you will also find our live coverage streaming at c-span.org or c-span now, our free video app.

maybe prices will have dropped considerably and they wind up losing money. one of the things people talked about in terms of helping oil prices come down is basically finding ways to encourage oil companies to produce the amount that they can. host: we know the headline, eight point 5% inflation. you had a piece in politico that said looking past the headline on inflation, what do you see where should we be looking for that. guest: if you dig into the numbers on inflation there is front line inflation which is all the prices and then core

inflation. even though a lot of people do that is because oil and crops are commodities. the prices fluctuate a lot more than prices of things set by businesses. if you look at the core inflation there was still considerable inflation. it slowed down from where it has been over the last few months. that was something that was an encouraging signal. the trend is really what matters. people like the bed, the white house will be watching closely to see if that trend continues. at least if you look at that number it indicates that there could be some easing of prices. do we know if wages -- host: we know if wages are keeping pace with inflation? guest: they haven't. it depends on how you break it down. the lowest income bracket, we

have been arriving faster than inflation. on aggregate, wages haven't been keeping place with inflation. even though people might be getting raises, things are getting more expensive at the same time. ultimately people have less money. host: she's on twitter at vgt2. thanks for having me up this morning. are higher prices affecting your spending? call us at 202-748-8000. and for the mountain and pacific region, that's 202-748-8001. let's hear from roberta, first up, decatur, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning, good morning. yes. inflation or the higher prices are impacting my household.

you know, i tend to when it comes to glass, i'll fill up my tank and then try to not travel too much to other areas of georgia. i'll try to make sure i stay put and get everything i need to in one area so i don't drive very much. and we used to eat out every once couple of weeks. but now, we prepare and eat things at home and not eat out because the cost of eating out has even increased quite a bit. so that's some of the things that we do, maybe watch and go to different stores to see where the sales are, where as usually, i could buy at one location. but now we really try to kind of map out where we're going to buy

certain items and what may be cheaper where and stay in our area. so that we don't use too much, as far as gas and purchasing of food and other household items even toilet paper and paper towels. host: roberta, appreciate that. from "the hill." the headline, new inflation numbers ring alarms for senate. he writes that a report that inflation in march rose by 8.5% compared to a year ago is setting off new alarm among democrats that their senate majority is in trouble and inflation is projected to be a problem for the rest of this year there's not much they can do about it in the short term and there is souring america's view of the economy. they say that the senator of georgia who is facing a tough

re-election rate that inflation is a major cause for concern in voters in his state. next up, we hear from richard. go ahead. caller: good morning. tough. i'm a first-time caller. i'm just very briefly here, they say inflation rose 8.5%. that's really much lower, depends on if you're buying a cup of coffee, it might be up as a builder. we used to pay $15 a sheet for a sheet of osp and now -- well, last summer, it's $45 a sheet. you don't have to be a mathematician to realize that's more than 8%. price of aluminum products have

doubled. like i said, they're really costing buy throwing these very small figures. price of gas was $2 last year and now it's $4 and $5. that's not 8%. and one more comment before i go. host: yeah. caller: i wish our government would look at and would watch your show use it really shows what the people think. i think the one thing that we all have in common regardless of what your democratic, republican, independent, is we would all like to see term limits. i don't care what the case, who you are, where you're from. there's not one person that would not agree with term limits. host: we appreciate your call, richard. don't be a stranger. come back and call back in 230 days. we go to kathy -- oh, i lost you, kathy. sorry sorry about that callback.

if you get a chance, let's try to -- well, we'll show you some comments from kevin brady. the republican from texas is the ranking member on the house ways and means committee just ahead of those inflation numbers coming out. he was on cbs -- cnbc yesterday and had this to say. >> yeah, and i think a fair assessment of this is that it didn't necessarily start on president biden's inauguration day but certainly in march when democrats ran through that $1.9 trillion american rescue plan, that continued to accelerate. right now, we will see new numbers this morning. anything over .4% is another monthly pay cut for families and workers. i also think there was a hangover from some of the covid area programs that have very lavish unemployment benefit and lavish health care benefit and a child tax credit no longer tied

to work. i think that exacerbated employment. and the timing and i think benefits that extended way beyond where the recovery demanded it is. host: in the inflation rate is at a 40-year high. we're asking you if inflation affected your spending? it's 202-748-8000. and eastern time zone, 202-748-8001. mountain and pacific, prohibit tweeted this yesterday about the rise in prices. meat prices increased by double digits. tyson c.e.o. said they're asking customers do "pay for inflation." meanwhile, tyson's posted $1 billion in profit in the first quarter. don't be fooled. this is about corporate greed, it always is.

inflation is rising yes but corporation is using it as a smoke screen to pad their wallet. governor ron dechan des saying inflation is high due to federal policies of borrowing and printing money and bad energy policy which is hurting floridians. biden could unleash -- instead he is content watching people suffer. the financial post had this observation on the price of things online. their headline, soaring online goods. prices for online goods continue to surge in march at a record pace. adding a potentially troubling dimension to the federal reserve battle to slow the overall pace of prices. you can read that at financialpost.com. let's hear from linda in fort myers, florida. linda, go ahead.

linda, i'm sorry. there you are. go ahead, you're on. in florida. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think inflation, this whole bit has affected my life a lot. i'm on a fixed income now. i just retired. and i'm one of the people from the -- no retirement left, no 402k, no nothing from 2008. so i'm really hurting. i mean, i can barely afford groceries. i've cut out of prescription. you know, i look at all the wage fighting that we did over the past year or two and that's been nothing. i mean, these corporations have never lost money. i don't believe any of it. and, you know, i think they're just going to thrive more and more. our discrepancy and income, you know, is so high at this point.

