front row seat to democracy. >> the house committee investigating the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol holds its first hearing tuesday. officers from the capitol police and metropolitan police department talk about what they saw that day. watch live on c-span3, c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> coming up this morning on washington journal, mike debonis of the washington post previews the week ahead in congress and the key battles ahead for president biden's legislative agenda. oregon representative cliff bentz on what is being done to contain western state wildfires and efforts to regulate big tech and social media companies. and lawrence gostin talks about

the role of the world health organization in worldwide covid vaccinations. be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. washington journal is next. ♪ >> this is the washington journal for july 26. a recent poll from the ap shows that among those polled currently unvaccinated for covid, most said they were not planning on getting the vaccine. those also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of the vaccine from the reported variants. we will show you that poll and give you the opportunity to tell us whether you are vaccinated and to tell us why you are or are not vaccinated. here's how you can share this morning.

if you are vaccinated and want to tell us why, (202) 748-8000. if you are unvaccinated and want to tell us why, (202) 748-8001. post on our text feed at (202) 748-8003. on facebook at facebook.com and on twitter, @cspanwj. the cdc has a covid tracker online at covid. cdc.gov. among the u.s., 63 million -- 163 million people have been vaccinated. breaking down the percentages. with people with at least one dose, 188 million, 56.8% of the population with at least one dose, but if you take that 163 million number, 49.1% of people

in the u.s. are currently fully vaccinated in the u.s. reports about the rate of vaccination in states. concern from officials. a recent poll from the ap also looks at questioning those about who has not taken the vaccine and their input about why. it says that american adults, among those who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% said they probably will not, 45% said they definitely will not. that according to a poll from the associated press norc center. 16% say they probably will, 3% say they definitely will. 64 percent of unvaccinated americans have little to no confidence that the shots are effective against variants, including the delta variant that

is responsible for 83% of new cases in the u.s. despite evidence that they offer strong protection. when it comes to this idea of whether you are vaccinated or not, you can call us. we invite you to do so. if you are vaccinated and want to tell us why, (202) 748-8000. unvaccinated and you want to tell us why, (202) 748-8001 is how you can call us. perhaps you want to text us. you can do so at (202) 748-8003. if you want to post on our social media feeds, you can do so at facebook.com/c-span and on twitter @cspanwj. one of the people talking about this, the point person for the white house, dr. anthony fauci on the morning shows yesterday. showing you a clip from the sunday shows, saying the u.s. is heading in the wrong direction as delta variant cases rise.

he was on the state of the union, talked about the models and projections. here's a little bit on that sunday show yesterday with dr. fauci. [video clip] >> one model projects that if the u.s. does not improve the vaccination rate, cases will continue to rise and the u.s. could see a tripling of the current daily death toll, so up to 850 deaths today by mid-october, so in a worst-case case scenario in this model, that number could climb as high as 4000 a day, about as bad as last winter. do you think it is possible it could get that bad, 4000 deaths a day? >> when they do modeling, they generally give you the worst case scenario and the best case scenario, but somewhere in the middle, if you look at the modeling that's been done over the last 18 months, for the most part it has been pretty accurate, so i'm not so sure would be the worst case scenario but it will not be good. we are going in the wrong

direction. if you look at the curve of new cases and, as you said in the run into this interview, that it is among the unvaccinated and since we have 50% of the country not fully vaccinated, that's a problem, particularly when you have a variant like delta, which has this extraordinary characteristic of being able to spread very efficiently and easily from person-to-person, and we know we have many, many people in this country who are unvaccinated. that is why it i have said -- that is why i have said many times that we have the tools to blunt that and make that model wrong, but if we don't vaccinate people we will see trouble. >> and almost entirely the victims will be unvaccinated americans? >> well, yes, jake. that's the issue and that's the thing that sometimes gets confusing to people.

if you are vaccinated, the vaccine is highly protective against the delta variant, particularly against severe disease leading to hospitalization and sometimes ultimately to death, so it really is, as dr. wilensky has said many times, and i have said, an outbreak among the unvaccinated. this is an issue predominantly among the unvaccinated, which is the reason why we are out there practically pleading with the unvaccinated people to go out and get vaccinated. that is why it is heartening and positive to give people like governor hutchinson and others to go out in their own state and say let's get vaccinated because that's the solution to this. host: dr. fauci yesterday from the sunday shows. just highlighted in the wall street journal this morning, looking at florida. the doctor referenced florida leading in cases, the paper

saying the state accounts for one in five new infections in the u.s. it adds that various factors are at play -- large numbers of unvaccinated people, relaxation of preventative measures like mask wearing and social distancing, spread of the delta variant and the congregation of people indoors during the hot summer months. that's the florida case in the wall street journal. as far as vaccination or an vaccination, your state, do you wish to tell us why? robert, you are first up. go ahead. caller: i am vaccinated. i am vaccinated with pfizer. my wife is vaccinated with sputnik v. we got our vaccines because we travel and this pandemic has been a huge burden on both of us. we have been separated for months because of travel restrictions so we really want

everyone to be vaccinated so we can try to go back to normal. i wanted to say, thank you, dr. fauci, for your work and service. my question is delta is causing big troubles, but is there not also lambda, and do we have any idea how many more variants might pop up before we can just read about this in history books? host: when you say travel, was this for work? caller: work and family purposes. my in-laws are in europe and my wife is in europe right now and i cannot see them because of travel frictions. -- of travel restrictions. she has a hard time getting over here whether or not she is allowed to leave based on the case counts in russia, where she is. fun. host: let's hear from teresa in tennessee, who says she is

unvaccinated. good morning, teresa. caller: good morning. i don't believe the messengers. dr. fauci, if it was between dr. fauci telling me to get a vaccine and getting a vaccine, there's no way i would ever listen to dr. fauci, one word he says. the man has been wrong on everything. he admitted he lied in the beginning several times. he admitted he lied about the vaccine. joe biden, kamala harris came out at the beginning and said they did not trust it and wouldn't take it, and, you know, they have been the only people doing the misinformation and this vaccine, they clearly do not believe it works. why would you ask someone that's been vaccinated to mask up in less than a vaccine doesn't work? -- mask up unless the vaccine

doesn't work? host: you mentioned the messengers involved. is dr. fauci the only messenger you are relying on? you have not asked anyone locally whether you should take the vaccine or not? caller: two points to that question. dr. fauci and the ones who are democrats, so to speak, are the only people you are allowed to hear now. that is all you have on there. you never have on anyone with a different opinion. facebook sensors everyone with a different opinion. it is government sanctioned. it -- all you see is people supportive of it talking about it. you have no different views anywhere. i wore the mask. i did exactly what they said for a year. i did not work, never went anywhere unmasked, and i got it in march of this year.

i got the coronavirus and i got it very bad. i still will not take a vaccine. there's no way i will take the vaccine. i do not believe you all. host: ok. you have made your point. let's go t connieo -- let's go to connie in chicago, illinois. caller: i'm 75. i have underlying issues. and listening to dr. fauci, who i fully trust, i have a lot of faith in what he says and he has been essentially telling us that the only thing that will protect us from covid is the vaccine. that's all we have, so you don't have to be a graduate of biology or some type of phd to understand reasonable logic. what else do we have to protect us?

my husband and i got the pfizer. we have been fully protected. we have been adding other things to help us stay fully protected, including keeping our children away from our home until and unless they get vaccinated. listening to these people saying that they don't trust dr. fauci or the other medical experts, i would like to know what medical school did they go to? where did they get their medical degree? host: let me ask you this. fundamentally, why do you trust talked or found she? fundamentally, why? caller: he's an epidemiologist. he's an expert in infectious diseases. why should i not trust him? has anyone come up with any evidence that is substantiated to say that you shouldn't protect -- excuse me, believe what dr. fauci says? he is not going to get on there and lie like this former guy

used to do with 50,000 times. that's been documented. host: dr. fauci work for former president trump as well. did you trust him then? caller: yes. he was telling the truth. the former guy was a documented liar, a pathetic liar, so dr. fauci is proven credible. the former guy was not. host: the former person is the former president of the united states, donald trump, who dr. fauci worked with. frank on our unvaccinated line, go ahead. caller: i said before this is the first time i am calling. i don't think i'm going to get the vaccination because i was contemplating getting one before. my three adult children got it

and i was thinking about it. regardless, i went for a physical, and when i went for a physical, the hospital -- i am not going to mention the name of the hospital -- they gave me the flu shot. and when they gave me the flu shot, they also set an appointment for me to get the vaccination. now, i left the hospital wondering why. i have been around for quite some time. i am 60 point ha i have who have command 65 -- i'm 65 years old and i have friends who are doctors. he said not consider getting a

flu shot if -- getting a covid shot if you have had a shot. host: at the current rain -- caller: my children told me not to do it so i am not doing it. first, i was almost contemplating going against them. i was with them. they were using me for experiments. host: that is frankly in yonkers explaining why he has not decided to get vaccinated. you can explain your reasons why you have decided to vaccinated

were to not get vaccinated. if you are vaccinated, (202) 748-8000. if you are not, (202) 748-8001. this is priya, saying when it comes to the vaccination process, yes, because i am fire risk. -- taxes paid for it. and not that prevention heavily recommended by our doctor. let's go to james. hello. caller: it makes me angry to hear people talk about's -- talk about the ignorance of what is going on. are you there?

host: let's start with why you have decided to get vaccinated. tell us why? caller: because it is proven. all these people calling dr. fauci a liar, let me tell you. we were saved from the because of dr. -- we were saved from aids because of dr. fauci. believe me. i am not mad at the people who are not listening were our unvaccinated, but it is going to stupid. host: you said the reason you took the vaccination is because it is proven. tell me what you mean. caller: i'm 75 years old, vietnam veteran. i have some illnesses going on. i want to be safe. i have close people to me that

her -- that are not listening, but i'm just saying we have to do this. this vaccination is not perfect it is not 100% but it is working . i will say this. they are guaranteeing us that this winter is going to be worse than last winter. host: that is james in spring valley. the cdc also posts cases versus deaths in the u.s. when it comes to covid related matters. 34 million plus cases of covid. the seven-day case rate per 100,000 is 100.1. that is information from the cdc when it comes to total number of cases versus total deaths. you can continue this hour in

the next 40 minutes or so, let us know your thoughts on why you are or are not vaccinated. a lot happening this week outside of discussions when it comes to the vaccine, particularly when it comes to the white house efforts. jessica chambers joins us. she serves as the white house correspondent for a newspaper. guest: great to be with you. host: can you explain where the white house is as far as not only the rise of variant cases but also efforts to get those vaccinated into the vaccinated column. guest: the white house remains concerned about this and if you look at the vaccination data track -- data tracker from the cdc, they are up to 69% of american adults vaccinated, but that is not where the white house wanted to be, 70%, earlier this month.

