democratic presidential candidate, andrew yanked. he will talk about his book. -- andrew yang. he will talk about his book. washington journal starts now. ♪ host: good morning. it's wednesday, december 29 two thousand 21. our washington journal authors week be -- begins now. let's take some time to look back on the u.s. foreign-policy. we want to hear your pick her top foreign-policy story 2021. do you think we will have the world's attention two thousand 22? republicans, 202-748-8000. democrats, -- republicans, 202-748-8001.

democrats 202-748-8000. independent, 202-748-8002. you can send a text to 202-748-8003. a very good wednesday morning to you. you can go ahead and start cullinan now. top policy start -- start calling in now. the reason why you saw those flags at half-staff over the u.s. capitol this morning. that's because we learned yet -- late yesterday of the passing harry reid at his home in nevada. here is the obituary from nevada independent this morning. harry reid -- harry reid rose to become one of the most influential state and national leaders died at home tuesday after a four year with pancreas

cancer. he was 82 years old. talking about his humble beginnings. >> i grew up in a house that did not have an inside toilet. we were just behind the times. we had no inside toilet, no hot water. in this town i grew up in, we had not a tv set anyplace. not a telephone, not a telegraph, no real world -- no railroad. no way to can't -- no way to communicate with the outside world. there was nothing. my parents were uneducated. my dad did not graduate from eighth grade. my mother never graduated from high school. the number one business was not mining. my dad worked in minds when he

could. i went to a school where i started out with two rooms. i went to school grades one through four. i got to fifth-grade with the big kids. one teacher taught all grades. there wasn't a church ever in that town. i searched back. talk about my history with search life. i tell kids it doesn't matter how much money their parents have, how much education their parents have. it don't be embarrassed about the house you have. i have a nice suit on now and a tie. host: that was harry reid born in 1939 in nevada. he had a bachelors. first elected to the house in

1983 from -- elected to the senate and served a five year term. served as majority minority leader democratic caucus until his retirement in 2017. he died at his home yesterday in henderson nevada after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. the flags flying at half-staff ordered by chuck schumer. we will have more on harry reid and his legacy bit later in today's program, but for this first hour this morning we are focusing on 2021, the year that was in foreign-policy. we want to know your top foreign-policy story of the past 12 months. phone lines split as usual come up little parties. republican, 202-748-8001.

democratic 202-748-8000. independent 202-748-8002. texts 202-748-8003. independent line, what is your pick for top foreign port test foreign-policy story of the past year? caller: the planned or unplanned pullouts of afghanistan. host: john, take us back to the in the august of this year and your view of that pullout and your thoughts about ending that 20 year war in afghanistan. caller: i think it was the first time in a long while that you saw unification of this country everybody wanted the world -- the war to end.

it puts us in a bad economic situation, but it really brought this country somewhat together. you saw many democrats questioning the planning that went into the pullout. you had the republicans criticizing it more vocally than the democrats, but there seems to be more unity which is good for this country. we need it now. it's unfortunate that we had to lose servicemen and servicewomen , leave so much equipment behind. it was an ill planned event in my opinion, but it could be argued for the other way.

as far as ending the war itself, long overdue. long overdue. host: what is going to be the legacy of america's longest war? caller: i don't know. i'm 85, went to the vietnam war and what have you and the damage it did to this country but the legacy of afghanistan is yet to unfold. it really depends upon, it used to be we had nonpolitical historians. now they are somewhat all political. you don't get an objective view from these so-called historians, but history will have to unravel

. that's dion's my pay grade. -- -- that's beyond my pay grade. host: republican, good morning. what is your pick for top foreign-policy story? caller: a story that probably you haven't heard of considering nobody follows it. it's called the laptop from hell. our president's and assets of the chinese government. he has been taking money from all of our enemies all over this world and nobody wants to cover it including you guys. that's my story. thank you, sir. have a good day. host: laptop from hell is the book. maranda divine with that recent book on twitter.

ending the were -- ending the war in afghanistan, was rocky but acceptable. take it back to august 31 when president biden, his address from the white house on the ending of the war in afghanistan. >> we succeeded in what we set out to do in afghanistan over a decade ago. and we stayed for another decade. it was time to end this war. this is a new world. the terror threat has mustache to sized well beyond afghanistan. al qaeda affiliates in syria and isis attempting and establishing affiliates across our -- african asia. the fundamental obligation of

the president in my opinion is to defend and protect america. i'm not -- not against threats of 2020 -- 2020 -- that is the guiding principle behind my decisions behind afghanistan. smb do not believe that the safety and security ice -- i simply do not believe in spending aliens of dollars a year in afghanistan -- spending billions of dollars a year in afghanistan. it has changed, expanded to other countries. our strategy has to change. the fight against terrorism in afghanistan. we just don't need to fight the ground war to do it.

host: that was president biden august 30 first. we are talking about the year and foreign-policy. we want to know your pick for that top foreign-policy story. what are you going to be looking for in 2022? plenty of pundits weighing in on this. calling it a year of misfortune for foreign-policy 2021, asking will things get better 2000 222? philadelphia inquirer -- 2022? philadelphia inquirer, does the biden administration deserve a passing grade in foreign policy? james out of steel city, and independent. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. my question is i don't know what

trump was thinking when he said that military equipment over because he had an agreement. what did he signed quest -- -- what did he sign? how would that affect, the war is destroying this country. it has to end. can you answer that one? host: we let viewers weigh in and let them ask and pose and answer questions for each other. this is danny out of arizona, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning, merry christmas, happy new year. my story is afghanistan. this ministration has no clue on -- this administration has no clue on what to do.

open the pipeline giving these people, oh my god. it's really bad. china, how about when they were in alaska and what's his name was being schooled by the chinese and apologize for us being a racist country. these people have no clue. host: you mentioned a few foreign-policy issues. i will focus on the first one. will focus on afghanistan as many of you have. continuing headlines out of afghanistan. this out of the headlines of the washington focusing on the group in afghanistan. the washington times with interviews there with one of the officials with that group still fighting in afghanistan. this picture on the front page taking up most of the above the

fold section of the wall street journal. that is samina, 26-year-old. formerly and the afghan air force in hiding after the taliban showed up in her parents house asking for people who served in the armed forces, women in the military among the most vulnerable left behind in afghanistan. this is barney out of bradington florida. good morning. caller: why do we no longer discuss how to trump words to overthrow afghanistan? this administration actually worked with taliban to defeat afghanistan so he could get reelected. the put that in your pipe and smoke it. host: out of new jersey, good

morning. caller: i want to talk about what about china? our world has changed forever how china leased on into the world. how can that not be -- leashed into the world. how can that not be the top story? oh, oh is not a big deal. this is disgusting. the problem is there's two new people in our country involved in this. that's why -- too many people in this country involved in this. i cannot believe people are just tolerating this. it makes me sick. host: georgia, earl, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning and god bless the united states of america. i'm a combat veteran. people need to forget donald

trump is the one started this stuff. you made a deal with the taliban , but they want to blame joe biden for everything this man tried to do. trump wanted to bring the people to the white house, but they will always broke that but they will always lame joe biden. why don't they talk about -- always blame joe biden. why don't they talk about what that mandy? thank you. host: your top foreign-policy story of 2021. as we show you from last week, anthony boykin's end-of-the-year news conference talking about his work and the work of the state department over the past 12 months. >> when i walked into the state department, my first day as secretary, we had 19 lockdowns

around the world. at 1% of the united states was vaccinated compared to more than 60% today. we were dealing with the worst economic crisis of the great depression. the crisis has accelerated. our relationships with our partners were strained. many questioned whether america would or even could lead again. a few guiding premises this year one is that american engagement american leadership matters. the word -- the world doesn't organize itself. we are not engaged, or we don't lead, one of two things happen. either some other country tries to take our place, but not the way that advances our interests and values. or no one does. and then you get chaos. either way, it doesn't serve the american people. another ms is finding new ways

to cooperate -- another is finding new ways to cooperate. none of the really big challenges we face and affect the lives of americans from covid to climate is a disruptive infected technologies can be solved by any one country alone, not even the united states. much of our work is here has been about rebuilding the foundations of american foreign policy. started with restoring and revitalizing partnerships and re-engaging the multilateral system where so much of the day in day out policy takes place. january 20, we have reinvigorated with nato, the european union, the united nations, aussie on -- we elevated the quad. we lost the bill back better infrastructure initiative.

we are much more aligned with our allies and partners now than we were a year ago on nearly every issue, including russia's aggression toward ukraine and its neighbors and china's efforts to challenge the rules based. host: tony boykin, and of year news conference. we are asking you with the top foreign-policy story of 2021 is. 202-748-8001 four republicans, 202-748-8000 four democrats, 202-748-8002 for independent. caller: good morning and happy new year. i want to know why were not holding china accountable for the 800,000 americans and then some. i think we are not strong enough.

we used to be a very strong country. people -- people were afraid of us. we were number one. look at us now. to shame. i think we should hold -- look at us now. what a shame. i think we should hold china accountable. that's what i think about the policy of 2021. it has to be china held responsible. host: speaking of china, calm today and washington post that talked about some of the best parts of 2021. and he points to the u.s. stepping up its support for taiwan as one of the good things that wyden did 2021. -- that president biden did in 2021. caller: i support taiwan, and i

think we should jump in on this ganged up in the schoolyard and that is what russia is doing. pushing and pushing and pushing and along with china. in these to start shaking hands and they start, he's a bully. as a bully on the playground and he needs to be stopped. i think all the people we lost due to this virus, it's a sin and biden, we should do something. -- that's why i'm in the that that's why i'm an independent. the biggest thing i would like to talk about is the john lewis voting right. without that, we've got nothing. all that that's everything else can be put on the back burner. we have to take care of that immediately when they get back in session, immediately. host: michelle out of staten

island. out of that column looking into u.s. support for taiwan, praising the president for inviting to -- invited taiwan to share expertise at the global covid-19 summits and continue to provide taiwan with the defense capabilities it needs to defend itself against chinese aggression. his initiation worked hard to beat back efforts by the people's republic of china to squeeze countries to wreck it -- 2d recognize taiwan. caller: i was going to support the taiwan. i was wanting to implicate the fact that some of -- i used to be a democrat, but now i'm from

michigan. and the thing about it is a lot of things in this country run on polymeric procedure. parliamentarian procedure. totally exclude independent, so what we have is a thing that goes more cordial in our own government that is creating a dysfunction about the way we treat american citizens as themselves worried about taiwan and the simple fact is i be better if i just mailed my american citizenship to mexico and came back. they are paying these people and none of this is being brought up on the housewares. host: stick around in our 830 our next 8:00 hour. we are going to be joined by

