we are funded by these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ >> buckeye rod been support c-span as a public service among these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up this morning on "washington journal," the brookings institution discusses the u.s. withdraw from afghanistan amid recent taliban gains. then a bloomberg senate reporter talks about the fate of the bipartisan infrastructure deal and other democratic priorities and an associate director of the shaver center at the university of southern california on the findings of a new study that

compared spending on, generic drugs by medicare and costco. be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning, it's tuesday, july 13, 2021 area the senate returns at 10 a.m. eastern this morning and this afternoon president biden will travel to philadelphia to deliver remarks on voting rights and we begin this morning on the issue of climate change. excessive heat fueling wildfires, the hottest june on record last month, we want to know what you think about u.s. efforts to combat climate change. if you think the u.s. is doing too much, the number to call is (202) 748-8000. if you think the u.s. is doing too little, the number is (202) 748-8001.

if you think we are doing about right and it comes to climate change in this country, the number is (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text, that number is (202) 748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. otherwise catch up with us on social media, twitter @cspanwj, and facebook.com/c-span. very good tuesday morning to you. as you are calling in, recent research polling on various aspects of u.s. society, americans and what they think on climate change. 62% say that large businesses and corporations are doing too little on climate change, just 8% saying that large businesses and corporations are doing too much. when it comes to ordinary americans, 66% of adults say that their fellow americans are doing too little.

when it comes to environmental advocacy organizations in the u.s., 29% saying they are doing too little. 22% saying they are doing too much, 48% of u.s. adults saying environmental advocacy organizations in this country are doing about right on the issue of climate change. those numbers are from this spring, the pew research center. from "usa today," a look at the climate situation across the country, more than 13 million americans in the west were under excessive heat warnings, straining power grids and fueling wildfires across almost 500 square miles and in california the wildfire season is outpacing last year, the worst on record. oregon, the bootleg fire was the biggest there, 0% contained as of monday. it's temperature in death valley is expected to reach 127 degrees

monday afternoon, just shy of the daily record high of 129. all of this after last month checked out to be the hottest june on record according to friday's report from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. that again from "usa today." bill neither science guy testified before the homeland security committee meeting last month on the issue of climate change, talking about the role of congress and regulations when it comes to dealing with the issue of climate change. [video clip] >> greenhouse gases induce climate change on earth and it is happening now on larger and larger's tales. bigger storms, more floods, more droughts, more loss of shoreline and more businesses and people displaced as the ocean swells. therefore the sooner that we stop adding greenhouse gases to the air, the better off we have a chance of being and if we

don't stop, more of these events will happen, more at the same time, increasing the likelihood of convergent problem's. it was stated earlier in the opening statement, the ranking member said we can't control the weather. turns out we are. inadvertently. by accident. we are controlling the weather and we have got to cut it out. now, everything on an airplane, from the wheel on the note -- the wheels in the nose to the light on the tail are there for a reason. anything extra you put on an airplane would add weight, shorten the range, make it more costly to fly, less efficient. even with that in mind, airplanes are required to carry all sorts of emergency equipment. life vests, rafts, exit doors right in the middle that no one ever uses. you wanted to have everything it needs to fly normally but also everything it needs when things go wrong. these regulations are good.

they keep us safe. so, just like extra pieces and parts on an airplane, we don't want a galatians we don't need. but when it comes to addressing climate change, regulations are essential. having healthy neighborhoods where things don't stop working is a way to people healthy and working. it's why we have infrastructure like smoke detectors and fire hydrants and all that plumbing. so that firefighters can keep us and the environment we rely on safe. this is where you all come in. members of the subcommittee. we want all the rules we need to create all the systems we need to address climate change. host: that was bill knight, -- bill nye, the science guy, testified before congress. from utah, the congressman who started the conservative climate

conference. here's what he had to say on the effort. >> the first tenant is that the climate is changing and that years of the industrial revolution clearly have had an impact and we want to do something about it. i know that people are not used to republicans talking about it, but personally i feel like it's time for republicans to be more aggressive with our message. the fact that we have not then engaged let's us be branded as not caring about the environment and i just don't think that's true. >> as part of the caucus, how many members are there? where do you go from here? what do you want to see done? >> we were really pleased, today there are 65 members and it grows every day, one third of the republican conference. it's one of the biggest caucuses for republicans. so, a huge out ring of support

from my colleagues. as far as where we want to go, now that we have formed of the caucus, the main mission is to educate republicans on climate related issues and kind of be a think tank for solutions and things that we want to advocate and put forward. host: that was john kurtz on this program just a couple of weeks ago. you can see the entire thing on our website. we are talking about the issue of climate change in the first hour, asking you to call in. if you think america is doing too much on the issue of climate change, too little, or about right. phone numbers for each one of those answers. altoona, pennsylvania, we are doing too little. why is that, rick? >> i think they ought to be looking for other ways to get fuel and power the cars. electricity is well and good, but did you ever hear about

henry ford running 40,000 cars on 10,000 acres of hemp? the car was also made out of hemp. i cannot understand why they are not looking into other ways to make fuel. i mean it was proven that the fuel from hemp ran those cars very well. that's why i feel they are not doing enough to reverse this and i don't really, in my heart i don't early think they are going to reverse this. the world has been through this since the beginning of time and maybe we can slow it down, but that's my comment. host: that's rick in pennsylvania. mike, sun city, saying that we are doing too much. in what ways, mike? caller: i'm

tired of the liberal media making claims they have little to no support for just because they control the media. it's already 1000, 30 1000 sightings on record on the fact that climate change does not exist, but the elite liberal media has their own agenda and doesn't want to interview any of them. it's absolutely incredible. host: would you say that the vast majority of scientists out there, that say climate change is happening, that man-made climate change is a real issue in a real threat, what would you say should mark >> they don't have any quantifiable evidence to prove that it exists. at least it seems to me that you would entertain both of them, wouldn't you? 31,000 scientists saying no and you cannot get one journalist in the elite liberal

media to look into it. it's a fraud perpetrated by the elite liberal media on the american people. host: to what end? what's the conspiracy? caller: it's groupthink. the liberals believe in it so that they can make a claim for support. you've got to have a support for your searches, right? there's no support, they control the media. host: robert n kentucky says we are doing too little. who and what sectors would you like to see do more, robert? caller: good morning to you, john, and to c-span. i live in a former coal mining town and i agree with mr. biden. global warming is a fit -- serious threat and problem, we have had no problem here in kentucky switching from coal to other jobs. this was a former coal mining

town, frankly the best: the world. mr. biden was on cnn, fox, and msnbc saying that global warming has become a threat. why china doesn't have to cut their carbon, that's what i would like to have the president get on, press china to start cutting their carbon. we are just sitting back and it seems like to me that they are getting away with mining and we are not. we are doing too little. host: robert, this debate over climate change has come up a lot in the ongoing debate over what an infrastructure investment should look like in this country . some of the specific proposals the biden administration put forth in its infrastructure plans require power companies to use more energy from renewable

sources, raising taxes for more energy-efficient buildings and improved roads, federal spending for a nationwide network of charging stations for electric cars. that was all included in the original proposal on infrastructure. would you support any of those three things? caller: i support all of those things from the president, i support the president on end very -- everything, i think he's doing a great job right now. but high-speed rail, that would be good for the country. it would look good, and it's time for the u.s. to get high-speed rail. i want to thank you guys, thank the president, and keep up the good work. host: that's robert in hazard, kentucky. polling when it comes to aspects of the biden infrastructure plan, one more number from the pew research center, this polling is from back in the spring on the original proposal,

the number of u.s. adults who said that the biden infrastructure plans to rebuild infrastructure and reduce the effect of climate change, they said they expected it would help the economy with 30% saying they thought it would hurt the economy and 18% saying it would make no difference. that polling of course before the bipartisan infrastructure proposal came together. this now 600 billion dollar plan, we will be talking more about the path ahead for that plan in the coming weeks. it will be a major push for the biden administration and for that by pardon it -- bipartisan infrastructure group on capitol hill. we will talk more about that with steve dennis, coming up in about an hour or so this morning. up next, lenny do, fort payne, alabama, says we are doing too little in this country on climate change. why? caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. first of all, there really was a selection that i feel like my

comment pertains to. first of all, we should all know who is in control of the climate. ok? almighty gall -- almighty god is over all this stuff. all the stuff going on in america is due to sin. let's put it where it belongs. it's sin. the lord is in control of all this stuff. i don't care how many airplanes you put in the atmosphere, the lord is in control. host: so, the lord is in control. is there anything we can do? what does the lord want us to do on climate change? caller: get on your knees and pray that we do the right thing and handle everything the right way instead of this one after that one. host: so, what is the right way? caller: what's the right way?

