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at -- discuss women in politics with abril walsh. ♪ >> in the russia ukraine conflict whether pressing for dual medic solutions or providing additional troops and military support, u.s. policy makers wrestle with the policy -- aligned with canada, the u.k. -- the underlying goals, preserving -- democracy in ukraine. good morning. it is tuesday, february 15. welcome to "washington journal".

whether the u.s. should be protecting democracy in ukraine. you said the answer is yes to that host: the number is guest: and if the answer is no caller: caller: and if you are unsure -- tell us your name and where you are test thing from. you can also send your thoughts -- military and diplomatic news on the u.k. rusher front this morning. we will get to some of those stories this morning. we are focusing on a question this morning partly on the annual report of the economist. the economist -- democracy index . this is their 2021 democracy index. -- the china challenge. what is in that synopsis.

global democracy rating hits a new low is their headline. the annual mobile -- lowest score since tracking began. just 45 point 7% of the world's population living in a democracy of some sort. at his inaugural summit, president biden cast global -- defining challenge for our time. he pledged to spend -- over the next year over -- the average global score fell 5.37 25.28, -- the index ranks country on the scale of one to 10 based on 60 indicators, groups in five categories. -- -- a decline or stagnation in

their average -- in 2021. that is the democracy -- we are focusing on ukraine and our goals there. should the u.s. support democracy in ukraine? (202) 748-8000 it is the line for those who say yes. (202) 748-8001 is a line if you say no. if (202) 748-8002 you are unsure your number is. part of the intelligence unit says that less than half of the population in the world live in a democracy of some sort. that is a significant decline from 2020. even fewer reside in a full democracy. two countries, chill a and spain were -- substantially more than

a -- live under authoritative rule. in large share in china. we will take you to the comments of president biden back in december at his democracy summit on the state of the world's democracies. >> democracy does not happen by accident. we have to renew it with each generation and this is an urgent matter on all of our parts in my view. the pattern we are seeing is pointing in the right -- pointing in the wrong direction. that march the 15th consecutive year of global freedom and retreats. another report noted that more than half of all democracies have experienced a decline in at least one aspect of their democracy over the last 10 years. including the united states.

this is debated by global challenges that are more complex than ever that require shared effort to these concerns. outside pressure from out of kratz, they seek to advance their own power, makes port their influence and justify their repressive policies as a more efficient way to address today's challenges. my voice -- voices that seek to fan the flame of division and polarization. importantly, and most worrying of all. by increasing the dissatisfaction of people all around the world with democratic governments that they feel are failing to deliver for their needs, in my view this is a defining challenge of our time. >> president biden in december opening the show asking you about democracy in ukraine. should the u.s. protected. (202) 748-8000 the number is if

you say yes. (202) 748-8001 is no. (202) 748-8002 for all others. if you are unsure. from that report about ukraine in particular under the heading, some good news from europe. -- one of the worst performing regions, eastern europe outperformed all -- in 2020 one by avoiding the decline in its core. other countries improve their scores sufficiently to be upgraded from hybrid regimes to flaunt democracy. -- eight places in the raking. designated eight authoritative regime. some of the country struggle in 2021. they write that ukraine declined from 5.81 in 2022 -- in 2021 taking it further below the threshold of six, above which

countries are ossified as a flaw democracy. that is from the report in 2021. let us hear your thoughts. let's talk to john in brooklyn. caller: i think democracy should be supported and protected all over the world. who don't like freedom? what happens -- having the freedom to let -- host: how much of that is the u.s.'s role and responsibility? caller: leaders of the free world, we are the leaders of democracy. we should nurture it and protected.

i want freedom of speech and religion and if i do not like something by the government i should petition it. who don't want that? nato needs to be expanded. the way the president is getting on nato together, trump could not do that. because he did not like nato. he wanted to destroy nato. biden got those countries working with them and believing in him. he is not embarrassing them with foolish rhetoric. he is friend of democracy. that is what we need. that is what everybody wants. host: we will go to john in salem, illinois. caller: good morning.

we have as much right to avenge ukraine as russia has two invaded. -- in the 1990's and 2000's were interested in -- democracy in the middle east. that did not work at all. here we have in ukraine, a democracy and all we are doing is defending it. we are not trying to create one. the unfortunate thing here is that vladimir putin is going to have to save face. i do not know, he is pretty much going to have to have some military -- he is not going to withdraw with his tail between his legs. we have as much ukraine to -- we have as much right to defend ukraine as they have to invaded. in the last 20 years -- to punch vladimir putin in the face. really embarrassed him in front of the world. i do not understand the

ambivalence. -- a new democracy and we are here to defend democracy. you mentioned the democracy index and we need to defend it wherever it is. especially a country like that where democracy grows organically. the host: there is some news about troop movement. no matter how much the biden administration might want to pivot to asia and focus resources on a contest to -- the other the atlanta -- remains necessary and appropriate in the toy first century. putin gripes that he must make military threats to -- nato expansion. that is to justify the new -- he has been pursuing for years. the best answer is to -- cohesion and to a remarkable

extent that is what the biden administration has achieved. -- punishing a russian invasion with sanctions despite the president's miscues and the inevitable attempts 4 -- by european allies. great in southern maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. if anyone is a student of history, was it in france's interest to back america against england? yes, yes it was. yes it is in america's interest to back ukraine against russia. host: to christine in florida. you are unsure? caller: i almost feel like we are being hypocritical because we go in and we did things for our own benefit.

i do not believe we are doing it for the ukraine, we are just doing it to russia, we -- it is a game that the countries play with each other just a scare tactic. i do not believe we should do anything. i do not think they will do anything. i think it is politics playing a game between nations. host: the line for youth those of you who are unsure. should the u.s. protect (202) 748-8002 (202) 748-8002 ukraine in democracy the number is. (202) 748-8000 if you say yes (202) 748-8000. if you say no the number is (202) 748-8001. some troops are returning to their bases and other large-scale military drills remain. the ministry says that some troops employed two borders were

being loaded onto trains and trucks and sent back to their garrisons. a tentative sign that russia could be stepping away from invasion. the ministry announcement was the strongest signal yet that russia may be trying to de-escalate the military standoff near the ukrainian border. it was far from clear that the threat of war has passed he could not be determined how many troops were being pulled back. the ministry said that some military exercises have raised fear against an attack against ukraine and get -- it were continuing. the secretary general of the u.n. yesterday said he was worried for the potential of military conflict there and stressing that the -- is diplomacy. >> i am deeply worried by the height intentioned and increased speculation about the potential military conflict in europe. -- the price in human suffering

-- and damage to european and global security is too high to contemplate. we simply cannot accept even the possibility that such a disastrous confrontation. i will remind fully engaged in the hours and days to come. i spoke this morning with the minister of foreign affairs for the russian administration and ukraine and the my message is clear. there is no alternative to diplomacy. all issues including the most -- can and must be addressed and resolved to diplomatic frameworks. it is my firm belief that these principles will prevail. host: should the u.s. protect democracy in ukraine? drake in eugene. caller: my wife's family is

still in ukraine so it is a personal matter for me as well. i would like to say a lot of this needs to be taking into account the russian psychology involved. russia literally has a bunch of countries that are essentially protecting themselves by allying with nato. the other side of that is i think the u.s. should do -- make every effort possible including some kind of acknowledgment that russia has not autonomous interest in the sense that russia wants closure. if they could close down, they could do anything inside of their country. you lose all of your access to the demo product processes. -- advocating for human rights. if they close, they have carte

blanche to affect anyway they want. host: how much do you hear from your wife's family? how concerned are they about what is going on? caller: some people are not concerned. i think it is a larger effort to get attention by putin. some people in the west -- have relationships with. the people in my youthful where russia -- muchly needed land bridge to crimea as all of the traffic has to cross that bridge. those places and the city of -- karpov is close to russia -- those are easy things that russia could get away with.

host: have you and your wife visited there in any years? caller: we have not been there since 2017. she is essentially in constant contact with her family which is in a city that used to be a close military city. it is about 90 kilometers from the crimean border. a very easy route to control that whole area. host: thank you for your point of view. we will go to new york. caller: good morning. i would like to say that what we have to consider is the downside potential of supporting ukraine in this situation.

host: what are some of those downsides? caller: the primary downside is that russia is a nuclear weapons state. they have borne it clear weapons than any state on earth i believe. if things get out of hand, it could escalate to a point where we can even -- the catastrophe that is waiting for us. the case-by-case situation, i am all for supporting democracy. this is not the same. this is not 1776. this is 2022. we have a totally different world. we have weapons that could put an end to civilization.

we need to really consider carefully what is going on over there in ukraine because it could be the flashpoint that sends us over the edge. host: looking at they report from the economist index unit. there democracy index of 2021, the economy -- defined what they mean by democracies in their appendix. they write this about democracy, there is no consensus about how to measure democracy. definitions are contested and there is a lively debate. -- although democracy is high on the list of foreign policy priorities there is no consensus in the government overweight constituting democracy. as one observer put it, the words -- only rhetorically promoting a system that remains

undefined and is taking its credibility and treasure on that. although the teams -- democracy can be seen as a set of practices and principles that institutionalize and thereby ultimate protect freedom. even though the consensus by -- about the precise definitions remain elusive. -- the fundamentals include a government based on a majority rule -- the protection of minority rights and respect for human rights. it presupposes equality before the law and due process and pluralism. -- is sufficient for a satisfactory concept of democracy. there is a question -- that is from the democracy index. let us hear from don in

michigan. caller: good morning. i think joe biden has handled the situation the best that he can. -- our allies like poland and country surrounding ukraine that we support. they are part of nato. we let ukraine take care of ukraine and we let russia and china know that we will support our allies, not like trump did. we will not turn our backs on our allies. we stand up to china, we have to stand up to russia and let them know that we will protect our allies. we will not turn our backs on them, we will not support

gangsters like trump did. we will not fall in love with kim jong-un like trump did. we will not overlook our intelligent -- our intelligence agencies and have trust in the russian intelligence agencies. i think biden is doing a great job. host: mike is next. caller: i think we need to defend democracy as it is called in ukraine or anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. we did just live through a four year insurrectionist coup, a treasonous coup led by our own government, our own media against our own president.

yes, we need to step up and defended. host: this is from the washington times. russia displays support for talks. vladimir putin gave the first signs on monday that he is considering easing back from military buildup around ukraine. the biden administration remain skeptical and warns that an invasion of ukraine could be eminent. the meeting appears to be orchestrated for tv cameras. -- moscow would -- despite what the kremlin says, their refusal to consider russian security demands. some comments on social media and on -- this one says personally i have no interest in using my tax money to pay for an army to different ukraine. my guess is vladimir putin is heavily invested and will use this dustup to boost his cash

portfolio from defense and ministry defense sales. when france supported -- it broke the france economy as a consequence. sue, in new jersey. we need to think hard about getting -- the bloodshed and human cost is too great. what is the real goal of nato in the situation? the u.s. should protect democracy in the u.s.. this is one of the members of the parliament at an atlantic council event in washington. >> it was joe biden -- 2009 in munich. he used this idea of -- vladimir putin in.

