covid-19 testing. washington journal is next. ♪ host: this is "the washington journal," october 4, key democrats involved in the debate of the biden budget package say the initial topline figure will have to be cut as joe manchin expresses a figure as low as 1.5 million. other democrats won't go that low. what do you think of that price tag? 3.5 trillion dollars? when it comes to the presidents budget to proposal, is it too

big, too small, or just right? perhaps you think it is too small. call (202) 748-8001. if you think it is too big, (202) 748-8000. if it is just about right, call us at (202) 748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. you can post on facebook, facebook.com/c-span, or twitter, @cspanwj. going forward, from reuters, they write "moderate democrat joe manchin said that when it came to the top line for the figure he would like to see for the package, 1.5 trillion is still the price tag. kristin cinema has not expressed a number publicly. addressing the limit, it was the chair of the progressive caucus

who on cnn this past sunday said it's not going to happen. here's more of her yesterday talking about where the negotiations grow through a final figure. [video clip] >> it's never been about the price tag. it's what we want to build -- want to deliver. we understand the 3.5 we thought was negotiated already is clearly not negotiated. we understand we have to get 50 senators on board and keep everyone in the house on board. we are going back to make sure there is a way that we can get all the print -- the critical programs that we identified, things i talked to you about -- >> am going to get to that. >> how do we get all those things in for a shorter amount of time and be able to get them to the number from that? let's get our priorities in and then figure out what it costs.

>> i understand that but a lot of the negotiating is on the top line number. is 2 trillion, two point $1 trillion your absolute floor? >> we are not thinking about the number in the president said this. don't start that the number, start with what you are for in that is what he has asked them for. >> and that makes sense, but you have been looking at this for a long time. looking at the policies, what it adds up to and how you can do it. this is your almost sole focus. i'm sure you have looked at whether or not you can do what you want to do for $2 trillion. >> well, we don't know the number yet. i don't feel the need to give a number, i gave mine, 3.5. if you are in a negotiation you need a counter offer before you

bid against yourself. why won't it add up to that number? >> that's too small. i think the white house is working on that right now. remember, what we want to deliver is childcare, paid leave, climate change. >> you won't say that $2 trillion is too small? it >> i don't have a definite number or a counter offer. it would be like buying a house and someone says what's the lowest number you would take? why would i do that? >> we are asking you what you think of the top line number and if it needs to change or if you think it's too big, too small, or just about right. if you want to tell us you think it's too big and tell us why, (202) 748-8000 is the number to call. (202) 748-8002 if you say it is to stash (202) 748-8001 --(202)

748-8001 if you say it is too small. just about right, (202) 748-8002 . taking a look at this from "the wall street journal, democrats looking to unite around the figure, there are two different approaches to reduce the costs. eliminating proposed programs entirely or cutting the duration that the programs exist, saying the democrats debating those options took on fresh motivations this weekend after they said they would have to strengthen the size of the legislation with some of you commenting on legislation this morning when it comes to the figures involved, just to show you some of them from this morning. this one off of facebook says that no budget bill is too big for a common good cause and that social infrastructure of the 21st century, politicians need to stop playing politics and do more of what's necessary for the

economy. andre saying that it is too small, no one has any idea how much havoc climate change will inflict. the pentagon budget alone is something like seven members committed to a figure over one year and then three .5 trillion over 10 years could be paid for with a tax hike where they say it's not too big and it would be easily paid for by rolling back the trump tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. paul mcguinness saying it's too much debt and will cripple the country for decades. our gdp that is the highest is world war ii, congress has a spending addiction and democratic socialists say that we should be more like denmark or sweden, who pay the highest tax rates, and it goes on from there. those are just some of the comments that were made. you can post on facebook this morning if you wish.

twitter is available to you as well. another perspective yesterday on the sunday shows from the democratic majority whip, dick durbin, talking about a proposal with debates going over it and here is some of what he had to say yesterday on the sunday shows. [video clip] >> 2.1 trillion dollars as a potential compromise that would hire you to scale back significantly. you just heard the congresswoman say that 1.5 trillion dollars won't do, it's too small. that's where senator manchin is right now. how do you get from where senator manchin and senator sinema are to a deal with progressives? >> at the outset i support the 3.5 trillion dollars and i believe the elements of it have been stated over and over again is good for this country and are needed by families in the nation. but i'm also a realist.

you remember the affordable care act debate where we made concessions and i think that those concessions will lead to a different number. i want to make sure that we come up with the right result. not the biggest number, but the most effective number to help families and the economy move forward. >> what do you think the number may be? >> i don't know, i know that's the question of the day for every reporter on capitol hill. i can't tell you how many times i've been asked what's your number. working with chuck schumer, we sit down, we look at the priorities and listen carefully to every single member. every vote counts when it comes to the majority. thank goodness we have two other players really committed to this , with the president arriving in the house last week, that was historic. sideline issue tweets, he rolled up his sleeves and walked or

traveled to capitol hill. nancy pelosi, never underestimate her. i saw her deliver the affordable care act. host: just some of the comments from yesterday. some saying the package is too big. david, south carolina, good morning. caller: the reason i think it is too big, this is what i see coming. it will be like 2008, 2009 when all the companies went overseas. they gonna stay here with this coming? i don't think so. they will be right back to china just like before and then we have an economical crunch, just like 2008, 2 thousand nine. it's coming, y'all. host: why is it too big? caller: the price is too big.

corporations go up on everybody. we are going to pay this. not the corporations. it's going to be us. inflation is going to kill us. host: that's david. chris from vermont said that when it comes to the price tag, it's just about right. chris, you are next. caller: thank you for having this topic. years ago i taught macroeconomics at the college level. one of the things that the democrats are failing to do is talk about the gross national product. on a good year the united states generates $30 trillion worth of revenue. comparing $30 trillion in revenue with 3.5 trillion, 3.0 trillion, is where the discussion needs to be had as

well. so, we are not, we are not a country with a gross national product that cannot afford the investment over 10 years. so, let's make that comparison. we cannot afford it because we are on average a 30 trillion dollars gross national product. host: why do you think the investment is? caller: human beings are worth it. not just the 1%. that's ridiculous, medieval. those ideas come from toxic religion. the idea that we just protect and reward those that are privileged. no, the united states of america is the republic in history that needs to change that paradigm and put the privileged and the common person on an equal level,

equal consideration, whose interests need to be considered on an equal level, we can afford it. thank you. host: lori in modesto says the figure is too small. >> $21 trillion for the afghan war. the people, it's past due for the money to go to for the people. the original definition of the word filibuster, it means piracy , to be a pirate and to take over. this is ridiculous. host: why is that amount too small for you? caller: it's overdue for the people to get what they needed for a long time. they are more important than the childcare, elder care, health care. these things are important to

do. so, we've got to build back better and we've got to get started on it. i wish they would stop. host: that is lori in modesto. you heard the previous caller talk about the impact of the passage. "the wall street journal" said that some of those businesses under the house democrat plan said that at issue are the series of proposed changes that could affect some owners of limited liability companies, sole proprietorships and so-called pass-through businesses. they don't play taxes themselves, passing through on the individual returns there's one key change in the democratic plan that would limit the 20% deduction claimed by most pass-throughs to 500 thousand dollars for joint filers, meaning the benefit would no longer be available on business income over 2.5 million dollars

per household with congress creating the deduction in the tax law to give pass-throughs a rate cut equivalent to what corporations were getting. there is more of that in "the wall street journal" this morning. some of you on twitter saying that the budget bill is too small by a lot and that the recovery from the president, the previous president, would require a huge investment, with grifter from congress over the last 50 years, the money went to them, wars and billionaires during this time, and on facebook saying it's over 10 years with less than 3% of gdp, calling it really small. roger glenn off of facebook saying simply to cut it in half. jay linsky saying that we spend $9 trillion on the military every 10 years, why not spend this much on infrastructure and families? facebook is the one way to reach out to us, twitter and texting

is available, too. silver spring says that the figure over 10 years is just about right. michael, go ahead. >> $300 billion a year over 10 years, we are paying $700 billion a year for the military. the military and the infrastructure are the most important aspects of the nation. having updated because of china creating brand-new everything, we are far behind on soft and hard infrastructure. if i had it my way, the greatest part of american history would be world war ii and the 1970's, when the tax rate was $.76 and 99% on the wealthy.

those were the greatest times when we built this nation, you know? i hear they want to close the loopholes for the rich. why wouldn't any of us ordinary people say yeah, close the loopholes, close the loopholes and it will be all paid for. but actually i just say raise the rate back up to 76% on the rich like it was between eisenhower and jack kennedy and jimmy carter. that's when everything got built in this nation. we was prosperous. we was number one. the rich was paying it. they weren't hurting, even at that rate they weren't hurting. >> michael in silver spring. the first guest of the morning joins us around 7:30 with 13 minutes or so to make comments if you wish on the budget bill price tag. as many of you mentioned, that's

over 10 years. people texting us this morning, ray from trenton. saying it's too big, what if another large national catastrophe occurs like a war, a different pandemic, and earthquake, etc.. there would be no surplus available to address the problem with joe jackson on twitter saying that when it comes to the bill, in all capitals he says to kill both spending bills. the liver tony and saying that until conservatives acknowledge the reality that this is 10 years of spending rather than one year, no honest discussion can or will be had to. paul, calling us from kentucky and lexington this morning. saying the package is too big. paul, good morning. >> i'm not saying it's too big, i'm saying it's about right. i dialed the wrong number i guess. the idea that money is going to

go out and help these young families be able to work, that will help to ease up the availability of employers and employees and will help, going to make better wages because there's going to, construction is going to pay a lot better. talking about hard this time. what happens is they are going to make more money, spend more money, pay more taxes, and it's all going to balance out. it just takes time. it's nothing like an overnight thing. we have got to work on this. host: are you confident that with what's being proposed it will be paid for overtime? caller: absolutely.

host: what gives you confidence of that? caller: well, we have individuals in the top tax brackets that are making money, they can afford to pay a little bit more taxes. i have two businesses, they are small businesses. if you pay people right, if you provide a good work environment, you can have, you will get your money back. it's just a cycle type of thing. host: are you a so-called pass-through business? caller: i have a construction company. host: there is a story that they would be affected tax wise and i was wondering if you thought you might see a direct impact on that.

>> i will. the men that i have have skills, and i pay them well, but there will be probably more competitive jobs as hard infrastructure. people with skills are worth more. you have to pay them more. that's just of the reality of how business works. host: andrew in red hook says it's too big. you are next up. caller: i definitely think it's too big. looking at the overall size, it's not even necessarily the amount of money, but the amount of pages on the bill. why is it that we are going to pass this much stuff without worrying about infrastructure? if it is only about the other one, the one i'm forgetting the

name of right now, sorry, if it is about infrastructure, why are we spending so much money on other stuff? host: some of you have said that taking a look at the budget bill it's over 10 years. does that change your mind in terms of the spreadout of the price tag? >> it's obviously better than over one year but the problem still exists that the money is not going necessarily to infrastructure as we knew it. internet, childcare, that would also be good. it's this overinflated where how much money are we going to wind up sending two different countries altogether or things that are not necessarily infrastructure? like the amount of money where we put it in and we don't know where it's going until 5, 10 months a year, two years down the road? that's going to be the

most interesting and i think it's why so many on the right are hesitant. 2000 2500 page bill, it's hard to go over that in one week where they say they finished it. host: ok, that's andrew in new york. the hill reporting that president biden plans to hit the road this week to make a case for the budget and infrastructure package and says that the press secretary jen psaki is set to meet with the senate majority leader this week and they are now saying that the end of october is their next self-imposed deadline for the package at the heart of the biden legislative agenda. from joy in richmond, virginia. the package price is about right. joy, good morning. caller: good morning. i think it's right because they need to help all areas of the

country and they need to help you know, it's help for everybody, everybody, it's a good impact. i don't know why also, the republicans are against it in they should before it. they blame everything on the democrats, but it's not just the democrats, it's for everybody. it's not one party, it's both parties. i don't understand why they are being rebellious and don't want to help the people of the united states. thank you. host: tim in ohio texting us this morning, saying the package is way too big and that infighting in the democratic party is going to do the bill in that nothing gets done. he also talked about status quo and term limits. then the saying in one text that the gdp is $30 trillion and that

it's 20 trillion, no wonder the former macro economics teacher is the former, that is allen in atlanta. texting us is a way that you can reach out to us if you wish. you can also post off of twitter as many of you have done this morning at c-span wj. danny, indianapolis saying the package is about right. danny, hello. you are on, go ahead. caller: by the time they get done paying for this and that, everybody will be happy. even the democrats, the republicans, everything. they need to get the bill done and over with. by the time they get done building the bridges and everything like that, everyone will be happy going across the bridges, the roads will be getting filled in for the

therapy cars and everything. host: is that the case in indianapolis? caller: yes. host: danny, talking about the infrastructure side. the budget bill is something you can comment on if you wish. david, massachusetts, saying it's too big. david, good morning. caller: taking one specific part of the bill, the climate change. a lot of people don't realize that over 20 million years ago, new york city was covered in ice. most of canada and north america. what makes people think we are going to stop what is naturally happening in this world and the we -- in that will continue to happen. spending money on it will do nothing. put it towards feeding people

and infrastructure, yeah. to spend it on climate change? that's just my opinion. host: you are saying that if it dealt with strictly social safety net matters, you would support it over climate change issues? >> any money they spend on climate change won't do anything. man won't be able to change the weather now. host: separate from that, would you support it if it just stuck to the social aspects of it? caller: i would not support anything being used to destroy human life, abortion. otherwise i think there are a lot of things it could be good for. host: next we hear from james in newark, new jersey, a three point 5 trillion dollars budget initial price tag too big? james, hello.

>> thank you, c-span. yes. first, to the instructor, get it off the ground. get it running. then do childcare. get that off the ground, get it running. that's the trick, though. i hope that people in washington, d.c. listen to me. my friends go back to 1957. eisenhower. i know what i'm talking about. host: you are saying that what is being done overall should be done in pieces? caller: exactly, exactly. my mother worked for two years with fdr. host: why do you think that's a better approach aside from the fdr comparisons? caller: ok, ok.

one success, ok. another success? democrats stay in power. not that way, that way they lose power in 2022. 2022 is next year. host: you are saying that if they don't do something now, there are political ramifications. caller: exactly. four years they want to do construction. do construction. host: all right, that is james in new jersey. salem, oregon, sing the package is too big caller: caller:. -- too big. caller: i can't believe what people are doing. all of these people coming across the border, they'll have covid and it's horrible. host: let's stick to the budget. why do you think it's too big?

caller: taxpayers need to stay up and say. we refused. you keep putting forward that kind of money? we hundred $15 trillion or whatever, how much of that is, you know, it's on stuff we haven't even spent yet. why are we bankrupting america? that's what you are doing. host: ok, dennis finishing off the first half-hour of the program. we thank all of you that chose to participate in we appreciate your input. joining us now is robert costa of "the washington post," the co-author of the book peril. thanks for coming on the program. robert costa, thanks for coming

on the program. ok, we are expecting him to join us any minute now to talk about his book. to talk about his book, "pero." -- "peril." if you want to ask a question, democrats are (202) 748-8000, republicans, (202) 748-8001s, independent (202) 748-8002 -- independents, (202) 748-8002. robert costa, thanks for coming on the program this morning. we are going to try one more time. guest: i got him in my ears.

i got him on my ears. host: joining us on the program right now, robert costa, good morning. guest: good to be with you. host: i'd like to start with your tweet from yesterday. you wrote why reading whole story matter, adding that beyond the headlines, the memo in the argument young that it wasn't just a pressure point on mike pence, but also mike lee of utah . there was a push to get his credit endorsed. let's start with the eastman memo and why it is important. caller: -- guest: over nine months we found out that the story of january 6 was as much about the insurrection of the day as it was in the days prior and the intense pressure campaign on vice president mike pence and senator mike lee of

utah and other republicans. the plot, essentially, president trump and his allies at the time wanted to use a conservative legal argument to make the case to conservative politicians and one of the key players was a little-known lawyer named john eastman, a former clerk for clarence thomas. he drafted a six-point plan that we included in our book showing that the vice president could throw out electors on the january 6 certification and block them from being counted. biden as president-elect wouldn't reach the threshold for electoral votes. it was a roundabout way of throwing the election to the house and ultimately throwing it to president trump. host: how does mike lee factor into it? guest: he's very important.

he's pressuring pentz and his lawyers on the fourth, they are also trying to get buy-in from conservative senators. mike lee is a very esteemed legal mind within the republican party. democratic critics may not like him, but within the party he's seen as a top legal mind and because of that the trump white house believed that if he could somehow sign on to the eastman memo, it would give a lot of credibility in congress. john eastman gives this memo to mike lee that circulated from the white house to lee and it is all about trying to get the republican party to come around to the idea that the certification of the biden victory can be stopped. it's a fascinating scene for history. as we reported it out, we found out that he tried to figure out if the eastman argument had any

credibility and what he is saying in the memo is that somehow out in the states there are alternate electors, people that want to be electors for trump and not for biden. he calls up all these different state republican leaders and legislators, trying to figure out if there are alternate slates of electors because if there are, maybe it should be delayed. there were groups on social media saying they wanted to be alternate electors, but what he found from a legal standpoint was that there were none. there was no such movement inside of state legislatures to recognize other slates of electors. this was a dream for some trump allies out in several states, but it wasn't happening inside of the state legislatures. that is what mattered to lee as he evaluated the memo and he of

-- he ultimately discarded the memo and doesn't sign on to the presidential push. host: again, this is robert costa joining us. you also write a little bit about the relationship in your book between the former president and the former speaker of the house, paul ryan over a series of events. can you recount some of those? host: he features in the -- guest: paul ryan is an interesting story as you tell the trump story, he is effectively the leader of the republican party in congress when trump is elected in 2016. the speaker of the house. so much power. he has to feel -- figure out how to deal with this new outsider president, someone that he can have a transactional bond with, someone who can help him to

enact republican policies, at the same time he found trump odd and almost hard to connect with on a personal basis and on a political basis. what we discovered in our reporting is that paul ryan as speaker of the house was given manuals and documents from a doctor friend of his, wealthy republican donor in new york about narcissistic personality disorder and of the speaker of the house studied these psychiatric manuals, documents, and articles to try to better understand the president-elect. when you stand back and think about that, the speaker of the house trying to look to psychiatry to understand the president of the united states in using narcissistic personality disorder as a roadmap, it's stunning that this was happening behind the scenes even as they were working together to pursue power and policies. host: paul ryan on a hike, he

gets a call from the president concerning one topic, how does that go? guest: this is right after the white supremacist march in charlottesville in the president has made many comments about the crowds there, using phrases like many sides, most sides. this infuriates ryan who issued a statement against the president's response. long story short, trump calls ryan and says you are not with me in the bunker and he uses a flurry of expletives that i won't share with the wonderful c-span audience. this is the president screaming at the speaker of the house and it is one of the early breaking points for paul ryan where he realizes that even if he studies the psychiatric manual, he can only get so far with trump. host: we have calls lined up for you. darrell, you are on with robert costa. go ahead.

caller: thank you and bob woodward for producing this book. it was really needed by the american people. i have a question about a lot of talk around the cabinet invoking the 25th amendment and i had wondered if you had uncovered any evidence that they were close to that and if not, what was the resistance to invoking it? guest: i'm going to poke you a bit, you haven't read the book yet. got to read it. in the book we have a whole major important scene where after january 6, speaker of the house nancy pelosi and leader schumer in the senate, the top democrats in congress, they call up pentz and they are trying to get him to invoke the 25th amendment. they feel the president is out of control in the 25th amendment needs to be invoked in when he's at his office, they know the call is coming, but the speaker

and senate leader are kept waiting for about 20 minutes. they don't get into talk to the vice president on the phone, mike pence won't take the call. why doesn't he? why doesn't he consider the 20 for the amendment? a stunner reporting, he's told by his lawyer and others that the only reason to invoke it is if the president is somehow mentally or physically incapacitated and that that's the legal rationale in their view. this can be argued by many people, but that was the mike pence legal conclusion about the 25th amendment. on a political basis we can see that even after january 60 still trying to stay in the president's inner circle and stay in his good graces. we see with him trying to work with the president and jared kushner, causing some major friction in the pentz inner circle. how could you somehow be so cheerful in a way after january 6 and everything that happened. it tells you a lot about who he

is as a person and a politician and the 25th amendment was definitely dangled out to him, but he never snatched it. host: eric, democrats line, go ahead. caller: my question for you this morning, i would really like to understand, how much did the republican participate in this insurgency? what i see is an overall operation with more hearings and a memo where it seemed everyone was participating in the concept and i see these individuals, the grandchildren that, when the grandparents don't get their way during the civil war, they divided this country. the same concept in the same attitude of extremism. violence, using religion,

christianity. not as a religion but as this context to drive their extremism. thank you. host: so, your point about the insurrection, it's bloody and brutal. we are familiar with the images, i don't need to detail them. the editorial for the weekend on sunday wrote about our book and referenced it in their main editorial and talked about how in the days before january 6, it had been a bloodless, political legal war. a major war going on behind the scenes. that's what our book shows. the republican party and different players with power, maybe in office, maybe not, they saw january 6 as a reckoning. not some kind of sporadic moment that led to a rally moving down pennsylvania avenue and climbing the steps of the capital.

it was the culmination of a pressure campaign and it really showed through characters like rudy giuliani and steve bannon. unelected republicans very close to president trump at the willard hotel in washington on january 5, talking to the president, talking to january 6 as a day to force republicans to do what trump wants, talking to president trump in late december or early january all the way into the insurrection. you can see that it's not just about the chief of staff and leader mccarthy in the house. that's the surface level of the party. those were the official titles. the president himself, trump, was coordinating with many people to try to make the sixth a major moment. the scene that always sticks with me in "peril, it's near midnight, the president opens the door to the mob on pennsylvania avenue and he says listen to them, they have

courage. he turns to his aides in the freezing oval office with the door open, what can we do to get the lawmakers to do what we want? what else can we do in this moment and one of the people in the room at the time is the president's social media director, dansk vino, recently given a subpoena head in it for the committee, the scene is cited. we tried to fill in the gaps of what was happening before the sixth. we all knew that the president was watching the insurrection, the riot in his west wing dining room. january 5, january 4, in the oval office, it all mattered to understand the full story. host: have you given the select committee access to your notes are just the book? -- or just the book? guest: just a book.

