budget request. you will find everything streaming live on c-span.org or at our three -- free video app, c-span now. >> including charter communications. >> broadband -- that is why charter has invented aliens, fielding infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications support c-span as a public service. along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> this morning are washington journal, republican representative don bacon talks about president biden's 2023 budget request and the russia

ukraine conflict. then more on the crisis -- nevada democratic representative dina titus joins us to share her thoughts on the president's budget proposal. ♪ host: good morning, it's thursday, march 31, 2022. the house and senate return at 10 a.m. eastern today. president biden expected to deliver remarks today on lowering prices at the pump. at another $22 billion in a request for pandemic relief. the president says now is the time to secure resources to fight future waves, some in congress said that they don't want to provide earlier -- they want to use earlier spending before using more federal dollars. do you support additional

covid-19 belief funding? phone lines are spit by political party -- split by political party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. catch up with us on social media on twitter, @cspanwj, facebook.com/c-span. good thursday morning, you can go ahead and start calling in now. speaking yesterday about the approval of an additional round of booster shots for those 50 and older, biden made his case for additional funding. [video clip] >> if you haven't gotten your food -- first booster, don't wait, do it today. those who are 50 and older and those who are immunocompromised can now get even more protection than they had from the initial first doses. we have enough supply to give

booster shots to those eligible individuals. if congress fails to act, we won't have the supply we need this fall to make sure the shots are available free, easily accessible for all americans. even worse, if we need a different vaccine for the future to combat a new variant, there won't be enough money to purchase it. we cannot allow that to happen. congress, we need to secure additional supply now. now. we cannot wait to we find ourselves in the midst of another surge to act. it will be too late. we also need this funding to continue efforts to vaccinate the world. the commitments that we made, which are critical in our ability to protect against new variants. there's no wall you can build high enough to keep out of virus. host: we are asking about your thoughts on additional funding

for covid-19 relief. reaction from members of congress yesterday on the republican side of the aisle. this was jim jordan of ohio saying 250 billion dollars in covert relief has been lost or stolen. joe biden once more plus 5.8 trillion dollars for the budget. are they trying to make the inflation crisis worse? that was one of the tweets from members of congress yesterday. republican from arizona, debbie lesko, saying the new budget proposal has additional covid funding with zero accounting for how the previous aid was spent and she pointed to this associated press story, saying that in the ap overview they found state and local governments have spent nearly $1 billion worth of federal coronavirus aid on projects that had little to do with combating the pandemic. broward county, florida, hardly alone.

the ap story from earlier this month. yesterday we spoke with sean bolton for the project on government oversight. particularly fraud, waste, and abuse that has happened in the system. this is some of what he told "washington journal" yesterday. [video clip] >> with disaster spending can be a real magnet for fraud and waste. there is urgency to get the money out and you may not do the same level of due diligence before writing your checks. but i think the program that justifiably has gotten the most attention for the level of kind of fraud and potentially waste we have seen would be the paycheck protection program. a very big program, there were not a lot of verification steps,

not a lot of accountability steps before the money went out the door and we are seeing a high level of fraud that occurred in stories of companies that didn't need the money to support them but still got big loans and got the loans forgiven , a lot of people categorize that as wasteful if the money was trying to prevent job loss. host: it'shost: we are asking you this morning to you support additional covid-19 relief funding. the project on government oversight is just one of the groups that has been tracking covid-19 relief spending. another one of those groups, the committee for a responsible federal budget, according to their figures when it comes to legislative actions alone, congress still has $700 billion that has yet to have been spent that has already been approved for covid-19 funding and they keep track of approval versus spending and also do some of that work to track fraud, waste,

and abuse. president biden asking for an additional $22 billion, saying that now is the time to act. john, independent line, florida, good morning. it's caller: good morning. the wasteful spending, that's what i call it. let's go back to the first covid relief and second covid relief check that we got. i have a bunch of friends, you didn't need extra money, i didn't need extra money. the government send my wife and me 2800 dollars last year. we didn't need it. it's just our own tax money coming back at us and now they have to tax us to get it back up. biden doesn't have the democrats throwing all the money out like the guy that just spoke. i'm not giving money to charity if i'm not eating money myself.

-- getting money myself. host: janice, san diego, good morning. what are your thoughts? caller: i think that this is such bs, first of all their is no relief. and what happened to that report that they were trying to hide for the next 75 years that came out that literally spoke on how first of all the vaccine only lasts about three months to six months. they are trying to increase, trying to find another vaccine now as we speak that would actually work long term or longer. the fact that it has come out that people who have actually been vaccinated are much more prone -- host: we are talking about additional spending. sounds like you are not planning to get an additional booster, but what do you think about the federal dollars going out,

that's the debate in congress right now. caller: i don't think they are actually using it for that. i think they are full of crap and at the end of the day it's another way for the democrats to light up a bill proposed to the american people that they will use funding to do something they say they will do but they have so much pork in the bill underlying the lies that it never goes where it's supposed to go. host: that's janice in california this morning. when it comes to numbers of americans vaccinated, "the washington times" in their wrap up of the announcement yesterday on booster shots in this request, two thirds of the u.s. population is fully vaccinated with a primary series of shots, 45 percent of vaccinated americans or 97 million people have gotten a booster shot according to cdc data and the

picture that goes along with the story is president biden, rolling up his sleeve yesterday and taking the second booster shot. there's the video of him getting that second shot after making the appeal for additional funding and talking about what it would be used for. here is more from president biden on the need for additional covid-19 relief funds. [video clip] >> we are already seeing the results of an action. monoclonal antibodies have helped save lives. this isn't partisan, it's medicine. but congress hasn't provided enough money to keep providing these antibodies. without more funding we will start to run out i the end of may. the end of may. we have had to scale back our plan to purchase more preventative therapies for americans who are immunocompromised.

critical tools to protect the most vulnerable among us. without more funding we risk running out of the supply by this fall. the same is true of testing. it took months to ramp-up up testing capacity. omicron, we saw how vital it was. we have enough tests on hand to whether the surge. without funding we will not be able to sustain testing capacity beyond the month of june. if we fail to invest, we leave ourselves vulnerable if another wave of the virus hits. host: we are asking you, do you support additional covid-19 relief funding? phone lines as usual for democrats, republicans, and independents on your string. -- screen. greg saying no more money on covid, i support people eating healthy and exercising. this is jim in highland park, new jersey. good morning.

caller: good morning to you. what i have to say is we, we get our, what i'm trying to say is the paychecks have, have an account or item that says medicare. that i would think would be part of the subsidization of the covid vaccine or the booster shots. it would cover it. both, both the item concerning medicare in our paychecks and also this subsidization from the government. that's what i have to say. it's too early in the morning here. host: that's all right, jim.

what about people who are not on medicaid or medicare or don't have health insurance. should covid phot -- covid shots and testing be free for those folks? caller: those people would be subsidized by the government. host: all right, that's jim in new jersey. marlene, minnesota, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. no, i don't believe we should be getting -- giving anymore relief to any of this. i think the only ones getting rich off of this are the the pfizer, maternal, johnson & johnson. all these shots people are getting, they are putting foreign things into their body constantly and there should be no reason for that. none, whatsoever. i think that if they did a double check on all the money that was given out that should

not have been given out, which was fraud, and all the pork they put in these bills that nobody ever sees on tv, what's all in the bill. they only pick out certain things. to make it look good for the american people. when you actually go into your computer and read the bill, it shocks you. it totally shocks you. money is not spent. host: what was the last bill you went and read through? caller: the rescue one. host: what shocked you about it? caller: all the pork that was in there. things that had nothing to do with -- i mean, can you explain to me why people in prison forgetting $1200 checks? people in prison. all of the illegals and everything else that went into

that will, it should be for the american people taxpayers. people in prison aren't paying taxes. i said, we need to have a better fraud, i mean if we can hire 8000, 80 thousand, however many people they want to put into the irs, why can't we hire those people instead to check fraud? host: that is marlene this morning. the direct payments to individuals is one of the concerns she and other collars have brought up this morning, coming back to that committee for a federal budget breakdown, nearly 5.8 trillion dollars is legislative action, money that has been approved for covid relief after the last few years. direct payments accounted for. 860 $9 billion of that five point $8 trillion. the paycheck protection program, the topic that sean walton was

talking about, where they had the most concern about fraud, waste, and abuse, that concern was $1.4 trillion including loan and rant programs approved under covid-19 relief and the paycheck protection program being a big part of that spending. that's covid money tracker, the website run by the committee for a responsible federal budget. jim, georgia, good morning. your thoughts on $22 billion in covid relief? caller: thank you for taking my call. on this covid funding? not one more penny for this covid? that's been going on. not one more punny -- penny. if they want money they can go to the states who are pushing out this money for the specialized groups and get it back. host: that's jim in georgia. jerry, broadway, virginia,

republican line, good morning. caller: i agree with the previous callers, no, we don't need more money for covid, it's not being spent on covid to begin with. it's just more money to support all those illegal immigrants they are bringing in. caller: on the issue of immigration, illegal border crossings, this is a story you might have heard about yesterday, front page on national papers, cdc to lift an order restricting immigration during pandemic. the biden administration is expected to lift the pandemic related public health order that restricted immigration for the past two years, a change that could more than double what has already been a historic number of migrants surging into the united states from mexico in the change is going to take effect in late may according to those familiar with it and should restore the rights they have two

request asylum in the united states as they did before pandemic. the public health order that had been in place gave border officials the authority to quickly expel undocumented migrants, even those seeking asylum, to prevent the spread of covid at order facilities and communities and in all there have been 1.7 million expulsions under the order known as title 40 two, issued by the centers for disease control and prevention. that story covered widely in papers today. nathaniel in bismarck, north dakota, independent, good morning. caller: my first question is, the numbers that you just mentioned concerning the 1.7 million expelled from the country, do you have a timeline on that and how many? you don't hear about that from ted cruz or jim jordan, who constantly post stuff on twitter instead of doing their job. host: this is under title 42,

put in place during pandemic. 1.7 million expulsions under the order during the time it was put in place. i don't have the exact month but it was 2020. caller: i support money to continue the covid effort to keep it down, it spreads out again if we get another variant and we start going downhill and the economy more. i recommend ivermectin for any republican parasites. host: that is nathaniel. ivo met -- ivermectin, a topic that "the new york times" takes up today. headline on that, study of ivermectin finding it has no signs of benefits. the antiparasitic drugs that surged into popularity as an alternative treatment despite lack of strong research to back it up, no signs of alleviating

the disease according to results of a large clinical trial published this week that compared some 1300 people infected with covid in brazil who received the ivermectin or placebo, a large study there. that is the latest on that. manchester, kentucky, good morning. amme. caller: i don't support more money going to covid. we should use what we have. do keep the testing and injections free, but that should be on a personal basis. if you want to have the boosters or the shots, it should be your choice, you shouldn't be forced. host: when you say forced, are you talking about -- caller: the mandates. host: requiring it for individual companies? caller: yes, companies should not force their employees to take, to inject the vaccines or

the boosters. that should be your own choice. host: coming back to title 42, the order in place during the pandemic that allowed quick expulsions on the country, the white house press secretary in the room, the communications director, kate bedingfield, was asked about that yesterday during the white house press briefing. this is what she had to say. [video clip] >> they keep reporting plans by the administration to end title 42. is the bike and administration prepared to deal with the aftermath of ending title 42? >> first i would say that this is a decision that we have long deferred to cdc. title fight -- title 42 is a public health directive, not an immigration or migration enforcement measure. the decision we defer to the cdc

