♪ >> competitive enterprise institute dr. joel zinberg and arthur kaplan from nyu discussed vaccine mandates. then wall street journal's richard rubin talks about congressional democrats proposed tax plan to pay for spending proposals.

and nbc4 washington investigative order scott mcfarland on the latest on the january 6 investigation and prosecution's of suspects. "washington journal" is next. host: a new book set to be released is making waves in washington. excerpts from "peril," detailing the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff concerns that president trump might start a war with china in an effort to remain in power after the 2020 election. he was so worried that he made a pair of secret phone calls to his chinese counterparts to reassure them that the -- that america would not attack.

we are getting your reaction to the revelations in that new book. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text, that number, (202) 748-8003. otherwise, catch up with us on social media. on twitter, it's @cspanwj. facebook, journal@c-span.org -- facebook.com/c-span. we can get your phone calls on that book in a minute that we wanted to update you on the latest in the recall effort for the california governor, gavin newsom, the associated press calling that race at midnight last night. saying that he became the second governor in u.s. history to survive a recall election. he framed the race as an epic struggle to protect the progressive values of california. republicans had hoped that it would offer proof that voters

were driven away from democrats who controlled every level of state government in california for more than a decade. here is the latest result on that race. early this morning gavin newsom, surviving the recall effort by helping to margin the votes on recall. the polls in the race well behind the actual results. gavin newsom, nearly 10 points ahead of some of the latest polls from that race. that's the latest out of california. to that book, payroll is the name. bob woodward and robert costa. this is the headline on the front page of today's "washington post," here is the lead from that story. "twice in the final months of the trump administration the top military officer in the country was so fearful that the president's action might spark a

war, he moved urgently to avoid armed conflict host: the story going on to detail the specific call from october. this is what the post story had to say about it, saying "i want to assure you that the american government is stable, going to be ok, we will not be attacking and in the account he went so far to pledge that that he would alert his counterpart in the event of a u.s. attack,

stressing that they establish openings to a back channel, i'm going to call you ahead of time, it's not going to be a surprise. that is the account from that book. more on that second phone call, that january 8 phone call two days after the attack on the u.s. capitol and in the second call placed to address chinese fears about the -- the events of january 6, lee was not as easily assuaged, even after millie promised him that they were 100% steady.

host: that is some of the revelations from that new book, peril. of note, the new book mostly, at least more than half, about the final days of the trump residency in a good chunk of it about the beginning of the biden presidency. but it is the revelations about the final days of the trump administration that are getting the most attention, former president trump took to newsmax tv and the sean spicer company program last night to offer his thoughts on the revelations in the book. [video clip] >> if it is true, hard to believe, that he would have called china and done these things and was willing to advise them of an attack in advance, that's treason. i would think, i have had so many calls today saying that's treason, number one. number two, it's totally ridiculous. you were there, you knew what

was happening in the white house , had plenty of friends. you never heard the word china mentioned in things like this. you heard a lot of anger about china and trade. with the china virus. there was a lot of anger. for him to say, for him to say that i would even think about attacking china, i think he's trying to just get out of his incompetent withdrawal out of afghanistan. the worst, the dumbest thing anybody has seen, probably the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to our country where they killed our soldiers and we left with embarrassment on our face. we left americans behind and $85 billion worth of the best men in the world that i bought because i was the one that rebuilt the military and then biden gave it away. for him to say that i was going to attack china is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard and everybody knows it. host: that was donald trump on

newsmax tv last night. more details about that book in the background interviewing that went into the book. this is from the post story today, offering some of the details. they say it is based on interviews with over 200 people conducted on the condition that they not be named as sources, exact quotations being drawn from participants in the event, colleagues of the directed knowledge or relevant documents. trump and biden declined to be interviewed for the book. we will talk about the congressional reaction yesterday on both eyes of the aisle, but we especially want to hear from you this morning. phone lines as usual. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. ed, good morning. caller: good morning.

good morning. i first want to let everybody know that general milley's job, his only job, was to advise the president of the united state. that is his job. it's not to call up china, it's not to do any psychiatric evaluations of our president. he went to pelosi and to schumer and plotted against president trump and he also told the chinese that he would let them know. host: your thoughts on the revelations in this book? caller: i'm glad that there are people that still protect this country, glad he did. this recall election california,

i'm so tired of these crybaby republicans when they lose. you didn't see hillary clinton flying when she lost. big crybaby alligator tears. manna. -- man up, get some guts. host: all right, independent mind, your thoughts on this book, "peril"? fred, you with us? caller: yes, is this me? host: that's you, fred. go ahead. caller: does anybody actually believe that if trump had won the reelection that there would not have been a true coup d'etat with this general and his minions and with pelosi and schumer assuming control of the government? he should be tried and there should be an investigation to determine all of the people that were involved in this.

it's the closest we have ever come to a coup in this country. host: norwalk, connecticut is next. republican, go ahead. caller: hello, hi, good morning. this is just another topic where it's just another divisive thing to terrace apart. i'm a little amazed one side thinks it's treason, the other side thinks he's a hero. we are just too partisan to come together on any topic. whether it is covid, you name it . unnamed sources once again. there does need to be an investigation on this. i'm going to not weigh in whether it is true or not. there was kayleigh mcenany, who says trump asked when

afghanistan was left, trump was told probably two weeks, maybe even two days and millie was present on that conversation. you know, i don't get any of this. i do believe that trump's behavior was bad after the election. maybe he did get a little unglued. look what they put the man through for four years. i'm not going to condone january 6. i, you know, i just don't understand any of this. it's really got to stop. you know, what he did was wrong. he was colluding with the enemy. he knew this general five years. well, real long time. real baloney. i just wish we could be a little objective about all this and agree that this needs investigation. host: trish, washington,

seattle, democrat, good morning. caller: i have to make a quick comment on all the commentators. i wouldn't want to play poker with y'all, i would lose. regarding this fiasco, i'm not surprised that trump went row. thank god gina haspel, millie, nancy pelosi, were able to recognize how perilous we were in as a nation. i just want to thank them for standing up and doing the right thing. history will bear itself out. we will see how it rolls. it's very disturbing to think how close we came to a coup. host: trisha, washington. more of your phone calls throughout this first hour today. in the first hour we are talking about the book, "peril," that

book and its revelations getting a lot of reaction on this end of pennsylvania avenue. here's the letter from senator marco rubio to president biden yesterday. he wrote that reports indicate general milley interfered with the procedures by which the civilian commander-in-chief can order a nuclear strike, instructing officials not to take orders without his involvement in force them to take an oath

host: his fellow senator, rand paul, had this -- host: we mostly want to hear from you, including oxford, new jersey, independent line. caller: i find it disturbing that a lot of the democrats seem to be almost like apologists for china. i don't know why i'm getting that vibe. trump was never going to attack china, though if you think about it they released this pandemic

on us and in the world and you cannot get any democrat to put blame on them. to me it's very telling. this hit piece on trump by bob woodward, that's why he came out with that revelation yesterday about millie basically going behind the back of the president, which he can't do, but he did, it's all to get you to let's buy the book. disgusting. propaganda. i can't believe people eat this up. host: roxanne, california, good morning. caller: i'm thrilled about this book, i think that general milley is a hero. he put his career on the line to protect us from someone who was not fit for the job they were doing and i'm grateful for that. so, i'm hoping the best for the book, hope it sells well. host: delray beach, florida, independent line, good morning. stan, you with us?

go ahead, sir. caller: yes. i served in the military. i served in the marine corps. i was only 18. the first they teach you is you do not go around the chain of command for anything. and here we've got a five star general who is going to take away the authority of a president because he thinks the president is not fit to do his job? who the hell is he to decide if trump was fit? personally, i don't think biden is fit to be president of the united states. he won't even answer questions. what kind of guy is that? that guy wants to be president, supposedly, then goes out to campaign? our country has gone completely

nuts. host: michelle, virginia, democrat line, good morning. caller: first of all, i don't really have any opinion about the book at all. but i believe that general milley did say that, if he did it was an appeasement towards china. but also, if for the military, they are not going to go forward with an unlawful order from a president. so if trump had given an order like that, they were going to go through with it.

host: more from the story that came out yesterday, some of the excerpts from the book, the book not set to be released until later this month, but this is from the post story on it, focusing on president trump's former vice president, mike pence. so intent was he on being the loyal second-in-command and potential successor that pence

host: that from the excerpts released yesterday. we will go through a few more of them as we hear from you. pete, alabama, republican, go ahead. caller: yes, sir, this is what what -- what happens when you got globalist billionaires controlling the press. spreading propaganda is. you can't believe nothing that comes from "the washington post" and jeff bezos. host: you don't believe the joint chiefs of staff chairman mark milley did this? are you still with us, keith? caller: yeah, i'm with you. yeah, globalist billionaires control our media. and our propaganda. host: all right, paul, paducah,

kentucky. go ahead. caller: this has proven one thing, how corrupt of the filthy toilet behind you is. the whole thing stinks. the military, the intelligence, washington, d.c., they are corrupt to fail. we have an idiot living in the white house. i wouldn't call him president, he's too stupid. this includes the media and bee sting, which is what you should call yourselves, not c-span. host: all right. good morning? caller: if not mistaken, didn't some of this happened like it did during nixon? if you can, would you speak on it and explain it and the next thing i would like to say is all it takes is for a few good men to do nothing. thank you for this morning. host: brian, colorado springs,

good morning. caller: i served with colonel millie in fort drum, new york, 2004 to 2005. i think that what he thinks, the story is true. all he was trying to do is secure his job for the next administration. he's kind of a limp sock general. he will go in whatever direction the wind blows. i sat there before deploying to afghanistan and he equated the war with a crusade and not anything else. i think he might have said so to secure his lot for the next administration. i think he should be court-martialed if the stories are true. this job is just to advise the president and not to make any statements to any foreign governments or even our own government. if he had concerns, he could

have easily resigned his position and stepped down. i used to have a lot of respect for the man but now i think he's a pos. thank you very much. host: is it this reporting that changed your mind on him or other incidents in the past? caller: i'm thinking about the time he thought trump was going to win the election, so he was going to backdrop. even i knew that that was bad juju in lafayette park. prior to that there was another incident. it wasn't just then. he just, i used to think he was a soldier's soldier, you know, all military. now i can read between the lines a bit better, step back from the situation. he was trying to secure his job for the next administration.

host: the moment of walking through lafayette park is referred to in the book as a key moment in his decision-making here when it came to these phone calls. this from the story today, saying that his decision months earlier to place himself between trump and potential war, triggered by several important events

host: more of the reaction from capitol hill. davidson saying that if these allegations are correct, millie should be court-martialed. america last, cannot be ignored. ronny jackson of texas saying treason, adding to the long list of why millie must go immediately. if this is true, he needs to be tried and sentenced to the full extent of the law. nothing less then colluding with our enemies to undermine the president, treasonous.

chris stewart saying that he needs to be relieved of his duties, there are no justifications for secret communications for treason and if this is verified, you need to immediately dismiss the general. from the democratic congressman -- it's hard to imagine anything more craven than marco reus -- marco rubio attacking mark milley rather than trump on this set of fact. this from ted lieu, saying i previously served on active duty as a jagged officer. general milley was referring to a rogue nuclear launch. that would be an illegal order if a rogue nuclear first strike was ordered. general milley was correct and trying to prevent the rogue launch. just some of the response from capitol hill. mostly hearing from you this morning as we continue to take you through the excerpts of this book set to be released later this month. this is jan in union city. good morning.

