supposed to. i am one of those guys. mike: we will be more than happy to have you. pres. biden: i am looking forward to see you all in person. thank you. thank you. thank you. appreciate it. bye-bye. godspeed. john glenn. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> a subcommittee looks at building projects for the veteran affairs apartment. listen on the free c-span radio app. host: common up, george mason

university law school professor talks about the recent russian cyber attack on u.s. networks. the washington center for equitable growth on efforts to raise the minimum wage in the economic impact. host: good morning, this is the washington journal. the senate will meet at 9:00 to resume work on the covid relief package with work on that expected through the weekend. follow along on c-span two, c-span.org, listen on the free c-span radio app. when it comes to statewide covid restrictions, do you think they should be kept in place, lifted,

you're not sure. notice know if you think those restrictions should be kept in place. you can call us at (202) 748-8000 if you say lift those restrictions. (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8002 if you are not sure. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. you can post on our twitter feed. if you wish, facebook. the website highlights the decision by the republican governor about lifting the mask order, that's april 9. she announced it will expire on that date at 5:00. the order was put in place in july. it has been extended several times. she said the lower cases in hospital numbers prompted the changes.

if you go to decisions by other state leaders, connecticut is saying that on the fourth, he plans to ease some of the restrictions in his state, he stressed that while some of the restrictions are being eased, they are being maintained and people are urged to keep hearing to those health and safety procedures. those listings will be capacity levels. the michigan governor is making decisions on her state as well. those primarily will focus on restaurants and other establishments. other states of may decisions. we are your thoughts. in light of vaccinations going out, if you say they should be

kept in place, (202) 748-8000. if you say it's time to lift them, (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8002 if you are not sure at this time. this started a couple of days ago with the texas governor announcing his plans regarding face masks and other restrictions. there is a bit of that from a few days ago. >> to be clear, covid has not suddenly disappeared. it still exists. it is clear from the recovery, from the vaccinations, from the reduced hospitalizations and the safe practices texans are using

that state mandates are no longer needed. host: there is a story you will find in the austin american statesman out of texas about who consulted the governor making these decisions. three major health advisors were not consulted before the decision was made. there is more of that story if you want to read that. the decision when it comes to

mask mandates guarded a response from president biden. here is his response to that. >> i hope everybody has realized by now these masks make a difference. we are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way we are getting vaccines into people's arms. we've been able to move that up to the end of may, seven a for every american to get a shot. the last thing we need is neanderthal thinking in the meantime everything is fine, forget it. it still matters. as of yesterday, we lost 511,000 americans. we will lose thousands more. we will not have everybody vaccinated until sometime in the

summer. it's going to take time. it is critical, critical, critical that they follow the science. host: some of you are texting and posting on social media. i favor lifting mask mandates in our state and using persuasion to get others to put on a mask. keep them in place, it will save lives while we get everyone vaccinated. restrictions need to be lifted, three vaccines, natural immunity, it's time to open up our country. when it comes to restrictions, they should lift them gradually as numbers go down. tom says it keep them in place. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i tend to look at it this way. i don't go to a politician to ask for and medical advice. i don't go to my doctor for political advice. i go with the old adage the doctors know. they know best. they should follow the guidelines were set up a long time ago. i have to go along with what doctors and medical science says, keep the restrictions. as they say start lifting restrictions, then go along with that. if everybody goes too soon, we could end up back we started from. host: when it comes to your state, is at the medical professionals in your state that should be making those calls? should it be the federal government? caller: i have to go by where it

starts from. it starts at the federal level. that is the cdc. this is where it starts from. it works its way down. i have to go by what the guidelines are. i've always felt that way. host: that was tom in pittsburgh. shirley says lift the restrictions. caller: we are going to start all back over with this mess. we have got nothing but illegals coming in and they are carriers and they are going to create. host: let me stop you there. we will hear from mary in massachusetts. you are calling and saying keep them in place. caller: i think the health care

workers deserve our support. they are terrified at the thought of restrictions being lifted. we have to listen to the experts that know best. we need heard immunity. host: what restrictions are in place in your state? caller: we have masks mandated. they are starting to lift some of the restaurant restrictions a little bit. it is starting to ease up a little bit. i think we should wait. it's better safe than starry -- sorry. health care workers deserve our support. host: what is your level of comfort? going out with a mask?

what is your level of comfort? caller: in massachusetts, you go into stores and everyone is wearing masks. host: you are comfortable? caller: i wouldn't go indoors to a restaurant yet or a movie theater. host: you heard about alabama's decision. he is not sure at this time. good morning. caller: good morning. when i'm not sure about our states that have mandated and closed down people's businesses. they restricted travel. what i am sure about is it should be left up to the individual to make the best decision for them and their families and their communities.

that's what i host: host: am sure about. the governor made the decision to drop the mask mandate. do you feel about that? caller: that is her decision. host: it affects you living in alabama. caller: it does affect me to a certain point. when i am out at stores, i wear my mask. i understand that. host: will you still wear a mask when the mandate is dropped? caller: no. none unless i'm in a crowded store with a lot of people. can i add one more thing? host: quickly. caller: ok. the restrictions are good when they apply common sense.

we have been taking these guidelines from the cdc and they change constantly. host: ok. the people at morning console, they conducted some polling, taking look at general reactions to mandates and restrictions. these are some of their results. when it comes to republicans, they are growing where wearing of social distancing. for the first time, fewer than half of republican voters agree that americans should continue to social distances long as needed to curb the spread of coronavirus. 47% of adults say they are somewhat comfortable returning to their normal routine.

this adds that the record share of millennials now say they are comfortable resuming regular routines. that is 56% and 51% respectively. again, you can add that to the mix when you talk about those restrictions in your state. tell us if you think they should stay in place or be lifted. maybe you are not sure. robert is in washington dc. good morning. caller: i'm not sure. they didn't follow the original protocol from the beginning. when i called you in april, i gave you the solution to what the problem would have done. we are dealing with an airborne virus.

found she never said anything about ionizing it. if these businesses would have applied those facilities, it can clean up a huge area to 800 square feet. if the virus is in the air, you have to attack it from the air. the vaccine is not a solution. host: are you saying those things have to be in place before you change your mind? caller: definitely. you wouldn't go into a bank without a guard. host: ok. linda is in ohio. keep them in place. good morning. caller: good morning.

i will continue to wear my mask until i personally feel that it is safe. that the medical community says it is safe. i think this is a political move to please the no massacres. when you consider it, the people that fought masks, that wasn't that long ago. now when i go out, i see the majority, really almost one hunter percent of people. the regular influenza, there are not as many cases. the mask wearing protected us from matt. host: there is a story saying that your governor won't follow the lead of some of the other republican governors when it comes to masks.

you agree with that? caller: i do. i think masks are a requirement that we will have to deal with for some time. i don't care. what is the big deal to put a mask on. i wear two of them. i don't understand it other than a political popularity. host: the governor of arizona a couple of days ago, he ordered that all schools must return to in person learning this month. the move comes after a year of schools closed to in person classes to limit the spread. he issued an executive order on wednesday, calling for all schools to be open for in person learning by march 15 or after

spring break. new hampshire, this is mark in new hampshire. go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i don't think the mask mandate should continue. our own epidemiologist here in new hampshire said the other day that with the vaccines, they are hopeful the vaccines will last as immunity for a couple of months. it doesn't give us immunity. it lessens the severity of those who catch it. we are going to have this virus around for many years, maybe forever. we cannot continue living in the circus of fear and partisan politics. host: what does the governor

decide there when it comes to restrictions? in new hampshire, covid numbers are trending downward. caller: as far as this morning, we are looking that dropping a lot of the mandates i the middle of april. the bottom line for me is we are being controlled in the circus by fear. i just don't understand the fear that has been instilled in people about wearing a mask or not wearing a mask. that's a personal decision. but to be told that you have to, it runs against migraine. this is supposed to be the land of the free. if that is the case, then it should become a personal situation, not a government mandate. host: let's go to michigan. this is mary who says keep the restrictions in place.

caller: thank you for taking my call. i believe in what the governor has been doing. i myself continue to wear a mask. i rarely go out. i do most of my shopping online. i am high risk. i am upset that others don't take any consideration to wear a mask for other people. it's not just for them. if they are not concerned about the virus and they think it's a fear factor, it's their prerogative. at the same time, they are coming into my air. host: by friday, some restrictions when it comes to businesses starting to be

loosened, you're ok with that decision? caller: that there decision. if you want to go into a restaurant, i choose not to. i am still staying home, doing my own cooking. if there are people that want to go into a restaurant and eat, that is their decision. host: will you change your mind when you get a vaccination? caller: yes. i will change my mind after i am vaccinated. i am in the next group. that should be in the next month.

host: the decision to loosen some of those restrictions in michigan. you can read more of that online. california, julie in roseville says lift the restrictions. where is roseville in relation to the state. caller: sacramento. i don't know. i am so happy to be on the air. i just want to say, host: let's start with why you support that. caller: i wear a mask. i am 57. i live alone.

i have seven grandchildren. sometimes i feel like i need psychotherapy. host: this is impacting you because of the restrictions? is just the time? caller: i'm giving my blanket await to my neighbor. -- a way to many reported. host: ok. that is julie in california. let me show you a story from the new york times. this is based out of los angeles. funeral home can't keep up as bodies roll in.

there were four bodies in a cardboard box. two bodies in open coffins. seven were wrapped in white and pink sheets. 18 were in close coffins. 31 were on the shelves. 62 bodies total count. funeral homes are places that america ignores as the pandemic surged in recent months. the industry went into disaster mode, dealing with mass deaths on a scale to which it was unprepared. funeral homes in parts of los angeles have become symbols of the covid-19 toll. there is more to that in the new york times. jeffrey is in nevada. go ahead.

caller: i hope i can top that last call. my parents got vaccine. they were told that you have the vaccine, but you can still carry the virus and transfer it to people without the vaccine. obviously, hundreds of millions of people have not been vaccinated yet. please people that keep saying it's my choice it's disrespectful to everybody else. we're not through the pandemic yet. there are hundreds of millions of people that need to be vaccinated. you can still transfer the covid virus. host: when do you see it lifting? what do you need to see? caller: you've got to get a lot

more people vaccinated. we've got to get the rates way down. they were down before and they popped back up. meanwhile, we've still got hundreds of millions of people without vaccinations. if you wish, that some counties in nevada are opposed to restrictions state wide and prepped to manage their own covid restrictions. the news providing that story. darrell is located in washington state, colfax, says he is not sure. caller: and is not that i am not sure. i just feel that once you are vaccinated, especially in the

older age group, which they are vaccinating right now, your chances of spreading it are greatly diminished. because, you should show symptoms and be able to tell if you've got it or not. if you have to be that 5% that the vaccine does not work on, of that 5% they are claiming that 30% can be asymptomatic, but of that 30% the majority are younger people, not the older people that are asymptomatic. host: ultimately when it comes to the restrictions how do you see them staying in place and what are you looking for as far as criteria. caller: i feel that once you have been vaccinated and you wait a certain length of time, possibly like here in the state

of washington, they give you a card that shows that you have been vaccinated, and if you have that card with you, that may be you should not have to be so concerned about wearing a mask. by the way, the mask situation, i'd know a lot more about that. i love -- i know a lot about aerosols. most of the mass that i see people wearing are not doing that much good to begin with. i think if you do not have a 95 calder -- 95, rather it is a kn or n, you are not restricting aerosols not as much as all. host: that is darrell in washington state. the governor in the state says that when it comes to vaccines, law enforcement, firefighters, and grocery workers will receive the vaccines expected to take place in march. we have spent the half-hour taking a look at restrictions in

the state because of covid and whether you think they need to be lifted, stay in place, or you are not sure. you can call and let us know your thoughts. if you say they need to be kept in place, 202-748-8000. if you say left, 202-748-8001 -- lift, 202-748-8001. and then 202-748-8002 if you are not sure if that is the case. you can text and post on social media. also related to covid, work to continue today on the covid relief bill. this as the senate opened up debate as of yesterday from the washington post -- "the washington post" saying that " before the senate can vote on final passage there will be a votearama making sure that as many as amendments were voted on. democrats are pushing the limit

