covid-19 crushed us and how we can defeat the next pandemic. plus you can join the conversation with your calls, texts ♪ host: good morning, it is thursday, december 30, 2021. we'll talk about the jury trial system in this country. we begin with a look back on the year in politics. we want to your picks for clinical story of the past 12 months phone lines split by political party. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000.

independents, 202-748-8002. you can send us a text at 202-748-8003. if you do, include your name and where you are from. catch up with us on social media. on twitter, @cspanwj. facebook.com/c-span. a very good thursday morning to you. you can start calling in on your top political story of the year as we show you some headlines from recent days. this is a piece from the wall street journal last week, "politics was supposed to return to normal in 2021." he asks what happened. npr's wrap up from the capital right to abortion rights. politico asked historians how this year will be written about centuries from now.

here is their wrap up of what historians had to say. many highlighted the erosion of democratic norms in the u.s., most notably through the attempt to question and overturn legitimate election results. a number focused on the downstream effects of the pandemic like labor market shifts and more. we heard about systemic racism from black americans, an uptick in violence against asian americans and an overall feeling the country was polarized along racial lines. other contributors believed 2021 will be remembered as a missed opportunity to address climate change and the year u.s. ended its 20 year war in afghanistan. or as an inflection point's in america's -- inflection point in america's place in post-world war ii democratic order. we want to hear what you think.

what are the top political stories of the past 12 months? phone lines split by political parties. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. as you call in, there is one event from the beginning of 2021 we will be hearing a lot more about next week on the anniversary of the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol building. the washington post with their headline, the committee investigating that begins a more public phase of its work. congress is said to hold a hearing on the eve of. guest: -- on the eve of that event. how the capitol police are preparing for the one-year anniversary and we are expecting

president biden to mark the one-year anniversary. some stories we're are looking at this morning and we want to hear from you, what do you think the top story of 2021 will be? mike, independent. you are up first. caller: i would like to talk about the laptop from hell no one is talking about and the russian collusion which was supposedly donald trump and it turns out it was the democratic party and hillary clinton. what is going to be done about it? are we going to have to wait one year before anything is done about it? it is like the 800 pound gorilla in the room. host: cleveland, ohio. bruce, what do you think is the top political story of the year? caller: good morning. my top one was the insurrection on january 6.

this thing was plotted and planned by trump and republican lawmakers, senators and congressmen. they planned the insurrection. we know trump incited them. they are getting these life sentences for breaking into the capital. that is a treasonous act -- these light sentences for breaking into the capitol building. that is a treasonous act. they should get 20 years. host: you might want to check out today's wall street journal, a snapshot of where those prosecutions are. that story noting that several of those cases are set to go to jury trials in the coming months. around 700 people stormed the

building while congress met to certified president biden's win. 45 rioters have been sentenced, 19 sentenced to some period of incarceration. that map showing where the arrests have taken place, where the individuals came from that have been arrested. 270 charged with obstructing, influencing, or interrupting an official seating. others charged with impeding officers. other charges, we will be talking about those more later. colleen in massachusetts, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. for me, the topic of most concern is voting reform. as a republican and trump supporter, i was disappointed that in the election, mail in

ballots were allowed in states where they never had proper mail in balloting done before. on the west coast, they have mail in balloting but usually they don't get the results for a couple of weeks. they have to verify the mail in ballots and that was never done here. my belief is that without female in ballots, trump more than likely would have been reelected. i'm disappointed to see that the democrats are trying to push through very fast types of mail in ballots that do not ensure that the people are voting are truly registered voters. host: how do you feel about

efforts to expand early voting? she hung up. this is terry from cleveland, tennessee, democrat. caller: good morning. i want to know if biden is going to keep his word about social security. he promised us $1300 more a month. he is just another politician. they do need to put a limit or some type of mail in ballot. if you cannot show your id, you should not be able to vote. host: you, a democrat, voted for joe biden in 2020? caller: hell no. and i never will vote for him. host: anita in north carolina, republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

i think the biggest story is the insurrection and the crimes that came before or after with the violence, with kyle rittenhouse and ahmaud arbery situation. if we disagree, we cannot be violent. not with guns about words. we have to find a way to disagree or someone is going to turn up this country. host: we talked about the january 6 cases go to trial. he mentions the kyle rittenhouse case, found not guilty. you mentioned the ahmaud arbery case. the three men in that case found guilty of murty. -- guilty of murder. do you feel the jury system is

working? caller: i am not an expert. jesse jackson junior could probably answer that. the corporations are running a lot of things and the people are working very hard. my mother worked very hard and her father worked very hard, served in world war ii. we are not getting a fair shake here. we cannot afford to get a house or feed our children. something is not fair. host: a couple of colors bringing up the january 6 attack on the capital this month at the select committee investigating the attack. the vice chair, republican liz cheney, talked about the state of the investigation. here's what she had to say. [video clip] >> in the week before generous

six's, trump's appointees -- before january 6, trump's appointees told him that if claims of election fraud were not supported by evidence and the election was not stolen. president trump intended to appoint jeffrey clark as attorney general in part so that mr. clark could alter the department of justice's conclusions. mr. clark has informed this committee he anticipates potential criminal prosecution related to these matters and intends in upcoming testimony to invoke his fifth amendment privilege against incrimination. as his nonprivileged texts reveal, meadows communicated multiple times with a member of congress working with mr. clark. mr. meadows has no basis to refuse to testify regarding those communications. he is in contempt.

january 6 was without precedent. there has been no stronger case in our nation's history for a congressional investigation into the actions of a former president. this investigation is not like other congressional inquiries. our constitution, the structure of our institutions, and the rule of law which are at the heart of what makes america great are at stake. we cannot be satisfied with incomplete answers or half-truths. we cannot surrender to president trump's efforts to hide what happened. we will be persistent, professional, and nonpartisan. we will get to the objective truth to ensure the january's -- to ensure january 6 never happens again. host: liz cheney from earlier this month at the select committee investigating the january 6 attack.

we are spending the first hour asking you what you feel the top vertical story of the past 12 months would be. look at everything that happened the past 12 months and let us know what you think ranks as the top political story. benji in west virginia, democrat. caller: [indiscernible] i don't know what else to call it but a mass suicide. host: this is frank in michigan. caller: good morning. honestly, i think the -- host: to roy in georgia. caller: i think the democrats turned a peaceful protest --

they took demonstration and inserted members of the federal government, anitfa, and black lives matter and they stopped pe nce from challenging the certification of the election. they outsmarted the republicans. now they are prosecuting them so nobody will challenge what is going on. i think it will be a rude awakening when america finally wakes up. host: have you followed this investigation? what facts did you point to for that kind of conspiracy? caller: the fbi informant led the first assault onto the capital. one of the black leaders who is a trump pager was wearing a manga hat and was there when the woman was shot. he was claiming he is working for cnn. host: this is bill in

pennsylvania. what is your top pick for political story of the last 12 months? caller: my answer would be january 6, the insurrection. the mob that attacked the capital. they should be put in jail for at least five years. as far as trump goes, they need to chase him down and lock him up. host: dorothy in fayetteville, north carolina. your top pick for -- your pick for the top political story of the past 12 months? caller: i am so upset about the insurrection that happened at our capital. we have grown people -- they are not acting like children, i don't know what they are acting like. i was so upset to see someone invade our capital like that who

belonged to the u.s.a. host: cj in baton rouge, louisiana. independent. good morning. caller: i think the total debacle at the border, which there is nothing going on there but illegals coming over without anything to stop them. biden does not know what he is doing. we have got some problems in this country, back problems. host: are you optimistic will be able to solve those problems in the year to come? caller: i don't think so. i think the communists are well seated in this country and it is the dnc. they have the federal government behind them.

host: do you think republicans will take over the reins of power on the capital in 2022? caller: i certainly hope so. the country cannot last with these should ask -- with these bolsheviks. host: lynn on twitter saying i have two top stories. one is covid and the people we lost to this virus. the second is january 6 and republicans try to steal the election away from joe biden. on the first point she brings up , one of the major political battles of the past year with covid has been a vaccine mandates and when and where and who should be issuing those mandates. this was from last month, florida governor ron desantis signing a bill in his state walking vaccine mandates. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> montana had done something

into tennessee had done something and people were saying this would not end up happening. they understood what was going on. i made the call to say we have to do this now because people are losing their jobs right now. they stepped up and i think it is something that will make a big difference for a lot of people. we are respecting people's individual freedoms in this state and that is something that is very important. ultimately, i don't know how it ever came to this point. even if not she even felt she -- even dr. fauci, everybody would say no mandate. now some say kids should not even be able to go to school. this has gotten so far out of whack.

florida, from the very beginning, all they wanted to do was walk down. we were opening the state, keeping the state open, keeping businesses open. host: florida governor ron desantis last month. taking your phone calls on this day to look back on what your top political story was of 2021. republicans are 202-748-8000. democrats, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. this is don out of riverside, california. on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. the chip shortage. nobody in biden's administration is talking about the chip shortage because they want you to focus on something that happened a year ago. the chip shortage is affecting every aspect of business and employment.

you cannot find a job because your company is going out of business because they have no chips. sales are cut in half. they have trucks parked on the tarmac waiting for chips. everybody is waiting for chips. host: where have you seen the impact of that in your area or the wider california area? caller: biden would like to transfer the problem into politics. it is not politics, it is chips. host: this is richard in nashville, tennessee. independent. good morning. caller: i think the biggest thing of all is china. everything we manufacture now almost is in china. you can get someone a machine shop to make something, but for the most part, the gentleman who

just called about the microchips, you cannot buy a new truck. you cannot find one. you cannot buy a used car because they are too high. when you look at what china is going to do with taiwan, what russia is going to do with the ukraine, people want to talk about freedom, being able to get up and go, not wearing a mask and being free. it won't matter. when i was a little man, they said if the chinese march on us, we are done. people better be thinking. you better stand up and fight for this country because i see it eroding. have a great day. host: before you go, a practical example of that coming up in the upcoming olympic games. there has been a diplomatic boycott with the u.s. sending athletes. do you think there should be a

full boycott of the games in beijing? caller: i think politics should be out of the games. it should be up to the athletes who trained up to years, i would not take it away from them. let them decide if they want to be part of that. as far as the government, they should stay away. as far as individuals and olympic teams, let them go and compete. host: the argument on the others of that is allowing china to hold these games and get the attention only helps build up the image of china in the world. that is the argument, let's keep our athletes at home and not give them that. caller: i agree with what you are saying and that is what i have been hearing. our young people don't need to be put in that position. we can protest china by going to

the olympics, by beating them. it is like a football game on saturday. we have championship games this weekend. you have to beat them on the field. that boils down to politics and trade and everything. i am telling you, traveled the world. look at what is going on in the world. china is on their care -- on their way and they do not care about you. let freedom reign. whether you like their politics or not, freedom is something to die for. thank you all. host: thank you for the call. who are you pulling for in college football? caller: role tide. host: that is richard in tennessee. caller: good morning. i find it interesting listening to your program this morning. today it drove my attention. even though i am on the independent side, i may crossover.

i have some decision-making process. first of all, the event i consider to be very destructive is the january 6 capitol building situation. that was uncalled for. the individuals who were involved, including trump, should be held accountable whether it be in jail or whatever can be administered to them to make them think twice. the second thing i want to point out is that ron desantis in florida points out people's individual freedoms but with individual freedom comes individual responsibility. my responsibility is for everyone in my community. i will not walk around with this virus and spread it around. i'm going to get my shots.

we pay good money to dr. fauci and the cdc even though they make mistakes. the fact is we pay them good money. they are experts. they know more about the vaccine that i do. i go back to when i was a little kid. you go into the army, you don't tell them i don't want the vaccine. you get it whether you want it or not. to protect our society and our economy, get the shot so we are able to do what is necessary for our society. as a whole, we are losing some common sense in this country. common sense is being overruled by people who think politicians have a direct way of moving this country. as far as aphids go, i agree with you been before that. the athletes should be left alone. this has gone on since the beginning of time, with the

greeks. let them hold the olympics and the government stay out. i realize what china is doing, but we realize we have to respond accordingly. that is my personal opinion. host: can i come back to your comments about january 6. caller: sure. host: you call that the capital situation. some people caught the capitol hill attack. some people call it a riot or insurrection. what you think is the appropriate inscription? caller: that is an -- appropriate scripture -- appropriate description. caller: that is an excellent question. i think you can put them altogether into one word. the people made a big mistake. to label it specifically, it is up to individuals. i just do not like what is going on. i was a teacher for 32 years.

i taught my students to respect your government and your parents and your elders. think before you make a decision. these people were led by individuals or a group of individuals who had nothing more in common then to break into the capital and do what damage they could to send a message that was totally inappropriate. i could go back into history but i want to get back into it. host: what subject did you teach and what grade? caller: i taught middle school and some high school. i taught subjects in world history, specifically political science. also english and some science. i started at a catholic school and decided to go to a public school. i thought i did a good job.

i have students who still call me today and say thank you for doing what you did. we need to give accolades to those people doing the right thing. those people will continue to move forward and help our society. we don't need to keep bashing people. some of our political leaders are in there for political reasons. they get paid good money. host: are you optimistic about the kids and handing the country over to the kids in the future? caller: when you say kids, i'm not sure what you mean. host: the generation coming up. are you optimistic? caller: that is a super

question. i cannot read the minds of people today other than what i see and hear and experience. the kids today -- i don't interact with them except for the people of my age. if our educational system maintains a level of teaching what democracy stands for and how to apply it, i think people in the end people will realize mistakes can be erased. are we going to make the biggest mistake of our lives? that is to go to work. -- go to war. that is what bothers me most of all. we live in a democracy, use it. read it, study it. host: thank you for the call. happy new year to you. caller: you, too. host: spending this first hour

hearing from you. what would you call the top elliptical story of 2020 one? -- of 2021? republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. linda from ohio, you are next. caller: good morning. i am calling to tell you how upset i am with people that let the -- i cannot call him president. he does not know what he is doing, his wife got him in with people with billions of dollars. he cheated. i saw it on tv. they are bringing people through the border and they think it is funny. why do you think we have covid-19 and omicron?

it is because of them. send them to the white house and lock them in with the president and the people who do not know what they are doing. host: that is linda from ohio. paul is from chesapeake, virginia. good morning. caller: excuse me. there are too many political stories right now. one of the big ones is that we got a new president. that is that. another one is that there are many people from january 6 still being held. they are political prisoners. you want to see an insurrection or a coup, look at myanmar or turkey, these countries that have had coups or insurrections.

