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dr. kristin englund from the cleveland clinic talks about the u.s. response to the coronavirus. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. host: good morning morning. the senate gaveling back in session following the recess. the house returning next monday. vice president harris in guatemala today, then mexico. biden departing for great britain. the g7 summit will take place in cornwall, england. ahead of the washington journal, we want to follow-up on an issue that led the sunday show positive conversation, cyber threats, ransomware and its potential to cripple the economy. is the government doing enough

to prevent cyber attacks? we are dividing phone lines regionally. in the eastern half of the country, the number (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific, (202) 748-8001. you can send us a text. that number is (202) 748-8003. tell us your first name and where you are from. we are on twitter @cspanwj and facebook.com at facebook.com/c-span. good morning. some headlines beginning with the washington times. vice president kamala harris seeking to defy history with the central america task, visiting two countries to address what the white house causes -- white house calls the root cause of illegal immigration in the u.s. senator joe manchin opposing the democratic-led voting rights bill.

from usa today why the virus origins remain a mystery. we are talking about covid-19 with kristin englund of the leaving clinic. and the anniversary of d-day yesterday. below that, a corporate tax deal trying to go beyond the g7. something biden will be dealing with with his european counterparts in england. we want to begin with the issue of ransomware and cyber attacks. this is a story from the washington post's website. the impact of ransomware attack's is the headline. here are some details. "it can feel abstract, a group of criminals hijacking computer systems and demanding millions in exchange for their return, but the impact of these where ransomware -- these ransomware attack's is real.

a ransomware attack on colonial pipeline in may, leading to gas shortages and even dangerous situation caused by panic buying. this week, hackers compromising a meat processing company, leading to worries about shortages or other food providers being held at risk. a school syste was hit with ransomware and was forced to hold classes online -- forced to cancel classes for two days." this exchange between moderator chuck todd and senator mark warner, democrat from virginia and the chair of the senate intelligence committee. [video clip] >> the cyber criminals, terrorists. let's look this problem. we have been talking about cyber for a long time. finally the american public is starting to wake up to the ramifications of these attacks.

there have generally been two types of cyber incidents. one, a nationstate steals information. two, criminals threaten to shut down a system and demand ransomware. we have seen these attacks against pipeline companies, meatpacking companies, ferry companies. i am worried that if we saw the kind of massive attack that took place last year, the solar winds attack, if that shut down our system, our economy would come to a halt. we ought to put in place -- we have bipartisan legislation to do this -- to require that when companies get attacked, they notify the government. there is no requirement right now. second, international norms. they shut down the irish health

care system. we need international norms. we need more transparency. there will be a debate about whether these countries should pay ransomware, but there ought to be more transparency if a company pays so we could go after the bad guys. host: senator mark warner on meet the press. more on this issue with fbi director christopher wray, comparing ransomware challenge to 9/11 a headline. some details from that interview, saying the agency was investigating about 100 different types of ransomware, many tracing back to hackers in russia, comparing the current spate of cyber attacks with the challenge posed by 9/11. he says there are parallels. there is importance and focus by us on disruption and prevention. he says there is a shared responsibility not just across government agencies but across

the private sector and even the average american. his comments among his first publicly since the two recent ransomware attack's grips -- attacks gripped the meat, oil and gas industries. he says they are looking for ways to disrupt the criminal ecosystem that supports the industry. your phone calls. walter in butler, indiana, good morning. is the government doing enough to prevent cyber attacks? caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i don't know the answer. the only thing i can speak to is i am a proud non-owner of a computer, cell phone, internet. i don't tweet, twerk, facebook, cell phone. i write long letters and cursive -- in cursive. we have turned into pods. we have boxes we have become dependent on.

if there were ever a magnetic pulse -- i mean, people don't have any change in the store. they can't read a roadmap. they are plugged in like a robot to these machines and it is sad because we have lost our skills, our ability to do basic things like canning food and hunting and fishing and building a home and working on a car, so we have become slaves to these computers. was there a movie years ago of some whiz kid that ended up playing wargames? the movie wargames, where he presses a computer thing and the country almost goes toward her the government isn't doing enough. i suggest the government take these pods and shut them in a drawer and leave them alone and see the quality of life improved dramatically if they can do it. host: thank you for the call. we take a deep dive on the issue of cyber threats with former cia

director and defense secretary leon panetta on our podcast the weekly. follow wherever you get your podcasts and on our website at c-span.org or jackson is joining us from texas. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. it is scary to think that anyone from any part of the world can take control of very crucial american infrastructure and, you know, things that affect our personal daily lives. like you said before, christopher wray compares cyber attacks to 9/11. i think he is very right. terrorism used to be a big threat in this country. they attacked us many times. and now we have been at war for a while and terrorism doesn't really -- it is not a daily threat anymore, thank god. i think the federal government must do more to make sure that

cyber terrorism ends up the same way. host: thank you for the call. fbi director wray comparing what we're dealing with now to 9/11. someone was asked about private companies and what role they need to play in their own security because there is such an interplay between the private sector and government in the operation of our infrastructure. here is that how it unfolded -- here is how it unfolded on abc's this week. [video clip] >> businesses know how to do this. it is relatively easy to do the simpler things like two factor authentication. we will pursue that versus what you are talking about, a more heavy-handed approach. >> a significant number of these attacks are emanating from russia. is it time for this administration to take an aggressive approach and target the source of these attack? >> well, this is a top priority. the president has been clear.

we are evaluating all of the options and we won't stand for a nation supporting or turning a blind eye to criminal enterprise and the president has said we are considering all of our options and we are not taking anything off the table as we think about possible repercussions, consequences or retaliation. >> shouldn't we be contemplating military action even if these are private, not government, entities? >> all options are on the table. this is a priority. all of us in the cabinet and national security council are focused on it and considering all consequences. this week, when the president meets with putin and other world leaders, this will be at the top of the agenda. host: that's from abc's this week and the commerce secretary, gina raimondo.

the headline -- biden's foreign policy reversed the trump agenda, but one similar note. trump departing -- biden departing wednesday for england for a meeting, also stopping in brussels and meeting with vladimir putin. joining us is alex thompson. the first on the agenda is the g7. the minimum corporate tax worked out by the leaders this week. what will that mean? guest: basically, this has been a huge part of the biden agenda, to try to not have an international race to the bottom when it comes to trying to attract corporations. now, how much is it really going to affect practice?

the devil is in the details. is there a way corporations can get around these through loopholes, deductions? we don't know. the point is saying we don't want a country to entice a corporation to leave america because -- or any of these countries having corporations leave their country. it is trying to prevent outsourcing, stabilize this period of disruption over the last few decades when it comes to jobs being outsourced. but really, the devil is in the details here. we don't know if it is going to have the intended result the biden administration wants. host: of course, another headline from politico.com. british prime minister boris johnson calling on the g7 to vaccinate the world as the u.s. and other countries try to get a handle on what is happening in countries like india and

competence like africa. what is that about? guest: a lot of countries, including the u.s., have held onto their excess vaccine, prioritizing the room citizens. -- their own citizens. the u.s. will say they have vaccinated more -- they have donated more vaccine than any other country, but russia and china have sold a lot more. russia has sold over 250 million vaccines internationally. the u.s. has prioritized its own citizens. the biden administration has started to ease that now. we are getting closer to that 70% vaccination number. what boris johnson is trying to do, and what i think joe biden you will start to see do more and more as the vaccination rate climbs in the u.s., is try to distribute that internationally, because with a covid vaccine,

you can ease the crisis domestically but it will never be completely over until the entire world is vaccinated. the health experts i have talked to say that it is worth thinking about the end of 2022, beginning of 2023 before we get to a 70% vaccination number internationally. host: the president and vice president both with international trips this week. one goal for vice president harris in guatemala is dealing with the root causes of immigration. what does that mean? guest: it means that if people are coming here, why are they coming here? why are they leaving their homes and abandoning their families and their friends in order to take a risky trip across the border and enter this country illegally? the idea is that if the economy in guatemala is better, then they are not going to have as

much reason to leave, and the problem is that the u.s. authority -- u.s. has given well over $1 billion in aid to guatemala over the last decade and immigration has gone off. the concern is how much can the u.s. really do? you might have a political backlash at home. she will try to make an effort to study what the root causes are and if the u.s. can do much about them, but the devil is in the details here again. we don't really know exactly -- you know, if it is a problem that will be easily solved. host: her arrival in guatemala led -- guatemala delayed because of mechanical problems with air force to after only being in the air -- with air force two after only being in the air for half an hour. what was the cause?

guest: guest: there is basically -- guest: there was basically sort of a weird sound with the landing gear. not exactly the most auspicious way to begin your first international trip as vice president. but they returned to andrews. everyone ended up getting to guatemala anyway, so mission accomplished. host: alex thompson, the news this weekend, senator joe manchin in a co-op bed in his homestead newspaper -- in an op ed in his home state newspaper saying he is against the voting rights bill. how significant is that in terms of the biden agenda? guest: it is huge, but, to be honest, it is not a huge surprise either. he has been back channeling this

for a while. the thing about joe manchin is that, even though he is the most public of democratic dissenters, he is not the only one. others have had concerns about hr1 from the beginning. there's a lot of stuff in that that makes them uneasy in terms of the way it completely changes the federal government's interaction with election law. a lot of democrats prefer to focus on the john lewis voting rights act, which is less controversial and feels like an easier fix. the same thing with the filibuster. there are democratic senators who are uneasy nixing the filibuster. joe manchin doesn't mind taking the heat. there is political benefit to joe manchin to publicly buck his party. if you talk to the senators and swing districts, he is not --

senators in swing districts, he is not alone. we will not see the filibuster changed these first few years, which will ultimately make it harder for biden to pass some of his agenda. host: we are asking viewers and listeners, is the u.s. government doing enough to prevent cyber attacks?? the issue of ransomware has dominated the sunday shows. what are the big challenges facing the administration? guest: i mean, they are enormous, because i think secretary jennifer granholm yesterday said they have the ability to take down the national electric grid, so if you want electricity, those are the stakes we are talking here. people have a way of blaming the people in charge when the lights go out, so the political consequences could be enormous,

the policy consequences are enormous. now, this has been an issue where it is not just biden specific. it has been ramping up year after year and things are getting more perilous. and trying to get the federal bureaucracy to move and prepare for some of these potential attacks. host: more details at politico.com and the west wing play bog. alex thompson, white house reporter and co-author of the blog, thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: more of your calls. the issue is whether you think the u.s. government is doing enough to prevent these cyber attacks. the headline from axios.com from fbi director christopher wray comparing the threat to 9/11. roy blunt, senator from missouri, was asked whether russia should be held accountable. [video clip] >> we did see in the 2008

elections, we push back. in 2016, we had cyber defense capabilities but we didn't have the authority, the president neighbor give -- the president never gave the authority for cyber offense. we pushed back hard in 20. it stopped. to some extent, chuck, you have to treat russia like a criminal enterprise. they harbor criminals. they don't appreciate the rule of law or any kind of level of personal freedom and i do think we have to push back. when there's no penalty, no sanctions, hard to find who is doing it, even when you can find where they are, we have not really effectively sanctioned the companies and the countries protecting this festivity. it has to stop. one question you asked chairman

warner. could could we ask companies to guarantee their system to be a u.s. vendor or whatever the guarantee might be? we haven't been able to guarantee our own system. in solarwinds, they got into a government system as well. we don't know how they got there, how long, we are not even sure they are not there still. seeing companies would have to a meet -- would have to meet a standard we cannot would be one thing. on the colonial pipeline, there was a simple way in. they used an old account that was no longer even a person -- that account was not even part of the system anymore but it wasn't taken out of the system. there was place for maybe a two part of education -- two part authentication making a big difference. we have trying to -- we have been trying to alert companies and colleagues of how

broad the danger could be here and i am glad this is getting the attention this is finally getting. this is a serious problem. >> went to his people at home. this is one of those things. this feels like a crime wave and you guys are supposed to keep us safe. host: that's from meet the press, senator roy blunt and moderator chuck todd. a headline from nausea and imposed. ransomware attacks are derailing everyday life. the post -- safety has been impacted directly by attacks on hospital systems. the hollywood prison tearing -- the hollywood presbyterian medical hospital paid for going to a ransomware hacker. last november, a hospital in vermont was hit by ransomware. chemotherapy patients had treatments delayed and some had

to re-create their medical history at health centers. on twitter, if you are saying too much is on the cloud managed by just a few companies. it will not end well. dividing phone lines regionally. (202) 748-8000 eastern and central time zones. out west, (202) 748-8001. john in chantilly, virginia, thank you for waiting. good morning. caller: think you for taking my call. -- thank you for taking my call. the reality is, this congress has no knowledge. when you ask people a question, you need to bring people who understand the technology, how it works and how we can stop it. number two, i am telling you that russia and china understood one thing very well, how to disable everything that we have easily and correctly, because they have people who work for them here. i am giving an example. look at what happened in texas.