-- the legislation through under a process called legit reconciliation that allows it to pass with a simple majority vote than the 60 normally required meaning that no gop votes are needed but it limits what could be included excluding provisions that do not have a certain impact on the federal budget." they highlight the $15 minimum wage in the house virgin. -- version. senator johnson was part of the story as of yesterday. before the debate got into place he required a reading of all of the pages of the bill. this is highlighted in "the new york times" this morning. this adds that "mr. johnson did not perform the task itself instead it fell to the senate legislative clerk whose high tenor is known to avid watchers of c-span2 and a small team of his colleagues the sixth book iny

potter is 652 pages. it's unclear why. this is the senate clerk yesterday. >> i asked consent to dispense with the reading. >> one thing -- >> is there an objection? >> i object. >> the object is heard.

the clerk will continue the reading. >> section two, table of contents. the table of contents is as follows. section 1001 it, food supply change response. host: that's the start of a marathon of the reading of the bill. the senate finished reading the 628 page document this morning. it took 10 hours and 43 minutes. senator sanders will also plan to offer an amendment, looking at the minimum wage of $15 an hour. just to show you the conclusion

of the reading of that text, here is what happened in the early morning hours. >> 20 -- four activities of the elementary and secondary education act of 1970 five and other related activities. >> the junior senator from maryland? >> i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourned until friday, march 5. following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for later today and morning business be close. following morning business, the senate will consider and there

will be three hours of debate remaining with time divided equally between the two managers or their designees. it will be in order for senator sanders to offer the first amendment. host: that is what happened yesterday. the senate is said to start the process. it is expected to play out into the weekend before a vote. you can follow along on c-span two. you can go to our website c-span.org. if you want to listen to what is being said, you can listen along on our free c-span radio app. janet is in texas. this decision to open 100% and remove the mask mandate is idiotic. let's see if he takes responsibility when the numbers increase.

steve and ohio saying: sean from michigan saying: he is texting us this morning as you can as well at (202) 748-8003. harold in illinois says he's not sure. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning nick, america. let me start off by saying i don't consider myself a stable genius. i never graduated college. i didn't graduate high school. i think we went about this wrong.

i'm 57 years old. i'm a construction worker. from what i can a member, we never let a virus come to our country. we usually contained it somewhere else. then we contain it when it gets here. we never did any of those things. the reason people don't want to wear the mask is because they don't work. only the n95 mask protection. we didn't have enough of them. dr. fauci said to just to the bandana because that is better than nothing. host: is that why you are not sure at this point? caller: if everybody knew that masks were working and there was an end result they'd be more apt to do it. i wear a respirator work. i can go into a dangerous environment. why couldn't we order masks for every person in the united

states so the next time a pandemic comes and you have to wear it for two months. if it was over, we could oak up -- open up the whole country. host: lift the restrictions. hello. caller: pedro, thank you for your service to the country. being an excellent anchor and reporter. thank you very much. thank you for c-span. i think we have it wrong. i don't think you should lift the restrictions. we don't know yet. the more people, the more restaurants, it's not a good idea. people wearing it to masks, a lot of people are getting sick right now. we are not used to wearing these masks.

i think when they double up, it's a bad idea. what do you think? host: what is the california level of restriction? caller: i am in san diego. they just opened see world. they are slowly open up a lot of los angeles. los angeles was a hot zone because of the population. i am lucky to be in san diego. i really strongly agree with we should take precautions. dr. fauci is 100% correct. if you are listening, you need to understand why people are getting respiratory illnesses. they are not used to wearing these masks. host: abc is reporting that

april should look different. this will look different for the nearly 40 million residents. the plan will speed up reopening after the first statewide shutdown. nearly the entire state could see a return of inside restaurant dining, the reopening of movie theaters and other indoor businesses. there may be fans in the stands for the opening day of major league baseball. you can follow along with that at abc news. michael is in new jersey. caller: i strongly believe that the restrictions should be kept in place simply because of -- because we don't know. we don't know. why not err on the side of

caution. there are lives at stake. it's better to be cautious in this scenario. when there is a clear indicator that cases are dwindling and people are vaccinated and logic dictates at that point that you start slowly lifting the restrictions. host: when a downward trend is seen? are there other factors? caller: i think you are correct. there needs to be a significant downward trend. perhaps waiting until that trend is at its conclusion and there is a point where people are not spreading it in any significant numbers. why not wait? i know there are financial reasons. that has to be balanced against the fact that lives are at stake. host: new jersey was one of

those hotspots. the governor took aggressive measures. what has it been like? caller: i can only speak for myself. it is hard to track what individuals are doing. in my state, the governor was very proactive about keeping measures in place. i have lost track of what the restrictions are currently. if there was an early start, restaurants and bars may have gone up from 25% occupancy to 35%. that seems reasonable. if you're going to make strides. that's the way to do it. you have to do it very slowly. host: michael in new jersey,

saying that new jersey is marking one year since the first case was seen in the state. the governor now allowing for more people at weddings. you can tell us the situation in your state as several have done. you can call on the line expressing your thought on twitter or facebook or are texting service. dan is in ohio. caller: in ohio, we have the restaurants and bars open. they are at limited capacity. people are still encouraged to wear a mask. i think we need to continue doing that. we have seen the numbers come down. we need to get more people vaccinated, maybe 50% of the country.

as we've seen these numbers come down, now, joe biden comes into office in opens the southern border. i think it's dangerous. we don't know how many people are coming across. i heard over 4000 people a day. they are unvaccinated. this is going to be dangerous, right when we had control this. host: some of those thoughts on what's going on with the order was brought up at the white house press conference. if you want to find out what was said, go to our website c-span.org. they are highlighted from at least a couple of days ago. michael in tennessee, he says lift the restrictions. caller: basically, everything is wide open for eight months.

we are just south of nashville. nashville open schools a few weeks ago. i work at a very large employer. we have not had community outbreak. host: what's the vaccination system looking like there in tennessee? caller: my mother, my father, i've got two sisters and a brother-in-law that have been vaccinated. it seems to be going on ok. there really is very low risk for people. i don't understand max and a people under 45. it's the people 55 and older that we need to have vaccinated.

host: you said you work at a large employer. do you have to go to that place of employment every day? what protocols are being taken? caller: social distancing and mask wearing. the masks are kind of haphazard. it's good ventilation more than anything. i imagine the schools here are doing a good job. it's a fresh air situation. host: from westwood, new jersey.

a viewer who is not sure. caller: my wife is a teacher. she just started back to school this week. i was much more comfortable when she was teaching on zoom. i know it's better for the students for her to be in person. i am a senior. i have some health issues. it's been hard. i'm fully vaccinated. i always wear a mask. i'm unsure if it should be opened up. the governors of texas and mississippi are completely premature in relaxing all the mandates. i have family in texas. i will not go visit them until the pandemic is subsided. host: was your wife required to

go back into the classroom? was she given the option? caller: she was required unless there was a medical issue. she really didn't have a choice. she wasn't happy about it. she is a special ed teacher. the kids are doing better now. host: have the class sizes been changed at all? caller: good question. i think it's the same numbers. she teaches very small classes, it's a special program that they have to qualify for. she is more like a life coach than a classroom teacher. they learn how to work. they go out in the community and volunteer at different establishments. it's a wonderful program.

it was very hard for them to learn on zoom, just talking about. host: she vaccinated? caller: yes. we went out of her way to do it as soon as possible. host: that was marked in new jersey, giving the perspective of his wife as well as a teacher. teachers are part of the process. one of the reactions from the decisions by some of those states came from members of the covid response team. they were asked about some of those decisions. >> we've been very clear that now is not the time to release all restrictions. by think the next month or two is pivotal in how the pandemic goes. we need to decrease the amount of virus that is circulating. i will also note that every

individual has the power to do the right thing, regardless of what the states decide. i would encourage individuals to wear a mask, to socially distance. >> let me follow that up. the president is committed to following the recommendations of the scientists. the president is one hunter percent behind the cdc's recommendations. i don't think he could be clearer about the importance for masks. it's one of the things he talks about most regally. he models that behavior. he made the order on every possible area where we have federal control. last week, we announced we will be distributed masks to

community health centers, food banks, we think it's critically important, critically important that over the next amount of time, we know it can save tens of thousands of lives of people do this. we encourage people to wear masks. we are recognizing they have difficult decisions to make to keep the course. host: this is far for process from twitter. greg in cleveland ohio saying: lee off twitter said:

troy bennett saying: this is james in spring hill, florida: caller: good morning. i agreed to keep the restrictions in place. this is due to many people who are still not vaccinated. when you get vaccinated, it's not one hunter percent. it could prevent you from getting covid-19. i went out this morning to the grocery store. i saw people without masks. i still wear my mask. i will maybe wear it for the rest of the year. host: lisa is in texas join us

next on the phone. she says to keep the restrictions in place as well. caller: good morning. i was disappointed in greg abbott's decision. we were just getting the pandemic, he would rethink that decision. i also feel like he's got more things to worry about in texas. there are still people who don't have the water fixed. there is the power problem. i truly feel he did that because of politics. host: when it comes to your comfort level is far is resuming things outside of your home, what do you have to see in order to say restrictions can be lifted?

caller: i would feel more comfortable when things are carving out. when it gets more under control. i feel we are just getting it under control or starting to see daylight. if they lift the restrictions, it's going to set us back. host: the houston chronicle highlighted houston texas is the first city to record every major variant of the novel coronavirus. many are more contagious than the original strain it.

