titled warp speed, inside the operations to beat covid, the critics and the odds. host: in ry zone, members of congress largely say no to that. look for congress to pass a $10 billion aid package for ukraine. you can call and give your comments on what's going on over there but how the administration and u.s. officials are responding. this is how you can let us know. democrats, (202) 748-8000.

republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. if you want to text us, you can do that at (202) 748-8003. one of the themes coming out of the sunday shows was the response from the u.n. ambassador, a request over the establishment of a no-fly zone with the u.s. opposing that according to comments made from the ambassador. here is some of that from abc news yesterday. >> president biden has been very clear that american troops will not be put on the ground or in the air to escalate this war and make this an american war against russia. we have been very clear that we will support ukraine in every way possible.

billions prior to that, we are providing training, we are working with our allies. >> president zelensky said failure to impose a no-fly zone means the blood who is on the west. >> we are working to support him in every other way possible that we can support him. we commend the strong effort the ukrainian government and president zelensky. what president vladimir putin is facing ukraine, he did not expect. the ukrainians of pulled out all of their stops to address this aggression by the russians. this is not an easy way forward for vladimir putin. we've got 141 votes against the russians at the security council.

they are isolated. they are isolated around the globe. we will continue to press others. >> in a zoom with members of congress, he said he needs fighter jets. none of the plans in the works is he would get them from poland and other eastern european nations. is that on the table? >> we have been in close consultation with the polish government as well as our other nato allies. we have not in any way opposed the polish government providing these jets to ukraine. we are working to see how we can do that. >> could u.s. jets be provided to poland? >> we are still in discussion

with them on that issue. host: that was the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. to your calls, democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. as you are calling in, we will talk about what to expect this week in congress, especially when it comes to ukraine. join us is the national journal. thanks for giving a today. one of the discussion points is this aid package for ukraine. can you explain the dollar figure and what is expected as far as getting it passed? guest: ukraine and the omnibus legislation and covid eight are going to drive this week. as far as ukraine goes, a lot of that money is going to go to the

-- paying for some of the troop movements for u.s. forces to eastern european nato allies. another $5 billion will go to the state department and high humanitarian aid for the hundreds of thousands of refugees that are pouring over the border. that is the bulk of the aid. this is likely to ride on the funding registration. that is driving the funding bill. it's going to grease the wheels in congress to get that bill through. it has a lot of support. host: when it comes to members of congress and them being briefed by the administration on

the latest or hearing testimony, will any of that occur this week? guest: we are going to see some additional classified briefings on ukraine. the white house is supposed to come down to congress and fill-in members with additional information on what's going on on the ground. they are going to be leaving on wednesday for their policy retreat. they are going to get additional information from out of government sources. earlier this week, we will see some classified briefings. host: president biden is expected to speak on friday. do we know the discussions that will take place? guest: the sessions are going to range from things like inflation to voting rights.

they are going to stem some of these losses in november. we are going to see issues related to a lot more -- they are going to push more bills that are less ambitious than filled back better. that's what they are looking for. the senate is likely going to pass a reform bill this week. the house passed legislation granting benefits to veterans who were affected by toxic burn pits. we are going to see something in that vein in terms of the democratic that form that is going to emerge from this policy retreat. we are going to see things like lowering the cost of insulin and some of the topics the president brought up in his state of the union, most particularly doing something to address crime.

that is something we are going to see emerging from the policy retreat. host: you mentioned covid funding might depart of the negotiations this week. appropriators and leadership have work to do on this. the house is continuing to plan to vote on something tuesday before they leave for the policy retreat. covid it, the white house has proposed 22 point $5 billion in additional aid would go to medical equipment, vaccines for the under five population that the government expects to approve vaccines for at some time in the future. there is an issue. senate republicans want more oversight of the money that's already been appropriated for covid.

there is a disagreement that they will have to work out before they can advance any type of additional covid aid funding. this is going to get cut and they are going to see more provisions. host: a lot is going on this week. if you go to the national journal website, they posted other events that we did not get a chance to talk about. thanks for your time today. we will take your calls on it russia's invasion of ukraine. the numbers will be on the screen. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. a person on twitter is the advisor to the office of the president of ukraine about negotiations. the tweet saying negotiations

with the russian federation, the third round begins at 1600. linda from tennessee on the independent line. you are up first about russia and ukraine. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think it's a disaster. i think biden has made a mess. he is even losing some of the democrat people. host: specifically what do you think have they done wrong in this effort? caller: he was a little bit too late getting them equipment over there. even robert gates said in 40 years he had been on the wrong side of national security. host: that's linda in tennessee. ruben in philadelphia.

caller: how are you doing today. this is kind of a strong tactic that vladimir putin is using. zelensky has said that the united states and are not going to commit to airstrikes are going to war. vladimir putin knows they're not going to go into war because of a nuclear holocaust. celeste has to make a deal with them. his key going to handed over to vladimir putin to save his citizens? it doesn't look like the west is going to give them much defensive help other than essentials. it seems like vladimir putin is going to win this. host: why do you think president zelensky will take that kind of strategy? caller: i mean, what choice does he have? everything is getting cut off. he's not getting any help.

it doesn't seem like vladimir putin is going to back down. his people aren't crying for him to stop. russia, the russian citizens could intervene. that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. host: that was ruben in philadelphia. when it comes to that request for planes, perhaps from poland, the wall street journal said it was yesterday that the prime minister's office dismissed an arrangement to hand over combat planes to ukraine. poland won't send its jet fighters or use airports. he goes on to say we helped in many other areas. that is the response there. let's go to mary in maryland. you are next up. caller: i was calling to say, i

just heard every nato country will be protected and shielded. is that just a technicality? that ukraine is not in nato? aren't they human beings? that need protection? why not give them the no-fly zone that would solve so many of their problems? if one of these yachts belonging to the oligarchs is blown up and morning given that if they don't come to the cause of ukraine and stop putin, other yachts will be

blown up. personally, i think there should be a bounty on prudence head. -- putin's said. host: ok. you heard about the no-fly zone. yesterday, some republicans talked about the same topic. rocco rubio from florida was on abc. >> you were on that zoom yesterday with president zelensky. are you more open to a no-fly zone? >> a no-fly zone has become a catchphrase. i don't know if people understand what that means. that means flying a wax 24 hours a day. that means shooting down russian airplanes in the sky. you can't put those planes up there unless they are ready to knock at the antiaircraft systems in ukraine and russia

and belarus. a no-fly zone, if people understood what it means, it means world war iii. i think there are a lot of things we could do to help ukraine protect itself from airstrikes and missile strikes. people need to understand what a no-fly zone means. it's not a rule that you pass. it's the willingness to shoot down the aircraft of the russian federation, which is the beginning of world war iii. >> how about providing fighter jets to poland and other nations and they would send the jets they have to ukraine. do you support that? >> if that could be done, it would be great. i have concerns about can they actually fly them, given the antiaircraft capabilities russia possesses. yesterday was a terrible day for the russian air force.

they don't have air control either. generally speaking, it is something i would be supportive of. we should do what we can to help them. host: negotiations and efforts here on capitol hill, (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8001 four republicans. independents (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. fox news reporting that the senate foreign relations committee will have a closed briefing on the russian invasion of ukraine. that is expected to happen tonight. the world needs to bite the bullet and ban russian oil and send the economy to the trashcan. that's the best way for us to get involved. if vladimir putin is looking for reasons to escalate this without nato getting involved, we should

go from zero to 100%. that is some of the reaction from our twitter feed. our facebook page is avail. reno nevada, hello. host: this is -- go ahead. caller: good morning. i was -- in case of was to donate to the refugees going into, it was on cnn. every one of these are vetted. you can give money. i can tell you where to go and you can donate to the different countries. you can go to cnn.com/donate.

host: do you trust these various outlets? have you donated yourself? caller: yes. cnn had this on. they have vetted all of the organizations. all of them are legitimate. host: you may have seen this story over the last couple of days, one of the ways that people using airbnb is to help those in ukraine, looking stays in countries and paying for them. this report said $2 million has been raised from that alone. let's hear from kyle in new mexico. go ahead. caller: i appreciate you. i'm calling to talk about the russia ukraine situation. i would just like to say i heard a long time ago that you really can't judge anything until many

years after. i think it is so quick. we are seeing so much baloney. i like twitter a lot. i follow cnn and the mainstream news sources. some other stuff. nothing crazy. nobody really knows what's going on. when we talk about sending money to places and doing the sorts of things or supporting causes, i would encourage everybody. oliver stone a few years ago coproduced a documentary called ukraine on fire. this was about five years ago. i encourage everybody to go back when looking at current events.

host: some of those sources you cited yourself about going in, you said nobody knows what's going on. caller: that's a good point. you are right. you are looking at what's truth. does somebody know what's going on? that's a good point. that's why we appreciate c-span so much. we are trying to work at that. host: that is kyle from new mexico. you can text us, you can post on twitter and facebook. the opinion section of the new york times, the prime minister of the united kingdom talking about the events in ukraine. he was speaking to the world community at large. he makes a couple of these points when it comes to what the country should be doing to

assist. are in the opinion section of the new york times from boris johnson. that was kyle we just heard from. a tear from debbie in buford, georgia.

you are on the independent line. caller: i just want to say, i truly believe that vladimir putin knows he has lost. his military commanders are not going to confront him with this. i think eventually, he's going to commit suicide just like kittler did. that's my belief. -- hitler's did. that's my leave. host: do you think firing nuclear weapons could be part of that? caller: he might go crazy before he commits suicide. i think his military is going to say you destroyed us. with these actions against ukraine. you've already destroyed russia. the ruble is nothing.

based on all of that, i think being confronted by his commanders, he is going to commit suicide just like hitler's did. -- hitler's did. host: let's hear from betty in ohio. caller: hello? host: thanks for calling. caller: i was wondering why the tanks were lined up they did not bomb the road in front of them and behind them and they had no place to go. they were like sitting ducks. that's my comment. host: that was betty in ohio. social media, a lot of video being posted. the bbc news is part of that. they have posted missiles taking down a russian helicopter. here is some of that video.

again, that's from the bbc. you can see more of that from the bbc website on their twitter feed as well. tampa, florida, linda. caller: hello. i am sorry to say and i pray to god it doesn't happen. we are at the point now where we are going to have to get together like we did with hitler. i don't sigh -- see how he can watch the rest of the day and every day, to see children

killed. it's just sad. the puzzle is beginning to fit together. it is time for us to do what we don't want to do but we've got to do. host: do you mean the united states? caller: nato. it's about nato. either we do it or we are going to look weak. he really wants us to get together. we are going to have to do like we did with hitler. that's what it looks like we are going to have to do. host: you think nato countries are interested in that? caller: i know it's in the back of their heads. i know they plan it do that. i believe they have talked about it.