it failed and lessons learned. the need for president biden -- does not have any illusion of putin's mind and ambitions. it is about autocracy -- our open -- host: should the u.s. support democracy in ukraine. if you say yes your number is (202) 748-8000. if you say no your number is (202) 748-8001. if you are undecided your number is (202) 748-8002. caller: good morning. i want to preface my comment by saying that i defining the questions that you are asking every morning to be increasingly problematic.

in the case of this question, the reason i said i am unsure is because it depends on what you mean by support democracy. a lot of the questions being asked lately are unclear about what they are actually getting at. i would say that yes of course we should support dr. -- support democracy in the abstract. make the world safe for democracy. the question is what does that really mean? that is not what this whole issue is about. we are talking here about protecting the integrity and safety of the country and what we should do to do that, whether nato should be still around? these are questions that are never really addressed by the mainstream media. -- never seem to address what the implications of these things are like all we have really done

is americans living today are now bound by -- made decades ago. they say nato but really it is the united states. go to fight a war, to the defense of any country that nato including all of the countries that were admitted after world war ii,'s -- yes we should support democracy. are we talking about money? moral support, education? we have our own issues with democracy here. host: we will hear from david in texas. caller: i am a perfect follow-up to that guy. my question is what does defending democracy mean? providing legal defense of weapons, something that trump did during his administration.

the biden administration did not until recently. you cannot just send a bunch of sophisticated weapons over there five minutes before they are attacked and expect anybody to know how to use them. someone else said that france came to our aid and why was that in the idea was they were defending democracy. they were a monarchy. they supported us because we were at war against their bitterest enemy, the united kingdom. there is no way to stay safe. i will get back to that in a moment. there is a way for him to stay safe. we have something here -- it is clear that we were not going to let any countries do anything that would put their influence in the western hemisphere, not just to us like mexico or

canada. he did it because britain, we almost went to war over that. since then anyone who has come close to that or in this hemisphere we have opposed. russia also has never attacked us. we have attacked russia. in 1919 the united states -- joined with the united kingdom to attack the bolshevik side of the russian revolution -- napoleon attacked through -- in 1812, and obviously the germans attacked through ukraine in 1941. i am only saying that there is nothing on usual about a country, whatever the country is to say you know, we would like a buffer zone of one country. we want the entire -- we are only asking for one country. that does not mean we cannot support ukraine's democracy.

there is no reason for them to be invaded. host: how far should the u.s. and nato go in saying that in no way would they accept ukraine not being able to determine whether they want to join nato? that is one of the clear lines they are making. caller: the question is, is it worth going to war, is it worth them going to war, it puts them at risk not just us. the question is why do we need them in nato? we have -- every single nato country would have to vote to get them in. this is something that would be years out. we do not need them in nato. we need for the nato countries to do their share. germany is the biggest economy of nato -- trump was not against nato. he supported nato and he wanted for them to pay the way. -- it went bankrupt after they did it. the united states is -- has been

willy-nilly supporting countries for technical reasons. it has all failed since the korean war. we have gone into debt so the question is, it is a question of whether the united states interest. -- we are not going to bring it into an alliance which the russians built threatened bible we will let them in the eu. we will say we do not want you to attack them but if you do we are going to support them. host: david in texas. bernie sanders saying we support democracy in ukraine and we are working toward a realistic -- that will prevent devastating war. westbrook, maine. duane. caller: the last caller was right to an extent.

and so is bernie sanders. he tries to skews -- neoconservatives. we always use democracy as an excuse to defend our strategic interests. it is imperialism. -- on we do not care about democracy historically. we want our interest -- we are extending nato but we have agreed not to do that years ago. -- a country right on russia's doorstep, installing a government that was a fascist government, a fascist neo-nazi government. to the extent that we were conducting a war -- of ukraine. of course they are going to want to protect their borders. we are harmed -- we are arming a

hostile country. we say we are protecting democracy. that is what we have always done. we say we are protecting democracy abroad -- and it is just our commercial and strategic interests that we are extending internationally. it has nothing to do with democracy. i object to the question. i think it is misleading. we are not protecting democracy anymore than we have done in our foreign policy. host: some movement of russian troops -- with the border of ukraine. this is the pentagon spokesman late yesterday on trope movements on the border. >> we need to do the things that you would expect one to do if one was planning on a major military action. that is to sharpen the readiness and to add to the capabilities of his horse. we obviously do not want that to

be the outcome. neither do the ukrainians nor our nato allies. the foreign minister said earlier today or seem to indicate that he still thinks there is oxygen here for diplomacy. we would welcome a pursuit of that path by the russians because we to believe that there still should be and can be a lamenting path forward. >> i am trying to understand. are you still suggesting that putin has not taken a decision to invade ukraine? >> we still do not believe that some final decision has been made. host: our question this morning should the u.s. protect democracy in ukraine. some comments on social media. this one from helen says protecting democracy in ukraine is a domino theory.

-- the cold war had many casualties due to u.s. protecting democracy, u.s. must stop making war or moral -- or war will come to us. -- u.s. involvement in traditional wars. usa can use other tools beside direct involvement in war. from robert on twitter, what kind of democracy is in ukraine? read their constitution. he raises this question, did -- democracy here? john durham. the lead opinion piece in the wall street journal, trump -- special counsel john durham continues to unravel the collusion story. -- their opinion piece that mr. durham's revelations take the 2016 pollutions -- based on

unvented -- working in washington. the assertions were channeled to the highest levels of the government by a context and the fbi, cia and state department. they became fodder for secret and unjustified warrants against a former campaign official and for later robert molars -- robert molars -- bogus claims to a willing and gullible media. trying to protect researchers -- if you made this up you would be laughed out of a netflix story pitch. the wall street journal concludes that the filing root -- miss remains unclear whether where else's probe is going. the unfolding information underscore that the collusion story is one of the dirtiest tricks. mr. durham should tell the whole sorted story.

back to your calls. caller: i was listening to all of the comments. i say no, democracy -- our constitution should be dealt with at home. take care of your house first. lead by example. we spend six trillion dollars to $10 trillion -- a country collapsed in four months. take care of your home front. send that money in infrastructure, housing and infrastructure. environment, we spend billions of dollars finding -- fighting war that we cannot even take care of our own house. it is so sad. we have a war on disease, we have a war on poverty, we have a war on this pandemic.

take care of that instead of having hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the border, -- vaccines, computers, knowledge to fix your infrastructure, that is what you need to do. you put too many people on the border and somebody is going to make a mistake. then we will have another 10 year war. host: saint augustine, florida. caller: i really feel that this is sort of a mixed up media campaign that has been developed by mr. putin and ukraine. trope is not getting enough journalism coverage and he needs to see his smiling face every day on the tv.

i think mr. putin would like to see his smiling face every day. the two of them have more or less whipped this up and -- turning the election that is coming up. yes, we should protect ukraine. absolutely. they are our friends. putin is not. trope is not. that is how i feel. host: to kentucky. caller: i do not think we should , if i -- as it stands right now, we are sending a token force to eastern europe and other nato -- if and when russia

invaded ukraine and they started getting close to nato borders, i fear some nato troop in anger or fear or ignorance will fire at a russian and a russian will shoot back. who knows what would happen after that? if we are going to help them, we should help them militarily. there is not one country going to militarily help them. if and when russia goes in, they will take over ukraine and all these weapons that we are sending they will wind up with them. at the same time, it seems like every time we help some country, we usually bump fog lit up. also america we have too many problems of our own to be

worrying about that. if we are not going to militarily help them we should stay out of it. that is it. host: to marry in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i am unsure. when you take a look at the way things have been going politically for the last three years, we all know hillary bought and paid for the fbi. we all know that commie kratz killed people. -- why are we supposed to believe anything that commie kratz have to say. they are not the ones that want freedom for people.

this is what they are bought and paid for by china. the commie kratz are taking over. they're going to -- our civil rights and take away our freedoms and dictate how we should live. host: make clear, who do you think will take over? caller: commie kratz. those who support violence all over the country, the ones who are trying to hang people from january 6. host: focusing on the ukraine issue, do you think this is a democratic or republican issue? do you think people are making their decisions about this based on their political policy? caller: it all comes down to the dollar. the democrats are the most selfish -- people.

homeless on the streets. they go clean them up for the super bowl. host: this is from canada's globe. the prime minister trudeau evoked the emergencies act to end blockades. the prime minister has given the federal government and financial institutions, evoking the emergencies act for the first time -- against -- that have blockaded border crossings. trudeau called the unprecedented move an active last resort made in an attempt to end the intractable demonstration in downtown ottawa and roadblocks. he said the emergency powers would ensure authorities can keep the ambassador bridge which was just reopened, cleared of protesters. going to the economist index,

the democracy index and how does canada fare in the reporting of the 2021 democracy index? this is their headline. candidate tumbles amid the pandemic. candidate continues to score highly on the index thanks to the countries history. candidate's performance was considerably lower in 202020 largely reflecting the release of the countries 2017 wv s results in 2021. the data which were collected in 2020 capture a souring of public sentiment amid the pandemic particularly as the country dealt with those second wave of infections. it also expressed frustration on the -- on the imposition -- reported difficulties accessing the federal government's coronavirus relief benefits. that is from canada. some of the reporting from the

democracy index says this. popular frustration with the functioning of democracy has also led to an increasing number of people to embrace nondemocratic alternatives whether in the form of -- many people no longer believe that governments will act in the interest of those who have elected than. many have become cynical about representative democracy. here from michigan. caller: good morning. i am absolutely against it because i am 78 years old, a veteran and i remember back in the 1960's and 1970's, we wanted to spread democracy then but because we were getting rid of the soviet union and all of the things that we set about the soviet union was going out and getting satellite countries.

they do not have the freedom of press, they do not have the freedom of speech, and they live -- they have a police state. what do we have here? torturing, that is another thing they did over there to them. they would put them in jail and not tell them why. that is what our democracy at that time was saying. now, we are doing exactly as that. we turned 180 degrees and i think we need to stay home and straighten up our own house. we do not need to be going over there. -- when they went over there and did all of their propaganda to the people over there in the ukraine.

it just turned to be just turned me completely off. i do not know what country i am in anymore. am i in the one that i grew up in in the 1960's or 1970's? what is this one now? it cannot be the same constitution. host: mohammed in los angeles. caller: thank you for taking my call. first off, i did not know there was a city such as east china, michigan. the crucial factor here is that ukraine is unable to join nato for agreements -- the treaty of nato no country that has been invaded by another nation can be can join nato. by crimea being annexed by russia, that by itself prevents ukraine from joining nato. putin took care of that issue a while back.

