thank you so much again for joining us on a very busy news day. thank you again. rep. mccaul: thanks, mariana. i want to thank the washington post for having me. i really appreciate it. mariana: > c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including wow. >> the world has changed. today, a fast, reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. wow is there for our customers with speed, reliability, value, and choice. now more than ever, it starts with great internet. >> wow supports c-span with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up on washington journal, we discussed the history of america's war in

afghanistan with carter malkasian, a former state department political servant in afghanistan. we talk about the largest permanent increase in s.n.a.p. food benefits in the program's history with heather taylor of bread for the world. ♪ host: good morning. it is wednesday, august 18, 2021. the end -- evacuation effort from kabul continues as the taliban solidifies its grip on afghanistan. in washington, the finger-pointing over who owns the loss in afghanistan has only increased. who is most responsible for the outcome in afghanistan after 20 years of u.s. intervention? here is how we split our phone lines. republicans can call in at (202) 748-8000. democrats can call this morning at (202) 748-8001.

independence -- independents, (202) 748-8002. and a special line set aside for veterans of the afghanistan war, (202) 748-8003. you can also send us a text this morning. if you do, include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media. on twitter, it is @cspanwj on facebook, it is facebook.com/cspan. there is an old saying that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. here's the headline from usa today and their lead story this morning. how did afghanistan end this way? the finger-pointing begins. political rights, president joe biden or anyone of his predecessors, the taliban, the afghan government, the u.s. intelligence community my the pentagon and his generals, experts pushing american leaders to stay the course. those are just some of the answers that national security

daily received with a asked u.s. officials, lawmakers, and experts a deceptively constant -- complicated question. who exactly is to blame for the swift collapse of the western backed afghan government and the taliban's return to power? from business insider, a survey of 1100 americans from august 16 and 17. that survey notes more americans blame former president george w. bush for america's failure in afghanistan than any other president who succeeded him. 38% ranked bush is the most responsible. 27% said joe biden. 19% said donald trump. 12% said barack obama. yesterday on fox news on sean hannity's program, former president donald trump was not afraid to point the finger all the way back to george w. bush for the united states'

intervention in the middle east. [video clip] >> think of it. we took this horrible place, a place that we should not have been involved. it was a horrible decision going into the middle east. i know the bush family will not be happy, but i believe it was the worst decision in the history of our country when we decided to go into the middle east. it has turned out to be quicksand. we have destroyed the middle east. it was a horrible decision that cost us trillions of dollars. if you look at both sides, millions of lives. it is no different than it was. it is worse. the worst decision ever made was going. you can do a strike as retribution and it could be a big strike as retribution for the world trade center, but to get stuck in there was like

quicksand. think of what is happening now. i have heard as many as 40,000 americans and the taliban -- that i will tell you they are good fighters. they have been fighting for 1000 years. that is what they do, they fight. the taliban has circled to the airport, and who knows if they are going to treat us right? host: former president donald trump on sean hannity's program last night. asking you who is responsible for the outcome in afghanistan. the evacuation effort, still underway this morning, this from a reuters reporter covering the evacuation. the head of u.s. central command was at kabul's airport yesterday, making him the most senior u.s. official in the country since the taliban took kabul. we have seen pictures of efforts to get citizens and u.s. allies to the international airport for the evacuation, this from the

reporting yesterday out of the u.s. embassy communications with americans, saying the note went out yesterday afternoon to american citizens requesting to be evacuated from afghanistan instructing people to come to the airport but says the u.s. government cannot guarantee their safety as they make the trip to the airport. that is happening on the ground this morning. asking you who is most responsible for the outcome here and afghanistan. daniel is up first out of buffalo, and independent. caller: i would think it is most likely the afghani's -- afghanis' fall for it. it is facetious of us to think the country is a standard country. it has always been small warlords controlling different areas. ultimately, people have to fight

themselves. host: eric is next, georgia, democrat. who do you think is most responsible? caller: i think donald trump and mike pompeo. trump with the taliban, they negotiated with terrorists but did not negotiate with the afghan government. show trump talking to the man who is now running the taliban. it was negotiating with terrorists. all of this was a set up. the withdrawals -- withdrawal date was set two months after joe biden got out of office because the taliban had already taken over afghanistan when joe biden took office. this was a set up. host: president joe biden, not afraid to point the finger back at the trump administration in the speech he gave monday about the situation in afghanistan.

this is what he said monday. [video clip] >> when i came to office, i inherited a deal president trump negotiated with the taliban. under his agreement, u.s. forces would be out of afghanistan by may 1, 2021. just a little over three months after i took office. u.s. forces had already drawn down during the trump administration from roughly 15,500 american forces to 2500 troops in the country. the taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001. the choice i had to make as were president was either to follow through on that agreement or he prepared to go back to fighting the taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season. there would have been no cease-fire after may 1. there was no agreement protecting our forces after may

1. there was no status quo of stability without american casualties after may 1. there was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more american troops back into combat in afghanistan. lurching into the third decade of conflict. host: president biden on monday. we mentioned president donald trump was on sean hannity's show last night. he was asked about those comments that president biden made and what the biden administration has been saying about the deal the trump administration put in place. this was former president trump from last night. [video clip] >> what we were going to do is take the military out last. the people were coming out. they were going to come out.

the agreement was violated, so i held things back because we were not going to do anything -- again, conditions based. obligations and conditions. just to finish, the people come out first. then i was going to take all the military equipment -- we have billions of dollars of new blackhawk helicopters that russia now will be examining and so will china and everybody else . we have brand-new army tanks and all sorts of equipment come missiles. we have everything. i was going to take it out because i knew they were not going to fight. just one thing -- this is different from everyone else. i said, why are they fighting? why are these afghan soldiers fighting against the taliban? i was told some very bad information by a lot of people. the fact is they are among the highest paid soldiers in the world. they were doing it for a paycheck because once we

stopped, once we left, they stopped fighting. so all the people that talk about the bravery and everything, i say everybody is brave. the fact is, our country was paying afghan soldiers a fortune . we were sort of bribing them to fight. that is not what it is all about. it is a great think that we are getting out, but nobody has ever handled a withdrawal worse than joe biden. this is the greatest embarrassment i believe in the history of our country. host: former president last night on sean hannity's show. if you -- former president last night on sean hannity's show. jamie in north carolina sing all politicians, presidents included, are responsible -- saying all politicians, presidents included, are responsible. fred from panama city saying this vet from vietnam blames our military leaders.

ray and colorado, from the first day to the last, all government officials and politicians who supported the war are responsible for the outcome. in florida, democrat. what do you think? caller: we started producing all these bombs and bullets and tanks and stuff. what were we supposed to use them as? we invested into this country. we invested all the military equipment to stack up and rot. it is ridiculous. for mike pompeo to put the deal the taliban, it is the same thing nixon used in vietnam so he could become president. mike pompeo and donald trump are the two biggest traitors in the united states. they need to be locked up. host: in pennsylvania, independent peer and whois response will for the outcome --

independent. who is responsible for the outcome? caller: the failure started with bush. we went into afghanistan with a purpose and mission, to fight bin laden and squash al qaeda. then we got switched to iraq because we did not want to have his family and especially dick cheney look bad for not going in and guarding -- getting saddam hussein right away. i blame part of it on the afghan military. they did not fight. we paid them. when we decided we didn't want to pay them anymore -- maybe biden did botch this whole thing, but this was from bush to biden and biden inherited what trump negotiated. if you would stop the blame game

and start looking at where the failure was -- the people of afghanistan do not want to fight. if you want freedom, you have to fight, but they did not want to fight because we were not paying them anymore. we have to stop these politicians complaining about whose fault it is. it is everybody's fault, from the generals to the president to congress and the senate. let's stop complaining about biden. maybe he did mishandle them leaving, but blaming somebody -- that is ridiculous. host: you said we need to look at where the failures are politicians saying this week they intend to do that. this from the usa today story -- the senate intelligence committee is coming through all intelligence gathered in and about afghanistan according to one senate staffer, working with

democrats and republicans on foreign relations and armed services committees coordinating a series of planned investigative hearings into actions taken by the white house according to that staffer. also, looking into the pentagon and state department. we owe those answers to the american people and all those who served and sacrificed so much, said mark winter -- mark warner, the democrat from virginia. so congressional investigations still to come. kathy, wisconsin, democrat. who is responsible here? caller: the problem is people do not understand because they did not learn a lesson in vietnam. it is definitely george bush and dick cheney who are responsible for this mess. i kind of blame barack obama because he should have taken us out when they got bin laden. the lesson is you cannot make

people stand up for a government that they did not want. the afghani soldiers do not want to this government. it is ours. we set it up. it is not in their nature to govern the way we want to them to. they walked away. it is not because they were not a courageous bunch of men. they did not want to fight for the government we put their. we should have learned this lesson in vietnam because the same thing happened then. host: on the former afghan government, it was yesterday that the nato secretary-general made his,'s about the situation in afghanistan, saying the internal clinical system and afghan government bears response ability here. -- responsibility here. [video clip] >> the united states agreed that

u.s. troops would withdraw by may. after many rounds of consultations, allies agreed to follow the u.s. decision. ending our military mission was not easy. we were faced with a serious dilemma, either leave and risk seeing the taliban regain control or stay and risk renewed attacks and an open ended combat mission. we never intended to stay in afghanistan forever. for the past few years, from over 100,000 troops, we went down to less than 10,000 and now 20. what we have seen in the last few weeks was a military and political collapse at the speed which had not been anticipated.

-- and now tell zero --t to zero. what we have seen in the last few weeks was a military and political collapse at the speed which had not been anticipated. this failure of afghan leadership led to the tragedy we are witnessing today. host: taking your phone calls, asking you who is most response will for the outcome in afghanistan. mitchell in new jersey, what do you think? caller: honestly speaking, it is a mixed problem. the trump administration signed the agreement.

why were they negotiating with the taliban in the first place? unless until just told us this was an unwinnable mass. approved by the u.n. security council also. you would never negotiate with terrorists and you would not do a 5-1 prisoner swap with your enemies. this was the taliban a bout a month after the agreement. there were a number of strikes and they killed about 900 afghan fighters. there were clearly major logistical problems to begin with. what the failure was and why the biden administration was doing

so badly in the withdrawal has to be investigated. was? ? there a problem in the intelligence -- was there a problem in the intelligence? it is hard to know yet. even if the united states had gotten out cleanly, as soon as we were gone this was going to be the net result. it is shocking to americans, but the public is not going to be too focused on this or care that much about it, which is sad but probably true. host: more voices from the former trump administration from vice president mike pence. biden broke our taliban deal, he writes. by the time we left office, the afghan government and taliban -controlled respective territories. america had only 2500 u.s. troops in the country.

the endless war was coming to a dignified end and insured we can conduct counterterrorism missions through the war's conclusion. the progress we made was possible because taliban leaders understood the consequences of violating the deal would be swift and severe. he said when mr. biden became president he announced u.s. forces would were rain in afghanistan for an additional four months without a clear reason for doing so. there was no plan to transport american equipment recently camp -- captured by the taliban or evacuate the thousands of americans now scrambling to escape kabul. thousands of afghan refugees will be seeking asylum with little or no vetting. it seems the president did not want to abide by the terms of a deal negotiated with his predecessor. if you want to read more, today's wall street journal. harry, pennsylvania, republican.