they cannot even take care of their own electricity and now we have this system sitting in texas that they never knew, never upgraded. we have a leader who says one thing. my number one priority is to stop all the problems and that's our leader, mitch mcconnell. -- to stop all the progress and that's when leader, mitch mcconnell. every time we make a law, it takes 10 years to approve what we need to do. people need to travel overseas and see how countries progress, bridges, roads. russia and china are winning. they don't need to do anything else. come to think of it, they will never leave us alone, and i am very upset about the senator you just put on the radio right now. he never mentioned one thing about donald trump, but he was standing next to putin and said i trust putin over my intelligence. that's the key. host: thank you.

you are mentioning roy blunt. listening on c-span radio, make sure to get our free c-span radio app, beginning with meet the press every sunday. our next caller from salisbury, north carolina. howard, how do you answer the question is the government doing enough? caller: top of the morning. host: good morning. caller: i look at it like this. some of the democrats, like joe manchin, if they get on board, cut the filibuster, we can go on and do a lot of things for the people and for america. we have already seen them in action in 2020 when they shut down some hospitals through the pandemic. they did a lot of things to america, but if you noticed the donald trump or donald duck

administration did not push back like biden is trying to do, but his hands are tied. you have a west virginia senator who will not stop the filibuster and not vote for hr1. that lets us know that this democrat is definitely going to do everything he can to stop biden and america from achieving something just to protect america. look, c-span, i would like for you guys to open up a line for west virginia people and see how they feel about their democratic senator. i am sure they are upset just like i am. host: thank you for the call. a text message from jim in north carolina, saying security is the burden of the company using the internet, not the burden of the government. the headline from the last three journal -- from the wall street journal and in interview with fbi director for christopher

wray with more details and an explanation on ransomware. ransomware is a type of malicious computer code that locks up a victim's computer files that a hacker demand payment for to be released, typically with digital currency like bitcoin. this week, a hacker held hostage the world's largest meat processor, just weeks after an oil pipeline. -- pipeline was attacked. mr. wray saying the recent wave has spotlighted the toll ransomware attack's can have on all americans. scott joining us from los angeles. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am fine. caller: i am good. i am an x i.t. professional. -- ex-i.t.

professional. i got my degree in 2000. i was in college at the very beginning of the public internet, 1994 and later. in 2000, we had massive attacks at different scales, different types of attacks. let's go back and computer history. since the 1950's, for a company to maintain competitiveness, they must have some computing power, whether it is some kind of reservation system or accounting system or interaction system, supply-side, demand-side where a supplier can look into another company's needs and automatically ship things to them as they need it. the internet was made in the 1970's by the department of defense and a few universities. this resulted in them finding out that the internet was very secure -- i am not sure what the government did about it, but they released the current public

internet to the public in about 1992. so we are basically building networks upon a broken internet system. it is patched and cobbled together. like i said, companies now rely on computer systems to be more competitive and to run their current operations, so i think it is imperative that the government take steps to protect us because this is our infrastructure, this is our business, this is how we maintain our knowledge bases, this is how we maintain everything from medical records to accounting to traffic control, airline traffic control. the list goes on. host: let me get this in. a headline to your point. the white house are urging those private companies to better protect themselves from ransomware attack's, so from your perspective as an i.t.

expert, what can the government do that it is not doing right now? what should happen? caller: well, currently, there are a couple places -- cern, i believe, is 1 -- that look for attacks and make patches quickly. i don't know how quickly people can find out these attacks are happening and respond to them, but the government does work on this stuff at the university level, the research universities, and the military. i don't believe they spent enough money and have made enough policies that help protect not just our country but we are an international economy, a global economy, so we have to protect everybody. host: we will have to leave it there. up early in los angeles. thank you for that. a couple comments on social

media, including this from mark stone on twitter. "i am not a cyber expert but i would think we could have people who could retaliate against this group if not the russian government." "i really think so. they cannot just broadcast it. loose lips sink ships. on the other site, there are those who may be contributing to these attacks in my opinion." from yvonne rivera. another from olivia jane -- no. we have to hire the best, brightest and most creative cyber experts. we have to be smarter than russia. victor from alabama, good morning. caller: good morning. i don't know much about computers, the hacking and all of that, but i do know this -- we have been at war. we have been at war with -- against the police of the world,

and they are finding another way to attack the united states. the reason that this is happening is because we have been the police of the whole world since i was born. i served from 1978 to 1992 and i am happy about it. host: victor, thank you. this is from jimmy in north carolina, saying you ask the government to protect you from hackers, you lose a little more freedom on the internet. think back to the freedoms we enjoy before 9/11. the private sector can re-create the software to protect itself. keep the government out of it. on the state of the union, independent senator angus king of maine was asked about infrastructure, the independent -- and the transformation --

transportation bill in the senate. [video clip] >> there have been responses from the nsa and the biden administration in terms of things like sanctions, so there have been responses but we need to step that up. over the past 15 or 20 years, as we have had this series of cyber attacks from north korea, russia, china, we haven't responded. we have been a cheap date, and you cannot defend yourself simply by bobbing and weaving and patching. the adversary has to understand they will pay a price, there will be a cost for attacking the u.s. and our critical infrastructure, and thus far, they haven't felt that. that's a piece we have to do. another thing you mentioned in your introduction is that we keep getting wake up calls and not waking up. the problem is this is a complex issue. 85% or 90% of the target space is in the private sector. host: that is independent

senator angus king of maine. daniel on facebook writing "the u.s. government cannot prevent cyberattacks unless you are attempting to advocate for the government to take over the internet. the answer to that question is no." we are asking you whether the government is doing enough to prevent cyber threats and attacks. this is from cnn.com, more numbers. 15,000 ransomware incidents in the last year, the u.s. being hit by that number against organizations last year alone according to a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm emisoft. they cost the u.s. between $596 million to $2.3 billion in 2020 in ransomware payments and loss of productivity. the true figures might be higher because the estimates only count for confirmed cases of ransomware incidents. the last several years, threat

actors have been successful at hitting larger enterprises in newsworthy attacks. rich is joining us, fredericksburg, virginia, good morning. caller: good morning. if you could put your hand on a red-hot eye and it doesn't hurt then you will not fear it. we need a team of rangers who will go to other countries and eliminate not only those who have done it and their children. that's a horrible thing to say -- but, their friends, family, children, and then they won't do it because they know there is going to be a reaction.that he need to be horribly frightened of doing it. they would have been horribly frightened of trump. nobody is going to be frightened of mr. biden, president biden. no one is. but you have given up a tremendous, tremendous thing when you give up someone that all fear, and everybody feared

trump because he was so awful. they were scared of him. we are in big trouble. same thing with stealing your identity. if someone steals your identity, there should be a death penalty for that, and it will stop if you do those kinds of things. we are in a horrible world now. we are in a scary place. in my ignorant opinion, get it together and become someone that all countries fear, will take forever. good morning. host: thank you. russ in california saying the government is not as serious about the attacks should be -- attacks as they should be. china and russia getting a pass. why? anthony is next, joining us from detroit. good morning. caller: good morning to her and my comet will be short and sweet. donald trump fired the top cybersecurity guy, christopher

cribbs, in november of 2020. if you fast-forward, donald trump weakened all of our defenses. i don't know if he is an agent, a foreign spy, i don't know what donald trump was, or just a common crook, but i know that everything that is happening right now stems back from the trump administration. host: thanks for the call. should it be illegal to pay ransom to those who are conducting these cyber attacks? one of the questions yesterday on nbc's meet the press to senator mark warner. [video clip] sen. warner:. that's a debate worth having. i am not sure at this point. the alternative is you shut down a system. in the case of colonial pipeline, we saw, even after they paid the ransom, it took

five days. but what we should make sure, let's make sure that if these companies do pay, there is transparency to those payments. last year, i worked on legislation that made law -- that became law to tighten up illegal cash payments, the use of dummy corporations. america was frankly not even at international standards. we need more transparency because right now, we are tapping around everywhere. not only are the companies often not reporting that they have been attacked at the rate -- attacked but they are not reporting payments. host: elizabeth in san diego, good morning. caller: i want to say that the hacking of our election in 2016, which went unanswered by trump

-- even kicked out the observers in the meeting with putin and tore up the notes from that meeting with putin. also, we have been hacked by the north koreans. then trump goes to north korea and takes photo shoots and rights love letters -- and writes love letters to the dear leader. that's one thing these to be addressed. conservatives are calling in and trying to blame biden. these things began long ago. i am an i.t. professional and this was coming. the rules for a private industry -- the biden administration put

out some best practices recently that seemed good, you know, separating personnel files from the business and having solid backups. those are all practices that the companies have not abided by. and i just wanted to mention too that you can see that this almost as pretty -- is pretty, almost like someone is yanking your chain. one pipeline into the entire east coast is a significant issue that should -- you cannot put that on the government. that is the industry that made that decision. and then of course, last week, i heard some conservative calling in and blaming joe biden for high gas prices. you know. this is being used as a political tool and it also leads

to a comment i wanted to make about education. now, the conservatives are trying to -- they don't want americans to go to college. we need an educated workforce. the workforce of the future is going to be dealing with these kinds of issues. host: i will leave it there. thanks for your points. transportation issues. we will have something on that in a moment, but first, back to the cnn story. 15,000 ransomware incidents last year. the story points out that in 2018, president trump's director of national intelligence warned that the system was again "blinking red." foreign actors conduct a range of cyber intrusions and attacks against targets in the u.s., a reference to the alarm activity -- the alarming activity seen ahead of 9/11. the biden administration must grapple with limits imposed on its authority by year and -- by

law and gaps that have been there for years. it isn't feasible for the biden administration to impose a single stat -- single set of cybersecurity regulations governing everything. the complexity of each industry and their relationship to the wider economy speaks to how difficult it is to design cybersecurity regulations, let alone enforce them. face the nation, john dickinson with this question to the transportation secretary, pete buttigieg. [video clip] >> how much are you thinking about cyber threats and what are you doing to counteract them? >> it is a concern and we are paying attention to it. we have a lot of that with homeland security and our partners on that side, but we are thinking about how we build up transportation that will be resilient in the future and the direct can medication this happening. transportation, like water systems, power systems, quite a

bit of it is in private or local hands and part of our vulnerability on cybersecurity is you are only as strong as your weakest link, so we have to make sure that there are good cyber practices all the way down to the smallest player, any individual company, because colonial showed us a cyber attack on a private company had nationally locations. host: that from the transportation secretary. carlos is next. the question -- is the u.s. government doing enough to prevent cyber threats and attacks? good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to thank you for having this call. i think the government should be heavily involved i think it should go to silicon valley and form a supergroup that will respond. our infrastructure, our pipelines, whatever has to be shut down, we respond and do the

same thing to them and their private sector, there pipelines and their beef supply, food supply, is shut off her weeks, and let them know we are capable of doing the same thing to them but may be little bit better. they should form a group with silicon valley and test it on the next person that interferes with our economy or our prosperity. thank you. host: thank you, carlos, for the call. asking the question in part because it dominated the sunday programs. from this story last week in the wall street journal, fbi director comparing ransomware challenge to 9/11. hear more details courtesy of tub u.s. j.com. authorities have attributed the attack on the world's biggest wheat company by sales to a gang in russia. president biden plans to bring it up during his summit with

president putin that will take place in geneva. the president saying he will look closely at whether to retaliate against russia. the fbi director, chris wray, singled out russia as one of many known users of ransomware, saying if the russian government wants to show it is serious about this issue, there is room to demonstrate progress that we are not seeing now. mr. wray has six years remaining in his term and the white house plans to keep him in his post as fbi director. from maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me ok? host: sure can. caller: the payments made to these companies, this ransom -- these ransomware attacks, are made in bitcoins.