my point is that many of the programs -- even though i am an independent, i only have two parties to choose from. the way congress is working is whether it is the members of the house or the d&c or whatever, whenever they were campaigning in 2020, they talked about wanting to transform the economic policies of this country and transform the way this country works. with many of the programs they are trying to push through, as ar -- as a uniter, the president

has failed. they are pushing for a one-party rule and they have been working at that. i appreciate what the gentleman from michigan had to say who was a world history teacher. i love history. as to your question of if it was a riot or insurrection, i look at it as a riot. to see what an insurrection o r coup looks like, look around the world. host: you say democrats want one-party rule, i am assuming you mean house -- human control of the house and the senate and the white house and the appointment of most judges by their party. is that what you mean by that? don't you think republicans would also want control of the house and senate and the white house and the majority of

appointments on the supreme court? caller: sure. but i am old enough to remember when the democrats and republicans all worked together. host: when was that? caller: when ted kennedy was there and trent lott was there. you saw them working together. the democrats had control of congress for almost 40 years. right? we had republican and democrat presidents but they had control for almost 40 years. nothing would have gotten done if publicans and democrats -- if republicans and democrats had not worked together. it has gotten really bad. both sides have gone into their

corners and that is it. the president has not set down with the leaders of the republican party. everything is wanting to be done by reconciliation only by one party. they are not bringing in the other party, whether it be republicans or democrats. neither one of them what to talk to each other. host: did you like the bipartisan infrastructure bill? that is one bill that has been pointed to as a way to get both sides to talk, to get some people on the other site to join in a piece of legislation. caller: i agree that the bill was "bipartisan."

look at how democrats tried to frame that. they framed that as we had to tie that in the build back better bill together. if one did not come, they were not going to take up the other. host: in the end, that is not how it worked. caller: they fought for six months to do that. what happened there is a think the president said i have to get something done. that is what happened. otherwise they will keep trying to push things through reconciliation and change the filibuster. my top political story is that both of these parties need to get into a locked room and fight it out. host: thank you for the call, paul. dan in bloomington, wisconsin.

democrat. good morning. caller: i agree with the last two independent colors -- independent callers. i agree that the biggest political story of the last year is january 6. how can you not -- i have a 95-year-old father, army, air force, national guard veteran. i looked him in the eye and i said, if you live long enough, all of your buddies and veterans , i might have to say for the first time you died in vain. host: what did he say in response? caller: nothing. he is that kind of person. he has never told me who he voted for. he spent almost six decades in

the military. january 6 was the biggest political story but it cannot go away. i keep hearing about this trump come back but the committee of january 6, it is going to be trump come his family, and his cronies. a few republican senators are going to get under the hotseat. i almost can't add any other thing other than the fact that i think this country is ready for a third party. i don't see any other way to break this up. i wrote a thesis when i was in high school in 1975 when we had to study civics and history and social studies. i wrote a thesis and called it 317. i studied all of the superpowers of the world and i said we will

probably last a little longer than the huns. i am not sure. the bottom line was i figured by 2093 every state will be a country. that is pretty much how the continent of europe broke apart. we have to study the -- in france. we know what happened there. people could not take it anymore. i think we have to come up with a third party to ease out these differences. you see how the states are saying we don't want your federal money. then a disaster happens and what do they do? texas went crying for their heed to bill. what is going to take care of that? our tax dollars. host: what is your dad's name?

caller: his name is paul. host: i hope you and paul have a great new year. i appreciate the call. about 20 minutes left in this segment and we are hearing from you, your top political story of 2021. marlene in florida, republican. you are next. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: i believe january 6 was an important thing that happened last year but i have a different take. i worry that we are a superpower and we cannot protect our capitol from people with hairspray and flagpoles and it

takes three hours for the national guard to get there. that is what i am worried about. that and that we have open borders. we have a national security problem. i think people should be concentrating on that. much more than anything else. thank you. host: richard in louisville, kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. i am trying to understand this country and their thinking with this committee. about 160 people were locked up who were rioting. do they believe these 150 people were going to take over the country? goodness. my question to you, when the fbi comes out and -- when the

judiciary committee had him come out to do an investigation, they asked robert ray what proof do you have that donald trump was behind this riot? he said we have absolutely no proof at all. still people call in and say it was an insurrection. donald trump wanted do send troops the day before that rally and nancy pelosi said no. they are taking this committee with this gal from wyoming -- what's her name? host: liz cheney. caller: yeah. they have to find something to put on donald trump because they know they cannot to beat him in a time -- and they cannot beat

him next time. my top story is the maxwell girl being found guilty and then we find out that james comey's daughter was the prosecutor and she sealed the 20,000 documents that epstein had, videos and everything. why did they seal that? why don't we know who those people are? that is my question. host: we will be talking more about that case the jury trial system in our country during our men :00 a.m. eastern our -- during our 9:00 a.m. eastern hour. caller: i have two things that i think are closely related in this conversation this morning. thanks to c-span for this great national square. i don't think we have anything else like this in this country.

first off, to address the caller prior to me, i am waiting for trump to come in and tell us the truth. he think he can do that? i don't think so. i think he is going to get away with this attempted coup because he has not even been subpoenaed. he would do like his underlings are doing and reject any attempt to come in and tell the truth to the american people, especially about his dereliction of duty. i am pessimistic we will see him. if hillary clinton could testify about benghazi, where is this former -- i cannot call him president because he is the worst thing that happened to this country in a lifetime.

i have to give brett credit at fox news, he was the first person to say this, that the democrats are committing political suicide with these vaccine mandates. these mandates are being categorically opposed by republicans. this is going to help get trump off the hook. you can't lose -- 17 -- 10 or 15% in this country, especially the independent vote. if democrats keep up these mandates, these insane political suicide mandates, they are going to lose terribly in the fall. nobody talks about it. maybe fox news here and there. these mandates are hurting the democrats. mandates for testing, which we can see is sorely needed. and i have to criticize biden,

who i supported, for not coming in with a national testing policy. that is the only criticism i can think is legitimate i think he has earned. those are my two -- i am waiting to see trump come in and tell the truth. you think that could ever happen? happy new year. host: a few of your comments from social media. cindy from texas saying the border is out of control with biden asleep at the helm. he is giving the country to china at a drug cartels. this is james, the top story is the military withdrawal from afghanistan. we need to work on funding defenses here and not finding other countries' wars. add some new states if we need to defend outside peoples and chunks of land. this is janet saying, "the

vaccines became political in 2021." terry is saying that inflation is the top story. norma is saying the exit from afghanistan, this administration should be held accountable. the last caller mentioning in the elections in virginia and glenn youngkin, the republican, surprising many to win the stated that joe biden had won. he won by 2%. glenn youngkin in his victory speech, here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> at this defining moment -- a defining moment that started with two people on a walk. a defining moment is now millions of virginians walking together.

[applause] sharing dreams and hopes, just like the ones who have been planted on my own heart. dreams and hopes for virginia, a virginia that never settles. a virginia where the virginia promise comes alive for everyone that calls this a virginia home -- this virginia home. together, together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth. [applause] friends, we are going to start that transformation on day one. host: republican glenn youngkin

on his victory speech after winning the commonwealth of virginia. our next caller from a virginia, midlothian, virginia. greg, good morning. caller: i think the number one issue and story of 2021 was the rise of inflation, 6.9%. next to that would be the $30 trillion debt that is underreported and no one is talking about. those are things that have a real impact on people's lives and it does not look like it is going to get fixed anytime soon. it is a good thing they defeated this build back better because that will only make things worse. i saw those the number one story

because of how many problems it creates for people's everyday lives. host: when was the last time you felt this country was focused on the national debt which right now is a $29 trillion -- which right now is over $29 trillion. caller: the last time we wanted to do something about the debt was under bill clinton. bill clinton ran on bringing down the national debt. by the time he left office, he accomplished that. he was fortunate because he came in the time of the internet. we came out under a surplus and that was a democratic president. host: this is surely out of new

york city. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling in to say the economy will get better if people can get vaccinated. nobody wants to come to work or send their children to school around people that are not vaccinated. they are not willing to risk their lives. we all came together and got vaccinated, it would be better. the doctors and nurses and everything, after a while they will not be anybody in the hospital to take care of these unvaccinated people. as far as trump is concerned, i am a new yorker. i do a lot of what this meant has done. he has always been a bully.

