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law and policy on proposals made by the biden administration. later tom hart of the one campaign talks about efforts of the u.s. to share covid vaccines with the rest of the world. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. the congressional recess continues. the house beginning at second week of what they are calling a work period. president biden is hitting the road, traveling to the tidewater region of virginia to talk about the administration's vaccine program. on thursday he will be in louisiana to promote his infrastructure plan with its estimated price tag in excess of $2 trillion. on this monday, may 3, we welcome you to the "washington journal." the president's plan with a price tag paid for in part by a

corporate tax site, specifically on the issue of public transportation. how much are we willing to spend for public transportation. we are dividing our phone lines regionally. for those of you in the eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. if you are out west, (202) 748-8001. if you regularly use public transportation, dial (202) 748-8002. we are also taking your tweets on social media at @cspanwj or facebook.com/c-span or send as a text message at (202) 748-8003. we want to begin with this headline from the new york times . "america has long favored cars over trains and buses. can biden change that?" "when congress writes new transportation bills about fourth bits of the money goes to highways and roads.

roughly 80% of the trips americans make our by car and light truck. just 3% by mass transit. " some experts think that is getting the casualty backwards. decades of investment in roads and highways starting with the creation of the interstate highway system in 1956 in the eisenhower administration has transformed most cities and suburbs into sprawling car centered environments where can be dangerous to walk or bike. by the reliable transit options remain scarce. that is this morning from the new york times. tweets coming in saying how much federal funding for public transportation should there be? it is not the bargain of the south carolina taxpayer to subsidize the subway in new york city. this from southport branch -- city dwellers think only of themselves. the midwest farmer will not take a bus or train to feed his cattle or plow his field. let's get to some official reaction from a senate hearing last month.

the new transportation secretary pete buttigieg on the issue of public transportation. >> the american jobs plan will move us away from our overreliance on fossil tools and tort net zero carbon emissions by 2050. it will spark electric vehicle revolution, building a network of 500,000 electric vehicle charges across the country in urban and rural areas and provide rebates to make electric vehicles affordable for more americans. the plant will double federal funding for public transit, making it a more reliable and accessible option to more people. by investing billions to make travel safer for all americans, whether they moved by car, public transit, foot, bike, wheelchair, or any other means. it will reduce congestion on the road and pollution in the air. we draw inspiration from the new deal's infrastructure project and president eisenhower's interstate highway system, but

we cannot afford to rely on the original version of the roads, bridges, and airports they built all those years ago. the need for new investment is impossible to ignore. we see it in the sections of california's highway 1 that fell into the ocean, in the gulf coast flooding that halted rail service after hurricane harvey, and in the loss of subway service for millions of new yorkers after hurricane sandy. we see it in the storms on our coast. the flood of the midwest. the wildfires in california, and the deadly snowstorm in texas. we must adapt. host: that from the transportation secretary pete buttigieg before congressional hearing. according to the american public transportation association, here are some figures. americans took 9.9 billion trips using public transportation in 2019. people boarded public transportation 34 million times each week day. nearly half of americans have no access to public transportation.

it does employ more than 445,000 people. on twitter, this comment. the problem with small government is you get small results. joe biden is bringing us back to going big as it should be. the republicans out with their own transportation bill that includes a scaled-down version of what the biden plan includes. shelley more cap about from west virginia -- shelley moore capito outlining some of the details. >> let's define infrastructure. you can see our definition of infrastructure. physical infrastructure. what do people think of in our states when they think about infrastructure? roads and bridges. public transit systems. rail, which could be passenger rail. water and wastewater. i will stop there to say the first part of this infrastructure package could

come up in front of the entire senate next week and it hopefully will with the ep w bill on clean drinking water and wastewater we passed unanimously. every republican and every democrat voted for this. important inland waterways. airports, broadband is the infrastructure that if you asked just the question 10 years ago we would not have thought to do it, or if we had we would've been very futuristic. broadband is a core infrastructure package. lastly water storage and safety. it is important for you to realize this is the largest infrastructure investment republicans have come forward with. this is a robust package. when we look at where we are focusing our infrastructure needs. host: that is senator shelley more cap about -- shelley moore

capito. if you a regular user of public transportation, give us a call at (202) 748-8002. a lot of tweets coming in. lizzie saying i will not give up my pickup truck to be packed into electric deathtrap. that is how i feel like 90% of this country as well. your phone calls, northwood, new hampshire, mark. caller: good morning. i spent most of my working life as a painter and i had to drive to where the jobs are. sometimes as much as 150 miles round-trip each day. where i live in rural new hampshire there are no public buses or trolleys or trains. you have to have a vehicle to get to the grocery store, your doctors appointment, anything you need to do, you need a car or a pickup truck. the big government only mucks things up.

let's look at the war on drugs, the war on housing, the war on poverty, the war on hunger. all we have done in the last 65 years is muck things up. host: we will leave it there. we go to tennessee, chris. what kind of public transportation do you use? caller: argues buses all the time and i think it is a great -- i use buses all of the time. can i talk about a terrible waste of taxpayer money? we have a sheriff chasing people around with a drone in tennessee. i think public transportation is a great idea. host: we will go to mike joining us from cary, north carolina. caller: how are you? host: how are you? caller: i am ok. i love this debate. it has been going on for so long in this country. i used to live in denver and i

watched for so many years as they battled over the light rail system. i will try to be concise. i can ramble. america as a country, we are a big country. four time zones. for the last 100 years, give or take, as a society, through a combination of government investment and private investment we decided to invest in roads and airports. planes and cars. it is what it is. at the time there was no people attached to fossil fuels. fossil fuels were good. they got us away from having to kill whales. john d rockefeller probably save more whales than any human being on the planet. this is where we are accurate 100 years of infrastructure -- this is where we are at. 100 years of infrastructure,

miles of freeway. airports all over the country. i think it is 15,000 airports. the big ones get notoriety. they're are also smaller regional airports. this is where we put our money. americans generally do not want to get on a train. americans do not want public transportation. it is needed in city areas, new york, boston, cleveland. like the previous collar set, rural areas, i am a regional sales director. i cover the southeast. i need to do that with a car. there are simply no other choices available for my profession. this is the case for many professions. the democrats have been fixated on trains for a long time. they have spent tens of billions of dollars trying to get this high-speed train built in california right along the san andreas fault.

that is a comedy in and of itself. it is still not even finished. outside of the northeast and maybe the upper midwest area around chicago and the west coast area, trains are just not viable. they take too long. the fastest train goes about 150 miles an hour, maybe a little bit more. a plane goes 450. i do not get this fixation on it, especially with the advent of eponymous vehicles, electric cars coming online -- with the advent of autonomous vehicles, electric cars are coming online. we have the highways built. they just need to be modified to host electric vehicles. options are coming along. if trains were so good, where as private enterprise in building these trains so people will ride them? they are not. people do not want to ride them. host: i will leave it there.

this is -- when a caller says the government needs to stop they can send back their social security and stimulus. the buffet law allows that. the price tag is a big debate between democrats and republicans. the democrat plan in excess of $2 trillion, the republican plan $800 billion for that gop plan. this year marks the 50th anniversary of amtrak, a service joe biden used when he was in the senate, commuting from wilmington, delaware to washington, d.c. he is back in philadelphia friday. the president had this to say. >> we have to do more than just build back. we have to build back better. today we have a once in a generation opportunity for amtrak and rail and intercity rail will play a central role in our transformation of transportation economic future.

to make investments that can help america get back on track, no pun intended. before the pandemic amtrak's ridership were on an upswing. the northeast corridor has been making money for a long while, but last year the amtrak system was projected to break even for the first time in history. then we had the pandemic. they are still a huge backlog in maintenance, a huge need to modernize our stations, our breaches, our tunnels. we are talking about critical jobs like the hudson river tunnel, the baltimore potomac tunnels, and the susquehanna river bridge. in my american jobs plan i propose spending $10 billion a year on passenger rail and freight rail. of this, two thirds would support existing amtrak routes, including the northeast corridor, and nationwide. we are talking about union jobs. we are taking care of the riders, laying track, switches,

modernizing stations and repairing and rebuilding this vital infrastructure. host: the president at the 30th street station in philadelphia on friday. our website has all of our programming at c-span.org. kirk has this tweet, there is never been a viable public transportation option because the automobile lobby convinces you to drive yourself like an idiot. sergio joining us from florida. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i'm good. how are you? caller: i am fine. i am a transportation writer in south florida -- i'm a transportation rider in south florida. where i live in orlando, they have been complaining about their bus systems, small buses, especially here for the trains,

all kinds of things because we need better transportation because people are complaining about bad transportation, especially where i live in south broward county transit needs to update their transit all around florida. host: how much are you willing to pay for that? caller: whatever it takes, my friend. i do not care how much it costs. host: we will go to carl joining us from portland, oregon. good morning. caller: i listened to the last caller. host: what we are looking at is what the price tag is for the biden plan that includes about 115 billion dollars for highways, roads, and main streets. $85 billion for public transportation. amtrak would get $80 billion, but also modernization expanding its routes. airports getting $25 billion and

inland waterways and ports getting $17 billion. go ahead. caller: i cannot fathom all of that in dollars and cents. i know if i have come from areas that have pretty good public transportation. that made the deciding factor whether i use it or not. i am an elderly person now and i am totally reliant on public transportation. for certain age groups like younger people and older people, you are very dependent on it. it is necessary if you live in the city area or even a suburb. host: thanks for the call. if your listing on c-span radio app, we are focusing on public transportation. one component of the infrastructure debate in washington. the house and senate both in recess but there will be hearings this week. we go to william joining us from

eureka, california. good morning. caller: good morning, steve, and all of the listeners. i am a retired grain town driver -- a retired greyhound driver. people do not talk about greyhound anymore. the government does not even want to help them. remember the trailways and greyhound competition? there is no competition. greyhound absorbed trailways when they were in trouble and saved all the drivers their retirement. today greyhound is owned by a company called first group in england. it is not a u.s. company anymore, just like budweiser. they are not a u.s. company anymore. thought ought to be given to greyhound because they have been for sale for two years because they are losing money. when it is all subdivided up, when some big outfit like some rich person buys greyhound, they will subdivided and make all the

small companies again and i guarantee it will collapse because all you need is one or two small companies not provided the driver when a busload of people come in, they are supposed to switch seats. it will not happen. i drove when they had an extra board. if there was only one passenger stranded somewhere, they would send an extra board driver with an extra bus to pick up that one person. today, you wait until the next one is scheduled to come through. greyhound needs help and the government does not want to help your thank you very much. caller: -- host: a special election in the fifth congressional district of texas with the passing of the former congressman, his wife moving ahead with the runoff. cnn projecting wright would take the first bought, and ellzey who

defeated the democrat had been locked in a tight race for second, ensuring the seat will state in republican hands. matt joins us from maryland. caller: how are you? host: good, how are you. caller: i am all right. as someone who rides public transportation, it has never been efficient. ever since the gentleman said, before the auto industry and eisenhower struck a deal so everyone would have to buy cars. there are people that do not drive and their people who need public transportation. ever since that deal, our public transportation system -- i think we are back to where it was before that deal they made.

now we are at least 80 years behind in our public transportation system. you should not have to wait 40 minutes for a bus. that is ridiculous. they should not be that far apart. people have to work. i live five miles from d.c. it takes me about an hour to get there. between waiting and the time it takes to get there. host: using the subway or the bus? caller: both. it is crazy. why should there be some people that have to go to all that trouble to get to work? host: thanks for the call. a busy week for the president. he is back on the road. joining us on the phone is

darlene superville who covers the white house for the associated press. thank you for being with us. let's begin with the trip today and the trip thursday. what is on the agenda. caller: good morning. today the president and first lady are headed down to yorktown, virginia. part of what the white house is calling the getting america back on track toward. they are not calling it infrastructure week. we have dispensed with that. they are down to yorktown and it is part of the infrastructure plan the president has proposed and is trying to sell with a lot of these trips across the country. they will visit an elementary school and also stop into an hvac repair class at a community college. joe biden has been a longtime community college teacher and advocate for community colleges. on thursday, the president alone is back on the road. this time he will be going to

louisiana visiting lake charles and new orleans, where he will again talk about the infrastructure plan and visit a water plant in new orleans. host: let me follow-up on what the debate has been over the last few weeks. we saw that yesterday on the sunday programs, defining what is infrastructure. there seem to be two different definitions based on your party. caller: exact -- guest: exactly. most of the republicans we heard from on television would say infrastructure is typically a hardware things, the concrete things we know of. breaches, airports, roadways. train tracks. transit. infrastructure. high-speed internet. getting into more parts of the country. the president wants to expand that definition further to include things that are not what you think of traditionally when you think of infrastructure.

that is where the debate lies. the debate is also coming down in terms of cost. the president has proposed $2.3 trillion. there are members of congress saying wait a minute, let's step back. that is too expensive. the republicans have proposed something about one fourth the size of what the president has proposed, $568 billion. there will have to be a lot of movement towards the middle on some sort of dollar figure that both sides can agree on. host: we are talking with darlene superville who covers the white house for the associated press. the other big debate is the border and questions other the vice president will travel to the border and also when the president will be there. guest: the vice president is having her first meeting with the president of mexico. it will be a virtual meeting. he is not coming to the white house yet to see anyone in

person. it is part of the assignment the president has given her to deal with the central american countries, central american, and the regions -- the reasons a lot of children are arriving at the border unaccompanied, without any adult supervision. the white house has made clear she is not dealing with border enforcement and who to let in, who to keep out, she is dealing with the other side of the border and the reasons people are coming in the first place. host: the president continues to meet with democrats and republicans. what is next on the agenda in terms of trying to reach an olive branch with republicans on some of the issues? guest: back channel or behind the scenes tops are going on bream much every day between the white house and the lawmakers. senator capito of west virginia who was the top republican on the senate public works committee has been very involved

with talking to the white house. senator rob portman was on television yesterday. he has had conversations with the white house. a lot of those talks will continue this week. next week we should expect to see the president inviting members into the oval office to sit down and have discussions with him. he has also invited the top four congressional leaders into the oval office for a meeting. i would expect that that meeting would touch on a range of topics, and i am sure the infrastructure proposal the president has would be one of those things he would want to discuss with leadership as well. host: do you have a sense it will produce any tangible results, especially with republicans and democrats working together on these issues? guest: that remains to be seen. you still have a lot of the behind-the-scenes work going on at the staff level. that is where a lot of the

nitty-gritty of negotiating is done. you may get the president and some of the leadership getting closer in terms of a dollar figure, or even what they want in the bill. it is a wait and see. host: one final question. we were watching the briefings. a number of reporters inside the white house. what is it like for you covering this president during this pandemic and are things beginning to loosen up? guest: things have not loosened up yet for the press. there are still just 14 reporters in the briefing room every day for the briefings when they are happening. there will not be a briefing today. we are waiting for the white house correspondents association to work with the white house and take their guidance from white house medical officials and the coronavirus rules in the district of columbia to decide when to start to loosen things

up. host: darlene superville on the white house beat for the associated press. her work available at ap.org. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. host: back to tweets. jody writing about a greyhound stop in oklahoma. it started a few years ago and we do not get the refugees as much anymore. we had hobo camp at the campground but no more, saying it is said. continue with your tweets @cspanwj. our phone lines are open as well. we go to chicago. good morning. caller: good morning. i grew up with public transportation. in high school i would hop on the subway and the train and get to school in the public bus. i think public transportation helps the economy. when my parents did not have to take time off work to get to school, i had to get to school on a bus, a public bus, not a

school bus. i grew up in chicago -- there are a lot of rural parts in illinois that would benefit. their economies would benefit from reliable public transportation. it is a hard life when you do not own a car and you're in a rural area and need to get somewhere. it takes more hours out of your day, more resources out of your pocket. it stifles the economy not to have reliable public transportation. host: let's go to richard in louisville, kentucky. caller: i do not want to see one dime of my money going to another big dig. boston dove that whole or that tunnel -- boston dug that hole or tunnel, there are a lot of good union jobs there. how much money did they make? do you honestly believe i want to give joe biden $2 trillion.

your program on yesterday about the government and what the government should do for the people. government is the problem. get the government in los angeles. look at the government in new york city. look at the government and all of these big cities. it is terror -- it is terrible. i do not want my money going to any transportation for anyone at all. host: thank you for the call. this is the headline from the washington times. the president's aid defending huge spending to boost the -- chris wallace pointing out that adjusted for inflation the wall street bailout and the new deal cost far less than what the president is proposing. cecilia rouse is the chair of the council for economic advisors, and she is asked to defend the price tag, including $2 trillion plus for infrastructure. >> president biden fundamentally

believes government can be very effective and we all need to pay our fair share. what we have seen over the past several decades is the wealthiest americans, the big corporations are getting wealthier and paying less in terms of federal revenue. to ensure everybody pays their fair share, not to increase taxes on the middle class, nodding please -- not increase taxes on anybody making less than 400,000 per year. the second is the corporate tax rate is proposed not to go back to where it was in 2017, just to have an increase. with the tax cuts that happen in 2017 when we reduce the corporate tax rate so dramatically, we have not seen a similar increase in investment and incorporate competitiveness. president biden is saying everybody should pay their fair share, and yet internationally we do not want to be disadvantage. he is also working with other countries so we have a minimum

tax internationally so there is not a race to the bottom. >> don't you think we will be less competitive if we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world as opposed to in the middle of the industrial world? doesn't that necessarily say we become less competitive? >> of course we do not want to hamper u.s. competitiveness. to the contrary. the idea is to ensure corporations are paying their fair share, to button up some of the loopholes which of met corporations were putting more money offshore, off of the u.s. soil, and having a global minimum tax so we are working with our trading partners, working with the rest of the world so corporations are paying their fair share worldwide. host: that is from fox news sunday, one of the five programs we re-air every sunday.

cecilia rouse is the chair of the council of economic advisors. the republican plant which is spending far less than democratic includes about $300 billion for roads and bridges, 61 billion dollars for public transportation, as well as $44 billion for airports. $20 billion for railways and $17 billion for ports and inland waterways. that courtesy of cnbc. mike has this on our twitter page. some of these people whine about spending federal funds because other states problems are not theirs. i wonder what the u.s. means to them? they want all of the states to be countries. right-wingers seem to line up with states becoming independent countries. susan collins from maine on cnn state of the union on paying for infrastructure. >> the $600 billion republican proposal is a fraction of what joe biden is offering. you say biden's has $938 billion

in traditional infrastructure. are you willing -- is that a good point for discussion? >> at this point i think now that the republicans have put forth a reasonable offer, it is up to the president to do a counter offer to us. i would point out that if you look at all of the president's recent proposals, they total more than $4.1 trillion. that is the amount we spent to win world war ii. this is an enormous package when you take both the traditional infrastructure parts and the huge expansion of social programs the president is advocating. >> it world war ii dollars.

your point is it is a big proposal. you said a modest increase in the corporate tax rate would be ok with you to help pay for infrastructure because biden is proposing tax increases to try to pay for some of these proposals. the current corporate tax rate is 21%. biden wants 28%. would you be willing to meet in the middle at 25%? >> let me tell you what i will not support. i will not support american businesses paying the highest corporate tax rate among developed countries in the world once again. unfortunately that is what 28% would be. that means jobs would go overseas. i think we need to look at a wide variety of pay fors, but first we need to determine the scope of the bill and we need to determine what the top line is

going to be. there are a host of different ways to pay for it. that is premature to get to until we decide the amount and what it is going to cover. host: that from cnn's state of the union. a full interview available at cnn.com. we are focusing on the use of public transportation and how to pay for it. the republican plan, the president's plan, billions of dollars apart. bobby is next from st. paul, minnesota. thank you for waiting. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am 74 years old. i am retired. my income is social security and a small pension. i do have quite a few medical issues. i depend on public transportation. at first the bus system in the twin cities, and now i use what they call metro mobility. metro mobility is subsidized.

i will give you an example. in downtown st. paul, if you take a bridge across the mississippi river or any one of the bridges, you come to the wonderful town of west st. paul. from west st. paul to the university of minnesota where i have to have follow-ups for my surgery, follow-up visits with specialists, the cab fare is about $30 one-way. $60 round-trip. with metro mobility is $3.50 and $3.50. therefore, it is subsidized and it helps people like myself who are on a small income that can survive. may i make one extra point on the bill they are trying to put through, the infrastructure.

i am being cynical. i look at this coming i know this is simplistic. i look at this bill is a big chocolate cake. the frosting on the outside is bridges and all of the things we normally think of infrastructure. when you cut into the cake you hit a lot of pork. i may be incorrect on my term, but they used to have a bill which strictly goes through one thing at a time. i think if you continue to add on all of these earmarks and this and that, i think it complicates the thing. i think they call it clean bill. i'm not sure. host: thanks for the call. politics from inside the washington post. swing district retirement spelling trouble for democrats.

a report with the announcement that a representative who headed up the congressional campaign committee for the democrats in the 2020 cycle will be stepping down at the end of next year. her district viewed as one of the swing districts. i want to share a week from a reporter that was posted in march related to the transportation secretary. she said our neighbor sells used bike and last week he met a customer at a pizza hut. he said he was waiting for the person one black government suvs pulled up. pete buttigieg popped up, pointing out he sold a hybrid commuter to the u.s. secretary of transportation. my neighbor had been talking to buttigieg's husband all along. this response from the transportation secretary. "good bike. explain why i needed to swing by pizza hut parking lot, but we got there."

we go to randy in michigan. caller: i would like to start by thanking you and all of the other men and women it takes to bring us this program. host: we thank you for watching. caller: i live out here in a county of only 58,000 people in the county and we still have public transportation for the folks that cannot get around. we have had public transportation in this country since the wagon trains because the government opened up the west so folks could head out west and open up the nation. that is what we did. we got to have it. i do not know why the people are carrying on. we all have to complain. public transportation is our american spirit. we take care of one another. you take care of yourself and your family, but you work together to build a nation. let's get back to working

together. some of the republicans, i am getting tired of their no, no, no. we will stop the afghanistan war. we can pay for some of the infrastructure. then maybe we do not go as high on the corporate tax. we keep the republicans out of the wargame we can have nice roads, bridges, transportation. that was just my opinion on the subject. host: we appreciate your opinion and all of your calls and comments. the focus is on public transportation. how much should federal dollars be used to fund public transportation, an that came up yesterday on abc's this week. >> on your point about democrats reportedly joe biden and top democrats are willing to make concessions, or break the plan into chunks and are contemplating the counter offer of $568 billion. could you get behind that? >> yes.

we are working closely with the administration. four of us present this plan the other day. it is focused on core infrastructure -- roads, bridges, airports, things people think of when they think of infrastructure. things that will get our economy firing on all cylinders. the problem is president biden's proposal, only 6% of the money goes for roads and bridges. they have more money for electric cars than they do all of those other things. >> i have to stop you there. the 6% for roads and bridges figure you and other gop leaders have cited has been fact checked multiple times. the total amount for what you've have called traditional infrastructure, roads, bridges, rails, waterways is more than 25% of the biden plan. do want more? >> what we are working with, and shelley talked to president

biden thursday. i've been working with the other powerful joe in washington, joe manchin, and we are focusing on core infrastructure. president biden calls it hard infrastructure as opposed to soft infrastructure. i believe there is a deal to be had. host: that on abc's "this week." back to the new york times story. america has long favored cars over trains and buses. can biden change that? "mr. biden, along time amtrak writer and proponent will face hurdles to make the nation more train and bus friendly. his plan still needs to get through congress where lawmakers often prefer money for roads. nationwide -- the coronavirus pandemic has led many americans to avoid subways and buses in favor of private vehicles and it remains unclear when or whether transit ridership will bounce back.

the biden administration may also have limited ability to sway the action of state and local governments, which still account for the vast majority of transportation spending. many key urban planning decisions are made locally and they can determine whether transit systems thrive or struggle." in durham, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i had a couple comments about this. i was a high school teacher in rural maine for many years and there was not much in the way of public transportation. i worked in a high school that was 70% free and reduced. many families struggle to have vehicles for the adults and the families, never mind the children. i had so many students complain they wanted to get a job but they did not have the transportation to get the job. i was also a small business owner in the community at the same time and i thought about how great it would have been to

have student workers work, and also spent money in my business and all of the area because the students were able to get a job because they had transportation. i also think the student situation with public transportation, i would love to grow a generation of americans that feel like the government is working for them and is a benefit to their life. when we have students that feel as though they cannot get to work, cannot get a job, we are starting out early telling them our system does not work. whereas if they could put that worried to rest and go out and start being a functional member of society, they would feel good about our country. i also wanted to add a comment. the gentleman who called in around 7:30 about the big dig in washington. i know about that firsthand. the gentleman late all the blame on the government at the time. it was actually a corporation, and that was a huge part of the problem.