that is something we should stop participating in, the bitcoin market. host: thank you. our phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 in the eastern half of the country. out west, (202) 748-8001. another 15 minutes in the first hour of the washington journal. later, susan ferrechio joining us to talk about the week ahead in congress. the house is in recess. the senate gavels in this afternoon. live coverage on c-span2. more from the sunday shows with former secretary of state condoleezza rice, now the director of the hoover institution, asked on face the nation about the threats from outside actors. [video clip] >> there are similarities but i think we need to have a talk as an international community with these countries, like the russians, for instance, to say if criminal ransomware attack's are coming out of your country -- ransomware incidents are coming out of your country, why

don't we have law enforcement cooperation to shut it down, to test the reality of how much the russian government is involved? >> president biden is considering retaliating against the russians for what you are talking about. >> i would certainly hope that the president has made clear that this is unacceptable to putin. we have had attacks that have gone after our infrastructure in important ways. these could shut down and economy. i think a very tough conversation with the russians about their obligations is warranted. host: that from face the nation with former secretary of state condoleezza rice. the headline from axios.com -- fbi director christopher wray comparing the ransomware threat to 9/11. some details from that story. "with less than two weeks until biden's summit with putin, chris wray blaming russia for priding

-- providing a safe haven that allows criminal gangs to run wild. the big picture, the department of justice has implemented new internal guidance on how it will coordinate its ransomware attack investigations using similar protocols that uses to terrorism cases. the white house is urging businesses to take immediate steps to increase their ransomware defenses, giving companies a list of steps they can take to reduce their exposure to these potential attacks." josephine is joining us in livingston, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. last night on 60 minutes, it dealt with the issue. they showed you can literally acquire the program. now we have the little fish getting involved. you can acquire the program, go on the computer. it is right there to be bought. the person who sells it to you says whatever you get, we take part of, so now it has gotten so prolific, 60 minutes

demonstrated it, and the guided the whole thing in five minutes. he broke into the system. he said it didn't take any programming by him to do anything. that's how bad it is. so when people say you don't want the government involved in this, let me tell you something, if they shut down our electric, it will not be down for five minutes or one week. it will be down for a year. it is a dangerous situation. bitcoin is affected. it is turning the heat up on this program for the idea that you can acquire this, you don't have to be a genius, this has gotten out of hand. congress has to step up to the bat. you cannot put this kind of weapon out on the computer for sale. the devastation that it can cause. thank you. host: josephine, thank you. this is from william in middletown, connecticut.

he says -- absolutely not. should be all hands on deck but not for the biden administration. cyberattacks will continue endless strong punishment is the result of such acts. america's energy companies, which have been hit hard, including the colonial pipeline, and energy secretary jennifer granholm on meet the press talked about whether they should be punished if they pay ransom. [video clip] >> everyone needs to wake up and up their game protecting themselves but also telling the government if they are a target of an attack. they don't want to let people know. they should not be paying ransom, but they should be letting us know so we can protect the rest of the country. >> do you think there should be a law on the books that bans the payment of ransom? you may actually have to outlaw the payment of ransom payments. are you ready to go there? >> well, i would.

i will say that, but i don't know whether the congress or the president is at that point, but i do think we need to send this strong message that paying a ransom only exacerbates and accelerates this problem. you are encouraging the bad actors. to the conversation you were just having, the president is focused on the international regime of this as well, working with our allies, every country. no country wants to be the victim of any cyberattack, so international, private sector, inside the federal government, all of us have to be -- you know, the president is working on a 360 degree solution. host: more from the sunday shows, how this issue dominated the conversation. the question is whether the government should be doing more to prevent these types of attacks. from scott -- i had to deal with a ransom attack on one of my clients. thanks to my configuration, i

was able to unlock it and restore the hour before the attack. tom in california, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i think the government should step up to, you know, go after the people that are doing this, but as far as getting hacked and paying these ransom wares, maybe they don't really mind paying things or just don't want to put the bill up to securing their own money. i mean, this is ridiculous. i have to do my own computer at home. i have to do my own security software to prevent something from getting to me, so if the company is not stepping up and protecting their own problem and their money, then they are pretty dumb about it. i mean, the government should really step up and going after -- and go after people who do it, yes. host: thank.

rich on twitter -- the main threats to the usa include computer dependence, fossil fuel dependence and misleading information dependence. private industry must take care of itself. from the washington times and the sunday shows and an op-ed in his homestay newspaper -- home state newspaper, joe manchin opposes the voting overhaul. the bill passed with republican support in the house, but would need senator manchin's support with no republican support in the senate. he also mentioned he wents to see the filibuster in place. catherine in michigan, good morning. caller: good morning. i do think the government should step in and help with all this. first of all, you know, it is not just happening to big

companies. it is happening to individuals, like the gentleman just said. on your own home computer. i think a lot of it is because we give other countries a lot of our information so that they can get into our computer systems. i think this is the key, that the government needs to step in and tell these companies that they shouldn't go overseas for different assistance. i have a pharmacy that, when i call now, i get someone over in india or somewhere. i mean, they have my medical information of what drugs that i use. i think this is what the problem is, that we have allowed these other countries to have our information. that was my point that i wanted to make. host: how do you enforce something like that, catherine? caller: well, the government has

to step in and until these companies that they cannot do that, and i think they should have to tell individuals that this is happening, that they are giving this information to other countries. the only way we know is when we use a service and they answer the phone and it is a different language or a different person, you know, that is answering the phone, and i will usually say i have learned to ask them for level two. level two means someone in the united states. i don't know if people are aware of that. a lot of times, there is a communication gap. they don't understand what i am trying to ask them. they have a set of questions that they answer and that's all they are capable of answering. host: catherine, thanks for the call. back to this headline from nbc news. we heard the energy secretary

saying paying ransomware is encouraging the bad actors. we are asking you what the federal government should be doing that it may not be doing. this is from the twitter page, saying if the hackers want cryptocurrency ransoms, time to rethink cryptocurrency. diana joining us next from north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, well, the federal government is not doing enough. i started working in the computer field back in 1980 and so i have seen the whole revolution of the internet just come into being in the corporate environment. one of my suggestions would be, right now, we are computer professionals. you have these gatekeepers dealing with cybersecurity. the training classes and the certification cost thousands of dollars. they are very, very expensive to obtain, so computer professionals, a lot of people who are quietly -- who are

highly qualified to work in that field are not able. i would like to see the federal government come up with certification programs for computer professionals, where the government would pay for your education, thereby providing a lot more cybersecurity professionals. and if we don't want to pay -- if they don't want to pay the kind of salary that cybersecurity professionals are getting right now, because if you somehow open the pipeline to a lot of computer professionals to enter into cybersecurity, i think that would help companies hire more of these people to get more security for their companies. host: diana, thank you for adding your voice to the conversation. back to the issue of ransomware hacks. from the wall street journal, the u.s. is looking to cryptocurrency and its role as a way to pay for these ransomware attacks. $4.4 million for sbs, owner of

the colonial pipeline, and reports that it paid an undisclosed amount for its own ransomware issue. alex in hawaii, you are up early. go ahead. caller: i am. during the pandemic, there are several people here who i know who have had attacks from ransomware. and i went onto some training that a company that i work with provided me with and a few things that need to be kind of addressed in common knowledge is , on 60 minutes, they call ransomware as a service, and it is not a -- and it is a product now. it is spread through europe, not just in russia. there is an aggregator who creates the product. then there are the bad guys who basically rent it and use it and

they pay commissions to people to find vulnerable systems. and there's about four different, five different real bold abilit -- different real vulnerabilities. people need to do an audit on their system based on the scale, size and sophistication of it and find out your vulnerabilities. the big problem is, these bad guys, they pay a commission to someone who snoops around, either electronically or may have a familiarity with the specific business, and gets paid a commission, and no i may ever know -- and no one may ever know that that person tipped them off. host: turning our attention to the house and senate and the agenda for june. susan ferrechio will be joining us from the washington examiner. later, u.s.-china relations with michael pillsbury of the hudson

institute, also an outside advisor to president trump helicopter activity around capitol hill. these are training exercises, so no need to be alarmed. all our response to recent threats to the u.s. capitol, so security being tightened, but this is simply asecurity is beit this is simply a drill with a number of personnel in washington, d.c. as we look at that on this nations -- at this nations capital. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> originally, i thought of technology as neutral. i thought of technology as something that, it was just a tool and we used it as a tool when i was looking at nsa and at the pentagon and the naval special warfare command. yet, when i saw it visited

upon, people of certain ideologies and the flow of information constricted, viable information constricted, when i saw the profession of people in these big tech companies, standing up for free expression. when i saw the ceos and companies turn their back on that after saying explicitly that was something they wanted to do, that is why they created these platforms, to me, it became a conservative issue. >> the future of tech policy and how some conservatives view big tech censorship with cara frederick. watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. >> washington journal continues. host: susan ferrechio is the chief correspondent for the washington examiner. the house is in recess for the week.

the senate is back in session. i want to begin with the headline from the washington examiner, senator joe manchin saying that the democratic election bill would further divide us. i will play some sound from fox news sunday. housing is this? guest: he is doubling down on the idea that the senate should be working in a bipartisan fashion, on everything, and not trying to do things unilaterally. democrats controlled the senate right now and there is a big push from the party base to try to move the president -- president biden's agenda through the house and the senate. in the senate, you have the filibuster rule, which means you need 60 votes to advance legislation. you need republican cooperation. democrats are considering a move that would get rid of that rule and they would in the filibuster. there are several democrats, including joe manchin, who is the most vocal, who don't approve of doing that.

they want things to move forward in a bipartisan way. the voting rights bill, which is a big deal for democrats, the house is pushing the legislature forward for several years. now that the senate is in control by democrats, they think that now is our chance, let's try to get this through. joe manchin says if we reform the nation's voting laws, unilaterally, without any republican participation, that will divide the country. he is saying both parties should work together on something that is more of a compromise. he has said that a few times now in the past few weeks and he doubled down on it this weekend. the reason why it is important right now that he says it is the majority leader, chuck schumer, told us on capitol hill that he plans to bring up the voting rights bill this month. what joe manchin is saying is unless they change that bill to the liking of at least 10 republicans, it will fail.

they will bring it to the forward in the senate and it will not make it to the bait. -- floor in the senate and it will not make it to the debate. you will not see joe manchin voting for it. that means there is no chance of getting rid of the filibuster. it is a big deal that he is not doing it. he is not the only one. joe manchin is one of, i think, a few moderate democrats who don't really want -- like the idea of getting rid of the filibuster and having this unilateral approach to passing everything, a one-party approach. he is the most vocal and provides cover for other democrats who either agree with him or are on the fence. that is basically where the democratic party stands right now in the senate. you have a small group of moderates who are ruling -- using quite a bit of leverage at this point. you need unanimity among the parties to try to do what they are attempting to do.