that story came out on march 1. robert in brooklyn, new york. caller: i do think politicians should be making these decisions. these are technical decisions. not just medical matters, there are other technical matters as well. i would like to see the national academy of science get some governing power. host: even superseding the governors themselves? caller: the details would have to be worked out, but some governmental power. host: anton is in florida. he says lift the restrictions. caller: i just want to say we

should lift all of those restrictions immediately. i never believed really. in my corner of florida, very few people wear masks. when it comes to those restaurants, i am 78 years old. in my corner of florida, restaurants are packed. no cook wears a mask or gloves. i have offered people money. i haven't been sick a day in my life. host: some of the concerns about spring break and people coming to that state, does that concern you? caller: not at all. i am not a medical doctor. once ago, i had a chance to ask one of your experts.

if people do die because of the coronavirus by itself, he wasn't able to give the answer. i never really believed in it. host: that was anton in florida. the republican governor of mississippi, talking about what went into his decision concerning his state. here is a bit of what he had to say. >> one year ago today, i signed my first executive order aimed at limiting the damage of covid-19. we had no idea what to expect. i do know that none of us, i can speak for myself, i never expected all of this. earlier today, i signed what i expect to be one of my last executive orders regarding

covid-19. this new order removes all of our county mask mandates, it allows businesses to operate at full capacity without state imposed rules or restrictions. if businesses or individuals decide to take additional precautions, they are within their rights. it may be smart. we are not going to continue to use the heavy hand of government when it is no longer justified by the reality we see around us. our hospitalizations have plummeted. our case numbers of also fallen dramatically. our case numbers of fallen to the point where no county currently meets the original criteria we put in place for a mask mandate.

when our new order goes into effect, we will have done more than 700,000 vaccinations, targeting those who are most vulnerable among us to the virus. host: rick is in idaho. caller: good morning. i've got a simple idea. it's not a complaint. let's wait until we have 100% of all registered americans vaccinated. then we can taper off in phases until we give ourselves a green light. we need to err on the side of caution.

sanitation practices are in place. i know we are wanting to go, we need to be on the side of caution. host: do you think getting to 100% will take too long? caller: if the simple way i see things. do you want to be sleeping above the ground or below the ground? he did not exercise due diligence. president trump, now we've got johnson & johnson. we need to err on the side of common sense. host: let's go to pennsylvania. caller: i just want to let you know that i follow the numbers.

johns hopkins numbers. we are averaging over 2000 cases -- deaths a day. in may in the summer, people were alarmed. in the middle of the winter, it was 3000. the governor of mississippi said that cases have plummeted -- declining rapidly. that's not true. for texas, cases in the last seven days have increased 54%. 4 if you say -- host: if you say keep the restrictions in place, what do you need to see? caller: i need to see the death rates go down. i need to see the vaccine get rolled out. i think we need to be more patient and the next two months before all of this can happen.

2000 deaths a day is a significant amount. host: let's hear fromantioch te. he says, lifted the restrictions. caller: 408 legal's came across the border -- illegals came across the board. host: that is it in tennessee, finishing up this hour of your thoughts on the restrictions and if they should be lifted or kept in place. we will take out this question later on in the program. if you want to give a sick call, feel free to do so that. -- if you want to give us a call, feel free to do so then. joining us is jamil jaffer, former senior counsel of the house intelligence committee. he is the founder of the national security institute at george mason university. he is going to talk about some cyber hats that took place

earlier this year -- he is going to talk about some cyber hacks. later on, kate bahn talks about the growing debate over raising the minimum wage. those conversations coming up on washington journal. >> saturday on the communicators, sally hubbard talks about the efficacy of trust laws and if they should be reformed. >> we have these statutes that were passed, the sherman act was passed in 1890, the clayton act in 1914. the sherman act makes it illegal to monopolize. it says any merger that may lessen competition or create a monopoly is illegal. meanwhile, we watch while hundreds of these mergers that would be illegal under that standard have been approved. >> there is this argument

underlying criticisms of today's antitrust is the feeling that being is bad, that large companies are abusing competition, i don't think that is true. most enforcers do not believe that is true. you need to discern large companies that are abusing and large companies who are large because they are efficient in bringing great services to consumers. >> sally and grant, saturday at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's cable television company in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these companies who provide c-span to service -- who provide

c-span2 viewers as a public service. >> washington journal continues. host: this is jamil jaffer, the founder of the security institute at george mason university law. cyber security issues are what we are going to talk about for our next segment. thanks for joining us. guest: thanks for having me. host: remind viewers about the extent of your cybersecurity experience inside and outside of government. guest: i served in the bush administration and the justice department. we worked on cybersecurity matters including countering threats to our nation including terrorists, states that want to steal intellectual property and harm us. i worked on what was known as the president's competence of cybersecurity initiatives. i worked for chairman mike rogers, worked on the first version of the cyber intelligence protection act that

was enacted in 2015. i have had the opportunity of working for general alexander, the founding officer of cybersecurity engaging in efforts to protect some of our biggest companies and agencies from cyber threats from nationstates and organized gangs and get people together to defend collectively. host: we brought you on because there was an incident this past december involving a firm, cybersecurity at the heart of it. talk about the incident and the nature of it. guest: a lot of discussion about this hack which surfaced in late december of last year was about solar wind. that was the first factor of attack we saw by the russians. it has been made clear that it was the russian government that engaged in this activity.

there are multiple methodologies that the russians used to get into our government. first, they got into an update cycle for some software's. solar wind used two protect companies against cybersecurity threat. they put in -- they tested their ability to get in by putting an innocuous update in and then they put in some malware. when the update got taken up by 30,000 customers, they had access. what was interesting is they did not exploit all 18,000 systems. they focused on a few hundred, some key government agencies, civilian and otherwise, and then they focused on some key sectors and they started to look around. they sought to probe around and they started to get deeper access. they were in for almost nine months. they were able to establish a long-term presence and start masquerading as legitimate networks.

they could access emails, files and the likes across these systems, almost owning these systems completely. they used other methods. they came into a variety of other providers, microsoft, through a certificate provided. we know other acts they may have used. a cybersecurity company's fire eye. they were the first ones to call it out. the ceo talking publicly about it and letting us know that this could happen. what is really interesting about this particular activity was they could have done damage. there is no evidence that they have done any damage. but they have collected a lot of information. what it looks like right now is a large-scale very significant russian intelligence collection operation. they have the kind of access that could allow them to do a lot more. host: with the information

systems they got into, how many were sensitive, how many involved the federal government? guest: it is hard to know because we do not know the full scope. this effort was aimed at the federal government, in particular, civilian agencies we have heard about. we don't know how much sensitive information was taken because we don't know how deep they were in. assessments are currently ongoing, they will be going on for a while. they are trying to route these attackers out. think about this like a wolf in a henhouse. these are the wolves that come in and they disguise themselves. they are very adept actors so they look like us or they look like the defenders, they look like civilian agencies, these actors in the private sector systems. rooting them out is going to be a challenge. we know that access in significant ways to office 365, email accounts, servers and

beyond that, other email systems and the structure. it is hard to really estimate today the scope of the damage, but it suffices to say that given the length of time they were in, the depth that we believe they got to an their ability to access and become like an owner of the system, we can assess that the damage is pretty significant in terms of obtaining information. host: our guest is with us until late, if you want to ask him questions, (202) 748-8000 democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. guest: they provide tools and capabilities to protect customers from cyber threat.

-- protect customers from cyber threats. they were smart to use a known come -- a known company. what is interesting is only 18,000 took the update. talking about our ability to defend ourselves in terms of cyber hygiene. if only 18,000 are taking a legitimate update, it tells us that there are 12,000 not getting the updates and then you take the fact that 18,000 got a malicious update, i want to emphasize that they are not taking a lot of flak for this. the russians are smart. they went across other supply-chain vectors. this is a long-term operation that demonstrates the challenge of private sector companies, whether security companies or the companies they contract with, have in defending. we are talking about people with unlimited resources virtually,

unlimited capabilities in capital to do it. defending this is very difficult. this highlights the need for not just being one company defending yourself, but trying to work across indeces -- across industries to better defend itself and help the government which has been seriously taken advantage of, or defend itself. host: how do we know definitively that this is connected to the russians? guest: early on in this attack, the federal government and members of congress came out saying, perhaps the head of the executive branch, that it was the russians. we have clear indications from the white house that this was the russians. that has been made clear. we never doubted it. still, there are only so many that have the ability to scale the way this effort was scaled. frankly, the wherewithal and the time and the effort to really

focus on the target, go deep, exploit the supply-chain vector and get deep into a system. it was the russians. we know the chinese are actively engaged in mass scale i.t. theft for years and targeted our government for intelligence. governments are capable to up their game. we have serious actors out there who do not have our national interest at heart and that does not even count all of the criminal gangs out there, terrorist groups, individual activists who have access to a lot of leaks, both american and allied and foreign capabilities also. host: we have a viewer from twitter asks the question, " where do we stand in mitigating the russian access?" guest: that is a great question. one of the difficulties we have

with the government and private sector companies is we will spend time looking deep in our networks, we don't have the time. we will put a firewall and defense of things at our perimeter, but we rarely spend time looking deep in our networks. once you are in you are in for nine months and you have the ability to exploit or the ability to create new user accounts and get authorized access across a system, you are deep in. rooting you out will be difficult. think about that metaphor. if you've got wolves and they look like hens, what you have to do is figure out what is the wolf going to do that a hen would not do. these individuals are acting and we are not very far along. it is going to take months and years. the other alternative is we burn down those systems and throw them away and replace them. that is not a viable option for most corporations. it is not a viable option for

government agencies. you have to do deep surveillance, identify things as they moved, as they try to raise privileges and look at how things are behaving like something they should not be. the key to this is doing that deep analysis. host: jamil jaffer joining us for this discussion. our first call comes from georgia. kathy, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. my comment is in two parts. the first is, i don't think the united states has done very well in hardening our infrastructure for the last 25 to 30 years. they have known about the cyber threats and everything that has been going on. we have been on a rinse and repeat cycle. every time there is a threat or institutions have been attacked. as a victim of identity theft, i can tell you that right now, it

is not very fun. my late husband was a federal agent and his last two years of life were dedicated to establishing units in agencies. i get really tired of hearing about people like me who's lives, financial and personal, have just been destroyed. i don't like to see it with companies or the federal government have been attacked. even on a personal level, it is destroying. i had to call law enforcement agency. basically beg -- he was a law enforcement officer who was out on sick leave to take a call and take a record of my identity theft. you cannot even find help. i don't know what the answer is. i sure hope someone figures it out soon. host: kathy in georgia, thanks for the call.

guest: kathy makes a great point. a lot of us have had personal experience with the obtaining of our identities, the misuse of our credit cards and the like. i cannot name a person i know where my credit card is not have to been replaced because somebody has conducted fraud. some of that comes from identity theft in the cyber arena. what is really interesting is she is right. we have known about this for a long time. we have known about chinese theft of american property, taking billions and trillions of dollars out of the american economy for years. our ceo, the former director of nsa, said that when he was director reported a theft of intellectual property as a greatest threat to modern history and he is exactly right and that was years ago. if you think about the experience kathy had, she is exactly right.

