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forgiveness programs and the university of michigan will talk about the history of vaccine passports. we will take your calls and you will join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. ♪ host: good morning. congress, back in session. the senate taking up legislation on the covid-19 hate crimes that would allow any pandemic related attacks targeting asian-americans and pacific islanders to be expedited. later this week in the house, making washington, d.c. the 51st state. it does face an uncertain future in the u.s. senate. this monday, april 19, we will have more on the debate over student loan forgiveness in the history of vaccine past. we begin the first hour with the

ongoing debate over immigration. this question, can confidence be restored in the immigration system. the phone lines are open. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. and for independents, (202) 748-8002. we are asking the question in part because of the new book from former president george w. bush. the book is titled "out of many, one portrait of american immigrants [video clip] ." -- american immigrants are co- @cspanwj is our twitter handle and you can find us on facebook as well. we want to begin with the headlines from minneapolis and st. paul. "what to expect in the closing arguments that will take place today by the defense and prosecution during almost three weeks of testimony."

-- prosecution." both sides have rested their case, it is day 15 of the actual trial. from the star tribune, "military presence in the twin cities unsettles some, reassures others ." a reminder that coverage of the trial re-airs tonight at 8:00. closing arguments in the case of derek chauvin and the death of george floyd. beginning with the immigration debate, in the words of george w. bush over the weekend, he wrote the following. "i set out to accomplish two things in writing this book, to share portraits of immigrants, each with a remarkable story that i try to tell, and to humanize the debate on immigration and reform

host: again, that from the new book, out of many -- "out of many, one." yesterday in his interview with norah o'donnell he explained the message behind the book. [video clip] >> do you want to be involved in the immigration discussion? >> and away. i don't want to be prescriptive. -- in a way. i don't want to be person -- prescriptive to congress, but i do want to say put away the harsh speech and set a tone that

is more respectful about the immigrate -- immigrant. >> you gave an oval office on immigration. ask i did. these are not contradictory goals. america can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time. >> it's been 15 years. >> i know it. >> still, nothing has been done. >> executive orders, that just means congress isn't doing its job. >> is it one of the biggest disappointments of your presidency? >> yes. it really is. i made it clear to voters that immigration reform was something i intended to do. host: that is from "cbs sunday morning." more from this op-ed in "the washington post," in which he writes the following --

host: thehost: question is, can confidence be restored in the u.s. immigration system? if you are listening to c-span radio, here are the numbers, (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans, (202) 748-8000 is the line for democrats. we have a line for independents and we will get your comments on social media as well. may of 2007, president bush praised the senate while moving ahead on immigration, only to be scuttled a month later. may, 2007 at the white house, president bush. [video clip] >> the agreement reached today is one that will help to enforce our borders and equally importantly it will treat people with respect read a bill where

the people who live in our country will be treated without amnesty but without animosity. i want to thank you all very much for representing the white house. thank you, senators, for working hard. i look forward to a good vote out of the u.s. senate as quickly as leader read can get the bill moving and we look forward to working with the house of representatives to take this first step and converting to a successful second step. i really am anxious to sign this bill as soon i possibly can. today we took a good step in that direction. host: that was from may of 2007 but one month later the headline from reuters is the senate kills the bush immigration reform bill . a crestfallen george w. bush conceded defeat and said he was "moving on to other issues when it became clear that immigration

legislation would not be revived during the final 18 months of his two terms in the white house ." on the question of immigration, can confidence be restored in the system? the words that president bush used in his op-ed and in his new book. bill, joining us. go ahead. caller: yeah, george bush and immigration. i would think that he would want to break up the geo corporations, if he was really interested in helping immigration. i do think that's a major problem that this country hasn't addressed fully. and i'll still never forget him for not telling the people at the site at 911 that the air was ok to breathe. i will never forgive him for that. thank you for your time, steve. host: tampa, good morning,

independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. yes, i believe our country needs to get our house in order before we bring others here and allow them here. we are having a chaotic disaster in the united states. every day is devastating. to wake up and see what's going on and we don't even take care of our own in the streets right now. to invite others in before we even take care of our own country is appalling to me. i believe our congress and our leadership fighting and bickering back and forth is childish, demeaning behavior. thank you. have a blessed day. host: the political rhetoric was a part of the conversation on the cbs -- on "cbs sunday morning." here's that exchange. [video clip] >> the problem with the immigration debate is that one can create a lot of fear. they are coming after you. but it is a nation that is

willing to accept the refugee or the harmed, or the frightened, to me that's a great nation and we are a great nation. >> the former president supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. if they pass a background check and pay back taxes. >> if that were the proposal from president biden, would you lobby your own party to support that? it >> i am right now. whether my own party listens to me or not is another question. host: that from former president bush. the full interview is available on the cbs news website. jody on the twitter page saying our immigration policy needs more than one process for doing the paperwork. saying that they are willfully understaffing immigration processing. this is the piece sunday morning from "the washington post,"

restoring confidence in the immigration system and how to do that. more from president bush possible, discussing dhaka -- d aca. "they recognize that young men and women host: sharon is joining us next from germantown, maryland. good morning.

caller: love your show, love c-span. i think that barack obama and george bush should get together and write a do the immigration. those are the two that really cared recently. host: thank you, sharon. on "this week," tony blinken was asked about the situation on the border. he defended the biden policies and criticized the policies put in place by president trump. [video clip] >> one of the biggest problems we faced was inheriting a broken system. the refugee system that we found was not, it didn't have the resources, the means to effectively process as many people as we hope. what we have done now, in inciting the initial direction, start the process of bringing people in and beyond that,

listing restraints that the previous administration had imposed. like no one from africa or the middle east could come in. >> i know what you have done with that and if you don't make that 62,000, will there be 125,000 next year? >> i think that what the president and the white house what they have said today is that based on what we have now seen in terms of the inheritance and being able to look at what was in place and how quickly we can put in place, it's going to be hard to meet the 62,000 this -- this fiscal year. revisiting this in the coming weeks there will be an additional directive coming out in the middle of may. the good news is that we are now starting and we are starting to bring people in who were in the pipeline. that is starting today. host: that from tony blinken on one of the five sunday shows

that we re-air. be sure to get the free c-span radio app to listen as well. on the issue of immigration, can confidence be restored to the system? what do you say? caller: i'm from shelton, connecticut, home of the wiffleball. the best thing we can do is first close our borders and then get together and make a policy as to who we will let in and when and how with a proper, you know, properly vetting people before they get into the country . the idea of just opening the gates and letting everybody in, you wouldn't do that at your own home and many of these people that are speaking, the heads that are talking are all behind gated walls. it's very unfair to expect the rest of the country to take on this burden of people, school boards in cities that can barely get through now will be, there

isn't enough money around and you can't print it fast enough. they've got to stop the bleeding and close the borders. host: thank you for the call from connecticut. anthony, your thoughts on what president bush is saying and how from your standpoint can we restore confidence in the immigration system? >> thank you for having me. we used to be called a melting pot and now we just seem to be a whole bunch of subcultures and sub countries and i don't know what we are going to do about it but definitely we need to protect the borders and put our house in order because we cannot afford all the people coming into the country now. that's all i have to say. thank you. host: thank you for the call.

this story from bloomberg news, vice president harris to visit guatemala amidst the surge on the border. she says she plans to travel there as a part of her new role overseeing the response to the surgeon migrants on the border. she did not say when she plans to take the trip and the biden administration is struggling to handle the flood host: jordan fabian joins us by zoom, thanks for being with us. guest: thanks for having me, good morning. host: the immigration debate, where does this put the biden administration in terms of the presidents rhetoric bringing migrants to the border? guest: it's a complicated issue

and the president's rhetoric factors into it. we have seen evidence that human traffickers and smuggling organizations in central america are twisting the president promises on immigration saying that essentially the u.s. -- president's promises on immigration, saying that essentially the region -- the borders open. they have been airing ads in the region telling would be migrants not to come to the united states. i talked to roberta jacobson, the outgoing southwest border coordinator a couple of weeks ago, she acknowledged this big challenge for the administration but says it is something, she has confidence that if enough messaging gets out they can try to discourage the migrants to stop the historic numbers we are seeing right now. host: the vice president has been criticized for not traveling to the border yet. no timeline yet? guest: we don't have a date for this trip, but it is interesting in some respects where it has been

confusing about the role of the vice president and what will be the role that she's overseeing? there are questions about the border where she says she's not in charge of the border, she's in charge of the root causes of migration, poverty and violence in central america. by saying that she's going to go to the mexican capital presumably to meet with leaders there in central america, she's setting the agenda for herself by saying that this is her taking on a diplomatic role and not necessarily a border security role specifically. host: talking about the white house week ahead, another meeting today between democrats and republicans. some former republican governors to talk about infrastructure. who is in attendance and what is on the agenda? guest: well, it's a bipartisan meeting of senators. i know that mitt romney is one of the senators attending, along with several groups of democrats . they will be discussing president biden's proposal for

the american jobs plan, the sweeping infrastructure bill that he has proposed, $2.25 trillion that really does face a difficult test in congress. more so than the stimulus package. [no audio] host: i think we lost jordan fabian by zoom. i think you are back. we lost you for a moment. ok, we lost him. the president will also be focusing on earth day this week and delivering a speech on wednesday to focus on covid-19. let's get back to your phone calls and twitter comments on the issue of immigration and whether or not the system can be restored. this is from steve on twitter saying george bush, why would anyone trust the opinion of a president who took us to war based on lies. i wonder if you feel guilty when he sees those commercials of young veterans missing limbs. benjamin, welcome to the conversation.

caller: i wanted to answer your question. can confidence be restored in the immigration system? there are a lot of problems in it and it would be hard to put faith in something that has become so compartmentalized and is falling apart, especially when there has been so much openness on the border that leads to several issues. it's a completely different culture in mexico. when you have conflicting cultures in one country it can lead to a lot of problems. look at yugoslavia for instance. that country fell apart with a lot of ethnic issues. host: this is from vito on facebook, why bother making new laws. immigration is a public policy issues and -- issue and it's insane to allow more people into the country when they are risking homelessness in major cities. jordan fabian is back with us.