caller: i am an independent and i voted for donald trump but i got worried about him months before the actual election because he did seem unstable. having said that, i would think we would have a better plan in place than having a rogue general that has to do things for our rogue president. thank you. host: omaha, nebraska, this is mark. caller: it just shows the brilliance of donald trump. how he first thought about the deep state, the media, everyone jumped on that and said there wasn't a deep state and all that. it proves the deep state. he flushed out the fake media. he starting to purge through all these crooked people who just work for their jobs in washington, d.c. and around the world. he flushed out the deep state, i

thank him for that. host: louisville, kentucky, good morning. caller: full disclosure, i don't know anything. people are going to agree and disagree, but i think one thing we can agree on is that if powerful countries start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other, life as we know it on earth is going to end. we cannot survive a nuclear war. that's my only comment. host: can we survive military commanders intervening on these decisions, your focus, that's the focus of a lot of republican members of congress, saying it violates the chain of command? caller: i'm not qualified to answer that. the opinion i have is that something, there has to be some type of failsafe. if it appears someone is about

to do something really stupid, somebody has to intervene. if it has to be a general or something like that, i don't know. again, i don't know anything, but i know we can't survive a new year war. host: rich is next out of greensburg. good morning. caller: number one, a president by himself cannot just launch a nuclear war. number two, can you imagine a colonel or some other rank subverting his leadership or orders and what would happen in that case? number three, who are pulled low see, schumer, millie, or anyone else to make a medical diagnosis that probably requires the evaluation of a psychiatrist to say the president was unstable or unfit and why doesn't the same metrics apply to our current president?

thank you. host: judy, missouri, good morning. caller: yes, i'm judy and i used to be a democrat. i'm looking in on this and i tell you what, i feel that trump is the only president we have had in a very long time that has ever followed anything constitutional. the president that is in there right now? he did not win the presidency. and i will never believe that in 1000 years. as far as millie is concerned, he's focused -- he should be focused on working for the people of the united states and honoring what the president says . he's not supposed to go off on one side and you whatever he feels. i feel that the president right now that's in there should be

taken out of office immediately for what he has done in this war that we have had and supposedly ended. the only way they're going to straighten that up is now they are going to have to go back in there because otherwise all of our americans are being lost over there. they will kill them. host: some revelations from the book on afghanistan as well, this from the "washington post" story, how the biden experience as vice president shaped his approach to the withdrawal.

host: on the issue from the withdrawal from afghanistan, the subject of two days of congressional hearings, monday in the house, yesterday in the senate foreign relations committee. we talked about it on yesterday's program. here's one of the headlines from "usa today," according to the senator, the exit was fatally flawed, top democrats blasting the administration during the hearing, sharp rebuke coming from bob menendez, the senate chairman of the foreign relations committee. here's some of his remarks to antony blinken yesterday.

[video clip] >> the afghan people deserve answers. the public deserves answers. let me close with three points. first, communication from the administration has not been frequent. information from the state, the pentagon, has often been vague or contradictory. this was obviously a fluid and difficult situation. frustration was high. to put it in context, member frustration came on top of years of stonewalling by the trump administration and the refusal to engage the senate on the taliban negotiations. this is one of the examples why i have been trying to pursue an understanding what the written agreements are that come between an administration and others. maybe if we had seen all the elements of it we would have been in a better position. second, i'm very disappointed that secretary austin declined our request to testify today.

a full accounting of the crisis is not complete without the pentagon, especially when it comes to understanding the complete collapse of the u.s. trained and funded afghan military. his decision not to appear before the committee will affect my personal judgment on department of defense nominees and i expect he will avail himself to the committee in the future and if he does not, i make it or the use of -- committee subpoena power to compel him and others to testify. third, i implore the administration to remain focused on afghanistan. it's critically important that the world bear witness and take action when possible in response to taliban abuses. the right message came from germany and i strongly urge attention to afghanistan in the months and years to come. host: that was senator robert menendez yesterday on the

high-profile hearing on capitol hill. there will be another high-profile hearing at 10 a.m., this one in the senate judiciary committee. this is the nbc news story on it, simone biles and other star gymnasts testifying before the judiciary for the investigation into larry nassar, the former usa gymnastics doctor accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of girls and women. vials, alongside mckayla maroney, maggie nichols, aly raisman, appearing before the first panel on the handling of that investigation in the second panel will include michael horowitz and christopher wray. the gymnasts will appear in person, according to an aide to the senate judiciary committee chairman, dick durbin. in a 119 page report released in july, it was said that the fbi failed to intervene in a timely manner and the field office made

fundamental errors by failing to notify other offices or state or local authorities. more on that today at 10 a.m. eastern, that hearing is where we are going to be going right after our program ends this morning, so you can stick around here on c-span for that. back to your phone calls about this book coming out, "peril," details from the joint chiefs of staff and his concerns over the waning days of the trump administration and the potential for war between the u.s. and china. his actions, other revelations about the book and the trump administration in the early days of the biden administration as well. charlie is in florida. democratic line. did you hear about this book yesterday? what are your thoughts? caller: good morning, c-span. all you got to do is ask yourself, was general milley acting on his behalf to better himself? or to try to, you know, put a

feather in his cap or, or, or, or was he really acting on behalf of the constitution and trying to help, you know, diverge what could be a major catastrophe? i don't really know about china, but i was really worried that trump would start something in the middle east. look what he did his last couple of months in office. walked away from covid, totally walked away from it. did absolutely nothing the last couple of months after the election. he started a coup, he personally, trump is personally responsible for the coup in washington that some lady referred to earlier as i'm not going to condone what happened on january 6. really? you are not going to condone an attempted coup and overthrowing of the government? that's good to know. what do you call an attempted

coup? so, we had better get our ducks in a row and stop the next one that's probably going to happen. 95% of the republicans don't believe in the constitution. host: when you say next one, are you talking about the protests scheduled for the weekend? we are expecting the security fencing to go back up here on capitol hill. perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow. the protests are happening saturday afternoon. caller: no, i don't think that's going to turn into much. i could be wrong. but there will be another attempt to, you know, look at what's happening with the voting issues, with not wanting people to vote, you know? there is so many things going on and we've all got trump to thank for this. people -- things weren't near as bad before trump.

everyone talks about what a great guy he is. he's never done anything for anybody but himself. host: on the voting rights issue, news on that front on capitol hill, this is the story from "the wall street journal," senate democrats revealing revised election proposals, expected to unite the parties but not draw republican support to advance, the story noting that the bill is scheduled to get a vote next week and would require at least 15 consecutive days of early voting in every state, same-day registration by 2000 24, institutionalized a mail-in voting, which was introduced into thousand 20, requiring states with voter id rules to accept a range of documents, including

host: chuck schumer was asked about the bill yesterday after the tuesday senate lunch. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> the voting rights bill, you acknowledge republicans are not likely to some audit. what is your game plan on voting rights as majority leader? caller: -- >> the bill has been introduced and we want something that everyone can support. we have, as you know, senator manchin, who believes we should try to make this bipartisan and we are giving him the opportunity to do that with a bill that he supports and that he modified. if that doesn't happen, we will cross that bridge when we come

to it. all options are on the table. host: that was chuck schumer yesterday on capitol hill. president biden and president trump, focused on in the new book, "peril," good morning. caller: the democrats are so fearful of trump coming back as president that they were trying to instill in the minds of people the idea that he was trying to start a nuclear war. first of all, he can't do it on his own, he has to have congress . whatever. the point is that thought longed to a lot of people that don't educate themselves in politics. that would scare people to death. this country is a great light in the world and the democrats are trying to put out the light. the bill they are trying to push through where they are trying to cripple this nation, this is a

divine gift to us as america and if it is failing, it's because we are failing it. we have to stand behind and get behind our constitution. trump was a great president. think how many good things he did. he got jobs for people for everything. he loves this country. host: millington, michigan, randy, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, john. i would like to start by thanking you and all the men and women who bring us this great program. you are doing a great service to this nation. i think that millie would have been accused of dereliction of duty if he wouldn't have looked at putting in safeguards. it doesn't take a psychiatrist to watch somebody like the previous president's actions to know that you had better have some safeguards in ice.

he was on the edge. somebody in general milley's position can read individuals. he didn't get where he was by being an idiot. he didn't get there from not knowing how to read people. this nation is not about one person. whether it is the previous president, the current is it in, or anyone else. general milley in my view lived up to that commitment of the nation as a whole, not as one. thank you for allowing me to speak. if i go any farther, it won't sound good. thank you and have a good day. host: linda, delmar, new york, good morning. caller: good morning. i think that bob woodward wrote this book to create trouble. i think he's a troublemaker and he wanted controversy by including these calls where the

dates are so close to the 2020 election and the january 6 insurrection. i also think that it's just awful, because it gives credence to the pillow guy allegations that china was committing cybercrime over there. he said he had the proof. i watched his shows. i think that the bob woodward book gives credence, because it's a motive for trying to interfere in an election and it gives a motive for people in congress not to make sure that there were enough police and enough law and order to prevent what happened on january 6. so, i think the country needs to come together and recognize that there were problems, but not

fight with each other and we must come together to help each other as people have been doing, by donating supplies and helping with the climate problems we are having with hurricanes and fire is and we must get together to pull this country together and just recognize, yes that will problems, but move on from there . thank you. host: randy, iowa, democrat, good morning. caller: i'm distressed, even by some of the callers here. john, i'm going to go back to january 6. the republican party the republican congress and senators were appalled and they told the truth for a brief time but now we are in this propaganda mode,

where it's politics first in its support trump even if he's wrong. taking in on the point that general milley was using adequate caution, he was aware of symptoms and things going on behind the scenes that were not available to the general public. so, i think he was justified in being prudent. i wanted to raise one more issue. since they have changed their tune on january 6, conspiracy, vicious conspiracy, that's what i saw on january 6. it just came into the news, the lawyer that was for the oath keepers, they mentioned seditious conspiracy when they took his phone. that's what's going on with the republican party that's what's going on in texas.

they don't want people to vote and now they want to push propaganda through the media at will. host: on the topic of january 6, stick around for today's program, we will be talking a lot more about the enteral investigation, federal prosecutions into the participants in the attack on the capital. scott mcfarland, the nbc four washington investigative reporter is pretty much on this beat all the time here in washington, d.c., he has read all the court filings and is going to join us at 9:30 a.m. eastern this morning to talk about what's happening, so stick around for that if you're interested. caller: i will. thank you very much. we need people who pay attention to the truth.

propaganda is in the way. god bless america and i hope my everybody's a patriot. host: that was randy, in iowa. a little bit more from the front of "the washington post," the story coming out this month, mark milley saw parallels between january 6 and the 1905 russian revolution that set off unrest through the empire, and though it failed it created the conditions for the revolution of 1917 where the bolsheviks executed a successful coup to set up the world's first communist state.

host: you can probably go ahead and assume that there will be more reporting from this book in the days and weeks before the book is released on the 21st. not too far away, next week. mary, baltimore, good morning. mary, are you with us? one more time for mary. tom, fort lauderdale, florida, republican. caller: good morning. there was a book i saw as a young teenager and a movie was made about it called "seven days in may." it was so preposterous, everyone who saw the movie thought this could never happen, this could never happen. it was about generals who disagreed with the disarmament

agreement president was going to make with i guess the soviet union and they were going to take over the country because the president had gone rogue. everyone thought this was crazy. fiction has become truth. you know, bob woodward, when he had a book that was detrimental to donald trump, he was revered in his words were taken as proof no matter what and even amplified. let's see what the press does with this. let's see if they take it as proof, have a buy-in and get into it. you know what? millie is a coward. he was behind the president. what if they had a meeting with the president and said i'm worried about you going rogue. he's a coward and he needs to go and he needs to be arrested like

the generals in open seven days in may." host: that movie came out in 1964, burt lancaster and kirk douglas were the stars. this is the trailer from imdb, part of the trailer saying "you are soon to be shaken by the most awesome seven days in your life." that's that movie, from the 60's. don, michigan, good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning to the viewers out there in america. that last caller is completely lost. bob woodward, he knew trump's own words about the coronavirus. his own words. how is the media making something of it? that's ridiculous. but millie did the correct thing .