quit arguing and bickering like kids. get on your knees and pray for the answer instead of democrats against republicans. host: that was clarence -- this is clarence, republican line, says we are doing too much. caller: to start with, i'm 84 and i've seen the climate change on my life, it's a natural occurrence as far as i'm concerned and i don't care, i don't they can spend enough money to mount anything. in the 1950's i was in the army in california, 1957. we had to go up and fight the fires in california. so, i'm just telling you it's nothing new. host: do you think it's getting worse? caller: well i'm sure it is, but it's natural. i've been on a farm all my life

and i've seen it change and change. but it is on its own. this has nothing to do with us people, i don't think. [grunts] host: that's clarence, maryland. a chart looking at the areas of the country where wildfires are currently happening, this chart here looking at the total acres burned going back to 2000, you can see the trend, the increase over time over the past 20 years when it comes to total acres burned. the map above it showing the areas facing a greater than usual risk of major wildfires this month, more than 90% of the west is under drought. the brown areas of the map of the united states, those are the areas facing greater risk, specific wildfires happening right now in this country. phone lines on the issue of climate change, (202) 748-8000

if you think the u.s. is doing too much on the issue. (202) 748-8002 if you think you -- we are doing too little. if you think we are doing about right, (202) 748-8003. news from around the country coming here into washington, d.c., democrats in texas, members of the texas legislature, here are the headlines from "usa today," a rebellion against republican plans for sweeping changes, democrats and the texas house left to the state yesterday to derail a special session of the legislator -- legislature that the governor had called. the democrats said they hoped to pressure congress that federal legislation to protect texans and all-americans, they said, from the trump republicans nationwide or on democracy, the members of the texas house of

representatives spoke to the media. here's a bit from the democratic caucus chair, chris turner. [video clip] >> today more than 50 members of the texas house left austin, left texas. not because we want to, it breaks our heart that we have to do it. but we do it because we are in a fight to save our democracy. nationwide, the republican vote suppression efforts, anti-voter efforts, is coming to a crisis point in the state of texas right now. we have, we are at the beginning of a special session where republicans are rushing through new anti-voter bills in the house and senate through marathon hearings over the weekend that lasted all night, 24 hours. ignoring the voices of the diverse, the diversity of texas,

pleading, pleading with the legislature that they don't make it harder to vote in texas, which is the hardest state to vote in already. republicans continue to ignore them. because they are determined to do whatever it takes to curry favor with the donald trump base which is the republican party now and continue to promote the big lie that somehow donald trump actually won the last election, that we all know he lost. what's worse, they disrespect the voters of texas. they disrespect the diverse members who represent those communities all across the state of texas, from south texas to west texas, north texas to east texas. that's why we are here. we are determined to kill this bill in this special session

that will end on august the second and we will stay out until then in order to do that. host: that, last night, the scene outside dulles airport, texas republicans having a bit to say. john bresnahan on twitter, punch bowl news with this statement from john cornyn, the senior senator from texas, calling texas democrats fleeing the state over republican attempts not very texan. you stand and you fight. more from john cornyn last night on twitter, tweeting at the democratic members of the state legislature, saying enjoy the all expenses paid charter jet vacation in d.c., but you should be earning your taxpayer provided income rather than running and hiding. that from a republican of texas. here's the headline from "the washington times," president biden set to speak in philadelphia on the issue of

voting rights. jen psaki, in the white house briefing room, saying that he will lay out the moral case for opposing republican voting laws. this is more from president biden yesterday from the white house on the issue of voting rights. we will show you that in just a second. but also we want to continue to get your calls on the issue of climate change as we talk about it in the first hour. it's (202) 748-8000 if you think the united states is doing too much on the issue of climate change. it's (202) 748-8001 if you think america is doing too little on voting change. and for those who think we are doing about right, (202) 748-8002. back to the issue of the president's speech in philadelphia, this is jen psaki from the briefing room. [video clip] >> to lay out moral case for why denying the right to vote is a form of suppression and he will

use every tool at his disposal to continue to protect the fundamental rights of americans to vote against the onslaught of these laws based on dangerous conspiracy theories that came to an assault on the capital, no election in our history has met such a high standard. 80 judges, including those appointed by his predecessor, throwing out all challenges, decrying efforts to strip the right to vote as authoritarian and anti-american, standing up against politicians attempting to subvert the system by replacing independent election authorities with partisan ones, highlighting the work of the administration against this, and how we need to work together with civil rights organizations to build as broad a turnout of voter education systems to overcome the worst challenges to our democracy since the civil war. host: you will be hearing more

from the president today in philadelphia later this afternoon on this issue of voting rights. his address is set to take place . back to your phone calls this morning on climate change. is america doing too much, too little, or about right on the issue? we have been asking you to call in in the first hour today. claude in oregon says we are doing too little. where are we doing too little? >> i think the debate has been over for a while. the scientists all agree. it's just trump now has all of the republicans linking they believe, i mean thinking they know more than scientists. so yeah. we had record high temperature about three weeks ago. as of now, we have a higher

all-time temperature than austin, texas. i moved up here in 1990 in there were no tornadoes appear in 1990. now? we have at least tour three within 20 miles of portland every year. last year, during pandemic that is still going on, we had to wear a mask all day at work. when i got home, took the mask off to be able to breathe, but i can breathe in my own apartment. if you shine the light's, you can see the particles from the forest fire like floating around everywhere in the hallway. when i came home it looked foggy in the hallway.

unless people experience it, they don't think there's a problem. so, they have to experience it. i called my friend down in texas that i graduated high school with in 87. i told him about our record high temperature. he asked me, why should i care? i said dude, think about it. if it is getting this bad here, how bad is it going to be where you are at? host: you mentioned texas a couple of times. let's head to austin, texas, larry says we are doing about right in this country. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: what controls the weather here on earth is the son , the son puts out more radiation, earth gets warmer. sun puts out less radiation, the earth gets colder.

right now the scientists will tell you that we are in a cold spell. we should see i son the great lakes. but what we are seeing is glaciers melting in alaska. why is that? because it's also volcanic. every time a volcano blows its top, co2 spews into the atmosphere, putting it in a bubble around us. there is not much we can do about it, volcanoes. they put out 75% of the global warming. host: larry, you say we are doing what we can right now? caller: just about. there are a few items we could do. forest fires put out about 10% of global warming.

producing water back into the earth. host: larry, let's focus on forest fires for a minute. bill my the science guy was among those who testified -- nye the science guy was among those who testified. they also had a discussion about what we can and can't do about forest fires. here's a portion of the exchange. [video clip] >> when it comes to hurricane mitigation, we have more people on the coast now, so when we say that the severity of storms and frequency is up, are you talking about the actual number or about the dollar amount of the damage it costs? >> i think it's both, right? we are seeing more

billion-dollar disasters than we have seen in the past. more storms and more hurricanes in the atlantic. we are seeing an increasing number of wildfires across the west. i think it's accommodation. >> fire needs three things. oxygen's, conditional force, and fuel. so, how does climate change factor into those three things? >> since wildfire season and the increase in the number we are seeing, the fact that the vegetation is more dried out than it has been in the past, increasing the ability to have ignition source more quickly. >> it could also be that there is lax management of those forest's and that they are not being cleared the way they should be. you and i both know as firefighters that if you take

away the fuel, you won't have these kinds of fires, right? >> exactly, that's the mitigation we talked about in trying to reduce the impact. the more that you can mitigate the impacts that you see, the less you are going to have to respond. >> in the end, it's only about the fuel in the fuel is the vegetation. we start to clear that out and we see lessening of these devastating forest fires. would you agree with that? >> i could agree with that. host: that hearing before the house homeland security hearing last month. want to watch them in their entirety? you can always do so at c-span.org. on the east coast, coming up on 7:30. we are talking about climate change, asking you if we are doing too much, too little, or about right in combating climate

change. betty says too much. in what ways, betty? caller: hello? host: go ahead, betty. caller: are you talking to me? host: yes, ma'am. caller: ok, yes, sir. the first thing i have to say is you don't need to put bill nye on to discuss climate, he's not even a scientist. all he is is a tv personality. look him up, he has a degree in mechanics, ok? he's not a climate scientist. to me, the more -- the more important issue over climate is plastic pollution in the ocean. from what i hear from real scientists, the climate is cyclical and is caused by the sudden cycle. we had a period in the middle

ages called them under minimum. -- the under minimum. the climate was warmer than it is now. host: why is plastic in the ocean and environmental issue that strikes home for you? caller: because it -- there is so much of it in it mostly comes from china, the far east and the third world, because they don't have proper disposal of their garbage. and it's huge. there is an island in the pacific ocean that is nothing but plastic floating, but it looks like an island, a huge island because of the way the current flows and it creates an island. host: that was betty in california. ivan, tennessee, who would you like to see do more?

