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journal-constitution washington correspondent tia mitchell. then former surgeon general jerome adams en covid-19 vaccine mandates and mask wearing. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: the biden administration wrapped up concern over the weekend over an eminent russian attack on ukraine, ukrainian government holding out hopes for a deadline medic -- diplomatic resolution, asking for a meeting within 48 hours. it is for russia to explain its buildup of troops along ukraine's borders. good morning. it is "washington journal." monday, february 14, 2022. we spend the first hour asking you about, what is the best u.s.

response to russia's threat? here are the lines. (202) 748-8001 for democrats. --excuse me, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for all others, (202) 748-8002. you can also text (202) 748-8003 , tell us your name and where you are texting from. we are on facebook and also twitter and instagram. you can post there, @cspanwj. we show you some of the latest comments from administration officials, as well as some of the latest polls on what americans are thinking about the conflict between russia and ukraine. good morning, and welcome to "washington journal." it is valentine's day. go ahead and start dialing. there are a couple of pulls out, including this one from cbs from over the weekend. russia and ukraine, americans

stay -- say either stay out our side with ukraine. slight majority of americans would prefer the u.s. stay out from any negotiations are in the situation. those who would take a side said the u.s. should stand with ukraine. they say stopping for the russian influence in the region and defending democracy our top reasons. cbs writes that the proportion saying the u.s. should stay out is driven by republicans and independents, while more democrats feel the u.s. should side with ukraine. they say president biden gets mixed marks for his approach towards russia. that is one of the recent polls we are looking at. here is another one that regularly does pulling on all sorts of issues. the headline here, americans want to support ukraine but not with u.s. troops. they write that americans are in favor of many policy options to help ukraine but are firmly opposed to the u.s. is sending troops into the country to fight russian soldiers.

55% of americans say this is a bad idea, especially republicans, 62%. just 13% say it is a good idea. ongoing uncertainty about whether russian president vladimir putin will decide to invade ukraine over the last week, u.s. troops joined the nato allies and bordering countries to prepare to support ukraine. a couple of snapshot polls from yougov there and from cbs news on how americans are feeling. what are your thoughts. what is the best way for the u.s. to respond to russia? (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for all others, (202) 748-8002. jake sullivan, national security advisor, on cbs "face the nation" yesterday talked about the potential timing of such an attack by russia. [video clip] >> you said and attack by russia

could happen as soon as this week. our russian troops moving into technical positions? >> we have seen over the course of the past 10 days a dramatic acceleration, buildup of russian forces, and they are positioned in such a way that they could launch a military action essentially at any time. they could do so this coming week. but it still awaits the go order. so we cannot predict the precise day or time they may take action we are also watching very carefully for the possibility that there is a pretext or false flag operation to take off the russian action in which russian intelligence services conduct some kind of attack on proxy forces in eastern ukraine or on russian citizens and then blame it on ukrainians. >> russian intelligence is already publicly claiming things are happening in the east of ukraine. is that the flashpoint where you

think is the start? >> it is one distinct possibility. and to your point, the russian media has been laying the groundwork for this publicly, by trying to condition the public that some kind of attack by the ukrainians is imminent. and there is a kind of bizarre quality to all of this were the russians are claiming they are the ones who are under threat, despite the fact that they have amassed more than 100,000 forces on the border of their neighbor and have done so not just on their own territory but on the territory of belarus, which is a country that borders ukraine to the north. host: that was on cbs "face the nation" yesterday. they are reporting the u.s. is preparing to withdraw all personnel from the ukrainian capital within 48 hours. that is on cbsnews.com. your thoughts on what the best u.s. response to the russian threat should be. first to carl in oxford,

massachusetts, independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. the question should be reversed, how should russia react to the u.s. threat? russia is within its own borders , and it is packing troops and arms into all the eastern european countries there. for conflagration to break out, god forbid, the people over here are going to get nailed. we are going to be safe over here, but the people in those countries like poland and romania, ukraine, the baltic states, this could possibly escalate. i don't know, i think the best thing -- i mean, people will not agree with it, i am sure, but the best thing for the ukraine would be maybe to divide into east and west ukraine, make two countries. that would be the simplest

solution, and they could possibly avoid war. i would think it is something for the diplomats to think about possibly. thank you for c-span. host: let's hear from oliver in virginia, democrat. caller: good morning. listen, i kind of think that thank god that joe biden is in the white house right now because we saw what a disgrace donald was -- donald trump was on the world stage with vladimir putin. he was a disgrace when he got up and downed the american intelligence during the russian investigation to kiss the boots of president putin. so i am so glad that joe biden is there. i think that this administration is going to do the right thing. so far, they have been able to hold off.

the intelligence that they are getting from from the intelligence agencies, i think that has kind of stalled putin. he does not really know what to do or he is waiting until the olympics are over. and i am praying that he does not go in and attacked those people for no reason. thank god that joe biden is there, because it is obvious donald trump had businesses in russia and was standing there and disgraced the whole country when he stood beside putin and agreed with him over our intelligence. i am glad for joe biden. it is pretty amazing that fox news continues to push it out that donald trump was the toughest one on russia, and we all know that was a joke. thank you. host: he mentions the olympics. they will end this coming weekend. this is the front page of the "wall street journal" reporting on the super bowl, rams

defeating the bengals to win. delete headline, biden pledges swift reaction to an invasion. they write that president biden on sunday told ukraine's leader the u.s. and the allies will respond swiftly and decisively to any further russian aggression against his country. the white house that even as russia deployed some of its most powerful weapons around ukraine, they write a day earlier, mr. biden's warning of swift and severe costs if russia moves against ukraine yielded no change in the russian stance. u.s. officials said, meanwhile, the fear of conflict has led to canceled flights to ukraine and the heightened volatility and energy in financial markets. they also right that the president of ukraine told mr. biden that u.s. support would allow ukraine to prevent panic among its population. he also asked for concrete guarantees on ukraine's

security, saying european security is impossible without the security of ukraine. john kirby yesterday on fox news sunday saying still tied for diplomacy, but that may be running short. [video clip] >> why did the american official said there was no fundamental change in the dynamic that has unfolded now for several weeks after the phone call yesterday? is that a sign after that phone call yesterday that time is running out for diplomacy? >> certainly not a sign things are moving in the right direction, not a sign that mr. putin has intention to de-escalate tensions, and certainly not a sign that he is committing himself to a diplomatic path forward. it does not give us cause for optimism. >> in germany, the vice chancellor said today that we may be on the verge of war in europe, their words. germany's chancellor will be traveling to moscow tuesday to

meet with vladimir putin. so is this a last ditch effort to avoid all-out war in europe? >> i do not know if i would say last ditch, but we recognize the time component here seems to be shrinking. and that gives us all cause for concern. again, we have said it'd still believe it today, that there is still a time and space for a diplomatic path forward. we still believe there is a way to de-escalate tensions, find a peaceful way out of this, so that a war in the ukraine can be afforded -- averted. we welcome these moves by our european allies to try to engage mr. putin diplomatically. host: the latest this morning on the diplomatic front, a report from the bbc this money, ukraine six meeting with russia within 48 hours to discuss buildup -- ukraine seeks meeting with russia within 48 hours to discuss buildup. the next step is requesting a meeting within the next 48 hours

with transparency about russia's planes. they write that russia has denied plans to invade ukraine despite the buildup of some 100,000 soldiers on ukraine's borders. some comments on twitter, @cspanwj. this one says, all we need to do is freeze the assets of putin and his oligarchs here in the u.s. and all over the world. steve says if ukrainian -- if ukraine wants help, give them hell. i know a friend's son who just went to romania, 19, employed because of this. putin does what he wants. it is a police world if you let them. and this one says we do not want anymore boots on the ground. there is precious little to show for it. war is hell, so why go there? so what is the best response to the russian threats? that is our question. to our republican line, kansas city, kansas. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i think biden is just about like obama was, and i think he will shrink in the background if russia attacks. but i think we should put the 82nd airborne brigade around our embassy in kiev and say, come on, vladimir, come on. host: next up is bradley on the independent line. caller: good morning, sir, good morning, c-span audience. i am hopeful that a military conflict can be diverted. at this point, it is looking very stark. this is a very interesting topic altogether. i think our current stance on russia is kind of detrimental on the world stage. i think one of the big issues is the pipeline. russia wants to build to

germany. i think that would actually be very helpful for europe as a whole, from a clean, natural gas versus other alternatives. of course, i am skeptical that any major international corporation might try to manipulate markets with that. but all in all, i think you have to be optimistic on things like that, and all the various sides should strive harder and be more open. thank you very much. host: comment on natural gas there, this is from john cornyn, senator from texas, on twitter, saying the u.s. liquefied natural gas with loaded tinkers and fuel destined for the europe certain by vladimir putin's energy extortion. james on the republican line in charlotte, north carolina. are you there?

charlotte, north carolina, james? we will try that again. we lost him. to sherry in canton, north carolina, republican line. caller: good morning. number one, we do not need to be in another war. we have had enough wars. i think this country is -- has had enough of war. what i would really like to say is i do not think we should believe any of you in the media about russia. you lied to us about russia for the last five years. you should be leading off today with the durham report, the second caller calling about vladimir putin and trump, we just found out yesterday that was a lie, that hillary clinton campaign did spy on donald trump , worse than watergate. and you in the media, every damn

one of you ought to be tried for treason. host: the caller talking about durham report, front page this morning on "washington times." some spying tied to clinton, saying stone to republicans that demanded answers sunday after an explosive court filing linking the 2016 hillary clinton campaign to a reported surveillance operation aimed at digging up dirt on donald trump, both before and action -- after he won the election. special counsel john durham alleged in a court filing friday that a tech company working with an attorney for the clinton campaign exploited access to servers from mr. trump's residents, trump tower, and the white house, to establish interference in a narrative connecting mr. trump to russia. they write that mr. trump has long accused the clinton campaign of spying on him, democrats and mainstream media

figures have dismissed that claim as a conspiracy theory but republican say this weekend's optional filing shows everything was more sensitive than they thought. you can read that at washingtontimes.com. to california, don is on our republican line. caller: this whole thing with ukraine, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a sure sign of insanity. the diplomacy that biden is using did not work with bush with putin, did not work for obama with putin, and it is not working now with biden with putin. yet, we do the same dance every single time with putin, and he laughs. he knows exactly how far he can go. he knows exactly what he can do. and we stand there helpless because we're foiled by our own

rules, this 60 year old rulebook on diplomacy we have been using that has failed every single time. these people who are calling in and crying about president trump and putin, well, i tell you what, putin did not invade anybody when trump was president. putin did not raise any armies and threaten anybody while trump was president. china did not threaten to invade taiwan when trump was president. north korea did not do what it is doing now. he took them off balance. putin cannot afford to invade anybody under trump because he kept the prices of fuel so low they were having trouble just keeping food in the country. we need to look at what is really going on. biden four step gas prices, now putin can afford to invade people --biden forced up gas prices, now putin can afford to

invade people. nobody is saying that. we are being lied to, told biden is handling this while he is actually exacerbate it. the president of ukraine is saying, my god, biden is going to cause an invasion with his big mouth. host: all right, the president's national security adviser was on "face the nation" yesterday and said what the administration is telling those americans still in the ukraine. [video clip] >> you said on friday in the white house briefing room that americans should get out within the next 24 to 48 hours, putting us at today what are you telling americans who remain? should they go underground? is it too late for them to get out? >> as long as commercial transport options are available, americans should take advantage of them. we had hoped, based on our warning, that americans would have gotten out by now. but as long as those commercial transit options are available, americans should move out by

air, rail, or road as rapidly as possible. because, as i also said friday, if there is military action, if there is a war between russia and ukraine started by a russian invasion of ukraine, president biden is not intending to send in american forces to fight russia in that war, and americans have the opportunity to get out now should avail themselves of it. host: we are asking you this morning, what is the best u.s. response to the russia threat? (202) 748-8001 is the line for those of you who are republicans. democrats call (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. from the "washington post," russian military presence in belarus unnerves the baltic spirit baltic countries are warning nato allies that a russian military exercises underway in belarus and could lead to a permanent russian