. that being said, of course we are planning for multiple contingencies and we have every expectation that when the cdc ultimately decides it's appropriate to lift title 42, there will be an influx of people to the border and we are doing a lot of work to plan for that contingency. yesterday you saw the department of homeland security doing everything walking through some of the planning they are doing to increase efficiency and make sure that have the capacity, to make sure we are operating in a way that is treating migrants humanely, fairly. you heard from them yesterday on the planning that they are doing more broadly. not specifically tied to title 42 or in ultimate decision to lift it, but just more broadly to the work they are doing to continue to build up our migration system and make sure we are restoring order at the border. host: kate bedingfield, yesterday. this is mitchell on the foam on the phoneline for democrats today.

caller: good morning. i have a kind of nuanced take on this. i think any kind of large-scale government relief program in a medical or physical emergency like a hurricane or something like that is going to be subject to certain implementation problems. it's just not possible to get that much money out the door without having some degree of abuse and fraud. but, if we look at the other side of the coin, we can remember our long lines -- hours long lines of people across the country practic starving to death trying to get food. you can rope -- recall people

losing their jobs instantaneously because lockdowns were required and people were dying in massive clips. i mean these things are all possible again without planned mitigation strategies. on the other hand, i do think there should be some means testing as to who should receive this testing. -- this money. i think that people who have abused the funds should be eligible for receiving them and the money should go back. i heard one of your callers talking about certain people getting money, it was approved under the republicans during the trump administration. host: the first round of direct payments? guest: yeah -- caller: yeah. and the money came out of, people were given a debit card and a lot of it was garnished

and given to their families. i mean, you have to really look at the nuances of the implementation of any of these bills. we are in a kind of strange economy right now. and while the inflation rate is very high and while some of that is caused by increased demand and that may be because some people have additional funds, this is a worldwide problem. it isn't just going on in the united states. but we should also look at, we have an unbelievably low unemployment right and even though the fed will probably raise interest rates, most home loans are well under 4% today. so, we have a kind of, you know, strange situation going on. it's i think people should look at the nuances of this. it can be easy to pick a side and say that this is terrible, this is great, but i think we have to dig deep in this.

host: appreciate nuance, thank you for the call, certainly. you talk about this being a worldwide problem. i would point you to the op-ed page in "the washington post," the director of global health and international agency for development vote today and a column saying that the global battle against covid-19 is not done, instead the challenge has changed, the lowest income countries where vaccinations have reached less than 15% of the people are declining free supply because they don't have capacity to get shots in the arms fast enough so we must not just provide an arsenal to protect allies, we must provide the support that they need to ramp up the vaccination campaigns and the effort requires money and despite generously funding covid-19 response up to this point, congress is failing to provide the resources we need. he is writing into say it bodes serious trouble for the rest of

the world. allen out of martinez, california. caller: good morning. it is ln, not alan -- ellen, not alan. [laughter] host: my apologies. caller: i would like to see c-span get on the inspector general for the covert response. how much money did the three big pharmaceutical companies receive from the government? i also want to know how much they have contributed to both parties. i started exploring that a little bit, but it's very complicated. i think week of this country is in big trouble because of citizens united. pelosi made a comment in the original care package that she wanted to ask for an amendment to the constitution to get rid

of citizens united because they couldn't do it in congress. so i will kind of leave it at that. my last thought is we do need to close that southern border. the catch and release policy is not legal and we don't need immigration reform. we need the immigration laws on the books to be enforced. that's about it, thank you very much. host: you are talking about the special inspector general for pandemic recovery, the individual agency inspector general that was appointed in june of 2020, brian miller is his name. that's his job, to be the special inspector general for pandemic recovery. if you read the bio, c-span viewers might not know him but they might know his work. he is known for his investigation of that lavish general services administration conference in las vegas and his

independent oversight of gsa documented in a report by the citizens for responsibility for ethics in washington, the gsa conference and it's spending there, some of that lavish spending making a lot of headlines a few years ago. that's brian d miller. always appreciate suggestions for future guests. ted, miami, florida, republican, good morning. caller: i'm asking and wondering if this money includes checks being mailed out to individuals, personal people like myself? are the checks being mailed out? host: not another round of direct payments, no. certainly, $22 billion wouldn't cover another round of that. that's not on the table right now. caller: and i do hope somebody is following all this money. because it's a lot of money that is going out and it's not being followed. it's not being explained where it's going.

i hope somebody is following all this money. it's too much to be going out and people not to know where it's going. host: some of the groups we talked about this morning, that is certainly a concern of republicans, following the money here. some of the groups we had on this program, the project for government oversight had their covid tracker. the committee for responsible federal budget has their covid-19 funding tracker. as we just talked about, the special inspector general for pandemic recovery also, some of the folks trying to get their hands on these trillions of dollars to find out where the money went to see if it was spent appropriately. that is going to do it for this first segment of "the washington journal," we will be joined next by congressman don bacon from nebraska, veteran top member of the house armed services committee.

we will be with him right after the break. ♪ flex first ladies in their own words, our eight part series looking at the role of the first lady, their time in the white house, and the issues important to them. >> it was a great advantage to know what it is like to work in schools, education is such a great issue for governor and for president. so, that was very helpful to me. >> using material from the c-span award-winning biography series first ladies. >> i'm very much the kind of person who believes you should say what you mean and mean what you say and take the consequences. >> and the c-span online video library features lady bird johnson, betty ford, rosalynn carter, laura bush, hillary clinton, michelle obama, melania

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back don bacon, having served in the air force for three decades before coming to congress. i know that there was a classified briefing on ukraine yesterday for house members. what can you say about the state of the conflict right now? caller: the russian ground invasion has largely been stopped by the ukrainians. we have to praise the heart and the fight the ukrainians have shown. their history as one of where the russians have killed millions of ukrainians and they don't want to be under the russian thumb and they are fighting like it but the ground part of the invasion has been stopped and russians are continuing to bomb or shell cities indiscriminately. that's why it is so imperative that america and the free world continue to provide the weapons ukraine needs. ukraine is winning this war but they will need our help to do so. host: how much stock do you put into russian promises of peace

negotiations right now? guest: very little. putin is a liar. he talked about ukraine having nazis, all those things he said. mind you, zelinski is a jewish ukrainian. much of his family was murdered by the nazis. all of the things putin is saying is out and out lies. these are indoctrinated calls for deception, just lying to get what they want or to deceive, mislead the opposition, that's what they are trying to do. in the end, the goal of putin is to conquer all of ukraine. he said he would take kyiv in three or four days. now he's trying to get what he can and hold onto some of that land for as long as he can and call it a victory. host: president biden, his line in warsaw, for god sake, this

man cannot remain in power, what was your view on that seemingly ad-libbed statement? caller: we would all perfect -- guest: we would all prefer that he not be in power, we hope the russians put in a better leader. it was a mistake for the president to say that. he has had four major gaffes this week and it divides us and our allies and it gives putin fodder for propaganda. the president has to have better discipline. i think there is things we think about and things you can't say as president of the united states. it's very important to stay on message. to give an example, his comment created a divide between him and the president of france. their goal is to focus on getting russians out of ukraine and you start talking about gene change, it changes the whole dimension of the war. the president made a mistake and

he made three other ones this week that were similar in nature. host: what were the others? guest: he told a bunch of troops they were going into ukraine, giving fodder to president putin . he also said that if the russians use chemical or biological weapons that we would respond in kind. he also said this week that the americans were training the ukrainians in poland and he had to retract that and he had to come back and saying maybe we are. we don't know what we are doing right now, we have heard multiple versions of that statement. it's very important that the administration stay on message and it is important for our allies and we don't want to give putin fodder for the propaganda machine. host: if you want to join the conversation, don bacon is with us. phone lines as usual, (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents, (202) 748-8002.

the white house released their five trillion dollar budget this week. your assessment on the good and the bad of that document? caller: it's a bad budget, a far left bernie sanders type budget if you ask me. 7.3 trillion dollars per year will be the highest spending of any budget proposed by any president of the share of our gdp. it's high spending. they will raise taxes by 2.5 trillion, roughly. it's going to be $16 trillion in deficit spending. $1.6 trillion a year. this is a lot of spending they are proposing. a gas tax only hurts the poor. raising business taxes to some of the highest business tax rates in the world. it's not good for american competitiveness. i think it's a bad budget and i hope it doesn't get far in congress. host: does it do what it needs

on the military side, 800 $13 billion for national security, $773 billion for the pentagon. caller: 4% growth, 7% 8% inflation, real dollars it's a cut to the military and if you want to modernize our nuclear triad, it's inadequate. it should at least stay even with inflation. i will point out that on the domestic side they are increasing spending by 12%, looking at 12% growth in nondefense, 4% in defense spending. it needs to stay even with inflation and on non-defense it's too much. host: coming up first year out of okeechobee, florida, republican line, good morning. caller: representative bacon, i'm a trueblue republican but i'm fed up with you people in our party, ok? you come down on russia so bad, number one, ok.

everything you have said so far this morning, ok, about them lying in doing this and that, look in the mirror. we go thousands and thousands of miles away to kill another nation's leaders and kill their women and children, talking points that you guys do and you never say anything about that. it's ok for us to go thousands of miles to kill people, kill their leaders, yet it's fine, but someone on their border fights someone on their border, that's not ok with you people. i'm just about fed up with you republicans out there, all of you really. host: got your point. guest: i'm fed up with russian apologists and putin could not have said it better. i totally disagree with the caller. putin is doing an unjust unprovoked invasion of a country of 44 million people. he has killed thousands of innocent ukrainians. we should not apologize or try to defend his behavior.

by the way, women in afghanistan, we attacked the taliban who provided top cover for al qaeda who killed 3000 people in america on 9/11. let's not forget saddam hussein. we can look back and say we should not have done that invasion, but we can't forget that he invaded kuwait, iran. he killed many of his own people with chemical weapons. i don't think we should be defending his behavior either. in hindsight i can say it was a mistake to go in there but compare that to vladimir putin invading ukraine, who did nothing wrong. a country trying to remain independent. they have a long history of the russians or the soviets killing millions of ukrainians. they want to remain free and it is in our national interest for an independent ukraine to serve as a buffer between russia and nato. host: you are also the cochair of the house baltic conference. we started today with you

assessing the poor performance of the russian military here. what is that assessment and what does it mean for nato's strategy here in the future of trying to plan for the defense of the eastern flank of nato and nato strategy overall? guest: we are going to have more of a presence in eastern europe, i think. permanent forces in poland and the baltics. this has been the number one request from the baltic states, to have a permanent u.s. unit of some type in their countries. maybe air defense or a helicopter unit. we have to work through that. a permanent presence will serve as a deterrent well. russians have to know that if they invade poland and the baltics, they attack america. we had that in a treaty with nato but it is important to have our forces there to make it clear. host: allen, washington, d.c.,

democratic line, good morning. caller: first of all, i think it is really disingenuous, like the first lady said, that this guy, some of the things he said, one thing, the notion that there are no nazis in the region, in the donbass region there are folks who overthrew the government in 2014 and they do call themselves nazis. the notion that just because you have a jewish president that there is no capacity to have any nazis or folks calling themselves nazis -- host: do you think a russian invasion of ukraine was justified? caller: no, i don't thing it was justified, but it's a two-way street. ukraine did some things to ultimately antagonize the russians. by virtue of one, the killing of the folks in the donbass region that were rushing speaking -- russian speaking and eliminating the russian language in terms of being spoken.

guest: i fully disagree with her collar. again, it's more russian apology here. i don't think defending their behavior. they attack the crimea part of ukraine during the obama administration. they had -- they invaded the donbass region in eastern ukraine. this was done by the russians. 1996i believe it was, the russians signed a treaty with ukraine. if they removed their nuclear weapons, they would respect the borders of ukraine. they have violated the treaty. america was also a sign to that. this is all on putin and russia. if we don't take a firm hand here, there will be an invasion of georgia, next. maybe moldavia. the baltics are threatened. perhaps poland. what i hear from some of the callers here is what i heard in the 1930's as i read my history books. a very weak response to a dictator thug who wet his

appetite and it led to world war ii. we need to take a firm hand here . or we will have world war iii. this is all on putin. we don't put u.s. forces there. i don't think troops should be in ukraine. i don't think airmen should be in ukraine. we should give ukraine everything it needs to defend itself. host: richard, louisville, kentucky, good morning. caller: where was the good representative in march of 2021 when putin started lining tanks on the border and we sat around and sat around, nothing was said, nobody did anything. once he starts murdering children suddenly you want to come to the rescue? you are a fraud, sir. caller: this poor gentleman doesn't have all the facts. the congress was not informed of this until the first week of december. granted, the administration knew

about it before hand, but they informed the armed services committee of this in the first week of december. i was the one that advocated for air defense weapons to be sent there, air defense weapons with a longer range than the stinger missiles. we didn't even provide the stinger missiles before the invasion. i was an advocate for anti-shipping missiles. i wanted to provide high air defense and high-end weapons to ukraine so that they could maybe deter and change the russian decision to invade but in the first week of december we were told that russia had decided to invade and i and others were advocates for helping ukraine be armed so they could do a better job defending themselves. from december on, once it became unclassified, i was public about it. this was not something i did, i didn't do this once the invasion

started, i was speaking about this months earlier. host: 15 minutes left with congressman bacon this morning. we spent part of the program today talking about ayden asking congress, imploring congress once again for an additional $22 billion in covid relief funding. where do you stand on providing that? caller: we spend too much money -- guest: we spend too much money as is. there's so much money sitting out there that hasn't been spent. that was the issue with the last vote on the budget. we want to spend the money that hasn't been spent. there were too many democrats who decided they didn't want to do that. they would rather add to the deficit. it got taken out of the last budget and from a republican perspective if you want to spend on covid, cut something to find out where it's coming from, don't add it to the deficit. host: crescent city, florida,

mike, independent, good morning. caller: where is this money coming from that we are giving to ukraine? seems we have no money for social programs in this country. another thing, we are talking about putin committing all these war crimes, i guess. isn't saudi arabia doing that with weapons that we sell them that we do nothing about? why is that? guest: talking about saudi arabia, first, yemen is firing ballistic missiles into saudi cities and they have a right to defend themselves. if we do nothing in yemen or if our allies cannot, it will become an a rating in state. it will be bad for america and bad for our national security interests. iran is sending ballistic missiles into yemen and firing it into saudi cities. it's unacceptable. there's terrorism going on there. we have a pretty healthy safety net in our country. when it comes to providing

weapons to ukraine, that's a decision we have to make. it's a wise decision and i support the president in doing so. in some cases he's been too slow, but he has gotten their. i appreciate it. the timeliness i may disagree with, but the president has gotten to the right spot and trying to help ukraine out. host: kurt on twitter wants to know if you will comment on trump praising putin multiple times since the invasion began and asking for his help against other americans? i'm assuming he meant the comments about releasing information he might have on hunter biden. wanting to know what the congressman thinks about that. guest: i disagree with the comments, i don't look it was wise to call putin a genius and things like that. but he's not the president. that's riep up my focus. i disagree with the comments and i said that publicly. host: republican line, good morning.

caller: thank you for the call. congressman, just can't thank you enough for displaying that american ukrainian flag on your vest there. wonderful that we are supporting the ukrainians. we are really proud of you for standing up to a lot of heat, by the way, as you can see from the several callers who have called in. as a true republican, thank you very much for doing that. we want, the question i have for you of course is how long can we continue to do this? this could be long. it could be maybe years of support for ukraine against russia if they determined to button down on this thing. how long are you guys prepared to go forward on ukraine? guest: a great question, i rip

-- i appreciate it. first of all i believe that 95% of the republicans feel as i do. when you hear the outliers trying to defend the russian behavior, i think they are outliers. the lions share of republicans find tin's behavior pug and if we have to -- 10's behavior repugnant and we have to call it out for what it is. --'s -- 10 -- in -- putin's behavior republican -- repugnant. they are on pace to do this in one year and i don't know how long russia can sustain the battle losses, the number of aircraft shot down. horrendous. hundreds of tanks. but i do think we have to help ukraine.

help ukraine have the weapons they need. if we don't end we don't teach russia a lesson in we don't give russia a black eye and a bloody nose in the process, they will do it again. you know, let's take it one step at a time. as of now i think we are doing the right thing by helping out ukraine. host: what's the best weapon we can provide an do you see a difference between providing offense of weapons, whatever that means, and defensive weapons? guest: it's sort of hard to classify some weapons as offense of or defensive. i take exception when the white house spokes lady tries to use that as an excuse for what we are not providing. the most important thing that we are providing, and we are, our high end surface air defense missiles with a long range. ukrainians need a resupply of this. that is good. ukrainians asked for may 29's and 225's which are russian-made aircraft that they know how to

fly. the administration has not been willing to facilitate that saying that air defense surface to air missiles are adequate. surface to air missiles don't hit tanks or convoys and ukrainian people need convoys that go five to 10, 20 miles behind the lines and right now they have minimal capabilities. that is where we have to find a way to fill the niche. that is what i would encourage the administration to do. we need to help ukraine get these tanks and convoys five, 10, 20 miles behind a line in if we do that i think russia will retreat. host: if you want to ask your question to congressman bacon, phone lines are as usual. peter, silver spring, maryland, you are up. caller: thank you, i headache question about how disingenuous the republicans are when they quote the tax rate on

corporations but there are so many tax loopholes. commenting about this high tax rate, i find to be completely disingenuous. second, i have a question about, as an officer in the air force, how long would it take to get the logistics in place to put a mothballed warthog or a mothballed omega into service in ukraine? -- mig into ukraine? guest: on business taxes, 28% is too high. i will tell you, in nebraska the average write-off is 1%. the average business in omaha and nebraska pay 25%. some folks throw these examples out there where the rates are lower, but i think that the crux of the issue is, do we want businesses to invest?

i would say the answer is yes. if we incentivize investment for new plants and new equipment, that creates more jobs on production line. if you are building a new building or providing new admin, that has many secondary and tertiary effect for other people being employed. we want to incentivize investment. by the way, that gave us the best economy in 40 years when we did that with the tax reform into has frankly done more to help us recover after covid than anything else we have done. we help is this is recover with a competitive tax code. i defend what we have done there. when it comes to logistics, it wouldn't take much for us to help get aircraft to ukraine through poland and germany. i think the a-10 mothballed would be outstanding. we would have to train them. the 225's, that's the russian version of the a-10.

there are aircraft out there that are available in we could facilitate the transfer and that would be great. i don't want to just be on the 225 centered, but we need to provide that capability. whether it's those things are these things called switch blades, switchblade drones that you fire that are, because he drones that hit the tanks. i mean, there's different capabilities. i'm not too dogmatic on which it has to be. ukraine just needs the capability and we have to facilitate that. host: sharon, republican line, good morning. caller: i have an observation and a question. we have a bipartisan support for funding nato, funding the ukrainian borders to protect and nato allies. since the biden administration will do it, how can we get nato

involved to come in with propaganda to protect our borders, the southern border? since we are having an invasion mark guest: it's a great question. many people see it as either or but i see it as both. we have to defend our border. you are right, the implication is that this president is doing too little, practically nothing to defend our border. we have had a 20 year high of people illegally crossing the border and a 20 year low in deportations. we want a president that defends our border. we have a record amount of fentanyl crossing the border right now and a record number of people dying of overdoses of fentanyl. it's the president's constitutional duty to enforce the law and he's not doing it. congress can pass laws, the president has to enforce that.

he's going to lose big in november because americans are fed up with his lack of action on the border. host: can congress have any say on the listing of title 42, the pandemic order restriction we talked about? guest: i can guarantee you that the majority of republicans would support that, but we have a five seat minority in the house and i guarantee that speaker pelosi won't bring it forward, she won't support it. we have a 50-50 senate. less likely in the house, maybe the senate could get bipartisan support. we will have to pass this to negotiate with biden, he will have to give us powers that we want and i guarantee you that enforcing the border will be on the high-end of our priorities. host: we will take you home to the cornhusker state. this is k and alliance. good morning. caller: when you guys vote

against the budget bill, why do you take the money for your district? one. two, when it comes to ukraine wanting meigs from poland, why does poland want to send them to germany and make us take the blame when they could just take pilots out of the ukraine and put them in poland and fly them home. this is like nebraska asking for help from iowa and iowa sending it to my omen. it doesn't make any sense. guest: i think that poland wants an assurance that when they give these planes that it is a team effort, a team responsibility. they are afraid of doing this on their own and russia than attacking poland. this is their effort to ensure that it is a team decision and that we will have their back on it. this doesn't have to be done publicly. i think we could have handled this transfer privately and in a

better way. but right now though americans are opposed to the transfer. but again, it doesn't have to be made 29's -- meg 29's. i'm not going to be dogmatic on this or that system, but i think we can do better in general. when it comes to the budget, we are going to negotiate a better budget, bottom line. the budget he put out there was $16 trillion in deficits and is a nonstarter and i hope that by the time we are done we have a budget that is much more reasonable and hopefully point us towards or go in the right direction towards a balanced budget. host: last call, iowa. caller: four quick points. host: not sure we have the time for four. caller: we will give you the best ones. consumers are what make companies. i am sick and tired of hearing companies threatening to leave the country or not pay back the

benefit of what they reap from consumers purchasing their items or services, which in term -- in turn makes them wealthy and gives them revenue. we all know trickle-down economics doesn't work. that's the fear -- theory fed to the american public so that republicans have an excuse to keep taxes low for themselves. just one more thing, please. zelensky, there's a fine line between dictatorship, tierney, and the rest of us. guest: surely the dictatorship and tyranny is out of moscow and russian. i don't disagree with the caller, we have the strongest economy in 40 years after tax reform. the lowest income wages, climbing faster than inflation at a higher than the highest earners out there. in a heavily competitive tax code, it attracts is this is

back to america. that's what we want. i want america one. i want america to be the most competitive country in the world. i want america to be well-employed and i one wages to be climbing faster than inflation. with this president, inflation is at a 40 year high. the average family has now lost $400 per month in buying power. it is the number one issues for swing voters and moderate voters is because we are spending too much money. we've inflated the money supply so now it is costing too much to go to the nursery store. it started about a month after this president was inaugurated. host: republican of nebraska, senior member of the house services committee. always appreciate you stopping by. up next this morning and for

about the next half hour, we will take a closer look at russian military movement since it pledged to pull back operations. that conversation with jeffrey admin, over director for russia on the national city answer, now a senior analyst at the think tank here in d.c. and later, we will be joined by a member of the house foreign affairs and homeland security committee. we will talk more about the russian-ukrainian conflict, the budget, and other congressional news of the day. stick around, we will be right back. announcer: american history tv saturdays on c-span 2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. historian christopher mcknight-nichols recalls the influenza pandemic as 2022 america continues to deal with covid-19 and pandemic fatigue,

rising infections and new protective mandates, all of which were experienced a century ago. and part five of the eight part series "first ladies: in their own words." we will look at the role of the first ladies, their time in the white house, and the issues important to them. this week will focus on hillary clinton. >> the expectations and the demands have changed and i'm trying to find my way through it and trying to figure out how best to be clear to myself. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturday on c-span 2 or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history.