so far, they are not there. they cannot account was that yet. host: an op-ed in the charleston gazette mail was published yesterday, headline with why he was voting against the voting rights act. -- against the for the people act. >> we show and observe voting procedures in a democracy. now, we can't practice what we preach and we are going to basically do an overhaul, and 800 page overhaul of the voting rights for the people act, i think there are a lot of great things that i agree with in that piece of legislation. there are a lot of things that don't pertain to voting. >> just to put a button on this, you will vote against that bill? >> i think it is the wrong piece

of legislature to unite our country. i am not supporting that because i think it would divide us further. i don't want to be in a country divided any further than we are right now. i love my country and i think our democrat -- my democrat and republican colleagues feel the same. if we separate it more, it will not be the country we love and know. it will be hard because it will be back and forth, no matter who is in power. host: that is from democrat joe manchin, the for the people's act will include the following. automatic voter registration, early and absentee mail-in voting, protecting against bought purchase of voter rolls. -- flawed purges of voter rolls. it prohibits coordination between super pac's and candidates, requiring states to use independent redistricting commissions and enhances resources to stave off more

threats on election. the argument we are hearing from democrats is that republicans, already have weakened voting laws in georgia and texas. guest: there is the argument from republicans, which is that the changes in georgia are meant to strength voter -- strengthen voter integrity and make sure there is less voter fraud. there are incidents where people are voting fraudulently. it is not a fantasy. it is definitely happening and republicans want to curb that. the part about purging voter rolls, often times that includes people who no longer live in the area and have moved away, are not eligible for some reason or have died. it can enable fraudulent voting. some of the changes in georgia were meant to ensure that did not happen again and to make sure that people are who they say they are when they are voting. democrats have done a good job

framing that as a restrictive law, that it would stop people from voting. they have done a good job with messaging on that, i think. there is definitely an argument to be made about improving voter integrity. that is where the two sides are on this. republicans also believe, and i think there is some truth to this, that whenever you have one party writing voting laws, you can bet they would be shaped in a way to benefit that party. this is politics. politics is the overlay of everything that happens in washington. republicans call this -- this is the democratic election security bill. make sure they win elections. you are not going to see any democrats vote for this. while there may be some things in there that republicans can pick out and say that's not a bad idea to make sure we have voter integrity and people have access to voting, they will certainly not approve of the entire package which has been around for a few years.

it was written and passed in the house in the last congress. it sat there, obviously, because republicans controlled the senate and they had no interest in it then and norwell they now. that is -- nor will they now. that is why you hit this roadblock. unless you get an end to the filibuster in the senate, which is a big hurdle right now, we know. or, you get a change to this bill that is significant enough to bring in 10 republicans. the changes would have to be fairly significant. that bill is going absolutely nowhere. we are talking -- host: we are talking to susan ferrechio. our open lines are -- our phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. negotiations continue today. the president will be talking to shelley moore capito.

yesterday, jennifer granholm made her appearance on cnn's state of the union and was asked about energy issues and where that is or isn't in the infrastructure bill. here is how that unfolded. [video clip] >> this has to be done soon. and without putting a specific date on it, you know they talked on friday. the thing is, it is just a bit perplexing, why the republicans haven't moved further on critical pieces. i will say this. in my world, in the energy space, republicans have pushed for pieces of the energy infrastructure that the president put into the american jobs plant that are not in their counter offer. they have been talking about investing in the transmission group. that is infrastructure, making it more resilient and cyber proof and standing capacity. that is not in their counter offer. they have been talking about

expanding and supporting nuclear . that was in the president's plan. it is not in their plan. they were talking about energy from west virginia, touring west virginia with joe manchin. there is so much despair there in terms of loss of fossil fuel jobs. the president put in his plan the ability for workers like coal miners to be able to put to work in reclaiming abandoned coal mines and oil and gas wells. republicans have talked about that and they voted for it. that is not in their bill and it is not in their counterproposal, including removing carbon pollution from fossil fuel industries by putting pipes underground to take the carbon pollution that is stored underground. republicans have voted for that and talked about it. it was in biden's plan and it is not in theirs. it is strange why there isn't more coming together. the president has hope, joe manchin has hope.

we all have hope that it can happen. the house will start their markup on wednesday. host: senator granholm is the former michigan governor and energy secretary in the biden administration. susan ferrechio, can you parse what she was talking about and where that leads the bill? guest: yes. there is a big difference on the bill. the bidens latest offer to republicans, he started at $2.3 trillion. he has lowered it to $1.7 trillion. republicans have made an offer that is about $923 billion. they are willing to go up by another 50 billion. they are off by approximately $700 billion. that is just between republicans in the senate and joe biden. that is not trying to seek consensus from the rest of the democratic caucus who want a much higher number. they want the $2.3 billion.

-- $2.3 trillion. what the secretary was talking about was not the heart of the disagreement between the two sides. if they wanted more money for nuclear or carbon captures, i don't think those are areas where you would get a ton of resistance from publicans. the big difference that she was not mentioning is about what biden is calling human infrastructure. there is about $400 billion in the biden offer for eldercare funding, helping people who are caring for others, the caring community. that is part of this. there is also, i believe, $100 billion in tax credits for electric vehicles. those are the kinds of things, that is a lot of money we are talking about. republicans say that doesn't belong in an energy infrastructure bill. we should stick to the basics and that can include broadband, waterways, roads and bridges and

other areas of infrastructure. that is where the scope of the disagreement is between the two sides. cost is another huge issue. republicans are saying we don't want to raise taxes, which biden is proposing. forget it, you are going to raise the corporate tax rate and we will not participate in this. you will lose all the republicans, not all, but most. not all of the eight has been spent. there is a lot sitting there, not used. let's take that money and spend it that way. let's also encourage money in the highway in for structure that is sitting there. the bill that jennifer granholm was talking about today that the house is about to mark up is not the my did -- biden plan. they are marking up the highway infrastructure measure that is an appropriations bill that says

-- that dixit makes -- designates peer is what we want to spend on the highway bill. it is about $547 billion. it lays the groundwork for congress moving forward on highway infrastructure spending. an almond and sign is this -- a sign here is this bill was written by democrats. the only sign of hope is what you mentioned at the beginning of this segment, which is that joe biden is talking to shelley moore capito. they are still talking. they talked several times last week and they are talking today. biden is striving for a bipartisan deal at this point. they are running up against the clock. they think if we will move this thing in the summer time like we want to and not push into next fall, we have to act now. we are in the final moments.

the problem is they are saying the republicans are not coming up high enough. i contend, if they came up higher and added some of the things that jennifer granholm was talking about, that would be a lot easier than republicans agreeing to the $400 billion for eldercare, things are outside of the scope -- things that are outside the scope of infrastructure. if they can bridge that gap, i think there would be more of a chance at this point of a bipartisan bill happening. host: look for more of that on the senate floor later today as chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell deliver remarks after the weeklong senate recess for memorial day break. susan ferrechio joining us. she is the correspondent for the washington examiner. we will bring in our viewers and listeners. from portland, oregon, carl, thank you for waiting. what's on your mind? caller: good morning. hi, sir.

i just wanted maybe to put it out there that i believe it is corruption in the voting area and having these bills being passed to keep people further and further from access to their voting rights seems like a bait and -- blatant sign of it. that's all i have. host: thank you for the comment. guest: i think what you are talking about is any voting changes that would appear to limit access. that is the argument democrat are making that you should have access expanded, no matter what. be it through automatic voter registration, same-day registration, mail-in voting, things that make it so easy and you don't have to show up at the polls on a certain day and stand in line and be late for work or leave work early. or, not show up at all because you didn't have time, these are

the types of things that democrats are trying to overcome in their bill to expand access. they are trying to limit the purging of the voter rolls which they think can push people off the voting rolls who should have access. on the other side, republicans are saying this has opened it up to more fraud because mail-in voting is less secure, in their view. and that not purging voter rolls leaves the opportunity for voter fraud in another way. there could be people who are no longer living or have moved away. we know there are cases of that and they are document it all the time. we should keep voting in a traditional, secure way where people cast a ballot at a polling location. and then they put their ballots in the machine and it is secure and it is regulated and that is the way they want it to remain. i think that there is a big difference there. there is also a lot in the election reform bill that is not related to voting that has to do with how districts are set up,

in terms of who votes and what district, which is a really important thing. and about campaign finance, and who benefits from that more, will republicans be hurt more by some of these campaign-finance changes and may be restricted donates to their campaigns? that could hurt them. that is the way republicans see it. they see it as a political power grab the democrats. there may be -- there is a lot in that bill. it is a really big bill. it is labeled hr one in the house and s1 in the senate because they consider it the most important piece of legislation. why wouldn't they go for it if they have -- why wouldn't democrats go for it if they have the majority and the ability to do that and it would benefit them in future elections?

-- they have long been the beneficiary of the mail-in voting practice, because democrats tend to participate in it more. that is maybe one reason they are like let's expand mail-in voting. politics are always part of it. republicans make that case and they are not wrong. democrats make the case that there should be better access to voting, so that people are participating more. we don't get 100% of the people voting who are eligible in every election. each side makes the artman. the problem is there isn't enough support for it right now -- the argument. the problem is there isn't enough support right now. it could lay the ground for a future bill that is more bipartisan, who knows, if they ever get back to bipartisanship, which they are not doing lately. right now, you have a partisan divide on that bill. when it comes to voting, a big

partisan divide is not a good thing. host: next in myrtle beach, south carolina. caller: i had a question on the filibuster part with mr. manchin. why can't you just suspend the filibuster for a period of 30 months so that the next election would occur and then you would send the legislation through, get it approved and then reinstate the filibuster so that should republicans -- the republicans come back and win the next presidency, they can suspend it and get things through that they want to get through. rather than have a logjam, it would entice people to vote next time as to whether or not went went through when the filibuster is suspended was worth it or not? guest: the senate and the house, they can do whatever they want.

they want to get rid of the filibuster, they can but they don't. why? the president. if they want to paint the u.s. capitol bright purple, they can. they can do whatever they want. if they want to get rid of the filibuster, they can vote to get rid of it if they have a majority vote. they don't need republicans to help them. first of all, they don't have a majority vote. nor would they if they said that's just suspend it for a little while. joe manchin's whole argument is he wants bipartisan cooperation on big bills. that would not go with what he is saying they need to do right now. if they say ok, let's get rid of it now for the next 30 months, as you proposed, and then we will put it back in place before we leave and then when republicans come in, they can do that, once you go through that door and you say let's get rid of the filibuster while we are trying to do our key

legislation, that's it. it's over. republicans will do the same thing. you will not have a filibuster. it's done. that is really what it is about. it is about president. -- precedent. they have gotten rid of the filibuster on a lot of things, you used to need 60 votes to get those through the senate. over the last 10 years, those thresholds were removed. democrats did it for some of it and republicans did it for the other. the president was set and it -- precedent was set and then it creeps along. it slows down things that the house can pass with a simple majority. the house needs a simple majority to pass anything. generally speaking, they can pass what they want if they can keep their group together. in the senate, they are supposed to have bipartisanship read it is supposed to be more deliberative.

they are supposed to come up with deals and they temper what the house does. that is how congress is supposed to work. once you say let's get rid of the filibuster when it is convenient for us, when we feel it is necessary, we, the party in charge, you're getting rid of all of that. it will not come back because each party will continue to use that, repeatedly, no matter when they switch back and forth, as congress inevitably does. it always leans back and forth. you wind up with republicans in charge and there will be no way mitch mcconnell or any other republican leader will be able to justify to his conference that we are going to put the filibuster back in place, even though we are in charge now and the democrats got rid of it, it would be impossible. i think that is what you're looking at here. all the leaders know this. they know what they are doing. and i think they are kind of stuck right now, dealing with a big change in the senate that may not be a good thing. and then there base is staring

at them, saying pass this agenda and get rid of the filibuster. the democrats are in a tough position right now. host: harry reid of nevada continues to defend his decision to change the filibuster. back to your phone calls, linda in orange, connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning, everyone. how are you today? you know, on the voting, this isn't rocket science. all you have to do is, every single town and city records their records. all you have to do is walk that down on the town circuit, through the voting registrars and pull the records. instead of this in this fighting about who is dead and who voted and who didn't, it is so easy. it's like they can't see it. the other thing too is with the

senate situation right now, nothing makes the republicans, mitch mcconnell in particular, than to see nothing done. his only goal is to make joe biden a one term president. he is not foolish enough to say it at this time but that is exactly what is going to happen. in the meantime, the american people get nothing done. it is called obstruction. host: linda on the democrats line from connecticut. let's get a republican voice. jerry in minnesota, good morning to you. caller: good morning parade i have two quick comments. i watched justin who left congress prayed he made a good point. he said i don't know why people are upset about voting rights. most of the people we vote for have no say when we get -- when they get to congress. it is nancy pelosi.

that group of five people, everybody has to do what their leadership says. the second thing i would say about voting is if you are not willing to show up to make it, how committed are you to what you are voting for? host: thank you. susan ferrechio, what are you hearing? guest: it is interesting what you're saying about justin amash . he had quite a bit of power when he was in congress. he was among a group of new republicans who often fought with leadership and forced them to make changes or give up on legislation they wanted to pass because they acted as a faction. that is how you can have leverage in congress prayed as much as it would be convenient for nancy pelosi, mitch mcconnell -- in congress. as much as it would be convenient for nancy pelosi or mitch mcconnell to run the show when they are in charge, they have to deal with factions. it is an important ingredient in

congress now or at any time because, when they act as a group, they have influence on legislation in order to get it pass. you need a majority to pass anything in the house, for example. you have to have a simple majority. you will not have it if her publicans are participating at all. that is very much the case in the senate, where individual senators have incredible amounts of power. look at joe manchin right now. one of the most powerful people in washington, basically, because of his stance on the filibuster and on the front of the legislation that biden hopes to pass. that has always been the case. it is true that there can be a lot of power at the top and they have a lot of influence on things. they don't have universal influence. now, the second part of the question is access to voting. democrats would argue that you need better access to voting

because some people can't get to the polls. they have difficulty. this past year was a prime example. it was decided it was not safe for people to gather and you couldn't have everybody standing around in a gym, waiting to vote. they decided that was not a good idea and may be the poll workers would not want to do it if they felt their health would be at risk. that is what you -- where you have this incredible advance of mail-in voting in america. many states adopted it and did it quickly. i think it led to a lot of the chaos on election day and the days following, because of the way in which the ballots were returned and the counting was staggered. that left a lot of people feeling like things did not go the way they normally did and they questioned the results. that played a big role in it all. the argument of how people show up and do it the way we have always done it is something many

people think should continue. there is a lot of people think mail-in ballot inc., as has been conducted -- balloting, as has been conducted in oregon for many years, it can be adopted here and it would be more uniform than it was in 2020 and it would be smoother. you will see participation levels even out a lot more because you see democrats using it mostly now. we are in that process. there is not a lot of going back on that. once that door opens, you will see expanded access to voting. it is just a question of how it will be done and whether it will be done under this big election reform law that democrats have written. i would argue no to the latter but that you will see expanded voting access. host: we have less than a minute but i want to get your reaction as a reporter, an op-ed by the publisher of the washington post and in the newspaper, the

headline something appears to be simply, simply wrong at the biden justice department. in the op-ed, he points out that during the final days of the trump administration, they used extraordinary measures to obtain subpoenas to secretly seize the records of reporters in three leading organizations including the washington post. fred ryan says new revelations suggest the biden justice department not only allowed these to continue, it intensified the attack. that has just stopped. briefly, your reaction? guest: this doesn't surprise me. it has been going on for years through various administrations. there has always been tension between the federal government and reporters who are trying to report on what is happening in the white house and other parts of the administration. a lot of the information reporters obtained can be through lease. they are frustrating to administrations. they -- through leaks.

they are frustrating to administration's. they defined the coverage of president trump. a lot of serious things were leaked. there is an attempt -- there was an attempt to find out what was going on by seeking the data from reporters. it does not surprise me they went after that stuff. go back further to the obama administration, they tried to find out who was leaking to a fox news reporter, a new york times reporter, and associated press reported. -- reporters. it is not any particular demonstration prayed the trump and obama administration did it. it is not surprising the biden administration is trying to do the same thing. it is about the federal government not liking the fact that things get leaked to reporters and there is a fine line between what we are allowed to access as members of the press and employees who leak the

data. what's of a response ability is there and that is why you see the tension between the biden administration and the press that i think it is important fred ryan was speaking out on. we need to take a stand against this stuff. host: we will conclude on that note. susan ferrechio, chief federal correspondent for the washington examiner on what is a busy week ahead. thank you. guest: thank you. host: the perspective of michael pitt is very -- michael pillsbury is coming up next. later, we will welcome and infections disease expert at the cleveland clinic. you are watching and listening to c-span's washington journal on this monday morning, the seventh of june. we are back in a moment. we hope you stay with us. ♪ >> c-span's landmark places --

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>> washington journal continues. host: joining us in washington is michael pillsbury. he is a senior fellow and director of chinese strategy at the huston -- hudson institute. he served in the defense department from 1992 to 1993 and a former advisor to president donald trump. good monday morning. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. good morning. host: let's talk about the state of relations between the u.s. and china. i want you to hear what condoleezza rice said about relations between our two countries. where are they, especially in light of wuhan and this virus? guest: it depends on if we examine it from american eyes or chinese eyes, steve. the chinese point of view, things are pretty good. they have tested america in a number of ways over the last five to 10 years and no strong american response has been

forthcoming. i hate to use this phrase but in a way, the chinese are getting away with provocations a lot of chinese scholars i know have been warning not to provoke the americans to double much. it will backfire. that -- too much. it will backfire. that group has been disappointed. we have a vicious debate going on, revolving around president trump and whether he was right or not about china. a lot of president trump's advisors, i think very indiscreetly, are giving their view of what happened. generally speaking, president biden has adopted a lot of president trump's policies. that speaks for itself. we are moving -- they were moving toward a bipartisan -- in china policy. president trump deserves credit for that. host: we will have coverage on c-span two, in a rare show of

unity, the senate is pat -- poised to pass a bill, the goal to counter china. guest: legislation -- the legislation is smart. senator schumer and others went around all of the committees in the senate and took ideas to counter china and put them together and it got a lot of republican support for what they are doing. one of the cosponsors is todd young of indiana. in a way, they are following the lead of what the house of representatives republicans did. they formed a china task force last year and put together several hundred ideas in one report, which has been backed by kevin mccarthy and all republicans. there has been this bipartisan support to do something about china, whether it is enough, i don't know. there are a lot of subsidies in it, increasing the national science foundation's budget, making sure we don't fall behind

. there is money for artificial intelligence research, a quantum number of things. it is an american version, if you will, of the made in china 2025 policy where china was subsidizing these top 10 high-tech sectors. it is our response to that. host: on the larger issue of the u.s.-china relations, yesterday, john dickerson asked condoleezza rice, now the director of the hoover institution at stanford university, about the threats and challenges we are facing from china. [video clip] >> certainly the great rival is china. it is different from the cold war. during the cold war, our great rebels, the soviet union, was a military giant and it was a technological midget. economically, completely isolated from the international economy. china is very different. it is a technological giants. -- giant.

it is seeking military capabilities that look as if they are trying to change the valance in the asian-pacific. -- balance in the asian-pacific. it is a difficult challenge but one that can be met. >> president biden is looking into how the pandemic started and the idea it may have been started at the wuhan lab. what advice would you give him on trying to get answers on what happened? >> the first thing is trying to recognize that there was -- the first thing is recognizing there was too much of a tendency to dismiss the possibility of a laboratory leak. i think the press bears some response ability for this. host: that is condoleezza rice. what do you hear in her responses to both of those points? guest: i agree with her on both points trade on her second point, about the wuhan virus lab leak theory, it was discounted in the beginning. i myself went on a television

interview on january 20 for -- january between ninth and listed the -- january 29 and listed the lab leak as a possibility. the way the chinese seemed so sensitive about it in january and turned down president trump's offer to send a team to help them, it seemed like they were trying to cover something up. i received lots of phone calls from the mainstream media who said you must never say this. i think condoleezza rice is right on the technology challenge and it not being as much of eight military challenge as the soviets were. there is one thing i disagree with. the chinese used to only have five american -- five american cities within range of their itbms. now, it is up to more than 60 american cities covered by chinese icbms.

nobody expected that, including me. the chinese used to tell us we will keep our nuclear weapons low. we just need a few. our strategic commander has made a speech recently that he fears they will double or triple the number of nuclear weapons they have. frankly, in a way that may give them the kind of confidence and assertiveness they have been showing the last 10 years, that they know they can basically destroy the united states with their nuclear forces. that is a change nobody expected. it is not just technology and economics, it is a change in the military balance of power. host: our guest is michael pillsbury. our phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 for republicans. (202) 748-8001 for democrats.

-- your reaction? guest: my reaction is china has been very smart over the last 10 years in what i would call their image management. they are able to go into many countries, including our own, and find friends of china, amplify their voices, including television programs, radio shows, media. they have had an enormous concerned with their image. they have a point they like to make, some of which are completely false. one of their points is china has never expanded and it has always been the same size. the last 2000 years. that is not true. chinese experts know china used to be quite small. it is much larger. they did not have to bet or mongolia -- tibet or mongolia. they probably did not have taiwan according to some historians. this is to reduce the china

threat theory. they have a global enemy, people who say china is a threat are totally wrong. they are trying to minimize any concern about a china threat, be a technological, trade or even military matters. host: this is a tweet from steven duncan that gets to the broader issues we have been talking about. saying the best way to deal with china is to stop sending jobs and reinforce military buildup with our allies, like japan, south korea and taiwan. in the economic aspect of all of this and the jobs that are going to china, how do you respond? guest: i agree. that is one of the rare examples of agreement, where president trump come along before he took office, was writing about losing jobs and being destroyed in the trade negotiations with china. bernie sanders joined in. some of bernie sanders's

supporters say they were first, before donald trump wrote about this 20 years ago. there -- this is a long -- long-standing bipartisan concern. that is one of the things president trump talk the most about, the competition with china -- talked the most about, the competition with china and how he did not want them to surpass us. some conservatives say this will never happen and china will collapse. we don't have to worry about it. i think they are wrong. i think china can surpass and are planning on doing it but it will be another five to 10 years before it happens. we don't have time to be complacent about the economic and technological challenge from china. it is quite serious. host: to that point, going back to the new york times headline, this is expected to pass with broad, bipartisan support. does that tell you about the commercial and military

competition we are facing from china and how congress views that? guest: i am sorry to pump -- pat myself on the back but i published a book six years ago. i plan to have a glass of champagne if it passes. it will pass the house if it passes the senate. we have woke up as a country to this comprehensive broad-based challenge. it is an important first step to take. host: what role do chipmakers have in all of this, in terms of information technology? guest: particularly chipmakers, this has been a disaster. we allowed it all to migrate to taiwan, which, to some degree, is under a military threat. we just can't make the

highest-quality chips ourselves anymore. this is one of the key concerns in senator schumer's bill. host: let's get to our viewers and listeners. thomas, you are on with michael pillsbury. caller: good morning, america. i see michael is up here talking about nuclear war. i am pretty sure you are familiar. this one can devastate the world. after we blow them up, who do we trade with? it is a no-win situation. stop ramping up the war. the biggest threat to china right now is population growth. they don't have enough to take care of the elderly. their base has been hit by five hurricanes. host: china moving from one child to three children per family.

guest: they have a clever set of economic policy makers. they realize they made a mistake by having this one child policy. they are correcting that. they have done a lot of steps. sometimes they will have a bubble of some kind. policymakers will fix it. in terms of nuclear war, i am not forecasting nuclear war. far from it. what happens is the policymakers look at the balance of power and , in a crisis, whether it is 1962 cuba or other crises that happens, they are influenced by how much power they think the other country has. i think that is what china is trying to do. they are not going to start a nuclear war. they are trying to say take us seriously. we are a number one leading military power, just like you americans. we have to keep pace with that. it is unfair to say i am trying to stir up nuclear war. i deny it. host: let's go to matt in annandale, virginia. good morning. guest: i would like to agree with the gentleman from texas.

this man sounds like a war hog and a war enthusiast. i hope your downplaying his enthusiasm. we need to de-escalate the nuclear bomb situation. i digress. i wanted to call and say we are under looking china big problems. they have a massive aging problem. they will have tons of elderly without care. it will have health care shortages. they will have jobs and economic problems coming soon. to think that we can't play on those problems to our benefit is ridiculous. number two, our current government seems to be stuck in the 1980's or 1970's in terms of how our military response to china. it is all about ships and airplanes when it should be about technological suffer missy and we do not seem to be funding our military in a way it should be. host: matt, thank you.