they plan every day that's not what they are going to do. he is going to test them, the big test, go into poland. every time we had the winter olympics. common sense ought to tell vladimir putin that country does not belong to them. old russia is gone. he's doing what he's doing. i wouldn't be surprised if everything is coming together. the man is just evil. i can't see it. host: that was linda in tampa. let's hear from arkansas. keith is next. caller: thanks for taking my call. i would just like to say how did we get into this shape?

we know he is a madman. it makes me wonder why this administration won't own up to its downfalls on anything. if it hurts the american people for a minute, let's get away from giving this man any money. thank you for taking my call. host: vladimir putin has been emboldened by the decisions that have given information. can in tampa says: if you want to text us your

thoughts, that is (202) 748-8003 . you can call us as always. (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. independents (202) 748-8002. host: this is minnesota, the democrats line. caller: i have several suggestions. i think president biden waited too long to impose sanctions. where we are now, i think we should stop buying oil and gas from russia. i think we should do some humanitarian food drops like we did in berlin. i think we should be supplying airpower through poland. the u.s. as a new military base in poland 100 miles from russia.

kyiv is close to poland. i worry that russia is going to be that as an excuse to go into poland. that was my expectation. we are going to have to get tougher. he's going to do whatever he does anyhow. he's not afraid of nuclear releases in the atmosphere. what can you do about some guy who is willing to do anything. i was reading about apartment fires. that's how he got power in russia. he terrorized people into thinking the chechens had done these apartment fires when he did it. he is a ruthless guy. i think we have to be a lot tougher. host: a new poll on job

approval, job approval rating is 47%. that's the latest story from insider. the march numbers seem to indicate a rebound, they approved of his handling of the russia ukraine conflict by 52%. that's the latest poll there. let's hear from dan in maine. good morning. caller: i am calling with regard to seeing something good about president vladimir putin. i would hope that people would be praying that it would slow down and take a look at what's going on and has been going on in ukraine since 2014. you might go back to 1814 to find out what the real start of whatever is.

listening to c-span for the last 30 years, i never heard the american people more hateful and more vindictive with regards to characterizing someone as they have russia and prudent in particular. it's just incredibly discouraging. host: how do you think he's been mischaracterized? caller: i don't think he's crazy. i don't think he's crazy. there is no proof that he is crazy. all of his actions over the last 24 years have been rather rational on behalf of the russian people. he's not a crazy person. host: would you call his current actions rational? caller: he's not acting

irrationally? from his perspective and what's going on in ukraine, i understand why he's doing what he's doing. i think it's a mistake. you couldn't say that was a smart thing to do. i'm not defending what he is doing. i am saying that what he is doing makes sense to him and to the russian people. for all the discussion of the history of russia or ukraine, kyiv was the center of russia back in 900. that was the capital of russia. host: ok. that's dan in maine. let's hear from tom in michigan. caller: thanks for taking my call. i appreciate the person ahead of

me, his history lesson. this is nothing more than eight terroristic act by isis or anybody else. this is a big organized country. these people are going to take ukraine regardless because they know the americans and all of the other countries can't do anything because it's not a nato partner. they are restricting what they can do. if the united states really wanted to get involved, we could clear out that convoy that's been up to 40 miles long. we could essentially put the

russians on their heels and really go backwards. we can't do that because of politics. we are not allowed to. this is going to be a slow ugly battle for the poor ukrainian people and the civilians that will die and frankly we are at a crossroads. we don't seem to give enough care. we act like we do because we don't want to see them overrun. host: that is tom in michigan. one of the people in the sunday shows were talking about the needs of ukraine. that was the ambassador to the united states. she appeared on fox news sunday. this is what she had to say. >> americans are getting ready to go to church.

ukraine citizens can't get out of basements or shelters. today, we woke up to learn that russian troops attacked nola terry airports. it's a city on western ukraine. it's the size of tampa in florida. it's under seizure and they refuse to allow women and children to get out. like in many other cities. everywhere ukrainians are in resistance, we are fighting for our homes. what we read -- need right now is simple. we need as much defensive weapons that the u.s. can give to us in order to defend ourselves, especially with air

defense and airplanes. we need much tougher sanctions on russia. we are thankful for the sanctions. russia is not changing their behavior. they are escalating. the sanctions of not done enough. we're looking for a full embargo on oil and gas. we should treat russia as a terrorist state. we are asking to protect civilians. that's why we need support from nato allies. host: the new york times looking at weapons going to ukraine and how they get there. if you want to look further into the article, it more there if yd

it online yourself. robert in virginia. in morning. caller: good morning. the number one thing that needs to happen is de-escalation. vladimir putin has made threats of using nuclear weapons. i honestly think the man is just

arrogant enough to do that. the second thing that needs to happen is the pipeline needs to open. 800,000 barrels of oil can be produced. i know that's normally a republican thing. we don't need to drive the economy further in the wrong direction with inflation. we need to avoid world war iii at all costs. host: there are several stories about gasoline prices, some hitting four dollars a gallon. what is it like where you live? caller: it's over four dollars most places. a lot of low income people cannot handle the financial stress from week to week. host: do you think de-escalation is possible?

caller: i think anything is possible in the modern world. we don't need to go to a war we can't win. nobody can win a nuclear war. host: rob was there in virginia. the washington post a china is ready to act as a mediator. because the foreign minister reporting that. linda is in texas. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i think there is a reason, more than one reason biden is not taking the energy, the gas and oil away from biden. that is because he doesn't want to make prudent weaker. he wants them stronger so he can get this war over with so he doesn't have to deal with it. that's what i think. host: you are saying that president biden is interested in strengthening president prudent? caller: yes. he wants to get this over with, take over ukraine. he wants putin to be stronger to get the war over with so biden can not remove the pipeline.

not having to worry about the war. host: you think that would embolden vladimir putin, to look toward other countries to take? caller: yes. absolutely. every war is a chess game. why hasn't biden removed the gas and oil from prudent? why not? he wants them strengthened so he can get this over with and move on. host: we will let you there. he was on cbs talking about the possibility of banning russian oil imports. >> united states purchases 600,000 barrels a day.

the speaker said oil should be banned. the white house is looking at options. what is the option? does it come from president biden? >> it could come from either place. there is strong bipartisan support to cut off oil and gas sales to the united states. while we are trying to cripple their economy, we could purchase their petroleum. the administration wants to make sure that we work with our allies. this will have an impact on global oil prices, including here at home. in los angeles, gases over five dollars per gallon. i think there is strong support to show solidarity with ukraine and make sure american dollars aren't supporting the russian war machine. >> how quickly does that need to

happen? it's a cash cow. >> i think we need to act on it very quickly. we have to be circumspect that russia will find somewhere else to sell that oil and gas. the impact may not be as powerful as we would like. it's why we have to explore additional ways to crush the russian economy. host: the wall street journal reporting that venezuela is one of those countries the united states is looking to. it would ease sanction for.

david is up next in west virginia. caller: everybody's given their comments about no-fly zones and ringing russia to their knees economically. some of these politicians and collars, how far can we bring a nuclear country to their knees economically without it being an active war and putting them in a corner where they think about a nuclear exchange to destroy the economy of these countries? how far can we push them economically?

we can't fight them because that would guarantee a war. how far can we push the economy without being an active war? how many nukes would it take to destroy our economy? host: how far do you think that is? caller: if they are suffering and they are going to take over ukraine anyway, we are wasting money. more people are going to get killed the more weapons we supply. at some point, any nuclear country, at some point what if that -- what is that point?

we've got experts, what are they worried about? what is the point where it's almost guaranteed? host: this is marianne owens off twitter. tom in cincinnati is saying. the people here are whining about inflation. citizens are fleeing their homes and flocking to neighboring countries while others defend their countries. twitter is available if you want to post there. if you want to check out our instagram page, some we are texting us this morning at

guest: -- at (202) 748-8003. caller: good morning. my comment is this. this is obviously horrible. it's also very frustrating. it is so unnecessary. the reason why we are looking at what's happening with russia invading ukraine is because our policies in america and the policies in western europe regarding man-made climate change. there is no such thing as man-made climate change. it doesn't matter. the crazy left in america and the leaders in europe believe in man-made climate change. we are starving ourselves of our own energy. fossil fuels are wonderful. they've been a part of this planet. we don't want to use them. we could've been starving vladimir putin for years by not buying his oil.

western europe, this is what trump was trying to get through to these people. we could be starving vladimir putin, not giving him billions of dollars for years and years and years. he is funding his war against ukraine with our dollars. we could have been doing this ourselves by getting our own oil here. prudent is just plain these leftist fools. unfortunately, nothing is going to change. the people that believe in man-made climate change are going to continue to do this and we keep shooting ourselves in the foot. host: that was mark in florida. caller: i really can't leave people don't see what's really

happening. biden's son brokered a deal with the oil company that when his father becomes president of the united states, that he would close the pipelines in the united states. he makes all kinds of money and gets a lot of shares of the oil company. he has already become the bagman for barack obama in china. host: how does that relate to ukraine? caller: vladimir putin is not going to stop with ukraine. he's going to get the other countries hello that. he's already got the larusso. -- belarus.

right now, vladimir putin is laughing. he knows he's got nato in the palm of his hand. that's the song i would play. you've got traders in the white house. host: ok. we will go to ivanka in california. caller: thank you for taking the call. i'm going to approach this from another perspective. as i'm watching media coverage, it is very sad to see children and families suffering and leaving their homeland because of vladimir putin. what is lacking in the media coverage is you do not find any news coverage where you will find africans, nigerians, the indian people who are there.

there are a few stories that say when they cross the border to. my question is for the greater listeners out there, what will now happen to these people where there is this story going on were not hearing about. i'm talking about the people of color we don't see the coverage about that we should hear about. maybe that's because they are not the majority in numbers. i get that. every time you look at the news, you don't find their faces. as an african-american it, that is very frustrating. we do need to see equity in the news as these reports are given to the people. that's my position.

i think it's unfair and we do need to find out what is happening with these people. host: that is california. we have a couple of minutes left this hour as far as making your comments on russia and ukraine. one of the stories in the new york times takes a look at major food companies that are based there. many large food manufacturers are facing growing pressure on social media platforms to halt operations in russia.

that reporting in the new york times. that is in the is this section. ohio, max go ahead. caller: us not being energy independent is crazy. biden is pushing for electric automobile cars. that's why he wants oil prices high. that's what i think. this is what he is doing, he should be impeached. host: why do you think there is substance to prove it? caller: i do not have any proof.