at least six presidents recorded conversations while in offices. many of those conversations aren't c-span's new podcast, presidential recordings. >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson you will hear about the 1964 civil rights act, the march on selma, and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly, johnson's secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact, they were the ones you made sure that the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and bears. >>. also hear some blunt talk. >> i want a report on the number of people that signed -- i

promise you i won't go anywhere, i will stay right behind. >> presidential recordings on the c-span now mobilized wherever you get your podcast. washington journal continues. host: the former russian director of national security council. first, explain what cna is, what you do. guest: cna is a federally-funded center. most of the work that we do is for the navy or the marine corps or some government entity. in many ways, we are a think tank and we have a dedicated team of russian analysts. host: much of your work with national security council, in the cia, in the army for two decades.

give me your assessment of russia's performance on the battlefield over the past five weeks. what stage is this conflict in ukraine now in? guest: russia is really underperforming from what many of us thought it would do. it was pretty clear that they were just giving instructions to try to drive right into kyiv, that it would quickly fall and the rest of the area would fall. that clearly hasn't seen the cash in the case. we've seen operational failures all the way down tactical level but we have now, it appears as though the russian military and vladimir putin himself realize they can't take the city and they are repositioning to try to get some lesser war games because the military has not been able to perform. it has really been a remarkable job stymieing russian offenses. host: do you believe the report

that half a dozen russian generals killed somewhere between 11000 and 15,000 russian soldiers killed? how do you credit those numbers and what does that mean for the russian capacity to keep this war going? guest: the figure of 11,000 was floating around, 15,000. let's say it is even half of that. even if it is half of that, that is really dramatic, a really high number for the russian army take at this point. i think they are staggering from that. with the generals, you have these long convoys where you have very little protection and if you're watching these convoys, it is pretty easy to pick out a person. it is not us at any regular war they are behind by a number of kilometers and there are more protective.

they are probably being pushed really hard to drive these russian forces around these cities. host: assess the air war right now. guest: the air war has been something of a mystery in that the russians really haven't employed a lot of their air force. they have a sizable air force with modern platforms and think it was a combination of a lack of training, they don't get as much time flying as nato and u.s. pilots. we thought they were further along in their coordination with ground forces, and they appear to be somewhat risk-a verse. the fact that they used shoulder fire stinger missiles at lower altitudes where the russian air force is really needed. host: what about the russian naval performance.

guest: the navy really hasn't played a major role in this. the black sea fleet beefed up prior to this and a lot of us thought that might be used in the offensive, but that does not appear to be the case now probably because of this realization that the russians are realizing they need to read your and read and rethink their strategy. host: we're talking with jeffrey edmonds this morning, talking about the war in ukraine, the latest and russian movements, the peace talks as well. phone lines as usual if you want to join the conversation. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. mr. edmonds is with us until the bottom of the hour, about 8:30 eastern this morning. as folks are calling in, u.s. officials now saying that they believe that vladimir putin is being misled by his closest

circle, by military leaders. >> that is not a new phenomenon. this goes all the way back to the cold war. there was a culture of telling your boss what he wanted to hear. and i think that has continued because clearly, putin thought that kyiv would fall in days, and that was just not the case at all. it is very hard for me to imagine that senior intelligence officials walking into putin's room set i actually think you are wrong about your assumptions. it is not like the cia where we are kind of empowered to speak truth to power and to be as objective as we can so that policymakers can make decisions. i don't think that of the culture in the russian intelligence services. host: take us back to your work, what the russian director does on the council and your interactions with putin. did you have any when you were there in 2014, 2017?

guest: it was my job and the other directors, the senior director to keep the president informed and to advise and whatever the president's decision was, with regards to policy, part of the responsibility was to make sure that departments and agencies executed that policy. host: plenty of calls for you already. illinois, democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span, the greatest show on earth. i'm wondering if putin is severely mentally ill and american government has no idea how to deal with someone who was so far gone? guest: so i don't know that he is mentally ill in the form of having a disorder or something along the lines. i think that he is very isolated. he is in a certain area in his mind and he has very little

interaction with the world outside of his small circle of friends really has developed a very kind of disconnected narrative about the world and about the way ukraine is and about what russia's place is in europe. there is a talk that he has a muscular disorder or something like that, but i don't think he has a mental disorder in the sense that he just doesn't have any contact with reality. i think his understanding and what people around and say to him reinforces kind of a disconnected narrative about the world. host: new jersey, democrat, good morning. caller: what i wanted to talk about is they are not going to put troops on the ground. in 1914, woodrow wilson said the same thing, and in 1917, we did

go to war. and we did go in 1941. now, to say that i think we are getting putin assurance that he was not going to bother with that. do it now before it becomes too late. and then we are going to be in there and it is going to be verse. guest: their real concern here is that a russia-native war be very different than the war russia's happen with ukraine right now. there is a much higher probability of the use of new weapons and much more destruction. what we are doing now is actually working. the russian military is kind of reeling from the attempt to seize these cities, so we need to continue to do what we are doing, but also to your point,

we need to be prepared in case putin makes this into a russia-nato war or something else because this conflict to expand. we need to be very ready for that. >> could russia, in your analysis, take on nato in round or in eastern europe? do they have the capacity right now? what do they still has in reserve in case there is a nato war> guest: if it turned into that kind of conflict, i don't think it would be russia grabbing land or invading. i think that the move would be to either launch missiles or something like that into poland or something else, to trigger an article five reaction, to trigger nato to respond. the goal would not be defeating nato. the goal would be to call our bluff, to say that if you're going to continue to supply weapons and sense in the russian economy, i am going to turn this into a russia-nato war with all of things that go along with that.

if not so much be an invasion because to your point, i don't think he has the forces to do that. host: do you think rush holding back conventional weapons from the fighting ukraine as a reserve in case there is a native war? guest: i do. because long-range precision have guided missiles are something fairly new to the russian military in 2012, 2013, i think there isn't a huge stockpile, but i wouldn't be very surprised if they weren't keeping some of that in reserve because i'm sure there's a possibility of turning into a russia-nato or. host: some of the analysis out of the pentagon, this is john kirby, pentagon press secretary. yesterday on the russian military, since the pledge to pull back their forces from around the outskirts of kyiv, this is what he had to say. >> we have seen the last 24

hours the repositioning of a small percentage of the troops that in the vitelli tactical group that russia had arranged against he have. probably in the neighborhood of 20% of what they had. they are beginning to reposition. some of those troops we our repositioning into belarus. we don't have the exact number for you, but that is our early assessments. we have seen none of them reposition to their home garrison, and that is not a small white. if the russians are serious about de-escalating, because that is their claim here, and they should send them home. but they are not doing that, at least not yet. and i don't know, you know, our assessment would be as we said yesterday that they are going to refit these troops.

host: do you believe kyiv was a goal at some point, has russia given up on that goal, and where are you concerned of russia's pulling back those troops, where those troops might be deployed to? guest: kyiv was definitely the main as hard and fast as they could, if they honestly believed if you can get written zelenskyy, the rest of the resistance would fall. the military would fall apart, this with the over any couple of days and troops could go home and russia could declare victory that clearly wasn't the case. we've seen a number of units leave kyiv, but they have not redeployed to russia. the question is what is russia going to do? this is they are going to focus on done boss -- the donbass regent. if that is actually true, that represent a huge failure on the russian part. they have failed to achieve any

of the objective that they had prior to the war and if they did secure donbass, when you think about it, they would have left of the conflict with very little more than what they came in with and i think that is a staggering failure on the russian art. host: ukrainians have talked about assassination squads targeting zelenskyy. do you think of the russians got written zelenskyy, ukraine would fall apart? guest: i don't. just the number of people that have supported zelenskyy, i think he would be martyred. ukraine would continue one. the russians just really miscalculated the will of the ukrainian people to resist, and so i don't think they would fall. host: jack, marilyn, good morning. -- maryland. caller: hello. i don't think ukraine could ever win for two reasons. one, if they start to win, russia will use nuclear weapons and two, joe biden wants them to

lose because he is so compromised over there with his son's dealings. one man that was with his son, a partner, was convicted over there. joe wanted all about to come away. he was hoping it would end in three days and all of his problems would go away. guest: there has been some concern and some debate as to whether or not the russians would use non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons to resolve the conflict in you train. i personally don't think that is an option for the russians right now. i don't think that they would rely on that. i think that becomes more of a concern if the conflict expands outside the ukrainian borders. the president's point, the president has the response and the solidarity by the rest to really surprise many, and i'm sure it surprised the russians, the number of weapons we are giving, the amount of money. not just the germans doing a 180 degree policy turn when they

started supporting the ukrainian war with ammunition and antitank weapons, but i actually think the response by both the united states and the rest has been pretty substantial. host: a tweet saying it is not hard to analyze what happened here. who to the west between craig -- invade ukraine month in advance. the west then failed to give a clear response to display putin from doing that. guest: so i don't think it was possible to sway putin with any kind of measures from the west. we very clearly explained to the world in general what russia was doing. we were not going to put troops into ukraine, again, for fear of creating a russia-nato war, and we promise to take serious economic steps, and we have done that. like i said a few minutes ago, i think at least the military aid we are giving the ukrainians has

been really substantial. i don't think it was possible directly deter putin from taking on this goal, given the narrative he had about ukraine to reassure russia into the security architecture of europe and just really reassuring russian dominance over that architecture. i think that it was fully not much we can do. host: were you in the white house during the russian invasion of crimea, and are there lessons we should have learned from that but we didn't? guest: to focus on the positive part of this, one thing that is different now is this sharing of intelligence with the public. that was very, very difficult in 2014. we just weren't designed to provide intelligence to the public. i think a lot of that has shifted. i think perhaps we should have been a little more forward leaning on the possibilities that russia would invade the entire country.

i do think the administration was that way, but i think it still caught a lot of the public by surprise to push that narrative a little bit more. host: why is sharing more information with the public better this time around and what can we have shared back then in the 2014 that would've made a difference? guest: in 2014 we possibly could have shared intelligence that showed the russian military in eastern ukraine. the russians were supporting the separatists. at the end of the day, what the ukrainian forces were defeated by was good old-fashioned artillery. i think we could have shared that information more. the fact that we shared the size of the buildout, the fact that we were very forward leaning and saying rush is going to invade the entire country even though there was some debate on that, i think that actually prepared the world and our allies and partners to really take strong steps and support those strong steps after russia did actually invade.