how -- we have to get ahead of this. how do we do that? how do we protect people like kathy? what we are doing so far has not worked. agencies defending themselves, companies standing up against these threats, it is important but it cannot be effective. you cannot expect, even a large company to target a walmart, to the bank, j.p. morgan to defend against the russians, the chinese. if they cannot do it, how do you expect a small or medium-size company or an individual at kathy to do it? i worked for chairman mike rogers, we created a lot of permitted sharing of intelligence under the collaboration of the government. we need to incentivize companies and the government to do that. we need to give more authority to the government to do its job and deter the russians, the chinese front engaging in this behavior. host: in florida, this is frank. caller: hi, my name is frank.

i am a democrat. it depends on who you have allegiance to. i went to west point. i understand that it depends on how big you are. this is -- this intellectual property theft has been going on many ways in many countries by many people. russia has many groups, so does america. so does iran. sardis china. -- so does china. the others get stuck in the middle. there is a power struggle with the democratic party as well as the republican party. it will continue to happen. it is not two-sided, it is multiple sides. it is going to happen for eternity, i think. host: frank in florida. guest: an eternity he says -- to

live -- host: an eternity, he says. guest: to describe a very real challenge. we are never going to end the threat that we face. that is not realistic. what we can do is buy down the risk. we know today what we are doing in the government and industry is not effective. we can tell from kathy's description of the threat that she faced in the identity theft, the things we know about and have had happened to us. we have gotten almost jaded to cyber attacks or cyber theft of data, data breaches and the like, you hear about it every who -- every few weeks. the reason why it is so important, we know the chinese have built an entire economy around stealing data from the

united states. think about this new trend of artificial intelligence and machine learning and what that enables. if you have data to train your artificial intelligence models on, you win that game. get better models, it get better predictions. you can make decisions based on that. people wonder why did the chinese government steal from anthem and from a credit rating agency. when you think about it, you combine all that information, you feed it into a machine learning algorithm and active start predicting how people behave, where they are going to travel to, how they're going to spend their money. it can be frightening. the key to this is -- frank made the point about policies. our policies have gotten very difficult. both parties were at each other's throats. the people are very divided. in the coronavirus -- and they

coronavirus is not made any easier. a lot of larger problems our nation has at home and abroad, we've got to come together and expect more from our politicians and hold them to account and say, it is your job to make the right policies for the nation, whether in cybersecurity or elsewhere and we are not going to tolerate you arguing. you need to solve america's problems and come together and unite. host: does happened in december. what did the trump administration do to respond? what will the biden administration do and what is the proper response the government should take? guest: that is a great question. a lot of people early on in this, you remember's of congress say this is an act of war, -- you had members of congress say this is an act of war. in the cyber arena, what conscious act of war has been highly debated. we can say there is a physical effect that people die. that is starting to cross the

line for what an act of war would look like. we talk about espionage and what we see in this russian effort looks like espionage. we may learn more later on. what we have learned about is the russians are in our systems stealing information. no actual action was taken. if they destroy data, break systems, manipulate -- if they had gotten into the nda and modified these results -- if they had gotten into the fda and modified the results of vaccine a physically -- the results of vaccine efficacy, a lot of people would not trust the vaccine. we need to be clear that russia, china, north korea, if you manipulate our data, you destroy our data, you break competitive systems or -- we are going to come back at you hard. that is why i think the trump administration was very

aggressive in responding to iran and the attack on american soldiers in the middle east. they drew a clear line and responded. the biden administration has done very similar, they pushed back also. a lot of times they only understand when we actually cause them pain. we've got to do more in the cyber arena. frankly, we have not done enough. one thing i will say, we talk about deterrence. to deter people, when you punch back, you cannot do it in private. cannot do it the client -- you cannot do it behind closed doors. we hit them back, but we are not going to talk about it. you need to be able to publicly call and say, if you attack us in ways that are destructive, we will respond and you will feel this pain and that is how others no we don't want to do this to the united states. host: jerry from wisconsin,

republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. one of my questions was already answered about china. as far as for the iran deal, is there any way that they can be completely taken out of the picture? and the other question is, these mega billion dollar drug cartels, are they hacking into our systems also? thank you very much for my call. guest: two great questions. on iran, the iran deal has been gone for a few years. president trump rightly got rid of it. it was not a good deal to start with, to be candid. the obama administration felt like they had to do something. they got into a deal that has a lot of flaws. we took a real close look at it and tried to get some changes made it. ultimately, the administration did not agree and went forward

with the deal. looking at it, president biden has a unique opportunity. we are not in the deal today. our allies in europe want to figure out a path forward to constrain the iranians. the biden administration has a lot of leverage. a lot of people have concerns about president trump but he re-created leverage over iran by re-imposing sanctions. there is opportunity for the biden administration take advantage of that. i wrote an op-ed week and half ago and talked about how it is important that regardless of what you thought about the iran deal, now that you have this leverage, it would be a mistake to squander it and jump right back into the old deal without extracting concessions. they have made clear, you don't want to make any concessions. this is where america has got to stand strong and say, no, you need this more than we do, we are going to hold you to the line. got maximum pressure on you,

you've got to come to the table and negotiate. they talked about getting it, they have not done it yet. that is a good sign. i think there is an opportunity for the biden administration to leverage the advantage left to them to get a better deal out of this. on the second question about criminal, gangs and drug cartels, it is fair to say that they are certainly using the internet and our infrastructure to engage in money laundering and to market and sell their ar es. -- sell their wares. as far as cyber attacks, i am not up to speed. i will get back to you at some point and come back on the show and talk about it. what i can say is this, what i would expect the drug cartels to be doing is looking at the agency's coming after them, try to get access to them. a lot of ways, they do not have

the money and skill set to act. if they were looking at the dea and the fbi, understand what is being done, not just against our own agencies, but the agencies of other companies -- of other countries going up against them, mexico. i wouldn't be surprised if the cartels are trying to figure out what they are doing too. host: here is reporting about the former solar wind ceo appear before congress, kevin thompson, about what happened. "as of congress on and on the fact that they tried to log into a server but it was not clear if it was used in the intrusion that infected." ." many departments have you heard that and what you think of that -- that was used to infect many departments." what do you think of that? guest: it is an interesting

tactic. he throws some blame on this in turn who used this easy to guess password. these passwords are across government, across industry. they are not the first to have hazards that were either to get. all the time here about in the media about hacks and how these new capabilities are being utilized. when you had easy passwords or you have emails start -- that are an easy way in for attackers , they can get in easily and escalate privilege. in this case, with solar winds, the main route of attack appears to have been this password -- does not appear to have been his password, it was an update -- does not appear to have been this password, was an update. they put some code into the

update. the first time, it did not do anything just to see if anybody would notice. they did it for couple of months, nobody noticed. again, 18,000 out of 30,000 gets installed and they update -- we saw the update. a really interesting thing. none of our clients got that second payload, the few hundreds of companies that were affected. we would have seen that and correlated it and identified it across multiple companies. the second round comes in and now, companies have decided to focus on government agencies. they basically have full access. now they have to look around and see what is going on, elevate privileges and now they own the system for nine months. they owned these government agencies. that is what is so deeply troubling. when you have administrative rights across an agency, you can do anything.

you can create new user accounts and give them privileges. it is astounding the patients and scale of this attack. it really was a hack more than an attack. no evidence was destroyed, manipulated or modified. one thing we should talk about, what happens if the russians threatened to do that? we are going to potentially do this. to me, that is the point at which the government has to draw the line and say we are going to come at you as though you attacked us. you cannot hold our systems at risk of serious damage without some consequences. we have not made that clear yet. that would be something for the biden administration to do, to make clear that we have red lines and we are going to enforce them. if they are crossed, actually enforce them. host: samuel, independent line. caller: good morning, mr. jaffer . my concern about the ultimate cyber security threat is can you

tell me what our government is doing to harden our grids to protect against an e&p? guest: that is a great question. outside of the cyber arena, which is my focus, i only know a little bit about it from my days back in the government. electric magnetic polls which is often times -- electric fact that it -- electric magnetic pulse, . it cannot out -- it can knock out telecommunications systems analytes. a lot has been done over the years. do we have enough today? i think the answer is probably no. could we do more? certainly. at the end of the day, what is important is that we make sure our critical infrastructure is well protected. the department of homeland

security has that mission to do that. they've got a new leader. we should focus on critical areas of importance and work across multiple agencies which have a lot of knowledge in the cyber arena. they should get with the best capabilities. as far as today, i don't have that information. host: when it comes to the biden administration, who are the key figures? guest: the biden administration has put together a strong team today. jake sullivan, the national security advisor -- the deputy national security advisor, it is the first time in any administration that we have had at that level a deputy

national security advisor. she comes out of the nsa where she ran for recent years, the defensive side of nsaa. she's got a lot of skills there. alongside her is rob joyce, the former cyber advisor in the white house who was sort of pushed out. he is back and running the defensive side of the national security agency. they are going to look for a strong leader so we will see who gets named for that. there is this national cyber director position that was created as a result of the information. we have not gotten anybody name for that. more to be seen on that front. the director of national intelligence, avril haines and her team. nsaa -- an excellent cyber leader. it lets you lead very much for

in defending our nation and pressing against our enemies, doing the right thing. i think this team has a lot of smart capable people in this arena. i am looking forward to them trying to do good work on this going forward. it is a challenging problem. the more that the government can work with industry and collaborate and defend our nation collectively, that will be the key to succeeding. host: our conversation with jamil jaffer, the founder of the national security institute at george mason university law school. from michigan, philip, go ahead. caller: when people turn apc on or a laptop -- when people turn a pc on or a laptop, can't we stop our internet at the national borders wearing when i turn the computer on, it is the nsa web rather than the world wide web and if i want to go

road live i can click something and go worldwide and create a separate server so it is easier for law enforcement and other people to crack down -- track down who these people are that are coming in and creating all of these. thanks for doing a great job. guest: a really interesting question. a lot of nations thought about this and said, we want to firewall or isolate ourselves from the global internet. china has built the great firewall. iran has a version. i think there are some challenges with trying to wall yourself off from the internet and create a garden around your cyberspace. the u.s. having built the global internet, a lot of the connections transit through the united states and have for the better part of two decades. that is one of the challenges that a lot of data comes through here.

one thing americans have always felt about the importance about our society is our ability to access information freely and openly, no matter where it is stored and communicate with others. it is a challenge to think about, like the iranians or the chinese about creating an isolated internet. there have been discussions about creating an internet where there is a strong encryption and you focus on that for financial transactions. there is talk about that. i don't know if it has taken that much -- most people are starting to think about i'm going to encrypt my data, make sure it is secure. i'm going to encrypt my data locally, not a lot of devices, a lot of times your iphone will encrypt data. that is going to protect it. when somebody gets into your system and they own your phone or they own your laptop because

you let them in either because you had a weak password or you clicked on a phishing link,, that is when he gets challenging. -- that is when it gets challenging. creating a secure internet is a real challenge for an open and free society like ours. the other challenge is how do you define what the borders are. it is hard to know in a highly networked environment, where is the border. it is where the data crosses the imaginary line? data travels the world in a link an eye. it is hard to draw that line between where the border of the u.s. internet might actually be. host: stephen in connecticut. independent line. let me push the button. steven in connecticut, go ahead.