we have not shared any of our material. we spent nine months working to the end of the deadline. the book was written very quickly, for a book. everything we could confirm, everything that we could confirm, we put in the book. it's in as vivid detail as possible. dates, documents, it's all there . it's not like we left things on the cutting room floor. host: to that end, jim from the twitter feed, how would you know about paul ryan and president trump on that phone call? guest: if you look at the back of "peril," we have a note to readers. it's a good question and we try to be as clear as possible about how we pursued our reporting and it's important for reporters to do that. the book was written on what's

called deep background. long interviews with people familiar with the vents, directly involved with events. sometimes involved in the room. we don't discuss who we talked to for the book. we do the interviews on deep background and we collect all the information and we use all the information that we are able to confirm. we don't discuss where we learned it from. this is to protect people as they provide documents to us, evidence of different conversations, notes, emails, transcripts, phone calls, to protect the process and share the information, we don't attribute it and we spoke with as many people as possible to really build the performing -- the reporting. it's called deep background. my colleague has written terrific books for decades to get to what he calls the most obtainable version of the truth. that's what we want. deep background has been really

helpful at times to get to the most obtainable version of the truth. host: to that end, mark milley testified on capitol hill last week about an instance that you called in your book and he recalled differently. before we go to him, explain what happened in the opening pages of your book concerning a conversation he had with the house speaker. guest: it's important to read the book. it shows that he has a conversation with the head of the people's liberation army and in both instances, mark milley, within his procedures as chairman was trying to de-escalate a situation where he worried that the chinese, based on u.s. intelligence, the chinese could think the u.s. was about to attack. the u.s. and millie specifically wanted to move the chinese away

from the idea or suggestion that the u.s. could have a wag the dog type of attack on china. as the book notes, president trump did not want war with china. millie knew that and we have it in the book. the whole point was about getting away from miscommunication. history has shown that miscommunication can often be the sea of war. he has calls to de-escalate a very tense situation with a major global superpower or adversary at the very least where we are in a hairtrigger environment with china all the time in places like the south china sea. host: here's part of that conversation and we will get your response to it. [video clip] >> in a phone call with speaker pelosi, she said "republicans are enablers of the trump

behavior. you know he's crazy. he's been crazy for a long time. you replied -- i agree with you on everything. that was repeated three times in a prologue of the book, where you told speaker pelosi that you agree with her on everything. is that an accurate portrayal of your recounting of those conversations? >> not exactly, no. >> is that portrayal wrong? >> what i said was madame speaker, i'm not qualified to determine the mental health or assess the mental health. >> did you tell her that you agreed with her on everything? >> what i was referring to was that i agreed we needed processes and procedures in place to make sure we don't have accidental or illegal unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. i agree with that and we have those procedures. >> either bob woodward is right

or you are right. >> i'm not agreeing with her assessment of the president. >> respond to that exchange. >> bob woodward and i stand by the reporting. we obtained a transcript of the call. number two, general milley was under oath and is explaining as evident, i don't even need to explain it, he's giving context for what he said. he said that he was agreeing with her as we showed in the reporting, but it was about the larger conversation. that was his argument to congress. he said that he agreed with the speaker in the course of the conversation. we just saw the clip where he agreed with her that is needed to be done to protect the u.s. nuclear arsenal and if you read the book, you see him agreeing with her on that point many times that we have in the book, that he is in responding to her points, saying what he said, but only he can know as the person who said it, the meeting and

context for what he was trying to say at the time. i'm not going to get into his head or any persons head about what they feel or thought or how they asked named something. i will conclude by saying that we stand by our reporting. host: nick, florida, republican line, you are on. caller: listening to this guy, i didn't know c-span had a comedy show. it's funny to listen to him talk about deep backgrounds and all the rest of the spies speak stuff. this is just another book, like the russia hoax that this guy pushed for four years that couldn't prove anything and people like this criticize donald trump for being unfit for office? yet when donald trump killed in iranian terrorist, this guy went crazy and wanted to bring him up on war crime charges and when joe biden kills seven children

and a family, this guy remains silent? last point, if donald trump is so unfit for office, how is it we didn't have any terrorist attacks, no afghan debacle, no illegal alien invasion at the border. and no one apologized for the china virus. to listen to this guy talk about the people's liberation army of china, why doesn't this guy have some guts and call them what they are? the chinese communists that cook something up? >> you can respond. >> the gentleman used of the phrased this guy about four times and in each instance, the statements he made attribute in my own actions as not being backed up by facts, but i would say in response to the gentleman that as a member of the press and the fourth estate, i always welcome feedback. i appreciate your comments.

host: north carolina, larry, hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. my scenario is the same as the gentleman the previously spoke. number one, please stop calling it an insurrection. it was a riot. just like in the summer all the riots that happened. ok? number two, i will never read your book because woodward and you are against anything that is republican based. number three, if you would look into the beginning of the trump presidency, before he was even sworn in, what the democrats did to him, just putting him down all the time, not giving him the opportunity is unfortunate

because in the last number of years, he tried to do things for the american people. host: ok, thanks, larry. guest: i didn't hear a question there, it's interesting to hear your statement. thank you. host: part of your book involves the incoming biden administration, you did a lot of reporting on that. as compared to what is being faced now on capitol hill and other issues, how would you assess the first month. particularly regarding him being in office coming into office. guest: you can't understand the end of the trump presidency without understanding the beginning of the biden presidency. this person ran for the presidency in 88 and 2008, how did he decide to run for a third time in 2020? show that it was a winding decision sparked by

charlottesville. he has to overcome some challenges on the family front, the political front, ultimately winning the nomination and building a bond with a former foe, bernie sanders, and another senator, elizabeth warren. you can see biden during the campaign saying that he's getting ready for a progressive agenda if he wins. the joe biden that i knew during vice president would come to capitol hill in 2011 and 2012 to cut deals on fiscal issues with leader mcconnell. seen as the amtrak writing centrist from delaware at obama +. the biden that we saw working with president obama, he's still there but he is someone who wants a progressive legacy. telling the senators that he really wants to go big. we see that with the rescue plan early in the year and we can't really see it now, this is a

biden presidency. trillions to establish safety net infrastructure spending, covert relief. they are going big government, big spending. they believe that they are not just here to cut deals, but with republicans, the whole experience of january 6 seems to have burned a lot of democrats and they are not necessarily eager to start cutting major deals with the gop. host: looking at the recent events, how different is the party now from when biden was a member in congress? guest: issues like medicare for all have been at -- elevated to the center of the party then you can see biden contending is present with forces in the house like the progressive caucus that are really pushing him in a leftward direction.

that said, this is not a democratic party that has changed wholesale in the 2016 or 2020 elections. you still have really critical or more moderate centrist senators in the senate like mansion in west virginia, cinema , tempering the impulses on the progressive side in the house. you have biden in the center with a foot in each camp and on one side of the political persona of presidency, he wants to be in lockstep with progressives to go in in history for the moment to do something big ahead of 2022 and you have a history of biden and someone in the senate who is more with the joe manchin kyrsten sinema spirit. host: garland, we are running short on time, go ahead with your question or comment. >> i think that what hillary

clinton said about trump back in the day, about him in the people that follow him being deplorable, his mother saying that he would be chaotic if he ever got into office. robert costa and bob woodward, i believe everything. i can pretty much say that costa is a good reporter and woodward is. donald trump, a kkk member. with that insurrection. these people that were following him on the steel, they deplorable. host: we will have to leave it there. we talked about a lot of topics, but what are some things that maybe you haven't talked about at length in talking about the book?

guest: we wanted to work to provide a portrait of america in a moment. read the whole book to understand what happened two days after january 6 with chairman millie and others. it was such an explosive moment, but the decision to run, the campaign, the transition, contending with the virus, and then when he comes in, the rescue plan, ultimately making a major decision on afghanistan, the boat -- the book broke new ground there. the trump cheerio is active and compelling with the committee and the house, but this is the biden presidency and if you want to learn more about it, pick up a copy. host: the book, co-authored by robert costa and bob woodward. thank you for your time today.

coming up, the supreme court starts a new term today and we will talk about not only what faces them, but the major cases before it. john malcolm and elizabeth why draw for that conversation come up next. later on in the program we will be joined by david zim, talking about covid testing in the united states. those conversations, coming up on "washington journal ♪ ♪." >>'s coverage of the 21st annual national book festival on sunday. the virtual event, hosted by the library of congress, features online library at 2:00 p.m. eastern, joseph ellis talks about his book, the cause, the american revolution and its discontent. he will join us live at 2:30 p.m. to take your calls and tweets. at 3:00, a discussion about the

opioid pandemic. after the discussion at 3:30, -- will join us live. at 4:00, a look at russia featuring -- with her book and joshua, author of between two fires. at 4:30 p.m., the history of medicine with the author of the doctors blackwell and women in white coats. at 5:00, a democratic representative from kansas talks about her book. launch book tv's coverage of the 21st annual national book festival sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> washington post reporter

craig whitlock begins chapter 15 in his new book, the afghanistan papers this way, quote, the fraudulent reelection worsened a deluge of corruption that engulfed afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. dark money cascaded over the country. money launderers lugged suitcases loaded with millions of dollars in flights leaving kabul so crooked businessmen and politicians could stay in their ill-gotten fortunes offshore. we asked mr. whitlock to expand on this and other stories from his book, the afghanistan papers. >> washington post investigative reporter craig whitlock on this week's episode of book notes plus. you can listen now on the c-span radio app. >> congressman anthony brown and former senator doug jones

discuss white supremacy in law enforcement and military, at an event hosted by the center for american progress. live coverage starts today at 11:00 eastern on c-span. also watch online at c-span.org or with our new video app, c-span now. >> "washington journal" continues. host: the next hour, a conversation on the supreme court. two guests joining us. john malcolm is with the heritage foundation. a former deputy assistant attorney general in the bush administration from 2001 to 2004. elizabeth wydra, president of the constitutional accountability center. both of you this morning, thank you for joining us. guest: great to be with you. guest: thank you for having me. host: elizabeth, let's start with you. we hear about the upcoming --

how does this year compared to previous ones? guest: story -- sorry to overuse the term but if ever blockbuster was appropriate, this term was definitely going to be an enormous term when it comes to abortion rights, gun laws, issues related to religious instruction in school. this is a term that is going to be incredibly momentous and when it comes to the context we are seeing right now with the public being very concerned about the legitimacy of the court, all eyes are going to be on the court and there is going to be a lot that will be worth watching. host: john malcolm, same question to you. guest: every term has its significant decisions but i agree that this certainly is big. a number are significant,

including abortion rights and the second amendment and religious liberty, which i think we will talk about with respect to how the public feels about the court. i think the court ought to do what judges always ought to do which is to tune out all that noise and just rule according to the facts and the law in the case presented to them. host: do you think this term is shaped anyway by decisions made last term, talking about the decision made in texas in the abortion law case. guest: i don't think so, referring to that case which doesn't mean mississippi is going to lose. i think mississippi is going to win their case. the texas abortion law stood on the way the law was framed and the parties that got sued. it is an unusual law in the sense that it makes clear that no state officials can enforce that law, it is only enforced by private civil lawsuits.