i watch tv and all of the channels. how can you prove anything? host: ok. let's go to georgia, the democrat line. go ahead. caller: good morning. [inaudible] trump was doing his bidding to divide and confuse. look of the confusion of the country. just listen to the calls. divide it, confusion, in the

second term i will go into ukraine. then you wouldn't get reelected. host: how did you come to those conclusion? caller: do the american people know that trump and in 2020 was on the phone with vladimir putin five times in that one month? host: do you say those phone calls are connected to what we see today? caller: the plan is to destroy democracy in this country. host: what do you base that on? caller: fax. host: what are those facts? caller: trump was on the phone every week with vladimir putin. host: what were the contents of those calls? caller: the plan is to divide

the united states, divide and conquer. go to ukraine. in your second term, not the first term. now you've got to go to plan b. right before the midterms, i invade ukraine. you continue to confuse the country with the whites of some breasts -- supremacists. right before the midterms, we will get your people in position. when november takes place and the republicans take over, they've got it. host: kathy in texas, go ahead. caller: that last man is insane. biden has to stop the flow of russian oil. we have plenty here. we need to use domestic oil and

gas. he stopped plans to pump oil into greece and europe, forcing europe to not by oil. we could have oil in europe right now via israel. biden is signing another deal with iran to have nuclear capability. this is controlled by vladimir putin. he has got to stop this. caller: how should he proceed? caller: what do you mean? host: how? caller: he has to stop russia from patrolling the world through oil. he has to stop it now. we are going to pay more until we get back up on our feet pumping more oil domestically. host: do you think most

americans will be willing to pay more? caller: i don't know what to say about that. gas was already expensive because he wants to use other forms. host: are you willing to pay more? caller: temporarily yes. host: what makes you think it might be temporary? caller: we have domestic oil and gas here. he's got to turn that back on now. host: let's hear from rodney in virginia. rodney in washington. go ahead. caller: it's all inevitable. vladimir putin is going to make his move. we make moves in the past. he's doing it on countries and making his move.

fight him now. we've got to do it. host: what do you mean by that? caller: just stop him. host: ok. rodney in washington finishing off this hour. thank you for participating during the hour. we have two guests join us to talk about topics of the day. up next, we are talking that conversation is coming up. later on, we will hear from paul mango who will talk about the covid-19 pandemic response from the trump administration. those conversations are coming up on "washington journal." >> the russian military has begun a brutal assault on ukraine without provocation,

justification, without necessity -- this is a premeditated attack. announcer: c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine. hear the latest from the president, the pentagon and state department as well as congress. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders, all online at c-span.org are on the c-span video app -- or on the c-span now video app. announcer: no available for preorder, c-span's 2022 congressional directory. order a copy of the directory. this a spiral-bound book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress. also, contact information for state governors and the biden

administration's cabinet. preorder your copy today. scanned the code with your smartphone. every purchase will support c-span's nonprofit operation. ♪ [sound of fireworks] ♪ announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: joe cirincione joins us from the quincy institute, a nonresident fellow. thank you for giving us your

time. a few words about the institute, what is it into what do you do within it? guest: it is a think tank, more like an action tank. i'm a nonresident fellow, i am not there or. . . i'm a distinguished fellow. this is a think tank that seeks to promote a policy of restraint in u.s. foreign relations, to end a cycle of endless wars the u.s. has been on for the last 20 years, and to put diplomacy first in our international relations. host: one thing apollo is nuclear power, especially nuclear weapons. what is the ability now as far as the use of those weapons, particularly by about american? -- particular by vladimir putin? guest: there are still barriers, i do not want to alarm anybody.

i think the use of nuclear weapons is quite low, but that is not zero. we have not been in armed conflict with russian forces in in a sustained way ever, ever. so, and the reason is not really nato rules or whether we can come to the aid of a country outside of nato, it's that russia has 6000 nuclear weapons and we have almost of that number. and any armed conflict is very likely to quickly escalate to nuclear levels. so that is what is staying our hand. for years, we thought of nuclear weapons as our ultimate protector, but here we see that they are actually a shield for vladimir putin, allowing him to conduct a brutal invasion and stopping us from an intervention that we otherwise would have. host: one of the stories on ukraine is not only about the

attack, one nuclear power plant, but others within the country, can you paint that into the picture of what the expectations are as far as nuclear power is concerned? guest:guest: that is another dimension of nuclear risk. and this has never happened before. no country, no group has ever attacked a nuclear power plant anywhere, no country or group has ever seized a nuclear power plant, and no group or country has ever forced the operators of that plant to operate at gunpoint under duress, cut off from outside communication, but that is what is going on today in ukraine. the risks are manifold. one is in attacking the plant, and they are on their way to attacking the second largest nuclear facility as we speak, and attacking with mortar rounds, which we damaged the heavy concrete structures that contain the nuclear reactors. these are powerful structures.

no structure in the world is designed to withstand an artillery assault or tank assault. or that in the process they may cut off the electricity to the plant, and back up electric supply, which would damage in the plumbing and prevent the flow of coolant into the reactors and without that the nuclear fuel rods would heat to super hot temperatures and you would get a nuclear meltdown, like we had in fukushima when the electricity went off. that would release high volumes of radioactive activity into the ground, into the groundwater supply and if it happened, especially if it was in a damaging way, it could result in the build up of hydrogen gas which could explode at the facility input radioactive particulates into the air into the could travel for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. those are the most serious risks we face.

one moore, we have never had a situation where nuclear plant operators who are operating at gunpoint at the facility. these are highly skilled scientists, but now they are operating under duress. it is tricky operating a reactor at normal times, but at gunpoint, no shift changes -- i'm afraid this is a catastrophe waiting to happen. host: our guest will be with us until 8:45 a.m., if you want to ask questions about nuclear capability, 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. independents, 202-748-8002. text at 202-748-8003. back to the weapons, particularly from russia, we saw putin put these things on alert. what does that mean? guest: it is not clear. when he announced he was putting

nuclear weapons into special combat readiness, that is not a phrase we are familiar with. there are four standard levels of status and we believe the nuclear weapons are at the constant level, the base level. what we think this may mean is that he has not changed the operational position of the weapons, we have not seen icb's, mobile trucks or trains, no subs have gone to sea, but we think he changed the communication structure, meaning in the day to day operations the communication structure is actually blocked from transmitting a launch port, a safety mechanism to make sure that one is not transmitted by accident or in confusion. what he has done is unblock the system, he has taken the safety off the nuclear gun, and that raises to intermediate risk.

in the heat of battle committee could get an accidental launch order. many times this has come close to this in the cold war. the second is he would actually do it. the fair is if vladimir putin is losing this war, and he might, something unimaginable a week ago. if you were losing the war he may resort to the use of nuclear weapons and russian military doctrine outlines exactly that kind of procedure to prevent what they call a serious security threat to the state. putin may feel that way. then what would nato do? what would the u.s. do? all bets are off. host: the eastern central time zones, 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific time zones, 202-748-8001. the question comes, you probably heard this in various forms, is vladimir putin willing to go that far? guest: you may be.

he's really gambled on this invasion and the is losing right now. and like a card player at the table who is losing, he might think that one more bet will in the hand. that it is time to bet the house on winning. and russia and the united states have developed more usable nuclear weapons, weapons of smaller in explosive force than the thermonuclear bomb that makes up most of our arsenal. weapons of smaller than the bomb that hit hiroshima, maybe a 10th of the size, and he may feel like that is calibrated, that he is sending a signal to the west to back off. that could be the signal that he intends to send, but we may see it as another atrocity that threatens more nuclear use. and feel at that point we have to respond in kind.

wargames show once you cross the nuclear barrier, it's very difficult to contain the escalation. things tend to spiral out of control. each side things one more move may be an increased nuclear strike that would settle the issue and it really does. -- and it rarely does. host: when it comes to russia, about 1400 plus warheads on 527 icb's, strategic bombers, 4400 plus nuclear warheads stockpiled, 1700 plus additional retired warheads. do those sound right? guest: it is an enormous arsenal, way down from where it was during the cold war, but still more than enough explosive force to end human life on the planet and that is only russia's arsenal, we have a matching arsenal. i have seen articles that say we should be building more tactical nuclear weapons like russia has,

they have a couple thousand and we have hundreds, but when you're at that level the numbers do not matter. there is no numerical security or superiority that will give you a strategic advantage. one nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe, 10 would be a level of destruction beyond human history. and 100 nuclear weapons is really unthinkable, both the u.s. and russia have about five or 6000 nuclear weapons. host: john in pennsylvania for our guest, joe cirincione of the quincy institute. caller: good morning. i appreciate you taking my call. it's an honor to speak to you. this is something i have been reading about and thinking about for 15 years, this precise situation. i appreciate if you give me the opportunity to express myself. it seems that the solution was to avoid this was just so self-evident, as professor

marcia reimer -- the realist foreign policy analyst, his youtube videos -- guest: at the university of chicago, yes. caller: he is a realist and foreign policy analyst. in any event, isn't it obvious the neutrality in ukraine would've been the best solution for all concerned? certainly for the ukrainian people, we see what is happening. and certainly for -- russia has been pleading for it. last -- putin made an ultimatum last november and we had to give a written guarantees that he was suspicious of. willing to do negotiations, but

the washington post said that we were moving massive javelin and shells fired at antiaircraft missiles to ukraine as we were sensibly negotiating with russia. host: for the interest of time, what would you like the guest to address? caller: that this was a set up. guest: meaning is putin trying to goad us into war? i understand. when it comes to explaining russia's behavior, there are basically two schools of thought. one is the aggressive school, meaning that putin is trying to rebuild the soviet empire and he is on a campaign of territorial expansion and ukraine is the first of many territories he wants to reconquer. the other is the defensive school, this is where john comes out saying when nato expanded

and moved a military alliance based on its opposition to the soviet union, moved it to russia's border, what did you expect them to do? in a great feel threatened. -- any great power would feel threatened. we did not take concerns into consideration. i tend to be in the middle. i think that putin is aggressive, that he is moving, that this is an unjust invasion. yes, we should not have expanded nato that fast and we should have listened to russia and we should've gotten rid of the 6000 nuclear weapons when we had the chance and we will have a time to reconsider those policies after this war, but right now there is no justification for what putin is doing. was there a neutral option here? i think there was, maybe ukraine should have pursued that more. many people are suggesting that

this is the diplomatic path out of this, that this is what ukraine will have to agree to in order to get putin to withdraw. right now it is hard to see how that diplomacy would work. i do not see ukraine agreeing to any territorial concessions, any armed neutrality or finland like status. as we talk about the finland option, finland is starting to discuss with nato if it should also joined the alliance. putin has pushed eastern europe and all of europe into and much more hostile relationship with russia, when i am afraid is warranted by putin's actions. host: alice in connecticut. caller: i have been worried about the nuclear power plants from the moment they occupied chernobyl, because my thought was, why would you take a radioactive don't? -- dump? guest: me too.