[indiscernible] that does not make sense to me. he ran out of new york. he moved his residency to florida. people need to investigate that. host: on vaccinations in this country, from the new york times today, a snapshot at the latest vaccination rates by age group. 34% of five to 24-year-olds are vaccinated. 63% of 25 to 39-year-olds, 37% of --

those 65 and older, 89% of those americans vaccinated. connie in highland, california, independent. caller: i don't condone what happened at the capital, but i don't remember chuck schumer or nancy pelosi saying anything about all of those states being a burnt, people were being killed and all of that going on. i don't remember chuck schumer or nancy pelosi coming or going out and saying stop all of this, we have to get together. stop all of this with poor people getting killed and their stores and everything being burnt. that is not right.

until the capital was attacked, they were afraid of what was going on. that is what i do not condone. host: doug in oxford, new jersey. good morning. caller: i want to put some of the historians you had a few calls back straight about what happened in january 6. one guy got it right that trump did call for the national guard and was denied by mayor muriel bowser and nancy pelosi. the other thing is the fbi's involvement with informants. ray apps, who is on several videos, inciting crowds to tell them generate fifth and sixth to go into the capital -- to tell them on january 5 and sixth to going to the capital and saying we have to do this. even some of the trump supporters were calling this guy out as a fed.

this guy got arrested which was released immediately. there are 500 other people still in prison for trespassing. there were people vandalizing and it was not right, but it was more like a riot. the only people killed were mostly trump supporters. two women were killed by the capitol police. one of them died of a drug overdose. that did not happen, she was trampled to death by d.c. capitol police. ashli babbitt was assassinated. it is wrong but this was incited. gateway pundit has it and it is all over. host: brenda in south carolina, democrat. good morning. caller: the insurrection was the worst i have seen and to this previous caller, talking about

ashli babbitt and assassinated. where do people get these things from? she was breaking the law. what would it have taken for someone in congress to have gotten killed? trump stood there and watch this. he did nothing to try and stop it. as far as him running for president, those who say he is running for president again, how can someone be accused of other crimes be considered good enough to run for president of the united states? our standards are so low that they are willing to accept a criminal as our president. host: do you think if donald trump ran again there is a chance he could win? caller: no. there is no chance in hell he would win. he is a criminal. a lot of people are tired of the four years we went through, the

division. nothing but division and insurrection. i am from south carolina. lindsey graham has to go. the republican party is to be the party of lincoln. there needs to be a new uprising of young people to come up and stand for democracy. it is all about the money and power, it is not about the american people. that is the saddest thing about it. to republicans who think donald trump has a chance of winning, god is in control of everything. i am not worried about trump winning because if he runs in he will not win. host: on president trump, looking back over the past 12 months, one of the other events was the second impeachment trial of donald trump.

this from february 13 this year, the house impeachment manager, jamie raskin, speaking about the senate trial after the upper chamber voted to acquit donald trump. [laughter] >> this was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in the history of the u.s. this was the most bipartisan event in the history of the country. it was also the largest senate vote for a presidential impeachment, 57-43. the vote to impeach was 233 to 197 in the house. we have a clear and convincing majority of congress that the president incited a violent insurrection against the union

and congress. senator mitch mcconnell just went to the floor essentially to say that we made our case on the facts, he believes donald trump was practically and morally responsible for inciting the events of january 6. he described it as we did, a disgraceful dereliction of duty, intercession -- a desertion of his office. he made a statement we did not even make saying this is not over yet by a longshot and there is the path of criminal prosecution for the former president, the disgraced and now twice impeached former president. host: congressman jamie raskin, the house impeachment manager during the second impeachment trial of donald trump in february of this year.

mark in berlin, maryland, republican, you are next. caller: a proper word to describe january 6 would be "melee." i'm really concerned with the lack of security on january 6. i think there should have been a lot more security there. they knew there was a couple hundred thousand people in the city and they were not happy. it is very suspicious why there was a lack of security there. someone else talked about a one-party rule. i think that is what the democratic party wants. i mean, a permanent one-party rule. putting activist judges in. some of the things they have recently done. they want to make dch state so they can have two additional centers. host: you think republicans would mind a permanent one-party

rule? caller: yeah, but -- but -- republicans aren't doing things that would create a permanent one-party rule like the democratic party is. like i just said, they would like to make dch state, maybe even puerto rico a state. they have the national interstate compact with air trying to subvert the electoral college. there's numerous things they are doing including in 2020, they did not come out against the riots. defunding the police. all of these things are trying to destabilize our country. that would be an advantage they believe, to them. but it is almost backfiring now with what is happening with the

crt. i have one final point about partisanship. there can be partisanship in congress when one party, the democratic party, is moving toward socialism and communism. there can't be. the republicans, every time for the last 100 years, they have given into the democratic party and step-by-step we are becoming more socialized, more towards that political government. we cannot continue to compromise. host: what do you think are the one or two biggest steps along that path? caller: toward say she was asian -- toward socialization, woodrow wilson started with the administrative state which is toward the bureaucracy. the second step is fdr going through the medicaid programs

and the social security programs. that was the first step of saying hey, people, the government can help you. now, it seems like the democratic party was so threatened by donald trump that everything they did before donald trump was under the table toward socialism but the american people wouldn't find out. but now, because they felt so threatened that donald trump cap calling out the deep state -- kept calling out the deep state, they brought out there fangs, and it is violent socialism. as you can see from bernie sanders and aoc and the squad, they don't care anymore. host: what should be the role of the government? you said the government thought that they could help people. is that not the role of the government? caller: the federal government responsibility is protecting the borders, protecting our country from internal and external threats. it is also portrayed in commerce.

-- for trade and commerce. it is not to give handouts. that may be the states responsibility like education. education is the state responsibility, not the federal government's responsibility. i'd like to make sure there is a safety net for everyone, but at the same time, the federal government can't be all things for all people. that is not what james madison and the founding fathers determined. there is a famous quote by james madison that said charity is not the work of the legislative branch. i don't think the founding fathers ever thought that they would be a system of handouts taking from one group and giving to the other. you can even go back. whether handouts in 1800? no. host: what are the proper parts of that safety net. you said there should be a safety net. what should that include? caller: you know, some of the

things that are currently on board like employment -- if you get laid off from your job or something like that. that is not something that is totally government-subsidized, it is subsidized by your employer. i'm not saying there should be not a total one, but any step toward socialism, we need to think very carefully. the thing is, what we're doing as a country, i think the democrats are moving us away from family and church and i think there are things that can help people get over the hump. family, community and church. i would rather give my money to a church or i would rather give canned foods to a food bank then be taxed by the government. people need to be more

community-responsible, and i would think that would be a much better way than the government taking our money and spending it because the government has proven over and over and over again that they cannot handle money and they do not spend it wisely. host: thanks for the call, happy. mystery, independent, -- missouri, independent, good morning. caller: yes. i'm on the independent line. the federal government is the largest business in the world, and it needs to be run like a business. no business can go on basically forever losing money. if you ain't turning a profit, you're gonna go under. the only -- i heard one guy talking a while back about threatening paying bills. the only president that has paid money down on the national debt was eisenhower.

right? host: that is clyde in missouri. our last call in this first segment of washington journal. stick around, plenty more to talk about this morning. up next, we will continue with our annual authors week series here on washington journal and after the break, we will be joined by dr. scott gottlieb to discuss his book -- uncontrolled spread in the pandemic: lessons for next time. stick around for that discussion after the break. announcer: next week on c-span, the senate rules committee holds a hearing on u.s. capitol police since the january 6 attack. live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern. thursday, we will have coverage throughout the day marking the one-year anniversary of the attack.

