check out the brennan center report and see for yourself. host: ben cohen, jerry greenfield, they are behind an effort to end qualified immunity. to both of youhost: our first gm kean. he served as the former chair of the 9/11 commission. he is a member of the bipartisan policy center on the task force on the ideology cochair and former governor of new jersey. thank you for giving us your time is money. guest: thank you.

host: he wrote a letter to president biden advised president harris and others about this idea of a commission looking at the events of january 6. can you give us the just of the letter and why you wrote it. you do we -- guest: we look at this event and thought it was a violation that never happened before, the capital of has never been invaded like that since 1812. this was our own citizens. why did that happen? how did it happen? what are the facts? and what can we sure that -- can we do to make sure that never happens again? it will make recommendations that were basically accepted by the american people of the congress. and because of that, we are a lot safer and have not had an event like that since 9/11. why not do something like that again?

host: from your experiences with the commission, what would you suggest first off with this commission being proposed in the congress to take a look at these issues? guest: first of all, it has to be truly bipartisan. if you are not going to make a bipartisan commission, if you are not going to happen that appoint men and women who are really -- appoint men and women who are really going to go across the aisle and come up with solutions that both sides can buy, then do not do it. you have to get bipartisan. you have to give enough time to do its job. then, you have to get enough money to do it -- to do the job. and make it visible so that people know what is happening step-by-step and hopefully, they can do this and the american people know exactly what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. and we can set up mechanisms to make sure it never happens

again, the capitol is never fully defended. host: your commission had 10 members and nearly -- reviewed 2 million pages of documents and conducted 1200 interviews and 12 public hearings as well as 20 months to compile a 570 page, 14 chapter report and then you mentioned those 14 recommendations for security agencies. with that in mind, as far as disco, you said it had to be bipartisan in nature, but what keeps it from being political and what did you learn from your experiences there? guest: it makes it hard to keep things bipartisan. it is not hard -- it is the men and women who are appointed to the commission. that is the key. if they want to keep it bipartisan, they will. they talk to each other, if they respect each other, at they respect each other's ideas, and go on that way, -- that is why

it is so important that these men and women have a record in their lives of working across the aisle and putting country above party. host: are the best candidates for these positions in your mind? guest: i have passed on some, but at some point, you cannot make those names public. host: in terms of their experiences, but kind of scope of experiences do you think makes a good candidate to serve? guest: a variety of experiences. it cannot be people who are serving now and it cannot be anybody who has ambitions to climb up the ladder. the 9/11 commission, we used to talk about has-beens. one of the wonderful governors,

mayors, there are people who are working to push administration. the obama administrator, the clinton administration, you have a lot of to pick from. i know that with the right motivation, congress can find men and women who can do this job. host: if you want to ask him questions about this commission to investigate the attack on the u.s. capitol and you want to ask him questions considering the experience with the 9/11 commission, you can call us, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. -- you can post on twitter and facebook as well. governor, what powers should this commission have in order to do its best work? guest: you can have subpoena power. we used it once when the agencies lie to us and we made

them tell the truth. but, if you do not have subpoena power, -- if you have subpoena power, they will come and if they do not come, we will make them come. that is the main power you need. host: in your mind, what areas should be subject to subpoena? guest: anybody who has been involved in this attack on the capitol. we want to answer questions i wrote a lot of accounts and they wrote this plan ahead of time. they said they would invade the capitol, that is what we will do, it will take three weeks to plan it. why was it the capital of -- you had a huge amount of people there, so less people attending and protecting the capital.

there is a whole series of questions and as they got one question answered, it will lead to another. the bottom line is the american people deserve a full report of what happened and my recommendations are to make sure that never happens again. host: and your recommendations in mind? guest: on the 9/11 commission, we questioned the present president, the present vice president, the former president. you have to have a wide-ranging -- the ability to call on white information. host: this is robert -- on a wide or information. host: this is robert. good morning, go ahead. caller: i respect tom.

he brought up interesting points that he said that the american people do need truth about what came out on both sides. it is clear that both sides -- he said -- trump supporters were on the front of the capitol. you can clearly see that there was a line of people that come behind the people that they were looking at what was going on. then, a guy tries to break through the window, the capitol window, with a shield and it is clearly on tv. how long did it take for him to get in there? i agree and god bless him for bringing up that. host: robert in kentucky. governor, go ahead. guest: you have to find exactly what happened. until the american people about it and move to a better future.

