>> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ >> buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> treasury secretary janet yellen and federal reserve chairman jerome powell testified this morning on the economy and the impact of coronavirus aid programs. live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or watch full coverage on c-span now, our new video app.

coming up this morning, the former fbi see vice chair -- fbi see vice chair on president biden's economic policies. then we will talk about rural voters and their impact on elections. "washington journal ♪ host: for many americans the thanksgiving holiday was a return to normal. as part of that, news over the weekend of another new covid-19 variant sent markets falling and governments around the world imposing new measures to stop the spread. how the u.s. will respond was answered in part yesterday. president biden announced new government efforts with much more of a wait and see attitude. welcome to washington journal. we will open the program asking

you about your confidence in the administration's handling of the omicron variant. here is how to be part of the conversation. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents and others, 202-748-8002. you can send us a text at 202-748-8003. tell us your name and where you are texting from. we will look for your posts on facebook and welcome your thoughts on instagram and twitter. that is at c-span wj. the president is heading out of town heading to minnesota today to talk about the infrastructure law. we may hear more from him about the covid variant. we will hear about his covid -- his covid response team has that coming up. reporting on yesterday's news

conference, yesterday's announcement by the president of the white house about noon yesterday. biden says he will direct fda cdc to use fastest process available for covid vaccines targeting omicron. president biden said he's directing general agencies to move as quickly as possible to approve additional vaccines or boosters tailored to shield against the new coronavirus variant. the current covid vaccines provide police protection for the heavily mutated strain and booster shots strengthen the protection significantly biden assured americans. politico writing about some of the political side of this, of this, the effect on the administration. one of the stories published this morning. once more and always, the white house can shake covid-19.

president biden was elected one year ago to managing out-of-control pandemic and he secured some undeniable early triumphs by -- steering a massive covid relief bill while monitoring in -- a vaccination program. as a president was celebrating progress, the pandemic -- the delta variant sent cases surging, rattling the nation's economy. sending the president's poll numbers tumbling. the sudden emergence of the omicron variant as far as fears of another devastating virus, one that could endanger the white house plans to focus on biden's legislative agenda and efforts to battle inflation and a bottleneck supply chain. the handling of the omicron variant, the covid response overall. 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8001 for republicans and 202-748-8002 for independents

and others. we will get to your calls momentarily. comments from president biden yesterday at the white house. @cspanwj --[video clip] >> there are three messages i want the people to hear. this variance is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic. we have the best vaccines in the world, the best scientists and we are learning more every single day and we will fight this variant which -- with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed. not chaos and confusion. from vaccines to boosters, to vaccines for children. one year ago america was floundering against the first variant of covid. we beat that significantly and then we got hit by a far more powerful threat.

the delta variant. but we took action. we are seeing deaths from delta come down. we are going to fight and beat this new variant as well paid we are learning more about this every single day. as we learn more we will share that information with the american people candidly and promptly prayed the best protection, i know you're tired of hearing me say this. the best protection against his new variant or any of them out there is getting fully vaccinated and getting a booster shot. most americans are fully vaccinated but not yet fully boosted. if you are 18 or older and got vaccinated before june the first go get the booster shot each -- today. they are free and available at 80,000 locations coast-to-coast. a fully vaccinated booster person is the most protected

against covid. do not wait, go get your booster. if you are not vaccinated, and now is the time to get vaccinated and take your children to be vaccinated. every child ages five or older can get safe and effective vaccines now. while it will be a few weeks before we know everything we know about how strongly the existing vaccines protect against this new variant, dr. fauci is with me today with our medical team and we believe the vaccines will continue provide protection against severe disease. please wear your masks when you are indoors, in public settings around other people. it protects you and those around you. third, in the event hopefully unlikely -- we will accelerate their development and deployment

with every available tool. dr. fauci believes the current vaccines provide at least some protection against the variant in the booster strengthens that significantly. we do not yet believe additional measures will be needed. but so that we are prepared if needed, my team is already working with officials at pfizer, johnson & johnson to develop contingency plans if needed. i will also direct the fda and cdc do use the fastest process available without cutting corners for safety to get vaccines through and on the market if needed. and we will do that the same way if current treatments need with those covid virus. i'm sparing no effort, i'm

removing roadblocks to keep people safe. all of this is confusing to a lot of people. let me close with a simple message. if you are vaccinated but still worried about the variant, get your booster. if you are not vaccinated, get the shot. host: more details on the administration's response with the covid-19 response team played their preview coming up at 12:30 eastern. we have a live coverage of that on c-span.org. our question for you this morning on your confidence on the administration's response to the variant into covid-19. a couple of comments on twitter saying if you don't want to deal with disasters, don't take the job. biden takes them head-on.

tony says i wonder why we haven't heard about biden's mission accomplished moment in the media. lindsey says i'm only speaking for myself but i will not be taking boosters every time a variant is named. this is all now about making drug companies more wealth. democrats line first we will go to glenn in florida. caller: good morning. my comment is president biden is going to do well with this because he's laid out the plan. there's nothing new to do except more people taking personal responsibility and fighting the -- fought -- following the guidelines that's been put out. when the vaccines came out, the people take personal responsibility for themselves. other people. we've already started playing politics and i think they

already said they crated this new variant. it's not what president biden is trying to do, it's us. we want to do the right thing. they're always looking at some other angle to prevent things from happening. wear a mask, social distance. there's a large percentage of people still sitting here. >> we will go to billow -- bill orange park, florida. caller: i don't think this man knows what he's doing. his eyes, his nose, his mouth, who's can a believe him. host: wisconsin, the independent line. caller: i really think it's

mostly the corporations who want to block things up and keep prices high for themselves and it's all about greed. host: host: when you say it's greed you think it's the drug companies perpetuating this? caller: gas, oil, just the corporations. they want to keep prices high for themselves. host: here is washington times this morning. scientists warned public not to panic about omicron. the latest coronavirus variant features a buffet of mutations suggesting it will spread faster , stiff arm vaccines to some degree and bind tighter to human cells.

scientists say omicron may not cause more severe disease or overtake the delta strain that is dominant now. to michigan on the democrats line, good morning. caller: i talked to senator peters office in d.c.. i would pay people $100 for the vaccination. i would document it and i would pay them $100 for the booster and i would pay cash. but beyond that, michigan is a mass, it's in the schools. i can even go into that. we have to stop this. >> the spread in michigan is pretty bad? caller: it is horrible. working in medicine and education, you don't ever see kids out of school.

they are not 18. i would pay them. that would get them to do vaccinations. caller: new -- host: news from michigan in the detroit pre--- free press. they vandalized, windows smashed dearborn officers broken into and vandalized with memorabilia smashed. the office was one used previously by her husband. in monroe, louisiana. asking about your confidence in the biden administration's response to the coronavirus. go ahead. caller: i really appreciate biden saying a lot of people are confused. i don't have a science

background and i spend two or three hours listening to steve bannon in the war room and he's got pretty heavy hitter scientists on their end of think i pulled into trumps belief that the media really is fake because there should be a debate between all of the smart people and nowhere in the washington establishment or establishment news media is there a good thorough debate so course will be confused. i think steve made history yesterday, and extended discussion on computers and technology and said lucifer, satan, the devil is in these things. the alternative universe the populist movement is deeply christian is becoming very polarizing out there.

you guys in the ruling class elite will have to deal with this debate towards theological grounds. i looked at the fact that c-span has 200,000 videos in their library and i will bet there is not one about power of principalities and demonic forces. host: i don't know that for sure. but a pretty big video library. we are asking about your confidence in the administration's response to the omicron breakout. 202-748-8000 free democrats, 202-748-8001 for republicans. all others, 202-748-8002. the president looking ahead about what may be ahead this winter in terms of fighting covid. >> my team at the white house is providing daily updates this

week and i will be putting 40 deep -- a detailed strategy on how we fight covid this winter. not shutdowns or lockdowns but more widespread vaccinations, boosters. there will always be the latest vaccines available at the booster shots available. every single american free of charge and i will keep that commitment. we need to do more to vaccinate americans, to beat the pandemic we ought to vaccinate the world as well. in america is leading that effort. we've shipped for free more vaccines to other countries than all other countries in the world combined. over 275 million vaccines to 110 countries. now we need the rest of the world to step up as well. not a single vaccine shot americans ever sent to the rest of the world will ever come at

the expense of any american. i will always make sure our people are protected first, but vaccinating the world is just one more tool in how we need to meet our moral obligations and how to best protect americans as well. >> the health publication looking at the available -- availability of vaccines worldwide. their headline the omicron variant underscores the stakes of the covid vaccine and equity. to ensure their shots are available worldwide but it remains unclear when the companies will provide the intellectual know-how and technology that could boost global production. after the coronavirus appeared last year, nations quickly snapped up supply. by doing so, a gap between rich

and poor countries saying vaccine equity would come back to haunt the world as large swaths of humanity remain unvaccinated. the omicron variant is a we told you so moment. caller: my opinion is let these people die off, the ones who don't want to be, get rid of this in -- get rid of this ignorance. check the vaccination status and if they are not vaccinated, turn them away from the emergency room. host: steve on the republican line. caller: good morning. my comment is people who are vaccinated can still get it. also i only called to remind

everybody what biden said when he was running for president, i will have this -- i remember that. host: let's hear from the republican line as well from cranston, rhode island. go ahead. caller: good morning. this man who is president really struggles with actually reading off the teleprompter or anything like that. he struggles all the time and i'm wondering if he is capable of running a country. that's my concerns today. i listened to them yesterday and even when he was sat down with the ceos, he was struggling what he was talking about and what he was there for.

thanks for taking my call. host: does that reduce your confidence in the administration overall to respond to issues like covid? caller: yes it does. i believe in science, i believe in getting the shot if that's what you want to do is an american. i don't believe in mandates and stuff like that. host: let's hear from april on the democrats line in new york city. caller: good morning. when president trump was in office we had the large ship that came in and it was a good initiative, however there weren't people out on their who had covid. the virus is something we are going to have to learn to live with. president biden is doing a good job with what he asked work with.

it is something i think we haven't -- we have to have an understanding. no one is going to know how it's going to change. we will have to learn to live and that's where we are now. host: what does it mean for you to learn to live with the virus? how does that affect your life? caller: it has changed, but we are going into the future. we learned to live with washing our hands, learning to wear masks when needed. i was out to dinner with people, some had masks on, some came in there with masks. i got the booster in august before it was even approved that it was a mixed booster with moderna and pfizer and everything was fine.

i don't see myself getting a booster or vaccine at this time a new variant exposes itself. i think it's going to be ongoing. we have protection from the virus initially. we just have to learn differently. host: what has the case count been like in new york recently? >> a lot of people have gotten sick and a lot of people have gotten the initial vaccine, but now people are little bit confused because they said we've gotten the booster so now there's another mutation coming up we are knocking to get another booster.