caller: it is a really interesting topic. i agree with you. i cannot see us walling the internet off. it is impossible. when i would like to see, instead of a private partnership in the united states, maybe a nato or united nations private partnership or we can aggregate all of these issues through one central core. for france, we find out what they are doing over there and we are prepped for it or they probe hong kong or taiwan. i don't care where they base it, belgium, new york. is there any legislation to do an international treaty to feed these issues through? guest: it is a great point that stephen makes. as i was saying earlier, we cannot expect private companies individually or government

agencies to defend themselves. maybe nations can help, they can work across boundaries. i think stephen is right. it has to be companies with other companies, industries with industries, governments with governments and governments with allied governments. it will be hard to reach a treaty that include copies -- include countries like russia and china. they have a different view of what cybersecurity means. we mean data and expanding that. when the russian and chinese talk about cybersecurity, they are looking for treaties and agreements with other nations that allow them to focus on their people and to be -- and to oppress their people. when they say cybersecurity as code for something different. we talk about a cyber-nato, that is interesting. when you think about it, the problems that american businesses face, whether they

are healthcare providers or u.s. federal agencies, there are the same threat actors that our friends in germany and france, england and canada, new zealand and australia and our friends in south asia, taiwan, 10, singapore -- taiwan, japan, singapore. in eastern europe, you see the russians coming in aggressively. in the middle east, our friends in saudi arabia are under constant attack from iran. by working with them on technology issues and sharing intelligence with them, they can talk to us about what is happening in their region early on about these threats because they are often testbeds. we are sharing intelligence and collaborating and collectively defending across international boundaries in real time, that can change the game and give

allied nations the upper hand in the battle against these nations that do not share our national interest. host: what is the legal obligation for a company to disclose when their systems have been compromised? guest: it varies. if you are a public he traded companies, there are certain reporting requirements. a number of states have data breach notification laws. there is a lot of press commerce around the fact that microsoft, the president of microsoft came out and said that he supported a federal data recertification law. that is not a surprising change from large corporations because they are facing individual states regulating them. if they are going to have 50 states, they might as well have one key federal law and comply with that one standard rather than 50 individual standards. one of the challenges these

companies face is -- we have to figure out what is going on. we might get regulation. we might get lawsuits. we have to make sure we have done this thing the right way. there is this balance between protecting the company and shareholders and customers and disclosing information so the larger ecosystem can be protected. there are a lot of interesting ideas about this. we have had debate about these things. one of the interesting ideas i have heard is how do we let companies report what is happened to them, but we do not disclose their names and we allow them to be anonymous and we tell them, you are not going to face regulatory liabilities or regulatory action. we want you to report this information for the good of the nation. then other companies can defend themselves and not worry about the heavy hand of the government or the heavy hand of lawsuits. that might be the thing that really incentivizes companies to share rapidly and get the

lawyers out of the room and allow the defenders of companies and the government to work together more effectively. that is what we try to do with the information sherry legislation that we worked on and got passed along. now we see that on the breach notification and on the hacking side. that can be potentially game changing. the law could done much -- the law could have done more. i did there is a real opportunity to make some changes in the aftermath of this hack. host: jeffrey in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: how are you doing? i agree with what you say about the national standard of reporting and being anonymous. it is out of control. what we need to do as a country is when we catch somebody that has hacked or when we catch someone up to nefarious business, we make the penalties so strong that you don't want to do it again. for instance, i recently had my card was hacked at a local

sunoco where the card reader got my information and i had to call my bank and do all of that. i think you should find and make an example of the people that are doing that. then the message gets sent across that we have a global problem across nations that america is not going to stand for it. i liken it to robbing a bank. in the pittsburgh region, we had somebody sitting everybody visa cards to a local credit union to gather the $200 20 effort. those people should be caught, televised, punished. in the next one is going to be like, i don't think i want to do that. your thoughts? guest: jeffrey makes a great point. he is exactly right. if we don't extract costs from those who are hacking us, we are never going to deter them from that behavior. the whole premise of our criminal justice system is deterrence.

you know there is a high penalty, and when you get caught, you're going to pay the price and you are not going to want to do that again. we have to apply that in the international realm. part of the challenge with cyberspace is, people say, the terms do not work in -- deterrence does not work in cyberspace. we don't talk about what you might do to us that will cause you pain if you do it to us, we don't talk about where our redlines are, we don't talk about what we can do to you and our capabilities to respond. in cyberspace, you can punish people in other ways and extract costs outside of the cyber arena. this is the most important thing, we don't actually impose costs when these things happen. that is a problem. when you draw lines or don't draw lines at all, it is no surprise that russia, china, iran and north korea continued to test the boundaries. our kids do it with us every day

if we don't set clear lines and don't extract the cost from them, they are going to push the line. the same thing is true with nationstates. if we are going to deter, we have to draw clear lines and impose costs. we have to be serious about it. that is why i am proud of what the prior administration did on iran and the protect against americans in iraq. i'm proud of what the biden administration did on that front. that is what we need to do. you hit us in real space, we get you back. you hit us in cyber, we are going to hit you back and it may not, in cyberspace. host: jamil jaffer of george mason university law school. thank you very much. guest: thank you for having me. host: you're going to talk with kate bahn at the washington center for equitable growth about the debate on capitol hill over the minimum wage. we will have that conversation when washington journal continues ♪ . ♪

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economist at the washington center for equitable growth here to talk about them federal minimum wage. thanks for joining us this morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: could you remind our viewers about your organization and what you do? guest: the washington center for equitable growth is a grantmaking organization that investigates the causes of inequality and what we are interested in is whether addressing inequality for proactive policy will lead to more resilient growth. host: to that end, the discussion in capitol hill and across the nation, this idea of the federal minimum wage. what do you think about the current discussions? guest: i have read about the research and what has happened to the economy in this recession. what we know is that this recession is hitting low-wage workers the most. what we know from the research is wages have been low for a long time.

it will lead to more equitably shared growth. host: this comes in light of jobs numbers just announced by the labor department for february. 379,000 jobs added. that brings the unemployment rate to 6.2%. what do those numbers mean in light of the minimum wage? guest: the jobs report, topline numbers were better than what economists thought. we thought the economy would add 150,000 jobs. it was double that. we are start -- still seeing inequalities. if you look at the black unemployment rate, it went from 9.2% to 9.9% so it actually increased. a lot of workers were still being hit the hardest were also likely to be low-wage workers who would be more affected by the minimum wage. it is critical that we start to think about the economic

policies that make sure that any recovery we are going into is really centering the economic stability and security of low-wage workers who are truly hit the hardest in this recession. host: how many people in the united states make minimum wage? guest: about 20%. if we increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, it would impact 20% of the workforce, a large amount of the workforce. host: when you are talking about those types of wages, what is the general work that they are doing to earn those types of wages? guest: a lot of it is in food service. we have seen huge declines in labor and hospitality month over month in the recession. those are a lot of those minimum-wage jobs, particularly food service jobs. we need to move away from this idea that minimum-wage workers are the teenagers with a summer job.

it is over half of our workers in prime working years. even if they are working for industry that are low-wage, they are not just young workers. they are getting these jobs to support themselves and their families. host: when you talk about this idea of doubling it over a matter of years, what does that do economically, not only for those who earned it, but for those businesses who will have to be involved? guest: the wage has been declining over the long-term. it should be much higher per capita up with inflation if they kept up with product -- productivity growth. the best economic research shows that, if anything, the impact unemployment level is ambiguous at best. if you look at the surge, it has had truly no effect on employment levels. workers are able to stay in their jobs, they stay in those jobs, they stay in those doubts were longer and that is good for workers. it does not have this effect

that some people predicted it would by increasing unemployment. it seems to have a positive effect. i think that is because it has been held too low for too long. host: kate bahn, our guest. if you want to ask her questions, democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. if you earn the minimum wage, give us your perspective and (202) 748-8003 -- give us your perspective at (202) 748-8003. minimum-wage is already in place including seattle, denver go, san jose, new york city -- san francisco, san jose and new york city. guest: those cities can adjust if there is support for it. i think that would be great. i think it is important that we have a broad schedule level that is much higher. host: the congressional budget

office weighed in on this. disproportionate pay to younger people like workers and women, 58.5 percent of minimum-wage workers were 24 years old. those workers accounted for 20% of those paid hourly wages in women accounted for 68.2% of minimum wage workers in 2019. can you give some context to that? guest: i think that is exactly right. minimum-wage workers are facing multiple disadvantages. more likely to be women workers, black workers, hispanic workers. what is really important is those are the workers that are being hit hard in this recession. we are definitely seeing that it is workers of color and women who are losing jobs. employers know that unemployment

is very high and workers will accept a lower wage because they have few other options. they may not be able to sustain a higher wage. if we raise the minimum wage, it will help alter and protect against what could be otherwise income losses. for example, i think back to when the minimum wage was expanded in the 1960's to cover more industries that have more black workers. in that short period of time when we expanded the minimum wage, it reduced the age gap -- wage gap by 20%. we think about something that might happen by these persistent racial wage gaps, we might be able to address some of that through policy. host: there is an effort called the raise the wage act. "that act would reduce employment but increasing amounts over the 2021 to 25 period. going on to say that when the minimum wage reached $15 an

hour, implement would be reduced by 1.4 million workers according to the average estimate. in 2021, most workers who would not have a job would still be looking for work and categorized as unemployed. by 2025, half of the 1.4 million people would be jobless because the bill would have dropped out of the labor force. if the cbo is saying that, what is the case for raising the wage? guest: it is important to go back into the house he cbo comes up with these numbers. -- back into how the cbo comes up with these numbers. there is better research than we have ever been able to do before. this research is called administrative data and so this is not just survey data. this is actually following workers tax records so we know how much they are earning, how long they are unemployed based on tax records. this data is much better

research is done with this data. that body of research is much higher quality and showing no desirable effect on unemployment. we look at the broad research, we need to base our analysis to work is better research and that research shows that we would not have an employment effectively increase the minimum wage. host: being debated on the covid relief package, what did you think about that decision? guest: i don't want to get into the politics of it, but i am very concerned about how we are going to make sure this recovery is long time. i want to avoid the mistakes made following the great depression when we were in recovery but a lot of workers were hit the hardest like young workers had really suppressed employment and earnings growth over the long-term, over five years. when we are thinking about what we want this recovery to look like, it is important that we

are focusing on low-wage workers. it is important that we are ensuring economic growth. one good tool to do that is increasing the minimum wage. it is a critical tool to make sure that the recovery is resilient. host: how much do you think the biden administration is committed to this? guest: i am heartened that we are following the research both in the administration and people thinking about policy, we are following the research and we know what the policy research is carried the folks who are making -- we know what the policy recharge is -- we know what the policy research is. host: republican line for kate bahn from the washington center for equitable growth. go ahead. if you are from woodbridge, illinois, it is you.