as an officer, as a veteran, an officer does not have to obey an order that is unjust or puts troops in danger. so, millie did the correct thing around trump. history will show them wrong. these trump supporters. have a great day. host: getting into the history, the authors noted the actions of military officers from the 1970's, the chairman new that he was pulling a schlesinger, resorting to the measures taken in august of 74 by the defense secretary at the time, who told military officials --

host: this is ray from syracuse, new york, good morning. caller: i'm a republican. some of the people calling in today are, they are, they are not thinking very clearly. first of all, donald trump was president for four years. anyone who thinks there's any kind of case to be made that he's a rogue nurse and, that he would just decide to have a war with china is insane. he's the first person in many years to hold that office that never started a new war and he worked every day to get us out of entanglements. that's all he did for four years. miley has nothing to stand on.

this far is the previous caller on whether it is lawful to disobey the order, i've got -- news for you, uc mj is crystal clear. even if it turns out you were correct, if you disobey a lawful order, you will be court-martialed and found guilty. so no, miley does not have options other than resigning. host: a few of your comments in social media. michael writing and saying notice the timing of this leak. it seems much is coming out, trying to do what they used to call a tweet storm from trump. this says general milley has yet to deny the allegations in the book and the longer he remains silent, the longer it looks like woodward is telling the truth. millie must answer questions to get to the bottom of the story. sheila saying why didn't woodward expose this

immediately? just a few of your comments on social media. a few minutes left to continue to get your comments on this book. anthony, virginia beach, virginia, democratic line, go ahead. >> good morning. let me say this, number one, miley should be court-martialed. he reports to the president and not pelosi. now we find out that hello seek is running the presidency? as the speaker of the house? she's also wrong. now we know that she's ahead of the president and the speaker? in effect what we have here is an overthrow of the government for a presidential office by the speaker of the house and the joint chief of staff. thank you. host: darla, manchester,

massachusetts, good morning. caller: first of all, i would like to say that the country is divided and a book like this kind of feeds into the frenzy. some will make a lot of profit on it. unfortunately, the rest of us are struggling. we have to go back to the articles and, you know, what constitution in government dictates. in the end, it's not about the parties, it's not about judgment . it's about what our government dictates.

you know, the proper procedure that we need to follow. i'm independent, but i really am torn between party conflict. i watch c-span a lot. the republican party is acting more like the democrat party in the democrat parties acting more like the republican party. host: in what ways? caller: policy wise. yesterday i watch the house and means committee all day long. what did they call it? it's that word for proposal, one after another, electric vehicles , a tax structure increasing the

internal revenue service. it appeared to me that the democrats were more for bigger government and expansion versus the republicans that were thinking more about the middle class and the taxpayer. i'm really in conflict now regarding my party affiliation, moving more from democrat to republican. host: time for one or two more phone calls here. joe has been waiting in ohio. good morning. caller: if general milley was so worried about president trump and what he would do with china and anyone else, where was he and afghanistan? i am a vet and i totally regret what he did to our people.

i really think this was the wrong procedure. as for mr. millie, i don't know anything about them. host: biden -- democratic line, new jersey. good morning. caller: the good general follow-through from when he first enlisted to every single movement upward in the military. to the constitution of the united states and to the people of the united states. not the president. i believe that most of his opinions and most of his actions were for the people of the united states and the constitution. as far as afghanistan goes, the afghans turned their back on the united states. when they turned arms on the

television. you want to talk about this? take a look at covid. look at what's going on in the united states. want mercy? have mercy for the people here in the united states that are dying here every day. host: that was linda, our last caller in this segment. stick around. we will be having a discussion on vaccine mandates with arthur kaplan and jewels and berg -- joel zindberg. later today, richard rubin will be joining us to discuss the spending proposals and the democratic tax plan. stick around, we'll be right back. ♪ >> live, wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, limbic and world

champion gymnast simone biles, maggie nichols, and aly raisman testify before the senate judiciary committee on the fbi's handling of its investigation into larry nasser, the former usa gymnastics position and convicted sex offender. the hearing comes after the inspector general found the agency failed to properly investigate reports that mr. nasser was assaulting young athletes. in inspector general and f guy director christopher wray will also appear before the committee. watch live coverage wednesday on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen at the free c-span radio app. -- on the free c-span radio app. >> this week, watch c-span's january 6, views from the house, where 14 members of congress share stories about what they saw, heard him and experienced that day. >> representative gosar from arizona was objecting to the arizona electors.

at that moment, i shouted out the top of my lungs, "this is because of you." i screamed it. >> the capitol police officers started coming into the chamber. they were being very loud. we were still actively debating, people were talking, and there was a lot of commotion. the doors to the chamber are typically open and all of the doors, they started shutting the doors. >> at some point, someone in the chambers, in the galley, a member, was yelling at the republicans to call trump and have trump call off his mob. >> there were a lot of freshmen there that i got to know during orientation that this was their first real experience as a member of congress and we were kind of watching them and talking to my fellow colleagues about what we can do to try to stop this. >> watch january 6, views from the house, this week on 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span,

c-span outdoor, or listen on the free c-span radio app. ♪ >> he was potter familious. he was ambitious and defeatist. >> these are the words of david tripp men, a journalist and former reporter at the wall street journal. words from a book review written about joseph e kennedy senior, father of jack, bought a be -- bobby, and the other kennedy. this is about joseph e kennedy senior's time as abbasid or to great britain, 1938 to 1940. >> historian susan ronald on this episodes of notes plus. listen at c-span.org/podcast or wherever you get your podcast. >> "washington journal" continues. host: a roundtable of discussion on the issue of vaccine mandates.

joining us for this discussion is dr. joel zinberg, a senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute and arthur kaplan at nyu school of medicine . mr. kaplan, i want to begin with you. a fairly simple question but complicated answer. what is the line between individual right and public health? >> it is it -- guest: it is a tough area because we value liberty and choice in america, our core values for us. we believe citizens can make intelligent choices about many aspects of their lives. public health, on the other hand, sometimes requires freedom , liberty, and choice be limited or abridged in order to achieve community benefits. in order to bring us to the point where we can say something is really important for the community. so simple areas like which side

of the road we drive on, whether or not we will require parents to put their kids in car seats, whether we are going to put fluoride in the water. there are number of areas where we said look, it may not be your choice, it may not be your individual preference or decision, but to achieve a common good, we have to abridged your freedom. and we do that in many areas, as i say, and life. host: dr. zinberg, same question. when it comes to public health, when can we place limits on individual rights? guest: you can place limits, but you want to do so as narrowly and infrequently as possible. so there may be instances where it is necessary to place some sort of limits but then how do you impose it? what is the least restrictive way of doing it, and who is the proper authority to make that determination? is it state and local governments, which is

traditionally the government entity that we task with doing that or is it the federal government, which really has now constitutional -- no constitutional role in general to do these things. host: the issue the brought up this conversation a vaccine mandates, the announcement from the biden administration on a slew of mandates. probably the one the most attention gathering last week is businesses with more than 100 employees must require their workers to get vaccinated or tested on a regular basis. mr. kaplan, what is the legal justification for the biden administration to have that mandate. -- mandate? guest: they are going to argue and our arguing is osha, the unit of the government responsible for workplace safety , has an obligation to step in and protect workers, if there is a grave, serious, important threat worker health. so they will establish that this

covert outbreak around the country with a huge number of deaths is in fact a danger. you have to then establish it is a danger in the work laced to workers, -- workplace to workers that they could be exposed if colleagues don't vaccinate or some workers may not be able to vaccinate, they need protection. then exercise authority as workplace safety intervention. as dr. zinberg said, a lot of local and state authority might be poignant to handle this but the federal government is not doing right by the workforce. host: doctor, why should this not be considered another workplace safety issue the federal government can get involved in? guest: you have to step back a second and see osha gets its authority from the commerce clause, and that is the federal government's ability to regulate economic activities and

intrastate activities. osha normally will make rules and regulations called common rulemaking, which is a somewhat lengthy process, requires publishing rules and the public to comment on them and adjusting the rules in accordance with comments. what they have chosen to do here is issue an emergency temporary standard, etf=s -- ets. they have only done this in nine instant is, in the late 1970's. it is very high standard to meet, and in those nine instances, courts struck down those standards because they said they did not meet the requirements, which dr. kaplan revert -- referred to. they have to show that there is grave danger and the standard is necessary to protect workers from danger. i do not think they will meet that standard here. on the issue on whether it is a

grave danger, we are at a point in the pandemic where the delta search has peaked and are declining nationwide. their isolated pockets and large but that is the situation, we are on the downslope, not the upslope. secondly, we are at a point where cdc just published zero prevalence data indicating we are probably at about 25% of the population has natural immunity from having the infection and recovered. we know there are about 177 million people who oppose vaccination. between those two, we are probably at a point where we have about 80% of the population either natural or vaccine immunity, and all of the studies indicate while the immunity may wane a little over time, it is still providing good protection, at least up to a year and perhaps more in the case of the natural immunity. [coughs]

excuse me. finally, you are at a point where we should be saying what should we be doing at this particular point in time and is it necessary? that is the second part. the osha issued an ets back in june requiring health care employers and employees to utilize personal protective equipment to install ventilation systems, install physical barriers, and undertake physical distancing in the work's. their justification -- workplace. their justification was this was adequate to protect workers in the workforce. when you are opposing a requirement on people -- imposing a requirement on people, you use the least restrictive means. if this was ok in june to adjust -- to justify it, why do we suddenly need mandates now in a position where we seem to be turning the corner? host: let me invite callers to join this conversation as we talk about vaccine mandates with dr. joel zinberg, mr. arthur

kaplan joining us as well. phone lines a split this way for this hour. if you are for vaccine mandates, it is (202) 748-8000. if you oppose the idea, (202) 748-8001. mr. kaplan, back to you with that question mr. zinberg raised, is it necessary -- does it work, and is a mandate necessary? guest: i believe it is because i think we have the core of people who still are not vaccinated. many of whom do pose a danger in the work laced. i do not agree with -- workplace. i do not agree with dr. zinberg that we have turned the corner. i think we are seeing signs there is an abatement on where the viruses. a lot of reports in the united states are still horrible and hospitals are still strained to the limit to try to take care of covid patients, 96% of whom are unvaccinated in many states and many localities. i think we still face a public

health emergency. i worry also that new variants can appear at any time. the rest of the world is not vaccinated and is an incubator for continued threats. i don't think letting our guard down because we may see some downturn or upturn in natural immunity is there. i also believe that the mandate is a signal to private industry. the government may run through osha. it is also saying distances put in mandate. -- business is put in a mandate. there are many businesses that wish to do it for business purposes, make sure customers are satisfied, everything is safe, make sure people can come into work. and we have an at will employment situation that can mandates. many companies are mandating, so i think in order to get us to the levels of vaccination, the levels of immunity we want to be at, a mandate is a tool. host: dr. zinberg, a question we

often get from viewers on this topic, now that the pfizer vaccine has been fully approved, what is the difference between a mandate here for that and other mandates -- vaccine mandates we have in society, mandates for children to get certain vaccines before they go to public schools or mandates to have certain vaccines before you travel to other countries? what is the difference here? guest: first of all, mandates to travel to other countries are obviously imposed by the other countries. so the childhood vaccinations, you are in a situation where you are protecting -- it is sort of the same consideration dr. kaplan -- mr. kaplan was talking about. those are mandates imposed by the state, not by the federal government. that is what i was referring to before. under our constitutional system, these are protecting public

health and safety, typically going to the state. there is no reason a state cannot impose a mandate. all of those mandates fall under the state and are not imposed by the federal government. saying we think it is a good idea and we wish the states is doing it -- states would do it is not a legal justification. and private enterprises also have the consensus to require mandates and many of them are doing -- just as many health care facilities were requiring influenza vaccines prior to this pandemic. private enterprise has the consensus to do it and many of them are doing it. this is something the federal government -- the impression that this is something the federal government can do it, vis-a-vis the viability of child vaccinations, you are in a situation where children are not

individuals that can exercise choice and the way adults are so states are acting with power in terms of protecting children when their adult parents might or might not. the states, that is again, just like the state power to protect health, the countries power is at play there. this is not something the government has the right to do. this was the problem you saw with the eviction moratorium, which was struck down by the supreme court. there, the biden administration extended the eviction moratorium after being told they basically lacked authority to do it under the public health service act that required an act of congress which was not forthcoming and struck down. the courts said just because you think it is a good idea and important to protect the public health does not mean you have the legal authority to do it. i would argue that situation here. at least if they tried to do be

savvy this emergency tempered ban. host: plenty of calls and we will get to them. charles in sarasota or to -- sarasota, florida is next. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to thank you and getting in on the channel which to law students everywhere has been a great resource to learn more about what is going on in the country and world. here is me with a dad of two kids, i have two sons. i teach my kids as they go to the school building. whatever organization that school works with, that they are to listen and are not to participate in certain activities. that is my role as a parent. whether i pay for their health care in ppo, planned organization insurance health

care, or pay it out of pocket, i do not want a schoolteacher coming back to them when they are studying to go into professional schools someday that they are uncooperative with peers and teachers or are insubordinate with peers and teachers because they do not listen to one story instruction. sometimes, even when a teacher is wrong, maybe another student is at health risk. here is one thing i want to put here that none of you guys have addressed in this conversation yet, so thank you to the host for letting me make a point. nobody talks about when a student takes a mask off because there is some dynamic going on on whether they are learning or something they are concerned about in the classroom or environment doesn't mean they should be penalized until they are 25 because they had a moment

that was not fair to them or they were not following through with instructions. host: charles, your concerns about pennell's asian, penalizing -- penalization, penalizing kids you do not take the vaccine? caller: that's one. here's the thing that people in these swatch buckles states don't get -- host: let's take that up on enforcement mechanisms. mr. kaplan, i will let you jump in first. guest: let's start with compulsory vaccination and mandatory vaccination. compulsory means you get vaccinated, if you will, in the site of the authorities and perhaps by some sort of public health person and you cannot refuse. we are close to that, by the way. probably the military, tough to refuse vaccines there in the federal government area what the military will do to get a choice, more like witch arm.