what we will do is we will see how this reacts. from there we see with our protection will be paid we are joined now live, we are waiting for each other. other people must get vaccinated. host: the washington post headline saying omicron variant concerning but not cause for panic. cdc urges adults to get boosters paid the centers for disease control and prevention significantly expand its recommendations for booster shots on monday saying all adults 18 and older should get them buried the coronavirus rained a cause for concern but not for panic. all american adults eligible for boosters of coronavirus vaccines earlier this month with the cdc previously focused on the most vulnerable age groups same people over 50 should make sure to get boosted while others have

the option. the president spoke about where things are in the fight against covid. >> we are in a very different place as we enter the month of december. compared to where we were last september. last christmas, fewer than 1% of american adults are vaccinated. this christmas the number will be 71%. last christmas our children were at risk with the vaccine. this christmas we have safe and effective vaccines. with more than 19 million children and counting. a majority of schools were closed. 99% of our schools are open. we also now have booster shots that provide extra protection. they are free and convenient. there still time to get your

first two shots or your booster shot or get your children vaccinated before christmas. if you and your family are fully vaccinated, you can celebrate the holidays much more safely. given where we were last year, that is a blessing none of us should take for granted. we are tracking it from every angle and that's what we have to keep doing. that's how we reopen our country and reopen our businesses, that's how we reopen our schools. we've moved forward in the face of covid-19, we have moved forward in the face of the delta variant and we move forward now in the face of the omicron variant as well. host: back to your calls on the president's handling of the omicron variant. 202-748-8000 is the line for

democrats. 202-748-8001 four republicans. for independents and others, 202-748-8002. let's go to florida on the independent line. caller: good morning. i say to each his own. if you want to get the vaccine, get the vaccine. mandates, yeah, they are not a good way to go because you get major resistance per people don't like to be told what to do. all these people saying you have to get vaccinated for my vaccine to work. how is that working out? found she is having talks with people at the white house to get the vaccine every three months. how many is going to be enough for people to feel safe?

host: the federal vaccine mandate is coming under question has been halted by a federal judge, part of it anyway. a federal court on monday temporarily halted the biden administration scope vaccine mandate for health workers in hospitals that receive federal funding. it applies to health care employees in the 10 states that sue to block the administration's november rule. north dakota, south dakota and wyoming. mark is in hampstead, maryland on the republican line. caller: good morning. as far as the mandates go, first of all it's completely unconstitutional. someone with a seventh grade education should know this.

there's no basis and if i can point out in the united states, the state with the highest vaccination number which i think is vermont also is of the top of the list of number of cases. so it seems like weather people have been vaccinated or not has almost no effect on the number of cases whatsoever. florida seems to be doing fine and yet vermont has the highest percentage of cases. we were told at the beginning of this that getting the vaccine you could go out and not wear a mask you could put the pandemic behind you. and they constantly have been moving the goal posts. and more people set to point out. more people have died since biden has took office from this then when trump was in office.

something to think about. host: do you think it is the nature of the virus that the goalpost as you put it would have to be moved as the virus evolves, the response to it has evolved from the earliest days in february in 20 today? we lost our caller. we will go to brendan in virginia, democrats line. caller: good morning. i am very much on a positive note as far as how the government has been handling this. i think we do need to keep in mind that this is really a new thing. it is not unlike some others that have been out. but much more widespread. while i am totally supportive of mandates, i understand that's

not the ideal and the ideal would be for everyone to voluntarily be vaccinated and that the other people -- the other things i would like to see increase in communities that might have trouble with access. and then the other thing is as far as vaccines and other countries as well as other advanced nations need to be doing that and it think the united states needs to pays in particular attention to mexico and south in the central american and south america. there are needs their and we also have a fair amount of people coming from there and that's my last comment. i was really, i do not know what

that is, but i'd hate to think we've allowed people and are brought people and from the southern border and they are here awaiting processing and not required vaccinations. i'm not sure or even offered to them. i don't how much encouragement they would need. i would really like to see that beyond the agenda. host: we will hear from liver -- from texas. caller: the last guy that was in charge, mr. trump he said this would be over with in a little while and would would be over with when it got warm. all that's left is half million people dead, i would call that a massacre.

if half a million troops died about because -- >> we have a new guy in there and he's trying everything under the sun listen to the science. now that we've got things going our way finally, people are misjudging what the scientists are learning. they are learning every day something a little bit different from each variant. there is a variant out there that could be where everybody has to get new shots. could you imagine if everybody has to get new shots. these people that are talking about it saying i think this or that, they should be saying i'm going to find out for you. i'm tired of hearing people on the tv saying i think. you have to know and if you don't know, leave it alone until you do know. host: the senate yesterday

coming back after the thanksgiving break and they are working on the defense authorization bill. here's the headline and roll call. the armed services committee chair. republicans delay vote on bill. mitch mcconnell their public and later accused democrats of rushing legislation. [video clip] >> why do democratic colleagues want to shortchange national defense? for the time and attention on another spending spree. iraq wish list that would hurt american families. working families are hit hard. gas prices are up about 50%, a used car prices are up more than 25% in grocery prices across the country in every category are up significantly.

in response washington democrats want to spend trillions more. if you put these at face value, this would alone would unleash $800 billion in the next five years. years five through 10 are when crushing tax hikes and phony accounting would begin to kick in. even then the bill is not paid for. president biden promised this legislation would cost zero dollars. obviously that is false. congressional budget after 10 years after tax hikes and fake offsets, there spree would still add up to $367 billion. and add that alter to the deficit. host: mitch mcconnell on the

senate floor. the senate is in today at 10:00. the houses in at 2:00. our other coverage today comes in, the supreme court case on former president trump turning over of documents related to the january 6 committee investigation. you can hear the oil -- the oral arguments on c-span3. we mentioned earlier the president heading to minnesota today. we will cover his comments about infrastructure coming up today at 4:30 this afternoon and that will also be on c-span.org. a briefing of the covid-19 response team coming up today at 12:30 eastern and we will have that live for you and that is available on our new mobile app.

let's hear from robert on the independent line in washington, d.c.. you are -- your thoughts on the administration's response. caller: personally i have no confidence in what biden is doing with this mandate/dictate. my understanding, they said the transmission is not from person-to-person, it's transmission by way of the air. when the aids virus came out, it's been out here for at least 50 years. but now the aids virus, the gravity is different. now the gravity of the coronavirus is very light. it's between inflating a balloon with air and with helium.

the virus is precipitating in the air so if you walk by somebody, you can track it by way of the draft of the air. when you put a vaccine. you give them a vaccine, i did scientific research up in the arctic. they inject the individual with a vaccine. each person's body has different things whatever it is we deal with. we take the vaccine, if you do get the last of the virus, joe biden ash your body is going to it. the difference between this or pollen.

those elements are precipitating in the air. when i called in last year, i talked about a negative ionizer which boosts electrical charges in the air. it has particles with negative electrical impulses into the air. >> to al in tennessee. independent line. caller: i lose confidence with anyone when they have to play word games when they speak to me. look at these breakthrough infection, another way of saying the vaccine didn't work. boosters are exactly the same shot as the first ones. the even change the definition of vaccine. gain of function, the change

herd immunity percentages, they ignore natural immunity totally. positive tests, they manipulate those. if you question anything, dr. fauci says i am science. that's the same thing as unconstitutional ruled by a bureaucrat. the only people in the world who don't want to know where the virus came from his joe biden. because he's owned by chinese money. people point fingers at trump, the fact is more people are dead under biden then trump. host: this from the washington times. merriam-webster selected vaccine as 2021's word of the year. an expanded definition to reflect the times. merriam-webster has declared an unpleasant truth as its 2021 word of the year, vaccine.

this was extremely high on our data. merriam-webster's editor at large. lawrence on the democrats line, go ahead with your comments. caller: i have an idea that is a republican idea. in many red states the republican party has where women go in for abortions, they have to sit down and hear about the disease, sometimes they get insertions and sometimes they have to have a 24 hour cooldown period.i think for vaccines to get jabs in people's arms there should be a policy around having folks come in to see a doctor have to sit down, that half the year but the science of the vaccine, see photographs of folks in the emergency rooms intubated, maybe

even dead. if we do that kind of policy, not a mandate. the people will start to catch on and we will see vaccination rates go up. host: two jacksonville, florida. go ahead. caller: in regards to something i heard on the show 25 minutes ago, a guy was insinuating that lucifer and whatsoever had something to do with this. this is why my quickest responses. lucifer was taken from the name of the planet venus which is the proud star and went against zeus. another thing in this will be real quick, god, which is a

purpose -- personification of nature is supposed to be infant. host: we will let you go there. our focus is on administration response to the omicron variant. 202-748-8000 the line for democrats, 202-748-8001 for republicans. all others, [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, --202-748-8002. the president was asked about government measures when fighting the variant. >> a growing number of countries have confirmed cases, are you considering additional travel restrictions in areas where it's been detected and urged americans to wear masks in any states and cities have lifted mask mandates paid are you calling on officials to reinstate mask mandates? >> with regards to the last

question the answer is i encourage everyone to wear our mask if you're indoors in a crowded circumstance like we are right now on the shore eating or speaking into a microphone. secondly the greater spread impacts on whether there's a need for a travel restriction. but i don't anticipate that at this point. we will see if that works. host: a caller earlier had mentioned the state of vermont had a very high vaccination rate yet had a problem with increasing cases. this is a story that is two weeks old on that but gets to the issue. vermont has the highest vaccination rate in the country so why are cases surging? they write that vermont is one of the most vaccinated states in the country. this article is about two weeks old. to serve as a model for the

covert response throughout the pandemic. the state is experiencing its worst covid surge yet with several factors including its own success to blame. in vermont nearly 72% of residents are fully vaccinated against covid-19. more than any other state. the same time it has the 12 highest rate of new covid cases over the last week. that goes back two weeks. vermont has seen a significant increase in covid cases in the past week. their department of financial regulation seven day average for covid cases rose 42% according to state data. vermont does more testing than nearly any other state. the testing increased 9%, the statewide positivity rate also increased 30%. a seven day average under 4% per the new cases increased by 700 in the past week. they say we just haven't

previously seen an increase in terms of that number of cases in the pandemic, noting there were just over 2100 cases reported for the week in vermont. one of the least populated states in the country. wendy in ohio is next on the independent line. caller: good morning. i was calling in this morning because i did not know you were even on the air. it started yesterday saying we apologize for the interruption, there's no need to call us. services unavailable. i was calling in to ask how come the program was taken off and then the guy put me on hold. host: we are on. i guess your service was out. go ahead with your comments. caller: that's why i was calling

because i was like how are they taken off the air. that's why i was calling to find out. i turned the tv on this morning i got the same thing as yesterday. so people that have dish network don't know you are on. host: check with dish, your satellite provider on that and hopefully you can clear things up. let's hear from anthony. caller: i listen to you guys every day. biden has a messaging problem. he's trying to get a group of people that no matter what he says they just aren't going to get vaccinated. he needs to remind people he how -- how he is doing everything you possibly can to get people

vaccinated but there are people in these republican states that just aren't going to do it. so he needs to remind people that every chance he gets. if people don't want to get vaccinated, say that's their right, fine. but when you catch covid, stop running to the hospitals expecting to be treated. host: you are calling us from texas, what's been the message of your republican governor, greg abbott concerning getting vaccinated. caller: greg abbott wants to be president. he is following the donald trump rulebook. his policies on covid, is he blocked everything. i guess trump -- and is ok for

now. it's time to take the kid gloves off and say it's my life and my choice. i don't want to get vaccinated, well fine. host: representative omar hangs up on represent of go mark -- louie gohmert. it centered around lauren boebert's -- on representative boebert. both congresswomen demanded each other issue public apologies for the past remarks. she said she organized the call with omar because she "wanted to let her know directly i have reflected on my previous remarks."