caller: the people i blame was this general milley. he read commonest -- communist manifesto. he wants to investigate white soldiers who voted for trump. these people kept us there for 20 years. as far as trump goes come he had a deal made. they were waiting for somebody like biden, somebody they could push around. all our so-called allies know who he is. he is on tv. this guy should not be in office. there is something wrong with him. he cannot think. that is the whole problem with this country. him and a couple generals calling people racist. he is the biggest racists of

all. if you are blocked, you cannot be a racist, -- black you cannot be a racist, right? caller: if we really look at the problems, it is ignorance on both sides. there has been ignorance for over 50 years. we have not understood from the historical point of view, just like in the crusades. people do not understand the crusades. that was the focus of islam taking over all of europe. we do not take and understand the degree of what the islam religion means. it meets submission by force. if we do not understand that, we have done over the years -- host: do you consider all muslims enemies?

you're talking about an entire religion. caller: the foundation of the islam religion -- i have read the koran. have you? host: i have not. caller: why have you not? if you have not can't you do not understand with philosophy is. our ignorance has put us in a situation where we deal with a problem in the wrong way. it is not a political issue. it is a religious war. we have just empowered the taliban because they are god has given them victory over the biggest -- their god has given them victory over the biggest nation in the world. host: in our 8:00 segment, we will talk more about the origins of the war in afghanistan and fighting in afghanistan before the united states was there. carter malkasian will join us,

author of "the american war in afghanistan." stick around for that discussion. harold in ohio, republican, you are next. caller: me? i am from riverside. host: go ahead. caller: i have had four sons in the military. i still have the oldest and youngest one and they are not ready to get out. i was in the military. what gripes me most about this, when you're leaving a country or pulling out, you either destroyer remains you left there -- you need to destroyer remains you left there for you do not leave them for the enemy. this is the most i have been afraid in the last 10 years,

with joe biden being president. it scares me in this time. host: do any of your sons serve over and afghanistan? caller: i have had a couple -- in afghanistan. caller: i have had a couple in iraq. the two who are still in there are in the united states. one is in fort bragg. it scares me to death, the way they are running our military now. what really upsets me is the equipment we left behind. destroy it or bring it home. do not leave it for the enemy. host: a couple stories from today's papers from the soldiers' perspective, this from the new york times. timothy cuno is the author and veteran. i served in afghanistan. beasts -- we sacrificed for a

lie is the headline. this about veterans pushing to help afghan interpreters and several soldiers interviewed for that story and the ongoing efforts to try to get them out. again, the wall street journal if you want to read that story. in alabama, independent. you are next. caller: good morning. it is joe biden's fault. i think everybody recognizes the buck stops with the chief executive officer of the nation, the president. this is an unmitigated disaster. the take away, the safety of the american nation and people is this. he has created this disaster, but the concern is the appalling weakness. week -- weak is how joe biden is

going to be remembered. red china, a 40 seven mile border in the northern regions of afghanistan. they are licking their chops, delighted at what is happening here. they are now moving their famous belt and root initiative, the modern silk road, across afghanistan. they have money with their new bromance, the taliban. they care nothing about human rights. i want to call out this vocal bunch of naive people led by aoc. you want to talk about female repression? welcome to afghanistan. they will not stand a day there. girls and women are not allowed to go to school, like slaves in america. they are castrated. they are abused. if you'll hunt omar -- ill had

omar -- ilhan omar and aoc have -- talk about repression, let's talk about afghanistan. host: chinese estate media mock -- chinese state media mocking the withdrawal from afghanistan. they write china is approaching its own plans with -- for engaging with the country under taliban rule. china's foreign military cited portrayals of a new saigon moment, tweeting side-by-side photos of helicopters evacuating from saigon and kabul with the words "history repeats itself." it goes on to talk about chinese engagements with the taliban. caller: i am a cold war vet.

i am retired now. i am calling to say if i was part of that, which i probably have been, it is the government of afghanistan, they take the full brunt of it. we may have made mistakes, but hopefully we will rectify that. i appreciate you talking to me. god bless. host: and at, alexandria, republican. -- annette, alexandria, republican. caller: why are callers rehashing 20 years of occupation? biden said this was his decision and he stands by it. the failed exit belongs to him. he announced in april we would leave by september 11. yet apparently he had no plans to do it right and allow the people to leave first.

then the vehicles, then the weapons, and now the troops. is that so hard to figure out? we have abandoned warehouse is filled with weapons and helicopters, a seven hundred million dollar embassy. the taliban just walked in without firing a shot. there could not have been any planning for this exit. if there was, this country is in trouble because we have failed. so far, they estimate 70,000 80,000 americans and afghan translators have been left behind. i heard yesterday they are being sent texts telling them find a way to get to the airport but we cannot guarantee your safety. the taliban are free to go wherever they want except the airport. and we are stuck there. this is embarrassing and humiliating.

host: the communication freezing used by embassy officials as they ask them to get to the airport, writing, please be advised the united states government cannot guarantee your security as you make this trip to the airport. that communication was sent to americans still in country and who may not be at the airport yet. in light of what you were discussing of the weapons in taken over by the taliban, questions now about that country once again perhaps becoming a training ground for terrorism. yesterday in an interview, a congressman from texas, the ranking member on the house foreign affairs committee, said there are now increased security risks because of u.s. decision-making here by the biden administration. this is what he told the washington post.

[video clip] >> when bagram airbase fell -- now it has fallen to the taliban. all that intelligence capability was gone. now that the embassy has shut down, we have no eyes and ears on the ground. it means we cannot see what is happening in afghanistan or with al qaeda, any potential threats to the homeland. beyond that, in the region. most importantly, that capability gave us eyes and ears on russia, china, and iran. this is a victory for our adversaries, for the taliban, who is going to celebrate the 20th anniversary on 9/11, probably raise their jihadist flag over the u.s. embassy. it is emboldening our enemies and weakening our allied friendships. i predict it is going to become a terrorist safe haven again and

we are going to look at potential external operations to hit americans once again. host: a congressman in his interview with the washington post yesterday. we are asking you who is most responsible for the outcome in afghanistan. we mentioned a business insider poll. some 1100 americans responded to that from earlier this week. respondents asked to rank nine entities in order of how responsible each was for the outcome of the war in afghanistan. here is the ranking based on the percentage of people who placed each entry into their top three. the taliban coming in the most responsible, most often ranked among the top three and 55%. afghan leadership, 40%. and afghan military, 41%. united states military leadership, 31.

then joe biden, barack obama, donald trump, and the united states military are the last on the list of those nine choices ranked the lowest as most responsible for the outcome. business insider without poll as we ask you who is most responsible for the outcome here in afghanistan. ellis in fort walton, a democrat. caller: good morning. after 30 plus years in the military, my assessment is the afghani's are responsible. we were there for 20 years training them, equipping them and everything. if they want to throw down their weapons and not fight, we do not need to be there. anybody that wants is there can sign up and go. i recommend not putting any troops over there. the people that were there that

saw what was coming up should have gone to the airport when they saw the thing was collapsing. it is their problem. host: that is ellis in florida. this is rcc on twitter. the blame is shared by all that were and are in the political space. bob in massachusetts is saying biden is completely at fault. afghan soldiers had no air support. carry on facebook saying bush, obama, and biden. obama kept it going but always promised to end it and biden was right there with obama and now botched the withdrawal. trump was drawing down but kept a loudmouth about retaliation. trump would never have left u.s. citizens and allies stranded and now trapped. steve saying it is the taliban. they waited and waited.

let's stop the blame game. both parties supported this. caller: good morning. i have listened and watched for the last couple days. your subject today is who is to blame for all this debacle in afghanistan. you need to try to focus on what is most important right now and what is important right now is the people, the americans in afghanistan. i do not care if you want to blame joe biden, if you want to blame the vice president, donald trump, whoever. we have thousands of americans over there and we need to find whatever it takes to get these people out and make sure they are safe. we have been talking about -- i have heard reports from cnn that

the state department and military are in an argument over who is to blame. i do not care. get these people home safely. that is all that matters. host: from the pentagon yesterday, this is major general hank taylor talking about plans to ramp up flights and the amount of people being evacuated. this is what he told reporters. >> right now, we are looking at one aircraft per hour in and out . the best effort to look like 5000 to 9000 passengers departing per day, but a number of factors influence this effort and circumstances could change. we will keep you updated. there are a number of unexpected challenges that can occur for personnel in a complex and dynamic security environment. we are confident we have taken the right steps to resume safe and orderly operations at the airport.

we continue to prioritize the safety of military personnel and those who await evacuation from afghanistan. we proceed through each day of this work with great effort and care. you have likely seen the image of afghan families in a cargo plane. this speaks to the humanity of our troops in this mission. the skill and professionalism of our u.s. military. host: general hank taylor from the pentagon yesterday. across the potomac river yesterday, white house press secretary jen psaki asked about the u.s. providing security for americans looking to leave afghanistan. this is what she said. >> americans have been called to the airport, but it is up to them to travel there at their own risk. why is it -- isn't the u.s. providing transportation for them? >> i would go back to what our

national security advisor discussed as it relates to the taliban and discussions about safe passage for people coming to the airport. we have seen -- i do not have an exact number. a large number of american citizens and others making their way successfully to the airport over the course of the last 24 hours. >> can you offer any guarantee to americans and afghan allies that, if they remain there past the end of the month, u.s. troops will help them evacuate? >> our focus right now is undoing -- on doing the work at hand and task at hand. that is day by day getting as many american citizens, as many members of a vulnerable population who are eligible to be evacuated to the airport and out on planes. that is the focus of the president, of our secretary of defense our secretary of state

and everybody on our national security team. host: covered all those events live in their entirety yesterday and we will continue to do so today as events continue to happen and is more information comes out. stay with us throughout the day and in the coming days as we cover that story. this morning, asking this question as this finger-pointing has been happening, letting you way in on the question of who is most responsible for the outcome here in afghanistan. kirk in alabama, independent. you are next. caller: i point the finger at the south carolina senator james clyburn and the black people of south carolina that listened to him when he begs them to save joe biden's candidacy. you combined that with the

plandemic and a stolen election and we have a president mr. magoo. had that not happened, any of the other candidates that were still democrats would have never won. we would have got the president we voted for, that we deserved, that would have gotten us out of that war in a dignified, honorable manner. host: david, flint, michigan, democrat. caller: good morning. i blame the afghanistan people and their army. the u.s. put money in there. we should have been out of afghanistan 15 years ago. we have been there way too long. i want people to know that all these people calling in this morning, those are people trying to win points for trump and the republican party. they are not concerned with

afghanistan. president biden is doing a great job. we democrats love him. i love the way he stepped out there and explained himself, stood his ground, did not act all weak boned. i am with him 100%. all these people calling in, they do not represent the american people. these are people trying to get trump back into office. host: this is alvin brown on twitter, saying everyone on capitol hill was responsible -- is responsible with the exception of my congressman -- congresswoman from oakland, barbara lee, the loan vote against military force in 2001. caller: to address the last

caller, if you think this is just the end -- this is just the beginning. china and iran are watching this closely. we are going to be attacked by this countries and joe biden and the coward he is -- he stole this election. he is not legitimate. the illegitimate president stole this election. this pull out was a commercial he wanted to make for upcoming elections, how he can show i am the president that ended the 20 year war and all this. this guy is nothing but talk and politics. he has never worked a job. he has never owned a company. his son is a bum. he smokes drugs. host: tom in san antonio on that line for veterans of the war in

afghanistan. go ahead. caller: i wanted to clarify that a lot of callers do not really understand how the afghan people see their country. it is a bunch of split tribes. they do not really see their nation as a nation. if you have a bunch of people that have no national recognition -- they do not realize afghanistan is their country. they just see their tribe and their land. they are not going to defendant. i'm not think it is their fault, but i'm try to say if you cannot get the people on your side -- you cannot get the people on your side if you're trying to get a democratic nation set up. there is just a lot of veterans have talked to and they are upset and feel we have lost battle buddies. we have lost the taxpayer money.

