committee also want a piece of that earmark pie. how does this look politically for members returning for reelection in 2022? do earmarks still have that stigma of being wasteful? guest: part of the reason they are coming back now is because the select committee of modernization, completely bipartisan. they put forward 95 recommendations to congress, each passed in committee,

bipartisan, unanimously. they put forward the recommendation that this is important. it is a bipartisan effort. there are individuals who oppose it on both sides. members of both parties want to do it. the reason is, if you are a minority party, you still want to represent your constituents. right now, you have a situation where we are kind of having earmarks but they are not taking place in congress. it is members of congress calling the administration, phone marks or letter marks, and the administration is making the decision on what should be spent in each individual district. to a large degree, we have made it less transparent by shifting responsibility for individual projects from individual members of congress to bureaucrats in the administration who are making the decision instead. who is more likely to be held accountable by the people?

a member of congress? or the bureaucrat in the administration that you cannot find? host: want to play that out? guest: free democrats, it is not good timing when you're trying to get a $1.9 trillion covid package through -- i don't think it is good optics. as you indicated, if earmarks are going to move forward, everyone has to jump. it has to be bicameral and bipartisan. the senate voted to permanently ban them. they have to walk that back. it is not clear there is a path forward. people have been clamoring for bringing them back since the moratorium started. the other thing -- the committee on modernization of congress did work and thought hard about how to do some form of earmarks and they put together thoughtful

proposals about transparency, not going to for-profit entities, having things we did not have before like a one-stop shop on a website that has all the info about who requested what, what is the purposes of the earmark? that is something we have not seen before. having inspector general's, the government accountability office to audit earmarks. there are things they argued that make sense if you are going to bring back earmarks. it is not clear to me the congresswoman and the senator's proposal dovetails perfectly with that. we will have to see when the rubber meets the road. the other thing i would flag about bureaucrats -- it is a zero-sum game. there is a certain amount of money there for earmarks. money spent on one product is not available to be spent on another. the idea that lawmakers, they

know their districts better than some bureaucrat in washington, they are saying they know everyone's district better than that bureaucrat. they don't know all 435 districts, which is what ends up happening with earmarks. host: historical perspective on the last data we have available for earmarks pending in the senate. the top earmarks recipient in the senate, 2008-2010, thad cochran, republican from mississippi, $2.6 billion. our current president, back then, 2008, $86 million in

member directed spending. $104 million for fiscal year '09. talking about mitch mcconnell in another regard this morning. i want to play you the comments of the minority leader, then minority leader as well in 2010, and his supporting a moratorium on earmarks spending. [video clip] >> i have concluded on the issue of congressional your marks, as the leader of my party in the senate, i have to lead first by example. nearly every day the senate has been in session since the past two years, i have come down to this very spot and said democrats were ignoring the wishes of the american people. when it comes to earmarks, i won't be guilty of the same thing. make no mistake. i know the good that has come from the projects i have helped support throughout my state. i don't apologize for them.

there is simply no doubt the abuse of this practice has caused americans to view it as wasteful spending that every republican in washington is determined to fight. unless people like me show the american people they are willing to follow through, we risk losing them on broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government. that is why today i am announcing i will join the leadership in the house in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th congress. host: historical perspective from mitch mcconnell. what did you hear then? what do you think about his comments today in 2021? guest: basically saying the good earmarks worked well but the abuse of one's didn't -- abusive one's didn't. make it more transparent and

more open. you should have to file your earmark request, saying who is going to benefit, explain how much it will cost and have it voted on in the public record. if your constituents think you made a mistake, they can hold you accountable in the next election. part of the problem of earmarks is they were not accountable. they were directed by seniority, as opposed to a formula of a district based on need. the key is not to throw it out. the goal was to stop deficit spending. it didn't work. it just meant fewer people were making the decision. the authorization process stopped. the appropriations process stopped. the process broke down. granted, the budget process, we

should have a two-year budget cycle, authorizations spread out over time. there are things we can do to make the process better so there is not such pressure to pass large omnibus bills but the key point is we can reform and fix it, not get rid of the members' ability to represent their constituents. right now, leaders are making decisions and legislators vote. they are not participating. earmarks helped to jumpstart that process where people start legislating again. it is highly practical, as opposed to ideological. people can yell and scream but nothing gets settled because we are not in parliament. democrats take a position, republicans take one. this is incentive to do things for their constituents, which all members want to do. host: do you think mitch mcconnell will be in favor of

earmarks now? guest: the republican conference in the senate is on the record for a permanent ban. they will have to unwind that. i will flag, when you have a listing of the senators at the top of the earmarks era, those were all appropriators. republicans and democrats. then senator biden trailed behind and was not an appropriate or. -- appropriator. for2010, the last year there was disclosure, before the moratorium, there were 9000 disclosed earmarks worth more than $10 billion. they are not going to have votes on all those items. it is inherently opaque, even with the database we created or one that congress does on their own to actually understand where all the money is going to make sure it is not being wasted.

lastly, i worry -- mark said he thinks earmarks would be a starter for teaching lawmakers to legislate and getting that going and i don't think that is the case. i think it will be a lot of effort and concentration on getting earmarks. offices that gave them up realized they had more time and they were not as much of a supplicant. they had more resources to do other work they had to do as a member of congress. host: let's go to dave, and the nation's capital, democrat line. caller: thank you. these earmarks are not really something beneficial to all the states, seeing as though they don't all get a chance to participate in taking the money,

for development. basically, a lot of that stuff should come out of state's budgets and the leftovers should be given to states that do not benefit. host: ok dave. guest: certain states, you mentioned the senators from hawaii and alaska, those states did extremely well, north dakota, did very well. for instance, you had representatives, both cardinal senior members, when they retired their districts got dramatically less in earmarks funding than before. it is not because the projects were any less valuable or important or other ones were more, it is because they did not have the power.

the caller is right and that this is not an equitable situation. mark mentioned a formula system. you are starting to talk about a government program administered and overseen by congress. guest: [indiscernible] congress is supposed to oversee the budget. it really should be restored to the authorization progress. that is where specific projects should be. which agency gets what. appropriators should only be funding what the authorizer's should approve. actual oversight over the executive branch could be restored. right now -- a healthy authorization progress could be helped. that is one of the benefits of this. a core function of a member of

congress is to look out for their own district. the benefits that go along with it is it helps congress operate on a bipartisan basis to make sure the authorization process, where congress is real power comes from. host: (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. mark strand, president of the congressional institute, and steve ellis, president for taxpayers for common sense. kevin gosar has a new book about congress and some of themis- functionality. "have your guests seen the new study showing the moratorium increased gridlock?" guest: i had seen that study. good luck was here before the

earmarks moratorium. there are much bigger factors at play when you look at the politics in the situation. then president trump talked about bringing back earmarks as well. the idea that earmarks are magic pixie dust that makes things work ignores some of the bigger polarizing issues facing the country. it is important to recognize that. what mark was saying before, i mean, the one authorization bill that gets done every year since world war ii is the defense authorization bill. it is always done. that is half the federal budget, discretionary budget. we have thousands of earmarks in everyone when they still had it. i am totally on board. i think we should have a more robust authorization process and they should hold appropriators accountable and the executive accountable but i don't think

that is simply the only way to do it. host: couple quick commentsm mark stran? guest: the study was a great one. members stop legislating. you're basically telling backbencher republicans we have nothing for you except show up occasionally to vote. people who are more ideological and louder are the ones who are heard. you don't hear the ranking. they have nothing to do until you come to vote. this is the danger of the process breaking down. people like steve ellis will be extremely important when we bring back this process because they watch out for waste spending. that is a great function and it should go on. people attempt to abuse anything in the government from the time to time. the vast majority of members are looking to help. [indiscernible]

-- community centers that were needed because of racial unrest and giving people the opportunity to do something positive with their lives. they are not inherently abusive. the government is spending anyway. they are saying, this benefits the district they were elected to represent. it is important to keep a close watch. the process of earmarks not only makes the legislative process works on a bipartisan basis, it allows members, even the minority, to represent their constituents in a meaningful way. host: mike, harrisburg, pennsylvania, independent. caller: i remember the discussion after they got rid of earmarks, it also got rid of a reason for bipartisanship and compromise. ideologies going against each

other, there is not too much compromise being done. if you can throw something into a bill that everybody doesn't like, that would help constituents at home, it might be a way to get bills passed that would not have gotten a pass just based on ideology. wasn't compromise the victim? guest: great comment. bottom line, we are not parliament. not one party against the other on every vote. members of congress are created to be equal members. we give them more staff and more money than any parliamentary system because they operate independently to represent their district. we have not always been so hyper partisan as we are today. majorities were not always partisan majorities.

energy producing versus consuming, agriculture states versus non-agriculture states. they should be bipartisan. what we should be doing is encouraging bipartisan action by congress, one, because it gets more respect within the country. congress broke it. it is not working. the budget is not working. it is leadership driven. what happens when we have a major bill? the president, the speaker, the majority leader sit down and negotiate and everyone else comes about later as an observer. the constitution was designed to encourage consensus and compromise so no one faction always gets its way. the bipartisan progress puts members together so they have an interest in getting things done. it is highly practical. it is not ideological. it is practical. we want a congress that works.

it is more efficient not to include all the members but not as effective because more voices are not heard. host: today's discussion on the $1.9 trillion package. guest: no, that would not be in your mark. you can debate -- an earmark. you can debate one way or the other. it is certainly a bigger policy issue. there are plenty of things congress did not consider earmarks, that we did. for instance, adding new aircraft to the air force budget because they were being built in your district. that is clearly there. also, bipartisanship, it seems almost a kumbaya with earmarks. in reality, there are bigger

systemic issues that have to be. concentrating on earmarks takes your eye off the ball. the committee on modernizing congress has 95 recommendations. earmarks were one. clearly there were other issues that need to be tackled and improved in congress and that can help build that bipartisanship. i am not so cynical to think only by having earmarks that that is the only reason you can get people to work together. i think it will take a lot of effort and reaching across the aisle by individual members willing to do things. from the beginning of their terms in the senate, senator coburn, very conservative member from oklahoma, then senator obama partnered together to create usa spending.gov which makes all the spending by the

government more transparent and available for the public to understand. if they can get together, other members can as well. it will take work. host: the headline in politico. "appropriators hope to re-task the taboo practice for funding for community projects." colin,, california democrats. caller: seems to me both guests are accepting, maybe it is not people, may be a necessary part, but we are just working out what the optima ms.. i wonder if they could describe, what is it? why it must be there? and if we are going to find optimum, of how to use these? will it make things take longer? will it over time increase efficiency and make things take less time? the other thing was i heard

something, grinding out on congress lately, for some time, they have not raised the pay for the aids. -- aides. it is a lot easier for aides to find the job they need as a lobbyist. the congress members end up retaining their senior aides because they are not replaceable. all these juniors, really inexperienced, are not getting paid well and they are on a conveyor belt off to lobbying. i have heard that as a developing problem with congress. host: steve ellis, either of those topics. guest: we have documented our concerns with earmarks.

if you're going to bring them back, you need to do it in an accountable way. you need to make sure they are not concentrated. majority leader hoyer was also a member of the appropriations committee. you want to make sure it is transparent and we know exactly who is getting money, why and we know it is not being loaded up on individual members that have the power but that also we have oversight either through the inspector general, the agencies or through the government accountability office. states, in many cases, particularly with road projects found earmarks were vaulting over more important projects for the communities. i will leave it to mark on the funding, salaries for aids but clearly we need to retract and

attain and retain talent so we have people supporting our lawmakers that can contribute to the process, so we do not have constant turnover but also, one of the things bringing back earmarks, will put more strain on offices because this is something they have not been doing. now we are going to ask them to do that. guest: i think we just reached consensus. i agree with everything steve said. he is right. if we put this kind of accountability back, public confidence will be there. with highway products, sometimes thing have their own political interests. why do members do it? they want to get reelected. they want to get projects to help the most constituents. they are in tune to that. some have better judgment than others. regarding the other issues.

congress has suffered dramatically as an institution in its ability to respond. spending $1.9 trillion, not long ago, was the entire size of the federal government. in one fell swoop, without any amendments? you are reaching a point where congress has a great deal of difficulty conducting oversight. there is no oversight going on. it is understaffed. the colors right. -- the caller is right. spread it out so you retain valuable people, pay them so you can hold them as long as you can but you have very little money left over. another thing is they are spending less money on legislative staff and more money on communication staff. why? they are not legislating. earmarks would go back to the core function of spending money on legislative staff, helping design legislation. there is nothing wrong with

constituents coming into an office and asking for things they need in their communities. this is kind of what congress is supposed to do. by increasing the number of legislative staff and the resources available to them, you get congress doing more of what it is supposed to do, instead of just communicating on social media and in the press, which does not do anything unless you are arguing over something tangible to get done. congressional staff take it on the chin in a lot of ways. they don't have protection. they are at will. if a chairman steps down, the entire staff does too. they have no job protections. the only branch of the federal government that does not have tuition reimbursement, so they can get better at their jobs. people leave very soon. the average lifespan of a hill staffer is not long because they move on to other opportunities. the job was too hard, the hours

are too long. some of the staffers are working 70 hours per week. if you average it out, the salary is low. if you want a healthy congress, you have to have the staff necessary to make it work. every government has an executive branch. only healthy democracies have working legislatures. when a legislature is weakened, you only increase the power of the executive and bad things start to happen. host: arthur, gorham, new hampshire, independent. caller: good discussion as usual. thank you for c-span. i have a point i believe is relative and i will express it in the form of a question. what is the number of citizens represented in congress -- the ratio per capita? how many citizens?

i think it is around 10,000. i am probably wrong. the reason i think this is important, representation touches on everything you're talking about. probably not as current as the main issues. host: i saw mark strand shaking his head. guest: james madison proposed 12 amendments in the first congress. the bill of rights. 50,000 people per district. host: steve ellis, question from twitter. how do we ensure earmarks don't have a disparate impact along partisan lines? i'm concerned with line items favoring congressional districts for the majority. guest: certainly, the majority

got the bulk of the earmarks. during that era, you divvied them up, you saw a 6040 split. that was true under democrat and republican control. you want to make sure everyone has a piece of the action. otherwise, this is why it has to be bicameral, otherwise it will be used to bludgeon the other party. there will be questionable projects. there will be projects that sound questionable but are not. also, famously in the mid-1990's, then speaker gingrich and the majority leader used earmarks to protect vulnerable incumbents. toward the marginal members, so they would have account for reelection and they weaponized it in that respect as well.

those are all real issues. i want to be clear. if you're going to bring back earmarks, i am not advocating for that to happen, then these are some of the restrictions you need to have. having 9000 earmarks and $10 billion is not sustainable or reasonable. host:, joe, napa, california, democrat line. caller: good morning. i'm calling to find out -- earmarks. they are basically the same thing as subsidies? guest: they are for a particular project, could be a road, museum, to build or buy a certain weapons system. i would not say subsidy per se but it is government spending. caller: so the legislators give subsidies or earmarks typically to the bigger businesses.

my question is -- why can't the businesses that get these earmarks or subsidies, go to the lion share of the ones that charge the lowest price for us taxpayers that give the money to these legislators? which goes to the businesses. the lowest bids, the lowest prices charged back to us. why can't we work from that perspective? guest: joe, what you are laying out is actually our contracting system. we are going to buy a widget, we put out specifications and it goes to the lowest bidder. there is not that in earmarks. it is a lawmaker picking a particular project or company to get the funds. also, in a lot of cases, it is for a road or something along

those lines, which is going to be allocated to that jurisdiction, which is going to competitively award a contractor in the district. host: does the rewarding of that in the past get members in trouble? duke cunningham? others? guest: absolutely. we documented, along with the wall street journal, charlie taylor from western north carolina was getting road projects where he owned property. you have issues with the late congressman jack murtha. defense earmark, defense appropriations committee, you will have to have an operation in johnstown, pennsylvania. clearly, yeah, there were abuses on how funding was awarded. alan mollohan, west virginia, getting money for nonprofits and

for companies he was tied to. there were many instances, not just the most profile ones, like to cunningham, that people know about. host: mark strand, last word here on earmarks. they seem a likely feature to come back, at least on the appropriations side in the house effort. guest: these are important warnings from the past. the committee on modernization recommendations says no company can get a direct earmark. the system establishing transparency says not only do you have to say who gets the money, what the purposes for but you have to state whether or not you have a personal interest. members cannot. that violates ethics rules. this needs to be enforced. congress has a constitutional responsibility to spend money. they make decisions. the earmark process helps

jumpstart a healthy budget process. it doesn't solve it by itself. right now, it is dead. it is not working. you might as well start small and start i partisanship going back and forth again. people like steve ellis are watching constantly to make sure these earmarks are done the right way. it can be done the right way. it should be done the right way. it is congress's job to do with the right way. host: mark strand leads the congressional institute. steve ellis with the taxpayers for common sense. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you bill. guest: thanks very much, bill guest: host: your calls next on the biden administration's handling of the pandemic so far. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents.

♪ announcer: you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government, created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies, who provide c-span2 viewers as a public service -- c-span to viewers as a public service. announcer: 117th congress includes 60 new members including first-generation immigrants, state representatives, television reporters and former college and professional athletes. watch our conversations with new members of congress, all this week, 8 p.m. eastern. tonight, freshman members who emigrated to the united states or were raised by parents who did. watch interviews with new members of congress, tonight at

8:00 eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. announcer: washington journal continues. host: joe biden had his first national tv audience since the inauguration four weeks ago today. a cnn town hall in milwaukee. many questions still with coronavirus and the administration response. we are asking you to rate the response of the administration so far. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. we will look for your tweets and texts at (202)-748-8003. reporting and analysis this morning of politico. "biden resets his own covid

goalpost." "people who want a vaccine will be able to get one by the end of july, he promised. a pathway to citizenship would be essential to any immigration bill. biden is, if nothing else, a seasoned politician. the pledges came with caveats. the end of july deadline was about vaccine availability. school re-openings, five days a week was aspirational. immigration reform. even a piecemeal deal dealing with refugees would be an accomplishment. nuance to boot and a general attempt not to get bogged down on anyone thing." one question asked by a nurse in

attendance about the vaccine disparity, and the distribution. [video clip] >> two reasons for it being the way it is. number one, there is some history of blacks being used as guinea pigs in experiments. i need not tell you, dr. there is a concern about getting the vaccine whether it is available or not. the biggest part is access. physical access. that is why last week i opened, i met with the black caucus in the u.s. congress and agreed -- all of the community health centers now which take care of the toughest neighborhoods in terms of illness, they will get one million doses per week moving forward, because they are in the neighborhood.

secondly, we have opened up and i am making sure there are doses of vaccine for over 6700 pharmacies, because almost everyone who lives within, not always walking distance but within the distance of being able to go to the pharmacy, like when you got your flu shot, that is also now being opened. thirdly, i am also providing for mobile vans, mobile units to go into neighborhoods that are hard to get to because people -- for example, even though everyone is within basically five miles of a walgreens, let's say, the fact is, if you are 70 years old, you don't have a vehicle and you live in a tough neighborhood, meaning it is a high concentration of covid, you are not likely to be able to walk five miles to get a vaccine. the other thing we found is --

i'm sorry to go on but this is important to me -- a lot of people do not know how to register. not everyone in the hispanic and african-american community particularly, rural areas, distant and or inner-city districts, know how to use, know how to get online to determine how to get in line for that covid vaccination at the walgreens or particular store. i've also committed to spend $1 billion on public education to help people figure out how they can get it. also trying to set up mass vaccination centers. host: president biden at last night's town hall in milwaukee. asking you your rating, your reaction to the biden administration's response to the pandemic. carl tweets "slow and unfairly distributed."

ross, "it should have taken precedence over impeachment." jim in georgia, republican. "biden is doing what trump implemented in office, where the vaccine is concerned." " considering trump's reluctance to help him, pretty good." daniel is next, new jersey, democrat line. caller: good morning. mr. biden, the president, has been in office for four weeks? granted, there was a lot of work done. there was a lot of work on done

-- undone. when you get on tv in front of millions of viewers, don't wear a mask and have a garden party, they took it home to their families, then their families, let's just say how many people were infected by people who felt that not wearing a mask was a privilege. then you are asking me, is it ok if i kill you? one thing that comes to mind his family's, young people,, college -- if one child is sick in the family, adults and grandparents and so forth. if you did a family rollout, that would get rid of all the people, basically you would say that school -- again, the man is doing the best he can. he walked into the most divided

leadership in the world at this point. basically took the reins. the covid relief package is pricey but if we put together all that was spent in the previous years in reaching certain targeted demographics, it is probably cheap. it will never be easy even if we are so divided. really, where the mask. if it was the regular flu, would you go to somebody's house? host: stephanie, ohio, independent. caller: i would give him a b plus as of right now. to the trump supporters saying that trump deserves all the credit, that is funny, given the fact that when obama was in office, he got us out of basically a depression and it

took him a little while to get it above where republicans wanted it to be an trump took off all the regulation. they gave trump all the credit. now they want biden to give trump the credit because he created the vaccine. that is funny. i heard a call complain about the fact the deficit was so high. that is also funny. given that trump added $2 trillion to the deficit, for the tax cuts, benefited major corporations. in the span of 10 years, the middle class would have had to pay back the taxes. they would have to pay corporations. that is all i have to say. host: the associated press headline this morning, biden reframes his goal.

"restating his goal after the administration came under fire if they opened schools just one day a week." "biden had pledged in december to reopen the majority of schools in his first 100 days but has faced increasing questions about how he would achieve that goal, with school districts operating under a patrick of different arrangements -- patchwork of different arrangements nationwide." kamala harris was also asked about it on nbc this morning. [video clip] >> there has been a shifting timeline here. host: we are having a little audio issue. we will try to get that, before

we wrap this segment. back to calls, missouri, julie, republican. caller: when i heard biden talk about he would spend $1 billion to teach rural people and people in inner cities how to use the internet to get online -- does he think we are all stupid? that is totally insulting, just because we live in rural missouri does not mean we don't know how to use the internet area -- internet. host: vice president, harris mentioned she was on the today show. quite there has been a shifting timeline here. . we want to reopen the majority of schools in the first 100 days. now he said as recently as last

night he is talking about the majority of k-8 schools, last week we heard a white house official saying "mean just one day a meet -- one day a week open, again, what is the bottom line, when will schools reopen and how soon can they reopen? vp harris: our goal is that as many k-8 schools as possible will reopen within the first 100 days, our goal is that it will be five days a week. we have to work to achieve that goal. the issue here is not just about statistics, it's about our kids, it's about their parents, it's about the fact that every day our kids are missing essential, critical days in their educational develop. we have worked on this issue for years around the fact that by

the end of third grade if a fire -- if a child is not at a third-grade grade reading level they drop off. each day in the life of a child is a long time and that is why we have to collectively do everything in our power to reopen our schools as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. host: comments on our topic from social media, on twitter, "the administration's response to covid-19 is better than the previous administration, but that bar is very low. i hope we will get a better system like the super sites fema is setting up, but i'm impressed so far." " has it really been necessary to reinvent the way people get vaccinated? ?" " state unemployment agencies are the biggest bottleneck in getting help the people who need it, across the country there are people looking to get on unemployment. there are those who have been on unemployment for more than three

months waiting for a review. she says the gentleman who had the stroke, i hope he is getting ssdi. the biden administration needs to pay attention to welfare agencies. a lot of people thrown off their ssdi in them -- their ssdi in the middle of a pandemic. republicans going to make sure these agencies failed to make democrats look bad. caller: my schools in my city, the private schools have been open from day one and the public schools reopened a few days ago. no nothing. the problem is that they are not a union. they are not a union the charter schools. when you have a union you have a problem. that is what's going on with the whole school system.

up here in massachusetts we spend, over the public schools, $12,000 per kid and that's ridiculous. i'm so sick and tired of hearing about covid and how many people have died from it. everyone that dies today goes on the corona list. don't give me this 500 million or whatever they want to call it. [indiscernible] i agree with the woman in missouri about biden. host: we are asking about the biden administration's response to the pandemic so far. headline in the new york times, "biden suggests vaccines will be available for every american by the end of july." nancy is next from connecticut on the democrats line. caller: good morning biden, a plus for caring.

80 million americans and 62% of americans know and respect biden for taking this virus seriously for the american people in last night's town hall. unfortunately, trump told us it is a hoax and trump held rallies without mask wearing and social distancing throughout 2020. trump mocked americans, mocked us for wearing masks. i wore my masks as millions do, and i consider biden a serious and caring man. it's a pleasure to have a mature and professional president back in office. host: atlanta georgia we hear from earl on the democrats line. caller: the last caller was right on point. for us news junkies you have to love the daily press conferences back. jen psaki is the bomb. that's about it. host: what do you like about the news conferences? you like them? --

what is it about them? caller: they are informative, they are professional, they are to the point, since saying. this is just refreshing to have real people back doing what they are supposed to be doing. host: we cover many of those and all of our coverage of the white house and elsewhere, congress and public policy discussions across the city of washington and across the country available at c-span.org. we hear from brian in akron, ohio on the independent line. brian in akron, you are on the air. akron, ohio one more time. to tim in lakeview, arkansas. caller: good morning, thank you, c-span. the big goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days, trump

was already on course for that. the people want to shame you for not wearing a mask, but let's remember the cdc put out a while ago that masks to work -- now found she says to masks -- fauci says two masks. i noticed they don't say the numbers anymore. i don't think this is worth some the flu. yes people died, it's terrible. people die of the flu every year. check the numbers of how many people died last year and this year. the covid, the shutdowns are a result of political violence. they couldn't go against trump's economy so they had to shut it down. i think they got the virus from