of all the places you would want to avoid, turn number would be at the top of the list. caller: then going after the largest nuclear power plant. if they do happen, the russians will try to use as a weapon against the west with saboteurs or something like that as a justification for further aggression summer. -- somewhere. this is horrible. we can talk we should have done that, where we could have done that at that point in time, but the thing is, what are we dealing with right now? how do we prevent future repercussions. that is my question -- future repercussions? that is my question. guest: we could allow the director general of the iaea,

who is trying to negotiate a deal to restore restraints on the iranian program -- half of what they do concerns nuclear energy. they are pro-nuclear energy, but he is extremely concerned about the severe risks presented by the attack and occupation of this power plant. let him in. on the nuclear front, the u.s. and nato could declare that they have no intention of using nuclear weapons first in a conflict with russia and they should urge russia to make a similar pledge. there are things we could do to declare our own intentions and demand that russia take at least verbal assurances it will not use nuclear weapons and it will allow the international atomic agency into these plants and allow relief of the workers. there are things we could do, whether russia will let us do them we do not know.

host: char in texas. caller: thank you for taking my call, you guys are doing a great job to allow the voices to be heard. thank you everyone for their support of the ukrainians, because it could be us. i think that putin is a bully. the ones we speak of when we say we want to stop kids in school from being bullied, this is what he has been doing. he has been a big bully. where are the people who are not thinking so smart and educated is the question i have for joseph? why don't we talk to the real street people in order to get education on how to handle a thug like putin. you were saying that we do not know what he means when he says this. we have four different levels we are using, but he is not using

those words. ne-ne and kanye will speak his language and and then he will back down from everyone and weakening gain our power -- from everyone and then we can gain our power. guest: i hear what you are saying. i think that the actual military equivalent of doing that is kind of what we are doing right now, which we are streaming defensive weapons into ukraine. i saw a figure today that there were 14,000 antitank weapons and antiaircraft weapons that have been streamed into ukraine over the last week. we are trying to give the ukrainian fighters the tools they need to defeat russian thugs. host: talk about the current arms-control deals and arrangements we have and how it factors into potential conflict. guest: we were very successful working with the soviets and it

then with the russians and european partners to build up nuclear guard rails, things that would not necessarily eliminate the weapons, but stockpile to establish the rules of the road, allow for verifications, limits on these weapons. unfortunately, over the last 20 years, we have seen the u.s. and russia take down these guardrails. it started with george w. bush in 2022, when he -- 2002, when he pulled the u.s. out of the antimissile treaty. putin said if you do this, i will build offense of weapons to overcome your system, which is what he did. so we have seen a russian build up. same with the chinese. they are responding to what they think is our threat to them. donald trump pulled out of the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, that limited the range of u.s. and russian weapons. i wish we had that back. he pulled us out of the open skies treaty, that allowed for

surveillance flights over russian territory to watch their military maneuvers. it would be nice to have that back. we have not seen the nuclear reduction treaty since 2010. so, basically the nuclear arms race is back, the guardrails are coming down, the gloves are off and we made a mistake in rejecting the policies of that had worked to reduce the number of weapons and prevent other countries from getting those weapons. we are now an unchartered territory with fewer guardrails to help us. host: last month you wrote in the washington post about president biden promising nuclear policy reform. the headline saying he is not delivering. can you elaborate? guest: in the beginning of every presidency a president does a layout of policy for those weapons. when barack obama came in, he

had one that pulled back on nuclear weapons, reducing the weapons in our strategy. when donald trump came, he did when the increased of the role of nuclear weapons, gave them more military missions and he started developing new kinds of weapons, some that are called more usable weapons to be used in a conflict like this. what is joe biden going to do? what we know is very little. he's going to tweak these, may be eliminate one or two smaller weapons or change their strategy a little bit, but nothing like what we need to get back to the policies of ronald reagan, for example, where we said we must eliminate these weapons from the face of the earth. now in the face of this war, you hear many politicians on capitol hill saying we need more nuclear weapons. we need to spend more on the military, even though we are spending more in the military than we have since world war ii. this is our highest pentagon

budget ever, last year, and it might go up. when americans feel threatened, they attended by guns individually and collectively. we are seeing that push now and it raises the stakes and risk of nuclear weapons using -- being used by madness or miscalculation. host: the congressional budget office last year calculated a cost of nuclear forces, saying if everything stayed the same $634 billion from 2021-2030 used for the defense department and for nuclear weapons laboratories i in the energyn -- in the energy department. guest: that is right, $634 billion, way more than the domestic programs that were so hotly debated in biden's program. a new program, which i think we should cancel, we do not need ic

bm's at all, we have plenty of sea based weapons, it is that one weapon that will cost $234 billion. that's for one weapons system. it's an enormous amount of money and risk. host: jeff in california. caller: good morning. i have a question and a couple of comments. in regards to the budget allocations for reiki on and the comparison to her state department, i do not know what those figures are, but i think that they are probably, um, more towards rakeon than simply are state department and that is just one incorporation -- on corporation -- one corporation. i would like to know if you have those numbers.

my comment, i think we have a battle of values going on. and it will be a long battle, as it has been. in regards to the value of education, a little arts education is this ongoing battle with our universities, colleges in regards to stem programs in the united states. we see this -- monitoring that is getting us to buy more weapons and more technology to protect us. when the liberal arts education is being forgotten in so many things from the greeks and some of the ideas of freedom and justice are being lost and forgotten. host: we got your point, thank you for the call. guest: i understand your point.

what really makes america strong? what do we really need to compete in this modern world? i understand where you're coming from, i am with you. we have plenty of weapons. we have an enormous budget. where we are lacking is in education and correcting -- correcting the racial injustice in this country. we need to be stronger as a democracy, that is where we should be spending our money. i do not know how much rakeon makes, there's five large defense corporations that dominate the military budget and they are one of them, but my friend, william, has a wonderful piece at the quincy upson to website, a new report on what is happening with those budgets. he has all of the figures, how much companies expend all lobbying. we think of nuclear weapons as necessary to protect us, but

they are also a product. we spend $50 billion a year on nuclear weapons and related programs like missile defense. that is a a lot of money, so corporations making money from the product work hard to make sure that their contracts keep going and they tend to dominate the process, they tended to dominate not only the pentagon with justifications for these weapons, but congress, where the armed services committee approves these contracts. and almost all of the members get heavy political contributions from defense contractors, lobbied by defense contractors. so it is very difficult to resist this marketing push. it is not only patriotism, or certainly military necessity that results in these high budgets, it is corporate lobbying. host: alan in wisconsin. caller: a couple things.

i do not know how many times we have to destroy the world and why we are spending all of this money on doing it. another thing i find funny is in congress and in the senate, there's no working together. we are not helping a nation that wants to be left alone, but now republicans are on for more spending and giving. i want somebody to explain to the viewers the keystone pipeline, that it was not finished, you cannot flip the switch and we will not get more oil out of this. it would not even be complete until 2023. that's all i got. guest: the pipeline, i cannot help you there. the number of weapons to destroy the world. i was on stephen colbert when he was running that show, and he

was arguing with me that i wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons, he suggested a compromise and a said, let's compromise on how many weapons it would take to destroy the world once. i thought, maybe two or 300 would do the job. 13,000 nuclear weapons are in the world, so we could go way down. you do not have to agree with me that we should eliminate the weapons, you do not have to agree with the pope who says these weapons are immoral and nobody should have them. you could decide you want nuclear weapons for security, but we could go down to much lower levels and still not make any compromise whatsoever in nuclear security and national security. host: as this is going on, there is still questions and answers going back and forth between nations on iran and their nuclear program, should it continue? guest: yes, i was on the

advisory board for hillary clinton and john kerry, when we were negotiating the deal in the first place with russia, china, europe and iran, and that this is when putin invaded crimea the first time. much to our surprise, they were very cooperative in that arena. in general, russia is still cooperating in those negotiations. they may conclude within days, we could be close to restoring the steel. the only arrangement -- this deal. the only arrangement we have found where we can put cameras and inspectors on site and reduce the risk iran will get nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions -- i think we will get that deal. they were in iran over the weekend negotiating the inspections part of that. it looks close to completion

perhaps in the next couple days. host: one question is about how much of they are revealing about their various programs. guest: we know a lot about their current program. our intelligence is excellent, we have deeply penetrated the system, there are no surprises or secret facilities we do not know about, but there are questions about what happened in the past, in the 1990's, before 2003 when our intelligence says they ended their nuclear weapons program. they are not secretly building a bomb. what they are building a facility to make nuclear fuel. and it's the same facility where you can enrich it to high levels for bombs. that is the program we are trying to control. but we have legitimate questions about things that happened when they did have a weapons program, and that is what we are working on, to get the truth. they do not want to give us the truth because they insist they

never had a weapons program, and if they told us the truth they would be acknowledging that they did. we are trying to find a mechanism to find out as much as possible without pushing them into an embarrassing admission that they will not make. it's really an historic question, it really does not impact what they are doing now. we have near-perfect information about what they are doing now. host: dorothy in north carolina, hello. caller: good morning. please let me make three comments, then i will ask a question about the nuclear weapons. i want to let everybody know that russia is getting crushed by corporations. i want to read who is cutting ties with them -- bp, boeing, airbnb, ford, harley davidson, mercedes-benz, toyota -- host: we get the point.