it was not all the government's fault there was a problem with the project. it was the corporations that were involved. i think this attitude towards government has become a detriment to our society. susan collins pointed out we spent a lot of money to win world war ii. i would like to point out that after all of that big spending to win that war and to free the world of nazis, we also had a period of american prosperity the country had never seen before. we have evidence that government spending can set our country on a strong financial trajectory that could expand our middle-class as it did after world war ii. i advocate, let's get the middle-class going, starting with our young people who cannot afford a car, who would like to go to work and earn some money and grow up thinking america helped me with my life. thank you so much. host: thanks. jan with this tweet, asking,

doesn't it cost more to replace the road or bridge than to maintain it? this headline from cnn.com. " unlike biden, americans do not see a new infrastructure as a priority." loretto joining us from cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning, steve. good morning, america. infrastructure. we needed and we need it back. -- we need it and we need it bad. our roads and bridges are over 100 years old. we have neglected to maintain what we have been provided over the years. then additional problems have piled up on top of that. now -- do you wait until there

are holes in the roof before you replace it? it digs me that all of these republican people are calling in complaining while they are cashing their stimulus checks. i do not get it. republicans squandered $2 trillion with their tax cuts. it was supposed to be for jobs. that was before covid. where is the money? what happened? trump said he was repatriating four trillion dollars from offshore banks? where is the money? why would they get up and say something like that thinking nobody is going to look into it? i am waiting to hear where is the $4 trillion? we have the money.

we have more billionaires than any other country in the world. host: loretto from cleveland. from washington post.com, a comparison of the democratic and republican plans. here is how the gop infrastructure plan stacks up against biden's plan. some of the details include cities and states across the country are pitching in new kinds of infrastructure projects and offering fresh estimates of existing proposals as they chase grant funding that the biden administration has tied to environmental and racial justice goals. selena reynolds, general manager of the los angeles department of transportation did not plan to apply for a federal infrastructure were rebuild america grant. a $900 billion pot of money targeted at the economy boosting projects. it has typically been used to back major highway projects and other work to reduce congestion.

shortly after pete buttigieg was confirmed as transportation secretary, his department announcing it would judge projects based on racial equity and environmental benefit. reynolds assembled a team that would scramble to put together an application. the city seeking $45 million. the money used to finance major streets in south los angeles, trying to remedy some of the harms caused by the interstate highway running through the area. the proposal calling for bike lanes, savor crosswalks, and by sporting islands. back to your phone call on the issue of public transportation. ruby in chicago. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. the into -- the issue is not infrastructure, it is modernization. we are not talking about bicycle lanes. we are not talking about these kind of revenue generating for-profit entities like uber. the city of chicago and major

cities has to have public transportation for those people trying to transition from one level employment to the other. that is what makes these cities great, being able to have access. it must be comprehensive in terms of security come in terms of repair, in terms of maintenance, in terms of job training, and in terms of preparing people for the kinds of transit they need and also we have to make those cars and buses. that enables the country to go forward. i did not look at it as infrastructure. i am happy the president has a plan where most of the top 25 cities in america -- they have not submitted their plan and do not have a plan. that is why this is very positive. host: we go to georgia. justin, good morning. caller: i used public transportation off and on in my life. i'm about to use it again. there are several things many callers have said.

first of all, the infrastructure has to be done smartly. second of all, people to understand this aspect of public transportation, you have to be in shape. right now the closest public transportation for me is seven miles. i have a car. i can easily use my car. i purchased any bike to make up the gap. the biggest thing with biden -- buttigieg is totally untrained, unqualified. public transportation has to make money. you cannot just keep throwing it down a never ending hole. it has to be done smartly. there have to be gaps for people that are handicapped, because there is no way if you go in transportation in atlanta, you have to walk almost a quarter of a mile to get from the parking lot to the station. climb several steps.

i got a bite on order and i will use that to -- a bike on order and i will use that to bridge the gap, including the seven mile walk just to get to it. host: we go to nate joining us from milwaukee. caller: thank you for having me. i was going to make a trio of points. the first point is i have used public transportation to get to most of the jobs, as well as a good chunk of school i have been to. i think it is great. i would also add on the idea of cost that most types of transportation never pay for themselves. the roads do not pay for themselves. neither to the highways. the talk of needing money simply because you have this, which makes the rest of the economy go, and that pays for the road.

the road is not do it for itself. one of the other points i wanted to get to was global warming. we have this massive problem called global warming. all of the changes we need to deal with -- to make it as least bad as possible are extremely valuable and definitely belong as infrastructure. i notice you had a clip about the tax rate globally should i would point out that people who oppose dealing with global warming are actually fighting against the free market, because with global warming is the activities of fossil fuel companies, and we are avoiding having them pay for their own damages what a typical company ends up burning somebody's house down. rick -- you do not have fossil

fuel companies paying for their damages. claims like coal is the cheapest form of energy are deceptive because they are not paying their whole bill, they are essentially getting socialist protection. host: from bloomberg news, the headline "the price tag for the biden plan, $571 million." kamala harris focusing on this aspect of the president's proposal. >> can they raise their families, get to work, satisfy their basic responsibilities and functions to raise a family and be productive in their community and in their lives? that is the context in which i think about this very important subject, which is the subject of public transit. when i think about it, i think about good transit equals vibrant communities. if we think about it in terms of

an investment in public transit, it is an investment in job creation. it is an investment in improving communities, it is an investment increasing access and opportunity. if there is a bus line within and a bus stop within walking distance and not half a mile from someone's house, what that means in terms of their ability to have access to the job that may be miles away from where they live. often it is the case for working people in america they cannot afford to work where they live in the need to travel some distance. it should not require you have this financial ability to own a car, pay insurance, pay for new tires, to be able to go to work. i think about public transit in that context. host: that from vice president kamala harris. back your phone calls. alan is joining us from hawaii. you're up early. caller: extremely. yes i am.

thank you for taking my call. i am calling you because, you may have at other callers call about this in the past. the state of hawaii, the main island is ohau. several years ago the wall street journal published what they thought to be the largest boondoggle for transportation ever being enacted, which is this project going on called honolulu rail transport project. it was attempted through several mayoral administrations. it was originally promised to cost about $1.5 billion and do 20 miles is what they were promising.

that was several years ago. right now they have only gotten about two thirds or three quarters of the way through. with the cost overruns it is not $1.5 billion. this is with $1 billion promised from the federal fta. it is now -- the price tag is approximately $12 billion to $13 billion. this is an analysis that has only 65% accuracy. i know you want to take other guests. let me fill you in. people may want to look at this as a warning. as the federal government throws a bunch of money at project, they need to consider this type of problem. the pressure was because we had one major freeway system going through the island of oahu to get people from rural sections of the island to the metropolitan and they thought

rail would be great. this date had a train system 100 years ago but they -- the state had a train system 100 years ago. this was not a reinvention of the wheel. it was pushed because of money interests. the bottom line is the way this is working out is the price tag is going gigantic leap with the ridership going to be declining. host: i will leave it there because we are short on time. jerry is next from rogers, minnesota. do you use public transportation? caller: i am retired. i did for a long time. in minnesota we did a lot of railways and mass transit. the problem is you still have to drive. if you're not right at downtown you have to drive to where you are taking it in.

the second thing is when you have pete buttigieg sing $45 billion so they can build -- saying $45 billion so they can build crosswalks, that is the kind of government waste where people say, what? $45 billion he could have shaded spots. when you put up your graphics, i noticed the biden plan does not add up to $2 trillion. i do not know if you are measuring it against. host: we were focusing just on the area of public transportation. caller: i do not know what it is. i is. i would like to see what the difference is. why is the gop's saying this is the amount you want? what is biden proposing for the rest of it. host: right. there is also money for personal issues as well as electric cars. republicans feel that the money should not be part of the infrastructure bill. caller: yes. i guess i would actually agree with them on that.

2 trillion. right now we are spending more than our gross domestic product. that is greased wheels. it is crazy. host: we will leave it there. thank you for joining us on the first hour of washington journal as we focus on infrastructure. when we return will look another aspect of the president's plan in terms of. spending an education, child care and labor proposal. the white house is putting it out. rachel greszler from the heritage foundation will be joining us, as well as hannah matthews for a center for law & social policy. and next, tom hart from the one campaign. you are watching and listening

to c-span's "washington journal on this thursday, the third day of may. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> tonight on "the communicators," brookings institution president discusses his book "turning point, policymaking in the year of artificial intelligence." >> it is not just one revolution taking place, it is 10 or 20 or 30 different things taking place simultaneously. it is the growing ubiquity of technology in all of our lives, in every sector. in domestic policy applications as well as national defense. we have a chapter on national defense and military applications of ai. i think that is the unusual aspect of this period. what makes it difficult to deal with. there is just so much change taking place on the widespread scale in a very short period of

time and we are all struggling to deal with it. posted by maduro west tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the communicators on c-span2. >> this morning the house oversight and reform committee holds a hearing on government accountability and transparency. watch about life beginning at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listed on the free c-span radio app. >> listen to c-span's podcast, booknotes+, with randall robinson. here why the author of "putting america, departure of a black man from his native land," decided to leave the country. booknotes+ is available every monday morning. subscribe from whatever you get your podcasts.

♪ >> washington journal" continues. host: the next hour we want to focus on president biden's $1.8 trillion education and childcare plan. joining us for the conversation is rachel greszler. she is from bethesda, maryland, and here in washington serves as a research fellow focusing on budget and entitlements for the heritage foundation. thanks for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: and in washington, hannah matthews is executive director of policy at the center for law & social policy. thank you for being with us. guest: thanks so much. host: the president outlined some of the specifics in his plan and will continue with a conversation. [video clip] >> this nation made 12 years of public education universal in the last century.

it made us the best educated and best prepared nation in the world. it propelled us to where we got in the 20th century. but the world has caught up or catching up. they are not waiting. i would say parenthetically, if we were sitting down on a bipartisan committee together and said, we will decide what we do in terms of government provided for free education, i wonder whether we would think, as we did in the 20th century, that 12 years is enough in the 21st century. i doubt it. 12 years is no longer enough today to compete with the rest of the world in the 21st century. that is why my american families plan guarantees four additional years of public education for every person in america starting as early as we can. the great universities of this country have conducted studies in the last 10 years that show

that adding two of universal, high quality preschool for every three or older for your old the matter what background they come from, puts them in the position to be able to compete all the way through 12 years, and increases exponentially their prospect of graduating and going beyond graduation. research shows that when a young child goes to school, not day care, who they are far more likely to graduate high school and go to college or something after high school. when you add two years of free community college on top of that, you begin to change the dynamic. [applause] pres. biden: we can do that. and we will increase pell grant and invest in historical black colleges and universities, travel colleges, minority service institutions.

the reason is, they don't have the endowments, but their students are just as capable of learning about cybersecurity, just as capable of learning about metallurgy, all the things that are going on that provide the jobs of the future. host: the president, outlining details in his speech before the joint session of congress. here are some of the numbers -- $800 billion to extend the child tax credit permanently, earned income tax credit, child independent care tax credit and, affordable care act premium tax credits. $225 billion for child care for low and middle-income families. $225 billion of national paid family and medical leave. universal preschool, and $900 billion for two years of free community college. $85 billion for pell grants. with that background, let's turn to rachel greszler with the heritage foundation, and get

your reaction. guest: thank you. there are a lot of things that can be improved upon in education in the u.s., but first we need to focus on the 13 years of public education already being provided and look at what is wrong there, because the reality is there is not equal opportunities across the board there, and we need to be giving families more choice. if their child is in a failing school, they need the option to take the federal and state money they are given and to use that somewhere else. it would work better for children. covid-19 has highlighted the reality that one-size-fits-all does not actually fit every child. parents need more options. outside of those 12 years, already come up more than 50% of people attending community college are not paying anything. on the other side, talking about universal pre-k, the reality there is that most parents want to be able to choose the environment their child is in.

some want to remain home with their kids, and they want to have control if they are not staying home with their children. they don't want it to just be one government-run program is the only choice out there. host: let me follow up on one point the issue of getting students into the classroom at an early age, preschool at age three. will that help solve some of the issues you are late in terms of public education? guest: there are ways for improvement. we have the head start program, it starts at age three and 84. if you were to allow families to take the money that had start provides for them and use them with a provider of their choice, that would help, especially low income families. headstart is often only providing a few hours of care per day. if you are a working parent, you need more than that. i don't think pushing children into a universal system of education, which arguably ages three and four, i don't know

that the children need to be educated so much that they need to be cared for and loved and have the community showing them what life is and how to go about things. i think families play a role in that in some families want to have their kids at home. i don't think the government should be dictating one way or another. we all need to have our children in this universal pre-k system, when that is not the reality of what everybody wants. host: hannah matthews from the center of law and social policy, your reaction. guest: the investments that are being proposed are truly to affirmative for families across the country that truly transformative. talking about current trends and opportunity, the idea of providing universal access to education, universal access to community college, it actually gives parents choices that they don't have now. because the reality is the american family right now struggles to be able to afford early childhood education.