putin has so a division amongst our people in the united states, amongst our leaders in the united states. this is a result of donald trump's failed presidency that putin is doing what he's doing. the january 6 insurrection and coup attempt against the united states government by the president of the united states at that time and the fact that our leaders are divided. i do not ask chuck schumer to defend mcconnell or macconnell to defend chuck schumer. but when it comes to defending our democracy, they both should act together. both parties. in regards to ukraine, ukraine is a democracy. people in ukraine can protest, -- right up ed's in the newspaper. they are free to practice their own religion. they can do what they want. if you were to ask the question, should we protect ukraine's

sovereignty question mark? ukraine is a democracy, and if today putin invades ukraine, the stop is poland, next stop is georgia. he wants the old glory of the soviet union back. he is not into socialism and communism. he is a catalyst of this. he is taking advantage of a situation. it is our right, we are the police man of the world. we have to defend. are we going to go war for ukraine? we cannot go to war over ukraine. it is not our business. i failed to hundred and why the pentagon has a budget -- but when it comes to go to war we are against it. who are we going to, we cannot defeat the taliban, we cannot go to war with russia or the

chinese. yes, we need to protect ukraine. host: the new york times about loss of freedoms in another country. to quash dissent in nicaragua. nicaragua was politically active student population -- authoritative government, crackdown on dissent. the government said that colleges were stripped of their ability to operate independently this month because they have not complied with financial regulations. critics say that -- challenges to his tightening grip on power. last year, his administration jailed or put under house arrest political activist, social leaders, rated media outlets -- and shuttered nongovernmental

organizations. in november mr. ortega ran for a consecutive term, and one. 10 more minutes of our conversations with you on whether the u.s. should protect the democracy in ukraine. (202) 748-8000 the line if you say yes. (202) 748-8001 is no. (202) 748-8002 is unsure. on to randall and indiana. caller: first time caller. i wanted to comment on the fact that nato and the way that we keep going into these countries and saying that we are trying to support democracy, isn't it really the belief -- that we are pushing in nato that is basically god and they are not believing in it?

we have the pope come out and make that video that he stated -- that it is a cultural belief, a -- we are still pushing that on -- host: to doug and key largo. caller: i kind of agree with the idea that nato has not fulfilled their obligations they were supposed to put in a certain percent of the gdp to -- they failed to defend themselves. i am also surprised that you are still there months earlier you said that you were moving on. host: you are talking about me, personally? caller: yes. host: still here. fred. caller: this morning we are

talking about ukraine, it is like a little shiny object. -- we should be talking about them. -- maybe you will focus on some -- rather than this tangling stuff in russia. russia was with us, helped us to defeat the germans in the second world war. -- host: derek mitchell, the headline. why democracy matters. in that piece he writes that in such a place like ukraine, tactics tested there are -- marker see, anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere. let us not for ourselves. -- nato encroachments.

it is about russia's disrespect for ukrainian independence and dignity and the threat ukrainian democracy poses to the authoritative regime. next up is -- in fort lauderdale. caller: i do not know much about the politics in that area but i agree with your comment. it is absolutely about power from russia and that should not be -- tolerated. let ukraine be sovereign and happy and independent. that is the way it should be. if this china and russia have too much power. they have to be -- one way or another. host: meridian, connecticut. gary on the line. caller: it is meriden.

i need -- i think we need to look back to history in the munich situation with heather and letting him get what he wanted. then the berlin airlift against the soviets, we have had many challenges. we maintain pained we maintain the largest -- we are not going to use it as leverage willy-nilly. my belief -- the russians legitimately do not want another nato country, particularly the ukraine on the border. that is fine. what we need to do is show them we need -- show them we mean business. we need to let the russians know that as long as they keep -- surrounded with their forces we will have large number of troops

. we will withdraw them when they withdraw. history tells us not to give into aggressors and i think that is the stance we need to take. host: does history also say that long-standing armies heightens the potential for conflict? caller: yes it does. history book show it clearly. if we are going to maintain a huge military, as we do come out war is the continuation of policy -- policy can be the continuation. we have to show the russians we mean business and we really have no design against them unless they continued their aggressive actions. at some point we have to say no.

host: a couple of comments on social media and tech. nato needs to stop putin's quest to reunite the soviet bloc and protect europe from further aggression. brad says the they never said the current ukrainian government was a product of -- the maid and coup was not some flowering of democracy, it was more like the ukrainian january 6. frank from new york says that perhaps we should turn putin into another franco by pressuring you reign to negotiate reunification with russia under a democratic system after putin leaves office. gary is next in new jersey. caller: thank you. i turned 84 and 16 days and you have given me a birthday present. my mother and maternal grandparents came from ukraine

in 1923. the reason putin is trying to go into ukraine is because of one simple question. -- the -- when cats in the great did this -- eliminate this -- eliminated the serfs and brought in french education. -- putin being a former kgb -- you have to stand up for ukraine and the ukraine because it is ironical that we speak of anti-semitism but the people in ukraine elected a ukrainian jew, a man of the jewish faith who is like colburn. i am grateful to c-span. i hear you people every day. you make me feel good. keep up the good work. america has -- ukrainian people

-- catherine the great brought people together. she was the greatest ruler and i think putin has to be kept in place. host: happy early birthday to you. michigan, next up. caller: i am a supporter of protecting democracy but i think there are some limitations when we deal with ukraine. i follow a professor out of university of chicago. i hope you can get him on your program one day but he really goes into the background of why the problem in ukraine is mostly our fault. how after post soviet russia, what we did or lack of what we did to support russia, and then put what we are doing with putting nato in their backyard.

he gives a great example of if china were to put missiles in canada, how would we feel? i feel like we have to also consider that a little bit and take a different viewpoint. if you can get him on your show, that would be great appreciate leave -- greatly appreciated. host: thanks for that suggestion. there is more ahead here on "washington journal." we will talk about the biden administration spending plan and what is ahead with the administration. joining us next is an economics professor and former assistant treasury secretary for economic policy in the trump administration, diana furchtgott-roth will talk about the biden administration and

their response policy. more of your phone calls coming up as well. ♪ >> weekends on c-span2. every saturday you will find events of people that explore our nation's past on american

history tv. on sunday but tv brings you the latest. it is television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore weekends on c-span2. >> president biden addresses the joint session of congress and the nation, the state of the union address, tuesday, march 1 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or the c-span now video app. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: diana furchtgott-roth joins us on "washington journal ." she served as assistant secretary for economic policy and she is currently an adjunct professor of economics at george washington university here with us to talk this morning about the biden administration economic policies. ms. furchtgott-roth, let's start with the drudge report -- the

jobs report most recently with the number of jobs added, 457,000. how do you look at that? guest: this was a very positive drudge report and it -- jobs report and it shows we cannot tell what the numbers are going to be. it came in well over 400,000. this is very positive for the economy. even though the number of jobs created monthly has been declining slightly over the past three months. with the revisions, a started out with a 600,000 number in november and then a 500,000 number in december and 400,000 in january. even though it has been declining for three months, everyone was really happy because it is a higher than number. host: we will probably see some issues with jobs based on the impact of the omicron variant,

right? guest: omicron is declining and what was interesting is that the omicron in that week of the survey in january, if you are still attached to a company, you are still on the payroll. say you take sick leave because of omicron. your company does not say that you are not working for them any longer and that is one reason it did not have so much affect. host: you had a recent piece that celebrated the good news on the jobs but you are saying do not celebrate quite yet. do not get too happy about that. what are your concerns about the growth of jobs to come? guest: my concerns are that there is going to be more inflation. we also have supply chain shortages. we have 11 million unfilled jobs and employers cannot get what they need in terms of employment.

they need a lot more people than they can get. the number of jobs created is capped not at employer demand, but the number of people who are willing to go out and work. what was really encouraging about the report was that the labor force participation rate jumped from 61.9 to over 62%. what we need is to see more people going out into the workforce. host: consumers really feeling the impact of inflation but it is still staggering news, " inflation highest in years with no let up insight." what do you think, what has the federal government been able to do to control inflation? guest: inflation is a monetary phenomenon and we have seen the balance sheet of the fed has

grown. they have been pumping out mortgage-backed securities that the inflation, the interest rate is very low and has been kept very low for years. that is one reason that inflation has been taking off. it is not transitory and the fed can deal with it. there will be a certain amount of pain for the economy, but that can be alleviated by allowing people to go out and work, not placing barriers in front of people who go out and work. and also doing something to rectify the energy supply shortage, encouraging firms to explore, to produce oil and gas, to bring it to market, which will do something to help bring down the energy cost. host: in terms of monetary policy, the fed reportedly

eyeing a raising of interest rates in march. how much of an effect might that have on inflation across the country? guest: with inflation running at 7.5%, an increase of 50 basis points, is not going to do that much. but what is important is that the fed signals that it is active and that it begins a series of interest rate increases in order to get inflation out of the economy as paul volcker did in the 1980's with president reagan's backing and it is important that the fed show that it is serious about inflation and it can do this by raising interest rates, by cutting back on its purchases, treasury bonds, mortgage-backed securities, starting to whittle down it's over $8 trillion balance sheet and also showing basically that it is serious in terms of its forecast, saying

that inflation next year will be around 3.5% is not a serious forecast. they need to be serious. host: diana furchtgott-roth is with us to talk about the biden administration spending policy and a look ahead to the jobs numbers, most recently what may be ahead in terms of the effects of inflation and other issues. we welcome your calls. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats. for all others, that line is (202) 748-8002. ms. furchtgott-roth the headline of "the washington examiner" is this, "biden's crushing money blizzard, failure of the american rescue plan." what is your view of how well that money was used, spent by the biden administration?

guest: it is important to say that our economy would have been a lot of worse -- a lot worse without the covid funds that had been spent. we managed to have a downturn followed by an uptick and it is important to notice that there was that upturn. yes, the funds for this year -- funds spent this year were probably not needed but the funds in 2020 did perform a useful function of keeping people in their jobs, keeping the economy going while everything was tanking. the $2 trillion spent this year, we know was not needed and was not worthwhile and helped to drive inflation up. but the original funds in 2020

were needed to stabilize the economy at a very difficult time. host: what do you think of the president's proposal, the build back better proposal, his social spending and climate change proposal that has yet to move forward in congress? guest: they were proposed at a time when people did not know how well the economy would be doing in 2021. now that we know that the economy is booming ahead, we definitely do not need build back better. these proposals were put out with the best of intentions but the economy is on a very strong track right now, such a strong track that it is headed toward inflation. we do not need more incentive to keep people out of the labor market at the bottom end at a higher tax rate which would discourage people from working. host: the linchpin is senator

joe manchin of west virginia. i want to ask you about a report from "the wall street journal." there headline, "democrats faced a quandary on taxes. as the child care and healthcare package remained stalled, mr. manchin says the party should focus an updated version of the bill on increasing revenue, raising taxes enough to more than offset the spending that would reduce the budget deficit and fight inflation, addressing concerns that led him to oppose the house passed package." they say that mr. manchin has voted for raising capital gains from 20% from 23.8% and increasing taxes on management and carried interest income. what are your thoughts on that? guest: we do not need more tax increases. they would slow the economy. we need to keep taxes where they are, especially corporate taxes

because we want funds to flow in from the rest of the road to the united states. we want lower tax rates so tax rates equal to other countries. it is not going to help us if we raise corporate taxes. if we raise individual taxes, that will discourage work and investment. it has been very clear and this is something the united states needs, not just now, but as -- host: as those jobs increase across the country, so does revenue. the federal treasury, correct? guest: exactly, yes. state governments right now with these covid funds, the last thing they need is any tax increases that will slow down investment, slow down work, and prevent the flow of revenues. host: let me touch on inflation again with the report that the chicago fed hyatt -- chicago fed had on inflation.