when planned parenthood sued the state officials and state judges, the supreme court said you can soup people -- you have sued people who have no ability or role in enforcing this law. certainly in the background of the mississippi abortion case, and that is a significant case. host: we will talk about specifics in a second but miss wydra, considering how people look at the court, what do you think? guest: it is obviously relevant to public opinion of the court when there is a ruling -- the texas ruling you're talking about which was given on the emergency docket, the shadow docket, that is certainly the term that was applied to it. i think when people wake up in the morning and there is a ruling that happened overnight or in this case, the supreme court didn't act and the texas

law was able to go into effect and the court acted in a one-page procedural ruling that allows a law that is clearly unconstitutional to go into effect and functionally got abortion rights for one state in the country. people are going to start to feel very uneasy about what the court is doing. i think that is legitimate, that folks would be concerned about these very woven into the fabric of our nation existence, the way that a generation of people like myself have grown up, assuming abortion rights are protected across the land. to wake up and find out that might not be true, people are going to feel uneasy and while the court certainly tries to tune out the news, it is clear that they don't and i don't think it is necessarily illegitimate for them to be

concerned about their credit ability. they should always follow the law and the facts, that goes without saying. the credibility of the supreme court depends on the people having confidence in it. that is something that is important to the institution, important to it working properly. i think that we have seen the chief justice concerned about the credit ability of the court and wishing to keep the court thought of highly but public opinion polls show that especially after that texas abortion ruling, the public has concerns. host: both guests joining us for about an hour. if you want to ask questions about the supreme court, as we talk about the specific cases it will hear this term, you are invited to call. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. (202)-748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202)-748-8002. you can text us as well at (202)-748-8003. let me get your thoughts from both of you on this specific

case taking a look at abortion matters. elizabeth wydra, explained the case and the concerns you may have going into it as far as how the justices will respond. guest: mississippi has a 15 week abortion ban. that means you can exercise your right to an abortion prior to 15 weeks but not after. this directly contradicts roe v. wade and precedent in the decades following that reaffirmed that right. and those decisions repeatedly say that states do not have a strong enough interest in regular eating abortion pre-viability -- regulating abortion pre-viability. this 15 week ban blatantly and intentionally runs up against roe v. wade so the case comes to the court with mississippi

explicitly asking the court to overturn roe v. wade, to overturn and go against decades of precedent. we have seen from all the justices and their confirmation hearings or at various points in their prudence talk about the importance of what is called -- which is respect for precedent, especially precedent that has shown to be workable, that people have relied upon in their daily lives and in fashioning plans and practices and decisions, so clearly the precedents are deeply embedded in the way that the majority of americans conceive of their individual rights and liberties. the majority of americans do not want roe overturned. the constitution clearly protects bodily autonomy, it protects equal citizenship in

the idea that one commune equal citizen without making decisions about their own reproductive capacity doesn't seem to fit with the concept of equal citizenship. going into this decision, and i think the texas ruling allowing that six week abortion ban to go into effect, there are grave concerns that the court could sweep away those decades of precedent supporting the right to choose abortion. even though we have people professing to follow the text of the constitution could sweep away the clear constitutional protections for the right to choose an abortion and people are very concerned. there will be intense interest leading up to and after the decision. host: let's hear from john malcolm. same question to you about the case the court will hear. guest: her statement that there is a clear constitutional right to an abortion is far from clear. roe has been on shaky ground

since the day it was decided, even eminent liberal pro-choice scholars said that roe has no basis in the constitution itself. elizabeth says that a majority of americans favor abortion rights and have grown comfortable with it. abortion divides this country deeply, and about half the people in the country have never accepted roe v. wade and one of the factors that one considers when deciding whether to uphold a case or not is whether or not it was egregiously decided on the basis of the constitution and whether it has been accepted. there is no constitutional right to an abortion, and the decision has never been accepted which is why there was a march for life and a women's march of about equal size all dealing with the issue of abortion. with respect to this particular case, i don't think the court took this case to affirm roe v. wade and planned parenthood versus casey.

i think the question is going to be, are they going to cut into roe v. wade by saying that pre-viability restrictions on abortion can be constitutional, or are they going to carve out some new path or are they going to say roe v. wade and planned parenthood versus casey were wrongly decided at the time and has knots to the test of time and the issue now goes back to the states? guest: i want to be clear that the word equal as in terms of equal protection of the laws does indeed show up in the constitution and the 14th amendment. not only under the sweeping term of equal protection but the constitution is not a grocery list. it speaks in sweeping terms about equality and liberty and if you think -- if you look at the things with which the committee drafted that language of concern, they were concerned out the ways in which the horrors of the institution of slavery denied people the right to do -- right to decide when and where and whether to have a family and preserving bodily

autonomy and the right to make decisions about one's own body and so when you put that together with the precedents from the court which have been affirmed over time and have been more and more strongly grounded in constitutional language, then the court faces a very difficult test of whether it will go along with that precedent, this 14th mmn text and history and whether it will negative decision based more on political opposition. guest: i have to respond to that. equal protections in the constitution, equal citizenship is not. at the time they were adopted, abortion was universally outlawed. nobody at the time that those provisions were ratified was thinking that it applied to a woman's right to kill an unborn child. guest: the state practice at the time is this an the 14th amend

that was designed in many ways to stop us from the tory state practice but whether or not the drafters of the constitution were thinking about abortion, that is irrelevant when you have clear language. while the phrase equal citizenship does not apply in the consultation, i am shocked that you are arguing that equal citizenship is not protector the -- not protected in the constitution. those of us who are citizens of the united states are born equal and equally american and entitled to the privileges and immunities thereof and that is deeply embedded in the constitution. many conservatives actually argue for that. host: i'm sure we'll get back to this topic throughout our our. let me bring in some calls. this is jean from maine, republican line. caller: hello. recently i have heard on the news that justice sotomayor had rejected a case that the appeals

court brought about the vaccine mandate in new york city. i don't remember the particulars. apparently it was her jurisdiction, the area where the decisions of this court, and she decided that the court should not hear this case and yet when the question of the fraud in pennsylvania came up and judge alito was in charge of that appeal, there was a vote about whether to hear the case or not and i am wondering why that is. why she could single handily make a decision and in judge alito's case, they had to hold a vote. host: mr. malcolm, do you want to start? guest: all of the justices are

assigned different circuits to follow and emergency petitions come to them and they have the discretion to deny the request or to refer it to the full court to consider whether to hear the case or not. it doesn't mean that ultimately the issue involved whether in new york or the one that president biden wishes to impose, whether that will make it to the supreme court. it is whether or not it was going to be done on an expedited emergency basis. i am quite sure that as these that -- as these vaccine mandates start to affect, one of these cases will make its way up to the supreme court. guest: exactly. this was about whether it was beyond the emergency docket or not but i agree that at least one if not more of the vaccine mandate cases will make its way to the supreme court. i agree with the caller's

frustration that we don't know more about that and many other decisions that are made on the emergency shadow docket because there isn't this transparency that there is when you go through the merits docket and we have incredible important issues like the texas abortion case or the vaccine mandate or covid restrictions decided on the shadow docket last year, it is frustrated for those of us who are deeply affected by these decisions but there is nothing untoward about what happened in that case, but i share the caller's frustration. host: why don't we have more transparency in those matters? miss wydra, you go first. guest: the idea that there is an emergency docket is totally legitimate and the court has had this emergency docket for a very long time. certainly some things must be considered when they come up on the emergency docket and that is not really the issue. i think the shadow docket we have seen an explosion of its

use in more substantive ways on an increasing number of issues and that is where i think some of the frustration comes in. because it is on such a fast-moving pace, we don't have the full briefing, we don't have the full participation or other factors about how these laws or policies might work on the ground or other beak -- other big legal considerations, and the lower courts can't often consider these issues in full because they are moving so quickly and you add to that that we don't have oral arguments and most of the time, the justices had in chamber arguments and then you don't see the way that the votes break down salon of the ways in which we way -- in

-- is because somebody in the majority might write something but that is the only way we know the vote breakdown or we could guess because even some people who dissented might not note it. as the shadow docket is used for increasingly substantial rulings and increasingly substantial shifts in the law are made on the shadow docket, this lack of transparency becomes a problem. host: mr. malcolm? guest: there is something sinister sounding about the shadow docket but every court in this country has a shadow docket. they all get emergency appeals filed to them, sometimes they will grant them and sometimes they will deny them. the supreme court has had the shadow docket for a long time because it gets lots of last-minute requests to stay

execution's and death penalty cases. two things would happen fairly recently that have certainly increased the size of the number of cases dealt with on a neck but i do basis had a pandemic and a lot of governors and local officials issuing orders that affected things like church gatherings where a church was saying we are having a holiday and want to have an in-person service and the governor is stopping us, please let us do this because it violates our religious liberty rights. the only way to have that happen was to come up to the court on an emergency basis. another thing that happened in the trump ministry she was you had single district court judges issuing nationwide injunctions preventing the government from implementing a policy. if you didn't want to have it, -- billy way to get relief from that was to go to the supreme court and have them stop this.

host: let's hear from john in indiana, democrats line. caller: if the shoe fits, wear it. i just want to say, i don't think this court represents a majority of americans we know full well that women's rights are being curtailed. gun rights will be expanded. corporate rights will be expanded. for the layperson like myself, how does this happen? i want to comment on two cases from last term that show in granular detail how the injustices play out, versus what they had to show in california case with the disclosure of --

the justices sort of pick and choose and that sounds very technical but i think this is only granular level but this is how these injustices play out. host: mr. malcolm, do you want to start? guest: it is a judge's job to slavishly apply the law. they are not supposed to pay attention to whether or not their opinions conform to current popular opinions. in many ways, the constitution and some statutes are designed to protect unpopular rights and popularity of particular issues can wax and wane depending on the times. the two cases that he mentioned, they were very different cases. one was an interpretation of the voting rights act and whether or not arizona had two particular policies, vote harvesting, vote

trafficking and out of precinct policies, whether or not those were in conformance with the voting rights act. the other one had to do with whether or not there was a chilling effect by having to produce your major donors to the california attorney general. they had a terrible history in terms of leaks out of that office of confidential information being made publicly disclosed. the naacp faced the same issue back in the 50's when alabama wanted them to disclose their donors and every but he knew what that was going to be about, it was to harass and intimidate their donors and have a chilling effect so people would no longer affiliate themselves with the naacp and that is except the what happened in california. host: elizabeth wydra? guest: i think part of the problem is when you have decisions like benefit -- the majority was making its ruling but it was essentially a law free zone, but i think that what

the caller is getting at is the supreme court is in many ways intended to be a counter majority institution, and the hope is that that would operate to ensure that the rights of marginalized people who don't have political power, people who do not have the means to influence the political process, people who are vulnerable would be protected by the court. it hasn't really worked out that way unfortunately in a lot of moments in history that is certainly the hope. the problem with the counter majority institution is when the people start to lose faith in it and that is why it is not just political pressure or whatever on the court. the issue of the credibly of the

court as a public -- and the public's faith in israel because when you have a large counter majority unelected body, it relies on being seen as a legitimate carrier of justice and so when the public starts to feel that that is not what the court is doing, then that public faith erodes and we have a real problem. the way the court hopefully can fix that is by issuing rulings that follow the law and the constitution more closely and as i said, the hope that the court would be doing so in order to protect the rights of the marginalized and the equal rights of all whether we are rich or poor, that is in the constitution and the constitution particularly has been amended over our nations history and has become more focused on that equality and