troop presence in that eastern european country with the risk for long-term security of the alliances. the russian military buildup in belarus is supposed to be ended ukraine for now, but the new deployments are sending chills through the baltic neighborhood of belarus, lithuania, latvia, and estonia, as well as some eastern european countries because of the possibility of a game changing russian presence on or near the borders. they write that between 20,000 and 30,000 russian troops come along with warplanes and defense systems have moved into belarus in recent weeks. according to the russian defense ministry, and exercise began thursday and russian officials have said the troops will go home when the exercise ends on february 20. let's hear from belinda in texas, democrat's line. good morning. caller: my opinion is that i

think ukraine should join the nato as soon as possible. putin does not want them to join, so might as well just join , so he will not be happy. thank you very much. host: the baton rouge on the independent line, clarence. caller: good morning. i think we should send tons and tons and tons of military equipment, not just the in murray -- not just the mre's and blankets like we did under the obama administration. have you ever tried to load a tank with an mre or a blanket? it does not work. military equipment, it is the only thing russia knows, the only thing they have known throughout history, and that is

all they will know. sometimes i think that the democratic party is in cahoots with the full civic party in russia. i think they are both about the same thing. caller: you think military aid we have given ukraine over the last couple years is insufficient? caller: yes, definitely. we need to probably triple what we have sent them. do not send them mre's. that it's food . you cannot throw food at a damn tank. are you crazy? caller: ann on the democrats line in new york. caller: i do not understand the lack of leadership by european allies. i am just a regular citizen who has to pay for everything. and 10 years ago when i read about the reliance of germany in particular on russian oil and gas, i just should i head. they were just giving putin the

noose to hang themselves. thank you. host: to west virginia, lloyd on the republican line. you are on. oh, i am sorry, did not hit the button well enough. lloyd in west virginia, go ahead. caller: all putin wants is to keep the muscles out of ukraine -- the missiles out of ukraine. once nato takes the muscles out of ukraine, russia can move their missiles right up on the border there. i mean, they got missiles everywhere else in europe and can fire on russia every time they want to, why not ukraine? russia can do the same thing. host: this is from the bbc on the expansion of nato, may be helpful as we talk about the crisis there. over the years, ukraine is obviously in the middle and

putin nations are the nations joining nato before 1997 the 14 nations in the gold are those who joined since 19 77. estonia, latvia, lithuania, poland, the czech republic, slovakia, hungary, romania, montenegro, albania, north macedonia, and bulgaria. you can see belarus, where those military exercises are underway and will continue, according to the russian defense ministry, through february 20. bill cassidy, louisiana senator, on whose sunday yesterday, that he agreed with president biden saying u.s. troops were not be sent into ukraine. [video clip] >> senator, the president is strongly encouraging americans in ukraine to leave as soon as possible, saying there is no prospect for a u.s. military-let

evacuation from inside ukraine. so should the u.s. be doing more about this? >> i agree with the president 100 percent. use some common sense. we should not be endangering our soldiers or marines, etc., because somebody decides not to evacuate until after the fact. get out. if there is a pending invasion, use common sense, leave. host: we are asking you this morning about the best response to the russian threat in the russian-ukraine conflict. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text, (202) 748-8003, make sure you tell us your name and where you're texting from. this is from sue, new jersey. says just because putin is flexing his muscle does not mean we have to let him. let them work it out. nato states pulling other civilians from ukraine is a

green light to russia to invade, talk about signaling, says harry in pennsylvania. this from new york, nato should guarantee membership, -- should guarantee it will not expend membership. otherwise the risk of hardware between nuclear powers is great. let's get back to your calls. caller: why does russia have to invade ukraine? it has amassed troops, but my question is, why do they have to invade, because they have the plexi -- the black sea full of their ships during military exercises and commercial ships cannot get into ukraine to deliver goods, and their economy is wavering and they are having economic problems. so why does he have to invade when he can control the black

sea and cannot get commercial shipping into those areas? thank you. host: now to john in santa paula, california, republican line. caller: good morning. i think if i had president biden's ear, i would tell him one thing, and that would be to call up donald trump and get some advice on this and learn how to be a strong president. host: how do you think donald trump would have handled this situation? caller: i will tell you how he would have handled it. first of all, he would not have gotten out of afghanistan the way we did. he would have shown strength throughout the world. i think donald trump would have gone over to russia or would have seen putin in person, enough phone calls. i think they would have had a

meeting. i think they would have done a lot more personality, in-person, and i think he would have made a deal. i think that deal would have included no nato in ukraine. and there is no reason that nato should be in ukraine. it would be like putting russian missiles on the mexican border. so i think biden does not know how to make the deal. biden does not know how to deal his way out of this. he ought to call donald trump and get some advice. host: we will hear from jean on the independent line, maryland. caller: there was another caller recently, in terms of turkey, it does not seem like we have been dealing with turkey very much, which i believe is a nato member. and that is how a lot of these

russian warships are getting into the plexi -- black sea. why are we not working with turkey on de-escalating and keeping the warships from getting into the black sea? host: thanks for that point. this is from the "wall street journal" market section, why russian invasion is driving oil prices near $100, writing the threat of russian invasion of ukraine is shaking up a fragile global oil market, bringing prices close to $100 a barrel, and supplies will struggle, especially with any significant disruption. demand for oil has outpaced production growth after the worst of the pandemic, leaving the market with a small buffer to mitigate an oil supply shock. russia is the world's third-largest oil producer, and if a conflict in ukraine leads to a substantial decrease in the flow of russian barrels to

market, it would be perilous for the tight balance between supply and demand. doug is on the democrats line in silver spring, maryland. hello. caller: hi, so i think biden is doing exactly the right thing, playing the long game. putin is going to lose long. nato is going to get stronger. ukraine is going to resist more. he is going to lose long term. biden is doing the right thing, do not over escalate. let putin should himself in the foot. you are still -- one more thing, trump never made a good deal in his entire four years. the chinese cheated on the trade deal that he made. the koreans are increasing their missile capabilities. he never made a good deal he was subservient. he would be cursing out our nato

allies and would be giving putin everything he wants. so biden is doing exactly the right thing, doing it very skillfully. host: tulsa, oklahoma, mark on the independent line. caller: hello, this is what i think. i am a bookie and this is what i do for living. this ukraine-russian controversy is a show by the world powers of every nation. every nation is controlled by one leader. every leader on this entire planet right now is struggling politically with people because of the pandemic. they cannot do anything about it. the people see it. the people see they do not need a king or someone to dominate them. so putin is doing this game to get the world on edge, and then

he will not do anything. if you want to bet money on it, you have my number, call me. i will bet you putin does not do anything. this is a show, and every country loves it. host: next up is joe in broadview, illinois, independent line. caller: hi, i am just wondering, are we trying to get korea and north korea and iran to give up their nuclear weapons? we made some kind of deal with new creek -- with ukraine to make them give up their nuclear weapons. we made some kind of deal where we will not make stuff like this happen. and they gave up their nuclear weapons, and now we're are leaving them hanging. i don't understand. if anybody knows what the original deal was that we made with ukraine to get them to give up their nuclear weapons, it sure does not seem to be working

. and i am sure north korea and iran and any other budding nuclear power in the world will see it for what it is. it is just empty promises that we make to get people to give up their nuclear weapons, and then we abandon them. we let big guys like russia going to those countries. i am sure if he was trying to run into ukraine with tanks and the ukrainians had a few capable nuclear weapons, he would think twice. host: this is other news this morning, a story leading the detroit news, ambassador bridge officially opens after seven days of protests, hours after canadian police removed protesters camping nearly a week near the ambassador bridge, a critical u.s.-canadian border crossing. the bridge reopened to traffic

and commerce. canadian authorities said the detroit international bridge company is pleased to announce the ambassador bridge is now fully open, allowing the free flow of commerce between the canada and u.s. economies once again. a representative for the bridge said last night this action follows a state of emergency declared in ontario and in a junction granted by a judge which took effect on friday. that is from the detroit news. let's hear from joel in raleigh, north carolina, republican line. the question, what is the best response -- the best u.s. response to the russian threat? caller: i look at the history of this whole area, particularly post soviet union dissolving in 1991. and as a previous caller reference, he said it right, i believe it was 19 94, the

clinton administration, along with the european union and others, they convinced ukraine to surrender their nuclear weapons to russia. if i am not mistaken. so he is right, if ukraine had nukes, there would be no way that vladimir putin would be knocking on their doorstep with 130,000 plus troops and threatening them. also, i read an article by pat buchanan on the newsmax website, and he was exactly right in his observations and assessment of the situation he quoted gorbachev, and i agree 100%, our arrogance and recklessness in geopolitics, from president clinton, he forged an amicable relationship with president boris yeltsin, and when bush came into office in 2001, putin

was already president, arrogant, reckless foreign policy. we parked our forces on their doorstep. and so both republican and democratic administrations -- putin, i understand his security concerns, although i think he is really hyping this up, grandstanding, but we are reaping what we sow in our last two decades here. and we do not really have a response to stop him if he really goes forward with this. host: we showed you that map, the expansion of nato after 1997. is it your view that putin has seen that expansion through the years as a direct military threat on russia? caller: yes, i do.

it would be like the cuban missile crisis, what was the big need for that? well, we have forces right on his doorstep. we have abandoned the missile treaties wanting to put systems there. this is because of our arrogance and recklessness. it could have been avoided. we could have had a good relationship, even with putin. i am not a russian sympathizer like some people may try to say or whatever. but i agree with pat buchanan and others, that this is a crisis of our doing, the west's doing. host: we go to hyattsville, maryland, andy, independent line. caller: prior to world war i, ukraine was part of russia. after world war ii, ukraine was

part of russia. we should try treating russia like friends and partners, rather than enemies. according to your map you had on , two nato countries are already on the border of russia. and nato, would could argue, is an obsolete organization. the cold war is over. we won. yet, we act like it is ongoing. and now it is ongoing. and that is all our doing. russia has every responsibility to defend itself. as far as the black sea is concerned, what they are doing is already an act of war, with their blockade. but what we're doing with our sanctions is also an act of war. the american people, they can

look at those bush administrations and see how we were lied to in order to get into active wars. we can look back at afghanistan and see how we were lied to in order to get into a 20-year war. a couple weeks ago or couple days ago, a state department spokesman said, you don't believe me, when he was espousing some -- like he wants to -- the press to believe our facts when there is nothing to support what the u.s. is saying about this. that is a problem, and the american people have to wake up to that. host: we talked about the price of oil, how that has been going up, and other energy-related issues. senator cassidy from louisiana critical of the biden administration's energy policy in light of the russia-ukraine conflict. [video clip]