that is the idea. host: james in wilson, north carolina. democrats line. your next up. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, governor. i know you know what you are talking about. i saw what trump done. they went down and protested and then they broke in and went through nancy pelosi's jess -- nancy pelosi's desk. governor, you have done a good job good i am a democrat and when i was in new jersey, you are the best governor that has ever been. host: watertown, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. let me do you a little history

about what all politician commissions have given us. they have given us bankrupted social security, $100 trillion in debt, endless wars, the investigation on hillary's emails, benghazi, the financial crisis, so when you say you want to go bipartisan, no. we have a unit party in washington. you are all in it together. if you have legitimate investigations and a legitimate government, donald trump could never have gotten elected, but he did, and the reason he got elected is because guys like you think in terms of democrats and republicans. it is not going to work and if you do have nothing but politicians on your commission, nobody is going to believe it. host: ok. i'll calling for the governor, governor go ahead. -- calling for the governor,

governor, go ahead. guest: there are a lot of commissions that have not worked. many of them a note investigation that you are talking about -- congress has a problem with those. they are very highly structured. they have a lot of other things to do. i am talking something about very different. the 9/11 commission worked. the american people accepted it. nobody questioned it. we made recommendations which made the american people safe. we have not had an attack like 9/11 sense because we re-ignores -- reorganize the whole intelligence system. host: your commission, you mentioned that 41 met conditions. -- 41 recommendations.

guest: the only one that was not acted on it was the one to reform the congress. congress did not want to reform itself. 40 of them were. one of the largest reorganizations of the u.s. government in history. it worked, we have not had a problem since. host: when it comes to the staff totaled doing the bulk of the work, what is the recommendation as far as numbers or money that is going to be involved to make this happen? guest: i do not think -- in the 9/11 commission, we went to saudi arabia to investigate. we found out the seeds of the problem of al qaeda and all of that. this is narrower. you probably do not need a stem of that size. what you need is a staff that knows the commission. you do not need staff who have worked in the republican campaign, the democratic campaign, you need people who

are respected, knowledgeable, whose work can be trusted, and if they have been republicans or democrats, that is fine. host: as far as that is concerned, do they have to come outside of washington and how much of the commission or outside for your commission? guest: some of them were outside, somewhere inside washington. they were people who'd did the job. -- who did the job. we know that most people -- that is fine. it does not matter what party you belong to. if you worked in a recent campaign, republicans or democrats, then we cannot have you. because you have been partisan too recently. if you have the expertise, we want you and we screen the staff very hard and we are proud of it. host: tom kean, the former chair

of the 9/11 commission, he served in that commission from 2002-2004. governor, someone asked the question about the people who will eventually come in front of this commission if they should be questioned under oath. guest: yes. we question everybody under oath. host: from johnny in louisiana. republican line. hello. caller: yes, governor. we need a big reality check. comparing 9/11 commission to this is 3000 deaths to two. you guys -- the idea that anybody thinks this is going to be anything other than partisan has been asleep in the last 25 years with the media all on one side. do you really think nancy pelosi is going to let anything happen that does not have a big slant to the left. if it is, you guys are either on drugs or you have been asleep for the last 30 years. it is disgusting to hear you compare the 9/11 3000 deaths

with an attack on a building in washington, d.c.. the last thing i have to say, the u.s. capitol of is not the symbol of the democracy. democracy in this great nation exists in the hearts and minds of 350 million citizens, not some dam building. host: that is john. thank you, john. governor, go ahead. guest: john, look. it does survive in our hearts. you cannot compare 9/11 as an event with the attack on the capitol. those are different things. but i am saying, -- i grew up to revere the capitol because i walked around it and you can see where webster's had, you can see

where john quincy adams made a speech as he died attacking slavery. i knew the people that the buildings are named after. i remember -- i took my grandchildren around there. you see where these american events happen. you were very democracy -- you revere democracy because of -- i'm not saying they are similar events and in any way at all. what i am saying is that the capital represents many people in that it democracy, not only here, but around the world. the way that it was violated made me sick to my stomach. i think that was true for a lot of american. i think i had to get to the bottom of it. you cannot have a democracy at the seat that represents democracy is under attack.

host: you talk about the role of the support staff that will do the work. give us an idea of what the job is of the chairman during this process and what are the jobs of the members of the commission themselves? guest: the job of the chairman is to simile make sure you are doing the job. -- is to simply make sure you are doing the job. we have nine great people, 54 democrats. -- five for democrats. the job is to make sure the commission does not go off course. that is a balancing act. you have the congress who wants to know what is going on, you have the american people, you have to use the subpoena power widely. you have to always keep the mandate in mind. my vice chair i used to go all the time to the members and say, what are the facts?

let's get back to the facts. when we are writing reports, we found out a lot of the things people were arguing over were not the facts. they were the adjectives. we take out the additives and -- host: democrats nine. allen, hello. caller: good morning, i am honored to speak with governor keene. -- governor kean. one of my points is that you are looking for people who are no longer actively ambitious about advancing in office, but there is a big difference between the kinds of public servants we have in the young crop of elected officials today and those who were raised before -- since i believe that is part of the reason that these events happened, i wondering, can we not have an artificial cap on

the range of history you can look at as relating to the events of 1/6. that began the trend that was transferred into the internet where you had internal discussions self reinforcing eco chambers. -- echo chambers and rumors and lies can spread rapidly to the point where individuals became like dry grass where terrible ideas could spread rapidly and overcome individual will. that is one point here, can we look back far enough to examine the roots of these kinds of negative changes in the population in earlier policy changes? host: that is allen in brooklyn.