white house officials over the weekend and sharing that they are encouraged by the uptick they have seen in the last few days, with americans getting vaccinated, so they say they have reason to believe that there is progress being made on the number of vaccinations as the focus on this issue comes back up in the national media but also from experts. host: that uptick attributed to her recent announcement about efforts made to step up their efforts? guest: they had seen the uptick in the last couple of days, particularly over the weekend, and new shots given, so with our press briefing, not surprising this was a hot topic. host: another topic discussed was the state of the infrastructure bill. tell us what exists as far as where the various pieces are and where the white house is in all of this. guest: the problem is there is

still no legislative tax. they are still haggling over the pay-fors, which leaves them in the same position as before, though there are optimistic senators involved in the dealmaking process, who say they are optimistic, and president biden saying on his scene in town hall the other night that he was optimistic it -- saying on his cnn town hall the other night that he was optimistic could be -- optimistic it could be done. that is where they were yesterday. host: is the white house expressed any sentiment as far as speaker pelosi not only wanting to see a bipartisan package finalized but also our reconciliation package finalized -- also a reconciliation package finalized before anything goes forward? guest: also the majority leader.

the white house does not have to be involved in that. obviously, with the president being the leader of the party, if he had a different idea about the timeline, the white house can say so, but at this point, they have been hunting to the democratic leaders -- been hunting to the democratic capitol hill. host: what is on the agenda this week? guest: today, they will be meeting with the iraqi prime minister as the u.s. continues to that of a combat role in iraq and more into a training role. they currently have 2400 forces left in iraq. unclear how much those are expected to go down. the u.s. does plan to bring the numbers down further and shift out of that role. what that looks like is still largely up for conversation and

we will probably hear some of that from the white house today, but that is on the president's agenda as well as infrastructure, as you mentioned. it is hard to get on infrastructure as a topic because that is so much a president biden's agenda, whether that is through the bipartisan bill right now or through the budget reconciliation bill in which they hope to put a number of other not just democratic priorities but the president positive priorities into that legislation. it is hard to move on the letter before you move on the former because they don't know what to put in the reconciliation before they know whether this infrastructure deal will happen or not. host: is there a push to have the president add things to the legislation that would satisfy the demands of that faction of the democratic party? where the white house on making or adopting those? guest: this has been going on for months in some cases now, to have other agenda items.

if you take infrastructure, the easiest one to understand -- immigration on the infrastructure bill, sorry, what to see a path to citizenship in this bill. that is something they said they would like to see. that's something that the white house has suggested that they were against, that they would like to see comprehensive immigration reform as a stand-alone bill but not a pathway to citizenship in the reconciliation bill. we have heard the white house shipped its tone and give comments on this. president biden says he fervently supports a pathway to citizenship being looted in that bill -- being included in that bill. that is one area where progressives may have had some sway over the white house. host: as far as the first meeting of the january 6

commission on capitol hill, anything today? guest: the press briefing is certainly something that came up . adding adam kinzinger to the panel. the house minority leader -- rejected some of the republican x that he put on that. that is something we have heard the president talk about more openly in the last day or so, talking about how, objectively, there was only one way to interpret what happened on january 6. host: francesca chambers, the reports for mcclatchy newspaper. she is her -- she is there white house correspondent. thank you for your time. as you heard her say, representative kinsinger added to the commission by speaker

pelosi. that announcement coming yesterday. that first tomorrow on capitol hill. followed the select committee on january 6 on c-span. when it comes to vaccination rates or those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, we are asking you to tell us why you are or are not. on our vaccinated line, we hear from rhonda from iowa. thank you for waiting. go ahead. caller: i got vaccinated and the reason why is because i have a lot of help problems -- lot of health problems. i am 68 and i have stage ii copd and lupus. if i didn't get vaccinated i would never be able to fight it off, never. host: with those problems, were you concerned going into it, maybe possible hesitancy? caller: well, i watched dr. fauci all the way through, when

he was at the white house doing all his speeches, when trump was in, and i have had doctors that tell me to get vaccinated. i have seen the nurses that don't get vaccinated. they get a different outlook. everybody says one thing and then another. i have a sister that won't do it. the rest of my family got it. my son and daughter won't do it. my son did. in my condition, i have to. they had to revive me back a year ago, october. i had an attack on my breathing that was really bad, so since then i have been doing ok, but i got vaccinated, so everybody to their own, but i think people should because i think it has lowered the people getting this here because it is going down some. now they are talking about the variant that will be worse this winter. and i think everybody should --

i think they should still wear masks too, just for safety. host: that's rhonda in iowa. let's go to bill in massachusetts on our line for those who are unvaccinated. go ahead. caller: ok, number one, why is the border still open and over one million people were allowed in? isn't it that every other country, the border closed down because of a so-called very dangerous destructive disease? that's number one. number two, are they doing any research on where this came from, and isn't dr. fauci -- why would you be doing research on gain of function on a deadly bat disease? host: let me answer your questions with the question. are you unvaccinated and why not? caller: because it is the only

political virus in the history of the human race. host: weight. what do you mean by that? caller: it is a political virus. it is like -- if you are a democrat, it is a killer. 99.9% if you get it, you will most likely -- it will kill you. .1%. they would laugh us out of here 100 years ago. they would have laughed this disease out. they would have said it, forget it, we are not shutting up and down. host: but when it comes to matters of not getting vaccinated, it is purely political in your mind, nothing medical to it? caller: yeah. and can you tell me, how many people have died from taking this vaccine? i have a feeling it is over 50,000 people. they censor you on social media

when you say you disagree. why is that allowed? host: where do you get that 50,000 figure? caller: they have already said 12,000 have died. you know it has to be five times as much as what they say because they lie. it is all about voting. host: ok. let's go to paulie in florida, also on our line for those who are unvaccinated. good morning. caller: hanging in there. i am unvaccinated, at this point, only because of delays in getting my other health issues ruled out so it is not an issue for me. i have experienced a great deal of unusual symptoms since the very beginning of the virus, including prolonged tonight us and -- prolonged tinnitus and i would even say havana syndrome.

i do not think that all the information out there is out there. it frightens me that new stations -- the news stations are supported by the pharmaceutical industry. they are protected from any lawsuits. those things concern me. i also know that my sister traveled abroad recently and she herself, an registered nurse -- an rn, was forthcoming about the fact that they did not temperature check anybody or do any of the things she was told would be done in advance getting on flights out of and into florida. i am concerned about the actions of our governor here. host: you said initially that you are concerned with your own physical condition before anyone -- before anything else. is that the case, or are these other things equally so? caller: equally at this point.

i have a clotting disorder. that would have not been properly diagnosed had i not been persistent with the doctor. they tried to send me home saying i had pneumonia when i had a pulmonary embolism that required open heart surgery. i would have been at home with a diagnosis of pneumonia had i not pushed. now, prior to that -- host: when it comes to covid itself, did you talk to your doctor as far as why you should or shouldn't get the vaccine? caller: i can't get to a specialist without jumping through every flaming hoop they can put up for me and every delay. every time i have an appointment, they cancel it and reschedule it, so i have been put off for the last six months to get into a specialist's office to figure out whether the rare virus i had in 2014 is safe.

west nile virus, because they can clear that up. host: that is polly in florida. we have divided the lines by whether you have gotten the covid vaccine or not. tell us why or why not you have gotten it. this is linda in new haven, missouri. she says she is vaccinated. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. my husband and i were both vaccinated in march and april. we got our first shot in march and second in early april. and we looked forward to it. i spent hours and hours each day on the phone trying to find a place to get the vaccination here in missouri and we had to travel about 3.5 hours from our home to get it because it was just our governor didn't believe in it here, unfortunately, and

so we happily traveled to get it. host: what ultimately led you to believe it? caller: it is just -- we believe an aunt. we get our shots. we take our medical situation seriously. i am 70. my husband is 72. neither one of us have any underlying health conditions. we are completely healthy. we have no diabetes, know nothing. every time we go somewhere, they want to know what medication we are on and we do not even take aspirin. we are very healthy people. and we live in a rural area. when this covid thing started, we immediately isolated ourselves and stayed that way for a year and three months, and, no, we believe in the science, so we happily took our vaccination. if we need a booster, we believe

there's a reason why, because they said it was. it is not that we are stupid. we just educated ourselves on it. and happily look forward to it. host: that is linda in missouri. she brings up the topic of that booster, a subject of concern in the wall street journal this morning about the ceo of biontech saying immunity against the coronavirus is waning in people with the vaccination made by pfizer in january because of the rapidly spreading delta variant, adding that antibody levels are dropping after immunization among some vaccine recipients. some might not yet need a third dose, according to the ceo of the german company that partnered with pfizer to develop a vaccine for the global market. that's from the wall street journal. one of the people on the morning shows was dr. scott gottlieb, former fda commissioner.

he talked about what americans can do to reduce the risk of the variants in the u.s. [video clip] >> let's start. people are hearing about increasing cases, may be wearing masks even if you are vaccinated. also talking about breakthroughs if you are vaccinated. you want to start with the risk decisions people have to make for themselves, so how should americans think about what is happening now and how they should make their own risk judgments based on what you know? >> the first thing i would urge americans to do is get vaccinated. we know the vaccines are highly effective even against this delta variant. there was data in the new england journal of medicine showing vaccines are 88% effective against symptomatic disease. anyone with the vaccine will have something that protects them through the fall and winter. they will have broad, durable protection from the vaccine.

whether you are unvaccinated or vaccinated and want to add an additional measure of protection, a mask is fine. the characteristics of this virus have not changed. the reason it is more transmissible as is simply more of it. when people get infected, they get more virus, higher viral levels, and they exude more virus so they are working to just, but it is not more airborne, more likely to be permeable through a mask, so if you are going to consider wearing a mask, the quality matters, so if you can get your hands on n95, that will afford you more protection. initially at the outset of this epidemic we were encouraging people not to use them because there were not enough of those masks for medical workers. now there's plenty of her there are plenty of n95 masks. -- now there's plenty of them. there are plenty of n95 masks. the biden administration has done a good job. if you are trying to get your

hands on a better quality mask. host: on the usa today website, story about how the mask debate is playing out across areas of the u.s. elizabeth white with the story, saying l.a. county and other minas abilities requiring everyone to wear masks indoors. -- and other municipalities requiring everyone to wear masks indoors. also st. louis. the american academy of pediatrics recommending masks in schools. san francisco requiring city workers to be masked, dr. rochelle linsky adding that masking for vaccinated individuals is optional. if you are vaccinated, you have exceptional levels of protection from the vaccine.