go ahead. caller: you stated that the black unemployment affects the black population the most. i agree with you. can you give us your opinion to the american citizens why this administration is opening the borders to illegal immigrants and give them work permits to take these low-wage jobs from the back -- from the black population? thank you. guest: the evidence does not suggest that increased immigration has a negative impact on the labor force. if anything, it makes the labor market more dynamic. we are likely to see more wage growth and the labor market is going to be more dynamic. host: fort myers, florida, minimum-wage earner. this is rob. caller: number one, just a story.

back in 1992, i worked as a technician in the emergency room making $11 an hour which, back then was good money for what i was doing. i am now 56 years old, 30 years later and i am working in hospitality making nine dollars an hour. it just boggles the mind and it needs to be raised. my other comment is, you look at senator manchin who is against the minimum-wage increase, when his state has one of the highest populations, 16% living below the poverty line. guest: i think you are right. the real value of the minimum wage, minimum wage workers cannot support themselves when they not working full-time. even in west virginia, rural

areas, that have lower wages, that is why we need a higher minimum wage. economic outcomes are policy decision. it would be too much of a bite to increase minimum wage in those places, but i think precisely it would be an economic boost if we increase the minimum wage. they have what economists call a higher intensity -- tendency to consume. it is a boost to the economy to increase the wages of lower wage workers. it would help the recession, spur, growth and that growth would be inclusive. it is important throughout the country for all ages to have a higher federal minimum wage. host: oliver is next. caller: good morning. ok.

i would like to tell you, thank you very much. i am a retired democrat and i want to thank you for being on top of the things that are happening with wages. it is a shame, i worked -- i am 67 years old. host: you called in on our independent line, are you a democrat or independent? caller: independent democrat. i vote independently and democrat. i want to tell you that i thank you very much for being there. i am 67 years old and i worked my whole life on low wages. i was able to retire from the marriott corporation and got myself a home with senior citizens, but i am telling you that people suffer when they do

not get up there wage. thank god for joe biden's -- donald trump never have done this. he cares less about the american worker. he would never have done this, so i want to thank god for joe biden. host: thanks. ms. bahn, go ahead. guest: he is right that it is important for low-wage workers to increase the minimum wage. progressive policy tends to include minimum wage, so it is a sign that we have more progressive people in -- they want to make sure that it is not just -- we want them to have financial stability and a secure retirement. it is important that we are making sure that the floor as higher so workers at the bottom

of the labor market are able to be stable. host: we have a viewer, missouri, asking the question that if the minimum wage doubles, shouldn't other fixed entitlements double at the same rate? will this build on fixed income? guest: i am not an expert on social security. at a higher minimum wage, -- it will have a positive impact on that. there is no reason that increasing the minimum wage helps current workers would help current retirees. a stew republican line, this is doug. -- host: republican line. caller: they are recognized as having the fairest and most legitimate -- we are gambling with people's lives in their careers because right now, we

are going through a horrible crisis, as has impacted business is a lot and you are gambling that people that run these companies, that have these companies, they are able to afford the pay hike even over a four year period. it is not regionally adopted. you had people writing for third way and those think tanks advocating more of a regional minimum wage like oregon has. if you did that, you would minimize the risk of casting people out. the cbo report is credible and it says 1.4 million people and people are going to be the least skilled, at least able to recover. host: miss bahn, go ahead. guest: they do amazing nonpartisan work. looking at the broad evidence in economic research. that being said, it is cutting

edge using high-quality data, and even his own research shows that increasing the minimum wage will not have a does employment affect. -- dis-employment affect. that is what we find in that research. over a four-year time. , it absorbs that increase. i want to keep in mind -- businesses may be able to bear that. that being said, i know that businesses are struggling right now, particularly small businesses. we need to increase direct small business report -- support which has been done through the relief package currently being debated. it is not -- that is a good way

to help small businesses, but allowing them to exploit their workers is not small business support. a lot of those workers earning minimum wage are spending in their local community. they are shopping at small businesses. along those workers that have a higher income will have a boost to growth in local communities. host: a viewer from twitter said that minimum wage workers are people who lack the necessary education, skill, or training to demand more. it is that simple. guest: there is a correlation between one's education level and wage level. there's evidence that this skill gap, the idea that it is workers need to educate their way out of wage and equality, it has not been bourn through. this correlation between education and earnings seems

less likely to explain the difference in wages. the real issue is that we have had a social safety net. a lot of the reason that low-wage workers are low wages is because of the policies like a sufficient minimum wage -- is not just about educating their way out of the low earnings. host: clarksburg, west virginia, someone who earns minimum wage. caller: how are you this morning? guest: i am good, how are you? guest: let me tell you something, the people -- the rich people should take a time to try to live on seven dollars an hour. you have to give me a break here. it is $15 an hour over periods of time.

and you learn making the minimum wage. i learned making a minimum wage. other people were tea in industries that other occupations have learned. and they started their own business. that is by working in minimum wage. this minimum wage, you cannot live with it. you cannot live with it. you cannot even dream about keeping a family, buying a home, think about buying a car, medical care, anything like that. you have to give me a break, this is a poor state in the u.s. people leave here because they can make more money somewhere else. pedro, you, kate, god bless you. i'm heating up. guest: frank makes a good point that we need to understand what the lives of minimum wage workers are like and it would be

good for a lot of us to think about what it is like to be a minimum wage worker. even in states that have low wages, even in states where people make less money, workers in those states not earn enough to cover the cost of living. they do not earn enough to pay rent or a -- 482 bedroom apartment. -- four of a -- for a two bedroom apartment. we would increase the well-being of workers in those states if we increase the minimum wage. host: buffalo, new york. kyle, up next. mcat line. caller: good morning -- democrat line. caller: in new york state, we have been raising the minimum wage for the last five years. we started at seven dollars and $.50. now it is a little over $12. upstate new york is much different, much different than downstate. what i noticed around here, our

businesses, especially the small ones, have laid off employees and raised their prices of goods because of that. because they honestly, it affects the small business more than the corporate companies. i am nervous about -- i cannot speak for other states, but i am a bit nervous because minimum wage -- most people usually get razors after a year or two. it is not designed to feed a family of four for full-time workers. seeing the cost of goods and the people who make above minimum wage, their costs are going up because now they have more money for the costs of goods from pizza plot shops and small business owners are going to put that money that they have to pay their employees and to their

cost of goods. host: karl, thank you. guest: there are important points there. i do not want to discredit the fact that minimum wage increases may have an impact on a cost of goods. there is a study last month looking at how much minimum wage increase and tax mcdonald's in particular. mcdonald's is primarily small businesses owned by anti-z's. -- owned by franchises. they tended to increase -- if you making above the previous minimum wage, you still make a quarter above the current minimum wage. what have been the mcdonald's restaurants, they looked at the prices of big macs and they went up a bit. that being said, the price increase on these goods do not go up so much that it is not still an overall benefit that we

are increasing the wages of workers who are able to spend more money in most local economies. look to europe, places in europe were the cost of fast food, the cost of small business items, it is not much higher in europe. again, workers can buy those goods from small businesses if they are earning more money. yes, there can be an impact if we are increasing the cost of goods, but it is not enough -- not up enough to shy away from work is being able to support themselves. host: i'm sure you heard the argument that if you raise the wage the amount that we are talking about, small businesses like fast food places will be replaced by touchscreens rather than people. how do you respond to that argument? guest: this study i was referring to that is looking at mcdonald's specifically, look at that question. businesses do not replace workers with touchscreen ordering. the fact was that there was a slight increase in prices, but i think -- i do not think that

employers will be replacing workers with touchscreens or robots or anything like that. they will probably likely to keep workers on, workers in tandem with the technology in the workplaces. there is enough evidence that minimum wages have been artificially suppressed for so long. employers will still continue to have the same level of employment. host: is there an argument that ended up placing a flat minimum wage across the united states, looking at it regionally depending on what learners make in that region already? guest: the regional economic inequality that exist between states is because we have too low of a minimum wage and we have relied on states and cities to increase the minimum wage on our own. if we want to have less regional economic inequality, we want to have fewer states that have lower earnings than others and we need to do that by increasing the federal minimum wage. once we get to a higher federal minimum wage, perhaps $15 an

hour, they can add onto to the federal minimum, but the regional federal minimum wage or having the federal minimum wage -- entrenches what we already have with the regional economic inequality. states that have large low-wage workforces that are black workers, that have low minimum wages and have lower minimum wages, and another factor that i would think is important is that making sure that economic regional inequality is not exacerbating racial inequality and one way to do that is increasing the federal minimum grid host: frances in montana, a minimum wage worker. caller: i am now 78, but i started my working years when i was age 13. if not for minimum wage, which was at that time, like $.73 an hour, i would not have been able to work. i was able to start working at that age and learn how to buy my

own shoes and school clothes and my older brother, older sister, the three of us, had those kinds of jobs and it really helped our family because it was -- my parents were impoverished and we try to have a higher minimum wage, we would not have made a penny. we learn how to work, we learn how to be disciplined, and went on to a masters degree in -- and making seven figures and those things. for that early on experience, i probably would not have done what i was able to do. host: thank you. guest: it is true that -- my first jobs were minimum wage jobs. where workers start to clear has a impact on their lifelong career trajectory. if we are increasing the minimum wage, those first jobs are higher paid jobs, their subsequent jobs will be higher paid, building on those previous minimum wages.

it gives people a stronger basis as a career at their starting their career at a job that is sustainable. host: kate bahn, there was a server at the arizona central website, she talked about her experience in the movement to push that national minimum wage to $15 an hour. she my earnings for that work as part of the increase, proponents want to eliminate the tip credit, a safety net for cap workers. -- for. guest: the way it works at that if a worker does not meet the federal minimum, they can make up for that. in many cases, there is not the mechanism to ensure that cap workers -- into -- tip workers.

restaurants are able to survive, workers still do earn tips on top of that minimum wage and there is no impact on the workers or the restaurant industry. the idea that keeping workers at two dollars and $.13 an hour is better than that for their earnings, you are pretty backwards. i do not want to diminish those worker's experience, but i do not think that making sure that they are in a federal minimum will lead to lower earnings because evidence showed that they will have a higher rate based on the federal minimum and they will still earn tips and the restaurant industry will apply. host: california, larry, and dependent line. caller: thank you. i'm surprised that you say that education really does not have a correlation. you entered probably an ivy league school and you are now

making six figures. that has something to do with your work. to impose upon small businesses and businesses a minimum wage and to say that you will pay so much for people that are basically coming at the entry level and you are going to train them and that you are going to find out that people are going to be hired and more businesses are going to go out of business, that is really regressive red the other thing that you don't understand is that right now, our guest went up to 30%. what is that due to the minimum wage? that took a chunk out of everybody using our byways to earn a living that has been stripped of their income. the other thing to keep in mind is that when you have a minimum wage, it is a backdoor approach for the u.s. government and the state government to get increases. who gets the taxes from gross

wages? the government does. at the government went to mcdonald's and says, listen, i want 30% more out of your revenues, they would say no good if they do it through a minimum tax, a minimum wage, they just got increases. host: will let her get a response. guest: education is correlated with earnings, -- for example, i do have a phd and i am a union member. that helps my earnings. we are seeing increasingly workers with a bachelors degree, what who finish college, i still be working a minimum wage job it is much more, gated -- much more complicated. what guarantees higher earnings as worker power. that is through unions or raising the minimum wage. education is good, but it is

alone not enough to guarantee higher earnings. we need these other tools like the minimum wage. the price of gas is not based on the labor cost that goes into it. it is based on the broader gas market and that global political climate. i do not think an increase in gas as related to rising minimum wages. i think those are two slightly different issues. i think overall, we do want to small businesses to have support, we want small businesses to be sustainable. i do not think the way to do that is to allow small businesses to say, -- referring back to the economic research we have, it shows that even with increases in the minimum wage, we look at the cities and states that have increased minimum wage, they did not have a huge decline in employment like you predicted they might have had. they were able to maintain their employment levels.