equal protection of the law and has become more inclusive through amendments that have been passed over time and when you see the court not matching up with that constitutional arc of progress, than that public faith can come into crisis. host: two guests joining us for this conversation. elizabeth wydra is the president of the constitutional accountability center. john malcolm joining us from the heritage foundation, vice president of the institute for the constitutional government. dave from north carolina, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm just wondering, is there anything in the constitution about immigration, and is there anything that is going to come up in this session, where they could rule on something to shut that border down? just in this year, there is going to be as many people

crossing the border as we have in three states, and if it stays the same, there will be as mini people as we have in 10 states. city 3% of the people crossing over go in the system. host: dave in north carolina asking about immigration matters. elizabeth wydra, anything on this docket? guest: i think we will likely see some important immigration cases coming before the court. there was a shadow docket ruling on the migrant protocol process that is more commonly known as the remaining mexico policy for a lot -- for asylum-seekers. there was a single district court judge as john mentioned that decided the bite in the administration's refusal to

continue the trump policy that was deemed to be harmful to asylum-seekers, the district judge required the biden administration reinstituted that policy, and the courts did not stay that decision, so that is a very well minded but we could see some other cases stemming from the issue of immigration that president biden has taken a very different approach from the way the president trump treated that issue. there are changes in the laws and just as we saw the immigration decisions of president trump being litigated through the courts, we are already seeing that with the biden administration's choices as well. host: mr. malcolm? guest: that is right. the case very quickly made its way to the supreme court and there will be immigration cases

on the docket. hard to say exactly what they will be. the direct answer to the question is that congress has given primary authority over immigration and i know president biden is really -- is trying to reaffirm to the ministry to procedures act, the daca program. i'm sure there will be some major immigration case that will make its way up to the court this term. host: there is a case dealing with gun rights on this docket. new york state rifle and pistol association versus -- would you mind setting this up for us? guest: new york has -- the supreme court in 2008 in the heller decision said that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right and that you have a right to keep and bear arms in your home and it did not issue an opinion beyond that. two years later in 2010, in a case named the mcdonald case, it said this was a fundamental right that applied to the states

and gun rights advocates have been very frustrated that the court has not taken up a case since then. one of the reasons is that most of the states, over 40 of them allow people to get a concealed carry permit. some states even have open carry permits so there is no one to challenge those laws. new york is not one of the states. new york does not allow open carry and in theory allows you to can -- get a concealed carry permit but they almost never get issued. they have a rule that says you have to have a special purpose to get a concealed carry permit which essentially means you have to have an individualized showing that you are in danger beyond the general defense rights of the rest of the public, and order to get such a permit. to my mind, this sort of flips the constitutional presumption. the secondment has a right to keep and bear arms, bearing arms

implies outside the home. you get to exercise that constitutional right a list the government can present a strong reason why you shouldn't be allowed to exercise that constitutional right with respect to the second amendment and the new york law it is flipped, you don't get exercise the constitutional right unless you can come along and present a very strong reason as to why you should be allowed to exercise that constitutional right. you can imagine what this would be like if you had to make a special showing to some government bureaucrat before you would be allowed to make a speech. the question is, is new york's law unconstitutional and i believe the court is going to hold that it is. host: miss wydra, your take on the case? guest: i think a lot will turn on the operation of the law and the way it actually works. the supreme court in the heller decision first articulate of the constitutional rights as an

individual to have a gun within the home. that made clear that there have been, throughout our history, legitimate constitutional restrictions on that right. restrictions about carrying firearms in different places, who may have access to a firearm and the manner in which it can be used. all of these regulations have been considered constitutional and the court did not disturb many state laws that have been challenged, but now that the court has taken this case, i think we are going to see is a close look at the way this law operates and it is not a complete ban on the use of force. as john mentioned, there is this requirement to show proper because for why you want to concealed carry a weapon outside

the home and even two of the individual challengers here have their permits, had them approved in certain contexts, just not in the complete unlimited context they wanted. for example, they argued did the gun for target practice or hunting, that can be approved and it was approved one of the challengers here, or if you show through your proper cause statement that you have a specific need to have a concealed gun at your workplace, which was again approved for one of the challengers at their workplace. that is the way the law operates and i think the court is going to grapple with given that it has established this individual right under heller, does a regulation like new york state's which has been in place since 1911, does it work within that sensitive context for determining when a right is

being completely obliterate it by the regulation or when that regulation is appropriately taking into account the context. we are talking about guns and there is an understandable interest of the state in public safety. the court is going to be doing that balancing and it is going to look closely at the way that the law operates. i don't think this is going to be the end of regulation -- of litigation over regulation of guns. i think this could just be the beginning of a series of cases. guest: if i could very quickly respond. i agree with elizabeth. obviously if you are a can -- if you are a convicted felon, or suffering from a mental disability, i don't think these laws -- i don't thing this up in court is going to hold that a lauper having those types of people from possessing a gun would be unconstitutional. the two people involved here have already passed background checks and they had been issued permits to carry long guns for target practice and hunting and they want to be able -- they

have taken gun safety courses and they have proven they are good character and that they know how to use a gun and they just want to carry a gun for self-defense purposes and they have been deprived of that because they haven't shown some special reason why they in particular need to carry that gun. that flips the perception of a constitutional right. host: let's go to chicago. kathleen on the democrats line. caller: good morning. this is just for mr. malcolm. where in the constitution does it say one man has the right to kill another man or woman? i thought pro-life means from the cradle to the grave. you all are so concerned about what is going on in a woman's body, but when that child gets outside that woman's body, whether that child eats, sleeps or has a good education, you don't care.

you don't mind sending them to war. that is abortion, too. i don't hear you complaining about something -- about sending some at his child to fight and die. if you are so concerned about what is in somebody's body, why are you concerned about once that child gets outside that body? this is for mr. malcolm. would you please answer that question? guest: i am very concerned about what happens to people once they are born. he said from cradle-to-grave and i might expand that from conception to grave. this is an unborn child and if you don't believe that, that is fine. any people do and if you want to talk about the due process rights of people and equal protection rights of people, there are many people who believe that the unborn should be included in that. i am certainly not in favor of sending people off to war. war is messy and people die. it is however unfortunately in

these tumultuous times throughout history occasionally necessary and i am very grateful for the people who volunteer for that service. they don't want to die but the other one to preserve our freedoms and keep us safe. host: miss wydra, did you want to add anything to that? guest: i think that obviously the idea of having the right to choose on a matter so personal, something that is a decision that a person and their doctor making that decision together, that is a very personal right and it has been protected by the supreme court as something that is both -- her opinions for the court, something that is rooted in the idea that people cannot approach

the idea of equality if they cannot control those basic positions. host: a specific question for you, miss wydra, off of twitter. do you foresee any of the judges recusing on this term? guest: that is an interesting question. not on any of the big cases we just talked about. there are a lot of interesting issues related to recusal and ethics in the supreme court. the lower court judges have a code of ethics and recusal practices that are different than the supreme court. in many cases, the supreme court just kind of self polices on those grounds and there is an interesting wall street journal investigation into lower court judges who should have recused because of a conflict of interest in a case and did not

and mostly that was financial interest and given that they have a stricter policy, i think it is interesting to think about how that would apply to the supreme court. we don't know of any reason why justices recuse in these particular cases that we are talking about this term, but i think a lot of times the public's focus on the supreme court substantive rulings but there are issues of process and ethical practices that i think warrant more attention in the supreme court. host: mr. malcolm, your response as well? guest: i don't have anything particular to add. justice sotomayor made a statement that she is pro-choice and that is hardly a surprised anybody. if i were her, i might let it made the statements but i certainly don't see it as a basis for her to recuse from the case and i can't think of any reason beyond perhaps a justice having a financial investment in some company that has a case

before the court or relative of theirs is arguing the case before the court. i don't see that any -- in any of the major cases. other than that, i have nothing to add. host: let's hear from kevin in california, independent line. caller: good morning. the concern i have and wanted to raise is that a lot of the arguments for reading abortion rights into the constitution and roe v. wade itself are anti-scientific or at least inconsistent with modern medicine. for instance, the notion that abortion rights are encompassed by bodily autonomy, it is inconsistent with science because we know that abortion prevents -- ending the life of a

genetically distinct individual. it is not the body of the mother, it is a genetically distinct individual. that argument is just anti-scientific. with respect to roe, the court decided that viability of the fetus was when the states right to protect the life kicked in and at that point, and the decision, it was around six months. now with modern medicine, the viability is much much earlier than that. even accepting the rationale of roe, it does not hold up under modern medicine. the decision would have to be reevaluated every time there is new medical advances and the final thing is, the texas law probably went too far in not having the rate or incessant section -- rate or incessant

exception but at least having the heartbeat test, when the state could prevent the abortion, at least that is an objective and sustainable standard or test in contrast to roe, where viability changes over time. host: that is kevin in san diego. miss wydra, go ahead and start. guest: as a person who has given birth to a child, i am not sure how you get to the idea that the parents body is not involved in carrying a child to term. i'm a little confused about that. i think your point about science -- the court has grounded its protection of abortion rights not in science but in the constitutional right to liberty and equality of the person who

is going to be making those decisions about their reproductive capacity and about whether they will or will not carry a child to term. that is what we are talking about. the idea of viability that people criticized in roe, the court has affirmed and reaffirmed the general principle that the right to choose protected enrole -- protected in roe is protected in the constitution because of the intrinsic nature of that type of decision, and the right to choose in that context, the right to choose whether or not you will carry a child to term. that is an individual decision that is clearly linked to bodily autonomy, to the right to decide one's own fate, one's own destiny.

host: mr. malcolm? guest: roe has always been perceived by a large number of people as being a political decision in constitutional garb. of course a woman's body is involved in the decision to have an abortion, but so is the separate entity of the unborn child that she is carrying. when you are a brand-new baby, you rely on the protection of the mother, and if you are out of lee, you rely on the protection of somebody. those people are clearly alive as well. they are dependent on somebody in order to stay alive. the l.a. difference is that in the case of an unborn child, it is only the mother who can protect that child whereas she can turn over a child or have a caregiver care for an elderly or infirmed person. there are two bodily interests involved and one is the body of the unborn child relies on that

mother for life up to the time of viability. host: one more case i want to bring into the conversation dealing with religious liberty. especially in context of schools. mr. malcolm -- either of you can start as far as setting up this case and its contours. guest: i'll jump in. this is a case coming out of maine. it is unusual in that they have a lot of districts that do not have public schools so they have a tuition assistance program for those people living in districts without public schools where they will give somebody money and say send your kid where you want whether it's a public district in a joint -- public school in a joint district but it cannot be a sectarian school. that has been challenged on equal protection and free exercise grounds by two parents, one of whom sent their child to a sectarian school and thinks they were entitled to that money, one of whom sent them to a secular school but said that

their free exercise rights were deprived. over the last three terms, the spring court has decided two very important cases, the trinity lutheran case and the espinoza case saying that state programs cannot discriminate against religiously affiliated institutions on the basis of their status as able to this institution. -- their status as a religiously affiliated institution. maine -- they rely on an old case out of 2004 called lock the dv -- lock v. davie. last year, the espinoza case, the chief justice nodded beef -- nodded towards it. other justices say this distinction between status and use is dubious at best and the first amendment protect the free exercise of religion and the question is not whether the

majority of the justices agree that this distinction makes no sense. i think they will, but it will be a close case. host: elizabeth wydra? guest: i think a lot of this case will turn on the kind of unique facts on the ground of the way this program works. maine is fairly unique because of its sparsely popular did parts of the state. there are not public schools in every part of the state, so they have this program in which private schools are given state funds to provide the equivalent of public education. that is where the concern comes from, and giving state funds to schools that actively teach religious doctrine, and that is why it is argued.