you may choose to add an extra layer of protection by putting on your mask, she said. -- i have also been out in the work world the entire time. i believe i have been exposed and therefore have antibodies and i am staying clean and away from people's terms. ashley from facebook adding that she was required to be vaccinated for covid paperwork -- covid by her workplace. from illinois, this is wilma on our vaccinated line. go ahead. caller: i'm 84 years old. i am vaccinated. my entire family is vaccinated. the reason i wanted to get a vaccination, i thought it would be really nice to have a few more years with my wonderful family. none of us have had any side effects and i listen to those who are nonvaccinated and they have beliefs and opinions that are not facts, so i hear some of

this nonsense and i really feel for them. i took my husband up to the v.a. in chicago. i am shocked to find out that many workers there are not vaccinated, so, you know, please think about yourself, think about your family, and think about this wonderful country that has this horrible pestilence in it. let's get rid of it please. host: let's go to silver spring, maryland, ever line for those unvaccinated. this is ann. hello. caller: hi. i am unvaccinated because i am frustrated at my inability to obtain information that sensibly refutes arguments that get thrown out there against the

vaccine and also the suppression of information coming from the other side, so i just feel like the information that's being said to the public at large is generally biased and sometimes untrustworthy, and sometimes it is just little things. for example, it is my understanding that there are some people who think that the drug iramectin is a good treatment for covid, and i think the general push, people who push the vaccine, want their opinion -- their opinion is to discount iromectin. and last week, this was shocking to me, but c-span had for the second time a guest from

vanderbilt, dr. schaffner, on, or maybe you have had him on more than that. i have heard him twice. and somebody called in to ask about this drug. and dr. shaffer gave an answer. and i went back and looked at it. i looked at the transcript that cspan provides. and if the words had been changed -- and the words had been changed. they took out any reference to the drug iromectin. and they just substituted the word "the drug" for the drug or left part of a sentence out. host: you were looking at the closed captioning, which we do not provide directly. that's probably from the close captioning. caller: right. c-span's closed captioning

thanks, ok -- captioning thinks, ok, we don't like that closed captioning. caller: you might want to check on the closed captioning service you use, because it is not in there. also, the evidence about the claims of possible links to infertility. now, the cdc itself says that infertility is when somebody can -- after, like, 12 months. i heard from before with your dr. schaffner a month ago, people are just saying there's no evidence this causes infertility. host: for all you have

highlighted, any evidence? caller: on infertility, it is logical. if you do not get pregnant after trying for a year to conceive and you have the mass population just starting to get the vaccine, there's not even an opportunity to be defined. host: you initially started by saying you are concerned about what you hear and your ability to prove it or not. you cannot find definitive information on any of those fronts? caller: i cannot find definitive information and there is no logic. when you have people saying there is evidence of infertility, and you cannot even prove him for -- saying there is no evidence of infertility, and you cannot even prove infertility for several months. and there is no evidence this vaccine provides long-term protection against the virus, because you didn't have any long-term time yet. host: ok. that's ann on our line for those

who are unvaccinated. oak ridge, michigan, this is monica. hello. or new jersey i should say. caller: yes. i am not vaccinated and i will not be getting vaccinated. i have antibodies from getting covid in december. i just had gotten done with a covid-19 study through the fall at rutgers university and i haven't over -- and i have an overabundance of antibodies still. i don't know why people are not talking about us people who have suffered with the actual virus covid-19. it is very disheartening to hear people say that because you are unvaccinated, that we do not care, but we want to kill people, want to hurt people. it is an absolute disgrace what the media is spreading. why will no one talk about us that have had covid-19?

it is a shame because i am not going to put something in my body that i have already had and that i have full antibodies. we don't even know what this vaccine is giving your body. how can everybody say this vaccine is against the variants? when did this come around? what are the symptoms? and miraculously, the vaccine works. host: and you are convinced the current antibodies you have could fight against variants that are out there? caller: yes. i have done a study. maybe you should get in touch with the people who have done covid-19 studies. but you never talk about that. you only talk about the vaccine. where are the people who got vaccinated not being called back to do studies on? where is your information coming from? i have actually had covid-19. my son had it a year ago. he is still full of antibodies. why will you not speak about the natural antibodies? over 100 million people have had

covid-19. why is nobody testing them? host: we will tell you the story of one person who had covid and has it again, representative clay higgins, republican of louisiana. the hill reporting on sunday that he and his wife contracted the virus a second time, calling it more challenging. "i have covid. i had covid before, in january, 2020 before the world knew what it was. this is our second experience with the ccp biological attack weaponized virus," referring to the idea that the virus is a biological weapon. "we are healthy generally speaking. our treatment of health encompasses western, eastern and holistic variables." he talked about the first time

he got covid 19. you can see that video on c-span.org. all of that available on our website, c-span.org. in new jersey on our vaccinated line, we will hear from darrell. hello. caller: hello. how are you? host: how about yourself? caller: i am well. i am post transplant and immunosuppressed, so i was really concerned about getting covid because i have no functioning immune system. i was a little disheartened after getting the vaccine to find out that, because of the medications i am taking, my body produced very little antibodies, so i am one of those people who is waiting on perhaps getting a

third vaccine, and to be honest with you, i am a little annoyed by some of what i am hearing from those who are unvaccinated. it seems like a lot of people are making up reasons -- i am sure there are some real concerns, but it seems like a lot of people are just making up reasons why they will not get the vaccine. mrna technology was actually developed at the university of pennsylvania, where i got my transplant. it has been around for about 20 years and now they are using it -- they will be using it perhaps for hiv and cancer, and so the reason i was waiting on taking it is because it is not a live vaccine. mrna, those vaccines only tell your body to produce proteins that trigger an immune response, so you don't actually get covid. and for the woman who said why

don't they take those of us who have had the disease and do a study on us, what does she expect, for them to get the delta variant and to see if there antibodies fight it off? it doesn't make sense. there is plenty of documentation on this vaccine for anyone who is really interested in finding out whether it is safe. you keep asking people whether they have asked their doctors about it and they seem to avoid that question. it is almost like they don't want to ask their doctor because they don't want to hear the answer that it is safe. host: ok. let's hear from another viewer in north carolina. this is david, also vaccinated. david, hello. caller: good morning. i was listening to the lady who said she wasn't going to get the vaccine because she was -- she already had it so she had antibodies. well, that's still not a protection. but the reason i'm calling is i

am living in a nursing home. i had a stroke. and i am in my 60's, but some of the staff here are not vaccinated, which is concerning to me, especially because, you know, just like the flu, you know, the flu mutates. it does whatever, so how many other mutations is this going to go into? so i am concerned about my nursing home not requiring their staff to be vaccinated. host: host: just to confirm, you are vaccinated? caller: yes. host: what convinced you to do so? caller: well, just the way this virus was spreading. also the fact that it was free and i am immunocompromised because i have diabetes, so i

was in a little bit of a pickle. i have no problems with taking the vaccine. host: ok. david in north carolina there. again, talking about his experiences being vaccinated. we have heard both experiences this hour or so, talking about those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. you can continue to call on that front and share your thoughts. we briefly mentioned speaker pelosi choosing representative adam kinzinger to be part of the select committee to investigate the events of january 6. their first hearing tonight -- hearing tomorrow with capitol police officers at the metropolitan police officers about the events of that day. a decision by republicans not to put members on the committee, on that, here is speaker pelosi. [video clip] >> we have had an unprecedented action against our government,

an assault on the capitol building, which is an assault on the congress on a day that the constitution requires us, by the constitution, to validate the work of the electoral college, so this is not just any day of the week. this was a constitutionally required day of action for congress, so, you know, republicans will say what they will say. our select committee will seek the truth. it is our patriotic duty to do so. we do not come into our work afraid of what the other side will have to say about this. maybe the republicans are afraid of the truth, but we have a responsibility to seek it, find it and regain the confidence of the american people. host: speaker pelosi yesterday. that hearing starting tomorrow

at 10:00 on c-span3 as police testify on the u.s. capitol attack. c-span3 is where you can watch that. follow along on c-span.org and the c-span radio app available to you as well if you want to listen along there. sabrina from asheville, north carolina on the line for those who are unvaccinated, good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to make a couple comments. i heard someone refer to -- ok, first of all, before covid started, there was some research going into whether the vaccine would be required for children to have caused autism or not, so i mean, even if the vaccine has been used for many years, the studies or any type of proof of side effects in a medication,

number one, it is difficult to get into the media. number two, you don't even see the signs of it sometimes. so automatically, any time that you take a vaccine or any kind of medication or anything like that, there is going to be side effects, whether it is only a small fever after you get the injection or long-term side effects as far as autism goes, and second of all -- host: only because we are asking people to explain their situation, what convinced you not to get the vaccination? caller: that exactly what -- that is exactly what convinced me not to get the vaccination, because i watched all those studies on mothers that were saying, yeah, like after the kids got this vaccine, they started having problems with autism, and there is a study going on that is kind of hush-hush. i believe there was a doctor

trying to get the facts out, and he was basically just completely shut down on that, whether the child had vaccines that we have to give our kids, if they actually causes -- cause autism, so i know there will be side effects. there -- i don't care if you take an aspirin or an ibuprofen. or especially with the flu shots. everybody says we take the flu shots and every year we get the flu. me and my kids, we never got the flu shot and we never got the flu ever. we got different things, like strep throat, things like that. host: sabrina north carolina. let's go to joann and california on our line for those who are vaccinated. hi. caller: good morning. how are you? i got the vaccine because i am 75 years old and i just thought it would keep me from getting covid.

can you hear me? host: yeah. you are on. caller: oh, sorry. and i just don't understand how some of these people who are unvaccinated, not vaccinated, they are listening to social media, getting this misinformation, which is just crazy. i mean, there's so many people who have been vaccinated and the chance of having anything, you know, there's a chance there might be side effects. everybody i knew who had the vaccine did not have side effects. we had the pfizer. even donald trump had the vaccine. he would not have gotten it if there was a problem with it. he had all the doctors in the world when he was president. if they felt that something was wrong with that, they would have told him not to get it. host: you base all that on anecdotal evidence as far as getting the vaccine, or did you study anything else? caller: did i study anything else?

no. as soon as the vaccine was available to people -- i was not 75 at the time. i was on the telephone 24 hours a day trying to get an appointment. host: ok. one more call from sherry, also in california, in san rafael, also on our line those who are unvaccinated. go ahead. caller: i would love to get the vaccine but i cannot medically. i have an antibiotic toxicity syndrome and it is like a neurotoxin in your system. it changes your cellular structure. and basically, it is really devastating. basically, if i so much as take certain foods or a prescription medication, out of the blue, it can attack my muscles, so i am terrified of the vaccine. if i had more information on a molecular structure or a biochemist could help me figure it out, i would possibly take

the vaccine, but i cannot. i am not a biochemist and i do not know what would happen to me. host: if i may ask, did your doctors advise you not to take the vaccine? caller: yes, and all of them are very concerned about it. the really sad thing is the only exercise i can do now is swim and i am so scared of getting shut out of the gyms and pools because i do not have proof of vaccination, because that is what is helping keep me alive, building my strength back up. host: sherry in california on our line for those who are unvaccinated explaining her medical condition. many of you talking about the reasons why or why not you have gotten the vaccine this hour. we have appreciated the time you have spent telling your story. three guests joining. we will hear from freshman

republican from oregon cliff bentz on efforts to contain wildfires going on in his state. that next. later on, reporter mike debonis will preview the week ahead in congress and he battles when it comes to legislative efforts by the biden administration and members of congress. those conversations coming up on washington journal. ♪ journal." announcer: the house committee investigating the january 6 attack on the new s capital oldest first hearing tuesday. officers from the u.s. capitol police and washington metropolitan police department will temer was what they saw and experienced on that day. watch the hearing live on tuesday getting at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3, online at

c-span.org, or listen with the c-span radio app. tonight on "the communicators -- >> the white house offers a science and technology policy under obama and under trump, and now under president biden, they have all been very strong in the same area. they believe in the future of artificial intelligence, of self-driving, and of all these great technologies which are coming down, which are going to make our lives better. so as much as we say about the white house, are we talking about the president, the people that actually do policy and getting things done? the last few administrations, we've had terrific people with a very consistent policy agenda. announcer: gary shapiro, president and ceo of the consumer technology administration, talked about antitrust and rock band access. on the communicators, tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2.