move on. caller: and then we have been getting oil from russia hold time with president trump, obama, we never stopped getting oil from russia. we have been getting it from saudi arabia and so forth. about the nuclear, we had an agreement with iran where we could watch them, we could watch russia, too. trump pulled out of that, so we had nobody there to watch them. we had a good deal because we could watch them. another thing, and i know that he can comment on this, to the audience as well, when they say it would not happen if trump was in office, yes it would have because turkey invaded syria and took over the kurds, trump

pulled out and left our allies over there. guest: that is part of it, pulling out of treaties. it's crises like this that make you wish we had a more inspections, greater knowledge, more limitation, that we had moved faster when we had the chance. when ronald reagan was negotiating with gorbachev, the came very close to eliminating all nuclear weapons. they cut the arsenals in half. then george h w bush cut them in half again. george w. bush cut them in half again. but then we stopped, there were no more reductions. we have been stuck at this 13,000 weapon level. it makes you wish we had moved faster when we had the time to take the nuclear guns out of putin's hands. if we get a second shot at this,

i hope we will move much faster so we are never faced with these nuclear tears again. -- terrors again. host: in florida, then. -- ben. caller: you never need weapons until you need them. that's number one. two, when you are dealing with weapons as a business, the first thing we have to deal with is lobbying. we have to get rid of that. the only people who get rich are the politicians, that is why they love the club. we are going to need some nuclear weapons, but we have to be smart about it. we will need some conventional weapons, and we have to be smart about that. we are dealing with a myth as far as picking on the nuclear. we need nuclear as a deterrent. but we do not need politicians

using that to embellish themselves. that's what we have to watch. guest: ben, i think that you are exactly right. we have to understand that, especially for military commanders but also strategic theorists, they want to have multiple options, maximum flexibility. if you have 10 different types of nuclear weapons and somebody says, what about this one? this can do this particular mission. your answer is going to be yes, i want options. the trouble is when you do it, others do it too, so suddenly you have a spray of these weapons through these missions and what used to be a big fire break between conventional war and nuclear war suddenly is shrunk, even erased. both the u.s. and russia have developed theories where we combine all of our instruments, economic sanctions, conventional

war, cyber war, nuclear war, all designed to be working together and we exercise that way. putin exercises his nuclear weapons when he is doing conventional exercises. that's supposed to strengthen deterrence. unfortunately, when deterrence fails and putin starts a conventional war, the risk of that were escalating becomes much quicker. we have to get back to declaring that no country will ever use nuclear weapons first. there's no legitimate military reason. if i understand you, you want to keep the weapons but use them only for deterrence or to prevent a nuclear attack. i am with you on that, at least as a way station, then we will see if we can work towards elimination. host: what is the strength of the u.s. against a nuclear strike? guest: none. there is a new report from a premier organization of

physicists in the country, you can find it, that looked at the $350 billion of that we spent on missile defense systems over the last few decades and what we have is a very limited capability to defeat may be one or two simple icbms. missile defenses are much better at the short range, think about the iron dome against rockets that travel hundreds of miles. and patriot systems that can defeat systems that travel may be 1000 or 2000 miles. against high-speed, long-range icbms, submarine launched ballistic missiles, we do not have a system to defeat that. it is technologically much two different -- too difficult. we have interceptors in california designed to defeat a north korean threat, but even with that it cannot defend.

unfortunately, as eisenhower pointed out, the numerical superiority is not providing protection in the nuclear age. the awful arithmetic of the atomic age makes it easier for offense to overwhelm any conceivable defense, and that remains true today. host: martin in new mexico. caller: thank you. it is important to look at the terminology. instead of deterrents, we should use -- ship. brinksmanship could -- the world closer to nuclear war. if you look at the american record it was the americans who first dropped atomic bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki in order to warn russia, then the soviet union. and it was the u.s. that blockaded cuba and threaten to

bring the world again to nuclear conflict. so i think that that is important. we talk about our position, we need to understand that other countries, um, have a position as well in the context of the world community. and when other people take positions we do not like, it's not our position to invade them as we did in vietnam, and then turn around and, you know, accuse russia of doing something extraordinary when the borders, when their national sovereignty is threatened. guest: unfortunately, i think that we are taking steps towards the nuclear brink at this point. you have heard the word unprecedented a lot in the last 12 days. what we are facing has never happened before, this is the

closest u.s. and russian forces have come to combat. this is the biggest risk that nato has faced in its entire history, whether the war spills over directly into nato territory, requiring us to go in. you can imagine attacks on the convoys of streaming in from poland right now into ukraine. it's scary times. these are high risk. and, unfortunately, what you are getting at is there may have been things that we did that set the example for this. we invaded iraq for no good reason, claiming that they had nuclear weapons. they did not. putin claimed ukraine was building nuclear weapons, they did not. he could be thinking that big powers can invade other countries. you invaded iraq, i am going to invade ukraine.

what is the difference? there's a big difference. and if we get out of this in one piece, we have to do everything we can to restore constraints, diplomatic barriers, and ways of solving these conflicts without resorting to military force. host: one more call. bill in new york. caller: hi. i tend to over talk, so if i do just cut me off. guest: me too. caller: the problem with nuclear is you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. even if we reach an agreement, no nuclear weapons anywhere, there is no one who can enforce that. you can hide things. the other problem i see is there's lots of countries that have nuclear weapons and we

cannot do anything about that. i'm thinking of north korea as a perfect example. if they decide to nuke japan, we can decide to nuke them, but we do not want to bomb ourselves back to the stone age, which i think we are perfectly capable of doing. guest: this is not the point to talk about eliminating nuclear weapons when we have a crisis in front of us, but i disagree, i think we can do that. i think we can move to reduce these weapons. and as you get down to the lower levels, the mechanisms it would require and inspections you would need might become easier to achieve. but we could -- that issue tends to span ideological and political divides. it is amazing how much americans are coming together to face this crisis with ukraine. last week, i joined newt

gingrich for his podcast to talk about the nuclear threats and we were in remarkable agreement on this, we come at it from different perspectives but we agreed the nuclear risks are high, that we have too many nuclear weapons in the world, that whether you agree with ronald reagan or barack obama we should be moving to reduce and eliminate these weapons. host: that is joe cirincione of the quincy institute. you can visit their website to check out his work. thank you for your time. we will do another round of open forum. if you want to participate, 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents. text 202-748-8003. later, paul mingo will talk about the biden administration's covid-19 -- mango will talk

about the biden administration's covid-19 response. we'll be right back. ♪ >> i am pleased to nominate judge jackson, who will bring qualifications, deep experience and intellect and a rigorous record to the court. >> i am truly humbled by the extraordinary honor of this nomination. and i am especially grateful for the care you have taken in to stretching your constitutional duty in service of our democracy with all that is going on in the world today. announcer: president biden nominates judge jackson of the u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit to succeed stephen breyer on the supreme court. if confirmed, she would become the first african-american woman to serve on the nation's highest

court. follow this historic process, watch the confirmation hearing starting on monday, march 21, live on c-span, c-span.org or by downloading the free c-span now mobile video app. ♪ announcer: c-span's new american presidents website is your one-stop guide to our commanders in chief. from george washington to joe, find biographies, video resources, life facts, and images that tell the stories of their lives and presidencies, all in one c-span website. visit c-span.org/presidents to begin exploring this rich catalog of c-span resources today. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: if you want to participate via text, do so at 202-748-8003.

one other story is that of the former attorney general for president trump, bill barr in his book, the headline here, the book stirs criticism across the political spectrum. "barr recounts his view that the 2020 election was not rigged. he writes trump could have won reelection if he had moderated his pettiness. the election was not stolen, trump lost it." the events of january 6 was part of the discussion with lester holt yesterday with the attorney general. he asked him about the investigation, the events of january 6. [video clip] >> are you supportive of the january 6 committee? bill barr: i think the best way, what i am most comfortable with,

is the department of justice doing it through their process. but the capitol building was attacked and i understand why congress would want to look into it. lester: do you think that president trump was responsible for what happened? bill barr: in the broad sense, in that it appears part of the plan was to send a group, many of them obviously rowdy and seem ed to be dressed for conflict, send them to the hill. the idea was to intimidate congress and i think that that was wrong. lester: but that is as far as bill barr will go. this man accused of so many times of protecting the former president says he is still just calling it like he sees it, and he sees no crime by the president. bill barr: i do not see anything to say that he was legally responsible in terms of incitement. host: that is available at the

nbc website. in congress this week, and oki reporting on the white house, saying the president will discuss the latest development regarding russia and crane in a secure video teleconference. the chancellor of germany and prime minister of the united kingdom will be there as well, expected to take place at 10:00 a.m. another government shutdown weight with lawmakers needing to expand funding, an common spending package could be filed tonight and will include $10 billion for ukrainian aid and possibly more covid-19 relief. the house will take it up first, then the senate. those are things to watch out for on capitol hill and at the white house this week, on top of everything else going on internationally. you can comment by calling 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents.

paul in florida, go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm calling on the independent line. i'm wondering why nobody said -- [indiscernible] host: your signal is breaking up. you may need to get closer to a window. try again. caller: is that better? host: yes. go ahead. caller: it's been suggested that they surrender and let nato take over as an arbitrator. host: as far as nato involving itself in negotiations between russia and ukraine? caller: current. ukraine will never beat russia. they will destroy their country. why not give up and let nato

take over and negotiate? host: what do you think they bring to the table as far as that is concerned? caller: well, why have them if they cannot negotiate a deal? why does that have to be a hand-to-hand battle? that's my concern. host: paul in florida. when it comes to in the u.s., early in the first hour we mentioned usa today talking about the increase of gas prices, saying as of sunday afternoon the national average of a regular gallon of gas was four dollars plus, up eight cents from saturday, $.40 from last week. the u.s. hit this average earlier than expected. the average record is $4.11, that was on july 17 of 2008, according to aaa.

the financial times reporting, saying that china has defended "its everlasting friendship with russia and slammed the u.s. for trying to condemn vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine." that is in the financial times. ty in south carolina on the independent line. caller: yes. pedro? host: you are on. caller: i want to ask you a question. did you take brian lamb's place? host: who? caller: brian lamb. host: he still has a program here. caller: the reason i ask is because it seemed like in the days of brian lamb we were more, i do not know, it seemed like you guys these days have

promoted a lot of trump's stuff. i think you guys are great because you let people call in and speak their mind and how they feel. but brian lamb, people call in all the time now and it spread garbage, and this is really hurting america. they spread garbage like the pipeline. so many things, you just do not correct them. and i think that c-span has become kind of part of the problem. but still i like you guys. host: we occasionally do correct. we are not fact checkers of the sort, but at times we push back on certain things. it's not universal, but as a host here in a public affairs network there is a limited amount of resources that we have access to.