religious schools do receive funding but they try to make a distinction between those schools that would provide the equivalent of a public education to not include religious doctrine, and those that they feel are sectarian or there is the implication of religious doctrine. i think the court is trying to find its way on these cases and the constitution steps up -- sets up this push and pull between the state not being able to establish and the protections of the free exercise, and so in some ways, and there is a letter from thomas jefferson that a lot of folks talk about when they talk about the wall between church and state. that wall is often there to protect religious exercise from the state becoming too involved in their operation and the court i think is backing away from the

idea of being able to use religious status and that was the case last term and has now required a kind of closer involvement of the state in looking at the actual use of the funds and i think there is a question whether that is good or not but regardless of that policy type of question, the issue here will be on that kind of tension because the state is saying, we feel constrained by the establishment clause from giving states funds we are trying to set up public school equivalents to schools that will proselytize with the funds and otherwise try to preach religious doctrine. host: from mississippi, republican line, stephen is on. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. my question is for either one of your guests. since 1973, we are going on

three generations of killing innocent babies. has any actual tables, any demography been done that would show what the population of the african-american citizens would be in the united states had we not killed so many of the babies? they have misinterpreted the 14th amendment, which made african-american babies born on the -- in the united states legitimate citizens. host: that is the question if you want to apply it to the legal matters at hand. whoever wants to go first? guest: i think the constitution protects the right of african-american citizens to make decisions for themselves

about their own reproductive capacity. that is the important point that comes from our constitutional protections and certainly i think that one of the most powerful -- the way in which the abortion restriction would impact black women in particular and the ways in which seemingly neutral abortion restrictions, when they are actually -- when you look at the operation on the ground, how i disproportionate negative impact on black and brown women and that is something i think is important to consider when we talk about not just the abortion rights but the rights to equality and the constitution's great interest in achieving racial justice. guest: i'm not sure what the tables which show about what the african-american population in the country would be had there not been abortion available.

i know it would be much higher. i would point out that every state now has facilities and says if a woman does not want to keep her child, the state will without any questions whatsoever take that child and try to place that child in a loving home. there is no question that there is some burden in carrying a child to term, but once that child is carried to term and you have whatever buddy would consider a live human being, that woman is not required to keep that child and have it be an additional burden, if you will, on her life. host: i want to read you both a little from the newark times, a story about this term coming up but this is the line i want to review, saying the highly charged docket will test the leadership of john roberts who lost his position as the ideological center with the arrival last fall of justice amy coney barrett.

the job as chief, what role does he serve on the court these days? guest: it was certainly an important switch with the passing of ruth bader ginsburg and the confirmation of amy coney barrett. we no longer need to rely on the chief justice, who was somewhat mercurial, he was the swing vote. if the other five republican appointees can vote together, they no longer need chief justice roberts. he is still going to care about not only the industry should of the courts but if he is in the majority, he gets to assign who writes the opinion, including assigning that potential he to himself. what influence he has on the law will to some degree depend upon whether he chooses to put himself in the majority or a dissenter but there is no question that in terms of real-world power, he has lost

some sense the 5-4 majority is now a 6-3 majority. guest: as chief justice, he clearly is concerned with the credibility of the court. we call at the robert court whether he is in the majority of most of the decisions are not. -- or not. i think he is rightly considering himself the steward of the court during this period. i do think it is important to note that in the abortion case for example, if the chief justice joins with the more liberal justices, abortion can still be overturned. roe can still be overturned. even when you have conservative litigants come into the court with increasingly conservative outcomes like and pulley

overturning roe v. wade and the decades of precedent built on that, they don't need to win the chief justice boat to get the outcome they desire and that is the direct impact of the 6-3 conservative majority of the supreme court. host: amy is in georgia, democrats line. caller: good morning, i want to say how disingenuous it is for someone who clearly does not care anything about black people to bemoan abortions by black women. my question is to miss wydra. you talked earlier about the legitimacy of the court and the supreme court -- clearly been captured by right wing whites of premises groups like the heritage foundation, the mercer family, the coors family.

really, it is just a tool of this right wing push to basically strip rights from us that we have obtained since the 1950's. guest: i think that is a very profound question. the idea that we could look at the court and see it not as a protector of our rights, not as a body that promotes the equality and liberty in the constitution but rather as a body that will be a tool of oppression. i think that is a deeply profound question and gets to the crisis of faith in the court. i think the justices certainly would not agree that they have been captured by the interests

but what we look at are the results that the supreme court gives us and i think that we have seen a lot of voting rights cases in particular that are not grounded in the statutes, not grounded in the constitution. -- pointing to a particular provision on which it was getting the voting rights act and so when you see these repeated results from the court that go against these hard-fought changes to the constitution that made our constitution over time more equal, more inclusive, freer and fairer, i think these types of questions are being asked and the point of the supreme court,

we see over the -- the crisis in public confidence gets there when -- we don't see equal justice coming from the court and i think that voters need to be engaged in the processes by which we get new members of the court, ensuring that -- john said at the beginning of the call, elections have consequences. in acting that to the court is obviously some -- connecting that to the court is obviously something voters need to do with greater urgency now. host: mr. malcolm? guest: i'll respond quickly. your collar said, referring to me that i obviously don't care about black people. with all due respect, you know nothing about me. you don't know who my friends are, what my beliefs are, or what causes i support.

with respect to your broader comment, the supreme court justice like all judges should be doing equal justice under law . lady justice has a blindfold on. she is not supposed to look out from under that blindfold or put a thumb on the scale that she holds to favor one party over another. all the cases that elizabeth cited were fully litigated and justice kagan for whom i have a great deal of respect was in the defendant -- in the minority and with respect to the shelby county case, all the supreme court said was if you're going to have a coverage formula that requires preclearance, you have to use a formula before you impose this extraordinary remedy that violates principles of federalism on the state and you have to use a formula that is geared toward modern times and not towards the jim crow era which thankfully has passed. host: two guests joining us for this discussion on the supreme court, its term this year and

other issues. elizabeth wydra, president of the constitutional accountability center. usconstitution.org is the website. john malcolm with the heritage foundation. he is the vice president with the institutefoundation. heritage.org is that website. thanks for the conversation. coming up, our weekly covid segment. this week we look at testing in the united states. join us for that conversation, david lim, health care reported from politico. that's coming up on washington journal. -- health care reporter from politico. that's coming up on washington journal. ♪

>> washington post reporter craig whitlock against chapter 15 in his new book the afghanistan papers this way. "hamid karzai's fraudulent reelection worsened a deluge of corruption that engulfed afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. dark money cascaded over the country. money launderers loved suitcases loaded with a million dollars or more on flights leaving kabul so crooked businessmen and politicians could stash their ill-gotten fortunes offshore."

>> washington post investigative reporter craig whitlock on this week's episode of but noakes -- oak notes -- book notes plus. >> you can be part of the national conversation by participating in c-span's studentcam video competition. your opinion matters. we are asking you to create a five to six minute document rate that answers the questions how does the federal government impact your life. your documentary must show supporting points of the. c-span's studentcam competition. and you have a shot at winning the grand prize of $5,000.

competition rules are to get started, visit our website at studentcam.org. host: every week at this time we take a look at an aspect of the covid comes to issues of vaccination or even today as we talk about issues of testing. our guest is dated limb -- david lim with politico. how much emphasis in the united states is currently placed on testing? what's the emphasis on testing these days? >> the biden administration has recently remade a focus on testing as a component of the covid response. a large amount of the focus has been on boosting the supply in

the coming weeks to months of rapid covid tests that can be taken at the point of care. there has been not enough supply to meet the demand for this type of test in recent weeks. host: from the white house says -- the procurement of nearly $2 billion, 280 million tests and all for multiple covid-19 manufacturers. talk about those types of tests involved. the rapid tests and the at-home tests. how do they play into the administration's plans? >> the administration is signing $2 billion in new contracts with the diagnostic manufacturers for a mix of tests, the point-of-care tests. the antigen test's.

it will take time for these manufacturers to ramp up the production. there's a question that it will be a tool in the short term to address the shortage of rapid point-of-care tests which will be taken and you can have a result within 15 minutes. the administration will anticipate the supply of these tests to double over the coming months. host: how would you rate these individual tests in terms of accuracy? >> there's a lot of research that has been done. there are multiple types of covid tests. some are conducted at a lab using a technology called pcr people in a familiar with. the downside of pcr tests is it will likely take a day or two to get your results back.

you have rapid covid tests which can be taken at the point-of-care. there is a little bit of debate over if it catches the point of transmissibility. or if you need to have a pcr tests to really confirm that you don't have covid. the fda recently put into place a policy that basically says you can use in many cases two tests over a few days, these rapid point-of-care tests at home to get a fairly equivalent type of result as a lab test. host: testing one related to covid matters is our topic. if you want to ask questions related to that, you can do so on the lines. (202) 748-8000 eastern central

time zones. (202) 748-8001 mountain and pacific time zones. (202) 748-8003 if you want to text us thoughts. when it comes to testing, how do schools factor into this? with the political joke -- what's the protocol? >> the administration put $10 million in funding. they sent it to individual states and that funding was intended to allow schools to get the resources necessary to stand up covid testing programs. there are a lot of private industry companies.

uptake is not as high as the administration intended. for a variety of reasons that hasn't come to fruition. in my reporting i found that many of these private companies tell me that in recent weeks, since these schools have gone to reopen, more and more districts have reached out to them to try to set up testing programs in part because they're receiving -- they are seeing covid cases in schoolchildren. host: the senate health and education labor and pensions committee. patty murray asking questions. we will play a little bit of that exchange. >> i am troubled by the continuing testing challenges

which includes some schools not having access to enough tests right now. we know testing would be a critical part of safely reopening schools. i wanted to ask you what specific steps is the federal government taking to make sure tests are accessible to schools and what guidance is being provided to make sure they are being used effectively. >> i want to make sure it's clear, there is a supply of test kits available. it's that the demand has grown dramatically and demand for certain types of test so the distribution has been difficult to get to certain places. but generally speaking nationwide, there is sufficient total testing capacity across the nation to meet our needs and this includes the combining of all lab-based point-of-care and over-the-counter testing. what we have done, earlier this

month president biden announced the defense production act so we could procure $2 billion in rapid point-of-care tests and over-the-counter at home covid tests. we are going to continue to mobilize and work with industry partners to make sure we can get into contracts that allow for multiple testing manufacturers to expand production and we are working with states to mitigate supply chain constraints while the demised manufacturing expands to meet the demand. we have seen demand increase month over month some 300% and it has been a demand that has not evenly spread. there is sufficient supply. it's just getting to the right places. host: talk about the demand for

testing in dealing with covid. >> i think you heard a few things from the secretary just now. he really leans on this idea that there's is enough lab-based capacity for school children the country. you'll notice that he combined all types of covid tests. there really isn't enough point-of-care rapid tests to supply enough testing to the country at this point if that's the modality that americans want to use. a lot of what we've seen in schools is the idea that you're going to end up using lab-based capacity. that means they might pool student samples together and test that sample at a lab and if it ends up that a pool turns up positive, that means you have to go back and individually test those students perhaps with a rapid point-of-care tests to

ensure that people can stay in the classroom. over the past several weeks to month, we have seen the delta wave hit the u.s. quite hard. the amount of testing was at a low over the summer months before delta hit and we have seen rapid expansion and terms of the demand that americans have that type of testing as the amount of infections has increased. host: david lim from politico joining us. thomas is up first from delray beach florida. go ahead with your question or comment. >> i'm actually not the first. you guys had me a little while ago.