i don't see however we're going to ever turn it around. i really don't. and i know people are hurting. even saying anything when you see these people in ukraine and other people in the world that are suffering so much, when i look at it that way, you know, i don't see it at so bad and this has been affected, no doubt. host: let's hear from donald in riverside, california. how's the high prices affecting you, donald? caller: oh, man, i live in california where they have the highest prices of gasoline and inflation is eating up our budgets. but i just listen to that woman in florida and i'm thinking i feel so sad for her. i mean, i wish we could impeach the president immediately, get him out of office. he's done nothing but ruin this country and he's trying to work with the russians and the chinese. that's why everybody's waiting

for us to die off from the covid or whatever else they throw at us, the poison that they're bringing across the border so that they can attack us and take over our country. what's wrong with it? why are we wait something why are we cuddling the president? we need to get hill out of there and then -- get him out of there and then help kamala to do the best job she can. thank you very much. host: to richard in sparta, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to make a quick comment. inflation is universal. in new york, the inflation rate is 7.5%. in mexico, it's 7.5%. in germany, it's 7.5%. in canada, it's 5.7%. brazil is 11%. so inflation is all over the world except in the super controlled economies like china where it's maybe 1.5%. but generally speaking, and, you

know, basically, i would say it's the fuel. it happened the last time in the 1970's. because we had super inflation because the price of fuel went so much. so fuel is the main draw, i believe. but it's worldwide, not just here in america. i don't think biden -- host: richard, are you still there? well, to richard's point, here is a piece in the "new york times." war and virus circling the globe. just as the united states policymakers in other countries have been caught off guard by high inflation. price increases were expected to ease as economies recovered from the pandemic. but surging energy and food prices have continued lift inflation around the world. after russia invaded ukraine, predictions about inflation were torn up and reset in light of the commodity prices the worst part which are crucial to europe

and disruptive food production raising the risk of a global hunger crisis. 'xplain -- the demand for some good is still stronger than production can handle. -- it is the largest share since the 1980's and a serious problem for central banks, which typically target inflation at 2%. in emerging economies, more than half the countries have inflation rate above 7% the bank said. for now, china and japan are notable exception. so diane is next in mansfield, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. well, you and the -- well, the "new york times" and the calls from new jersey kind of stole my thunder. so i'll just continue from

there. we're just making different choices with our family. but something we've noticed is that in the last two weeks, our gas prices have been going up a few cents each week. and that's since the reserves were open. so that is obvious price gouging which is very disappointing. i also wanted to comment on the first-time caller this morning. welcome to c-span. but actually, i am one that does not believe in term limits. i believe that each state should -- the people there should be able to vote for who they want and i don't find it my place to determine who california's senator is and congress people should be. so i think that needs to be left up to individuals in the state. thanks very much. hope everyone has a great day. host: president biden focusing specifically on gas prices yesterday but also talked about the higher number in the inflation and addressed the issue of bringing down meat and poultry prices. here's what he said.

president biden: of course, there's more we need to do to bring down the prices for american families. also working to address food prices. because right now, farmers aren't getting a fair deal nationwide. and neither are families at the grocery store. back in july, i signed an executive order to vote competition. because as many of you here know better than anyone, that four big companies control more than half the market for beef, pork, and poultry, giving ravagers very few choices about who to sell it to get their product. these big conglomerates drive down prices. they pay farmers and even as they drive up prices at the grocery store. so we're investing up to $1 billion in american rescue fund for no one expanding meat across this country. host: opening the program this

morning asking you are higher prices affecting your spending? in the line is 202-748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8001. mountain and pacific, you can send us a text at 202-748-8003. front page of "the wall street journal" this morning. inflation hits 40-year high, reaching 8.5%. u.s. inflation surge a four-decade high of 8.5% in march from the same month a year ago, driven by skyrocketing energy costs, rising food prices and strong consumer demand. the labor department said tuesday that the consumer price index which measures what consumers pay for goods and services rose last month at its fastest annual pace since december of 1981, up from the 7.9% annual rate in february. there have been six straight months of inflation above 6%, well above the federal reserve's average of 2% target. russia's invasion of ukraine drove a march surge in oil and

gasoline prices and hit record in mid march and energy prices shot up 11% from the higher month. the so-called core price index which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy increased 6.5% in march from a year earlier. up in the february, 6.4% rise and the sharpest 12-month rise since august, 1982. they write that high inflation cut against booming growth as the economy bounces back from covid-19, powered in part by strong demand, years of low interest rates and stimulus checks intended to counter the economic impact of the pandemic and lockdowns. let's hear from dolores in tennessee. hello, there. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: i was calling in -- excuse me. i was calling in to say that only somebody whose who's profiting from this situation is going to go -- they got enough money already. they are greedy. they don't have to raise these

prices. right now, the pandemic's still going on. and everything else, the murder rates and all that stuff going on in the united states and they're going to want to raise the prices and they're not caring about the people. they have enough money already. they're just greedy and the majority of people are republicans. we need to get in there and vote these republicans out and send somebody in there who is going to care about our situation. have a great day. >> senator elizabeth warren sharing that view. she says this on twitter. giant corporations using inflation as a cover to raise their prices and boost their profits. in industry after industry, we have too political competition and companies from too much power to increase prices. i've been calling out this