guest: i agree that technological supremacy is the key issue. that is part of what is in senator schumer's bill. it has also been the focus of president trump and several speeches his teammate. he wanted to assure that the united states remains technologically superior across the board. the problem is chinese intellectual property theft and chinese espionage that our director has spoken about a great deal are pushing them ahead in the technological competition. it is unfair that they do this. they are succeeding at it. it is hard to measure how well they have done but the technology of chinese weapons you see in strange areas, there cybersecurity techniques, particularly their satellite maneuverability, they will now mock -- launch more satellites this year than we will. it is a huge issue of maintaining our technological

superiority. i am not confident about these internal chinese problems somehow slowing down. their competitive spirit -- slowing down their competitive spirit to pass us. host: president biden, his first international trip since taking office will depart for wednesday -- for england on wednesday. he will meet with queen elizabeth and then on to brussels for nato meetings. next week, a meeting with vladimir putin in geneva, switzerland. will europe sign up to joe biden's plan to counter china? how do you respond? guest: first of all, i think president biden has done something really wonderful by reversing himself, which takes a lot of courage, if you are a politician. during the primaries, vice president biden said we had nothing to worry about from china. they can't eat our lunch. he stressed their poverty. he changed that in an interview a couple of months ago, where he

said if we don't change things, china will eat our lunch. trying to bring the europeans along, which i hope he succeeds with, means they should protect their investment regime and they should know when china is buying key high-tech companies. there is a series of things the europeans themselves, some europeans wants to do and president biden is nudging them in that direction. i think he is going to succeed because the chinese record of intellectual property theft and other kinds of misconduct is too great to ignore. in particular, human rights and the particular -- and the issue of human genocide, they are concerned about human rights. that attitude has changed a great deal. they used to see china and america as coequal and we should befriend with both. there has been a shift in european attitudes that president biden can take advantage of. they will join us in a number of steps to protect ourselves against china. host: our guest is michael

pillsbury. he is a grad for -- graduate of stanford university, earning his doctorate in columbia. he is the author of a number of books, including the 100 year marathon, china's secret strategy to replace america the global superpower. he served in the reagan and george h.w. bush administration. from sugar grove, north carolina, good morning. caller: i asked this question through the trump administration and nobody could answer. why didn't trump and his daughter, ivanka, why didn't they bring their factories here from china where they make their suits and ties and outfits? he talks about everything coming back here but in the north carolina area, hospitality mints, they make that for the entire country.

they have been here 40 years. trump never lead by example. he never lead by example. they don't want to pay a living wage. you brought it up a bit ago with bernie sanders. i thought i have to call. host: thanks. guest: i think he ivanka trump did shut down her operation in china. there are several press articles about it. it was before the election in 2016. but you're right, generally speaking, we are very hypocritical about china. we say they are committing genocide or they shouldn't do this and that but our level of investment in china is growing. we are way over $1 trillion of chinese companies that are traded on the two main wall street exchanges.

we have a very large private equity market in china. we have a large part of president trump's trade agreement, which is to remit six american investment banks to go into china and increase our investment activities in china. your question is quite profound that if we care that much about china, why are we increasing our investment in trade with them? why do we continue to have military exchange program? in my book, 100 year marathon, i list a few programs that our federal government aids chinese growth and prosperity in. the scientific cooperation agreement is part of what is happening with the wuhan laboratory. that continues. your question, i know you wanted ivanka and president trump, but it is profound because it is the whole country that is hypocritical toward china. this is a great adversary of

ours. why aren't we taking them more seriously? we want to make money from china and continue to be friends. that undercuts what senator chuck schumer and the other senators are trying to do tomorrow. host: bill is next, mobile, alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. there are two issues i would like to bring up with regards to china. first, strategically, china has acquired minerals from all over the world, including with the -- lithium, which is an essential ingredient of batteries. in addition to the strategic moves that they have made, the most important is the existential. that is that we have allowed ourselves to become such debtors and we are going to become a greater debtor, what happens if china pulls the plug on contributing money to our debt need and refuses to fund any of the bonds, wherever they are

issued, to pay for what is being proposed at the present time? host: we appreciate it. that comes with the national debt in excess of 28 trillion dollars. michael pillsbury? guest: the chinese talk a lot about this themselves. friendly, they can't wait until the moment comes -- frankly, they can't wait until the moment comes when they are the number one economic and technology power in the world. i don't think they will do that all at once because it will hurt their economy. president trump and president biden are trying to stop, their goal -- any issue that comes up, the american side will have to make concessions to a superior china. that is the direction we are going in. that is what my book is about. i list, over the last 40 years, how much we, the united states

have helped china to do this. we have helped the chinese in many, many ways. at one point, we sold them six different weapons systems. we shared intelligence information with them. we see china as a jr. partner we should bring along. all of a sudden, as you point out with the rare earth story and others, we are seeing that these guys have been pursuing a sophisticated strategy to surpass us. they don't want to remain our jr. partner and they are slow and patient about doing it. this is why i support the bipartisan legislation to do something about it. but i am not optimistic. the chinese are about 80% of our economic spring. there is about $16 trillion, these are old figures. this will be changing in the next two or three years. we will be looking back on ourselves with a big question mark. why did we do this?

why did we let this happen? why did we support china becoming so strong? host: a look at some of the numbers on the screen with regard to the senate bill, the vote is scheduled for tomorrow. you can watch the debate live on c-span2. it is called the innovation act of 2021. it would include $52 billion to support manufacturing. $17 billion for research and development. $10 billion for the nasa space program. jeff bezos will be among the first to travel in space. john in california, good morning. caller: i read your book a couple of years ago and i was impressed with it. it changed my thought pattern for dealing with china, ranging from -- my question is could you explain, historically, the

borrowed sword theory? guest: it is a part of chinese culture that it is debtor to avoid direct conflict or direct action, it is much better to get the other person, the other country to do things for you. this is a core concept in chinese philosophy, as well as, you can see it in chinese history, that the western approach, if you go back to the ancient greeks, when you have a war, the two sides clash and the stronger side wins. in chinese military history, as well as philosophy, you want to avoid direct conflict. you want to use indirect means to either form a coalition of other people to attack your adversary or, best of all, to get him to take steps that hurt his own cause. it is a kind of deception. it is a phrase that we cannot

translate into english. it does not mean deception exactly, but it means to get the other side to cause. this is really, and we have seen a number of ways that china has done this, but it is hard to counter it because a lot of westerners do not believe it. they think, " the chinese are just like us." that is why i wrote the book. i give examples from chinese history about how they apply this policy of indirect approach, not wanting either direct combat or economic competition, but find a way to get the other guy to make mistakes and benefit from his mistakes. host: that book called the 100 year marathon. he also wrote the book china debates and chinese views on

warfare. vincent is on the phone from philadelphia. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. god has blessed america. the only reason china is in the position they aren't is because -- they are in is because america is preoccupied with racism. that is what keeps us from being the greatest america can be. host: thank you, vincent. michael pillsbury. let me go back to president xi jinping. from your perspective -- president biden has talked about his relationship with president xi jinping. what do you know about that personal relationship? guest: biden is very proud of it. he put out the number 24 number

total hours in conversations. they gave him a pinocchio or two. it was not a full 24 hours, but he has had a lot of conversations. he says he is the western leader who has spent the most time with president xi jinping. that is important. president trump also had a personal relationship with president xi jinping. they exchanged a lot of letters. they had meetings in person. the idea of having a good relationship, trying to understand your counterpart is a good one, but the question comes, what do you take away from all that interaction? president biden reversed himself very courageously to see china as the major challenge to our country. if he thinks xi jinping is clever then those meetings were

important and they gave joe biden insight. he is not dealing with a stupid person or a thug or someone who cannot come up with good counter strategies. host: we go to donald, our last caller from illinois with michael pillsbury. you with us? we will try one more time for donald. michael pillsbury, final question for you to go back to our discussion about the relationship between our two countries, what is the biggest challenge we face? guest: i think our biggest challenges brought up by what was brought up by one of your callers, steve. we have had a long-standing view not to take china seriously, that they are not very smart, they have population problems, they have a lack of freshwater,

they have poor agriculture. we are superior as a people somehow over the chinese. the notion that we need to respond to them to keep our primacy in the world is a tough argument to make in washington dc where everyone has such a negative view of china's future. the only cure will be 5 to 10 years from now when they are way ahead of us. it is hard to prove that right now. we have so many like your friend calling in saying " do not worry about china, they are going to collapse." that is our challenge -- recognizing how smart the chinese strategy is and how the one has got into 80% of our gdp in 100 years since we surpassed the british. the soviet union collapsed.

it is half the size that used to be. we thank -- that view is changing here in washington. host: our guest is the director of chinese strategy at the hudson institute, also a veteran of a number of republican administrations and is the author of " the 100 year marathon." michael pillsbury, thank you for joining us. guest: i was consultant to the obama administration too! host: please come back again. we want to turn our attention to the latest on the coronavirus. dr. kristin englund will join us live from cleveland. she is an infectious disease expert at the cleveland clinic. we are back in just a moment. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> presidential historian doug

brinkley has often talked with our c-span viewers and listeners over the last early years. professor brinkley was educated at ohio state and georgetown and has taught at tulane and to the number city of new orleans. he spent 17 years at rice university in houston. author of some 20 books focusing on people from do not just send to gerald ford -- recently we invited him to talk to us for six hours. >> on this episode of book notes plus, here is some of our conversation with douglas brickley. get it -- douglas brinkley. get it where you get your podcasts. ♪

>> washington journal continues. host: we wanthost: to welcome back dr. kristin englund. she is an infectious disease expert from cleveland. thank you for being with us again. guest: thank you for having me on. host: i want to begin more broadly on where we are at as school ands -- ends. where are we from your perspective in this pandemic? guest: we are seeing numbers

across the country at the lowest of any time over the last six months. numbers are continuing to decline of new cases. we are seeing pockets of infection though, so there are some areas where they are still seeing a significant number of patients in the hospitals. it is important for everyone in the country to know what it is like in your neck of the woods, and know whether it is a safe area to be participating in the fund summer activities we are all -- fun summer activities we are all looking forward to. host: if you had covid and you recovered, do you still need the vaccine? guest: yes. there is a strong benefit to natural immunity. it probably lasts at least a year. we have only had this virus a little over a year.

it is still important to get the vaccine. that gives you a slightly different kind of immunity. it may persist even longer than natural immunity. give yourself every opportunity that you can to avoid getting this infection potentially a second time. host: you are part of a cleveland clinic initiative called the recover clinic dealing with the long-term implications of coronavirus. can you explain? guest: unfortunately what we are seeing are not only the acute effects of covid-19 we are all familiar with -- respiratory illnesses, fatigue -- but as the virus itself moves away from the virus and patients are no longer infectious, unfortunately there are long-term symptoms that can persist.

we have patients in our clinic who have been dealing with this for over a year. even those paid -- though patients get over the symptoms, -- this is something significant, and it will have significant impact on the country from a financial standpoint, from an insurance standpoint, from a work standpoint as these patients can often times not even return to work. host: we are a month away from president biden's self-imposed target of 70% of adult americans with at least one vaccine. will we reach that benchmark by july 4? guest: it will take a big push to reach that benchmark. right now we are at about 60% of patients who have had at least one vaccine, and less than that for people who have completed

that to vaccine series, if the back -- 2 vaccine series. we are seeing fewer people being vaccinated every day. that is concerning. as we see more and more people not interested in getting the vaccine, they will be more at risk in the fall and winter, and we could see 4th and 6th surges of this disease. host: there are several new millionaires in ohio. there is an incentive to get people vaccinated. how is that working? guest: it is brilliant! you can use the carrot or the stick, and governor dewine has chosen to use a very positive reinforcement. there are a couple millionaires. one is from shaker heights, which is where i live, and that

is wonderful. those kids 12 to 17 proposed full tuition scholarship for ohio colleges. come on! you can get a full ride to scott -- college just for doing something that will keep you healthy. that and many other initiatives right now will encourage people to do the right thing. host: vermont has the highest vaccination rate at about 71%, but states like alabama, mississippi, idaho, there percent is well below 40% -- the ir percent is well below 40%. i want to get your reaction to governor tate reeves. [video clip] >> why is mississippi so

behind the rest of the country? >> thank you for having me on. let me begin by saying that i believe the vaccine works. i believe it is safe. i believe it is effective. i took my first dose in january on tv live and have encouraged mississippians to do the same. president biden's goal for july 4 are arbitrary to say the least . here is the reality -- the fact is for over a year we try to focus our goals on reducing hospitalizations, reducing the number of individuals in the icu beds. the most important thing is if you get the virus, if you can get better with quality care, you can receive that quality care. today we have 131 people in the hospital. at our peak, we had over 2000

cases per day. we have had barely 800 -- for that entire year period, the goalpost was let's reduce cases, and we have been successful. why? we have had one million mississippians who have got in the vaccine, but we have also-had over 3000- many believe -- many believe that anywhere between four and five times people who have not been tested have actually got in the virus, so we probably have between one million and 2 million mississippians who have natural immunity. we are still working to get the vaccines distributed, and hope we will continue to do so. host: that is governor reeves on state of the union. what are you hearing in his response? guest: i'm hearing a lot of

different points of you as far as my folks in mississippi are seeing decreasing numbers. congratulations to him for getting the vaccine. that is a very important message for the folks in mississippi to receive, but they also need to hear that vaccines are strongly recommended. while you want to see the number of cases decline the only way you will see those cases decline is if people continue to mask end social distance -- and or if they are getting vaccinated. if we want to open our society again, which we all do whether it is going to movie theaters are restaurants, it will involve getting everyone vaccinated or as many as we can.