caller: let me finish. i noticed our democracy is in peril over here. when they pulled out of afghanistan, you had a whole week talking about that. and you talk about this every day. but our democracy is in peril. and when trump did january 6, i can count on one hand how many real discussions you had. and i think that we will handle looking at everybody else's problems and we will find ourselves in a big problem after these midterms. we'll find out where our democracy -- we could be just where ukraine is. host: why do you believe that? caller: because you are not fact checking stuff people are spreading on the tv. now, you guys had that guy from the nra, he is about to go to

jail. you had him on the show many times a spreading garbage -- times spreading garbage. host: you know the viewpoints we present on thiw are -- this network are wide and varied. you may not agree with all of these things, we may have a presenter and he may not like that person's perspective. you are allowed to listen, comment if you want as they present and we talk to them and they talk to you, even more importantly. let's hear from bill in florida on the republican line. caller: good morning. how are you? host: well. caller: i want to let you know that it is probably going to be mulled over -- moldova that will be the next one putin invades, because moldova has a separatist

section already with about 1500 troops already there. so america should be able to get rid of them, but here they come again. host: if that takes place, what should be the necessary response from the u.s. or world community? caller: i have no clue because putin has the high cards with the nukes. that is all we need. one of these days i think we will have to do something. if we are going to have to destroy ourselves with them, ok, because i do not know what will happen. host: richard engel on his twitter feed posted a photograph of ukrainians desperate to leave kharkiv, to show you that

photograph, one of the many things you can see involving the events of russia and ukraine. syracuse, new york, ray. go ahead. caller: good morning. listen, i watch and i call pretty regularly whenever i can. i appreciate the forum. it's got to be the best. it's not perfect, but i notice that you do work responding to the people who complain about certain items. and i appreciate that also, so i am a fan. you showed bill barr's comment about the election and whether or not it was a fair election. and you showed that side from quite a few different people. as far as i know, i have not seen you have a guest in the studio that will argue the other point. and i really think that needs to

be done. i am sure that there will be a lot of flack about people who do not want somebody from that point of view to be on, but there are plenty of professionals, not talking about politicians -- a politician would be the worst person, but you want a statistician. there are quite a few have been involved in the audit and they can speak from their professional experience and also from their degrees, statistically, and lay it out the way it should be. that way we can do what you just told the last caller that we'll say what we believe, listen to the guests, and then we will argue over it by calling in. so, i think that you should do that. host: ron in new york on the independent line. caller: yes, thank you.

not sure what that guy was trying to make as a point, but anyway. uh, we really have to bulk up nato, planes and tanks. there's no alternative. my old coach used to say, should have, would have, could have -- we could look back at syria, chechnya, georgia, we had opportunities. we do not have it. right now, putin is in a corner. the only place he will be able to spend his billions is in syria, iran, china, north korea. he's stuck in isolation. so i believe our country is the last humanity, really. we are not perfect, no, we are not. but wewe needed drastic politicl

change as being the last hope. we have to stand up even with the threat of what putin is threatening. we are a moral nation. if all the nations of the world were dressed in white, we would have a lot of blood and dirt on us. host: one of the topics yesterday on the sunday show was the idea of investigating russia for possible war crimes. that was the question posed to secretary of state antony blinken on cnn. here are some of his response from yesterday. >> the international criminal court is opening an investigation into war crimes. the u.s. embassy in kyiv tweeted

that out. then they told other embassies around the world to not read tweeted -- retweet it. which is confusing. >> we have seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians which would constitute a war crime. we have seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons. what we are doing now is documenting all of this and making sure that as people and the appropriate organizations and institutions investigate whether war crimes have been or are being committed, we can support whatever they are doing. right now we are looking at these reports. they are very credible. and we are documenting everything. host: in minnesota, this is joan. democrat line.

caller: i was listening the other day and when we went to war with iraq, the whole world didn't come against us and criticize us and stop businesses. i'm not saying what russia is doing is ok, but i'm saying we ought to be careful what we say about someone else that can reflect on us. when the israelis went against the palestinians, nobody said anything about that. they didn't criticize them. so we just need to start trying to negotiate with people and talk with them instead of getting on the internet and just trashing somebody. the people of russia and the people of ukraine are going to be the ones that suffer. not the governments or anything else. we need to consider the people

that are involved in this. we bombed iraq. israel bombed the palestinians. we did just as many bad things as the other guys. we need to clean our house, too. and we need to get on the right track and do what's right for the country. host: that's joan in rochester, minnesota. caller: good morning. that is ironic. we used to live in north minnesota. a gentleman a few calls ago actually tried to explain the fact checking that he was concerned about and i thought maybe c-span may have done an injustice to his point or the implication of opinion and fact checking and the expectation that c-span would be more in

line with fact checking than opinion. even though you open up to opinions. but the fact checking would generate a certain kind of opinion. so i think you missed it on that one. host: i let him get his point through and explain himself as far as the things that he wanted to and i explained our perspective as well. i gave him the chance to engage on the topic he was concerned about. caller: and you are defending it once again. in a gentler way, you could tolerate what the implication of his remarks were and his approach. host: no, i got what he had to say. i did. caller: ok. so as a caller myself and a listener, i think what he also was approaching was in the time of brian lamb and susan and stephen and a few others. so we are really early c-span watchers.

it seems it was fact checking. you got 10 people on that actually gave you totally the wrong information and you know it and i know it and 35, 40% of the other listeners know it. it's a good time to say sir, ma'am, that really is not correct and this is why. that gentleman that called you this morning said one phrase that caught me mentally. that was that our democracy is in peril if we continue to allow misinformation to covet the ears and thinking of american people. and that's kind of where we are without being too melodramatic. and you certainly must know that as a corporation of c-span. host: ok. you're going to have to make this quick. go ahead. caller: rochester had a large population of slavic's come in in the 40's and 50's. so what's happening now, a

couple of weeks ago you mentioned c-span talked about racism and what's taking place in ukraine denying people of color. that's kind of crazy and i wish you could talk to that because is a white guy making a mess of humanity amongst those white ukrainians. and yet we are talking about black people. host: some calls we have had over the last few weeks have expressed that and got the chance to talk about that issue and bring it out. a story that one color this morning said wasn't being focused on. she got the chance to talk about it and you need up as well. let's talk to ed in california. caller: nobody talks about one world government. democrats, democracy has its problems. i've got to admit that.

socialism, there are good things about socialism. maybe not much, but there are good things. the problem is that we live on a small planet that doesn't have a lot of resources and they are not unlimited. so either some guy like putin is going to get a hair up his butt and want to take over the world and do it by force, or we can have one world government voluntarily and not worry about it and just be one world. host: one of the people on the sunday shows yesterday was asked about how to best directly engage with putin. joni ernst was on fox news sunday. here's a portion of her comments from yesterday.

>> you have written an op-ed about this conflict. ukraine gave up its nukes in return for a number of the u.k., the u.s., russia itself that they would have sovereignty and territorial integrity. obviously putin is not playing by these rules and yet the rest of the world is trying to play by the rules. how do we engage this level of warfare with him? >> president putin has just taken these agreements and they are basically no more than pieces of paper to him. however we do need to abide by these agreements. we need to make sure that we are reinforcing ukraine and providing as much legal aid as possible. the russians have changed their strategy both in the air and on the ground. so reinforcing that will be

extremely important. but also humanitarian aid. making sure that we are able to provide for those refugees that will be flowing into europe. i understand there's over a million and a half displaced people now. helping our polish fragments, anyone in those other countries that need assistance. so there's a lot that we can do. you are right, these agreements need to mean something. but to vladimir putin, they are just pieces of paper. >> i talked with the ambassador earlier, ukraine is trying to document evidence of war crimes. our own secretary of state said there is very credible evidence of war crimes. does that change the calculus for you on a no-fly zone? >> not at this point. once we engage with russians directly, that does involve all of our nato partners as well. this gives russia the opportunity then to attack not

only the united states but also others in europe and it's a very tenuous situation. we certainly don't want to see it deteriorate any further. there need to be very stiff push backs on vladimir putin, the oligarchs in russia because of this action they have taken against ukraine. we cannot allow this to go unchecked now or in the future. host: from delaware, this is kathy on the republican line. caller: i have to defend c-span disseminating misinformation. clearly the caller previously didn't watch the lady from the baltimore law school. i caught her in two allies as it applied to his concern about january the sixth. the caller could not have seen that otherwise he would know

that you allow any and all information whether it's correct or not. however, on ukraine. i don't understand why the media is trying to imply that ukraine is the result of gas prices. first of all, we didn't import gas from ukraine. so what they are trying to do is imply or indicate that policies, the debacle that the biden administration has turned into a crisis for our energy policy. energy costs were going up well before ukraine. so that's a very poor excuse for what's happening with our gas prices. and i would assume that people will catch on to this and realize come november 2022 that

biden's on a lot of levels has caused an enormous amount of problems in this country. everything that's going on. host: that's kathy in delaware. let's hear from diane in ohio. caller: good morning. i was saving my 30 day call for after the state of the union, but it got too late. i just enjoyed listening to the folks who called in that evening. i heard a man calling the other day who was very impassioned about the republicans taking over in the fall and that biden will be a lame-duck president for the last two years. it occurs to me, neither candidate was my candidate of choice. but it occurred to me that being excited about a lame-duck president hurts our entire country, including that gentleman that called in. i really wish people would think about that.

this morning somebody called in and said you need to show both sides of the argument about the election. some things just are black and white. as a jewish american, i can tell you there is not too sides to what hitler's did. it's the same with the election. somebody won, somebody lost. grow up. move on. there's another november. thirdly i would like to recommend and hopefully you can have amanda ripley, she wrote high conflict. i recommend people read it. yesterday i was grumbling about something stupid that had happened at home. it occurred to me that my life is really ok. when i see these folks going through what they are going through in ukraine and even the russian folks standing up fighting against civil war, i really have nothing to complain about. host: one more call from

marianne on the democrat line. caller: i wanted to comment on the war in ukraine. i haven't heard anybody anywhere talking about what could have been done which was partisan resistance instead of what is predictable, which is carnage. and i just don't understand the calls earlier like in the war, a couple of veterans called and were alluding to -- the illusions people had of what this would be like. and i have some associates with a toddler saying they can't believe it and they don't like the idea of bringing up a kid in this kind of world. and when i hear people like before saying, it takes whatever

-- the world will be a burnt out sender. that's what we are playing with here. and it won't be like the iron curtain basically because of the internet. i knew people that came from belarus. the borders are open or they were open. it's a different scenario. and what's the price we are paying. that's my comment. it's a terrible time. that's what i wanted to say. host: that's marianne in new york. coming up, we will talk about the current administration's efforts against covid. for more hhs special paul mango will join us.