the chicago fed said the people who search for jobs while they were employed helped boost inflation by about one percentage point through much or released by the fed. that suggests that job switching -- guest: certainly well below what it was at the beginning of this century. employers are having to offer higher wages in order to attract workers and naturally some of them are meeting existing jobs for raises. if there is anything that we can do to get people into the workforce such as keeping schools open, there are a lot of moms who do not feel they can go back to work because every now and then their schools and

classes are on zoom and they have to be home to look after their children so we need a more stable pattern. we need to leave covid behind us before these moms feel confident enough to move back into the workforce. host: let's hear from our callers. diana furchtgott-roth with us and the lines for republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. first is roland in upper marlboro on the republican line. go ahead. caller: i hear your guest about taxes. the way that work is in the country, don't you think that is wrong because they are making billions of dollars and they are

not paying their fair share of tax. where are the goods when everyone has covid? if one person has covid in a line of 50, we have to quarantine almost everyone. people need to look at it from the pandemic aspect, not inflation. that is the reason why inflation is in this country and around the world because people have died. we are not producing. i'm trying to understand as an economist. guest: the top 50% of earners pay 97% of the individual income tax. the bottom 50% of earners pay 3% and when you get to the top 1%, they pay a share that is far greater than their income.

i would say that the system of taxation is fair because it generates work opportunities and we do not want to discourage people from being in the workforce because if they do not invest, they do not employ other people and the system of taxation in the united states is progressive and fair. host: is there any correlation between those remaining out of the workforce and the productivity rate here in the united states? where are we on that? guest: the productivity rate is definitely stymied by supply problems and these need to be fixed. looking ahead, there are closures in china, there are containers backed up, container ships outside of ports and it is difficult to be fully productive without having to supply-chain problems worked out. we might see covid going down in the united states, but as we can

see from closures in china, vietnam, other parts of asia, these will continue to impact our supply chains and lower productivity. host: let's hear from mike on the democrats line in new york. caller: hello. i have a question and a comment. the price of gas in this country is very artificially inflated because the gas companies have taken a beating the last decade. they are not operating at 100% capacity at all. when everybody talks about america being energy-independent, oil companies in south dakota, they can produce oil and $70 per barrel -- at $70 per barrel. it might have gone down to $60. this can be brought down really quick and i'm sure it will be in

the summertime if saudi arabia starts pumping out more. we have talked ourselves into inflating the price of gas and it will come down quick. i have a question about the inflated food prices. i live on the east coast in new york. the price of avocados has not changed. the price of broccoli has not changed. the price of oranges has not gone up at all for me. yet, a bottle of soda has gone up 40%. eggs which are locally made have gone up a lot. i do not see, i do not understand how something that is handpicked that has to get here in under a week and the price of that, avocado, broccoli, has not gone up at all. to me it makes no sense at all and i think a lot of this is

very artificially inflated. host: thanks for that perspective. diana, go ahead. guest: the price of these foods is average over many different stores and many different locations and i am really happy that the stores you shop in have not raised at the price of broccoli and have not raised the price of eggs. some stores have and some stores have not so i'm glad yours has not. as for the price of oil, president biden came in monday one with -- came on day one with efforts to reduce oil and gas in the united states including ending the keystone pipeline which would have brought oil from canada to our refineries. this is a policy i admire president biden for campaigning and then going out on day one and doing it even though i did not agree with that particular philosophy. that is one reason that oil has

hit $95 a barrel yesterday. the price of gasoline on average was $3.50. these move into food groups. they make food higher because it takes more to transport the food. it is a very difficult situation. we could go back and be producing more oil and gas in pipelines and get the price of oil and gas lower in the united states. it is being exacerbated with tensions in ukraine right now, but we hope that those are going to go away in due course. meanwhile, we need to be focusing on producing more oil and gas in the united states and refining oil from canada into gasoline that we all use. host: let's hear from virginia, brian, go ahead. caller: it's inaccurate to say that low interest rates are causing inflation.

low interest rates is the cost of borrowing money. if the cost of borrowing money was low, then inflation rate should stay low. but it did not. the 6000 mile supply line that the ceos went over there and made with china. now we import about 70% of all the goods that are not manufactured in the united states. because of that, the shipping companies raise their prices on the shipping goods and that costs almost to manufacture stuff as it does to ship it. they pass the cost on to consumers. another thing, the fossil fuel industry is a dead industry. you could have 100 times more jobs with solar industry because every neighborhood can have its own power company instead of having a handful of power companies nationwide. now you have thousands of power companies. that is exponentially a lot more

jobs and actually grows the economy exponentially. the fossil fuel and manufacturing stuff, fdr brought us back from the depression by manufacturing stuff in the united states, making more stuff. not just oil. that brings back the economy exponentially and corporations need to pay their own share. they need the infrastructure just as well as i do and all of the other citizens do and they need to pay their fair share of taxes to keep the infrastructure maintained and renovated. host: brian touched on several issues there. guest: thanks for that excellent question. it is a really excellent question and the federal reserve was keeping what is called the federal funds rate low, close to zero at a quarter of a percentage point. artificially, no. in real terms, there is negative interest rates because with inflation at 7.5%, then interest

rates are negative. raising the interest rate, raising the federal funds rate is really bowing to realism and getting inflation out of the system and the federal reserve really needs to do that. it will take a lot of solar panels in order to power the cars in the united states and oil is god's gift to the united states. we should be so glad that we have discovered, that we have substantial reserves of oil and natural gas here in the united states and that we can use it. a solar panel might be great for powering someone's water heater, but it is very difficult getting solar and wind power into the electricity grid and once it is in the electricity grid, it has to go to the vehicle that it is supposed to power. gasoline is a much simpler way

of making cars go. host: a question from bobby on twitter, "do you think that people are naturally adverse to working? why shouldn't good pay and benefits to the incentive to work?'we work to live, we do not live to work." guest: exactly. there are many people who want to get jobs but if we can see the unemployment rate right now is 4%, the initial claims of unemployment insurance is very low. it looks like everyone who wants a job has one and what we want to do is see if we can persuade more people to actually get into the labor force and to do that we are going to have to go back to pre-pandemic habits, get the kids back to school, get schools open full-time so some of these moms can feel like going back to the labor force, confident that their kids are not going to be called home. host: how much is what has been

called by some the great resignation? i have heard the figure, something like 10,000 baby boomers per day retiring. how much is displaying into the labor force issues we are having? guest: older americans are continuing to work longer but given that we are in the baby boom, some of them are retiring and from some employers there is a bias against hiring older americans and i would encourage employers out there not to look down at people who are older and they make really excellent employees, not to turn them down in favor of someone who is younger. you can understand as an employer, someone might be perfectly healthy in their early 60's but then the employer might say in 10 years they may be in their early 70's. how my going to deal with that? i am not going to be able to lay someone off in their early 70's because i will get sued for ages from a nation. there is a really big problem that we need to overcome. host: let's go to steve in

boynton, virginia. republican line. caller: going back to fuel, it all goes back to fuel and the first thing the executive order to stop the keystone pipeline. the fertilized fields, that is why the prices go up. everything is related to fuel. wages go up and you have to pay money to get people back into the workforce. you have people who have been working there for five years and they had to give them a raise. but i really think that all of this inflation, everything that we are going through now goes back to fuel. that is just my thought. have a great day. host: any comments on that? guest: it is a really great point. fuel really powers the economy and we have seen in previous growth periods that it is the

energy industry that has powered economic growth and it is very important that, especially these days, when russia is threatening europe by cutting off its natural gas supplies, that we show ourselves as the energy powerhouse we are. host: there have been accusations that the energy industry and other american industries of price gouging. we were seeing prices going up in what is called price gouging. how much of that you think there is? guest: it is natural that prices go up for a variety of reasons, having waited in long lines in the 1970's for gasoline when the price was capped and all of a sudden seeing those lines disappear when president reagan allowed prices to return to natural. the last thing we want to do is interfere with prices. the important thing is that there be openness of entry, freedom of entry so if one gas station is charging five dollars per gallon, the one down the

street king charge three dollars and get all the competition. it is difficult for everybody to get together and decide on a price without undercutting so i am not a big believer in price gouging as a problem because someone always tries to undercut the other guy to get all the business. host: let's hear from barry from harrison, michigan. democrats line. caller: good morning. i would like to make a point you guys keep talking about shutting down the keystone pipeline. that was back when reservations were protesting that. i thought it was brought out to be common knowledge that that oil was from canada and it was earmarked for china. i do not understand how that keystone pipeline has anything to do with this. the other one is that when donald trump gave the tax break to the wealthy, he was walking up to the helicopter one morning

and the reporter asked him about it and he said this is going to work just fine and then they asked him about the payroll tax cut. his exact words, "the country is running just fine. they do not need it." how is america supposed to go by this? was the oil earmarked for china or for america? everybody keeps talking in circles of which this is. if you could address that, i would appreciate it. thank you. guest: sure. you are right that the oil was coming from alberta and the oil was coming down to be refined in the united states. that gives more jobs for our refiners. the oil cannot be used as it is. it is turned into other products including gasoline. some of the products it gets turned into could be exported. some of it could go to china. i do not know where it goes.

but it is refined here in the united states. americans use it and perhaps some is also exported. as for the payroll taxes, those go to pay social security and the social security program is not doing that well right now in terms of contributions and outlays. that is perhaps what the president was offering to in that it is not a good time to cut social security taxes but there are other measures for low income americans. there is the earned income tax credit, which is a refund that is supposed to substitute for those social security taxes that are paid. there is the food stamp program. there is affordable housing program. there are different programs for low income americans and this is a very important safety net that we have in the united states. host: diana furchtgott-roth,

currently a professor of economics at george washington university, former acting assistant secretary for economic policy in the treasury department during the trump administration. here with us for another 15 minutes or so. (202) 748-8001 is a line for republicans. (202) 748-8000 is in line -- is the line for democrats. others, (202) 748-8002. let's go to gusts in austin, texas, independent line. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: i would like to ask if we keep buying all of this fuels and we are talking about a lesion, what is it going to be like when global morning -- global warming gets too hot for farmers to form like we are doing? how much is food going to cost us then and how, nobody talks about hydrogen? all the windmills along i-10 and everywhere else, you all should

figure out a way to store the hydrogen made by clean energy. why are they doing that? there is a car in california that runs on hydrogen. all of that comes out of the tailpipe is water. host: before you answer, the headline this morning about food production but impacting it will be this headline here in "the new york times" the western drought is the worst of 1200 years, the driest decade in the region and the most dry in the last 1200 years according to scientists. go ahead and respond. guest: we do have to make sure that our agriculture and our economy is resilient to different kinds of weather and a drought does not necessarily mean there is global warming just as a snowstorm does not necessarily mean there is global cooling. we have weather and climate change and various -- very

sophisticated models that project the amount of climate change that we will have. there are many people who say that farmers can be adapting to the small amounts of increase in temperature forecast by global warming but this is a subject for climate scientists and economists -- a subject for climate scientists. i'm an economist. this is not the kind of question that i am capable of answering. but as for the hydrogen cars, toyota is developing hydrogen fuel cells and there is much interesting research on all kinds of new automotive technology, including hydrogen, electric vehicles, automated vehicles. it is going to be really exciting to see which of these technologies makes it through and what we see on the roads 10 years out. host: let's go to terri,

wellsville, pennsylvania, democrats line. caller: good morning. good morning to both of you. i have a couple of comments i would like to make and i would like you to allow me to make them. keystone pipeline. keystone pipeline and excel pipeline are two different pipelines. the excel pipeline that was shut down had 4 million barrels per day because i do my homework on this. right now, there are 230 in wells. we have 635 oil wells running. in north america, there are 850 oil wells. i do not know why everybody keeps saying about the keystone pipeline being shut down. the excel pipeline was never built in the united states.