you have a win win by increasing wage earnings, they are not losing their jobs, small businesses were able to maintain their employment. they are earning more money, spending it in their local communities and supporting economic growth. host: republican line from massachusetts. caller: good morning. to me, the federal minimum wage is another nail in the coffin. mining and manufacturing. at least donald got some tariffs on dumping the steel. we lost three of our major beer companies, budweiser, miller, and coors. even our auto is losing it. chevy lost the malibu and paula. host: how does that relate to the minimum wage? caller: that is another regulation by government. there are too many government regulations. we are losing our

competitiveness. to a bunch of losers. host: another regulation by governors -- by governments. guest: dentistry he referred to, mining, manufacturing, -- that was because they were unionized jobs and jobs with higher wages. i don't not see increasing the minimum wage as something that is going to be a negative impact on those industries. those industries are probably earning higher than the minimum wage anyway. they are more unionized and 10 to have a higher earnings -- and tend to have higher earnings. food service, as we talked about earlier, that is one industry that might be affected by it, some health care jobs are in very low wages, that is an industry that may be impacted by a minimum wage. these are jobs that have to be done in person, face-to-face jobs, they are service jobs that you cannot off shore. they have to be done in person.

this is a structure of our labor market where most of our labor jobs are service jobs. those jobs cannot be displaced and moved elsewhere. host: daily in texas, and dependent line. -- dale in texas, independent line. caller: you mentioned the poverty level. how do you determine the poverty level? you'd determine that area by area? state-by-state -- do you determine it area by area? state-by-state? you also comment that -- i cannot remember all the words you say. contribute back to their communities by buying more in their communities, may be that

as a sign that they are more willing to work -- thank you. guest: first point about the poverty line is that typically, there is a federal poverty line across the country, the value of the federal poverty line is pretty low, the federal poverty line as less than 20,000 a year. it is really low earnings. we know that if we increase minimum wage, we bring more people above that level. and then the second point, i forgot what the second question you had was. host: i would not keeping notes. we will go on to pat in michigan. caller: good morning to you folks. a fine conversation going on here. i am curious why the number $15 an hour is the continuing figure over the last few years?

its at $15, it seems to be the number that most sides of the -- both sides of the argument are debating. thank you for your time. guest: that is correct. we have been in this fight for more than 10 years. workers have been advocating for a higher minimum wage and they have been advocating for $15 specifically. that is a number that was -- what workers think would be a sustainable way for them to earn. that is where that $15 number came from. it was not generated from economic research specifically, but i think it is important that it was generated from the workers themselves or working these jobs. host: at the minimum wage for $15 as opposed over a period of several years, how long do you think before that about what it be increased even more? guest: we have to follow where the economy goes.

there are people who would argue that we should have a minimum wage that is tied to inflation. so, it would automatically increase when the cost of living increases. it is good a good way to ensure that we do not have a crash where we have not had a crash and a minimum wage over 10 years. i think that would increase about 15, it would be great if we had automatic triggers to do that, but in the meantime, the first step is getting at the $15 in the immediate future. host: in texas, san antonio, democrats line. good morning. caller: one of the major things we are missing here is how medicare for all would help lower the cost of living and i want to ask a question, has your program evaluated any recommendations for what it would take to lower the cost of living because i do support the

wage at $15 an hour. i worked many years working at a minimum wage and i was deprived of purchasing a home because of that. i believe that we can lower the cost of education and medicare, i not retired, but i am 67 years old. they can resolve that problem, then that minimum wage would be more helpful. i do support a $15 an hour. host: thank you. guest: i like this point because i think when we think about making the economy more resilient, more dynamic, we want to have a robust, structural economic policy. i think increasing the minimum wage is one piece of it. i think increasing the social safety net is another piece. there is good research that shows one -- and makes the labor market more dynamic. workers are more likely to be assured that they would have medicaid, they were more likely to move into higher paying jobs because they knew that they would not be either be placed

out of medicaid, -- when you do things like provide for social safety net, i think medicaid is a great example of that, it gives workers the stability to invest in the next career, find a job that they are a better match for, and they will be more productive in the job that they are a better match for. you want to make sure that there is a solid floor that they can support themselves with and we want to give workers the support and the safety net that allows them to move around in economy and contribute to growth. host: gary, kentucky. democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been sitting here and watching this and i am hearing all of the points. the $15 an hour is a great idea. i get that. but, i am totally against it. here is the reason why: we already have landlords, we already have companies, already saying that it -- if the minimum

wage goes in place at $15, they will increase everything. that will hurt people that are on social security, living wage to wage. this is not making it any better. what needs to be done as a laws need to be put in place to protect people, to keep from -- prices from going up at a price gouging and that is what we need to focus on. miss bahn, with all due respect, you said earlier that automation is not replacing jobs. that is not true. six people can run a walmart. ok. that's been going on. it will get worse. $15 an hour will not help things. host: thank you. guest: we talked about that last point about automation.

there is some evidence, in particular industries, that there have been a lot of laborsaving technology. i think a lot of the service jobs, walmart, mcdonald's, these types of jobs, there is evidence that technology does not necessarily displace workers, it might make workers more productive if workers are using technology to make their job more productive again, there is the research because as mcdonald's in a state, but they were looking at whether minimum wage increases lead to employers moving toward -- sometimes, some of these technologies, technological innovation that our emblem limited in workplace, augment work. i depends on what the technology looks like. it depends on how it is integrated. and then, the ultimate result as having more productivity, which

is good for the economy, good for economic growth. the critical piece is making sure that the economic growth is shared by the workers. host: kate bahn, she serves as an economist for the organization equitable growth. thank you for your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: we will finish up at 10:00 with a question we started with when it comes to code to restrict and in your state. do you think there should be test in place lifted or are you not sure about that. (202) 748-8000. if you think you should lift those numbers, (202) 748-8001. if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. we will take those calls when we come back. ♪ >> american history tv on c-span3, exploring the people

and events that tell the american story every weekend. coming up this weekend, we are marking the 75th anniversary of weston churchill's erin curtin speech, regarded as the cold war's most iconic speeches. starting saturday at 9:00 a.m. eastern on american history tv and washington journal, a live discussion with timothy, director of america's national churchill museum and chief curator, you will join us from misery, the location of that 1946 speech and take our calls and tweets live on the air. at 10:00 a.m., margaret thatcher's lecture at westminster college as she marked the 50th anniversary of churchill's speech and spoke about how the world changed in the 50 years and the 19 91 collapse of the soviet union. then, on sunday, at 2:00 p.m., arthur reflect on their

grandparents, winston churchill and harry truman. at 4:00 p.m., real america features an audio recording of with the general -- of winston churchill's entire iron curtain speech accompanied by edges -- images. exploring the american story. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> washington journal continues. host: if you want to let us know what you think about the restriction in your state, if you think they should stay in place, if you think they should be lifted, you are not sure, you want as text your thoughts, (202) 748-8003 is how you do that. you can post on social media too. at the new york times, they provided maps taking a look at the restriction that are currently in place across the united states when it comes to business as. most of those of all into the open category. california is an other.

arizona, new mexico, colorado, oregon, mixed category. many states still with the mandatory masks mandate. some with no restrictions as well. texas and mississippi adding to the announcements recently dropping those requirements. with stay-at-home orders, no restrictions are crossed most of the u.s., some states, california, new mexico, wisconsin, kentucky, saying that there are advisors in place. puerto rico is showing an order or curfew or two. if you want to find out what is going on across the u.s., if you want to share your experience as well, you can do so, (202) 748-8000 if you say when it comes to restrictions keeping them in place, (202) 748-8001. if you say lift them and if you not sure about them at this time, (202) 748-8002. sharon joins us from texas. let's keep them in place. good morning. caller: did you say sharon? good morning.

i would like to -- i am from a small location in texas. and i think what is going on right now is that if you are in texas, previously lived in the harris county area, also in the houston area, i think they should be kept in place. right now, with everything we have going on in texas with the floods and the freezing and everything, i think that the governor should place has attention somewhere else other than letting the been because -- ban because living in a small community, people were not following the requirements and they still aren't now. it is very upsetting because i have a parent who is 84 years old, i am retired and i have moved back to take care of her. and i am 65 myself, i took my first vaccine last week, my mom is due to take hers today. i think it should stay in place until at least the end of the

year, until we are out of all of this. it is more safe to be preconscious. -- to be preconscious -- pre-cautious. >> to be clear, covid has not suddenly disappeared. covid still exist in texas and the united states and across the globe. but, it is clear from the recoveries, from the vaccinations, from the reduced hospitalizations, and from the safe practices that texans are using that state mandates are no longer needed. host: that was greg abbott in texas. the new york times tells us that businesses there have mostly open. masks are mandatory there.

a number of the types of businesses that are open, that is where mary lives in washington state, says she is not sure about where she is at when it comes to the code restrictions pretty good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: well, how about yourself? caller: i am doing wonderful. i do not know -- i have been doing the guidelines that they had set out. i am upset about texas and i heard alabama and i heard mississippi and then i heard the read states would do it. -- the red states would do it. i think it is there so that the other people can spread the germs -- i have been in the house for forever. one day goes into the next. i appreciate your program, i

like you so much, pedro. i have children and grandchildren and if it does not affect me, i am 63, i had open heart surgery, a triple bypass in 97. i am vulnerable. it sure is easy. everyone wants to go back to the way it was. but until it is safe for everybody, i think people should , instead of being so selfish, i think they should consider other people and i do not watch social media, i did not listen to it. i watch our program and that is it. i do not even watch the news. i mean i watch the news, you hear them anyway. i am really not -- i do not think it is a good thing and i do not know what else to say. host: mary, thank you for sharing your thoughts. another viewer who is not sure

from new york, andy. go ahead. caller: i am not sure about the polar response of lifting the mandates. i am a first responder and i have been suffering. the whole entire economy is suffering. people need help out there, people need jobs, but i do not think it is the right time for this to occur, particularly with a masks. the previous guest you had on it made a lot of sense about raising the minimum wage. i received section 8 and i am not able to have a life. the life that i would want to have. if i move out of my home and i get married, i lose all of my benefits and my medical coverage. it is a rough world that we are living in right now and we all need help. we all need help. even if they made it an ability to bring section 8 a family so they can join together -- it is

hard for everyone out there. for those who are disabled and unable to be reproductive in this world and still try to be productive and live a normal life. it is harder for us. if congress and the senate have been working for this bill could help people that are suffering with disabilities, or having a rough time along with their families, join together to make a better world, this would be a better place. love would -- i love what you do. host: she mentioned the were going on in the senate. the work on the covid early fell as resuming on the senate side. i'm to be added to the bill and the senate expected -- amendments to be added to the bill. you can follow what is going on on c-span2 if you want to see the work there. you mentioned the minimum wage,

senator bernie sanders expected to introduce a minimum wage amendment. you see him. several bernie -- rep. brady: -- >> this has resulted in millions of americans losing their jobs and their income and that shutting down of something like one out of four small businesses in this country. that is an unbelievable number. main street is shutting down, driving businesses no longer exist. real unemployment in this country today is now over 10%. further, countless americans raise the threat of eviction, we have a moratorium on evictions which is the right thing, but there is going to be a day when that ends and people are sitting on $5,000 of debt.