if you say no, you can be in a lot of trouble quickly on the enforcement side, history of court-martial's for people who refuse required vaccinations in military service. no one is proposing that under these mandates. what we see is a requirement with a penalty that you have to do it. i would say enforcement in the kit area usually is you cannot come to school. you have to homeschool or identify another way to educate. there has to be a combination offered by the education system. you may say that has that she may stay home. that has been true for decades with child mandated vaccines. people may choose not to vaccinate their kids. enforcement is you cannot enter the public schools, but there are if you will private learning options offered to you. host: dr. zinberg on enforcement mechanisms. guest: one enforcement mechanism

in the vaccine arena is, what is your alternative? for example, many institutions that have influenza vaccine requirements say you have to get vaccinated or you wear a mask. or they make an attempt to place you in a setting where you do not have patient contact, that they do not endanger a patient, potentially endanger patients. in this instance, what the biden administration has done with this proposed ets -- and i think your listeners also realize the ets has not been issued. this is just the president directing osha to draft an ets. no one knows exactly what it will say. from what the white house released, we think it will say you either are vaccinated or you undergo weekly testing, which sounds fine but i would argue it happens to be you get jabbed, you get stuck once a week, it is

expensive. my former colleague at the colleague -- there might be as many as 2 million workers at refuse to be vaccinated. if you test them once per week at let's say $100 a test, you are talking about $5.5 billion a week, which is a -- is not a lot of money to bernie sanders but is a lot to most other people and would ultimately be more than the corporate tax brings in a year. so you impose that on the workers or employers to undergo the testing. where as i said earlier, the earlier ets promotion suggested -- from osha suggested this less invasive measure, personal protective equipment, physical distancing, and moved ventilation system would be adequate. i think those are things we

ought to look at and see how are those working before we push mandatory vaccinations. and i would add i'm not someone against vaccination. i think vaccination is the way out of this pandemic. i am vaccinated. i would encourage everyone to be vaccinated unless they have some sort of medical implication. the question is, is this something that can be mandated and who should be mandating? host: marilyn, mark is on the line for those opposed to the vaccine mandates. good morning. caller: good morning. my big issue, it seems to me that the actual shot is a symptom here. it does not seem that in itself is the problem. it seems the bigger problem is they have constantly changed the deltas -- the goals. it was supposed to be 15 days we would shut down to slow the spread area that turned into --

spread. that turned into what are we now? 15 days turned into 19 months. originally, we were told we need to get it done. after population -- half the population so we can build up herd immunity. then we went from that no longer is on the table, now we have this vaccine and it is great. and shouldn't we still be looking for herd immunity at 50% of the population? but no, it changes again. now it turns into biden last week literally saying the american people -- i understand -- to those vaccinated, the people on vaccinated, i understand your anger at them. in the -- unvaccinated, i understand your anger at them. in the next paragraph, they say if you are vaccinated, you have nothing to worry about. five minutes before you say i understand your anger at the vaccinated. the thing is the vaccine works.

anyone that has gotten it should not the angry or angry at those who have not gotten it. the thing in charge of the thing have been lying to us repeatedly for a year and a half erie it -- year and a half. host: the idea on changing goalposts. mr. kaplan. guest: first, goalposts have changed because the underlying pandemic has changed. when we first started, we did not have vaccines and we were looking at isolation and masking and testing. i might add the initial response of the federal government under the trump administration in my view was not adequate. they pushed vaccines as the answer. they trumpeted vaccines as saying you have to go there, get everybody vaccinated, that is the ultimate answer. the president and other officials were not strong on masking or isolating or testing. those i think set us back.

then we had a new variant appear which is much more contagious, the delta variant. the delta post shifted there, not by us but by the viruses. and the rest of the world is out there unvaccinated and the virus running rampant, the opportunity for more mutations to come here and either in fact the vaccinated is not zero. it is a real risk we have to pay attention to. the other comment i would make is we are not going to get to herd immunity at 50%. no one believes that number. the contagiousness of this strain requires vaccination levels much closer to 90% or natural immunity. that may partly contribute here in terms of people being infected, but you've got to get up to a high rate of immunity to tamp down, not eliminate, but tamp down this. in response to the caller, the reason the vaccinated are worried is they may have

children that are no -- children. they are not vaccinating anyone under 12. my mom had an autoimmune disease and could not be vaccinated and died last year. she needed protection from staff which clearly brought the virus into her new sing home -- her nursing home setting. there are other people with cancer, transplants, many conditions that cannot vaccinate. so part of this is to protect yourself. part of it is the duty to protect those vulnerable to death, disability from the virus, and they can only be protected if the rest of us vaccinate. host: you brought up natural immunity. do you think those who have had covid should be exempt from vaccine mandates? guest: that's a great question. it's quite frankly a science issue because we don't understand how long natural immunity lasts. [phone ringing] also as dr. zinberg pointed out, different levels of exposure may

trigger different levels of response in terms of immunity in the individual. under uncertainty, i will say let's vaccinate because that's the maximum response. people who have been exposed to covid do get a significant immune boost if they vaccinate anyway. that is what the cdc recommends. natural immunity might be partly helpful. the strategy in the long run is to maximize vaccination. host: dr. zinberg -- host: our next caller in new york. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a point to make, regarding vaccination broadening out the conversation a little bit to answer this question. i do not think anybody would disagree that the best outcomes to covid have been by nations that have followed the science. south korea and other asia south pacific nations.

there total deaths is around 2500 last time i checked a few weeks ago. we have 600,000 deaths. this is not because we don't know what to do. we know the science as well as the south three and's. the problem is twofold, one, -- south koreans. the problem is twofold, we do not have the way to respond like the south koreans had because they were incentivized to do so with sars and mers. and we do not have that incentive. two, we do not have the trust to make the capacity actionable. that is evident in the conversation we are having with vaccines. it was also the case with masking. i have written a letter to the president and congress with a proposal to try to follow this problem. and to do that, i think we need to look back and say, how have we sold a single problem that

has prevented evidence from driving policy? the answer is in states in 1913 [indiscernible] host: jeff, i apologize, we are losing you. stay on the line and we will see if we get you back in a little bit. mr. zinberg, i will let you respond as we try to do that. guest: he was breaking up a bit so i'm not 100% sure of the question. but the mantra of follow the science is an unfortunate one because as dr. kaplan points out, the science has not always been clear. i think at the outset, particularly of the pandemic, no one was 100% sure what we were dealing with, no one was 100% sure the best mechanism of tamping down the spread of disease. you had dr. fauci saying don't

wear masks, they are ineffective and may be harmful. a few months later, turning around and suggesting that you should wear a mask. i'm not criticizing him in the sense no one was 100% sure. things change. and as the information changes, the prescriptions change. but following the sciences is in a way nonsense because the biden administration is repeatedly saying this and issuing things that are clearly against -- either against the science or in areas where the science is not so clear. for example on the booster shot. back in mid-august they announced, starting the week up september 20, they thought they would recommend booster shots, but there is apparently a lot of dissension within the cdc. they feel the data is not there -- data -- data are not there.

also in the fda, you had the top two vaccine officials resign. just yesterday, they signed on with 16 other authors in an article saying the evidence is not there to support that. and in fact, by pushing boosters you may end up with adverse vaccine reactions that would undermine the efforts to get people vaccinated and undermine public health confidence. so the sciences, even if this data is not 100% clear, and those who suggest that it is and they are merely following the science i think are misleading the public. guest: can i just jump in on that point? host: yes, sir. guest: just quickly. i do think follow the science needs to be amended. follow the science, and then apply your values to what is known and what is not known and what is uncertain. that's why i said we are not completely certain about natural

immunity but if our values are to get rid of the pandemic, to protect the weak and vulnerable who cannot vaccinate, to make sure we do not tip over the health system with people and vaccinated, then you lean with that value orientation to going in the direction of vaccination. it is an old song, is does not apply ought. at the same time, my position would be we have to take down this pandemic. i don't want to be talking about this next year again. [laughter] we've got a really use our best foot forward with vaccination. i want federal government, local authorities, and private enterprise to use every tool they can to take our best weapon, vaccination, and get it out there. host: 30 minutes left with our roundtable joined by dr. joel zinberg of the competitive

enterprise institute, arthur kaplan of the nyu school of medicine in the division of medical ethics there. mr. zinberg, for folks that do not know, what is the competitive enterprise institute? guest: the competitive enterprise institute is a free market think tank in washington, d.c. and looks carefully at government regulation and tries to uncover regulations that are unnecessary and counterproductive. host: mr. kaplan, you work in the division of medical ethics. you were talking about our ethics and decision-making. it was the doctor that brought up the idea boosters. a lot of discussion about the ethics on that right now, especially when countries around the world are struggling to have an effect nations for people to get their first or second shot. should we ethically be talking about boosters right now? guest: that's a good ethics problem, putting aside how we would implement different

policies here. i would say this. i'm in the camp that said we are unlikely right now for the world supply and lack of infrastructure and the rest of the world to distribute vaccines, get them out to people . many nations do not have refrigeration and roads. the best thing we can do is try to maximize impact of the supply we have in countries that can distribute these vaccines. not every rich country as well vaccinated. japan is not. they could use supplies and vaccines. it is not clear that we are always talking about poor countries here. but i think you have to follow the science, booster science, which seems to be uncertain, tilting forward with evidence out of israel that may be boosters help, maybe they confer some significant boost in immunity, how long is not clear. i'm not ready to say we should be shipping supplies overseas

only because i'm not sure they can be distributed equitably or efficiently, that they would make a dent in anything going on overseas right now. you have got to come up with a system to make more vaccines overseas so distribution is better. then you've gotta figure out ways to ship the needle. refrigeration, truck, distribution system. we have been battling polio internationally for about 40 years to vaccinate the world. it is not so easy. host: plenty of calls for both gentlemen this morning. it lets me take a couple of calls and come back and get your thoughts on them. this is john up first out of minnesota. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. nurses and nursing homes were heroes. now they may lose their jobs.