canada up their production -- upped their production to run the keystone pipeline through the west coast. host: on the west coast of canada, correct? caller: and the united states. in washington. host: thanks for the call. diana? guest: there are several hundred thousands of barrels today that could have been brought through the keystone xl five line. two refineries would have created jobs for refiners and allowed a bigger flow of heating oil and gasoline in the united states. what was the second part of the question? the rigs. if you look at the energy

information administration data, the number of whirl and gas rigs -- the number of oil and gas rigs online in 2021 is practically the lowest of any november excluding the pandemic year of 2020. we really do need to get more of these rigs online and drilling and getting oil and gas out of the ground. host: we have talked about the president's build back better plan, here are some comments from nancy pelosi over the weekend on this week on abc sunday morning. here is what she had to say. [video clip] rep. pelosi: it is a deficit reduction bill. it is a bill that will increase inflation. 17 nobel laureates vote that the way the bbb was written was long-term investments and increasing the capacity of

people to participate in our success that is not inflationary. in addition to that, the joint tax committee, which is the in vermont tour on all these issues , the joint tax committee says the bbb will reduce the national debt by $100 billion in the first 10 years and $1 trillion in the second 10 years. host: your thoughts on the numbers that speaker pelosi is talking about? guest: right. it started out as around a $3 trillion bill so it is difficult to see why it does not add to the deficit but i think speaker pelosi was referring to the fact that we are going to be -- factors would be raised to cover a portion of that. these tax increases have negative effects of keeping people out of the workforce, of encouraging corporations to go

offshore elsewhere. i am not a fan of bbb. host: joe on the independent line. caller: i'm afraid she is being misleading in her analysis and her facts. she says that 50% of the u.s. population pays 97% of the taxes and goes on to conclude that that is a progressive tax structure. 50% is a big chunk of taxpayers. how much does the top percent pay? probably the data i see says the top pays a smaller percentage of the taxes than others. the middle class pays 20%, 25%. corporations and rich people get their taxes down to single digit numbers. so that is not progressive. she also says that biden was

determined to shut down the keystone pipeline. she is being disingenuous about how the oil and gas industry works and as a professor, she should know better. even if the pipeline was flowing, there are no guarantees that u.s. oil producers and there are no laws that force them to do so, would sell that oil in the united states. they would sell that oil on the global market like every other gas and oil company in the world. that is the way that oil is sold. it is sold at the commodity basis on a global market. to sit in front of the american people and say it is biden's fault that we do not have enough oil because we are not drilling, first of all, it is years before you drill and that oil gets to market and we have a problem now. second of all, they do not even need to sell it on the u.s. market. this is a professor of economics? give me a break. host: diana furchtgott-roth, your response. guest: president biden was asking opec and russia to

produce more oil in order to get the price of oil down so he must think that oil production does reduce prices and if it were done in the united states, we would have more control over it and we get the revenue. the united states is large enough to be able to dominate the oil and gas markets and we are very fortunate that that is true. i do not have the precise number about the top 1% off the top of my head, but they pay larger share in tax than they do have on income, which makes it a progressive tax. host: let's go to michael in maryland, democrats line. caller: hi. i was bristled a little bit when you mentioned in response to the caller who said people were not paying their fair share and just recently you talked about the

top percent of income earners pay most of the income taxes. i was wondering if you could talk about the percentage of wealth and the inequality of wealth amongst the population and link that to how the federal reserve's monetary policy sort of led to asset bubbles or asset inflation and how that is unequal. thank you. host: thanks, michael. guest: all right. measuring wealth is different from measuring income and it is harder to measure wealth because you have to measure individual assets and assets change. measures of wealth and equality are not as great as our measures

of income inequality. one important thing to remember about the united states is even though i admit that we are the wonder -- we are one of the most enabled countries in the world, and people want to come here because of equal opportunities and it is not the level of equality or inequality that is important. it is whether people have the opportunity to move upward. do you have the opportunity to get some education, get a job, get married, have a higher income, and make your way in the united states? there are millions of people who think that they can do that in the united states and data shows that we have a strong degree of upward mobility here in the united states. we do not find americans wanting to leave to societies where things are more equal such as sweden and russia. we do not have a mass of americans saying we want to go to a more equal society. no. people want to come here and we

need to tackle barriers to upward mobility such as poor education in inner-city schools, regulations that stop haircut is getting jobs, regulations that do not allow wives in the military to have jobs when their spouses moved to a different location. how do we get more people upwardly mobile. host: one of those shows of bipartisanship in an effort to address issues with the supply chain and manufacturing in the united states, the competes act passed in the u.s. house. this bill would provide $52 billion for u.s. semi conductor manufacturing. it would provide funding for science research and domestic supply chains. it would prevent u.s. forms -- u.s. firms from offshore production and would expand the trade adjustment assistance

program. it was passed in the house. your thoughts on that proposal? guest: we have seen many semi conductor plants trying to explain -- expand in the united states and we want a favorable tax situation here in the united states to encourage others to be able to expand and the shortage of semi conductor chips has led to increases in the prices of new cars, which is still into increases in the prices of used vehicles and the prices of used cars were up 40% last month. we really need a lot more semi conductor production and semi conductor chips coming online. host: ronald in philadelphia, independent line. welcome. caller: how are you all doing this morning? most big companies do not pay taxes. they transfer tax money that we pay. on a bill i have here,

franchisee, sales tax free come on top of the ringler cost of $100 for the service. and then regulatory costs. tell me something else. this pipeline, how much oil is coming through this pipeline? not a drop. it has not even being built -- it has not even been built. thank you and have a great day. host: final thoughts? guest: it is not just the keystone xl pipeline, but the president made certain areas of the united states international monuments so that there was not any oil or gas exploration there. there has also been increases in royalties proposed so that oil and gas companies have been discouraged from drilling. there was a house natural resources committee meeting where congressmen were attacking the ceos of major oil

companies for not producing enough renewable energy and saying they should not be focusing on fossil fuels. the important thing is we have an important resource here in the united states and we need to be able to use it. energy drives the economy. we need to take full advantage of that. host: diana furchtgott-roth, professor of economics at george washington university, we appreciate you being on the program this morning. guest: thank you for having me on. host: still to come on the program on this susan b. anthony day, we will be talking with debbie walsh, director of rutgers university's center for american women to talk about the role of women in politics in the u.s.. next up, more of your phone calls as we hear from you on items in the news, public policy and political issues you are following in our open forum. the lines are (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

for democrats, (202) 748-8000. for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. we will be back in a moment. ♪ >> c-spanshop.org is these bands online store. rows are collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. there is something for every fan and every purchase supports our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org.

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748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. you can send a text to (202) 748-8003. the story we touched on with diana furchtgott-roth but wanted to read the rest of it. this is in several news outlets this morning, "western drought is the worst in 1200 years. a mega drought in the american southwest has become so severe it is now the driest two decades in the region in 1200 years and climate change is largely responsible. the drought, which began in 2000 has reduced water supply, devastated farmers and ranchers, and fueled wildfires across the region and previously considered the worst in 500 years but exceptional conditions in the summer of 2021 when about two thirds of the west was in extreme drought really pushed it

over the top, said a climate scientist at the university of california, los angeles who led an analysis using tree ring data to gauge drought. as a result, 2001 to two goni 21 -- 2001 to 2021 is the driest period. human-cause warming played a major role in making the current drought so severe." that is from "the new york times." what are you thinking about? what are you interested in in terms of political news? open forum. robert on the democrats line, good morning. caller: thanks for having me on. i'm a registered democrat even though i voted for trump twice. i think i will have to put one or two more votes for him in the near future because of what is happening right now.

i think it is sad that the democrats have disgraced themselves. i have been one since i got out of high school and i'm seriously thing about changing to republican -- seriously thinking about changing to republican. nobody is caring about the findings about her people hacking into the trump campaign and hacking into the white house. that should be treated. people should be going to jail for that. nobody has covered it with the major networks except for fox. if any of you out there want to hear what is going on, i think you will have to turn the channel to fox because none of the other channels are covering it because they are complicit.

they preoccupied truck for three years on this russia stuff. come to fox and hear what hillary did and why she should be in jail right now. thank you host: james in canton, ohio. welcome. caller: i was wondering if you could tell me, i have been hearing this for a while since mr. biden. president. i am hearing that he shut the pipeline down because mr. warren buffett donated a bunch of money to his presidential bid and now that oil is still moving only on warren buffett's trains. could you comment on that? host: i do not have any knowledge about that but i appreciate you calling on it. best in tampa, -- beth in tampa, florida. independent line.

caller: i have a huge curiosity about how they are pushing for so much of the poor and middle-class all of these freebies and yet in pushing these expensive cars for the future. are they going to buy us these cars? how are they going to afford to purchase new cars? we just bought a car last year. the hypocrisy in that of pushing for the poor, but also pushing these cars. host: pushing electric vehicles? caller: that is correct because they are expensive. host: was your car you bought last year, was it a traditional car, a gas burning car or a hybrid? caller: it is a gas car. we bought a used mercedes at a good price. we are pretty average income for a middle-class couple. i cannot imagine how regular

people making a normal income will be able to afford these electric cars. that is a huge impact. host: let's hear from anthony. it is open forum here on "washington journal." anthony in minneapolis. good morning. caller: i would like to speak to c-span and america and ask that you guys start doing more. i am looking at this country. i'm a disabled vet. they took out most of my spine two days ago from being injured in the military. we are about to have a civil war. i wish you guys would try to calm the situation down. all of these rich people when the war breaks out, they will leave you here. just like the first civil war when we had 75% of the people getting on trains and poor people throughout the war. it is coming back. wake up, america.