governor, go ahead. guest: you hit one of the problems of this democracy right now. one of the questions i asked was, can you have a real democracy if there is no unified sources in commission grid i am old. i grew up in a time of walker -- walter cronkite. we do not have that anymore. when there are few people in this society today that have full credibility. i do not think that can stop us from going ahead with this kind of investigation. that is another problem that i think will be a good problem to address in the future. host: what are the best practices you would advise when it comes to transparency of this commission's work? guest: in the 9/11 commission,

we had a public hearing. we openly call the witnesses. -- we openly called the witnesses. we called her in a public hearing held in the united states capitol. it was televised. we found out things, we make them public. the public was able to follow our investigation step-by-step we got criticism, praise, we took all of that into consideration. when we finally finished and came to our conclusion, the people that come along with us, and they knew what we had done and how we have done it, and they knew why we came to the conclusion that we did -- host: how do you think your experiences back then, how social media will impact this

commission's work, and will it be televised? guest: social media and faxed everything. -- impacts everything. he had to be totally transparent. you have to know what you are doing every step of the way. it is fine to get criticized. you have to be transparent. you cannot bring everything along -- everyone along if you're doing everything in secret. he had to bring people along with you and they can disagree with you or disagree with you -- disagree with you are agree with you. if they have confidence in what you're doing, you get support. host: and line, go ahead. caller: you said you wanted the facts, it seems odd things went on in january 6. my spidey sense when offered i was looking at the news -- sense

went off. someone shot someone in the back because they had that she had a knife in his hand. not one police officer shot a shot that day. fellow officers were getting fire extinguishers thrown at them. all of that stuff, on top of that, how can a congressional laptop get stolen and y'all not know where it is when i can buy an iphone and i know exactly where it is. are these the kinds of things you will find about that. this is way deeper than people are trying to make it seem and everyone wanted to blaine trump and i am by far not a trump fan -- to blame trump, and i am not a trump fan. this is bigger than him. this is not an accident. this is not a perfect storm. host: governor, go ahead. guest: the questions you raised, the questions are questions that

have to be raised. that is why we have to have an investigation. one that peopled -- one that people have faith in. hopefully we will make recommendations to make sure it never happens again. host: holland, michigan. this is ryan. caller: high, -- hi, thank you for having me on. thank you for your work, thank you for is a standard i have a degree in economics, but i am familiar with the events of 9/11. i do not appreciate the report that you guys put out. there is a book called 911, -- 9/11 commission, commissions and distortions. among the chief ones is you do not explain how the building itself -- the commission stopped its reporting at the initiation of collapse. host: as far as the question for

commission being looked at for the january 6, do you have something specific to that? did you want income -- caller: are you going to stop the timeline at a similar point, let's say when the first protesters get inside a s -- in side the capitol? host: as far as the scope, do you just look at the events of january 6 and how far do you go back to examine the scope of things that led up to it. guest: you go as far back as you happy. -- as you have to. we have no restraints. the congress did not put handcuffs on us.

i would not put any constraints on this commission. bottom line is, how did it happen, why did it happen, and to make recommendation so it does not happen again. host: one more call, from florida. republican line. caller: good morning. i am happy to hear that you will be looking at the foundation and i do think that you need to explain to us why the capital was unprepared. it seems to me only cheese son was the one that paid the price for the failure of law enforcement to protect the capitol. they are supervised by the capitol police and the elected members of congress and the senate and the sergeant of arms from the house and from the senate.

the mayor, mayor bowser of d.c., and the d.c. national guard unit, we need to know if they all had advance knowledge and why did they fail to act and as far as going to the foundation, we have had riots over this summer, 25 people have died, $1.5 billion of damage. that ideology and those lawless action have to be investigated and examined because it is all one and the same. host: thank you. guest: you ask a very important question, and one that is going to be part of an investigation, why was the capitol so poorly defended? we knew that -- if it had been an athletic event, the super bowl, there would have been more police and ready and there were.

was there advance notice? people suppose there might have been. if there was, where were the policeman? where was the national guard? or where were the people that were supposed to be defending the capitol. hopefully, people thought it was going to be peaceful, but with that many people coming for the capitol, where were the police? it should not have been that for the defendant. why that was and -- have been that poorly defended. host: have even asked to be a part of this effort? guest: we need a fresh crew. i think we can be an example because the report article was accepted and is accepted still. i think -- i think it is time

for fresh blood. host: tom kean, the chair of the 9/11 commission. thank you fo the

country parenthesis just over half an hour. event good morning. thank you for joining our covid-19 response briefing. first, when to start by saying or hearts go out to the people in texas, louisiana, and across the country who have been impacted by the severe weather this week. now, i want to give an update on how severe weather across the country is impacted vaccine delivery and administration and how we tend to catch up. as of now we have a backlog of about 6 million doses due to the weather. all 50 states have been impacted. the 6 million doses represents about three days of