what happens when the moratorium ends? how will i pay my rent? am i going to be one of the 500,000 people already sleeping out on the streets? millions more -- host: there is more you can hear on c-span2 as the amendment process now starts. that is with the covid relief bill. patricia in wisconsin says keep the restrictions in place pretty good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to know when these governors became doctors or nurses. i do not understand how they can start spouting off medical information like it is safe to walk around without a mask and we are open for business. that is one point, the second thing i want to say is that the stimulus money and that is trying to make its way to the senate right now is going to help a lot of people who are struggling and if anybody wants to see what the stimulus bill is, they can go on c-span and other sites and read it. you can also get it outlined.

i would like to point out that if we can turn our country, we can start the infrastructure program and create the new economy by going green bird it will increase -- going green. it will create a new economy. we can no longer stay on fuel, coal, gas, we need to switch, create new jobs. host: that was patricia with the idea of what to do with state restrictions due to covid. alabama, randy says a the restrictions. hello. see to the left the restrictions because a lot of us in alabama never wear a mask to start with. mandates are not law. i will not put one on and they cannot make me put one on. host: the governor will resend the mask mandate in the state.

caller: i voted for her, but she is not god. when it goes to congress and the senate and house passes the law, i will wear one. but on a person's word or mandate, that means nothing. host: while why -- why wait? caller: i do not wear one, i will not wear one, they cannot make me wear one and i will not do it. just because the mandate is put out there, it does not make it law. host: randy in alabama giving his thoughts. the washington post highlights a story related to the pandemic, especially from the way we get injured. this is information released by the safety commission. sports injuries from fireworks, severe injuries caused by power tools, more people were hurt by chainsaws and skateboards, bad injuries in playgrounds

plummeted, despite the changes, the number of people treated in emergency rooms for product remade it -- related injuries remain flat, -- this is compared with the spirit -- the same period a year before. more explanation if you want to read on the washington post. woodbridge, virginia, tom says to lift the restrictions. caller: i will say the same thing i have been saying since this whole thing started. never let a good crisis go to waste. if you wanted to know how -- maybe not most, but a lot of americans are. all you have to do is look around and you see people by themselves driving, wearing masks, and face shields, and latex gloves and they are by themselves in their automobiles. that is all you have to do.

host: you save lift the restrictions why? caller: there should never have been a closing of the economy, all of the medical community has come out and said, if you are terminally ill with cancer and you are going to die from cancer in the last year, if you contracted covid, you are listed as a covid death. take that into consideration. we lose about 80,000 people a year just from a regular common flu. we get 70 five and 80,000 opioid deaths. this year, those deaths are down. i wonder why. the reason is, they have been cap -- gathered as a covid death. host: russell in houston texas just keeps -- houston, texas says to keep the restrictions in place. caller: good morning. i am a 7 you.

i moved to houston. the thing i noticed is that the education in the south as a like 25 years behind us yankees. i hear the guy from virginia saying that lift the restrictions and stuff rude if you look at the -- stop -- stuff . i have not heard -- host: what is the response of your governor decided to drop the mask mandate? caller: he is a southerner and his education, i do not understand. why would you want to kill people by lifting the restriction? more people are going to catch the virus, they may catch the flu, but they will die. host: what determines when the restrictions should be lifted?

caller: when no one is getting sick. if no one is getting sick, lift the restrictions. let people live. host: that is russell in texas. the new york times is reporting a story from yesterday saying top aides tell governor cuomo were alarmed and included a count on how many nursing home residents have died in the pandemic. that number, more than 9000 and that was not public and the senior aides wanted to keep it that way. the reports were taken out according to reports by the new york times. the intervention that came just as cuomo was writing a book on his pandemic achievements, but the earliest not yet known and what critics called a effort -- a month-long effort by the governor in his effort to obscure the full scope of nursing home details. the new york times had that story. in california, sean says keeps -- keep the restrictions in place.

caller: good morning. i say keep the restrictions in place. we put people in jail for being unsafe to our society and the same to other citizens in our society. i also say for all of the colors in alabama and everyone -- all of the callers in alabama who say that we should let this restriction and go by and give anyone we want the disease. people do not wear the mask where i am and i do not understand why. give them a covid case and send them home and then maybe they will understand that this virus is real. thank you very much, pedro. you have a wonderful day. host: jodey in florida who is not sure. you are next. caller: we had no restrictions at all in the beginning. this pandemic was badly handled

from day one. we are rolling out, we are rolling out at a rapid rate now. i think the biggest problem with this pandemic is the masks were politicized and as for me, i had cancer surgery just before the pandemic hit. i have bid spending a lot -- i am fine. for me, going into the store and wearing a mask is a good thing. basically, you take care of yourself. i'm concerned about the governor's making mandates because they think every small community in every state has had a different caseload and at a different infection rate. i think people have to take responsibility for their own

health more than relying on federal mandate or state mandate or a local mandate. if i go into a store -- i hear people saying it is just like the flu and they are overreacting, but we had a low rate in this county and the only reason why it is higher is because -- where i left, we have been fortunate, but then again, i do not see many people without masks except of course for the men. host: you can continue to give your opinions before the program ends. the bbc reporting that pope francis called for an end to extremism. he is making the trip to iraq, his first trip since the start of the pandemic and the bbc story adding that covid and security fears -- the 84-year-old insisted that he was duty-bound.

george, a scholar and expert on all things of interest to the pope, talking about the trip and specifically, talking about the importance of this trip. >> pope francis is going to be taking his first trip in about 15 months to a country that has consumed a great deal of u.s. foreign policy in the past decade. what do you think about this trip and what it might accomplish? >> i think the pope is going at considerable risk both health-wise and security-wise. first of all, he wants to support and encourage the remaining christian community, not just catholics, but christian communities in iraq. there has been a tremendous migration of christians from iraq since 2003-2004. those who remain, some of whom

can trace their christian origins back to the first or second century -- 1st or 2nd century, are not being sufficiently protected by the president of the iraqi government from either sunni or shia radical and phonetics. the pope wants to support them. he wants to say to the iraqi government that you have to facilitate the process of interreligious consideration -- and you better get on with it. if he can manage to encourage their christian communities that remain in the in between you and direct and deliver -- in iraq and deliver a punch with the president of the iraqi

government, that will be enough accomplishment for 14 day trip. host: more with george as available on our q & a program. that is set to air on march 14. you can see more information about that coming up on our q & a website. you can access that if you go to our c-span website. larry in texas. he wants to keep the restrictions in place. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i said keep it in place. if they were to stop -- started from the get-go and people were wearing masks, we were not have had all of this happen. -- we would not have had all of this happen. it is common sense. luckily, -- it is not the people in houston i am worried about. it is the cities outside of

houston, the people that will visit houston that will not be wearing a mask. everywhere i go in houston, people are wearing a mask. they have been wearing them. host: whereas the leadership in houston said that the mask mandate will still stay in place even though the governor will take them down. caller: they put it on the businesses to go it -- to go ahead and require people to use masks when they go there. governor abbott is doing that right now because he is in a crisis over the big freeze. in houston, we are used to disasters. we had two major hurricanes in the last two years. we never depend on austin to tell us what to do. host: that is they in houston, texas. weather in texas -- karen, hello. caller: i do not agree on lifting the restriction.

host: we are trying to get people in to comment on the lines that we have assigned. adam, brooklyn, new york, says he is not sure. caller: thank you for taking my call. here is my issue. all of those people who speak for lifting restrictions, i believe that none of them actually went through covid in any extensive way. they do not know what they are talking about, ok. you're not going to convince them no matter what. we had four years of trump and people have that set in their minds on what they believe in their minds. if they want to be like this, then let's put them all on one island. host: kansas city, kansas, saying to keep the restrictions in place.

caller: i called the wrong line. host: we appreciate it. there are other things happening as far as other issues of policy, particularly at the statewide level. the biden administration is asking, planning to ask fema to help and assist with issues concerning the border, what is going on at the border, saying that the biden administration wants to give -- fema -- children crossing from mexico according to two people familiar with the proposal. the plan is -- the biden administration says that this is an emergency. the department of homeland security told reporters monday that the situation did not amount to a crisis, but rather a stressful challenge that he blamed on the trump administration policy aimed at deterring migrants and asylum-seekers. fema support in texas will be

aimed at testing and quarantining family groups and adult before releasing them from that u.s. customs and border protection. a number of apprehensions along the mexico border have pushed even higher over the next week with agencies taking 4000 people into custody everyday. again, that is from the washington post. you can read more about there. if you are interested in finding out about what is going on in the senate-side, particularly as work on the covid relief bill continues and expected to continue throughout the weekend, i invite you to stay close to c-span. if you cannot catch all of that, go to our website at c-span.org. you can monitor it there. if you wanted to listen to a long while you're out and about, you can do so by downloading our free c-span radio app. it is it for our program today, another addition of a washington journal comes your way tomorrow morning. we will see you then.

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> there is a look at some of our live program today on c-span networks. on c-span, a house appropriations subcommittee looks at construction projects for the veterans affairs department. watch live coverage at 10:30 eastern on c-span. former defense secretary's leon panetta and mark esper and former national security advisor h.r. mcmaster take part in the discussion of defense policy. that is hosted by the reagan institute. watch live coverage on c-span. the u.s. senate is in session today.

yesterday devoted to officially start debate on hr one, the almost $2 trillion pandemic package. certain senators insisted that clerks read the entire 628-page bill before getting started. that took over 10 hours and ended in the wee hours of the morning. lawmakers did start debate on the bill with senate budget committee chair bernie sanders calling for a raise of the minimum wage to $15 an hour. you can follow all the senate action today on our companion network c-span2. we have some economic news today. labor department this morning announcing hiring picked up in february, amid a drop in covid-19 cases. vaccines provided hope for more growth ahead. nonfarm payrolls