andrew yang and his effort to start a new lyrical party. -- new political party. he's here to talk about his new book. you may be interested in sticking around for that. chris, simpsonville, tennessee, independent, good morning. you're next. caller: good morning. i believe the fair trade agreement, or trade. i believe our trade is the best thing. host: that's chris in tennessee. did you want to add something? >> yes, at of the worst waste of taxpayers money obscene, we've got this fbi guy from jackson, tennessee chasing people around

with the drone over $10 and it cost half $1 million a day to the taxpayers. it's a terrible waste of taxpayer money. i don't understand losing a nursing home. host: i had not heard that story out of tennessee, but thank you for bringing it up. a few of your comments from social media this morning focusing on afghanistan once again. top foreign-policy issue of 2021. i'm glad biden got us out of afghanistan, and he got more grief than bush did for starting this debacle of a war. and out of mt. lebanon pennsylvania, this veterans opinion, usa rose in the towel and flees from afghanistan. it is a big shout out to the

world, not when it counts. more from the past year. i think president biden gave his oval office address on the u.s. pullout. this is michael mccaul, the ranking member of the top republican on the foreign affairs committee. having this to say about the pullout. >> several weeks ago i said that this president will have blood on his hands. this week, we had 13 servicemen come home in flag draped coffins at dover airbase. our planes left in the middle of the night. we left afghanistan. the taliban celebrated their victory and we saw the images and how sickening it is. we had an unconditional surrender to the tally band. this president announced

complete withdrawal with no conditions. that was a surrender. now they are celebrating their victory over the united states of america. i never thought i would see this in my life. it is embarrassing, shameful, and is wrong to our veterans who served so well. we have emboldened our adversaries. we have weakened our alliances. it is been said that the military isn't saying that she is saying no man left behind, and the one left behind. it's so hard to watch. spent this last weekend on the phone as many of my colleagues did with state department trying to get these people out. trying to get our partners out, american citizens out. school buses, for school buses of young girls that were adopted and acquire at the university of

afghanistan, only to be turned away. into the hands of the taliban. host: michael mccaul, the top republican foreign relations committee on the same day after u.s. forces left afghanistan. coming up on 7:30 a.m. on the east coast, we are spending the first hour of our program asking what are you want to be watching for on the flop -- foreign policy front and 2022? republicans 202-748-8001, democrats 202-748-8000, independent 202-748-8002. we will also look for your comments on social media. janet, a republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i've been listening to your program and i just wonder what people think if we go after china and russia and declare

war. what do they think is going to happen? the best way we can control them is to not buy their products. all you warmongers that want to send your sons to be killed, think about what you're buying. does it say made in china? made in russia? if it does, stop buying it. that's the best thing we can do. host: on russia, the u.s. and russia are set to resume the talks over ukraine agreeing to hold their security talks january 10 of 2022. they write that continued tensions on deployed near ukraine. no sign has emerged that the two sides have been able to narrow their differences.

and resend the past statements that they eventually will join the alliance. the russian talks will be held in geneva. they are likely secretary of state wendy sherman. one more headline and column on this, from the opinion pages saying it is bidens turn to face the test. u.s. president needs to act fast. if you want to read more on what he has to say. craig, arizona, democrat. good morning morning. you're next. caller: i think one of the most disgusting things that was done was when president trump pulled

us out of syria and allowed turkey to come in and wipe out our allies, the kurds. host: we're talking 2021 though. the past 12 months. caller: oh, ok. well, that's the one i was thinking of. that may have been 2021 -- that may have been 2020 perhaps. host: republican, good morning. caller: there are certainly several issues, foreign policy wise, that could be labeled as the top issue and the most concerning. but in particular, my issue is that russia and taiwan wasted no

time under the biden administration to start causing trouble in regard to ukraine and taiwan. it lets not remember, however scary it is, that secretary of defense robert gates stated and he was under the obama administration that biden has been wrong on every foreign-policy issue in the last 40 years. i predict russia is going to cause problems with lou crane and -- ukraine and so will taiwan. host: china. caller: yeah, china in regards

to taiwan. they realize that they will never be as close to success as they are with the biden ministration. -- biden administration. it is said, it is said, but there are many things that trump can be credited for and one of them is they kept us out of war so there is no denying that. he was a strong president. he meant what he said and he was not afraid to act. this was an invitation to disaster. it biden will be given a choice. he will be given a choice and put in -- in terms of coming to the aid of taiwan. we will certainly be given a

choice whether or not russia invades ukraine. i for one and fighting with russia in regard to it is going to be biden's fault whether or not there is going to be peace in the ukraine. here's the way i look at it. russia is not asking for too much. all they want, and they won't be satisfied or grant -- -- satisfied. guarantee that ukraine will not join nato. i would not blame them. host: there's a lot of people out there who don't believe that russia will be satisfied if they get that. that they may ask for something else or the next thing. why do you trust that they will be satisfied with that? caller: because i believe that

putin's goals are reasonable. the russians don't want to start a war with this. they go after easy pecans -- easy pickings. they are going that they believe that biden is not going to go to war. eastern ukraine is filled with a lots of russians. that is my prediction. host: that is stephen california . on the other half of what you were talking about on that inquirer peace talking about --

asking if things will be better in 2022. here's what they have to say about another issue in china from the past 12 months. they writes that the city of helm, -- hong kong, candidates were allowed to run. had crushed more scored a huge triumph over the pro-beijing party. china clearly feels free to arrest and or jail nearly all pro-democracy leaders under a severe new security law. they write that chinese leader says he feels he is free to destroyed domestic dissent despite -- dorian, washington,

you're next. caller: my concern is the inept policies of this president and ignoring the one, first obligation he has. protecting our border. there's no protection of our border. they are being called on to help the people who are coming in to take care of them. he is totally inept in every area that i have seen, although i have voted both immigrant and republican in the past. -- both democrat and republican in the past. the border, number one, is a ticking bomb. host: exchange between homeland secretary and lindsey graham at

a senate judiciary committee on the issue of border enforcement. here is that it that here is that exchange from november. >> people who come here illegally, how many of them have been released into the country? >> senator, i can break that down to the best of my ability. nearly one million, approximately 965,000 have been subject under title 42 of the united states code. i believe approximately 40,000 have been removed under our immigration authorities that we >> where that get us? 840,000 people? >> no, approximately 965

thousand were expelled. approximately 40,000 have been removed. approximately 125,000 unaccompanied children have been transferred to the custody and shelter of health and human services. the balance to my knowledge are in immigration enforcement proceedings -- >> so where does that leave us? how many people are still here? >> the 1.7 million, how many people are still here? >> i would estimate, 375,000 are still here. that is my best estimate. >> do you believe that if you have an immigration hearing and there is a final order of deportation that person should be removed? >> i do.

>> why is one million people still here after they get a final order of deportation? >> senator graham, as i responded to >> is the system working? >> the immigration system is broken, has been broken >> it has been broken if a million people have been ordered and haven't left. you think the remaining in mexico policy by pollock -- by trump is cruel? >> i do. >> do you support herbert lee doing with that doing away with the thataway in mexico? >> i do. >> do you think that will increase illegal immigration if we do? >> i do not. host: senate judiciary committee hearing. all available on our website at

c-span.org at our video archives. search at the top of the page and you can watch them in their entirety. mike out of florida. what do you think the top story of 2021 was? caller: this does not tie into the foreign policy, but what struck me was occurred in myanmar. the reason why is because i was one of those critics of the president of myanmar doing nothing about the killings, but it turns out that she was pretty much helpless. the military is in control of the country. the coup is still ongoing and i don't see any actions.

the united states getting involved in that situation. host: did you emigrate from that country? caller: just shocking that somebody of that status did nothing pretty much genocide, but my position has changed because that my position has changed since the coup occurred because she was helpless as well in terms of politics or policies of the country basically. before i drop the phone, if you can spare me a few minutes. i want to raise the issue of a lot of republicans crying about

china. they want some rep -- retribution. i have to say that although covid a little bit hilarious because these are the people who will take the basic measures to try to curb this pandemic and the other presidents -- and had a president that policies regarding covid and taking basic precautions. retribution against china for a virus which the rest of the world took in stride and refused to do anything about it, but they wanted retribution against china. it was hilarious to me. i just wanted to put that in. host: paul out of plymouth,

connecticut. independent. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes sir. caller: that's great. i love c-span. the pope francis talked about problem areas that are continuing in silence. he mentioned yemen, lebanon. he mentions the palestinian and israeli unresolved issues. he called for mutual respect and recognition for the rights and cultural values of every people's. as far as your last caller claiming that trump kept us out of wars. i wonder if that includes the secret wars, the special operations, and the drone it

should drone attacks that have increased with every president right up until the last one. remember folks, afghan deal was trump's deal. the biden administration extended the deadline. let's get our facts first and then we can have a discussion. there's so much misinformation. if people think that trump is going to be the savior and bring us to the golden land, they are wrong. we have a war at home. a war within ourselves and our family. we need to become educated. c-span is an excellent vehicle for that. they provide cross-section of opinions. we need to take care of things at home. we have been hearing it forever. we've heard it from our past president. the biden administration since of war with russia.

perhaps, there are sins on both sides of the aisle. as michael francis said, the values of solidarity reconciliation and peaceful coexistence must be accepted by the people in the americas. spreading the vaccines throughout the world, especially to africa, with about 5% vaccination rate. and in the west we have about a 70%. that's not fair. we need to take care of our fellow men and women, everyone. then we will have less war. and what did the pope say before his christmas address?

the statement before had to do with decreasing wars around the world. -- around the world through education, not exportation of armaments to supply and line the pockets of the bomb makers here in this country. some pretty serious issues. host: paul, your point in spreading the vaccine around the world, the wall street journal today with the chart showing the flow of vaccines to high income countries and low income countries. the darker the red, the lower the income country. the share of vaccines they have received. high income nations home to just a six of the worlds population received nearly half of all the covid vaccines made by the major

western vaccine makers. i don't know if you can see it on your screen, but the number is starting to creep up for lower income countries. your expectations for 2022? caller: if they remove the patent controls, which is the argument now. the european countries and the united states do not want to do that. they want to further empower the profiteers and the merchants of death. they claimed that they are giving a secure and at the same time they give us opioids. and look at the fallout. look at the death associated with that. there is some serious questions we need to be informed. we need to get educated. this is a democracy. stop letting the corporations rule the roost. we need to take control of this thing. we need to be more humanitarian.