ill on omar issued a statement, tweeted out by a number of reporters and by her office as well. a statement here saying the statement says in part today i graciously accepted a call from represent of lauren boebert in the hopes of receiving a direct apology for falsely claiming she met me in an elevator suggesting i was a terrorist. and for her history of anti-muslim hate. instead of apologizing, the representative refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comments. she instead doubled down on her rhetoric and decided -- i decided to end the call. ron is next up in new mexico. go ahead. caller: this is ron. i don't think biden is getting informed properly.

in that segment you just played of him talking he had two factual errors. he said the vaccine was the most effective way to prevent the spread of the virus and that's not true. respirators of the most effective way to stop the spread of the virus for all the variants including omicron. i called in to c-span on november 22 when scott gottlieb was on and i asked him about respirators and he gave a good response and explain how effective respirators are. that's about 23 minutes into that segment. another factual error he made was cloth master only 20% or 30% effective against spreading the virus. they need to have a campaign where they have psa's, you should be able to turn on tv without a psa explaining how respirators work, aware to get the vaccine.

get the messaging out there. then everyone going in for a vaccine should get handed out a respirator with the vaccine so they can be protected. you need both. on the screen without cheese in the background he's wearing a respirator. that's what that is. that's what everybody should be wearing. host: diane is next up on the independent line in ohio. caller: good morning. i am confident in the administration to handle all of this. i continue to lose confidence in my fellow americans every day. it is blowing my mind states are suing the administration over the vaccine mandate and now several states or offering unemployment to folks who quit their jobs for refusing -- who

lose their jobs for refusing to get the vaccine. i'm not sure if it's the same states that shut down the unemployment early for folks who couldn't be working. you cannot save people from themselves. biden and everybody else can continue putting it out there, but you can make people do what they don't want to do. host: covid-19 antibody drugs are challenged by omicron. lamere tests indicate the antibody drug cocktail from regeneron pharmaceuticals loses if empty effectiveness against omicron. a sign that some products that a class of therapies might need modifying if the new strain comes widespread. testing of another covid 19 drug cocktail from eli lilly indicates it also isn't as

effective against omicron. scientist said it's testing the new variant gives the antibody treatment and speculates -- won't speculate on what the results will be paid east hampton, connecticut. go ahead. caller: i have a couple of issues. there seems to be a lot of mixed messaging. he wants all americans to get the booster shot and have it mandated. but he's got the borders wide open and another thing is more people have died this year and many more people vaccinated and have the booster. it doesn't really add up. under trump less people died when covid was here and now more people have died under biden and

many people are vaccinated. i saw the doctor talking about this. very mild symptoms that comes and goes. it seems like they are trying to build up covid pandemic again. the scare tactics going into the next election. and that's what i have to say. >> their reporting of what dr. fauci had to say over the weekend on face the nation. the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious disease on sunday said republican lawmakers who criticize them of criticizing science because i represent science. rand paul had a tweet responding to that. senator rand paul of kentucky with his tweet that said the following. the absolute hubris on someone claiming they represent science is astounding and alarming that

a public health bureaucrat would even think to claim such a thing , especially one who is worked hard to north a science of natural immunity. here are the comments from dr. anthony fauci. >> anybody who spins lies and threats and all the theater that goes on with some of the investigations in the congressional committees and the rand paul's and all that other nonsense, that is noise. i know what my job is. >> senator cruz told the attorney general you should be prosecuted. >> i have to laugh at that. i should be prosecuted. what happened on january 6, senator? >> do you think this is about making you a scapegoat to deflect from president trump? >> of course. you'd have to be asleep not to figure that one out. >> a lot of republican senators taking aim.

>> that's ok. i'm just in a do my job. >> it seems another layer of danger around matters of life and death. >> to me that is unbelievably bad because all they want to do is save people's lives. anybody who's looking at this carefully realizes there is a distinct antiscience flavor to this. so if they get up and criticize science, nobody's going to know what they're talking about. if they get up and aim their bullets at anthony found she, they recognize a person there. but there really criticizing science. i represent science. that is dangerous. to me that's more dangerous than the slings and arrows that get started. if you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental

to society. host: a couple of comments on our opening topic on twitter. this one says i have confidence in biden because he has confidence in science. any casualties since trumper expected. not biden's fault the rights claim. robert says it's not unconstitutional to mandate the vaccine, it's a public health issue. he says the american people are fighting gets viruses, inflation, -- 2021's been a horrible year, let's be smarter about who we place in washington, d.c.. show is next in north carolina. caller: good morning. what i want to say is this, i think these people don't know

what they are talking about. what is the motto of this country? in god we trust. that's behind every courthouse judge, on every currency. god is going to tear this country to pieces because corporations are taken over this country. biden can do anything. host: there is more on washington journal. up next we turn our attention to the biden administration's handling of the economy. rising number of inflation disruption, that is next with former kansas city federal reserve president. later we will be joined by heidi heitkamp about how democrats can appeal to rural voters in the upcoming midterm elections. ♪

♪ >> today, a three-judge panel for the d.c. circuit court of here's oral argument in trump v thompson, a case relating to the january sticks committee's

request to obtain trump's call logs relating to the attack. that is online at c-span.org or on c-span now, our new video app. >> get c-span on the go. watch the day's biggest political events live on demand on our video app. his fan now. -- c-span now. download c-span now today. >> washington journal continues. host: our next guest thomas hoenig has served as the federal reserve bank of kansas city and is a distinguished senior fellow at george mason university. welcome back to washington journal. guest: glad to be back. thank you for inviting me. host: we can start out picking

up on the comments of the new covid variant. after the news came out on that, it was not good news on black friday, it was a bad day for the markets. what do you think the administration has to do going forward to reassure not only the markets but the broader swath of americans that the economy, at least in terms of its response to covid and the oma chronic variant -- and the omicron variant will be stable. guest: the most important thing you can do is find out what this new variant brings to us. that is an environment of uncertainty and uncertainty is difficult for the markets to deal with or for consumers to deal with or businesses. we have to get to an understanding it better, making sure it can be dealt with. i assuming that will be possible given the ability we have so far shown in dealing with some

variants of covid. we have to bring greater certainty to the economy in the marketplace, or we will continue to have greater volatility. finding out what it is, dealing with it, and giving the people confidence we can deal with it will be important steps. host: the virus has been with us for 21 months or so. since last october the inflation rate has risen 6.2%. it is not surprising economist thought there would be some inflation coming out of this. as the level of inflation surprising to you? guest: not necessarily. what the number is is just a fact. the truth is everyone did understand there would likely be inflation. for a couple of reasons.

one is if you think about it, we have had accommodative monetary policy for nearly a decade, and we have seen prices rise across the board, not just the single bubble, but housing, land, stock market. there has been inflation. then it went over to the broader prices. that has been a little bit of a surprise for many people that it came so quickly. given the supply disruptions, the fact that they were globally constraining trade, we have had issues with tariffs for some time, that reduces supply. there are what i will call hopefully transitory logistic issues we will do with, that there are more fundamental issues we have to confront. until we do that i think inflation will continue to be a challenge for the united states and the world.

host: part of the story is the parallel rise in wages, at least in some sectors. is that likely to continue as we see inflation remain high? guest: i suspect it will remain. number one, we have seen a fundamental change in the labor force. it is more cautious about the covid virus. we have changed how people work and people have become used to that and are not willing to reenter the market easily. we have seen a major support system through the covid relief program, which i'm not criticizing at all, but they do put a lot of spending power in the hands of labor and individuals. that means they would be slower to come back into the labor

force and it may take time. monetary policy has been very accommodative through this and has put a lot of dollars in the world today, and those dollars are going to be absorbed, part of it in honor of prices. i think we will have inflation for a while. it will depend on what congress decides to do and what the federal reserve decides to do printing money going forward. those decisions have not been made yet. how they are made will affect inflation going forward as well. we have a lot of moving parts in this economic engine of ours and has not been decided how they are all going to work together. host: what has been the historical role of the fed in helping to halt or minimize inflation? guest: the issues for the fed in trying to deal with the nation's

how much money you put out, what your interest rate policies are going to be. number one, having very low-interest rates near zero for a good part of last decade and certainly the last when he one months, that has the of -- the last 21 months has the effect of raising asset values and the requirement you put a lot of money into the system that has shown to have pressures on general prices themselves. what the fed has to do is decide how to back away from that policy. they have started about tapering, which means they would slow their major increases in money into the economy. that will be a challenge going forward. if the infrastructure bill goes through and build back better goes through, those will require major increases in spending.