we have two years at the most. one more thing, which party is going to accept losing an election next year? come on, c-span. help us out. host: a story in "the wall street journal" about the workforce and where they are located. "americans are dining again in restaurants, attending sporting events and flying throughout the country but most are still steering clear of the office building, a sign that more health concerns are keeping workers away. many office employees who fled business districts in december after the omicron variant surge continued to work at home despite the plummeting rate of hospitalizations. remote work remains the more popular option even as a number of states have announced plans to rollback mask mandates requirements at end or venues, businesses, and schools as the omicron variant fades.

thousands of companies that closed their offices in march 2020 have yet to announce return plans. an average of 33% of the workforce return to the office during the first week of february in the 10 major cities monitored." in hunting town, maryland on the independent line -- republican line, go ahead. caller: good morning. happy tuesday. i just want to bring up my wonders why c-span and other outlets are not talking about the clinton situation and the durham probe, finding out that it has been proven that she and her cohorts have showed treason by how they infiltrated the white house and the trump campaign. regardless if you like him or not.

why don't you cover things like that? if it were reversed, i know you guys will cover it. i'm starting to think c-span is just another arm of the democratic party and i am not alone in thinking this. host: we touched on the story earlier in the lead opinion piece and i'm sure when that report comes out, this was a story based on the filing in the durham report and the lead piece of "the wall street journal" was titled. this was from "the new york times" another news analysis. "court filing starts furor on the right, though it is not easy to understand why. mr. trump says he had evidence that hillary clinton's campaign paid money to infiltrate a white house server.

they had been spying on mr. trump's white house office. the mainstream publications held back, mr. trump and his allies began training the news media, the press refuses to address the crimes that took place. the fact that a story so big, powerful, important for the future of our nation is getting zero coverage from lame stream is getting talked about all over the world. there were many problems with all of this. much of this was not new. "the new york times" reported in october what mr. sussman told the cia about data suggesting that russian-made smartphones and have been connecting to networks at the trump tower and the white house among other places. the conservative media skewed what the filing said. mr. durham's filing never used the word infiltrate and never claimed that the company was paid by the clinton campaign. contrary to the reporting, the filing never says that the white house data came under scrutiny

from the trump era. according to lawyers from a data scientist who developed the analysis, the data, records of any computers or smartphones prepared to communicate with servers over the internet, came from barack obama's presidency." that is from "the new york times." if new stores come out about that, we will report that as well. evelyn from chicago on the independent line. good morning. caller: i would suggest commenting on professor roth. she did not explain how oil and gas companies are depreciating refineries as we speak. i think the general public doesn't understand how business works and they are working in

the future. oil and gas companies are not stagnant or stationary. they are moving forward and they want to get as much as they can out of the existing -- before they completely shut them down and just go to alternative energy sources. i would just -- was just concerned she did not mention this and try to educate the public. host: sounds like you work in the petroleum business. caller: no, i worked in finance, though, so you have to study a lot of things, especially how companies look towards the future. they are working on the future, not the present. host: lizzie is in bloomington, indiana, democrat line. caller: thank you for c-span. i was thinking the bbb needs to be passed by senators,

republicans and democrats. i was just looking to you -- i'm confused why president trump used everybody else's phone during the insurrection and they can't even get records because that is a practice that this e x-president does. he wants to be a dictator like putin and the more we understand that and get the truth out to people -- because they are not getting the truth. a lot of people are just getting on social media and not getting the real information. that's my opinion. host: crescent springs, kentucky, next up, jean. caller: this is janine.

my concern is the increase in natural gas prices. we in kentucky have duke energy of kentucky and we have raised our national -- natural gas prices where it will hurt people. duke energy stock markets basically have the authority to maximize the returns of the shareholders and to the investments. that is the parameters for the increases. i have another comment to make. the ceo of duke energy of several states. and if she meets her goal, she receives bonuses and she also receives monetary stock option. my contention is this, duke energy, i have duke energy stock. it started out as $15 now it is about up to 100 so i am not against stockholders, but that

natural gas price increase is ridiculous. host: how long have you noticed but climb in your natural gas bill? caller: it has just been recently that i've seen this have been and i do know one thing, i've very much been involved with the public service commission of kentucky and i've addressed commissioners about duke energy raises and increases. they increase their prices every two years. the money and time put into the lawyers and indian chiefs and people coming into kentucky and promoting their increases, and i've sat in these meetings and have been able to address the public service commission on one occasion. that was my mr. trump was in and they wanted a 17.5% increase and because two people where there giving concerns that were paying the bills, we were able to speak and it went down to like 2.3%. host: just two of you spoke

against the price increase? caller: yes, sir. we've drove -- we drove down to frankfort, kentucky -- i live in northern kentucky -- we sat in that public service commission hearing. it was unbelievable because everybody else had their hands out looking for money. i met many of them. they are nice people but they are out to what they can be given. there were two people, my friend and i and we sat there, they told us we weren't going to speak. then i spoke to the secretary of energy and environment and got a 30 minute conference with. when we came back down for lunch, the commissioner said because you have been here through the snowstorm and have sat here for all three days you can speak and boy, was i ready

that had a small tiny -- they had a small tiny publication back in june. by the end of october, it had been more than 15 pages and there were philadelphia lawyers and everyone could not figure out what they were doing. it is so convoluted that the people that pay the bills don't have time to deal with this. i'm a retired teacher of 30 years and i do. i would like to tell duke energy of kentucky to stop it. host: yuma, arizona, this is paul on the democrats line. caller: good morning. i am so stunned by the lack of eagerness for knowledge from republicans. the report comes out this

morning and supposedly has no dates and has innocuous things like, she did that or that, but nothing concrete. there's no evidence, but yet they believe it 100% and they are already calling her guilty. of what? trump takes boxes of classified materials to mar-a-lago for who knows who to see, but not a word from fox news. so not a word from fox viewers. they better wake up pretty soon because the evidence is piling up from the committee on january 6, but they are not going to even see any of it because fox never talks about it. so we got 30% or 40% of the country that doesn't know what's going on but they only believe what they hear out of florida. host: here's what's coming up on the c-span networks today.

in about an hour, all three networks, on c-span just after 10:00, live to the senate banking committee hearing on cryptocurrency. they will hear from the treasury under secretary nelly lange about that. also on c-span two, at 10:00 -- c-span3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern, the senate finance committee hearing on children's mental health as professionals testified to the barriers of finding mental health care. this afternoon on c-span3 at 2:00 eastern, doctors will be testifying about their experiences practicing in the u.s. health care system, that is the judiciary committee. all of those hearings streaming at c-span.org and available on our c-span app, c-span now. getting underway at 10:00 eastern on c-span right after the house coming in for a brief pro forma session.

it is open forum for the next couple of minutes. jamaica, new york, deborah on the independent line. caller: good morning. i'm calling to him dressed -- address the increased cost of housing. employers allowed employees to work from home. many permanently adopted the work from home policy contributing to workers relocating to more affordable states. as a result, investment companies such as blackrock are taking advantage by purchasing a large number of residential properties. in one case -- and it is higher neighborhoods -- my question is why aren't restrictions being put in place by the federal government to limit the number of residential properties corporations can purchase? thank you for your time. host: lisa in lumpkin, texas,

independent line. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i was calling to address the -- i'm not sure if anyone remembers the pipeline was flowing through the reservation to destroy and contaminate the water supply. and also threw -- through a burial ground. it is unfortunate it was shut down but it was also somewhat necessary for the life of others. as far as this fox news putting different things out about things, saying it's true and false, it's called deflect, deflect. host: this is from "the washington times" -- abortions decline nearly 60% amid bands

first month. the health and human services commission is reporting that abortions declined nearly 60% during the first month of the ban of the procedure after six weeks. health officials say it is impossible to tell how many others got them through other means. abortions declined from 5404, slightly fewer in september when senate until eight became law. it allows individuals to file lawsuits for $10,000 or more for anyone who performs or assists with an abortion when a baby's heartbeat is determined at six weeks of pregnancy. a report confirms that many texas doctors have "backed away" from offering abortions in fear of lawsuits.

mike in mechanicsville, new york, the republican line. caller: good morning, america. my point is this. when is this trump bashing going to stop? everybody is picking on trump for everything. he's the main problem. he's not. the storm report just came out. there was an independent report that came out. basically, it pointed out that the democratic party and hillary clinton is guilty, guilty of treason. they need to be convicted and thrown in jail. that's the bottom line. quit bashing trump. thank you for my call and god bless america. host: next, democratic line, kentucky, kristin, go ahead -- christian, go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. one thing that bothers me the most is how you can have a

sitting supreme court justice's wife -- host: go ahead, i missed some of that. caller: i said thanks for taking my call. one of the things that concerns me the most and should concern the country is how you can have a sitting supreme court's wife, jenny thomas and clarence thomas, that her place sets a role in the insurrection it was barely covered, just brushed away. i don't understand how if you can't get a fair shake at the supreme court, where can you get one at? it's becoming much more evident throughout the course of time that the supreme court is not what it used to be and that should be problematic for everyone. host: lupe in canoga park, california, independent line. caller: i'm calling about teachers and the school buses that are being taken to

different schools -- and this is in tennessee -- and i'm thinking about what is her name, blackburn. school teachers there last year from the month of june and july made $7,000 but because my daughter is a substitute teacher she didn't get that offer. that's what i do not understand. what's going on. they don't believe in that extra money. they spend it on themselves but what they did is they gave my daughter, because they bought themselves new wardrobes and so my daughter got the leftovers. she said she didn't mind because for her it was all new clothes, but marsha blackburn, you like the money but you hate the children because they are from el salvador and honduras. that's a shame. host: open forum, a common on twitter -- i know c-span isn't a sports network but the doping

scandal that continues to occur by the russians at the olympics and the accountability for it is rather lame. athletes are still allowed to compete even though russia has supposedly been banned. knoxville, iowa, linda on the republican line. caller: good morning. remember to vote for america not against. about fox news, if you do want to know what's going on, you do need to watch fox news and newsmax because they do an investigation before they get on the air and talk about the subjects they are going to talk about. i once in a while flip on cnn and they are still beating up on trump. now he's flushing papers in the toilet. i think trump has better things to do than flush papers in the toilet. another thing is democrats, quit

being so damn depressed. change to the republican party and get a smile on your face. thanks so much for your time. host: susan b. anthony day, we will be joined by debbie walsh, director of the rutgers university center for american and women in politics and we are talking about the role of women in u.s. politics. that's next. ♪ >> 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, laying out his agenda for the year ahead. live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern.

the president speaks at 9:00 followed by the republican response. the state of the union live tuesday, march 1 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span org, or on c-span now. >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. here many of those conversations on c-span's new podcast. >> season one focuses on 64 civil rights act and presidential campaign, the gulf of tonkin, the march on selma, and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> johnson's secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing those conversations. they made sure the conversations were tape as johnson would signal to them through an open

door between his office and there's. >> you will also hear some blunt talk. >> i don't want to report on the number of people assigned to kennedy, the number of me -- i probably won't get anywhere, just stay right behind these black dates. >> on the c-span now app or where you get your podcast. "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by debbie walsh, the director of the center for american woman -- women in politics at wreckers university on this susan b. anthony day, to talk about that but more broadly to talk about where women are in u.s. politics. welcome. guest: thank you so much for

having me. host: susan b. anthony, a lot of people may know she is on this susan b. anthony dollar, but what makes her a great historic figure in american history? guest: she was clearly a pioneer for the right of women to secure the right to vote. went to jail in order to do that. was arrested when she tried to vote and really led that battle for many years and obviously never lived to see that moment happen when women secured the right to vote. and i think one of the most important things is how women have used that vote and since the time of the passage of the 19th amendment, we have seen that women have really made a difference in the outcome of elections. she started a movement, or was part of a movement and a leader in a movement that has lad to --

led to the mobilization of women voters around the country who have made the difference in the outcome of many in election. host: you said she was part of a movement, born on this day in 1820 -- part of a movement that lent towards full suffrage for women with the 19th amendment and she died before that came true, but her words before that were there would never be complete equality until women themselves helped make laws and elect lawmakers. what do you think susan b. anthony would think of the state of women's involvement in politics here some 206 years after her birth? guest: i just want to add that it is important to note that with the passage of the 19th amendment, not every woman in this country secured the right to vote. black women, particularly in the

south, it took until the civil rights act of 1965 for full access to the ballot. native american women, before that but with an indigenous voting rights act. it wasn't until after the 1960's that there was a requirement for ballots to be printed in multiple languages. again, not every woman had the kind of open access to the vote as a result of the 19th amendment. i think it is always just important to note those differences and be cognizant of them. susan b. anthony would probably be proud of the impact that women voters have had over these election cycles starting in 1980. we saw women voting differently than men, something we call the gender gap and that has made the

difference in some presidential races and gubernatorial and senate races. it's a vote that has historically benefited democratic candidates and we know that women have now consistently been voting differently and now, women voters are a vote that is courted by both parties. that is the power of the women's vote. you should probably do -- probably be disappointed not to see more women serving in office. the fact that we are now in 2022, there have been huge shifts and changes and moments such as the election of kamala harris as vice president, nancy pelosi as speaker of the house, but we have yet to elect a woman president of the united states. we are less than one third of all the members of congress.

and we still are stuck with a certain level for women as governors, only nine currently serve as chief executives and that was set years ago and we have yet to break. host: some of those numbers you talked about, less than one third in 2021, 27% women in congress. elected to office, 119 house members, 24 senators, nine governors, and state legislators , 2208. what are some of the reasons behind the numbers of women that aren't in politics? do you think it has a lot to do with fundraising, early access to elected positions by women? guest: there's a multitude of reasons and they are

interconnected so one of them is simply the fact that there aren't that many women in office and therefore women don't see people who look like them necessarily in those positions. the access to running may not be the same for them and they are not running is candidates. one of the basic, most simple pieces of politics is if you aren't a candidate you can't possibly win so we need to see more and more women running and we need to see the parties, both parties, recruiting and supporting women in winnable districts. that's one of the hurdles. we know from the research we've done at the center for american women in politics, women are less likely to get recruited to run for office than men and they are more likely than their male counterparts do need to be recruited in order to run.

the parties play an outsized role for women candidates so that's something we've seen over the years. the fundraising issue is real. we know that women raise comparable amounts of money to male candidates in comparable races but we know that it may be harder for them. it may take them 10 phone calls to raise $1000 as opposed to one. women just come from last moneyed circles and networks when they run for office than their male counterparts. so that's part of the issue. we've also found over the years that women tend to wait to run for office, tend to wait until their children are grown and men have a lot more freedom to run when their kids are younger which means they are entering politics earlier in their careers and they have a longer

trajectory in politics. that also helps when you start to look at those higher levels of office. finally, the motivation to run for women and men is different. from our research when we've asked men and women what was the reason that they ran for office in the first place, the men are more likely to tell us because they were interested in a career in politics and the women tell us they ran because there was a public policy problem, something they wanted to solve in their state or community. we think about that as men run to be somebody. women run to do something. if you are thinking about a problem in your community, you may not think politics is necessarily the best place to go to fix something. particularly these days when we see the kind of partisan gridlock particularly in washington, d.c., may be

discouraging for people, i've got something wrong and i want to fix it. i'm going to go the route of a nonprofit and do the volunteer work, a work around government rather than through it. all of these things together combined to create some of that challenge. i will say that the 2018 election started to change some of this. there was a bit of a paradigm shift and we are watching now to see if that continues. we saw a lot of women who ran despite the discouragement they faced from their party to run for office. we saw women running younger and running with their children. they weren't afraid of the pushback that sometimes women with young children have had in the past for running with young children where they say, why are you running for office? you should be home with your kids. we saw those women being successful so we are hoping

there is a bit of a paradigm shift and some of these challenges women face when they think about running for office are being removed over time. host: we will talk about those issues and more with our viewers and listeners. we welcome your calls for debbie walsh, the director of the center for american women and politics. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and others, (202) 748-8002 and you can send as a text at (202) 748-8003. you mentioned research your center does. how is that used and what else is the center's purpose? guest: we are actually celebrating our 50th anniversary this year so for 50 years we've been the source of the numbers, the trends for women who serve in office, women who run for

office, and women as voters. and our mission is to have a greater understanding of women's relationship to american politics to empower more women to be engaged in politics and make sure there's diversity among the women who are serving and engaging in the political world. we are very clear with our understanding that women are not monolithic. and we want to make sure that other areas, diversity and the representation that women have. we also conduct research on questions like what are women's roots to a lack of office, what is their relation to male colleagues and what impact do women have when they serve? it is important to count and to know where we are in the status because you can't identify the problem and start to solve that problem if you can't really quantify what that problem is.

as numbers are critically important, but we also want to know what difference does it make to have them there. we've been doing that research for decades, focusing largely on the state legislative level but also on the congressional level, and seeing the ways in which women raise different issues when they serve in office, and also the ways in which they get there. much of the research that we do is academic research but also we want to make sure our research is acceptable to the public -- accessible to the public and the activist community so it is our data that show we are seeing a flatlining in women running for office in the mid-1990's through the 2000s and the problem wasn't just that we were seeing a flatlining in officeholders, but there was a connected flatlining and stagnation among candidates.

it really pointed to this issue of the need to recruit and that issue of recruitment has then been taken up by many of the organizations on both sides of the aisle who are doing work to try to identify more women candidates. because without those candidates we can get officeholders. host: how has not evolved and which party is doing a better job recruiting women? guest: clearly when you look at the numbers of women officeholders, you mentioned women serving in congress and currently in 2022, there are 145 women serving in congress. not as a record number. of those, 106 are democrats and 39 a republicans. the democratic party has done a better job of electing women to office. women are more likely to be democrats. that's just a fact. so that is of some help.

but the party itself has done a lot of work on the democratic side to recruit and support. i have to say that after the 2018 election where we saw a record number of women getting elected to congress and in the house, for instance, 36 new women were elected. of those, only one was a republican. in response to that, there was a real reaction by republican women around the country to do more. i think they saw the success on the democratic side. they didn't like the narrative about the republic already -- republican party not being hospitable to women and there were real efforts in 2022 recruit and support more republican women running. some of the organizations have been around for quite a while like value in electing women past.

a lot have started as a result of 2018 to support republican women. i think what we saw in 2018 was a decline in republican women serving in congress, a net loss of 10 in the 20 -- and 2020 elections were a big success for republican women. they made up for that lost and there are a record number of republican women in the house. it takes that intentionality and concerted effort to make that change. that needs to continue on both sides of the aisle, but the republican party, clearly given the numbers, needs to be more active. host: a comment from kenneth in ohio in a text -- susan b. anthony would be furious that we still have not passed the e.r.a.. debbie walsh? guest: it is a bit shocking that

in this moment women are still not mentioned in the constitution. and it is a hurdle that we have not seemed to be able to surmount. our center is in new jersey, the home of alice paul, and the e.r.a. has been called the alice paul amendment. so sad that she never got to live to see that pass either. host: jim in hawaii, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i'd like to ask your guest, i've had it with the establishment, republicans and democrats. i'm an independent and my wife is independent. let me explain a little bit why. we think that especially in the last election, we looked at the candidates and we saw a lot of

good candidates on the democrat side and both of us got behind amy klobuchar. we thought she would really make a good president and by golly, behind closed doors at the end and in south carolina, made the deal behind closed doors, joe, we are going to give you the spot. there are certain things you have to do for us and one of them i think was to put harris on the ticket. harris had dropped out the primary. she was doing so poorly that she dropped out of the primary altogether. we thought, for sure, we can vote for joe. hopefully he will take amy klobuchar for vice president. this is exactly how the establishment, republican and democrat on both sides, make these deals and come up with these candidates.

we have a lady here in our state that we think will go places if somebody would just get behind her and we just don't see it happening. we are independent now and we just don't think the primaries are fair. you know what i mean? the way they do these primaries and come up with candidates. i think the reason why harris was picked was because of the color of her skin. i hate to say that, but i think the democrat party is doing everything they can -- they just pick the people they want and a lot of it has to do with not so much gender but skin color. that's a shame. host: we will hear from our guest. guest: i think that it's -- the challenge of being a registered independent is that you remove

yourself from the primary process and in many places, the primary is where the election is decided because it's either a very safe democratic area or safe republican area. redistricting has made most districts noncompetitive. for many parties -- for both parties, that's the challenge and part of the sacrifice. in south carolina, the voters decided to would be the winner of the south carolina primary. i think it was a free and fair election. and i think there has been a tradition on both sides of the aisle when a candidate is picking a running mate, to look for all kinds of balance between who the nominee, the presidential nominee is and who his and someday at one point her

running mate would be. and i think joe biden made a pledge in that final debate that he had with bernie sanders that he would take a woman as his running mate. and then i think he looked at the field and looked at both geography, i think he looked at where his possible running mate would be along the ideological sectors, so he picked someone from california, a large state, someone with a lot of name recognition. he picked someone who would be seen as i think more progressive than he was. he is seen very much as a moderate democrat and he wanted to appeal to that progressive base of the party. i think picking a woman was --

that he thought he was reaching out to women voters, although we know that the gender gap is not about the gender of the candidate. it is about the party. and i think he was looking for racial and ethnic diversity because of the richness that that diversity brings. having a voice of someone who has different experiences than joe biden has, i think he saw as an important asset to his administration. so i think that goes into the decision-making whenever a presidential candidate on either party is choosing their running mate. host: rosetta is calling from danville, virginia, good morning, democrats line. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. go ahead. caller: good morning. this is about the gentleman that

came on just before i did talking about color of skin. i am a black woman but i've never been prejudiced but the fact is the black race is always well behind. if they would stop all of this color and all of this democrat and republican and run america like it's supposed to run, we would get along much better than we are. we should go buy some biblical ways, not republican, not democrat. thank you for taking my call. host: there is a story this morning about the president's pick -- pledge to pick an african-american woman as the supreme court justice. that decision has not been made, but the washington post talking about the activists who defended vice president harris are mobilizing about the supreme court pick, several groups actively working to support that

nominee when she is announced by the president. and defend her on social media. has the growth of these various political groups, not necessarily supporting candidates, has that diverted attention away from supporting candidates in particular, as groups get involved in more social issues like this? guest: no, i think what you are seeing on this front is out of -- sadly, knowing that when women and particularly women of color are selected for these kinds of positions, whether really high level positions like vice president or now supreme court justice, they may face a different kind of, or more severe backlash, pushback. that is both sexist and racist. and trying to get ahead of that

so that those -- finally the woman who joe biden selects for this position is -- there is a group of folks who are going to be responding to the kind of attacks but she may face. look, we heard almost instantly this kind of really racist pushback when the assumption was, he's just going to pick a black woman and somehow a presumption she won't be qualified, and this is just seen as some kind of "affirmative action" move. how insulting to think that there are no black women who would be qualified and the only way you could pick someone who is a black woman is to somehow compromise the standards. well there are plenty of highly

qualified -- while there are plenty of highly qualified black women who could serve on the supreme court, it doesn't bring them up when a white man gets picked. i think there needs to be, sadly, still, this kind of mobilization to support women when they are put front and center for the high level positions. we certainly saw this happen when kamala harris was selected and sadly, even the idea of selecting a black woman to the supreme court raised up this ugly question of, but she won't be qualified. host: debbie walsh is director of the american -- center for american women and politics at rutgers university. who votes more regularly or frequently, men or women? guest: women outvote men and consistently have in the last elections.