true amended terrien's. not going insane, oh yeah. first -- true humanitarians. not going inside -- not going and saying, oh yeah. first, we are going to bomb you. host: this is lonnie from pennsylvania, good morning. caller: the southern border, plus all the refugees coming from afghanistan. if you think about it, we don't know what kind of people are coming into this country. a look for it to implode within desk with all these foreigners they are bringing in. one other thing, 800,000 people died from the covid in the united states and never fired one shot.

host: anthony, staten island, and dependent. caller: i wish i was on fantasyland. biden opened the pipeline into europe. the one thing afghanistan thing, i wish people would tell the truth. they said it was trump's deal. certain things they had to apply before us leaving, but the only thing i was here when the planes hit the building for 9/11. i live here. now, we have no eyes and ears. now we are blind over there. they go to north korea to buy uranium. that's the number one threat right now.

it's a perfect storm. when it happens, we will be crying and lighting candles. were still in korea. why don't we leave? we should have stayed there. giving them air pipe -- airpower and now we are on the line. it would be great if there were no wars, but some people just don't like us. they don't like us. they hate us. they just want to kill us. now, they are running everything. we don't know what they are doing. the border is wide open. host: anthony, staten island. ted in miami, florida. republican, your thoughts? caller: good morning. i got two form policies.

it at one is afghanistan. my other one is china and russia. we just really need to not play with them and hopefully, we can get on the same board with them because china and russia, they're not playing. and we are playing. we need to get a lot of foreign stuff together, please. host: pennsylvania, an independent, keystone state. go ahead. caller: first of all, tough act to follow, that guy from connecticut. i want to address a couple of things that you mentioned -- that he mentioned in terms of my concern of foreign policy. he talked about education. very important to be educated and do some common sense with your education. if it does not pass the commonsense test, than it's crazy.

you think you talked about, corporations. that brings me to a couple of individuals before the talked about china and trade wars. this is coming back to bite america in the but. in particular, corporations have decided the that they can get things built cheaper overseas. the car was invented and perfected in america. the telephone was invented and perfected in america. the television was invented and perfected in america. the computer was invented and perfected in america. and now what is it all come from? overseas. everyone is running around like that here is on fire because we can't get computer chips. because corporations can cut nickels and dimes over shareholders and found themselves on their chest about what a good job there doing. meanwhile, the average american has to work two and three jobs to support the family. they fight 15 -- 15,000 hour

which is barely living. -- $15 an hour, which is barely living. and then sending back for an exorbitant prices. explain that to me. that's what i'm talking about. host: thank you. rebecca, california, and. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to respond to a previous collar, the lady that called in and said we need to stop buying things from china. bless her heart. we are in way too deep. china owns us, ok. the only way that would happen is we would have to not accept any products from china. that's not going to happen. we would not have tires for our cars. we would not have showerheads for our showers. we are in way too deep. the look being we have to realize is that's the other

thing we have to realize is trying that china is -- the other thing we have to realizes china is really smart. the real estate they own and the debt we own -- we owe to them. their new year's resolution is to take over the world. they are well on their way to doing that. i know this sounds negative, and i agree with the caller because i have felt that all along. i'm just not buying anything from china. well, i can't get anything that's not made in china now so i am forced to have to buy the products, but i just want to say bless her heart because i do agree with her, but we just are in way too deep. host: john, out of miami, florida. independent. caller: the big story for 2021 was that you live in 11th --

july 11 protest in cuba. there have been scores of political trials of those protesters. we are talking hundreds, over 5000 were detained. we know that over 700 continue to be held today. i think the story is going to continue into 2022. host: john in florida. before we finish up, covid is the foreign policy story of 2021. no end in sight and no country able to control it. jacqueline saying here's a novel idea, how about leaders of all countries minding their own dam business not trying to boss of countries around? foreign policy has always been inconsistent as the two parties

have opposing directions. one is cooperative and the other is aggressive. this we can't decide which direction we should take with consistency, we should focus on the problems we face on our own soil first. this is danny, dallas, texas. republican. what was the top foreign-policy story of 2021? caller: i think it's a virus that everybody's got. i think biden has everybody in the united states like you're in prison. you can't go anywhere. you are fired if you don't take the virus. if you go to a restaurant, if you don't have a mask on you get arrested. we've got over 300,000 illegals coming here, do not have to get vaccinated, do not have to wear a mask, do not have to get checked. and if they don't want to get vaccinated they don't have to. fouts she said if they don't get vaccinated,fauci said if they

don't get vaccinated they're going to catch it. host: we keep our language polite. that is going to do it for this segment, but stick around. it coming up, our annual authors week is going to start. we will be joined by andrew yang . this book, stick around. -- his new book, stick around. that discussion coming up next. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including midco. ♪

midco support c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ >> both the house and senate have adjourned for the holiday recess and will return in early january for the start of the second session of the 117th congress. upon its return the senate will take up the climate and social spending plan known as build back better despite joe manchin announcing his opposition to the bill. senate democratic leadership wants to take up voting rights legislation which may require changing filibuster rules. there is also a february 18 deadline for both chambers to pass additional federal spending legislation to avert a government shutdown. watch these developments on the c-span networks once congress returns where you can watch full coverage on c-span now, our new mobile video app. head over to c-span.org for

scheduling information or to stream video at any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. hear many of those conversations on "presidential recordings. ." >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson. you will follow -- you will hear the presidential campaign, the gulf of tonkin incident, the march on selma and the war on vietnam. not everyone knew that they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries knew because they were tasked with transcribing many of these conversations. in fact, they were the ones who made sure that the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's. >> you will also hear bloods talk. >> i want a report on the number

of people assigned to kennedy or me the day he died and the #to me now. if the number for mine is not last, i wanted less real quick. i promise that i will not go anywhere, i will stay behind these blockades. >> "presidential recordings" on the c-span mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> yet c-span on the go, watch the biggest political events live or on-demand anytime and anywhere on the net -- on the new mobile app. access top highlights, listen to c-span radio and discover new podcasts for free. download c-span now today. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we continue with their annual authors week series, all this week we are featuring top

writers on a variety of policy topics. this morning we are joined by former democratic presidential candidate andrew yang, his book, “forward: notes on the future of our democracy." i want to start on the future of our democracy and young people on that topic. there was a harvard university-kennedy school of politics poll that came out that had headline grabbing findings. they found that 52% of 18 to 29-year-old in this country leave that democracy is either in trouble or that the u.s. is a failed democracy. 7% says that democracy in the united states is healthy. what are those results and what do th -- what does that tell you about the future of democracy in the country? guest: it should be a wake-up call where young people are saying that the system is failing them and their generation. they do not think that they are points of view are being

represented or reflected. they feel like they do not actually have a say in who their elective -- elected representatives are. here's the tough part, they are generally correct. 83% of our representatives are elected by only 10% of americans because the vast majority of congressional districts in this country are safe seats, either safely democratic or republican. there is no chance of there being some kind of shocker in the general. so all the primary. what kind of real choices that for the vast majority of americans. you look up and say i am supposed to have my say on who gets elected, but really i get served the same incumbents who have a reelection rate of higher than 92%. if you are a sports fan that is a better win rate than the jordan era chicago bulls. if you say the incumbent is going to win, i have very little

real choice, the duopoly dominates the electoral processes and there is no real dominant -- dynamism or no new points of view and they are checked out. they are also saying that our government is not able to deliver on a lot of the basic promises that young people would like to expect. host: if safe seats are one of the big problems, we are in the middle of a redistricting process where a lot of the safe seats are getting safer and more members are getting safer seats. how do you fix the system? what would you change? guest: politicians do not like competition. that is what we are seeing. you are right, the number of safe seats as rising from 83% to something like 90%. the politicians do not want voters to choose them, they want to choose their voters. the way we shift this is moving

into nonpartisan primary so the parties cannot control who will get elected and reelected over and over again. you can do this in half the states around the country via ballot initiative. if enough of us come together and say we are tired of the farce and we wants genuine joys, why should it be that i need to register as a democrat or republican to have meaningful input. 10% of voters are distraught -- are deciding 83% of the races. nonpartisan open primaries will fix this. that is a lot of what my book is about. you know my books about a lot of different things, but if our democracy will have a chance we need real choice. at this point, independents outnumber democrats and republicans, 62% of americans including a majority of the people watching this at home know that the duopoly is not working and we need to evolve, you know who is trying to keep it from happening? the duopoly.

we have to shift to nonpartisan open primaries to give the people a real chance in a choice. host: the book is “forward: notes on the future of our democracy." andrew yang is the author and he has with us until the top of the hour at 9:00 a.m. eastern this morning. the phone lines are open for you to call in. guest: you did not say now you are an independent and it has been a blast and it has been a joy. host: that is what i want to talk about, that decision to become an independent. when and why? guest: when i was writing this book i was reflecting on the biggest problems facing the country and you know what has to be at the top of the list? colorization. you have two sides that are clashing and clashing and pitting against each other literally driving us insane. we are going to wind up in civil war 2.0 over time if we do not change the dynamic. the reason for this is that

politicians get rewarded to catering to the most extreme 10% on each side than serving the reasonable middle, which is most of us. identify this is a problem and i think it will get worse but not better because of media inset -- media incentives, c-span accepted. you really try. people are watching c-span because they know that they click the channel to fox or msnbc and they will get a specific version of reality and social media gets layered on top of it. when i found it was a central problem i was impossible to say i will solve this as a member of one of the two parties. you need a new party to change the dynamic, reduce polarization and give americans in the reasonable and frustrated middle and alternative that is what the forward party decided to do. host: let me get those phone numbers out. 202-748-8000, republicans. 202-748-8001, democrat --

202-748-8001, republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. tell me about the forward comment -- forward party and the elections of 2022. how are you going to be involved? guest: 2020 two is one of the best opportunities to turn our democracy around. we will be supporting candidates that champion nonpartisan open primaries and want to give voters a real choice at the local level and congressional level. and we are going to be backing ballot initiatives and democracy reform measures around the country for this group of patriots who know that the close party primaries is the reason so many of us feel like our democracy will fail and it will if we do not make significant changes. that is what 2022 is about.

we need to make it a winning option for politicians and politicians respond to incentives which is why we are stuck. if we give them a different sense -- set of incentives and the forward party is raising a movement of thousands of graduate volunteers around the country who will make this a winning issue. we need nonpartisan open prompt -- primaries and races around the country. host: david out of arkansas to chat with you, the line for democrats. you are on. caller: yes. mr. yang, i was very interested in your presidential run in 2020, and what i was really interested in was your basic living income, if you could explain that to me about wire -- where the money would come from and stuff like that, and i would like to for -- put forth a suggestion that you might check into the unite america party.