>> robert novak's nickname was the prince of darkness, named that by many of his friends and family washington-based ash and fellow washington-based journalists. in 2007, two years before he died at age 78, his autobiography was published on his 50 years as it reporter, and political commentator. he appeared on book notes at that time about his book "the prince of darkness." announcer: late columnist robert novak on book notes plus. wherever you get your podcasts. c-span's shop.org is c-span's online store. there is a collection of c-span product. browse to see what's new. your purchase will support our nonprofit work operations, and you still have time to order the

congressional directory with contact information from members of congress and the bite administration. go to c-span shop lord. announcer: washington journal continues. host: from the natural resources judiciary committees, thank you for joining us this morning on the program. >> very happy to be here. host: most people outside your state may not know about this fire that is going on, but for those particularly in your state, can use plain the nature of the wildfire and what is being done to suppress it? guest: it the third-largest wildfire in the state of oregon's history, so it is huge. 400 some odd thousand acres, massive destruction to forests and to wildlife and to cattle and to branches and to people's homes, so it is horrifically horrific. and because things are so dry, because of the ongoing drought,

incredibly bad drought, one of the worst in the history of the state, this needs to be hugely -- what is being done to stop it is we have something like 2200 people working on the fire. i don't know how many aircraft coming in and dropping retardant . we have helicopters -- if there is any water around, they try to scoop it up. i'm not sure there is any water out there. the firefighting has been much more difficult by virtue of the tender dry conditions. so just so thankful for the people who are there trying to put it out. the damage has been horrific. houses burned up. i'm sure we can count them. how many cattle have been killed, i have no idea. the horses, some of the saddest pictures never ever seen. one of a bear cub climbing a tree to avoid the fire.

host: what about federal policy when it comes to firefighters come and how does that affect state and local policy, too? guest: what it shows is that we have allowed our forests to become so incredibly overgrown and so incredibly filled with dead and dying trees because of -- we place the people who fight these fires in incredibly dangerous positions, and part of the problem is when you have a fire earlier and you are not allowed to go in and cut down the trees that remain standing but are burned, those trees become incredible hazards for those who fight the next fire because you cannot go near them. they could fall down at any time without warning, and so the situation gets worse and worse as you have more and more fires. host: what determines the ability to not be able to put those men's practices into play to keep fires from spreading or at least starting? guest: that's a good question,

ultimately what determines. what i would say is that management of our forest should focus on how you are going to stop fires, and how we manage them should lead to less fires, fewer fires. what is happening is the management of our federal forest -- and by the way, we should set the stage. the forests in oregon are huge. there are 28 million acres of forest. last year one million burned out again. california has slightly more. they lost 3 million acres of forest. this is a huge area, and the point is, why are these -- why are these fires happening mostly on federal land. the fires that start have started have on private land and

half on federal land, but the amount that burns up, 86% federal. the reason is we have not gone into those or been allowed to go into manage those forests. by manage, i mean remove the undergrowth that has grown up, and thin the forest. it has happened three years since the spotted owl was declared endangered. people were chased out of the force. roads that used to exist to allow us to attack these fires quickly have disappeared, overgrown with brush and small trees. when i was growing up on my family ranch, we ran our cattle up on a forest permit, and i still remember back in those days how quickly the roads we used to drive on would grow closed with trees. just growing so fast, like weeds almost. that is what has happened across most of our federal land. host: our guest is with us. if you want to ask him questions

, call 202-748-8000 for democrats, for republicans, 202-748-8001, for independents 202-748-8002. being on their natural resources he, how much interest particularly when it comes to wildfire issues, in light of what you have explained, how much attention is being paid to it by the committee? guest: i'm happy to say that ranking member bruce westerman, a forester, is here from arkansas, and has just introduced legislation three days ago, the resilient forest act, which addresses many of these issues. this is the third time he has introduced and addressed this issue. the legislation would do a whole bunch of very, very good things, all within the framework of our existing regulations. bruce westerman's regulation as a ranking member has been introduced, whether the majority will pick it up or not remains

to be seen. i hope it does. this situation is so dangerous, that really i cannot -- words fail me when it comes to how much risk the people of the western united states are up against when it comes to the dangers of the wildfires. the challenge for us is to let the rest of the united states know that we should not have to look out our windows and see part of oregon going over washington, d.c., in the form of smoke. that is what was happening last week. that is not only really sad, it is dangerous from people who actually breathe that stuff. we should not be doing this. the natural resource committee should be looking at this carefully and trying to figure out how to do something. by the way, people tend to blame climate change, and there is no doubt that the climate is changing. there is none, it is changing. it is getting hotter, the summers are getting longer, things are getting drier. but the true cause of the cataclysmic nature of these

fires is the huge buildup of fuel, the unbelievable amount of wood that is stacked up and continues to expand every year, in a compound interest sort of approach on these trees, and we are not harvesting -- we are harming -- we are harvesting a little bitty bit of that annual growth. we should be going in and cleaning up the forest using a lot of that biomass and energy generation and things of that nature. host: i what to ask you a couple of buttons regarding the select committee that meets tomorrow. what ultimately will result from its investigation? guest: the outcome is going to be totally biased and partisan, and that is very said. what should have happened is we should have had a balanced committee that was looking at the situation without all of the baggage that goes with partisanship, because now what will happen, when they do reach the final result, people will say it is so partisan it is

meaningless. we are trying to figure out a way of keeping people in the capitol, keeping the capitol safe, keeping the people trying to protect the capitol say. that is what we are trying to do. whatever the outcome, i'm afraid it's going to be political as opposed to something that achieves the real goal, which is to allow the activities in that building to proceed uninterrupted. host: so do you support the minority leader's decision to not put republicans on the committee? guest: we have not met with the minority leader since that happened. i'm looking forward to the next congress meeting to hear what the thinking was. there was no poll done. the minority leader made his decision and will explain it to us. i'm going to wait until he has his chance to say why he did what he did. host: fundamentally you did not agree or disagree with the position? guest: your question is his

decision to not put other republican people on. it is hard to be fundamental about anything when you don't know about the facts. so we will hear and he will tell us why he did what he did. host: you are just a few days into the job when the events happened on january 6. what do you think the cause was, ultimately? guest: that's a great question, and that's one of the reasons i suppose we will hear about causation. i'm a lawyer. i know what causation is. we spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of what causes an event. there are many elements of causation. we don't want to you bore your listeners with all of that, but when you are a lawyer and you try to prove causation, you try to emphasize it. that doesn't mean you're right, it means you have a bias and you are trying to learn your clients up a position. i'm afraid we will see a bias and that is delaying outcomes.

host: is the events of the rally that took place as the president spoke -- a result of the present speaking at the capitol? is that what you're saying is the cause? guest: the drawing of a group of people to washington, d.c., there was a cause of that. the nature of the group in deciding to -- the folks coming to washington, d.c., you would have to talk to each one of those thousands of people and sigh way -- and say why did you come? i would guess 97% of people would say they did not come to storm the capitol. most did not. what happened and why, that is with this group is supposed to try to figure out. i don't enjoy speculating. i'm a lawyer and i like to get to the facts. host: cliff bentz joins us.

a republican from centreville, virginia. lori, go ahead. caller: good morning. i am 86 years old. i grew up with president roosevelt as president, and i would like to know why they don't instigate the forest ranger housing where they had to look -- they had lookouts go up, stay up there for a day, and they rotated their men and made sure there was no smoke coming from any part of the forestry. what happened to that call? host: that was roxie from virginia. guest: thank you so much for that question. when i was growing up riding horseback where cattle were allowed to graze on federal forest service permit, we rode right by frazier lookout, which was i think a 100-foot tall wooden structure on the top of which rangers would look out with field glasses to see if they could a dentist try smoke

from light and dashed if they could identify smoke from lightning strikes. i'm going to take a guess and say that most of what was done by those people is now done by satellite technology. but your question reasons good point. over the past 30 years, people have been removed from the forest, so the eyes and ears of the forest were people. when you had people doing things in the forest, which we don't anymore, they would be able to get to fires because there were roads than and there aren't now because of the growth of all of this underbrush. they were up there, and it was in their best interest to put those fires out as quickly as they could because they were making their living working within the forest. so the eyes and ears of the force have disappeared, and you're talking about the federal government's attempt to have eyes and ears in the force on top of those lookouts. if you are using a satellite, it is hard to get directly to the fire. i think some of the people in

those towers may have helped in thing close or nearby fires out there or would radio someone else for help. those people are not there now come as far as i know. i haven't checked recently. thank you for the question. host: from: it in oregon -- from colette in owing 10. from pi valley. good morning, go ahead. caller: yes, i, like you, have seen a lot of deterioration in the forest floor built-up with trash and more. they would not let the woodcutter cutters up there, to cut the snags or anything. just selecting the areas. we had a fire here. they logged it off, and the man sitting -- starved out most of the trees. i don't believe in clearcutting because when they clear cut, they planted all pine trees, and

now that area, because of the pine beetles, all the trees are dead. the original forest manager for the barlow area had a 100-year plan. that plan was to select a log. that was not -- i think the -- they came in and way before us the indians went in every winter come after huckleberry season, and backfired everything a cap forest floor clean, and i think that cap the fires down also. i would sure like to see us go back to something like that. host: that is colette in oregon. guest: first of all, colette, thank you forgetting up so early to watch this show. i want to share with you, studies indicate from looking at

trees and that there were fires i think between -- every 17 to 27 years, there was a fire, looking back 10,000 years so your remarks about what native americans used to do are absolutely correct. i would also say that there are many who would share your view, that what we should do is have these planned fires just before we know that there is going to be a huge snowstorm or rainstorm, ed know for sure it is about to show up. -- add know for sure it is about to show up, and knowing that we can put them out by the following event. i'm hoping it rains before sometime later this fall. host: a recent story in the hill talked about how drones were being used in the fighting of forest fires. i wonder if there is technology to maybe help get rid of the amount of fires that we see during the years. guest: absolutely there is.