that will put pressure on the federal reserve to add to the amount of money they are putting into the system by buying the government's debt. those are factors they have to think through because they have to withdraw some of that stimulus if you're going to bring inflation down. part of it is the supply side. what policies we decide and what support to give the labor will have some effect on that. how we deal with supply shortages, getting through the logistics issue, but also our trade policies will have an effect on that. these are the sorts of decisions that lie ahead and will define how deep and how long inflation will last. host: our guest has a phd in

economics from iowa state university and was vice chair of the fbi see and a former -- of the fdic and former federal reserve president. the line for democrats and republicans, (202) 748-8001 and independents and others, (202) 748-8002. people see the prices on the shelves but often times they see their favorite products missing. how does the supply chain exacerbate supply chain shortages and problems, exacerbate inflation? guest: any time you have a given level of demand, whether they are consumer goods or other goods, that demand is out there. if the supply meets that demand

at the given price, then we would have little inflation. if the demand is greater than that supply or if supply suddenly cut short because of logistical issues, ships at anchor in the harbors waiting to be unloaded, though shortages mean there are fewer goods for the same amount of demand and we will see prices rise. the rationale of the supply to go where we are most willing to pay. that is fundamental economics and i think it is having a role in the disinflation our environment. the question is how much of it is transitory. we have also seen globally, we have become more regional. we have differences between the united states and china. those differences will also make

it happen effect on some by -- an effect on supply and effect prices not only in united states but globally. those are big issues for policymakers. host: the president address this issue yesterday. the headline from the new york times, the president says the stores will be stop for the holidays. the president telling large retailers yesterday his administration is committed to partnering with them to untangle some i changed ensure american consumers -- untangle supply chains and ensure consumers they can find everything they want. the federal government is limited in terms of its toolkit to be able to respond to something like this, are they not? guest: i think they are limited. basically you have a fundamental problem. that is you have not enough labor, not enough capital for

these ships to be unloaded, for them to be reloaded on trains and trucks across the country to be distributed. those are the things that, as much as we might like it as much as the government would like to solve, they take time to solve given the depths of this covid event. the fact that they are willing to stay out of the way and let businesses find solutions to these issues, that is a good thing. to the extent they can help, that is support for the improvements in logistical systems and so forth, those are probably positive things but slow to come. it is going to be a challenge for business and for government to work through this. logistical issues will be taken care of. there are bigger issues globally

in terms of trade and trade restrictions than where we are going from here that i think will make -- we have an effort underway. it is to the greening of america, to get off some of the fossil fuels. those have transition costs. we have to be prepared for that. these are the challenges government and the private sector have to deal with, and we have to be aware of. we the public have to be aware of as our economy changes in the next decade and of the next two to three years. host: i wanted to get your thoughts on the president's announcement last week, a renomination of jay powell as federal reserve chair, and leo brainard to be his vice chair -- and lael brainard to be his vice chair. guest: from what i understand and what i read, these were efforts to keep things, keep

continuity at the fed as much as possible. there are a lot of new governors that will have to be named. considering the fact you have two, chairman powell and vice chairman lael brainard who would provide some of that continuity. on monetary policy they are very close. on supervision issues they are less close, but i think they're able to work together, that is what the goal of the administration was and would understand that to be reasonable. host: we go to greensboro, north carolina and anne on our democrats line. caller: the statements this morning seem to be giving some type of credence to saying the biden administration is not doing as much as they can. first of all, for inflation

should be pointed out in patient is global. all of the -- inflation is global. all countries are experiencing inflation. all countries are dealing with the virus. some of the people called in and said how many more people had died this administration has been in effect than the previous. of course the more the virus spreads and the more it circulates to the community, the more people. that is the same thing happening in other countries. by asking questions and focusing, you try to give credence and make it seem like this administration is not operating as best they can. with inflation, if they had not put money in the economy, other countries may have as well, is

my understanding there may have been a depression. that was why the administration put money into the economy. now people have funds and supply is not equal to the demand, but otherwise if they did not have money, had there been an -- had there been a depression, there would not have been the demand. guest: you have a couple points. inflation is global. that is part of logistical issues that are confronting the world in terms of moving goods and obtaining goods. that is correct. part of it is due to the global situation, where many countries are in the process of instituting new trade restrictions. that also constrained supply. it is a combination of a couple things that we have to be aware of, whatever administration, the

biden administration goes forward to think about and deal with. that is correct. in terms of the actions taken, i think it is correct that at the moment the uncertainty was created at the start of this pandemic in march 2020 were a little before that, the markets froze up. it is appropriate for the government and the central bank to provide liquidity into the market to address that, and it did. it was successful. the issue that is going to confront whomever is involved in the economy is how long you continue those kinds of policies over time. you had a very accommodative, very stimulative policy following the period since the recovery of the economy started in fall 2020 and continuing

those very easy policies through that may have contributed to the inflationary problem. that is where some of the debates will go between one party and another, independents will weigh in and we have to sort that out. it is true that in a crisis, you do what you have to do. it is how long following the crisis that will decide how deep and how long your inflationary trend will be. we have yet to see where we are with that and how it might be addressed in the coming months. guest: steve in alexandria, indiana. republican line. host: yes. host: steve, make sure you mute your volume and go ahead with

your question or comment. caller: i wanted to say that i think the reason our economy, the gas prices is the main reason. once the gas prices go up it caused a chain reaction to everything. from truck drivers, it was a chain reaction. the truck drivers have to pay more for their fuel. if everybody's paying more for the fuel than all the prices will be going up. it is not going to end until we get relief on these gas prices. it costs more to transport all of our goods all over the

country and i think it is going to be with us for a while until we can get these gas prices lowered. host: ok, steve. guest: you are right. gas prices contribute to inflation when they are rising as rapidly as they have been. it is not the only contributing factor. we also have commodity prices going up as demand for goods have risen with the economy's recovery. we have house prices going up and lumber prices going up. there is a host of goods that are rising they all contribute to inflation to some degree, some more than others. you'll is one of the more -- fuel is one of the more important ones but in the

computation of the consumer price index is weighted according to its impact to the economy, as his other goods, lumber and so forth. the fact that we have inflation is more broad-based than just energy, but i would admit energy is a contributing factor. host: the president says we are going to tap the strategic reserve. what does that mean? does that mean it will help ease prices at the pump? guest: tapping the reserve will have a very marginal effect. in that sense, i think people will have some benefit from it. 50 million barrels in the relative context of global demand is small. energy is a global commodity. that is why the administration was coordinating with china and

japan and other countries to try to have them release some of their reserves to make it more broad-based. at the same time, the issue with energy is fundamental supply and man, and the fact that opec is maintaining its quotas will have an effect, and the fact the united states is producing less will have an effect, perhaps a bigger effect over time. it is worth trying, but it is not a solution to the energy price problem. host: a question for you on twitter. can you explain how tariffs impact inflation and the supply chain? guest: certainly. when you impose a tariff on goods, you raise the price of those goods to the consumer. it does not matter if there is a shortage for the weather or

whatever, you have these goods being offered at a higher price and therefore you demand less of them. that contributes to inflation and it also lessens the demand for the good. you see the inflationary impacts over time through the tariff arrangement. that is how tariffs will also add -- in time -- it is not a logistics problem, it is a raising the price problem. he raise the tariff one time you have supply and demand adjuster that, and may not continue to cause inflation but you have higher prices over time. caller: i have a question in reference to the housing crisis that took place 2000 to 2008. we are almost at a zero interest

rate prior to 2000. from 2000 to 2008 we had the capital crunch, or the credit crunch. my question is why did we start winding up rates? we gave 10 years for the banks to get themselves out of that rises. why did we start stepping up rates from 2008, which they talked about constantly, when will the fed come in? i see will be at a zero rate interest rate environment, i'm 57, until the day we die. i am assuming that is because of the heavy debt load the federal government carries. it seems like the fed is always behind the curve. they seem to be one step behind. i understand they are supposed to be independent of the government and react based on their policies.

that would be my one question. my last question would be when it came to supply chains, the problem is we do not make anything in america. outsourcing and off shoring where the two worst things we could've done for the united states of america. i would love to hear your response, especially to the interest rates. will we ever see 2% or 3% or 4%? i've been waiting since 2008 to see that take ways that get to see that happen. on treasury bills after 2008, treasury bill shot from 1.75% in one week to 10%, and jay powell had to cap that because there was no way the government was going to pay 10% on short-term interest rate instruments, which really upset me, because that kind of goes against the law of the prospectus of capital markets going door crisis, short-term borrowing goes up, your interest rates will skyrocket. they went from 1.7% to 10%.

host: thanks for the call. guest: on your question, i understand. there was an issue after the prices of 2008 about the need to normalize interest rates. they delayed. they kept interest rates near zero for several years. they did a quantitative easing two and three and four, and those were contributors to the low-interest rate environment we had. they were instrumental to that. that was different people had different opinions. at that time i did oppose that zero interest rate environment, but the reason the majority felt they should do it is because they wanted to make sure recovery stays in place and therefore they continue that

policy, plus there were other events going on in the world creating uncertainty. they wanted to address that. they left interest rates zero for several years. the effect of that has been admixed borrowing for the government much more easy. now we have very large debt. our debt went from $11 trillion in 2010 to about $24 trillion and now it is approaching $30 trillion. it makes it very difficult for the government to carry that debt should interest rates rise significantly. there will be a lot of pressure on the central bank to continue to buy those debt, especially if we engage in new policies that require borrowing. that will be a problem for the future because that will then contribute to inflation. once inflation gets out, if it

were to stay above 6% or 5% for a long time, that puts real pressure on the fed to raise rates and bring that inflation number down. i want you to think about it like this. it is a huge challenge for the federal reserve going forward because you have all of these assets, policy, the stock market, commercial real estate. that had seen very large increases in price, so you have this very inflated asset market. then you have this now turning in going over to price in nation. if you rate -- to price inflation. if you raise interest rates you will put downward pressure on all of the asset types. the fed will try to balance how

it deals with this asset market and not having it implode company yet address this rise in inflation if it is more than transitory or more the logistical, which there is evidence it is. i would say they have their hands full. why they behind the curve? in some people's judgment they are not. in other people's judgment they are stop the human nature of things are the fed does not see things preemptively -- more preemptively than anyone else. you see the issue of a slow economy, a pandemic, and you want to err on the side of being easy for longer. that has taken place over the last decade and that will be a big part of their debates going forward in terms of how to deal with price inflation and not sink the economy and asset values that many of us have come

to rely on in terms of housing and so forth. we will see how this plays out. host: a question from richard in florida, who asks what happens when the natural -- when the national debt cannot be mathematically paid back at the impact to our grandchildren? guest: in the united states for now common for some time to come , because it is a global reserve currency and it does create its own money, what will happen is the fed will print more money to pay for the debt. they will buy the new debt and that will help them pay. over the long term, this weakens your economic system, makes it more dependent upon debt, less reliant on the productive capacity of the economy, and that is when our real standard of living, because our growth

rate will slow. we grow at 2% a year real growth. let's say these policies create an environment where the economy grows only 1.75%. that is a huge reduction in wealth over one generation. those are the sorts of things we have to think about in terms of policies that will be chosen over the next several months and years ahead of us. difficult choices ahead for this country. not just on monetary policy, on how we choose our visible bank policy as well. -- on how we choose our fiscal policy as well. it is a challenge of on the government side and for the central banks. host: let's hear from james calling from west virginia on the independent line.

caller: i'm a truck driver. i was listening to the news they were talking about empty containers on the docks while they are unloading full containers. east coast, new york, new jersey , were empty containers. these were held in off-site yards not close to the container yards. i know for a fact a lot of these companies will not pay for return shipping of empty container so they sell them to the u.s. and are used by storage by walmart and other big companies at christmas time and other uses. they build houses out of them. i think they need to get their facts straight and quit lying to the american people about what is holding it up. it is the unions that controls the ports.