caller: yeah, we need to do a lot more. president barack obama was trying to get to the cause of it, so much of it in the environment. i'm here in tennessee. i grew up around here. we done had three tornadoes coming through here that we wouldn't even of never dreamed of having a tornado. yeah, we are doing too little. host: this is harry in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: i'd like everyone to go on to youtube and watch john colton, a meteorologist 40 years . roger ravel started this in 1957. 1990 one he said as far as bill

nye, he has nothing to do with science or anything. a lot of people don't know that scientists in this country are getting a billion dollars a year total to prove there is climate change. if they say they -- if they say there isn't, they don't get their money. host: is there an environmental issue that concerns you? host: yeah -- caller: yeah, the forest fires. they used to have safety breaks. the tree huggers stop that, they stopped ticking up the dang vegetation. this isn't started by global warming or heat. you would need a magnifying glass to start the fires with vegetation. they stopped doing that years ago and that is why you are seeing more of these forest fires now. when he came on, when al gore said that, that was right after john coleman challenged him into

other scientists to a debate. host: that is harry in pennsylvania this morning. comments from social media and twitter, this is joseph, saying that driving hybrid cars or doing some kind of climate change ritual will not affect the forest fires in california or anywhere else. jamie saying that one little country in the world, we will be the only country in history to regulate ourselves into poverty over an unproven theory while the largest polluters continue on. this from tony in new mexico saying that without environment, there's no economy, no human life, so shouldn't it be it's not the economy, stupid, it's the environment. this from mark, saying that we are doing way too little, we act like all we have to do is stop burning fossil fuels and everything goes back to normal. it will help but it is delusional to think stopping greenhouse gases will save humanity.

just a few of your comments from social media. one more from the pew research center report from earlier this spring, looking at the concerns over climate change by generation in this country, among those who say addressing climate change is their top personal concern, 37% of generation z say that the far-left blue column in the middle set of numbers is there, 33% of millennial say that and even less, 20% of generation x say addressing climate change is a top personal concern. 29% of the boomer generation or older says stopping or addressing climate change is their top personal concern. asking you this morning if you think the u.s. is doing too much, too little, or about right on the issue of combating climate change. melissa in cleveland, tennessee, says we are doing too little. in what areas? caller: i think we are not doing enough to educate average

americans. several years ago there was a big earth day concert and they were trying to give us commonsense things like the principle of reuse, reusing containers for different purposes. or you know, how you can teleconference instead of traveling for business. all of that was destroyed by somebody saying that we need to save trees by only using one square of toilet paper. that destroys all the common sense approaches. people hurt -- people turned off after that. we need more common sense ideas on how to help the environment. host: what is a commonsense idea that you have heard that you think works? caller: i don't know if you can

say the brand name, there is a certain laundry detergent now trying to encourage people to wash in cold water. wash your clothes in cold water, it helps the environment, you don't have to warm the water and warm water going into streams and stuff like that affects the fish and things like that. so yeah, i think that's a great idea. i tend to wash mine in cold water anyway, it helps the electricity and stuff. you can have these nice little common sense approaches. i think if people engaged in more common sense approaches, like reuse and recycle, or like washing in cold water as opposed to hot water, you might get more people to come around and do it. host: when do you think we crossed the line into people saying i'm tuning it all out, it's too much for me. where is that line? how do we

avoid people tuning out the conversation? caller: it's when we get these radical crackpot ideas like we need to ban all cars. internal combustion engines all need to go. or like i said, that celebrity one time who suggested saving trees by only using one square of toilet paper when you go, you know? the average person hears something like that and they go no, no, no. host: is it a matter of incrementalism versus some dramatic step? caller: i think so. i think that once you get everybody used to the idea of reality, the new reality, then you can start exploring the bigger ideas. like i said, what they are doing now is, you don't want to go, to

me it would lead to, we need to just like remove all cars. host: gotcha. that's melissa in tennessee. stephen pennsylvania says we are doing too much. where are we doing too much on climate change? caller: i think really we are doing too much. i think we are not doing the right kinds of things. like the forests, that one gentleman said a little bit ago, they used to go into a forest and cut down all the dead trees and clean it up. we don't do that anymore. then the lightning comes and hits it and starts up or man does it with matches. i know that out here where i live they are building homes like raising, taking farmland and putting homes on it. there's no watershed anymore, the water just runs off out in california where they have this drought. they weren't thinking too good. they should have thought about that years ago. there's ways of doing it but now

it's getting to the point where it's almost impossible. building all these homes. get a watershed, take care of it and you wouldn't have all the mess they have right now. they were putting money into things in the past that should not have been done and not putting them in this. even though, i can't think of the, the damm, the hoover damme. right now it's 25% lower than where it's been for quite a while, yet eight to 12 states are hooked -- hooked up to that for their power grid. just common sense, common sense. i think it's more government control over what you can do and what we can't do. they are not using common sense. i'm in my 70's. host: when was the last time we were using common sense, steve? caller: what's that?

host: when was the last time we used common sense caller: and our policies? it's been a long time, it's been a long time. these same organizations in the 60's and 70's said we would have global warming and then an ice age edit never happened. if people would just use common sense, it's not the cars, stupid , it's the fact that we are not taking care of what we have the correct way, like i just mentioned. host: got your point. that's stephen york, pennsylvania this morning. about 20 minutes left this morning, asking you about the u.s. combating climate change. doing too much, too little, or about right? eat calling in on the phone lines we have for you. the front page of today's "washington post," dueling crises not far from home, one story about haiti, the killing suspect appears to have

presented himself for years as a potential leader of the nation, looking into the ongoing investigation into the death and assassination of the haitian president. the other one down here in the streets, cubans have lost their fear of protest, posing their biggest challenge to the government there in decades according to observers of that country. president biden yesterday at the white house addressed the political situation in the and in haiti. here's a bit of what he had to say. [video clip] >> the cuban people are demanding freedom from an authoritarian regime and i don't think you have anything like this in a long long time. quite frankly, ever. the united states stands firmly with the people of cuba as they assert universal rights. they call on the government of cuba to refrain from violence in their attempts to silence the voices of the people. we are also closely following

the developments in haiti, in the wake of the horrific assassination of the president that semi took place. the people of haiti deserve peace and security in those political leaders need to come together for the good of the country. over the weekend, i dispatched a high level expert allegation to assess the situation and determine where the united states can give our support. and as a close neighbor and friend to the people of cuba and haiti, the u.s. stands ready to continue to provide assistance. host: president biden from the white house yesterday. speaking of the white house, some news yesterday out of the white house, this being reported by nbc, breaking news on the elliptic ceremonies, first lady jill biden will head to the olympic games later this month to lead the delegation and will attend the opening ceremony on

july 23, being confirmed by nbc today. back to your phone calls on the issue of climate change. robert here in washington, d.c., says we in the country are doing too little. who could be doing more, robert? caller: for one, it's the biggest elephant in the middle of the room, the u.s. is the only country in the whole world that has done over 220 above ground nuclear test. every time that you ignite and adam, it reverberates through the entire atmosphere -- atom, it reverberates across the atmosphere. this is one of the big reasons for climate change. the only country with over 220, man. two years ago they declassified the photos of those tests. host: how do you feel about nuclear power and switching to that form of energy? caller:

everyone forgot about nikola tesla, who presented why -- presented free energy. i don't know why everyone is wandering around with a -- like a chicken with their head cut off. elon musk, that's a slap to the face of nikola tesla. doing what thomas edison did with the battery. tesla had what was called free energy where once you set the machine in operation, it continuously runs without any fuel or any other apparatus whatsoever. host: robert, there, d.c., this is stanley in massachusetts saying that we are doing too little. go ahead. caller: first of all, i sent to mr. biden and to obama a letter four years ago, or five, i should say 2016, november.