friday, the supreme court will hear or argument in two cases dealing with the biden administration vaccine mandate for health care workers and the vaccine mandate for larger private companies. live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m. both the house and senate return in january for the start of the second session of the 117th congress. the senate takes up the president's climate and social spending plan known as build back better despite west virginia democrat joe manchin announcing his opposition to the bill. senate democratic leadership also looks to take a voting rights legislation which may require changing filibuster rules. there's also a february 18 deadline for both chambers of commerce to pass additional federal spending legislation before a government shutdown. watch these development on c-span network when congress returns, or you can watch full coverage on c-span now on the new mobile video app. also, head over to c-span.org

for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand any time. c-span: your unfiltered view of government. washington journal continues. host: and we continue this morning with our annual authors week series all week long. featuring top writers from across the political spectrum on a variety of public policy topics.

this morning, we are joined by dr. scott gottlieb to discuss his book "uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us and how we can defeat the next pandemic." your book came out in september, but a couple days this week we are now seeing cdc numbers over 400,000 new cases per day. some viewers might think that is the uncontrolled spread that is happening right now. what is your update chapter on this book on omicron about this uncontrolled spread? >> many of us thought that future variants, future mutations would occur within the delta lineage, that delta would be the dominant variant because it was so contagious and eventually, the delta variant would start to evolve, would start to mutate in ways, so it would be the persistent strain that we had to deal with going forward. omicron represented somewhere in

a sequestered pocket, either in immuno compromised individual or in some animal reservoir, a strain of the virus that had broken off literally a year ago was mutating over a very long time and then reemerged and created the epidemic that we are now seeing around the world. this was an unexpected event. we are seeing infections hit this country very hard in places like new york city, florida. there are some indications that omicron started in some european cities and in particular, london. i suspect we may be a couple weeks away from seeing peaks in new york city. it is going to get worse before it gets better. we are seeing a very clear decoupling between the number of cases occurring on a daily basis and the impact it is having in terms of hospitalization and people getting very, very sick. that's probably a function of two features of the virus.

one, it is probably innately less violent -- virulent than other strains. also, it is sitting a population that has a very high level of immunity. a combination of vaccination and also prior infection. people who have some immunity either through vaccination or through being previously infected with the virus haven't had immune responses to prevent them from getting very severe symptoms of omicron. some people are getting very sick. tragically, many people have died from this virus. but at far less level than what we have seen from prior weeks of infection. host: take us through the first couple months of 2022 and what we should be expecting, especially from the data that you see about the peak of this and how fast the numbers drop back down. guest: prior waves of infection

have taken about five months to move across the country. it is a very big nation. we have seen the variants -- the country experienced various waves in a highly regionalized fashion. you look at delta, the south in the southeast had a very dense epidemic. finally, new england. the new york region was going through a delta wave when omicron hit. i think the timeline for omicron to move across the u.s. population is going to be very compressed relative to past waves because this is so highly contagious and because it is the middle of the winter. from beginning to end, this is going to be about a two month epidemic across the entire country, and parts of the country where this infection got

first and are hard-hit right now, places like the mid-atlantic region, washington, d.c., places like puerto rico, florida, new york city, new england, those probably will peak within the next two weeks. new york city now has a very dense epidemic. probably looks like it is about two weeks away. they are experiencing a significant uptick in hospitalizations. they are at about 80% hospitalizations that they experienced last winter. they are probably going to a cliff the number of admissions that they experienced last winter but obviously, far more people are getting infected from this omicron strain. also keep in mind a lot of the hospitalizations that we have right now, there's around 75,000 people hospitalized across the country. many of those are still delta admissions. they have gotten sick from delta or are still getting sick from the delta strain because delta is still very highly prevalent

in many parts of the country, hasn't been crowded out fully. host: opening the phone lines for viewers to join the conversation because we have a hard out of the segment at 9:00 a.m. eastern because the house is coming in for a pro forma session today. as we always do, we cover the house floor gavel to gavel. at 9:00, the house comes in. you are joining the conversation. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. the book, "uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us and how we can defeat the next pandemic." dr. gottlieb is joining us as part of the annual authors week. can you just remind viewers as they are calling in that there are roles that you play -- of the various roles that you played when it comes to responding to this crisis and the various views you have had on covid over the course of the

past 21 months. guest: i was previously commissioner of the fda, so i oversaw a lot of the aspects of the response, although i wasn't at the fda during covid. i had left the agency in may of 2019 but i oversaw features in my career that were important to the response like the regulation of vaccines and medical devices, diagnostics. i also served on the board of pfizer, the company that has developed one of the vaccines as well as the new orderly available drug for the treatment of covid. and i sit on the board of a company that builds sequencing machines, machines that are used to help sequenced the virus to determine when and where the new variance are spreading. host: you also helped in responses specifically in maryland, correct? guest: right, i worked with the governors of maryland and connecticut on their task force.

host: a man with plenty of views on this virus come on this pandemic you'd here to answer your phone calls and talk about his book as well. the lessons learned from the covid pandemic. we will get right to calls as there are plenty already. audrey in decatur, alabama. good morning, you are up first. caller: good morning, john. good morning morning, dr. gottlieb. like he said, this is audrey from decatur, alabama. i have a question, if we have got any more data on 60-24-year-old males and myocarditis. i have a 20-year-old, he is skinny and has pre-existing health conditions and he is not willing to take a booster. my husband and i have been

boosted, but i would just like your thoughts and opinions on is there any more data, is it 7500 or 5000 incidents of myocarditis? i can't find anything on the internet. and thank you for taking my calls. i have your book and it is wonderful. thank you so much. guest: thanks a lot, and thanks for the question. there are various studies looking at myocarditis and the mrna vaccine, and that is what we are talking about, the company that i was on the board of directors of peewee some of the studies indicate that the rate of myocarditis might be as high as one in 10,000, particularly in young males 60-25. the vast majority that have been identified require some mild intervention with therapeutics, but the vast majority were self-limiting meaning that they resolved with minimal or no

intervention. one in 10,000 seems about the conventional wisdom. it was not clearly established if it could cause a relationship between the vaccine and myocarditis, although many people presume there is. repeat doses of the vaccine. i will say that the safety profile of the third doses, while not as many people have received boosters, we haven't seen any increased safety issues emerge relative to the second dose. certainly any young person who is at lower risk of covid generally, i think the decision to get a booster or not is a decision they should make in consultation with their physician. at least two doses of the vaccine, they have probably got a fair immune response. older individuals like me and other people, so they have more baseline immunity from those. that said, the booster does appear to provide a different

kind of immunity where it broadens out the immunity against more targets on the virus. host: georgetown, mass. your next. caller: thank you for having the on. i've got a couple of questions. one question is, is this virus similar in structure to the chickenpox virus? guest: no, it is a different class of virus. caller: so there's nothing really similar about the chickenpox and this virus we are talking about? host: what is your other question? guest: many viruses have similar features in terms of how they replicate. some of the targets in viral replication that we might use are similar. so there are certain

similarities in terms of how the viruses replicate that by and large, they are different classes of viruses so drug that would be effective against chickenpox you wouldn't necessarily suspect could be effective against this coronavirus. host: did you have a follow-up? caller: no, just on that thing. i think he was talking about a similarity with chickenpox and this virus'viral replication. if that is the case, i'm wondering why our medical industry in the united states is in choir together not saying anything about natural immunity. people that have had covid and recovered before receiving any vaccine. there are widespread studies in other places around the world that show that natural immunity is so much more highly effective