i'm a truck driver and will not go to the ports because the unions control them. that is all i have to say. host: did you have a comment? guest: i did not hear it all. the fact that if you are constraining the supply by not allowing truck drivers into these ports, that would contribute. that would be a long term issue and would have been in place before the pandemic. the pandemic is the major source of the supply shortage, and then how people react to that, what they learn from labor having greater power because there is a shortage of labor, those will change the dynamics of the labor market and will raise real wages. whether or not they raise the

wages enough to overcome inflation, that will yet to be seen. i do not quite -- i would suggest the important thing is to get labor working and that could also be paid a fair wage so they not falling behind. those are difficult discussions i had as well. it shows the complexities of guiding this economy back to a more normal environment that goes back before even the pandemic. we have many challenges ahead. host: another topic entirely, question on twitter. what is your opinion of cryptocurrency? guest: cryptocurrency is a

consequence of new technology. block jane and so forth. i also think it is reaction to an environment where the u.s. dollar and other global currencies have been produced at an accelerating rate. when people see the amount of dollars to help accommodate our increase in debt, they are for other options. they believe the cryptocurrency has a formula to where it limits its ability to increase supply by some formula, and therefore they are looking at that as inflation hedge, and it has transaction capabilities. they're looking at that as a substitute. i do not know that whatever replaces the dollar, but i see why people might be turning to it.

it is available and it may be in inflation hedge and therefore they choose to invest a portion of their wealth and their ability to transact business through cryptocurrency. i'm not necessarily surprised by its growth in the united states. host: the next call from wisconsin is corinne on the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i appreciate c-span and allowing actual people to give their opinions instead of the news media. my question is the gas, which the other caller has talked about, you said gas is weighted towards inflation, but did you did not say how heavily weighted it is. i do not understand how this new administration is looking at a package to push more money out there and more items in the hands of people right now with this inflation without opening

up the gas market in this country, and at the same time not increasing the interest rates and bumping up just a little bit to start a little bit of control on this inflation. i do understand that because of their debt they do not want to increase the interest rates. people are hurting with how fast costs are for everything right now. host: thanks. guest: let me explain the comment on the weighing of energy. what i'm trying to say is when they make the estimate for the consumer price index they take a basket of goods and they tried to weight the prices with the amount of goods that compose the economy. energy is a very important part of the economy.

it would give that more weight than some kind of a toy or an inexpensive consumer good so you get the impact of the consumer that are estimated. that is what i mean by trying to take in the fact energy is more important to us than a nonsense good. that is number one. number two, the fact that we have prices rising is a major factor. there should be, and there are efforts now begin to address the fact we have had this inflation. we can debate whether they should have done this six months ago were 10 months ago, but that is behind us. there is now a debate in terms of do they paper this, do they begin to slow down their purchase of government debt, that is their willingness to put

new money into the economy over the next six months, or do they do it over the next four months? then do they raise interest rates modestly before they can finish the tapering, or do they wait until they get done with the tapering and begin to raise rates? those are decisions that to this point have not been made. the only decisions made to this point is they will put less money into the economy than they did last month. they have not decided whether to raise interest rates. you raise a fair point. should they do that sooner? that is part of the debate that is going on. there is a good case for doing very modest in reese's -- increases. they have to prepare the market for that or you will have a panic. they have to be careful in doing that, but that is a fair question to ask and answer going forward. the other issue you raise is how

much government spending can we afford? that is another debate going on right now in the senate for the new building was out there, the so-called build back better bill. is there the capacity in our system to borrow the funds to pay for that bill or do we have to raise taxes to pay for that? those will make a big difference on how the economy grows in the future, so how we decide that is very important. i do not know how they will decide it, but if they were to do these packages and borrow all the funds to do it, i can assure you they would put in a norm is meant a pressure on the federal reserve to buy that debt to keep interest rates low. that has other long-term consequences, perhaps lower -- more inflation, more uncertainty, and lower growth in the future. those are hard decisions but they need to be made, and not

just for the immediate future, not just for today, but for the long run. that is where the debate should focus. host: five more minutes with our guest thomas hoenig. we go to new york city and hear from hazel on the democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. are you there? host: yes we are. caller: i call before in my question was never really answered. i do not know if there was confusion. i am a middle-aged single white female, no children. i lost my job due to covid. i just got may raise in january of 2020 and then lost the job. it took me forever to find the job. i've been trying to find a job for almost two years.

people that have children are getting some kind of help because they get the child tax credit. single people, middle-aged, and there are millions of us out there, that have nothing. i have nothing. can't our president do some kind of executive order to help a little bit for the older americans that lost their jobs, that has no other help? if i had kids i would get some kind of income. i am by myself, i have nobody. my mother is dying of brain cancer. can't the president tap into the unused unemployment to help a limited number of us? host: i will let you go, hazel.

there is still additional funding that has not been spent. i do not know that it affects her case, but there are still billions that has yet to be spent, correct? guest: that is correct. more than billions that has not yet been spent. i feel terrible for your circumstances. i want you to know that. part of it is i assume you got some unemployment benefits initially, then those have worn off and you've still not been able to find a job. that is one of those terribly unfortunate circumstances for you. i do know there are jobs opening up that will be available to you , but given the world we live and i am not sure what that is.

there may be other programs at the state level and the federal level that may be able to help you through the set of circumstances. i do not know the suit -- a specific program other than unemployment that would solve your problem. i know there are different groups available that might help you, but i do not have a solution. i am sorry. host: jay powell be testifying before the senate banking committee along with treasury secretary janet yellen on some of that spending, the oversight of some of that spending. the headline from cnbc says powell to tell senate omicron variant poses downside risk to the economy and complicates the inflation picture. what is the role of the fed chair in terms of these hearings before congress, aside from talking to congress, and what is their role in getting the public

message out of reassurance or calm or confidence to the public. host: it is very important, and he has to do it in a way that is factual. he cannot sugarcoat it to say everything is fine. his job will be to say here is what we face, we have this new macron variant -- we have this new omicron variant and that creates further uncertainty. our role is to say we will try to not monetary policy that supports efforts to bring the economy back online fully without creating bad side effects. that may not sound like a lot. that is the job. there is no way you can predict the future. there is no way you can assure outcomes, but you judge what you think is best and you implement those policies. they are not always perfectly

correct. that is what one of your listeners said. those are risks you take. his job is to say here is what we can do, here's what we are willing to do, but here's what we cannot do, because we cannot solve every problem the world faces. the monetary system is not equipped to do that. getting that balance right is his main challenge, and number two to communicate well. host: that hearing coming up in about one hour and 15 minutes live on c-span. let's get one more call from brian in tampa, florida. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm frustrated with all of the rhetoric that goes on within our politicians. it does not seem to make sense that they talk about things that are going on as if they are just a normal thing. it appears it is artificial to

raise prices so they can gain tax money, and yet the politicians seem to not worry about the 2012 stop congress stock act, they make millions. all the jobs that are overseas, i agree with the other caller that if we get more jobs back in the u.s. this country would start to turn around and get rid of some of that debt we have that we should not have. what about the printing money needlessly? host: final thoughts? guest: let me answer one of them . this idea we need to bring production back on shore. that is a very fair opinion. i understand it completely. one thing we have to understand

is if you want to end the trade deficit, if you want to stop importing more than you export, the one thing you have to do is consume less than you produced. you have to be able to ship goods overseas, or at least produce as much as you consume. that is a big issue for the united states. we consume so much more than we produce. to make that transition will not be paid less. it will have its own costs or tariffs, for restrictions on trade, those are issues we have to think through because there are costs to those. not that we should not do it, but at the same time we have to understand it is not free. i agree you cannot print money that you think you will solve all of your problems. it will only make inflation worse. inflation is a tax.

it is a tax on middle class and lower middle class. it is a huge tax we pay because we are paying more, the value of the debt goes down, and that would be very unfortunate for this country. those are very valid points. they do not come at zero cost to us as individuals. we have to make our choices and some sacrifices to rebalance things if that is the way we wish to go. host: former chair and ceo of the federal reserve bank of kansas city, thanks for being with us this morning. guest: thank you. good to be with you. host: just ahead we will be joined by former senator heidi camp talking about how democrats -- heidi heitkamp talking about how democrats can appeal to rural voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

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the latest in nonfiction books and authors. it is television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span2. >> washington journal continues. host: we are joined from mandan, north dakota. former senator heidi heitkamp is with us to talk about rural voters in the 2022 election. good morning, senator. guest: good morning, how are you? host: good morning. your one country project is to look at issues important to rural voters. you are the founder. talk about it and what your mission is doing. guest: i want to start out by giving people a history lesson of the politics of the great plains.

20 years ago you had tom daschle, tim johnson, senators from south dakota. you at max baucus. you had a good list in the great plains in terms of united states senators. that is all but evaporated. there's only one left in the great plains, and that is john castor -- that is john kester, and he is fortunate enough to have the mountain region in montana he needs to get over the finish line electoral relate. -- electorally. you have to ask is a democrat and as an american what has happened in the great plains and what has happened in rural america, whether it is the rural south or the mid-atlantic region where we see pennsylvania going hard red, what has happened in those reasons that has -- in those regions that has turned people?

the easy answer is it is all about donald trump. that is not true. we started losing votes during the tea party revolution right after barack obama was elected and we have not been able to regain our footing since then. when i was unable to get reelected in 2018, just one statistic for your viewers, when i was elected in 2012, probably about 20% of republicans would cross over and vote for a democrat. when i ran into any 18, that number -- when i ran in 2018, that number dribbled -- that number dwindled to 4%. when that number gets low, democrats cannot get elected in a state like mine. it is important rural america not be one party america.

we started the one country project. it was to reintroduce the democratic party to rural america and rural america to the democratic party. host: do think over the course of the years the policies of the democratic party have fallen out of favor with rural americans, or rural americans themselves have changed their views? guest: i think it is the emphasis. it is not the policy. the economic policies of the democratic already are much more favorable to rural america. where we get into challenges is when this becomes about defunding the police or about transgender bathrooms for all the cultural issues. then rural americans say that is not something that looks like me. when rural americans vote strictly culture on these issues is when we begin to see serious erosion of democratic support in rural america.

i think we have to understand that we have to do a better job explaining our position on cultural issues. it does not mean we cannot persuade a few people, but we also have to be much more aggressive on outlining our economic plans. a great example is build back better, which has amazing provisions for housing, for rural daycare. these are issues that are challenging your -- challenging role america and the growth of rural america. republicans are sitting on the sidelines. we should be talking about how we are going to revitalize rural america, not just broadband. i get tired of everybody saying broadband, broadband, broadband. it is about more than broadband. it is about economic opportunities and helping our seniors, helping our rural health care and looking at rural education and making sure it is high-quality.

these are things the democratic party has long stood for. once we explain our economic agenda in the democratic party, i think we can win back some of those votes. do i think we are going to become a majority party in rural america? now. -- no. i get criticized for that. i want to return to a world where rural america will at least consider voting for democrat. host: how is your one country project funded and give us an idea on how you're trying to reintroduce the democratic party to rural america? guest: i was fortunate. you cannot spend billions of dollars on a senate race in north dakota. at the end of my senate race i had donors from all over, including the state of north dakota, many of them small dollar donors that believe my

voice was an important voice in the united states senate. unfortunately i was not able to get reelected. i am a former attorney general my state that i did a lot of nonprofit supervision work. i thought about those times and i thought the best thing you can do if you have money people have given you in a nonprofit setting , which is what a political campaign is, is to figure out what was the intent of those people and how can i honor that intent? i thought the intent was to win more elections, and how can i honor that, i could honor that by helping the democratic party do better in rural america, which is a place i believe i have some level expertise. if you set go into the inner cities in minneapolis and figure out a political campaign, that is not my life and certainly not what i know about. michael was to form an organization that raise the

awareness of the critical electoral importance of rural america to the democratic party. i started out doing a lot of pulling, a lot of election analysis and sounded the alarm saying you think you can just talk to suburban housewives -- not housewives -- but suburban women and suburban people. you think you can just talk turbine folks -- to urban folks? you can do what you did in virginia which is perform well in those areas but lose massively in rural areas. the first thing was to elevate the importance of rural america and rural votes in the democratic party, and then to talk about issues that are much more nuanced. people say will not win those votes because of this and that. a lot of it is charge rising

rural people in ways that are not very fair. my argument is we used to win, why aren't we winning now? let's take responsibility yourselves and not blame the voters. the customer is always right. how do we find common ground? the next step was to begin to talk about what role america wants. we named this project one country because people said shouldn't it be the rural project, and i said no. what people in rural america want is the same thing a cabdriver in new york once, a reinsurance -- in new york wants, and insurance salesperson in suburbia wants. they want good insurance for their kids, they want physical security which is a big part of what we are experiencing right

now with the erosion of democratic support in many areas that they're hoping to maintain that support. the problem is rural delivery has to be done differently and we have to talk to people. i will give you a statistic from a57% of rural voters expressed the opinion that democrats don't know anything about rural america. i get that. the good news is in all of this 50% said republicans don't get our challenges. i think it's time to understand the challenges. not do to people but with people and to do that we have to have a conversation. host: heidi heitkamp served as one term a senator from north dakota. talking about her new one country project. we welcome your calls and comments. the senators are for rural

residents, (202)-748-8000. all others use (202)-748-8001. if you do not want to call you can text at (202)-748-8003. senator, how much of a priority do you think rebuilding rural democrats, rebuilding support among rural americans is, for the national party and the campaign committees, how high a priority do you think that is? guest: it has been frustrating to me to kind of watch this from a distance from north dakota and think about the opportunities that have been missed by the democratic party to tell people what they are about and what they mean. i have had conversations about

the medium whether it is facebook. where is rural america getting their ads? guess what? they are getting impressions from fox news and they are getting impressions from friends on facebook and they are getting their impressions from local radio. there is three places we could do a better job communicating and people say, well, i don't want to go on fox news, they are biased. when you go on fox news and make a persuasion argument guess what? people listen. i think that we have got to be more willing to explore discussions in areas of the media that people are comfortable. you know, i am somebody who appreciates and understands what goes on on msnbc but you are preaching to the choir. when you send out a tweet guess what? you are preaching to the choir. people are going to read that tweet are the 10% who are

politically active who really follow it day to day. if you want a sustained message, you have to find the right medium and the right message. to me the right message is talking to friends and neighbors, doing the kinds of things you can do one-on-one in local settings. i used to talk about the local coffee shop and this happens in suburban and urban america. but in places like north dakota people used to get together always in a minority. democrats were the minority and they would engage in lively debate about what is happening with corn prices and why it is happening or ethanol. what is happening with the local school. there was always a diversion. opinions were not identical and

there was not a debate but definitely a conversation. guess what is happening in rural america? none of those conversations. they have been muted and muted may be by the trump influence of you are either with us or against us and if you are not with us, you are not american. a lot of democrats and may be in rural america who did not like this president are not really engaging in the debate. we have to get them back into the debate as neighbors one-on-one, having a conversation so that we don't leave this just to republicans. by that i may not just normal republicans but trump republicans. host: you mentioned jon tester from montana. there is also joe manchin from mostly rural state. what is your opinion of joe manchin's role being in the middle between getting the biden

administration getting the agenda through? guest: you know, i have expressed strong opinions. those people who know me know that joe manchin is a dear friend of mine. one of my closest friends in the senate. i think he is an incredibly earnest and capable public servant. he got himself reelected in a state that voted almost 40% for the president. everybody who wants to beat on him i would remind you there would not be any opportunity to do any of this, including the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, if not for joe. he represents a conservative democrat point of view and in some ways that old-school democrat that had a broader perspective. this is what is happening in both political parties. they have been driven further to the respective ends of the polar

extremes by primaries, by gerrymandering, but mainly by the engagement of very vocal people on either side. and so, if you want to know what i think has been the mistake the last year it has been democrat on democrat violence. by that i mean the focus on joe manchin. my goodness, why isn't there focus on ron johnson? why isn't there focus on pat toomey? places where the president won elections in pennsylvania and wisconsin. places where the democratic party is driving states with democratic governors. why is there emphasis on getting them to explain to us why they don't want to help with daycare cost? why they don't want to help with housing cost? we are so focused on turning our ammunition on each other that we have forgotten that is not the

opposition. the opposition is the republican party and the stakes are high not just for an economic agenda. the stakes are incredibly high and people who know me know that in 2020 we basically escaped an erosion, almost permanent erosion, of our democracy. if we want to go back to the era of the four years where autocracy was on the table, let's keep fighting among democrats. let's start talking about what the other side does not stand for, with the other side is not doing, and let's quit focusing on each other. host: our line for rural residents (202)-748-8000. let's get to calls. toledo, ohio and diane is on the line. good morning. caller: good morning, senator heitkamp. i saw your lively debate with chris christie this week with whoever and i really want to talk about the salt.

the local tax deduction thing. $80,000 for deductions? who pays that kind of state and local taxes besides wealthy people or extremely high middle-class people? it just feels like that is the one series giveaway to wealthy people that is in their when you are being provisional with what people are allowed to get, mostly child related. i heard a young lady on the previous segment speak about her situation in middle-class, lost the job with covid, and i can kind of relate to stuff like that. i am lower middle class. i feel like we are just helping to pay the bills. we don't qualify for anything either, not that i am looking for a handout, but it feels like

one idea i have not heard anybody raise is to stop the sales and local tax and instead raising the standard deduction. it feels like everyone would benefit from a raise of the standard deduction. may be double it. make it $25,000 per individual and get rid of the whole provisional thing in the build back better. make it one simple line item thing. raise the standard deduction. everyone benefits, everybody gets something, and everybody can choose how to spend that additional money they get to simply hang onto. that is just a thought. host: thank you. guest: the first thing i want to say -- diane right? host: yes. guest: you already know more about taxes then 50% of the people. [laughs] i should not be so mean but i want to unpack what you said.

the deduction, i agree with you. i think $80,000 is too high and that leaves the democrats open to the debate you saw on sunday saying, this is a millionaire tax cut. what really is interesting about the deduction is that it was done to punish blue states. blue states that tax their residents a fairly high rate to deliver more services and those services basically help build communities. southern states do not tax the residents at that level and consequently receive greater subsidization from the federal government. what i was trying to say is if you want to segregate regionally this country in terms of taxa fiscal policy, you have got to be very careful. medicaid is one of the biggest cost centers for state and local governments. poor states, states with lower

per capita income, basically get 80% federal payment where states like new york and states with higher per capita income get a lower rate of 50%. there is a huge subsidization. i think it is really challenging when you look at regionalization of fiscal policy which is what salt is which is why i disagree with what congress did. with that said it was probably the only progressive part of the trump tax cut and it really did affect higher income earners much higher. i want to talk a little bit about the standard deduction and for full disclosure i spent the better part of my professional career as a tax lawyer and as the tax commissioner of north dakota. standard deductions are based on your filing status not the number of people in your community. when the administration, the trump administration, revised

the tax structure they got rid of personal exemption and those are the ones you used to get per household member. but what they did do is raise -- they were increased standard deduction which drove more people out of itemization along with the salt cap. she is not wrong. you could do a lot of good things by giving higher deduction to moderate income folks who don't necessarily qualify for the earned income tax credit, although i would argue that is something we should be looking at seriously increasing, the child credit. pretty high income levels on the child credit. most people will not get the child credit. i think the question is, how much do you want to create a more equal world using the tax structure we have right now? the american people not wrongly

believe when you create a more complex structure what you end up with is a huge loophole and huge advantage to rich people who can hire tax lawyers. i think that is absolutely true. and so, you know, i think she should run for congress and talk about these great proposals and talk to her congress people about these proposals. on the salt adduction i think that rate will get lowered from $80,000. i think $80,000 is excessive but when you're getting around the $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 you will see were itemized filers in the lower income brackets. people who are itemizing are very wealthy people. host: the organization is the one country project focusing on rural voters. jim in new york. good morning. caller: good morning.