we know that is a major, major challenge for families. they have not invested there. we all know that there is a better return on investment than funding education. what the president's would do is allow families to choose the provider of their choice, whether it is in a public or private childcare setting, but their child will go there and they would know that their child has access to the quality childhood education. decades of research show, that goes on to improve the children's outcome in quality of life. host: telephone lines are open for the democrats 202-748-8000. ,four republicans 202-748-8001. ,if you are independent 202-748-8002. ,the other issue in all of this is the price tag. hannah matthews, 1.8 trillion dollars being invested in this plan to your reaction when you see and hear that

number. guest: let's talk about what the number is going to do. that and lots of spending would cut child poverty in half. the rate of child poverty is unacceptable in this country, for a wealthy country. we should not have children -- families who can't afford food. so it would decrease child poverty, provider for the blood childcare for families so they can go to work and be more productive and not have exorbitant childcare costs. families don't have to choose between going to work and their income, and caring for an adult family member or child. let's put all these investments in context and realize that, actually, while that sounds like a very big price tag, these are investments. it is not just spending. it is investing in our children, our families and our future. there is a huge cost of in action here.

all of these policies have benefits to the economy. look at child care. $57 billion lost when parents who can't afford childcare have to take time off. the average family spends $22.5 billion of wages for not having access to paid family leave. and child poverty -- our society pays for the cost of child poverty in meeting children's needs early in life. that sounds like a big price tag, but once we are investing in our future and actually making our families and our economy stronger, that is the price this country can pay. host: on the senate floor senator john cornyn discussing the specifics of this bill and what it means in terms of the price tag and government overreach, as he called it. here is more [video clip] >> if there were any doubts that this liberal spending binge was

about to end, president biden clear that up last night too. he talked about the american jobs plan, which relies on a very generous interpretation of the word "infrastructure." or should i say, "orwellian." he discussed the $1.8 trillion american families plan, which includes everything from universal preschool to free community college, to mandatory paid leave policies and tax provisions. you got to love politicians when they talk about giving away free stuff. the folks back home no better. -- they know better. somebody has to pay for it. as my friend, senator scott said in the republican response last night, these policies would put washington even more in the middle of americans' lives, from cradle to college.

these three proposals total more than $6 trillion and among some -- an amount so large it is hard to wrap our heads around it and is more than the money spent last year in a bipartisan effort to defeat covid-19. the proposals equipped to a spending rate of $60 billion a day during the president's first 100 days in office. $6 trillion is one quarter of our gdp. if you convert our country's world war ii spending into today's dollars, the three biden spending proposals are even more expensive than what it cost us to arm and defeat imperial japan and nazi germany. but i want to be clear, these are not wartime expenses, these aren't even necessary expenses

in many cases. these proposals have absolutely nothing to do with our current fight against covid-19. host: that is from senator john cornyn this past week. rachel greszler, let me go back to you, because as we heard from hannah matthews, this is an investment in america's future. your response from what you heard from senator cornyn and from hannah matthews. guest: it is important that we put the cost in context, because the reality is, the money is coming from somewhere. what we are talking about is whether americans would rather keep more of their money and make the decisions they know to be best for their families, or paid more money to the government and have all editions tell them which think they can and cannot qualify for. it is not possible to pay for all of this spending proposed by simply taxing the rich. the reality is we are looking more like european-style tax rates. in europe, the average low income person, pays a thousand

dollars more in taxes than a similar american. so the question should be, do we want to have to sacrifice more of our income, not just for upper income americans, but for average income americans and no income americans? give more of your money away and have restrictive programs? these are government dictated programs that will not be available to everybody. it is also important when we talk about what is an investment, and what is the future of that, that we cannot discount investments americans make in their own families. if it is a government program that is educating it three or four-year-old, that is an investment but if it, is a mum or dad who is staying home with their child and not working and earning wages, that is a loss of wages. there is no positive measure of investment that is counted there , so we need to be looking at both sides of the equation. host: is there a role for the government, in terms of childcare or tax credits for low

and middle income families? guest: there is a role for lower income families. we have subsidies. we have childcare development grants. [inaudible] host: she froze up for a moment. let's go to some phone calls. we lost you for a moment, do you want to continue, rachel greszler? guest: yes, i wanted to say that there is a way for low income families to have access to subsidies, but they need more options in what is provided for them, and the way that the government could help is to reduce the regulations limiting those options and driving up the cost of childcare for a lot of families, making it hard to find the more flexible types of situations that would help them more than a universal, one size fits all, government-run childcare system. host: more details of rachel greszler's work is available on heritage.org. rachel matthews is churning as in washington with the center for law & social policy. very briefly, what is your

organization? guest: we are a 50-year-old nonpartisan organizations that works to advance policies. a lot of the issues we will talk about here today, childcare, education and so on as a fourth. host: all right, james in atlanta, good morning and thank you for waiting. caller: thank you. the woman who works at heritage asked about the corporate socialism, all the money that trump gave away, that is our money, too. also, all the republicans get everything the democrats do. how come republican-owned companies got loans and graphs? the number one education -- electrical have not been allowed to learn how to read excerpt around 150 years in the united states. education is important -- black

people have not been allowed to learn how to read, except for the past 150 years in the united states. education is important. i am 60 years old, i went to a segregated school. what people have realized that the systems they set up in the united states could be used systematically. i am not talking about individuals. the education system. what about redlining. you were talking about socialism. i don't want my money used for the military. all of this money -- is gotten together. you set up there and criticize it. i think your company got a stimulus loan. stop complaining about stuff. the united states is a racial, systematic and discriminating country against back people and we are trying to do something to remedy that. i am 60 years old. i started out in a segregated school.

host: thanks for the call. let's get the republican vice. dale is joining us on the republican line from virginia beach. good morning. caller: good morning. i will try to be brief. a few minutes ago, you had a portion of president biden's speech on education, and he mentioned extending government money after 12 grade, like intel." ♪ ♪ ♪ rush into 12 additional years of community college. going back a generation or two, because i am 72 years old, and especially my grandfather's generation, it was commonplace to have apprenticeships to help people are in state licenses to make a living and support their families. we should go back to that program with greater speed than we are currently doing, a lot of people are going to colleges and

taking courses and majors that are not teaching them to make a living. they are not teaching them to bring home a paycheck and put food on the table and support their families. you can start as early as 11, maybe 12 grade, and if the government money is available, have them go through two years of community college and get licenses, you know, stayed licenses -- state licenses, and have a good paying job. for example, if you need a plumber, you need them yesterday, not tomorrow. host: the president, by the way, is traveling to the tidewater region later today. hannah matthews, your comment. guest: we are talking about the american families plan, but it is part of the president's larger economic package, the american jobs plan, and there is lots of spending for workforce development, for training, apprenticeship programs to be

funded through that. there are lots of ways to make sure people can get back to work and a good job. i would like to go back to what the first caller touched on. he's absolutely right. when we look at the policies being proposed, an important component of the president's proposal is to address the racial inequity in this country. across the board, when we look at the policies, whether we are talking about child poverty, access to quality childcare, you see that it is families of color, black families, latinx families, who have some of the least access to these programs, and the highest rates of poverty. that's is because of historic policies that have disadvantaged communities of color. the president is actually trying to help those communities. the earlier person you played who said it doesn't have anything to do with the pandemic, it absolutely does have everything to do with the

pandemic. the pandemic has shown a light on its effect on our economy. these investments would go farthest coworkers of color. we look at health care investment. raising the wages of childcare workers, who are nearly all women and disproportionately women of color. workers in look eight jobs -- low-paid jobs, are disproportionately workers of color and have the least access to paid family leave. so there is an attempt here to address racial inequality that has grown in this country and it's still very much -- today. host: we will go to joe. good morning to you. caller: thanks for taking my call. i will point my comments to the young lady from the heritage society. my question is very simple -- the tax break that was supposed to be a middle-class tax break, went to the 1%.

83%. can we agree that is a fact? so my question is this, biden's bill is going to help millions of americans -- children, adults, jobs, to real people. so my question is, it is going to help so many people, why do you want to fight it and fight to take care of the corporations? they bailed out. they did the 2.5, the tax credit. they bailed out wall street instead of the american people that were in food lines. host: thanks for the call. rachel greszler, your response to his question and comment. guest: there is a lot of misconception about what the tax cuts actually work. 75% went to individuals, not to corporations. corporations don't actually pay taxes. it is all the people that own those corporations, that work in those corporations but end up

paying the taxes. and the reality is a higher percentage of the tax cuts went to lower and middle income americans than to the middle-income americans. the average family of four saw an increase. the average worker had a tax cut. that is a higher tax cut than for high income americans. i know we would like to see people have their problems solved. but the government is not the answer to these things. to take more income out of americans -- i talked about the extra $6,000 that -- [inaudible] host: we continue to lose -- rachel, we lost part of what you were saying because you froze up. can you repeat the last part? guest: sorry about that. i was saying, if you have to pay higher taxes on that can't be

financed only by higher -income americans, that is limiting their opportunity. yes they might have more government programs, where they are told whether or not they're eligible to receive those benefits, that they would have less money to take home and make the choices best for their families. host: if you are listening on the c-span radio app or c-span radio app, our two gusts, as we focus on the key components of the president's rebuilding plan. rachel greszler is with the heritage foundation. hannah matthews is with an organization called the center for law. joann from nevada on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning, steve. how are you? steve: i am good. caller: i wanted to make a comment -- trump, we really miss you. i got my vaccines, am doing

good. thank you for the vaccine. i want to say, our education system -- i worked at job corps. i was a vocational instructor for 10 years. we got a lot of the compton kids from california, the gang bangers and all this, but we do have, in every state, we have two job corps. and they have unions. they get instructed to get their drivers license, get them turned around. why do we have to reinvent a whole new system to train kids? we have got it. why don't we improve on job corps, instead of trying to make a whole new system. host: thanks for the call. hannah matthews, your risk on -- your response. guest: i look at this plan is actually building on the

programs we have no. many of them, whether it is education or workforce development, have been dramatically underfunded for decades. rachel mentioned the childhood development program. it serves only 1 in six children who are eligible for assistance right now. the president's plan is building on what we have, but actually making sure that all families would be eligible for the program, will actually get the childcare, and that the care they are able to get will be of higher quality. building on those investments, not starting new ones. host: on the democrats line from west virginia, good morning. caller: good morning. your guest from the heritage foundation prompted my call, with the often used scare tactic of, how much people in lower middle income brackets pay in taxes who live in other countries. as someone who has had the

opportunity to travel overseas several times, i am always blown away by how well traveled people, and even the service industry jobs are in the u.k.. as a person who spent more than a decade working my way through higher education in the restaurant industry, travel anywhere was pretty much out of reach. i spoke to lots of people over the course of my travels, and the number of people in the u.k. who can tell me different states and places in the united states that they have been, far outweighs the number of people that i know personally in the united states who have traveled anywhere, even outside of local, regional metro, tri-state area. host: thank you for the call, jennifer. rachel greszler. guest: i think their need -- i think there needs to be focused

on what are some opportunities for people to climb the career ladder. one of the callers mentioned apprenticeship programs. that is a great opportunity for people to have rising career -- rise in career and not have to invest in a six figure college education. we have to start younger. another caller talked about the inequities in k-12 education. in d.c., i had the opportunity to work on on an opportunity scholarship program and meet some of the families, something that was led by an african-american family who got other mothers together and they said, this isn't fair that we don't have options for our children. we need to be focusing on the indication system that provides more opportunities for individuals to earn higher incomes. the reality is in the united states, we have higher income. we get to keep a higher share of our income and decide what to do with that.

that is not as much true in europe where they have a higher tax base and a more rigid labor market. host: senator blackburn, republican of tennessee, saying that this is government overreach, as well, and it would typically, in her words undermine the typical american family." here is what she had to say on the senate floor last week. [video clip] many of our tennesseeans have expressed concern with some of the provisions in president biden's address. they felt as if this was something that doubled down on decades of failed policies that were seeking to prioritize dependence on a welfare state, overlooking the families and communities, but pushing that dependence on a welfare state. there really wasn't anything groundbreaking that was there in the remarks, apart from the

price tag, which is eye-popping and really will take your breath away when you stop and think about it. for a long time, my democratic colleagues have championed programs that treat people like individual clients instead of families and communities. so here we are, and we are staring down the biden doctrine, and it is a commitment to spending trillions and trillions of dollars. trillions of dollars. we are talking about $6 trillion. this is astounding. those dollars are being spent to incentivize dependence on the federal government, to supplant the nuclear family with the federal government, and to centralize control here in

washington, d.c. host: heather matthews, if you could respond. guest: sure. let's take one policy and talk about groundbreaking. the president's proposal would give 12 weeks of paid family medical leave to all workers in this country. the united states is the only developed country in the world that does not offer paid leave to workers. i can't think of a more pro-family policy than making sure that families don't lose income or lose their jobs when they have a caregiving need. what we are hearing right now is not at all reflective of these policies. it really does not reflect the public. there has been polling done on this issue. people want affordable childcare. they cannot afford.