it sucks. host: when were you there? what was your capacity? caller: i was there in 2008 and 2009. i lost buddies. i feel like -- i am sure i'm not the only one, but i feel like it was for nothing. there is a wave of people that are mad at this, not just the americans stuck over there. a lot of the veterans -- this is not good. host: was there a way to win, in your mind? caller: in my personal opinion, i think it is a pullout to bolster for the chinese in the south china sea. i think that is getting so out of hand that we do not want to invest more efforts in afghanistan. we want to pull out of their and focus more on that area.

the tribes over there, they do not recognize the nation. there was no way. host: that line for veterans in the war in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. republicans can call in at (202) 748-8000. democrats, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. about 15 minutes left for this discussion this morning. canberra, north carolina, independent. you are next. caller: i could not agree more with the last caller, the veteran. if you study anything about the history of afghanistan and especially in the early 1900s, i believe 1919 or 1918 when the new borders were drawn, there

are so many different tribes with different ideas. i do not think they could have ever polled them all together into a cohesive central government. -- pulled them all together into a cohesive central government. i do not want to see any more of our young men and women losing their lives fighting in a country that is stuck in the middle ages. host: edmund in pennsylvania, go ahead. caller: i want to bring to attention the news on fox news where they say george bush, the former, and his wife issued a statement about unfolding crisis in afghanistan, but the message to u.s. troops, veterans, and diplomats and the intelligence

community who have served their country in the past two decades. the message was as follows. many of you deal with wounds of war visible and invisible. some of you, brothers and sisters in arms paid the ultimate sacrifice in the war. we forget it was bush and cheney that took us to war in iraq, along with his friends from the american enterprise institute. he is certainly responsible for the mess we are in now. however, he obviously is shortsighted in his approach year. i think the truth should be told, that bush has as much was

possibility for the mess we are in as biden. i cannot blame biden. it is time we took our troops out and closed the door here. that is all i have to say. i think they are both responsible. have a good day. host: that statement from former president bush and former first lady laura bush says, and speaking to those veterans and to pick off -- pick up on where you left off, each day we have been humbled by your commitment and courage. you took out a brutal enemy and denied al qaeda a safe haven while providing medical care. you kept america safe from further terror attacks, provided two decades of security and opportunity for millions and made america proud.

we thank you and will always honor your contributions. part of the statement from former president george w. bush. we talked about that yesterday as well. here are more of your comments. ashton kentucky says it is george h. w. bush -- ash in kentucky says it is george h. w. bush and bill clinton. hayden sang the outcome was set in stone as soon as bush and cheney invaded and occupied afghanistan. this is on them. just a few of your comments from social media. we will show you front pages around the country and the focus for a fourth day now mostly on afghanistan on this front pages. we will let you see those as we hear from jay in maryland on the line for veterans of the war of afghanistan. caller: i am a veteran from afghanistan and iraq.

this is a travesty, a slap in the face to not only the veterans of the united states but the veterans of our allies. i have lost friends, loved ones. i have spoken to my battle buddies, the ones that are still alive. they are despondent. across the nation, there is not someone who has served in this country who feels like this is the right move. if they do, they are ignorant. guest: you say -- in host: -- host: you say nobody feel sick this is the right move. do you mean leaving or the presence in which we left -- or the way in which we left? caller: we should leave a presence there. it should be a peacekeeping mission. we do not have to have the concentration, but we need to have a presence there for national security. the way we pulled out, it was so

ill planned, not thought out, not properly executed. it is deplorable. host: carrie also on that line out of detroit, michigan. what years were you there? caller: early, 2001, 2002. host: as somebody who was there so early, what are your thoughts 20 years later? caller: well, i was part of the group chasing osama bin laden. we were told to stand down, to

not pursue him. they did not say we want to alive, but i'm pretty sure we could have got him. and ended it right there. if not, right after he was killed, we should have left then. when we were going to leave, we should have let them know we were going to leave and then when they marshaled their forces to try to sneak up on all the provincial centers we should destroy them -- should have destroyed them, a little bit of deception likely used in world war i, world war ii two. it does not seem like our leaders have the ability to use deception or a fake and then

destroy the enemy. host: in your mind, was that the mission? was that the goal? should that have been legal in afghanistan, the death of osama bin laden and then that was it, to walk away after that? caller: that is how i feel. of course all of his pals, get as many of them as possible too. that is where deception would come in. host: after routing the taliban early, did we owe anything to afghanistan after helping the northern alliance and toppling the taliban government at that time? caller: do not forget al qaeda. host: of course. did we owe anything to the people after helping do that?

caller: i do not believe so. i believe the statement they are making today about afghan need to pick itself up, just itself off and get on with being afghan. that is just fine. to root out the terrorists, which george bush stood on the aircraft carrier and said mission accomplished. that was for iraq, but it was symbolic that we already beat of the taliban and al qaeda so bad they did not want much more of us. if they wanted to keep fighting, that would have been fine. as i said, i do not know where some of the tech that our troops in suits or our civilians in

suits -- i am not sure what they are thinking. you have to play a little deception. you have to deceive. you have to fake people out. when you lure them into an ambush, you crush them. host: one question we have and asking afghan war veterans, would you ever want to go back to afghanistan someday? not in a military capacity, but would you want to see the country again someday? caller: the country, believe it or not, i would really like to see. that is where the cradle of civilization began. they have a 5000 year old civilization. i would love to see some of these monuments from early civilization, but i do not think

they are going to give me a visa anytime soon to go and take me hostage. afghanistan is a beautiful place, but switzerland and southern austria and northern italy are beautiful and secure. host: thanks for chatting. just a couple more minutes left in this segment. we will try to get to his many calls as we can. cody, california, republican. caller: it is the president's fault, joe biden. he is in charge and our military intelligence is not up to par. those guys were there for a long time. you cannot tell me they did not know what was going to happen.

i remember obama put him over to get rid of the nra top -- to get those guns and then joe biden never followed up and made it our mission. it is definitely his fault. host: alan -- ellen, new york, democrat. caller: he made the agreement pull military out. he pulled half the people out. the other thing is that -- i do not believe this is the longest war.

-- with the north koreans. host: one more from richard in new york. caller: i do not put blame on any of the presidents. this has been a long war, a big campaign. thank you to all the veterans that fall on the ground -- fought on the ground and offended and did what they had to do while they were there. this has to do with a lot of business, oil, the afghans have plenty of time to be trained and equipped to have their own army to fight for their own people. on videos, you see these men at the airport and all you see as men. you don't see women climbing on these airplanes. they are not running away. the women were hiding, the men were hiding. this is something these men should have been armed and ready

to fight for their own country. you have plenty of men on that video and that is a small group, but i believe we have bigger fish to catch, so as far as the afghans or whoever is running this country now, the taliban, they are not as powerful and as big. they just hide. this is just another vietnam. host: that's richard in new york, the last caller in this hour of the "washington journal." stick around, plenty more to talk about and much more to talk about why afghanistan. we will have that talk next with carter malkasian who served as a civilian officer in afghanistan and is the author of the new book "the american war in afghanistan." the biden administration approved of the largest increase in food assistance benefits in the snap program history. we will talk about those changes

with bread for the world's heather taylor. stick around. we will be right back. >> sunday, c-span's series, january sixth, views from the house, continues. two more members of congress share stories of what they saw, heard, and experienced that day, including pennsylvania democrat susan while who recounts what happened during the early moments on the house floor. >> i honestly do not remember how long we were in that situation between the time they barricaded the door and the time we finally got out. jason crow told me it was somewhere like 20 minutes. it could have been two hours, he could have been five minutes that i had no sense of time whatsoever. but i remember when i got off of the phone with my kids that i felt as though my heart was pounding out of my chest. i felt -- i was worried i was having a heart attack.

i've never had a heart attack but i do have my father -- my father had heart attacks. we have a family history, so i was worried about that. i must have put my hand up to my chest because that photograph of me that was taken shows me lying almost on my back with my hand to my chest. i do not remember lying on my back. but i do remember jason taking my hand and just stroking it and comforting me and telling me i was going to be ok and being a little perplexed that he was reassuring me because i did not realize i was showing how upset i was. >> this week, you will also hear from massachusetts democrat jim mcgovern. january 6, views from the house, sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: carter malkasian joins us

now, a former u.s. political officer in afghanistan and author of the recent book, the american war in afghanistan. what years were you in afghanistan? describe the job you are doing when you are in country. guest: i was first in afghanistan for a bit in 2007 and 2008. i was in there again in helmand province hear from 2009 to 2011. after that, i was there in 2013-2014 as a senior advisor to general dunford. later on, when i was the advisor of the joint chiefs of staff, i went there in 2018 and 2019 to help the general on the ground and supervise some representation. so that is kind of a general overview of my time in afghanistan. host: been there plenty of

times, stepping back to the larger picture, 20 years, more than $1 trillion spent. at the peak, well over 100,000 coalition troops. at least on paper. a strong afghan government. what went wrong in afghanistan? why didn't we win? guest: it was probably the kind of situation where winning was never going to be easy, and perhaps was not simply not in the cards. the reason i say that is because the reasons the afghans were fighting, the reasons the taliban did well were pretty hard to change. one of these was the corruption that we see in the afghan government, the degree to which government officials would take money, including hoarding weapons or selling off the weapons or not keeping the

numbers of soldiers in the force the level they were supposed to be at in order so they could pocket salaries. that have other problems like the government forces had problems with cohesion, did not always coordinate or work well together the way they should. whereas the taliban are pretty good cohesion. they are not like a u.s. military force but they are more cohesive than the government is. the last thing, there are a few points, but the last one is important. the taliban were fighting occupiers. the idea of not allowing someone to occupy one's country is fairly deeply tied to what it means to be afghan. it is part of their history, part of their private life, and it is not hard to understand because it is something that is common in many histories. -- many countries. we can see it in our own history. so a taliban fighter can be inspired by what he is doing,

how he is fulfilling his role in life, fulfilling what it means to be an afghan. whereas someone in the government can be less inspired. they can be drained by the fact that they are working for a government that is working alongside an occupier. they question what they are doing. this is something we see in surveys, something we can see why the taliban says they fight and why the government says they are having a hard time. when you think about the things i mentioned, the reasons we have had trouble, these are not things easy to fix. these are things very difficult to fix. you said what did we do wrong. i'm not trying to relve us -- absolving us from blame, there were mistakes made. the strategy could have been managed better and managed with less costs for the american people and less lives cost. early on, we were overconfident.

that led us to reject, including the taliban on the political process, and taking the time to build an army. doing either of those things could have meant we could have saved resources, lost fewer american lives. another action which gets a lot of criticism and is well-known is the surge. as i criticize the surge, i should clarify i'm not jumping up and down saying don't surge. i was in afghanistan and i was distracted on other matters. but sending in those forces from 2009 to 2011, which our forces reaches 100,000 on and which cost us about $100 billion per year during that time. that infuse of forces did help things tactically, we did get more ground and we did really push the taliban back and gave them a horrible time. in the end, as we have now seen, all of those things have washed away.

the progress and improvements we made during that time really washed away by 2015 to 2016. in retrospect, it would have been better not to have surged at all because it would have saved us money and saved us lives and gotten about the same result. host: the insurmountable problems that you talk about, the corruption, the cohesion, the mindset of the taliban, are those things that we should have recognized they were insurmountable problems earlier then we did? y 20 years later are we finally talking about those as insurmountable problems? guest: yes and no. so the corruption was fully recognized and there are many people who identified this as an issue that needs to be handled. a journalist, writer, i putter at the top of the list to call this out. a general realized this was a

problem. multiple administrations realized it. they made attempts to change it, but i don't think it was fully realized how that -- it was not realized by everyone how this was something that could be changed. it was realized by some by a general who called out things early on. on the other hand, they were things recognized area it is ironic how the bush administration realized in 2001 that's going to afghanistan could have a reaction. they were wary about things. that is why in 2001, we went in with such low forces. but they also had to go in because of 2001. it is hard to see, even in retrospect, how the bush administration had could have avoided going into afghanistan.

i think we need to understand looking back and remember the feelings of 2001, remember how we felt attacked, remember how we had a feeling for vengeance. those feelings overwhelmed the caution of going into afghanistan. it is hard to see how otherwise it would not have occurred. after that, could they have gotten out? could they have done something different? even then, for many years it was hard because the concern of terror was so high in the united states. host: we are chatting with carter malkasian and we are taking your phone calls as well. we will make sure to fix his zoom connection as well but let me promote the phone lines to do that. it is (202) 748-8001 for republicans to call in and ask the questions that you want to ask. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002.

as we have been doing all week long, as we have these discussions about afghanistan, (202) 748-8003 is the number for veterans of the war in afghanistan to call in. carter malkasian, our guest in this segment, the off of their -- the author of the book "the american war in afghanistan." we take a few calls as we reconnect via zoom with him. kirk in conway, south carolina. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am an early draftee vietnam vets. i was in from 1967 to 1969 and that's was a time when we still had hope of having victory in vietnam. after 69 -- 1969-1970, it devolved. in 1975, we got out. i see the same thing in afghanistan. it is depressing to relive this again, to see the most powerful country in the world have to

slink away from something they got involved with with all good intentions. now, it is very depressing for me because i think that history has repeated itself. our leaders don't understand what they need to do, and you had someone on earlier, a congressman, and he had some valid points. while we were in afghanistan, we had eyes and ears on iran, china, and russia, and now we will not have that any longer. i believe once we got into afghanistan, we should have did what we wanted to do as far as punishing them for the 9/11. we probably should have only been there five to six years and then gotten out, but we did not. we stayed.

now, i don't think biden had any choice. at some point, a president had to pull out. whatever president was going to pull out was going to catch the flak. host: you bring up that interview, he washington post interview, with the house foreign affairs committee ranking member michael mccaul about the danger posed in afghanistan now and what it could mean for adversaries of the united states. also questions yesterday at that white house briefing to white house national security advisor jake sullivan about afghanistan once again becoming a terrorist safe haven. here is a bit from his comments yesterday. [video clip] >> our position is that we are going to have to deal with the potential threat of terrorism from afghanistan, going forward. just as we have to deal with the potential threat of terrorism in dozens of countries in multiple continents around the world. we have to deal with the threat of terrorism in yemen, somalia, syria.

we have to deal with the threat of terrorism across the islamic province, we have to deal with al qaeda and isis, and do so using a wide variety of tools and capabilities, and in some cases, the support we can provide to local partners to meet the challenge. what we have show, and many of the countries i just mentioned among others, we have been successful to date in suppressing the terrorist threat to the u.s. homeland in those countries without sustaining a permanent military presence or fighting in war. that is what we intend to do with respect to afghanistan as well. this is not a question on whether we are clear about the terrorist challenge of afghanistan. it is about whether the terrorist challenge in 2021 is fundamentally different from the challenge in 2001. we believe it is fundamentally different and we need to be postured effectively to deal with the terrorism challenges we find in today as opposed to 20 years ago. host: white house national

security advisor jake sullivan yesterday from the press briefing room at the white house. taking your phone calls as we continue to talk about afghanistan. michael in imperial beach, california. go ahead. caller: good morning, john. mr. malkasian, i would like host: your perspective. we are still trying to restore -- your perspective. host: we are still trying to restore the connection. but ask your question and i will make sure we get it to him. caller: for us, it is catholic and protestant, northern ireland. they believe in the same god but kill each other. i was wondering his perspective on the she, where they believe in the same god but they kill each other, they hate each other , and that is basically my question. and the men control over women. i was wondering his perspective on that. host: thanks for the questions. tom from california. you are next. caller: good morning.

good morning, america. my question is this, i live in fresno, california and we have potholes. i live in california and we are drying out in water but we are spending billions of dollars in a landlocked country where they don't even have a 20 story building. everything they have obtained we built there. why don't we come home, we have killed osama bin laden. why don't we fix america? we have had people to rush the capitol and try to overthrow their country, the greatest country on this planet. as an american citizen, i am a little confused by other americans calling in and talking about something -- they are like camels, they cannot swim here and if they get here, america will kill them. why are we worried about someone a thousand miles away when we should be rebuilding this country? that is my only comment. host: did you feel that way in

the months after the september 11 terror attacks when we found out about the bases in afghanistan, the al qaeda training bases in afghanistan? did you have the same feelings? why should we be concerned about someone so far away? caller: when the saudis climbed into their airplanes and drove in tower buildings and neglected to look at saudi arabia and where they were teaching hate for america, osama bin laden was a saudi citizen. he was not an afghanistan citizen. when the soviets came to afghanistan and the helicopters were killing them from the air, we decided to come in with stinger missiles and teach them the american way of fighting. years later, they turned that back onto us. but we killed the head of the snake, the body died. it's a landlocked country and those people can't come and hurt

us. we are the united states of america. we are the greatest nation on this planet. host: this is randy out of texas. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is quite frankly we had no business invading and occupying afghanistan after september 11 attacks. there has been numerous reports by journalists that have said that there was no threat to america from afghanistan as it related to the 9/11 attacks. host: was it our business to find osama bin laden and bring him to justice? guest: i don't believe -- caller: i don't believe so. quite frankly, i do not believe osama bin laden had anything to do with the terrorist attacks in afghanistan. not at all. i believe that this was a unilateral invasion by america to literally -- host: we will hold off on

conspiracy theories for 9/11. tess in north carolina, good morning. caller: hi, john. what i was going to say, and i agree totally with the gentleman from california. probably 95% of americans want to come home from afghanistan, so we need to stop the nonsense that has been going on about people not wanting us to bring our troops home and people wanting us to. that is just ridiculous. the issue is how this was done. it was totally botched, and many people probably will die over this. biden did not make this decision on how to do this. i do not know who did, i do not think it was him. i do not think he is capable, at this point in time in his life,

to be making hard decisions. who made the decision to retreat in the manner we did? the military left in the middle of the night and left all of the people who should have gone first. now they cannot get out. host: that is tess in north carolina on the decisions 20 years in afghanistan. i want to take you back to the beginning, october 2001, george w. bush announcing the decision to go into afghanistan. this is former president bush. [video clip] >> on my orders, the united states military has begun strikes against the al qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the taliban regime in afghanistan. these carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use

of afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and attack the military capability of the taliban regime. we are joined in this operation by our friend, great britain. our other close friends including canada, australia, germany, and france pledged forces as the operation unfolds. more than 40 countries in the middle east, africa, europe, and across asia have granted air transit or landing rights. many more have shared intelligence. we are supported by the collective will of the world. more than two weeks ago, i gave taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands, close terrorist training camps, hand over leaders of the al qaeda network, and return all foreign nationals, including american citizens unjustly detained in your country. none of these demands were met. now, the taliban will pay a price. host: former president george w.

bush back from 20 years ago, october of 2001. we were chatting with carter malkasian, the author of the book "the american war in afghanistan," former state department political officer in afghanistan, joining us via zoom. he won't be joining us this morning. a power outage in the place where he is out in california is going to keep him from joining us, but with some any calls already on the topic of afghanistan, we will continue on this for about another 15 or 20 minutes to let you continue to make your comments here as we have set up this discussion. then a little later, we will turn to our open forum. about 20 minutes left to go ahead and continue your calls on the topic of afghanistan. john in jacksonville, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to just say tom from fresno made an excellent

point about our entrance into these wars. if you look at the history of this country, this is typical american and western mentality when it comes to the war. they do not do the research. they did not to the research into vietnam. after the war, i think it was ho chi minh told robert mcnamara that we never like to the chinese, the chinese were our enemies. but the united states went on to vietnam, telling everyone if we do not, the dominoes will fall and communism will take over the world. we fast-forward through the rock war -- iraq war. they just went in there and lumped everybody together. the entire region is put together by the western powers, britain, they just lumped these people together without taking into consideration these people are tribal.

they do not care about nations and the boundaries west decide. you're going to have problems. china will find out the same thing. [laughter] that's all i have to say. host: john in nebraska, you are next. caller: yeah, i was calling to say how can an elected official look us in the face and send troops and put them in harm's way defending other country's borders when we don't even defend our own borders? how can they look us in the face and be honest about it. they are not protecting american lives. that is it. thank you. host: franco out of pennsylvania, your next. caller: yeah, i would like to say, with all of these open borders, like the last guy was saying, if they don't think the taliban are going to be coming over and terrorizing our nation,

everybody is in for a big surprise. you know what is going to fall -- you know who it is going to fall on? it is going to fall on biden because these borders are still wide open. i just do not understand why they are not closed. it is all going to fall on him, so everybody that voted for biden, i hope they are happy. that is all i had to say. host: susan out of michigan, good morning. you are next. caller: good morning. i would like some positivity. the sin, we did something, we are out of it, it is sad what is happening over there, but enough is enough. we need to pull together and stop pointing fingers at each other, the democrats did it, the independents did it, the republicans did it, stop. we are one country. let's get together. enough is enough. host: you talk about the finger-pointing. there will be congressional investigations officially into the withdrawal of the u.s.

troops and equipment and the final withdrawal from afghanistan. we found out this week, the senate intelligence committee chairman said he pledged tough but necessary questions about why we were not prepared for a worst-case scenario involving such a swift and total collapse of the afghan government and security forces. that is from the senate intelligence committee chairman. this is from today's lead editorial from usa today. they write if lessons are to be learned and credibility in u.s. foreign policy is to be called back, the american public and allies deserve straight talk under oath from biden administration officials. they say all they have gotten from the president was a lengthy rehash monday on why he left afghanistan. some finger-pointing over the botched exit and a tepid acknowledgment that it was hard and messy and yes, far from perfect. despite a gratuitous remark about the buck stopping with

him, biden offered blame shifting that deserves to be challenged, they rights. one case in point during a news briefing on july 8, the commander-in-chief was asked about what he knew about the prospects of a taliban takeover of afghanistan. your own intelligence committee assessed the afghan government will likely collapse, a reporter said. that is not true, biden responded. they did not recheck -- reach that conclusion. there were several reports by u.s. officials weeks earlier that the u.s. intelligence committee was predicting the fall of the kabul regime within six most of the u.s. withdrawal. so which is it? did those occur and if they were where they communicated with the president? that is from the editorial board of usa today. we spent the first hour of our program talking about who is responsible for the outcome in afghanistan. plenty of discussion about that

all week long. it was president biden in that address two americans back monday, placing a large part of the blame on afghanistan's political leadership for the chaos and ongoing chaos in that country. this is what he had to say monday. [video clip] pres. biden: the political leaders of afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down. they would never have done so while u.s. troops remained in afghanistan, bearing the brunt of the fighting for them. and our true strategic competitors, china and russia, would love nothing more than the united states to continue to final billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing afghanistan indefinitely. when i hosted president ghani at the white house in june, and again when i spoke by phone to

ghani in july, we had frank conversations. we talked about how afghanistan should prepare to fight the civil war's after the u.s. military departed, to clean up the corruption in government so the government could function for the afghan people. we talked extensively about the need for afghan leaders to unite politically. they failed to do any of that. i also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the taliban. this advice was flatly refused. mr. connie -- ghani insisted the afghan forces would fight but obviously he was wrong. host: president biden back monday taking -- monday. taking your calls this morning. rick is up next. go ahead. caller: hello. good morning. my opinion is america and the

afghan army did not -- were not allowed to fight against an asymmetric enemy. so the taliban were able to go into villages and killed the elders or whatever government was in there, especially in the countryside, and the u.s. and the afghan military were not. so they were hand tied, just as in vietnam. as others said, they are tribal country and democracy does not even exist if there is not an economy. and they had neither. those are my comments and i agree with the others on the tribal type of civilization they have there. host: that is rick out of rhode island. michelle out of staten island. you are next. caller: good morning.

i would like to talk about cleaning our own house. aren't you supposed to clean your own house before you go clean somebody else's? we have open borders. what about covid? all these people coming in, are they being tested? this is a danger to the united states of america, the greatest country in the world. that is all i have to say. host: calvin in texas, you are next. good morning. caller: i'm a veteran of the desert storm/desert shield division of the army. we spent 20 years in afghanistan training. you can train people to be a soldier, you can teach them how to gather intelligence, but one thing you can't teach is courage. my comment may be seen as critical, but when you have 75,000 taliban fighters and 300,000 plus afghanistan

security forces that has been well-trained by the united states military, and now we see where they just are laying down their arms, that is a lack of courage. when we look at what is happening over there, now you have more men -- afghanistan men trying to get out of the country then you can see females. so you can teach technique and how to fight a war and how to gather intelligence but you cannot teach courage. and right now, there is a lack of courage. thank you. host: on individuals trying to get out of afghanistan, we talked about this picture yesterday, some 640 afghans packed into the u.s. air force c 17 leaving kabul. that's from -- images from sunday, that a picture originally taken, one of the highest number of people ever in one of those c17, more than five

times the amount allowed normally. at the pilots making the decision to go with some 640 passengers. one more call, joel is waiting in mountain home arkansas -- mountain home, arkansas. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is this. president biden will be just another jimmy carter. that is what will be his legacy now, just another jimmy carter that could not get the people out. and one more thing i would like to say, kathleen harris is the vice president that never received a vote. host: that is joel, our last color in this segment of the "washington journal." it is just after 8:30 and we will open it up and let you lead the discussion as we often like to do. it is our open form segment. you can continue to talk about afghanistan or any other political or public policy issue that is on your mind, what is

happening in your state. plenty of other news we will get to. it is our open form phone lines split as usual, republicans (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. go ahead and start calling in for our open forum and we will get your phone calls after the break. ♪ ♪ >> if you choose to research the origins of a topic discussed frequently in the united states in recent months called critical race theory, you will find the name derek bell. law professor bell, who died in 2011, was one of the principal originators of this much discussed subject. in november of 1992, derrick bell appeared on book notes to discuss his book "faces at the

bottom of the well, the permanence of racism." >> the late derrick bell, a tenured professor, on this episode of book notes+. listen on c-span.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> weekends on c-span two are any intellectual feast. every saturday, you will find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv. sundays, book tv brings you a books and authors, television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span two. >> "washington journal" continues. host: it is just after 8:30 on the east coast, and as we often like to do, we will let you

leave the discussion on the "washington journal." it is our open forum. whatever public policy or political issue you want to talk about, we can continue to talk about afghanistan as we have done in the first half of this program. phone lines to call in, republicans (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. some none afghanistan related news to keep you updated on the biden administration deciding most admire ken's -- most americans should get a coronavirus booster eight months after their second shot and could begin offering third shots as early as the third week of september. that is according to administration officials familiar with the discussion. officials at the white house today, their goal is to let americans receive the pfizer and moderna vaccine snow now that they will need additional protection -- know now that they will need additional protection against the delta variant. that press conference will be

taking place early this afternoon and we will be airing it on c-span if you want to watch along with its. in other covid news, plenty of coverage of the story out of texas. governor greg abbott tested positive for the coronavirus. he is among republican governors who have resisted public health mandates in their states aiming at stemming the tide of the delta variant. noting and a video he posted tuesday, abbott said he has been vaccinated and that may be one of the reasons why i'm not feeling symptoms right now. i have no fever, no aches, no pains, no other symptoms. the washington post noting videos and photos posted online by his gubernatorial campaign show him delivering marks and and a mask list crowd indoors monday night. at some coverage of the covid diagnosis of governor out of texas. one more story we will be

talking about more in a little less than an hour, 9:30 a.m. eastern time, the story about snap benefits and the increase snap recipients will be seeing in just a few weeks here. all 42 million americans who receive food stamps will soon see their benefits rise, the largest permanent increase in the program's history. the biden administration is set to make that announcement under rules to be put in place in october. average benefits will rise by more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels. the move does not require congressional approval. and unlike the large pandemic era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last. we will talk about why that is happening and how that is happening at 9:30 a.m. eastern. you can stick around with -- around for that discussion. until then, it is our open forum. let us know what topics you want to talk about. ralph's first out of maryland, a democrat.

in morning. caller: good morning. -- good morning. caller: good morning. i don't understand all of this criticism of joe biden. the previous president, trump, campaigned on getting us out of afghanistan. he is the one that negotiated the deal to withdraw, to get us out of there. biden has implemented it. the military had all of these years to formulate a plan for a withdraw from this war. it has been kind of a discombobulated mess. they had all of this time to get a plan a, a plan b in place, and you see what we have got and i firmly believe that all of the criticism or blame for this, it falls squarely on the military.

i do not think the biden administration deserves the criticism they are getting. it is the military that screw this up. host: as commander-in-chief and the head of the u.s. military, do you think joe biden should have been more aware of the military planning here? caller: possibly. but still, the bottom line is i think the fault lies with the military. host: mike is next out of new mexico. a republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: i'm doing all right. caller: good. right over your right shoulder you see the capitol building and there are two u.s. flags flying. and the man that runs that place is the leader of our military, and he is the one in charge of calling the shots of how this thing -- how this deal happened in afghanistan. host: will the president is over at the white house. this is the congressional --

this is where the house and senate meets. this is the united states capitol, but i take your point. caller: that is his building. my point is he is running the show and he is not running the show like he should. host: that is mike in new mexico. this is anita out of chicago, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i am hearing everybody's questions. the reason why i am independent is everyone is disagreeing, all of the fingerpointing. i agree with the lady before, let's move on. we have enough people coming in from our borders, we have a pandemic hitting up with delta, with covid, and we have the flu coming up and people have also died with that. we have enough of a mess in our own country to deal with let alone with everybody coming in from borders and bringing in viruses because they do not have the means to take care of that

in their country. that is why they are coming here. they have had more than enough time to be trained with our military there for 20 years. our military needs to be home as well. 20 years is more than enough time to be trained and be able to take care of your own country. host: anita, on taking care of our own country, a three point $5 trillion budget reconciliation package -- $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package that passed in the senate will go to the house. democrats say this is the way to take care of our country, addressing educational needs, environmental needs. you think that is the way to take care of our own country, the $3.5 trillion spending deal. caller: in a way, but why should we be taking care of other people's countries when we have a mess of our own here? they are just bringing them in planes. we have our own here to take care of.

we have a big mess. it is just getting worse and worse and worse. 20 years is enough time to be trained to be handling your own country if someone is trying to overthrow the government. host: anisa, got your point on the budget -- point. on the budget reconciliation bill, the latest reporting, house members said they planned to press ahead with advancing the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint next week, disregarding warnings from moderate democrats who said they will oppose the legislation without first voting on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. the house a set to return to washington in the middle of a scheduled august recess to advance the budget bill after the senate passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill and budget plan this month. the new york times noting the budget resolution would allow democrats to craft their subsequent economic package with funding for health care,

childcare, education provisions, tax increases on the wealthy and corporations without fear of a republican filibuster. in a statement sunday, nine moderate democrats remain adamant we sibley cannot afford any delays, saying they first went the vote on that bipartisan infrastructure bill. that is from the new york times this morning. bob in illinois, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. love c-span. and an answer to ralph, i can't believe how naive he is to think biden does not own this whole situation. if trump was to in there, all of our foreign leaders are so scared of trump, they would not dare act the way they are now. what i wanted to talk about was i heard the president in a rehearsed speech someone else wrote for him fixed the corruption in afghanistan and i

said we should fix the corruption here. the news media does report on hunter biden and the biden family taking millions from russia and china. they are so scared to touch it. it is the third rail of politics, but somebody has got to start talking about how corrupt our government is. as far as that $3.5 trillion, the dems better wake up, it is a giant power grab. they want to take control of this whole country. if they push forward with that, 2022 will be a bloodbath. host: you talk about the news media, did you happen to catch former president trump on hannity last night? caller: absolutely, share. host: what is you think of his comments on this situation in afghanistan? caller: a perfect example. he is 100% right, but twitter, here is the president of the united states and twitter takes about -- twitter won't even let him speak. they are hosting all of these other warlords and everything. it is a perfect example of

mainstream media covering up. they have to let trump out of the cage. we need trump so bad. i pray every 90 is here in 2040 and can take back this country. we should have never let him go. i don't thing we let him go. i thing they're working to find those affidavits or who cheated and how many -- host: you are talking about letting former president trump speak? sean hannity let him do that last night, including on the idea of the biden administration pointing the finger back to the trump administration for putting the withdrawal deal in place. this is what former president trump had to say last night on hannity. -- [video clip] >> what we were going to do quickly as we were going to take the military outlast. the people were coming out, they were coming out, but the agreement was violated so i held things back because we were not going to do anything conditions based.

so they were fulfilling their obligations. just to finish, people come out first, then i would take all of the military equipment. we have billions and billions of dollars of brand-new blackhawk helicopters that russia will now be examining and so will china and everybody else because they figure it is the greatest in the world. we have brand-new army tanks and all sorts of equipment, missiles. we have everything. i was going to take it out because i knew they were not going to fight. just one thing, and i have to say, this is different from everyone else, i said why are they fighting? why are these afghan soldiers fighting against the taliban? i was told bad information by a lot of people. they are among the highest paid soldiers in the world. they were doing it for a paycheck. because once we stopped, once we left, they stopped fighting. all of the people that talk about the bravery and everything, i say everybody is brave but our

country was paying the afghan soldiers a fortune. so we were sort of bribing them to fight, and that is not what it is all about. it is a great thing we are getting out, but nobody has ever handled a withdrawal worse than joe biden. this is the greatest embarrassment in the history of our country. host: former president trump on hannity last night. the subject the previous caller brought up about social media allowing the taliban regime to have a voice, a story on that from the new york post. this is how they lead their story. unlike former president donald trump, the faces and voices of the reconstituted regime can tweet to their hearts content. in a statement obtained by media on tuesday, twitter dr. the question of whether it would bar representatives of the islamic representative government from getting their message out 280 characters at a time, saying only it would continue to proactively enforce its rules,

allowing the glorification of violence come up -- violence, platform manipulation, and twitter's priority is to keep people safe and we remain vigilant, according to the statement. taliban spokespeople have unverified twitter. one of them has more than 310,000 followers as of this week. that story from the newark post. -- new york post. it is our open forum, letting you take the lead about the topics you want to talk about. this is brian an -- in virginia, any independent. caller: good morning. i chuckle at some of the other callers. anyway, i wanted to talk about the vaccines. they are talking about moderna and pfizer and how people may need a booster shot. that is fine. what they ignore, all of the media, and i do mean all of the

media, they ignore johnson & johnson, which is the shot i got along with millions of others. am i going to need a booster but nobody wants to talk about johnson & johnson? host: let me finish the paragraph that we did not get to in that story that talks about the boosters. it speaks directly to the question you're asking, so this is the new york times story we referred earlier too. it recipients of the johnson & johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one does regimen will also most likely require an additional does according to the officials that the new york times talked to but they are waiting for results expected this month from a clinical trial that provided participants with two doses of that. so far, only about 14 million people have gotten the johnson & johnson shot, so more information waiting before that official recommendation is going to come. caller: that is great. but every night i watch the news and watch multiple channels. they only talk moderna and

pfizer, and i did hear a little blip about it earlier. my second point is, with all of these schools, and i do not have children in schools so that is ok but i have an opinion about it, that some schools want to mask the children, especially the ones under 12 that cannot get the vaccine. why don't they put the ones the parents that say i do not want my child mask, fine, put them in one room and put the mask lists ones in another. -- masks, fine. put them in one room and put the maskless ones in another. if something happens to these children, that is your decision. but don't force that on someone who says i want my child mask. that i think is just wrong of people to say i don't want my child mask and i will let him, if he's got it, spread it all over the place. i think it is unfair. host: that is brian in hamilton,

virginia on mask mandates, though it is not schools as the caller was talking about. but this on mask transits, the transportation said yesterday it will extend a federal mask mandate for airline bus -- airline, bus, and train passengers into next year, requiring face coverings until january 18, 2022. the mandate was issued in the first days after president biden took office and was never relaxed, even during the early summer months when the cdc told people masks were generally no longer necessary while a cdc order imposing the transportation requirement has no end date. the tsa enforcement rules had been set to expire september 13 and that is no longer the case. paul is next out of arizona, it democrats, good morning. -- a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i am amazed at the 2020 vision.

my father used to tell me everything is perfect when you look back. i almost puked listening to him. he has no concept of how to bring troops out of any country. afghanistan in particular, alexander the great marched out of afghanistan humiliated. the english marched out of afghanistan humiliated. the russians marched out of afghanistan humiliated. now, we are leaving out of afghanistan humiliated. every time a conflict like this has ended, it is messy. and they are blaming biden. biden just got the tail end of this thing. he is the one that finally had to pull the plug. somebody had to pull the plug sometime. and biden did it. bravo, president biden. host: do you agree with the

decision to leave but disagree with the manner in which we left? caller: no. you have to make a decision sometime, you have to cut the cord. would next week be any different? what a month from now be any different. -- different? would six months from now be any different? host: that is paul in arizona. this is malcolm in louisiana, a republican, good morning. caller: i have a couple points i would like to make. i would like to know when americans, real americans, are going to stand up to the government and start telling them y'all can't control everything in my life. i myself think people of this country need to stand up and start taking back our rights. we are losing rights every day to the governments of the federal government and to our state legislatures -- state governments.

it is absolutely ridiculous. host: what makes a real american? caller: a real american is one that believes in this country and continues to do what is proper to keep the country running properly and not sit on your duff and wait for a handout from d.c. or someone to give you a bunch of money for doing nothing. host: that is malcolm in louisiana. this is elizabeth out of new york city, it democrats. good morning. -- a democrats, good morning. elizabeth, are you there? caller: hello? host: make sure you turned on your television and speak through your phone. caller: i am on speaker. host: elizabeth, you are on their live now. what is your comment? caller: yes, hello america. -- hello, america. i am a doctor, ok?

i am a doctor of clinical psychotherapy and analysis and data. i am retired. my husband is a neurosurgeon who is also retired. it was absolutely daunting after 9/11 with the families that i work with. from 8:00 in the morning and i did not come home until 11:00. people say that -- and i often would comment the same thing -- that we have a notion separating two countries, and how in gods

name was the taliban able to pass through security -- was the taliban able to pass through security and do 9/11 where i saw from my office, people falling out of buildings, and watching the chaos on top of it. i had patients that suffer from ptsd, anxiety, including children who have lost parents. it was daunting. my husband was a neurosurgeon. don't patronize us. we are very involved in the data and research and still are with medical journals that are coming through, and it is quite obvious

to the medical field that joe biden is incompetent as a president. there is something going on with him neurologically. you can see the way he walks, you can see the fast run, which is a trick to get energy, you see him speak, he can't complete a sentence, and the way he got out of afghanistan was a total disc buckle -- debacle. host: our next caller, arlington, virginia. good morning. >> thanks -- caller: thanks for taking my call. i've been thinking about this afghanistan thing for a while. people have a lot of criticisms about how we left. warranted are not, there is no scenario i can devise in my head where anything goes differently than what happened, regardless

of when we leave, regardless of how long we stay and how many troops we commit to it. it seems like with the ana and its capacity, a lot of provincial capitals without firing a single shot. that seems very strange because at least from the messaging we were receiving from folks that they were ready to fight and they were committed to fighting, and it seems like the only area of the country that is doing that effectively is the valley, which seems to be having a robust resistance right now. it seems like there's a will to fight, but something happened across the country where these provincial capitals fell without a single shot. that sends a wave across the country that starts moving toward kabul. i do not see anything that president biden could have done in a different manner that would

have evaded some sort of chaotic scene at the airport at the end of the day. host: you talk about the chaotic scene at the airport, this from jane ferguson on twitter. a correspondent for pbs newshour, some of the scenes at the kabul international airport. we will show that to you as we hear next from joe in maine, it democrats, good morning. -- a democrat, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to make a few comments. first off, trump was on, the ex-president, twice impeached. last year, trump and pompeo forced the afghan government that they would not allow at the meeting to release 5000 taliban prisoners. second thing i would like to

say, listening to all of these republicans scream we've got to save, look at what they did. they don't want to investigate the insurrection, they fought payments to the fire and police and emergency workers for 9/11. what did that take, 20 years to get that? they fought it and they are screaming now and everyone of them that has the nerve to ask for an investigation when they are boding to not investigate january 6, what the heck is that ? host: do you think this country right now is on the right track. -- track? caller: absolutely. it biden says the buck stops here and donald trump ran for the hills and said he got cheated in an election with no facts. he is a liar. he has been a liar since the first time i called four years

ago. and told him he was telling you that he did not have any business with russia. i mean there is 20,000 lives in the city it gets to get put on your tv to promote the nonsense you just said? host: that is joe in maine on the right track and wrong track numbers in this country, some of the latest polling from morning console. right now, the 57% of the respondents to their polling, to the political intelligence polling, saying the country is on the wrong track, 43% saying the country is on the right track. the wrong track number, down from the 75 to 77% range it was at the end of the trump administration. but more people in this country are thinking we are on the right track then the right track. patricia is in sterling

heights, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm just listening to these people. it is typical on the left when they can't went on the policy they bring up propaganda. most americans [indiscernible] we are not planing biden for wanting to get outs. it is how he did it. that is the problem. i was listening to fox this morning and there is an american that is gambling his life and has been on skype, he is begging for help and he tried to get the airport. he said there is thousands of people, they had a cell phone, stomped on it, taliban are all over, he can show his passport's papers, he is an afghanistan american, said he cannot show it because he will -- they will kill him for his papers.

he said his family fight is in danger. he said please, bring your soldiers in, we can't get to the airport. there are thousands of afghanistan's around, taliban is around, we don't know where to go and there is no embassy. he said, for god sakes, somebody has to do something for us. host: there was reporting yesterday about the communication that went out to americans a stone the country, instructing them to get to the kabul international airport, though noting they cannot guarantee their security as they make that trip. i democrat is next in -- a democrat is next in our caller. caller: pulling out of

afghanistan, it is a mess, there is a major issue. we have seen, even back when the soviets first went in, they went in and destroy the area and americans, we train these people with the cia. now they are taking the training to fight their own people, even though it is our responsibility. we chose to go into afghanistan and we will try to leave them behind? that is unacceptable. including civilians. what about translators, stuff for the military? there's a major issue on trying to keep them safe. we are not allowing them to come to this country. this is the global fiasco that america has to take responsibility for, like really bad. host: what does it need to take responsibility for? what needs to be done? caller: what needs to be done is we need to set up a better infrastructure to ensure the safety and security of people i've afghanistan. we have been there for so long and we will be leaving them high and dry. it is unacceptable.

host: on the interpreters and afghans who supported americans while we were there, the administration saying some 22,000 afghans could be relocated in the coming weeks in the united states. the mechanism for the process left undefined as the wall street journal notes even as thousands are scrambling for safety. jake sullivan said yesterday the taliban said they would allow safe passage for people to travel to the airport, even as reports from kabul indicate the group set up checkpoints there. of course we have seen plenty of those photos of people being beaten back from trying to get from the airport, plenty of pictures on the cable news shows about that, the scenes of chaos outside of the airport. this is matt in new hampshire, an independent, good money. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span and "good morning, america." i am a goldstar brother, and -- and

good morning, america. i am a goldstar brother and try to look at things realistically, but to no one's ever going to convince me that my brothers deaths did not mean anything. there are numerous goldstar families. people do not realize how many of us there are. we never ask for this honor but we are stuck with it for life. we would really, truly appreciate if the bickering stopped. all of this blaming and political arguing, the only thing that does is that creates and gives us more anxiety. we are the people who gave the ultimateup until world war ii, o thirds of hispanic americans in congress were these statutory percentages, mainly delegates from mexico and commissioners from puerto rico.

from a research perspective, this book is a little bit different. unlike the fields of women's history and african-american history, hispanic, latino studies, does not have as many monographs or political biographies of individuals who are covered here. in this aspect, the field is somewhat undeveloped in this country. much research relied on mexico y guided us to resources, both in new mexico and puerto rico and helped us with the storyline of the book. and we used the library of congress periodical room to look at a number of newspapers, particularly puerto rican

newspapers, including the ever helpful san juan star, the only one in the english. the national archives to capture the story, particularly of puerto rican commissioners, we went into a number of different record groups. the department of interior, territorial papers, record group 48, records of the office of the territories, record group 350, and the center for legislative archives supplied us with a lot of images of original documents and certificates of elections. so the book is structured, like the volumes on women in congress and african americans, several long generations or storyline breaks. first is from 1822 to 1898, era of continental expansion in the u.s.

second breaks down from the spanish-american war to world war ii, era of u.s. colonial expansion, global expansion. the third period runs from world war ii, civil rights movement, up until 1976. the hispanic caucus was created in december of 1976, another turning point. post-1977 is the modern era, after the founding of the caucus. i thought it might be useful to go through a couple of the individuals here along the way and trace the storyline, and i am happy to take questions at the end, hoping to the 15 or 20 minutes for that. the first individual here, joseph hernandez, served a very brief term. he is an incredibly interesting person, more for his career outside of congress, because it was so short. that he was one of these individuals who helped kind of bridge the state risk cultural and governmental transition from

spanish colony to u.s. territory. he had fought for spain prior to the turnover to u.s. control, and then he later hot -- fought for the united states, particularly against seminole indians and the several of the conflicts with local indian tribes. he earned and lost a great fortune on several plantations, owned hundreds of african-american slaves. this guy is a slave-owning, indian-fighting politician who turned that would be cut from the jacksonian cloth, and he embodied attitudes towards statehood and representation that many of the delegates in the 19th century later would. his term of service was very brief, but it set a precedent for later territorial delegates. he was the very first delegate from florida, so he leaves at the end of the 17th congress. his focus for the couple months he was in the house was largely

internal improvements, and this storyline follows throughout the 19th century. he focused on a postal route from saint augustine to pensacola. like a lot of the territorial delegates in the 19th century, his powers were very limited. he could introduce legislation and could control members. he could lobby, but his powers on the floor were circumscribed. this story takes a turn with the war with mexico in 1846. this is really the first major turning point in this story, and it raised questions for congress, particularly, about how territories with culturally unique populations acquired from the massive mexican successions in the wake of the war and under the provisions of the treaty of guadalupe hit elko -- hidalgo,

how these would be incorporated into federal government, this was the second hispanic american to serve in congress, serves 30 years after fernandez. padre gallegos, and this is an interesting story we came across, originally turned onto it in a precedence. he is elected in the 1853, actually the second delegate from the new mexico territory, and anglo delegate that proceeded him. he comes from an interesting background, had been a legislator in the mexican assembly, representing nuevo mexico, which in the 1840's was frontier land. he had become very adept. he had been a former priest, and after the transition to american rule, he had been defrocked. an american fishing kit --

american bishop came in and chased him out, so he switched to a career in politics. he comes to washington in 1853, and he does not speak english. he knows very little about the american political system, knows very little about the parties he is elected under, the democrats -- -- to continue to cause more chaos in this country, pass policies, and maybe they just want a little more chaos. host: that is our line for democrats. i am assuming you did not vote for joe biden in the election? caller: correct.

host: when is the last time you voted for a democrat? caller: plenty of times. we grew up in the democratic party, and we do not really go by party lines. mostly democrat on local elections and issues. and pretty much republican for the past, i don't know, six elections. host: republican in national elections and democrat in local elections? caller: rudy much. --pretty much. host: what do democrats do better locally, what do you think? caller: different issues. hard to say in this day and age with the local elections, but i think they are more in touch with the local people.

host: why are democrats more in touch with local people? caller: i do not really know the answer to that, but that is just the way we vote. host: ed in louisiana, you are next. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes, sir. caller: i want to touch on a little signal -- historical significance of afghanistan and behind the scenes things going on. you go back, start with the british empire and how the east india trading company use the opium trade in the opium wars in china, and then 1999, you have the mujahedin, in the 1980's, get the soviets appeared

fast-forward to 1999, and you have the taliban government banning opium production in afghanistan. ok? as of 2000, 2001, open production fell so drastically, we had to invade and get it going again. so what happens? immediately following the invasion of afghanistan, we got a massive production of 2000% -- host: who is the "we" you think once the illegal opium trade? caller: ok, just follow the money. it is well-known, been using opium drug money to fund wars. you can look it up. there is behind the scenes information. it is all relevant. host: where do you look it up, ed? caller: all about opium.

you can do your own research. host: where do you do your research? caller: have you done any research on the chinese opium wars, the east indian trading company, on the resurgence of opium production in afghanistan after the u.s. invasion? it is all out there. it is out there, ok? host: for somebody who wants to read where you are reading this, where do you go, ed? caller: just do a google search if you want to. i mean, that is the thing. look online and you will find a lot of information you would not find on mainstream media. host: brian in new jersey, democrat. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call, and let me just say, i really appreciate the temperament it takes to do your job. thanks for what you do. i want to talk about vaccine hesitancy and the issue of the

country being on the right path or not and who is to blame. i will not blame the republican, not blame trump, not blame biden. i will blame my fellow citizens further proud embracing of ignorance appeared we are in the throes of a global pandemic and have lost 600,000 americans last year, in one year. in any one year with the flu, a bad year, that might have been 20,000. so worse than the worst flu, and that was with mitigation. and we have people in this country today who are proudly anti-vaccine, who spread this information about vaccine. forget about everybody else. people are ultra stick but do not have the self-interest to be

educated enough. much less to get vaccinated. it disappoints me profoundly. it is a failure of american people, the education system, to learn about basic science and basic health. we are spending way too much time staring at our smartphones and don't look up anymore like the error -- anymore. it was amazing as a little boy thinking about the possibilities of education and science, and now it seems to be something to be laughed at. host: do you think society is more willfully ignorant than we used to be? host: yes, far more. host: when did that change? caller: i think way back in the

1980's and early 1990's. you can have doubts and speculate, that is fine, but when the idea of getting a shot to prevent a potentially deadly infection, it is just too bad. when did this happen? i would say with the advent of the smart phone we have been going downhill. host: is a social media? you talk about conspiracy theory these -- theories. are people who believe in those more willing to connect with others?

it may be a trap of human nature, but you have to try to push yourself outside of that trap, and you should not be doing research on any social media platform. anything you get in social media. google it. there is no filter that google employees to bring something about that is legitimate. host: when is the last time you pushed yourself out of a confirmation bias track?

caller: i am a scientist by training and retired from the pharmaceutical industry, and i was starting to believe in vaccines. so i put that on the table. i'm not getting any economic benefit. i used to have the mindset that there is practically no side effects. i now accept that there are truly rare side effects, not just coincidence to have occurred. even with the current covid vaccine, rare side effects, not data. i accept that and pushed myself out of my comfort zone to accept that. i hate that the words just came through my mouth, because i think people are having to go and use that, the confirmation bias. to continue to not look after their own health, to put their own families.

try to encourage your kids to look into science, go to youtube and watch space videos, just to get a sense of wonder about the world and about the universe of the cosmic perspective, go beyond the nonsense of democrats and republicans and trump and biden. life is too short, and it is going to be shorter for a lot of people. great united states of america that everyone talks about is now decreasing, the lifespan, and it is because of a lot of preventable things, decreasing because of despair.

we really have to try and embrace expertise and education. host: do you have kids? caller: yes, two children, two sons. the youngest is 37. host: are you optimistic about the world they will inherit when they get to your age? caller: not exactly, no. there are other things about science and reality. it does not matter about the political point of view. if you understand chemistry, you understand that carbon dioxide and methane is a buildup in the atmosphere, causing global warming. and we're seeing it now. crop production is decreasing. a lot of regional conflicts are occurring because of lack of

water resources and increasing food prices. people don't sometimes want to see the big picture because of their social media bubble or their church that believes in enzymes or whatever nonsense you might have. not that encouraged. i mean, i am encouraged for my son on a career track that financially he will do well, because not only that he got an education but because he knows that you have to save and invest , and you drive an old clunker car instead of buying new cars all the time. host: getting short on time and other folks are waiting, but thanks for chatting. lynn is next, saint peter's board -- st. petersburg, florida, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i also agree, you do a fantastic job of facilitating these calls. i am a republican.

the first, i look at all things that i see occurring in the united states today. and i just take a view from my own worldview of what i see happening in the united states today. we all see chaos. we see it through illegals coming across the border, illegals who are known to be positive, many, for the coronavirus. makes no sense to me when i look at that critically, that our president allows those individuals to cross the border freely, yet we still have our restrictions on who can enter the united states. many of requirements are put on us as far as the coronavirus vaccines. i believe one of the last gentlemen who spoke was a

pharmacist. what is important to know, that we all filter things through our own moral view. certainly some of the pharmaceutical companies were not economically involved in this. do we realize how many millions and millions of dollars the pharmaceutical companies and their stockholders are making through this vaccine? one, it was experimental drug's, completed in an untimely fashion , so rapidly -- host: running out of time. have you taken the vaccine? caller: i have not, and i have not because i believe at some point many of the people who have been vaccinated, i have not

been able to find -- host: the vast majority of people who have been admitted are the unvaccinated right now. does that worry you? caller: having side effects from this drug -- i know around 2000, but they are so backed up with their reporting, they cannot tell us how many adverse effects people are having. all i am stating, my personal opinion, i am waiting to see what comes, the results of that vaccine. host: brian, independent, in allen, texas. caller: good morning. sorry, you just actually said something that is incorrect, so if you don't mind, he goes to my point, you said the vast number are unvaccinated, but we just had numbers that show the vaccines in moderna were 75% effective against alta and pfizer only 42%.

that 42% is a vast difference from the original 94% that they cited. host: bright, but the vast number of people being admitted to the hospital for severe cases of covid are unvaccinated, not the vaccinated that is what i was saying. caller: ok. in other words, you are saying that as long as you have gotten vaccinated, the result is less severe. caller: the gentleman from new mexico is a perfect case and example. it needs to be improved so that people know the difference between the white house and the capitol building. i don't mean to just mock, but seriously, if people do not understand how our government works, we should not be making comments about it. we should be educated first. another point is, if you know that you have heart problems,

you have two separate doctors that you go to, and one of them tells you to go to the cleveland clinic, and the other is a kardashian clinic for cosmetology, i would guess that if you went in, you would expect a different result from one compared to the other. the same way you might not have such a different result from fashion people working on your heart, you would not get somebody who understands the military and who doesn't understand the influences of politics in a place where you tell them that you have been defending your country from this law, and we have always provided you with air support, and you turn off the air support and leave them without air support for three months. they keep losing battle after battle. they are probably not going to be able to fight anymore, after you do that.

some of them -- some of us who have been in battle no that this is how you cover the evacuation of other people. apparently, that was not understood. host: bryan we will leave it there. we will do this again soon on the washington journal. in our last 30 minutes, i want to talk about the last -- largest increase in food assistant benefits in the snap program history. we will talk next about those changes with bread for the world's heather taylor. we will be right back. ♪

nonprofit organization, and we represent a collective christian voice. we work with denominations and congregations all across the country to mobilize and urge congress to pass legislation to address hunger and poverty both here and in the united states, and abroad.

and what is said to be a very big bump for snap recipients, explain. >> these are the kinds of policies that we focus on, and for good reason. what we learned this week is that the biden administration has essentially worked with and ordered the usda, the united states department of agriculture, to proceed to increase snap monthly benefits by about 25%. that is the supplemental nutrition assistance program formally known as food stamps, and what is a proven -- been proven to be the most effective food and hunger broke -- program in north america. this is an increase of $36 per person per month, which may not sound like a lot, and it can go a long way for individuals who are trying to stretch their dollars and also to have healthy

diets. this is a double pair. what is really important to understand about this is that this is put in place to reduce hunger, but to ensure that individuals can afford healthy diets. i have had the pleasure and blessing of being on this program a couple of times. what really stood out to me is what caller said about the importance of healthy diets. that is not about extra cash on hand to spend on food. but what about real nutrition? what we have realized in recent studies is it is not a lack of education and information. it is about giving families in need the ability to purchase healthy foods and not be relegated to high sodium canned goods or to pastas, things that increase diabetes and blood sugar. this will be felt on a 42 million -- i-40 2 million

americans participating in the snap program. host: i appreciate you bringing up the callers. we have a special line for snap food recipients. (202) 748-8002. we will keep that open as well. if you are not in our pacific time zone, you can use (202) 748-8000. this increase in snap benefits for 42 million people -- what will that cost, and how does the biden administration do that? does it not require congressional approval? caller: that is correct. it will be an increase of about $20 billion, bringing the total cost of $99 billion. that is real money that is a cost -- we want to pay attention

to that. what is important is that study show that investing in snap stimulates the economy. for every investment of one dollar in snap, it increases economic activity by about a buck 50. this allows people to buy household goods and edible supplies. it allows them to purchase services from local businesses. all of this helps to stimulate the economy. it is also important to keep in mind the cost of poverty in this country. childhood poverty alone can cost our country anywhere from $800 million to $100 trillion a year. that is nine to 10 times the investment we are currently making in this program. we know it works. it is important to note that, since previous investments in snap as a result of the pandemic, and certain stimulus

packages, hunger rate has dropped about 40% since january. what it tells us is that these things are working. hunger rates are not what they were in 2019. that was before the pandemic began. before the pandemic began, about 3.4% of households said they did not have enough to feed their family in the last seven days. then it was about 2.8%, which was an improvement, but we still have a way to go. this is a measure that can be done through our government administrative agencies, and it is within the president's capacity to work with the usda to do this. it does not require congressional approval. that said, it is also important to know that under a republican congress in 2018, the usda was in fact ordered to do a study to

look at the cost of a healthy diet. the cost of a healthy diet is what determines how much snap benefits folk can get on a daily basis. we were encouraged to look at the data -- is outdated? is it accurate? the usda proceeded to do exactly as they were instructed. our current presidential administration urge the usda to speed up the process and do it more quickly, especially in the light of the pandemic. in light of the hunger rates we saw sore in this country, they did just that. they'd -- they discover through science what we already know when we go to the grocery store, and that is food costs are not getting any cheaper, and we need to have a certain level of means and income if we want not only to take care of our meals, but have a healthy diet.

host: i'm going to let you chat with a couple of callers. houston, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. caller: i wanted to find out why the snap program only adhered to women and children, and none of the programs are geared towards elderly people who are over 65 and on assisted living, social security, or retirement benefits? it doesn't cover all of their needs and food needs. i am on the food stamp program. i get $18 a month. i am above may be 100 and two dollars over the income level. they take a third of your percentage for rent and a third of your percentage for

utilities. month-to-month it is difficult for your utility bills or fuel bills. host: thank you for sharing your situation. would you pick that up, and when you do, can you expand eligibility requirements? guest: this does speak to eligibility requirements. i want to note however, that the elgin -- elderly are eligible for snap. there are a range of individuals who do benefit from the program. however, there are certain income requirements in general individuals -- in general. individuals must come within a certain percentage of fog ready line to receive -- poverty line to receive benefits.

please note that i personally, and a lot of advocates in the hunger space, here you and do not dismiss your experiences. it is a known fact that most persons, elderly included, who receive or are on the snap program, run out of their benefits before the end of the month. in fact, 75% of people run out of their benefits before the end of the month. that is why we are pushing for in continued increases -- continued increases. that is why we continue to look at eligibility requirements in our current day. the good news is that, with this measure, all 42 million americans who are on the program will benefit from this increase. no one is excluded. host: some congressional pushback on this increase. in a letter from glenn thompson,

and the congressman from arkansas, they write their letter to the director of the gao. the complexity of this process, and its likely impact, create an urgent need for scrutiny, particularly on the heels of significant nutrition related pandemic spending without rigorous oversight. can the department point to recent data that shows increase snap benefit allotments leading to consumption of healthier foods? did the integrity of the program fog attentional risk that might be associated with increased benefit amounts? do you know the answers to any of those questions? guest: what i do know is that it is important to look at certain historical pieces. it is also a fact, according to certain studies, that less than 2% of snap benefits are associated with any form of

fries. the largest percentage of individuals utilizing snap are under proper circumstances. the money is being used the way it is intended. we also know that hunger rates have plummeted. they have dropped significantly. a number of measures have been put in place, not just snap. want to be transparent about that. there been various measures put in place. together, these measures have been working. with respect to scrutiny, we should always help for accurate data. we have an institute that focuses on policy and research. we want accurate data. no one is running from accurate data here. it is possible that we can continue to review the manner in which the study was done, but it is also fairly logical to conclude, based on a history of healthy diets and the cost of

healthy diets, based on on the way the snap program has been administered, based on the way families continue to struggle and stretch their snap benefits in the course of a month, that this is a need that absently must be met. it can only be met by the kinds of measures we have seen in this particular proposal. host: joseph in new york city. you are next. caller: good morning, and thank you. thank you for being on the program. i have a question. i am a veteran. i am retired. i am 72 years old. i cannot qualify for benefits. i live from month-to-month. when i was on disability, i was hearing all of this about the stimulus and how you can get increased benefits.

yet, when i applied, i continually am turned down by the city in new york city. i live in new york city. host: let me let heather respond, but please stay on the line. guest: i want to be honest in sharing and affirming that every individual circumstance is different. i do not know all of the ins and outs of your circumstances. what i do know, and i encourage you and others to do, is to consult with local family and health services. with local social workers, and visit the local usda site. be sure you are getting all of the benefit that you deserve. all of the benefits you are titled to -- entitled to.

if the system was flawless this would not exist, but there are flaws in the system. there are individuals who have real needs -- there are veterans and working families who are working hard. they are working multiple jobs. they face transportation issues, and still they require programs like snap. we are doing everything we can to strengthen -- but in the interim, consulting with local agencies is a good first step. host: can is a snap recipient. good morning. caller: hey. in my on? host: yes sir. caller: i wanted to thank you for doing a great job. i wanted to tell ms. taylor that

i and my wife are 62 years old and 69 years old, on social security. we received $1700 a month together. we qualify for $19 a month in food stamps. they should change it because we have to pay mortgage and an electric bill, water bill, trash bill. when they only give us $19 a month -- i mean, no one can live on $19 a month. that is to meals. that is 2 meals. as you are telling the man to callers ago about talking to

local officials, we have been down there, and they give us nothing. guest: the benefits of the program will be put into place in october. that is when we should see the increase. that is when you should notice a specific difference in your snap benefits. it is also good to keep in mind -- frustrating though it may be -- that there are some differences in different states. different states have different rules and allow different flexibility. this is in determining the amount of benefits that are administered. it is true that some individuals in certain areas may not receive as much, depending on certain requirements that are put in place locally. nevertheless, there will be an impact and a solid increase of

about 25% as a result of this measure at the federal level. host: in terms of determining the specific amount, what is the thrifty food plan and how does it fit into this? guest: the thrifty food plan is essentially a plan -- it is a study that looks at the cost of healthy diets. how much does it cost to buy certain foods -- fruits, vegetables, grains on monthly basis. based on that calculation is how it is determined the amount of snap benefits that should be administered through the program. again, it was because, in 2018, congress said, you know what, we need to take another look at this. we need to determine how much it costs. are the numbers we are using outdated? are they accurate? as a result of the study,

looking at the calculation use through the thrifty food plan, is how we determine we needed to make this 25% increase minimum, which results, on average, not for everybody, $36 more, individually. host: a few minutes left before our program ends at 10:00 as it always does, but several callers including those for the snap recipients. out of connecticut. caller: thank you for taking my call. before i comment, some of the folks calling in maybe didn't qualify for food stamps or maybe get a small amount, a lot of times there are local agencies who do food distributions or have food pantries and things like that. they might be able to supplement

a little bit with that. anyway, i will get back to what i was calling about. last year, because of covid, a lot of our farmers markets and things like that didn't happen. this year, at least here in connecticut, it is more open. we have quite a few farmers markets. sometimes we can use our snap benefits at age farmers market. it is a nice way to buy local fresh. it is a little unaffordable for some of us. i just wanted to make a comment about that. thank you very much. guest: thank you, and bless you for inserting that and injecting those very helpful conversation and resources. also to note, there are increasingly nonprofits who are distributing fruits and vegetables at lower costs.

lower costs are what one would see in a grocery store. yes, indeed, there are increase options to stretch existing dollars. that does not mean we do not continue to advocate increases where necessary, but indeed, there are increasingly sources and resources at the local level to stretch the dollar. host: florida, you are next. caller: good morning. two major points that have to be made -- these benefits that are going out to everybody from this administration are going to kill the middle-class people who do not have children. those who are on social security who do not call in. we have to pay out of our income. the other point -- why are they

not subject to only buying healthy food with snap benefits? potato chips? soda? candy? coffee? it is not healthy food. my husband worked 60 hours a week and see someone in front of him with a grocery cart full of those items paying with a snap card, and that makes me angry with this country. we see things. they need to be subject to have to buy nutritional food. hamburger, chicken, green beans. why is anything else on that list that they are allowed to buy? guest: thank you. i would encourage everyone to visit the usda website. it does reveal a thrifty food plan. there is a great breakdown on the kinds of foods that are considered in the calculation. also, i would just like to simply share that about 80% of

snap dollars are spent on healthy foods. this is what the studies show. is it true that some folks may by some soda, some sweets, as do many american families across the country? indeed. it is also true to say again, by and large, 80% is spent on healthy foods. we must continue to look at restrictions that might be put in place. that is something we can continue to examine. we want to note the ways that the moneys has been spent has been spent well. it has reduced hunger rates by 40%. not just snap, other programs as well, but hunger has indeed gone down. that is what we are aiming for. host: whenever we talk about the

subject, the question is, why do we allow snap benefits to be used for those things? soda and those kinds of things. why should that be allowed in the program, even if as you say, the vast majority is for healthy foods? guest: it is a fine line between the amount of freedom we give to people to simply live their lives. if anyone has lived or experience poverty, as i have myself, then from that experience, people tend to know that what they have in hand or are trying to use they are trying to use well. they are trying to purchase food that will satisfy hunger, that will allow them to get through the month, and so folks generally know that it is not possible to do that, if the benefits are spent primarily on potato chips, for example. rather, more substitute foods, although the foods may not be as

nursing on the whole, if individuals are relegated to buy cheap products. i think there is a push to give family some freedom, some flexibility to be able to make their own choices, and to be able to decide what is best for their family. at the same time, studies show that the vast majority of the dollars that are spent, are spent on foods that are substantive and can really get at the heart of the problem we are working to address. host: two minutes left in the program. rager he is waiting out of compton. can you make it quick? caller: i disagree with you, heather. i don't see how snap stimulates the economy, when, on the front end it will, but on the back and it won't. you are allowing people to purchase products that are very high in fructose and glucose,

and everyone in the medical field knows that it leads to diabetes. why can't that money be given to people, to teach them how to grow a garden, instead of to possibly let their years be diminished? host: we will give heather the final minute. guest: what i am sharing is simply what the studies show. these studies are put out by reputable entities such as the usda. these studies showed that the economy is indeed stimulated when we make these investments. that is simply what the data tells us. it is also important to keep in mind that we don't have programs like this in place -- the number of hospitalizations the sore because people do not have the nutrition they need.

you have to have a holistic view and a holistic approach. if we come to learn that programs like snap are the most effective antihunger programs, then it stands to reason that we need to improve the program. of course there is room for improvement. we need to make strategic and smart investments as well. host: if you are interested in bread for the world, visit the website for bread for the world. heather is the strategic campaign director there. you always appreciate your time. guest: thank you so much. host: that is going to do it for our program this wednesday morning, but we will be back tomorrow morning at seven eastern. in the meantime, have a great day. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the

national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the white house coronavirus team will brief the public. dr. fauci and dr. walensky will participate so what's like when they start. now, set for 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. that is a discussion on the situation in afghanistan from the center for security lessee. that is set to start at 1:30 p.m. eastern and we will have it live for you when they get underway on c-span. later, house transportation committee chair peter defazio discusses his views on the senate cost recently passed $1.2 trillion by artisan infrastructure bill. live coverage begins at p.m. eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> sunday, c-span's series,

january 6 views from the house, continues. to more members of congress share stories of what they saw, heard and experienced that day including pennsylvania democrat susan wild who recalls what count -- what happened during those early moments on the house floor. >> i don't remember how long we were in that situation between the time they barricaded the door and the time we finally got out. jason crow told me it was something like 20 minutes and it could've been two hours or five minutes but i had no sense of time whatsoever. i remember when i got off the phone with mike kids that i felt as though my heart was pounding out of my chest and i felt, i was actually very worried i was having a heart attack stop i've never had a architect but my father had one and we have a family history so i was worried, i was very worried about that. i must put my hand up to my chest because that photograph of

me that was taken shows me lying almost on my back with my hand on my chest and i don't remember that. i do remember jason taking my hand and stroking it and comforting me and telling me i was going to be ok. and being a little perplexed that he was reassuring me because i didn't realize i was showing how upset i was. >> this week, you also here for massachusetts democrat jim mcgovern. january 6, views from the house, sunday at 10 eastern on c-span, www.c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> you think this is just a committee center? no, it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 committee centers to create

wi-fi enabled sites so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports he spends a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front rosita to democracy -- a front row seat to democracy. >> representative michael mccaul, the top republican on the house foreign affairs committee set down for a virtual conversation with the washington post to discuss u.s. troop withdrawal from afghanistan and the coronavirus pandemic. regarding the situation in afghanistan, he said the troop withdrawal was a mistake, living the u.s. and its allies vulnerable to future attacks. this runs 30 minutes. >> welcome to washington post live. the taliban has quickly taken over afghanistan just as u.s. troops were being withdrawn from the