gotta love zoom, right? guest: after a year of it i'm about done, but let's go. [laughter] guest: democrats and republicans on infrastructure, i guess the question is is there room for bipartisanship between the parties? guest: the two parties seem pretty far apart right now that the president has indicated that he is more open to negotiation on the infrastructure package than he was on the virus release -- virus relief act where he said he wasn't going for the smaller proposal offered by republicans. in this meeting there's a bipartisan group of senators and we will see if there is any room to negotiate on provisions like the corporate tax rate. host: as we mentioned a moment ago, the president will be delivering a major policy speech on wednesday about covid-19. what do we expect to hear? guest: it's a little early, but i will note that ron claim was tweeting today that their goal of having all adults 16 and

older in the united states eligible to receive a covid-19 vaccine has been hit as of today , so i suspect we will be hearing more about benchmarks and what the biden administration is saying our achievements on the vaccination front in the speech on wednesday. host: next wednesday his address before the joint session of congress. what will that look like? how many will be in attendance? host: like nothing we have seen -- guest: like nothing we have seen in the past several decades. the full house and senate won't be in the chamber. we expect a limited number of lawmakers and guests. you won't see the special guest of the president that the president will sometimes bring out for a state of the union style speech. this is coming much later than usual. the president will usually give his first address to a joint session of congress within a month of taking on -- taking office. this comes around the 100 day

mark of the biden presidency and i think you can expect to see a victory lap on things like the covid-19 vaccination campaign, stimulus, and a sales pitch to congress to pass the infrastructure proposal we were just talking about. host: next thursday will mark the 100 day mark of the biden presidency and since fdr set a benchmark in the first term of every president. how will the administration deal with that milestone? guest: this administration has liked to have a tailored, tight messaging push each week and i expect that we will see an intense push next week to tout the achievements we were just talking about and do some forward-looking things as well. at the end of this week, biden is convening in -- an international summit with world leaders and you can expect to hear about issues like climate change and racial injustice, especially now with the george floyd trial going on in

minnesota. these are all things that you can expect the white house to hit on and highlight how they tried to address them in the first 100 days. host: as we saw in minneapolis and st. paul, they were on guard in that city and others around the country as we awaited the verdict, closing arguments today, the verdict could potentially come this week pending and out quickly jurors are able to make a decision. how is the white house preparing for whatever the verdict is? guest: white house officials have acknowledged that there is a potential for chaos depending on which way the verdict turns out in the derek chauvin trial. we have heard the white house press secretary and even the president himself say that they are monitoring the trial very carefully and are preparing for any contingencies. if you expect riots or anything like that, they say they will be ready to handle anything that happens however the trial turns

out this week. host: jordan fabian, thank you for being with us on this monday. guest: appreciate it. host: this from yesterday in "the washington post," "we must restore confidence in the immigration system." comments from our twitter page in facebook, this california, russ says confidence cannot be restored as long as biden and harris are in charge. trump had it under control, biden is in over his head. good morning. caller: good morning, son. i had this idea for a while. what if you gave dreamers and other potential amnesty beneficiaries a conditional citizenship. could not vote, bringing them in or having them come in and the big thing that the republicans

are dead set against with any of that is they think they are going to vote democrat. i support these. i know a lot of hispanic people here. i support them. this is an idea to try to get something through that will be acceptable, say ok, just this generation, the children will beef full citizens and these undocumented are paying tons of taxes and not getting in on the social security and my father came here when he was nine years old and, you know, take it easy, folks. a little more love, little less judgment. thank you, son. host: mike, thank you for adding your voice to the conversation. connie, good morning. caller: good morning, steve. have any of the democrats visited the border? i also heard that the immigrants going to new york and getting

that money, i think it's $15,000 , they become automatically registered voters. boy, that is so -- host: where did you hear that? guest: i heard gingrich say it a while ago. that when they get the money, they become eligible to vote. you know, that's not right at all. all these people are coming legally and they have to wait. what do you think about that? host: in order to vote, you need to be a u.s. citizen. guest: that's what i heard him -- caller: that's what i heard him say. maybe you can look into that. that is absolutely not right. host: connie, thanks. ed, pleasant valley. can confidence be restored in the u.s. immigration system? caller: we have got a lot of work to do. right now i live in new york and it's true, we are giving out 30

some hundred dollars to people being shipped here from the southern border and we are giving out up to 36, up to $15,000 per family that's here that supposedly weren't able to work. that's more than anybody who is an american citizen in new york state. i don't see how it's going to change. how can we give, we are not even taking care of our own a matter can -- our own american citizen -- citizens. the school tax in my area is three quarters of the schools are filled with immigrants and they don't pay taxes. they have got brand-new trucks, working for all the rich people in the local area. when the school buses were running full-time, can't ride the roads, it's all foreigners getting free education. and the senior citizens are

footing the bill for it. it's not fair and as long as we have got these sanctuary states and cities with no control and i said this on air once or. i found a wallet from illinois, new york, and pennsylvania. this one person had three get me free cards, let's put it that way. food, housing and everything from three states, three names, same picture. host: this is from bob in illinois, saying yes, reinstate the trump doctrine, saying it was working fine until president biden tossed it out. in the rose garden president biden said his first job is to protect all americans. americans are at risk with open borders. back to the words of former president george w. bush, in his new book this weekend in his interview yesterday on "cbs sunday morning," "out of many, one." he says --

host: can confidence be restored? richard, what do you say? caller: let me tell you a story. i'm a hispanic 60-year-old chemical engineer down here and i have worked in the old is this all my life with nms in chemical engineering. everyone knows me because i'm so old. little young guys, 22, 20 four years old will find me at conferences and asked me sir, how do you feel about illegal immigration and i tell them, hey , if it's illegal, slammed the door. their response is, but those are your people. i said, you are my people, you know? what are you, illegal aliens? what do i have to do with them? you are my brother. it's messed up because the white conservative groups don't have the power anymore and they are not reaching out to us, who are americans and we support them. we are being excluded and that's

all i have to say. host: richard, thanks for sharing your story with us. noah is next. good morning, noah. caller: good morning. can you hear me ok? host: we sure can. thanks for joining us. caller: thank you for your wonderful show. i have two quick comments. the first is that the border states should have the most say so and how those states deal with immigration. in their particular state. texas should have a big say so in how immigration affects their particular state of the border. secondly, oppressed people that want to migrate out of their country should make the first stop into the next closest country that is free of human rights violations. for example, if someone wants to leave, let's say, ethiopia, and

if israel is next, stop off in israel. if someone wants to leave honduras and mexico is the next so-called human rights violations country, let him stop off in mexico. so on and so forth. if these countries that are close to the oppressive regimes, if they don't accept them, maybe the united states should impose some sort of sanctions on these so-called free countries. in other words, people shouldn't have the right to choose any country they go to. it should be countries that have ideals similar to the united states. if those countries don't have similar ideals, then maybe once again we should impose some sort of sanctions on these countries and that's really all i have to say about this subject.

thank you. host: some of the details from politico.com, the op-ed is in line with his past views but puts him at odds with teacher contenders who align more closely with the donald trump hard-line approach immigration issues. ramona is joining us next. caller: it amazes me that the main culprit in the whole immigration system is very silent. in indiana they had they were

paired individual immigrants came with the advertisement to make this money and they went from $26 an hour to $15 an hour. if you are an immigrant, that's a lot of money. if you are an american worker, you got cut almost 50% of your pay. they've got their own community. while the corporations so quiet

when they benefit financially from this? they are the ones who promoted this. i don't understand that. host: the sunday op-ed from george w. bush, bill has a tweet saying amazing, it's been 23 days since kamala harris took over and no visit yet to the border and we have not heard much from her. keep the comments coming in on the twitter page. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. the best channel on television. host: good to hear from you again. caller: it's a world war ii

variant, where they call us the greatest generation and they call this the greatest generation because of two words, the preamble to the constitution . we the people. that's what makes us the greatest nation in the world. we look after each other. it's we, not me. as far as immigration is concerned, he said shining light on the hill. it's slipping with an immigration policy that is no good.

president trump did what he did by kicking out everybody in texas and arizona. that's not what our country is all about. we have to do what's best as far as the world is concerned. but we have to do is something about the immigration policy so that people that come in coming legally and it returns to being a shining light on the hill. host: always good to hear from you, david. you sound healthy and well, 97. caller: i look forward to

celebrating my hundredth birthday. host: no doubt you will make it, david. stay healthy and well. thanks for calling in, we always enjoy hearing from you. that's david, he calls every 30 days, 97 years old. a look at where former president bush does his painting near the ranch in waco, texas -- texas. [video clip] >> the occasion for our visit is the release of his new book. >> welcome to my studio. it's a wonderful place to paint and hang out. >> they are all equally celebrated by the commander-in-chief turned artists.

-- artist. >> when your husband started painting, what did you think? >> i was shocked. he never even looked at our. >> he never expressed an interest before? >> he wasn't at all interested. [laughter] >> what led you to painting? >> in retrospect it was a longing for learning. the presidency is a great learning experience and suddenly you are not president. by chance i read the winston churchill essay, painting is a past and it got me thinking about painting. i thought if that old boy can paint, i can paint. so, i started. >> the paintings turned into the book you're talking about. something president bush said that he regretted he couldn't get through when he was in the white house. out of many, one. it's from the portraits that former president bush has made. as we listen to dave in fayetteville, arkansas.

>> my name is brad. >> good morning. caller: the immigration problem at the border will never end. it's a direct effect of u.s. domestic and foreign policy and until the united states addresses that, the border immigration emergency will never end. host: this is the headline yesterday, all eyes on st. paul minneapolis, live coverage of the derek chauvin trial on c-span two. this is the headline from "usa today," before -- below the fold.

all of the proceedings have been available on our website, c-span.org. mike, greensburg, kentucky, on the issue of immigration, how do you restore confidence in the system? caller: it's a bipartisan issue and always has been. seems like the people who suffer, especially the ones on the border. each time we have a newly elected president, unfortunately this present administration is ignoring the situation and it needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed for all of us and for those people who want to come to the country and hopefully we can do it legally. to ignore it, it's going to manifest and become a problem for the people trying to work there because they are overwhelmed. this administration, you know, the press secretary doesn't want to be asked the question but it has to be addressed and it is a

bipartisan issue and i think that moving forward it's going to become one of the largest issues, larger than what the economy is. it has to be fixed and we have to work together to get it done and that's what this president ran on, working together. but all we are doing assigning executive orders and nonexecutive actions. the only people suffering of the children. host: mike, thank you for the call. this is from grace. when if ever has the immigration system worked for the good of all concerned? the headline this monday from inside of "the washington post," "alexei navalny extremely ill, denied outside doctor, reports that he has only days to live as he has continued his hunger strike for 19 days, claiming that he was poisoned last year by vladimir putin and the russian government.

cookeville, tennessee, independent line, good morning. caller: i too didn't in 2006 and the same question was on the docket then. people were talking about a comprehensive immigration bill and i gave this analogy. it's like the bottom of your water heater has blown out and water is going everywhere so you turn to the wife and you go, well, golly, if this is going to go, what else is going to go? the kitchen faucet, the sink, what about the bathroom in the shower? let's make a plan to go to home depot or lowe's this weekend. we will start picking out things to replace it and in the meantime the water heater is still leaking water throughout your house.

it's forget the comprehensive part of it. just stop the blasted leak. host: thank you for the call. steve with this text message from ohio. my wife immigrated here in 1971 and is sympathetic to the surge and i feel, by contrast, all those who came here illegally, including children, should be sent back, be ready to assimilate, learn english. when you heard -- roberta jacobson is leaving this spring. she will leave the administration as it continues to struggle with high numbers of migrants at the southern border. kamala harris was being put in charge of diplomacy in the region. he has tried to keep his government focused on reviving the u.s. economy and the

pandemic but problems -- host: bacterial phone calls. silver spring, maryland. good morning to you. caller: the constitution says everyone must be included in within that population, members

of the population are selected to join, breaking the integrity of politics and how we govern. they tend to move into neighborhoods where minorities live, bringing crime. it brings crime. another thing to mention culturally because of their numbers, they will change the culture of this country in a significant way. it needs to be changed and it has to be changed for the congress and the senate. thank you. host: below the fold of "the washington post," minneapolis bracing for unrest in the closing arguments today in the derek chauvin trial. jim from franklin, tennessee. caller: i want to repeat with the last lady has said.