they have a policy called capital homestead act, in which banks are opened up and give out interest-free money to help people take part in buying a part of america. not only stuck -- not owning stock, but part of america, and one of my ideas is that i think that people should not own stock in renewable energy, they should actually own the renewable energy field. i will get off air and take your comments. thank you very much. host: thank you. guest: thank you david. i love the question. i did run for president. i called it the freedom dividend which was a dividend of $1000 a month for every american and now a majority of americans agree

with the approach because we have seen how tough the economy can be for millions of americans due to the changes in the pandemic. so, how do we pay for it? i will give the most powerful example, which is one you look at amazon and google which are paying next to nothing in taxes, and if we change that we can give people a dividend really quickly. amazon is a trillion dollar company that paid zero dollars in taxes in a recent year. the example i use is that let us say you work at a call center in the u.s., which right now would describe over 2 million americans. technology is being developed by google and other companies that will soon be able to do that job. how much will google pay in taxes for that software that is going to replace, unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of americans over time? and the answer is next to nothing.

because google files its taxes through a tax haven. if we tax amazon and google, particularly in artificial intelligence, we can pay for a dividend of $1000 a month or some other amount to americans around the country because, where would you spend the money? right there in arkansas in your town right to the hardware store, daycare centers, the local garage, it will be spent over and over in our communities and help rebuild the middle class. this is my very dramatic proposal. and, you know what, we still needed. this is something that the forward party is for. if you look at our platform at forwardparty.com you see basic input -- basic income front and center. the other question or comment that you had, i agree, americans need to have some kind of ownership stake in our shared future. alaska does that right now with a petroleum dividend or if you live in alaska you get 1000 to

$2000 a year based upon the oil in the ground. we can do that for other shared resources and we should do that. host: is the enhanced child tax credit a step toward the freedom dividend. it runs out at the end of this month, but efforts continue to try and renew it into 2022 and beyond. guest: yes. the enhanced child tax credit is the right direction and a big step towards the freedom dividend. i believe 60 million americans are receiving the enhanced child tax credit, and we should continue it forever. it has been one of the most effective ways to improve americans' health, mental health, and education. it has lifted millions of american children out of poverty. it is a step towards the freedom of -- freedom dividend and basic income. host: to eric, independent, maryland. good morning. caller: thank you very much.

i want to tell you that if you run for president, i am voting for you. and i am going to tell you why. i am an immigrant, and i moved to this country two decades ago, and i realize, unfortunately, that you had democrats and republicans, and both of them are just fighting for the interest of their party, so they put the party before the country. and, the country just got stuck where we are. so we we have biden and the left following him blindly but nobody is putting america first or giving us the choice to get what we want. so what happens if both parties do that? i am happy you are giving us a

third voice and i am happy to tell you that if you run i am voting for you because i do not want to be locked and if ua democrat or republican, and i want somebody will move us forward. guest: thank you so much and happy holidays to you and yours, and millions of americans agree with you. we are being force fed choices that do not resemble the will of the people and in 2020 for the most likely candidates are going to be donald trump on one side and joe biden on the other and 50% of americans not want either of those choices. that will be harsh but it is true on the numbers -- i am the numbers guy. it needs more dynamism, parties, and choices. if you look around the world we are anomalous and having two parties, it is a dumb system. we would be the worst designed failure in the history of the

world. when you say we need more point -- more choices people say you cannot. are you kidding me? a friend of mine said the worst number of political parties you could have in a country is one, the second worst is two, and we can see the results where you have this polarization, the clash, and like eric said, you have to blindly follow this person because you are told to hate the other person. it is a catastrophe and we must change it. if we do not things will get worse and not better. thank you eric for seeing the vision, i appreciate it so much. host: plainview, new york. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. there are estimates that technology will displace maybe 30 or 40% of future workers. how would you address this problem, i do not think that ubi is the answer and there are many

people who cannot be getting these higher level jobs. also, how would you address rising oil prices? thank you. guest: thank you for the question. i wrote a book on the topic of technology displacing american labor called "the war on normal people" and it was a book before this one. i am deeply concerned about this. i believe that a foundation of resources for americans would help us transition to a different type of economy and give people more flexibility. you could start your own business, pursue different opportunities, that is the kind of dynamism that we need economically, and i think a basic income type measure will be a huge part of that, that i do not think we should stop there. we should be investing in vocational programs, college is not the end all be all.

we should not present it like it is. we should make the learning that takes place on college campuses available in smaller increments than four years. we need certificate-based programs. it is a massive challenge and our government and institutions have been failing us. higher oil prices, i think we should be doing more to try and address the supply chain crisis. we have tanker stock offshore. we can do better than this. tapping the strategic oil reserves might make sense in a place like this. inflation is punishing the american people and that has become a partisan talking point for democrats are saying not so bad and republicans are saying it is awful. it is real. we need to get back to a point in the country where we can just call facts and if you do not like the fact, you will still have to accept them, but this is a symptom of the polarization we

are seeing where people will put forward their own version of reality even though most americans can look around and see it as a real problem. host: sean in columbus, democrats. good morning. caller: good morning i have a question in terms of your policy of a third-party choice or having more choices as far as the boat. when you compare that to lobbyists and term limits? i see this as a problem of the same people getting reelected because they are being backed by corporate america. i do not see it as the third party option because the corporate america will buyout the third-party as well. i see this as being a dark money issue. what you think about the fact that there are higher factors in this? guest: you are spot on. that is one reason that the forward party is for term limits. every -- 74% of americans think

it is a bad idea to send someone to congress and have them crouch in d.c. for decades. 74% of us believe that people should do work and come home. it leads to corruption, as you say. you have to ask yourself who was going to push for term limits? the democrats or republicans? no. the forward party wants to try and reduce the influence of lobbyists by having term limits, and one of our biggest proposals is something called democracy dollars where every american who is watching this right now you get 100 bucks to give to whatever candidates you want and we flush out lobbyist cash. a phenomenon you are describing it has been getting worse and worse over time is because -- because companies have discovered that lobbying works and they can at a minimum keep bad things from happening. we cannot get drug price negotiation because the drug lobby will be there. you cannot get anything done in

d.c. because some very powerful interest duties will rush in and say it will kill jobs and that our elected representatives are like i cannot make you mad because you represent jobs and you have lots of money, and i want to keep my job and my 94% reelection rate. all of the problems you described are tied together and the forward party wants to fix them and cure them. i am going to suggest to you that after we get to a point where people want to buy, you are right, and that will happen. if you look at the platform of the forward party we do not want three parties, we want more genuine options so that voters like you can vote out whoever is corrupt of any party, and then you have real choices. that is the way you hold elected representatives accountable because guess what right now you do not have any meaningful choice. host: what is a fair term limit

for a member of congress? guest: 12 years in each house. that is long enough that you can get some relationships and some know-how and get your feet on the ground, but then get the heck out of there. host: 24 years under your plan. guest: that is a pretty long time, right. if you are in ohio you can serve 12 years in the house and senate and that is a great career. the other thing that we need to do is that we need to give these legislators a real passout that is not to become a lobbyist because right now they serve, and in their best economic choice is to stay in d.c. as a lobbyist which is one reason you have this set of problems. i would say 12 year term limits in each house, but when you leave you go work for a university or nonprofit, please do not become a lobbyist. host: i do not know how you feel like yes or no questions but cough drop has five of them and i will ask them and then after

you answer feel free to expand on any one or two that you want. he wants to know "do you think democrats should end the filibuster?" guest: i think there is nothing in the constitution about the filibuster, and so why are we having the senate essentially hamstring itself in this way? you know, i am with the effort to amend the filibuster. host: how about adding five seats to the supreme court? guest: that is not a yes or no question. host: do you want to expand? guest: i think that the supreme court has become dangerously politicized and so i am for term limits of 18 years and have people rotate on-and-off. lifetime appointments make no sense at all. i mean, back in the day when you had more people on the supreme

court, people will retire and they would not stay until they were literally on death's door's. host: legislating federal voting rights, what should the democrats do? guest: the right to vote is very important. i will suggest that any limitation on voting is something we should be upset about. you know what the biggest limitation on voting is right now is that you do not have any meaningful choice when you get to the ballot box, which by the way, quite a lot of people right now are checking out. host: should democrats put roe v. wade into federal law? guest: that is a tough one. i am going to beg off of that. i am personally for women's weeper -- reproductive light -- rights and i think revisiting it is the wrong direction. host: final question, should democrats indict trump? guest: i think people have been trying where trump has been

concerned. i have always been someone who has thought that trying to throw past presidents in jail is like a negative phenomenon. that is endemic to many developing countries, so that is a general principle of mine, you do not want to degenerate to a point where you are trying to prosecute everyone who has been in office. caller: good morning, and thank you for offering us additional choices. i think competition and being able to check each other is super important. and, i wish you luck in that endeavor. i do have a question. i keep hearing the united states being referred to as a democracy , we are a constitutional

republic. there is a significant difference that is super important. i did hear you mention the constitution and the right that that provides us. and, i am just curious why you keep referring to the u.s. as a democracy. guest: thank you so much for the question. you are 100% right. you know it was not in the constitution? the democratic party or the republican party. so, if you look at our founding principles, george washington, anti-partisan, john adams, anti-partisan said that the two parties would be people. madison warned against factions that did not shift, so if you take seriously our heritage as a constitutional republic you would say that our constitution has nothing about political parties. if anything all of the founder'' words say that we should be

trying to have multiple parties if having them at all, and that is the direction that we should head. you are right, we are a constitutional republic and i wish we could get back to those principles. host: kurt out of new jersey. independence. good morning. caller: good morning, andrew, thank you for speaking. i am not educated, i am pretty smart though. so, i googled your name and you do not show up. how do you expect to accomplish anything? i duck duck go-ed you. i was a democrat and i voted for trump and now i am a skeptic. and i wish you luck, i pray that we do get choices. thank you. host: we are currently googling -- googling and there are plenty

of websites that come up. how would you respond? guest: i just want to say thank you for listening and for continuing to have hope that there are a lot of people who have given up, they are tired of the lies and of the corruption. of the fact that at this point you have a political media complex where you have networks that are essentially hand-in-hand with one party or the other. so, the question is what the heck are we going to do? what is our path out of this? if 62% want an alternative why do we keep getting told that we cannot have it? is that in the constitution? the two party system is made up, and we need to change it as quickly as possible. we have that power. the problem is we get told that we do not by the media organizations that right now

like the status quo and the way things are. so, to kurt's expression that we hopefully can have better, a lot of us have to get together to make it better, and that is what i want to see happen through the forwardparty.com if you go to forwardparty.com you can see that we are not just for three parties, we are for more parties. anyone who is not for the duopoly should embrace the set of reforms that we are championing, it is not just about our party becoming competitive and successful, it is about a fourth or fifth party. we need a more dynamic representative system. thank you for believing that i am trying to make it happen, because i am. host: about halfway through our conversation. the phone lines are open for you. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000.