>> this is a culmination of the united states kind of de-arming when it comes to energy diplomacy. think about it, less than a year ago, under the previous administration, we were not only energy independent but poised to become -- have the ability to make the eu energy independent. in less than a year, we have lost that ability. so now russia has the leverage over the eu in terms of energy supplies in order to kind of blackmail them and turn a blind eye. you can argue they are trying not to, but germany's response has been quite muted to this apparently pending invasion. i would say that this is a culmination of a failed energy geopolitical policy. >> some generals have said, well, is it as much leverage as we make it out to be considering that gas is not yet flowing through that nord stream 2 pipeline, not currently a revenue source for vladimir

putin? so is it as much leverage as many are making it out to be, that pipeline? >> there is still nord stream 2 and, and there is still natural gas shipments -- there is still nord stream 1 and still natural gas shipments. and energy prices are much higher, impacting pocketbooks and the economy. so we already see a hint of that and it could increase should the russians decide to further exploit. host: let's hear from john in madison, alabama, on the independent line. good morning. caller: thank you. actually, what i think is that this -- i have heard some of the other guests and agree with a lot of what i am hearing, that this has been a long time coming and we have got a mess here. what is going to happen in the

ukraine will happen whether we do something stupid or not, because we have allowed putin to have the initiative there. so we need to understand that this is really a strategic trap, and we have got to be smart about how we move forward and understand that all of these things we are facing out there right now in the world on our own border, with china and taiwan, and as you see with the iranians and in north korea and with russia, these are all interconnected. these people go to school together and talk to each other. they have strategies. they understand what we do. and they are expecting us to do certain things. it looks to me like we're going right down the road they would expect. we should be sending troops to the -- to poland, sending the 82nd with airborne troopers to this kind of place is

ridiculous, just making the situation worse. host: tell us a little bit more about your comment, you said this was a strategic trap. tell us a little bit more about what you mean. caller: yeah, i do not get too deep in my background, but 31 years ago i was giving a briefing, coming up with the concept, a strategic concept for the united states, right at the end of the cold war. i was part of a group, and one of my jobs was to see what kind of strategy we thought -- i was just a low-level brief, but i did brief the senate staff, the armed forces staff, on what should happen going forward, at least with my group thought. so i heard other people talking about this, and i have been watching this for an awfully long time. what i mean by a strategic trap is that -- and with they said

about pat buchanan and others have talked about, we had to be very careful, and what i was hoping would happen is the things we would do at the very end of the cold war -- i spent most of my life planning to fight that war, and i was a guy who was really happy. when the wall came down, i was in the pentagon, and i was really happy. like, my goodness, after all these years and all of that, we going to have peace, and we may not have this horrible war that was out there in front of us. and you have to understand, all the times i went to the national training center, all the times i was a commander of troops and battalions at everything, and if you did that kind of training and saw what was out there, if you really thought about it, it was kind of us it -- kind of a sickening feeling occasionally. host: if you were a briefer today, what with that briefing

included on this trap you are describing? caller: this is a long way from where i was come up because i actually thought at that time that we were going to -- we would extend to poland, czechoslovakia, and hungary defense guarantees, because the biggest danger we saw at that point was if something changed in the soviet union, still the soviet union, and they tried to come back into europe here so that would trigger the biggest danger to the united states, because they had nuclear weapons, which they still do. oh here we are in a situation where we are looking at them and saying you are not coming back into the places i was talking about but working their way back in. so that is the danger. so we have to come up with a way to make sure they understand you cannot do that. without triggering something. and the thing that would trigger that to me is we need to be leaning on our -- if nato, which

i thought was going to go away, frankly, when i was giving that briefing, whenever we were sure these things were going to happen, but i was hoping -- that is not a strategy -- but what the plan was if we were going to do these things, what we should be doing is pushing the nato forces. if there were heavy concentrations -- i should not say concentrations, but in this situation, it would make a lot more impact on putin and russia, i believe, if the forces that were going into these countries like poland and others were other nato countries, not us. we put the 82nd out there, and i was a commander in a company that was on ready ramp to go to one of these drills once, and we have heard the 82nd out there all the time. this is not where they should be, and we do not have these kind of forces.

first thing i would do is look around the world to see the other chokepoints and what i should be doing. one thing, clearly, and this will son way off the chart, but we need to strengthen -- and this will sound way off the trick, but we need to strengthen our economy, our dollar. as a military, you have to have a strong economy. in case you have not noticed, one of the things they have done, gone to school on us, is when we brought on the soviet union, we brought on their economy. look at the chinese right now. they know what happened, so they have strengthened their economy. and like at how we are being dealt with. host: i appreciate your input, lots of good information. thanks for calling in. we want to get more folks in. appreciate your perspective, your experience. delray beach, florida, thomas on the republican line. caller: hi, my name is thomas, and i also go by blue orange 22.

that was a fantastic call. he sounds like a dia, a defense investigator. i am starting a movement, started it yesterday, called #nodraft2022. if the u.s. goes to war with russia or china and if they try to enact a draft, i would peacefully resist that draft and encourage other young men to do the same. i have no intention of dying for a government that does not really care about me. thanks very much. blue orange 22, #nodraft2022. [video clip] -- a congressman was on face the nation yesterday talking about republican's views on foreign policy and how they have evolved over the years. [video clip] >> on russia, generally, there

has been for so long bipartisan support for standing up to russia and standing in for democracy. there is this interesting trend within the conservative movement right now. you have more trump oriented parts of the party, like senator josh hawley, who recently called on president biden to rule out admitting ukraine into nato. there are similar sentiments elsewhere. what is happening here? how significant a portion of the republican party is moving in this direction? >> i do not think it is a huge portion, but it is way too big and has grown. it is a huge concern. five years ago, it might be someone like rand paul that would say something or dana rohrabacher. now there is a significant number of folks doing it, with tucker carlsen talking about how great vladimir putin is and how ukraine is really actually part of russia. number one, it could be some naivety on foreign policy, not in tucker's case.

i think it is an affection for authoritarianism. i think vladimir putin has done a decent job at engaging in culture war, and he has seen us defending the culture of the past. by the way, ukraine, already one third of the country of georgia is occupied russia. nobody will stop them from going into the rest of that. then you have the baltics, the balkans they are interfering in. this is a frightening moment, and any republican that has affection for vladimir putin has no understanding for what our party stands for or what our country stands for. host: comments on social media and text. steve says we should not allow putin to suck us into an armed conflict, and that is what this is, as sucker play. we have way too much on our plate as a nation, including a fragile economy, and china gets to sit back and smile through all of it. alfred says seems germany is

playing both hands against the middle. russian, german, and chinese corporations could live without is easier than we could live without them. michael says ukraine remains the most corrupt country the side of russia. what is not reported is how much influence russia has with the political elite in ukraine. rick says we have a home problem right here at home, we cannot fight a war until we fix our problem at home. rise of fascism here in america, take a good look at the republican party, in bed with the russians. a text from russ in texas, putin sees ukraine as a future threat because of the freedoms and economic strength is people will have. the russian people will turn on him, and putin must keep ukraine subservient to russia to stay in power. back to calls. ray on our democrats line, in clinton, pennsylvania. caller: i am on the independent line, by the way. good morning.

that caller from alabama, that man was right on. our president right now is trying to destroy this economy, stalking oil and gas on federal lands. now our oil consumption or our prices are going through the roof. this whole thing with russia started back last year, back in the summer, if you remember, reporting on the buildup. if we wanted to give ukraine military aid, biden gave $85 million worth of military equipment, hardware, to the afghans, whoever took over over there, left the stuff there, and we could have shipped that out to ukraine. host: this is from reuters, u.s. says russia may create a pretext

to attack ukraine, writing that russia could invade ukraine at any time and might create a surprise pretext for an attack. the u.s. said on sunday as it reaffirmed a pledge to defend every inch of nato territory. they write that russia has more than 100,000 troops near ukraine, which is not part of the atlantic military alliance in washington, keeping diplomatic channels that have failed to ease the crisis, repeatedly said an invasion is imminent. moscow denies such plans and has accused the west of hysteria. to nevada, next up is don on the republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to respond to the question that a gentleman had about the russian nukes, the ukrainian nukes, and i also have a comment. russia and the u.s. promised

protection in return for the nukes to be given and destroyed. my comment is this, in 1932, stolen -- stalin starved over 10 million ukrainians. in 2014, putin invaded crimea, and obama sent them blankets. in 2022, president biden is -- has already said no u.s. troops in ukraine. we do not need to send troops to ukraine. we do not need to advertise to putin that we are going to sit back. it is a european problem, and

the europeans should take care of that militarily or supply the proper missiles and the modern weaponry for ukraine to defend themselves. host: a couple text messages. jt in kentucky says it is so shocking after trump sucked up to putin that all republicans calling in our backing russia instead of the united states. president biden is handling this greatly and in the right way. jimbo in vegas hill, california, independent voter, putin expects one thing, raw power. if we do not make the invasion of ukraine expensive, china will invade taiwan, as well. next is roger in alabama on the independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i wanted to get everybody to remember that we had four or five years of this russian hoax against trump. so the left had to demonize russia to the point -- the dnc

said russia hacked their servers and it cost them the election, and on and on and on. sanctions and all of this. but they have not proved anything. if anybody's watching the news, evidently they haven't, durham just came out saturday and said they have got clinton hiring a tech firm to get into the servers of trump in the trump tower before he was elected, and then when he was in the white house, they were packing his servers. the people will go to jail, i hope, for that. do not take my word for this, people. google it. you will not see it on the left-leaning media you watch. just google it, and you will find it. we have nuclear weapons over there in european countries. god, if russia come over here and made a deal with mexico and put in nuclear weapons, what do you think we would do? come on, people. host: next up, edward in

columbia station, ohio, republican. caller: it is perfectly clear what i want to make a statement about. we have an invasion force in our country, the border. over 2 million to protect. we lost 100,000 every year -- we have had terrorists caught. 130 nations coming through, cartels trafficking of people. we do not protect our border, but we are sending them over to ukraine? another bloodbath, our president made a mockery and the media does not cover it. in afghanistan, that was a surrender. we surrendered. i spent years in the mideast.

we had thousands of americans there. when is this media going to hold this guy accountable for lies constantly? no one could checks on his honesty. host: tom in ironwood, michigan, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. looking from both sides of this, i can see putin wanting to push his chest out, but i think biden is just reacting way too slow and way too low. i think, quite frankly, what we need to do is put some offensive weapons up for the ukrainians and actually let them have a chancehave a chance to defend themselves. because god knows they will be overwhelmed once this starts. and it will happen, it will

happen in a short time. and it is just a matter of when putin gets that bug to go in there. but he is going to invade ukraine and it is going to be a bloodbath because the ukrainian people are not fighters, they are regular citizens. the army would never match up. only the united states army would. if we can supply them with defensive and destructive weapons, i think that russia would take a second look at what they are getting into. host: more ahead. coming up, we'll take a look at the week ahead in washington on capitol hill and in the white house. we will be joined by reporter erik wasson & atlanta journal-constitution washington correspondent tia mitchell .

then we will talk about the administration's covid response and if we are heading into a new phase of the battle. ♪ announcer: this week, live on the c-span networks, the senate will consider the nomination of robert caleb to the head of the fda. they will vote on a short-term bill that will keep the government financed, as well as a postal service reform bill. both past the house last week before it took recess. some committees will have virtual hearings during the recess. on thursday, the inspector general of the capitol police testifies before the house administration committee on his review of the law enforcement agency in the week of january 6. watch live on the c-span networks, or on c-span now, our mobile video app. go this he spent outward to

stream videos anytime -- go to c-span.org to stream videos anytime. ♪ announcer: british historian andrew roberts in the introduction to his most recent book, "the last king of america," a 755 page opus on king george iii says, "the portrait of a heartless, absolute sovereign is repeated almost every single day in america's print and online media, even two centuries after his death hardly a day passes without some reference to george iii where he is still held up as an equal opportunities hate figure, an archetypal bogeyman, attacked in the same measure by democrats and republicans alike."