i haven't heard anyone else saying it until she just set it. it is the job of the congress to pass a comprehensive immigration policy. it's not the job of the president. so, we have a much bigger problem there in washington, congress won't do its job. it's really, it's really almost a bigger problem until that gets solved. we will never get it solved. i don't know exactly what the problem is in congress with the rules, but they just won't their job. they don't pass a budget. they haven't passed a budget in years. it just seems to me that we are going to have to start right there at home. i guess it could be done. a comprehensive law could be passed. it's going to have to take into account all the errors that have

been made in the past, letting people in who are illegal. somehow dealing with them. i guess my main point is it's not going to get solved. host: milo, the h-1b program is what we already have. comments from your twitter -- comments from twitter, more from "cbs sunday morning," a question on whether or not the book will make a difference. here's more from the interview. [video clip] >> the portraits you have done our beautiful, but how does it change policy? >> it doesn't. but hopefully it creates a better understanding about the role of immigrants in our society. mine is just a small voice.

and what i hope is a chorus of people saying i hope we can solve the problem. host: the full interview with george w. bush is available on the cbs news website. susan faraci will be joining us at the top of the hour. gary and sterling, virginia, republican mine, good morning. caller: thank you very much for taking my call. i have worked for immigrants for over 40 years. in 2005, by the way, george w. bush is concerned about immigrants and the immigration problem. i asked the immigrants i worked with, i worked at 10 different restaurants as a handyman from 94 to 2007 and 2005, when bush was having his guest worker

program, the speech on tv, i came in the back door of the restaurant, everyone was watching and after it was over i asked one immigrant friend of mine i said, what do you want? he said wait a minute, i will get back to you next week. next week he came back and he said two things. first, he wanted help with birth control. the second thing he wanted was a registered worker program. i thought that made all the sense in the world. i mean, everybody had six or seven brothers. you would go to your mother for breakfast, she would give you four or five grains of corn, make a chicken, laying na. those people are hungry down there. host: thank you for the call. as we mentioned, the president will deliver a speech and we

will cover it here on c-span next thursday, marking the 100 day mark of his presidency. today the president will be meeting with democrats and republicans. angus king, jeanne shaheen, charlie crist, and mitt romney, john hogan, kay granger. this is what they call a photo op cool spray. this as he meets with democrats and republicans later today. back to your calls, on the issue of the american immigration system, can confidence be restored in the system? georgian richwood, ohio.

caller: i watch you every morning, you have great diversity. the immigration problem down at the border, i was a veteran and during the vietnam war i watch them build up things at a fast rate over there. i just have a hard time trying to visualize people coming across the border. we can build things quickly to house people. to where they can be taken care of properly. i have a hard time trying to figure out why they don't have the abilities to put up these shelters. they has thousands and thousands of troops.

when we first went over to vietnam, they put up these very fast build houses for everyone and for us not to be able to do it today, to rely on hotels and everything else, i have a hard time understanding this of the country is so great. giving them a chance in this world. as you said earlier, we are a beacon of hope, this country. to allow people to come in legally, not illegally. to house them and get to the -- get them to their families. this as we did during the great war, bringing everybody together. this is getting to be a bad situation and we need to handle it quickly. thank you for the time you have given me and for all the people around the country who watch you

every day, the freedom that you give to each one of us to speak our mind. that is what c-span is all about above the other channels. we appreciate that very much. host: thank you for your service as well. this from juan, governments that don't work south of the bar -- south of the border should be ashamed that their people leave to strange lands in droves. let me go back to why immigration reform failed back in 2007 and we heard from former president bush in may of 2007. he was optimistic over the work with democrats and republicans but it was a month later, june 27, this is the story from reuters, the senate kills the bush immigration reform bill, dealing a fatal blow on thursday to the overhaul of the policy

and dividing americans in the run-up to the presidential election, dashing the hopes of millions of immigrants, falling -- host: let's go to frank in memphis, tennessee. good morning. caller: the immigration problem is a big joke. people in america should be able to get you lysed and be productive citizens, you know? stop trying to pit the blacks against the illegal immigrants, talking about they taking our jobs. they not taking none of our

jobs. we had problems with jobs before they started coming over here illegally. they should be granted all the rights of everyone in the united states. that's what i believe. host: this from "the new york times," this is expected to be completed, the pullout from afghanistan, by the anniversary of 9/11. "with much to lose, women fear a return to the past as the taliban ascends." sheila, oklahoma, morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think until they get the

border resolved, the confidence won't get restored. yes, we need something done. first i was against having the dreamers be able to become a citizen, but if they have been here all their lives that brought by their families, i think they should be. but my concern, and nobody ever brings this up and i have heard this on your program, they talk about finding someone who will be a sponsor for those people. we are paying those sponsors to take those children in. i think they get like $1500 a month. if you have a four-year-old child coming over, i have heard that there is going to be a million people coming across the border if they don't do something. i heard president biden say that

they would make it just 62,000 coming over there. 18,000 undocumented women? host: this is from russell on facebook. simple statement, execute the law. mike is joining us from crescent city. you are on the air. caller: if we went back and look at history, i'm in my mid-70's. seems like in the 1980's when we started invading central america , with immigrants it became a problem ever since then. we went to south america and going into their business. seems like every time we go into another country we mess them up. we create all these problems. if we just look at the history,

this might not have ever happened. host: the conversation continues at our facebook page. a reminder that this program is on c-span radio, be sure to listen there. a busy week for congress and the white house, we will get the breakdown. later the national education reporter from "the washington post" joins us to talk about student loan proposals. it continues this monday morning. will be back in a moment. ♪ >> the house meets today at noon eastern for morning our. 2 p.m. eastern for legislative business. lawmakers plan to consider a bill starting the process for the district of columbia to become a state. another bill barr's discrimination of foreign

visitors to the u.s. continuing work on anti-asian hate crimes legislation today, working on lisa monaco to be the deputy attorney general. later this week senators begin work on the they are expected to work on infrastructure legislation. watch live coverage of the house on c-span, the senate on c-span2, and anytime at c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. created by america's table -- cable television companies in 1979. we provide c-span2 viewers as a public service. -- c-span to viewers as a public

service. >> "washington journal" continues. host: a busy agenda here in washington. susan ferrechio is the chief correspondent for the washington examiner. let's talk about the senate today taking up hate crimes aimed at asian americans and pacific islanders. what would it do? guest: it could change because i think there may be amendments. he would dedicate somebody at the justice department to oversee and ensure that the hate crimes aimed at asian americans are followed closely. it seems straightforward enough. there has been a rise in hate crimes against asian americans in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. congress is caught up in politics. republicans would like to amend

the bill to broaden it. they would like a more broad hate crimes provision. because of that fight, there is a slow down in process right now. both sides seem to believe that by this week, they will be able to pass something, probably a little more broader than what the democrats in the senate support. republicans saw it as a political move by democrats in relation to former president trump and his labeling of the coronavirus pandemic as tied to china. republicans do not want to get caught up in that. that is where the argument is right now. it is anticipated that the legislation will be settled and moved this week. host: the house taking up the issue of statehood for washington, d.c., expected to pass in the house. what will the senate do?

guest: this is one of president biden's 100-day priorities. the house passed it in 2019 on a partyline vote and it is expected to pass again along the same political lines this week before the house leaves town. that bill will go to the senate and it is not -- it is going to be stuck there. it does not have full support by democrats. they would have to get rid of the filibuster. they would have to get coordination among their own party to agree to this amendment. some lawmakers feel that adding a new state would dilute the power of the existing 50 states. it has a lot of support, though. for democrats, you would add two democratic senators. politically desirable for them

to move something like this. it is not completely approved by all the moderates in the party. i predict that is going to stall for a while in the senate along with a lot of other things they are having a hard time moving because of their own party and their own factions in their own party. host: which leads to this headline -- house democrats hitting the brakes on a liberal wish list. the speaker of the house threw cold water on the idea last week. guest: she did that pretty definitively. the judiciary committee is going to move legislation to expand the supreme court to 13 members. right there, -- right now, there are nine. this was a campaign issue. people on the left push that, saying we want to balance the court out.

on the opposite side, you have republicans campaigning saying, look at how the democrats want to radicalize the country. they want to expand the supreme court. last time they tried to this during fdr, the democrats shut down their own presidents effort to expand the court. labeling it court packing, and unfair move to politicize the judicial branch. it is a real political hot potato. nancy pelosi threw it back to the judiciary committee. i think what democrats would like to do is put it on hold by saying, president biden has already said there is a commission forming to study expanding the court. that buys them time and shows they are doing something to address the base in the party and their desire to balance the court out, which they feel has gone far too conservative.

president was able to confirm three picks to the supreme court. that very much vexed the democratic party and thought they did not get their fair shot during the obama administration. host: let's turn to infrastructure. the president sitting down in the oval office this afternoon. some democrats and republicans, including mitt romney and kay granger, and yesterday, this from fox news sunday from chris wallace. the question in terms of whether or not the democrats are giving the republicans enough room to negotiate a bipartisan deal. >> democrats connect bipartisan to pass part of the bill but

they ran the rest of it through on a partyline reconciliation vote. >> the broader question you are asking, what is in it for the country and what is in it for the people we represent from our state if republicans and democrats work together to solve problems? if we come together in a bipartisan way to pass that $800 billion infrastructure bill that you were talking about that i have been urging, we show our people that we can solve their problems. we have all agreed for a long time that we need to invest more in american infrastructure. we disagree on how to pay for it. we should roll up our sleeves and sit down and find ways that both parties can support to make these critically needed investments. that is here at home. chris, is critical for our standing in the world. the worst thing that could happen to xi jinping, that would ruin his day, would be for him

to see republicans and democrats working together in the house and senate to solve the problems facing the american people. host: susan ferrechio -- joining him was john cornyn. he had this response. >> in the interest of bipartisanship, i will agree that the senator is half right. there is a core infrastructure bill that we could pass with appropriate pay-fors to pay for roads and bridges and even reaching out to broadband. we have seen advances in telemedicine, more people learning online. i think we can all agree to that. that is the part we can agree on. let's do it and leave the rest for another day. host: that was texas senator john cornyn. susan ferrechio, what is going on? guest: the audio told the story.