discussing and telling what was required to take and turn around global warming. the one thing that will turn it around, you have to take and bring out the acidity of the oceans. plankton has to come back to grow. and then the atmosphere, the sky will turn from light blue to dark blue, mostly navy blue, deflecting 80%, i should say 15% of the sunlight off of earth. host: did you ever get a letter back? caller: yes, i did. yes, i did. host: what did it say? caller: they said that we joined the paris agreement. that's not science. they will never do anything. if we stay on that course, mankind will be dead in 30 years. orange sky in the morning and orange sky at night is the amount of sulfur being blasted out from those things. host: that's stanley this

morning. kevin, land o lakes, next, says we are doing too much. caller: we are doing too much. it's great that we want to take care of the planet, but when we let other countries destroy the planet, china is building 200 co. powered power plants. coal powered plants. 200 of them. that's more than we have right now operating in the united states and they are building 200 new ones. and we are worried about a car, when they have over one billion people in their country? four times what we have, polluting 10 kind as much. we have the cleanest environment in the world, the united states of america. we are having our government kind of brainwash our children into we are the problem on everything, calling

non-hurricanes hurricanes. these hurricanes are up 40% in the last 20 years. why is that? host: this is one of the headlines, and we talked about it when it happened back in april, president biden committed to cutting u.s. emissions in half in less than a decade as a part of the paris climate pact. caller: and what does china have to do? how much are they going to cut their emissions? they build everything that we consume and we won't have any factories in the country for when they want to take us over. we will have nothing. they took the ppe from us. we are living in their light right now because of their environment and they are the ones per -- polluting it and we aren't doing anything to stop it. host: steve is next out of california. says we are doing too little.

where can people do more ashen mark caller: -- more? caller: am i on? host: yes, sir. caller: oh, yes. we are definitely doing too little. we are at the stage where we have to start taking carbon out of the air. the carbon that we in today takes 1000 years to come out. what we have out here is engines that run on water, machines that will take co2 out of the air to create plastic powder that you can use in concrete. the thing that we voted on out here was turbines at sea. you basically take a wind turbine, you put a prop on it and you stick it in the ocean. for the people that don't know, what happened was that we could never get a hearing in congress over this because to build

something out in the ocean, you need to government approval and you have to hook it up to the power grid and the power grid is run by east coast, west coast, and freaking texas, who stopped us from actually building these things. the advantage of a c turbine -- sea turbine is that it's out in the ocean and hydro is the cheapest form of energy there is. that's about it. unless you got a question for me. host: thanks for the call. coming back to the chart that we showed at the beginning of the segment, the number of americans, percentage of americans who think various sectors of the country are doing too little or too much on the issue of climate change, 69% of u.s. adults say large businesses and corporations are doing too little, 8% saying they are doing too much, 21% saying that large

businesses and corporations are doing about the right amount on climate change. this is what bella set on twitter on that topic, that the only way to even begin starts with a carbon tax on these large companies with u.s. representatives who denied climate change needing to be educated because the country is on fire. this from larry in new jersey, saying that we have done too little, too late, the shortsighted greed of individuals has brought us to the edge of a cliff. here, another viewer saying that we are doing as little as corporate america dictates. ray and michigan says we are doing it about right. why is that? caller: i don't know about just about right, but your question when you say too little, too much, just right, it already validates the argument that

climate change is real, so i'm not coming from that end. but about seven years ago i watched debate after debate after debate on climate change and the climate change skeptical's were always the winners of the debates and i can't remember, i'm just going to do it off the top of my head, there was a guy named sue who was one of them. there was a guy named listen and it was funny that you put on bill nye the science guy, he just got destroyed in these debates. i want to remind people that the global warming is based on models with complete data, for example. they eliminated different warming of why the climate was warm during this time. they eliminated that in the model.

just taking the temperature of climate change is, is kind of an inexact science. tape measure temperature they use weather stations and weather balloons. host: which all means what when it comes to something like the paris climate agreement or the efforts we are doing to cut carbon emissions in half, you don't agree with doing that? caller: well, in my lifetime there has been, you know, there's going to be, we are going to freeze to death, there's always something. they always put it out 20, 30 years ahead of time. so, you never know for sure. when the time comes up, the things they predict never happen. but i want to say how arrogant man is. because you think you can control climate? when the sun affects it, volcanoes affected, el niño, the

polar shift, it all affects your climate. it's funny how the funny how they can twist, how the media can twist the information. because now, because now the argument, they know they lost the debate, so now the argument is the polar shift is due to man-made causes. host: that's a ray in michigan. the issue of climate change coming up late last month in that house homeland security committee meeting. here is more from that exchange. [video clip] >> in 2018 the trump administration took unprecedented step to ignore science and remove the term climate change entirely.

not even the term sea level rise made it into the document. it's not just a matter of words. i'm bidding climate change is a broad attempt by the previous administration to play with people's lives in the name of partisan politics. under your leadership, what steps is fema taking currently to reincorporate climate change into strategic plans and throughout the acc more broadly? >> thank you for the question. we are seeing an incredible rise in the number of disasters, the severity of disasters and how rapidly they are intensifying like you have never seen before and this is a direct result of the changing climate and we have to be deliberative and brave about the approaches when it comes to reducing the impact. as i mentioned, we have a number

of mitigation grant programs that are a first step in helping communities reduce future threats and impacts, but we all are also taking a look at their we need to be more proactive in our own efforts here as fema has begun a climate enterprise steering group from across the agency to take a look at all the programs to see where we need to be more deliberative and aggressive in the approach to climate change and the group is also a part of the secretaries climate action group to coordinate the efforts. fema has a strong role to play in fighting the climate crisis and this is the first step in us being able to accomplish that. host: if you want to watch that hearing from late last month, you can do that on our website, c-span.org. just a few minutes left, we want to get your thoughts on if we are doing enough, too little,

just enough. bill says we are doing too much. go ahead. caller: ok, illinois? why don't you people address the forest fires in california, where your governors and politicians are too lazy to get off thereabouts -- off thereabouts -- off their butts to harvest the forests. the coal fires, we have lithium, bismuth, that we have to purchase and china, which we get from -- from china, which we get from coal-fired plants. you selling us out some more? host: when you say you and you people, who are you talking about? caller: talking about the politicians, namely the one out of california. how about the suppose it president? host: that's a bill in illinois.

robert says we are doing too little, virginia. in what way? host: -- caller: unlike the rest of your collars, i'm a geologist and have actually studied the climate. we are not doing enough because we already have a lot of the scientific and engineering things necessary to offset climate change. carpet sequester towers, alternative energy sources. the two things we are doing wrong, one, we are not implementing technologies to stop climate change that have already been discovered and we are also passing the buck onto the consumer and the individual instead of holding corporate entities responsible as the heaviest hitters as the root causes of climate change and to the callers who say the science is bad, i don't think that they could understand the science if it was in front of them.