andrew roberts has also written major histories about napoleon, church hill and world war ii. announcer: british historian andrew roberts on this week's episode of book notes+, available on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. announcer: president biden addresses a joint session of congress and the nation. the state of the union on march 1, 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org or on the c-span now video app. ♪ announcer: six presidents recorded conversations while in office, hear them on c-span's new podcast. >> season one focuses on lyndon johnson. you will hear about the 1964 civil rights act, the presidential campaign, the march on selma, and the war in

vietnam. >> johnson's secretaries new that they were being recorded because they were tasked with transcribing the conversations. they made sure that the conversations were taped, as johnson would signaled to them through an open door between his office and theirs. >> you will also hear blunt talk. >> i want a report on the number of people who signed to me or kennedy. i will not go anywhere. i posted behind these vehicles. announcer: found on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: we will look at the week

ahead in washington with two veteran reporters. we are joined by tm mitchell, the washington -- tia mitchell, a reporter for the atlanta journal-constitution. and erik wasson. the house is out this week, the senate is in. do you think the president will make the announcement this week of his supreme court choice and what do you think the process looks like in the coming weeks on that? guest: i will start. i think that no, i do not think he is ready. kind of going off of comments that came out of the white house and after he met with democrats on thursday. it does look like the president has narrowed done the list of four candidates he's seriously considering and looking into their backgrounds, and perhaps

the interviewing process could start this week, perhaps. but i did not think he has set down -- set down with those final candidates. i think it will take at least two more weeks for him to be ready to publicly announce who he is going to nominate. host: once the announcement is made, will it be a shepherded through the committee and a senate floor? guest: the senator of new mexico, we saw over the weekend he released a video saying he is recovering from a stroke. it will be a couple more weeks before he can even return to the senate, so that is driving the timeline. if you do not have a functioning majority in the senate, the democrats, unless they can convince republicans, which they are trying to do. they reached out to romney and lindsey graham and others, to

trying to get that crucial bipartisan support, but they would like to have lujan back to make sure. so looking at march or april before we see a floor vote. host: tie this into the rest of the president's agenda, what is ahead in the spring. your article you wrote about black voters' approval of biden declines, and you wrote about their lack of enthusiasm. what does the president have to get done to get those numbers back up? guest: i think that what black voters would like to see, and that is different from biden can actually do right now, but i think in some of the things that any voter would like to see it are outside of the president's control, such as prices coming

down, the cost of gas coming down, but if that happens it will help his approval. if he could get a part of the build back better agenda past, that -- passed, that would help. if some of the infrastructure dollars could start ruling out, or -- rolling out, that would help. and the american rescue plan is still being implemented, even though it is almost a year since it passed, that money is rolling , out still but that will also help. host: the present is a speaking on thursday, heading to the midwest to talk about the infrastructure law. correct me if i am wrong, my understanding is that is a basic authorization bill. because the new spending for the year has not been approved, none infrastructure money is rolling out yet. guest: some of it.

some of it is going through the appropriations process. the senate has a two-step process. appropriating is where the rubber hits the road. they are trying by march 11 to implement the long-delayed fiscal 2022 spending bill. an if they continue tod get that out, billions still needs to be moved. i do not zero brookins trying to -- i do not see republicans tried to block that. but there is talk of giving the pentagon $25 billion, you know, above last year. that republicans want the same further domestic special agencies, it will be higher, they want more than. he. host: you are writing about joe manchin continuing to be a key

factor, certainly on the senate side, the headline the white house shifts to get mansion -- g et joe manchin's a vote. he's concerned about inflation. what are you writing about? guest: he continues to cite inflation as one of the main objections of the build back at her plan, the $2 trillion agenda that passed the house in november. the analysis of that shows a minor inflationary impact, about .1% over two years. the part with money going to parents is the most dangerous part. so one thing the administration can do is to resell this as an inflation fighting measure. under calculations, it reduces

the deficit over 10 years, including irs tax enforcement which has been controversial. but you could keep the tax increases on the wealthy reduced to spending and have up to $1 trillion debt reduction. so that would have an advantage. the democrats in the midterm election. white house aides are weighing it. progressives would not be thrilled with that. you have to cut housing, education and so forth out of the agenda in order to make the numbers work. host: we touched on nominations a little bit. tia, you are writing about lisa cook, one of the federal reserve nominees. the headline was fed's nominee in harsh spotlight on the cusp of history. who is lisa cook and for have been the objections to her nomination? guest: she is economist andan -- an economist and and

professor at michigan state. she was on the council of advisors during the obama administration. and now she is appointed to become the first black woman on the board of governors for the federal reserve. but they have brought criticism from the right in ways that question her resume, despite all of her accolades. she is a marshall scholar. she studied at oxford in london. so, she is -- the criticism has been that she has specialized in economics and the impact of policy on people and their livelihoods and ability to amass wealth, but she does not have enough of a background on monetary policy and control of inflationl. the has been the -- of inflation. there has been what has been against her.

but her defenders say you can have people from different expertise because part of the federal reserve's mission is to manage, or at least a factor in how policies made affect wealth for individuals. so it will be interesting. i think there are republicans willing to support her, but as the nomination process continues it's, you know, the criticism has been on the two women appointed to the federal reserve, not as much on the men. again, because lisa cook will be the first black woman in there has been discussion on how race and gender play a part in the criticism. host: tia mitchell covers washington for the atlanta journal-constitution. erik wasson covers washington for bloomberg. we are looking ahead to the week ahead in washington. 202-748-8001 is the line for

republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. for independents and others, 202-748-8002. we are two weeks away from the state of the union, but it seems to me that the president would like some things in the win column in two weeks. what other priorities do you see the president emphasizing in that speech? guest: i think that infrastructure will be big for him because, again, that is his latest and biggest win. but i think a lot of what democrats are trying to portray to the american public is that they are trying to respond to the needs of americans, they are trying to address inflation, and have government fill in the gaps that exist, particularly as the covid pandemic endures. and i think that if the numbers continue to decline in the pandemic, you may see the

president make comments about turning the corner to living with covid as something that exists in our everyday lives and what that might look like. guest: and i think he would like to have more wins. one that could be available is an agreement on the china competitiveness bill, the money for semi conductor chips, boosting the auto industries in the u.s. there is a big difference between the house passed version and senate version, and may that will be dragged into the spring. they would also like agreement on a funding bill. it would be a big boost, talking about potentially a 10% or 30% boost to domestic agencies -- 13% boost to domestic agencies. they would like to have that.

this week they will be considering postal service reform. this has been an issue with the post office, the most popular government related agency in the u.s. government, and it has been feeling and having -- failing and having years of loss. this could put it on a sounder footing. so they are trying to wrap up things before the senate heads out. host: before we get to the calls, we will be covering a house hearing this week. the house is out this week, but the administration committee will be meeting to hear about the inspector general's report on the january 6 attacks, michael bolton will be testifying for the house administration committee on thursday at 3:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. also on our mobile app. do either of you have any sense of how they january 6 select committee, the timing of

potential public hearings and when they will wrap up their work? guest: my colleague covers this and he reported over the weekend that april is the time when they are looking to bring this forward, really focusing on donald trump's election lies and the imaginations heated before the riots, what degree that actually provoked the riots. so we will see that, and potentially getting the testimony of mike pence and rudy giuliani. i think they are looking to really do the hearings in the spring and get it wrapped up ahead of the midterm election. host: a key race will be the senate race in georgia with rafael warnock. tia, you wrote about his recent town hall meeting, his first an office event of the year. how do his numbers looking georgia -- look in georgia? guest: our most recent poll

shows him in a statistical dead heat with herschel walker, a former football star. but it is early. the good thing for were not -- warnach is his approval rating is higher than the president has. and he is doing better than herschel walker with independent voters. but herschel walker has donald trump's endorsement. so it will really depend on how the campaign unfolds after that main primary. herschel walker does not do a lot of in person events for the public, so it will be interesting to see if he starts doing more and answering questions, talking to the media, participating in debates. a more traditional campaign could be tough for herschel walker, he's not used to that spotlight, or as warnock has a

year in the senate under his belt and he is a pastor, so doing that is his living. neither candidate is doing much on the campaign side at the moment, so that will be something for people to compare and contrast in a more direct way in the coming months. host: we have calls waiting, so we will go to brian in michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: yes we can. caller: herschel walker has been in the big -- too, so it will not be a problem for that man. the main point, i've held top-secret clearance for navy intelligence. after 9/11, people like me, veterans, were calling into this station and urging our government not to enact the patriot act.

with durham's report that is coming out, looking at it from friday, and it is like i suspected -- after 9/11 with the patriot act, they pulled it off the shelf and enacted it and i did not respect any major portions of it. when it comes to privacy rights, in the report mr. durham is continuing with it, but he has put it out enough to know that it was actually a hoax, guys. guest: there was new revelations about the cia spying on americans, something that is needing looked into by congress. they were not even forming the committees on intelligence, so continuing debate on privacy and

security will roll on. host: jim in halifax, pennsylvania, go ahead. caller: i have a concern about one of mr. biden's things he is promoting. i understand he wants to spend $30 million on handing out crack pipes. i would like to hear their opinion on that. host: let me ask you about an issue that has come up, has not moved through congress. tia, the -- go ahead. guest: i think we need to be clear that the federal government is not handing out crack pipes, but what people have grabbed ont is the fact -- onto is the fact that there are programs for people who are addicted to drugs, and in the

public health space some of the ways you try to lower communicable diseases sounds unorthodox but you actually help people by making sure whatever their addiction is they do it in a clean way. it is controversial but it does happen at the federal, state and local level, and that is what people have latched onto. but to say the federal government is handing out crack pipes is not accurate. like everything else, there is debate on both sides on a public health issue. you cannot say, do not facilitate people's illegal drug use, but the public-health experts will say they will use drugs either way so how do we do it as safely as possible to try to lower other types of risk. host: chris on twitter says, "if biden once my respect he will look into serious police reforms

." what is your understanding of where the issue is? guest: it is another thing that has evolved. in the senate, they were trying to work out an agreement and it stalled because democrats want more, especially when it comes to qualified immunity, which is what allows people who hold public office or public positions work for the government that shields them from being sued for conduct while on the job. that has prevented a lawsuit from going forward where police officers are accused of wrongdoing in the course of policing. democrats have wanted to curtail that immunity and that has been a divider amongst republicans and has caused police reform discussions to stall. host: those on the republican line -- those who are

republican, use the line 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. from wisconsin on the independent like my go ahead john. -- on the independent line, go ahead john. caller: a question for either guest, looking at the current news and apparent move in the ukraine and looking at president biden's decision to withdraw all the staff from the u.s. embassy, just kind of wondering what washington's reaction is to that and as someone who has worked in health for over 45 years and just watching joe biden, i spent

most of my year working with people who are 80 plus and, uh, one thing that comes to to mind is is president biden up to the task? i do not mean that with any disrespect, it's just we have not seen him do a lot of public speaking. his state of the union address is coming up, but it has been remarkably late. host: erik wasson, do you want to pick up on his comments about ukraine? guest: it is an evolving matter. they have tried to come together in the senate with a sanctions bill which would have tough sanctions on russia, potentially implementing the banking system and their access to international finance. the president already has flexibility under existing law, so this would be more of a statement. and there has been an ability

with the nordstrom -- with the nord stream 2 pipeline and how we can constrain russia in europe. so they have been trying to get sanctions together in the last couple days. we may or may not see that with the house out. the timeliness of that is leaving things in question. it will be up for every voter to judge, when it comes to president biden. we know he has a speech impediment, do not know how that is factoring and, but it will be up to the voters to decide. host: a caller from pittsburgh on the democrats line. caller: i have a question. we are going to have a drug war. and has been 70 years trying to

fight this. what is your take on legalizing drugs across the board? because we have been fighting this drug war for 70 years, it's cost of $700 billion fighting it, and we have not won the war or eradicated the problem. they need to get their heads out of the sand and legalize drugs, because the things that happen when we had an alcohol ban and stuff -- my take is we need to legalize drugs and we'll resolve the problem. both of you, do you have a comment about this? i will take your answer on the air. host: david in california, do you have a response? guest: chuck schumer, the senate majority leader, sent a letter

out in recent days talking about a bill on cannabis. we have seen the house five times pass the state's banking act which would give cannabis sellers access to the financial system, basically tolerating recreational use. but these businesses have to be all caps right now, essentially -- cash right now, essentially, leaving them vulnerable to robbery. but this has recently been put into the house. mitch mcconnell has signaled he wants it out. there's also an issue on the left, where they want to see a government pass legalization and take care of jail offenses. there is ingredients for a compromise here. there are eight republicans in the state banking act, which could go along with sentence reduction. i'm not hearing a move to

legalize other drugs, including opioids. in fact, there is a push to put fentanyl as a controlled substance. so we can see cannabis going towards legalization but not so much others. host: me asking about -- let me ask about another issue coming up in the house, the stock act. a headline says there is finally momentum to stop training in congress -- trading in congress. what is the issue? guest: members of congress can buy and sell shares in companies that they regularly, quite frankly. leno congress has control over so many aspects of our day-to-day lives, so any type of stock trading in an individual company will likely touch on some industry or sector of the economy that congress

we know that became an issue last year during the coronavirus pandemic when we saw members of congress buying and selling shares in companies that stood to do very well during the pandemic as our working and home lives shifted or selling off companies that weren't doing so well because of those shifts. senator ossoff defeated david perdue and david perdue's stock trading was a factor in that race. now senator ossoff, his proposal to not only require members of congress to stop trading stocks but has very stiff financial penalties if they're found in violation. it would also preclude a spouse, which is something that house speaker pelosi has faced criticism for because her husband is an agentive stock trader. -- active stock trader. what has shifted recently is pelosi has expressed an openness to one of these policies before she would say, you know, even a

few weeks ago she said this is a free country. we are a free market and members of congress should be able to participate in the stock market like everyone else. but now she said, if my members want it, let's find something. if that's what the will of the body is, we will go forward. i think that gave the green light to more discussions. now the question is again ossoff has a bill but so do many other members of congress, so which is the bill that moves forward? host: let's hear from james in south dakota, republican line. caller: yeah, how you doing? thanks for having me. i just had something to ask about economically. so the biden administration and democrats control congress, probably $8 trillion, we don't see anything from it. i would like to know that ok, pelosi, you brought up pelosi.

she can spend $15 on a pint of ice cream and not care about the normal citizen. what about the trillions of dollars being spent? what do you think is going to happen to our u.s. economy because of it? because all the prices abroad are coming across higher and higher any way you look at it. i would like to see what you have to say on that. thank you very much. host: ok, erik waason, do you want to start first? guest: we are seeing a lively debate about the inflationary respects. a trillion dollars going up in one year, front loaded. directly increasing demand at a time when supplies were constrained. we are seeing bottlenecks at the port. if you look at your own life, many people are not travel,

going to the movies. they're buying stuff online and that really was contributing to inflation. as far as the infrastructure bill, the other $500 million, that's considered by many economists to be a long term investment. we are going to see that rolled out as far as vivment in -- investment in bridges, tunnels, over the neck decade because it's spread out and morin of an investment, not necessarily really seeing it having an inflationary effect. we also saw the child tax credit. this was a real anti-poverty measure, reduced child poverty, but it led people to spend that money directly, whether it's diapers or food, perhaps contributing to inflation. so we are seeing that federal spigot turned off now. there is no stimulus despite erroneous reports i continue to see on 0line, no talk of another stimulus check going forward but it's really hard for the administration and congress to rein in inflation. it will be up to the fed.

we are looking at owe -- potentially a 50 basis point in march. it's really in their court right now. it's going to be a very tough calculation. host: tia mitchell, any thoughts on that caller arys comments? guest: one of the things i think about when someone says i don't see the government spending affecting me, that's all relative because you can't step outside without, you know, driving on a roadway that was paid for with federal dollars. when you go to the hospital, most hospitals are subsidized with federal funding whether it's medicaid, medicare or you know, uncompensated care, funding that hospitals receive and our schools and if you are an older person, you might be on medicare or social security yourself. so there is a lot of government spending even without these one-off bills like an american

rescue bills or even build back better, government spending is built into our everyday lives. but it's always a question of how much is too much and how little is too little? again that spending does affect things like how much we pay for everyday goods because, you know, as erik mentioned, the child tax credit checks and the stimulus checks could contribute to inflation. so it all plays out together, but are we going to say you know, stop government spending? well, there is a lot of government spending that people really enjoy and wouldn't want to do without. host: you mentioned one-off bills. i have heard about -- she said should democrats start passing one item bills before the 2022 elections when republicans vote against such things as paid child tax, make the family value republicans answer, why they don't vote for family values. single items, both sides approve, no deals. is that a potential strategy for

democrats in the spring? guest: that's been talked about, bernie sanders and others. i think the leadership, pelosi and others, have said let's try to make a law. there is still runway here to actually -- whether it's a bipartisan deal on things like the annual spending bill or a democrats only deal, special budget process on a build back better, whatever you want to name it. they still want to try to build it. as we get closer to the election you can bring up these things and have republicans vote them down, block them, go to the voters and say see who the problem is. they really at the end of the day aren't designed to necessarily produce legislation so much as to win the election. host: let's hear from jerry in new jersey, democrats line. caller: good morning. as a registered democrat, i am looking at russia and ukraine, the situation. how much should we be concerned that the media, you guys

included, c-span is is not talking about the durham report that came ut that shows that the hillary clinton campaign spied, spied on an american president in the white house. nobody is talking about it. i notice fox is. nobody else. you guys ain't bringing this up. host: we read that story earlier and had a question about it earlier in this segment as well. we will hear from david in michigan, dls line. good morning. -- lms line. good morning. caller: good morning. john f. kennedy said ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. i was just a baby when he said that and i am not a baby anymore. i spent the last -- i spent my

life kind of dedicating myself to that, and i look up and what do i see? i see the urban core, our cocoon in a catacomb of critical social policy to ruin their minds, put drugs and guns in their hands, and up until recently incarcerate them. now let me ask you two -- and i can only start with you but the three of you really, why is the interlocutor immune from this question and that is when can we expect journalists to do journalism? we have a situation where the truckers have to do the journalism because the journalists are sitting on their ass taking -- host: we will let you go there,

david. we will go to georgia, more is on the independent line. hello there. caller: good morning, america. i have one question. why are you -- the report conducted in 1972, came back saying that -- it should not be criminalized. they had to prove again because nixon wanted the -- so many people had marijuana. they would lock you up. host: we will let you go there. we talked about that. erik waason spoppedded -- responded to a question about that. bruce is on the republican line. go ahead. caller: yes, energy costs are way up. weren't these caused by the

administration's policies for these reasons? we cut off the keystone pipeline. we discouraged shale gas and shale oil exploration. there is even talk of the fed discouraging investment in fossil fuels, that had nothing to do with internet purchases while people stayed home on the pandemic what is your thought on that topic? host: ok, tia mitchell or erik waason? guest: i think the higher fuel costs are mainly a supply chain issue and a demand issue. some of the other things the caller mentioned are things that existed even before or they existed as fuel costs thruk twaited -- fluk twailted. guest: it's a lifely debate. republicans have been not forthcoming with what they will do when they take over congress.

they're fighting to put investment in fossil fuels. it's a lively debate. on the left, we see a lot of concern about climate change. in their view gas price redux duction, as far as democrat plans to deal with fuel, we have seen mark kelly talking with a gas tax holiday. that's only a couple cents on the dollar as far as 15 cents or so reduction that people may not notice. the public is very sensitive to gas prices. a lot of economists say because those numbers are literally on billboards in every community. maybe even more than food or other things you might knots on -- notice on your grocery bill. host: with the house out, we know both bodies have been briefed by the administration a week or so ago on the conflict in ukraine. are we expecting further

hearings by the senate or house armed services committees? guest: i think there will be continued briefings. we saw this warning, dire warning, from the white house that russia could invade before the end of the olympics on february 20, so we could see within days this kind of major action. this morning the foreign minister was urminging putin to engage in diplomacy. that was being leaked to sort of signal that they want to back off but we will see. this is a touch and go situation. host: our numbers are 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. and for all others, 202-748-8002. you can also send us a text. that's 202-748-8003. ow request go guests -- our guests are erik waason, congressional correspondent with bloomberg, and tia mitchell, who is a washington correspondent

for the "atlanta journal-constitution." realistically to both of you, we are here in mid february and the election is still well off. does the administration, the democratic leaders on the hill, think they have time to get done what they need to get done on their democratic agenda? guest: yes, i think they do. i think they're looking to repkage the -- repackage the build back better bill. and pass it this spring. i've heard some talk on the hill of august recess which has traditionally been a deadline. that would probably be the drop dead of get this thing into long. the fall is very tough in election year and doing anything controversial including our tax increases in the biden agenda and our people not going to be happy about that, especially millionaires and donors. i think they still have a window but they realize the clock is ticking. if history is a guide, they're

very much vulnerable to losing the house and possibly the senate. host: tia mitchell? guest: i agree. democrats will try to get as much as they can get done and even last week we saw some movement. we have talked about postal service reform and violence against women and even the long-term spending plan. so i think they're going to try to get done as much as they can and then as we have talked about may do some messaging bills when all else fails but they're going to keep trying up until that august recess. host: let me play you the comments of house speaker nancy pelosi. we have asked about the nation's rising crime rate. here is what she had to say. [video clip] >> rising crime. appear to be some divisions among democrats how to handle

it. your colleague trying to increase the police force in l.a. cory bush from missouri is saying it's time to di fund -- defund the police. you are the speaker. how do you think democrats should address rising crime? speaker pelosi dn that is not the position of the democratic party. community safety, to protect and defend in every way, is our oath of office. i have -- we are all concerned about mistreatment of people and that's why karen bass had the justice and policing act and we would hope to get some of that done, whether it's no knock or chokehold, some of those issues even if we can't get it all done. but make no mistake. community safety is our responsibility and i quote one of my colleagues from new york, a brand-new member of congress, way on the left, saying that

defund the police is dead. that causes a concern with a few in our caucus, but public safety is our responsibility and i support what karen bass is doing and mayor adams of new york. host: erik waason and tia mitchell, the speaker saying defund the police is not the position of the democratic party, sounds like she's trying to get ahead of political comrgses on that issue. guest: i think that number one defund the police has never been the position of the democratic party. it's been the position of some progressives in the party but i wouldn't even say progressives have a consistent message on this. it's interesting just last week, representative cory bush had a meeting with journalists. i asked her directly about how to balance the need to address rising crime in cities versus concerns with progressives about police and policing. what she said to me last week

was it's two separate issues. you want the reform. you want to make sure that dollars for policing is maximized. so to her and to a lot of people when they say defund the police, they're not saying get rid of all police forces. some people are abolitionists but some people are saying use that money in the best way to address the issues that are contributing to crime. so instead of sending a police officer maybe you are sending a social worker or a mental health team. so that's a lot of the nuance in the conversations about defund the police that sometimes gets lost in the messaging. that's i think what there are still on going conversations in so many different models but frankly in a lot of cities the police budgets have not been cut. they've only increased and there are still crime issues. host: further thoughts? guest: there are nuance positions but i think most

people believe that the slogan defund the police was terrible, political malpractice, bad messaging in a lot of swing districts. it just sounds crazy, we are going to abolish the police and have chaos. they need to find a new slogan. pelosi is trying to edge them that way. there are nuance and interesting ideas about social work, how to deal with some of these root causes of carjackings, juvenile delinquency. how do you deal with these kids and get them on the right path? host: let's go to scott on the democrats line in maryland. caller: hi. so my question is about the stock act. i don't really think it's necessary because like if most or many members of congress are already millionaires and it's financially prudent to invest in stock index funds like the

nasdaq or s&p, why do they invest in individual stocks? i understand that a lot of people are criticizing them for having big gains recently, but any idiot could have big gains in they're investing in big tech stocks. so i mean if you look at like the bigger track record, like beyond the last three years or so, you can see that any index like the nasdaq 100 easily outperforms any member of congress. nobody is is doing better. if you outlaw what they're doing, they won't learn their lesson that it's a dumb thing to do. they might be having gains, but their gains would be better if they invested in indexes, especially the nasdaq 100. host: all right, scott. to be clear, this is an update to the stock act that was passed back in 2015. either of you two want to respond? guest: they have to do

disclosure now but people are trying to beat the indexes and the concern i think for government ethics specialists is that they're using inside information or actually looking to influence laws in order to ben knit their individual stock -- benefit their individual stock portfolio. the caller's argument could be in favor of allowing people to be in a broadways -- broad based index funds but not pick winners and losers in specific industries and stocks. that could be where we are heading. guest: way add that there have been studies that show when you compare members of congress and their portfolios to average americans, they tend to do a little better. so again that's erik's point. the concern is not that members of congress don't is have risks involved like anyone else trading but are they a little bit insulated from the risk or making more educated trades because of the knowledge they have as members of congress and

if so is that something that should be curtailed as a matter of fairness and ethics? host: let's hear from hugh, morristown, new jersey on the republican line. caller: yes, hello. i have a comment. i would like to remind people that last time inflation was this bad that -- in the early 1970's, president nixon instituted a price and wage freeze, and overnight the -- it worked. it worked fantastically. immediately the price increased. host: you are kind of breaking up there, hugh. either of you, is there any talk of that sort of plan? guest: there is no talk of price and wage control. the fed is still historically low interest rates. they have a lot of room to raise those.