both parties are very, very far apart on what they want for infrastructure in terms of the size and scope of the bill and how to pay for it. they are so far apart, it seems impossible that they would ever cut any kind of deal. they would pass it in two parts. they would do this core infrastructure bill that republicans would find appealing and pass that, depending on how they would pay for. part two would include this broader idea of what democrats leave infrastructure to be. health care, child care, all kinds of things, green energy initiatives. you have some republicans who say, maybe i could do a two-part deal. give my constituents the notion that i am working to improve infrastructure. you have democrats who do not

like that idea either. they want it all together. once you break things up, stuff can get pushed to the sidelines. you do the stuff that is bipartisan the most. and maybe the second part is left behind. i think the audio told the story. they are very far apart and on top of that, which is not included in what they were just saying, they would like to do this by the summer. if they start moving this into an election year, democrats would like to pay for this with some tax increases. the corporate tax increase, state tax increase, things that may not affect people at certain income levels, it is still a tax increase. democrats want to get this through as quickly as they can to show that president biden is

receiving -- achieving this goal on infrastructure. what i predict is they will circumvent republicans using that special budgetary tactic called reconciliation. it is how you pass things with 51 votes. it narrows what can be in the bill. i think that is ultimately where the party is going to go with this. they control the house and senate and the white house. they have this greenlight that will probably be temporary. they would like to get this done , so they do not have a lot of time to go back and forth with republicans. biden is listening. he had a meeting with republicans last week and is having another one this week. he would really have to take the lead on this and say, look, democrats, we will agree to some

of the things republicans want. so far, it is just listening. that is what happened with the covid-19 package. it seems they are on that path right now given the time parameters and the huge difference between the two parties. host: you can watch the house debate on c-span and the senate debate on c-span2. susan ferrechio -- our phone lines are open. peter, republican line. caller: good morning. nice to see you back. susan, nice to see you also. i have been a republican since 1980, since i voted for ronald reagan, and i have never been more frustrated with the republican party than i am now. i saw the new jersey governor

come out the other day and say republicans need to get more aggressive. he is absolutely right. they are always on defense and never on offense. the democrats never apologize for any of the things they say. this has been an area of frustration for me, particularly when marjorie taylor greene was taken off her committees because of some stupid things she had said in the past. during the russia investigation, eric swalwell and adam schiff were coming out every day and lying saying there was misinformation on president trump when they all knew it was not true. kevin mccarthy did not take them off the intelligence committee. i do not get it. same thing with liz cheney. they voted to keep her in

leadership after she voted to impeach our president. i wish i had another alternative. what is your comment, susan? guest: i think you are talking about feelings a lot of people in the republican party have right now. the storyline about republicans has been a party divided. one of the main political characters who helped sort of highlight the dividing line was president trump because too many voters, he was fearless -- to many voters, he was fearless and unapologetic. he did get a lot done. of course, he divided the party. he also suffered a lot of criticism. the voters are frustrated with their own party and some are frustrated because they do not like president trump. they are more of the political feeling that republicans should

play bipartisanship more, should avoid big clashes with democrats, get rid of lawmakers like marjorie taylor greene. there is a real dividing line in the party right now. it will play out in the 2022 elections, especially if the former president gets involved and starts endorsing and campaigning for people. you will see those lines even more. host: louisiana on the republican line with susan ferrechio. caller: good morning, thank you for accepting my call. my question is i watched the senators yesterday. senator cornyn commented that president biden did not hold

enough news conferences. did he think that president biden was really running things or was he slow in reacting? he did not say that but he indicated that. i would like to know how the guest feels about president biden not holding very many news conferences. guest: following president trump, whose availability to the press was legendary. he was always talking to the press, whether it was on the lawn before departing on a helicopter. he would give impromptu press briefings. he was really available and a lot of people criticized that because it opened him up to a lot of controversial statements.

his tangling with the press -- some people loved it and some people thought it was a terrible idea. what biden is doing is going back to prior administrations who were not as available. there is a comparison that he has given fewer press conferences. i believe that is true. he does not make himself available to reporters, and reporters have complained about that. there is no law or rule about how available the president wants to make himself. if the party can get away with less, less dealing with the press and having to talk about things that are tough for the president -- for example, the border problem -- the administration is having a hard

time dealing with that, if he is avoiding questions, the headlines are not there. there is always an opportunity for a gafe. -- gaffe. it is very easy to mess up when you're dealing with today's press court. it is easier for him to have fewer press conferences. you have jen psaki, who handles herself pretty well during the daily press briefings. i think it is working. his approval ratings are pretty good, except on some issues. as long as he can keep sailing along at this pace, i expect -- i don't expect biden to start making himself available to the press the wait president trump dead. -- president trump did. host: this is from senator

graham of south carolina. last night, he said, we will see if general biden and general trump's strategy turns out to be sound policy. guest: i think the republicans immediately criticize that plan because they gave a hard deadline, which has always been something military operatives oppose because it shows your hand. it gives all kinds of time to plan. afghanistan has been this unsolvable problem for the u.s. military and our government. we have been trying to withdraw in a way that leads to the least amount of violence. the violence has continued their. -- violence there. there are two factions in afghanistan and they will keep clashing with each other. every attempt to pull out troops has led to criticism and

problems. the democrats have long wanted out of afghanistan. they criticized it when they -- when president trump said he was pulling troops out of afghanistan. there is that observation that people are making about when trump wanted to get the troops out in a phased out way. the hard deadline approach is something that has always been opposed by republicans because they think it is dangerous and that is why you saw senator lindsey graham tweet. biden's military advisors will be there today briefing some members of the senate about this withdrawal plan. i anticipate you will hear a lot of criticism from republicans when they come out because of the fear that this will put our troops in danger and put more people in afghanistan in danger of the ongoing violence because of these warring factions. host: we are talking to susan

ferrechio. caller: hi. how are you? the only comment i have to make -- i am a disabled veteran. i am really frustrated with the link -- length of the whole afghanistan thing. 20 years and the saying is if we leave now, they will take back over, but it has been going on for thousands of years. i do not understand. that is my only comment. host: thank you, and good luck to you. guest: a lot of people want our involvement to end. it has been two decades.

the war began after september 11, two thousand one, because the origins of the -- 2001, because the origins of the terrorist attack were there. why are we still involved? we are still putting our own men and women in uniform in danger. we are not really getting anywhere. there are persistent problems with terror attacks. on the other hand, there is a fit -- there is a fear that it creates a vacuum that makes more room for terrorist nations to thrive and presents a danger to america as they did 20 years ago. and to the region. it is destabilizing the region because of the advent of terror organizations.

that has been the big debate about the middle east, our involvement about the whole area. how are influence -- how our influence and keeping the terror organizations at bay. that is where the debate lies. there is this feeling that we were there for 20 years and two kind of abandon ship, what about the effort to try to bring peace to the area? that is where the debate is. it has now been 20 years and biden has laid down a marker. i am getting the troops out, and i am ending this. he is getting pretty favorable reviews, other than republicans. there is really not a lot he can do because he is the commander-in-chief and he is

declaring his mission to get the troops out. it sounds like that is what is going to happen. host: new york, republican line. we lost karen. caller: good morning. i do not know who the woman is that you have on your screen but i have more or less a general question, and i am a registered independent voter. i cannot believe that republicans, democrats, and independents would not be outraged that -- i want to know where the ethics committee is when you have someone like maxine waters, second time, calling for violence and a people -- upheival. host: susan ferrechio is the

chief congressional correspondent for the washington examiner. maxine waters getting a lot of attention along with marjorie taylor greene. guest: you have an interesting fight in congress about rhetoric. it was elevated after the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol where the democrats impeached the president in the house. they pointed to his rhetoric as part of the reason for impeachment they say that led to the violent attack on the u.s. capitol, that he stirred up the violence and rioters and encourage them to attack. the two parties go back and forth on rhetoric. one of the more interesting parts of the impeachment trial, and you can find this on c-span where the republican -- the defense team plays a montage of lawmakers, democratic lawmakers using rhetoric that sounds like

they are calling on people to commit violent acts. it is there political rhetoric -- their political rhetoric. maxine waters has called for a more specific action. get up in people's faces. tell them they are not welcome. her comment in the wake of what is going on in minneapolis where things are really tense because of the trial going on. people feel like she should be called out because republicans are always called out. maxine waters, not only a democrat under the house, she is a leader, head of the financial services committee, longtime leader of the house. on the other hand, you have democrats who voted in an unprecedented move to remove a house republican from her

committee assignments because they did not like some of the things she said that they thought were dangerous prior to her being elected. it was not what she did in office. now you have this escalating war between two parties. there was a detente for a few decades. that seems to be returning. that is why you saw the removal of marjorie taylor greene. the house has installed metal detectors at the doors specifically there to moderate members. it is to monitor members. she says democrats are fearful of republicans bringing in weapons. things have gone to a level -- i have been covering congress a long time.

a lot of it comes from what people are saying. maxine waters, she has said something again and she has everybody paying attention. there are protests in the street. it seems as though she is calling for more of that. last night, the minority leader kevin mccarthy said he will take some kind of action if the house does not to deal with maxine waters. they cannot do much but they can bring it to the floor and force a vote on it. it is a procedural vote. it will be defeated because the democrats will stick together on. for me, this demonstrates what i see as an escalating war between the parties right now. it has made all the more intense

because the 2022 election is a year or so away and the democrats have a tiny majority. the republicans are looking for an opportunity, too. they see the opportunity to retake the house. i anticipate this kind of thing getting worse as the months go by and more of these conflicts between the two parties. host: this is a headline from fox news. the republican leader issuing a rebuke that would promote anglo-saxon traditions. this idea has been nixed. it was the subject of chuck todd's conversation with john boehner. >> i have no idea how this even showed up. i can tell you that this

so-called america first caucus is one of the nuttiest things i have ever seen. america is the land of immigration. we have been the world's giant melting pot for 250 years. we have to celebrate the fact that we are this giant melting pot. to see some members of congress start this america first caucus is the silliest thing i have ever seen. republicans need to denounce it. >> by their definition of immigration, they should say there should not be asian american citizenship. i do not realize -- i do not think people realize how cruel this is. >> is awfully cruel. it has no place in the republican party. my biggest regret is not being able to come to an agreement

with president obama on an immigration reform bill. our immigration system is a mess. it is broken. needs to be fixed so that it is fairer for americans who are here and fairer for those trying to get here. host: that was john boehner. guest: it circles back to one of the first callers who expressed frustration with the republican party. you still see that divide. john boehner is of the mindset that for a more cooperative republican party and very much opposed to the newcomers who are more trumpian candidates, like marjorie taylor greene and some others who might push forward an agenda. i will have to interview her and ask about the bill. i cannot imagine paul gosar

putting forth something that would ban asian americans from being citizens. it has been scuttled, i know that. republicans are very wary of looking like they are too far to the right. you have mccarthy saying, i do not endorse this. i do not know what it is. trying to bring in, increase their votes amongst newcomers to america. they want more hispanics voting for them. they want to increase their base. it would not make sense for those -- for them to endorse something like this. we are worried about immigration at the border. and then you have people like marjorie taylor greene and others who want to put forward an agenda that would appear to

repress that. it is not sitting well, and i suspect that it will be completely scuttled. it does raise the issue of the divide in the republican party. host: more details at washingtonexaminer.com. thank you for being with us. we will continue the conversation and more on the issue of protect -- repayment of student loans. we will check with danielle douglas-gabriel. later, from the university of michigan center of the history of medicine, the history of vaccine passports. washington journal continues in just a moment. ♪ >> sunday, may 2, alive

conversation with author and new york times columnist who writes about politics, religion, moral values, and education. >> progress has not ceased but it is progress in long a specific -- progress along a specific dimension. it leads people to spend more time in virtual reality and to retreat from certain types of economic activity and to bring us to another force. retreat from family formation. >> his latest book is the decadent society. join in the conversation with your phone calls, text, and tweets sunday, may second, at noon eastern.