>> california, pamela, democrat. color: thank you for taking my call. i would like to know first, has there been any findings that the russians have used a thermal weapon? and if so, is there anything that we could send the ukrainians to counter that? guest: a thermal barrack munition, to explain that to everyone else, you have a missile or an artillery shell or whatever with two different charges. one explodes the canister of fuel, the second ignites it, and it burns very hot, there is a lot of pressure involved, a very devastating weapon my understanding is that we haven't been able to confirm the use of those arms and ukraine and it would surprise me if it happened because these are the types of weapons they used in syria.

one thing i have said, they claim they brought peace to aleppo, but most of the population was killed using these thermal bombs. it wouldn't surprise me at all if in an act of desperation and an attempt to coerce the ukrainians that the russian military input and authorized these bonds. host: kevin on twitter once you to let us know what you can say about conscription in russia. guest: most of the front-line troops, most of the services at this point are what we call contract. when i enlisted in the army in 1993, i signed a contract. most of the russian forces have been contracted, not conscripts. there have been some reports that the conscripts have been used on the front lines in this conflict because of the mounting casualties they've had, but in general, conscripts are used for more supportive roles in the forward elements.

host: georgia, this is renee, independent. >> the way they describe the performance of the russian military kind of reminds me of what happened with our military in 2003 when we invaded iraq. do you remember that the iud's ied's were prepared? kevlar vests? do you remember that we had to cannibalize other jets because we didn't have enough parts? and did you forget just recently how we came out of afghanistan and then our analysis of afghanistan fell apart. have you forgotten how our military and how our generals

didn't tell the truth of the president, but then you are going to give these analyses of russia? and i don't believe that putin is crazy or demented. i think joe biden might have more mental issues than putin. guest: i do a member iraq and i think there is a difference between the initial invasion in the long-term occupation. i think if you compare the initial invasion of iraq in 2003 and 2004 with the russian invasion now, there's always some battlefield fought, there are that go awry. in general, military performed much better than russians have initially. that is not speaking to the longer problem of iraq or to afghanistan. at this point, i think it really just makes sense if you're going to compare them to compare the initial invasion of iraq in 2003 and 2004 to the russian invasion. host: if so, who does that favor?

guest: a stalemate at this point actually favors -- i don't know that it is going to a stalemate. i think the russians are looking for some kind of resolution to this thing that allows them to at least faced some kind of measures in the end. i think that the ukrainians have shown a level of resistance that really over-matches the russian ability to keep going on the offensive operations. if the russians just dig in like they are doing, the ukrainians have actually been somewhat successful in the counteroffensive, so russians cannot just sit there. i don't think ukraine will allow this to be a stalemate. whether or not the russians are able to protect donbass in the long term, that just returns us to the status quo which for the russians represent a really large failure on their part. host: much has been mentioned about the javelins in the air defenses of ukrainians. you mentioned before a good old russian artillery, is there a

part of the russian army that has performed best in this conflict, and what would you assess? >> is hard for me to overstate how poorly the russian military has performed i'm not sure that any one part of it has performed remarkably better than the others. i guess the navy hasn't been involved much because there is not much more for the navy to play in this. but the air force hasn't done particularly well, in part because i don't think they actually are very comfortable with this kind of work, and the ground forces have really very much underperformed. they haven't performed in a way that we have seen in these large exercise they have every year. it just seems like a different military. the failure is really across-the-board year. host: when it comes to the tactic of leveling the cities, doesn't become a stalemate, is that more of what we see? caller -- guest: the more the russians are unable to achieve their military ends, they are going to resort to bombing

cities into an attempt to coerce the ukrainians. the likely motivation is that they coerce the ukrainians and i think going forward we are still seeing that one thing people are noting is that the strikes have not lessened. whether or not these units are outside of other cities, i think the russians will maintain the ability to actually strike and i think able do that. host: jeffrey edmonds with the center of naval analysis. walter, indiana, republican, thanks for waiting. caller: thank you. welcome home, jeffrey. i am an army dog. it breaks my heart to listen to the same stuff for the last 50, 60 years. do you realize we haven't won a war since world war ii? we fought to a stalemate in

korea, vietnam was a total cluster-you know what. we just keep going in and the intelligence, it is absolutely heartbreaking. the only good thing about this war is we don't have to hear about people wearing stupid masks. and nigel for raj said 10 years ago in parliament that we are going to keep pushing the russian bear. how about the united states declares war on itself, surrender, and economic aid? it just breaks my heart. all of these warmongers, whose business is it of ours? we should mind our business. is this the same old thing repeating over and over? we have not won a war since world war ii. guest: what is surprising about this conflict is that we really did overestimate the russians. that is an important point to the united states and for military analysts in general. it is really kind of questioning

our assumptions. to your point, whether or not we can inform policymakers to make the right decisions. if the russians have changed their strategic game, they are not looking for regime change, they are not able to stop u.s.-nato security operations and all the other things they demanded before this, is because of our aid and because of the resistance that the ukrainians have shown the russians have only fallen back to donbass. that is a foreign-policy victory on our part if we are able to facilitate ukrainians defending their own sovereignty. host: do you think that donbass will ever be part of ukraine again? guest: i think it is unclear. i think the russians and the separatists would be able to maintain some semblance of what they had before this conflict. they would try to expand those areas out to fill the provinces, to expand out a bit. and i think that they might be

able to hold onto that and i think the ukrainians may be disinclined to try to push the russians all the way out. in the long term, there is a good chance that things will stay contested or they will claim that they are part of the russian federation. host: last call in virginia, the line for democrats, good morning. caller: good morning, guys. i'm a little bit nervous here. i've been calling in for about five or six years. ok. host: what is your question? caller: well, i have two questions. the first one was after donald trump surrendered the in afghanistan including the afghanistan government, do you think that if putin -- that gave

putin the idea that he could do this? install people and places to allow this to happen? and my second question, i saw a click on the internet the other night about putin bragging about how he interfered in the 2016 elections, that he needed to see if he could pull it off again. do you think there's anything true to that? guest: to your first question, i don't think that the way that we exited afghanistan and what happened to the afghan government was actually a factor in putin's decision to invade ukraine. the decision to invade ukraine was actually built over the course of a couple years of him not believing that you frame was actually going to fulfill the

agreements that ukraine said it was going to. i think there were other drivers behind the invasion of ukraine. as far as the russian meddling in the election, again, to the point we made earlier about sharing intelligence, i think we were caught off guard by russian meddling in their attempt to influence the election. now that we are more prepared for that, we are in a better place to actually mitigate against russians interfering in our elections. it doesn't mean they won't try, but i think that their chances of success are much lower now than they were before. host: jeffrey edmonds, research scientist at the center for naval analysis. you can follow him on twitter. and we do appreciate you coming in for this conversation. coming up a little later today, we are going to be talking with

a democrat of nevada, member of the house foreign affairs and security committee. first, it is time for your phone calls, our open forum and public policy issue. any political issue, state issue you want to talk about. phone lines are yours to do so. go ahead and start calling in now, and we will be right back. announcer: book tv every sunday on c-span two features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. in 2003, professor noam chomsky was the first author on "in-depth," and since then he has written dozens of books. join our to have a conversation as he rejoins us to talk about capitalism, u.s. foreign policy and social exchange, some of his most recent books including "hopes and prospects:

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washington journal continues. host: it is time for our open forum. this is the part of the program will return it over to you for the weekly discussion. democrats, (202) 748-8000. publicans, (202) 748-8001. independent'ss (202) 748-8002. we have about 50 minutes or so for open phones, so we will be taking your calls until about 9:30 eastern and that is when the congress woman is expected to join us. we will of course go there live when the house does come in. down pennsylvania avenue the other end, president biden is such a delivered remarks today on his administration's actions to reduce the impact at the pump of energy and gas prices. that is expected to take place at 1:30 p.m. today and then we are also expecting a press briefing from the white house

director of communications today. here is what is going on on the c-span network. coming up and just about 20 or 25 minutes, over on c-span2, a discussion with senator mitch mcconnell, the minority leader is being hosted by the cofounders of unfold and jake sherman to talk about the economy, the 2022 elections, and what is happening right now on capitol hill. again, that is on c-span2, c-span.org, and you can watch on the free c-span video app. also at 10:00 a.m., the house coming in and on c-span three, health and human services secretary javier becerra will testify on president biden's 2023 budget request, the subcommittee on health and human services is holding that hearing . a lot going on on the networks throughout the day. and stay with us in open forum. we will see what topics you

bring up this morning. jeff, we will start with you in massachusetts, democrat, good morning. caller: thanks for having me. the republican that was on the republican that was on before is completely disingenuous when he says the open borders let fentanyl through. 90% of the drugs in the border crossings caught by the border patrol, so i'm not sure what he is talking about. thank you. host: matthew, independent, good morning. caller: thank you, i'm glad i'm following that last caller. here is the concern, and thank you. this open border that is deliberately being left open by mr. biden and mrs. harris has caused the deaths, according to the dea agents, it caused the deaths of over 145,000 americans due to fentanyl poisoning that

the drug cartels are infusing into counterfeit pharmaceutical pills, and they are also infusing fentanyl into other drugs. this is a fact, sir. i hope that last caller is listening. this is not right. they know it is going on. they know people are dying from fentanyl poisoning. it is like instant death. it is wrong. they know this is happening. host:host: >> speaking of the border from yesterday, the biden administration expected to lift the pandemic-related public health order this week that has restrictive immigration for the past two years, a change that could more than double what has already been historic numbers of the virus surging in the united states from mexico. the new york times with a story that change is said to take

effect in late may and should restore migrants to request asylum once they are in the united states, just as they did before the pandemic. the public health order has given border officials the authority to quickly expel undocumented migrants to help prevent the spread of covid at border facilities. this kate bedingfield. >> the reporting of the administration to end title 42. the biden administration has an expected influx of migrants. >> firstly i would say that this is a decision that we have long deferred to the cdc, title 42 is a public health directive, not

an immigration or migration of -- enforcement measure. the decision on when to lift title 42 we defer to the cdc. that being said, of course we are planning for multiple contingencies, and we have every expectation that when the cdc ultimately decides it is appropriate to lift title 42, there will be an influx of people to the border. and so we are doing a lot of work to plan for that contingency. i think you saw yesterday the department of homeland security did a briefing walking through some of the planning that they are doing to increase efficiency, to ensure that we have the capacity, to ensure that we are operating in a way that is treating migrants mainly, verily, so you heard from them yesterday on some of the planning that they are doing more broadly. not specifically tied to title 42, adjust more broadly to the work that they're doing to continue to build up our migration system and ensure that we are restoring order at the border. host: kate bedingfield from the

white house briefing room yesterday. back to your phone calls, open forms. this is susan, republican, good morning. caller: i was just looking at the paper, clinton and her campaign for this russian hoax that killed trump for five years, and it was her. where is the accountability? i want accountability for her. another thing, i want the reporters to go to delaware. who is going to see biden? who is speaking to him? he is not in charge, he has got someone over him. i think it is obama. another thing, someone says how can you are spreading stories about hunter biden? host: the latest story about hunter biden getting attention today, the front page story on the washington post, documents showing the scope of the hunter

biden dealings overseas, specifically the chinese executives. while many aspects of the financial arrangement with chinese energy companies have been previously reported and included in a republican-led senate from 2020, and washington post review confirms many of the same details showing the biden emily's interact -- family's interactions for over 14 months paid $4.8 million -- according to government records and court documents and newly disclosed bank statements that the washington post display. not finding evidence that joe biden personally benefited or knew about the details about the transactions, and if you want to read that story, a very lengthy double page spread inside the front page story in the washington post today. this is bobby, st. paul minnesota, independent, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i listen to the political talk shows on weekends, and a couple weeks ago, they talk about these corporations that pull out of russia, and they talked about the pharmaceutical industry. the reason why, they said it was a moral issue if you take a look, see tanks shooting at people in cars. you see hospitals being bombed. you see the woman who was pregnant who was taken out and she died. i could go on and on. you see surrounding towns starving no electricity, no food, no medicine. that is not a morality issue. i think this is what we can do. we can do this, and i hope all our listeners will follow this

up. you have to contact your newspaper, your tv stations, every facet of communications to find out the companies not to have pulled out like mcdonald's, like pepsi, coke, etc. you have to find out the companies that have not. you have to put pressure on them. i don't necessarily mean that you have to boycott them is that percent -- could potentially lose jobs here, but there should be more pressure about this. when they talk about squeezing the economy, it is like a pipeline around russia. you have got to keep squeezing and squeezing. that is the only way we are going to take this guy down. to the point where the economy is just falling right out. thank you. >> in minnesota, republican, good morning. caller: good morning.