>> the russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of ukraine. without provocation, justification or necessity. this is a premeditated attack. >> the c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine. bringing the latest from the president and other white house officials. the pentagon and the state department as well as congress. we also have international perspectives and statements from foreign leaders. >> now available for preorder in the c-span shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directory. go there to order a copy of the congressional directory.

this book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress. contact information for state governors. preorder your copy today at c-span shop.org. every purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operation. ♪

>> washington journal continues. host: joining us now is paul mango. author of the forthcoming book, warp speed. thanks for being on the show this morning. >> it's my pleasure. thanks for having me. host: can you explain to the audience what you did specifically? >> titles went by the wayside on january 3, 2020 when we learned that we had a problem in china. basically it was all hands on deck. my role was on behalf of secretary azar to oversee the operation warp speed initiative which brought hundreds of millions of safe and effective vaccines to the american people in record time. it was a round-the-clock effort and really quite fulfilling in terms of its impact. host: in a recent op-ed, he

wrote, when one examines biden victory in detail to include the tally of covid cases and fatalities and related behavioral health issues and inflation and deficits that are now at the highest in decades, it's hard to distinguish from defeat. if the biden teams covid response strategy had any positive out comes, admiration would be in order. particularly when it comes to the actual development of the vaccines, what do you mean by that? what are you trying to say? >> what i mean is that on a per day basis, there were 100% more cases and 20% more fatalities than under the time during which the trump administration was managing the pandemic and this would have been tragic under any

administration. i think the response the biden administration took created created a number of collateral damage items that were unnecessary and that's what i talk about in the op-ed. the learning loss is now at 10% in terms of standardized test scores. you have larry summers, the former obama treasury secretary saying that the american rescue act in march of 2021 was the least responsible macroeconomic policy in four years. and the third thing i talked about was really drug overdoses. they spiked over the last 12 months. humans are social animals and when you lock them up in their homes, when they don't go to work or restaurants, they have real behavioral health challenges. what i was really trying to

express in that op-ed was public health is more than just covid. there's a whole bunch of other issues associated with public health and you can't destroy those others by trying to eradicate a virus that you cannot eradicate. that's the difference between the administrations. the biden administration tried to eradicate the virus at any cost and those costs were enormous. and by the way, they didn't eradicate the virus. host: the tally of specific covid cases and fatalities, what do you attribute those numbers to? >> we were pursuing a very aggressive policy toward developing therapeutics. when they came into office they dropped that and put all their marbles behind vaccines and vaccinations. so it was really a very singular approach to the virus.

we thought the other measures would matter. i will just give you an example. pfizer issued, we got in emergency use authorization for a pill in december and we still don't have product. the whole purpose of operation warp speed was to manufacture in parallel with the development of the drug or vaccine so that on day one we could ship millions of doses of vaccines. they failed to do that so we are not going to get these therapeutics into the market until later this summer. my guess is there won't be many covid cases at that time. it's a bit too little too late. host: those you work with had issues with pfizer from the get go as well.

>> yes we did. they were a critical part of operation warp speed. but boy were they difficult to work with. they just weren't as transparent and not as cooperative as many of our other private sector partners. we got over it, but it could have been easier. host: when you say not as cooperative, can you elaborate? >> we had a senior manufacturing expert as part of our team. he created this program called persons and plans. we deployed multidisciplinary teams out to these vaccine manufacturing plants to identify any problems and immediately respond with all of the resources of the federal government so that we could get them manufactured and out to the american people. pfizer precluded us from putting a team and their plant in kalamazoo. when it came time to deliver the

number of vaccine doses that they promised in november and december of 2020, they delivered less than 50% of what they promised. it's one thing not to cooperate and then deliver the goods. it's another thing not to cooperate and then you don't deliver the goods. host: our guest with us until 10:00 if you want to ask questions. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. during the state of the union last week, the president himself talked about his administration's efforts on covid. >> we know how incredibly effective vaccines are. if you are vaccinated and boosted, you have the highest degree of protection and we will never give up on vaccinating more americans. i know parents of kids under five are eager to see vaccines

for their children. scientists are working hard to get that done. we are also ready with antiviral treatments. if you get covid-19, the pfizer pill reduces your chances of ending up in the hospital right 90% i have ordered more pills than anyone in the world has. pfizer is working overtime to get us a million pills this month and more than double that next month. and now we are launching the test to treat initiative. so people can get tested at a pharmacy and receive the antiviral pills on the spot at no cost. host: that is the administrations take on its own efforts. what do you think? >> the most protected persons in the country are not those who are vaccinated and boosted, those who have recovered from covid and are vaccinated.

so this acquired immunity plus the vaccine is what all of the research suggests is the most protective in terms of the antibodies. i think the second point was as i mentioned, the pfizer pills are coming. but under president trump's operation warp speed, the pfizer pills would have been here already. on test and then treat, there has already been a lot of controversy over that policy because if someone goes to cbs, gets tested and then walks over to the pharmacy counter to get the pill, you're cutting that individual's physician out of the equation and that's very dangerous because the fda has stated explicitly that there could be serious drug interactions associated with this pill. if you are on cholesterol-lowering drugs and you take this pill, you could have very adverse effects.

that's not a policy that the american medical association is going to support, nor should patients go directly to the pharmacist without their physician weighing in on whether this could be dangerous or not. host: matthew in new york. go ahead. you are on. caller: good morning guys. mr. mango, i don't even know where to begin. you would like to rewrite history and have the american people believe that the previous administration isn't responsible for over 600,000 deaths under the previous administration. you might have come up with operation warp speed, but unfortunately you did nothing to push the vaccinations and get people to use them. you had the protocol set up, injection of bleach perhaps. hydroxychloroquine.

or whatever homespun remedy you thought was cool or fun at the time. but you and the previous administration are responsible for so many deaths. you ought to be ashamed of yourself. really. truly. host: that's matthew in new york. >> thanks matthew. i actually have the facts on fatalities. the day we left office january 20 20 21, there were 405,000 fatalities. that's a tragedy for sure. under the, the fatalities were 20% higher. in terms of vaccine, i can tell you when we were developing the vaccine in the fall of 2020, comments that struck us as unusual and disappointing came from then candidate joe biden and vice president candidate kamala harris who both said they

don't trust any vaccine developed under the trump administration and then they wonder why in the spring of 2021 not as many folks wanted it. i can tell you what we did do. we set up all of the distribution and logistics to administer hundreds of millions of vaccines and we enrolled 70,000 vaccination sites ant and information technology system. we shipped 20 million doses of vaccines before the end of december without missing a beat. the biden administration took our distribution plan and executed it to the letter and that's why it was successful. i don't want to claim that we did everything perfectly, but let's come back to some of the facts. more fatalities per day under the biden administration. the folks bad mouthing the vaccines and creating hesitancy were candidate joe biden and

kamala harris. host: was at the vaccines themselves or the president's administration of the vaccines that they said as candidates? >> say again? host: was it the vaccines themselves or the administration themselves developing? more than the vaccine itself. >> i think what the exact words were was american people should not trust vaccine developed under donald trump. host: the washington post took a look at this and some of these things say the comparison between 2020 and 2021, the president was still in office early 2021 and the biggest wave of coronavirus in this country

peeked around the same time that president biden was inaugurated on january 20, and hurting a trendline that shows 3000 deaths per day. the wave was outside of his control. >> all i know is that i looked at the numbers over the last let's call it six to eight weeks and the fatalities exceeded 3000. it was a terrible surge in january of 21. but it wasn't much better in december of january 22. people can say that's a new variant or whatever. my point is this is a very difficult virus to inhibit the spread of.

the real issue is did the policies and the response create additional collateral damage that was unnecessary. and that's the main point. we think the learning loss, the drug overdose, inflation, the deferred care. people who did not go in for over two years. their focus was on eradicating the virus at any cost and that was a fools errand as far as we are concerned. host: this is jack from florida. independent line. caller: i just wanted to say to mr. mango, you've seriously ignored the fact that you blew the whole testing concept early on. as you recall, your administration said there was going to be a test for everyone

who wanted it and you never did anything. he couldn't get testing. as far as economic growth, growth collapsed under the trump administration because you did nothing about testing, nothing to protect people. and yet hunter biden, growth is back -- under biden, growth is back. employment is way up. unemployment is way down. unemployment grew dramatically under your administration. and finally, it was unfortunate that we fell behind, the policy to do remote learning was to protect teachers. teachers that in many cases had immunocompromised or had health issues. but the idea was to protect teachers, staff from dying.

while kids admittedly, they had difficulties learning. i think you should consider all these before you do the absolutes that the biden administration blew it and that you did it perfect. host: that's jack in florida. >> thanks for those comments. if i implied that we did things perfectly, i misspoke because we didn't. testing was one of our biggest shortcomings because in january and february of 2020, the centers for disease control and prevention had a real problem with contaminated test kits and we lost three to five weeks and that was critical timing. the testings are after that, by the late summer of 2020 we had built the capacity to conduct millions of tests per day. so it did come back, but it was

a serious shortcoming early in the pandemic. as far as getting kids back to school, of course we have to protect those teachers who are potentially immunocompromised. i will tell you a few things that most states did. they prioritized teachers to get vaccinated first. we issued $130 billion to schools for additional masks, testing, ventilation and so forth. i wish the biden administration had been a little bit more courageous and confronted the teachers unions when they didn't want the teachers back in schools after all the safety measures had been taken. it's just really i think a generation of our children will be behind because of some of those actions and that's a real disappointment. host: from georgia on the republican line. david. hello. caller: can i say just one thing

first, it is so wonderful that we can look back and see our capital behind you every morning. and paul, you had the pleasure of working there. you came through a very difficult period. but the facts sort of got muddled. and our republican friends have paid the price for it. i can remember in december hearing that this monster had gotten loose over there in china. we got muddled up, balled up. you know how politics is. nothing happened overnight. so you were chief of staff of policy. now was that policy coming from your office or was that policy handed down to you and you had to administrate it and give it down to the american public? that's my question. and thank you very much for all your work. >> thank you. it was a real privilege and an honor to serve the nation during

that period of time. my role as the deputy chief of staff for policy was to coordinate all of the policy coming out of health and human services. but during the pandemic, and there was a body called the white house coronavirus task force led by vice president mike pence. and that had a number of different cabinet representatives on it. hhs, department of labor, department of transportation, department of state. and all the policy associated with covid and the covid response came out of the white house coronavirus task force because it was multiagency. it wasn't just hhs. travel bans from china that involve the department of transportation, the department of state and so forth. we had significant input into all of those policies.

that's where policy was made as it related to the covid response and not over at hhs. host: there are several reports over the last couple of weeks that pfizer is expected to make $100 billion from covid and treatments. what do you think about getting because of that? the financial gains because of that. >> i talk about this in my book. i am so inspired by american industry and how it mobilized its dexterity, talent, resources. i would never criticize any company for earning a profit off of serving the american people. many companies did that. i think we should stay focused on the unbelievable achievement

of ringing hundreds of millions of safe and effective vaccines to this country faster than any other country in the world and faster than any time in history. if these companies earn a profit from that, god bless them. they need to attract the talent and capabilities for the next pandemic. i don't criticize them for that at all. host: the idea of intellectual property behind the development of these vaccines, if they were released it would allow more countries to get access to the vaccines. what do you think of that argument? >> there are some muddled messages in there. because i kept statistics from all of the manufacturers and what they were doing. they had scores of contracts for manufacturing vaccines outside the country. so they were issuing those

licenses to manufacture them. we didn't have the capacity to manufacture all those vaccines so they spread their licenses around. i can tell you that most of them were selling their vaccines at cost to third world countries. pfizer was selling to the third world for seven dollars a dose whereas we were paying $19 and $.50 a dose. sure they want to keep track of their intellectual property, but they weren't importing it and they weren't preventing other countries from manufacturing their vaccines at cost. host: on the democrat line. good morning. caller: you've got these former trump officials coming on here trying to rehabilitate the reputation.