you either take the jab or lose your job. i think it is more of a civil rights issue. unvaccinated people are not going to have a seat at the counter. host: that is john in minnesota and this is mark in silver spring, maryland. caller: good morning. thank you. i would suggest the tough love approach to those anti-bikes are's -- anti-baxter's and those who refuse masks. -- antivaxers and those who refuse masks. if you don't want to get the vaccine and you get covid, don't go to the hospital. if you go to the hospital, back of the line. there are other priorities. if someone shows up with a heart attack, you are knocked down. or nurses have to take a break after back to back shifts for

weeks. not enough coverage? be tough, leave the hospital. host: that is mark in maryland. dr. zinberg, i will let you start on those issues. civil rights issues and tough love approach. guest: with the caller on tough love approach, when the patient comes into the emergency room or into a medical office, i sure hope we do not say g.i. will not treat your cancer because you smoke, i'm not going to treat you for your car accident because you drove recklessly, i will not take care of your liver disease because you are an alcoholic. i do not think physicians ought to be in that judge mental phase -- judge mental -- judgemental phase. the health-care workers, seems to me that is the strongest case for a vaccine mandate because patients are a vulnerable population and have other medical conditions, they are

surrounded by other sick people, by staff. if they were going to be mandates, that i think is the strongest take for mandates, either in medical facilities or long-term care facilities, nursing homes, where you have vulnerable populations who have no other form of population -- form of protection. that is the strongest case for vaccine mandates whether opposed by states or imposed by the private facilities themselves, which i think they should be. host: mr. kaplan, do you want to weigh in on the ethics of the tough love approach? guest: for the health care institutions, morally, here's what they covid ethics of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, all health care pharmacists say, patient interest first. i did not write those codes in ethics. the professions wrote those codes in ethics. often they say do no harm.

they also say protect the vulnerable. everyone with covid uses those principles and obligates the health care worker. to me, that says it you are not vaccinated, you should not be there. on a moral basis, not doing what you promised to do to health care professionals. you cannot honor the interests of your patients before you worry about something like a safe and effective vaccination. i do not think you are in the right place and i completely agree health care institutions, hospice, home care, they ought to have policies. we do at nyu. and those very same arguments, i use them as part of a push i was involved in to get flu vaccinations and to all hospitals and institutions around the united states. there were some health-care workers that did not want to do it, not very many. i will tell you two to three years later, it has become routine and there were no protests pre-covid of the flu

mandates. people got used to them. they expected to be asked about them and all new hires knew they were coming. there was a psychological emotional adjustment once you make the expectation there. very difficult. there are doctors offices now saying i'm not taking any new patients who have covid -- excuse me, who are not vaccinated for covid. not taking you in, you pose a risk to me, to my other patients, a risk to my staff and i am not doing it. clearly they are partly doing it to exert pressure on the people to get vaccinated but we are starting to see primary care people say no. dr. zinberg said it is tough to do that on a hospital setting in terms of taking an people for a variety of reasons who are there because of a heart attack or car accident or reckless driving or drug addiction or they did not vaccinate. but i will say this, i hear

every day for many doctors and nurses, many hospitals overwhelmed with covid patients, anger, frustration, and taught about maybe we should put people to the back of the line. i do not think that will be policy. people should be aware you overwhelm a hospital week upon week, burn out a staff, make them a choice is between what to do was someone with a heart attack and i see you covid patients -- icu full of covid patients. host: bobby is next in missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. i remember when the anti-vaxxers were a relatively small pocket of orthodox jews in new york and possibly the tuskegee experiments made folks, rightfully so, skeptical of vaccines. under the trump administration,

they grew significantly. two more points. i remember when the polio out rake was happening. --polio outbreak was happening. my father was a doctor and my mother took me to where we could get the polio vaccine and got us the protection we needed. number three, when i went to school, i had to present my vaccine card. otherwise, i could not attend school, right? so why is it that you would mandated then as children we should have our vaccine cards and even now, all of a sudden, the mandate are advancing. dr. zinberg, how about you, your family, and friends? do they wear masks, are they vaccinated? guest: i'm vaccinated, my family is vaccinated, i encourage people to be vaccinated. i addressed earlier the question of the child vaccines, but that

is a different issue. if we are talking about adult vaccinations, look at influenza. you are lucky if 50% of the population at any given year gets vaccinated. that is a good year. it is often less. in years prior to the pandemic it was in the 30%. it is not a question that everyone gets vaccinated and everything is clear. i would point out the anti-vaxxers are not confined to republicans or confined to trump supporters. people in minority communities unfortunately have been part of the group skeptical of vaccination. they have not gotten vaccines as much. and some of this, talking about following the science, some of this unfortunately emanated from the medical community. a big mover of the anti-back movement was an article published -- anti-vax movement

was an article published by a physician. it was a mainstream respected publication. it was completely fraudulent and took years to debunk that. and still, you have people unfortunately you are skeptical. thankfully, i think those hard-core -- i would argue irrational people -- are i think a small number. i do think, unfortunately in the case of covid and covid vaccine, this is an area politicized from the start. i do not think people should forget that, for most of the presidential campaign, then candidate biden and candidate harris were saying they do not think they have any confidence in a vaccine developed under trump and they will not take it as long as it is administered by a trump administration. you had andrew cuomo who was

adored by many people saying basically the same. for months and months you have people undermining confidence in the vaccine, which frankly was a triumph, a triumph of modern science and the enterprises to develop, and it was a private government partnership developed in record time. yet now you unfortunately have people who have no confidence in it. often for political reasons. host: mr. kaplan, do you want to weigh in on the politics of vaccination? guest: do we have another four to five hours? [laughter] that's a really, like tissue. i don't want to get heartburn but i would not say the vaccines are the result of private enterprise. there is a pretty large government investment in terms of many many dollars on vaccines and working with private enterprise. i think it may be a good motto

for future drug and vaccine developer to have the partnerships. we can get into the weeds of that some other time. i do think there is a misinformation problem out there on vaccines. it may have been stoked by political difference. weirdly as we have been saying, the trump administration put all of its chips on vaccines. politically, that landed some judicious comments by their opponents about what they were doing because they wanted more masking and testing and quarantine to supplement what trump and his administration were pushing, but it did lead to politicization. what that has led to his a lot of people not trusting government statements, scientific statements, authoritative statements as was true with polio around when people did not question that post-world war ii. the government could be trusted more and scientists knew what

they were doing with a terrible disease like polio. we do not have that now. the internet is rife with this information and nonsense. phony carers, unsubstantiated testimonials, people selling products to make money that's claimed to be immune boosters -- that claim to be immune boosters, and to be polite about it, cockamamie claims about vaccines in terms of the risks you face. if you accept the vaccine, who has gotten sick and who is dead. just a cesspool of misinformation that fuels and reinforces doubt and reluctance on those who are inclined not to vaccinate. i think that is a situation that we should argue should their government -- should the government step in, should there be more monitoring of the internet, should we weed out offenders, should we go after

the licenses, which i favor, of doctors who continuously misinform and make false statements about covid or covid vaccination or other aspects of the plague. but i think it is a world does enforce vaccine hesitancy. guest: i would like to jump in here in a sense that i did say the vaccines were developed through a public/private partnership. this was the policy and strategy that was advanced by the council of economic advisers, which is where i was in fall of 2019 where we published a report on how to improve responses to pandemics. we were thinking of influenza then broke viciously or maybe not, and you had another pandemic with a brand-new virus. we proposed public high that partnerships was the way to go. that was the strategy behind operation warp speed. i think it is a misstatement to

say the trump administration placed all of his chips on vaccines. i think when people talk about following the science, they immediately say that means you must have complete lockdown. that was very unfortunate. the science really would have said protect the vulnerable people by isolating them and taking protective measures. instead, we had a nationwide lockdown that brought economic activity to a halt, that led to excess mortality from a number of other diseases from people either because of fear or because they were locked out of hospitals and medical care could not get treatment for their prominent patients and put off screening tests. we have had excess mortality which has come at a tremendous cost which is also the detriment in wealth and income eating to its own mortality problem.

you will find countries that were vilified, countries like sweden, from not imposing lockdowns do not have higher mortality rates per capita than a lot of other countries that impose heavy duty lockdown. the same thing is true in this country. states like florida and texas do not have higher mortality rates than places like michigan that impose heavy lockdowns or the states in the northeast. so the lockdowns many propose as the science-based alternative were not science-based and they have their own problems that we should have avoided. host: i've got about 10 mins left with you gentlemen and plenty of phone close waiting to chat with you. this is jerry in new jersey. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have a couple questions. with the vaccines, are most vaccines -- with most vaccines,

there are trials and research and it takes a few years for them to know if it is safe. that has not happened. there has been no trials. if children are vaccinated, will that affect them on reproduction or down the road? we do not know what this vaccine will do to children as they get older. host: we will take your questions as we hear from our next caller in bloomington, arizona. go ahead. caller: i have the same kind of response. i wanted to talk to joel kind of. i live in indiana and tower hospitals are full. my husband and i, we are in our 60's now, and we look at each other and say "well, i guess it is time to be really cautious and careful and not get any accidents." so who do they choose when your

hospitals are full of people and vaccinated, because this is the unvaccinated that are in our hospital and filling them up. so what you think about that? host: we will take both of those calls. mr. kaplan, let you start on the speed of development and concerns about children. guest: it's a little unfortunate that we coined the term warp speed because that gave the impression that somehow steps were taken. these vaccines we have now, the pfizer, moderna, have a long history. they were under development -- i went to school with one of the people who help figure out the mrna vaccine and he has been working on them for sars and other diseases for 10 years. the platform was established on what could be done with animals, done in the lab, and that is why people thought we could do it

relatively quickly in human trials. the studies showed, with big numbers very quickly, that these vaccines are very safe and effective. so the idea that we took shortcuts or dodged the usual vaccine evidence you might look for, we were in a position to go more quickly on the government paid for these vaccines, allowing them to be manufactured and available, ready to go as soon as fda set ok. so that might be viewed as speed on the manufacturing and distribution and, not on the science -- end, not on the science. long-term, i would not worry about it. there's no vaccine i'm worried about that whatever not have side effects within the first year to 18 months. i do not see anything somehow popping up later with respect to these vaccines we are using now. one last point, we ought to not

forget, there are more vaccines in the pipeline. while we are debating and arguing about these vaccines, i hope you do not stop doing research, continued research to do better vaccines. maybe we don't need boosters if we come up with a single shot vaccine that would last three to four years. maybe we come up with a form -- an aerosol form to build immunity. these are the first ones we got an we should be using them widely, i think. but they may not be the last word. host: mr. zinberg. guest: i would argue that there were trials. people that suggest there were not trials are missing warmed. the trials that the companies post before the fda to get the emergency authorization had 30 million to 40 million people. now we are in a point where we have probably close to 200 million people in this country

alone who have received vaccines either one does or the full two doses -- dose or full two dose regiments. to say there is not enough information and we don't know instantly wrong. thankfully, these have proved to be a stream lee -- proved to be extremely effective, proved to have minimal side effects, and usually not long lasting side effects. these are safe vaccines, probably given to many millions more people than most other vaccines, and people should be assured they are safe to take. be savvy children, we do not know the answer yet because the vaccines -- esa v children, we do not know that -- visa v children, we do not know -- i have every confidence that the folks of the fda will not approve it until we have adequate data to show that it is

safe for children. vis-a-vis hospitals, this is a recurring theme that gets overhyped by the media. even in new york city, which was the locus of the early first phase in spring of 2020, it was a very rare hospital filled to capacity. part of that is because you should not assume this is a static situation. hospital administrators are quite clever. my hospital, they were fabulous in terms of finding new beds, turning areas that had me used for one purpose into another, turning recovery rooms into icu's, finding new bed space. so it is not capacity. the capacity of the hospitals of new york and other areas of the country can and does change. i would add a changes on private initiative. many studies -- many of the

changes that occurred adaptations as businesses in general and hospital in particular prior to government mandates. so people were reacting to the prevalence of the disease and to the needs of the time. they continue to do so. this argument that we can't go out because there are full hospitals is fallacious. i would argue many people to react to their perception of risk, and if you are in a vulnerable situation and feel threatened, you adapt your behavior. you may stay at home or avoid crowded situations, you may avoid indoor venues and that is fine. that is your right and something that is observed over many decades. host: i have time for one more call. alina has been waiting in

connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i know many people who have had covid, got over it at home. there were people that normally were very healthy, working out, going to the gym, eating right. then i know people who had their shots who had underlying conditions and became very ill after getting the vaccine. they are still having problems, and i know a cousin of a friend of mine who had the vaccine wind up in the hospital with covid, very severe in the lungs, and still there and may not make it. host: got your points. we are running out of time and want to get both our guests a final minute or two. mr. kaplan, i will let you start. guest: i will repeat what joel and i have been saying. the vaccines are safe. they really do work well.