host: before you go, what should we know about the larson ice shelf as i tried to pull out the map? caller: a gone, b, gone, c is in the ocean,, d is all that's left. host: what does that mean? caller: antarctica has been she device for longer than humans have walked the earth. for people who say it's a cyclical event, there is your hot clue that in all the cycles we have seen witnessed of the 200,000, million years humans have walked the earth, that ice shelf has never collapsed. now it's on the verge of collapse and when it's gone, it's going to be gone for a long time. host: talk about what you did to study it. host: with a government

organization? a private organization? caller: all university work, sir. host: they still involved in those efforts? caller: i'm in contact with the colleagues and the doctors and the professors and the climatologist and geo synthesis. currently i am in the governmental sector as an environmental geologist area --. -- dollars. host: -- geologist. host: are your colleagues optimistic? caller: we are good at sciencing the ways we -- our way out of things that we put ourselves into but this is over a hundred years old. back in the chicago fire it was horses and methane that cause people to be concerned about changes to the climate. we began inventing cars and we

use gasoline. and then we stopped the maximum we could grossly back in 1901. it's been 120 years and we are in the same corner where we cannot more cars on the road yet traffic is as bad as it has ever been. cities are recognizing that maybe we should have bicycles instead of cars. increasing the use of trains. doing things to move away from cars because we have tapped that resource. this is where the science and engineering is there. we can in fact fix a lot of what has gone wrong. but it takes a heavy hand of government to implement the technologies that have been invented from smog eating concrete and environmentally friendly buildings. to putting restrictions and holding the truest culprits, concrete manufacturers, cruise lines. running a cruise ship puts out

as much gas is 400,000 cars -- as 400,000 cars paid their industries much more responsible . but ever since the commercial with the crying indian all those years ago there's been a large campaign to put the onus on to us, the individual. host: what do you say to people who hear that term, the heavy hand of government and get very concerned? caller: i understand they get concerned by that. i get the idea that the eight scariest words is that i'm from the government and here to help. but there are times when it's beyond the individual. if your house is on fire you want the fire department to put out area you don't use your own garden hose or everything is gone. there's time when you need infrastructure, you need the, dare i say it, government entities to be the force to stop the problem going on.

some of the easy things we can do, if you want to stop help the fires in california, start removing the superfluous dams and let the colorado river touched the pacific ocean. it's been 50 years, probably more. there's a lot of little things that could be done to really put an actual damper and what's going on. host: that's robert, in virginia, our last caller on this first segment. we have plenty more to talk about over the next two hours, next we will be joined by michael o'hanlon and discuss the u.s. withdraw from afghanistan and what could lie ahead for that country. later, a bloomberg reporter will discuss the state of the bipartisan per structure deal -- infrastructure deal and other priorities on capitol hill. stick around, we will be right back. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the

national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> coming up today on c-span, hash judiciary subcommittee hearing on the use of facial wrecking and technology by police. that's live -- facial recognition technology by police. and the senate judiciary subcommittee will examine anti-competitive practices in the prescription drug market. on c-span two, the senate is back at 10:00 a.m. to consider nominations for the under secretary of state for civilian security and deputy labor secretary. >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday he will find events and people in our nation's past on american history tv. on sunday, book tv brings the latest in nonfiction books and authors. learn, discover, explore. this weekend on c-span two.

>> washington journal continues. host: we are always glad to welcome back author and brookings institution foreign policy director michael o'hanlon joining us. we have headlines about the gains and deteriorating six security -- security situation in afghanistan. do you think that the collapse of the afghan government is imminent after the u.s. and nato withdraw? guest: good morning. i think it was regretful that president biden made this decision. we had already reduced u.s. forces by 95% and i think that was a sustainable level to get the peace process a chance. i understand his frustration and the frustration of most americans with this conflict. but we were playing a supporting role, not a major combat role for the last few years.

having said that, i do think there is a serious danger of afghanistan government collapsed in the next two months. but there's nothing inevitable about yet i am not prescient enough to see it as imminent and unavoidable. it's definitely a major possible outcome. but also the government could hold onto significant chunks of the country had quite if i developing between government and its affiliated militias and the taliban. it could make the violence get much worse before anything is resolved. we have seen civil wars go on for many years in somalia, and other parts -- yemen, parts of the cell -- parts of africa, historically in china for several decades at the 20th

century. there's nothing about a civil war that has to end quickly. we could not only be resigning ourselves to the possibility of taliban takeover, which would be bad. i would be the worst outcome. but if we avoid that, with our limited help to the afghan government, apostle -- possibility of a worsening war. it's a regrettable situation. i argue in my new book, the art of war in an age of peace that even though we need to focus primarily on russia and china in this era of great power and competition, we don't need to and shouldn't avoid the secondary interest where we still have important american equities. if we could find a modest way to stabilize a place like afghanistan, or prevent from completely falling apart, that could be worth the effort of a few thousand u.s. troops. but that decision is over and we

are pretty much out. host: is the afghan government up for that fight? the security picture right now -- paint the security picture right now. we hear from the new york times that the taliban has seized control of more than 150 of the roughly 400 districts in the last two months. what does that mean on the ground? guest: primarily means the taliban controls the countryside, or large chunks of it. and the afghan government controls the cities. we know it's inevitable that the taliban will attack the cities. i mean everything from kabul with a population of 6 million, and in kandahar one to million -- one to 2 million. to the larger village -- to the large towns by the american lexicon. what we could see the afghan government holding on large chunks in the north.

some of those have already fallen to the taliban. but especially in places where the ethnic composition of the population is not so -- to the taliban success come i think the afghan government could hold on. i think it will try to hold on to kabul or at least large chunks of it. i think the local politics and places like a sharif come up in the north, will favor the government allies and not the taliban. some of the cities are likely to stay in government hands. i think a stalemate of some kind with some back-and-forth motion is more likely than an outright taliban takeover. we have to see what happens. host:. talking about the u.s. withdraw from afghanistan three let me give the phone lines to call in if you want to join in on this conversation with michael no. if you support the withdrawal (202) 748-8000.

if you oppose the withdrawal (202) 748-8001. we do want to hear the stories from afghan war veterans at (202) 748-8002. that is for afghan war veterans. you could start calling in as we show this picture from the wall street journal. army general scott miller is the top u.s. commander handing over the reign of the afghan operation to marine general frank mckenzie. michael o'hanlon, what can the united do -- united states do? what is it mean to support afghanistan from over the horizon? for republicans thank you -- guest: thank you for having a special line for afghan veterans. we have not managed to get the kind of outcome that we wanted and things are very fraught. but nonetheless, 20 years with the efforts of our men and women

in uniform and the state department in the agency for international development with nongovernmental organizations and people from around the world, we have managed to prevent another attack on the united states emanating from afghanistan we helped the afghan people make a lot of progress on women's rights, life expectancy and despite the problems things are better than they were in the late 1990's. or they had been up until the worsening war. but i want to thank all of the american to have done so much and given so much. just because we are not at the place we wanted to be does not denigrate their sacrifice. i'm sure this is a moment for us all to say thank you. that said, let me turn to the issue of what comes next and i think we will have to try to do is to follow, keep the aid flowing so the afghan army and can keep up the fight. they need the resources and they don't have enough cells yet and

then find a way to keep the afghan air force operational was some degree of western contractor support. i get to your question of over the horizon counterterrorism. the afghan army and police cannot do this from over the horizon and they are the most important instrument of combat. they have been six to eight years. the first thing we need to do is help them keep their airplanes in the air so they can deal with taliban ambush. the possibility of the taliban bringing in multiple attacks on multiple city dollar on -- multiple attacks on multiple cities at once. it's going to require rapid counter concentration by the afghan army and police. they need air power to do that, to move their own people and to attach concentrations -- attacked concentrations from the air. over the rise and can do intelligence gathering, whether it's aircraft are operating of the persian gulf, spy

satellites, airplanes in the indian ocean. but we are going to have to find some way to keep the afghan air force flying. that might mean logistics arrangements with countries like because asked on -- because asked on -- like use pakistan -- like uzbekistan. even other pakistan intelligence service has been the main supporter of their the town about over the years, it's worth asking. these are the things that we will have to do. in one sense, to conclude, i'm afraid that over the rising counterterrorism is a bit of an oxymoron. to get the intelligence you need to go after specific terrorist is through on the ground human intelligence networks, satellites and faraway airplanes can't really comment they. but if the taliban allows like ida to a stat -- al qaeda to

establish a base or do some operational planning from afghan territory come i think we will see that from more remote assets that we could respond. i don't expect a big al qaeda base to be developed on afghan soil the way it was prior to the 9/11 attacks. but i expect a lot of smaller problems here and there and it will be hard pressed to keep an eye on them. host: michael o'hanlon as our guest of the brookings institution, he is the foreign policy program director there, specializing in u.s. defense strategy and the author of the new book the art of war in the age of peace. he's joining us this morning to take your phone calls. sam, in williamson, on the line for those opposing u.s. withdrawal. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm glad to hear from. i'm thankful to be on the air with you. host: lighting oppose the