the use of drone technology to try to see where those fires are, and then put them out more quickly. but there is a suspicion by many that when you cannot go into the forest to harvest, then if you don't have a job you look forward to going into the forest to fight a fire, and thus the enthusiasm for putting out the fire isn't what it once had been. but the danger of fighting the fires has become so much more pronounced. so if you are going to allow this huge amount of fuel -- i want to keep emphasizing this -- we have maybe 150 two 200 trees per acre. when the acres would support 20 to 30 trees. this shows you how bad it is. and those trees, some of it has to be removed. the longer we wait, the bigger the fuel buildup and more dangerous the situation becomes, and the more difficult it is to remove all this would. that is roughly 30 million acres of wood in oregon, and 32

million in california. i think 20 some odd in washington state. i have not even touched on utah or montana or the other states with so much wood. this is a huge, huge danger and one that needs to be addressed. host: another oregonian calling us from gold hill. arlene. caller: i wanted to ask the representative what kind of financial aid is available to support folks like myself who has 15 acres of trees, and my husband and i are in our 70's. we are unable to do anything about it. we are not financially able to do anything to clear those trees. i have approached different logging companies, and they take those trees. they have flatly refused. they want like $200 a tree, and i cannot afford that. guest: what an excellent question. my answer is, i am not sure what programs are available to help

you. but if you will contact my office, we will try to find you one, and i have lost track of the number of times i have said over the past months that i have enjoyed the privilege of having this job, that people should do what you're suggesting you're trying to do, which is to reduce the amount of fuel on your property so that you reduce the risk and those around you to your own home. please call our office. look up cliff bentz.com. the telephone number is in washington, d.c.. host: a way of going about that -- deforestation workers and -- would support these jobs. guest: yes. the problem, believe it or not, i don't think the problem is there. the problem is this growth of kind of an industry of lawyers that file lawsuits trying to

stop the implementation of forest plans to allow folks to enter the forest. so what you see -- in fact, when you look at a forest service plan now come you had better bring a wheelbarrow to carry it out the door. why? because the good folks working for the forest service are doing their best to anticipate every possible legal argument, and all they are doing is creating a more fertile environment for lawsuits. as you write more and more and more, you provide more and more opportunity for there to be a conflict between what the standards are and that which the plan provides. so the challenge really is how in the world do we get those people we are talking about hiring into the woods. i would be in favor of anything right now to try to reduce the risk to people in and around the forest, and the animals in them, and the trees that we need to be harvesting for housing and the like. host: representative cliff bentz

joining us for this discussion. this is carl in west virginia, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. my question is, what happened to mr. durham? he was attorney general that he appointed attorney general bob barr to investigate the fbi lying to the fisa court, also spying on the trump campaign. you know, from what i understand, he has spent $8 million of taxpayer funding. he paneled a grand jury, and now he has disappeared since bob took over the the election. and all of a sudden he has disappeared from the media, from congressmen, and i would like to know what happened to him.

absolutely. host: thank you. let our guest respond. guest: during the six months i have enjoyed being a congressman, i have not have the opportunity to discuss mr. durham again. if you will contact our office, i will be happy to have one of my staff look into what you just suggested. the truth of it is i know a little bit about that situation, so i'm not much help to you. our job is to try to help those who are trying to reach out. host: something they are calling big tech censorship, what is that? guest: i had a good fortune to be put on a judiciary committee and two subcommittees. one is intellectual properties and one is antitrust. we had a 26 hour mark up the other day, and it has been a long time to work on six bills that had to do with big tech

modifications. i don't pretend to be an expert in those areas, that i am trying to catch up. the republicans -- i think one of them, we all hope will take power in the next year or so. year and a half. and when we do, we want to be prepared and we want to have gone through and looked carefully at what big tech is doing when it comes to controlling the message. this is, again, an incredibly complex area. i'm very happy to be on the task force. to look into this area. i'm also perfect we willing to admit that i need to learn a lot about that area. to that end, i am happy to say i have been buying book after book after book to try to learn for about how the space works. i will tell you, it is complex and we need to get this right. host: what spurred the creation

of it? was it the election, the information transmitted because of coronavirus? guest: great question. looking at big tech started way earlier than six months ago. way earlier than january 6. it started -- i think a year and a half ago or so in the judiciary committee. and i think it had to be initiated by the democrats because they are in control. but it was a bipartisan and remains a bipartisan effort to try to figure out how to appropriately address the challenges presented by big tech, and there are many. we all know it. on the other hand, we all enjoy having instant access to information. so the challenge is to try to figure out how to manage this new complex face that we enjoy in many ways. the challenge is to try to get it right, and i just want to assure you that i am not an expert in this area but am trying to get to the point of the least decent understanding

dish of at least a decent understanding. this is just a republican effort to do careful thinking about how to address these really difficult issues so that when we do take power in a year and a half after the midterms, which we plan on doing, we have a plan already in place that has been thoughtfully, carefully worked on. that is exactly why i came to washington, d.c., for this careful, thoughtful effort. host: this is from dead, in idaho, independent line. caller: how are you doing? chris, you've got to follow what we are doing over here. we have divided up our estate into eight different districts. each district has federal, state, all that. that's why we don't have the problem. i'm over here in idaho. we are born in the district, and it covers some of your forest in

idaho because it is federal land. it is pretty tough over there working with the democrats, but you guys have come -- have got to come up with plans. now, the other thing that you really have to bring up here is the wild horses that we still have on the lands. i'm sure you are aware of that. the wild horses. they are at over 100,000 right now. they are destroying the land across nevada, everywhere. they're not native. that is still a problem that we have not solved. but yeah, hopefully i will run into you someday and we will work on a regional management plan with you. host: thank you. guest: ned, thank you so much for your call. we will look carefully at what you just shared.

we really look -- we really will look carefully at what you just shared when it comes to the district. as far as wild horses go, i share your concern about the explosion in the numbers of wild horses. and the damage that they are doing running to and from watering holes and down in areas. the same situation -- to a somewhat lesser extent, is occurring when we have overpopulation of elk when they go into areas of the forest and wreak havoc across those faces, particularly in years of drought. i want to thank you for bringing to the attention of those listeners or washers of the show , the challenge that wild horses present. and the travesty, the damage they are doing to the land and the travesty of the numbers of wild horses that dramatically exceed the amounts and numbers that the biologists and the

bureau of land management and others have determined would be proper. and how to manage these numbers is an incredible challenge because people like horses. i don't blame them. i like horses. my wife likes horses. the challenges, how in the world do we manage this problem in a way that tension -- that takes into account people's feelings about the horses? we have got to start pulling people toward an understanding of the damage these animals are doing to our natural resources. host: spencer in oregon, serving on the national resource committees. -- guest: thank so much. host: all this coming up next on the program.

announcer: the house committee investigating the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol hold his first hearing tuesday. officers from the u.s. capitol police and washington metropolitan police department will tell members what they saw and experienced on that day. watch the hearing live tuesday beginning at 9:30 a.m. eastern come on c-span three. online at c-span.org. or listen with the free c-span radio app. tonight on the communicators -- >> the white house office of science an technology under obama and now under trump, and under president biden come have all been very strong in the same area. they believe in the future of artificial intelligence as a self-driving.

and all of the great technologies coming down which will make our lives better. as much as we say about the white house, are we talking about the president or the people who do policy and get things done? i have to say the last two administrations, we have had terrific people with a very consistent policy agenda. announcer: gary shapiro, president and ceo of the consumer technology association, talked about major technology, including online free speech antitrust, and broadcast analysis. on the communicators, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern come on c-span2. >> robert novak's nickname was the pits of darkness, name to that by many of his friends and fellow washington-based journalists. in 2007, two years before he died and at age 78, his autobiography was published about his 50 years as a reporter, television personality

, and political commentator. he appeared on book notes at the time about his book "the prince of darkness." announcer: the late columnist robert novak, wherever you get your podcasts. announcer: weekends on c-span2 are an inflectional -- intellectual feast. american history tv. on sunday, book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors. it is television for serious readers. merck -- discover and explore, weekends on c-span. announcer: washington journal" continues. host: miked a bonus joins us now about activities in congress. good morning to you.

guest: thanks for having me. host: were both sides at and getting the build on the person effort? guest: it is a big week. a big day. the senate left last week having agreement on this infrastructure framework. democrats and republicans have both said we are closed, give us the weekend. we understand it is still not there yet, but there is some optimism that they will get back together today, and hopefully there can be a reckoning on both sides. with some of the divides that are left. they are dealing with the democratic side, a limited of set of patience in terms of

letting these talks drag on. most democrats are really eyeing this other package, the reconciliation package, b .5 chilean dollars for a wide variety, economic, climate, other programs. every minute this doesn't come together is delaying something that is a lot closer to the heart of many democrats. so the big day today, and we will see whether this comes together. host: what is the major sticking point as far as current negotiations? guest: there are a bunch of little sticking points, not in people caring about them, but in the grand scheme of things they are details. the biggest is transit funding. typically the federal government in transportation service funding bills has split funding between highways and transit, and there is some sort of bickering over whether it should be more, less. republicans want to go a little

less than that. lesser transit. democrats want to keep that. that's probably the biggest sticking point. there are some other things. how the structure for broadband funding, whether to observe the wage requirement come which basically requires paying union scale wages to federally funded projects. those are all open issues, whether senate democrats -- we are going to call it the final offer, but to suggest this is a final offer, there will be some sort of meeting today and some decisions that have to be made. host: say a package emerges and we see text. what happens then? guest: last week the senate took a preliminary test vote that states -- that would simply have served in the process of getting on the bill. senator schumer changed his vote in the end, giving his vote the

ability to come back and say that any time. he could do it tonight, tomorrow, or later this week and that could start the process of putting the fill -- the bill on the floor. i think democrats, senator schumer, are eager to get that process started, certainly this week, wrap it up next week, then move to the other bill, which we have to pass a budget resolution. that is next on the agenda. host: if you want to ask questions about the process of congress with mike debonis, 202-748-8002 for republicans, --202-748-8000 free democrats, 202-748-8001. nancy pelosi reiterated yesterday that she has to see certain things before moving forward. fill in the blanks when we come back? >> i'm enthusiastic about the fact that they will have a bipartisan bill. i hope that it will be soon.

i stand by it because the fact is that the president has said he wants to have a bipartisan bill, and we all do. but that is not the limitation of the vision of the president. he wants to build that better, to do so in a way that again, that involves many more people in the prosperity of our country. we say build back better. that is why we need home health care funding. that's why we need the family medical leave. so building a true infrastructure is part of building a physical infrastructure. that is why we will have something further to add. the bill is not as lean as i would like it to bill, the infrastructure bill, and i think that it is something we could have passed a long time ago, even before the climate crisis was readily known to anyone.

nonetheless, i hope that it will pass. i will not put it on the floor until we have the rest of the initiative. host: your take from there? guest: the speaker reiterated her strategy, which she has been talking about for months, which is the bipartisan infrastructure built is only going to pass the house with this other bill that contains taxes alongside it. there is policy and political reasons for this. the policy reason is, you know, if you -- there are things in the other bill that democrats really want, and they are afraid that if you pass a bipartisan bill, that sort of saps the willingness. those particularly in the moderate wing of the caucus, to go along with some of these more ambitious -- climate and social net, safety net spending, things like that that see it as this is

the opportunity to deliver some of these agenda items that they have been talking about for decades. the political issue is that she is not going to get liberal votes for the bipartisan plan in the house unless this other bill is riding alongside it. remember the progressive caucus, folks really counting on this 3.5 chilean dollar bill, are not going to wave their hands and let the bipartisan bill pass without this other bill coming together. that may change, but by sending this message, he is saying -- the mainstream of her caucus who wants to see the bills passed, it is not going to happen. i'm not going to let them do a bait and switch, and we will just pass this bipartisan bill

that doesn't quite do as much as you guys want it to do. host: how did republicans on the senate aside react? guest: so far it has not derailed bipartisan talks. there was a lot of complaining the last few weeks when speaker pelosi first said that, when leader schumer first weighed out this two-track approach. the tying of the two together certainly gives a lot of republicans, most republicans, heartburn. but there is still a group of 10, perhaps more senate republicans who want to do this bipartisan infrastructure deal anyway, and there is some deal, a calculation that if you take this easy, popular stuff off the table with the bipartisan bill, it makes it harder on the margins for democrats to pass their big agenda bill.