independents, 202-748-8002. the book, “forward: notes on the future of our democracy." as you put it is a book about many things including your run for office, your presidential campaign. you note in that book how clearly politicians grow susceptible to growing out of touch explain a little bit why. guest: politicians have teams who were constantly trying to get them to save the same thing over and over again so you start acting like an out of moton and then voter -- an automaton, and voters catch on that and people are -- and voters catch on and say this person is using bullet points and we will not get any real change. generally correct. i talked about the political media industrial complex.

if you get to d.c., my gosh. that is very much a factor. you have members of congress who are spending 30% or 40% of their scheduled fundraising, that money is completely neckdeep in d.c.. use -- you feel the influence of money everywhere you go. can you imagine a genuine human being trying to make a difference and run to office they run into this political industrial complex quickly and then they become someone who is not going to change much of anything. and this was my experience when running for president. and then we started getting attention, thank you to those of you who decided to support my campaign. if you did not, do not worry about it. as soon as we started getting money in the door, consultants from d.c. started showing up and we were like we really need you and they were like you need us

because you have to spend money on advertising and try to work the media and the rest of it, so you kind of weave through them but my book goes through some of these things, and i can see clearly why we are so stuck, and the easy answer is to say that these people are terrible, the truth of it is that we have a terrible system that would make even a decent person seem less cool. so, that is what the book is meant to convey. i am a civilian who ran for president of the united states, got very far into the process was on seven debate stages, competed in half a dozen political brand names, and i did that in part because people are fed up. and why are we fed up? our system is designed to take ease and even decent people and make them folks who cannot help us. that is what we need to change. host: new jersey, rhonda.

democrat, good morning. caller: good morning c-span listeners, good morning mr. yang, i consider it a blessing to be able to talk to you. guest: thank you. caller: i want to thank you and the entire democratic party for the stimulus money that you passed last year. and i want to tell you real quick what i did with it. i re-carpeted my second floor, it was 1700 square feet and it ran me to grand. -- two grand. i was able to buy a central air unit. mine had been out first -- for three years. i bought a repurposed one and had it installed for $500. i got my trees trimmed, regular people, americans wanted to charge me $1500 a tree. i got two immigrants to cut my

trees for $500. i cannot tell you how much that money helped me. i want you to encourage your party to pass that stimulus money, even if they do it for people who make less money. i do not think everybody needs it. with couples that make over 200,000 do not need the money. the people that needed it are the regular folks, regular common folks that live in west virginia that are starving, and you know what, thank god -- host: you bring up -- host: you bring up a lot of issues let me jump in on stimulus money. guest: thank you so much one of the most heartwarming things that happens to me when i am walking around and someone says thank you for the $1000, the $1200 and the $800, and the fact that i played a role in that

makes me really proud. i ran for president because i think we can do better for our people, and we 100% can. you know, there are folks concerned about the amount of money that is being put into the economy. only 17% of the $2.2 trillion went to people and families. we have to get more of this money into the hands of families that would use it into the economy on some of the things that rhonda described, and then you could rebuild the middle class and small businesses. you could have a better way of life. the cash relief checks showed it was possible, and the enhanced child tax credit has been a game changer. we can do this, but right now we are not acting like we care about the average american family probably because we do not because our political incentives make the average american family irrelevant. we just keep plowing money into the pipes.

the pipes of the banks, of our financial system and to say the system is more important than us, and it should be the other way around. if you look at the average american family they are down on politics because this does not working but occasionally something peeks through and they say i matter to you and the stimulus checks were an example of that and we need to lean into that in the enhanced child tax credit. the government is not able to deliver on a lot of things that it can deliver on that for real. that is one reason it is one of the main tenets of the forward party, in part so we can put pressure on other parties to follow suit because the american people know that this would help. thank you rhonda. host: david and edmund, rip up -- in edmund, republican. good morning. caller: good morning i first want to introduce myself as a disillusioned lifelong

republican. president lincoln admonished that all of the armies of europe and asia would never occupy the missouri valley or drink from the mississippi river. but, if america was to fall, it would be by suicide. and, it appears to me that, while historically my party has pursued its social and political agenda within the framework of a free and democratic society, that we are kind of through a looking glass to the point where there are no small number of americans who appear to be more than willing to pursue both agendas forsaken unto democracy itself. and i just wonder is that the

suicide that mr. lincoln was warning us of? i would like to hear your comments on my subject. guest: thank you for your comments. it reminds me of a conversation i had with a military veteran a number of days ago when he said he spent years fighting enemies overseas to find that we are disintegrating from within. and we are on the verge of failing as a democracy and a constitutional republic however you would like to frame it. in part because what you are saying. you are right, that is the greatest threat. that is what we have to try and stave off, and one of the ways to do that is to rejuvenate our system so that we do not have just two parties where if one party decides to come to a very bad temptations and say the other party is so bad that we

will contest results and make it so that no one believes in a free and fair election anymore, that is the beginning of a disaster risk process that is very hard to come back from. so we are in much bait -- greater danger of being corroded from within and failing, and this is not speculative anymore, this is an immediate threat that we could witness in the next several years. i do want to present a picture of what could happen in 2024 where if it is trump versus biden, which i think is the most likely scenario, i think we are potentially going to see widespread protests and a contested election on levels that we have not seen in our lifetimes. host: michigan, rob in in -- what is it? caller: that is correct.

i think the last two elections have shown the public is trying to choose the lesser of two evils among the candidates who are extremists. one side has an ego to stickel candidate that i would not welcome -- egotistical candidate who i would not welcome into my home and the other side has socialists that i would not write -- welcome into my part -- into my country. maybe it is time for a third party. i would suggest that condoleezza rice has a candidate and with her there i think she would bring a number of disaffected voters who would say let us get back to middle ground priorities. and i think she could win the election and that would have to because the realignment of both of the other party saying that extremism is not a winning path. and i welcome your comments on that. guest: i agree with you on a lot

of what you just said. i think if you had strong third-party alternatives they would potentially get a majority of americans on board by the numbers where right now independence outnumbered democrats or republicans, 52 -- 52% of americans want a real choice, and if it is trump versus biden and you had condoleezza rice or some other figure, sorry about that. what percent do you think you would get? you could wind up with 40 or 51% personally, and that is based on the numbers that we have seen, the surveys. the question is will that happen in 2024? i think a lot of americans want something like that to happen because we know that the system will not work and so many americans are doing what you described, choosing the lesser of two evils and saying it is

better than that one. and is that really what we should be settling for? in a country of 330 million people, and the 21st century where we are just like point to that one because i hate that person a little bit less than the other person. what kind of system is that? it makes no sense. if condoleezza rice or somebody were to run i think she would win? host: what do run again? guest: i am a patriot and parent and i ran for the first time because i felt like i could help the country. if i felt that was what the country needed i would one run again. host: houston, texas. nancy, an independent. good morning. caller: you seem to forget that president trump did the first stimulus check. i did not hear you mention any of that. and your democrat party fought him all the way. what is your comment on that?

also kamala harris is -- host: that is nancy in texas. guest: i will give full credit to anyone who passes stimulus checks. you are right that the first checks went out under the trump administration republicans, and i was 14 because it helped the american people. host: louisville, kentucky. a democrat. this is bernie. caller: good morning. from what i understand, you were on the program a couple of months ago talking about the forward party. taking the best things from the democratic and republican parties to create this new party, the forward party which i thought was a great idea. how will the forward party approach campaigning when the democrat and republican parties tend to do a lot of mudslinging during the campaign which does nothing but turn my stomach and

i do not know if it changes anybody's mind. how will the forward party approach campaigning and not getting into the mudslinging? and by the way, i love the laugh. guest: thank you. my wife likes it too which i suspect is the most important thing. still married after 11 years. and, a presidential campaign, that is pretty good. what is fascinating is that if you campaign for office and then you say something like i am an independent or i am third-party there is a certain number of voters who are like i like you. and when you talk about the mudslinging, that is one of the things that they want to get away from. they want a candidate who is going to run on something that they care about, and get away from the emotional cues of saying look the other party is out to get you. the fact is that the problems

around this are getting worse and worse, there is something like a hand in glove relationship and running as independent, forward or third-party and trying to be positive and have a unifying message because if you are going to run third-party it does not make sense to trash one side or the other. hopefully we can make this a winning recipe and communities around the country. it is tough because the media out rewards mudslinging, and it does not reward someone who is just trying to make a difference. host: we talked about the lessons you learned on the presidential campaign trail. can you learn -- can you talk about the lessons you learned running for mayor of new york? guest: i was thinking about the mayoral campaign when i made the comment where at any time you say something negative about another candidate the media will point that is the story of the day and if you propose a policy that they will ignore it. and so that is a dynamic that i

saw very much in that race. host: what got ignored? guest: any idea that you thought. -- thought that people would be excited about. one idea was to tax the vacant lots because it would help spur development, it was an idea that i was proud of, no one cared. if someone said something nasty about me than it was front-page news and i tried not to be nasty, so we were not getting a lot of that kind of coverage. host: flesh out the vacant lot idea. guest: right now people are treating land in certain parts of new york city as an investment, and they are not developing it because they are waiting for a better opportunity, and that is a loss for the city because something should be happening on the land. land is an important resource, so we should be taxing vacant lots at much higher levels and saying look, if you are going to try and owned this land you should not treat it as a bond or

something. you have to do something with it. if you are not going to do something with it, sell it to someone who will do something with it. host: how much would that have brought in? guest: billions. there was one vacant lot that would've paid tens of millions in taxes if it was taxed at the same level as other types of properties. so, yes. it was a very good idea and i hope the new mayor does it. host: do any cities in the country or around the world do something like that? guest: there are other cities around the world that are much more intelligent and efficient about this. i am also going to suggest that the u.s. is virtually alone in the world by not having a value-added tax because it is much harder to game your way out of it if it is a big company. it is weird that so many of our big companies pay so little because we have a very gameable system. i believe it is because of lobbying and corruption.

other countries around the world figured this out. amazon should not be paying zero taxes. host: quick 101 on a value-added tax. guest: it is like a tax that every stage of production to pay a little bit of a toll. so, if you are a company you cannot get out of it because the other companies tell the government essentially like they gave me this and then i turned it into a chair and then the chair went here and it went into a car. and so, it is a little bit like a more sophisticated, but that is because companies telling another company, nobly can squirm out of it. host: back to social media. melvin on twitter requests this "please rejoin the democrat party." would you ever consider rejoining? guest: i appreciate the sentiment.

i am a patriot and american, and i think that bipartisanship is killing us. i have a lot of friends in the democrat party and i hope they consider me a friend but i want to do what is best for the country, and i think that polarization is destroying us and i think it is impossible to cure that from within two of the major parties. thank you for thinking me in this light, and this is -- and i am very grateful. host: your phone calls as we talk with him about “forward: notes on the future of our democracy," and the topics you want to talk to him about as well. homestead, florida. rick, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for lifting your voice i have two quick questions. child tax credit is very popular even with moderate republicans like myself. how much damage will both democrats and the republicans do if they do not pass this forward

in the new year? the second one is with multiple parties you can have somebody winning with 21%, what danger would that be having, 79% of the people against you? and i will listen to your comments again. thank you for lifting your voice. guest: thank you. but child tax credit needs to be continued, and i am still cautiously optimistic that when the senate reconvenes in the new year we are going to see a revival of discussions because after it got missed on january 15 everyone will hear about it, republican, democrats, and communities around the country because it is a lot of everyone's favorite thing. 62 million benefit it directly. an equivalent number is benefiting indirectly where people are running a small business and people are coming

into buy groceries and run daycare. i am cautiously optimistic but we need to let our constituents -- our representatives know and both parties that this is the best thing that you have done in eons. so i am working hard to try and help the child tax credit persist and continue because it has been an enormous when but we have to let people know. moderate republicans love them and there are a lot of republican senators who like this, i know this for a fact. let reason prevail. one of the reasons why the child tax credit is failing because of polarization and if you had not -- if you had voted on independently in the senate it passes because a bunch of republicans would support it. right now it is getting stuck because you have this terribly partisan system where it is a fiasco, i am upset about it. that is on the child tax credit.

to your point about having minority of americans end up voting for the purpose and that a lot of people do not like it. number one it is happening right now. number two, we need to progress in terms of the way we count votes. i hope you stick with me. there is something called instant runoff voting, it is also called ranked choice voting where you can vote for first, second, and third choice and the winner has to have a majority of support. on some level on your ballot. and so if you have this process and it can be a spoiler, to say that the democrat or republican and then a third party person right now nobody votes for the third party person because they will spoil it for the democrat or republican and both parties uses argument because you cannot

have an alternative or will mess it up. if you use runoff voting you can vote independent and then democrat or republican second choice. it is a very simple change. 50 plus cities around the country have adopted it. two states have adopted it, maine and alaska. if you adopt instant runoff voting problem solved and that is, by the way very heil the list of the forward party. if you combine that with nonpartisan open primaries you can have different points of view marriage and make it so eight reasonable candidate who is unifying and prone to compromise gets rewarded rather than the flamethrower on one side or the other. host: to the peach state, dixie rose in oakwood. independent. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you all today? host: good.

caller: yes, sir, i would like to thank all of you all who participate in these debates and the betterment of our country, that our country imposes upon the world and that what we do is the focus, and that this man is a glimmering light in the darkness that we should support new and youthful and get out of this turmoil of tit for tat for these people. what we are living in right now is just turmoil and stuff, and anybody that has a positive attitude is great. but i want to thank everyone good and bad for their contribution to the united states. and, i will vote for you, mister. guest: thank you. i could not agree more, that everyone who is participating today does deserve a pat on the back, if you care about the

country and trying to make it better, you are trying to be constructive. that is what the country really wants and needs. and it should be something we are trying to get behind and reward whether it is me in the forward party or something else that someone is trying to do. a nonprofit trying to help people, just help them help people. and try and be our own antidote , because it is not going well, our institutions are not doing that well but we as individuals and community members, we can help people and if we do that, we will feel better about ourselves and our contributions, so thank you, and that is so positive. the fact that you see me in that way makes me very happy, and happy holidays. host: time for two more calls. karen in alabaster, alabama. a republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

there are some points that i agree with you on, term limits, i would love them to get those passed. your nonpartisan primary idea seems like an interesting one. i am trying to think of what the catch would be for the democrats on it to be honest, but i would have to review it a little bit more. but it sounded like a great idea. i also wanted to say that you have a very charming, persuasive personality, i wish you were republican. i think your laugh is great too. you keep saying that amazon is not paying taxes. i do not like corporations either, i do not like jeff bezos or their politics that they do pay taxes, and i think when i say you guys, i mean democrats, you say this all the time, they talk -- they pay a ton of payroll taxes. a way that the corporation works as they have their revenue coming in, they have expenses

and then they have net profit, and that net profit is allocated to the owner of the corporation or the shareholders and whoever the people are who created the corporation and they pay the taxes. what you are trying to do is also tax the corporation so they will be double taxed. but that is how that works to anybody out there who does not know. the last point is save our democracy, that is a subjective term. the previous caller had said that it is a constitutional republic which you agreed. i believe that biden's executive orders and a lot of his mandates are going against our republic. they are not constitutional. and so, who's definition of save our democracy do we listen to? my definition or your definition. that is all i have. guest: thank you further comments -- further comments. i have a clever way to get term

limits past. what you do as you go to congress and say 12 year term limits in each house, but it only applies to people who come in after you. because you know they are not going to get themselves out of a job so you say you can have your cake and eat it too, you get grandfathered in. and then they can vote for it and then over time they would leave and they would get people in. so, hopefully you can see visually what that would look like, that is the kind of change that we would need, and that is what the forward party wants to make happen. amazon is paying taxes in various ways in terms of payroll taxes and the rest of it. i would say that when you talk about the owners paying taxes, like right now if you are jeff bezos and you own that stock you are not having to pay until you sell the stock, which he does not do. and so, there has to be some

kind of mechanism to benefit from that company's incredible growth, particularly because that company ends up weeding out all other other -- another lot of other mom-and-pop shops and businesses. i also agree with you that when you say save our democracy different people mean different things. and that is something that we should be working on. we need to try and find common ground because most of us should at least agree on some basic principles like the fact that we should be able to have meaningful choices and there should be real accountability for representatives, but right now there is not. host: we are running short by joann has been reading for a while and caller: i would like to know how the forward party what address

the infrastructure, the financial infrastructure so it will address the $347 trillion that is secret money in the little tiny state like my state, thank you. guest: what state was this? host: south dakota. mr. yang: i'm not aware of something specific to self dakota as far as they're being a lot of money in the financial system. host: i think she's talking about the pandora papers were work in the stories out of that . mr. yang: i confess to not being any more familiar with that than the next person. there is a real need for us to do a better job with

transparency and our financial system to getting consolidated to a handful of megabanks. it's one reason i am for innovation in that space which can include bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. i'm not sure if that addresses her question at all. host: before you go, the future of the forward party? mr. yang: hopefully, we will make an impact as soon as november, 2022. if you want to be a part of the forward party, come check us out at forward party.com and you can be one of the first members. you get to make a difference at the ground floor. feel free to pick up our book. i'm concerned about the country and hopefully we can do something about it and hopefully we can make that happen right now in the next number of days.

appreciate you all and happy holidays to you and your families. create the kind of memories that you need. host: his book his notes on the future of our democracy, we always of recent you taking the calls on "washington journal." mr. yang: c-span, calling it down the middle. always appreciate you. host: about an hour left and we will return to the question we began the program with as we near the end of 2021. we are letting you look back on the top policy stories of the past 12 months and what you will be watching for in the new year. go ahead and start calling and now we will get to your calls after the rake.

-- after the break. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including mediacom. the world change in an >>com schools and businesses went virtual and we powered a new reality. thanks to mediacom we are powering the road ahead. >> mediacom supports sees, -- support c-span as well as these other providers give you a front row seat to democracy. >> on september 20, 2010, isabel rechristened spoke to us out her book, the epic story of america's great migration. quoting her from the interview, the book is about the migration

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continues. host: we return to the question to begin with today. as you reflect on 2021, what is the top foreign policy of the year? we split our phone lines up by political parties. about 25 minutes left to continue to get your thoughts. steven from bakersfield, california, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. everybody is bickering over everything. the democrats, trump, they ridicule him, they lie, all this stuff about hillary clinton and all that stuff.

what this amounts to is we are setting up for one world order and if you understood revelations, you might want to change or politics. host: do you want to talk about a top foreign policy event of the last 12 months? caller: the last 12 months? i would say -- ok, the pandemic i would imagine. it's whipping us and it's not going to end anytime soon. we are in jacob's trouble coming up. host: pete from phoenix, arizona, republican, good morning, looking back on the last 12 months, what was the key

foreign policy event in your mind? caller: it was bidens failure to correct the policies that could lead us to war, 2022. it was against ukraine or the iranians. in the ukraine, we've had this policy since 2014 where we actually went in there and helped institute a coup to overthrow the elected government and then we been arming ukraine to the tune of $2.5 billion. i don't know if -- how we would react if california seceded from the government and the chinese came in and helped overthrow the government.

and have the russian army preparing for war for the people in fresno and bakersfield who want to be part of the united states. the other big issue i think is the iran nuclear deal. he hasn't taken a real action to reinstitute the iran nuclear deal except he continued the policy of total war which is a total outrage. the united states has pursued this the last few years. we are striving to get starving populations in a sensitive position where they are so discontent with their lives that they will try to overthrow their governments. host: the two topics you bring up with talks continuing on both fronts, first when it comes to trying to de-escalated tensions in ukraine, the u.s. and russia

agreed to hold security talks on january 10 amid tensions over russian forces deployed near ukraine and moscow demands that nato renounce any expansion eastward into the former soviet lock. no sign has emerged that the two sides of been able to narrow their differences concerning the core demand that the nato sever its military ties with ukraine and georgia. those talks are set for january 10 and will be held in geneva as part of an ongoing security dialogue between the two sides. when it comes to iran, the story from the associated press this week, negotiators from iran and five world powers resumed their negotiations on monday of this week on restoring tehran's 2015 nuclear deal insisting that the united states and allies promise to allow it to export its crude

oil, the latest round of talks in vienna, it opens 10 days after negotiations were adjourned before the iranian negotiators returned home to have consultations. that is from the associated press so talks on both fronts you bring up. greg, texas, independent, good morning. caller: hello. thanks for taking my call. my question is, i guess the 777 billion dollars that we are spending in the military, and i hope you consider that a foreign policy issue because it's probably going to foreign countries to fight wars. i'm just wondering what if we