fighting another bout of the virus. i'm just completely baffled why, in the united states, there is no recognition of it. host: natural immunity, dr. gottlieb? guest: we are seeing the implications of natural immunity. people who were infected and never vaccinated but developed immunity against the virus. we are seeing the impact of that in the third wave of infection, the reason why this string of covid is having a reduced impact is not because a lot of people have been vaccinated or infected, but people who have been infected to have residual immunity. they do seem to be susceptible to getting infected but when they do get infected, they seem to have what we call t-cell immunity which helps them fight off the effects of that infection so they don't get as sick. what we've seen previously, however, people sometimes argue that so-called natural immunity prior to infection is more

robust than the immunity you will acquire through a vaccine. there are studies on both sides of that question and where i come out on this is that if you were previously infected with the delta variant, you probably developed a very robust immunity against delta. maybe that immunity that you had might have been even more robust than the immunity that the vaccine induced because we did see some diminished effectiveness against the delta variant. but if you have only been infected against delta, the immunity that you have is probably less than the immunity you would acquire if you had three doses of the vaccine. while the vaccines may not provide robust immunity against any specific variant, they provide a broader immunity so that you will be more protected through vaccination then through just being infected alone. the people who have the most robust immunity appeared to be those who have been previously infected and subsequently got vaccinated after their infection. they have what we call polyclonal response. they develop antibodies against many different targets of the

virus. host: for folks who do get infected, what are your thoughts on the cdc lowering the length of the quarantine time for those individuals? guest: i think it is recognized reality and it probably was prudent to reduce the isolation times of people who have been infected. requiring a 10 day isolation would be not just too disruptive, but probably would not achieve a substantial public health service. and a lot of this epidemic is being spread by people who i suspect are being diagnosed somewhere between one in five and one in five and one in 10 infection. most people who actually get infected, they are probably not contagious a couple days after the full resolution of their symptoms. there will be a small component that will be contagious for a longer time, the epidemic isn't being driven by those individuals. the epidemic is being driven by

people who get infected and don't realize they are infected. trying to maintain a 10 day isolation on a small component of people who might have residual viral shedding after 10 days as a way to try to control spread of the infection probably isn't getting to where most of the spread is occurring. i would say i think people need to judge their own individual circumstances. if you are in a setting where you work with high-risk individuals, if you are taking care of high-risk individuals at home, these are the situations where you need to be more prudent after an infection. it could be a good measure to see if you could reduce the risk of spreading the virus to someone who is vulnerable. host: florida, this is robert, good morning. caller: good morning, dr. gottlieb. my concern or question relates to immigration, most recently from the texas and arizona border and the covid infection

protocol was being implemented. i just have a feeling that it is very fragmented and i wonder if you could tell me if you have a high level of confidence that this is being done consistently, and if so, perhaps you could cite a specific example that would assure americans that these people that are coming in seeking asylum or who have been granted asylum or a being transported to different places in the united states have actually been vaccinated. thank you and good morning. guest: i haveguest: -- i don't have a lot of insight into the procedures being taken at the border to try to control the risk of infection coming across the border. i will say generally i have a low level of competence that we keep infection out of this country whether it is green -- being brought in by other countries illegally or people who are coming in through legal

immigration or people who are just flying into the country for a visit. the idea that we could close our borders coming into the u.s., we have seen time and time again, that fails. we have seen the closing of travel in south africa really have no effect. it is hard to argue that it even had a marginal effect on slowing the arrival of omicron into the u.s. new york city was having an epidemic literally two or three weeks after it was first identified in south africa. whatever time it bought us, it wasn't much. host: coming up on a: 30 on the east coast. dr. gottlieb with us before the house comes in for a pro forma session at 9:00 a.m. eastern dr. gottlieb's book they came out this fall "uncontrolled spread:" and how we can do for the next pandemic. the latter part of the subtitle of your book, this is what you

write in that book. "for those who suffered and died into the rising generation in our country, we owe a clear eyed review of the facts. what it be get right or wrong, what did we miss, and what might be building new? what should we have known at the outset and what must we never forget? is it too early to have that review, and if not, what are we learning already? guest: i don't think it's too early to have that review. i'm actually somewhat surprised that congress hasn't spoken about pandemic preparedness and tried to fashion legislation that would make the country better prepared for the future. i tried to identify in the book more systemic features of government, the more systemic failings and places where we had vulnerabilities. one of the repeated themes of the book is the fact that we didn't have the capability to both monitor the infection g,lean accurate information on

how coven was spreading around the country, who was vulnerable to it, what interventions were helping to reduce transmission, and also scale up the response, trying to scale the development and manufacturing of drugs and vaccines that it did supply the entire population. we just didn't have the capacity in any single agency in the u.s. and we didn't recognize that early enough. a lot of us believe wrongly that the cdc would be able to respond to covid and the cdc just wasn't capable of doing it. i think people wrongly assumed that the cdc was an operational agency. they take a lot of time to do retrospective analysis that only comes into cdc, and they published that analysis to help support future decision-making. that is basically the core

function of cdc. cdc is not fema, it is not the defense department capable of mounting a large-scale response. it doesn't have an operational capacity. i think we wrongly assumed that it did and left the role of responding this pandemic solely in the purview of the cdc for far too long. the cdc's difficulty in ascertaining with the true prevalence of omicron is an miss stating that in a very significant way where it is estimated that about 75% of infections in the u.s. were omicron a couple of weeks ago and then revise that estimate that it was only 25%. public health decisions were made based on that estimate. that was a very significant mistake on the part of the agency. if you ask yourself how did the agency get something that seems so simple so wrong, the answer is that they just don't collect a lot of good information. they model assumptions based on small feeds of information

asking the questions they are trying to resolve. host: public health decisions being made office estimates from how prevalent omicron was in this country. decisions like what? what impact did that have, that data being so far off? guest: certainly we made a decision to move away from some of the antibody drug that we knew were effective against delta, but we knew were not going to be as effective against omicron. we shifted away from using those drugs and basically started using those drugs at least a week too early based on what the current prevalence estimates are. we saw more of the infection was omicron and therefore more people were likely to be coming into the hospital. therefore, he didn't want to use a drug that was going to be effective with omicron. looking back, we know that many parts of the country going back two weeks ago, the infections that people were coming in with were very likely to be delta infections.

also, just decisions about the intensity of care. we have seen that the omicron infection causes typically less severe disease, and particularly those who have been vaccinated or previously infected. on the margin, that might affect clinical decision-making about whether or not you perceive that patient to have an infection with omicron or with delta. the cdc going out and saying that most of the infections we were seeing were actually omicron infections could have affected their judgment in the margins about how effective it could be upfront. host: out to california, this is justin, thanks for reading. justin, are you with us? caller: i'm right here, do you hear me? host: it helps if i hit the button, so that was on me. caller: oh, ok. [laughter] my question is about operation warp speed.

how much time did that actually buy us? i mean, how much faster did the vaccine actually come out because of warp speed? and is there that kind of effort, that is, the warp speed organization, being used toward the new vaccines for omicron? that are going to help us with battling the virus? guest: it is a good question. it is hard for me to draw judgment about what impact operation warp speed had on the development of the vaccine, at least from the perch that i sat. pfizer funded the development program and scaled the manufacturing on their own, with us believing that if they funded internally rather than seeking government funds, it would buy them some time, that they would be able to move more quickly using their own money rather than using government money. and a lot of the efforts of

operation warp speed were focused on the other vaccines in terms of trying to scale up reduction of those vaccines. the only vaccine that really got to significant scale coming out of operation warp speed, that fully participated in the program with the moderna vaccine. i think the question of what impact operation warp speed had on their ability to scale up manufacturing to speed up the development program probably will give you some insight into what the overall impact of operation warp speed was. the most tangible impact of the was on that moderna vaccine. with respect to what we could be doing now and whether we could take it one operation warp speed-style approach to scale up the orally available drugs, the question is that there is no doubt. and we could be doing much more, in my view, to be scaling up particularly the manufacturing of those drugs. but the orally available drugs, a drug from pfizer, there are a

lot of efforts used for the treatment of different viral infections. we use inhibitors commonly with hiv, and the treatment of hepatitis. there is no inhibitor that i know about that takes less than six months to manufacture. the very long process in refining the starting materials so you can get toward the finished sales. you've got a long time cycle about. the reason why we have the supply of paxlovid that we have right now is because in july, pfizer made a decision to allocate about $1 billion to the company's own money to start manufacturing the drug. there was a point in time when we didn't know if this drug is going to work, the overall process, so we started to manufacture that drug. i remember the board meeting,

when the board took the vote on management recommendations to actually allocate that money to start manufacturing this run. if the drug ended up not working, we would have a lot of drug supply that wouldn't be useful for any purpose. if we wanted to have more drug available right now, we would have needed to make a decision back in the summer to start allocating significantly more money to start manufacturing these drugs at risk. not just paxlovid, but all the drugs. you could've put $3 billion or $4 billion behind the manufacturing of all these drugs and that would have guaranteed more supply right now. at the time, there really were only three drugs that look promising and were far enough along that we believe they would have the potential to be available early this year. one was the drug by, one with the drug by merck. another was the drive-by roche which had a setback in clinical developments and took a little longer to get through clinical trials.

there were really only three steps that the government could have taken. if you ask yourself why we didn't come in with significantly more government resources just to scale up the manufacturing, we can manufacture more supplies and if any of these drugs ended up working, we would have more pills available right now. host: burlington, north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. i have two quick questions. first of all, i would love for you to explain to everybody who is afraid of getting the vaccine how safe they are. also, would you not agree that at least close to 100% of this country were vaccinated, then it would end this pandemic and end the variants from even coming here, or even if they did, it

would not be as bad as it's been? and that's all. guest: i appreciate the question. look, i think a lot of the trepidation around the vaccine is the perception that this is a relatively new vaccine. this was a relatively new vaccine two years ago, but a couple of points i would make on that. first, the vaccine has been used in hundreds of millions of people around the world now. that is really the operative discussion to have his around the mrna vaccine. those vaccines have now been used in literally hundreds of millions of people around the world and probably at this point more than one billion people have received a dose. we now have around two years of follow-up data on the vaccines as well. they were first employed a little bit more than two years ago, so we have long-term follow-up data on hundreds of millions of people.

that is a very large database to have around any vaccine, let alone a vaccine that has been available for just a couple years. second of all, there was a perception that the development timelines were sped up for this vaccine, but they were unusually fast. they went quickly for a variety of reasons, but not because we shortcutted the development of any of these. the clinical trials that were done for these vaccines were probably the largest clinical trials undertaken for any single medical product in history. the only other vaccine trial that might have been slightly larger was the rotavirus vaccine, but each of the mrna vaccines, one by moderna and pfizer, the initial clinical trials were about 45,000 patients. that is a combined 90,000 patients put into clinical trials for the initial authorization of that vaccine and there have now been many more as well as the long-term

follow-up with initial studies. these have been exhaustively studied. there's is no long-term safety data available on then, on literally tens of millions of patients and hundreds of millions have received doses around the world. the only reason that these vaccine trials went very quickly was because they enrolled very quickly. people were very motivated to get into the trial and they unfortunately got out very ugly because the endpoint in the clinical trials with the number of infections occurring among people who were involved in the click of trials because we were going through since -- such an intense wave of infections. you had a lot of people getting infected with covid, and therefore, the endpoint was reached much sooner than originally anticipated. they ran out sooner than anticipated because there was so much infection happening. host: can i ask a quick question? on the idea of enrolling 45,000 people in the clinical trial

pre-covid, how long did that process take? guest: that's a really good question. a 45,000 patient clinical trial studying vaccines when you're trying to vaccinate against a low prevalence could be a multiyear trial. if you are vaccinating against high prevalence virus in the setting of seasonal spread. if you are trying to equip a trial with the flu vaccine, that might read out within a timeframe over the course of a single season, but most cases when you are vaccinating people, you are vaccinating against low prevalence events now. certainly, the rotavirus vaccine trial was a multiyear trial. host: the other question, if somehow we got 100% vaccination rates tomorrow, does that end the virus within a matter of weeks? guest: it's not going to end the epidemic, it is going to substantially reduce the amount of spread and even more significant the impact of that

spread. we know if we can get everyone vaccinated and boosted, because the booster becomes a very important element, we know that if we can do that, we substantially reduce the impact of the virus. many americans have been vaccinated. most americans will complete the series. about 90% of people who get one does forget a second dose. many will go want to get the booster. a lot of americans have made the decision to get vaccinated. unfortunately, a lot of the hospitalizations are being driven by people who have never been vaccinated and in many cases, who have never been previously infected. the reality is that it is going to be very hard to escape omicron. people who choose not the get vaccinated who have not been infected with a prior variant are going to be at very high risk of getting this new variant, and most of them will. only people who are being exceedingly careful are going to be able to escape this current wave of infections given how

contagious this is. host: bill, florida, your next. caller: i want to point out a few things. from my perspective, the harm that the country has seen has not been caused by the virus itself, it has been caused by the reaction to it. that is a good reason why we have states. montana and florida have ignored these mandates and i happen to live in one of these states, and it has been great. businesses have stayed open and it has been fine here. there's no trouble at all. so what i've seen is covid is nothing more than the flu that we have had in the past. host: let me let dr. gottlieb respond to that point. guest: i think the caller's first point about the policy response to the virus, we are

well past the point in which we are going to be implement and shutdowns of businesses and any kind of closures as a way to combat the virus. we are a much different place now with respect to the overall effect. we have vaccines, we have therapeutics like the or the available drugs to treat those. we have a lot that has been acquired through private infections. when new york was trying to help the capacity, that is when we implement to the shutdowns. and that was also a result of a failure to collect accurate information, and this gets back to our original discussion about the cdc. we didn't have a diagnostic test that can be deployed. not only didn't we know where the virus was spreading, but we didn't know where it wasn't spreading. we won the presumed that the epidemic in new york that we were seeing was going to be

replicated in other states when in fact, it turned out he took a much longer time for this virus to move around the country. and they were part of the country at that time the probably had very little covid spread, we just didn't know it because we had failed to put a diagnostic test with less accurate information on where the infection was spreading. countries that were able to get diagnostic tests deployed effectively in that early phase like south korea were able to take much more targeted approaches. south korea never did broad business shutdowns, never did closures, lockdowns. they were able to deploy diagnostic tests and figure out where the virus was spreading, what the ares of spread work, and target the interventions within those compartments. the color makes a very good point about that. host: about 15 minutes left with dr. scott gottlieb this morning. it is the annual office week series, talking to him about his book.

i was just going through our twitter feed on this topic. a couple questions from viewers around the same subject. it essentially says a very visible public health official, have you ever had to worry about your own personal safety? guest: repeatedly. i've been worried about getting the infection and bringing it back into the home. i was obviously much more worried before my children were vaccinated. they've all been vaccinated. i also have the lead to use things like home diagnostic tests. when i go out, when i come home, i might feel a cold maybe coming on, i will test to make sure i am not bringing the infection back into my home. host: i think the folks on twitter were more interested in your personal safety in terms of people who may disagree with you

one vaccinations in particular. guest: i've made a point of not speaking about the environment, but what i will say is that i think we have seen emotions run very high throughout this whole pandemic. a lot of people were hurt by pandemic badly and heard by the policy response to the pandemic. they flamed public health official in certain instances, and you have seen threats made particular the against people in government that are quite destructive and deeply unfortunate. host: richfield, wisconsin, good morning. your next. caller: good morning. my question and comment has to do with -- we take a look at when the pandemic first kind of started, march of 2020, and the vaccines were not available until december, later in the year, my wife and i both

got covid in august of 2020 and we were able to go out of our main medical system to get some therapeutics include a steroid and inhaler. but at the time, and it still is if you get it, stay home and take aspirin. why has the corporate medical community been so adverse to every kind of off use of existing therapeutics. it has been, like, stonewalled and now finally we got paxlovid coming out, we still don't know what the side effects are for certain people at risk. why has the corporate medical community for the first eight or nine months of this done nothing? thank you. guest: i think that therapeutics that the caller mentioned, things like steroid inhalers or steroids used in an outpatient basis, other drugs were studied

exhaustively in literally hundreds of clinical trials. i think the reason why they are not in wide use and why doctors don't prescribe them is because the vast majority of them demonstrated that there wasn't a treatment effect from these different interventions. some of them did demonstrate a treatment effect. for example, using steroids, that was a circumstance in which steroids seem to improve outcomes and reduce the risk of icu admission or dying from covid. there were some settings in which these seem to provide a treatment benefit but by and large, there were a lot of things that were tried. in new york, we threw a lot of different drugs that people including hydroxychloroquine.

there became shortages of that drug. subsequent analysis, subsequent clinical studies demonstrated that there wasn't a substantial use of that drug inwardly any setting. host: john, good morning. caller: good morning. i was just trying to figure out the caller's -- very knowledgeable in everything, it having the understand how those affect if you come through an airplane at an airport without being checked, how many does that tend to spread to other people? host: scott gottlieb on restriction and safety protocols on airports and flights. guest: certainly, travel

restrictions. i don't think the caller was specifically getting at that, the effects of reducing the spread of the virus in the u.s., particularly the ones that we, lamented against south africa, i think they were largely destructive in terms of discouraging other countries to be more forthcoming in the future, worried that they may be subject to travel restrictions. whatever gains we got from that in terms of slowing the virus in the country was worth the geopolitical cost with respect to sort of framing the global public health world and discouraging companies from being more forthcoming. in terms of individual risk in public settings, there's no question this was an airborne virus. early on, we were under the impression that covid was largely spread through droplet transmission which meant that you needed to be in close contact with an individual to have it spread from person-to-person. the virus itself has evolved and appears to spread more through

an airborne route. we just didn't recognize it early on. this comes back to poor information we were getting an analytical work we were doing. subsequent variants of the virus do seem to have involved in ways that are even more transmissible through an airborne route. that means that the virus remains in the environment for a longer time. whether you are five feet away or 15 feet away from someone, if you're in a confined space, if there is not good filtration, that is going to be a high risk environment in multiple individuals. we know that measles, someone can go into a room infected with measles and go one to infect everyone in that room, and the virus remains in the air for a sustained time. covid isn't quite as transmissible, but it is getting closer to the measles then it probably is to the flu. if you want to protect yourself and those kinds of settings where you're going into a

setting with a modified liu don't know, you can't vouch for whether or not they have tested themselves or have taken cautions to prevent themselves from getting the virus in that setting, the best thing to do is to wear a high-quality mask. not just a cloth mask, but if you really want to afford yourself a high degree of protection if you are an individual who is at risk for you are going to be around people who are at risk, or you just don't want to get this virus, it becomes more important to wear a high-quality mask in those settings. host: just about 5-7 minutes or so before the house comes in for that brief pro forma session. we will of course take viewers there when they do. a question from the pages of today's new york times, they ask what does fully vaccinated mean today? guest: fully vaccinated right now in terms of the lexicon that government officials are using means two doses of vaccine. as a practical measure, fully

vaccinated ought to be someone with two doses of the vaccine and subsequently received a booster. the booster becomes very important in omicron. we've seen people who received that booster are substantially at less risk than getting infected and less risk of having a bad outcome from the infection. there is data and south africa and the last 48 hour that showed that two doses of vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization by about 70%. that a substantial reduction of risk of having a bad outcome, but it is much less than what we saw with the vaccine against delta. when you receive the booster, that protection goes up substantially. it goes up to about 80% or 85%. probably after you have received a booster, the data is still speculative here, so we don't have very good studies of the booster. initial analyses out of the u.k., probably the protection against hospitalization goes up to 85%.

that is substantial increase, particularly for someone who is vulnerable to covid and wants to maximize the level of protection they have. that said, people who have baseline immunity, they are going to have a measure of protection. not just antibodies protection, but more importantly, t cell protection to reduce their odds of getting seriously ill from covid. it is not like they are without protection, but you are not seeing more successful protection until after that third dose. host: is a fourth just a matter of when, not if? guest: we are: draft to assess the durability of three doses. you have seen some decline in infection in israel. they rolled out the third much earlier than us, for a longer time. they have reported some decline in vaccine efficacy after about 4-6 months. whether or not we need to rollout a fourth dose i think is

unlikely given the data that we have, the fact that most people with the last four months, within the -- with the exception of people who exceptionally vulnerable. people who are immunocompromised , that might be a setting in which you would support that, saying that many physicians are opting to do that. the bigger question is what will be due next fall? my belief is that we will be receiving boosters in advance of the next fall or winter season. i have long believed that this is going to become, at least for the foreseeable future, and annual vaccine. that the protection your afforded is not sterile immunity. it is not a one and an vaccine like chickenpox or polio or smallpox or measles. when you're dealing with viruses in those settings, this virus is going to mutate and evolve in ways that isn't durable. not just the immunity from

vaccination, but the immunity acquired through prior infection. host: time for maybe one or two more calls before the house comes in. good morning. caller: good morning and happy new year to all. i have two things i want to ask you about. natural immunity is 13 times stronger than the vaccine. the second thing, you have five cruise ships out there who are fully vaccinated. how did that become a pandemic? they can't even land anywhere. guest: with respect to the first question, and this comes up a lot, which is more robust, vaccine-induced immunity or infection of prior and unity? i would rather have vaccine- acquired immunity because i don't want to get this infection but there's a lot of people who have immunity through that infection and the question i think is which is more durable? there are studies around both sides of this.

you could find a study to speak to either point. if you want to demonstrate that the vaccine provides more robust immunity, you can make the point to do that. where i come out on this is that if you had delta infection, if you have been infected with delta, you probably have immunity against delta infection that is quite robust and maybe even more robust than immunity from the vaccine. that delta infection may be more protective against a subsequent delta infection than a vaccine would be in that study. but if you get infected with delta, you probably have less protection against omicron than the protection that would be afforded by a vaccine. being infected by a particular variant probably gives you very robust protection against that particular variance, but it probably does not give you very broad immunity to provide as much robust protection as the vaccine against a multitude of

variants. that is because as the virus evolves, in simplest terms, it evolves in ways where it hides some of its viral epitopes that we generate our antibodies against. when it evolves all the way to delta, surface proteins were expressed but did not provide broad immunity, did not provide a lot of targets on that virus surface vs. the vaccine which uses the old variant at a time in the virus had not learned how to evade the human body so it was displaying a lot of different proteins. when you get vaccinated against many different targets on that viral surface, host: the house is getting ready to come for a brief pro forma session and as always, we take

viewers there. the book is "uncontrolled spread -- why the pandemic crushed us and how we can beat the next pandemic we will take you live to the house floor and we will be back for the final hour after they finish. chaplain kibben: would you pray with me. great as your faithfulness, eternal god of all creation, as the years go by,