>> c-span's long-running series book notes is back as a podcast. in-depth interviews with authors and historians. new episodes are available on tuesday morning. it is a new weekly podcast from c-span. subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. go to c-span.org/podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: danielle douglas-gabriel is a higher education reporter for the washington post. thank you for being with us we are dividing our phone lines a little differently as we focus on student loans and the issue of debt forgiveness.

if you support the idea, (202) 748-8000. if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001 . if you have student loans, (202) 748-8002. let's begin with a status report. what is the debate? guest: thank you for having me. the biden administration is reviewing its legal authority to use executive action to cancel up to $50,000. recently, his chief of staff says they are reviewing the authority to cancel up to $50,000, which would be in line with what the more progressive wing of the party wants. senator schumer and senator warren have been pushing the issue of $50,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. host: how does that happen?

legislatively, executive orders? guest: this would be through executive order. there was a time when biden administration wanted congress to take up the issue. at this stage, the senators would like a simple more streamlined approach and having the president addressed the issue rather than trying to go through congress, even with this majority, is more beneficial. host: part of the debate, for those families who did not take out any loans, is there a sense of this being unfair? guest: this has become a heavily partisan issue. republicans -- no republicans have come out in support of this. there is an issue of fairness and moral hazard, encouraging people to borrow more. there is argument that there are

lots of programs and benefits that work as a social safety net that all americans do not benefit from. if you work to eliminate this debt, they can redeploy that money into the economy, purchasing homes and cars. host: is there an income limit in terms as to who would qualify? guest: not at the moment. there is some discussion. i've heard some people may be people who are making under one out of $25,000. -- $125,000. there is not yet an income cap. i imagine that will be on the table. host: the total student debt amount exceeding $1.7 trillion

and that accounts to about 44.7 million americans who have student loan debt. the average monthly payment is about $300. this number pre-pandemic, just over 11% of student loans were delinquent or in default. guest: we are having a repayment problem in this country in the sense that the current repayment structure is exceedingly complicated. it is easy for people to fall through the cracks. we cannot do this without addressing the problem. the way that people are repaying them. there are lots of folks who have defaulted in the middle of the pandemic. there has to be a way to think about how you address existing

problems in the system for people who are in it as well as people coming into it. there are scores of young folks who have not yet graduated who are taking on this debt. they are going to come into a payment system that is really difficult to navigate. host: in terms of that, if you are about to enter college, taking out loans. four years from now you graduate and you have $75,000 in loan debt, would they qualify for this? or is this a one-time -- >> guest: this is being proposed as a one-time deal. this is meant to alleviate the financial burden for folks as it relates to the pandemic. people with federal loans, 95%

of people with federal loans have not had to make payments as a form of relief. democrats would like to extend that and give those folks a clear slate as much as they can. in order to help restart the economy in a meaningful way to think about what it would mean in terms of house purchases, car purchases, other kinds of economic activity. host: our guest covers higher education for the washington post, danielle douglas-gabriel. her work is available at washingtonpost.com. the idea of student loan forgiveness -- caller: i like the idea of forgiving the loan but i think you should have something a person should pay back.

100 hours of community service for every $10,000 forgiven. a person can accomplish that in two years. host: what about that idea? guest: that is similar to something candidate joe biden campaigned on. this program is supposed to offer loan forgiveness after 10 years of work within the public sector or the nonprofit space. it has had lots of problems in terms of people thinking they were making qualified payments and finding out they were not. that is what i mean by needing to reform the structure in place. there are different forms of programs that involve some level of debt forgiveness based on service.

all of those programs have lots of faults that make it very easy for folks, even the most well-meaning folks to fall through the cracks. host: georgia, all supporting this idea of forgiving student loans. caller: this is timely and needed discussion as it relates to our innovative economy and future for our young people. and for families. let's get -- the first thing that president biden come within hours, he did suspend student loan debt that was a part of the cares program until september 2021. i support student loan debt and i have young people. they are in a different category

because they can pay. we also have merit programs. we have merit programs whereby the student loan forgiveness debt that was part of the trump -divorce -- trump-betsy devos debacle. we fund the residency through medicaid. not the hospitals, private funding. we also have merit programs. this is political. we are going to have to make a decision about the values in this country. we did it with the g.i. bill. we did not concern ourselves

with who could pay. we said doctors, engineers -- we have to create the new future economy. we must make a moral decision. we are creating the foundation for the future for this country. these are political decisions. they have merit programs. those people, upper middle income children, basing it on tests and gpas, they are receiving student debt forgiveness. they get that that is a political decision. -- that is a political decision. we are saying, that is a moral hazard.

i do not consider it moral hazard. host: thank you for the call. let me add two other voices. if they waived the debt, they must also give those who recently paid debt some credit. it will cause much rage that will be amplified in the media. ann opposes this idea. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i oppose paying off someone else's debt. i never hear any discussion -- because this will be taxpayer-funded, i am assuming -- for the people who chose not to go to college, who do not have children in college. forcing them to pay others' debts. i do not even see any discussion

of if they are going to move forward with this legislation that people are not even required to pay back the principal on their loans. they already get it subsidized. they do not pay any interest. when they get out of school, we are supposed to pick up the entire debt. makes no sense. it is there debt and their problem -- their debt and their problem. this is not a comparison to public education. host: what are you hearing from these callers? guest: i am hearing a lot of the arguments folks who are for and against this have raised over the last few months. in the last few years. it is interesting to see this rise to the level of being a potential federal policy where

there were activists who have been pressing this idea of debt forgiveness for several years. i think to the caller's point about subsidizing the interest, there are two different types of federal loans offered to students while they are in undergrad. there are low income students whose loans are often subsidized by the federal government. there are scores of students where that is not the case for them. the other issue is yeah, there are lots of people who will definitely benefit in terms of the earnings they are able to achieve. college graduates, as we do know, are able to weather economic crises. let's be clear that of the 44.7

million people, a lot of folks did not graduate. they went to schools that closed in the middle of that program. they went to predatory schools. i've spoken to borrowers along that spectrum and there tends to be a narrow narrative about who owes money and what responsibilities they have when it is a lot more nuanced and complicated than that. host: susan ferrechio --danielle douglas-gabriel covers higher education for the washington post. why would you take out a $50,000 loan to get some degree that pays you $12-$15 an hour? caller: good morning. presently, i owe $20,000 in

debt to the art institute of pittsburgh. the new york times said it was the biggest fraud in academia when the department of justice suited them for fraud. -- sued them for fraud. the art institute is bankrupt. they have a supposed repayment and forgiveness program, which i applied for called the debt forgiveness application. borrowers defense to loan repayment. the art institute has a fund that is supposed to make me whole. betsy devos said on my application for 3.5 years -- sat on my application for 3.5 years, and then denied it. i am a victim of a crime. i have paid well over $15,000 on

the $12,000 i borrowed and i still owe $20,000. when you have defaulted on a loan and you have established repayment, you first pay on interest, then on fees, collection fees, and then you pay on the principal. i still owe more than half of the principal. i am 62. i am going into my retirement years and they can still collect on my social security check. host: when did you graduate? caller: 1985 after four years in the military. i was steered towards this college by a recruiter, by my local guidance counselor. the recruiters paid the guidance

counselors one dollars -- $100 ahead -- $100 a head. host: you are still paying the loans today at 62? caller: i worked 50 different jobs. i never got a decent job for my degree at the art institute of pittsburgh even though i attained dean's list four times out of eight quarters. i was an honor student with an awesome portfolio of artwork. this was before the age of computers. i cannot possibly research whether this was a legitimate for-profit college, which they called trade schools back in the 1970's and 1980's. host: thank you for sharing your story with us. your thoughts? guest: certainly, a portion of

the debt we are seeing are coming from these sorts of schools. at the time the caller went to school, there was no reason to think that school was not legitimate. the department of education was offering loan money to be able to go to those schools. i interview lots of people who feel a great amount of shame because of their debt. thinking they should have been smart enough to identify problems in the system, that they should have been smart enough to know that the school was fraudulent. these schools are accredited and supported by the federal government through this program and there is this level of trust . there is an authority to believe the schools are good. why shouldn't i go there?

yes, there is this program that is supposed to make whole students defrauded by their schools. for the last several years, there have been 180,000 applications for this. 90% of which are coming from for-profit schools seeking forgiveness. i feel like this idea of student debt is far more complicated than people characterize it. we live in a country with a very vast and diverse expansive higher education system and everything after college accounts for higher education. there are varying points within that system where people could be led astray or make choices that could affect them the rest of their lives.

sometimes they are fully educated about the schools. and certainly, there is personal responsibility. but there are problems within the system that allows for that. i think that has to be addressed within any conversation about debt cancellation. how do we address the problems in the existing system? host: president biden asking his education secretary to see if he can legally cancel student debt. this tweet says public colleges should charge only a minimal tuition. universities could charge a little more. i have mixed feelings about private universities. i attended state-funded educations. i am to pay for graduates from brown university or vanderbilt.

georgia, student loan debt. good morning. caller: good morning. i have student loans. i have $90,000 worth of student loans, what i also have a graduate degree. it was one of the best programs in the nation. however, i feel like student financial aid overall needs to be revamped. i was also a financial aid advisor after grad school and these kids are taking on loans and they do not understand what it means. something should be done about private loans and parent plus loans because the amount of interest that accumulates on the loans are ridiculous. it is predatory lending. that is probably what is going on. you signed up and you don't

understand that you cannot file bankruptcy on federal loans. it is affecting my finances. i cannot buy a house. i cannot have kids because it is literally a mortgage payment. host: how old are you? caller: i've accepted that i probably will never pay it back, even though i'm in the public service loan forgiveness program. that program is a complete fraud. i think something needs to be done. host: we will get a response, thanks for sharing your story and your call. did you want to respond? guest: the caller brought up two issues. there are between 6 million parents with parent plus loans, loans would government gives to parents to help fund their children's education and the loans are interesting. the interest rate tends to be

between 6% and 7% plus origination fees. that is pretty expensive lending even though the terms are probably in terms of the protections are better than what they might be in the private market. we are seeing some of the fastest-growing categories are people 50 and older as well as black borrowers. black borrowers in part because not having family resources in order to pay for college, a lot of black folks do end up going to college and borrowing more and borrowing more often. that is and also -- that is also an important thing to note. people are making decisions about their financial lives based on the idea that this debt will carry with them forever. i want to be clear that student loans are and can be an investment in your education and the long-term possibilities for your career, so it's not just that debt is bad it is that the

system and structure in which we have needs reforms to make it manageable for the people who currently have that and people who need to do that to obtain a better equality of life and contribute to society in a full and meaningful way. host: this coming from town square on our twitter page, @cspanwj. no discussion of forgiving debt can be fair when it -- until it considers that a loans were issued to people regardless of ability and income to pay, that is what makes the interest on these loans predatory. the priority by the biden administration includes public loan forgiveness by the federal government, -- brenda is joining us from greenville, north carolina. your point of view on this? caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm very concerned. this is something they have

opposed. where we stand in america, everybody's job is up in the air. they have already been to school for work, there is no work. they have to start with something new. why can't everyone start on the same page and reach out and help one another? there are people from other countries in debt. [indiscernible] let's help each other. let's help these young people get a fresh start. thank you very much. host: thank you, brenda. matt joining us from carmel, new york. -- caller: i support the idea of forgiving the loans, but i think we should approach this in a way, we have to fix this problem. one of the ways i think we could fix it is we have the students that are struggling to declare

bankruptcy. if we do this we are allowing this so-called kind of free money because the way the loan is like free money, it would be better as to how to the students are going to be able to repay the loan. to me the tuitions are growing so fast, it's because of that, and it's just a business of making money, they are not thinking about the students. i don't think the tuitions are realistic. 400 for a credit, 1500 for one class, that doesn't make any sense to me. >> let me bring in one more choice. -- one more voice. kenny from georgia. go ahead. caller: i think it's an excellent idea because if you think back to 2008, all the banks got bailed out, and all the people got foreclosed on. this is a way to make things fair, and you have a lot of

these middle-class kids who took out these loans, like somebody tweeted earlier, these kids are working at starbucks. they have degrees that are worthless, and it's the governments fault, the government backed out on loans and let these kids take out the money. i think the government should do the right thing and do the debt forgiveness up to $50,000 and no stipulations, one time deal. biden would be the greatest president ever and he has a lot of democratic camp it with the same boat. they would come over to the democratic party. thank you. host: danielle douglas-gabriel, even hearing both sides. what's the timeline for this to be put in place if approved by the white house? danielle: we are fuzzy on the timeline. the administration has for the last two months telling been telling us they are reviewing the authority for the president

to cancel this much money in debt. the more liberal wing of the democratic party is still pressing the president to make a decision within the next month or two. it's uncertain at this stage as to whether that will happen. our understanding is at least before the moratorium on student loan payments which ends in september is lifted there should be some position either way. host: danielle douglas-gabriel, she couplers higher education for the washington post. thank you for being with us. danielle: thank you for having me. host: coming up we will turn our attention took covid-19 and talked to howard markel with the university of michigan to give us history on the idea of vaccination passports with the center of the history of medicine. c-span's washington journal continues in a moment. ♪[washington journal theme plays]

announcer: today, closing arguments in the derek chauvin trial. watch live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two, on live on c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. live coverage at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. listen to c-span's podcast "the weekly." this week house majority whip james clyburn chair of the congressional black caucus talks about the history of the group and its priorities moving forward. rep. clyburn:: stay in touch with the dreams and aspirations of the people who look to you for leadership, not necessarily who you may represent. i'm the only african-american in the congress from south carolina , but south carolina is a state

of over 4 million people and right around 29% of whom are african-americans. i have one of the seven districts, there are african-americans and all of those districts who looked to me to help with the fulfillment of their dreams and aspirations. and the congressional black caucus has that same role to play on the national stage. announcer: find c-span's "the weekly" wherever you get your podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: every monday at this hour we take a closer look at covid-19, where we are in the pandemic, more than a year after the first cases were here in the united states. well over a year since it came from wuhan, china. joining us from ann arbor, michigan is dr. howard markel, the director for the history of

medicine at the university of michigan. thank you for being with us. dr. markel: hi, i am fondly here. host: thank you for joining us. tell us about your center. dr. markel: i direct the center for the history of medicine at the university of michigan. we have a collection of physicians, phd's in the history of medicine, and other scholars who try to understand how the profession of medicine and health care and disease has unfolded over the last many thousands of years. one of the great joys of doing that is to use those lessons to apply to the present. we've been doing that through the university of michigan, i think this is my 30th year at the university of michigan. i've been here a while doing that. host: it includes archival material including some posters

like this one. it reads "parents of earth, are your children fully immunized?" where did this come from? dr. markel: i'm not seeing that poster right now so i can't look at it. there is a whole series of posters that go back from the early 20th century well into thewpa -- into the wpa project, so without looking at the poster it's hard to tell the exact era. this is been going on for about 100 years. host: what is a vaccine passport? what is its history? dr. markel: that's a funny phrase that has caught the media's attention and the public at large, a new term similar to vaccine hesitancy. we have always had vaccine passports, they may not have been called vaccine passports,

but as a very young person in baltimore in the 1980's i would always sign a little passport or piece of paper, it was made out of cardboard or other sturdy construction, it would date each of my immunizations, and that child would have to present, or the mother of the child would have to present that passport to start school. this isn't that long ago. with the great movement of vaccine hesitancy, vaccine -- philosophical differences, religious differences, and if you would like to opt out of vaccines a lot of state laws in the past have been recalibrated and religious purposes may be one reason but philosophical differences is not and that is coming up today. for someone who studies infectious disease for more than

half of my life and the history of infectious diseases the same time, i am just baffled by this processed about a piece of paper that says you had a vaccine. that is listed somewhere anyway. you are getting your cd -- your cd through the cdc and the hospital undertaking your name. that information is there and this makes the information so much more readily available going forward when you want to travel somewhere or what have you. the type of documents that have been around for a hundred years and maybe 150 or more we knew about infectious diseases you had to have a passport that said you weren't traveling directly from the port that was having an epidemic. host: there is pushback from a number of lawmakers including republican congressman matt rosendale who represents montana and he said the following quote,

proposed vaccine passport systems are of gross violation of the rights of every american and make their own personal health care choices. they are a mandate that force individuals to either be vaccinated against their wishes or be denied access to the most basic functions of our society." the issue came up at a recent white house press briefing. >> -- given to a federally organized vaccine passport of some time. does the president see that as some kind of pool that can be -- tool that can be used or does -- press sec. psaki: the government is not now nor will we be supporting a system that requires americans to carry a credential. there will be federal back ssent -- there'll be no federal vaccination database or no one will be required to have a vaccination potential. tools are being considered by

the private and nonprofit central -- americans rights and privacy should be protected so that these systems are not used against people unfairly. there is a movement in the private sector to identify ways that they can return to events where there are large swaths of people safely in soccer stadiums or theaters, and that's something, that's where the idea originated and they expect that's where it will be concluded. we will be providing some guidance which will look like an faq, frequently act -- frequently asked question that provides important answers to questions americans have around concerns about privacy, security or discrimination. i don't have an exact date. >> based on what you hear from lawmakers in the white house, where is this idea? dr. markel: with all due respect to the congressman from montana i think he has to learn a great deal about public health history and public health law at the

state and federal levels. there have been mandates for vaccines for at least 100 years. there's even supreme court cases , the most famous is jace s jacobson versus -- jacobson verse massachusetts, that mandated for jacobson to take a smallpox vaccine even though he did not want to because he was endangering the lives of others. mr. congressman, and i would say this to the press secretary because she has an obligation to know a little more than this than the questioner. mr. congressman, you are wrong. you are encouraging people not to get vaccinated, we are not getting out of this terrible pandemic until we do so. shame on you. learn more about science, learn more about medicine before you start taking the banner of my personal privacy. do you think your employer is going to let you work if you are not vaccinated?

do you think your school is going to let you go back to school if you don't get vaccinated? so whether the federal government does or a company or some other thing does it there is going to be some type of evidence that you have been vaccinated. if you can't display that that is your choice. choices have consequences. i would be delighted to speak with the press secretary and the congressman from montana to explain not only why they are wrong but how we can better protect the health of our country, it's as simple as that. host: ducting to how -- talking to dr. howard markel, the director of the history of medicine at the university of michigan. our phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 if you live in the eastern or central time zones. for those of you out west, (202) 748-8001. another part of this debate,

seeing this over the weekend in oregon, considering a permanent mask rule. here are details courtesy of the associated press. oregon is poised to go in -- a top health official is considering indefinitely extending rules requiring masks and social distancing in all businesses in the state of oregon. the proposal would keep the rule in place until they are no longer necessary to address the effects of the pandemic in the work place. where has that argument been historically echo dr. markel: -- been historically echo -- been historically? dr. markel: as a physician in the 21st-century i find it hard that i have to go on c-span and verify that it's right. of course it's right. there is a terrible pandemic going around getting millions of people sick and killing people.

this whole red versus blue, you are taking my rights versus your rights, my privacy versus your whatever. this is all nonsense. this has nothing to do with public health or fighting a pandemic. this has to do with one politician trying to fight another politician over issues that are really damaging to the health of this nation. and so i plead with our lawmakers and i plead with our president and our international health services. we must get a handle. it's already been over a year. it's not going away suddenly. we're all in this together, what's the big deal? one second. i'm getting out of my drawer if i can find it my passport. my real passport. here's my real passport. i opened up and i make sure that

my immunization card is right in there. that's my passport isn't it? we all have these pieces of paper if we've gotten vaccinated. we use them to get into somewhere. this doesn't make sense. host: courtesy of johns hopkins university that has been keeping track of covid-19 since the beginning. more than 100 41 million cases worldwide. a global death toll has exceeded 3 million in 192 countries and regions around the world. the issue of rights came up with dr. anthony found she. he testified before a house committee and had this -- did the exchange with ohio converse -- ohio congressman jim jordan. dr. fauci: this will end when we get the level low, the level is high that weathers a major -- >> over the last year americans first amendment rights have been attacked. your right to go to church,

you're right to go to assemble, freedoms have all been assaulted. for a year now americans haven't been able to go to church. even today when they go to church they are limited and the size of worshipers that can meet your right to assemble. oh my goodness. we had a curfew last fall in ohio. in vermont when you are in your home you didn't have to wear a mask dr. fauci because you weren't allowed to have people over to your house. dr. fauci: congressman jordan -- >> for a year american citizens haven't been able to come to their capital to petition their government, to talk to their representatives, and freedom of the press, these very pictures that representative scully showed you, the press isn't allowed in those facilities. the biden administration will allow the press in there. and certainly freedom of speech. the governor of the third largest state meets with

physicians and that nvidia is censored because -- that video is censored because they dared to disagree with dr. fauci. when do americans get their first amendment liberties back? dr. fauci: i don't think anything was censored because they felt they couldn't disagree with me. you are making this a personal thing. you are. that is exactly what you're doing. host: that was front and center last week on a lot of attention. your reaction? dr. markel: good for dr. fauci. i don't see why a congressman who the right to assault, intimidate, and denigrate literally the world's expert in infectious diseases. we are blessed to have anthony found she as the law -- anthony found she as our longtime head of the institute of allergies

and infectious diseases. what is he talking about that we are protecting people from? first of all, there is no restriction of freedom of press, the newspaper. and churches, synagogues, mosques have been holding their services by zoom, which is a wonderful way to both continue your rights to practice your religion as you see fit, but also not to harm yourself or harm others. it's an incredible way to avoid that exact charge and it's exactly what rabbis including my own and priests and ministers and so forth have been doing during this crisis. to say that you have to do certain things during a deadly pandemic and get offended by

that suggests a me that you are not really thinking this through. i have real problems after a year of some months and explaining this to people and being involved with many other people who have been working 24/7 on this to be called, for anthony fauci to be called for making something up is ludicrous. anyone who has ever known him would not say that and with all due respect representative jordan you have met him before and this is political grandstanding. this doesn't govern, this doesn't legislate, this is just grandstanding and i will say what i said before, shame on you. we have a pandemic to take care of, wonderful vaccine to take care of it. we have the money to immunize our people and we should do it. host: a tweet from donald trump, jr. on the issue of vaccine passports. dr. markel: donald trump, jr., i'm really on board now.