about covid and the vaccine and testing, let me just give advice to my fellow republicans. get vaccinated. i have been vaccinated. the science is very clear. vaccines are safe and effective. i got the pfizer back in april. i'm 28 years old and my side effects were very mild. so please get vaccinated. it's safe, effective and saves lives. about covid, i recall a year ago a lot of articles coming out saying depending on the country, roughly 60% to 75% of covid fatalities were men and it seemed like men seemed to have a higher mortality rate from covid. i just wonder if you guys have any insight as to why that is. my understanding is women have more stem cells and a naturally

stronger immune system. i was just curious as to why you think that is. host: stern limb, go ahead. -- mr. lim, go ahead. >> i don't know if i can give a definitive answer. i can do some research and follow-up if the caller has contact info they want to share with the show. caller: i would like to recite a parable that i have heard all my life and it pertains to the covid vaccine. as the parable goes, and elderly gentleman is living in a floodplain zone and the water is rising so his neighbor approaches him and offers to take him to safety and he says no, god will help me. as the water gets higher, a man comes by and about and says you

need to leave, it's fixing to flood your house and he says no, god will save me. helicopter drops the cord for him to get by and he says no, god will save me. he ends up in heaven and says god, why didn't you save me? god says i sent you a neighbor, i sent you about and i sent you a helicopter. host: how does that exactly appeal to the issue of our guest is on for? caller: because the vaccine will save people waiting until they direct to say god, why didn't you save me. host: thank you for the call. the front page of usa today talking about this concept of herd immunity, quoting doctors saying it may never happen because 90% need to be

vaccinated. what are people telling you as far as achieving that? is that a reasonable thing to expect? >> you have to consider the amount of americans that have been fully vaccinated to date. cdc data says only 55 .9% are fully vaccinated as of today so we are quite away from that 90%. the food and drug administration is evaluating vaccines for younger children. to my knowledge, pfizer hasn't formally submitted for emergency use authorization although they have submitted clinical trial data. i think you really need to consider that authorization would need to happen and you would need to see widespread uptake among children to achieve that 90% number.

the other thing is the vaccine mandates for from government as well as the private sector. i know there have been stories, there was a new york times story about the united airlines effort to get very high vaccination rates among their employee base. you have to consider why that's a little bit daunting at this point. host: in the early days of covid we saw these mass testing sites. are those still available? what have they been replaced with? >> this is a topic of done some reporting on. some of the laboratories sent a letter last month the biden administration really requesting that we see a lot of these mass testing sites be reopened in the delta surge. biden administration has said

they are trying to expand the number of places americans can get tested again. we saw over the summer when the first wave of vaccinations was happening even going back to the spring, a lot of those mass testing sites were converted to vaccination centers and the idea was that you would be able to use the public health resources that a lot of local departments have fun trying to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. there has been a renewed focus on expanding the amount of locations. host: this is allen in hawaii. caller: thank you for taking my call. i personally have been involved in the process here. i was able to lobby a nonprofit to participate with the program through the nih to get a million

tests brought over. there are people here still waiting for them. it's probably fully subscribed in packages of eight. it's a baby step compared to england, germany, slovakia. david knows this because he's been following dr. michael mena. i hope you will get him on as a guest. i hope he can persuade you to answer more detailed questions about the differences between the antigen test's and pcr and some people have the confusion. most tests we are talking about that are rapid are the antigen test's. my question to you right now, i've been communicating with our senators here in hawaii. there is some confusion to get

everything streamlined. how the government is going to get a scale of supply of antigen test's. the government would be giving certain manufacturers that are already approved with over account -- over-the-counter approval to make these antigen test to produce them, it would set a price that would be equivalent to europe. it would be about $.90 a test. host: we will let our guest respond. >> you talked a lot about the price point for these rapid covid tests. one thing i will say, michael mena has been a big advocate of using these rapid tests.

he's very much of the view that it can be an effective tool for helping bring the pandemic under control. however, in the u.k. the rapid tests that they are relying on, the food and drug administration over the summer issued a warning letter that was fairly scathing of the firm in nova and there is some question as to the performance of that rapid test in particular that michael mena has been involved with. the food and drug administration has recently said that it expects that it will maintain its standards for how accurate you want these rapid tests to be. i know that michael mena has been a big advocate of perhaps having a lower standard for getting some of these tests to market at a price point that is more affordable for more americans. host: we have invited him to be on our program.

hopefully he can come on at some point in the future. a viewer says that if you go to walmart, they are selling rapid tests for seven dollars apiece. for those who can afford it, can they buy it up and is that going to be an issue with being a relatively low price for some, buying up the tests and not leaving them for others? >> we have seen limitations on the rapid covid tests. it's part of an effort to ensure that what you're describing doesn't happen. that you have these tests being available to more people. as the price point, seven dollars may not a lot to some individuals but it can be prohibitive to others. i think that's a question the

administration is trying to grapple with. one of the efforts they have is to get about 25 million of these rapid point-of-care tests to some of the federally qualified health centers to ensure that it can get to those that meet the test as well. host: we will go to mark who lives in washington, d.c.. caller: good morning. i enjoy the independence of c-span. we now expect mainstream media to not mention antibody testing or natural immunities, but we expect more from a c-span guest due to their independence. nih completed a study in january on natural immunities and found them to be robust, long-lasting, durable. t cells, b cells, antibodies and resistant to variance. and even larger israeli study

found the same thing. we have this concern about emts and fire officials and teachers, nurses, doctors not wanting the vaccination and that's because many of them were intelligent enough to get an antibody test and to understand the value of natural immunities. my concern is the purge now across the whole country of some of the smartest, healthiest and independent thinkers especially from the schools. can you comment on that? >> i would push back a little best -- a little bit on this. the cdc recommends people who were infected with covid-19 to receive a vaccine. the fda really has not endorsed the use of these tests to make decisions about personal

behavior. so there are more tests to find out what is the correlate of protection under development until that happens it's a little difficult to draw that conclusion. host: we are seeing several states issue vaccine mandates. does that introduce additional demand on the testing side of it and particularly the supply of those tests? nursing states issue certain vaccine mandates. if those increased demands for testing take place, is it going to affect the supply of testing for other people? >> that's an excellent question and something i will be watching pretty closely. one thing the biden administration tends to do is

make it so that private businesses who employ more than a hundred employees require vaccination or a believe it's going to be weekly testing of those employees. obviously that's going to induce more demand for testing into the system. one has to figure out how many individuals that actually represents an what type of tests will be accepted. if it's the lab test, there is quite a lot of capacity in the country to conduct that type of testing. but as we've been talking about at length, these rapid point-of-care tests are pretty crunched for supply in that situation will not improve for some time either until infections decrease or any fracturing can step up further.

host: the topic of testing also coming up in that conversation. >> let me ask you about this new announcement from governor newsom. a mandate for students. there is no out here. he's not allowing testing as an alternative. do you favor that or should testing be an alternative people who don't want their kids to take this vaccine? >> i have been in favor of these kinds of mandates. in general people look at this like this is something novel and new when in fact, throughout the years and years and decades, we have made it a requirement for children to get into schools to get different types of vaccines. so when people treat this as something novel and terrible, it

isn't. a requirement for children to come to school to be vaccinated with certain vaccines is not something new. it's been around for a very long time. >> what do you say to those that say this is such a new vaccine -- obviously the other vaccines are required there have been decades of experience with those vaccines and they are hesitant. how do you reassure them? >> our food and drug administration before they allow something to be given to anyone, it has to be proved to be safe and effective. they are very meticulous in their examination of the data. in addition, this vaccine has been given to hundreds of millions of people. when you have a new vaccine that's been given to hundred thousand people, you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of people throughout

the world. so although it is, there is a lot of experience with this vaccine. host: let's hear from mike in iowa. you are on with our guest. caller: the other caller referred to c-span as independent. c-span is not independent. they are left-wing liberal buck nuts like everything else. host: i will stop you there because we are not and you are on to talk with our guest. caller: we will call this what it is, the chinese virus. host: in michigan. caller: i have had my second vaccination for the covid in may and i have registered for the booster but they haven't given me a date yet.

do we have to be tested again before we have our vaccination? what other things do we have to do? >> my understanding is there is no need to be tested for covid-19 before receiving a booster toast if you are in one of the populations eligible for that rooster does. host: that was wendy. this is jay in maryland. caller: things for taking my call. anybody that wants to take the vaccine, they can take it, but it should not be mandated. normally when there are serious issues like this that come up you have a roundtable. you have one person for one side and a person for the other side. i haven't seen the opposition, not meaning anti-vax, but the other side meaning that there

are healthy alternatives. your guests should know about the viruses from the cdc. over 14,000 people have died after taking the vaccine. you have interferon, you have that as well who is helping citizens increase their immune system to live a more healthy lifestyle. none of that is even offered. it's the vaccine, the vaccine, the vaccine. host: ok. do you want to ask the guest a question. caller: the first question is for you pedro. why hasn't there been the argument on both sides. will you be truthful and acknowledge that over 14,000 deaths have been reported from doctors, nurses, medical facilities, hospitals to the cdc

of deaths after taking the vaccine. cut -- >> it's a data system that any member of the public can submit data from their own experience that and the cdc disclaims pretty strongly that one should not take away conclusions from that data. they do an investigation every time one of those is submitted but one has to remember that people die of any number of things on a daily basis and you really have to look at what the underlying rate of death is and there's no evidence that has been made public that the vaccines have been directly tied to those deaths.

caller: this is lonnie in brownsville pennsylvania. you are on with our guest david lim of politico. caller: good morning. my question is to mr. lim, how effective is this vaccine. i don't trust it. my niece got the vaccine september 1, september 4 she died. coincidence? i don't know. i just don't trust it. i haven't got it, i'm not getting it. >> i'm so sorry for your loss. but in terms of the effectiveness of the vaccine, we have pretty robust data. like i mentioned to the previous viewer. there hasn't been evidence made public that there is any incidents of adverse effect tied

to the vaccine. i would encourage you to get vaccinated. the robust data that has been publicly made available is that it gives high protection against hospitalization and death, especially two weeks after the second dose of pfizer or moderna. and johnson & johnson as well. the weeks after one gets the vaccine. host: in september we saw president biden himself go before cameras to make another big push as far as an effort to work against covid. what have we seen in the weeks since the president's call? >> we have definitely seen an uptick in the amount of vaccinations that have occurred. we have also seen the booster campaign for the pfizer vaccine kickoff. there have been a lot of doses

delivered to people who already had completed that initial two dose series. i don't know if that answers your question. host: thank you for being our guests this half hour to talk about testing. this is david lim with politico. you can find his work at politico.com. thanks for your time. we will finish off the program with open forum. (202) 748-8001 republicans, (202) 748-8000 democrats, (202) 748-8002 independents. we will take up open forum when washington journal continues. >> washington post reporter craig whitlock against chapter