when we talk about natural immunity, from the work i am doing at looking -- in looking at long covid, i do not want people to get natural immunity. you run a significant risk that even if you were not acutely ill or severely ill at the beginning, you can still have severe effects from covid. from looking at the literature and cases i am seeing at the recover clinic, only 35% of our patients were ever hospitalized. 65% of the patients who have had persistent illness were not sick enough to be hospitalized. they may have had fevers and symptoms, but they were able to say home, yet months later they are continuing to see the effects of that disease. natural immunity, while it sounds wonderful, can learn to long-term symptoms we do not want people to have.

host: our rubber station with dr. kristin englund, annexed-- conversation with dr. kristin englund. we are dividing the phone lines regionally. (202) 748-8000 for those in the east of the country. our first call is from bayville, new york. caller: thank you for taking my call. dr. englund, i want to thank you for everything you do. it is fantastic -- so happy you are doing what you are doing. i have a question though that may be a bit out of your wheelhouse, but i think it is important the public health community be more active in considering the funding for long-term public health. the problem of course has been for decades -- refused to bring the funding up to where it

should be. if we continue with the same paradigm -- host: you are breaking up a bit, but i think we got the gist of your question. guest: i could not agree with you more. thank you for your statement. i think the covid pandemic has highlighted the poor infrastructure of our public health and how that has declined over the last many decades. we have counted on a number of private organizations and state organizations and others that were not necessarily cohesively tied together where our public health infrastructure is supposed to be a network able to help pull us together during a

national and international crisis like we are seeing now. this is a wake-up call, and i hope the federal government is listening and looking at this. those of us on the ground have been crying for it for a long time, and this gives us more to fight with so we can get public health reinvigorated again so we are not caught flat-footed. host: this is from jan who says " the vaccine is way cheaper than the icu." sheila says " it is shameful you do not mention that these vaccines are and experiment on the world. no one knows what the long-term effects will be and it won't be approved until 2023." guest: we can see where the numbers of people getting vaccinated are not up to 100%.

having seen people of all ages, of all demographics, every walk of life in the icu fighting for their lives, i would try anything to keep people from having to suffer what they have been suffering through. the vaccines, i need to implore you, are very safe. this technology, the mrna technology present in at least two of the vaccines we are using, have been looked at for many years, looking at different types of vaccines or bacteria they could be using this against. the technology in using it as a type of vaccine is new, but learning about the technology is not something that is brand spanking new either. the studies done looking at these vaccines involved initially tens of thousands of

people, so each of the pharmaceutical companies used up to 20,000 people they were trialing these vaccines in. there were a lot of people involved. as far as the timeline developing the vaccine, there were questions about that. because the technology was not necessarily new it allowed us to start up vaccines in a rapid fashion. the government allowed pharmaceutical company is not to have to scrap to get money to get this vaccine testing started. then pharmaceutical companies were given money to be able to be producing these vaccines even when they had not been trialed yet so when they were approved, they had millions of doses ready to deliver. the time in the lab, the time in

the trial, the time looking at this was not substantially shortened. it was the funding and rollout. -- funding and rollout periods that. were shortened -- it was the funding and rollout periods that were shortened. host: in 2020 you said you were optimistic that a vaccine would be in place by the end of the year. were you surprised? guest: there is a huge jump between optimism and realism. i wanted a vaccine by the end of the year. i was exceptionally pleased. i got my first shot december 18. it was remarkable . seeing all the work done collaboratively across so many different pharmaceutical

companies, countries, research facilities -- everybody was pulling together. this was not a competitive process. this was a collaborative process. it helped us to get to the point where we are now. host: another question from a viewer -- " would you recommend a vaccine passport?" guest: that is a political ball right there. i believe in private company is being able to make the decision as to whether they will have people coming into their restaurants for hospitals or into -- or hospitals or into sports facilities. that is their prerogative. as far as the public domain, that is more political, and i would not want to weigh in on

that. every private organization has the right -- a sporting event can say " you have to have a ticket to come here," or a restaurant can say, " no shirt, no shoes, no service." host: we go to john next in mid one, -- john next in wisconsin. caller: she is kind of reluctant to say some things about what the governor said. the governor actually told people and untruth -- an untruth. there is no one who is immune from this virus. there is no one on this earth, and he said he had people who were immune to it.

they are all susceptible of getting it. host: that was in response to what we heard earlier from governor tate reeves. guest: i believe if people have had the virus before, there is a level of immunity. is it complete? no. that is why we recommend people get the vaccine. the vaccines have proven at this point in time to be 95% effective. by adding natural immunity to the vaccine, that is, certainly helpful. nothing is 100%. we are also looking at the perspective of variants out there. that is a concerning event happening all across the world. it will certainly have an impact on us as we look at the fall when we get more into the viral season and people go indoors more. we know viruses spread more

easily in the fall and winter time. that will be a time of concern and when we learn more about this virus itself, the effectiveness of the vaccine and the impacts of the variants. host: for those of you who had the vaccine six months ago, will you need a booster shot and if so, when? guest: i do not have an answer for that. will we need a booster? i think we will, especially if we see more variants around. our -- unfortunately, the more virus around, the more variants there will be. the berries has the potential to mutate and make it worse for the rest of us who were vaccinated. is it going to be like a flu

vaccine where we need a yearly update? that is potential, but we do not know right now. we will have to see what variants are prevalent in our community. in the united states, the current vaccines are able to handle those, but the virus can change quickly. we will have to see what is going on in september. and october host: -- in september and october. host: lynn with this question for you -do- you agree that the unvaccinated" should -- " do you agree that the unvaccinated should wear masks indoors?" guest: absolutely.

there are so many benefits to yourself and also to the community to getting vaccinated. i strongly encourage everyone to consider doing that, not only for themselves, but for those around them in the community. host: you are quoted in cleveland on how to safely prepare for graduation parties. we have a related tweet -- " my neighbor had a huge kids birthday party yesterday. it made me nervous. some adults around here refused to get vaccinated." guest: we are starting to see a time period where people are tired of being under quarantine and they want to get out and celebrate all the things they were not able to celebrate last year, delaying all that joy and wanting to see it now.

we have to still be smart. i know we want to get out and celebrate. for a situation where there are kids under the age of 12, there is not approval for vaccines for them yet. no child under 12 should be vaccinated yet. they should be wearing masks and not congregating in large areas like that. certainly we talked about having small pods and parties with family and friends you have had in that protective pod. that's very reasonable. this thursday the fda will start looking at some of the data that is coming out for vaccinating those children 11 and under. this will be in place by the fall. we have to, because we have to be able to get kids safely back to school in the fall.

let's not have a resurgence of infections in our youngest at this point in time while we are waiting for them to get vaccinated! please be smart. for the adults choosing not to get vaccinated, if you do not want to do it for yourself, think about doing it for your children who are not able to get vaccinated at this point in time. host: our next caller is from maryland. keith, good morning. caller: i have a question regarding the animal studies for the animal -- mrna vaccines. have any studies been done on immunity after you get the shot? guest: absolutely. the mrna technology was looked out a lot in animal studies for a number of different infections, and not just covid. we were looking at it -- we

were looking at mrna vaccines for hiv a couple years back. the technology was not right for that virus. there have been numerous animal studies -- mostly rat studies -- looking at that. violet has been thought to be effective at not showing long-term symptoms, it was not right for some of those other viral infections as far as being able to call it " long-term benefits." the second part of the story as far as looking at autoimmune disorders, that is a hot topic right now. certainly we are seeing a lot of autoimmune and inflammatory responses to covid, and that is what we think a lot of post-covid or long covid symptoms are coming from. the virus itself has long gone, but the body's continued inflammatory response to the virus and also starting to

attack itself. long covid symptoms are similar to what we are seeing in chronic fatigue syndrome. that is a syndrome that has been somewhat neglected for the last number of decades as well. it is time we start looking at those post viral inflammatory changes. i think right now the federal government is putting a lot of interest and thankfully a lot of research funding towards that so we can better understand it and hopefully be able to help other diseases other than post-covid. host: one of the issues we have been hearing is that the vaccine changes your dna. can you address that issue? guest: it cannot change your dna. mrna is a protein that when a gets into your cells simply remains in the outer part of the

self, what is called the cytoplasm. it does not interact with your dna whatsoever. it uses some of the machine work of the cells to make more proteins and cells make proteins all the time so we are giving it a code so it can make these proteins that look like the spec protein -- spike protein. these spike protein encourages a inflammatory response. the mrna vaccine does not integrate into the dna in any way, shape or form. as the cell dies off, it goes away as well. it cannot change your dna. i have heard that as a concern from many of my patients, and i need that to become dispelled at this point. host: from wisconsin rapids, wisconsin, roseann, good

morning. caller: the controversy over whether it was a wet market or came from a laboratory, my question being, when you are messing with these very dangerous viruses in research, and labs, why do not have a vaccine in the chambers in case something like this were to happen, however it occurred? i'm wondering why in all of these situations when you are messing with viruses and diseases and then you have to scramble --scramble!--to come up with a vaccine that cost a lot of lives. i would like your opinion on that. host: dr. englund, your opinion on that? guest: i agree, this is a very difficult situation to try and understand that this came over from the wet market and the animal virus mutations then

there was no way to be able to be prepared for that. whether this came from a lab, i think we have a lot of information still waiting to come out. serious questions are being raised in regards to that. a year ago i had said absolutely not, this is something that occurred naturally, but unfortunately i think we are getting more and more information out that this may have come from a lab. i cannot state with any kind of authority or any further knowledge that this is where it came from, but if you are working in a laboratory trying to create a new virus, could they have had a virus -- vaccine at that point in time? it is a brand-new virus. they had not even created that virus yet, so it is difficult to create a vaccine for something that is not even present. sars-cov-2 one is different

enough from sars -- sars cov-1 -- sars-cov-1 is different enough from sars-cov-2 that it vaccine for sars-cov-2 would not be effective against sars-cov-1. caller: i am a retired teacher and the thing that i would like to see and i think this would be a prime time to do it, is to see some of this information being disseminated in our schools. at the middle school level, it takes people like you to inspire -- to teach kids what they must

protect themselves against going forward, especially kids in middle school who by the time they get in their mid-20's, early 30's are reluctant to take the shot because -- it's the old macho figure. " you can't touch me!" [laughter] caller: i would inspire your community to do that. guest: ron, teachers are brilliant! thank you for your service at this point. that is a great idea -- this is a great opportunity for us to get in as early as kindergarten. some educators at the cleveland clinic -- i was able with my daughter to develop a series of programs we gave for the k-6 curriculum and seventh grade through 12th grade, and it was wonderful! the students were so eager to

learn. you can adjust to the curriculum so they can start learning the basics about washing hands and how things are transmitted, to sneeze into your elbow, things that are universally important, not just for covid but for influenza, and just have it be healthier young students. as we got into the curriculum and the high school, we were able to develop into a sick viruses, virology -- basic viruses, virology and how mutations occur. it was well-received with that. it is a great opportunity for science teachers to be able to look at this, and also as we talk about global health to be able to follow the effects of the pandemic as it moves across different countries and the impacts on the economic send

other aspects it has had across the world. it has been a tragic pandemic and a tragic event, but let's make the most of it. let's give our students an opportunity to learn from it. we will work together, run, and make -- ron, and make a curriculum. host: we have dealt with sars, ebola, and now the coronavirus. what lessons can we apply in the future? guest: boy -- as one of our colors brought up earlier, certainly -- as one of our callers brought up earlier, certainly public health. it was difficult to pull all this together. that is our number one lesson. number two is we will always have to be on our toes.