heidi, you mentioned something at the beginning. you said a conservative democrat. that is a paradox. i don't think there are conservative democrats. there is a saying that says, the economy is stupid. it is the policies that the liberal democratic party are promoting that has turned them away from the rural voter. the gun rights, i can think of every desperate group you guys support whether it is lgbtq, critical race theory, indoctrination in public school system. these are why rural voters have turned away and nothing you say is going to pull us back and let you start promoting an agenda that is more favorable to people that have conservative viewpoints and are being pushed out of the big tech. you can do all you want but if you don't do some things to

change the policies you have, he will never get rural voters back. guest: you know, i think most people who followed my career in the senate knew that i was a supporter of the second amendment. i believe one of the reasons gun owners react so, kind of, politically react to the proposals is they feel like they are getting blamed for owning a gun for all of the problems that are happening across america. i think we need to better understand. i once said to a group of people, you know how you feel about your reproductive rights? that's how people in my community feel about their right to own a firearm and be responsible with a firearm. i get exactly what you are saying. if the democratic policies regarding the gay, lesbian,

transgender, bisexual, queer community that says we should not discriminate and they should be protected like every american citizen, i don't believe rural americans disagree with that. the question is, what gets emphasized is not that position. what gets emphasized is who goes to what kind of bathroom when that should be a local decision in my opinion. i want to say, look, obviously this person has strongly held opinions about cultural issues. there is some difference between democrats and republicans on these issues and i think a lot of those have been exploited rather than bringing people together. abortion rights are an interesting place to examine. abortions went down in this country and we know we could

virtually eliminate a lot of demand for abortion if we created areas where we were providing free contraception. but that has been prevented by conservative republicans who say, we don't want to prevent it. we just want to tell people what to do. but the real issue here is we are not having that dialogue. people like our viewer from new york is watching fox news and saying, see? they believe in critical race theory, they believe in defunding the police. that is not true but if we don't go out there and say this is what we believe in, we don't believe any person regardless of sexual orientation should be discriminated against, should have the opportunity to live a healthy life -- transgender individuals are frequently targeted and the murder rate among transgender individuals is too high. that is being driven a lot by

attitudes. you know, i think there is room for discussion. are we going to win the hearts and minds of everyone in rural america? no. are we going to win back some of those people who share those human values we can talk about but are very concerned we have gone too far as democrats? i think we can win them back. host: let's go to connie in havana, illinois. caller: good morning. nice to talk to you. i am from rural america. i was born in a farmhouse 73 years ago. i think you are kind of missing the mark on how rural america thanks. we don't all watch fox news. i don't. i get almost everything from c-span. i actually watch you in action. i think with rural people value our independence. we are not stupid.

we have high iqs also. we have careers. i think what bothers me is we don't want to be dependent on the government. every giveaway program costs us money. when i hear pete buttigieg say he wants a national gas tax i think, we have to drive 50 miles to a big hospital or to go to work. that is going to affect us. and all the new, green energy -- we are stewards of the earth but when the car was invented the government did not say, ok, everybody shoot your horse in the head. you have to allow transition. i look at big farm equipment in the field. what are they going to do? we have to allow for transition and i think you just missed the mark. rural people are more independent, we value our

independence, and we don't need the government to take care of us. host: thank you, connie. senator heitkamp? guest: i grew up in a town of 90 people. my family was 1/10 of the population. i grew up with rural people and i know they are not stupid and i know they are independent. but i also know they are interdependent in this economy. by that i mean if we did not focus on rural health care, if we did not do things like provide for critical access hospitals in rural areas she is talking about, if we did not provide for medicaid expansion -- states that did not do medicaid expansion lost the rural hospital. now people have to drive 50, 60, 70 miles to have a child. to suggest i don't know about rural america i think does not understand my experience and what i have seen over a long time in my career.

we are interdependent. we cannot say we are somehow more independent, more virtuous than people who live in other parts of this country because when we do that we continue to further divide this country. rural america is a place that is struggling. it has higher rates of poverty, it has higher rates of health care challenges, in part because we have let the rural health care structure erode. it has higher rates of cost structures for heating fuel. she is right. i disagree with anyone who does not understand -- i think it is interesting when people say inflation, yeah the gas prices have gone up. well, do you understand how you farm? you farm with hydrocarbon. you farm with diesel fuel and hopefully with mild fuels. i get it but i think there is this attitude that somehow we

can maintain rural america without focus and emphasis on how we are going to build it back better. i think the results are already in. the trendlines are in. farms are getting bigger, small farmers are getting pushed out, small manufacturing concerns have been hurt by tariffs in the last of administration. if living rural america alone is the strategy, i think that is a strategy for failure long-term. host: stan calling from silver bay, minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. caller: thank you very much. i would like to mention to the former senator i have always tried to be open to have a discussion with the democrats, progressives but every time i

try i am hollered at, my decals are ripped off the vehicles. there is no discourse with your progressive democrat party. they want control. they want to shove their ideas in our faces and down our throats and it started the day with 90% negative coverage with trump and has not let up. you are just furthering the bad discourse by blaming things on trump. he is not president anymore. let biden accept where he is at. as far as i'm concerned we should be examining biden for his china connections and ukrainian connections. host: senator heitkamp? guest: i think first thing, the progressive wrath is not just

limited to talking to folks like you. [laughs] i think i have probably experienced that as much or in a much more aggressive way than a lot of people in this country. i understand that the all or nothing perspective of so many people on both the right and the left is what is hurting this country. this idea that this is all just progressives. let me tell you, you could come down to any coffee shop in north dakota and if i express a progressive point of view, you can tell me how this aggression is just limited to progressives. it is about dialogue and there are people on both sides who are unwilling to hear any other perspective but their own. and that is true. i don't do both sides very often but i know there are people on both sides.

they are not the people who can be persuaded or will help build back the country. they are the people who will sit on the sidelines and create litmus test for who is good and bad. i will not back off my position that much of the behavior of the previous president has exacerbated this condition. he did not create it. i think i set on the front end of my discussion this was basically an erosion that was happening over a long time, not just donald trump. but donald trump made the coarseness of the dialogue possible. i will debate that with anyone. to suggest that this is not, in part, this division has not been exacerbated by the previous president is wrong.

where i will agree with you is he is not president anymore. now it is incumbent upon all of us to step up and fill that void and try to figure out how we are going to develop that dialogue. to the extent the country continues to be divided, continues to see these kinds of rancor and callousness in conversation, that is on democrats now to try to fix. when you don't listen to people -- and some people don't want to be heard. i get that. express your opinion but if you are persuadable and you want to solve problems, i think there is plenty of people who want to do that. host: next is sulfur, north carolina, howard. caller: hi, top of the morning. i want to talk a little bit -- i don't know if this is critical race theory -- but i remember

history that john wilkes booth went to a theater and assassinated abraham lincoln. he was a democrat or dixiecrat, klansmen, and he was trying to destroy the republican party. trump also was a dixiecrat but he turned republican and his parents were also klansmen. the apple don't fall far from the tree. do you think trump succeeded in doing something john wilkes booth tried to do to restore the republican party? guest: i don't know that that is true. i don't think that was trump's motivation. i think trump's motivation -- i don't think of trump as a democrat or republican or even partisan. i see him as an opportunist. i don't think he has closely held beliefs.

people who support him say they support him because of his position on reproductive rights. he was uber pro-choice before he ran on the republican ticket. he is a chameleon who will change his spots. where i think trump was dangerous is he gave the various dangerous elements, whether it was 3%ers, the proud boys, these right-wing militia groups, he gave them permission. when he said standby, standdown and standby, that was a dog whistle. host: those militia groups, do you see evidence of those being active in your state in north dakota? guest: you know, we have a history, klan history. during the early 1980's we had probably one of the highest profile kinds of events. we always had a more militant

underbelly but i don't really see those groups in north dakota the way you would see them gathering in places like charlottesville. we are fortunate there. we are pretty peaceful group up here. so i don't see them gathering in places like north dakota but i do believe they have been ignited and that is why i think the january 6 commission -- i have to say this. people like your previous caller would say, it is just a partisan job. there was opportunity to do a bipartisan commission which was fashioned after the 9/11 commission. the republicans refused to do that so now we are at this committee. i think it is critically important we get to the bottom of this because i think there is a movement in this country that

is an underbelly ignited by president trump. but i do think president trump's goal in any way, shape or form was to destroy the republican party. i think it was to gather to himself economic and political power. host: let's get a couple more calls. barry in harrison, michigan. caller: good morning. i look at this indifferent eyes with this progressive stuff. i look at as fulfilling the promise run made years ago that this was supposed to trickle. it never did and i think this is a way of making it trickle down. i look at this a little different. i just don't think -- the republicans, they don't want to help anybody and the democrats if they help somebody, they want you stuck there forever. for lots of us out here it makes no difference which party is in

there. thank you. i appreciate c-span. guest: i certainly appreciate what he has been saying. we have rising levels of income and wealth inequality. we talk about income inequality but where we really have challenges is in wealthy inequality. are we going to address that or continue on this path? we saw in the 1920's what happened when we did not address it. i get asked what is the difference between the democrat party and the republican party and i say the founding principle of the democratic party is when you invest in people, whether it is making sure they stay healthy, they have access to good education, making sure they are secure in their homes and can afford to put a roof over their head and food in the pot. when we invest in human beings

like we did with the g.i. bill, like we did with modernizing our health care, we grow the economy and we grow opportunity and we grow equality in this country. where i don't agree with every part of the progressive agenda -- i was once criticized because people asked me if i would support free college tuition and i said no. they looked at me and i said, if i had those kinds of resources to allocate, i am going to allocate them to young children whether it is pre-k, education, whether it is daycare, whether it is making sure they get a healthy start because we know that early start is critical for the ability to actually prepare to go to college. i don't agree with every progressive agenda but it is interesting in public opinion polls how highly regarded some of the biden build back better agenda is and why that doesn't translate to political support.

i would say he hit the nail on the head your caller. they are all the same. nothing ever changes even though you do this. i think there is some truth to that but there is also some points that i could disagree whether it was on social security, providing that safety net for seniors that was devised by democrats and opposed by republicans, whether it is medicare and medicaid and child health insurance. i mean, these are programs that have actually benefited many people. we just forget where the programs came from. host: we will go to sergio in florida. caller: good morning, bill. how are you? host: fine thank you. caller: good morning, senator. how are you? guest: i'm good. caller: my question is this. i am a democrat and strong supporter of the democratic party.

i would like the democrats and republicans to work together and stop this nonsense. i do not like former president and i do not like our governor ron desantis. it is causing friction and hatred and not working together for the people. i mean, how can we work together? how can you fix that? host: senator heitkamp, if you focus on the senate and how it may be different in terms of working together than when you were there. guest: i think it is a continuation of the same erosion. what i would tell you is that the quest for political power has eclipsed the responsibility that civic leaders have for actually getting the work in the senate done. i think we can't forget that there were a number of senate

republicans who voted for the infrastructure package. there were a number of house republicans who voted for the infrastructure package and promptly got death threats from the or right and extreme members of the republican party. we have to have statesmen and states women get elected. people who want to get the job of governing done. how do we do that? we reward people who get things done. it is interesting. when i ran i assumed if i got things done for my state that reelection would be difficult but not impossible. i did things like a major dodd frank reform bill for community banks that i lead and that was bipartisan. we did a major initiative for the oil industry that was seeing their oil getting locked up and not be able to export which was putting a strain on my jobs in the oil patch and putting

increasing oil prices. we were able to get that done in a bipartisan way. but the question is when you do those things, when you get two bills passed, what is the political reality? the political reality is people are voting political party and that results. we have to get people to opening their minds to vote results. vote out people not getting things done. that is the movement we need in this country. we need to go back to civil discourse in our political discourse and does not stand and simply point the finger at each other but says, this is all of our problem, this is all of our responsibility. i frequently say this. the leaders of the senate have become political leaders and not leaders of the institution. we have to get back to leaving the institution. host: the organization is the one country project. founder former senator heidi heitkamp. we appreciate you joining us

this morning on washington journal. thank you, senator heitkamp. guest: good talk. host: still to come, we open the phones for the next 25 minutes or so. we will hear from you in our open forum on issues we talked about today, including the new covid variant, the economy, what the heading congress, or other issues -- what's ahead in congress or other issues. democrats call (202)-748-8000, republicans (202)-748-8001, and independents and others (202)-748-8002. ♪ ♪