china and we are living with the results of the democratic political violence that we have been seeing the whole year. host: the washington times writing about a foreign-policy challenge to the administration, attacking iraq poses early challenges for the biden administration. a deadly rocky salvo being blamed on iraq. raising questions of how iran is willing to provoke the new biden administration prior to negotiations over restarting the 2015 iran nuclear deal. they write that a non-us contractor was killed and more than half a dozen others including an american servicemember were wounded in the attack late monday night at an airport in the northern part of iraq that lies close to u.s. military base. a similar attack that killed an american contractor just over a year ago was the immediate catalyst for donald trump's order for an airstrike that killed qasem soleimani and put

the u.s. and iran on the brink of open warfare. that is from the washington times. writing about that attack in the opinion pages of the wall street journal, they write this. the headline says "joe biden gets tested in iraq." "the world is watching how he responds to an attack on u.s. forces. iraqi forces launched rocket attacks on u.s. forces. their goal is to drive out the 2500 u.s. troops that assist the iraqi military, provide intelligence against the return of the islamic state, and limit malign iranian influence in the country. retaliatory strikes won't put a complete stop to such aggression, but the right retaliation can degrade the malicious abilities and action that invite more brazen attacks." in texarkana texas, good morning to james on the republican line. we lost james.

we will go to sparta, illinois and hear from nancy on the democrats line. caller: hello. i was wondering, is joe biden going to build our military, and will he respond to this issue that is going on now? host: ok, to tim, republican line in st. paul, minnesota. we are asking about the covid response of the biden administration. caller: i think the last republican caller was -- had some great points. one of the biggest points about the trump response. trump shot himself in the foot. if he would've just let vice president pence run with the show it probably would've been better off for him. the cdc made recommendations back and forth.

we have seen studies that claim masks don't work. here in minnesota we have had a big metropolitan area, people are very compliant. you go to northern minnesota, rural areas, it's a different story. if you look at the numbers, the virus, it seems to affect older people with pre-existing conditions and shutting down the economy and kind of destroying the economy and keeping it shut down. it's kind of crazy and now you have biden in there. he ran on listening to the science. now they can't get the kids back to school, the sciences kids should go back to school.

i think a lot of people are frustrated with politics. they say one thing, they say another thing, they say another thing. most people are sick and tired of the hypocrisy. that is why trump got in, that is why a few years ago jesse event or a guardian in minnesota. politician a, politician b, same old craft. politician c is jesse ventura, i'm going to throw a vote to him just because i want something different. host: did you vote for jesse venture i? caller: i did. i voted for change. i forget the other candidates that were running. i couldn't vote for either one of those guys and it was the same old craft. jesse didn't do such a bad job.

up until the election results, trump didn't do that bad of a job. he offended a ton of people and said stupid shit and stupid stuff. some of his policies weren't that terrible. he didn't help when georgia. goodbye, donald trump. host: tim, appreciate your call. this is the john hopkins tracker of worldwide cases on the coronavirus, worldwide cases approaching 28 million, worldwide deaths at 2.4 million. he knighted states deaths are approaching half-million at 480 plus thousand, the statistics they are compiled by the johns hopkins university school of public health. gainesville, texas, next up, richard. caller: good morning.

president biden is doing an immaculate job. of what he got handed to buy this dictator that just left that lied to everybody. all of your callers are telling the same thing. this is what is going on, the lies. this is what people are tired of and sick of. people are tired of being lied to by politicians. john connolly, ted cruz, all these republican politicians that think trump is it. he's lied to everyone of us. we are tired of it. i've been up and down all night trying to keep my house warm because of rolling blackouts because we have been lied to by the syndicate down here in this state area we have got to stop lying to each other in america. that's what's wrong. you hear it in every person that calls you. host: the texas tribune reporting about the damage from

the freeze and the storms. power outages leave millions of texans desperate for heat and safety, texan's residence of the storm and ensuing partial collapse of the state power system tapped what little reserves they had left after a global health crisis that has cost thousands of jobs and claimed more than 40,000 lives in the state. next is mike in rockville, maryland. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: i think joe biden is doing an amazing job. he was given a raw deal, trump blew everything up, trump was a fire from the day he got into office. he handed joe biden a government completely -- listening to the caller, listening to the trump callers calling in, they are angry, they are stomping their feet around.

a couple of things real quick. i looked it up, from the flu, 34,000 people died between 2018 and 2019. we have almost 500 thousand people that have died from coronavirus. once again, trump supporters don't like actual facts, not the ones that they fabricate and find on the internet. another guy said something about trump, that he was tired of hypocrisy, that's why he liked trump. i'm trying to understand the logic from that because that makes no sense whatsoever. trump was devoid of anything that had to do with sincerity or morality. a bunch of stuff i can -- it's interesting to listen to people: with alternative facts. it's nice having a grown up in the white house again. i think joe biden is doing a great job even though president trump tried to blow everything up and kick over the can before he left office. thanks. host: we will focus on china

next on washington journal. we will be joined by the president of the economic strategy institute and the author of a new book, "the world turned upside down: america, china, and the struggle for global leadership." that's next. ♪ announcer: president biden's nominee for attorney general, merrick garland, testifies before the senate judiciary committee monday for his confirmation hearing. watch our coverage at 9:30 eastern on c-span and c-span.org or listen live on the c-span radio app. cracks visit c-span's online store at c-span shop.org to check out the new c-span products. with the 170 of congress in session we are taking preorders for the congressional directory. every c-span shop purchase help

support c-span's nonprofit operations. shop today atc-spanshop.org. -- host: next with us is clyde prestowitz, president of the economic strategy institute and the author of -- than the author of the new book, "the world turned upside down: america, china, and the struggle for global leadership.". good morning, thanks for joining us. clyde: good morning. host: why did you write the book, when did you start writing it? clyde: i started writing it in the middle of february 2018, and i did so because of two facts. i have had, i have been at it for 57 years working as a business executive, as a diplomat, as a trade negotiator, and a think tank scholar on asia. i got a telephone call from

the smith richardson foundation asking me if i would be interested to write something about how she would -- how we should be dealing with china and i said yes. i began in february. at a moment when u.s. policy was very much the same as it had been when i was in the reagan administration in 1982. that is to say our policy was what we called positive engagement. the idea was to negotiate with china and bring them into what we call the global system and hope that economic development would result in china -- in political liberalization if not democratization. on that policy added to change on march the first 2018 when the economist magazine cover story said that the west had made the

wrong bet on china. what i have written about is how we made the wrong bet and what we should be trying to do about it. >> your title says the world turned upside down. when do you think in terms of the u.s. and china relationship things became upside down? clyde: it began in the early 1980's when we began to embrace china and try to meld china into the world trading system and into the broader global system. things really got going after we brought china into the wto in 2001. we brought china in in 2001 again with the belief and hope that china would become a market

economy a responsible stakeholder in the global rules based order that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization. what china had been doing was to focus on industrial policy focusing on developing industries like artificial intelligence, semi conductors, robotics, to achieve what they called made in china 2020. the idea is that china would become the global leader in a lot of these cutting edge technologies. in doing that china engaged in a lot of policies that we had seen before in the cases of germany, japan, korea, and taiwan in which they target particular

industries and they subsidize them and protect them and they promote trade in those industries and they tend to wipe out those industries in the u.s. and in other western countries and they tend to run very large trade surpluses while we are running large trade deficits. particularly in the case of china not only is this -- it's a very much political and moral issue. effectively when you are dealing with china they begin to impose chinese communist party begins to impose -- you remember last year the houston rockets basketball team manager tweeted in support of demonstrators in hong kong, immediately nba games, broadcast of nba games in china --

what was happening was the opposite of what we had, we want -- china did not become a responsible stakeholder in the global system. now we are faced with the issue of ok, if you're not going to play nicely, if you're not going to play the game the way the that we thought they were how should we play? >> your book written during the trump administration, what do you think the legacy will be or is, the trump administration policy of the u.s. towards china in several areas, in trade, and military struggles and other areas? clyde: one of the positive things that the trump administration did was to change the direction and the thinking, the fundamental underpinning assumptions of u.s. policy towards china. up until trump the assumption had been that china was going to

become more like us. that we were at the end of history and inevitably globalization would lead to democratization and we would have to be patient and continue to negotiate with china in endless high-level meetings. the trump administration saw, even before the economist, that maybe they made the wrong bet and they shifted the bet. one can argue about the particular techniques that the trump administration pursued, but i think the big thing is that there was a recognition that it was not working and that there was something wrong and we had to do something different. and we have been. it's interesting that the biden administration has not rejected the trump policies.

the biden administration is keeping in place the trump policies and thinking about how to become more sophisticated in how to include our allies in a better way. the movie is based on an understanding in the biden administration that china is not playing the game the way we hope they would. host: our guest is clyde prestowitz, the author of the new book on u.s. china relations, "the world turned upside down: america, china, and the struggle for global leadership." we welcome your calls and comments. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, and for all others (202) 748-8002. we will get to your comments momentarily. on the biden administration, clyde prestowitz, the headline in the new york times on that call last week, "biden raises concerns with china's xi in the

first call since the election. ." some comments from the president after that call. pres. biden: last night i was on the phone, for two straight hours with xi jinping. you all know as well as i do, these folks, it was a good conversation, i know him well, we spent a lot of time together over the years i was vice president. if we don't get moving they are going to eat our lunch. they have a major new initiative on the rail, they already have rail that can go 225 miles per hour with ease. they are working hard and i think we are going to have to do -- i think the automobile industry is already there and so is labor. they are working hard to try to move in a position where they end up being the source of a new

way in which to power automobiles, they are going to and lest -- invest a lot of money. they are investing billions of dollars in dealing with a whole range of issues related to transportation and the environment. we have to step up. host: caller -- clyde prestowitz in those comments the president saying if we don't get moving china is going to eat our lunch. clyde: i agree with them. i would say china is eating our lunch. [laughter] we have a trade deficit with china of $400 billion. interestingly what we -- when we negotiated to bring china into the wto we had a trade deficit of $80 billion annually and at that time the u.s. trade representative and president clinton and later

president george h w -- george w. bush, all told the u.s. congress that by bringing china in through the wto our deficit would become half. they said that because we have already had low tariffs on chinese imports. they had high tariffs on our imports. the argument was that they would have to reduce their tariffs, we would not have to reduce hours, and that would create a surge of u.s. exports to china. quite the opposite happened. we are at $400 billion that is with each -- 400 billion dollars deficit with china and whole u.s. industries have moved to china. something like three to 5 million american jobs have been moved to china between 2001 and today. they are eating our lunch and i think president biden is, i am

pleased that he recognizes that. host: would we be in a better position trade wise if we had entered the trans-pacific partnership at the end of the obama administration, and beginning of the trump administration? clyde: trade wise it would have made no difference in trade wise we might have been in a worse position. that agreement was not going to open significantly and a significant markets for us in asia. remember, we call it the train agreement, but aside from japan, the other major asian countries were going to be vietnam, malaysia, brunei, and singapore. those are not big markets. we did bring japan into it. nothing in the agreement was going to increase our exports to japan. you could argue politically it was a mistake for us not to stay in it, but economically and

trade wise -- >> we have several calls waiting bob on the independent line. good morning. caller: you are being very nice about china and i know you have to be, not as radical as i think you would like to be. the bottom line is that china wants us gone. they are not a trading competitor, they are not anything of the sort. they want us gone off the face of the earth and they have a guy in xi jinping who is mao zedong in a brooks brothers suit. if anybody doesn't believe that, that's one of the few things, very few things that donald trump got right. that was one of them. clyde: as i said earlier i think trump did recognize that our thinking about china over the

past 40 years has been mistaken. i would say, and i think we have to look at china in three ways. there is china, 1.4 billion people. i don't think all one point 4 billion chinese one us off the face of the earth. my own wife is chinese and i think she likes to have me around. i think the chinese communist party very much wants to dominate us. they want to dominate whatever they touch. the chinese communist party has stated straight out in black and white it is opposed to free speech or constitutional democracy. it is opposed to the concept of universal values. it has declared the policies that it wishes to follow to reduce american influence, not just american influence about the whole concept of human

rights, the whole concept of democracy, rule of law, due process it wants to reduce that. if you deal with china you enter into a devil's bargain where the chinese will allow you to make money, but only if you talk the way they want you to talk. host: next up is rushford, minnesota. caller: hello. this is interesting to me. my mom and dad, i am 80 years old and already said in the 60's and 70's that china was going to own us someday. then through my years of having to shop and everything we went from quality products to not quality. we filled our landfills with junk. you bought cheap, but you did not, it did not last.

this whole talk reminds me that the communists are taking over our country, not china. part of china has taken over our country. host: a comment from another viewer who tweets this who says that u.s. politicians don't hesitate to back china but business people don't hesitate to move business to china as well as trade with them. clyde: that's a very good and interesting point. one thing that is not recognized typically in the public discussion of this is the role of americans -- american multinational corporations. the multinational corporations, many of them, a good example is general electric, they moved, this is amazing. the chairman of general electric , he was also, in 2011 and 2012

was the chairman of president obama's commission on jobs -- in principle he was supposed to be trying to figure out how to create more american jobs and make america more of a -- at the same time he announced that ge was moving its avionics division, those are electronics for airplanes. he was moving the avionics division from the u.s. into a joint venture with a state owned chinese company in shanghai. avionics are not something that is labor-intensive. it's not cheap wages that you need for avionics, you need technology and special skills. affectively what he was saying was that ge was going to go to china and teach the chinese these skills on this technology. i scratched my head about why we were doing this.

it's what we theoretically are supposed to be good at doing and selling, why are we putting it in china? the answer came back, because the chinese have made it clear that if we want to sell avionics in china we better make them in china. i have often wondered, here is the chairman of the commission on jobs and competitiveness, did he ask himself if there is a contradiction between his job for president obama and what he is announcing he is going to do with his avionics division and i wonder if president obama called him up and asked him what he was doing. i don't know the answer to either of those, but it demonstrates what you pointed out which is that u.s. global corporations have found it very convenient to move their production to china. let me tell you something that is absolutely of key importance.

in america these corporations are very powerful. they make big political donations and have armies of lawyers and lobbyists in washington and instant connection to the white house and congress. they write a lot of law in america. in beijing they have nothing. they are on their knees, they are begging. effectively they have become hostages of china. what tends to happen is the ceos of american companies, the heads of chambers of commerce and other organizations will go to congress and testify and introduce themselves as the voices of american business when in fact they are much more the voice of chinese business. this is i think an aspect of the u.s. china relationship that president biden must change

dramatically. host: do you think in that transfer of avionics technology in the case of general electric's and other sensitive technology has been damaging to u.s. national security? clyde: absolutely, yes i do. national security, yes. jobs, american economic welfare, yes, damaging. host: let's hear from carl in chicago on the democrats line. caller: my comment is that the reason why we are so far behind is because america decided to invest all of their energy and resources into a war for 20 years while china said, we will invest our money and expanding around the globe. the chinese are in just about every possible country.

and we are still investing in bullets. host: thank you, carl. caller: i think that's -- clyde: i think that's a wise statement. we have expended enormous resources in endless wars that are of marginal significance to us and much of the rest of the world. we have not recognized the challenge from china, we have squandered our resources, and we need to stop. host: are you able to quantify the success of the belton road project worldwide? clyde: i would have to say i'm not able to quantify it. i would say that what has happened is, two things. china, through the belton road project china has made itself a

great power. china has become more significant to more countries in the world while america has become less significant to more countries. i would say that, to give you a kind of example, the european union operates on the basis of unanimity. if the european union is going to announce a policy position, all of the members of the european union have to vote for it. china has cleverly bought in greece and is building a high-speed rail from hungary to serbia. was preparing to buy the major electric power generator in portugal. and when china does these things

, it effectively makes it difficult for the eu to make a united statement. politically the belton road has given china enormous influence and power globally. at the same time it creates a lot of jobs in china, and the chinese equipment is being exported to build all of these facilities. that then changes trade lanes and changes distribution of supply chains in china's favor. i think it has been successful for china. i'm sorry i can't put a number on it. host: a snapshot of trade numbers between the u.s. and china. china is the largest supplier of goods and imports to the u.s., valued at $451 billion. they are the third largest export market for the u.s., 100 $6 billion and the 2019 trade deficit with china the u.s.

deficit 349 billion. this is jim. caller: good morning. mi live? host: go ahead. caller: i think the democratic, hearing people talk about the democratics, my family was raised back east in north carolina. i think a lot of people don't realize, but the democratics was the confederates. the confederates are the ones that had the slaves. these people are talking about all of this. host: you are a little off topic, we are talking about u.s. china trade relations. to california on the independent line. caller: good morning. the question i have for the gentleman is, america spends so

much money on r&d and our company because out there to china and that's where the products are made, then they bring it back and sell it to america. that is a terrible thing to do for american companies. i taxpayers spends a good amount of money on r&d research. that's all i've got. caller: you are exactly right. it's a vicious circle because a company like apple, virtually everything apple makes is based on research funded by the u.s. government. everything that apple sells is made in china. effectively apple has taken u.s. taxpayer-funded research and turned it into products, they are good at that, then move the production to china and then by

moving production you do move the technology. apple is teaching the chinese how to make those products, and increasingly the ability of making those products leaves the united states and settles in china. as i said earlier, when tim cook, the chairman of apple testifies before congress, he testifies as an american businessman, but because his production is all in china he has to be very careful not to offend the chinese. he in many respects represents china. by going to china apple gets rid of its labor unions, it gets rid of difficult environmental requirements. typically the chinese government

gives subsidies for factory building and for land and so forth, reduced prices for utilities costs. apple makes a lot of money. you might think it brings the money back to america, but what apple does is to maintain hundreds of billions of dollars in tax havens, places like singapore and bermuda and ireland so that it does not get taxed. i am just using apple, i could give you a hundred other names. this is the way american business has been operating. we think that we have an american policy to china, but in fact american business has its own policies to china. these companies are very powerful in washington. and in no way our china policy is not being made by political leaders but by corporations who

don't report to anyone except their shareholders and even in that case it's a very tenuous line of responsibility. >> next up is cecil in north carolina. democrats line. caller: i have a disturbing thing about the way i view the world. absolutism in the hands of people that have a majority of people within their country that represents genius, and they put a polish on that and collectively, globally. the first thing you know it has somebody gaining more power than you. they have an advantage to build on globally. they have a global manufactured system.

and absolutism is a game. whether you believe in evolution or creation i think you have a problem because you have a problem figuring out why we have taken the word when we have an advantage over other people, and advantage global to have a global manufacturing system that will bring us all down. clyde: there are two ways to look at it. we have very strong business and economic relationships with canada, with mexico, with the european union, germany, and france and the netherlands. those relationships are not a problem.

the problem comes when we run into countries that are authoritarian, that do not allow freedom of speech, do not operate under a rule of law. when subsidized heavily their producers, who still technology and subsidize their exports and selectively manage their markets to maintain or achieve leadership or domestically oriented companies. the mistake that we have been making is to believe that we could somehow massage and maneuver china into changing and becoming more like us when china was going in the opposite direction. that was recognized.