i'm glad that i heard the last guy, i think he is ridiculous. i want to point out that in iraq, the kurds have in the thomas state and i think it is time for donbas -- an autonomous state and think it is time for donbass to become autonomous. i don't believe a thing that president zelenskyy says. i think he exaggerates to the nth degree and as far as i can see, we see the same old pictures over and over again. but i think the only city that i have heard that he has actually flattened is mario pulp -- mariupol, which, like he said, is full of nazis. host: do you believe what vladimir putin says? caller: i don't have a way to judge that. i mean, he said that he was

going to go into keep people are being slaughtered by ukrainian soldiers n, ukrainian nazis, and it looks to me from the map that he has achieved every goal he has said and he is now pulling back. so i don't see. host: you don't think he was trying to take kyiv? caller: i don't think he intended to take all of ukraine, no, i don't. host: back in massachusetts, democrat, good morning. caller: that lady, i'm not going to criticize her.

i would just like to make a comment about immigration if i can. i and a full blood native american. both of my parents are both for blood natives. a country who illegally took indian land from the united states of america is still illegal just because people recognize this government, ok. even the result of immigration, everyone who is not indigenous is an immigrant. host: north carolina, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm not sure how to follow-up on the last couple of callers. [indiscernible] host: i'm having trouble hearing

you, can you try calling back on a different line and maybe we can you through. i think you were talking about the war in ukraine. we will try to get you back. more from the white house briefing room yesterday, the latest on the assessments by western officials that vladimir putin might have been misled by his own military leaders when it comes to russian ability to take ukraine and the losses they have suffered in ukraine. here is more from kate bedingfield. >> i think what this does is paint a picture of what a strategic error putin and russia have made here. we saw from the outset that they, for example, made an aggressive push for kyiv at the beginning of the invasion. they are now publicly trying to redefine the goals of their invasion to be different than they were at the outset.

putting forward this information simply contributes to a sense that this is been a strategic error for them. again, i am not going to characterize what they are thinking, i am certainly not going to characterize how they may or may not use this information to make decisions, that is not my place. but i do think that making this information public contributes to an understanding that this has been a strategic failure for russia. host: kate bedingfield in the white house briefing room yesterday. she is expected to be back there today, 3:00 p.m. eastern. plans regarding prices at the pump, some reporting today on that plan including large releases from strategic

petroleum reserve. silver spring, maryland, democrat. caller:, john. i've just got three quick points to make. i think judge jackson is extremely qualified and will definitely be a great asset to the supreme court. my second point, russia has been invading or making war with ukraine since 2013. this is three presidents. obama, trump, and now biden. we are still dealing with russia and ukraine's issues. in the case of russia, on this issue, i'm independent. yes, we should get them assistance, whether it be arms

or money in order to defend themselves, but i think the united states should not involve itself in another war with another superpower or with another country that is going to last another couple of years. we don't have the appetite for it. yes, we should assist nato in defending themselves, and they have shown a great deal of heart in order to defend their homeland. just like nato has restrained themselves and saying look if you all the assistance as far as weapons or money, but we're not going to send our troops. because one's nato or the united states enters that war, is no longer just a few people dying here and there. it is going to be a massive, massive casualty and world war iii. host: coming back to your first

point on judge jackson, it looks like your confirmation will be on track and that it would be bipartisan. this news yesterday from capitol hill, senator susan collins said she would vote to confirm judge ketanji brown jackson to the supreme court, the first republican to back president biden's nominee. she praised judge jackson saying she possesses the credentials to serve on the nation's highest court. she acknowledged some disagreement with the judgment said that they were not disqualifying disagreements. "in my view, the constitution clearly assigns the role of the seventh of examine the urines, qualifications and integrity of the nominees is not to assess whether and how many ideology of an individual senator or would rule exactly as an individual senator would want." senator collins, one of those three republicans who had

supported judge jackson to her circuit court nomination, so not too much of a surprise. she has been one the democrats have been nine to pick up as a republican vote in this confirmation since judge jackson's nomination was announced. pennsylvania, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. medicare benefits -- in terms of the caller about opioid overdoses, you can get naloxone however it is impossible when you only have the $18 shots. three, this country was built on

history, our founding fathers knew that. civil war because of religious sites -- doctors, nurses, teachers. thank you very much. host: west virginia, republican, good morning. caller: good morning, you know, i've been watching this show religiously since its conception . well, i hate to use this call to make this point, but yesterday morning i call this program and the man that answered the call insisted that i tell him what i was going to say. and i said i will make my comment to the lady that you have on there, and he took me off. like i say, if this policy now?

host: if i can explain that to you, we are not trying to edit your comments, but we have found that in doing that when somebody calls in, we say what line are you: in on, what city are you calling from and what is your question. when we ask, it is more to make sure that callers have a formed question that they have thought about before they get on air and we have found that by doing that, the caller is more prepared once they get on air to ask that question. it is not that we are going to edit your question, it is to help the program to help the conversation move along. we have found when we didn't do that, callers would get on and they would not exactly know what the question was or had not been deformed resting in their mind yet. does that make sense? caller: are you doing that all people now, or just certain people? host: no, sir, that is what they say when they answer the phones

downstairs regardless of what line you call in or how we break up the lines. it is our way to help the flow of the program. does that make sense? caller: well, i found it very insulting to me. host: i apologize for that. caller: i thought it was a form of censorship because you people know i call in every 30 days. host: yes, sir. caller: because i am a conservative republican. host: no, sir, we have a lot of conservative republicans and liberal democrats call in. we are not trying to censor what you say. i appreciate you watching all these years. >> like i say, i'm sorry i had to use my call for this purpose, very political, as you know. host: that's all right. do you have a comment about something else, and since i have you? caller: not right now. i'm still upset about what happened yesterday morning, i'm

sorry. host: do you know what you were going to ask about or talk about yesterday? caller: it was about the hunter laptop. host: what are your thoughts on those stories? caller: well, it is a known fact that if anyone would check into it, joe biden was in the line to get money from china. it is so simple for a good reporter, it might be bernstein from the russian post. i can't, i'm sorry. enke. host: that is coral out of west virginia. this is jay, i believe the one

who we asked to call in on another line because he couldn't hear him earlier. is that correct? caller: it is. thank you for the opportunity. many, many conflict over the years including some that are ongoing as we speak. none of them do i remember getting the endless daily coverage that the situations, as terrible as it is, in ukraine, has been. but imagine what is going on with the many people that have died there in horrific ways that need support directly. in many, many ways. and yet, you see these people going from parliament to parliament every single day, demanding that they get even more funding.

we are over here saying that we've got all of these things going on in russia. ok, i understand that. we got legislation that would ban that. that would criminalize it in some places in the country. it in some places in this country. let's not bust out the morality when we feel like it. the same thing extends to immigration conversation. there is direct video evidence of ukrainians being bumped to the front of the line. if we are trying to help people out, let's help people out. let's not throw these things around like we really care about suffering because we don't apply that care all the way around. host: that's j in north carolina.

we have an hour left on the washington journal. the first half-hour will be with you in are open forum. any political issue you want to talk about. turn the reins of this program over to you and let you lead it. it will be joined by nevada democrat dina titus to talk about the presidential budget. that's also the time the senate is going to come in. you can watch the house and senate respectively on c-span and c-span2. wesley in the capitol heights, maryland. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning sir. my comment is when mitch mcconnell said that ms. jackson was weak on crime, he should have took a look in the mirror because he is the weakest on crime. because for one thing, the

constitution and the bill of rights states that when a man runs for presidency, he cannot ask a foreign country for a favor. if he does, that is called treason. mitch mcconnell committed treason twice. maybe three times. wikileaks. those things are treason because that means he owed putin. host: that discussion with senate minority leader mitch mcconnell with punch bowl news, the cofounders of punch bowl news. ana palmer and jake sherman is taking place on c-span2 and a lot of discussion about what's going on in congress right now. this was yesterday with mitch mcconnell.

he spoke in his remarks about a news story that's getting a lot of attention, the texts between supreme court justice clarence thomas. but weeks after the 2020 election, her concerns about fraud in the election and pushing other conspiracy theories. this is mitch mcconnell discussing calls for clarence thomas to recuse himself in the wake of those accusations. >> this performative outrage is not in earnest. this is a political hit to delegitimize the court all because our laws and constitution occasionally inconvenience the democrats radical agenda. this isn't new.

it's a tired old tactic. the far left has issued near constant demands for the late justice scalia, justice alito, justice gorsuch, justice kavanaugh and justice barrett to recuse themselves from various issues. all based on spurious accusations about fake ethical problems. this is a continuation of this well-worn pattern. it has no basis in justice thomas decades of impeccable service on the court which of the justices on the entire court should feel free to completely ignore all of this. his writing is clear. his reasoning is rigorous and transparent.

i have total confidence in his impartiality in every aspect of the work of the court. each of the justices should feel free to make every decision they make with total independence and complete freedom. what cases they hear, how they hear them, how they rule. whether and when they recuse themselves and whether and when they retire. these are all judicial decisions . all nine justices deserved total independence as they approach every judicial decision they make. this clumsy bullying from the political branches is really beyond the pale. justice thomas is an exemplary journalist -- and jurist -- jurist.

host: senate minority leader mitch mcconnell yesterday and those comments coming less than 24 hours after these comments from chuck schumer, the majority leader in the senate. he was speaking on tuesday in the post party lunches talking about the recusal of clarence thomas and pushing for that. back to your phone calls as we continue our open forum. let us know about the policy issues that you want to talk about. this is robert in lynchburg, virginia. caller: i'm coming from a different perspective since you played that mitch mcconnell. you know why we can't get anything done in the united states, because we keep sending these old people back to congress and you repeat the same thing, you get the same results.

what we need to do is put some new young senators to get all these old people out of there. they don't do nothing but argue back and forth to each other. they don't do anything for the united states. thank you. host: at what age would you cut somebody off from being a member of congress if you had to set an age limit? caller: i'm 78. 78-year-old man out here can't get a job, so why do we have to keep putting these people back in at 70 and 80 years old? this guy from iowa wants to run again. he's 86 years old. we don't need people like that. host: how about 60-year-olds? caller: 60-year-olds are fine. but it should be the same thing out here in the economy.

host: this is mark in st. peter's, missouri. republican. caller: there are two points i would like to bring up. number one is president biden's mental acuity. it's really very troubling. i'm seeing that he's having trouble formulating sentences. he's using cheat sheets and calling on predetermined press and he has all kinds of gaffes and misstatements that are really detrimental to the united states of america and it's very concerning. i'm sure everybody has to see that out there. my second point is the media's role in politics. it just seems as though most of the media is just a political arm of the democratic party where they try to control the narrative that the american people here. and even c-span has lied and

cheated the american people and it's very concerning. if we don't do something about it, our nation is just going to continue to go down. host: how has c-span lied and cheated the american people? caller: i'm glad that you brought that up and i hope that you don't cut me off. back when trump was running against hillary clinton, you had an employee for c-span that was supposed to moderate one of the debates. but he apparently was on his twitter page or facebook page -- i'm not exactly sure what it was. but he had some negative comments that he had made against president trump and then when he was confronted about it, he lied and said that his twitter page or his email or

something got hacked and that it wasn't him. and finally he admitted, but c-span cheated the american people out of the trump until he came forward and then i think they actually fired him. but then they rehired him back. i think maybe you probably know who the moderator was. i can't remember his name. host: you're talking about steve scully. he doesn't work at c-span anymore. former host of this program. do you want to go on, mark? caller: well i'm just saying that if i'm not mistaken -- you asked me how c-span has lied and cheated the american people. you had an employee that lied to the american people and cheated them out of the truth. host: mark, who do you trust right now when it comes to your media? caller: i tend to listen to the

mall, but i don't trust any of them to be quite honest with you because i find that cnn, msnbc, they are all just political arms of the democratic party and you can see that by the different stories that they are covering. they don't even mention anything bad about joe biden or hunter biden. twitter, facebook, they all covered up the hunter biden story and said that it was all just a big lie and there was nothing to see and we are finding that that is not true. so really i think the whole media whether it be cnn, even fox news. msnbc. i just have trouble trusting them all because they have just lied to us over and over. or they cover stories that they

want to the american people to hear is what the problem is. host: when was the last time you trusted the media, mark? caller: i would say it was prior to the whole hillary clinton issue where she deleted 30,000 emails and nothing really came about of that. the media tried to cover that up like it was no big deal and you could see that they just totally covered for hillary clinton. and i think at that point when i saw that, that is when i said to myself, you know what, this is just crazy because they are just trying to totally control what the american people think and what they hear is what the whole deal is. so it was probably somewhere around 2015 and that i just saw

them go after trump nonstop and they are continuing to go after donald trump nonstop. it's simply mind-boggling. it's unbelievable. host: if you don't trust the media and you mentioned media on both sides, what value do you get in consuming as much media that you consume? >> i try to listen to what they have to say and i tried to pick out what i feel is truthful relating to my own experiences and that's kind of how i do. you can hardly get away from it. it's just all over the place. so that's kind of where i am with that.

host: a major part of what we do at this network is to show you events in their entirety without commentary and to let you make your decision about what people are saying, press conferences, speeches on floors. is that helpful to you? caller: it is. as far as the different moderators that you have on your program, i think you are one of the fairest. i called in and talked with one of your moderators, i believe his name was pedro and he continued to interrupt me when i tried to make my point. he tried to ask me questions to steer me away from what i was saying and then when i said something i guess he personally did not agree with, he ended up reaching over and cutting me off. host: pedro is my calling. i find him to be a very fair moderator.

he's been doing this longer than i have been one of my mentors in doing this. i don't agree with your description of it. from what we try to do here, we try to facilitate a discussion and allow you to lead the discussion sometimes. a lot of times. we do it often in this open forum segment. so we are going to continue to try to do that and give you a place not just to let washington speak to you, but for you to speak back to washington. hope you keep calling. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. you gave mark from missouri and awful lot of time. i just want to say that the republican is no longer really a party. it's a cult and it follows

donald trump and its embracing fascism. that's exactly what it's doing and the way fascism works is you separate people from other people. they don't like immigrants, they don't like gay people, they don't like black people. and you tell people government is bad. you let private industry to everything. this is fascism 101 and people in america just aren't politically aware enough to realize what the republicans are doing. you had mitch mcconnell claiming there is this far left agenda. there is a far left agenda. there's about five congresswomen called the squad and everybody else just goes along and they don't fight against the republicans. the democrats are completely weak and i say that as a lifelong democrat. so i'm really worried about this country. donald trump is a criminal.

i grew up in new york before he moved to new jersey. i saw what donald trump did. and this is the guy that they think is the man to run the country? it's unbelievable. host: the white house taking aim at donald trump yesterday. we had talked about the story from earlier this week of donald trump calling on president vladimir putin of russia to release any information he might have concerning hunter biden. the white house firing back yesterday, blasting the former president for taking that action. that was kate bedingfield saying in that briefing that we showed you a few clips of, there is only one and it is donald trump. this is chris out of maine.

independent. good morning. are you with us? then we will go to linda in myrtle beach, south carolina. caller: how are you today? host: i'm doing well. caller: i think the last two colors are kind of screwy in the head. we've got to get along here. my question is about the economy and the gas prices and being a senior citizen. it's really gotten difficult and i just think we need to learn how to figure this inflation out. host: i'm listening. go ahead and finish your comment. caller: we need to figure this inflation out. in the gas prices because i'm going broke through this. i'm now having a hard time

getting through life and this is supposed to be my senior years enjoying myself. i wish biden would do something. oil prices are high. people have leases on 9000 but they don't have oil there. host: president biden is set to give remarks today on prices at the pump. president biden weighing the release of a record amount of oil to help alleviate gas prices. the plan involves releasing around one million barrels per day from the reserves. a person says the announcement could come as soon as today.

pete, good morning. democrat. caller: thanks for taking my call. you get several comments when people are talking about the border and it always goes into all the drugs coming over the border. most of that comes through the ports of entry, by the way. anyway i think they are completely missing the point about why the drugs are coming into the border. they wouldn't be coming over if there wasn't somebody buying them. it's supply and demand. and i think the problem is substance abuse and addiction. because that's why the drugs are coming over the border. they wouldn't come over here if nobody was buying them.

host: that's pete in iowa. we will be joined by congresswoman dina titus. we will take that conversation up until 10:00 when the house will come in for the day. one other story from the white house this week. president biden signed the emmett till antilynching act earlier this week making lynching of federal hate crime. after more than a century of failed efforts in congress to pass similar legislation, the bill named after emmett till, 14-year-old black teenager from chicago who was abducted, tortured and shot in the head after a white woman claimed he whistled at her and touched her in a mississippi store. the senate cleared the bill on march 7 in the house passed by 422 to three votes. congress had fallen short on passing an antilynching bill more than 200 times since 1900.

paul. kansas city missouri. independent. caller: good morning. always a pleasure to speak with you. i'm going to say if you have cheated on three wives and been convicted of fraud, do not ask to marry my daughter. because she's going to -- host: do you want to finish your comment? caller: as far as clarence thomas and his wife, this isn't someone who wants to garden -- i

tilly believes that professional wrestling is real. we need to know if uncle john is the one making popcorn and predicting the outcome of the matches. this is more serious than a husband and wife just having a difference of opinion. this woman is talking about things that are beyond the scope of reality. when you start trading in to the aspect of they are stealing. they are trying to take our country away. there's a difference between who and they. the work of a commissioned looking into january 6, they are being very exact. they are saying who did this at what time. they are putting names to faces, to deeds. all the claims about the theft of the election and the crime and the fraud families.

host: this is myrtle in mississippi. good morning. you are next. caller: previous colors had great points. the last one was speaking about mcconnell and clarence thomas and all i can say when listening to mitch mcconnell and what he has said about clarence thomas, he shouldn't have to recuse himself. the way i see it, clarence thomas is in a position of trust. he participates in making laws for this country. and i am a cpa. we have certain professional standards that we conduct ourselves by. we have to consider what we do

just not in fact but in appearance also. i think clarence thomas -- the very fact that clarence thomas was the only justice that would say that he wanted to see his white house records not be released to the january slicks commission to me was a violation of the public trust. host: this is carrie and wisconsin. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. a gentleman called in a while ago and actually made some good points. i have called in a couple times a year over the last few years.

this morning and sometimes i have been asked what my comment is. other times i have not been asked. this morning i was not asked what my comment was. but more often i have been. so it is not consistent and it's quite obvious when a lot of the colors come on and do not have coherent questions or good points to make that they have not been screened. the other point that he made which was great, it's very difficult to find unbiased journalism nowadays. i was a trained journalist back in the early 80's although i never worked as one. i know where there is objective journalism and there is not. stopped watching your show until the war began. i watched it and have enjoyed it for years because it shows me the extremes. it shows me the crazy stuff that

people believe on both extremes and you get a lot of the middle. i have to plug a few places that you can find objective journalism. channel nine out of chicago. it used to be wgn, but now it is called news nation. about 6000 journalists around the country got so fed up with so-called objective journalism, they started their own new thing. and also now the national desk. it's the cw network here in wisconsin. bbc news also is not nearly as bad as our regular mass media which of course includes all three networks and of course all the cable news network's. cnn, msnbc, fox news. terrible, terrible.

i'm with that gentleman that you have to really try to watch it all and try to figure out. it has actually made me physically ill at times because there's times where i literally cannot find or verify what the truth is. so people, do not believe what you hear i guess anywhere. i don't know where you are supposed to find the news. but god bless our country. host: where did you trained to be a journalist? caller: university of wisconsin madison. it's actually a little socialist regime in wisconsin. i had a wonderful time there. it's like the berkeley of the midwest. host: did you take a journalism program? do you have a journalism degree? caller: yes. i have a bachelors of arts in journalism. host: why not go into journalism? caller: i had gone into the

advertising sequence of journalism. you either went the market oriented, here is a little trinket, you are going to be judged on how many millions you can sell whether or not people actually need it. i went for the consumer oriented theory. unfortunately your paid based on how much demand you can create. host: last call in open phones. brian and pennsylvania. republican. good morning sir. caller: i would like to support pedro who i have been watching,

i can remember the first day pedro was on the air. he was like a deer in the headlights. to see how well he has matured, when i saw him first he had all black hair. now it's almost all white. host: you have been watching for a while. pedro has been working on this program for a long time. caller: when i first saw it it was only brian lamb and susan swain and pedro was added later. the other thing i would like to comment on years ago, when i was little i listened to radio moscow thinking the russians only cared about our elections in 2016 is kind of crazy because after all these years the only thing i can remember consistently was about every third phrase especially near elections was capitalist lucky dogs is what they were always

talking about over in the good old u.s. of a. years later i tripped upon rt and washed it for a while and said, this sounds like -- this kind of reminds me of a subtle version of radio moscow and then i find out months later that rt stands for russia today. host: that's brian in pennsylvania. about 30 minutes left this morning. we will be joined by democrat dina titus of nevada. member of the foreign affairs and homeland security committees. stick around for that conversation. we will be right back. >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. here many of those conversations

on c-span's new podcast. presidential recordings. >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson. you will hear about the 1964 civil rights act, the gulf of tonkin incident, the march on selma and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and theirs. >> he will also hear some blunt talk. >> i want a report of the number of people that signed to candidate the day he died on the numbers signed to me now. >> presidential recordings on

the c-span now at or wherever you get your podcasts. >> i find it intellectually challenging and exciting and demanding and some of it because i just feel it has to be done. >> professor noam chomsky was the first on tv's in depth. join us as he talks about capitalism, u.s. foreign policy and social exchange. during the conversations with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets.