about 10 million more women have voted than men so that women's vote is a powerful vote and again, because that vote has consistently been different, a more democratic vote, it has been an important force in elections, particularly close elections. so that's why this vote, we see more and more being courted by candidates where republican candidates are trying to chip away at that advantage democrats have an democrat event -- democrat candidates are trying to shore up that support that can make the difference. those are voters you can count on and turn out. particularly, the most democratic of all the voters out there are black women. host: you mentioned this in a previous comment, the gender gap. when did that start to appear? guest: 1980 in the ronald reagan-jimmy carter race.

that gender gap benefited the democratic candidate, jimmy carter. it wasn't enough to make a difference in the outcome. that was an overwhelming election and ronald reagan won but that had an impact on the thinking of the 1984 election. we first saw the geddert -- gender gap in 1980 and activists and democrats were looking at how to defeat ronald reagan, and walter mondale was the nominee. many women in organized women's organizations went to walter mondale and said, this is key to winning the election and beating ronald reagan, putting a woman on the ticket, and that would get you -- it would mobilize and energize the women's vote and that would be enough to put walter mondale over the top. resulted in the selection of geraldine ferraro as his running

mate. it didn't work out as we anticipated because people vote for the top of the ticket, not the vice president. it did energize women and women were very mobilize around that election. it didn't make a difference in the outcome. host: how long did it take the republican party to react to the gains the democratic party was seeing with the gender gap? guest: they really started focusing on the gender gap almost immediately in trying to figure out ways in which they could chip away at that advantage. you certainly saw, most clearly, when george w. bush ran. there was a whole campaign about the w stands for women and working to mobilize women voters. the challenge is, the reason that they are supporting democratic candidates has to do really with issues on the party.

women tend to feel more economically vulnerable. they make less money than men. they have less money saved for retirement. they feel more employment is secure for men and they see the government as a social safety net. they see themselves possibly needing that whether it is social security, medicare, medicaid, food assistance, unemployment, family medical leave, these are more associated with the democratic party supporting that social safety net. that's what is driving it. that becomes part of the real challenge for the republican party, is where they are on the perception in many of those issues. host: fairfield, connecticut, joe on the independent line. caller: i'm here. host: you're on the air. caller: the problem to me,

politics is what i call the houdini factor. you don't really get is what is presented d -- don't really get what is presented to you. there is a group of honest politicians which is an oxymoron, but i feel politics, people do what they need to do to get elected. that's the reason we had harris in there as a vice president, because if he gets that particular vote, biden never has accomplished anything in all the times he's been accomplish -- in politics that would help this country. trump was not any better. i know that work with them or for them work towards what they can get out of it, the pelosis. politics has come to the point that this country is people are going to go to revolution, not

in my lifetime, but i think it's going to happen. politicians are just interested in what is in it for me, can i get elected, never mind what's best for the country. my observation for 76 years -- at least when i was involved at 18 -- that's what i see happening more and more. host: we will hear from our guest. guest: by and large, people that serve in office are there because they care about their communities, districts, states. they do so to tremendous sacrifice to their families and frankly financially. when he think about the people who serve in the country, they don't make a lot of money. often times they have to leave their homes to be in the state capital. there is very little compensation and it must have an impact on their careers but they have a belief in public service.

what sadly has happened in the past number of years is that that kind of connection between and among people who serve in office and their relationships across the aisle and the kind of partisan gridlock and that sense of everybody has to be dug in, and not a willingness to find a middle ground, and an understanding that there needs to be some compromise. and not everybody gets everything they want but in order to get something that is good, you have to figure out ways in which you can give up this to get that. that's become i think the real challenge. there is kind of a winner take all mentality that has taken over. one of the things we have found in our research, and i think it still is true even in the midst

of the partisan gridlock is that women who serve in office are more likely to be able to do the across the aisle work. it extends to why they get there. i mentioned before, when we asked men and women about serving, women tell us they are there to solve a problem. you will try to figure out the ways to reach across the aisle. when you look at that group that came together around the infrastructure, the women who were in that group disproportionately, were a larger proportion were women that actually serve in the united states senate. we know that women are working across the aisle. there's been much past -- much talk in the past when there have been shutdowns that it is women in the senate who work across the aisle to solve the shutdown.

there is hope, and i think women are part of that hope, but i think the system has become such that this kind of inability to find middle ground, to compromise, to allow for there to be difference without demonization of that difference, has become a real problem and a kind of a notion that we must defeat the other side at all costs, regardless of the policy outcome. host: next up is jonathan in philadelphia, democrats line. jonathan, make sure you mute your volume on your television. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: sorry about that. on the topic of women in politics, i love the rise in it, love the rise of women in politics. host: lost him. we will go to donna in

wisconsin, independent line. caller: good morning. i just have a question. is it ok now that biden has done this, that we can put an ad in the paper and pick the color of the person, or we no longer have to allow everybody to apply for a job, we can just pick the color or sex we want? that's the way we are going now. i thought it was you couldn't pick people on their sex or color or anything else but we are. everyone is applauding that. this is the third time he's done this. i know it's to get votes, i understand that, but it shouldn't be allowed. we are not allowed to do that. should i put an ad in the paper and say only asian or latin need apply? is that ok? host: debbie walsh, any comment? guest: i think what president biden is trying to do, and i think when -- what people in

politics are trying to do is make sure that there is a diversity of voices that the supreme court in its entire history has never had the voice of a black woman serving. that is a real loss. it's a loss for the court. it's a loss for the country. it takes a concerted effort to make this kind of change. and there is new sacrifice in doing this in the sense of getting a qualified person to sit on the court. he will not pick somebody who is not qualified and there are many black women who are qualified to serve on the supreme court. but it will be a win for this nation to have more diversity on its courts, to have more diversity in its elected officials. it will be a government that is

more representative. it will be a government that understands the needs and concerns of the entire population. it's not enough to just have white males being the representatives for all of us when the population is far more diverse. it is a loss for our nation and a loss for the policies that come out for all of us. if those decisions, the decisions of policymakers, decisions of the court, are made by just one group, we need that diversity and we've seen that in our research. it enriches the making of policy, changes the way government works. we need to have that diversity. it happens because people make conscious decisions to make that happen. host: you are celebrating your

50th year at the center so that takes us back to around 1972, the year of the watergate break-in, not a great time for the of american politics and the numbers of women in congress in 1971 according to your figures was just 2%. do you think women are inspired by moments like that in terms of, we've got to do something to fix the system so i'm going to try to get elected to my local board, state legislature, congress? guest: i think there are these pivotal moments where we have seen real growth in the numbers of women. when we were founded 50 years ago in 1971, there were so few women that the response to the founding of the center was, what are you going to study? there's no subject to study. clearly, things have changed. sometimes it is a slow, steady change. sometimes it is a stagnation.

there are these informative moments. you had 1984 when geraldine ferraro was on the ticket and that iron -- energized women and we saw more women running. we saw in 1992 post the anita hill-clarence thomas hearings for the supreme court and we saw women mobilize because they really saw for the first time how few women were serving in the united states senate. there were no women on that senate judiciary committee when anita hill went to testify. it was kind of a wake up moment. after the 2016 election, you saw kind of a wake up moment. hillary clinton lost. a lot of women felt she was probably the most qualified person who had ever run for president and regardless of whether you supported her or didn't, she certainly qualified -- she certainly was qualified. i think that mobilized women. they got mad and we saw a record

numbers of women running. as a result of those records all on the democratic side, we saw a republican women say, wait a minute, we don't want to be left behind. it matters to have more women in our party too. we saw a record number of republican women getting elected to congress. so i think there are these moments that inspire and engage and the challenge always is to keep the momentum going in those moments when there isn't some sort of a big historic moment that sets it off. how do you maintain the momentum? because i think the road to political parity, both in numbers and in power, is absolutely a marathon and not a sprint. so we have to be in it for the long haul which is why we are proud of having been here 50 years and we hope at least

another 50 as we watch into the future how this story unfolds. host: we have the house coming in momentarily. let's see if we can get one quick call. marian in rock hill, south carolina. caller: i was calling because i felt that when former president trump appointed a woman to the supreme court, nothing was said. but now that president biden is identifying his candidate as possibly being an african-american woman, there's a lot being said. we should focus on the fact that he's going to appoint someone that's qualified. we've been deprived and really kept out of the race for so long that we are playing catch up. it should be diversity and equality in every aspect in this country. and for people to get upset because they are appointing an

african-american to the supreme court, they should be focused on quality and qualified people being appointed. host: debbie walsh, about a minute left. any final thoughts? guest: i just want to say i couldn't agree more with the caller. that is why leading back to your earlier question, this is why you need to have the optimism -- activism of groups on the outside to defend appointments like this because we know there will be pushback and an assumption that if you say you want to put a black woman on the court that somehow you have to compromise requalification to do that and that's just ridiculous. i think it's important to be there to dissent these -- defend the pick and say that, pushback against that kind of rhetoric. host: debbie walsh is the

director of the center for american women and politics at rutgers university. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: that will do it for the program. we are back tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern. we will take you live to the house floor. 15, 2022. i hereby appoint the honorable jennifer wexton to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by chaplain kibben. chaplain kibben: will you pray with me. what you have in store for us today, o lord, if we are overly proud and self-promoting, will you humble us? if we are arrogant and false, will you put us in our place? or will you show forgiveness to us? if we stand in your awe some presence in the slander of your