and, you know, that is something we will see play out. we are already seeing in fightin within the democrats over another bill. host: mike debonis joining us. our first call comes from peter in massachusetts. democrats line. you're on with our guest. caller: thank you for taking my call. one of the things about january 6, or perhaps i misunderstood -- why there was no mutual aid amongst the four major law enforcement agencies in washington, d.c., in good numbers? there could have cost set them that correct, pushed back on the cloud to send it on capitol hill. you had the capitol police, you had several -- federal protective service, the uniform brass of the u.s. eager service, and the much smaller part police

contingent that was trained in counterterrorism. and why we have to go and reinvent the wheel and put more money into more manpower, and make adjustments to mutual aid packs was achieving the same objective, something we need to be scratching our heads. thank you. guest: peter reese is a great point about the failures of january 6. they were massive, obviously. he raised the question about ritual aid, particularly the other federal police forces who were present in the district. i am not -- up-to-date on the specifics of those mutual aid packs between the part police and our protective service. there was mute -- there was mutual aid with the metropolitan police and they came in after the capitol had already been lost.

you know, what this gets down to is that -- and the bipartisan senate report found, but this is idle -- at its foundation, with a mass of intelligence, they did not take the threat to the capitol. they treated it like any other sort of protest, small-scale protest, where there was not expected to be an actual threat to the building. they put up barriers that obviously were not up to the task, and they did not have -- they did not draw on whatever mutual aid arrangements are in place until it was too late. we have heard from many metropolitan police officers -- the d.c. municipal police who brought tasha bought very briefly, at the campus that day. we will hear from a couple of them tomorrow at this first select committee hearing. other departments helped and

were there, and they helped clear the building and allow congress to do its work that day. but it was much too late. host: the first of the select -- the first hearing of the select committee come you can watch tomorrow on c-span3, c-span.org, and our radio app. what message does speaker pelosi -- with the representing of kinsinger come as was made yesterday. guest: on a political level, she is trying to drive a wedge between republicans and their sort of, for lack of a better term, fealty to fallen president trump. the fact that one generous six, there are a number of republicans who are quite uneasy with the approach they have taken, and some of them quite vocally. liz cheney and adam kinzinger being at the top of that list. she's also dealing with the fact that after making her move last

week to reject the later mccarthy -- that he pulled all five of the pixies entitled to, he wants us to have as much of a bipartisan loss on it as possible. even though it certainly doesn't have the republican leadership. she can reasonably say that this is a bipartisan -- there are two republicans joining the democrats on the panel to investigate this. now, leader mccarthy and many other republicans will say they are not our republicans, but it remains to be seen how much that is going to matter to the american public to the extent they are paying attention to this. i think that speaker pelosi has very much made a calculation that, you know, she is not going to be party to engaging in some of this what about-ism,

complaints that have come particularly from the republican side, saying that we need to look at this, this, and this, not the cost of what happened on january 6. she seems completely comfortable in that. she has the backing of her caucus. they have the majority. they can do this and they are doing this. host: joseph in florida, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have two questions relating to infrastructure, and the ash in the other related bill. i appeal to you to give me a chance to express both of them, please. the first one on infrastructure -- my understanding is that a week, 10 days ago, the bill ran into a roadblock because the republicans wanted to renege on

an agreement that they had made to provide funding for the irs, in order for the irs to be able to correct -- to collect unpaid bills. one number i heard was up to $400 billion. and for whatever reason, for a moment there they walked away from that, and that has created a roadblock. that is the problem with collecting unpaid money. the second part is regarding the other bill, the $3.5 trillion one. i have an idea or suggestion. there was a leak at the irs, whatever you want to call it, that revealed that most multimillionaires and billionaires for years and years have not been paying any income tax, zero. ok, so we could pay for all of this. i know 3.5 trillion is a humongous number, but it could be done just by having

everybody, including millionaires and billionaires, paying their fair share. host: we have to leave it there because of time. we have to leave it there. guest: joseph is very well performed. the infrastructure talk, they came back after the fourth of july. one of the biggs were pay-for, the offsetting of the spending that we want to do. one of the big items on that list was irs enforcement. there were estimates in the hundreds of billions of dollars that investing in more auditing capability, more investigative capability, if the irs could produce those returns. so there was a political and mathematical process. the mathematical problem being that their estimates it would create all this revenue, and the congressional budget office did not necessarily agree. they were specifically very conservative in their estimates

of what these things will generate. it did not really produce the number that i think a lot of the members were counting on. so the problem is political, which is that the party has campaigned for years and years, weakening the irs on campaigning on irs overreach. their view is that the irs should be weaker, not stronger. that is the mainstream republicans. while no one is going to stand up and put it in terms of we think we are going to keep allowing rich people to cheat on their taxes, you know, this is kind of where this discussion goes. democrats are completely comfortable, saying that we need more resources at the irs because the wealthy are not paying their fair share. we don't have enough investigators and others. make sure people are following the law, paying what they owe.

but as a political matter, republicans just cannot -- putting more money in the irs. i think what you likely to see is allowing up in the other bill, perhaps a more aggressive way, requiring disclosures from banks so that people who do bank transactions, more of that will be reported to the irs so they contract that money. and perhaps closely figure out how much people really owe. then on the other part, that ties into the other part joseph is talking about, about taxation paying for us on the other bill. you can rest assured that democrats are looking at new ways to tax the wealthy. there are some mainstream -- sort of mainstream democrat ideas around, you know, raising

the corporate tax rate, eliminating some loopholes, and then on the individual tax side, there is a possibility that they could look at -- facing some of those top marginal rates. other centers are talking about a millionaire surtax that can be levied on the very rich. these are all ideas that are in circulation right now, and very likely could end up in a final package. host: new jersey democrats and how they play into what is currently going on. guest: i appreciate that. i did a story about how one state in particular has a lot on the line. that is new jersey. you know, they have an attitude that they sort of took it on the chin during the trump administration. during the 2017 republican tax bill, a big offset was getting rid of the state and local income tax section, which was used disproportionately in new jersey, and that was scaled back eventually.

a lot of middle-class households, we saw their tax bills go up because of that, in a bill that was really supposed to cut taxes across the board. on infrastructure, the trump administration held up one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the country, the gateway tunnel, between new york and new jersey. thousands and thousands of commuters use it daily. really the entire eastern seaboard. that is not only moving again under the, but now new jersey democrats think of it as a way to make things right, but there is an issue. it is hundreds of billions of dollars. there are ways to do it partially, but they want the whole enchilada, and it is expensive. they have another problem, which is one of the big offset that the democrats are looking at, prescription drug pricing reform. allowing medicare to negotiate, that potentially could generate

hundreds of billions of dollars in savings for medicare, that can offset other things. the pharmaceutical industry is really centered in new jersey, the largest -- something like 13 of the largest 20 pharmaceutical companies are in new jersey. the delegation has historically been very protective of the industry, and there is already a lot of pushback on using drug pricing as a paperwork for other things. that is why the garden state is in the middle of this. there delegation is very influential. they have the chairman of the house energy and commerce committee, bob menendez, a very influential member of the finance committee. you have a number of lawmakers who are very influential. host: elaine from washington state, republican line. thanks for waiting.

calder: i am asking about the video of the woman who got shot. two guys who i guess were security guys were standing in front of the double doors, one on each door. a man was standing on their right with some kind of walkie-talkie or telephone. he took a call, puts it up to his ear. he hangs up, looks at the two guys, he says something to them, they walk about 20 feet away, and then the window gets broken, and this woman who ended up getting shot is almost picked up in the air by somebody and thrown forward. but i would like to know who gave them the standdown order? somebody had to. it is on video. host: ok, caller. guest: i haven't seen that video recently, so i'm not entirely familiar with the walkie-talkie

traffic. i'm not aware of any standdown order. i do not think that -- i have no reason, no evidence to believe that any one in any position of authority told anybody to stand down. to give the context of that video, that was taken in what is called the speakers lobby, the hallway directly behind the house chamber. he had inside the house chamber members of congress -- staffers, colleagues of mine. this was a moment of great tension. no one knew what the mob had in mind. there were, as that group was bearing down, trying to get inside the speaker's lobby, and thus had access to the chamber, they were evacuating people out the other side of the hallway. i think that any examination of

that has to take that into context. there was a mob of people at the doors of the capitol, smashing windows. some of them, we have seen video , threatening violence against the speaker of the house, other members of congress. and, you know, there is a debate certainly about whether lethal force was justified in this. i have heard very few members of congress -- there have been a couple. i have seen very few members of congress suggest that lethal force was host: not justified. host:on our independent line -- was not justified. host: on our independent line, jason from falls church, virginia. caller: first of all, the mob was absolutely no threat, so there is no cause to say there was no need for the use of --

that there was a need for legal the force. -- for lethal force. that's insane. second, regarding the fires, i wonder if members on the hill had backed trump with what he said they needed to do. host: that was a different guest. new guest entirely. do you have a question for him? caller: when it comes to january 6, i think that any republican should avoid giving any legitimacy to it. black lives matter and nt for burnt down the country for over six months, and nothing was done to try to stop or investigate it. right now there are people held in the d.c. jail that are being treated as subhuman pretty much on the level of guantanamo bay terror suspects, people who were trespassing and did not commit any kind of violent act or anything, so i think that the right idea is to not give it any in the jude missy.

the sham, basically use as a political stunt, to fuel the democrats' hopes for 2022 and 2024, and make republicans look as bad as possible. host: thanks for the call, jason. what is the republican messaging going forward, especially in light of the commission going ahead with his work? guest: jason summed it up pretty well. as far as the republicans are concerned, this is a sham, created and being directed by speaker pelosi and her top lieutenants. this is going to be a democratic product at the end of the day, even if -- even with liz cheney and adam kinzinger on board. they can certainly claim it is bipartisan, but this is going to be a democratic product. the question is, does that matter? we have seen these congressional investigations take place in the past. we all remember benghazi, the many probes that culminated in a

select committee. if the democrats participated, there was a minority report that the i think that will be the casn what this panel comes up with. i think speaker pelosi has made her choice. host: he covers congress for the publication. thank you for your time this morning. we are going to take a look at the world health organization and what it plays when it comes to worldwide vaccinations. our guest lawrence gostin will be joining us when washington journal continues.