♪ >> abraham lincoln and his wife mary were the parents of four boys. only one, robert, live beyond his 18th birthday. author jason emerson spent nearly a decade traveling across the united states visiting and researching in numerous archives, museums and historic places. he was studying the 82 plus years in the life of robert lincoln. he focused on the president's oldest son as a union soldier, minister to great britain, a u.s. secretary of war, in the president of the chicago-based pullman car company. jason emerson is an independent

historian who has been writing about the lincoln family for over 20 years. announcer: on this episode of book notes plus. it is available on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ ♪ announcer: down low c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date with live video coverage of the day's biggest political events from live streams of the house and senate floor and key congressional hearings, to white house events and oral arguments in the life interactive program washington journal where we hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. ♪ announcer: washington journal continues. host: it is open forum on washington journal. your chance to weigh in on any public policy issue. (202)-748-8000 is the line for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for

republicans, and for all others (202)-748-8002. we will start with the media story in the washington post, files detail chris cuomo efforts. he was more extensively involved in helping defend his brother then andrew cuomo previously acknowledged. according to documents released monday by new york attorney general letitia james text messages between the journalist and top cuomo aid show quest chris cuomo drafted statements to deny misconduct, demanded more influence over the strategy, and even researched potential news coverage and accusers for the government's office. "please let me help with the prep" he wrote at one time. on another occasion he writes,

they texted de rosa that he needed the best facts for reporters that could do it. he also used his connections to gather information for the governor's team. he fielded requests for intel on a then unpublished investigative story by a new york writer. and information about a rumor and more accusers that were about to come forward march 7. cuomo responded to the second request 40 minutes later and wrote back "no one has heard yet." the messages deep in question about whether chris cuomo, one of cnn's star anchors, crossed lines in his advocacy for his brother and misused his position as a prominent cable-television anchor. it is open forum. we go to moncks corner, south carolina and hear from david. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to take a minute

and summarize -- wish i could have spoken with senator heitkamp -- trying to describe loss of party influence in rural areas. i think i speak for a number of people. all i voted republican i was relieved to see president obama gain office and not just for myself but for a lot of people. it was a great thing to see. but then i heard eight years of race, race, race and it wore on me. i have been hearing the likes of pelosi and durbin and schumer say that i am racist and call me by name. they say if i don't condemn

trump, i am racist. and i resent that greatly. it was very hard to hear a speech by the president that did not include race. i think a lot of people got tired of it. and then we hear about, let's have unity. unity? even before trump took office and from day one and yet, i rise to call for impeachment. he was slammed in the press. we all know this. the major press never gave him a chance, never a positive story. and they say he caused the division. it was there before he started. i really think it is easy to say that trump divided the nation. i think he brought it out by full attack from the press. one last thing. i have always been a wage earner.

not a supervisor, not a business owner and i am in the -- just by saving it kind of bothers me. why should i take what i have and give it to those who have better clothes, better cars, better phones, tvs, subscriptions, i'm supposed to take my money and give it to them? i think a lot of people resent that attitude from democrat leadership that we need redistribution of wealth of people who sacrificed their whole lives and give to those who don't work as hard. that is all i have to say. host: fredericksburg, virginia, tara is on the democrat line. caller: hi. i just wanted to say i was listening to heidi and she was

so interesting to listen to and the other callers as well. i would like to say i was really relieved to see the democrats really working hard on an infrastructure bill. there is so many dissenting opinions on where to spend the money and how to do it. i just thought things were back to normal. we really need that. the other part of normal i would like to see is a republican party that existed many years ago where they would have been trying to work harder for bipartisan efforts. i am so scared of the current republican party. they are so extreme and there are not enough states people in congress. it is a very worrisome thing. and the third is i would really like to see more oversight of all these media companies on the

right. i think so much disinformation is coming out of them that hurts us as a country. host: appreciate your call. on the infrastructure, the president heading to minnesota today. talking about the things in that law in rosemont, minnesota. we will have live coverage for you at c-span.org and also on the c-span now app. same with the briefing coming up today from the president's covid-19 response team at 12:30 eastern. live coverage on the c-span now app and on c-span.org. let us go to california. john on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling in because i listened to the earlier program about biden's performance with the new virus and i guess i have three comments.

the first would be he would have a lot more credibility if he stopped calling it omnicron and called it omicron. the second would be my suggestion to joe biden -- and this was brought up by larry kudlow on fox news. he said if biden would call trump and say, hey trump, give him credit for operation warp speed, give him credit for the fact he had 100 million doses of vaccine when he took office and say, go across the aisle as the previous lady talked about. he should call donald trump and go across the aisle and have both of them appeal to the public that we should all get the vaccines and go forward as a bipartisan. trump was not against the vaccine.

blaming republicans for being unvaccinated is unfair. i think another comment would be why are we cutting off restricted travel when we have got an open border with all these people coming through with covid? you know, i don't know. the whole thing approaches my bottom-line advice to joe biden which is look at florida. look across the aisle and look at all the aspects, remdesivir, and also the vaccine. apply all three and that is what florida did. biden talks about reaching across but if he actually did it i think he would come up with a better plan. host: to lori in michigan. democrats align. caller: minnesota. host: minnesota, sorry. mn not mi.

go ahead, lori. caller: thank you for taking my call. i love listening to you guys. i am beside myself with what is going on in the republican party. it is so scary and donald trump has been lie, scam, cheat, steal, fake, fraud trump since he was small. he was brought up that way and then he ran our country that way and is still lying, scamming, cheating and stealing. and if this does not end, we are going to lose america because we are going to lose democracy. all he wants to be is like putin, be like xi ping, all of them. he wants to rule and he wants his dynasty and if he gets back in, it will be like putin. host: thank you, lori. the house will be in later at

2:00 eastern and the senate this morning at 10:00 on c-span2. the work ahead part of that reported in rollcall. new funding bill likely to extend to early 2022. the current deadline is friday. the democrats and republicans on monday haggled over details of the stopgap spending bill that appears to run into late january at a minimum with republicans trying to extend the duration into february or march. sources said house appropriations chair rosa delauro wants to file a temporary spend bill today with the goal of passing it in the house wednesday. that would presumably give the senate enough time to clear president joe biden's signature before the stopgap funding law expires on friday. let's hear from elizabeth in pleasantville, new jersey, independent line. elizabeth, are you there? you are on the line. go ahead. we will go to peg in west palm

beach, florida on the republican line. make sure you mute your volume on your television and go ahead with your comment. caller: yes. i was listening to what heidi had to say and became very disturbed. i am very much for president trump. she said he was an opportunist. there was nothing opportunity about what he did. he lost money by being president. also, who loves america? he proved it. in four years he had is better than we had been in years. he certainly loved the military and i can vouch for that. i have a husband who was in the military. when he became seriously ill they could not do enough for him because of what trump did.

also i would like to say the fact that when he came into office he cared about everyone. look at the record. the black race got off the welfare, they got jobs. obama never bothered with that because he wanted them to be dependent on the government. all i can say is that i pray and pray that we are given our true president back, president trump, because he is the only one. i am 82 years old and he is the only one that has truly showed to me that he truly loves america and wants to make a good country of america and not turn it into a socialist country like the democrats want to do. host: let's go to florida next on the independent line. frank, you are on. caller: hey, good morning. host: good morning. caller: just a couple of comments as i was listening to the senator.

you know, i am independent. i have voted for democrats, i have voted for republicans in the past and what i have to say about, you know, revitalizing the democrat party, you know, i am feeling like so many people. i did not leave the democratic party the democratic party has left me by moving too far to the left and becoming too extreme. recently i heard a comedian and, you know, famous talk show host bill marr who i think put it very eloquently when he said that the democratic party has become toxic because they have become the party of no common sense. you know, people have conservative views and in spite

of what is said, for example, being climate deniers that's false. we all want a clean, safe environment for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren and for the foreseeable future. but there has to be a balance of how you approach it. it is not that conservatives or republicans are climate deniers, ok? what many of us object to is how do you get to that, you know, zero carbon emissions? to think that you can just turn off natural gas tomorrow, it is absolutely ludicrous, it makes no sense. host: thank you for your input, frank. couple of minutes left. we are going to go live in a couple of minutes to capitol hill. the senate banking be hearing

shortly from the federal reserve chair jay powell and from treasury secretary janet yellen in an oversight hearing on some of the covid spending, the cares act in particular. that getting underway shortly. live coverage here on c-span. let's get a call or two more if we can. shirley, you are next. fort worth, texas, good morning. caller: good morning. i am really just mystified. when you hear people call in and say that it is a welfare thing when they give money to the poor, none of them mention that the richest companies in this country are not paying taxes,

that is welfare given to them. you never hear them talk about the rich. you never hear them talk about the tax cuts that got us in this position we are in now. then you hear the christian right speakers about morals. they sit back and vote things like abortion and same-sex marriage and they doing things that god and the church are supposed to deal with. they are sitting back taking god's place and then they sit back and talk about the poor. if they were really christians and read their bible, the bible say there will always be poor among us and why is the poor blamed for the country in a position? they don't even worry about what the rich is doing. they sit back and worry about the poor more. you have $100 million been given

to trump and these are people that is donating saying they having a problem with income. they are not making enough money but they donated $100 million to a man with no morals, no scruples, no interest in real people. trump was not even interested in republicans. they sit back and they support him instead of reading their bible and doing the right thing and looking out for those people that is less fortunate than we are. host: let's go to linda in mountain home, arkansas on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just have to call and say like the lady from minnesota i am so happy the democrats are so worried about the republican party. i was born and raised a democrat until donald trump and i voted republican. i swore i would never do it.

that man saved this country and joe biden is going to run it straight into the ground. he has already started and only been there -- i did not think he would make it six months but he has been there 11. i don't know what they are going to do with him. i don't think he is mentally competent to be president. i don't think he has the health to be president. i have not heard of his medical reports. host: i'm going to let you go as we wrap up the program and take you live momentarily to the senate banking committee. that will do it for this morning's washington journal. we are back tomorrow at 7:00 and i hope you are too. next up the senate banking committee hearing from the fed chair jay powell and the treasury secretary janet yellen. live coverage is here on c-span.

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