>> washington journal continues. host: congressman dina titus serves on several committees. let's start on president biden's budget request that was released earlier this week. what do you like about it, what don't you like. is this a good spending plan? guest: a budget is a reflection of your priorities and they in turn reflect your values. many of the things that were part of the president's domestic agenda in build back better are found in the budget and i'm very supportive of those. also it is structured in such a way that it's going to bring down the deficit over the next several years. so that will be an improvement.

defense is very strong, homeland security is very strong. there is funding for climate change which is very important in nevada. and also some of the social programs for expanding medicare, for child care. keeping obamacare intact. those are all things i support. host: 800 $13 billion on national security including 770 $3 billion specifically for the pentagon. why is that much money needed? guest: i think it's about a 5% increase and that doesn't count the money we are getting to ukraine. i think the international situation has changed so dramatically over the course of the last 30 days that we want to be sure that we are safe at home and abroad and the u.s. has stepped up under president biden to really be a leader again

internationally bring nato together, support ukraine and the surrounding countries and not back down from russia. host: yesterday we heard from president biden asking congress once again for an additional $22 billion for covid relief funding. republicans saying let's get an accounting of the money that's already out the door and that there is more money that hasn't been spent that has already been approved, why don't we spend that money first. guest: the republicans probably have a list of project they want to see that money go to. we can say that covid is over, but it really isn't. now you have a new variant that's much more contagious. we don't know what will happen next because the virus seems to adapt itself every time we get a handle on it.

i can tell you that getting a handle on it is critical for my district. i represent las vegas and at the height of the pandemic we had the highest unemployment in the country. 35%. people didn't feel safe to travel and they didn't have extra money in their pockets to go on holiday. if we let this get out of control again, who knows what the impact will be on the economy just now as we are starting to come back. we are talking about an additional booster. a lot of people have never had any of the shots. people are still going to the hospital and dying. i don't think we can say will be it's over and go on as normal. host: congressman -- congresswoman dina titus is with us.

you mentioned las vegas on the high unemployment. how is it doing today and are there still covid restrictions in las vegas in the strip area where so many folks have visited in the past, what is life like? what is the new normal there these days? guest: when covid was at its peak, the entire strip closed down. that's the heart of my district. you could ride your bicycle down the middle of the street. it was like a dystopian movie or the twilight zone. the governor was smart. he opened things up gradually with social distancing and masks. so we are opened up now and it's interesting. even though we were the worst hit, the economists and some of the financial magazines show

that las vegas is the fastest recovering. people have been so hunkered down for two years, they want to go out and have fun and where better to do that than las vegas. now people are coming back to las vegas and not only is there gaming, shopping, entertainment, food, we are a sports town. host: pretty good hockey team there in las vegas. let's chat with rudy in california. democrat. caller: good morning. i'm a pragmatic establishment liberal. do you think you can get along and compromise with somebody like the previous representative on the show this morning, mr. bacon? >> it's a challenge.

things are very partisan here in congress. i was in the state legislature in nevada before. i have been here for 10 years and seen that increasingly it can be a problem. most people say, why can't you just get along? why can't you get something done? i think the key is to pick your battles. i'm on the infrastructure committee. in areas like that, i can get along with somebody like mr. bacon. some of the other issues like climate change that republicans don't even admit exists, equality issues, that's where i draw the line. host: this is robert in oregon.

caller: thanks for taking my call. guest: you can call me dena if you want to. caller: our border. a color earlier talked about how he can't trust anything anybody says it was wise anymore. and that's a sad state of affairs. i try to watch them all. i don't know how to digest them anymore. the only thing that i can do is i go online and i look at your records on your voting and where you stand on the issues. our border is just being inundated and people are not following the rule of law. your party says there's not a

crisis at the border and there obviously is. i just -- nobody follows the rule of law anymore. it's just frustrating. host: let me let congresswoman titus comment on that. guest: i unfortunately agree with you. i commend you for looking at people's records. a lot of folks don't know how to go about doing that. so you are ahead of the game. i taught political science for 35 years and if i were back in the classroom, it would be a real challenge because people get their news from all different sources. young people get it from the internet and we know how reliable that is. people tend to gravitate towards the channel that reinforces their own beliefs and that's necessarily -- not necessarily a

good thing and it's not necessarily accurate. as for the border, there is a crisis. we've got a lot of people stuck there and more people are going to be coming because of the economic crisis and the climate change like hurricanes that drive people out. i can tell you there are some ukrainians and russians at the border, too. we are letting in ukrainians more readily than others. they are certainly being checked, but we have said we will take 100,000 refugees from that war, which is only right i believe and it's a lot less than they are taking in some of the european countries. we are not letting the russians in. that makes sense, too. the president has put in his budget that he proposed a very strong amount for homeland

security and that will go towards your technology along the border. drones and being able to do x-rays on trucks to make sure they are not bringing in drugs or something that is seen as a serious problem when we have this fentanyl epidemic. i share some of your concerns, but i can tell you it's not that we don't think it's a problem. we believe what's in the budget now will help. host: is now a good time for the cdc to consider lifting title 42? guest: i have mixed feelings about the cdc. i have not been too happy with them throughout this crisis. they do lack credibility. one minute you need a shot.

i realize the virus changes but it has not been a very clear-cut message or overall policy coming out of the cdc. host: king of prussia, pennsylvania. caller: you previously expressed support for much-needed tax reform. the data shows the actual revenue that is generated from this group is quite limited. i can't even open a savings account or retirement account here without proving to the bank that i have renounced my citizenship because they don't allow for u.s. tax residents of customers. have you given any thought to introducing legislation to redefine the definition of a tax resident?

host: where have you lived overseas? caller: i have been living in the netherlands for about six years. i live with my dutch partner and it's very difficult to be a u.s. citizen here while not being able to actually bank or have a retirement account. guest: thank you for bringing that up. i hear that all the time from our friends abroad i visited with a number of the democrats abroad organizations. my husband is a latin american scholar and he has spent a lot of time living in spain, living in latin america. if you are an american abroad, you get taxed in the u.s. for your income and then abroad. that was put in place to try to

get people who were hiding money and the wealthy folks to have the unintended consequence -- or teachers who are abroad. i know it is a problem and it is difficult to get banking there when you don't have the right paperwork or they don't want to fool with your bank at home. there is legislation, i was trying to find the number for you. i think it is representative buyer. they are trying to crafted in such a way that it is narrow so it doesn't take away the original intent but also doesn't hurt people like you or me who happen to live abroad for other reasons, not to hide money. so i can tell you what we are on top of it. we are working on it and i hope we can get that resolved. host: is it the tax

simplification for americans abroad act? we will head to the bluegrass state. caller: what are you guys going to do -- host: i can't hear you. it sounds like you are a mile away from your phone. caller: i've got three statements. we don't have border security. we do not have coal, oil and

gas. we've got 9000 permits out. should have 190 permits out. we are cutting down trees produce oxygen to put up windmills that little air around. climate control, i'm a born again christian. i know god's word and god says he controls the claimant. we are just supposed to take care of this earth. the third thing is joe biden buy american. we have a ton of oil and gas. he is trying to get a deal with a country that wants to bomb us off the face of the earth, iran.

he took the terrorist from iran. host: climate, energy and iran. which do you want to focus on? guest: i don't know. there's so much misinformation. one thing we can agree on is that god created this planet i'm sure god controls the planet with mother nature. he also gave us enough sense to realize if we don't save the planet, it won't be here for future generations. we have already talked about border security. maybe we should talk about coal and oil. you mentioned the 9000 figures. there are 9000 drilling permits

out there now because it's a lot easier for them to raise your prices at the gas tank and cowed you during the war than it is to invest in that drilling. even in the invest in it, it's going to take a while. gas prices are something that concerned me very much. you have to drive long distances, that takes a lot of gas. plus if we don't get gas prices down, we will lose that business and then be hurt again like we were in the pandemic. we are tied to an international market so there's not a lot that we can do. we are also in a war so that is another problem.

we have cutbacks because of the 70% of people people in this country supported this. we don't want to be giving russia money at a time when we are supporting ukraine. the president has already released some oil prices. there is a gasoline windfall tax and two versions. to get those corporations to pass some of that profit over the people and there's the act to make our businesses more competitive with china and develop renewable energy. we aren't cutting down trees for

windmills. we are building windmills out of other kinds of material. the more you invest in renewable energy, the more you get away from fossil fuels and make us dependent on. host: is it your understanding that president biden will release a million barrels of oil from the date from the petroleum reserve? >> that's the last that i have heard. >> the white house daily guidance will be briefing on gas prices. of course the house coming in in just a few minutes and we will go there live when they do. we will go there live with congresswoman dina titus.

caller: representative titus, this has nothing to do with homeland security, but maybe it does. i had a few especially coming from las vegas, i've had a few family members have a real problem with gambling and it has destroyed their lives. i just want a personal question to you. do you truly believe that gambling is good for society and who gets the money from the prophets california is trying to pass a law about online gaming. do you truly believe that gambling is good for society? thank you. guest: it's a personal choice if you want to gamble. some people don't do it for religious reasons. some people do it for fun a little bit.

we have set aside money from the companies to invest in programs that help people who have become addicted to it. nevada has that. i don't know if it's written into the initiative you are talking about in california or not. most of the states that i know about have that provision. so if you are a problem gambler, you can get help and those programs are funded by the industry itself. when you look at gambling, you've got to look at the back of the house, not just the front of the house. think of how many people are hired to work in this industry. it's in the hospitality industry, the retail industry. whether it's the laundry or the florist or chefs. they work in the back of the house so their children can work

in the front of the house. in addition to that, you tax gaming and the revenue that comes from those taxes goes into all kind of programs. a lot of the program goes to funding education. so i'm from las vegas, i'm very loyal to that district. i support that industry because i see how much good it can do. host: let's go to las vegas. this is dave, and independent. caller: glad to talk to you. i'm an independent, but i think the democrats -- i always vote democratic, but i am an independent bit because i believe it is sort of both

sides. i think you're going to lose because you're not doing anything at all about the border. this country is going to sink and you are not doing anything. you could put the military on the board. this war in ukraine, you cut off our gas and everything. it's going to hurt you. i will tell you in the midterms, you're probably going to lose. i vote democratic. i shouldn't have voted for biden because he's giving all these illegals millions of dollars. he's not doing anything for people on social security. host: let me stop you there because the house is going to come in in a little bit. guest: thank you for voting democratic. i appreciate the fact that you are an independent. you look at the issues and you look at the candidates and vote for the ones you think are doing the best job. i have to disagree with you about biden not doing anything.

and certainly about social security. i'm a cosponsor of a bill that was introduced by john larson to strengthen social security and that is the best program our government has ever created. a lot of people say that. and it's a guarantee that the money you earned while you were working for it is there for you in your later years. it's not an entitlement. it's something that you earned. we have to protect that for generations to come and it's parallel, medicare, needs to be protected, too. those benefits need to be increased. i have supported legislation that would expand medicare so it would cover hearing and vision. i think that's important and that's gotten very expensive for seniors. so while we need to deal with the border and be a strong leader internationally, we can't forget people at home. that's why much of this budget that he's put forward invest in things at home whether it's work

or -- worker rights or equality rights or expanding medicare or protecting retirement. all those things i think are very important and i agree with you. if democrats don't get the word out about what we are doing and how we are trying to help and how we are different from republicans who just want to raise taxes on people and get rid of obama care, we will face a challenge. host: 30 seconds before the house comes in. any thoughts on being added to the national republican campaign committee target list for campaign 2022? guest: well i think they've got about 75 people targeted. so that's optimistic on their part. but i'm optimistic on our part. i think if we get our message out, people know that we are fighting for them and what we've done. host: congresswoman dina titus.