the ball is in the fed's court. we are not seeing talk in either party wage and price controls. host: another call from new jersey. liz on the democrats line there. caller: good morning. i am calling about when and if we fully get rid of this covid pandemic, since the united states suffered the most loss of life and millions and millions of cases of people who got infected and survived it, is there any talk of having a panel or task force to look over why we were so ill prepared for this pandemic? and of course some of this was brought on by the public ourselves by refusing to vaccinate, but i think we need to study why we were the first

in the world for deaths and most of these dits were -- deaths were sort of discounted because they were 65 and older individuals. i am in one of the baby boomer groups. i think there is a large degree of ageism that has been out and about throughout this pandemic, where we are not really attempting to save lives, compared to western european countries. they save far more lives than we did. our death rate is far higher. is congress going to investigate at least to find out why we did such a poor job? host: all right, liz. tia mitchell, any thoughts on that? guest: a lot of points in what the caller said. number one we know that the coronavirus pandemic swipt a--

swept across the globe and -- but i think it will be studied both from a public health perspective, eventually will congress perhaps have some -- there is -- there are congressional committees looking at various aspects of the pandemic and its response even today. but that will endure for years as lessons learned moving forward because we know that pandemics happen and so we will want to be better prepared next time. but one of the issues in america in particular is because we are a federation of states and we have 50 states that all respond to the pandemic in different ways as well as the president at the beginning of the pandemic had his own vision for how he wanted to respond to coronavirus and all those things will be picked apart by historians, political scientists and public health experts for years to come. but there are a lot of lessons learned as we come upon perhaps

a million deaths in america alone and america does surpass other industrialized nations in the level of coronavirus related deaths. host: just to lit our -- let our viewers know, in a couple of minutes we will be talking to the former surgeon general of the united states, jerome adams. steve is next in pennsylvania, republican line. caller: good morning. i have a question for both of your guests. you know, i am a republican. i supported trump in his win in 2016. i would not support him again because of all that's happened since then, but when you look at the situation of what we have right now, with inflation, with prices going up, with crime, would it have been any better or any worse if trump would have been re-elected? agree that his way of messaging to people was terrible but his

message worked. we had less crime. we had lower prices. and we seem to have less racial problems with him than we have now without him. that's my question. host: steve, we will hear from our guests. erik waason, if you would like to respond. guest: the president was talking about stimulus payment around $2,000 if he was re-elected. he spoke of that in the campaign. we probably could have seen him -- we don't know how the senate would have turned out and the republican presidency administration so if that was going through, it's hard to say whether inflation would have been any lower under trump. the policy would have been similar as far as stimulus, perhaps if he had a republican congress he could have done more on the gas and oil. as far as the other comments, i think it's very much an opinion about race relations and so

forth. we saw a lot of the george floyd and other issues under trump, you know, it's hard for me to comment on that. host: tia mitchell? guest: crime started to rise in 2020 when trurp was still dush trump was still president. so that's another concern raised by the caller that it's unclear if things would be different under president trump. my question would be, what did trump leave on the table? what vision did he outline to address these issues that he was working toward before he left office? and in a lot of the issues raised, crime, race relations, i don't really remember a particular trump agenda that he had outlined before leaving office. host: all right. to ken in cincinnati on the republican line, sorry about your loss last night there, ken. go ahead with your comment. caller: that's ok, the bengals i am still proud of them. my question dealt with the ka

neighed track -- canadian truck protests and this spreading to america. could this not have been easily solved by president trudeau changing the vaccination policy from mandatory to voluntary because i think this thing has been escalated way out of proportion. host: that bridge has opened up. both of you, will there be fallout, further protests like that? do you see that here in the united states? guest: i think in canada at least the vaccine mandates are popular. it is a democratic government. you can ask whether the majority has the right to decide questions or mandate things like that, but schools have had mandates for meeseles, mumps and other things for years and they weren't controversial until this current pandemic. yes, co-have backed down but it looks like the police are moving in now and sort of clearing it. could it happen here? sure, but i think having -- police would be prepared to not

let our industry or government be taken hostage. host: tia mitchell, some final thoughts on that or anything else? guest: i agree with what erik said. in canada, the truckers didn't necessarily reflect public opinion and do we expect additional protests over vaccine mandates? of course, absolutely, because they are very controversial and politicized in america, but it goes back to a lot of what we said today. as we near one million coronavirus deaths in america, what is our vision for moving forward during this pandemic and with this virus that's not going away? the vaccine play a part in trying to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. host: tia mitchell covers washington for the "atlanta journal-constitution" and erik waason covers congress for bloomberg. thanks to both of you for being on the program this morning. guest: thank you. guest: thank you.

host: there is more ahead, as we mentioned the former surgeon general of the united states, dr. jerome adams, will be joining us next here on the program. we will be talking about the biden administration's approach to the pandemic response as we head into a new phase of this battle. thanks ahead. thanks ahead. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] >> this week live on the c-span networks, the senate will continue the nomination of the head of the f.d.a. fors will vote on a short term funding bill that will keep the government financed as well as the postal service reform bill. both pieces of legislation passed the house last week before it recessed. some committees will hold virtual hearings. on thursday live on c-span, the inspector general of the capitol police testifies before the house administration committee on his review of the capitol hill law enforcement agency in the wake of january 6.

watch this week live on the c-span networks or on c-span now, our mobile video app. to stream video, c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> i can report to the nation, america is on the move again. >> live, tuesday march 1, the state of the union. president biden addresses a joint session of congress and the nation reflecting on his first year in office and laying out his agenda for the year ahead. live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. the president speaks at 9:00. we will take your phone calls and social media reaction. the state of the union address, live tuesday march 1 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span on the c-span video app. c-span now is a free moibl

app -- mobile app. live and on demand. keep up with the day's biggest events with floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress. white house events, the court, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can stay current with the latest episodes of "washington journal" and find scheduling information for c-span's tv network and c-span radio. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. download it for free today. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joipped next by the former surgeon general of the united states, dr. jerome adams. he is now also the health equity initiatives executive director at purdue university. welcome to "washington journal."

guest: great to be with you today. host: let me ask you first where you think we are in the arc of the pandemic two years into it. guest: well, that's a great place to start. i will tell you that every time someone has made a prediction about this pandemic and the direction it's going into, we end up with egg on our face. one of the things that i will most remember from my time working with tony fauci, he and i were together every day for most of 2020, was he said to me i have been doing this for 40-plus years and i've never encountered a virus like this before. he has worked with h.i.v., with many other viruses that we were worried could turn into a pandemic. it's a challenge, but that said i think that there is scientifically and from a policy and human behavior standpoint. scientifically we have more and more people vaccinated. over a half million people getting vaccinated every day in

the united states. we should not believe that vaccines have faltered. we have more people who have some degree, some degree of immunity from a prior infection because of this incredibly contagious omicron surge. there are a lot of scientists who are optimistic that we are in a stage now where we are approaching some degree of herd immunity, particularly in certain settings. i talk about microherds. you can't control everyone everywhere, but you can say we will have a super bowl party. everyone will be vaccinated and boosted. that's a microherd that you have created where you know that you've got a degree of protection. that's the scientific standpoint. from an epidemiological standpoint, we are all now amateur epidemiologists. i like to think i am a professional because i have a degree in public health, but a

pandemic doesn't end until we have reached a low baseline level of viral spread that's under control across the globe. that's when we transition from pandemic to endemic with the assumption that the virus isn't going to go away. we are nowhere near that. the virus is spreading across the country rapidly. what you are hearing people talk about is from policy and behavior point of view. we got to call it what it is. americans are tired. a lot of people across the globe are tired of this pandemic. they're ready to transition. i think it's important and we can talk about some of this in a bit, but it's important that people understand look, even if you are tired of this virus, it's not tired of you. we have more tools than ever to protect ourselves and people need to be smart about choosing those tools. host: let me look back for a minute. you were the surgeon general during the trump administration. so really covid-19 dominated your last year as surgeon

general, certainly unexpectedly, not only for you but for everybody else. what do you think your administration during your time there, we got right and we got wrong in that first year of covid-19? guest: that's an easy one and usually it's not framed that easily, so thank you, bill. very clearly, what we got right were three highly effective vaccines in record time. it's one of the frustrations to me right now when you look at how slowly the new administration has rolled out booster shots, has rolled out vaccines for kids. it's been at an incredibly slow pace. we had three vaccines in six months that were both safe and highly effective. operation warp speed. we frame it through the lens of the administration. these were really the hard-working people in washington, d.c., along with private industry coming together, and it's changed the

way we will develop drugs forever. but that was nothing short of the greatest scientific advancement of the last 50 years in this country. the original bar for vaccine effectiveness was 50%. if had it been 50% effective, we would have approved it and we would have been happy with one vaccine. we got three vaccines that were 85-plus% effective. the challenge is when it drops down to 70 prs, people say vaccines aren't working anymore. if that had been the only vaccine, we would have been ecstatic. that's what went well. what didn't go well and continues to go poorly is the communication. we have a once in a century pandemic superimposed on top of one of the most divisive presidential elections of our time. there is no other way to put it. you had one party and i said this publicly many times who ran and said on the idea that if you

don't elect him, you are all going to die. that was literally the framing, you are all going to die if you doact elect him and you had another party who was running on the idea that hey, there is nothing to fear, this will all go away. the truth is neither one of those were correct. the answer was somewhere in between. that made it challenging for me to have a conversation. if i talked about masks, people assume you are either pro-trump or anti-biden. if i talk about vaccines, people say you are only saying that because you want trump to get elected. it really frustrated me when i heard the current v.p. go out there and say i would not trust a vaccine under this administration. but then the second they got electorred it was hey you need to trust the vaccine. that's not me being political. that's me saying as a doctor, when you are trying to message, that becomes incredibly difficult. i think we -- i could have, should have done a better job trying to separate out the

medicine, science from the politics even as hard as it was. host: the lines are open for our viewers and listeners to weigh in. it's 202-748-8000 for those of you in the senior citizen and central time zones. 202-748-8001. let me go to a opinion piece you wrote. the head line says i got it wrong on masks at the start of the pandemic. this is how we can get it right. what are you saying in that opinion piece? guest: well, again try to reflect back on when we weighed in early on. we did get a wrong. from a scientific point of view, we did not know that we would have such a high degree of asymptomatic spread and we originally advised against masking for that reason. one of the challenges was we weren't getting information from china about asymptomatic spread. so we thought this virus would

behave like every other virus that we -- coronavirus that we had seen before. once we got the new information, we changed. but the point that i was making there is look, we have to communicate the uncertainty about this virus to the american people. we have got to have some humility and be willing to shift if and when the information changes, and we've got to help people understand look, the circumstances aren't going to be the same for everyone across the united states. what you are going to do in boston may be different than what you do in dallas, texas. you need to customize our approach to this virus and we need to give people clear off ramp. i talked about that in the article. we need to say look, if you got high enough vaccination rates, if cases and hospitalizations and deaths are going down, if you take the appropriate protective measures and we hit the metrics, you have to stand

up for what we say and remove mask mandates in those situations. host: dr. adams is also not just former surgeon general. he is the current new health equity initiatives -- executive director at purdue university. what do you do in that position? guest: it's a great question. it's still black history month. m.l.k. said all of the injustice in health care is the most shocking and most inheup main are inequality in health care. inequality means everyone is not getting the same thing. inequity means people aren't getting what they need. i want to explain that. you have someone in a wheelchair. they may need a ramp to get into the building. if we don't have a ramp, they're not getting what they need. if we give everyone a ramp, even people who don't need one, that's an inefficient use of resources. so it's not that we want equal for everyone. we actually want equitable for

everyone. i am trying to make sure people have opportunities to make healthy choices. i really believe in personal responsibility but i believe the choices people make are 100% predicated on the choices they have in front of them. not everyone has a choice to choose fresh fruits and vegetables. i made myself a smoothie this morning with spin aich, with apples. i was able to make that choice because we had grocery stores around us that have those things available, b, i could afford them, and let's face it, that would have been more expensive than to go to a fast food restaurant and get something off the 99 cent menu. we want people to have opportunities to exercise, to be able to go out and get vaccinated and do the things that we know will keep them healthy. that's what i am working on, trying to bring the full force of students and staff to bear to

really change communities. when you look at our agricultural school, who better than purdue to really lean in to food as medicine? when you look at the fact that neil armstrong went to purdue and was considered the cradle of astronauts, who better to look at technology to increase care to people? we are focused on health equity, making sure everyone has the opportunity to make a hailty -- hailty -- healthy choice. host: how do you think communities of color responded to vaccination efforts? guest: i am actually incredibly proud of the work that's been done by churches, that's been done by community organizations, to really get into those communities and to increase their vaccination rates. the studies tell us that african-americans in particular lag far behind the white population initially when it came to accepting covid

vaccines. i completely understand why. the tuskegee experiments took place over 70 years and it took another 40 years for the united states government to apologize for the tuskegee experiments where african-american men were lied to by the federal government, by the office of the surgeon general and denied treatment for civil -- syphilis. why do i bring that up? because people say well, there is plenty of time for people to have made a choice about vaccines. if they haven't, that's on them. you don't undo 100-plus years of mistrust in 1 1/2 years of vaccines being available. what i want people to understand is that actually when you look at the people who were unvaccinated initially a few months after the vaccines came out, african-americans have overcome their hesitancy much more quickly than whites who were hesitant in the united states. that's due to tremendous

outreach work by the african-american community. we need to acknowledge that. we need to learn from that. we need to figure out what are the best messages to help people understand what we are doing now such that the vaccines are safe and that they can trust the federal government when many of them still remember the tuskegee experiments and the fact that the federal government gave them really good reasons not to trust them, that many of them still right now are experiencing institutional racism or experiencing a health care system that isn't always as equitable to people of color as it is to people who are white or people who have money. host: question on twitter for you before we get to calls. this one from lizzy who says which is it, doctor, should we still be wearing masks or should we not? was it ok for the super bowl thousands to be there unmasked? guest: that is a great question and i understand why people are

frustrated. regardless of what the science says, we know that politically, behaviorally people are moving on. as a doctor, i want people to understand what is in your tool kit to stay safe moving forward. i try to break it down to people in simple terms. masking, we know masking, high quality masks, still protect you against the virus and they're actually our best protection against new variants which treatments and vaccines may or may not work against. the masks will always work. high quality masks will be better than a cloth mask but it's better than nothing. you are moving to a phase where you see the mask mandates move away. people can still choose to wear a mask if they're at risk because they're unvaccinated or they have immune issues or live with someone who has immune

issues. the t of m.t.b. is testing and treatment. if you get symptoms, you need to get tested. we have effective treatments, oral antivirals, that can help prehaven't -- prevent you from ending up in the hospital or dying. and then vaccines. we still have work to do, especially when you look at other developed nations. we are far behind other developed nations in terms of our adult vaccination rates and booster rates. a quarter of the united states has been wooed -- boosted compared to 60% of most european nations. in denmark people are getting rid of the covid restrictions. i am like, well, they're able to do that because they have done the other things to protect themselves. they're saying we have enough protection from vaccines and boosters that we can afford to not have the mask mandates.

m.t.v., it's not either/or. it's a tool kit. host: let's go to calls for dr. jerome adams. samuel in illinois, georgia, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, doctor. i have a question. we had no health care in mississippi when i was born in 1928. in the last episode in this country, what should be the role of the government? you have politician involved and just those who is not concerned, negative related to health care. should the people just die? what is your role? thank you very much. guest: samuel, thank you so much for that question. i spent a lot of time in

georgia. with governor kemp down there. good people down in georgia, good people in georgia, one of the challenges is it's not an expansion state so far for medicaid. in indiana under governor pence, we expanded access to halt coverage -- health coverage through the funds we were able to to get to the affordable care act. i mention that because i want people to understand the number one predictor throughout most of the pandemic whether or not you were vaccinated wasn't whether you were republican or democrat. it wasn't whether you were black or white. it was actually whether you had health insurance or not. that is a very interesting statistic to unpack because the vaccines were free. it wasn't like you had to pay for the vaccine. really what most of us think is not having health insurance meant that you didn't have a primary care physician, a doctor that you could go to, to get your questions answered.

when people can't get their questions answered, misinformation can come into play and people can be preyed upon quite frankly by folks out there with other agendas, whether political or not. so what is my recommendation and what is my direct answer to your question? i think that we need to do all we can to connect people at the community level with individuals who they can trust in the health care system, whether it's doctors or your local health department or your local pharmacist or nurse practitioner. people on the ground level in georgia don't care what the surgeon general of the united states or what tony fauci says or what donald trump or joe biden says so much as they care what their doctor says. we have seen when we can pair people up and connect them with people in their communities that they tend to make healthier choices. we also need to find out ways to get people access to health care in general, so that they can be

their hailtiest -- healthiest safe. if i get sick, i can call my doctor and i can be in the doctor's office this afternoon. other people don't have that option. they don't have an equitable opportunity to stay healthy. final point is there is a lot of focus on treatment but we need to focus on prevention. we know that 80% of your health is determined by things that happen outside the doctor's office, whether or not you are eating healthy, getting enough sleep, exercising appropriately. you are getting your screenings. we need to focus on prevention because i would much rather prehaven't you from getting sick than having access to health care when you do get sick. host: let's go to frederick in new york. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. guest: good morning, frederick. host: you are on the air. guest: how are you doing? my name is frederick. i live in the fifth congressional district of new

york, the honorable gregory meeks, congress. as a retiree from the federal reserve bank in new york city system, i've had both kizer. my question to you is i am going to my doctor -- my primary care doctor and they are offering moderna and i've heard moderna and i have heard of johnson and johnson one shot deal. i wanted to know your opinion on mixing the various medications that they have for senior citizens. i will be 69 years. guest: wonderful. so thank you for that question, frederick. great question. what you are talking about is mixing and matching. if you got two doses of pfizer initially and then getting moderna.

or two doses of mod earn and getting pfizer. if you are in that scenario, what you should know is the science suggests that whatever vaccine you get is going to significantly increase your protection against infection, hospitalization and death afterwards. boosting is approved by the c.d.c., ok'd by the c.d.c. and there is some data out there that suggests you might get a better immune response. you will not get a worse immune response but you might get a better immune response if you mix and match the boosters because you are ebbing posing -- exposing your body to a different version of the antigen. i am a big fan of the mixing and matching if you get the booster shot. it's safe to get it. the c.d.c. recommends that you can get it. for me personally, it's

something that i actually recommend that people do. i tried to get a moderna booster even though i had two pfizer shots the data suggests it's better but i couldn't find a place to get a moderna booster. but the scenario you are talking about is fine to do and it's something i would recommend to my family and friends to do if possible. but either way the most important thing is to get that third shot as soon as possible because it's going to give you extra po teks -- protection. host: in your early comments, you were critical of the slower pace in your view of the development of the approval of vaccines recently. wanted to ask you about the f.d.a. decision to proas poan -- postpone the review of child covid vaccine under development for kids under 5. they say they need more data on it. how do you think they should have proceeded differently on this? guest: one of the big challenges is that we are over a year into

the biden administration and we still don't have an f.d.a. commissioner. the f.d.a. commissioner's position is arguably the most important position in the pandemic, in the entire pandemic, when you look at the control that they have over approval of testing, over the approval of drugs and vaccines and boosters. that has been a huge ball dropped thus far and yes, we know that congress plays a royal in that -- role in that, but the biden administration didn't have a candidate until about october or november of last year. for most of last year, they had an interim janet woodcock, a very good person, running the f.d.a. but you don't have the direction when you don't have a permanent f.d.a. commissioner. i think that has slowed things down, lack of direction that comes from not having a permanent f.d.a. commissioner. i want to people to understand that the vaccine, pfizer and

moderna, are fully approved for people 18 and over. for people under that age, you can get them through an e.u.a. down to younger ages. 5-11-year-olds can get the fiedzer -- pfizer vaccine. under 5 you can't get a vaccine from any manufacturer. what we heard is that the f.d.a. is actually delaying review of pfizer's data for people under 5 several months to review more data. here is what they're reviewing. we know if people under 5 get two doses of a vaccine that that's safe. we do know that's safe based on the data we have seen thus far. but the safety the f.d.a. is looking at, people under 5 did not get as robust an immune response to two doses as adults did. what the f.d.a. is saying is let's see if three doses actually gives those people

under 5 a better immune response. i think that's the right thing to do. i want to separate out the right thing to do from the politics and policy. that's the right thing to do right now because when you are going to recommend this to people under 5 you want to make sure you are telling them it's safe and effective for them when parents are making that choice. from a policy point of view, it's frustrating to me that it's taken this long and i think part of the reason it's taken this long is because again quite frankly the biden administration dropped the ball on trying to get an f.d.a. commissioner approved. if we can get three vaccines approved or authorized in six months under the prior administration, it shouldn't take 18 months to get vaccines for kids under the new administration. that's not me being political. that's saying the american people deserve better. host: let's ' hear from ellen in new hampshire. go ahead.

caller: hi. i have a nagging worry about this. people with other diseases like polio, people who suffered through polio, would recover and then years later they would get a thing called postpolio disease and it's a terribly crippling thing. for example, with the chicken pox, people are getting social distancingles. -- shingles, years later. i don't know how -- maybe i am wrong, but that -- i can't see how people can allow covid or omicron to get into their body. am i wrong? guest: ellen, thank you so much for calling in and for bringing that up because that's an

incredibly important topic. i have been tweeting about it throughout the pandemic, but especially recently. that's the idea of long covid or postcovid syndrome. what i want those listening, those watching to understand is that in about 1/4 to 1/3 of people who have had covid, even in people who were mildly symptomatic or asim to m -- asymptomatic, they developed long covid symptoms afterwards. brain fog, meaning they were having trouble thinking. fatigue, meaning that they are tired. chronic cough, which is impacting their ability to be able to exercise and get back to life. many other symptoms, pain that people are having, many people up to 1/3 are having these long-term symptoms and so when people say i am -- omicron is mild, not a big deal, what they don't understand is it may not be a big deal in the immediate

moment for you but it could cause you to have symptoms for weeks, months and we don't know what we don't know. it could be years moving forward in the future so that is why we should continue to take precautions, masking, we should get particularly our vaccines and boosters because that lowers the chance we will get infection in the first place. it lowers your chance of getting long covid even if you happen to be unfortunate enough to still get infected. get your vaccines. we also think if you get tested and treated properly type viral antibodies it is a good time to figure out that that may lower your chances of long covid symptoms. again, aborting the bar is the first way by getting vaccinated and wearing a mask -- avoiding the virus in the first way is

getting vaccinated and wearing a mask. you should not be dismissing the significance according the third of people who are infected with covid because that could be devastating to the future. host: his doctors -- as a doctor adams familiar with the procedure korea uses. guest: i appreciate that question. we should always look at other countries and try to figure out, ok, what can we learn from it, what works well. the asian countries have done a tremendous job. i want to remind people that china was actually where the virus started and they have done a much better job after the initial of controlling the virus. a lot of things we can learn from them.

we also have to remember that the united states is a big country. i do not mean to just talk down to people when i say that. i know that you all know this. when we talk about places like south korea, we talk about places like denmark, israel. in many cases, these places are smaller than new york city. it is one thing to say that we should do something because another country did it, it is an entire different thing from a practical and political point to think that we can do something across the entire united states, particularly with our system of government were a lot of public health authority is at the state and local level instead of the federal level. that these other countries could do. another thing to remember is that culturally, the asian countries are much more something of national authority in their country and a culture of masks.