15 in his new book the afghanistan papers this way. hamid karzai's fraudulent reelection worsened the deluge of corruption that engulfed afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. dark money cascaded over the country money launderers loved suitcases loaded with a million dollars or more on flights leading -- leaving kabul so crooked businessmen and politicians could stash their ill-gotten fortunes offshore. we asked mr. whitlock to expand on this and other stories from his book, the afghanistan papers. >> craig whitlock on this week's episode of book notes plus. get c-span on the go. watch the days biggest political

events live on demand on our new mobile video app. access type highlights, listen to c-span radio and discover new podcasts for free. c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. browse the latest collection of apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span band. every purchase helps support our operation. shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. >> washington journal continues. host: president biden is expected to make comments about raising the deaths -- raising the debt ceiling.

you can monitor it on our free c-span now. it also gets archived for a period of time. those comments from the president coming at 11:15 this morning. he will travel to michigan to talk about his agenda, particularly the status of the infrastructure and budget bill. up until then, we are going to do open forum. can comment on the segments you've seen or anything else. one of the things happening yesterday on the sunday shows with senator bernie sanders on abc talking about the future of the budget bill. the $3.5 trillion budget as it was and what that future number will be. >> let me ask you about where the president is on this. he has floated a $2 trillion

topline number on this. you initially wanted closer to $6 trillion. are you comfortable with the idea of cutting this down to $2 trillion? >> i'm not sure that's accurate. with the president has said is there's going to have to be some give-and-take and i think that's right. if anything when we especially talk about the crisis of climate change and the need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, the $6 trillion i originally proposed was probably too little. three and a half trillion should be a minimum. that i expect there's going to have to be given take. >> give-and-take, but not to trillion dollars. that's not enough. the president also said that a smaller investment could create historic achievements. $2 trillion is not enough. >> what the president is saying

is that what we are trying to do is for the working families of this country, we are trying to pass the most consequential piece of legislation since the great depression and he's right. the bottom line is we have got to pass the infrastructure bill and the american people -- poll after poll shows what we are doing is exactly with the american people want. it's not with the big-money interest wants, it's what the american people want and we've got to do it. host: just one of many statements made about the future of the budget bill. first up on this open forum. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to say wonderful show this morning. informative. i loved all the guests and i

appreciate everyone's perspectives. we all have them and i would like to first say i hope california is fine with the oil spill offshore and i'm hoping they can get that mess cleaned up. what i'd like to say is there was a time in this country where no matter who was president, no matter what political platform was in place, there was a certain amount of decorum and respect granted a president. and i think this man has been in office for less than a year and he has had a number of issues thrown at him whether foreseen or unforeseen. it's time for americans to start acting like americans again and quit being divided.

host: from washington state. when it comes to the pipeline she spoke about, the usa today follow-up story saying that broken pipeline leading to an estimated 126,000 gallons of oil leaked into ocean waters near orange county opted southern california officials to rapidly race to contain the damage. crews were able to remove more than 3000 gallons of oil from the ocean. in texas. caller: my main topic is immigration. we just had this disaster at del rio and we are already getting reports of another one and you're not hearing anything about that from the biden administration. i believe there is liability in immigration. you can't just continue to have the open border.

all these people think there is a special money tree or something or a unicorn that's going to solve everything surprises me. i myself have to live within a budget and to meet, you have to pay out less than you take in. and congress, both parties have them this for my whole lifetime and it just amazes me how the american people continue to accept it. host: margaret, republican line. caller: i believe ever since the census came out showing steadily dropping percentages -- it has suddenly become apparent to the white men in this country that they better make abortion illegal again so they can bring their numbers up and the united states will remain basically a white country. host: how did you come to that

conclusion? caller: the way i just told you. white men in this country want to keep it white and make it the majority forever. host: masking how did you come to that conclusion. caller: that will be insured by overturning roe v. wade and forcing women to have the babies they don't want. caller: thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to say how sad it is to see how so many american don't love their own government. everyone walks around and it's supposed to be they love this constitution. how about reading some of it where it says we the people. that includes the people you don't agree with, the people you have disagreements with. to run to the store and be buying ammo, we've got militia groups. there's no militia groups.

militia groups are shut up i the government. those are terrorists. people doing these things are homegrown terrorists. we saw january 6 was truly sad. we are americans. we should act like it. what happened to everybody? everyone doesn't like the way they live here? if you don't like living in america, leave. you don't have to overthrow the capital elting and beat people with flags. it's just sad. thank you for taking my call. host: joe in iowa. mccright line. caller: regarding the 3.5 dell, i believe they should take a second look at that and revamp it so that it includes all

americans. the color that made the statement that it's long overdue, i totally agree with. host: when you say all americans, what do you mean by that? caller: thank you for asking that. i believe there's a 10 -- generation that's being forgotten. that's generation x. 55 to around 75. we need something that's going to help us when we raised our children who are now in college and we are paying and also taking care of our elderly parents. so here are the ones in between and we are falling through the tracks when it comes to that bill. i think there should be another stimulus check cured towards that generation and then work around the other aspects of the bill. keep them the same or increase it. host: facebook becoming the

subject of a report yesterday on cbs and consequently the testimony of someone who was inside facebook talking about its dealings saying that the former facebook product manager had been revealed as the source behind tens of thousands of pages of leaked research that show the company has been negligent at eliminating violence and other harmful content from its services and that it misled investors about these efforts. we have because of her concern for facebook's impact in developing countries, she hopes to advance language agnostics solutions. capping the number of times the post can be initiated. goes on to say, we should have a little friction. glenn in illinois, democrats line.

caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm a little bit riled up about the republicans and whoever is hollering about the gas prices. every time there's a hurricane, the gas goes up and we've had a couple hurricane, one push to barge up into a bridge in the mississippi. your gas going up and the next thing i got is we got a guy in congress it's looking for -- he's got some stuff hanging over his head sitting there congress and then he talks to the general the way he did, that's

absolutely disgusting. host: who are you talking about? caller: i think his name is matt gaetz. host: the representative from florida. caller: yes. they are investigating him now. he's all lawyered up and everything. and then talking to the general the way he was the other day in the congress. host: you mean general milley. caller: right. ives just sitting here earning about it. i'm 80 years old had i served my time in the service. and then you've got this guy coming up here. host: ok. that's glenn in illinois. we invite you to go to our website at c-span.org. all of those hearings archived

there especially on issues of afghanistan and other issues. in international news, the hill reported that north korea and south korea reopened communication hotlines on monday. move that may be used in future talks. -- military channels monday making the first such communications in almost two months. the hotlines which include phone and fax channels are used for schedule meetings, plan border crossings and dodge international crossings. a south korean official told his north korean counterpart during a phone call on monday according to the associated press. from missouri, this is kenneth. the public line. caller: good morning pedro.

i'm 74 years old and i'm a vietnam veteran and the pullout from afghanistan was a complete disaster and general milley has already admitted that he leapt stuff to the prest when he should keep his mouth shut and he just in the military and not try to promote himself for a future job at one of the big military complexes. and that's my comment for today. host: anita is up next in misery. -- missouri. caller: i would like to thank you for being the digital town square for the united states. i'm a c-span junkie and i watch the entire congressional hearing about abortion rights and noticed that the republicans had a very nice female ob/gyn who

skewed info to be a kind person. but scientifically and this is for the man from california and stir malcolm, the embryo or fetus is technically a parasite as long as the umbilical cord is intact. i could not help but notice these people when they gave their opinions, they will never know but be able to speak to the question in my opinion because they don't have a woman's body. i would like to hear however from that that they would make laws that would make men infertile you next any time there is a question of right or insist instead of treating women like they are being treated in texas like cattle. and i appreciate c-span so much. thank you very much.

host: that's linear from missouri. she mentioned the digital town hall aspect of what we do. the new app called c-span now. it's our new video app and it allows users to find five unfiltered coverage of government proceedings. congressional hearings, white house events. you should know that once you view it on the app, videos will be available for 24 hours. the site also has featured clips. it will show you political highlights that are driving the news of course you will find this program on our c-span now app. if you want to download it to your device, you can search for it at c-span.org/c-span now. from roosevelt in brooklyn, new york. democrat line. you are on.

caller: good morning. i'm calling about the decline of our precious american democracy. and it all started with donald trump. i'm a vietnam veteran. i grew up in segregated jim crow south in florida. but i always prided myself at being an american. when donald trump came down that escalator disparaging people that were not americans, when he was recorded live talking about disparaging women grabbing women's bodies and people still voted for him. it really depressed me. and since those instances, this country has been on a decline. until we fix the rift that's

running through our democracy, we are headed down. host: what do you point to as an example? >> i point to the fact that congress can't agree on anything. the supreme court is packed with a one sided agenda. it has never been like that before in this country, not during my lifetime and it really hurts me to see a great country that we have here in decline. those are my comments. caller: we will go to david in iowa. republican line. caller: hello. good morning from iowa. host: you are on. go ahead, david. caller: great.

host: are you still there? caller: i was in high school in the mid-seven's. i am a vocational guidance counselor and -- don't go to college because people like me don't do well in college and all the social benefits that i could have because my disability. i went out and got a ba and two masters and a phd and did rather well. i am just so saddened by people who -- left right and sideways. our country is broke. we have no money.

we cannot begin to afford the six point something trillion dollar spending fiasco of the democratic party. it's just shameful. host: what did you study in college and what do you do now? >> mama theologian. i'm a retired university professor among other things and i'm also active in my republican party which i'm so grateful for. the sadness of country is this addiction to having the government take care of us. i don't want anybody to take care of me. host: this is gary in orlando florida. caller: good morning. i'm glad to be back on c-span. i admire you guys. you let people talk. i'm kind of confused with this

whole thing with the budget and stuff. why are republicans not willing to do anything to help the struggling people of this country? people keep saying we haven't got enough money. we have enough money to fund 700, $800 billion for the military. we've got to trillion dollars they gave away to rich people and corporations. we turn around and give money to the packs and all these people. i heard the last gentlemen say he doesn't want anybody to take care of him. do you understand that you get social security? do you understand medicaid? all this stuff is what your taxes pay for. host: that's gary in orlando florida. we appreciate you watching and for dissipating. another addition of washington journal comes your way at 7:00

tomorrow. we will see you then. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these companies and more. medco supports c-span as a public service other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up at 11:15 eastern

today, president bynum will speak about the need to raise the debt ceiling. you can watch live coverage of his remarks here on c-span. after the president, we will take you live to the white house where the press secretary will hold a briefing. that starts at 1:00 p.m. eastern. >> next, congressman jim clyburn speaks about the importance of including expanded medicaid coverage in the budget reconciliation bill. he is joined by leadership conference on civil rights president wade henderson to discuss how organizing and can -- and activism helped push medicaid expansion. the center for american progress hosted this one-hour event. >> now this is my first time opening and i am thrilled to be here and thrilled to have such an exciting panel ahead. first i would like to do a little bit of table setting and context setting for this terribly important