after ebola, the school got -- country got complacent about thinking about what could impact us next. we got distracted by other things, whether it be finance or politics. we need to keep the potential of a pandemic in our vision. this is something that it is not unreasonable for us on a yearly basis to at least start going through how we would respond to it. let's have wargames, but with viruses or bacteria. i think that is something we here at the cleveland clinic will be doing, making sure we keep the books of information we have so we are well prepared for what could be coming down the pike. host: immediately that public health initiative involves vaccines.

the u.s. is supplying vaccines to india, parts of africa. this was jake sullivan with that announcement. [video clip] >> our goal in sharing our vaccines is in service of ending the pandemic globally. our goal is to get as many vaccines to as many people as fast as possible. we want to save lives, and work variants that place all of us -- thwart variants that put all of us at risk. thanks to the ingenuity of american scientists and the resilience of the american people, we are in a position to help others so we will help others. as the president has said, the private -- the u.s. will not use its vaccines to secure favors from other countries. we have received requests from all over the world, and a number of important factors went into

our decision in how to allocate these first vaccines. these goals included achieving mobile coverage, responding to urgent -- global coverage, responding to urgent needs, and helping as many countries as possible who have requested vaccines. we have also prioritized our neighbors. we have decided to share 75% of these vaccines through covax. this will sell tate cheering with those most at risk -- facilitate sharing with those most at risk. host: what will this mean for the global challenge of covid-19? guest: certainly this will help save millions of lives as we are able to get vaccine out to those who are at risk in other countries. as devastated as the united states was, we are starting to

see even worse situations in certain countries. certainly brazil has had a devastating time as we are seeing in india right now as well. anything we can do to try and stop the progression of this disease in other countries is tremendously important. the more virus that is out there, and it is making copies of itself, the more likely there is to be a mutation. we have to look at this globally because we live in a global world. a mutation that develops in other countries -- myanmar, india -- can get on then their planned come to us in the united states -- an airplane and come to us in the united states. everyone in the world has an impact on us. host: our next color is from dayton, ohio.

good morning. caller: good morning. doctor, you said originally you were sure that the virus had occurred naturally. i am wondering, now you think that might not be the case. is it true that you came to that conclusion on your own, or were you persuaded by government figures such as dr. fauci that it happened that way naturally? guest: thank you very much. i grew up in beavercreek so i am very familiar with the dayton area! initially, i did not feel there was any potential information -good information- available -- good david information -- good

information a year ago that it came out of a laboratory. we are hearing more questions and concerns about when initial cases may have been seen in china, if there were truly cases of viral illness in november, a month before it was reported to us. i think that is concerning, and i think that warrants more of a look. i think we need to try to understand more about information, and i'm not sure how much more information we are going to get. in my mind, it raises a question, but to be honest with you at this point in time, whether, it came from a lab or it came from the wet market, we need to deal with what we are dealing with now, the effects of this virus.

in the future it will help us understand how to respond to this more quickly, how we can understand the effects of wet markets and how they might have an impact on viruses potentially in the future. that is a little windy answer. i have not been impacted by folks telling me what to think. it has been looking at the information coming out, the timeline is a little confusing. that is why we need to ask some questions. host: the former fda commissioner addressing that issue on cbs's face the nation. here is that exchange. [video clip] >> the reason the question is important is not because it could have changed the way it affected our response, but how

we go forward. there was a too narrow view. we need to as a country broaden our view. >> historically the view was " the cdc has this." responding to an outbreak whether it is ebola or as he got was something the cdc did. the tools of national security were not deeply engaged at the outset. going forward now, we need to judge them through the lens of a public -- national security. if you bring national security officials and at the outset, they look at the mosaic, the totality of the evidence. they will weigh heavily the virologists, but they will not look at that as the only piece of evidence. when i look at the emails tony fauci was sending back and forth, they were debating the sequence.

once they assure themselves that the sequence looked fairly normal or the things in it could be the result of re-assortment in nature, their belief that this could have been an engineered strain started to subside. you saw that evolution the-- -- evolution of that thinking. host: let's get back to your phone calls. charles in york, pennsylvania. caller: i had the covid-19 and a gentleman donated his plasma. i will be going to the doctor soon. i would like to thank dr. englund for her service to the country. they told me i was a long-hauler. i have no taste, no smell for two years.

i am on my way to get the vaccine next week, and i want to find out will that help me, and what are they doing for people who are supposed to be long-haulers? guest: charles, i'm sorry for what you are going through at this point in time. people having long covid symptoms, the lack of sense of taste and smell is not an uncommon thing. when i looked at the numbers of patients in my first 150 here, we were seeing about 20% to 30% of patients complaining about tinnitus, ringing in the ears, or lack of sense of taste or smell. the best way to overcome that is sensory retraining. this is something our ear, nose and throat specialists are able

to offer. it is a long process of going through and smelling different foods that you have a strong recognition for, whether it be coffee and then telling yourself it is coffee. it is retraining your memory of what those smells and tastes maybe. that is one thing our specialists can help for. i am glad to hear you will be getting the vaccine. not a lot of data out there as far as whether it is going to help your symptoms are not -- or not but there is a lot of anecdotal information out there, people saying their symptoms improved after getting the vaccine. anyone who is a long-hauler, i

recommend getting the vaccine. protect yourself from getting another infection down the line and with the impossibility that you may see some improvement in your symptoms. host: our next caller is not far from you in ohio. good morning,, kathy. caller: i had a comment and a question. i hope i am remembering correctly -- back in the late 90's when the bird flu happened, i remember -- i want to say i remember the surgeon general saying we were worried that it could have come from poor practices from places like poultry farming where there was not necessarily the best practices compared to an organic farm or tuned into waste into

the problems that can come from that. i wondered if there was any similar connection. i am pretty sure i am a long-hauler also. i was wondering if you think it is beneficial to do things like with diet to try to prevent inflammation, or does that get in the way of the body doing what it is trying to do to heal? guest: good questions. we certainly know a number of viral infections and mutations do come from animal vectors. birds are often the source of carrying a virus, and then being able to have a mutation occurring in the bird and that being able to transmit to a human. it takes a tray -- mutation for it to work into the human structure. whether it is evolved through

organic products necessarily, i'm not sure i have any information, but it is often the case where there are improper practices whether it be mixing different types of birds and animals together or improper handling so then it gets transmitted into humans. that is not an uncommon way for a number of different viruses to be able to get transmitted into humans. again, i am sorry to hear about your long covid symptoms. this does nothing but highlight to people to those who do not want to get the vaccine that caller after caller, we are seeing patients continuing draft symptoms. these can be -- continuing to see symptoms. i believe in following specific diets trying to cut down on gut inflammation. our clinics involved in making

recommendations on that. we have seen metabolism impacting heart disease, depression, so many different things, so i have to believe the inflammation from the gut may well persist, especially since patients initially had diarrheal, vomiting symptoms with covid, so we know it does impact the gut. what kind of diet, changes to make, i would suggest you talk to folks who are experts in looking at how to modify inflammatory changes in the g.i. symptom -- g.i. system and not necessarily trying that on your own. we want to make sure you are getting protein. host: carol is joining us from

houston, texas. caller: i have a question and comment regarding a troubling article i read in the new york times, explaining how the government is counting these vaccines. they are counting them -- they are saying they are counting the j&j twice. they are putting it in with the vaccines counted as a shot given, and then they are also putting it in the number one shot given. two places they are counting according to the new york times. i do not see you going on about this host: -- host: let me follow up on a different front regarding vaccine.

right now my dharna advisor is to vaccine --my dharna and pfizer -- moderna and pfizer two dose vaccine. guest: when moderna and pfizer need a booster shot it will be a single dose booster. the reason you need a second vaccine with pfizer or moderna, it is because you only get about a 50% or 80% response after the first shot so you need the second booster. i expect that a booster will be a single vaccine user. with -- vaccine booster. one of the questions will be can you interchange? if you had my dharna -- moderna

-- if you had moderna or pfizer , will you be able to mix and match those? they are starting to look at some studies to see how much -- you can get a first dose of one and a second dose of another. we will look at a booster when it is necessary that can at least cover the mrna vaccines. host: we get the flu shot every year. at least in the short term, the next couple years, can you imagine we will need to get a covid-19 shot? guest: we will probably need a covid-19 vaccine shot -- maybe not this year. it will depend on how many variants are circulating in the

united states. the reason we have to get a flu shot every year is because we see different strains of influenza circulating. thankfully, this year think about how many people around you have had influenza! it has been so few this year. why? because we are masking, socially distancing. we are doing all the things that keep us from passing respiratory viruses from one to another. my hope is as we start to move into virus time of year again, so the viral season, october,, november, december, we pull the masks out again. we can prevent ourselves from getting influenza as well. as all the horrible things

that have come out of this pandemic, we have all learned viral protection, ways we can protect each other and ourselves. host: a few more minutes with our guest, dr. kristin englund. joe is in san antonio, texas. caller: do you know anything about the novavax vaccine, when it will be approved or if it will be approved? how is this vaccine the same or different from the other vaccines? guest:, the novavax vaccine, i do not believe is something that is being manufactured here in the united states, and i do not know when that is going to be available. i'd have not seen anything as far as when -- i have not seen anything as far as when it will be put in front of the fda. host: hector from boston,

massachusetts. good morning. caller: this question is for dr. kristin. if you have had a plasma transfusion in the past can you get the vaccine without any complications? host: you can. -- guest: you can. convalescent plasma was one of our treatments for covid-19. we could give someone accurately sick with covid and immune response so that would help by the acute virus present in them. it was helpful for some patients, not an overall best practice treatment, but one thing that it does is now that you have antibodies present, if

i try to give you a vaccine, that vaccine does you have antibodies already present. we recommend that you wait at least 30 days before you get the vaccine. if you have had a treatment called monoclonal antibodies, then you need to wait 90 days so you can get an adequate response to the vaccine itself. you can get the vaccine, just to make sure you have waited at least 30 days since you have had that treatment. host: you spoke about this in our last hour, but i want to go back to the issue of people feeling isolated over the last year or so. people want to travel. your advice to those who want to travel -- your advice is what?

guest: one of the benefits of being vaccinated is you can open up your world a little more. my family is vaccinated and we just to took a long anticipated vacation. i felt very comfortable traveling. the plane we traveled on required masks the entire time that you are on the plane. the travel companies and the airline companies are handling this very well. i am fully vaccinated. i was not traveling with small kids. if i was traveling with someone under the age of 12 right now, i would be more likely to try and think about traveling via the car where it is more of controlled as to the kind of interactions you are having. the benefits of being vaccinated are you can have more freedom

out there and be able to enjoy summer and graduation parties and weddings so much more. good morning. host: quick question. caller: i am hearing about this controversy with dr. fauci. what is the controversy? guest: thank you. i appreciate the fact that i can help explain things. i like to think in very plain terms and make things understandable because that is how people can make the best

decisions. be able to fully understand what is behind all of this and all of the news can get very confusing. this is also where it is important that we roll out the vaccines from the primary care doctor offices. while the mass vaccination sites are very important, to be able to sit down and have a conversation with someone you have a long relationship with and that you trust and be able to make a decision about whether you want to get vaccinated and other things about how you want to be able to move forward with your life. i can give you information in an hours time. your primary care doctor is going to be your best source of trusted information. i am glad to see that we are rolling out the vaccines into

our primary care offices. host: we will conclude on that note. thank you for joining us. infectious disease expert at the cleveland clinic, we appreciate your time. test: t so much, -- guest: thank you so much, steve. host: secretary blinken with two hearings this afternoon. up next, his testimony before the house foreign affairs committee to talk about the president's budget, but certainly, foreign policy will be front and center. live coverage on c-span coming up right now. >> i am hopeful the department