we don't agree necessarily on what is the best way to get unvaccinated people to use them. i want all tools and everybody on deck to do the best we can in this pandemic, particularly before the winter where we might see more increase, but i would not be hesitant. because -- hesitant because you hear stories about people getting sick. the virus is the big threat in terms of your health. the right thing to do still is to protect your neighbor, protect the kids, try to make sure you do not tip over hospitals that cannot expand their capacity to adjust when they get hit with a lot of unvaccinated sick people. i think the responsible move is to get vaccinated. host: mr. zinberg, i will give you the final where here. guest: the reactions people have observed to the vaccine has

thankfully been fleeting and not severe. when people end up in the hospital, overwhelmingly, they are unvaccinated people who have gotten covid, not people who got the vaccine and had a reaction to the vaccine. and they are not people who had breakthrough infections, people who were vaccinated and nevertheless were infected. the vaccines appear to be effective in terms of keeping you from being affected -- infected in the first place. if you are infected, they demonstrated the severity of illness. overwhelmingly, the people hospitalized and unfortunately some of them dying are the people who are unvaccinated, not the people vaccinated. so the safest thing for you to do is utilize this highly effective, very safe vaccine. host: and we will end at their. joel zinberg from the competitive enterprise institute

, a senior fellow there. and nyu school of medicine of the -- and arthur caplan of the nyu school of medicine, founding director of the division of medical ethics. appreciate your time. thank you so much. guest: thank you. much. about an hour left in our program. up next we will turn to the congressional democrats proposed tax plan to pay for their various pending proposals. will be joined by the wall street journal's richard rubin for that discussion. later nbc 4 washington investigative reporter scott mcfarland joins us to discuss the latest on the january 6 investigation and the prosecution of suspects. we will be right back. >> live wednesday at 10:00 eastern, olympic and world champion gymnast simone biles, mckayla maroney, maggie nichols, and aly raisman testified before

the senate judiciary committee on the fbi's handling of its investigation into larry nasser, former gymnastics position and convicted sex offender after the fbi director found the agency failed to investigate reports he was assaulting young athletes. michael horowitz and fbi director christopher wray will appear before the committee. watch our coverage wednesday on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. weekends on c-span two bring the best in american history and nonfiction books. saturday on american history tv on lectures in history, former charleston mayor, the smithsonian secretary, and a professor from the citadel military college discuss the new african-american history museum being built in charleston, south carolina. at 2:00 eastern, we will take a

behind the scenes camp david with a retired rear admiral, commander of the complex under bill clinton and george w. bush. he is author of the book inside camp david, the private world of the presidential retreat. and jeff gordon talks about his book a secret meeting at camp david. the connection between the value of the u.s. dollar and the gold standard. both feature leading offers discussing their latest nonfiction books. former south carolina governor and congressman mark sanford reflects on his clinical career and discusses the future of the republican party in his books. he is interviewed by a former pennsylvania congressman. at 11:00 history roxanne dunbar ortiz and her book not a nation of immigrants says america is not a nation founded by and for

immigrants, but rather a product of settler colonialism and slavery. watch look tv every weekend on c-span two. find a full schedule on your program guide. >> washington journal continues. host: always happy to have richard rubin of the wall street journal join us to walk through complicated questions of tax policy. we got a big set of proposals from house democrats on the ways and means committee. this is the headline in your story -- taxes would rise for higher earners. before we dive in the to the details, explain how this tax piece fits into the bigger goal democrats have to move the biden economic agenda. guest: democrats are piloting as much of the biden agenda as they

can into the budget reconciliation bill do you have up to 3.5 chile dollars of spending -- to have up to three point five chile dollars of tax increases -- up to five -- up to $3.5 trillion of tax increases. the house has come up with the how to pay for it part, the part the chairman has been reluctant to release. this fully kick starts the process of the ways and means committee will likely approve this is in the house will consider it, the white house still has their own ideas. that will all mesh together. we will talk through some of the details. it is the precise tax increases, which ones they adopted from the administration proposals and which ones they have chosen not to that they have laid out. that is what is giving the proposal its full picture. host: let's dive into those

details. these proposals being worked through on capitol hill, among them raising the corporate tax rate to 26.5% on businesses with income over $5 million a year, that is from the current 21%. 39.6 tax rate for individuals making over $400,000 a year. a 3% surtax on individuals making more than $5 million a year. then increasing the top capital gains rate to 28.8% from the current 23.8%. how did they settle on these numbers? guest: they were looking to hit a revenue target. they are looking to tax hike people and corporations. that is where this led them. they looked at the kinds of taxes high income people play. that is capital gains, state income taxes as well. ordinary income as well.

there were also changes on higher minimum taxes on the far -- on the minimum income taxes. they looked at who did they want to tax, higher income people and corporation. what they left out for the does good the administration wanted. there's been a lot of discussion on taxing unrealized gains, unsold assets at death. there is not enough support at that in the house or senate to get it over the finish line. they also did include some expansion of the irs come $80 billion of additional irs funding that would double the size of the agency. they have not included a provision that would require banks to report gross account flows for individual businesses each year that would help the irs. there pieces of the biden agenda. the house proposal takes some of them and leaves others aside.

democrats, (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents, (202) 748-8002. if you have questions about these tax proposals now a good time to call in and talk to a guy who studies them all the time. we look at these proposals and these numbers, we threw a lot of numbers at our viewers. if these become law, how big of a change to the tax code with this be. compare this to the trump tax law changes from 2017. guest: structurally it is less of a change. in that lot you saw big changes in what was allowed to be deducted, both for individuals and corporations. this is a different kind -- i try to use the word tax reform -- this is a different kind of tax reform. this is a tax plan that is much

more about we will offer a bunch of tax credit, democrats have a bunch of breaks if you do a bunch of different things, renewable energy, electric vehicles, also a big extension of the expanded child tax credit, breaks for caregivers. if you meet on the middle and lower income, you do the specified things or you have children, their big tax cuts that can turn into cash. it is on the high end ratcheting up the taxes. it is very much the tale of two tax codes, trying to make the taxes -- shrinking the income tax and pushing people off the income tax rolls. host: winners and losers if this becomes law? guest: winners or anyone getting the child tax credit.

it is expanded to 3000 year and $3600 a year for children under age six. that is a large amount of money. today is the monthly payment day. check your bank account. those payments are what the democrats want to keep going. renewable energy rates. those people are winners. on the losing side, if your income is over $400,000 the house democrats have a lot of proposals that would raise taxes on your income. the story reference that we have out from yesterday in today's paper is the 10.6% increase in taxes for households that have $1 billion and up. that is a significant bump. those are the people democrats are trying to go after. host: for those with subscriptions to the wall street

journal, taxes would rise for high earners. if you want to read it, richard rubin explains it all and he is also taking your phone calls. ralph is up first. an independent. good morning. caller: several times you've had these no tax hike guys come on advocating how poor the rich are. every time they come on they say the top 1% pays this much money in taxes, but that only includes the federal income tax. that does not include state and county and everything else. when someone comes out and says i pay a less percentage of tax than my secretary does. what these guys are failing to say is why would somebody who gets cap against -- and uses capital gains as a primary source of income, why would they be able to claim less tax than a guy who works as a plumber or whatever? the tax system is so screwed and

are so many exemptions, there is 10,000 pages of exemptions on the tax code and only 15 or 20 applied to the average guy who works for a wage and the rest is for people with capital gains and businesses, and businesses that got tax write offs. i am tired of looking amazon, one of the largest corporations in the world, pay no taxes. host: richard rubin? guest: there are a few things worth unpacking. those are all things we hear often. on warren buffett not paying a lot in taxes, a lot of that is something the bided administration wanted to go after. we are talking about taxing capital gains at death. warren buffett does not sell so he does not realize capital gains. that means he has significant increases in wealth but not significant income as we define income. democrats have been trying to change that.

there is not enough support among democrats to do that. as far as federal income taxes, federal income taxes are highly progressive. you added under -- you at in other taxes, people are paying a greater share of their income but it is less progressive than the federal income tax. on amazon it is a trickier question. some of the reasons amazon's tax payments are somewhat low is because they are doing research to get a tax credit for that, they invest in expanding their equipment and be able to write that off immediately. in some ways they are following the tax code that has been laid out and that congress has put out. that is always a tricky thing where he want companies to pay but also give them breaks to not do that with valid policy

regions to encourage those kind of activity. host: truth or consequences, new mexico. good morning. caller: i have a suggestion on how we can save tax dollars. a lot of it is wasted on housing going to private land owners. the federal government owns a lot of prime real estate and military bases. the federal government can build housing on military bases and own the housing and make it efficient. the citizens have lost control of their tax dollars due to direct deposit. the corporations control the tax dollars and people need to get their money and collect the taxes. that is not how it works anymore. thank you. host: jorge in truth or

consequences new mexico on corporate taxes. i wanted to get more to what came out of the house ways and means committee. we talk about businesses with revenue among -- above $500 million paying the 26.5%. businesses with revenue between $400,000 a year and 500 million stay at the 21% rate. businesses with revenue of less than $400,000 per year seeing a rate cut to 18%. on those proposals and whether that will make it to a final bill? guest: maybe. i've heard support for that elsewhere. to be clear, that is the corporate tax rate. there are a bunch of small corporations that pay that, corporations with income below $5 million or below the other threshold. it is important to realize most small businesses and even a lot of large businesses do not pay the corporate income tax at all.

they are called pass-throughs and their income is reported on their owners individual tax returns. those businesses, there is a lot of them across the country. raising taxes on a lot of those businesses. for the business owners over 400,000, they are not the smallest businesses in that group. there are a lot of medium and large sized businesses that certainly would be affected by the tax increases they are talking about on the individual side. the bulk of the corporate income tax is going to be the top rates of larger corporations. host: we are calling this the house democrats proposal out of the ways and means committee. is this the bided proposal -- is this the biden proposal? did this get much pushback from the white house or is this what

they will support? guest: i would not call this the biden proposal and has some items that are not in here. this has some changes to those businesses that are not in the biden proposal. democrats are trying to work together. i would expect the bided administration and the senate and the house to work together to take what they have now, to take the biden proposal and melt them together into something that can get 50 votes in the senate. host: this is clay, good morning. caller: good morning. a couple of questions. president biden says no one making $400,000 or less will pay any taxes. is that on individuals or

families or husband-and-wife? guest: they have set it is at the household level. you can see that reflected in the ways and means proposal that a lot of those rate increases start -- they have chosen individuals at $400,000, married couples at $450,000. there certainly are some proposals in here, increases on tobacco taxes and corporate taxes to the extent that if people under 400,000 own shares of corporate stock, either on their own or in retirement accounts would be affected by that. you've seen republicans criticize and say the administration is violating its pledge. the direct tax increases all start above $400,000 for individuals and above $450,000 for married couples. host: falls church in virginia,

this is jason. caller: i just wanted to call and say i think the tax situation -- when i was younger i used to complain about how the rich are not getting taxed enough and then as i got older and more worldly and started paying taxes myself i realized the richer you get the more taxes you pay, but because you are richer you have more money, and even if you pay more taxes you still have more money. i do not think simply paying more percentagewise when the top certain percent already pay something like 70% of the taxes we pay. i do not think increasing that were trying to find a way to tax people's wealth before they get it, like warren buffett, would do anything besides making people leave this country. certainly i would be in that position. i cannot believe that today you are talking about taxes, when mark milley called china on a

back channel without the president's knowledge and said if we are going to attack you i will give you warning. host: did you watch the first alabama program? caller: i did not. did you cover that. host: we spent the first hour of our program. caller: you should've spent the whole program. host: the caller out of virginia. caller: i was listening to television this morning and steve scalise said at the ways and means committee they came across an unknown methane tax that is going to be awful for this country. could you remark on that. i would appreciate it. guest: there are some increases in superfund taxes, taxes that apply on a bunch of oil industry proposals. the administration had even more tax changes to the oil and gas

industry that the house ways and means democrats did not adopt. i am not sure what methane tax you are talking about. the history has argued those costs would get through into goods and services people have. you've seen republicans make the argument that the democrats would increase inflation. host: in terms of industries concerned about specific tax increases, you talk about tobacco tax increases in your story. explain. guest: that raises about $96 billion over a decade. democrats argue that has public health purposes. it has been shown that increases in tobacco taxes can help prevent people from starting to smoke. that is their argument.