>> the house committee investigating the attack on the u.s. capitol holds its first hearing on tuesday. officers from the capitol police and the police department will tell members what they saw and experienced on that day. watch the hearing live on c-span 3. listen with the free c-span radio app. tonight on the communicators. >> they have all been very strong in the same areas they believe in artificial intelligence, self-driving, these products that are going to make our lives better. as much as we talk about the white house, are we talking about the people that actually do policy?

we have had terrific people with a very consistent policy agenda. >> jerry super hero -- gary shapiro talks about tech policy, including on spline free speech and broadband access on c-span 2. >> robert novak's nickname was the prince of darkness. he was named that by many of his friends. in 2007, his autobiography was published about his 50 years as a reporter, television personality, conservative political commentator. he appeared about his book. >> robert novak on book notes

plus. listen at c-span.org or wherever you get your podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: we take a look at an aspect of covid-19. join us this week is lawrence gostin, the o'neill institute for global health law director. we are here to talk about the world health organization. thank you for your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: let's start with the organization itself. when it comes to worldwide vaccinations, what role will they play? guest: unfortunately, it hasn't had the impact it needs to have. basically, it started a facility called the act accelerator. there is a part of the act accelerator that is focused

entirely on vaccines. it's basically a partnership between who and a big global alliance that works on vaccinations in particular childhood vaccinations. it promised to secure enough doses and distribute doses free to all low income countries. it promised to vaccinate 20% of the population of low income countries by the end of the year. that is too low of a name. that would be far too low. it might not even meet the 20% mark. it doesn't look like it's going to. currently, less than 1% of the doses in the world have been administered in low income

countries with the vast proportion given in the united states and europe. host: how dependent is the world health organization on the united states support? guest: it's really important. the united states traditionally had an outsized role in global health leadership. when you think about aids in particular, if you think about polio eradication or smallpox eradication, the u.s. was a huge leader. it really worked closely with the world health organization. under president trump, we threatened to withdraw from who. we announced our withdrawal. now under president biden, although he is donating more

doses of the vaccine than any other country by far, he has pledged one billion doses, it's a drop in the ocean. we need to think big and bold if we are going to do anything to end this pandemic. host: the director of the organization said 75% of all vaccine doses administered in 10 countries of the world, only 1% receiving poor nations. and you paint the picture of the discrepancy between poor nations and richer ones? guest: you really couldn't find two completely opposite scenarios. take the united states today. we are experiencing a spike in cases. we are worried and wringing our hands and we should because of

the delta variant. nonetheless, we vaccinated around 60% of the population. we are getting back to normal. colleges and universities and schools are going back in person , workplaces are going to be back humming in the fall. we are talking about booster shots and planning to authorize its use among younger children under 12. meanwhile, in most low income countries, the vast majority of health workers are not vaccinated. the elderly are not vaccinated in nursing homes and other residents. they are just beginning -- the

epidemic is beginning there rather than coming to a close. while we see a light at the end of the tunnel, they are in total darkness. i don't know if any of your viewers remember the aids epidemic, where there was a slogan that said there is a pill that can save your life, only the rich can get it. there is a vaccine that costs very little that can save a life. it can get a country back, it can get a continent back. i don't think low income countries are going to forget the united states and europe for turning its back on them at a time when they need the most. we need to do much more.

this is probably the greatest moral failure of our generation. host: lawrence gostin this is our weekly look at aspects of the covid vaccine, worldwide vaccination of the topic. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. if you want to text us, (202) 748-8003. before you talked about president biden donating vaccines to the cause, what have other countries done as far as donations of vaccines to make them more available? guest: to be quite honest, as bad as the u.s. is, it might be the best in the world. china has given more of its

doses away then the united states. what china has done is something that i can't tolerate. yes they've given away the doses. the chinese vaccines are not as effective and safe as the ones authorized in the united states. china has been very mercantile and transactional about it. it's used a lifesaving vaccine as a way to leverage its own economical standing. it might ask a country not to support taiwan or ask for strategic favors in the south china sea or a mineral in africa. that's not the way to have an open heart. i do think the americans have an

open heart. we do need to do more. we've done a lot. just not enough. the biggest tragedy i think is that we've hoarded the vaccines in the united states. we bought up all the supply, including the raw materials. countries can't make it for themselves. india was making the astrazeneca vaccine. then it went into crisis itself. it stopped producing and as a result, the misery was compounded. host: the first call is from barbara in oklahoma. good morning. caller: thank you.

i'm a little confused about the masks and what these people who say their rights are being violated if they save 600,000 lives. these same people want to go up in our uterus and the giant and that's not invading my right? host: we will stop it right there. rose, hello. caller: how are you? we are paying taxes to make these formulas to save our lives. we are paying taxes to give it over the whole world. we are supporting everybody. you are telling us america is turning their back on certain countries? isn't the president turning his back on us by keeping the border

open and they are coming in with this covid? aren't the democrats turning their backs on us americans paying for everybody in the world? i want your answer to what you think the president is doing it to us. guest: i understand where you're coming from. the idea is this. first of all, i do think president biden has done a pretty good job with the covid-19 pandemic in the united states. president trump gets credit for operation warp speed. in the united states, we have an excess of doses, a huge surplus sitting on the shelves and are vaccination rates of plateaued because people don't want to get

a vaccine. we should be giving those excess doses to those who could use them and save their lives. it's very american to have compassion for others. we do have a big heart in america. we do want to help others. we have done it with aids, tuberculosis, smallpox. that's what makes america great. it's really important to say the amount of money we spend on global health assistance is literally just a drop in the ocean of our federal budget. we often think we spent a lot, but as a percentage of our gdp,

we spend very little. as a percentage of gdp, we spend far less than most other countries. let's open up our hearts to the rest of the world. it's also good for us. as long as covid is raging globally, there are going to be variance that come back and worry us in the united states. let's get this pandemic over with everywhere. host: how does a one billion dose of drop in the bucket? guest: first of all, you need to doses per person. it's more than that in the global population. basically, one billion doses is

really 500 million people. by most accounts, unless we really ramp up the amount of donations, poor countries will be vaccinated at high levels for three or four years. this could be a long time thing. in any case, if we wanted to sevenfold our donations, that would be great. i agree with twitter. host: shelby is in tennessee. caller: good morning. i have one question. it involves children below 12 years of age. are they doing any research for that age range? especially since most schools are in a quandary about

vaccines. guest: they are. i can answer that question. there is ongoing research about the safety and effectiveness of under 12's and the younger age. it's very likely that the u.s. fda will authorize covid vaccines for younger populations i the end of the year. we don't know when that is going to happen. government officials have suggested that we are likely to see a gradual reduction in age. while it may not be here on time for the school term, i expect we are going to get some movement by the end of 2021. host: you mentioned china previously. there is an effort to investigate the cause of covid

as it centers on china. can you explain that investigation? guest: basically, everybody knows about a year a half ago -- a year and a half ago, there was a huge outbreak in wuhan, china. it seemed to be the epicenter that started the pandemic. what we are trying to do is find how did covid originate? where did it come from? there are two prevailing theories. the most likely theory by far is what's called a natural leap. basically, it means the virus was harboring in an animal and it jumped to a human being.

we need to know because we are never going to be able to prevent the next pandemic unless we know how these viruses emerge from the animal kingdom. we have theories like wild animal markets. we have theories about this novel coronavirus being in baths in southern china. the second theory, less likely but it hasn't been ruled out, a laboratory leak from the wuhan institute. who has been trying to find the origins for a long time. we suffered so much from this pandemic. we deserve to know how it began and how we can prevent the next one.

china has not been cooperative at all. when the outbreak occurred at the beginning, china delayed in reporting. they were disingenuous and telling us it wasn't human transmission when it clearly was and was circulating wildly. they have not allowed access they needed to follow up both leads, the naturals and the laboratory leak. it was almost like a disney tour. who is wanting more cooperation. i don't think that's likely to happen. host: there was a rejection of

the phase ii investigation. they said we will not accept such an origins tracing plan. this disregards common sense and science. we hope they would reconsider the tracing as a scientific matter and great -- get rid of political interference. guest: we want to treat it as a scientific matter and get rid of political interference. that means we need to have access to territory in china, to animal sources, to the laboratory. we need to have transparent information and viral samples. if we can do that, i want to keep this entirely scientific. i do not like the politicking.

i don't think the two great superpowers should be squabbling and calling each other names. it's entirely unhelpful. it's just childish. we do want to keep it scientific. the pandemic most likely began in china. we need chinese cooperation. nobody wants to bash china. the scientific community just wants cooperation and something that is vitally important to the health and safety and confidence of the world. host: i will play you what the white house press secretary had to say last week resulting in the decision. >> we support the debbie ho plan for phase two, which ensures the studies are scientific, expert

led it, free from interference. we have seen the comments rejecting phase ii two of the study. we are deeply disappointed. their position is irresponsible and dangerous. we continue to call for china to provide the needed access to data and samples. this is critical so we can understand to prevent the next pandemic. this is about saving lives in the future. we believe in a multilateral approach. that is a process has not been taken prior. that has been a big focus of strategy as it relates to our engagement with china. host: that multilateral approach she speaks of, if china has made this decision, where we go from here? guest: i think we are at an impasse.

what she said was absolutely right. i think president biden and his administration have played this well. president biden has asked our intelligence agencies to use covert methods to find out what the origins might be. she's right. i've been in china many dozens of times. i've got close colleagues there. i know the people there. the people are wonderful. the government is a closed government. it has behaved in relation to pandemics, even past pandemics, in ways that lacked transparency and accountability. there is zero possibility that

china is just going to change its mind. we are at an impasse. western democracies, liberal democracies, the united states and europe, we wonderful and fair investigation. china wants the investigation to turn into other countries. that's just not credible. we've got an impasse. i don't see any movement. the sad thing is every possibility that we may never know for sure how this pandemic began. what a tragedy after so many hundreds of thousands and millions lives taken around the world. we won't know how this began or how best to prevent the next one.

it's not a very good sign for global humanity. that's why who has caused for a pandemic treaty to give them more powers. 20 heads of government have caused for such a treaty. it would try to have an independent scientific inspector the way we do nuclear facilities. host: let's hear from harriet in maryland. go ahead. caller: thank you. my name is harriet. i am 77. i had my shots, april 13. i feel fine. i recommend all people, if you want to live, if you want to

breathe next week or this week, have your vaccination. host: that is harriet in maryland. we hear about hesitancy here in the united states. is that a thing or worldwide? guest: it's interesting, harriet that was very well spoken. everyone should get the shot. they should get it to care for their parents and grandparents and neighbors. we need to think about the common good. vaccine hesitancy is prominent in the united states. it's not exclusively so. the interesting thing is you

have heads of state who got the luxury of hesitancy. in the u.s. and europe, we've got plenty of vaccine. we've got plenty of money and good health care. we don't get the vaccine. if you go to places like sub-saharan africa, there are huge majorities of people who are clamoring for the vaccine. it's really a luxury and privilege to say that's ok. it's easy for them to do that. most of the people around them are going to be vaccinated and they will have some protection. put yourself in the position of a country that has low vaccine rates. the hospitals are being overrun. you would probably roll up your sleeve and ask your neighbor to do that.

we have to think how privileged we are in the u.s. the first thing we can do is get our shot. we can support giving shots to others who need it desperately. host: joe is in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. caller: i have a question, it's more about the dynamics. we give them 2 billion doses. the problem with thorough world countries like kenya, when you get into congo, fats want, they do not have the infrastructure to take care of the vaccine until the doses are given out. they don't have the refrigeration units. what is the world health organization doing about planning that out? guest: that's a very important

point. let me just start by saying we sometimes underestimate the ability of lower income countries to administer arts vaccination programs. they have been successful in doing that. with polio, with smallpox. in countries that have gone through ebola or other outbreaks, they are good at delivering vaccines to people. there are problems with refrigeration, electricity. if we invest only in doses, it's not enough. we do have to invest in vaccine infrastructure to get the vaccine stored safely, good quality. countries can do a lot for

themselves. there is some help that we can assure. that's a great point. host: deborah is in ohio. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i am retired. a microbiologist. my concern is the wto. food safety sanitation is a major part of the wto. when you look at the wto and you look at wet markets, there is an opportunity for us as a globe -- global community to increase and improve that. that is something china should adhere to. can you imagine in the united states we would go to a local grocery store and one mile down the road we could pick out live animals and have them

slaughtered. the fda would have a fit as they should. i am hoping the wto is going to move forward in terms of safety and sanitation. china only came into the wto around 2001. guest: you are talking about what we call one health, in order to -- you need to look at human health, animal health, climate. they affect the circulation of pathogens. one of the big problems we have in the world that allows these leaps i talked about, that caused ebola and aids.

to do that, we two separate human and animal populations. we need to end or strictly regulate live animal trade and live animal markets. we need to stop deforestation because animals and humans are coming into closer and closer contact. we basically have to make sure we don't have this intense interchange between large human populations and exotic animal populations. that can be done through sensible regulation. wto is only one argumentation on that.

we need to focus on that one health approach. we often talk about how we can respond to a pandemic. what we need to do is prevent the pandemic. we do that by preventing these spillovers from animals to humans. host: when it comes to vaccinations, what is the money and manpower assigned to it? guest: remarkably little. who is very thin on the ground. if you think about the global budget for who, it's about the size of one large teaching u.s. hospital. the budget is one fourth that of the u.s. cdc.

it has very little funding. it's got more funding for vaccinations throughput backs because countries like the united states and europe have donated. it has too little money and too little doses. host: charles is in michigan. caller: thanks for taking my call. a couple of months back, you had a guest on, a doctor that talked a lot about the natural immunity the body produces from having had covid. everywhere i looked, there has been so much push on getting the vaccine. no one seems to talk about any

kind of natural immunity. i look at the fact that the pandemic has been with us for a year and five months. we would have had that long to follow around people and study people that have had covid and recovered to know what that immunity is and how long it lasts. we only have half that amount of time. everything is about the vaccine. nothing is ever talked about as far as natural immunity. some doctors out there really do seem to think natural immunity is a good thing. guest: i can quickly answer that. we do need to new more about how

long natural immunity lasts and how robust it is. we do need to reseat ship more. it is hard to research because you can't do clinical trials. what we do know is the vaccine is far more effective than natural immunity. every group i know recommends that even if somebody has had covid and has a certain amount of natural immunity, they should get at least one dose of the vaccine. that will boost their immunity.

it is much preferable to also have the vaccine. we focus on the vaccine because there are so many people who are naive to the virus. we can boost their immunity quite substantially. we've got this miracle. we need to use it. host: lawrence gostin serves as the director of the o'neill institute for national and global health. thanks for your time today. guest: thanks very much for having me. host: we will finish off with open form. if you have something of interest you want to talk about, (202) 748-8000 four democrats, (202) 748-8001 republicans. independent (202) 748-8002. we will start open form right after this.

>> the health committee investigating the attack on the u.s. capitol holds its first hearing tuesday. officers from the capitol police will tell members what they saw and experienced on that day. watch the hearing on c-span3. listen with h h h h c-span radio app. tonight on the communicators. >> now, under president biden, the policies have been strong in the same areas. they believe in the future of artificial intelligence. as much as we say about the white house, i have to say the

last few administrations, we have had terrific people with a consistent policy agenda. >> dairy shapiro talks about major tech policy, including online free speech and broadband access area on the communicators tonight at 8:00 on c-span two. -- 2. >> weekends are an intellectual feast. every saturday, events that explore our nation's past. on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction. it is television for serious readers. weekends on c-span 2. >> washington journal continues. host: this is open form.

if you have interests you want to talk about, (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8001 four republicans. (202) 748-8002 four independent. tomorrow, the select committee starts its work on looking at the events of january 6. speaker pelosi talked about the work of the committee, particularly in the light of appointing another publican and the republican decision not to put members on the committee. >> we have had an unprecedented action, and insurrection against our government. it is an assault on the congress on a day when the constitution required us to validate the work of the electoral college. this is not just any day of the week.

this was a required date. our select committee will seek the truth. it is our patriotic duty to do so. we do not come in worried about what the other side has been afraid of us. we have a responsibility to seek it and find it. host: kevin mccarthy put out a statement about the committee yesterday.

that statement coming from the minority leader, another person putting out a statement was adam kinzinger. he is serving on the commission. he is the second republican appointed to the committee. the first was liz cheney of wyoming. tomorrow is the first hearing talking to the capitol police and other police officials. you can see that on c-span 3 starting tomorrow. you can listen on our c-span

radio app. host: jay is up in new hampshire. go ahead. caller: thank you. i was hoping to get on with the law professor. i had questions about the who and its changing of some key language in their policy formats. they were changing the definition of a pandemic to mean that no one had to die before it was declared a pandemic. incredibly, they changed the definition of herd immunity to say that it only is conferred through vaccination, which is crazy. they backpedaled on that and said herd immunity was also a factor in that. i was also concerned about the cdc.

they are not describing their investigations into the actions to the shots. they are required to do that. that would compromise the emergency use authorization. i was hoping to ask the professor those questions. thank you very much. host: let's go to conyers, georgia. caller: good morning. i appreciate you letting me get on. we continued to talk about uniting the country. you had a earlier that said black lives matter in antifa burned down the country last year. those are reasons why they shouldn't support the january 6 insurrection. clearly, that's a lie. there is not any pushback that

black lives matter had anything to do with the sedition on january 6 or the nonsense that black lives matter is this left-wing crazy. there is not enough pushback on that. that's it. tell the truth. let's move forward. let's stop all this foolishness. host: palm beach florida, good morning. caller: i am calling regarding covid increases in numbers. no one has addressed illegal immigrants entering the country with no testing and no vaccination. there is one -- two sets of rules. i don't get it. somebody breaks our law and we expect them to follow our rules.

apparently, that is not the case. host: that is barbara in florida. the wall street journal looks at activities in afghanistan after the announcement to pull troops out of there. this concerns airstrikes. that is highlighted in the story.

you can read it on the website of the washington journal. alexandria, virginia. hello. caller: good morning. one thing i wanted to bring up, i don't know if we've ever had a president who lost the presidency who still goes on spewing falsehoods about the election. as one of their caller alluded to, making sure that people who follow the guidelines of the country are held accountable when they break the rules of the country, specifically targeting the insurrection. there are a lot of different notions going on. i am looking at the way the country is established. it seems there is a large group that wants to follow the lie. host: all to mont springs,

florida. we will hear from maggie. caller: good morning. i for one i'm tired of the time being spent on january 6. a group of people did bad things, get over it. quit trying to blame our former president for it. these people were acting on their own. they didn't behave correctly. what is there to investigate? host: you don't think there were causes behind what happened? caller: of course, they were upset that mr. trump didn't get into office. how is that investigation procedure going forward? they have arrested people. they've done what they can do.

i don't see why they are wasting more of our time on this investigation. host: why would you advise people to get over it? caller: get over it and move forward with the country. host: why would you do that? caller: because there's nothing to investigate. law enforcement handle it. host: considering the end results of what you saw that day? caller: yes. host: ok. that is going to be part of the questioning. many investing -- will question the police in particularly. we are taking a look at the issue of the situation at the capital on that day. follow along at c-span starting at 9:30 a.m. you can follow along at c-span.org.

independent line from new hampshire, this is catherine. caller: good morning. concerning the coronavirus, there is the gruesome more deadly question, i suggest reading the book germs. it was published in 2001. it's about biological weapons and america's secret war. if american dollars funded the wuhan lab, how much money did we give the lab? who okayed the funding? did the deep state or u.s. health agency ok the dollars?

we need answers to determine actions and policies to stop the research in the future. they said no to the research. host: ok. caller: the world would not even be in this mess. host: one of the pieces you will find this morning is how democrats are reacting to voting laws throughout the united states. a fear of turnout catastrophe in the politico.

politico is where you can find that story. in louisiana, we will hear from rodney. go ahead. caller: i have a comment. i love your program. every time you turn the tv on, you see evangelicals, conservatives, so-called republicans. they seem to know the problem

with the black family in america today. they didn't have a problem with slavery when black people being sold. i don't understand how they claim the breakup of the black family today. host: milton is in taylor, michigan. caller: i would like to know if you are going to be an american, everyone in the united states are all americans. why do you categorize us to the point where it's black america, asian america, chinese america, when you become an american citizen, everyone should have the same rights. why do we need to pull nationality in?

i'm just a white american. it doesn't matter what color you are or where you are from. an american is an american. when you become an american citizen, everyone should have the same rights and laws. host: ok. caller: i don't care if it's black lives matter, leave the black part out. they broke the law. if a white person does it, they broke the law. there's no reason why everyone should be american. host: david in wisconsin is next. caller: i have a comment about our country. we would be better off if black lives matter and the democrat politicians were sent to iraq. host: we will stop at there with that rhetoric.

when it comes to an organization, they have the results of a poll on axios regarding net favorability of leading republicans among republican voters. of 800 republicans pulled from january 6-8, donald trump, jr. topped the list of net favorability. closely followed by ron desantis of florida. coming in is kevin mccarthy. matt gaetz follows that list. liz cheney came in last. she is serving on that january 6 committee. from texas, jerry.

caller: i had a question. you've got our trump haters out of the way. what about the number one book on the list? it sold over 400,000 books. when the going to have mark live in on it? host: he is more than welcome to come on it. caller: if you invite him. you haven't invited him. why haven't you? host: it's ok. let me explain. when an author comes out with a book, our book tv unit gets the

right of first refusal. if they are going to interview him directly, they get to do that on their front. if they pass, we bring them on this program to talk about issues. the books that you talk about featuring former presidents of the united states, he is the former president of the united states. he is still a driving force in american politics. michelle is in los angeles. caller: good morning. i don't see much in the news about ted cruz holding up state department nominees.

i was just wondering if you would cover that. host: thanks for the suggestion. that rounds off open form for today. thanks for watching for today. look out for that select committee. there is more information on our website. another addition of washington journal is coming your way at 7:00. see you then. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government.

>> do think this is just a community center? >> comcast is partnering with thousands to enable tools for families to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a part of a public service, a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up, the president and the vice president, remarks on the 31st anniversary of the ada, live coverage from the rose garden starting at 11:10 eastern , here on c-span. the u.s. house returns today at noon eastern, work starts at 2:00 p.m. on tuesday members will take up a spending package for 2022 which includes funding for labor, education, energy and

transportation. the senate returns today at 3:00 p.m. to debate the nomination of the assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources. office and a floor, negotiations continue on a bill that could be voted on later in the week if a deal is reached on an infrastructure bill. host: from the natural resources judiciary committees, thank you for joining us this morning on the program. >> very happy to be here. host: most people outside your state may not know about this bootleg fire fire that is going on, but for those particularly in your state, can you explain the nature of the wildfire and what is being done to suppress it? guest: it the third-largest wildfire in the state of oregon's history, so it is huge. 400 some odd thousand acres,