corporate profiteering and price gouging, she says. representative from new york saying inflation is a tax on all americans. it has increased every month of joe biden's failed presidency. in san francisco, james is on the line. go ahead. caller: hi. this is james. listen, i keep hearing everybody poor mouthing poor president biden. he has an amazing economy. i mean, he's got a boom going on. nobody's talking about trump, negotiating global production cuts can in april of 2020. it's every chart you look at. in april of 2020, the prices dramatically began to increase along with inflation and they have risen consistently ever

since. everybody's pointing fingers at biden but nobody is talking about the fact that the oil companies colluded with trump to cut oil production to get profits from the pandemic low demand, which benefited all oligarchs including putin. this is ridiculous. the point is president biden has requested that these oil companies resume production, commensurate with current demand, which is because of his booming economy. but the oil companies refuse. why should they resume production when they can rip off the consumer and price gouge them and make better profits? do we need to drill? no. they're sitting on 13.9 million unused acres right now that they refuse to open up to drillup and

they've been sitting on them for years. they don't need to drill. they're ripping off the consumer and making profits unheard of. never seen before. and everybody's pointing the finger at biden. this is the same garbage that they tried on carter that killed his second term. the oil companies are ripping us off, people. we have got to stand up to them because it's hurting everybody. host: sorry, james, that inflation number, the highest it's been since the very first few months to the reagan administration who came into office after defeating president carter. in fort worth, texas, we hear from carolyn next. go ahead. caller: hello. it's been a good while since i've called in. but all of your callers that are calling from the country, our governor, governor abbott has passed a law demanding that

trucks be inspected at the border. the one that bring in the two commerce and -- avocado, tomatoes and produce and a lot of things that's coming from the west and they're supposed to be delivering to grocery stores and warehouses in our state and other states around the country. and in our state, he has the trucks and refrigerator trucks lined up outside of el paso for miles because they wanted to inspect every truck to make sure there's no drugs on the trucks. and you know how long that's going to take for them to get across the border and to texas to make their deliveries to the warehouse. what that does is drive up the price of groceries as well. so i agree with many of your callers, especially the other lady that called. there is a political part that they're pulling in order to make

president biden look very bad. host: are you seeing some of those prices -- some of the effect there on grocery shelves in fort worth? caller: you betcha. you better believe it. it's really -- i like to buy blueberries and they're $4, $5, as much as a gallon of gas. and a lot of your groceries and things that are high, some of it may be from -- they're having to pay their wages, high wages. but the biggest part is they're holding up trucks at the border so they can't get to the warehouses and to the stores. he was talking about this. i don't know if he's going to pull it up anywhere. but that's something people need to look into because i think that's so unfair to the poor in this state. host: here's the story what carolyn was talking about the headline from the new york

"times." they write that since last week, commercial vehicles entering texas have faced not only the usual federal immigration and customs inspections but new checkpoints set up by texas police on the road way immediately after a measure mr. abbott, said he was ordering in response the flow of illegal drugs and human trafficking across the border which delays stretching up to 14 hours. some drivers have diverted to arizona and new mexico. they say the problem for businesses had been anticipated by the governor when he orderwhen the inspection in a zero tolerance policy for safety violations, "this is going to dramatically slow traffic for mexico into texas." asking you about the effect of inflation. are higher prices affecting your spending? it is 202-748-8000. that's the line for those of you in the east coast. eastern and central time zones.

mountain region is 202-748-8001. let's hear from ralph in washington, d.c. ralph. there you are. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: i've been listening to this debate about oil, and last couple of points i like to make. number one is the -- that pipeline, they wanted to come down from canada. that pipeline was not going to supply us with the products. that pipeline was to be shipped to louisiana and then it was going to be thrown in boats because we don't have the refining capacity because the oil was so thick and so full of sulfur. that oil was for export only. so this lie that's been perpetrated that we were going to lose something because of it is exactly that. it is a lie. i just find it amazing.

i'm hearing the lies from both parties. on the left, now they're using this gun thing as an excuse to try to regulate guns and they're already trying to regulate speech. most people don't know that for the longest time, london had more murders than we did and they completely banned guns and then the mayor's going to come back and say oh, well, now, we're going to ban pointy knives, big pointy knives. they're going to regulate those. i mean, it's not the guns that are causing the violence. it's the people who are using those weapons and these assault weapons only represent 1% of the total deaths. it's the handguns and the gangsters and in the drugs. we get problems -- host: ok, a little off topic but thanks for your comments. this is a column from the "u.s.a. today." this headline that say inflation is going to be painfully slow, the descent. grocery prices increase from

1.5% and up 10% over the past year. ukraine accounts for about 8% to the world's wheat exports. and war-related disruptions, shipments, wars appears to be pushing up the prices of wheat-related products. and 9.2% from a year ago. corner meal increased 2.8% monthly and 9.3% annually. and fresh biscuits prose 2.5% monthly. and rent, they write, increased .4% from the prior month and 4.4% annually. the former federal reserve official spoke yesterday with "the wall street journal" and mentioned what -- how this inflation number, the inflation from the labor department may affect policy divisions down the road.

>> the commodities associated with russia's invasion of ukraine is driving that very high top line inflation number you see. and in particular, in today's c.p.i. reading, energy prices accounted for nearly 70% of the monthly headline reading, particularly gasoline prices at the pump. and food contributed another 10%. those price increases are particularly painful for lower income families who spend a larger share of their income on food and transportation. the c.p.i. data also showed a notable slowdown in corn inflation. it fell from 0.5% month over month to 0.3%. and it is a component of inflation that mostly reflects the strength of domestic demand and i'm most focused on for the

purpose of assessing the tax monetary policy. and then looking within that, i think it's notable that core goods, which has been the source of an outsized amount of core inflationary pressure moderated more than expecting. more than i have anticipated. so, if you look in terms of the overall core c.p.i., the prices in core goods have been responsible almost half of the increase in core inflation over the past year, even though they normally account for only about a quarter of the overall. so it's very welcome to see the moderation of category, and i'll be looking to see whether we continue to see moderation in the months ahead. host: and we are about to hear more about the inflation number from treasury secretary janet yellen. she's speaking today at the atlantic council of discussion on the u.s. and global economies. that gets underway today at

10:00 a.m. eastern. we will have it live for you at 10:00 here on espn and streaming on c-span.org and you can catch it on our free mobile app, the c-span now app mobile video app, 10:00 a.m. eastern. our question about you this morning. the effect of inflation and how those higher prices are affect you. in the east, 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. we'll go to c.j. in baton rouge, louisiana. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: the way it's affecting me is i haven't been able to go to a restaurant to take my wife out to dinner for about the last six months because i can't afford it. i can't hardly drive around my car the way i used to because gas is just totally outrageous. and that's just a couple things

that i'm concerned about. but i have a question. when is the democrat party or excuse me, the cabinet, when is the cabinet going to start doing the process to do the article 25 to get this president out of office? he's killing us. host: here's jack in iowa, davenport. good morning. caller: good morning. i think that calculating this inflation stuff wrong. the comparison should be based on 2019 figures, not last year when we were still in covid closedown. trump succeeded in stopping the china from dumping a bunch of stuff in the u.s. and that was naturally going to

leave to price increases from stuff coming from china. that's from trump. i remember paying seven or eight years ago -- a gas and now it's only free 3 in iowa. so i'm actually thinking that some prices have deflated. how many people also retired on st. when they weren't three years ago? so the calculations are wrong. i've been on social security. i'm still continuing on social security. him social security's up. i think biden's doing just fine. host: let's hear from bill in orange park, florida. question for you this morning about the higher prices. how are they affecting you? go ahead, bill. caller: yeah. i think there's some kind of deputy about this oil the oil coming from canada, i don't know exactly how much that is. but i mean, the oil coming from

north dakota is some damn good oil. they built a pipeline. my family owns 808 acres of oil and mineral rights up there. when they built the pipeline inned to illinois just for the natural gas. but i think these people that are calling in about this dark money oil and that, they're full of b.s. host: does your family still own those mineral rights? caller: yes, sir. host: how much income does that provide? >> our next door neighbor was a millionaire. but during obama, when biden was vice president, we got maybe three letters a month wanting us to sell our mineral rights.

and everybody else up there got them too. and if they were all sold to the government, you would be paying $20 a gallon. host: all right, we hear from lydia next up we want go to waterford, new york. go ahead. caller: oh, hi. we're doing actually ok because my husband and i both have pensions. but i did find it interesting the person that called in about the avocados. because i love after cados and the prices have went way up. they used to be like 99 cents for one and now it's $1.29 and that's up in state new york. we do have a big problem at the border. i don't know what's going to happen if we have two million people come across, especially if covid is still around. then i'm worried that we're going to end up with food shortages and people won't have

places to live. and we have people coming over from over 150 countries. you know, my concern -- i just think everything works together. host: we'll talk more about the border and immigration. in our next segment here on "washington journal," asking you this morning about the high prices, how high prices are affecting you. here is a headline, lead headline in the "washington times" this morning. biden blamed as higher prices soak up paycheck, inflation is killing everything, said a 59-year-old construction worker from milwaukee. gas prices are going up. and it doesn't look like it's getting any better. the "times" writes that americans are increasingly shelling out more of their paychecks on gasoline, food and housing while the u.s. economy continues to face shortages because of supply chain crisis.

a poll found that 69% of u.s. adults is approved the way the administration is handling inflation. i think things rolled down from the top. so i would say the new president punishable administration has something to do with it. let's hear from matt in dallas, texas. matt, on the line. hello, there. caller: good morning, bill. and thank you, c-span, for taking my call. one of the things when we saw oil prices shoot up in march is, you know, i wanted to travel later this year. and so i decided i didn't want wait for -- to wait for prices to continue to go up. so i went ahead and bought some of my airline tickets early. because now, could oil prices and jet fuel come down later? sure. but i wanted to have a hedge in case it doesn't. so that's probably the one thing that's affected me was i wanted

to travel a couple of times this year and so i decided to buy my airline tickets earlier rather than later. host: right. did it save? did you look at those prices afterwards and see you have saved a significant amount of money? caller: no, not yet. and i'm going to continue to monitor it, the prices that i paid. i think pour reasonable -- are reasonable. it's still a lot higher than what i paid for the same trip before. but. so far, the prices for airline tickets seem to continue to increase. but, you know, like i hear on the news, it depends on what day the week you travel and if there's a holiday going on. so i'll just continue to monitor it. and if i'm lucky to get a cheaper price later, then i'll rebook. host: on gas prices, you're in an oil producing state. what does an average gallon of gas cost in dallas?

caller: right now, it's around $3.50, $3.60 a gallon. fortunately, there's even some gas stations that are $3.45. host: appreciate your calling in. host: the lines are for the east and central time zones, 202-748-8000. and the mountain and pacific region, 202-748-8001. next up is michelle in glasgow, montana. go ahead. caller: hello. yes. i have started going and instead of going to the grocery store, i live in a rural area. and i'm going to my local farmer and ravagers and buying half of beef and getting eggs and everything like that.

and it is considerably cheaper to take advantage of my local farmer and ravager. host: so that is something that you wouldn't have done otherwise? are they going up for the local farmer and rancher? caller: oh, definitely. we have a drought here and a lot of them are selling off their cows. but you can buy a half of a beef as it is in the grocery store. host: the drought also expected to continue on to the ring and summer this year? caller: they do. we are desperate for moisture. host: glad you got through, michelle. thanks for calling in this morning. some reaction yesterday from lawmakers on twitter. senator from arkansas said this. joe biden is the inflation

president. senator ted cruz said the white house is expecting shocking numbers. here is the list of the shifted reality about inflation. it's not happening. it's transitory it's high class problem. it's a good thing. it's putin's fault. representative scott perry says consumer prices increased 8.5%. the fastest since raiders of the lost ark was a hit in 1981. and the former labor secretary says i don't know who needs to hear this but economy controlled by a handful of oligarch of a free agent market, he said. congressman from florida put together a video yesterday on inflation. here's some of that. >> there are solutions that congress and the white house could be working on together to make a difference in the lives of individuals. i'm not saying that it would fix everything. but it can make a difference and unfortunately, congress and the white house are not working on

these things together. i tell people. i think the root cause, energy, energy, energy. number one, the biden administration needs to adjust their energy policies. and we can look at this in a host of different places. people use the term farm-to-table. there's no such thing really as farm-to-table. it's farm to truck to table. or if you want to get fuel in your car. it's refinery to truck to gas station or if you want to get something from the grocery store, right? it's farm or some other place to truck to grocery store. everything, there's a truck in the middle. and for most of us, there's a vehicle in the middle of us going to get those things. so just number one thing that they constantly say. we could be doing to help adjust this, get rid or put a moratorium on the 18.4 cents per gallon tax right now. that's would be the easy placeses that your government could be working to help out

this issue and address energy policy. more long-term looking, this administration needs to change their cancelation of pipelines like the excel pipeline borrow what they're looking to do in michigan with canceling the line 5 pipeline as we speak. allow those projects to get long-term contracts on them so that they can come to fruition. people can use companies the long-term leases that they have to get energy in production, which they can't do if the policies of the administration say that there's going to be no use of these fuel sources in five or 10 years. if there's no use of them in five or 10 years, then there's no lender that's going to lend money to get those projects online. that's why it matters what the policy of the administration is right this minute.

the senator from texas saying senator biden is boosting big ethanol. another take on that from that part brown who said this last month. i urge president to use american grown either that will 15 fuel to bring down gas prices and restore american energy. today is doing that smart move by the biden administration. caller: i think that president joe biden is doing the best that he can. and instead of us all bashing, we just need to all get together and just do the best that we can to come together think about those people that is over in ukraine and the suffering that they are doing and the pain that they are going through. and just count our blessing. i just wish we would just try so

stick it out and stop blaming president biden for what was going on in the world today. and that's all i have to say. i just think he's doing a good job and doing the best that he can. host: frank r. james i.d.ed in the brooklyn subway shooting made threatening online rants who rail against mayor adams and made give czar rant on youtube has been identified as a person of interest in the savage brooklyn subway attack that injured at least 23 people tuesday morning, officials said. frank james who was warned last month that he was entering "the danger zone" rent a u-haul van is being sought for questioning. mr. mayor, i'm a victim of your

mental health program, james said in one lengthy video. i'm 63 now. full of hate, full of anger and full of bitterness. from "the new york post." let's hear from bill in syracuse, new york, next up. go ahead. caller: yes. i have had -- i've got enough saving. it's the cost of inflation is hurting me, but not to the point where i have to worry about it yet. but the thing that i have noticed is i get meals on wheels and the meals have deteriorated. and that's the poor people that are use it. and i imagine they're in trouble. i have diabetes. and they fill my meals on wheels with bread when i imagine somebody with diabetes who doesn't have any money is going

to be in real trouble. host: so you're saying the actual -- the quality and the quantity of what you get is far less than it was before? caller: not the quantitythe i got the same amount. i presume that they're still nutritional, but i have to throw away about half of them because otherwise, my blood sugar goes through the roof. host: to fairfax, virginia, elizabeth is on. caller: good morning. i don't even know where to begin. of course inflation is hurting everyone. not all of us have billions of dollars. but i am totally amazed by all of the calls about this subject and many others. nobody likes social living room. everybody hates socialism. they all want free agent market capitalism. real free agent market capitalism means the companies do whatever they want and no one controls them. and so, if you want capitalism,

this is just a by-product of it. if i have a company and i could get away with charging you $50 a gallon for gasoline, i'm going to do it. that's capitalism. i thought that's what america was all about. thank you. host: a headline here from "the wall street journal." people talked about some of these topic areas. some of these sector areas on pricing. prices begin to cool in some sectors. they talk about restaurants use vehicles, gas prices and groceries. a number of folks have mentioned not going out to restaurant as much as they used to. "the wall street journal" writes prices at restaurants rose .3% last month amount slowdown from .4% in february. the deceleration was driven by a decline in prices at fast-food price which is could ease labor shortages in some lower wage industries. used vehicle prices fell even as travel-related prices even airfares and hotel rates surged

amid lower covid-19 case counts. the decline in used car prices provide some relief for consumers looking to make a big ticket purchase. let's hear from ed in tampa, florida. good morning, ed. caller: greetings from the free state of florida. in this inflationary economy, we've adjusted and improvised. i shop only at publix and winn-dixie and they're bogo. in other words, buy one get one. so we have a full pantry. i drive a hybrid. and we get 55 miles to the gallon. we don't have any bills or mortgage. so we're ready for this inflation. the only effective we have were if we were going to go to a wedding in spokane, washington, in june but the airline tickets

are $2,000 from tampa to spokane. so that's off of our schedule. but in essence, we've adjusted and improvised and we're not going to be a victim. we have a solution. thank you. host: ok. cindy up next. in norwalk, connecticut. go ahead. caller: i think that has definitively affected us as far as travel. car rental, whatever, airline flights. but i have to say for us older people who where a little more established, it's a little easier but i really see affecting young families. it's really hard to -- these days. connecticut is number two and baby formula shortages. and the prices have increased 20%. and they're limiting supplies, what people can buy.

so, who do you think that affects the most? the equity is not for you. it's for the government. thank you. host: more comments on twitter. steve says alternative methods of transportation like bike riding has increased for me. walking is quite healthy as well. i must say i'm 65 and excellent health. i try a guard an great deal. cynthia says our inflation status relies on unreliable partner. china leading to supply chain disruptions from constant shutdowns. they say how could it not? i'm obviously spending more everywhere. and lynn says no. higher prices are not affecting my spending. if i want to buy it, but i do want to hear c-span say this is happening all over the world and it is a global problem, not a joe biden problem, says lynn in massachusetts. in upper marlboro, maryland. roland on the line.

go ahead. caller: good morning. my name is roland. it is so neat the way we look at things. because in virginia, why do they not support biden? all this ranting about inflation. that's just part of it. because everyone is complaining on joe biden from the pine line. the pipeline has nothing to do with it right now. we're giving money to ukraine. why can't we support the president to put something in everybody's purse? i make only $15 an hour. i spend $70 on gas every week to go to work. my work to my house is almost 22 miles. i used to have a good job. i lost it. and i cannot regain it back. people should start asking joe biden what is his problem? we're giving a lot of millions

to ukraine. and we're suffering in america here. it's not about republican or democrats. we need to worry about this country. i'm not saying we at the same time, we need to ask why biden's policies are not being supported. host: next we will go to jane in oklahoma. caller: i'm calling because one thing that has driven inflation up, a lot of things are related to joe's policies. expanding the use of ethanol is not going to help anything, it is only going to hurt because right now, we are experiencing a massive drought, so we are going to have short supply on grain

and corn is used to feed beef cattle and other animals and it is used in nearly every agricultural product. when you turn that into fuel, you are going to drive up food prices and you get less mileage in your vehicle if you use ethanol. all it helps is may your political standing in the state of iowa, but it is not good for the environment because when you produce corn, you have to use diesel tractors and you are not saving anything as far as improving prices. you are actually running food prices up by having ethanol as you are not saving the environment. host: we appreciate your input. more ahead on "washington journal."

up next, we will speak with american immigration lawyers association president and talk about president biden's decision to rescind title 42 and the impact they may have -- that may have on the immigration process. later, former under secretary of defense, jeff babbitt, talking about national security serta g in the united states -- security strategy in the united states plus russia's invasion of ukraine. >> all this month, watch the top 21 videos from our c-span studentcam video documentary competition. every morning before "washington journal," you will hear from one of our studentcam winners and you can watch all of the studentcam documentaries any time online at studentcam.org.

>> american history tv, saturdays on c-span guest: -- on c-span2. part seven of our eight part series, first ladies in their own words. we look at the role of the first lady, their time in the white house and the issues important to them. >> with every action we take, with every word we utter, we think about the millions of children who are watching us, who hang onto our every word, looking to us to show them who they can and should be. that is why every day, we try to be the kind of people, the kind of leaders your children deserve. whether you agree with our politics or not. >> the white house historical

association hosts a conference on the american presidency, focusing on topics such as history and civic engagement, until history, interpreting slavery and race at historic sites. explore the american story. watch american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> "washington journal" continues. host: allen orr is an immigration attorney and president of the american immigration lawyers association, here with us to talk about the immigration process and the administration's decision on title 42. welcome. guest: thank you for having me. host: tell us about your position as an immigration attorney. what kind of cases do you deal with? guest: in my private practice, i

deal with a lot of employer compliance issues, in addition to that, i help -- study for a degree in business or help companies make sure they have the appropriate paperwork. on a larger scale and lower level, i also give political advice, policy strategy advice and ways to suggest solutions to the horrible backlog of immigration cases we have right now so that they can get the workers they need to move the economy forward. host: the american immigration lawyers association, you are the president. what does your group focus on? guest: we focus on immigration and we are having a big celebration this year. we have 16,000 plus lawyers that focus on equity and a just immigration system.

that is our goal and our mission. host: a historical question for you. how long have attorneys been part of the american immigration experience, and getting people to citizenship? guest: the birth of our organization speaks to that. a lot of people working for the government saw a need to help because influx was so large. so many individuals shifted over. we helped people work to the system because it was easier to be here. before you could walk in and get a staff, which is different, then today. host: let's begin talking about current events and immigration. the current issue is title 42 implemented initially by the trump administration.

the press release from the american immigration lawyers association, " ending title 42 on the horizon, the anti-immigrant policy of using title 42 to expel vulnerable asylum-seekers is long overdue. the thousands upon thousands of migrants from babies to grandmothers who were expelled before given a chance to point protection under our laws merit an acknowledgment that the u.s. got it wrong." tell us about this title 42. what did it do and why is the administration rescinding it? guest: title 42 is something that has nothing to do with immigration and border control. it was to address a health need. the former administration pulled

in regulation from 1942 and as we think of the history of regulations in 1942 and how we have grown as a nation and technology rise, it should not be used anymore. title 42 was used as a tool. it did not belong to all of our parts of entry. only to the southern border. it was only applied to brown and black migrants who were coming to apply for asylum. every other class of individual could come through the port. students, truckers, all other visas were able to be processed. like many of our other things from that time period. it was used specifically to stop --time period, it was used

specifically to stop certain types of immigrants. this conversation about title 42 and border control do not belong together. during that time. what that country did was tell individuals they did not have a right to come apply for asylum in this country. congress passed asylum along time ago. we said this would never happen again and what we have said is violate international law. it is not that we did not allow everyone to apply for asylum, it was a certain group. it was a mismanagement problem and it became a political tool. when the biden administration took over, -- many people had

multiple attempts, which made the numbers look larger. many of these people -- host: alan war is president of the lawyers association. we will talk more about title 42. we would love to hear from you. lines to colin, republicans, that is (202) 748-8001. democrats, that is (202) 748-8000. and independents, your number is (202) 748-8002. you mentioned the backlog of cases to be gone through of people who are already in our country, but let me read you the comments of alejandra mayorkas about title 42. he said once title 42 is no longer in place, dhs will

process people at the border pursuant to title eight. we have put in place a comprehensive whole of government strategy to manage a possible increase of migrants encountered at our border. we are evaluating asylum requests and will quickly remove people who do not -- we have already redeployed more than 600 law enforcement officers to the border. are you concerned that all of this adds to that big backlog you are talking about? guest: i think about it sending the wrong message for people who are looking for humanitarian relief. a police officer is not the first thing they need to see. poland, a very strong nation, -- small nation speaks to the

humanity of what the situation is. the polish people know who they are, opening their homes and their spaces. the american people have the same opportunity to say " we will not arrest people fleeing for their lives." we have to ask ourselves why? why do we see individuals fleeing for their lives as someone who is a threat who needs to be held in a detention center? vetting is important, but the vetting problem with 9/11 was not in regards to the immigrants themselves. now we have the department of homeland security. criminalizing this rebuff people who are coming here for humanitarian need sends the wrong message. no one i know who is coming here -- they basically greet them

with the food and the humanity they deserve. the may orca's talk is a political stance -- the mayorkas talk is a political stance. you never hear anyone say " we need to close down atlanta, so many people are arriving at our international port!" we are the united states. if we wanted to address the need, we could. with the appropriate type of personnel, which means caseworkers, asylum officers, whatever the case may be. the biden administration has taken a holistic approach to this. having millions of dollars flow back to address the drug flow,

the conditions that are already underlying that, the holistic approach. it has been a democratic and a republican failure to address these issues. host: what does that mean to apply for asylum at a border or u.s. embassy? who is eligible to do that? guest: there is no applying for asylum at a u.s. embassy. if you are applying for asylum, it is because you are in the country and you are here. those are related, but it is not like you can go to and embassy and say " i want to apply for asylum," and that is how it works. we have said " we will take 100,000 ukrainian refugees," we should take 400,000 refugees from where they are. there is no value in race or class for a refugee.

that is why we set up the international refugee association. there are tons of refugees who have been waiting for years to get to the united states so now we are going to take another level of refugees. those things are very different. the former administration stopped processing. the biden administration has restarted this program that allows certain processing. the main concept that sends is something we do not tell anyone else. we are able to process anyone else coming into the country so why does this specific group of people seem to be a threat. other people were allowed to apply for asylum. host: let's hear from our first call. we go to jason in arlington, virginia. caller: you just spoke to my,

what i was about to ask, which is specific to -- depending on what newspaper you read and what channel you watch, we are going to have 200,000 afghans coming 2 america, which is to my point of view, a very moral thing to do. we may have up to half a million maybe ukrainians, may be more coming in. how does that affect, from your point of view, -- right now we are at hyper employment. our unemployment rate is something like 3.4%. 4% or less is full employment. how do you and the people you

work with see that playing out? guest: we see it as an opportunity we can address and meet the needs of the labor market. one of the challenges we have is that there is no vocational visa. there is a high-end phd lottery for a doctorate degree, but there is nothing for an everyday job without we need to address. we can meet that need as well as our moral obligation. the other concept underlying something is that we are full. poland has accepted 2 million people in 45 days, processed them, given them work authorization and health care. if poland, a smaller country than we are, can do this, we can

do the same thing. the concept that people will come because they want to be a part of us should not scare us. it should make us feel like what we have always felt -- exceptionalism. host: we touched on this a little bit -- headline from the pbs newshour says this, " new rules came to decide u.s. asylum cases more quickly, given the budget restraints of the current budget and the proposed 2023 budget, do you think common security is capable of doing that? guest: we are optimistic about how it will be ministered. there is a job shortage. i recognize that. we can solve for that as well. i do not believe it is a money problem.

it is a resource allocation and management problem. we can solve these issues. after 9/11, we veered to the side of over-vetting. there are lines of people in their parts at tsa -- airports at tsa who do not need to go through tsa. everyone who shows about the border is not here for always. that is another level of emigration we need to fix, something that happened before. if someone is here for any period of time undocumented for 6 months are borrowed -- barred. it creates a hamper. when people start talking about

the immigration process and processing delays, we throw a ton of money into detention, border control, and building walls. that money could be better used to process cases. we could use those individuals to be processing applications. that is a choice that we are making, and perhaps we are making the wrong choice. host: let's hear from randy in michigan on the democrats' line. caller: good morning, peter. the title 42 was in 1942 that we made this law. it was in 1941 we made marijuana legal because we didn't want mexico making money off of marijuana when we only sold hemp here in the state.