[laughter] host: he writes the following " corporate america is pushing freedom killing vaccine passports, censoring conservatives on social media, and trying to stop common sense voter id laws. these were corporations are un-american to their core. time for republicans to finally stand up to them!" israel issuing passport to allow for vaccinated citizens to allow for less restriction internal movement and unrestricted access to gyms and theaters. companies like china and bahrain have begun issuing digital passports to their vaccinated citizens. in several countries proof of covid-19 vaccines allows travelers to avoid travel restrictions like testing and quarantine. based on that what have we learned in the past when we have had previous pandemics and the idea of passports.

dr. markel: first of all you have to understand that each passport is for a different pandemic or more globally like i explained with the childhood school passports. there are also literal passports where you had to show that you are vaccinated when going to a certain country. that still exists depending on where you are traveling. i have very little respect for donald trump, jr.. i don't see how this is freedom killing. it is freedom restoring. once you are vaccinated you are immune to covid and you can do things. and you get permission to do things by public health doctors who are trying to end this as opposed to shooting tigers in africa. we have to listen to the experts, and the extraneous noise that has only been amplified by social media and the internet has made this

cacophony of noises whether it is anti-vaccine, anti-covid, anti-china, anti-whatever else. there is a lot of scapegoating, a lot of arguing, but not enough logical, scientific reason that tells us, we have a terrible infectious disease that is very easily transmitted, and now we have many vaccines that work. host: talking with dr. howard markel, professor and the director of the history of medicine at the university of michigan. tony is joining us from alabama. caller: good morning. i've worked my way up from being really poor to successful. i have a question, something that doesn't click. we have tons of doctors like yourself on tv telling us this vaccine, everyone should take it. there was no flu cases this

year, people are dying from this thing. one thing i haven't seen that would put my mind at ease that i haven't seen anywhere because we are all -- doctors debate. there has not been one debate on tv from professionals from both sides, just one side only on every single station, scare tactics to say all these people are dying even though the cdc says 6% die from covid. i know people that knew someone that died. i called to give my condolences and they say based didn't die from covid, they were sitting in a wheelchair and barely function. as soon as they died they listed it as covid. since when do doctors not write papers and debate this thing from both sides in front of the country so they have some ease? you hear all these rumors on the net and all the social sites.

i try to do my homework and look at all different types of sites. i have talked to doctors personally and not one doctor has said get the shot. they all said they would not get the shot. dr. markel: i think you're phony and that's really surprising. that's really surprising. all i can do is give you my medical advice. you want to look at the data, it's not going to be on the tv. there are cases of anti-and pro-vaccine people, they will be in the public health literature. do you have access to a public health library room a university? host: the caller has hung up. dr. markel: the point is that everyone now can get access to these medical journals. please don't hang up on me because you're mad at me and telling me i'm an answer you don't like. that is restricting my ability to talk to you. the point is it is a debate, it

is being talked about, it's very complicated. i've been studying it for years and it's difficult. it might not be difficult for you but the data is out there and i can tell you you have no reason -- i have no reason to go on c-span unless i have a public health mission, to make sure that everyone in america and around the world gets this safe vaccine. are there risks to it? they are infinitesimal, tiny compared to the risk of you getting covid, especially if you are 62. the choice is yours, that's the freedom passport, if you don't want to get the shot, you will have to stay inside and your house, that's your choice. host: from coffee springs, alabama, patrick, you are next. caller: [indiscernible] that's pretty funny man this early in the morning. [laughter]

you think you're going to keep americans in their house because they didn't vaccinate. dr. markel: once americans are vaccinated -- caller: what's wrong with the hydroxychloroquine right now? dr. markel: are you really going to ask me that? that's been disproved. that's a non-defensible -- it's a non-defensible non-treatable disease. caller: you are not preventing death. dr. markel: if you get covid you are free to take that completely useless and potentially damaging drug. let's not come up with fake treatments that are even more dangerous. at the moment by taking hydroxychloroquine it's more dangerous than a vaccine. let's not keep coming up with fictions and anti-this and anti-that and use our common sense. there is a terrible pandemic. for 6% of all people to die of a

pandemic disease is quite high. 1918 influenza was about 3%. please don't go on about statistics and less you know what they mean. we are in the midst of a serious pandemic, the way it will go away is we all get vaccinated. sorry i don't have an answer you like, but that's the answer . host: next from washington. caller: good morning, dr. markel, i really like you. dr. markel: [laughter] i needed that, thank you. caller: you brought giggles to me today. anyway, i need a doctor if you happen to move my way. dr. markel: i'm in ann arbor. caller: [laughter] dr. markel: everyone needs a pediatrician these days because we are all acting like children. caller: we all need more people

like you. come on people, let's be a little smarter, let's not. they don't realize for someone like myself who has an autoimmune disease. with addison's disease i'm a little afraid to take the immunization and i'm not sure what would be the best one to take for me. and also with my court is all i take steroids as well -- cortiso l i take steroids as well to replace the aldosterone. we have been hearing a lot in addison's that we will have a shortage on steroids. dr. markel: i hope there's not a shortage of steroids. the drug companies that make those drugs were 24/7.

. the autoimmune function -- the autoimmune issue is a serious one and you need to, do you see a doctor for your addison's, an endocrinologist or autoimmune specialist? ma'am? host: she has hung up, i apologize. dr. markel: my point is these are very important questions and people with specific diseases autoimmune or others need to have a frank and open discussion with their doctor about whether or not they should take it. on the cdc website, which is updated every day, that goes into some of the anti-things, oh you change your mind, no we learned more. as we learn more we tell you. it's updated every day and will tell you a great deal about who is ready for vaccine or safer vaccines or who is not there yet there is no substitute especially if you have other serious medical issues like addison's disease that you have

this discussion with your doctor and find out the answer, good luck to you. host: another half hour remaining with dr. howard markel. tracy is joining us from sugarland, texas. dr. markel: i've actually heard of sugarland. caller: i have three things i want to say. number one, the reason some people are hesitant to take the vaccine is because remember the democrats and our vice president pushed the idea that they weren't going to be effective and you shouldn't take them because donald trump had something to do with it. that's one people people might want to be not taking it. i take offense to the way you talk about republicans. because i'm a republican. dr. markel: i didn't speak about republicans ma'am i spoke about two individuals.

they are acting like fools. i will say this on area. the stuff they are saying is not only anti-science and anti-health. they are actually harming people by spreading nonsense. it is made by pfizer. they don't care who is president as long as it makes money. big pharma but never do that, but they do. stop making up these complicit, per crazy plots that people are trying to kill other people with the disease. epidemics and pandemics have been happening since humans have been on the planet. there are people in our government, and i'm not saying one side or another and there on both sides, but there are people in our government who are poorly trained in public health epidemics and medicine, they know next to nothing about it. they are trained by their 20-year-old aides, they are talk

and are angry and have an ax to grind like representative jordan did to dr. fauci, and i don't know what circumstance he would find that polite questioning, that was rude and unacceptable when they do stuff like that they harm the public health. you want to blame the whole republican? have at it. the point is, get the vaccine or you risk getting covid. and potentially dying. that is your choice. if you take this one, these people don't necessarily want to deal with you because they don't want to get sick. that is not only eminently fair, the american jurisprudence system has back this up then again. bring the covid shot to the supreme court and i'm confident that we will get a good hearing on it. we don't have time for that right now. what we need to do is roll up our sleeves and get our shot. it's that simple. get this -- if the shot was so damaging why isn't it killing people? it's not. we are following it closely,

this is an eminently safe vaccine and its a hell of a lot safer than not being vaccinated. host: let me turn to your state, michigan getting a lot of attention with its uptake in cases of covid-19, it was a topic on meet the press and chuck todd with this line of questioning took gretchen whitmer -- on governor question -- >> this variant is what is growing so quickly in michigan. we have the second month deaths after florida at the last data i saw. michigan and florida are not next to each other, but this is the time of of year that snowbirds come home from florida where people are going on spring break and all of these things can contribute to spread and that's why we are imploring people to take this seriously and mask up and get tested if you have been around someone who has tested positive stay home. if you get covid donate plasma

with antibodies. -- >> are you still looking for extra vaccines? i know that the neighboring governor was thinking about this. are the governors thinking about helping each other out if the biden administration is hesitant about doing this? >> if more vaccines become available to michigan i can tell you we will quickly get those into the arms of people. we are going to see a moment where supply outweighs demand and perhaps in parts of the country that is already happening and the concern is to continue to urge the public to get these safe effective vaccines and understand this is the key to saving your health and those you love and also getting our economy back on track and getting normalcy everyone one of us craves. host: that from the michigan governor yesterday. dr. markel, what is going on in your state? dr. markel: a lot of the things

the governor described, the movement of people from florida to michigan, the variant that is more contagious, but there is a bigger thing the governor is not mentioning and it's very disappointing. the governor early on did order a closed out of schools, ann arbor schools are still closed. a close down of bars and theaters. i hate the term lockdown because that's not what it is. the political fallout was so great that people were really, even the former president of the united states was tweeting things about -- nasty things about that woman michigan. there was also the protest on the steps of the michigan state capitol which was basically a dress rehearsal for the january six insurrection on our united states capital. there was a lot of things and a lot of movement in the state of

michigan by a great many people, as some of your callers are opposed to anything that is suggested to improve or maintain the public health. i know there is anger, i guess it is a disintegration of the community, the american community and the civic community, that we don't seem to care much about other people. one thing governor gretchen whitmer could have done to stretch out her vaccine, every state is getting the fair amount. if you have to -- you have to get it to certain types of people who are not in the health system or don't have money. you want to make it equitable. she asked for more vaccine when the idea from the cdc, the advice was to implement more social distancing, she didn't, that's the economy we craved. i crave a big piece of cheesecake because it was my birthday, but i have to see my

cardiologist before. i'm making a choice. i'm doing the adult thing. it's about the market, the stock market is doing better than ever, it's about the economy not doing all that badly and under remarkable situations. high-value health more than anything, that's why i became a doctor. i value the preservation of health more than anything and as sure as i'm sitting here i'm confident, i don't think anyone will prove me wrong that the answer to this pandemic is universal vaccinations or as close as we can get to them. host: well happy birthday and we will go to sherry in mississippi. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. part of my question has already been answered by some of your other interviews. i wanted to ask dr. howard, are you or any of your associates advisors to governor whitmer? dr. markel: i have advised her,

she used a paper of mine. i didn't meet with her. i wrote a paper, the original paper on social distancing. we talked about it on this show where it was about how quarantine isolations and school closures and public gatherings during the 1918 flu pandemic, those cities that did it early, layered, and long had a much better mortality and death rate. and in subsequent studies a much better bounce back economically when the pandemic was over. to be perfectly honest when she was giving one of her news conferences about shutting down things in march, one of the graphs she used was from my paper. that is my disclosure. that was published. people can use my work. host: some of the historic posters used in previous pandemics courtesy of nih. this is what one looks like as

we listen to brian from pottstown, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. dr. markel i would like to hear what you think about something i've read over the years. when i was little the big thing was children in iron lungs and polio. many years later almost 100% of the people got polio and only 1% of the people it transferred from the bloodstream to the nervous system. i don't know if that's correct or if i'm just mistreating that. dr. markel: well -- i don't have exact percentage numbers, but it's like 100 kids got infected with polio, many of them, maybe 80 of them would get a mild virus, maybe some muscle aches, then they would recover.

the other 20% who might have more muscle paralysis like in the chest and that's why you would go on the iron lung, those were respirators before they had the trachea respirators, they were a giant tank that moved in an -- air in and out by pressing on your chest. there were the permanently paralyzed kids who were capped in an iron lung or braces and that was the smallest percentage. in polio epidemics in 1916 and 1955 there were roughly 50 to 60,000 cases per year and they were mostly kids. it's a serious disease and it primarily affected children. fdr got it when he was 39 years old. it became a major public health movement that was completely private because fdr started what

became the march of dimes, it was a national foundation for paralysis, and american's went door-to-door to their neighbors with canisters and they gave to the neighbors who brought canisters and all of those times were brought to 1600 pennsylvania avenue to find a cure or prevented for polio. 17 years later they did just that with the soft vaccine. -- with the salk vaccine. i wrote about the vaccine and the problems that happened with it for the new yorker. we do the best we can as scientist and we try to fix things. what might seem right today we might change our mind tomorrow. we might see more flip floppers or hide the information. it means we are getting more information and improving and focusing our diagnosis. doctors do that all the time. if you are sick in the morning and i make a diagnosis on you then but you feel better in the

afternoon i would change my diagnosis. that's not flip-flopping, that's a change of the patient situation. host: science includes a pause on the johnson & johnson shot over news from dr. anthony fauci that the vaccine is likely to resume later this week with new guidelines and warnings. the cdc according to the wall street journal pointing out that about half the country, 100 30 million americans 18 and older have received at least one of the vaccines. our guest is dr. howard markel. lindsay is on the phone from bloomington, indiana. caller: thank you, c-span, and happy birthday to you. dr. markel: thank you. caller: i have an autoimmune disease, wagner's granulomatosis

, and both my doctors, my kidney doctor, and my primary doctor said,. "get the shot" i have gotten both shots, i am going on a week now, i know i need to still wear my mask. dr. markel: any problems at all that you have had? are you doing ok? caller: i had the usual, the second shot, my arm was a little more sore and i had a slight fever the next day and just tired kind of. dr. markel: what that meant, the little fever and the muscle aches means your body was reacting to the vaccine. you had good response, that's good. caller: i just wanted to make that clear, aren't we tired of hearing russian propaganda from

the trump family? i'm so sick of it, i really am? i want to hear the -- i really am. i want to hear the truth. here we have congressman going out going after dr. fauci, one of our best people for our health. i'm really hoping that we get beyond this and people understand that it's better to get a shot so we can get back to somewhat normal and enjoy our life. with my grandkids. host: we will leave it there, thank you for the call. dr. markel: i wish you the best. host: will go to terry joining us from rogers, minnesota. dr. markel: good morning. i have a couple of quick points. you're not going to convince people to take the vaccine by being confrontive as you are. dr. markel: i've tried every

other method and it doesn't work so i will be confrontive. i will do it now, i will do it again. you don't get the vaccine you are harming yourself and your harming others. if that's called confrontive, so be it, it's true. it's absolutely true. and if you're not convinced, so be it, then get off the line, i don't need to talk to you and you don't need to talk to me. the reality is you are ignoring medicine and ignoring science. what's the beginning of the -- what's the point of being in the 20 century if we are using 13th-century ideas. if i'm confrontive, good to nothing else is working. host: dr. fauci yesterday regarding vaccines and when normalcy could resume to the country. dr. fauci: the fact that one may not want to get vaccinated in this case a disturbingly large proportion of republicans only actually works against where

they want to be. they want to be able to say these restrictions that are put on by public health recommendations, things they are very concerned about. we are both concerned about that. we share that concern, the way you get rid of those restrictions is to get as many people as vaccinated as quickly and expeditiously as possible. when that happens we are absolutely certain you will see the level of virus in the community go down to the point where you would not have to have those public health restrictions. it's paradoxical that on the one hand they want to be relieved of their restrictions, but on the other hand they don't want to get vaccinated. it doesn't make any sense. host: echoing some of your comments from earlier this morning. dr. markel: i would only take out the word almost. this is anthony fauci, one of the smartest minds on infectious diseases in the country and maybe the world.

the reality is that all of us have been working pretty hard on this. and we are not making any money out of it or becoming whatever, we are doing our jobs to help the american people get better and to get this thing in our rearview mirror. we need to -- allah ticks needs to end at the shoreline. there are so many contradictions between the republican side and the democratic side and who can play gotcha and two can play whatever. i'm blaming both sides. this country desperately needs to be governed and we desperately need to have as many people, we have 320 8 million people and anthony factory said 130 million people are vaccinated, still a long way to go before this is in our rearview mirror. how long do you want to do it? if you don't take vaccinated it will take longer and you will lose more money. to my colleagues in the republican party you might want to think about that.

host: what was the smallpox car? -- scar? dr. markel: there are two scars. if you got smallpox yourself you got all these tiny blisters all over your face and all over your skin and they often left scars. you could have a scar on your face if you survived smallpox. there is a character in dickens work who is a young woman who has these types of scars. then there is the other scar of smallpox that people of a certain age who had smallpox vaccines before 1979 or 1980 when it was eradicated from the planet they will all have a little scar on this shoulder or that shoulder where they poke a needle and make a little tiny scratch and then put in the smallpox vaccine. if you are a certain age you

will have a scar there. host: we go to brookline, massachusetts and cheryl. caller: hi, dr. markel. i'm a registered nurse and you are a breath of fresh air. dr. markel: [laughter] caller: i want to tell you that as far as the passports go, the vaccine passports, i'm semiretired, but i helped out in our community center travel community prior to the pandemic. i can't even tell you how many yellow fever vaccines i gave for people who were traveling. not one person complained when they got theirs, in fact they waited for their little yellow card so they could be admitted into various countries. on a personal level, my husband and i have both been fully vaccinated, and we are thinking of taking an elderly friend up to her home in maine, her summer home.

it's a long drive, it's at the top of the state. i started looking at the directions this morning, it would be our first trip. the staff is not vaccinated. if they want my money they need to be vaccinated. so you -- dr. markel: so you see these two kinds of beliefs. it is ironic, as dr. fauci that the site who doesn't want to be vaccinated once the economy returning to full force. that won't happen until we get completely vaccinated. it's a very nonsensical -- that's the state of politics in america on both sides. if one side says day the other plays night and they all have to play gotcha games. nailing this guy and that guy. for any of us who love to watch how our country works and how our government works and if you are watching c-span you do it's

disappointing because this is a real crisis where real leaders are desperately needed and we need you to do the right thing. i can't believe i can find many people if i can really talk to them one who would say these vaccines are hurtful. there are some that may be given out without side effects or any kind. it doesn't make sense to me. host: from maple shade, new jersey, maple luke, you are next. caller: good morning, steve. good to see you back again. thank you for c-span. i have a comment, i have a question. dr. markel, i believe said there is no other treatment for this covid other than these vaccines. dr. markel: no, don't misquote me. caller: please let me finish. dr. markel: the vaccine is not a

treatment. it is a preventive. the statement i said was on hydro cost -- hydroxychloroquine that former president trump, last time i checked mr. trump did not go to medical school. he also prescribed bleach. those are poisons. those are not the treatments you want to take for this disease. you want to take it, go and buy it. my medical opinion, and the medical opinion of every dr. ira expect is hydroxychloroquine is not the proper treatment for covid. and frankly former president trump should not have been prescribing medicine on a national press conference. that's not his job. caller: now, please. my brother-in-law had covid, he is extremely compromised. the hospital he was in which is a renowned hospital gave him remdesivir. dr. markel: that's a totally different drug and that does work. i don't want to have a debate with you because you are saying

i'm saying one thing then you say something else completely. remdesivir for immunocompromised people can help. there are amino golf the ends people with immunocompromised situations. that is not what i said and that is how this problem begins. he hears something and says something else then keep spreading it and worsening it. host: we are going to go back to her for a counter comment. that's it. caller: let people talk. there is no debate here. it's all one-sided. show some courtesy, dr. if you're able to do that. can you do that? dr. markel: ma'am. you are saying nonsense. i'm not going to respond to this by sitting here anymore. caller: what are your politics, do you want to tell me that? are you a democrat? dr. markel: i'm not registered as a democrat or republican and that doesn't matter.

when i speak in opinion i don't have it from a political or religious standing. ma'am, i won't talk to you anymore because not only on you -- you have beyond the pale -- you have gone beyond the pale of what you can accuse me of. we are done. host: allen in los alamos, california. you are next. caller: thank you for taking my call. dr., the one thing i have the greatest concern is i know nobody that has gotten covid. two of my friends that have lost their sons to suicide, and the overwhelming amount of psychological damage we are doing to an entire generation or more of people has got to have at least as much collateral effect as anything covid is doing, and jim jordan was right to go after dr. fauci.

nobody is saying anything about the non-vaccine side of the situation. it's all pro-vaccine, get a vaccine or you are going to die or kill somebody. i appreciate your comments on the psychological damage it's doing because i think it's serious big time. thank you for taking my call. dr. markel: the psychological issues cannot be underestimated. we don't know how to measure them yet because we haven't developed a test. we don't have numbers like we do for a blood test for covid antibodies. i don't -- it's hard to know what will be the worst collateral damage, how many people will be -- will have post traumatic stress disorder, i can't tell you that right now. i know that the clear and present danger facing us is the covid virus and the variance and that is what is killing about 3 million people and has gotten hundreds of millions of people around the world sick and has

caused all sorts of problems. it's not because we don't agree that anything else has worked, it's just that this is the best we've got. the best we've got is a vaccine that prevents covid. we don't have any really good treatments except for some treatments for people with immunocompromised diseases, which i was springing up with the first caller who hung up and the second color wanted to accuse me of something i didn't say. the reality is that the best way to prevent you getting covid enter loved ones -- and your loved ones is the vaccine, if you don't want to hear it that's ok. i've been on for almost an hour and i keep hearing calls about not wanting it, that's your choice as an american. but guess what, you won't be able to go anywhere for a while? host: let's take one more collar.

linda in michigan, good morning. dr. markel: good morning. -- caller: good morning. host: go ahead. dr. markel: -- caller: i've been vaccinated twice for two weeks now, and you are a breath of fresh air. nothing against dr. fauci, but he has been on there too long, we all need a break. dr. markel: he has to be polite, he has to work with those people. caller: i don't have a problem with him, it's just that we need a change, and you are, you tell it like it is, you don't take any crap. i've learned more than i've learned from dr. fauci, nothing against him. thank you for being on the program. dr. markel: did you have a question? caller: no, i just wanted to tell you that you should apply for dr. fauci's position. dr. markel: thank you.

i will tell tony and he will laugh at me because i don't have the qualifications. that made my day, i appreciate it. we have a whole new cdc management, so i'm looking up, i'm actually very hopeful. host: as the director for the center of the history of medicine, this is what the website looks like, bottom line for those who visit your facility or go online, what one thing do you think they will learn? host: that's part of our website but we have the american influenza encyclopedia of 1918 to 1919 and that features the biographies of 50 cities in america and how they dealt with flu from 1918 to 1919, it has documents and newspapers, to

about 150 different archives and 20,000 documents and we are adding all the time. that describes the 19 18 flu pandemic in the united states. that was the project we did. host: dr. howard markel with the university of michigan joining us from ann arbor. thank you live coverage coming my in the derek chauvin trial. the jury will get the case. a story we will continue to follow. the house and the senate both in session. the president with a major address wednesday dealing with covid-19. issues and events we will be covering here on the c-span network. back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. hope you enjoy the rest of your day and a great week ahead.

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