that is something we do not have. what we are trying to do as a balance the federal oversight and the mandates with a country in the united states that was really founded largely by people who were pushing away from federal authority. so, what do actually need to do then? what we need to do is understand a lot of this authority lies in the state and local level and we need to continue to work with government -- governors and inform them of these statistics. that is something that we did. we traveled around the united states a mix of the pandemic, danger to our own selves because we were trying to meet with government -- governors in their states and say, here is what your data looks like across the united states. then give them recommendations about what they needed to do based on their data.

if we do that, i think we can move forward. i think we should strive to be more like some of these other countries because they are opening up faster than what we are. people said we want to be like denmark, they got rid of all of their restrictions. they do not understand that denmark got there by having higher vaccination rates and masking rates. final point i want to mate as we are talking about -- as i want to make as we are talking about testing, we do not have the infrastructure in the united states to pull it off. the numbers have fallen well short in articulating testing strategy. our public health has been underfunded for decades in this country.

we do not have enough people to send out there. that is why that is falling apart in the united states appeared not to say that we shouldn't continue to try to of capacity and do its, those are some of the regions we can't be like south korea. host: we will get a few more calls here. first up, john. caller: thanks for the call. do you think dr. adams, that it was at the goal of formal sba chairman to leave their position and work for the vaccine? guest: thanks for writing in today. one of the challenges is people need jobs. i mean, i am in that same role. i am a dad, i got three kids. i actually took a huge they cut. i do not want anyone to feel sorry for him -- me.

when you come out, you try to find these jobs. there is nothing that they did that was illegal, they are both good people. you know, i think that that is a question that we are needing to ask ourselves. what are reasonable restrictions for people coming in and out. i think it is a fair question that you ask. there is nothing that they did was illegal. i can't criticize someone for doing something that is not illegal, that is what they see is the best interest of their family. i want to acknowledge that i do understand. i very much understand the frustration you and others feel when you see an sba commissioner on the board for a major drug company. i think that is something that folks need to go about. right now, i am not in a position and it wouldn't

criticize either of those two. host: sean, from new york city. caller: good morning. the fda has released the first three months of the post authorization, and since that, over 1300 people had severe adverse reaction including deaths with the shot. it actually says this, this is from the post authorization of the vaccine, the first three months that the fda released from the federal government. it also says that it was several abortions that had happened with the shots.

am i mistaken by what i am reading because this is a actual document that was released by the fda on the behalf of pfizer what was happening post authorization. guest: that is a wonderful question. i am so glad you asked that question. you're talking about the vaccine adverse and reporting system. what i want people to understand is one of the reasons that we feel confident in the safety of all drugs is because we have a study and drugs are giving -- given an authorization and a approval. we continue to follow these drugs after months, years after they'd been approved to make sure we are not missing something after they go out to the broader public. the system allows people to report anything, anything whatsoever. then the fda looks at that and

sees whether or not there is a common relationship between the drug and these adverse effects. so, we know that the vaccine was not out there at all, the certain amount of people would have --. up with this tweet out a month ago. one in four pregnancies end in a spontaneous abortion in the united states. what we do is look at information reported and we say ok, if the spontaneous report -- abortion rates are being reported higher than the vaccinations, higher than the vaccination rates. the fda looks at that and says not only are the rates of spontaneous abortions are not higher if you're vaccinated, is that actual you have a higher

risk of pregnancy related complications of spontaneous if you get covid or vaccinated. then there is a venting that goes after those --vetting that goes on after that. so far, we see the vaccine --. i have got vaccinated, my wife have got vaccinated. my two boys who are 17 and 16 happen vaccinated and boosted. my 12-year-old daughter, i'm worried about her ability to have kids in the future has been fully vaccinated. i say that because the most honest and transparent thing i can say to you. i am a doctor, i looked at the data and i felt confident and safety. do not let people fully by

saying that these are the only things that are being reported. they have to be compared against the baseline rate. they still have to be proven incredibly safe in addition to being effective. host: he is the executive director of purdue university. he is also the general during the trump administration. thank you for your time. guest: great questions for your callers -- from your followers. i just want to say it is ok to have questions. do not let anybody shame you for having questions. that is what we are doing today. there is a lot of nuance. it cannot be answered in a tweet, we need to have these conversations, you need to talk to your doctor or health care provider. not let misinformation lead you into making a bad decision for your health. get the facts and hopefully you

will take measures to protect yourself from covid. that is the way we actually end this pandemic. host: we love to have you back on. up next, we will open up our phones for open forum to hear from you on the issues we talked about today including the russia conflict or items in the news you are following, particularly in politics. the lines are for republicans, (202) 748-8001. >> this week live on the c-span network, the senate will continue -- consider the nomination and the senate will vote on a short-term funding bill as well as the postal force

-- service reform bill. some committees will hold virtual hearings. on thursday at 3 p.m. eastern live on c-span, the inspector general of the capitol police testifies for the house administration committee on his review of the capitol hill law enforcement agency in the wake of january 6. watch this week, live on the c-span network or on c-span now on our mobile video app there it also come head over to c-span for scheduling information here door to stream via national video live on demand -- stream video live on demand anytime. c-span.

>> hardly a day passes in the united states without some reference to george the third where he is still held up as a equal opportunities hate figure, and archetypal bogeyman. andrew roberts over the past 30 years has also written major histories about napoleon, churchill and world war ii. >> british historian andrew roberts on book notes plus. book notes plus is available on the c-span apps or wherever you get your podcasts. "washington journal" continues. host: it is our open forum.

it is where we hear from any of the topics we talk about today -- talk about today. for the lines for republicans it is, (202) 748-8001. free democrats, (202) 748-8000. for others it is (202) 748-8002. survival mold -- mode, inflation falls. rodrigues was laid off from her job and dug into her savings to cover the rising cost of everything, including her 18-year-old sons premed textbooks. if rodriguez was able to buy a house and locked in a mortgage it would have helped shield her from the highest inflation she has seen. instead her landlord recently hiked her monthly rent from 1200

to $1500 after exhausting her savings, rodriguez circle to pull together $50 to fill her car with gas and commute to the miami international airport where she and her -- she makes $13 an hour as a wendy's cashier. those games are being eroded by the highest inflation in 40 years. rodriguez is paycheck does not go as far as it used to. she has to budget $200 a week for childcare and $200 a month for the water bill. the patent -- the part of paper towels she buys went from $40 to $80 -- $14 to $18. we will hear from steve. good morning. caller: yes. ok. i was wanting to talk about the

gas prices that we have gone up -- that we are going up right now. i do not believe that our administration is being truthful with us about what is going on. biden went and had a meeting with putin in russia, it seems like to me that we had another quick code going on with biden and him getting paid off. it looked pretty obvious to me that putin was paying biden off again. he is not being honest with us about anything. why is it that in the white house that the republicans can't seem to get along together? they will not even have a meeting with anything together

anymore. it seems like our, the white house, everything is divided. it has never happened like this in the history of the united states, this kind of division between the staff in our white house. host: to roger on the democrats line. caller: yes. i am disappointed that i do not get to speak with the good doctor. roses are red, violets are blue, it is just a cold it is just a fluke. a million dead bodies later. 1000 young children dead. four nurses and doctors dead. this guy had the gall to show his face, and then have the dusty to start planting -- and then have the audacity to start pointing fingers at the biden

administration? wow. everybody in the house of representatives knew exactly what was coming at us. everybody in the senate knew what was coming at us. republican doctors in the house, republican doctors in the senate, they all hung us out to dry. i would say more, but i am thinking i'm starting to lose my temper. host: we do not want that to happen. we will go to linda on the independent line. caller: thank you for c-span. let me say that personally, i have experienced a lot since 2015 at being constantly home. people calling in complaining about the government.

i hear only this. this is a place for a democracy. i would like to input that democracy, bureaucracy on capitalism go hand in hand. we have not one from new york state. i would sure like funds to be directed to my community. mr. brown, please try to give me a call. host: this is from the daily mail. the headline now, even democrats call for hillary clinton to be investigated after a counsel revealed her account hacked trumps white house service to link into russia. democrats believed $.20 -- immigrants believe hillary

clinton should be questioned for her alleged -- democrats believe that tiller clinton should be questioned -- hillary clinton should be questioned. michigan is next up. debbie is on the democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. those are allegations about hillary, but that is not my point when a truck put out this . almost everybody else has already admitted to the press that they talk to him. who is he trying to hide? it on on me that maybe putin called him. my second point is, when you hear these republicans talking about the keystone pipeline raising gas prices, they are lying to you. the keystone pipeline was to transport, which the united

states doesn't even have any refineries that do that kind of oil. that did not have any effect on the gas prices, zero effect. here is a fact. you know, when this whole thing started, they did not want to come sell it to the united states, they wanted to go to british columbia. british columbia said no way. that's all i got. have a happy valentine's day. host: headline from nbc world leaders scramble to avoid war in ukraine amidst confusion over a bed to join nato. they write in this piece that ukraine appear to offer and then retract a major concession to russia admitting feverish attempts by world leaders to prevent a war from breaking out in europe. russian forces, 130,000 continue to mask in ukraine's border on monday.

steve advise airlines to avoid --kyiv advised airlines to avoid flying over its waters. the investors that ukraine was going to be "flexible over its goal to join the alliance" which will be a major recession to moscow. next up is cincinnati. tonya is on the democrats line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am calling because i think it is the worst thing in the world i could have happened to the u.s. and the world is donald trump. because of his attack on the troops, we have a third of our country that is operating on a lie that they know is a lie, they know donald trump did not

win the election, but they are operating on this lie because it makes it possible for them to do the things that they have been wanting to do all the time. the fact that a lie is running this country is really a shame, and that could relate right at the foot of donald trump but also at the republicans who aren't willing to go along with the line and -- lie and do as much ms -- demo's to this country. that lays right at the feet of donald trump and the republicans . it is one of the things that is destroying our country. host: let's hear from heaven calling in indiana, republican line. caller: i am calling because all i want you to do is put on my text i have been sending you for weeks on the russian ukraine thing. my position is that president

bush the first was a -- what he did was a mistake. after he made the satellites independent, he should have turned to the government and said, now we will give you the marshall plan on anything else you need to keep russia at a peaceful democratic union like ours. ukraine is at the heart of russia. moscow is the heart pump on russia. st. petersburg is the brain of russia. the center of russia, stomach of russia.

we need the eurasian russia back . host: thanks. this is a headline from this morning from the hill, alexander bolton's peace. anxious democrats want biden to speed up vetting for supreme court. he writes democrats are urging president biden to speed up this process to pick up a nominee for the supreme court so that nothing is left a chance. what medical emergency is already putting a drain on the democrats majority. dick durbin says he wants to get started on the confirmation process as soon as possible. he wants biden to do it soon. i think we understand the importance of the responsibility. we are anxious to get this and it's moving forward. we started to pick up speed recently, and we want to

continue to continue that. in michigan, christine on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling in response to a caller, a few colors ago about --a few callers ago. this has been going on for a while. i remember when obama was elected, the republicans were shut out to stop him in anyway. half the globe, what was so shameful about that was, the great recession, that cannot even get the republicans to work with the democrats. i think it is more of the

republicans. they have no plan, the republicans have nothing. you know, eventually, yeah. but it has been going on for a wild. it did not happen just under the trump administration -- going on for a while. host: trevor noah to headline the correspondence center. the host of the daily show will perform at the white house correspondents to enter -- dinner, becoming the first comedian to headline the event since michelle's routine. the white house correspondents dinner celebrate america's freedom and working people who bring the news to the world. the president of the

correspondent association said in a statement. let's hear from k in madison alabama. caller: good morning. hello. good morning. i just wanted to talk a little bit about president trump versus president biden. i think president trump did a tremendous job, of course he had his faults. i think we were safer in the world. president trump had worked with kim jong-un and made nato pay their price, and now we are over in ukraine trying to help them. i just wonder if president biden is making, made some countries pay up to help ukraine. everybody criticized president trump for that.

it just helps americans as far as i'm concerned. host: thanks for the call. that will do it for the program here on "washington journal". have a happy valentine's day. we will see you tomorrow at 7:00 eastern. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies, including comcast.

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