withdrawal from afghanistan? -- why do you oppose the withdrawal from afghanistan? caller: we have established a foothold in afghanistan and we have gained friends by being over there. but if we evacuate afghanistan, there's going to be a huge --. democracy will be gone. and our enemies will use this evacuation of afghanistan as a sign of weakness. host: that is sam, in west virginia. michael o'hanlon, i want to play president ayden talking about the u.s. with drawl -- withdrawal, specifically addressing those who continue to keep troops in afghanistan. this is what the president said. [video clip]

president biden: how many more? how many thousands of daughters and sons are you willing to risk? how long would you have them stay? we already have members of our military who had parents fighting in afghanistan 20 years ago? would you send their children and grandchildren? would you send your own son or daughter? after 20 years, trillion dollar spent, hundreds and thousands of afghan security defense forces trained, 2448 americans killed, 20,722 wounded. untold thousands coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health. i will not send another generation of americans to war in afghanistan with a reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. host: that was president biden last week. michael o'hanlon, those comments

and the viewers call as well? guest: sam, thank you for your words. i agree. as for president biden, i understand the frustration and the tragic loss that so many have suffered in the nation has suffered. but that last part of his statement is i think where his logic does not persuade me. he says i'm not going to keep doing this with no reasonable expectation of a different outcome. i see a big difference between an afghanistan in complete or outright civil war versus the afghanistan that we have had in the last few years. that's an enormous difference. i think on that point present biden is presupposing the collapsible happened stay -- will happen if we stay and maybe a peace deal could be reached now. but collapse was not happening in the last few years. it was a slow progress by the taliban. the afghan government was holding on to all of major

cities, and most of the major roads with about 3000 americans staying to help. that was sustainable for a while longer to give the peace process a chance. and most of the enormous cost that president biden referred to was occurred in those first dozen years. by the time of president obama's first term coming to an end. in the last two presidencies, we have not had large losses. it has been tragic that we have had any, but in this dangerous world you don't get to just wish away these problems. and most of the american military personnel i know may have been frustrated by this mission, but i think in most cases they were proud to know they were helping to protect the united states from the possibility of another large-scale terrorist attack that could put a lot more americans at risk than the

numbers dying. losing about a dozen people year since roughly 2014, that's a dozen to many. but it's far from what could resolve from another major terrorist strike on her homeland . -- on our homeland. i think present biden made a mistake. host: for afghan war veterans, the number to call in is (202) 748-8002. michael o'hanlon is with us until about 845 time -- 8:45. john supports the withdrawal in sumter, south carolina. go ahead. caller: i'm a little confused. why are we in afghanistan? could you answer that quickly for me. host: why did we originally go? why has been 20 years? caller: why did we originally go.

guest: because of course we aren't really in afghanistan any longer, except with the diplomatic mission now at risk and a few hundred american troops trying to help protect them and the airport. but the reason we went 20 years ago, it's a good time to ask, it's the 20 year anniversary in just a month and a half to two months of the 9/11 attack. we went because the 9/11 attacks were initially planned from afghan soil by al qaeda and al qaeda was invited to be on afghan soil by the taliban government. that we chose to hold accountable. once we were attacked we said we are not only going to hold that carried out these attacks responsible and retaliate against them. we will responsible the government that allowed them a sanctuary, a big base from which i gathered versus and built up their movements and planned the attacks which were admittedly

also planned from other places. while the number of different connections and pieces is a global terrorist network at the core of it was around the city of kandahar in afghanistan in the years leading up to the 9/11 period. and the taliban, the government in power back then, in the same group now we are trying to prevent from retaking power, that is the group that invited osama bin laden and his murderous henchmen into afghanistan to begin planning those attacks. that is the reason. host: john i get the feeling you have a follow-up question? caller: what he says doesn't make sense. the people who attacked us and 9/11 were from saudi arabia. if we stay in afghanistan will be fighting this forever. guest: what i have said is factually documented and not

contested by any 9/11 commission or intelligence. you are right that the saudi nationalist congregated in afghanistan and i agree that saudi arabia has a certain sponsor -- responsibility. not terms of drug planning and support but the kind of extremist ideology and theology that they allowed to be used and perpetrated in this area. but the afghan government at the time invited in the saudis and allowed them to do the planning. there were people from other countries as well. so you are right there are other countries that had a role. but without the afghan sanctuary , that headquarters, that training ground, i don't believe the attacks would have occurred. host: on that line for afghan war veterans. me, when were you in afghanistan? caller: around 2012, and 2014.

host: what was your role? caller: i was in intelligence on -- an intelligence officer. host: your thoughts on the withdrawal? caller: i think we are withdrawing without a plan behind it. i don't think we have the policy does work -- policy to support is taking the military out of there. i think we were not getting very far, the military was doing the job they were tasked to do but i think it's up to congress and the president to form a policy for what the big strategic plan is. we were there for a long time without that policy. so i think the military was a band-aid for our government not having the foreign policy for the big overall plan. host: what would winning strategy have looked like? what should we have been doing? caller: that's the tough question.

i think it's a mix, from the military perspective we talk about diplomacy ended nation operation -- and information operations. and monetary. i think it's a mix of all of that, military use and economics. it's a mix of that. i think our government just does not want to use it. it does not want to take all the time to figure out this policy which is a mixture of all of those things. and the easy answer, while it takes a lot of money and too many lives, the easy answer is to throw the military adage. they do a good job but it won't be the final solution. it takes more diplomacy, more aid in the area. but it needs big overall plan.

but the military is not tasked to figure out. host: thank you for that. guest: thank you for your call and your service. i agree with you, there was never a strategy. i do think we brought in a lot of development specialists. to some extent the afghanistan problem was that even with this amazing american effort with some of the best people on the ground i have ever seen, we were not able to rescue afghanistan. people will say we should not try nationbuilding. the problem is that after we overthrew the taliban, the early years of the bush administration, we didn't try nationbuilding. or limited amounts of developments. and what happened is the warlord started to come back. the taliban came back. the afghan government wasn't strong enough to deal with that because we had not done any

state building. so we decided under the last year or two present bush and the first couple of president obama to try a more comprehensive approach. i think we did try but it might've been too little or too late the maybe too much too late . we through huge amounts of military and economic and diplomatic resources that afghanistan -- afghanistan for a few years. i have some responsibility and i was hopeful that it would rescue the situation and supported it. but it was trying to do too much into small of a time period. so we needed more modest calls and a longer-term time horizon and maybe no expectation that we could leave. maybe having a few thousand u.s. troops for many years is the least bad option. i think that's where we had arrived, especially by the later obama years and the trump years. i think that's the policy we

should have kept. host: are there historical lessons? what happened when the ussr withdrew from afghanistan? in the late 80's right? guest: the soviets went in without anybody asking them. the afghan government wanted us and our nato partners international community. this was the most massive multinational effort. this shows how hard the problem was that even with that effort we could not succeed to the extent that we wished. that is certainly a lesson. but it is the distinction of what we did versus what the soviets did. second, the afghan government that was installed by the soviets survived for about three years after the forces had left the country. it wasn't until the soviet union fell apart and the aid flow, the money stop flowing to the afghan government that you saw the taliban and other militia groups

. at that time it wasn't the taliban, other warlords taking over chunks of the country entering the place into a civil war. if we keep our economic and military aid lowing and get our technical support in the air force back in place and get them some diplomatic support the way president biden did when he invited president ghani to washington. i think there is a chance the afghan government can hold onto a big action of the country. i won't predict that outcome but it should be the one we are attempting. host: this is kevin, in indiana, who supports the withdrawal from afghanistan. good morning. caller: i'm sorry, it's kevin -- evan. host: sorry about that, go ahead. caller: i favor the withdrawal because i think it violates the basic principles of the u.s. constitution which bends wars as

an instrument of policy. i have come to that over the years since korea. host: i'm sorry, i thought you were done. guest: that is a good point on korea. since that time it's fair to say that we have this paradox. the u.s. has held stabilized world order and prevented major war in a way that we had never successfully done in our earlier history but the smaller conflicts that we have gotten involved in, korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, have often ended in a way that was not satisfying at all. it's an amazing paradox, the world order has been strong, stable, and generally prosperous. i don't think i would have been without us and our allies. when we have applied military force to this counterinsurgency,

it is often proving difficult to produce stable outcome. i agree with your point. we need to try to be a lot more reluctant to involve our forces in these big wars with hundreds of thousands of u.s. troops. having said that i don't think that smaller operation can be off the table. you and i have seen how much worse can be over time. in our constitution is not ban war but it does require a congressional vote to authorize war. that's where we have really gotten away from the constitution. since the korean war we have not typically had congress get very involved. congress has passed authorizations but it does not declare war since world war ii. in that sense there is a constitutional problem and i agree with you on that central theme. host: just after 8:30 on the east coast. michael o'hanlon, you're moving into some of the themes of your

book. the art of war in the age of peace. plenty of adversaries right now. russia, china, iran, north korea , who most concerns you? guest: i don't know that i have enough clairvoyance or that we have the luxury as a nation to really identify one above the others. historically is that once we fixate on one potential concern, somebody else strikes. a former sec. defense said that we had a perfect record of forecasting the next war, we always got it wrong. we always fails to see. i would probably prioritize russia, myself. but i would acknowledge that we have to be very concerned about china, the most powerful rising nation on the planet. and kim jong-un in north korea remains a dangerous and

unpredictable dictator. and the broader middle east region is likely to produce a huge war, or a nuclear war, but is continually posing problems for our allies and there were huge refugee flows into europe when isis took over parts of syria and iraq. the pentagon has been using this framework, war plus one which is a nice way to summarize. i think we have to focus on russia and china, north korea and iran and transnational terrorism. it's the four countries, and the one additional transnational multinational terrorist organization and systems of terrorist movements. that's the way i would prioritize our concerns. i don't think we can off of that list saying that some of these threats are on -- unimportant

and could be relegated to the dustbin of policy. and one other idea try to introduce in the books is that there's the threats i just mentioned but also a new four plus one which in some ways exacerbates the previous. that would be climate change, digital threats, including these ransomware attack that we are seeing, biological threats like pandemic disease but also man-made disease, nuclear proliferation dangers as more countries get the ball more try to get the bomb, and finally our own disunity at home is making it harder and harder for us to act strongly with leadership on the world stage. there's the old four plus one and the new four plus one. you want a single threat, i'm giving you 10. that's the best i can do. on the we have enough in the way of tools to understand the future of world politics.

to be able to predict with more precision than that on where we have to prioritize our efforts. we have a huge alliance system. we have the greatest alliance system in the history of the world. we have a lot of countries that can work with us against the old four plus one and the new four plus one. host: on that line for veterans, chris, in cape canaveral. when were you in afghanistan? caller: 2009, i was in the u.s. marine corps. host: your thoughts on the withdrawal? caller: i do have some. a couple of whites -- a couple of points. it's what nicholas at the one set the ball in motion and the new administration is getting in the thick of it. and i support withdrawing the troops. he will never end the war over there. they've been doing this for thousands of years.

i think the main concern is that they need to be taking people out of there, the translators and protecting them and their family. it makes the united states look bad. if we cannot stick up for the people who help us, what will our allies think? host: did you meet any translators over there? do you know what happened to the folks you might've worked with? caller: i don't know. i've only met a couple. i mainly stayed on base working in omri -- in armory making sure the weapons were good to go. it comes down to their safety and their families. they are already starting to do killings and nobody's really reporting on what they're going to do with all these people. they need to evacuate them. they did a service to our government and military and we need to help them. host: thank you for the call. guest: chris, thank you for what

you did and for making this point point -- to support a point about interpreters. i make this point about history. in 1980's the afghans helped us win the cold war. soviets invaded and brought me instability. the afghans for the previous half-century had by their own standards a pretty decent run of relative stability. a lot of americans i know who like to travel and are little older than i am often went to afghanistan in the 70's. on tourism and backpacking trips. it was the wild west but it was not at war. it went to war when the soviets came in. we funneled weaponry into afghanistan in the fight against the soviets who defeated the soviets and forced the soviets to withdraw and lead to the end of the cold war when gorbachev came in partly as a result of the failure of the soviets and

their afghanistan invasion. in other words, the afghans helped us when the cold war. when i think of loyalty also think about the half-century. i don't want to leave afghanistan on its own but part of the reason it has been so mired in conflict is because they helped us win the cold war after the soviets invaded and we helped him -- them fight back. that's not a reason to do the impossible. it's the mission we were focused on and is not showing any progress or signs of potential success that i would have to run up the white flag. but unlike president biden, see big difference between where things have been, semi-stable with the government in control of most of the major population centers versus where thing headed now. which i think will be worse. host: bluefield, west virginia. this is kelly. caller: anytime congress sends troops into a foreign country we send them in and then we say

these are the rules. if you send the u.s. military in there and tell them to do their job it would be done. we send them in and then we tie their hands with the rules of engagement. could you tell me why we don't use the drones anymore? i don't understand, the drones could seek out and destroy anybody but we don't even use them anymore. thank you. guest: two things. first the rules of engagement were pretty robust. we did a lot of shooting and a lot of killing in the course of our 20 years. we found targets that we knew were enemy targets and sometimes we made mistakes. for the most part there was good leadership under people like general mcchrystal, general petraeus, general duncan. some of the best military

leaders i have seen in action. they were concerned about allowing their own forces to protect themselves and go after the enemy hard but also not kill innocent afghans. that's a difficult challenge in a place like this where the enemy is trying to inside of the civilian population. -- to hide inside of the civilian populations. which means we should have kept the drones and a couple of bases. not a lot but a couple. we had downsized to that level of effort under president trump and then president obama. i think that's where president biden should have kept our effort and we could have cap -- kept using the drones. you cannot easily fly the men from qatar or bahrain or kuwait in the persian gulf, they were made for short range. we would have to keep a couple big american bases and that's what president biden has just decided to eliminate. host: out of the beehive state,

this is jl, inlets all -- in utah. caller: i appreciate the topic thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of questions. as far as accountability, what would success have looked like? is there a way to prevent this from happening again? it happened in nam, a lot since world war ii where we try to fix things and we end up making is worse and it doesn't seem like there was ever an objective. a war on terror seems leica flimsy thing to throw a trillion dollars at. what's up -- what would success have looked like? guest: profound question and very tough.

initially we thought success would be just overthrowing the taliban government. the very one that had partnered with bin laden. and then going after bin laden. that took us about 10 years and we finally found him over the border in pakistan. we killed a lot of his operatives using the drones just referred to. so we really did a lot of powerful work to destroy the al qaeda leadership. and president biden has reminded us that that goal has been provisionally achieved. i think present biden is correct about that. al qaeda is a lot weaker now than it had been prior to the 9/11 attacks. unfortunately what we started to see after a few years, in 2000 -- 2008, we started to see the taliban get stronger partly because pakistan helped them. providing them assistance and sanctuary. and then the taliban was in the position to start attacking the afghan government.

and this looks troubling because if we allow this to, the taliban could return to power. and yet again allow al qaeda to have sanctuary and reconstitute on afghan soil. that led to the more ambitious mission. we tried to produce afghan army and police that would be strong enough to prevent the taliban from coming back. now you get into these big debates about nationbuilding. which were still trying to prevent the same bad guys from returning to power who had been involved in supporting the strikes against us on 9/11. counterterrorism was always the long-term objective. but to get to that point in a durable way you needed a healthy afghan government to hold the country together. that's why the image -- why -- that is why the mission evolved. you compared it to vietnam. i don't want to say anything about afghanistan has been good

and i am grateful for the sacrifice of so many but compared to the comment was not nearly as negative of the next we lost about 2500 people in afghanistan. we lost 55,000 in vietnam the country was always supportive of afghan veterans. the country was very divided about vietnam, even in terms of how it felt about our troops. as much as we did not get this quite to the place where we wanted, i think we prevented attacks on the homeland coming out of afghanistan, we gave afghanistan better prospects for the future, at least for as long as we were there. and we thought this with a better balance of using powerful force were needed against enemies while being more careful in putting innocent civilians at risk. i think this is head and shoulders above vietnam, despite

the frustrations. host: we have one more call, ed, when were you in afghanistan? caller: in 2004 and 2005, i was an apache pilot and i also served in vietnam. my thoughts on withdrawal is that the afghan people won my heart and mind. people don't talk about how bad the taliban are. there people -- they are bad people. host: do you think america had come to that realization? did we ever come to that realization? have we moved away from it? caller: what i found is that the afghan people liked us more than i thought the vietnamese liked

us. saying that, our soldiers in both of those wars did the best that they could for their government. host: thank you for the call. i will get the final minute to michael. guest: ed said a great. i look back at the vietnam experience with a lot of regret about how we reach that war. but the men and women who serve their did amazing things. in the sense that they did almost the unthinkable. they went to a war that was possibly unwinnable and was not popular back home but they did their best. so to the veterans listening today. thank you to you. in some ways, the burden we put on you with even greater than in afghanistan because we never really collectively appreciated what you did as much as we probably should have.

that war at a leadership level was not handled well. afghanistan at a leadership and strategy level was obviously not great but was a much better balance of trying to use the right amount of force against the truly despotic and murdering taliban and al qaeda enemy while trying to protect the afghan civilian population. the last point, and in fairness to those who oppose the war and there are many of you and that category. the point that adam made about the afghan population -- a point that ed made about the afghan population finding us popular. that has frittered away. the teledyne is less popular than nato but the afghan government is in a position where it's association with us was not always a net positive. let's bear in mind that the afghan government has major problems.

but it has made some headway at trying to help its own people for a safer, that her life. we should at minimum continue to provide the financial and technical support as well as the diplomatic support to get them some chance of preventing the imminent collapse that you alluded to at the beginning of the show, john. it's a possibility, but not in inevitability. host: michael o'hanlon is with the brookings institution and the author of the art of war in the age of peace. we always appreciate your time on washington journal. guest: thank you, john. host: up next we turn our attention to congress, the infrastructure and bipartisan plan and the road ahead for that and other legislation. we are joined by steve dennis of bloomberg. and the university of southern california's erin trish will be

asked -- stick around, we will be back. ♪ >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. there is a collection of products, browse to see what's new. your purchase will support our nonprofit operation and you have time to order the congressional directory with contact information for members of congress and the biden

administration. ♪ >> peter has published hundreds of nonfiction books in his career as founder of new york-based public affairs the. he has now written a memoir about his own life called an especially good view, watching history happen. the national book review writes that he has not written a memoir so much as a report from the front. make that many fronts. of the great news events of the past half-century we talked about his time in vietnam and the soviet in among other things. >> reporter, editor, and publisher on this episode of notes plus. look at this -- listen on c-span podcast or whatever you get your podcasts. ♪

>> washington journal continues. host: for look at the next few weeks ahead, we are joined here at the desk by steve dennis of bloomberg. thank you for being our first guest back in the studio for a very long time. guest: is very exciting. host: the senate returned yesterday had the houses back next week. take us to the road ahead. all eyes on the bipartisan infrastructure deal, what's the timing expected? when will we see more details

about what's in that plan? guest: just last night, some of the bipartisan members were meeting at the capital on the senate side trying to hammer out those details. they have 11 different working groups working on different parts of the package and trying to hammer out that text. they have a tentative deal but they are starting to monitor problems when you start getting into it -- they're trying to run into problems when you get feedback. it looks like some of their pay force are not as robust as they thought. so they will either need to allow the deficit to go up or find some other way to fill the gap. they have a big meeting today with a group of 22, 11 democrats and 11 republicans to talk about where things are. there cut -- trying to come up with the text but it is hard to come out with it until you agree on every detail.

and it might be more than a week before we see that. you need to have 10 republicans stay on board and you need to get the democrats united. there are still plenty of democrats who want some kind of ironclad assurances that all 50 democrats will be there for the big follow on biden package which covers all sorts of other things. host: this infrastructure deal, $600 billion, if that number expected to change? guest: this is the big question. if they don't have the pay for, shrink the package. you can go smaller. that's always a possibility. i think right now we are in a tenuous situation. it's an uneasy alliance between

some republicans, some democrats, and the white house to get this across the finish line area -- finish line. host: why would the congressional budget office scoring be off from what was expected? guest: so they have their own scoring models and scoring conventions. one issue is if you spend $40 billion over the next 10 years to beef up irs enforcement which will -- which has been cut back in recent years and you start going after businesses and wealthier folks who have been audited last and you start auditing the more, how much are you going to get back? the bipartisan group thinks they will get a hundred billion dollars net. the ceo -- the cbo thinks less. that's a big issue. there are some others in their which may not work in cbo rules. they could come out and say we believe our score more than cbo. that is what happened when the republicans passed their tax

package and the cbo said attitude trillion to the debt. mitch mcconnell said we think it will reduce the deficit and pay for itself. it's going to be interesting to see if they hold firm to this idea of not increasing the deficit with the cbo score. if you look at most of the bipartisan deals, quite a few of them just increase the deficit. the covid packages that they did last year, they did not try to figure out a way to pay for them. they said here's another 500 billion. the numbers they are talking about, while they are big, they are not truly gigantic. 500 billion over eight years is about 1% of what the federal government spends over eight years. you could probably find a way to pay for that package if you spend enough time on it. guest: as a long-time

congressional and i should say white house or order, a senate reporter for bloomberg, joining us as we talk about the road ahead for the infrastructure deal and the larger package that democrats are hoping to move through reconciliation. your questions on all of this, you can call in on the usual phone line. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for republicans (202) 748-8001. for independents (202) 748-8002. the senate returned yesterday, chuck schumer was on the floor talking about moving infrastructure and other passage. -- other packages. [video clip] sen. schumer: the discussions about structure -- infrastructure legislation continues. on the bipartisan track, our committees are getting closer to returning to recent agreements between the white house and bipartisan infrastructure groups into legislation. i'm pleased to report that we are making good progress. on the second track, the senate budget committee is close to

finalizing a budget resolution which will allow the senate to move forward with the remaining parts of the american jobs and family plan. the senate must pass the budget resolution and an eventual reconciliation bill with or without republican support. the fact of the matter is brick-and-mortar infrastructure is important but no longer the only type of infrastructure that matters in the 21st century. human infrastructure, what many my call family support, as families come under him pre--- increasing pressure, things like childcare, family leave, education, health care, are just as essential to giving our citizens opportunity as building roads and bridges and railways. 21st-century investment in broadband internet, the electric red, and retrofitting our economy to fight climate change are just as important as roads

and bridges and railways. we must do both. it's not one or the other. and we are going to do both. host: that's majority leader chuck schumer yesterday on the senate floor. steve dennis, what's his calendar? when does he need to move these to keep these on track? guest: as soon as possible. the august break is a hard deadline. he has made noises that he might shorten the recess and keep senators here to make sure they finish these big priorities. the budget resolution will set up a big fall flight over trillions of dollars in spending and taxes that democrats will have to pass on their own and this infrastructure package that is trying to get done in the next couple of weeks. the infrastructure package is not ready. there's no text, cbo score, the only have a month to get these done. they were trying last night,

schumer's office met with the budget committee and hammered out a deal. they don't have a deal and they are going to meet again today. we do have lunches today where senators from the first time, republicans and democrats will be meeting behind closed doors and i'm sure they will talk about their game plan. what republicans are trying to do is pass this smaller infrastructure package that includes a lot of things that they and the business community want without the tax increases and social spending on things like childcare and community college. what they want to do is pass that and kill the other thing. what democrats want to do is do both. this is a dance which is going to be unlike anything i have seen coming out of congress. trillions of dollars at stake.

trillions in tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. every lobbyist with something on the line -- it's going to be a super bowl lobby the next month and the next several months. host: today on capitol hill, we should note that in just a minute or so, you're coming up on a brief pro forma session. the house will gavel in for a minute or two. and we will take you there live for gavel-to-gavel coverage. the house is officially back for legislative business next monday. but a brief pro forma session is coming up. but you can call in during that session to get your questions answered on all of these issues, the infrastructure deal, and the reconciliation process. you can call in on those phone lines. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for republicans (202) 748-8001. for independents (202) 748-8002.

and steve dennis will answer all of your questions right after that brief pro forma session. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is