they are paying huge sums of money. workers want to be able to take leave when they need to. i think these are very profamily policies, and i think if we look at the american families plan together, we will see a retooling of our public policy to finally address this challenge that working families have to make work and caregiving compatible, because we know that people are not one or the other. you can be a working mom, and you have needs and you still need to be a breadwinner for your family. host: hannah matthews is the executive director for policy at the center for la an social policy and found her masters from johns hopkins university. rachel greszler is from the heritage foundation serving as a research fellow, earning her master from princeton university. this headline from reuters -- $45 billion to be used for meals

for low-income children. this story at reuters.com. alan joins us from wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to point out that the federal student loan system is a big government, college-enriching, catastrophically failed monstrosity. it is a creature of washington, d.c. this current proposal, $1.8 trillion. that adds to the national debt. biden, or even president trump, they could have canceled the entire $1.6 trillion of federal student loan system without needing one dime from the treasury and without adding one penny to the national debt. this needs to be taken to the bath and drowned in the tub. i know about rachel, but other people from the heritage foundation of opposing this,

they are just fighting for big government and the colleges. i would like to hear what rachel has to say about this blatant hypocrisy. host: thank you for the call. rachel greszler? guest: i don't think we need to be canceling any student loan debt, that has all as for the economic incentives going forward. the reality is true, that the government loans program is driving up the cost of education. we have seen enormous increases making it hard for families to afford that. we need to look at reforming the way the government subsidizes college education, but also looking at alternatives that are out there that provide a wonderful education without necessarily needing a four-year degree, and maybe even getting paid while you are in an apprenticeship program. i also want to touch on family leave. it is actually popular. a lot of these programs are popular when you ask americans. they support them, until they

find out what the costs are. you cannot erase those costs. i am all for paid family. i would love to have more workers have access to it. this is something i am invested in myself in. i have six young children. i have benefited from those paid family leave programs provided by my employers in a flexible way. the unknown reality about these government programs in europe and in the u.s. is that they are actually regressive. they end up taxing everybody, but they are primarily benefiting middle and upper income earners. as the ceo looked at the proposal from our paid family leave program, the estimated that only 42% of the people that would have a need to take leave would qualify. even financing 42% of people's leaves, the taxes would rise to hundred 40% over six years. we need to address these programs april need, but we need

to look at both sides -- we need to address these programs that people need, but we need to look at both sides. would i be willing to take a loan to finance, her to come on in my child from? th -- would i be willing to take a loan in my child's name to finance this? the answer is no. host: increasing the marginal income tax rate for the top 1% to nearly 40%, 39.6%, up from 37%. also increasing the dividend tax rate for those making more than $1 million a year. and eliminating the tax code provision that reduces capital gains from inherited assets, as well as investing $80 billion in irs enhancements. an estimated $700 billion in additional revenues from those wealthy earners, wealthy corporations but evade taxes,

the president outlining in his speech last week. joining us from south carolina on the republican line, good morning. caller: i don't like none of his policies, not none of them. all he does is money, money, money. just like the border. all he wants is people to vote for them. they want to get everything they can through so they can rule everybody. i ain't never seen nothing like this before in my life, i am 76 years old, and trump. they blamed him for everything. they blamed him if he sneezed. he is the best president we had. you didn't see this in 2019, everything that they do. i would not believe them if they

were standing on a stack of bibles. not nothing. host: , thank you. democrat from the, virginia, good morning. caller: hi. i am calling because i would like to speak to the young lady speaking for the heritage foundation. i just want to know why it is that republicans never complain about how much money was spent in afghanistan or iraq. we build bridges and roads to be blown up. we have rebuilt them again. here it is, president biden is trying to the troops out of afghanistan,? and what do we hear? ? phone, we're going to have problems over there. he should not do it. it should have been done 15 years ago. thank you. host: mary, thanks for the call. we begin with the rachel greszler for a response, and then to hannah matthews. guest: as a conservative, i would love to see cutting back on wasteful and inefficient

spending across any area of government. that is absolutely something we need to look at. i don't think we should have been sending out more checks to americans. they have saved $1.9 trillion more in the year of covid-19 than they did before that. that is wasteful spending, sending checks to americans, when we could have provided targeted relief to the people most in need. in terms of the taxes, the rich paying their fair share, that has been the highlight of president biden's, but the reality is the rich, as a share of their income, they are paying twice as much the share of taxes as they are of their income, while the bottom 9% is a one quarter as much in taxes as they are their income. so i think the tax system is already skewed toward the wealthy are paying a lot higher taxes and i am not sure what amount would make about fair,

but we are talking about really damaging, economically high tax raises trying to fund these programs just by taxing the rich. host: hannah matthews, your response. guest: one of the components in the biden proposal is actually to put more resources into enforcement at the irs, to make sure that the wealthiest, powerful and large corporations pay the taxes that are already on the books. there are lots of loopholes that let the wealthy avoid paying taxes. that would be a way to make sure they are paying their fair share. and i actually think this is really important, the cost of family paid leave. one of the benefits of a national policy out, is we have experienced some states but have been able to create a paid

family medical leave program. nine states including the district of columbia. i have not heard of anyone having to take out a loan to have to finance this program. workers do not say this is an onerous. task neither do employers. in fact, we see even small businesses, but these policies are very favorable. they report, after they have done surveys in states, employers protect that their employees are more productive, it reduces turnover, so it actually saves some cost for employers there. we talk about the program and the need for workers in low-paid jobs to be able to benefit, and again, rachel is absolutely right, we need to make sure the programs reach all workers. we know that the programs need to provide sufficient wage replacement to make sure that

workers can look forward to paid leave. the way the proposal would work is it would provide a reimbursement of workers wages for taking leave, and it would provide wage replacement for workers in the lowest income jobs. that is important, because when a caregiving need comes up, workers cannot afford a pay cut. there is a lot to be learned from the state programs, which makes it the right time to put in place a national program that really can work for all workers. host: the price tag for the president's education and childcare plan, part of a broader package, 1.8 trillion dollars. from mercer, pennsylvania, good morning on the republican line project you are next. caller: i just have a question about education spending and how it relates to higher education in the united states. i know that lamar alexander helped reform the tax cut to

make it easier on college students in america to apply for federal aid. president biden's american families plan, how will it help to improve public universities, especially in pennsylvania, where we have a merger going on with our state's higher education system. there needs to be a carrot and stick mechanism, to make sure these state legislatures actually fund these publicly-owned universities so we can have increased social mobility, and for the middle class -- people to enter the middle class. either hanner or rachel could answer that, that would be great. host: the merger, is it a consolidation of some of the state universities? caller: yes, it is an integration. they are not closing campuses -- well, that is what they say, but they are trying to consolidate services to cut costs, because the state legislature has refused to increase appropriations.

when my mother attended state schools 30 years ago, the same college i am attending, she went without any debt. now you leave and you are buried in debt. it is the 48 state paying for higher education, compared to other states. host: thank you for the call. let's turn to hannah matthews four years -- for a response. guest: what the caller is describing is something american families know all too well, the growing cost of secondary education and the growing amount of student debt that many families and students have had to take on. we have seen the investment at the state level decline for secondary education. there is money in the recovery plan that was passed. and again, the american families plan would build on that my offering two years of free community college, also targeting investments to hbcus

and minority-serving institutions, again, really trying to address where the need is greatest. when we look at the student loan debt, we see huge racial gaps, in terms of how that is meted out for families, and also gender gaps. we know that for families of color, student loan debt plays an enormous cost in being able to go on to get a degree or even finance a home. taking together all these policies, investing in education, it is about addressing that racial wealth gap. host: from minnesota, diane, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i am calling because i would like to be able to share with you a short story that i know. i know a young girl who was 13 years old and got pregnant and,

by the time she was 19, she had five kids, who moved to minnesota from arkansas. with no education. with a fifth grade education. but when she got to minnesota, there were plans in place, put together by lyndon baines johnson, the president that i love so much. because he gave me the opportunity to go back to school and get my ged. and my children were taken care of in childcare, not having to worry about it. i had five of them at 19, and i didn't have any money to go to school with, and i could not get a job because when i applied for a job, even at montgomery ward, i could not do the math to get that job. so, i was able to go back to school because of these federal programs that now biden is trying to bring back, were killed by ronald reagan. i was able to go to school, get my masters degree, and still

maintain my welfare check and take care of my children. and when i got able and got my masters degree, i got off welfare. my family is not on welfare now. that is what needs to happen in america to those of us who are on the bottom. i came from the red state of arkansas who did not give me no education, who gave me nothing. so don't tell me about the fact that this country. this country needs to give us a -- some boots to put on. don't tell me about both straps. i know about this. i am 71 years old and i have been fighting ever since i got to minnesota as an activist for other people. we need to get rid -- of all the programs that used to be there. we had the young farmers of america. all kinds of programs, under lyndon b. johnson. we don't have those programs anymore. they went away.

they are gone because ronald reagan and the rest of the republicans decided that they did not need a giveaway. but you are not giving anything away. i pay taxes, a lot of taxes every year now, because i am a middle-class american. i make a six figure income, and i got there because my country, this country of mine, that my ancestors, my grandfather who could not even read the newspaper, but because of the programs put in place that helped us, we are now american citizens paying taxes. we don't want handouts. we want a hand up! host: diane, thank you for sharing your story. let me turn to rachel greszler for comment and response. guest: that is an amazing story and i think it does speak to the power of a hand up, instead of a handout. that has to be the focus going

forward. a lot of the provisions here, unconditional child tax credits and other benefits, are not aimed at helping individuals declined that economic -- individuals to climb that economic ladder. that is what we need to be working more towards, instead of reversing it. clinton said that we are ending welfare as we know it, because the science and the studies showed that simply giving people cash handouts and other benefit programs without helping them to move beyond their circumstances was not actually what was working best. this policy now with the biden administration is undoing what the clinton administration does to make work better for people, to help them climb out of the situations. host: janet in florida with this tweet -- "god bless the minnesota lady and lbj." you can send us your tweets at

@cspanwj. next caller, please. caller: that lady from minnesota, she sounds so much like me. [laughs] i don't know if ms. rachel greszler has read mr. biden's proposals and i don't know if you even bothered to read. what they did in the great society. what they did is what mr. biden is trying to do, we align what was there. i had loans too. i am an affirmative action baby. i was able to come back and help my parents. i will be 70 in a couple of months. the other thing i want to tell the young lady from the heritage, from the republican point of view -- remind me what -- said and what everybody found, so confounding, that

black colleges were founded because black parents want a choice. no, they were founded because we were not given a choice and we were paying taxes, too. other than that, i don't think a heavenly more to say. that lady from minnesota, she took my -- you host: thank you for the call. host: thank you, juanit hearing from all of thesea. colors. is reminding me of something senator scott said, that the beauty of the american dream is that families get to decide for themselves. amount of the individuals or families in america look exactly the same. some people have struggled a lot more than others and it is wonderful to hear how these people have claimed up and overcome barriers, but we want the opportunity to be there for everybody. we want people to make the

choices that they know are best for them. i just see the reality of what the biden administration is proposing is taking options away and taking income away so that people don't have the choice to decide what is best for the family and themselves, but they instead have buckets of government programs to tell them, you are eligible for this, you are not eligible for that. and they will not keep much of their earnings. i don't think that will create more opportunity in education or jobs or income mobility. host: the president's plan will not raise taxes for individuals making less than $400,000 a year. guest: that is mathematically impossible. guest:. what we are talking about here is reclaiming a small portion of a $1.5 trillion tax cuts and jobs act, and using that small portion of $1.5 trillion to somehow pay for $4.4 trillion between an infrastructure package and the american families plan. simply does not add up. host: on the republican

line from texas, good morning. caller: good morning. one question about this 1.6 trillion package, student loan forgiveness, how would that be worked out, when you have people who have gotten student loans, like myself, in the past, who worked to pay my student loan off, and my wife's, as well? host: hannah matthews? guest: the american families plan includes student loans forgiveness. it would make investments so that going forward, students get community college for free, but it does not at this time address student loan forgiveness. host: from new mexico on the independent line, good morning. caller: i would like to direct my comment to miss hannah aggressor. you earlier -- miss rachel bressler. earlier you said that 83% of the

tax cuts went to the top 1%. but in your discussion of the trump tax cuts, you did not include that the trump tax-cut for working people expire in 2025 as a result of this being done under reconciliation. also you did not say that the corporate tax-cut continue, there is active of the 2025 deadline. also, you don't address the simple fact that most rich people make their money on capital gains and dividends. and dividends are paid at a lesser rate than earned income. if the top corporation, if the head of a corporation makes 300% more than somebody working in his corporation, we have a progressive tax rate. if you make the hundred percent more, you should be more!