mr. mango, let me ask you this year. where was your divorce -- your voice at when the former president stood in front of the american people and told them to drink chlorine and take a fluorescent light and put it up there rectum and it would eradicate the virus. would you please explain to me where was your voice been? >> i had my head down developing vaccines for the american people. i'm not going to say we did everything perfectly or our communication was 100% accurate. i think we made mistakes. i'm focusing right now on the terrific work that a small group of individuals did on behalf of the american people which was operation warp speed. i'm not disputing whether or not there were some communications errors early on at all.

host: in washington state. we will hear from laura on the republican line. caller: nice to meet you. i'm calling because i'm hardly concerned about the way in which the democratic party has blamed it on to our previous president who actually in reality saved the world with his ability to get things done. and what i don't like really is the fact that our vice president harris and presley went to the fda and the cdc and told them that if they were to give hospitals medicine for covid, they had to discriminate against white males and elderly people. and i know that for a fact. host: where'd you get that fact from? >> it's in the law. if you read it in the law, it

says we only service certain people -- only if you service -- what do you call it. host: which law do you mean? caller: well, i don't have it in front of me right now. but go look at it. this marxist garbage that's coming into our country. equity. host: continue on with your question for our guest then. caller: ok. my question is this. you know, i think i lost it. i am so upset about this whole turn of hatred from a marxist ideology into our country. host: ok. that's laura in washington state. mr. mango, go ahead. >> i didn't see or read about what you are describing but i can tell you that we were meticulous in our distribution

of vaccines and therapeutics when they were there. one of the things we did was retain a firm to help us understand where the most vulnerable americans were. we knew in the fall of 2020 who was most vulnerable to covid and it was obviously the elderly and those with certain underlying conditions. we retained a company that told us by zip code where those individuals were concentrated. that permitted us to communicate with the governors and say you are going to get an allocation of vaccines. here is the zip code where there is a disproportionate number of individuals who will be vulnerable to the covid virus. obviously it was their decision, it wasn't ours. we did the same thing with some of our therapeutics. we made sure that we had control over the distribution of that because supply was very limited

and we didn't want disproportionate amount of that going to places that could for instance just pay more money. so we were very meticulous about understanding the vulnerability of americans to this virus and making sure that the critical vaccines and therapeutics got to the most vulnerable first. regardless of their race, location or religion. we wanted it going to the most vulnerable americans first. host: tampa, florida. this is mark. caller: one of the problems with trump's response is he downplayed the virus from the very beginning. there is clear reports that he knew early on from his national security team and others how deadly it was, yet even right after receiving those reports he

still goes on tv and tells the american public that it will be over soon, no big deal. i think not just being upfront with the american people and telling them the truth, he could have cost a lot of people their lives. his own covid task force coordinator deborah birx testified before congress. she had repeatedly circulated internal reports pleading for people to have better use of masks. better access to monoclonal infusion. and various other things. she estimated that if her pleas had been heated, fatalities could have been reduced by 30% to 40%. and that's coming from trump's own covid-19 task force coordinator.

>> a couple of things. it's always a judgment call when the leader has to come before the american people and determine how much they should communicate in terms of what's happening versus causing panic. i think the president was trying to be very balanced. he didn't want to panic the american people. it's been a tragedy that we have lost over 900,000 americans, but 99.7% of all americans have survived two years of covid. the point is what is the balance between inciting payment -- panic and ensuring you are communicating with the american people. that's a judgment call the president made. as it relates to dr. birx, there was a lot of controversy within the administration and the strategy for responding to covid. i will come back to what my op-ed was about. there were others who were more

concerned about the collateral damage associated with the response to the strategy and the public health collateral damage associated with the response. drug overdose deaths increased more in 2021 than at any time in our history. unaccounted for debts that didn't have anything to do with covid because people decided not to go and get their checkups. i was at hhs during the early days of the pandemic and we were gauging what was happening to medicare patients and cancer screenings dropped by 90% or 95%. you can't sustain that for too long before you create other health issues. dr. birx is a very talented well-educated experienced epidemiologist. but in the broader sense of public health, we also have to consider the collateral damage associated with the response. there were others in the administration, physicians who disagreed with her.

we will see how things play out over the next couple years. i think there's going to be a long tail of collateral damage associated with the strict response to the covid virus. host: studies suggest covid-19 came from a market versus a lab. three reports over the last few weeks. what do you think about these initial assessments? >> i spent time with dr. bob redfield a couple of weeks ago. he's one of the most renowned virologists in the world and he was the director of the cdc at the time and he described the evolution of various coronaviruses and he went back to sars and mers. sars was in 2003 and mers was in 2012. those viruses are still circulating.

he described that fewer than 10,000 individuals worldwide have been infected by those first two viruses. he then said, the coronavirus that we are dealing with now, he estimated that even in january of 2020 there were more than 10,000 cases circulating when we determined that this pandemic was breaking out. and his point was this couldn't have happened naturally. this virus had to be engineered someplace. and he believed it was engineered in the wuhan institute of virology. he said the transmissibility of this virus is unnatural. it would not have happened if it was going directly from an animal to human. something had to be engineered in between and i think there is strong evidence for that. but we need to get to the bottom of it.

host: randy in ohio. independent line. caller: on going to agree with you on something of a virus made in the lab. they'd switch over to the guy who was a doctor. this was mid december. he was trying to tell us about the coronavirus then. they interviewed him three weeks later and after that he died. he was in his early 30's. so i kind of agree with you that this came from a lab because also it's genetically -- it seems like it's genetically mutating. the other thing is over 400,000 people died when trump was in office. the coronavirus was only for eight and a half months. february 7 he gave an interview with bob woodward and said he knew exactly how bad this was

going to be and he downplayed it because he wanted the economy to do good. he lost on both cases. he killed a lot of people in the economy still tanked. that's pretty much all i have to say. >> the virus was exposed if you will in early january of 2020. i don't know where you got eight months from. i think it was actually 12 months under the trump administration. in early february of 2020, the world health organization as well as our centers for disease control sent representatives overtook wuhan to investigate what was going on and while they could land in wuhan and walk around, they were not permitted to go into the wuhan institute of virology. i was at hhs at the time. we sent a team over there. that would make me increasingly suspicious, the lack of

transparency, increasingly suspicious that it could have come from that lab. host: let's go to laura in michigan. caller: good morning. i guess there's a couple of things i am concerned about. if it came out of the lab, i guess it doesn't really matter so much where it came from. even if it came out of the lab or came out of an animal, it still became a pandemic. apparently it had the ability to become a pandemic. so i guess i would need education on 100 years ago. obviously the ability for a virus to do that is there. secondly, we always get this we and then. we did this and they did that.

the problem with that is the entire world is a part of this. and we have all had to make decisions and go forward based on the knowledge that we have at the time. so trump came up with warp speed. he isn't the one that came up with the vaccine. other people did. he allowed that to happen. good for him. that's awesome. and then biden came in and had to pick up the pieces that were there at the time. and he's going forward and doing what he can. for us to be eating each other up constantly about who did what does nobody any good. we are looking at ukraine right now and all those people still have to deal with that virus in the midst of all of this. we are watching the world come together for that country. why can't we come together like that for our own country. host: that's laura in michigan.

>> thanks for that comment. i want to go back to the earlier part of your statement. i think it does make a difference for us to understand whether this came from an animal or a laboratory because it would support what our actions now in terms of the next pandemic. the spanish flu didn't come from a laboratory, it was a highly transmissible virus. we didn't have therapeutics back then. it is important to understand the source of this because it goes to the solution to try to prevent in many cases the next one. do we change laboratories management procedures or do we deal with the proximity of animals to humans in various parts of the world where these viruses can jump over from one to another. host: have we reached a sense of vaccine fatigue?

>> i think if you look at the statistics, the curve has leveled off in terms of the number of new persons getting vaccinated. i think what we are learning and with the latest research would suggest, that acquired or natural immunity also provides protective antibodies and the combination of individuals in the country who have been infected and recovered plus those who have been vaccinated has conferred a level of immunity on the population that is fairly high. i think a lot of folks are saying enough is enough right now. we still have the zero to five year age group. he heard the president talk about that during the state of the union address. those are not our most vulnerable citizens so to speak. so i'm guessing that's going to be a little bit slower uptake

because it has been shown unless they have some underlying health condition that they will do just fine if they get the code at the virus -- covid virus and recovered. i think we have reached a level of population immunity that's going to be pretty protective. host: keith in alabama. republican line. caller: my granddaughter was diagnosed with it. the doctor i went to said him and his nurses were given that confusion and they cut the medicine off -- infusion and they cut the medicine off and they looked at me and repeated themselves twice and held up one finger and said through early diagnosis and that infusion, not

one person should be dying from the coronavirus. that's my question. why was it cut off? >> i think you are referring to the monoclonal antibodies. my understanding as to what was cut off was some research suggested it wasn't effective against the omicron variant. that's the explanation i heard. i haven't looked at it any deeper than that. but i heard that was the reason. for future, there are a number of monoclonal antibodies that have been recently released or at least authorized that to protect against the omicron variant. so that issue should have addressed by now. host: vincent in pennsylvania. independent line. we are almost out of time. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: i have a question for paul. does he think if we had started

with the mask mandate on day one where everybody had to wear a mask, do you think that we would have had less deaths in our country? thank you. >> it's a good question. there is clearly evidence that in certain situations, masks work. i think we have seen is even with the widespread use of masks in late 2021 and early 2022, it did not inhibit the spread of this virus. i'm a little bit torn on the answer because while masks are positive, i'm not sure they could have prevented the spread. maybe a little bit and therefore some of the fatalities. but masks have certainly been proven not to be a panacea for the pandemic. host: in your book that's

forthcoming, you talked about things that you would do differently. is that highlighted in your book and what are those? >> there's a number of things. one of them based on the conversation the last 30 or 40 minutes, we had a lot of scientists working on the covid response. both administrations have. mainly virologists, epidemiologists. to my knowledge we haven't had a single behavioral scientist on the team. and we are talking about how can you best modify americans behavior whether that is wearing a mask, social distancing, isolating. i hope one of the things we do for the next pandemic is invite the discipline of behavioral science guest: