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tv   Washington Journal  CSPAN  January 24, 2022 10:02am-1:03pm EST

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thousand community centers to create wi-fi so students for low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. announcer: comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ host: the geopolitical conflict between russia and ukraine became a diplomatic one sunday as the u.s., britain and other countries announced many of their diplomatic staff and families would leave ukraine. news reports this morning suggest the biden administration is weighing sending u.s. troops to eastern europe and the baltic nations as a precaution. it is monday, january 24, 2020. this is "washington journal" and we start the first hour by asking you how should the u.s.
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respond to the russia-ukraine conflict? the lines are for democrats, (202)-748-8000, republicans (202)-748-8001, independents and others (202)-748-8002. we welcome your text messages at (202)-748-8003. tell us your name and where you are from. we are on facebook at facebook.com/c-span and we will look for your posts as well on twitter and instagram @c-spanwj. it is the reporting this morning of "the new york times" of the potential involvement of u.s. troops in the neighborhood, let's say. biden weighs to deploy thousands of troops to the baltics and considering deploying warships and aircraft of nato allies and what would be a major shift from its restrained stance in ukraine. president biden they write is considering deploying
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ships and aircraft into the baltics and eastern europe and expansion of military involvement amid mounting fears of a russian incursion into ukraine. the move would signal a major pivot for the biden administration which, up until recently, was talking about a restrained stance out of fear of provoking russia into invading. but if vladimir putin ramped up his threatening actions to ukraine and talks between american and russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is moving away from its do not provoke strategy. that is from "the new york times." tweet this morning from zeke miller at "the associated press" on nato troops. nato is sending ships and jets east as ireland rejects russia drills. that is from "the associated press." here is the story on that with the headline from "the
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associated press," ships and jets sent used as nato is putting extra forces -- sent east as nato is putting extra force on russia. they are not welcome over whether president putin full will attack ukraine. denmark is deployed more planes to lithuania and france stands ready to send troops to romania. this is from the prime minister of estonia. here is her tweet, here's what i told the financial times. the west has been united. we must keep this line. two, nato has not created the situation.
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the only one who can de-escalate is russia and three, nato's eastern flank must be strengthened. we do not share by increasing defense spending. asking your thoughts how to best respond. should the u.s. respond to the conflict between the ukraine and russia? (202)-748-8000 is the line for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, and all others (202)-748-8002. we mention on the diplomatic front here is the story in "the wall street journal." u.s. tells embassy families to leave ukraine. the state department instructed the families of u.s. diplomats in ukraine to leave the country and authorize some embassy staff to leave as well. while the biden administration considers sending several thousand troops to europe. the state department decision announced sunday comes as u.s. officials worn a russian attack
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could come at any time. that announcement from the state department coming shortly after the secretary of state appeared on a number of sunday shows yesterday morning, including cnn "state of the union" where he was asked about imposing sanctions on russia. [video clip] >> the ukrainian president is calling for the u.s. and others, europeans, to put sanctions in place now. he said "today our partners are saying war may start tomorrow if there is powerful escalation on the russian side and then there will be powerful sections apply." why are you not introducing sanctions now rather than wait until after the escalation? what is your answer to that? >> first of all, we are not waiting. we are doing a lot right now and as i mentioned, the united states is taking a lead in bringing countries together
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and putting together massive consequences for russia if it takes aggression. in the last year alone we provided more assistance to ukraine than any year in the past. we have been going against those inside ukraine trying to destabilize the government. we are taking concrete action. >> but you are not imposing sanctions. >> when it comes to sanctions the purpose of the sanctions is to deter russian aggression. so, if they are triggered now, you lose the deterrent effect. all these things we are doing, including building in a united way with europe massive consequences for russia, is designed to factor into president putin's calculus and dissuade them from taking aggressive action even as we pursue diplomacy. host: some russian response over the weekend. an "associated press" story, russia's foreign ministry sunday rejected the british claim that the kremlin is seeking to replace ukraine's government
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with a moscow administration and that the former ukrainian lawmaker is a potential candidate. britain's foreign office saturday named several other ukrainian politicians it said had links with russian intelligence services along with murayev. to your calls on how the u.s. should respond to the russia-ukraine conflict. we go first to paul in friendship, wisconsin, independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for having me. i myself would go to the middle east and ramp up oil production. i would have every domestic oil driller keep going. hello? host: you are on. go ahead, we are listening. caller: i would just get every oil drilling person possible,
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ramp it up, because putin is interested in oil. he always has been. it worked pretty well when obama got people to flood the market the last time. i think that might hurt him and put a little pressure on him to pull back. host: here is ron on the democrat line in michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. how quickly we forget the 13 dead americans. huh? if we go to war with russia, it will be 13 dead americans a day at a minimum. we are already bragging what we did to the soviet union when we intervened, when jimmy carter intervened in afghanistan and we are still paying the price for the intervention. now we want to go to war with russia? a nuclear armed country that knows how to fight on their own homeland? are we insane?
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host: next is peter on the independent line. go ahead. caller: hey, thanks for taking my call. i really like that last caller. we are going to go to war with russia over this? this is about selling military weapons to nato countries to expand the military budget. this is about money. this isn't about u.s. security. we still don't have health care for everybody. we got homeless people but yet, the biden administration is getting annihilated in the midterms so they think they can start a war with russia over ukraine? it is absolutely insane. you got to remember it was obama and victoria nuland a few years back and now that is collapsing. would you please bring antiwar people on? the new york times and cnn will
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blanket us with ex-cia and ex-g enerals making money off promoting war. host: one caller mentioned the issue of energy. "the wall street journal" writes about that and how germany faces, tying europe hands on ukraine. germany's dependence on gas has left them short of options. it will be vulnerable if they stop exports to the west. the decision to phase out nuclear power and reliance on coal to bring down carbon dioxide emissions means germany is now more reliant on russian gas than most of its neighbors, not just for heating but for power generation. on those sanctions against russia joni ernst, senator from iowa and member of the armed
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services committee, says those sanctions should be imposed now. here is what she had to say. [video clip] >> senator ernst, what is your reaction to secretary blinken? are you confident the u.s. is doing what it needs to do to stop russia from invading ukraine? >> i believe we need to act now. when it comes to pushing back against russia we need to show strength and not be in a position of doctrine of appeasement which seems to be have president biden has worked his administration. we do need to go ahead and impose sanctions on russia now. we need to show them that we mean business and we will be there for ukraine should they invade. once an innovation happens lives are lost. you cannot go back from that. those sanctions need to be put in place now. they could be expelled from the swiss banking system. certainly we need to make sure
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any defensive aid is in the hands of ukrainians as well as as much lethal aid as we can provide at this time. and then we need to ensure the safety and security of americans that are in the donbass region. they need to be moved out or know how to evacuate safely should russia invade. again, i hope we can prevent that through diplomacy. host: back to your calls on how the u.s. should respond to the conflict between russia and ukraine. to ocean shores, washington this is cameron on the line, republican line. caller: good morning. i wanted to comment on ukraine. i have a very good opinion i believe of this. but i wanted to call out c-span about two months ago when you are moderating the program a republican called and said, i think joe biden should be impeached. you turned over your hand and half a second and connected him for having that perspective.
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five minutes later another republican caller called in and said, hey, why did you hang up on her? she is entitled to her opinion. you lied and said that was an accident. with all due respect to open washington journal" and c-span, i do not know why you are a moderator. host: i appreciate your opinion. i do not recall that but if you could stick to the topic, go ahead and make your comment. caller: sure. ukraine is a situation in my opinion where they have been in civil war over two years. we have ukrainian volunteers that have been fighting trench warfare with the eastern side of the country and we have this internal conflict. i think of america gets involved it should be supplying arms to the western side of ukraine.
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if they end up splitting as a country, i think that is probably a healthier thing than all-out war. rossiya is aligned with china, so i really think these sanctions are sort of windowdressing. they are going to get their resources from china, in that respect. like the earlier caller said, it is about money, that is true, but i think the biden administration has really dropped the ball on limiting oil production in the u.s., because it gives rosia a stronger arm in this. i do not want to see american boots on the ground defending eastern ukraine. i want to see it delineated between when and if putin tries to move into western ukraine, then we should get involved. host: to jimmy on the democrats line in brooklyn. caller: before people make a
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decision on what we should do, they have to really look at the entire situation. putin is kgb, carrying out long-range soviet strategy. russia and china are communist parties working with iran, so it is not just a conflict between the country of ukraine and russia, because if we had a shooting war with russia, russia could have riots in every city here, because they work with groups like antifa, revolutionary communist party. this is a world event. you could have terrorism, iranian terrorism, because putin has been rearming in colombia, is helping iran build up weapons, and he has a lot of power. he has people that think putin is good, and other people act like putin is bad. putin is bad, but they do not understand he is carrying out long-range communist strategy laid out by gorge -- by
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gorbachev. i read soviet publications like world marxist review, and many countries around the world praised gorbachev for taking where the image of the enemy. took away the image of the enemy. then we have a new enemy now, according to the media here, the trump supporters. it is absolutely brilliant enemy strategy, and our site is so confused, almost like our site is on lsd or something. so it is not an easy situation. russia may back away to give biden a win to strengthen biden in america because the soviets and the communists got trump out for a reason. trump stood in the way of all our enemies. or perhaps this could be where the whole world gets in an upper. -- in an uproar. why is it
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we have to fear the russian weapons? they do not fear us, too? host: a piece in the washington times, why are we rushing to defend ukraine? the author writes that there are a handful of border disputes underway on this planet at any given moment. a 100 year border dispute in ireland, in sudan, india, etc., a border dispute on our southern border were pretty much everyone on the planet believes i have a right to enter our country at will. an increasingly ominous dispute between taiwan and china. those are material to specific american interests and legal and moral obligations. he writes that it is not clear why this border dispute is worthy of our attention. as the great german from minister audubon bismarck once noted, the entire balkans are not worth the bones of one pomeranian grenadier, nor are
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they worth the honor of a single united states soldier or marine. the gdp of less than $2 trillion, russia's economy is smaller than canada's. it is a kendrew deteriorating economics and democrat minutes -- democratics are the real threat is the chinese party, russia, and by extension, ukraine, is a sideshow. to ohio, republican line, cheryl. go ahead. caller: good morning. in 2014, i believe it was, when president obama was in office, the united states ousted a democratically elected government in ukraine, and we are the ones that installed a puppet government, as evidenced by comments that victoria nuland made on a hot mic. i believe that russia is defending its own borders, and i really do not blame them for doing it.
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and i do not see them as a threat for us. there is nothing wrong with them lining up soldiers and their own country on their own borders. some people protect their own borders, unlike the united states. i do not see any reason whatsoever for us to be going over there and getting involved in this, especially after all the rhetoric we heard about how we needed to end this war in afghanistan. ok, i think that there is a lot of secrets in the ukraine, and some people do not want to come out. so they need to control ukraine. and we were told that, oh, russia overtook crimea -- no, 95% of crimean's voted to be part of russia, because i saw what was happening with these puppet governments being installed around them. so i am totally against this. i think it is a lot of political rhetoric. i think there is a large agenda that is not being talked about, and i do not trust this current united states administration as far as i could throw them, and that is my take on it.