i think the trump administration recognized that. the biden administration, i'm encouraged by what i have seen from president biden. they have recognized that we have a real problem and recognizing problems is the first step toward solving. >> how solid is the position of president xi in china? >> it's hard to know. from the outside it looks rocksolid. there was an interesting recent development. there was this guy named jack ma who is probably china's most successful entrepreneur. he is the founder and the head of a company called alibaba, china's amazon. he is creating a new company that would be a kind of -- a technology finance company. he was prepared to do a public

offering of something like $300 billion, it was going to be the biggest offering of all time, and at the very last moment, xi jinping wiped it out. the information i have as to why it was wiped out is the major shareholders of the group consisted of people all over who had connections and were not entirely inxio's -- in xi's camp. xi's denial of their proposal for public offering is being interpreted by some as a political move to solidify this political position and to weaken political opposition in china.

it suggests there is political opposition in china, but we don't see it. host: let's hear from bill in albany, new york on the independent line. caller: thank you. i agree with you, i believe former president trump finally said, we have to do something about china. here is my question. president trump wanted to make the trade, trading warfare, bring jobs back from china to the united states and put the tariffs on china and make them pay their fair share. here is a couple of questions, the pharmaceutical industry, china has produced most of the ingredients for all of our pills, not just a vaccine, for regular daily pills. if they pull the plug on that and stop selling we don't have

anyplace to manufacture them here. can you imagine what that would do to that industry? do you think china got so mad at president trump, this is over-the-top, but your world is upside down, do you think they got so mad at president trump for what he did that they unleashed this virus, is that one of their ways of getting back? my last question, president biden, is all that true about him and his son hunter having these connections in china? would that make things worse for us? caller: those are good questions. in the first place, you are correct. the vast majority of the ingredients that go into our medicines come from china. it puts us in a dependent position, and potentially a dangerous one. i think president trump and president biden --

biden is moving to reduce our dependence on elements from other places to make it to the u.s.. i think that china did not unleash this virus purposefully to harm us for the rest of the world. i think it was an accident that happened somewhere in china and it also hurt china. where i criticize china is that they knew about it in december. they knew about it in early december of 2018. they didn't tell anybody. they waited until the thing had become pretty big and had begun to escape china before they told anybody. this is typical of a communist regime that wants to present to the outside world that everything is perfect in its own

backyard. unfortunately it has had deadly consequences for the rest of the world. i think that we in the u.s., and looking at how to deal with china we need to focus a lot on how we deal with ourselves. why our -- why are pharmaceutical companies putting production in china, why are they sorting these elements in china. somebody should have been looking at them, and nobody has. we in america need to take a much broader, deeper look at ourselves and ask ourselves if we should be doing more a year and how we do it. i think that is where president biden wants to go. >> do you think in terms of his last question on hunter biden, do you think the president has to be extra vigilant with china?

>> i think he does. sorry i skipped over that. a lot of the things that the chinese communist party is really good at is worming its way into our system. it does that by identifying -- obviously joe biden, if you are sitting in china, joe biden is the guy that could be important. you want to find a way to get a handle on it. he has these kids and the kids need to make a living and everybody wants to do business with china. the chinese communist party finds a way to get a hold -- a kid like hunter biden, and he gets involved in business. it is fine and legal and normal

but it creates a relationship, i have no idea exactly what hunter biden was doing in china, but clearly he had a close relationship to people high in the communist party. and i know from a lot of personal experience that that is how china tries to get close to important people to influence them. i do think that president biden needs to lean over and backwards to demonstrate that he is not under the influence of powerbrokers in beijing who happened to take advantage of his son. host: five minutes left with our guest, we will go to kirk in california on the democrats line. kirk, california, go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span. we have been taking advantage of cheap labor all over the country and all over the world. china is one of those places.

if we built iphones in the united states that would cost $3000. we are reckoning with the fact that china is also taking advantage of cheap labor all over the world. we made our own bed, and we are laying in it. you can address that, you addressed it while i was waiting, thank you very much. i would appreciate your input on this. caller: i think -- clyde: i think we tend to make a mistake when we talk about cheap labor. it is true that in the 1990's chinese labor was cheap and inexpensive and you could argue that by moving production to china producers were able to reduce their cost because of chinese labor. two things have happened, chinese labor is not cheap. it is much more expensive than indonesian labor or labor from many other countries.

secondly, manufacturing has become automated, so a lot of labor is not being used. an apple makes phones in china it's not using labor, it's using automated equipment. the automated equipment represents a capital cost, not a labor cost. the cost of capital is not terribly different from one country to another. unless there are subsidies. if you look straight out at markets across the capital that doesn't justify moving all your operations to china. what does happen if you move your operations to china is you don't have any labor unions. you want to compel your workers to work on the weekend and not pay overtime. the chinese communist party will help you do that. you get rid of environmental requirements. i don't know if you've traveled to china, but when you energize these air spaces it is like going into the night.

china is covered by a huge cloud of pollution because for a very long time china had no significant environmental standards. putting a plan in china -- a plant in china is much oilier -- easier from an environmental perspective. i come back to this issue we talked about earlier with american business. what is in the heads of our ceos and political leaders? understanding more what our ceos are doing and why our political leaders are not adopting more stringent policies towards our business leaders. because our business leaders are funding the political leaders. they are corrupt in the u.s. in the way we fund politics.

we need to as that canadians do, instead of allowing big corporations to make big political donations, we should require that political donations are made only by citizens, by real people, not by corporate people. host: catherine in cedar, minnesota joins us. caller: good morning. i think that what strikes me most about the china and the trade relations, there is such a strong lack of transparency here and i think that such a danger to us and it's so disappointing that we as americans don't pride ourselves on doing our own wares, our own economics, our own things so we can start to bring some of this trade back. with all the money that will be paid tower political influences and all this stuff i do think that mr. --

what he is talking about, we don't have the trust and that breaks down what we are doing and we are not trusting in our own ability to create these products. host: thanks, catherine. clyde prestowitz, final thoughts? clyde: i think that we need to, and i think president biden is looking at this, that we need to look at reassuring, a lot of american -- they need to look at bringing it back. they need to look at bringing it back to america, but being it back to the industry that we have and how we strengthen that and expand that. how we also interact with other countries. if you are a multinational

corporation and you have operations around the world, from an american point of view it would be better to have your operations in india than in china. mexico than in china. india and mexico are democracies. they have rule of law and you will and, whereas, when you are in china you will always be under observation, under political pressure. host: he has written a best-selling book on u.s. and japan relations and now on u.s.-china economic relations. "the world turned upside down." he is also president of the economic strategy institute. thanks for being with us this morning. guest: thank you. host: we are done for this morning but back tomorrow morning at 7:00 and we hope you are too. have a good day. ♪ [captions copyright national

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