there are plenty of other industries that are concerned. every multinational corporation is looking very carefully at all of the details that have come out on u.s. companies, foreign income, farm companies operating. energy industries and car companies are looking at the details of all of those incentives in the proposal. every industry is affected. they are all looking at this very closely. host: less than 10 minutes left with richard rubin. randy is in the bluegrass state, republican. caller: just one question. if you do not have communism by taxation, then how do you have communism? can you say that on the air? guest: presumably by the collective ownership of the means of production you can do that. i do not think that is what anyone is talking about.

i presume there are ways to impose those sorts of policies without doing it through the tax code. host: howard in north carolina. democrat. caller: good morning. i've a question. i just heard something. they're going to raise cigarette taxes to stop me from smoking due to health. why don't raise people's taxes on people who do not want to take the virus shot? that might inspire them. isn't it so that donald trump said he will be able to do your taxes on a postcard and it would be so easy and simple because he is the only one who can fix it? can you tell the people what the republicans proposed when they passed this tax break or tax cut to the 1% of america? guest: on your first point about

some sort of tax or tax penalty on vaccines, that has not come up. i've heard not a lot of talk about that from members of congress. that takes time to work through the system. they are looking -- the mandates have a quicker effect. the postcard -- that did not happen in any postcard way. there were a few things in the 2017 tax law that made taxes simpler. it pushed a lot of people from itemizing to the standard deduction, which means instead of charitable contributions you just get the standard deduction. for people hiring people in the $200,000 to $500,000 range paying the alternative minimum tax, they got pushed out of that so that got simpler for them. the way i tend to think about it is the world is complex and taxes tend to reflect that as

opposed to necessarily -- everyone wants something simple and then people also want the tax system to do a bunch of other things. those goals and priorities sometimes clash. host: to the empire state. this is matthew. independent. caller: i just wanted to say that the tax code was written by rich people for rich people. there is no other way around that. politicians are not going to change the tax code because they are bought and paid for by the rich people. unless you get rid of citizens united, get that overturned where you take dark money out of politics, none of that will change. i would like to address something said earlier by a gentleman who said all the rich people will vacate the united states for more tax-easy places.

good luck. go to europe. see what kind of taxes you pay there. if you do not go there, go to a communist country where they simply take your business. host: where you want to start? guest: a couple things on leaving the country. one is we have attacks now, if you give up your citizenship there is pretty significant tax penalty. an exit tax. people do it, particular people who live outside the u.s. and are u.s. citizens. europe is an interesting comparison. we are the only country without a value added tax and a consumption tax. it is the case our tax system is more progressive. the exception is warren buffett and people who do not realize gains. set that aside. in other countries, they have

larger social safety net, paid leave and health care and those sorts of things. they also have broader middle-class taxes. that is the trade-off scandinavian countries and other european countries have done is raised taxes on everyone to provide benefits for everyone. the u.s. and democrats are heading in a somewhat different direction which is trying to broaden those benefits and raise taxes on the top. that is not to say one version is right or the other, but there does go different approaches. host: a few minutes left with richard rubin. i wanted to ask you on the tax policy beat how congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez's dress at the met gala with "tax the rich," how did that go over? guest: the energy on the left around taxing the rich is real. we saw it -- dresses aside, we

saw it during the 2020 presidential primary with the wealth taxes proposed by senator sanders and senator warren. you see it from democrats in the senate and the house. there is a lot of energy. you've seen it from president biden who is a middle of the party democrat for his tenure in the senate and is pushing ideas that would've been unthinkable a few years ago, certainly back in the 1990's when he was in the senate. i think the party, the democratic party has moved more towards taxing the rich. the challenge they have is the one they have on every issue, which is they have no margin of error in the senate and can only lose three votes in the house. you have senators like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema who are less eager to go in this direction and they are able to keep the rest of the party from

moving by the sheer political arithmetic. host: last call. rex in ohio. mcgrath good morning. -- emme pratt. -- democrat. good morning. caller: why can't we put a penny tax on all of the stock that is traded? all of these foreign investors would help pay off our national debt, our country would be so well-off. what you think about that? guest: this is a financial transaction tax proposal that lawmakers have talked about and some people have proposed. it certainly would curb some of that trading or raise taxes from it. that has not happened. i think the banking and finance industry has successfully warded that off, making two points, one that it would affect retail

investors by raising their costs and two, it could push some of the trade to other countries. it has never gotten a full enough airing in congress to test those arguments. host: richard rubin, tax policy reported with the washington -- with the wall street journal. you can find him on twitter @richardrubin. appreciate your time. host: happy to be here. host: in these last 30 minutes we will focus on the investigation into the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol. we will be joined by scott macfarlane who has been covering this beat. you can chat with him right after the break. >> weekends on c-span2, bringing the best in american history and nonfiction books.

saturday on american history tv, lectures and history, former charleston mayor, smithsonian secretary, and a professor from city to help military college discussed -- from citadel military college discussed the new african-american history museum being built in charleston. at 2:00, take a behind the scenes look at camp david with the commander of the complex under president bill clinton and george w. bush. he is author of the book "inside camp david -- the private world of the presidential retreat." jeff regarded tops about his book "three days at camp david." how is your great meeting transformed the global economy which looked at president nixon's efforts to end the connection between the u.s. dollar and the gold standard. book tv features authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. former south carolina governor and congressman mark sanford

reflects on his political career and discuss of the republican party in his book two roads diverged. he is interviewed by former pennsylvania congressman charlie dent. historian roxanne dunbar ortiz and her book "not a nation of immigrants" says american is not a nation founded by and for immigrants but rather a product of settler colonialism and slavery. watch american history tv and book tv every weekend on c-span2. find a full schedule on your program guide on c-span.org. >> you can be a part of the national conversation by participating in c-span's video competition. your opinion matters. if you're a middle or high school student we are asking you to create a five to six minute documentary that answers the question how does the federal government impact your life? your documentary must show

supporting and opposing point of view on a federal policy that affects you and your community using c-span video clips that are easy to find and access at c-span.org. these bands studentcam a competition -- c-span's studentcam a competition awards $100,000 and you have a chance of achieving the grand prize of $500,000. entries must be received before january 2022. visit our website at studentcam's.org. >> washington journal continues. host: if you have questions about the ongoing federal investigation into the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol. scott macfarlane has been on the beat as a reporter for nbc 4 washington. start with an overview on the numbers of individuals charged and prosecuted at this point and the types of crimes they are being prosecuted for.

guest: at this point we are at roughly 600 federal cases. the number is fluid because new charges are coming each day. roughly 10% of those dependents -- those defendants have reached a plea agreement. we are noticing three different tiers of cases. the lower level are those charged with misdemeanors. not accused of any damage, not accused of any assault on january 6. those who pleaded guilty to the misdemeanors have avoided prison sentences, getting probation for home detention. there is a middle tier of cases that are going to plea agreements less frequently. those are people that are accused of damage or particularly unique behavior inside the capital, say going inside the senate chamber or damaging something in the hallway. or some lower-level assault. that is the middle tier. then there is the higher tier

where defendants are accused of conspiracy, of plotting and planning or being ready for action, or large-scale violent assaults against police. those cases are the epicenter of where the january 6 prosecution stands. as of this morning, we have a fifth accused conspirator who has agreed to plead guilty. the previous defendants have agreed to cooperate with the fed. the provocative question is if the top line defendants are pleading guilty and agreeing to talk, who are they flipping? they are already the big fish. host: in these guilty pleas, how many of we seen and what are we learning about length of sentences? guest: the numbers are fluid. roughly six late -- roughly 60 plea agreements out of 630 cases. the sentence have been lower-level because the people

who have gone to sentences have been in the lower tier. there is one of those mid tier defendants who has pleaded guilty and was sentenced, a man named paula hodgkins from florida, accused of being in the senate chamber january 6 with gloves and other preparatory gear. he pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced to eight months in prison. he is supposed to start that sentence on monday in florida. he is trying to delay it, trying to challenge his guilty plea. the reason i bring that up is is indicative of this firehose of court filings and almost every one of the 600 cases. it could choke the court system and proving to be another hurdle for the federal courts and the federal prosecutors. host: focus on the courts and the prosecutors. who is leading the prosecution and the investigation and are all of the cases appeared before the same judge for the same court in d.c.?

guest: largely they are all appearing at the u.s. district court house in washington, d.c., which is not far from the u.s. capitol complex. even though the defendants come from all across the country, california, idaho, texas, florida, they're all being moved here for their corporate meetings where they are attending them virtually. they are all coming here which means the u.s. department -- the u.s. justice department is leading the prosecutions, centered around the united states district attorney's office. we have seen their bringing in extra help. this courthouse is accustomed to having 300 to 400 criminal cases total in a year, and they are already navigating 600 capital insurrection cases. was see public defenders being brought in. federal prosecutors being brought in to supplement the forces they had. this is a tonnage of cases happening all at once. host: back to the highest tier

of cases, what has the fbi found about the extent of planning and coordination? guest: some of the planning begin november 4, the day after the election. the alleged 3% or group alleged there was communication they would disrupt the counting of the electoral college or the inauguration. the plotting and planning goes back almost to election day. in the largest of the cases, where you have nearly two doesn't accused members of this far-right groups, prosecutors have alleged encrypted communication was used to plan ahead. to plan the trip to washington, d.c. and disruption in washington, d.c..

a hotel in virginia for use in a potential second wave if and when donald trump invokes the insurrection act. this group had a cache of guns stored in a hotel they were ready and willing to use if necessary. host: if you want to talk about the january 6 cases, we have about 20 minutes left in our program. scott macfarlane is with us and covers it all for nbc 4 in washington. how long have you been on the specific beat focusing on these cases? guest: since january 6. since i saw that image on tv of the first time of the insurrectionists in the senate chamber. that alarming visceral image you saw of somebody sitting in the senate president's chair who was part of this breach. it was such a transformative moment for those of us who used to work as capitol hill staffers and those of us who have covered the hill for 20 years, it

inspired me to make this a full-time assignment. it is the largest criminal investigation in united states history. the federal prosecutors have been clear about that. this requires a full-time attention from a lot of talented reporters across washington, d.c.. host: scott macfarlane is one of them and if you follow his twitter feed you will get updates. he is reading the filings and at the courthouse. it is @macfarlanenews. if you want to call in, democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents, (202) 748-8002. what cases stood out the most to you? guest: what is at stake is those were accused of being ready for chaos. there has been a rhetorical question ever since january 6.

did this group have a plan to do this? did this mob know it would reach the capital and create havoc or was it organic? did a moment occur and everyone followed? prosecutors have been unequivocal. there is a number of defendants who were planning disruption, who used a military formation to breach the capital complex, who had radio equipment and devices to communicate. listen to this list of makeshift weapons included in court filings. a baseball bat. a hockey stick. a sharpened flagpole. chemical spray. protective gear like tourniquet, masks, gloves, goggles will clearly come over according to prosecutors, there are people who were there who had some plan for something. not necessarily a spur of the

moment decision. i am watching the cases where people are accused of planning it. i will bring us back to these far-right groups. those are the ones i am watching most closely because that is where the prosecutors have been most granular in alleging conspiracy and planning. we will watch these groups. the oath keepers, the 3%ers , and the proud boys, who make comparisons are allegories to the american revolution, that january 6 was akin to 1776. as those cases move along we will see who, perhaps, funded this conspiracy. who was the epicenter of the planning and plotting, and to plate what role on the complex january 6. host: you think we will get answers to those questions? guest: i think we will get answers, but not necessarily soon. the oath keepers are not

scheduled for trial until 2022. even that might be optimistic according to judges because of that chokehold this case seems to have on the d.c. federal court but also because of covert precautions. it is limiting court operations. the courts already have a backlog from last year. they have to work through that and have a huge influx of january 6 cases. 2022, maybe we will see some trials. i would not be surprised to see dates in 2023,. host: louisville, kentucky is a first. this is richard, an independent. caller: i want to be fair but i called in on the republican line and the young man said he wanted to put me on the independent line. host: then richard a republican. caller: did the fbi say there was any information on actual sedition that these two dozen

people wanted to take over the country? you mentioned the weapons. the bats, the pointed spears, the clubs and whatnot. were there any guns, any ar-15's , anything taken into the capital that could actually harm like black lives matter did wear there were actual people that died? the only person that died was the young lady from california who was a veteran. thank you. host: that is richard in kentucky. guest: i've got that question a few different times. i've not seen the phrase sedition used in court filings. nor have we seen any members of congress, either cryptically or by name referenced in any of these court filings. let me be unequivocal. guns, they have seized guns from some of these defendants who were on the grounds. there is one defendant from

texas who is charged with transporting a firearm with him in furtherance of civil disorder. he is facing a specific on charge. the man accused of having 11 molotov cocktails in his pickup truck was part of that mob and is also accused of having firearms. that does not count the molotov cocktails and the pipe bomb's left outside d&c and rnc headquarters. i get that question a lot. in the wake of senator johnson of wisconsin sing this did not appear to be an armed insurrection, federal prosecutors have specified some numbers of these defendants were specifically carrying guns. host: pennsylvania, this is diana. good morning. caller: i am just mystified after watching the january 6 events. how can we not hold the

president responsible for this event? host: have any of the court filings mentioned the president? guest: many of the court filings have mentioned the president but in a different way then she asks. the former president's words have made life more difficult for a lot of these defendants. a lot of them are being held in jail pending trial. like many defendants, they are trying to get themselves released back home until trial. nobody wants to be in jail. they say they will not be a danger to the community, they will not be a threat. we have seen judges specifically say donald trump's continuing denial of legitimacy of the 2020 election makes people potentially more dangerous to the community. they cited donald trump's words and halting some of these

defendants pretrial detention. with a stick and sink donald trump's continued denial make some of these defendants more dangerous. donald trump is coming up in the conversation a lot. different than what the question was. to be clear, his name is frequently showing up in the court filings. host: there is a rally this saturday on capitol hill, a rally for those in detention calling them political prisoners. what have the courts said about charges of these folks being political prisoners? guest: prosecutors have been specific about the september 18 protest in d.c., calling it a potential threat to the capital campus. they're doing that in filings this week. on an unrelated issue over whether capitol police should release more camera footage of the capital, they say they would

like to keep the video confidential because there is a non-hypothetical threat epitomized by the fact there's a protest september 18. the prosecutors have referenced it. have not heard judges reference it yet but the week is early. here's what i know. as early as today perimeter fencing will be redirected outside the capital complex and will likely remain through the end of the week, if not early next week according to what police have said. we know it is all hands on deck for u.s. capitol police. a police force has nearly 2000 officers and a half $1 billion a year budget. all hands on deck for the local d.c. police department. by the d.c. jail a few miles away, because that is where the january 6 inmates are being held. this is a conversation where we do seem prepared. adam kinzinger said his

estimates is hundreds, maybe thousands will show up. that was the same estimate he had on january 5 of the crowd estimated on january 6. host: to louisiana, this is james, a republican. caller: good morning. there were no guns confiscated in the capital and you know that. are you on the record for requesting to see any of the 14,000 hours they will not release of that day? have you seen any of the video of roseann death where she got trampled to death and you know the name of the d.c. police officer that was seen clubbing her while she was lying on the ground? you should know her name because she was honored during the super bowl right next to that fruitcake. host: we will go to you with some of those questions. guest: there was a lot to unpack there. there are specific firearms charges against multiple defendants, including the

cache of firearms they recovered, pictures of which they included in court filings. guns in the trucks of a defendant named lonnie coffman. not only are guns specifically referenced in the court filings, in some cases they have shown images of the truck. there's a maryland defendant accused of carrying on his person on january 6. there is a texas defendant accused of carrying on his person january 6. there is no dispute over whether the prosecutors are arguing guns were found on people were spotted on people or believed to be on people who are part of the capital breach. host: sarasota, florida. good morning. go ahead. caller: i have a serious question that no one seems to have pointed out. didn't the capitol police have guns?

why didn't they shoot a few of the crowd? maybe they would have then dispersed? because they were not shot at, i think the crowd felt the police were on their side, they could do with they wanted. guest: scott macfarlane? host: that is a good question -- guest: that is a good question. what the police have testified to, including in july was the police were clearly wildly outnumbered by the mob. if there were hundreds, if not in the lower level thousands of police, there were many more people in the crowd. police have no idea what weapons that crowd was carrying. we already have some charges of carrying guns. we do not know how many others are believed to be carrying guns. our makeshift weapons as well, not just the ones i mentioned

but also the acts, the tomahawk, the metal rod. the steel toed shoes. the list goes on and on what these people were accused of carrying as they faced off with police in hand-to-hand combat. i am no law enforcement expert but i know the police were concerned if they opened fire with they have lost a bloody gun battle that would've turned a horrible day into a massacre? host: i want to remind viewers about the investigation into the shooting of ashli babbitt. guest: a capitol police officer was internally reviewed, and the capitol police department found no violation but what he did was in furtherance of protecting congress and protecting the u.s. house were ashli babbitt was shot while climbing through a broken glass window to the house speaker's lobby. we know those doors are what separates the outside, the

hallways of the second floor of the capital, and members of the u.s. house, who were still being evacuated from the house chamber at that moment. capitol police did an internal investigation. the u.s. department of justice did a review as well and found the conduct of the officer, who has publicly announced his name and explained his duties and his role that day, has been widely celebrated by law enforcement and by members of congress. host: we have heard more about other internal police investigations and some disciplinary actions. explain. guest: six u.s. capitol police officers are under disciplinary review and were found to have engaged in some level of disciplinary actions. i do not have a list in front of me. these were six out of about 2000 police officers.

i know in their statement about this, u.s. capitol police emphasized it is only a small fraction and should do nothing to contain the remarkable heroic work done by police throughout that day and since. you have to be mindful. that was the first security incident and clearly the largest, but just the first on capitol hill this year. in april there was a deadly attack against a police officer. august 19 there was a bomb threat. a man in the truck from north carolina who allegedly threatened to have a bomb shuttered the capital campus, including evacuations of buildings for hours. then there was this week, someone arrested near the democratic national committee headquarters accused of having a machete in his truck and a swastika painted on the vehicle near the democratic national committee headquarters where there was a pipe bomb in early january. host: less than 10 minutes left

in our program. as a reminder for viewers were watching on c-span, we will be taking you to the senate judiciary committee for a hearing that will be happening. members already in the room. gold medalist simone biles and other star gymnast will testify before the senate judiciary committee on the investigation into larry nassar, the former usa gymnastics doctor accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of girls and women. that hearing is where we will take you after the program. until it begins, you can chat with scott macfarlane of nbc 4 about his investigation covering the prosecution of january 6 protesters. this is ron in florida, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for having me. i have a question for scott. why doesn't the fbi release more videos of that insurrection so they can be readily identified

by fellow americans. i know there was one fellow outside of tampa that was recognized by his church members and reported. i think everyone that went in that capital violated the law. i think there were a lot of sheep, a lot of followers, but the leaders of those organizations, including some ex military, ought to do serious jail time in my opinion. thank you. guest: thanks for the question. there are an awful lot of defendants from your home state of florida, i will mention that. we have seen a lot of video. there has been a lot released. the fbi has curated a lot of the images they put on their website. they have curated them with the goal of getting more tips and making it more focused so folks have an easier time seeing who is giving information. the video you have seen so far were from people's phones posted on social media or their surveillance cameras or body

cameras worn by police. we had to go to court to get some of those released. they have been used as video exhibits in arguments by prosecutors to hold january 6 defendants. they are showing these violent assaults in video form to convince the judge the defendant needs to stay in jail. we went to court to get those videos thinking they would be illustrative of what happened january 6. we have shown the videos. that said, there are thousands of hours of other videos we have not seen yet. just the capitol police surveillance video, that is thousands of hours. why hasn't the fbi released more? why hasn't the justice department released more? there could be a logistical issue. if you have 10,000 hours of video to release, you have to watch at first. if you want to watch 10,000 hours of video, it will take you months to watch it. there is a logistical issue.

also i suspect -- they say there is some security sensitive information on that video they do not want to give out. they do not want to give a roadmap to the capital complex to the next group who may want to wreak havoc. host: california, this is andy, an independent. caller: thank you for stating the fact that ashli babbitt was breaking through the glass to get in there. i sure am sorry she lost her life but she clearly broke oath as a military person. secondly, these people who are calling regarding firearms or lethal weapons, why don't you let somebody hit you over the head with a baseball bat? see how that feels. see if you get through that. why don't you let somebody

spirit you with an american flag? call yourself a patriot. guest: the list of weapons goes on and on. the when i see most frequently referenced as impactful, not just a police but to the people in the mob is the chemical spray. it desecrated what i consider some pretty hollow spaces in the capital but also was remarkably impactful to those in the crowd for the worst. there were firearms seized. i get asked a lot about ashli babbitt and the circumstances there. what i like to tell people is there are defendants who were alongside ashli babbitt who are now charged with federal crimes. the man who's accused of smashing that window with a helmet on his hand is facing a federal charge. he is undergoing plea negotiations right now. be aware that those who are

juxtaposed next to ashli babbitt are now federal defendants. host: just about a minute or two left. i believe that hearing is getting ready to get underway as we wait for it to start, a question from twitter. don saying are there any major defendants who did not enter the capital that day? guest: yes there are. there are a number of defendants who were not inside the capitol building itself. at least one of them has made an argument that means perhaps some all of the charges should be dropped. there are violent acts accused outside, attacks on police outside. one minute accused of knocking over an officer, knocking her unconscious. officers say there were crimes. do not fixate on who was inside the beginning -- the building in all cases. host: william in illinois. democrat. caller: i was wondering why you

think someone being accountable for the deaths. usually they bring up manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. guest: there were multiple deaths, including the tragic suicide of the person who responded that day. right now, we know the charges have been filed. top line of conspiracy and assault. this is a case that seems closer to the starting line than the finishing line. a long way to go. host: caller: i have a question as to whether the official held back the involvement of the capitol police because of some concerns, and early intervention by them

might impact on the future agenda to have the capital looked upon for future statehood in any negative connections between the two, trying to avoid that possibility. guest: marilyn statehood is a big issue around here. the only connection between marilyn statehood and genuine six is a more fervent push -- and january 6 is a more fervent push to get statehood. the capitol police were under the control of donald trump and the delay was consequential january 6. the d.c. stated advocates have put this as an arrow in their quiver as they attempt statehood. host: sumter, south carolina, go

ahead with your question. caller: mr. mcfarlane, why isn't anything being said about the one that helped plan the event and he claimed -- host: we are going to have to ended there and that hearing is just getting underway but we will have scott mcfarlane back again. it sounds like these cases will be going on for a while but thank you so much for walking us through this morning. guest: my pleasure. host: we will be back tomorrow at 7 a.m. on the "washington journal" but we take you like to the senate judiciary committee, their hearing on the investigation of the former usa gymnastics dr. already underway. [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] >> athletes have special vulnerability to abuse. an article published in the chicago