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host: next on our independent line, lancaster, south carolina, this is ken. caller: yes, please give me the time. the article you just read was awesome, and the last republican caller, nothing but the truth. the mainstream media will not show those two viewpoints.let's go back to trying to protect the ukrainian mortar -- border. meanwhile, you need to protect our border. energy is on ukraine while inflation is so high. ukraine is one of the most racist countries in the world. it is more borders we can be defending. we destroy -- obama, we removed their elected government. and we got them on the microphone sank they going to do what we going to say are we going to hold the money.
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so american peoples are struggling. they want to put their energy on ukraine. but russia, china, and india are probably working together. war, it would be a disaster. we just got out of afghanistan, so why the big push to go to ukraine? the mainstream media, abc, nbc, cnn is nothing but a propaganda. there is not really news, and that is what most americans get their news from. host: the question, should the u.s. response to the russia-ukraine conflict? (202) 748-8000 is deadline for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. and for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. a here from the bbc with the headline, ukraine, u.k. is withdrawing some embassy staff. we played the comments from secretary blinken earlier on sanctions. he also talked yesterday on cb''
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face the nation about how nato would respond. here is what he said yesterday. [video clip] >> president biden said at a press conference this week that we can spend a lot of time to try to get nato allies on the same page when it comes to anything short of invasion. seems like putin's easiest strategy would be to hit on that weakness. that is how you divide nato allies. just yesterday, the head of the german navy had to resign because of probe putin statements. it does not seem like the alliance is completely knit together. >> we have been clear, if there is any further russian aggression and terms of sending russian forces into ukraine, it would be a swift, severe, and united response from the united states and europe. second, we have been clear russian engages in other tactics short of sending forces into ukraine or other countries, hybrid actions, cyber attacks, efforts to bring a government
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down. there, too, based on many conversations with european allies and partners, there would be a swift, calibrated, and united response. [video clip] we showed you earlier nato military units are on the move, the headline from ap this morning, nato since ships, jets east as ireland rejects russian drills off its coasts. comments on twitter, @cspanwj, larry says this, iraq, afghanistan, vietnam, etc. all over again. let europe take care of their problem. biden has said we are not getting involved militarily, so you should -- support him on this, right? this one says the pink row weak -- bankroll weakens eu, infiltrates u.k. and u.s. legislature. then masses troops on ukrainian border. anyone else see where this is going? mylan says this is trump's
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problem, he did nothing while putin built up his military in preparation for ukraine invasion, another thing president biden has to clean up. to washington, pennsylvania, republican line. this is jerry. caller: good morning, sir. first off, i am united states navy and was part of the viennese dish vietnamese effect will. do you ever watch open quote -- do you ever watch game of thrones? he seems them with this old man with less than zero power and cannot beat him in no way. you are up by is my gas, will not stand in my way. china, they move to taiwan. they see what we are now. we are weak, and they see it.
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and they are moving. that is what a veteran sees. your last two callers were right on, the ukrainians want to keep things hidden. we have our own problems on the southern border. putin is no fool. he is kgb. he sees what biden is, a confused old man who is being led, who is not in charge. putin will move on ukraine before the end of february. and when he does, china will observe. they will see what we will do, and they will see that we do nothing. we wheeled the flaccid member of sanctions on them. they laugh. do you think putin cares? he has his own oil. host: have we been able to effectively track anything that vladimir putin has wanted to do since he came into power as president? caller: generally speaking, no.
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he has moved at will. what have we done to stop him? nothing. i had an old jewish friend once who told me one thing, he said, people such as this understand only one thing -- old jewish man, wonderful man, love speaking with him -- he said, they only understand the stick. what he meant as they only understand force. these people only understand force, and that is what americans do not understand. we think we can diplomat our way out of things, but the world does not like that, the world is not like us. the world is different from us. americans leave the stateside home and goes around the world and says, why isn't there ice in the drink? arrogant americans do not understand foreign affairs paired we don't, and they don't care. they simply don't. host: it does not matter what
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the line is this morning, not a lot of support for -- any u.s. support in terms of military force here of the people who have called so far. caller: sir, i am a veteran, and i have been called to fight, and every time it has been on foreign soil. it is easy to stand by and say we need to go there, the only people, and i mean this from the bottom of my heart, the only people that cry for war are the people who have never been there, sir. and i have. you do not want to go. you do not want to be there when you're best friend is sprayed all over you because they caught a round. you do not want to be there. you don't know what it is like. host: thanks for your call. obviously, thank you for your service, too. to falls church, virginia, oliver on our democrats line. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: i am so glad i got a
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chance to get through this morning. give me a win it. i am so glad i got a chance to get through to c-span. i am appalled at the republican set call in and defend russia. donald trump did this to this country. donald trump is the problem with disinformation analyze and cheating and stealing -- and lies and cheating and stealing. these republicans are calling this morning to defend russia because they got that line from donald trump. remember, he said he is not a bad guy, he is a great leader, that is the communist in this country, donald trump and his followers. those trump supporters attacked the capitol, and now they want us to look the other way while they take the other part of this country down the tubes with white supremacy and all the misinformation that is going on. it is amazing that the
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republican party fallen on the side of putin and the communists. they are the communists, not us. host: ted jackson, missouri, edward, democrats line. caller: i am a former veteran, retired, first airborne. i have fought in iraq and afghanistan. why just can't we all get along? i do not see why we have to go to war. like that one gentleman said, you have never been there, you never understand what really goes on in war. and thank you for your time, sir. host: this is the foreign policy publication, what a minor russian incursion into ukraine may look like, the piece published late last week they write it is no secret the russian army is designed to be an offensive just -- machine. most forces are armored or mechanized, leaving convoys
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vulnerable to the insurgent like ambush tactics ukraine is preparing to use. and while u.s. president joe biden raised eyebrows when he suggested the u.s. response might be different if rush only staged a minor incursion, the white house clarified. there may be little appetite to run into the defense's teeth and taken hold territory across a large swath of ukraine. ben hodges, former commander of u.s. army forces in europe, that would be so many casualties and no guarantee of being successful. you can read that at foreignpolicy.com. janice in jessup, maryland, republican line. caller: sometimes i really feel like we are about to be in the twilight zone, getting tired of hearing about president trump.
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i think any border we ought to worry about, it should be our own. and i also believe that europe should handle the ukraine and russia deal. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: nick, also on the republican line, delray beach, florida. caller: good morning. question. when did the ukraine become the united states upon trip problem? i went to school, was a political science and history major, all those history and political science classes, i do not ever remember anybody mentioning ukraine as a strategic ally of the united states. and i find it really comical that you have these dummy-crats calling into this show and telling us that this is donald trump's fault. when russia first went into the ukraine, they went into the
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crimea, and they did it when barack obama was president, and barack obama said, and i quote, that is russia's sphere of influence, basically giving them the ok. obama did not sure of the ukrainians, did not send them any military arms or anything they needed to stop russian tanks from rolling into the crimea. putin does nothing when donald trump is president. trump makes america independent, drives down energy prices across the globe, hurts russia's economy. putin cannot do a thing. joe biden comes in, what is the first two things biden does? shuts down american energy by shutting down the xl pipeline, and he approves the nordstrom pipeline, which is a lifeline of money. that is how russia is funding
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this, and you have india -- you have idiot democrats calling in whining still about donald trump and the fbi-run insurrection on january 6. this is why putin is doing what he is doing, because he knows that about 55% of the american people are complete more on's. -- morons. and if anybody thinks that joe biden is going to do a thing about this, you people are crazy, because remember all that garbage about the russian dossier and donald trump and the salacious video that they supposedly had that they never came up with 5, 6 years later? well, i got news for you, that video exists, the only problem is donald trump isn't in it. one of the bidens is, either hunter or joe. so they have the bidens over a barrel.
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host: democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. how should the u.s. response to the conflict in russia and ukraine? the ranking republican on the house foreign affairs committee was on yesterday, faced the nation on cbs, talking about how the u.s. should respond, and that congress, which was out this week, should get busy working on sanctions. [video clip] >> let's pick back up on the issue of russia. we are talking about immediate action potentially. congress is going away for a week. there are bills before the senate. do you have that kind of time to play with legislation, or do you need something in terms of a toolset to handle the president more quickly? >> i have introduced a bill, and
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we are getting key democrats on board. it would be an assistance package of lethal aid to ukraine . that is important. what is also important at this -- is the message of deterrence. baltic steaks, romania and bulgaria, we need them to show putin we are serious. right now, does not seem serious, and that is why the build up is taking place. i believe this all started with afghanistan. he self weakness, weakness invites aggression. we sell that with chamberlain, hitler's. reagan talked about restraint. the thing is, it is not just about ukraine. it is about china, about president xi in taiwan, the ayatollah, about north korea who just fired off two missiles, these hypersonic weapons. i think this has broader global ramifications. we are seen as weak right now
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because of president biden, his comments about a limited invasion as being acceptable and that nato was divided, i think one thing he said was true, that nato is divided. putin's goal is to divide and weaken nato. he has accomplished some of that. [video clip] a story from -- guest: a story from reuters this money, e.u. ready for never before seen sanctions, ready to impose never seen before economic sanctions on russia if it attacks ukraine. the eu foreign minister says it would send a unified warning to moscow. east and west tensions have risen since russia amassed troops near ukraine's border with western countries. russia denies plans for an invasion. there is a -- they could hinder efforts to agree to a joint position, and the eu is sidelined by direct russia u.s.
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talks, but ministers said it was essential to find unity. knowing russia's tactics, i am sure one of their aims is to splinter the west, and ministers gather with regular talks in brussels. this is a victory we cannot afford to give to the russians. a tear from jeff in danville, virginia, independent line. caller: sitting here listening to these people. they are so quick to just go off the line of the question and just go off on a tangent on their own. i think we ought to stay the hell out. i am a combat veteran and was in afghanistan. we just got out of afghanistan. we need to stay out from over there. it is none of our business. at i keep hearing everybody putting the blame game on past presidents, trump and obama, the
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truth is obama did start this stuff over here to where they was going to have their back at all of that stuff that they took their nukes out and all that. should have never done that. but we should have never done anything whatsoever as long as trump was in there, because he knew trump was crazy enough to do something. what really goes against my grain is how these people just go off and just say stuff that is just so stupid and so awful. it don't even make sense. they are getting all of their reporting and stuff coming from cnn and big news media like that. and these places, they are not really telling you the truth. so these people are going around their daily lives and stuff with
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their nose in the air and stuff and not paying attention to what is going on around them. and that is all i got to say. if you got any questions for me, i am glad to answer. host: anna in gaithersburg, maryland, democrats line. caller: i have been a registered democrat for almost 30 years, and i have to say, people need to stop representing the party or supporting the party and look at people as individuals in our government. judge them on their character and with actually do, not what they say. i have to tell you, how should the u.s. respond to russia and ukraine? bring back trump, because trump knew what he was doing. this administration, i have never seen a bigger bunch of idiots. truthfully, i do not even consider them democrats. i consider them communists, marxists, socialists. it is despicable what has
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happened to our democratic party. i am appalled. just bring back trump. the man said what he was going to do and kept his promises. that is what you should look at. all of them live. they are all liars. but the truth is, you have to look at what they actually do, what they accomplish. host: democratic senator chris coons is a member of the foreign affairs foreign relations committee in the u.s. senate. he was yesterday on abc's this week and talked about his response, his thoughts on the biden administration's response to the conflict between russia and ukraine. [video clip] >> senator, you are a member of the foreign relations committee. i want to return to russia and ukraine, the state department is preparing to approve the evacuation of some u.s. opponents and their families. how likely do you think this morning as we sit here that an invasion is likely? >> most important think that
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president biden has been doing is to deter putin from invading ukraine. he has pulled together our nato allies come in sharp contrast to his predecessor. he has invested time and effort in rebuilding our european partnerships, our north atlantic alliance. $650 million in military assistance was delivered to ukraine in the past year, and just this week, another $200 million in the ammunition, small arms, javelin missiles, stinger missiles are being delivered, and our close nato allies like u.k., poland, checklist of ocular, czechoslovakia, and france are delivering come as well. the work to strengthen deterrence is what is hopefully going to succeed, but i'm gravely concerned that putin osha once again aggression in europe and cross the boundary into ukraine in the coming days or weeks. >> you sponsored legislation supported by the white house to be imposed if russia invades.
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my next guest said sanctions should come now. why not now? >> i do think we should take up and pass a bipartisan bill that will show resolve and determination and apply some sanctions now, but the very strongest sanctions, the sorts of sanctions we use to bring iran to the table, something we should hold out as a deterrent to prevent putin from taking the last step of invading ukraine. >> quickly, there is a report out this morning that british intelligence leaves the russians plan to oust ukraine's president and start a pro-moscow government. what do you know about that? >> i have also heard those press reports. one of the things we're doing to show resolve and bipartisan determination is engagement with zelensky to support him. 20 members of the senate in the house, democrats and
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republicans, spent two hours on a zoom call with zelensky on christmas eve, and a bipartisan group just went to meet with him in ukraine this past week. it is important that we continue to show support for the duly elected leadership of ukraine and that the united kingdom and the united states, that our intelligence communities call out in advance things that we are learning russia is planning, to make it clear to the rest of europe just how aggressive and just how creative putin and tends be in both overt and covert means and trying to overthrow ukraine government, independence. guest: russian post front page this morning on the conflict, u.s.-made take aim at tech in russia, biden threatening to use a novel export control to damage strategic russian industries from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to civilian
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aerospace. if moscow invades ukraine, the administration may decide to apply the control more broadly in a way that will potentially affect smartphones, tablets, and videogame consoles. such moves would expand the reach of u.s. sanctions beyond financial targets. the deployment of a weapon used only once before to nearly cripple the chinese tech giant huawei. the weapon contributed to huawei's suffering is first annual revenue dropped, a stunning collapse of nearly 30% last year. back to your calls, republican line, johnny in brooklyn. caller: yes, do not forget hillary clinton, biden, and obama did the russian reset, where hillery built a silicon valley right outside moscow and transferred an enormous amount of serious kinds of technology, and now russia and communist china have hypersonic missiles.
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a lot of that technology came from us. years ago, we think that russia during world war ii, president roosevelt, sent entire factories, nuclear material, everything, and then a couple decades later, we built a communist china to counter russia. that is like giving ukraine cancer to counter lung cancer. the russian collusion was to divert attention away from hillary building the high-tech transfer operation to russia. the hoax was proven a hoax. talking about putin taking out the ukrainian president and installing a pro-putin guy, the commie is -- the communists took out a pro-american guy here, trump. wake up. this was investigated, the russian collusion hoax, and it is all documented. the red threat. everybody involved in that hoax have marxist connections, some
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going back generations. people have to wake up, this is a serious world movement. the communist movement is a world movement. they have radical islam, have our schools, have our media. they work long range strategy. host: next up is joe, democrats line, murfreesboro, north carolina. caller: yes, what i wanted to say is this, how forgetful the american people are. i think it was a day or two days after trump was sworn in, everybody talking about trump and obama. two days after trump was sworn in, he had russians in the oval office. and then he went and met trump -- i mean, met putin with no news media.
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who is your communist traitor? trump, that is who. putin and trump set all this up to make the democratic party look bad. they said it up with all of the business corporations, everyone in this country also. that is why you see prices going up. crisis started going up on gas and all that stuff before january. soon as trump found out he lost, you seen all this stuff start to happen. people are dumb as hell in this country, dumb as hell. in this country, we say, in god we trust, we know nothing about god, nothing. host: next up is greg on the republican line, westport, massachusetts. caller: good morning, america. two things.
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you will see what is going on in the world, the shipping of fuel and stuff all over the world is horrendous. you can go online and see how happy the russian people are. not like this country. we have generals who do not even know who they are. and we are expected them to lead us into war? the other thing, think back to the ukraine call with president trump and the impeachment trial. where is venderbelt, whatever his name is? said ukrainian wanted him to go take control of his army and take care of everything, that he was the biggest, smartest democrat there was on that impeachment trial. where are those people now? host: on twitter, alford says
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this, florida caller with a degree in foreign affairs should realize that in today's global economy, what happens in eurasia is very much our concern. a text from russ in texas, ukraine has 40 million people him at 280,000 troops, give them plenty of guns and ammo and get out of the way and let them settle it. this one says iraq and iran had no navy and air force and we were there for 20 years. this is all about money. the work in -- weapons makers, military-industrial complex eisenhower warned us about. 90% of americans cannot find ukraine on a map without help. and another one says this, hit them with sanctions now and do not wait. match them by moving equipment. if they invade, we hit first. they are a gas station with nukes. a couple views on twitter. this is from thehill.com, senior u.k. minister warns that russia
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-- warns russia of sanctions if it installs a puppet regime in ukraine. yesterday on fox news sunday, former trump secretary of state mike pompeo was on and talked about the biden administration's response to the situation in ukraine. [video clip] >> it is awful late, the real hard work of deterrence would have happened a long time ago, a year ago, when president putin demanded that we give him a new start treaty extension, we gave it to him for nothing. when they had russian cyber attacks and they should on the colonial pipeline, we told them they could only attack certain sectors, but 16 are off-limits. when we left afghanistan the way we did, those are the places where the administration had a chance to establish detergent -- deterrence. so we have to think about the families in ukraine. but the technical things are not what causes vladimir putin to recalculate his cost benefit analysis.
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they do not see president biden as credible. they see the talking and pieces of paper being exchanged as not credible. they do not protect the american people, establish deterrence, and reduce the risk of what president biden called a minor incursion. it reminded me of when president obama called isis the jv, same downplaying of risk. when he talks about downplaying -- when he talks about minor incursion, this is downplaying it. host: to our democrats line next, philadelphia, this is crystal. caller: hello, i just listened to what pompeo said, it costing lives, that is what trump did with coronavirus, downplaying it. this must be a strong flavor of kool-aid these folks keep drinking. biden is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
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he is sending supplies over. obama wanted to send weapons over for crimea, and republicans in congress wouldn't give him no money. they would not finance him. if you cannot finance it, you cannot send help other than a little bit of help. they wouldn't pay no money. the nordstrom pipeline going through indian tribal lands all the way down to the coast to take that dirty crude from canada, so what about jobs. how many times you going to just forget about this virus or the people that live on these tribal lands and run a big dirty pipeline through it? oh, jobs. but biden has somebody standing at for it. the trump administration, he turned his back, and ran out on it. all that time, they fighting with us. host: to john in arlington,
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virginia, republican line. caller: i have three quick points. when is the myth that the russians were the first to change the borders in europe with the invasion of ukraine. actually, it was the american-led action in serbia where they carved off kosovo and set it up as an independent state, in violation of you and resolution 144. that changed borders. second thing is that the russians, when they went into manchuria in 1945, they went in with over one point 5 million soldiers, when they went into czechoslovakia, it was three quarters of a million people. not a lot of people got killed. when they went into afghanistan with 100,000 troops, it did not work out wealth. they could, but i am not sure they're going to go into the ukraine with 100,000 troops. they know with history it does
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not work out always, unless we do something stupid like try to get the ukraine into nato or something like that. i think biden's administration is doing what it could. with the russians set up in november was kind of like an ultimatum, a little scary. i think we got to do this diplomatically and not go stupid like intervening in a bigger way in ukraine. and maybe we can pull out of this thing. host: robert is next, democrats line, elkridge, maryland. caller: i hope you can hear me ok. i apologize. i just want to say hello, good morning, i just wanted to make a call for everybody to have level heads. i do believe that the veterans have a greater say in this matter, and they understand firsthand that going to war is not a simple task for anybody. and i think that we should think
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twice before sacrificing the lives of our citizens, especially those who work for this country to build it. i do not see biden, generally speaking, sending their own family member's to war. they definitely would be against it. if they had to choose between life or death, they would choose life. i think we should try our best to choose life. i do not believe anybody would mistake our kindness for weakness. i do believe that everybody understands america is a powerful military nation. if we need to go to war, we can. i do not think this calls for war. i believe taking a stance for peace is a greater call for justice for our future. i do not see russia having military bases all over the world and threatening neighboring countries, whereas america, we do have our own military bases scattered across the globe. we're definitely a threat to a lot of people.
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i think we should keep that in mind and perhaps take more pacifist approach going forward. that is all i would like to say. hope that can reach somebody. host: you did, and appreciate you getting through. similar sentiment in this tweet, our president is working with the rest of the world on all kinds of consequences, some ingenious and. original putin takes the next step in invading ukraine. this is how you deal with a psychopath, the spartan tweets, let them know in advance what will happen if they are bad. christie is next, independent line, in pinehurst, north carolina. caller: hello, the united states of america needs to show putin its strength and true leadership. so far, it has not. the u.s. has shown weakness, cowardice, and laziness. they do not respect us, they respect strength. and the u.s. is strong. we need to show that strength,
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sooner rather than later. and this is all about economics. there are rich areas of titanium and mercury, and this is what the objectives really are. thank you. host: to charlotte, north carolina, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say that the ukraine stood with russia and the soviet union for freedom and democracy. why don't we do something with ireland? host: mike on the independent line, miami, florida. caller: let's see, already letting them pump oil, so that will not help anything, by letting them pump more oil. i guess the best thing we can do probably in this situation is blame donald trump. host: more of your calls ahead
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here on "washington journal." next on the program, we will talk about the u.s. crime rate, the murder rate, going up during the pandemic. our guest is dr. jeffrey butts, from the john jay college of criminal justice research and evaluation center, joining us to talk about that. later on in the program, our monday focus on the covid pandemic, joined by insert -- insider health care reporter andrew dunn to talk about ongoing efforts to develop the next covid-19 vaccine. ♪ >> >> in o'fallon illinois created a new business. however, his new business can be seen all over the world on youtube. since that day in 2017, he has been known as the history guy stuff he has produced hundreds
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of 10-15 minutes short documentaries on history and his home studio. he is surrounded hundreds of artifacts including military hats and ship models and he is always dressed in his trademark dark suit, black rimmed glasses and the bow tie. host: guest: >> lance geiger, the history guy on this episode of book notes plus available on the c-span now apt or wherever you get your podcasts. >> diplomats from the u.s., europe and russia discuss the situation in ukraine and european insecurity hosted by the senate for national interest , watch live today at 3 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or watch coverage on c-span now, our new video app. >> congress looked at the effect of investing in electric pickles
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on the agriculture industry and rural america including efforts to achieve mitts zero emissions, the use of i/o fuel and clean sources of energy, competition with china and electric vehicles and lower-cost for farmers and truck drivers. watch this house agriculture committee hearing tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span two, online at www.c-span.org or watchful coverage on her new video app, c-span now. >> the inspector general of the small business administration testified on challenges in the coming year including pandemic really programs, staffing and detecting fraud. watches testimony tonight at 9:45 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or find will coverage on her video app, c-span now.
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>> "washington journal" continues. host: dr. jeffrey butz is the director of criminal justice at john jay college. welcome to "washington journal >> washington journal continues. host: joining us from new york this morning, jeffrey butts, good morning. what is the area of expertise of your focus? guest: john jay college of criminal justice research and evaluation center, the research center has rolled out and about a dozen different research groups. we get outside ending and grants
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to answer questions about public safety, crime and justice. host: the rise in the murder rate during the pandemic isn't new news. we cannot explain what is going on in the united states. looking at the numbers from the fbi and a few research. murders in the u.s., in 2019 there were nearly 17 thousand. 16,669. a 29% jump in 2020. 21,570. is there any early indication as of the primary costs of that jump? jeffrey butts? guest: it is the excuse of all experts to say it is complicated. there are multiple factors involved. i and a number of my colleagues
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have been paying attention to that. trying to understand all the various causes. looking at it in the longer-term history of crime rates. one important thing to emphasize is that sometimes journalists describe this as a crime surge or a crime spiked. it is really not crime in general. it is violent crime and gun crime, which more often leads to homicide. one of the most concerning crimes and that is what we are focusing on right now as researchers. to try to understand why this has happened. another thing i will add is, any time someone tries to explain the homicide increase in their city, by focusing on variables in their city, they are mistaken. this is a national phenomenon. in some instances, international. you cannot explain the crime increase in one town by focusing on changes in prosecution or
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judicial behavior or policing. you have to have an explanation that would satisfy if the violent crime surge is happening in multiple cities. that is why it is complicated. you have to ignore things about local and state practices if you're trying to explain a local phenomenon. host: a lot of the news is about murder rates in major american cities. looking at research, it is interesting to notice -- it is interesting to note that the biggest jump in states where the murder rate has gone up, increasing in 2020, some of those states are very rural and sparsely populated states. montana, small delaware are the states that saw the gets increase in murder. what -- it is still early but what should we make of that? guest: that is a very important point. it was true before the pandemic. i did a study a few weeks -- a
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few years ago looking at the population density and the homicide rate and found that in some states, you have a higher rate of homicide, in small areas or rural areas. i wrote in that report, we tend to talk about cities, because that is where a lot of people are, but to say homicide is a function of urban errors. that is like saying cancer, car crashes, -- are urban areas. there are small towns and rural areas in america that have a higher rate of shootings than fixed cities. host: you we mention firearms earlier. we did not touch on this statistic, the murder rate went up 29% from 2019 to 2020. the use of firearms went up about 4% from 2019 to 2020.
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guest: yes, there was also a big bump at the beginning of the pandemic of purchasing a firearms, especially handguns. there is some research showing what is called time to crime. they track when a handgun was purchased and when it appears at a crime scene and is confiscated by police. they track that time gap. they found as the pandemic settled in that time to crime reduced, starting to fall. guns are making their way to crime scenes more expeditiously than they did prior to the pandemic. that is all very concerning. this country needs to deal with the gun problem. we have been avoiding it for decades. i do not know how we get ourselves out of the situation unless we start to have political officials who have the courage to deal with the gun problem and not just pander to the issue for political gain. i have been in this field for almost 40 years now.
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it is as bad as it is ever been in terms of politics and justice. host: the murder rate hitting a historic high in the mid-70's at 2.5 percent. the current murder rate of all time is a big jump from 2020. her 100,000 is 8%. was that highest murder rate driven by drug crime? guest: that is one theory. one of the reasons why homicides declined as of the 1990's until about 2015 is that the nature of the drug trade changed. in 1985, if you wanted to earn money by selling drugs, you have to be out on the street exposing yourself to the wrist -- the risk of arrest and prosecution. people tended to have firearms on them while they were doing that. with mobile communications and
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texting, there were more drug trait done off the street. there was less safety risk and the issue of using guns as part of the drug trade declined. i do not know if that is defensible or if that is the reason. there's also a theory that the nature of the drugs themselves changed. with crack, if you are member the crisis of the 1980's and 90's, crack was mold -- crack was sold in very small quantities. prior to that that drug was only available in powder form. so they hypothesized the onset of crack and the drug crimes also changed the trade. i think violent, while significant and important is not veered to those factors. we have to look beyond the time variant causes and think more via -- think more widely with all the variables we have in trying to explain the phenomenon. the one thing you have to pay attention to is with the onset
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of the pandemic, it is an international phenomenon. a lot of countries experienced increase in social and civic disruption. america always stands alone in tons -- in terms of the prevalence of guns and the use of guns. with the pandemic did was, it went over the infrastructure and patterns of behavior that were helping to maintain public safety and when that happens, we see guns increase, the use of guns increased like no other country. host: do we see other crimes increase other than the homicide by a similar amount? guest: there are some indicators that family violence also increased. not all crimes went up. some crimes went down. if you think about what the pandemic did in the early days, locked down. street life was disrupted. things like burghley -- things
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like burglary and robbery went down. drug crimes, it is hard to track that. even assaults, typical assaults went down. when we talk about violent crime, the federal definition of violent crime is armed robbery, assault, the big volume of this overall index is aggravated assault. if they go down, the overall crime rate goes down. while homicides and firearm homicides go up. host: jeffrey butts with the john jay college of criminal justice research and evaluation center. we are talking about the influence of violent crimes in the pandemic. you can send us a text if you would like. that is (202) 748-8003.
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how does your research center take the information you processing from seeing the murder rate, how is that used for law enforcement or other agencies that are involved in fighting crime or preventing crime? guest: it is a big challenge. the timing of the pandemic happened to coincide with one of the most significant changes in federal crime statistics we have seen. since i have been in this field, people have been commenting that the major data source for national crime data, it is called a uniform crime report from the fbi, that was based on what they call a summary reporting system. every city catalogs, composites numbers, turns them into their state police headquarters. the state hands it over to the fbi and combines it all. that makes it sound very orderly. the problem is, we have a lot of states that define crimes
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differently. have different thresholds for felonies, misdemeanors. they even have different thresholds for what is called violent crimes. that system, also is not mandatory. a lot of states sometimes fail to report. what we call that is a sampling problem. year to year, researchers like me have to correct for the varying sample every year. maybe 80% of the country would report, 85 percent. if you want to compare it, you have to wait those numbers out with the national number. trying to be careful to do so in their way. that whole system is now going away because the fbi decided to create a whole new system which stands for the national integrated reporting system. for the first time, that system allows us to know the relationship between victim and offender. if that was a violent crime you know if that was a personal relationship, a stranger.
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it has information about the use of a gun, if a gun was involved. that is very important to understanding national crime trends. the problem is, the fbi, after cajoling states for years to participate, announced they were going to shut down the other system and switch entirely to migrants. -- switch entirely. some cities are turning in data that is complying with the -- framework. it has complicated national crime trends. host: a question for you on twitter, "did homicide by police increase during the pandemic?" i will ask you a parallel question. did police shootings increase during the pandemic. ? guest: i will say not very much.
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but the public -- exponentially. it is relatively small, but if you are harmed by a police officer it changes your whole world. the number of people hurt by police or killed by police has been a low consistent pattern over the years. cities do try to address that. at some more successful than others. what changed, especially with the on camera murder of george floyd, we all watched it. it changed the way we think about it. there have been previously viewable incidents of police violence and police shootings and deaths, but there was something about the fact that george floyd's happen while we were all locked down at home, consuming media and the news. it changed public awareness. in some ways, that may be a good thing because it raises the heat on that issue and makes people pay more attention.
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but it is one of the theories of why violence went up with the onset of the pandemic is related to that. the whole country became more angry and the issue of police violence was more explosive. we won't know if that is the key explanatory variable or not for some time because we have to have the accumulation of all those national data in order to look at those to try to explain it. that is why i made my previous statement about the frustration that it is changing --. host: the defund the police movement in cities across the country, fbi agent shows statistics 30% increase in -- was not helpful. guest: we do not know.
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hypothetically, you could explain some of the violence. regarding the street phenomenon. if you're out in public and you see uniform police in front of you, you might think twice about misbehaving. there is a theory that if police are facing criticism or sick outs, a lot of police state home during covid, that could increase the temptation to commit crimes out in public. i think that is probably a minor contribution. we will not know for a while if that is a major contribution. you have to put together the data, look across cities, look across state rows. it sounds appealing rhetorically. the problem with the whole crime phenomenon, research on crime, people often settle for an influential argument as opposed
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to an accurate argument. one of the reasons we do research on this is to try to replace rhetoric and ideology with facts and theories. it is a challenge sometimes. host: let's get the callers for jeffrey butts. rick in maryland. go ahead. caller: i wanted to ask a quick question. is there a study that you all track where the weapons or the guns come from that are involved in these murders in major crime areas or major cities? are they more locally attained and therefore used locally or are they imported from lacks gun law states into major cities because of the easy access of those states? and one other quick question,
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during covid, are violent criminals being let off more often because they do not want to have them all gathered together in hopes of mitigating an outbreak? thanks a lot. guest: ok. the first question, tracking guns is not my area of expertise but i know enough about it to know that your position is correct. i was living in chicago for a while when they were able to do gun tracing, guns used in crimes. a lot of them came through surrounding states with less restrictive laws. so that is a problem and unfortunately our congress decided to prevent the fcf. they prevented the atf from sharing that data. as a researcher you cannot get detailed data on tracking guns and guns used in crime. i would hope someone fixes that
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someday. if you don't have data you cannot solve the problem. the issue of incarceration and especially pretrial release yes a lot of headlines. it is easy to look retrospectively and that is what tends to happen in one murder case or a shooting that happens and you find out that person was recently arrested and let out on bail. you use that to rationalize that is the solution. if we reverse that condition, we would be ok. the problem is, a lot of people come to the court system and the pretrial system and you have to make judgment about who you want to spend the precious resources on to hold them. it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to hold someone pretrial. we do not do that for every little case or we would go broke. this country has to make judgment about the risks and benefits of incarceration. supervision in the community.
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people do a pretty good job of that and we are getting better at it. the rhetoric and inflammatory arguments around that can sometimes hold that policy. i hope this get better as well. host: is there a standard definition that you use or the fbi uses, what defines a homicide? guest: yeah, different -- a deaths resulting from a crime. they use terms like felony homicide. it intends on the intent of the person. -- it depends on the intent of the person. if you could argue at all it was accidental or intentional. there are a lot of criminal judge -- criminal judgments on how they do that. states vary on how they do that. you can only understand it within some kind -- with in one
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context. and sometimes within a county. some counties vary within a state. we do this to respect federalism. but it makes the mission to understand the overall patterns and explain them more complicated. part of what you learned in graduate school and crime in justice is the awareness. you always have to stop and think what state was this in. can i compare this without looking into underlying definitions of this crime. it gets complicated. host: let's go to carrie in washington. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.
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i was wondering are there statistics on murders in the family. i heard every 10 seconds a woman is right or mortar -- is right or murdered in the united states. you do not hear about the amount of rapes that happen in the family. thank you. host: jeffrey butts? guest: one of the reasons we use homicide as the -- if someone is killed, the data from that is more reliable. the problem with all of the crimes that are nonlethal, even
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sexual assaults as the caller mentioned, the first layer of information about them is whether the crime is reported. roughly half of all crimes is never reported to the police. half of what makes us feel unsafe in the community does not come to the attention of police, which means no one's charge, no one is prosecuted or held responsible. that adds to the sense of chaos that people feel. it is the frustration people have when they keep paying taxes to the police department and the courts and i still feel afraid for their safety. that is partly because people are reluctant to report the crime. sometimes that is because they have reasons to be hesitant to engage with police at all. if you are a victim of a crime, you may rather just cope with it on your own rather than draw attention of the police to your home and family. that is sometimes rational.
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another cause of this uncertainty is the bureaucracy of policing. we will know even less about crimes happening in the community. i understand the motivation behind the defunded slogan. it is just a bad slogan. anytime somebody says defunded the police and their next comment is "well, what i mean by that is." that is not a good slogan if you have to explain. here in new york city, there are some programs going on now called reform and reinvent the police. that is a more productive slogan because it suggests the need to improve and the impact to make it more transparent as opposed to cutting budgets and letting people figure out what their new reality is. host: let's go to rick in
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indianapolis. good morning. caller: good morning. mr. butts, let me tell you why the crime problem is not going to change. in the 1970's, a small group bought hud. and they bought the property in the cheapest. they own and manage section eight project. it is about 40 million. about -- there are about 40 million blacks in the country. 70% live in these hellhole section eight project where all they are doing is breeding criminals. mr. biden has appropriated billions of dollars for more section eight income housing
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because the owners of these projects are billionaires and control hud and control many politicians. host: ok, jeffrey butts, your thoughts? guest: the one thing i can agree with from that call is, we have been there before. you referred to the 1960's. there is a book, elizabeth hinton from yale wrote a book called "the war on poverty to the war on crime." i have been reading it lately. it is about the uprising that happen often from police violence. newark and detroit, 1967. what that did was raise the anger that people have about
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crime and social disturbance. derailed some policies that were being developed as a clinton and johnson administrations. to make a pathway into the middle class, if you would. using federal dollars to provide that support. when those social uprisings happened, the federal government and state officials turned on it and started taking money that have been set aside and using it instead to begin a new war on crime. it has proven through many years that it satisfies the public need for vengeance but it does not improve public safety. we have been here before. it is said to me to read something describing a situation in america 60 years ago that sounds just like today. i do worry this uprising of resentment we have about crime and justice in different
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communities will retort to a withdrawing in communities. it is a function of community and well-being. i always say to people, if policing was the solution to public safety, we walked into a very wealthy area in your city, you would see a lot of police cars. if police was the main thing that keep people safe, it would be busy. -- it will be visible. we know that is not true. if we cannot make everyone wealthy, what is it that in wealthy communities have the effect of public safety. the caller alluded to it, housing. we just choose not to deal with those things and turn to control and enforcement. i understand the need to do that in the short-term but we better start thinking long term if we are going to get past these problems. host: you touched on this recently as a new mayor, the
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murder rate problem in new york city. guest: he is saying things that i appreciate. even though he has a policing background, he spent a lot of time in city government. he knows about fool -- that protects public safety and communities. he is talking about the need to do multiple things at one time. he also has to deal with the headlines and community anger and anxiety people feel. we had some notorious killings here recently. they have gotten a lot of attention and so far i am seeing him willing to have a broader approach and sustain a multiple front approach to increasing public safety and community well-being. i hope he can hang onto that. fingers are crossed. host: remembering the loss of two police officers in new york
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city. rookie police officer killed in the line of duty over the weekend in new york city. at late last week in new york city the mayor was on cnn and talk about that. here is comment. [video clip] >> i understand you are talking about introducing a series of steps next week. people in new york are worried right now. can you give new york city residents one concrete example of a way you are going to, using your platform, make them more safe immediately? >> immediately, we are going to re-institute a newer version of a plane, modified plainclothes anti-gun unit. the team has done the proper analysis and now we are going to deploy that. you're going to see the visible presence in our subway system. the governor has been an amazing partner of what we are going to have. flood our system with mental health professionals and law
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enforcement row can as a team to move out the disorder that is clearly in the subway system in our city. but also, we are going to continue to build, i talked about this, we were able to stop terrorism in the city with state, federal going forward with agencies with information to share and deploy together. president biden heard me, he understands that, and we have placed that in place now in new york city. host: jeffrey butts of john jay college. what steps have been successful in reducing crime in the american cities? what has worked? guest: the premise of your question, the way you phrased it, it is part of our problem that people attribute causation to leadership in saying what mayors have been successful. i know this happens and we like to attribute public policy to
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individuals because that helps drop political attention, political support. william bratton gets a lot of credit for having reduced crime. police like to have those active words, reduced, cut. i remember talking about this, the last mayor de blasio rot bratton back to the city, people were sitting -- people were celebrating that. casually i looked at the per capita violent crime rate in new york and tracked it. it came down dramatically from the mid-1990's to 2017. when you plop that slope and control for the size of the population, the slope look just like millions of other americans. crime does not go down based on political leadership but political leadership will hold back by resorting to rhetoric ideology and fostering division.
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some political leaders do for their own gain. i hate to do this all the time, it is complicated, you have to look at multiple data sent -- look at different kind of crime. understanding, it is a shortcut to think one person or one administration is responsible. host: let's hear from jeff in centerville, tennessee. caller: i have a couple questions. initially you said, it sounded like all these gun buyers in the last two years, legal gun buyers had something to do with the murder rate, which is not true. they might be stealing these legal gun buyer weapons. that could be the other thing. and it is not complicated.
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nobody had the police back. the mayors, da's were -- the police. that is why the murder rate went up like it did. and the other thing, legal gun owners stop violent crimes. thank you, sir. host: ok. jeffrey butts, your thoughts? guest: i understand that is one of the themes people want to bring up. i did not say all these legal gun owners were responsible for homicides. i said there was a noticeable increase in purchasing and the time when a gun appeared on a crime scene had fallen. i agree, the gun issue can be divided into legal, safe ownership and the off -- the opposite of that. the problem is, it is hard to
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control. we have 400 million guns in circulation in this country. they are not all going to be used responsibly. some are left on bedside tables where children can get after them. we as a come -- we as a country have not viewed the gun issue with a sense of patriotism. people are willing to use that to exploit voters by appealing to that. unless we cope with these gun issue we will continue to lead the world in terms of deaths due to forearms. i have been in this field a long time. most of the time it seems we are stuck of rhetoric ideology, it is sad. caller: good morning. i wonder if you evaluated
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federal law where they turned public lands. they stole the maid -- they sold the native americans rights. they took away the policing from the tribes and they also took away their land, resources, their water and everything else. to do policing. you should not tax native americans. which is a crime, they have been taxing native americans all along. host: jeffrey butts focusing on
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homicide and murder rates in the population. it may be too specific to ask you, are there any specific murder rate increases in those parts of the country? guest: i do not know. it would be a challenge to assemble that data because there is a different data system. it is important to recognize these issues are built into our history. sometimes people say things about crime and violence today as if there was a certain group of people who tend to do that. we have to remember, our country was built on crime and violence. using the phrase "stealing land ", you read any history text, read something about how repeated it is of exploiting people, taking other people's
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belongings, forcing people to go where they don't want to go. it is a part of american history. if we recognize that as our political nature, maybe even human nature causes you to be more temperate and how to characterize violence and how to reduce it. if it is human nature, you cannot -- just by threatening people there will always be someone willing to export people. it does not always happen on the street with a gun. you define crime that way, we need strong communities and strong civic society to control. not just forced coercion. host: the murder rate rose 30%
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higher. 7.8. jeffrey butts is with us. in looking at that, jeffrey butts optimistic in being able to see that rate decline? guest: yes. the first thing to pay attention to, if you are talking about percent of change, you need to do something with the right as opposed to the volume. if you look at the population between 1995 and today. the population is bigger than it was 20 years ago. the rate is concerning. keep in mind, people hate when we do this as researchers, when we say the rate used to be much higher. we had 2000 murders a year in new york city just five years ago. so it increase from 300 to 500 is concerning. like if you had a really bad
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fever once, you are a little bit more concerned if your fever goes up slightly because you remember that bad fever. but you don't overreact to the slight increase, deal with it and try to reduce it. the mayor is responding, all across the country, people are responding. one historic note for you, we talk about the increased per capita rate per thousand. the homicide rate went when you look back in history, some of the stories have tried to construct homicide rates using old records, preindustrial time. there was a look at church records in europe because people often note -- documented in
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excess homicide rates of more than 200 years ago. society is safer than it has ever been but we expect more than that. we expect to increase public safety and when it starts to slip away from us, we have to act. i think that is what is happening right now. host: let's hear from kathy in wisconsin. go ahead. caller: i am wondering are there any statistics, in the 90's i lived in kansas and they closed the state hospital and if a day luge of people on the streets, halfway houses, everyone you look at, everyone you talk to, health issues. i'm wondering are there any statistics out at all.
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guest: thanks, kathy. there is a connection between the mental health and --. people with mental health challenges and especially the homeless are more likely to be victims of crime than they are to be perpetrators of crime. it is a problem that the presence of obvious homelessness in the community increases that since of social disorder and it makes people feel less safe. part of how we keep ourselves safe is by reminding it gives you that feeling that things are coming apart. during the pandemic, we have seen that. i have been in new york city virtually the entire time. the incidence of people sleeping
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on the sidewalk have increased and it is concerning. especially when you see, these were not people that were homeless for a long time. you can see their belongings as they are sleeping. the things around them, they clearly had a home in the recent past and now they are carrying their belongings with them and trying to catch some sleep at night. it is very concerning. but they are not the cause of public safety problems, they are often the victim of public safety problems. host: a mother tweeted this, "i have -- i live in new york city. i have no issue with cops. but i have been in too many instances with the nypd has a presence --." guest: it is hard to know the extent to which the overreaction to public safety is a part of the challenge of public safety. i think when you ask people and
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communities, most people want safety and they want their neighborhoods to be ok and if that takes policing, they will accept it. but at some point we have to recognize that is a shortcut to public safety. i have friends, we have this argument all the time, those of us who talk about long-term solutions. what is discussed as root problems, privilege, the people who make the other argument that we need to act right now, we need to bring the risk in, can be characterized as authoritarian and disregarding the public safety challenge -- public safety issue causes a public safety challenge. i hope we explore what the approaches are with public safety and getting rid -- getting away from these tribal issues.
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it is understandable it happens with public safety as well. host: one more call for you, this is carol. tyler, texas. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you. i am calling in about the crime, failure to stop and render aid or a hit-and-run. it is very hard to gather statistics about that and the penalty very from state to state. many are very low and some have worked on it to become their -- greater penalties in hopes that people will stop and render aid, no matter what the situation. i am wondering why this crime is always in traffic or transportation when there is crime rate and failure to stop and render help. guest: thanks, carol.
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you bring up a very important point when you use the phrase -- and the leniency of penalties. those of us who talk about crime and justice in public safety, we often use the phrase deterrence. which is the combined effect of multiple policies to try to keep crime under control. we know that deterrent is accomplished partly by the severity but it is also through the severity, i am less likely to come in crime even if the penalty -- and that penalty will be opposed to me. even if it is not that severe. if i really think that is going to happen, i may not want to commit that crime. that means i am deterred. if we only think of deterrence about the function of severity, and the proportion of cases
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resulting in incarceration, that is what we did for 30 or 40 years. just exploded the prison population with very uncertain returns. with not a whole lot of payback if you look at the actual metrics of public safety. that is because we were satisfying the public urge for vengeance or severity. we have to focus on certainty and severity as well. i would much rather have a system that was responsive -- responsible in those multiple domains than just the strength of --. host: jeffrey butts with john jay college of criminal justice research and evaluation center. thanks for being with us here on washington journal this morning. guest: you are welcome. host: we want to focus on the pandemic. we talked to the insider health. reporter andrew done talking
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about the ongoing efforts to develop the next covid vexing. more of your phone calls ahead. ♪
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them through an open door between his office and theirs. >> you will also hear some blunt talk. >> presidential recordings on c-span now or wherever you get your podcasts. >> c-span offers a variety of podcast of something for every
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listener. weekdays, washington today gives you the latest from the nation's capital and every week, book notes plus has in-depth interviews with writers about their latest works well the weekly uses audio from our archive to look at how issues of the day developed over years in our occasional series talking with features conversations with historians about their lives and work will stop many of our television programs are also available as podcasts and you can find them all on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: it is our monday morning focus on the fight against covid-19 and we are joined by insider health care reporter andrew dunn. good morning. guest: good morning, thanks for having me. host: we hear that people write articles and talk about the next generation of covid-19 vaccines.
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what are people referring to specifically when they say that? guest: that's a great place to start stuff i think there is some uncertainty out exactly what we are talking about. one word that is thrown around a lot is pan coronavirus, covering multiple coronaviruses and depending who you ask, the use that word differently. they could be talking about sars-cov-2 variance of this particular pandemic or other people are looking at multiple coronaviruses like a family of viruses when you think of the 2003 outlook of sars in the 2014 outbreak of mers, could there be a vaccine that works on multiple families? what exactly are we talking about? for the most part, i think people are looking for the next generation vaccine designed and tailored for this pandemic with what we are seeing with the different variance coming out.
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can there be a new vaccine that is more effective against a wider range of variance. host: you wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago about the omicron focus, the development of that vaccine and pfizer plans to start human test of its covid-19 vaccine before the end of january. what is it take for a company like pfizer to start a research study on of specific vaccine like this? guest: this is one of the marvels of modern science. these mrna vaccines, this is a new technology around messenger rna and you become the genetic code that ourselves -- that ourselves are taught to make the spike protein that is protective
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against sars covid to ideally. it's a very quick process to update these vaccines. the one thing to keep in mind is that was the promise. there could be a quick strain change and you can stay on top of it. the timelines moving quicker. i think with the omicron search, we are hopefully past the peak. it moves really quickly. as far as where they are now, pfizer says they are on track for this 90 day timeline, looking at late march to start rolling out and omicron specific booster. modernity has also talked about a similar timeline but they started to talk more recently about preparing for this fall.
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they are thinking if there's going to be another surge or another wave about raikes with colder weather later this year, they want to start thinking about that and what's the best formulation of their vaccine to take that on. host: some people could say 90 dowse -- 90 days down the road that they've survived covid so why should i get the booster? what does pfizer say about the efficacy of a vaccine locust on omaha ron? do they think this will likely be helpful in fighting future variance? guest: that's part of the thinking is that the omicron strain has strayed so far away from the original coronavirus strain we saw in january, 2020 that this could basically get your level of immunity closer to what's currently circulating out
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there. this is a debate going on in research labs right now. they are wondering what the best formulation of their vaccine is, thinking about future variant s. would it go back to something more like delta? those are hard predictions to make. omicron came out of left field. we saw the reduced vaccine effectiveness from two doses. it's hard to answer that question. they hope that in omicron specific vaccine would be closer to the current state of the pandemic and be helpful against future variance but they are not making any promises, humility has been a k lesson of the entire pandemic. they are trying their best to prepare. host: what are researchers
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finding in terms of the immunity levels of people who have had the omicron variant? guest: this is still emerging research. there is a lot you can based on previous variants. at the starting point, there is natural immunity from an infection and recovering from an infection of the virus, that provides real benefits and we see that with other viruses historically and we've seen that with sars covid two. some of the earliest data comes out on a daily is data suggest that will not be different for omicron. how durable is that protection. if you get infected, how long are you protected? there is really no way of knowing that without following people on a long-term basis.
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it's not the most satisfying answer. unfortunately, it's hard to say. host: our guest is andrew dunn who covers health issues for insider. we are talking about the future of covid-19 vaccines and we welcome your calls and comments. we saw this headline at the bbc -- the first generation of covid-19 vaccines was developed in record time but scientists have grander plans for potent immunity and mutation proofing. do researchers feel they have bought some breathing room with the vaccines that are out there? do they feel they now have the time to develop a longer-term
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vaccine against covid? guest: yes,, this is happening at a lot of universities and government funded research restart with the idea of a pan coronavirus vaccine. it's something that could be mutation resistant or variant proof. that's kind of the holy grail of the vaccine now. these vaccines are early stages in the most advanced one is that the walter reed army research where they developed a vaccine that is hopefully effective against an entire range of variants and future variances to come. we heard a lot about this in december and we haven't seen a phase one study result. there is a lot of excitement
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about what's happening. it's another step. i'm looking forward to seeing some of the data that's being tested as a three dose vaccines are not ideal if you think about global immunity and something that's easy to transport and use around the world. it's the balancing act of three doses that would get you better immunity but is there a way to have a good enough vaccine in a single dose if you are thinking about a global campaign? host: we will get to your calls in a moment. anthony fauci testified before congress last week and he touched >> there are fundamentalc issues that are discovery, that
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once you get the discovery, then you can do the implementation of that discovery. we were very fortunate in that the basic research and clinical research that had been made literally for decades prior to the new revelation that we had a very threatening virus among us was the reason why we were able to use new platform technology as well as image and designed to get highly successful and safe vaccines. that same thing is going on right now. it isn't well-known because it isn't front-page yet. you know as a scientist, it's only until you get the result that people really understand what you've been doing. there is a lot of investment not only in improving the vaccines that we have for covid, a lot of work as i mentioned, looking at
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the tools of fundamental basic and applied science to develop next generation vaccines, particularly universal coronavirus vaccines. we won't be chasing after the next variant. we will have a vaccine that has the capability of responding to every iteration of a variant. there is a lot of work going on without right now. when you are doing basic research, which you can appreciate, that usually isn't well recognized by the public. host: dr. fauci talked about chasing the latest variant, have researchers felt like that? guest: that's the only way to look at it. when you look at the mrna vaccines, there is a new variant and we could quickly adapt to
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that and roll out a new formulation. the timeline of doing that is incredibly impressive. at the same time, the speed of the pandemic has rolled that over. dr. fauci put it really well. it's worth noting that his agency has given out $36 million in grant funding. a lot of academic labs are looking at the next generation of covid vaccines. you are absolutely right. that is one of the key challenges. are we going to be chasing different strains? is there a better way to get ahead of this variant?
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host: let me ask you about therapeutics. one of the leading tools in terms of therapeutics? mark on twitter wants to know why we aren't fast tracking therapeutics. caller: this has been a fast-moving with omicron. some treatments have gotten bumped down as far as their utility because of this new variant. when you think about some of the antibody cocktail's for people who have early cases of covid and a high risk of hospitalization, to treat them early with antibodies was very effective against previous variant. now some of these drugs are effectively knocked down and not that potent against omicron. we are looking at regeneron. they have showed reductions and effectiveness. the good news is there are some other antibody drugs.
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that is still retaining its effectiveness as an antibody drug. finally there is this bill everyone has heard of from pfizer. supplies are extremely limited at this point because they're not having much of a real world impact. when we look at the latter half of this year, those pills should be in much higher quantities in terms of manufacturing. the idea is if you have covid or postexposure where if you are exposed to some of covid, even if you don't test positive, they are authorized for early treatment. by the latter half of this year, the hope they will be authorized for both. that could be an early treatment , easy to get eventually. it can keep people out of the hospital and knock this back to an endemic. host: let's go to our collars.
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good morning. caller: i want to congratulate his excellent publication. if you don't read insider, you're not keeping up with things. my statement is this. pfizer and modernity -- modernity was conducted with public money in university laboratories. pfizer was lavishly subsidized and their affection in utilizing the technology. then they were given the patent. they quashed the use. india could've produced these early on and distribute them in the third world were most of the people live and where these new variants have a lot of room to develop. this is a fast musette in virus. coronaviruses are always fast mutating.
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we faced a tough enemy. it talk about social organization, china responded with the covid free policy. they've only had four deaths since april 2020. some people say you can't test -- trust china, singapore, south korea, straley, new zealand all use the same policy with similar results. most of them were pushed out by businesses. host: specifically in the comments about the vaccine worldwide and his call for pfizer and moderna to make them more available worldwide. guest: that is one of the most interesting and depressing points of the pandemic, is the global inequity of vaccines. it's hard to reckon sometimes,
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in my own mind, we are rolling out third and fourth doses in richer nations while a lot of countries are still struggling to get first doses. more recently as the supply has caught up with lower income countries, the infrastructure hasn't. in order to send out public messaging, they can prepare accordingly. all of those have been massive failures by the health system. i think he brings up a good point. the patents and how they have prioritized rich countries or taken the bulk of early orders from rich nations, it's worth examining.
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is there a better way to do it? there were no easy solutions as far as india. that is absolutely true for traditional vaccines. it was not convincing if india had the capacity to mass manufacture mrna vaccines. there is a different level of complexity with protein vaccines. the fact that it's a different technology limited the number of manufacturers around the world who had the expertise. host: mark is in maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. the last caller took a little bit of the wind out of my sails with some questions about the pharmaceutical industry. what other industry has paid out more money in damages over the last 20 years, it's the
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pharmaceutical industry. why are we getting pfizer wall-to-wall commercials. every time joe biden gets in front of a microphone, it seems like the population is in a mass hypnosis right now where we are worried about a disease with a 99.96% survival rate. on a daily basis, we are bombarded with covid commercials. whether it's listening to that idiot faucher sheet, he subsidized all this. he's the same men telling us the cure. it doesn't pass the smell test. host: any thoughts? guest: off that point, this gets at the challenge of science to
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munication in the time of a pandemic. there has been so much disinformation and false information in general. it is hard to reckon with the idea that the vaccines are safe and effective as far as the number of studies around the world, not just looking at company-sponsored studies, which are run with and dependent researchers who run those studies. the vaccines make real difference when you look at who ends up in the hospital versus non-vaccination people. it's night and day. at the same time, we can say definitively right now that the vaccines are safe and effective. part of this, we would like more out of them. we would like a vaccine that has
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sterilizing immunity. that is an incredibly high bar. we don't hold vaccines to that. a lot of the messaging in the first year was around until we have a vaccine. the fact that we have a vaccine now and we have seen a radical transformation to the world as it was before, i think that's tough to grapple with, not just for myself. how do you explain this and think about the safety and effectiveness. host: in terms of the development of a vaccine, they go through the same authorization process. they have to go through trials. they have to be approved for at least emergency use by the fda. guest: absolutely. the one quicker path would be if there was a strain change. this is something that is being
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worked out in real time between the fda and vaccine developers. what level of relevance does the fda want to see to feel comfortable if you make a tiny tweak to one of these vaccines to tailor it to omicron instead of the original virus. you have to run a massive study with a placebo group. you could look at a correlate of protection as far as different measures where you can get much quicker in terms of just antibody response or immune response. that is kind of how much data the fda wants to see for vaccines that are already authorized if you want to make a strain update. for other programs, they have to go through the whole process. they have to have tens of
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thousands of volunteers. host: james is in virginia. good morning. caller: i was curious, the virus that came out of texas. my understanding is it doesn't use the mrna technology. it could be mass produced by a bunch of different countries. it was approved in india. apparently, they could not get funding like pfizer did for the mrna. they had to do research and development on a small amount of money. host: what was the name of the antivirus? caller: it came out of texas university. it was approved in india. they are starting production on that. it doesn't use the mrna technology. it could be produced anywhere in the world. guest: i'm glad you brought that up.
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you are referring to baylor university. i talked to them throughout the pandemic in terms of what they've been doing in texas. they've developed their own vaccine. they're working on sars in 2003, trying to develop a vaccine then. that was when my first conversations about those efforts in 2003. they were attempted to get funding 20 years ago. when the pandemic subsided, funding also evaporated. it's pretty amazing. they stuck to it. they did authorize it under conditional approval. we will see how far it makes it around the world. it's encouraging how they have a
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massive indian manufacturer behind it. it should have a big impact on low income countries. we don't hear about it much in the u.s. those trial results came out a month or two ago. it's behind those early efforts from pfizer and j&j and astrazeneca. they don't have a big pharma backer to accelerate that timeline or drum up a lot of attention read it. the impact it could have on low income countries is phenomenal. it's a great program to watch. host: where are we in the development of a vaccine for kids under five? guest: i think it is still -- this is still being figured out. the number of doses and the strength of the doses, the original but during a shot was
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100 micrograms. they're looking at trying a small fraction of that for the under five population. those trials need to run out fully. how far do you paste those doses apart if it's going to be two or three? those questions are still being answered. the hope is there will be more answers than questions. i don't know if it will get all the way to authorization in that timeframe. this is an area where the fda wants to be more confident, just extremely confident in the safety and they won't have to do any tweaking after the fact. host: ron is in pennsylvania. caller: thank you for taking my call. the doctor from baylor, he announced it was the world's
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vaccine. he said there is no patent on it. he is hoping other manufacturers will talk to them about establishing the infrastructure of regional vaccine manufacturers around the world. prior to baylor, they have gone through clinical trials. they went to south africa and they're trying to do something over there right now. what an earlier caller said about big pharma getting big money from the government, there was very little accountability. how could there be little cooperation from the richest
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country in the world with some of these other manufacturers? i think it's important for the u.s. to take the lead on this. thank you. host: how much money will the pharmaceutical companies make off the covid-19 vaccines? guest: the short answer is a lot. form a dharna and pfizer, are company changing products. these are the highest revenue products in pharmaceutical history last year. we are talking in the range of $25 billion in revenue. it's a staggering sum of money. there is a question if that will turn into a durable business from booster shots. there would be annual booster shots.
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in moderna's case, can there be a combination vaccine where you go to cvs once a year and get a shot to protect from covid, respiratory virus, the flu. can one-shot protect against multiple viruses? the short answer is tremendous amounts of money. i get why for a lot of people, big pharma making record profits isn't the easiest thing to sit with. that's a fair point. a lot of these smaller companies, if they are publicly traded, they have similar motivations. smaller on the public market, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. there is a big question. this goes back to operation warp speed, they were taking out
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which vaccine candidates to fund, to throw hundreds of millions of dollars behind. which company has the capacity to ramp up and produce 4 billion doses. it is tremendous scale up of these new technologies. it has turned into four big pharma for sure. host: good morning. caller: thank you for letting me on. this long saga about the vaccines and the virus, we were hit with a very infectious virus. everything else i question. we have the patent somewhere years ago for people involved in
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the story. we have -- we are seeing the origin of the virus. we have problems with our testing. the pcr tests didn't work. we had problems with the diagnosing. we fell down the stairs. that went on forever. we have weird covid protocols. they don't treat you for pneumonia. they are covid protocols. we have strange pharmaceutical test results where they have to produce the information. they stop at six months and they start giving the vaccine to the
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placebo groups. they polluted the results. it's stranger and stranger. now we have -- why the high death rate for people who took the vaccine? that's not -- the high death rate is due to motor vehicle accidents. they are supposed to record deaths. what is she talking about? what are they doing? there is an aggressive push by government and pharmaceuticals for you to get a vaccine. they are so invested in it. all of this is false. it's designed to get you vaccinated. all i say is do one thing and we
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will see where this goes. host: she mentioned the term vers. what does that mean? is it supposed to do? guest: that's the reporting system. this is monitored by the fda. this is a non-supervised on audited way to report side effects. i could go in, you could go in. you can type in your report. you can enter that. this is been used a lot. i don't want to say misinformation, a lot of malevolent actors have used this to cherry pick certain events from the database and say look at what this is causing or look at these side effects that are being ignored.
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they do look at it. they do investigate cases that seem concerning. they go in-depth on them what it is justified. a lot of the entries are unsupervised, unaudited. it's hard to put much trust or value into that database. host: the anti-vaccine movement got a boost in washington. a protest was led by robert f kennedy junior. this is a picture of the national mall without protest happening on sunday. we are with andrew done it. we will go to mike in pennsylvania. -- new york. you are on the air next. caller: i want to thank you for taking my call. good morning, america.
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as far as your reporting, you are pro-vaccine. if you look at pfizer, if you do your research on pfizer, it has so many lawsuits they paid out. pfizer is corrupt. i think -- myself, i look at the obituaries. i see people dying of heart attacks. why don't you report on that? we don't even know what's in this vaccine. you don't even know it's going to happen to people later on in life. why don't you look at that? report on that. we don't know what's going to happen to people 3-4 years from
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now. you're telling me to go take the vaccine. are you out of your mind? host: to avery in florida. go ahead. caller: can you hear me? you're two prior colors are correct. i'm a physician. i've studied this for the past two years. i have followed people who support early treatment they have totally suppressed any early treatment with any drugs the been proven to be effective. if you treat early, almost one junta percent. my group has treated 150,000 patients with only for having to go into the hospital. i know some people who have been
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in the hospital and passed away. they are told to stay home until they turn blue. they go in. these are people who have had a vaccine. even though omicron is less malicious compared to the prior variant. the people who go into the hospital go in and they are given remdesivir. they should not be given that. they are being given that at two weeks into the illness. it only works in the first five days. there has been a suppression in the media. it's the first time i've ever seen any sort of early treatment until they've come out. they are moneymakers for the same companies. it originally produced
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ivermectin, which is proven to be effective. host: we will get some response. the fda expands authorization of remdesivir. it had been permitted in hospitals, now it is permitted in outpatient use. guest: on the idea of early treatment, there is something to the idea of the antibody drugs. they work best when it treated early. i think that is a core take away message. if you are at risk of developing disease, you want to seek out a physician and consult a medical expert. is there something makes sense for you.
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the antibody drugs are taken on an outpatient basis. the anti-viral remdesivir, they are using that on outpatients. i would just add on to drugs like experimental drugs, they are experimental for over. they are approved for other uses that have nothing to do with covid-19. the majority of trials that had placebo groups and were double blinded and published in medical journals, they have concluded that ivermectin doesn't work against this virus. host: let's go to mike in new york. caller: i just wanted to find out your opinion.
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the earlier caller gave a percentage, 99.6% of patients suffer death. is that correct? what is the percentage of those who are affected out of the world population with this virus? guest: i wish i knew. i think that color was referring to 99.6% don't end up hospitalized or die from the virus. i'm not sure that number is right. the general message there that the vast majority to recover, that is true. we are seeing that with omicron. it appears to be a milder variant. that is a positive even if it is
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more contagious and causing less severe it disease. that would be a positive. as far as the amount of global -- a lot of modelers and epidemiologists are trying to forecast. is it 30% of the world? is it 50%. it is hard to say. a lot of the world doesn't have reporting capabilities. it's been hard to figure out what the number is. host: let's go to sean in california. go ahead. caller: good morning. i was listening this morning. i thought i should give a call. the two colors prior. it's starting to make me -- when
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doctors say i am from florida and a know all these things, i would like to have known what their specialty was. i have been vaccinated. however i look at it, it keeps everyone safe. i've also been boosted. i am still alive. i'm not afflicted by this other stuff. i don't appreciate how people target scientists like dr. fauci. these scientists didn't have to tell us anything. they could've done what they needed to do. for every one who wants to attention seek and continue to keep these things going on in our country, we will never get back to what we call normal. take the vaccination.
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it is not going to kill you. i do understand there are some people that have secondary conditions. i have disabled people in my home who have low immune systems. they have taken the vaccination. their doctors have recommended it. they are doing fine. please stop bashing mr. andrew. people that are coming on here, trying to tell us how to live our lives. stay at home, don't infiltrate our hospitals. thank you very much. have a wonderful day. host: final thoughts? guest: that reminds me of this quote. it's from the infectious disease expert in washington state. he said to me early on, i was
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asking some production questions and i wanted to know where this is all headed, when can we return to normal? he told me the first axiom is to never underestimate pathogens. that level of humility, somebody who is studying and developing on the leading edge of hiv research for three decades. this is someone with real expertise to fight and infectious disease. i think it's worth keeping that, the level of humility of how we respond to the pandemic and the fault of our response. everything is not going to go perfectly. there is a lot of work that needs to be done, communicating science to the public. building connective fibers of truth where people can agree on a base set of facts. i would just leave it at that.
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host: andrew dunn reports on health care issues. he is at business insider. thanks for being with us this morning. guest: thank you so much. host: ahead, our open forum, a chance for you to weigh in on news issues of the day. the lines are (202) 748-8000 democrats. republicans (202) 748-8001. independent and others (202) 748-8002. you can talk about the russia conflict. any other news you are keeping on. we will be back momentarily. >> in march 2017, the basement
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of his house in illinois created a new business. his business and be seen all over the world on youtube. since that day, he's been known as the history guide. he has produced hundreds of short documentaries on history and his home studio. he is surrounded by artifacts, including military hats and ship models. he is always dressed in his trademark dark suit and bow tie. >> the history guy on this episode of book notes plus. book notes plus is available on the c-span now apple. -- app. >> the permethrin the u.s., europe, russia discussed the
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situation in ukraine. hosted by the center for the national interest. watch live today at 3:00 eastern. >> get c-span on the go. watch the biggest political events live on demand.
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on our new mobile video app. access top highlights, listen to c-span radio, all for free. download cease bow now -- c-span now today. >> washington journal continues. host: it is open form following the issues that you are keeping and i and. the lines to call in our (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independent and others. touching on the ukraine russia conflict, nato is making preemptive military moves. this is an update from a story we read earlier. it's from the associated press.
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let's go to your calls and comments on open form. in washington, how do you pronounce the name of your town? caller: thank you for having me on again. before i was calling, the last guest left. i wanted to mention my question on the air. i have one for you. one of my friends died of fentanyl overdose.
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i feel the system is rigged to fail. there wasn't enough attention being given. he knew too many people that thought they had the solution who were not licensed. i wonder why it rim to severe has been given the green light. that's the question i was going to ask. while i have you, the information war is very concerning to me. why did you lie about what happened with your twitter? host: with what? caller: there was a story -- am i mistaken you for another host? your twitter was hacked? then you were let back on the air. it was a different host maybe. host: i think you are thinking of a different host. we will go to tennessee and elizabeth. good morning.
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indiana. good morning. caller: how are you? on the open form, i would like to talk to the country about what the gop is doing to us. host: ok. go ahead. caller: i want our nation to note that the gop stands for greed oppression and power. they are showing that every day by what they are doing to our voting rights and every other right that they can get their hands on. like the women's option for medical care. what is it going to be next? our rights for free speech? i wish the nation would start
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removing the gop from office. host: let's go to north carolina. joseph is on the independent line. caller: i was calling about our intervention in the ukraine and concerns about taiwan. none of the current people in office, congress, started all this. it goes all the way back to 1912 when woodrow wilson was elected president. he wanted to make the world safer for democracy. his congress and senate rejected the league of nations. he had a stroke before women got the right to vote. he was against women getting to vote or minorities get involved in the federal government.
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he called himself a progressive. a lot of stuff he did was very regressive. he did the alien and sedition act. he said he would keep us out of war. as soon as he got the chance, he said the germans were trying to get mexico to attack us. all the wars we've been in since world war i. that's all i want to say. host: financial markets are open. this is a story about how the evolving situation is affecting the markets. how the russian invasion could trigger market shock waves. it's a lengthy report. they say the threat of a ground war hasn't done much to rattle financial market so far. investors appear likely to snap
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up safe haven assets. it is open form. we're looking at items in the news were following. to virginia we go. we will hear from matt. caller: i've got three comments this morning. on ukraine, i think we should support ukraine against russia. vladimir putin, give a mouse a cookie and this is going to happen. who knows what he is going to go
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next. he is an expansionist ideology. he has a terrible economy. he needs to distract his people from covid. we need to stop saying going back to normal. i think we need to understand this is a new normal. we need to start telling people the truth about what the new normal is going to look like. each party should offer what the new normal is going to be. a lot of our policies are decimating our health care and education. just our infrastructure in general. young people are quitting jobs in droves. women are leaving the workforce. what is the new normal? host: david is next in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. a quick three things again.
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joe biden is considering sending troops into ukraine. he pulled the troops out of afghanistan. total incompetence on his part. we had the great monkey escape outside danville pennsylvania. why did they come into the united states and get transported by truck to a research facility? who authorized this? host: did they round them up? i heard this over the weekend. did they round up all the monkeys? caller: for two days, they said four were missing. then sunday afternoon they said it was only three. the scuttlebutt is there is one missing monkey that everybody is after and they are telling people not to go looking for it.
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if you're that cautious, why were we transported by truck when it was flown into a quarantine facility in new york and then transported, unmarked, no warning on the truck. he pulled into the side of a pickup truck. it's ridiculous. host: what was your third point? caller: the third point is abortion is not a reproductive right. it was designed to eliminate the black race and it was designed. there are too many people getting abortions for no good reason. it's not a method of birth control. it terminates a life.
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hopefully, the united states will come to their senses about this. i had 10 abortions, one lady protesting said she's had 21 abortions. it's just wrong. host: it's open form up until 10:00. (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. independent and others, (202) 748-8002. the house and senate office week. the hill looks ahead to their return with this headline.
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writing and an economy writing in fort lauderdale, this is mark. go ahead caller: hello and good morning. it's not really a minor thing. you had something happen a little while ago that shows. i'm not going to be short on using not nice names. earlier, we heard some. you just got attacked by a more on who is accusing you of being a liar and he was trying to talked about steve scully.
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you said that wasn't me. he didn't know what he was talking about. these people calling c-span washington journal morning after morning with the most idiotic arguments and comments and positions, the sad fact of the matter is this is the state of our country now and the direction it is going in. c-span is kind of helping spread misinformation. a while back, you had a discussion about facebook and how it presents misinformation. i don't know if you can hire more interns for fact checking and do more immediate fact checking. most of the time you can't get through. for the good of c-span, you are under almost assault with more
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and more and more misinformation from the trappist side. if you don't protect against that or call them out or fact-check these people like the doctor that called earlier that was just full of misinformation, but he was a doctor. this leads us more in the direction away from reality. host: thank you for your insight. we will go to orlando and hear from gary. caller: good morning. i hope you are in good health. i am calling from florida. i am in a state where there is nothing but misinformation. the governor seems to think that he is a part of some kind of autocracy, he's acting like a dictator. he is promoting crazy conspiracies himself. he is spreading it.
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i am fearful of the governor of my own state. the gop is nothing but misinformation and taking people's rights away. i'm a disabled veteran. i put my life on the line for this country. i have four combat declarations. i am credited with saving 17 people. i keep hearing people like me don't deserve to vote. if you've given up so much of your life to defend the country, the very party schemes to be telling you the they are for democracy and trying to take away your rights to vote and telling you it's all about fraud.
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it's been prison that this fraud is garbage. host: let's go to texas on the and dependent line. go ahead. caller: i would like to make a statement to all the americans of any stripe that social bid is responsible for amplifying conspiracy theories on all sides. i encourage you to walk away from matt. let's look at vladimir putin. he was a station cheap for the -- chief for the kgb and they launched an operation known as operation denver. it was a misinformation campaign to opponent the idea that aids was created by the u.s. government to depopulate the african-american population. this myth still persists. i believe that vladimir putin was aware of its effectiveness and his amplified it through social media. i encourage americans to walk
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away from social media. get off-line. stop making anonymous death threats. talk to each other. host: this is jennifer calling from oak park, illinois. caller: good morning. i want to talk about two things. i want to talk about how the christian religion is trying to take over. she was just on. she was talking about this idea that in school we have to bring back these biblical principles. she thought the christian religion was the one religion.
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they were saying the same thing. i grew up a radical born-again christian. the things that they believe about women, it's really terrible. i do feel the supreme court -- these radical christians that are on there, it's almost impossible to think about any other religion. they believe if you don't believe in jesus christ, you are going to hell. jewish people, any other religion. the supreme court is all catholics. only 20% of our country identifies as religious. it is scary to hear that. host: joe is in vermont. caller: i would like to thank
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you for your hard work. i would like to push back on the person that said the republicans aren't fact checked when there is no pushback on the democrats when they say crazy things like donald trump was colluding with the russians. maybe mark levine. there is so much information out there the cats suppressed by the right-wing liberal media. the legacy media that won't put forth the truth about what's going on with hunter biden. i would like some pushback on that. you've got to be able to produce an id in order to get into restaurants.
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you only need one thing to vote. i wish they would do that. host: this is from the washington post this morning. the former attorney general william barr has spoken with the house select committee investigating the january 6 insurrection. several former trumpet ministration officials are cooperatin rhode island, christie democrats line. caller: good morning. can you hear me? i see bill barr's face on television right now. that's another problem. i just wanted to say i agree
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with the people from florida. it is time to stop this craziness. i want to thank our military. the propaganda that's being fed in this country is dividing all of this. i want to say in afghanistan, there are so many tribes. we are turning into a tribal country that is so far out. i hope that the united states and the people can pull ourselves back together. thank you. host: we appreciate all the calls this morning on washington journal. we are here every day 7:00 eastern. enjoy the rest of your day.
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>> coming up today on c-span, diplomats from the u.s., europe and russia discuss the russia-ukraine issue. it's scheduled to start at p.m. eastern. coming up at 5 p.m., president biden and administration officials hold a on efforts to lower consumer prices for americans and a reminder you can also watch online on our website, www.c-span.org or our new video app c-span now. >> the inspector general of the small business administration testified on challenges in the coming year including pandemic
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relief programs, staffing and resources, disaster assistance and detecting fraud. watches testimony tonight at 9:45 a.m. eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or find full coverage on our video at c-span now. >>