host: rachel greszler, your response. guest: the views of the capital gains and dividends are taxed at a different tax rate is there is actually a second layer of tax. they have already paid taxes on the income earned and invested, and they are paying a second tax there. these are actually known to be the most economically destructive taxes, because we want ordinary americans to be able to invest, to have their retirement servings in an account invested that will grow over time, because those investments are what fueled economic growth that leads to income growth. talking about the tax rates that are there, higher taxes on the wealthy are not going to result in enough money to pay for these programs and they are absolutely going to reduce the size of the economy. host: good morning to you. caller: good morning, thank you. i disagree with regards to taxing the wealthy would somehow

impact the economy in any way. it's not so much that their tax or tax rate, it's how much they are getting away with in loopholes and avoiding paying tax. i understand they pay taxes on payroll and that's a completely different thing. their income and their process and they find a way around it. that's unacceptable when you see a company is worth $100 billion and they pay zero income tax because they get away with deductions and appreciations. i think it's a story -- by taxing the people that can afforded it to help the middle class i think that's of -- that's why historically this never gets cleared up. host: we will turn to hannah matthews for a response, are you listening on c-span radio?

hannah: the american families plan takes a look at the tax system and looks at changing the system to one that rewards work instead of rewarding wealth. this is not a plan that is about handouts to families. this is a plan that would say "let's improve the economy by giving more and letting low and middle income earners keep more of their paychecks." tax credits for low income families to make sure they are paid. we have a low-wage work problem in this country where we have millions of people earning a living, going to work, and still living in poverty. the plan here is to say, let's help families work, let's invest in the cost of going to work like childcare, and let's make sure we keep more of their

paycheck. this is a profamily and pro-work plan and all of the investments here in education and childcare and paid leave make the economy stronger. one thing we have not talked a lot about and that is particularly true right now as we come out of this pandemic is the impact that the economic crisis and the pandemic has had on women. 2 million fewer women work in the labor force largely because of having to leave because of caregiving needs. that matters to our economy. women are the primary breadwinners and their families and we need to make sure that women who work and can afford childcare and that will have economic returns for us as a country. >> if i could jump in on the issue of women with covid-19 and it was true at the beginning that women were

disproportionately impacted because they lost more jobs and had to stay home more with children. i want to end on a positive note is that that is actually reversed now and women and men are pretty much equal in terms of their employment, their labor force participation, and women's earnings have grown more since covid-19 than men's. i think making policies based on something that was a temporary phenomenon does not make sense. that does not mean there is not still room for growth. there are still people that have employment opportunities both men and women and we need to focus on creating those opportunities. host: one more call from michigan. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is in terms of the endgame. the endgame of going to college is not just to get an education or to get people to go to college, but to get a meaningful

education that will result in hopefully becoming a better contributor to our society and our country, to our employment for better living and ourselves. statistics show that people who do go to college and graduate who complete what we currently have, over 50% of them don't get a job that requires a degree or 50% of them don't get a job in their particular field. the statistics show that people -- 50% graduate in four years. people may drop off because of -- that's not the exclusive reason. the productivity of the universities and the colleges for people to get employment are dismal. education does need to be reformed, but it needs to be reformed to target people who go to college to get gainful employment in their particular field. right now their performance is terrible. 50% of people graduate and get a

career in the area they get their major in is unacceptable. host: i will leave it there, a good question to conclude on and day chance for you to respond. we begin with you, hannah. hannah: what the caller is getting at is that we need good jobs in this country, we need jobs that have a clear path that have a family sustaining wage and benefits. if we take the american jobs plans that was previously proposed alongside the americans families plan we are giving more opportunities to workers and families in this country to be able to get an education and access good jobs and support their families. host: rachel, we will give you the final word. rachel: the caller brings up a good point and one of the problems is that the colleges and universities do not have a buy-in in the process.

they get that $50,000 transmission -- tuition check regardless of what the individual -- whether the individual graduates or if they get a job after they graduate area there might be ways to look at increasing the level of buy-in's that the colleges have themselves or money coming directly from them or more outcome based measures. host: rachel is a research fellow at the heritage foundation joining us on zoom from bethesda. hannah matthews is the deputy executive director at the center for law and social policy. when we come back we will turn our attention to the covid-19 vaccine and the issue of herd immunity and the vaccine supply. joining us is tom hart of the o ne campaign. washington journal continues in just a moment. ♪ [washington journal theme plays] >> listen to c-span's podcast

"the weekly." we discussed the latest census numbers with the reed epstein of the new york times and a member of the cook political report. >> the projections added that there would be a shift of six for the midwest and northeast to the south and west. the shift wound up being half of that, three seats. that is the big difference when it comes to not just congressional representation but the electoral college counts over the next 10 years. >> suburban seats in the sunbelt have become more competitive and you have a number of hispanic seats and very formerly union stronghold democratic seats look more competitive as well. >> find "the weekly" where you get your podcasts. >> weeknights this month we are

featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span three. tonight we look back to when tens of thousands of anti-vietnam war protesters, young people and military veterans alike, converged on washington dc in the spring of 1971. more than 7000 of them were arrested in a single day. american history tv and c-span's washington journal look back 50 years at the forces that collided on the capital streets. our guest is an investigative journalist, the author of "vide 1971: i white house at war, revel in the streets, and the untold history of america's biggest mass arrest." watch american history tv every weekend on c-span three. ♪ ♪

>> washington journal continues. host: joining us from kensington, maryland is tom hart , the acting ceo of the one campaign, which is what? tom: an organization dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease around the world. we work with public policy officials in washington and all over the world to try to adopt policies to help those objectives. host: those policies include vaccine distribution. let's focus on what everyone is calling a crisis in india. from your perspective, how bad

is covid-19 in that country and what role should the u.s. way in terms of providing more vaccines and assistance to india? tom: the crisis in india is devastating. they are already posting daily infection numbers above the worst cases is that we saw in the united states and we expect that as an undercount. unfortunately i think we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg there. this is a catastrophe unfolding before our eyes and the world needs to act urgently to begin to address it. i applaud the biden administration's initial actions with donated doses and emergency supplies. much more needs to happen urgently and it's not just the united states responsibility, all of the countries who have got extra supplies need to urgently send those to india, and frankly to other poor countries. india is a tragedy in and of itself. it's also a harbinger of what could come. when you have densely populated

cities and virus mutations that are killing young people, you can see that spreading to other major metropolises around the world with weaker health systems. host: pramila jayapal represents washington state and her family is from india. her parents were hospitalized and she traveled to india early this year and after the president's speech before a joint session of congress she commented on what she is seeing in her home country. rep. jayapal: it's really bad. i just came back from there and i was with my parents who both unfortunately tested positive for covid. both ended up in the hospital. luckily they are home and recuperating and got through the worst of it. they had gotten the first dose of the vaccine for weeks before. i cannot tell you and tell people enough, please get vaccinated. i think my parents would not be here if they hadn't had the vaccine, the first dose of the vaccine.

it helped alleviate a lot of their symptoms. they are ok but i'm seeing the devastation everywhere in india. everything is on lockdown. there are so many people dying, there are funeral pyres everywhere. that's what you saw and smelled, was the smoke outside when you went outside. the hospitals are overrun. i'm not sure my dad could have gotten the room. if it'd been a week later my friends who are doctors are overwhelmed with what they are having to deal with. lack of oxygen, it's a dire situation. >> is the world, the u.s. doing enough for india? rep. jayapal: the u.s. has put together a comprehensive set of assistance for everything from the raw materials and allowing the raw materials to go forward for vaccines but also for pp, oxygen, also a team of professionals who can help from the cdc to help india.

now the announcement of some of the stock of 60 million vaccines that are going to countries around the world, hopefully a lot of that will go to india. we have to do more. that will be a bit of a drop in the bucket if we want to be able to contain the virus in india. host: the congresswoman talking about what we are doing now but how did india reach this point and why did it become so desperate? tom: initially india seemed to weather the crisis relatively well at a time where we were having a spike of infections in the u.s. india was relatively low. what appears to have happened is some of the initial lockdown and social distancing and the discouraging of social gatherings has loosened. combine that with very dangerous variants in the virus itself have caused an acceleration of

infection and death across india. you are seeing the tip of the iceberg here. this is where in response to the congresswoman's appointment comments this is a moment where our generosity matches our own self-interest. in a case where you have replication upon replication of this disease across a huge, densely populated country like india you are going to see additional mutations. we've seen how mutations respect no borders, they are just a plain flight away and they do come here. our vaccines are very effective against our current versions of the virus, but you could easily see it replicated millions and millions of times. in india and other places across the world you are increasing the chances for more variance. we need to extinguish this virus everywhere in order for us to be safe here. that's why our humanitarian work in india and emergency response is so critical and needs to be

overwhelming and why we simply can't have a response that deals with the pandemic in the u.s.. >> every monday we focus on various aspects of the pandemic, today the vaccine program and our distribution and assistance to other countries. here are some stats from the one campaign, our guest is the acting ceo. the u.s. in excess of 554 million doses of the vaccine, european union 415 million, great britain 113 million, canada 95 million, and australia at 74 million. the organization with this new ad promoting what the u.s. and other countries need to do. ♪ >> oh. >> needles. >> look. >> charge.

>> if the vaccine is in everywhere, this pandemic is not going anywhere. join our fight to end the pandemic. host: that's from your organization, the one campaign. our other countries stepping up to the plate? tom: it's been very uneven. the wealthiest countries have administered 83% of the doses that the world has, less than 1% of the doses administered are in the poorest countries. what other wealthy countries need to do, wealthy countries early on did something that if you have lots of money as wealthy countries do you would naturally do, you hedge your bets. we weren't sure which vaccines would make it through the process in a series of bets. now as many of the vaccines are

rolling out global supply because we were able to secure them early. that's called hoarding. early hedging is now hoarding. we have half a billion doses more than we need to vaccinate every man woman and child in the country. 100% coverage and we still have half a billion more than we need. we urgently need a plan to redistribute those doses that we don't need to other countries like india or across sub-saharan africa and many places where we can see explosive growth potential and other wealthy countries that you mentioned before the ad that you just showed have also got surplus doses. we need a global coordinated plan to redistribute access doses. we are not suggesting not vaccinating everybody here, we are just saying we have more than our share and other countries are desperate for them. we want to see those doses go to

those that need it. host: herd immunity dims with the pace of the vaccine, saying the added inoculations will diminish the future of threat of the virus. there are many americans opting not to get the vaccine or opting not to get the second vaccine. your comment. tom: vaccine hesitancy is a real issue and a real phenomenon. i emphasize with those that have questions. these vaccines were developed very quickly and the best thing i could say is talk to your local doctor. if you have questions he or she will have answers. a couple of things i will say quickly is these are safe and effective vaccines. no corners were cut in the development. they did it more quickly because there were risks and they invested in three or four different strategies all at once and two out of three of the strategies did not work, but no

corners were cut. we know they are safe and effective, we know that vaccines are working and that these vaccines are working. i should also say that while you may have questions or be hesitant, the risk of getting the vaccine is so much lower than any risk that the -- of that the vaccine might pose. i wish there had been the equivalent amount of media coverage about how safe and effective it was in proportion to the risk. if that was the case for every one second of risk it would have been a week and a half, 24/7 coverage of the positive. that's the risk we are having, the risk balance that we have to assess here. it's very clear while many people have questions that these vaccines are safe and affect. it's imperative for all of us that we get as many people vaccinated as possible. host: we are dividing our phone lines regionally. if you live in eastern or central time zones, (202)

748-8000. those of you in mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. we are also on twitter and we will get to your calls in just a moment. tom let me ask you about other countries in need of the vaccine. one of them is mexico, the u.s. providing additional vaccines to that country. tom: the poor half of the planet is in desperate need and our organization focuses mostly on africa. you can see the need across latin america and southeast asia and india. about a dozen wealthy countries are currently hoarding the vast majority of the vaccine supply increasing the supply, this is the hottest commodity on the planet. increasing that supply, the single best thing we can do is

have poor countries that have a stockpile of vaccines coming through a pipeline, developing a plan to share them with a half of the planet that does not have access. host: what about the need for booster shots. we are hearing from moderna and pfizer that they are preparing to have those available sometime later this year with the expectation that the one or two shots he received from pfizer, johnson & johnson, or moderna may not be enough to last beyond six months or a year. tom: you might say, if we need booster shots we should keep a supply here to make sure we do that. in the six months to a year that we wait to get a booster shot, what additional variants or mutations are going to happen to this disease if outbreaks in india are just a harbinger of things to come? the virus does not respect borders so what now rick anywhere is a threat to anyone

anywhere. the point is in the next six to eight months if we need a booster shot we need to be aggressively vaccinating everyone on the planet to reach global herd immunity to squash this pandemic. the supply of vaccines will continue. it's not like when we share vaccines we are cutting off future supply. we should not be waiting six to 12 months before we tackle this in other parts of the world. >> going back to the new york times. the darker the color the more vaccines distributed in those regions of the country especially in the northeast, the upper midwest, and out west in the later shades indicating that fewer people have been vaccinated including states like wyoming and north dakota and parts of arizona where the vaccine rate is less than 40%. john is joining us from kentucky, good morning. >> good morning.

i have a question, when the gentleman says there were no corners cut or anything, what i don't understand is how do you feel comfortable to say that when we know that for example this came through the emergency use authorization. we know by that route they took that there was no animal testing during these vaccines, there was no testing on anybody over 65 years old. you are telling people out here to take these and saying they have no risk, i think earlier you did say explicitly they had no risk and there were no corners cut. i'm curious, i appreciate your staring -- your charity work and your philanthropy but you certainly have to understand that it's only fair to include that there is a huge and calculable risk that has been interjected into this process.

tom: good questions and good points, i get it. what i would say is i think if you have questions like that it's best to talk to your local physician, i doubt i can convince you the safety and efficacy of this. i'm not an immunologist. these vaccines went through the same safety and effectiveness protocols that every normal vaccine we give to our kids goes through. they did it in an accelerated timeline and the only thing that risk was the investment normally you would not invest in stage two or three trials. , but they did it altogether. you mentioned emergency use authorization the next stage is for full approval. all they are looking for for that final stage is how long the vaccines work for. do they work for six months, 12

months, or will there be no need for a booster shot? we know that in this emergency use authorization everything regarding effectiveness and safety has been checked. i did not say there was no risk. we as humans have a hard time calculating risk effectively. all i was saying was that the risk of not taking the vaccine far outweighs -- the risk of taking the vaccine is far less than any risk of not taking the vaccine. host: our guest who has spent nearly the last 20 years at the one campaign. a veteran of capitol hill having worked for a california senator and a west virginia senator. elise is joining us from california. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i'm fully vaccinated and my family is going down to mexico

which is right outside of porto viar tough for my grandson's 18th birthday celebration and there are 19 of us going. there's only about four or five of us that have been vaccinated. i'm a little worried and right now i'm looking at their air travel. they have the express travel to take you out of mexico if something happens to you to bring you back to your home and we live in california. i'm just a little concerned and would like to know what you know about mexico. we've had this planned for over the years -- over a year and it's scary, for them, not for me, i'm fully vaccinated. if you could address that issue i would appreciate it. tom: i don't want to give you my personal advice, i'm not a professional or a clinician. i would encourage you to speak

to your doctor or the cdc website, there are lot of information about travel whether you are vaccinated or unvaccinated. i would encourage you to seek those resources out. host: we go to a caller in houston, texas. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. my question is, where the heck is the united nations and the world health organization in all of this? why is mr. hart and his private company, volunteer company, charity company, why did they have to do anything? tom: thanks, bill. the who and the u.n. has been incredibly act of in supporting the global response to this pandemic. they are monitoring providing rules of engagement, advice globally and they are authorizing use of vaccines and they are importantly helping low income countries get access to

the vaccines through a cooperation called covax. that is they are purchasing vaccines when they become available. the supply of vaccines is the biggest limiting factor. they are helping get vaccines to the poorest countries around the world. my organization is providing a megaphone to a lot of the great work other people are doing and that's our job. to help promote good work and encourage global vaccinations and push governments to do better in helping end the pandemic. >> we talk about the european union and great written. are you familiar with what russia is or is not doing with eastern european nations that may need these assistance or these vaccines? >> i'm afraid i don't have a lot of details on what russia is doing. it does have its own vaccine which does not end through a strict regulatory authority. the who has not approved the

sputnik vaccine. we do know that russia and china and other countries are aggressively pushing their vaccines to needy countries in what some people call vaccine diplomacy trying to spread your national influence by sharing vaccines which is very concerning and poor countries that have no other option's are taking those vaccines. imagine if you were the leader of a poor country with no other access to vaccinating your people. the demand in those countries is massive. you will feel a lot of pressure to take what you can get. that's why we think it is so important for wealthy countries like the united states and the u.k. and canada and others to have -- that have more vaccines than they need to share those high quality approved vaccines and make them available to these poor countries. host: how concerned are you about the new variance and the potential that they could possess into the fall and winter

of this year? tom: absolutely, the variants are scary. so far the vaccines that we are rolling out up here to continue to be very effective against the variants we've seen from the u.k., south africa, and brazil. there is now apparently an indian variant. that may not always be so. we are playing a game of roulette. we are in a race against this pandemic. we can afford to wait to extinguish it, we must extinguish it as quickly as possible before there becomes a variant that our current vaccines don't respond to. if that happens and there's a variant that gets around our current vaccines we are back to square one. host: a caller joining us from connecticut. caller: hello, mr. hart. you won't tell us what your annual salary is. my strong recommendation, and by

the way i have both moderna shots, got my second one back in january, i strongly suggest that you and the listening public place no reliance on the center for disease control. i am a physician here in connecticut. last evening we heard about the national education with the school teachers here in connecticut who are not showing up for work but they are collecting unemployment and their full salary and it's absolutely sane. how much do you make per year, tom, and you have no medical credentials. did i hear that right? host: we will get a response. tom: well i'm going to keep my salary to myself as i expect others would as well. i'm not a physician. i am the head of an advocacy

organization that works in public health. i have worked in public health policies for my whole career. as i've tried to be careful during this program about what i feel comfortable talking about and not giving medical advice but i appreciate the concerns and the winds. >> the website, tom hart is the acting ceo. let's go to mark in pittsburgh reminding our collars that --callers that the phone lines are open, (202) 748-8000 for the east coast, and (202) 748-8001 out west. caller: i'm not up medical professional but that last guy was hard to follow. i had my second vaccination, i've had no symptoms whatsoever. i used to never get the flu shot, this year it was the first year i got it because i wanted

to clear away questions of it was the flu or coronavirus. that being said, i think everybody should take it, but everybody has their own choice. the people who are not taking it , you have a group of african-americans who have been used as guinea pigs over history and you can't question that, i probably would do the same. i'm a 63-year-old white male. i would probably do the same. the other side seems to be stubborn republicans. people who roth -- who lost the vote and are saying -- they're being stubborn. thank you. host: let me pick up on part of his point, he agreed to take the vaccine and supported the idea of a vaccine and is advocating it. in third world countries had you promote the message to take the vaccine? tom: very much like we do here

in the united states, its to talk about the safety, the effectiveness, the need to reach what is called herd immunity in order to protect your community, not just yourself, it is an act of self-interest to protect yourself from coronavirus and an act of community because eventually you will help extinguish the virus from your community country and the world. in poor countries that was the same process that had to happen and is happening now. like here there is hesitancy and sometimes there are challenges with access in remote villages and difficult to come in to get -- one of the things we are seeing in sub-saharan africa is they want to see and use the vaccines that have been tested in africa. johnson & johnson was tested and indeed produced in south africa. there is a strong desire to do

that just as you might imagine you would want to see how the vaccine was tested and produced in the u.s.. all really good points. host: is that a challenge to some of the more remote tribal areas in terms of communication where they may not have the internet or television or other sources of social media information or radio. >> i don't think there's anyone on the planet who has not heard about the pandemic. the distribution of mobile phones and cellular phones across the poorest parts of the world is that cell phones are ubiquitous. it's about having a good constant supply and developing distribution systems. we have several mass vaccination sites here in maryland where i live. people aren't going to take off

half a day or a day to drive to a mass vaccination site. we need to find ways to get it to local pharmacies and perhaps even through mobile clinics and other ways of distributing. those same challenges we experience in rural america are ones that are challenges across pearl africa. one of the additional challenges that rural africa and other poor countries have is that several vaccines require what is called a cold chain. pfizer is supercold, freezer condition and that is extremely difficult when lack of electricity and refrigeration is the norm across many poor countries. >> we are focusing on the u.s. vaccine supply and efforts by the u.s. and other western countries, to provide vaccines to those countries who need it most. our next caller is from okeechobee, florida. tom: -- caller: good morning, guys. tom, i have a question for you.

i think i already had covid when the year started. i went through the two weeks of sleeping and nausea and pain, the pain was horrific. i told my doctors about it -- i kind of stuck to myself. i got through it ok, but then what happened was i had a blood draw done back in march and my antibodies, the doctor told me that my antibodies were attacking, the whole system was getting inflamed and my antibodies were attacking my own cells and tissues. he wanted me to take some stuff, i'm just taking aspirin because i don't like medication. i'm 85. i have not gotten the vaccine but my doctor says it's ok for me to take it. with my antibodies already attacking my system, what i want

to ask this gentleman, i understand this vaccine generates antibodies. have i already got enough in my body, it's attacking me, i want to get more from the shot, which probably at six months on going to need another one for the rest of my life and none of that makes sense to me. you can talk about that a little bit, i'd appreciate it. tom: i just want to repeat that i am not a physician so i'm not going to give you medical advice. i do understand that the way that vaccines work is they help generate an immune response in all of our bodies which reach the antibodies to help fight off the covid-19 virus. i would talk with your physician, he or she will be able to tell you whether you are safe to take the vaccine and whether you already have antibodies in your system and can generate a response that will be safe for you.

host: what is the lesson for pfizer, moderna, johnson & johnson as these drugmakers come together in working with their medical partners in developing this vaccine? tom: could you repeat? what is the lesson? host: what is the lesson? when you have these companies and often they are competitors but in this issue they are working together. tom: the companies came to their vaccines independently with support from the federal government, most of them. they generated very successful vaccines through these various tracks and there has been an analyzed research that has been improved by the federal government. we have seen some cooperation between the pharmaceutical companies especially to increase the supply which is very encouraging, normally that would never happen but in a public

health crisis where creating supply of the vaccine is among the most important things we can do we have seen cooperation. that's deeply encouraging and we need to see more of it. host: james joining us from tucson, arizona. caller: why are we in a race to get this vaccine out when you have the technology and know-how to detect people who are on alcohol, how about they breathalyzer you for people who do covid, they have a covid breathalyzer for people who spread it all over the world. i believe that the virus was created from people and that's true. we made a volcano that blew up and the smoke -- came down to america from china.

nobody knows where it came from. we can stop the race track now and get people into quarantine with the breathalyzer. >> how would you manage something like that and every research and every analysis shows this originated from wuhan, china. caller: washington, they had the first outbreak in washington. how did it get from china to wuhan, -- from wuhan to america in a couple days? was it contagious? how can someone get the coronavirus if [indiscernible]

host: just to be clear the first indication of the virus was in december of 2019 and it was spotted in this country, i believe in february of 2020 and spreading by march of last year. tom: that's exactly right and i think the caller points out one of the challenges we continue to face which is this spread from presumably it originated in wuhan, china and spread rapidly to the united states and around the world. how did that happen? people are asymptomatic, meaning they are sick with the virus and can spread it but have no symptoms so they don't know they are sick or to take cautions. viruses travel. viruses find a way whether it's on a boat or a plane, we have an incredibly mobile society and that is part of why we have a

vibrant economy in the united states and around most of the world. these viruses take advantage of that. what we have seen is not just the original of irish -- the original virus. the dominant variant in the u.s. i believe is from the united and him, england. we see variance from south africa and india and brazil. you can see how these variants, when they are allowed to fester in a particular environment then take off and spread, that's how viruses work and they are efficient at it. host: call from marietta, georgia. caller: good morning. to the cast, do you get any funding from the gates foundation? tom: yes, the one campaign is funded partially by the gates foundation. we are entirely privately funded, we don't take money from the u.s. government, from no pharmaceutical companies, or from the general public.

caller: i am a foundation black american meeting my ancestors came over here forcibly and i have not gotten the vaccine, i don't plan to ever get the vaccine. i don't get flu shots. when you tell me that you get money from the gates foundation it makes me leery, because i know he is a proponent of population control. and i don't trust him with vaccines in africa. africans die mostly from malaria and i don't see nobody creating a vaccine to help that. i'm very suspicious of anything with the gates foundation. host: thanks for the call, we will get a response. tom: i understand the hesitation and for asking good tough questions. one thing i want to say is that the gates foundation is one of the world's biggest investors in

a malaria vaccine and we recently had very good news, it looks like a malaria vaccine has just passed another stage in the testing process and there could be a viable one. one of the biggest killers, mostly of kids in africa is malaria. i do think that vaccines have proven again and again to save lives. there's a reason we don't hear much about polio or typhoid, those types of diseases that we have basically eliminated from the united states are all a result of the brilliant scientists and medical professionals who develop these vaccines. we are seeing the turning of the tide in the wealthier countries on covid-19 after we have been devastated over the fall and winter due to the vaccines. i encourage you to speak to your physician and you will have to

make your own choice. host: why hasn't the wto made it mandatory for all member nations to properly share raw materials, technology, and make it necessary for vaccines to deal with these pandemics? tom: the wto is considering a temporary waiver of the intellectual property rights and other knowledge sharing's that will be required, that currently the patent holders, these major pharmaceutical companies hold in order to increase the global supply, it's very complicated tensions between incentivizing innovation, we are grateful to these pharmaceutical companies for the speed and effectiveness they create these new vaccines. this is a global public health crisis and in situations like this we need to extinguish the pandemic as quickly as possible. so we don't end up with variants that make the vaccine ineffective.

this is a very difficult balance and we are encouraging all efforts to increase the global supply. host: in terms of cases according to johns hopkins and its members -- numbers they been keeping track with since the start of the pandemic more than 150 2 million cases of coronavirus and leading the list is india, the u.s., and brazil in the number of cases and deaths the u.s. is number one at 577,000 followed by brazil at 407,000 and india at over 218 thousand deaths just far. this tweet saying i'm fully vaccinated with the pfizer vaccine but i'm still nervous about all the variance. back to your phone calls. randy and washington, d.c.. good morning. caller: good morning. i heard a guy earlier say he had got a vaccine in january, two shots, is that true? i have a question about the

pfizer. if you're allergic to eggs they recommend you not to get the fruit -- flu shot. what about pfizer, could you be allergic to anything with pfizer that i should know? host: tom heart that's probably not in your wheelhouse but if you want to respond we can move on. tom: i do know based on what i read the pfizer and moderna shots are not developed in eggs, the color is correct that some vaccines are, many of the childhood vaccines we're take, if you have an egg allergy they caution you to get another form, but the pfizer and moderna shots were developed with another technology. host: can you give me a general sense of in our audience what the white house has pledged in terms of where the vaccines will go in terms of the long impact of all of this? tom: the biden administration has pledged several million to canada and mexico, they pledged

a surplus supply of astrazeneca vaccine that we have secured. we have secured astrazeneca but not approved it for use in the u.s.. it has been approved for use in canada and mexico. we are sharing a small amount of that. we've also agreed to share ultimately once we get the supply, 60 million vaccines of astrazeneca with other countries including india. i don't believe it's clear at the moment how much will go to india and on what timeline. as i said at the top of the show we had half a billion more doses secure. we have the rights to them and they will come to us unless we let go of those rights. half a billion more than we need to vaccinate everyone in the country, men, women, and children. we know that we won't cover the entire u.s. so we have more than half a billion doses and we need to urgently develop a system to

share those vaccines with countries that don't have access. host: a question from dave wondering if other countries have the same level of hesitancy we are seeing in the u.s.. do you have a response? tom: hesitancy varies. the last i just saw canada has far less hesitancy than we are seeing in the united states and other countries are relatively similar. the hesitancy is hovering right around that level we need to reach to reach what they call herd immunity, between 70% and 85%. it appears that people are willing to take it right around that level. it will be hard to reach some people which is why we need to make a special effort in the u.s. and around the world to get these vaccines available. host: another viewer with this observation on twitter saying "i wonder how many of these anti-conspiracy theorists on social media are russian

trolls?" tom: that is an excellent question. i'm not sure i'm capable of answering or that anyone is capable of answering. i think the level of disinformation and conspiracy theories on social media is incredibly damaging which is why i have said often during this program that you should talk to your physician, don't take my word for it, talk to your local physician and read as much as you can from news sites that are credible and try to avoid unsubstantiated claims online. host: a few more minutes with our guest from the one campaign. thank you for waiting, good morning. caller: good morning, hello, tom. it bothers me the big brush that you are faint -- painting the efficacy of your concepts and shoving them off to local doctors and physicians, saying if you have a problem or are not sure of something to contact

your local physician. i don't know where you get the idea that the local physician is an expert or semi-expert on immunological conditions etc.. i happen to be a physician and the position called 10 colors ago --callers, they don't study those courses. they only have a day or two, not even a week in nutrition and they certainly aren't experts in everything your assuming they are experts in, talk to your doctor. you were talking about the malaria vaccine. why can't they get that, whoever they are, why can't they speed at up -- that up like they sped this up? the vaccines we are pleasantly -- presently taking. everyone has their fingers crossed hoping it all works out and nobody really knows, they

are pretending to know but they don't really know. host: before we give tom a chance to respond if a patient comes to you, what do you tell them in terms of the vaccine, what is your recommendation? caller: what i would say is that i don't really know. and nobody does. i'm not pollyanna ken just saying whatever i want to say that i've heard from someone. go to youtube and study it yourself. everyone have time to become an expert echo no -- expert? no. obviously it's horrible and i was on the fence myself. my wife is the only reason i took it. i don't really understand if it's going to hurt me or not. it's gambling. 99% of the doctors in the country, but who would want to admit that that they don't

really understand something. they don't understand basic nutrition, because they have not studied it. everyone says see the doctor, see the doctor. that's what you're good at. god bless you and everyone that is trying. you can't just say go to the doctor if you have a problem. they are not experts at everything. you are painting this with a big wide brush, just see the doctor and he or she will tell you and that's not true. host: let me move on. thank you for your call from florida. tom: i'm not a physician and nor would i want to be dispensing medical advice on your program. a woman called earlier with particular medical conditions and concerns and i'm not about to diagnose her, i'm not skilled enough to do that and if i were i would encourage her to speak to her personal physician. i understand that family physicians and non-immunologists are going to have a steep

learning curve. part of this has to do with credibility. you all don't know who i am and me telling you the vaccines are safe and effective for you probably has very little credibility. what i can do is talk about the global impact of this pandemic band some of the global solutions and efforts being made by companies and countries to extinguish the pandemic here and everywhere. people specific medical concerns need to start with their own physicians and i encourage everyone to research and make that decision. host: one of the callers responding to what john was saying in florida, the caller wanted every american to have a personal epidemiologist, hopefully any primary care provider has access to information on current vaccines and its overall result. tom: i quite agree. this has been a crash course for all of us in epidemiology and no

more so than any physician -- every physician is being peppered with questions on this. my heart goes out to all of you with real questions hopefully that we can filter out the disinformation from the good information and bring an end to the epidemic. host: back to your phone calls. mark in washington, d.c.. good morning. caller: good morning. nih studies have said that reported contractions are lower than actual contractions. any u.s. that would be 290 million people or 80% are immune. nih also found that natural-induced immunity is robust, long-lasting, eight months and counting. obviously we don't know that about the vaccine because we have not had the time to study it. why on earth are you not focused on antibody testing, especially

at all vaccination sites, to ascertain people's immunity rather than wasting 80% of the vaccines on people who are already immune with robust long-term immunity? makes no sense. the only explanation is, are you a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical companies? that's all i have too -- that's my question. host: thank you, mark. tom: i'm not a lobbyist from the fortis super bowl -- from the pharmaceutical companies, we get no support from sarris suitable -- pharmaceutical companies. i believe that the fact of the matter of antibody testing of people who have had covid-19 is that there does appear to be some natural immunity but it's not nearly as robust as the vaccine. the vaccine treatment will provide, nor is it as long-lasting.

i think you are absolutely right there are estimates that many more people have had covid-19 then have been reported. and that there would be some months of natural immunity from that but it's not clear yet how long it would last or the level of antibody. it would be great if we could do antibody testing on everyone, i think that is a capacity constraint. host: tracy saying, no doctor will tell you to go to youtube. it's all a conspiracy people telling you to go to youtube, stop calling in and lying to these people. jeff in bayville, new york, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. thank you for the fantastic work you do. i have a question that basically follows the question. you mentioned that the antibody testing would ideally be more

widespread if there was capacity to do so. dr. fauci had mentioned in his briefings to the public that one of the problems, the way of combating the variants that are rising may be to use a booster shot from the current generation of the vaccines we have as opposed to creating a tweaked variation of it and rolling that out that specific to the new variant. host: thank you, we will get a response. tom: i'm unfamiliar with what dr. fauci said in this instance though i follow most everything he says. there is quite a lot of talk about a booster shot and that may in fact be necessary. our concern is to get the level of infection around the world as low as we can.

even while we are waiting to see whether a booster shot is necessary. the reason we want this level of infection down globally is these mutations, these variants will travel to the u.s. and could increase our affection -- infection rate and deaths before the booster shot is confirmed and ready to be administered. we are struggling to get the first set of vaccinations to the rest of the country and to the world. we need to manage that before we begin to work on booster shots. when -- host: when, from your perspective, do we get there globally? tom: 70% is generally viewed at the point -- as the point at which you have reached global herd immunity. that's when the whole community is protected even though not 100% of the community is covered. if you get 70% than that 30% would be under that umbrella of protection. at the moment, because vaccines

are not available to the poorest countries, they are projecting global herd amenity to stretch somewhere into late 2023 or 2024, which frankly scares me become a because in that amount of time the number of variance that we could see that could be distributed around the world seems very high and the risk of one of them evading our current vaccines is also high. host: the headline from the new york times "herd amenity dimming as the pace of vaccines begins to slow down across the u.s.." one more tweet and one more call. jan says, after knowing people who came down with covid-19 my anxiety waiting to get the vaccine was high, now fully vaccinated but using the same protocols as before. luanne, last call, from san antonio, texas. caller: i'm just curious, you've been discussing vaccine

hesitancy. i'm wondering if some of it might be stemming from the fact that the president is surrounded by people that have been vaccinated, yet everywhere he goes he has the mask on. what's the incentive to go out and get vaccinated if you still have to keep a mask on all the time? and continue on with the social distancing and not being able to return to a normal life. we were told that having the vaccine would allow us to get back to a normal existence. also, vice president harris during the campaign said she would never get a vaccine that had been developed during the trump administration. i'm just curious about your thoughts on that, thank you. guest: you are right, it can be frustrating if you get the vaccine and you end up having to continue to social distance and cannot see your kids or grandkids and still have to wear

a mask. last week, the cdc came out with new guidance for those who are fully vaccinated and have had both doses of moderna were pfizer or the one shot johnson & johnson and waited two weeks after. they can gather without social distance or a mouse with other people who are fully vaccinated. the risk is gathering with people who are not fully vaccinated, who are still at risk of getting it. the encouraging people who are vaccinated to continue to wear masks is to protect those who are not. that mask is not doing much to protect you. it is protecting the people around you. my family is fortunate that we are just about at the tail end, almost all fully vaccinated and we plan to get together we know based on the cdc guidance come a we will able to be indoors without masks once we are fully vaccinated. soon, we will be able to return to something that looks more like normal.

host: we talked about mexico and brazil and latin america and africa. which countries lead the list outside of brazil and mexico that are your priorities? guest: our priority is to make sure that there is a fairly even or equitable distribution of the vaccines to these poor countries so that we can keep outbreaks like we are seeing in india. we don't want to have to do an emergency response to somewhere in latin america and then somewhere in sub-saharan africa. we want an equitable distribution of these vaccines first of the most vulnerable and health-care workers and down the line as we did in this country. the institution that will do this is something called covax. it's a collaboration, international collaboration that will take these doses and figure out the most urgent and important places to distribute

them equitably. it's not about responding, once you are responding to an outbreak, vaccines are important but they are not the most urgent need. a vaccine will not immediately stop the outbreak in india. that's why they are getting other medical supplies a we are encouraging wealthy countries to share their supplies with covax. host: the website is one.org. we thank you for your time. all of our programming is available on our website at www.c-span.org. be sure to get the free c-span radio app and we are back tomorrow morning for another edition of "washington journal." hope you enjoy the rest of your monday and wishing you a great week ahead. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ ♪

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during a speech at the national community coalition. we will have live coverage at 2:15 p.m. eastern and here on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or you can listen live with the free c-span radio app. >> tonight on the communicators, brookings institution vice president darrell west discusses his book. >> it's not just one revolution that's taking place. it's 10 or 20 or 30 different things taking place simultaneously. it's the growing ubiquity of technology in all of our lives, in every sector, in domestic policy applications as well as the national defense. we have a long chapter about national defense and military applications of ai. i think that is the unusual aspect of this period and what

makes it difficult to deal with. there is so much change taking place in a widespread scale in a very shortperiod of time and we are all struggling. > darrell west tonight on the communicators on c-span two. ♪ >> listen to the c-span podcast with randall robinson. here the author of quitting america, the departure a black man from his native land as he decided to leave america. new episodes are available every tuesday morning. subscribe where you get your podcasts and there is more about all the c-span podcast at www.c-span.org/podcast. >> the spacex crew dragon resilience splashed down safely