took 10 or 20% of that and put it on the border and protected our own borders? what about the rest of the money in this reconciliation bill that's going to go to taking care of other people besides americans? i guess my point is it seems like we are misguided on where money goes. i don't want to keep fighting wars all over the world. host: on monday of this week, president biden signed the national defense authorization act, the military spending authorization bill, the annual bill and it was signed and included $25 billion more than what the president had originally read rested for the u.s. military back when he made

the budget request at the beginning of his term. what does that tell you about military spending and their view on it? caller: it tells me that we have one less war in afghanistan and we are still spending more money because i guess -- andrew yang was good when he mentioned the media industrial complex but i'm talking about the military-industrial complex. to those guys, they need to keep making more and more money all the time. where else can we go? you guys do a great job but why can't we mind our own business? host: greg at of wichita falls, texas. paul from lexington kentucky, democrat good morning. caller: good morning. i'm going to save foreign policy

wise, the biggest problem we made was in afghanistan. we handled that really poorly. not only for afghanistan but how it affects us across the world. in the image we have. the second one is, our border and that becomes foreign policy because how we deal with central america, mexico and all the way down into south america, we are not handling that well. i'm not a big advocate for a

wall but i am an advocate of we need to provide good care. my third one is a good one and that is we've gotten back into supporting the who. we are getting back into talking about climate in a national way. i think those are positive moves. i don't have a fourth one. host: we appreciate you raising those three as we talk about the top foreign policy story of 2021. you talk about the united states getting back into things. it was president biden in his first speech as president before the u.n. general assembly in the wall, talking about rebuilding

alliances and the idea of relentless diplomacy in the world. this is what he had to say. [video clip] pres. biden: instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are turning our eyes on devoting our resources to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future. ending this pandemic, addressing the climate crisis, managing the shifts in global power dynamics, shaping the rules of the world and vital issues like trade, cyber and emerging technologies. and facing the threat of terrorism as it stands today. we have ended 20 years of conflict in afghanistan and as we close this relentless war, we are opening a new your of relentless to pharmacy, abusing the power of our development age to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world,

renewing and defending democracy, proving that no matter how challenging or how complex the problems we will face, government by and for the people is still the best way to deliver for all of our people. host: president biden back in september of this year, we are asking what you think the top foreign policy of the year story is. dottie in georgia, republican, what do you think? caller: i'm not sure if this is considered foreign policy. what concerns me is the report that came out aboutuat's, that our government has said this is real and we don't know what it is and something is out there and we have no clue what it is. this terrifies me. host: you think we will learn

more in 2022? caller: i hope so. i am elderly so i'm not concerned for myself but i'm concerned for my children and grandchildren. nobody is talking about this. they admitted there something there but they haven't said what it is. if it's not us, why aren't we more concerned about this? host: dottie in georgia. this is mike and san dimas, california, republican, good morning. caller: my point was already made by somebody else. i'll stick with afghanistan and the way we pulled out and the people that were killed who work side-by-side with their soldiers and just abandon them was to me a travesty. thank you. host: michael in riverside, california, independent, good morning, your top foreign policy story of 2021?

caller: [indiscernible] people should be a priority over everything. thank you. host: nathan out of the buckeye state, independent, your top foreign policy story of 2021? caller: oh my, it predates 2021 but i think the polar vortex is huge because goes against more scientific evidence that has been theorized about what climate change is doing to the world since the 90's and the 80's and it's just accumulation. now we have tornadoes in minnesota in december. when we will start looking at the evidence? rain forest are burning and

australia lost 60 million acres. at some point come we have to look at the cumulative data throughout the world and not let the corporations continue to do what they are are doing and destroying this planet. that's how i look at it, thank you for your time. i appreciate andrew yang as well. host: more from the world stage, this is president biden from just last month at the u.n. climate conference in scotland talking about the issue of climate change. pres. biden: we meet with the eyes of history upon us in -- and the profound questions before us. it's simple, will we act? will we do what is necessary? will we seize the enormous opportunity before us or will we condemn you to generations to suffer? this is the decade that will determine the answer, this decade. the science is clear, we only

have a brief window left before us to raise our ambitions and meet the task that is rapidly narrowing. this is a decisive decade in which we have an opportunity to prove ourselves. we can keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius within our reach if we come together. if we commit to doing our part of each of our nations with determination and ambition, that's what cop 26 is all about. glascow must be the kickoff of a decade of ambition and innovation to preserve our shared future. climate change is already ravaging the world. we have heard from many speakers. it's not a hypothetical threat. is destroying people's lives and livelihoods and doing it every single day.

it's costing our nations trillions of dollars, record heat and drought feeling more widespread and more intense wildfires and crop failures and other places. record flooding and -- in what used to be once in a century storms are now happening every few years. in the past few months, united states has experienced all of this in every region of the world can tell a similar story. in an age where the pandemic is made so painfully clear that no nation can wall it self off from borderless threats, we know none of us can escape the worst that is yet to come if we fail to seize this moment. host: that was president biden last month on the issue of climate change. less than 10 minutes left in this segment of "washington journal" to talk about the top foreign policy story of the year

at 9:30 a.m. eastern, we will turn the phone lines over to you in our open forum and you can call in on any public policy or political issue you want to talk about it but for now, just your top foreign policy story. rose in apex, north carolina, republican, what do you think? caller: i have two that are tied together. the top or me is joe biden laughing at the council on foreign relations over his quit broke well and the outrage of extortion from ukraine. i wonder why he left like a hyena and the second one closely follows, it's the hiding of hillary selling uranium to russia step also the fake russian dossier that has caused so much trouble. the very last one would be build back better and coming from the

world economic forum. those who have attended broke the logan act and are making choices without the consent of the american people. i think build back better is the worst because they did plan a pandemic in october of 2019 with regard to the release. host: tim from lakeview, arkansas, independent you are next. caller: good morning and thank you to that lady from north carolina, those are important but my biggest one is the surrender in chief surrendering who surrendered our borders to the mexican cartels so they could make money shipping 2 million people across the border and also is surrendering to china and doing apsley nothing about them shipping the virus over here. not a single thing.

that's because they are so deep in his pockets. he's been feeding himself as family off of the taxpayers back of a bad policy for years. if you want one more, it would have to be the surrender of bagram air poise -- airport to the chinese. he literally went out in the middle of the night so he could hand it over to the next biggest power and that is china. host: laurie, long beach california, democrat you are next. caller: i appreciate it. i cannot understand the republicans and where they get these ideas. anyway, i'm calling about afghanistan, the constant criticism of biden on afghanistan and the withdrawal. didn't trump make that deadline?

biden has to abide by that deadline to withdraw so they keep criticized biden over the withdrawal but he had no choice but to do it. the other issue quickly of the border, i was a nurse for 42 years in southern california. illegals have crossed and they took sputum samples from them. they do test illegals that come over here and i'm sure for covid now when they catch them all step they are tested in the hospital and go to immigration jail and then they send them back. there is a lot of misinformation as we all know. that's about it but thank you for letting me talk. host: georgia, republican, good morning. caller: i found to 24 hour television comedy shows that

everybody should listen to. one is russian television and the other is the chinese global television it. they're both so ridiculous. you have a kgb murderer in one country and a george orwell he and amber leading another. they are trying to tell us how to run our country. it's so ludicrous. i don't know how we allow it. host: are you more concerned about one or the other? caller: china is pretty smooth. russia is sort of crude. their propaganda is out of this world. it's laughable. they must think we are idiots and maybe we are sometimes. host: this is new york, a

democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, i'm just following up, i believe russia is the biggest ongoing threat. they obviously invaded ukraine in 2014 massing along the border and making threats but i'm particular concerned that since trump clearly worked with the russians were cozied up to them, the investors were in the oval office and kicked out the americans, i'm afraid a lot of trump people are russian supporters. i think we need to mold these people out and i think russia presents an ongoing threat from cyber to military to propaganda. host: what you think happens in

the 12 months to come? caller: i think biden is doing is good a job as he can under the hand he was dealt and i think he has good people in place. it's going to be interesting to see what happens. we definitely have to be on the same page as a country and i really wish that people wouldn't be so convinced by propaganda that like fake news and here are the callers calling in and i believe they are good people but they are misinformed. it's great to hear how you deal with some of the callers when you take their points and you still make sense out of it and that helps educate and inform was better because there is so much stuff out there that is distracting. that is a major issue and i thank you for that step host: that was the last call in this segment step it's coming up

on 9:30 a.m. on the east coast and in our final half hour, we are turning the phone lines over to you. what public policy or state or political issues do you want to talk about? it's our open forum and start calling in on those issues. we will get to your phone calls and just a second but i wanted to note why the flag over the united states capital is at half-staff this morning. that's because we learned late yesterday that armor senate majority leader harry reid has died. he died yesterday at his home in henderson, nevada. a clip of one of his many appearances on capitol hill and he is one of the leaders in terms of appearances in the

c-span archives. this is from 2013, senator harry reid, taking reporter questions at the u.s. capitol. [video clip] >> it's been held up for an average of nine months. doesn't need to be changed? yes. you always get through to me, look at all these people. you are a bully. [laughter] >> you mentioned judges. senator lahey will send dcc nominees. host: that scene from harry reid's exchange on the capital back in 2013. the reporter he was talking to, that so-called bully was a senior writer for congress on the white house neal winooski and he's joining us this morning by phone to talk about the legacy of harry reid stop do you remember that moment on capitol hill? guest: i certainly do.

thank you for having me this morning. it was a little bit unexpected. in those days when senator reid would have the tuesday afternoon stakeout at the ohio corridor, i was pretty much one of the regulars who was there every week working for roll call. it sort of became a recurring element with senator reid picking on a few select regulars in the crowd. the other one that comes to mind as you may remember was steve dennis who also used to work at roll call and works at bloomberg

now. he had a moment where he was accused of asking a clown question in the parlance of harry reid for bryce harper back when he was playing for the nationals. this was sort of a recurring part of the sort of shtick, i would call it. host: we get a sense of it from some of those clips but what was harry reid like as a person on capitol hill? what was he like in those conversations when the cameras were there? guest: senator reid was a fascinating person to cover. when the cameras were not on, he and his wife were high school sweethearts and had been married for more than six decades at the time of his passing.

he couldn't be the most abrasive person you ever dealt with but i know from many experiences, not just of my own but colleagues and staffers and all sorts of people i've talked to, when you had suffered a loss or when you had a child on the way, the moments of life that are not about the rough-and-tumble of politics, he was one of the lawmakers and maybe to view who actually paid attention to what was going on around him in the capital will the. host: on twitter after the news came out yesterday about harry reid death, calling him perhaps the most important elected official in nevada history, plenty of writing in the

independent today about his legacy in nevada, growing up in searchlight and rising to state offices and then federal offices stuff what are your thoughts on his legacy on capitol hill? guest: on capitol hill, the sort of greatest legacy is whether he wanted it to be or not, the biggest will be the fact that the filibuster rule changed for nominations on his watch. we had that year where he grew incredibly frustrated with what the republicans were doing during the obama years with the circuit judge nominees and the result was that he and the democratic caucus use the

so-called nuclear option and brought down the threshold for approving judges to a simple majority. obviously, it has continued since then and senator mcconnell and the republicans under president trump expanded that to the supreme court. that's one legacy piece. the other thing that is both a home state issue and a national issue -- i would be very interested to see what happens now with the long stalled or canceled or dead and never coming back nuclear waste response -- repository at yucca mountain. he single-handedly killed and used every lever he could come up with as party leader and

earlier as appropriate or to make sure that it never happened. on capitol hill, the legacy from that is the power that the leader has, if you are a state like nevada that is not terribly populous and you get someone of your own to be the leader of either the democratic or republican party in the senate, you can do a lot more and really push above your weight. host: you mentioned harry reid in his home state and on capitol hill. i will let you think of your favorite story from capitol hill and i share this one story from back in his home state before he came to congress. the paragraph in the wall street journal notes he was appointed the top gambling regulator in the late 1970's, job which he had held in 1981, face to face

with organized crime and built a reputation for toughness, teaming up with the fbi to set up a sting operation everyman tried to drive him. he veered off script and tried to choke the would be briber. that's one story about him from back in the day. net your favorite story about your time with him? caller: guest: i will not quote it to let -- directly on air but there was the 2013 incident where there was a meeting between the party leaders in the house and the senate and there was a back-and-forth between harry reid and then speaker were minority leader at the time john boehner. it ultimately led to expletives

being exchanged and what's fascinating is this is a famous exchange over the years but they went ahead and became sort of partners after they retired boehner and read and were both involved in a public policy project associated with mgm casinos so it fell into the category of an encounter was just one for the history books. i was just pulling up the quotation from speaker boehner's recent memoir so i can read the quotation. it's about how macconnell responded -- mr. decorum which he called o'connell was a

stunned and horrified witness to this angry encounter. i thought he was going to keel over from cardiac arrest then and there. so boehner had called read expletives in this exchange as well and john boehner said their relationship got a lot better after that. this is somehow how you needs to deal with harry reid. he could punch and take punches. host: before you go, do we know anything yet about funeral services or remembrances in washington? i know it just happened late yesterday. guest: we have not seen announcements yet from the family, they sent a statement from his wife but further

announcements for services would be for coming so we will be looking out for those over the next holiday and early into the new year. host: senior writer for congress and the white house, we appreciate your time this morning. there is the flag over the u.s. senate. you are looking at a shot from our studios to the senate side of the capital and it was senate jodey leader chuck schumer ordered flags over the capital to be lowered to half staff last night after the announcement came back. harry reid had died yesterday after a four year battle with pancreatic cancer. he died at his home in henderson, nevada. about 20 minute left in our program this morning and is promised, an open forum and any public policy issue or political issue you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours.

fort washington, republican, good morning. are you there? caller: good morning. i wanted to say that when harry reid went through the nuclear option, it must be the republican view that came up where they got to use it to get those three picks in and now trying to ruin the filibuster again stuff it didn't work out too good last time so i that i hope they rethink it. also, somebody said president biden had to follow what trump said on getting out of afghanistan. i don't think he did follow the timeline. he changed it to later and he

made it august 31 or whatever and he could have done whatever he wanted. he wasn't down by anything. host: it was a spring deadline and he delighted by several months. caller: yeah. yeah, he changed it anyway. i don't think he had to do it. he could have done whatever he wanted or said we are not leaving. maybe i'm wrong but anyway, i was bringing those two points up, thank you very much. host: ben, democrat, good morning. caller: calling regarding the question of the day on the most significant foreign policy event of the year. i would have to say without a doubt it has to be pulling out of afghanistan which is not a bad thing stuff i am a democrat my believe we should not be asking as -- acting as police

around the world. we had to give people a chance to reform. i don't think there is any shaming going back into afghanistan. my solution is we should send waves of airplane over their airspace and scare the living but jesus out of them. the other callers on the republican side say it's covid. covid is not foreign policy and biden is investigating the origins of covid in china. he's not easy on china. host: alexandria, indiana, good morning. caller: i think our biggest

thing that we have going on right now is the corruption we have in the white house. it seems like all the money that's being spent may be high enough five or 10% of the money is going where it's supposed to go and we've got a lot of stealing going on. we just had $100 billion, missing. maybe somebody could address this issue. host: i was trying to pull up the committee on covid relief. the select committee that was set up, the committee on pandemic oversight i believe. it was set up through congress that is looking into some of

those issues. i guess the question is do you trust congress to investigate waste, fraud and use of the money they are sending out the door? caller: no, i cannot trust our administration. it seems like they don't have any kind of background for taking care of our money. it's been misused. host: thanks for the call. the select subcommittee on the coronavirus is what i was looking for coronavirus. house.gov and they have had several hearings on waste, fraud and abuse and there is a tip line to report waste, fraud and

abuse. joe in red bank, new jersey, good morning. caller: this may seem idealistic that i would like to see public funding of congressional elections and senatorial elections. the senators and congressmen comment on how much money they need for elections and reelections and distracting from their job which should be legislating on behalf of the american people. host: did you hear andrew yang when he was on? caller: no i didn't. host: one of his proposals, i think he called them democracy dollars. every american gets $100 in federal funds that they can direct to the candidate of their choice. his point was that doing that flushes out the special interest

money if enough americans point their $100 and send it to a specific candidate. your thoughts on that? caller: that would be a good idea because of a senator or congressman is beholden to someone giving them money how are they going to do anything to oppose items in congress that are favored by the special interest groups of silicon valley and other places in the united states? i think that would be a good idea and perhaps in the next few years, something like that will be introduced and passed by congress. we can have a government, of the people and by the people and for the people.

host: thanks for the call. salsberry, north carolina, democrat. caller: good morning. one guy stated he doesn't know where the money is going when a democrat is in office. the democrats are trying to distribute money to the people before we distribute it back to wars and the 1% is getting all the money. i'm calling about afghanistan. when the biden administration pulled out of afghanistan, people act as though it was all messed up. they never mentioned anything about the deals the trump made with the telephone to release isys. isis is now going through afghanistan and taking them out.

if anybody wants to look at anything wrong about after kanas stan, it was trump's dealing that did this in the first place. it's totally ridiculous when they talk about the removal and afghanistan. they act like it was joe biden's fault and it was trump's fault stuff host: you say democrats are trying to move money away from wars but earlier this week, president biden signed the $770 billion defense bill on that was 24 billion dollars more than what he originally asked for so congress added even more than the president asked for for military funding and congress is

controlled in both chambers by democrats. caller: at the same time, when barack obama crossed the red line, the senators, the republicans would not even vote to help the pushback -- two pushback vladimir putin when he and -- when he entered the crimea. they were giving money to wars but they will not vote to give money to american people who has to fight those wars. it's totally ridiculous. host: this is virginia in california, good morning. caller: i would like to speak on january 6 that i can -- that i cannot believe could ever happen in our united states. i agree with the fellow about the money that goes into the selections. i think the lobbyists should be shut down on that would solve

that problem. we don't need private donations from these big corporations. i also believe people that don't live in california, i'm sure i will get some retaliation for this but i live in southern california. i wish they would correct themselves. we do not have open borders. i have lived here all my life so thank you very much. get their information correct. thank you. host: washington, d.c., independent, good morning. caller: good morning, i have two points, one is it's extremely frustrating because a number of issues. republicans raised some of the issues correctly and democrats respond on some of the same issues correctly.

the middle is there but neither one of them -- on immigration, it's true that we know who is in and who is out step we need to control our border. the way republicans want to do it is wrong stuff the manner by which the demo rats want to address the issue is right. the hoopla and the entire conversation has become so frustrating. they are talking across each other without really understanding that this is about our country step we need to protect what we need to protect. host: this is rick, council bluffs, iowa, republic and, good morning. caller: good morning.

i was wondering if you had any recordings of january 6 thing going on there in washington? i think nancy pelosi played little mom with a rope a dope. she could've have had the national guard out there two or three days before that. she refused. host: that's rick and iowa. we know president biden will be working the anniversary, waiting for details on what he is doing as well. a hearing is getting held in capitol hill to talk about congressional security a year after january 6 with the capitol

set to testify. we will be airing that hearing live on c-span. plenty more on that next week. glenn in greenbriar, arkansas, independent. caller: good morning. i'm going to reflect back on your last thing, foreign policy. i would like to know why you don't make a report of how many billions of dollars the first 10 days joe biden signed executive orders. every one of them was to help foreign countries. everything he signed an executive order on was to help foreign countries, communist countries he is in the pocket of . what is there no report on his

executive orders? that doesn't help america. he put 275 trucks on the road and all the climate change. why are they not reporting the williams of dollars he cost us and gave them. host: i got your point. pete in michigan, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, there was a gentleman that made the statement about trump making the deal to pull out of afghanistan. that is 35 change that date step you don't leave civilians

behind. you get your civilians out first. climate change -- let's not forget the buildings you put up that are tall changes windshear. let's stop building taller buildings and maybe there are problems with climate control but you will not solve it all overnight. i was in politics, it's rough but i will tell you, i'm a dinner rat and the top officials, i would be switching to republican, thank you. host: what elected office did you run for? caller: i was a supervisor here in michigan and acosta township. it's a rough job and i can imagine how rough it is in washington will step we did catch people stealing. they were prosecuted.

host: a minute or two left in the program. i wanted to give our viewers a programming note for later today. at 11 a.m. eastern, we expect another white house covid response team and we will air that here on c-span. one or two more calls, oklahoma, republican. what's on your mind? caller: i wanted to throw the question out there, you have these people crossing over the border. i see these people are young. is anybody investigating how many babies are being stolen from people in mexico? they get these people over the border because they know they have to have a young child with them. host: and this is patricia in

georgia, a democrat, last caller. caller: yes, i'm calling about the republicans. as a child,, i'm glad you had that girl on yesterday step they need to pass the bill back that are built step -- the build back better bill. republicans are rednecks. host: we try not to end with name-calling but we will be back tomorrow morning on this program at 7 a.m. eastern and at 4 a.m. pacific. in the meantime, we hope you have a very nice wednesday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, brought to you by these television companies including buckeye broadband. ♪ buckeye broadband support c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, hitting you a front row seat to democracy. >> this morning the white house covid-19 response team holds a briefing on the biden administration's