the reason we don't do a hair sample drug test is we do not let round and black people in our country. we only test low income people to piss in a cup. why don't we make -- host: all right. any response there? guest: one of the important things is i want to remove the concern that immigrants bring drugs and crime. that does not bear out in the research from cato, the immigration counsel. i think the criminalization of emigration is a consortium -- immigration is a concern. to say that they are the problem rather than address the problem within ourselves -- we have

found emigration to be the scapegoat for the previous administrations -- we have found immigration to be the scapegoat for previous administrations. immigration did not become a political tool or token until the last couple of administrations. prior to that many republicans stepped up and said " this is the right thing to do." reagan famously stepped forward and said " this is the right thing to do." the fact that we talk about crime and drugs in the same sentence is a problem to me. host: shortly after the administration made the major announcement, senator richard burr wrote the cdc and asked " what is the science behind this?" his concerns were about covid rates in central and southern american countries.

does he have a valid point there? guest: no. we supplied many vaccines throughout the world to different continents. getting someone a vaccine is just a wall to stand behind. the inhumanity in that to say -- the humanity is to say " we can meet that need by giving these individuals whatever protection they need." we said we would do that because we were the leader in making the vaccine. most importantly, if you are not applying it to all the ports equally the same way, then you cannot apply it to the southern part of entry in that way. host: we will hear from charlie and umphrey's, virginia -- cheryl in dumb freeze,

virginia-- cheryl in dum fries, virginia. caller: i'm thinking once they let all these people in, then they will turn around and put us back on lockdown after they let all these people in. secondly, what did they have to do in order to become american citizens? do they have to learn english? do they have to know about our history? what are we doing to make sure that we are not just inviting all these people into our country? host: you talked on the covid issue a moment ago, but any further comments there? guest: that is not a real issue. letting all these people in is a concept -- it is not "

all these people." people come in through airport of entry it -- our poty of entry -- our port of entry every day. each person goes through the same process of matriculation. it is easier to get a green card than it is to get matriculated and be able to vote. all of that time they pay taxes and work in their communities so i don't think there is anything that needs to change to allow people to be more part of the united states. i understand that english is important but we have accepted that spanish is a language. in miami it is a primary language. when we look globally, we find other countries that have a

vocabulary that includes the languages of other key countries. we need to open up ourselves to that. that is not necessarily a requirement, but i think individuals -- that shouldn't necessarily be a problem. host: in the course of your career as an immigration lawyer, has the process from application to entry to becoming a citizen gotten longer? guest: yes. everything after 9/11 shifted. there were the challenges of taking money and giving it to the border wall. our immigration system is very

complex and it takes time. it is very 1980's technology. we are processing cases by papers so we need to modernize our system and takes an investment. the people in-place renaud are trying to move it forward. we dug a very deep hole that we are constantly -- the people in place right now are trying to move it forward. we dug a very deep holdout we are constantly trying -- we dug a very deep hole that we are constantly trying to dig out of. host: let's hear from david in west virginia on the independent line. caller: don't we have thousands of people in the united states citizens who could qualify for amnesty or for persecution and

crime? isn't the real problem that selective law enforcement or no enforcement on immigration laws is the problem? what is your real view? what is a perfect immigration system that you and other attorneys are shooting for? thank you. guest: thank you for the question. i think the answer to that -- if i can get my passport or a driver's license in a short amount of time, someone should be able to get their workers authorization in the same amount of time. it should not take six to eight months because of vetting. it shall be online. the issue you raise to that i think is important is that every year congress passes a budget and in the budget and includes the ability to remove

400,000 individuals. they have never removed 400,000 individuals. congress recognizes that there are 11 million people here who are undocumented. the disconnection in policy is not meeting the situation. " let's make sure they have a pathway to citizenship" -- they cannot even do that the lowest hanging fruit, the daca population, they cannot say " we agree these people are blameless. they have no fault." instead we use all of these political tools and that rests at the foot of congress. both parties have failed us in moving this forward. host: what is the status of most of the so-called " dreamers"? guest: they are in turmoil.

i cannot express to you enough -- i found the right way to think about it last night. if you were in college and you were trying to graduate from college and every year you went to that college, they said " you need this class or that class" -- exasperating. that is how docket kids feel right now. there-- that is how daca kids feel right now. they are on the whims of future administrations. one day you can renew your status, one day you cannot. if congress stepped in and gave a final solution to address the issue, make it what the majority of the american people

want, it would be at a better place. they are still in turmoil. we are waiting to see what it will be for a program started almost a decade ago under the obama administration. host: we go to earl in nashville, georgia. caller: i was just sending this to y'all. i pulled it up on my computer. public health and welfare status this in active 1944. if we want to talk about the border, let's talk about how many -- back over that water. they took them back overseas

while 9/11 was taking place. c-span, why don't you -- see what he is talking about. host: we will go to dan in youngstown, ohio, republican line. caller: the problem with immigration at the southern border that this guy does not want to admit is that the border is being flooded. there are not enough people there from the united states to greet these people and to handle each one of them. the border is being flooded and people are getting away. they are coming from, not just a couple of countries, but from 153 countries from around the world. do you think if i was a terrorist i would know that i could go there and get across the border and get away and

thousands of them -- they are not going up and turning themselves in. they are escaping. this guy is not being honest with the american people. the democrats do not want to admit there are a lot of people sneaking across the border who are not being encountered and are escaping into the population. we do not know who these people are. host: dan in ohio. guest: thanks for the conversation. i'm alan. you can call me alan, not " this guy." some people are traveling in between ports of entry and not able to turn themselves in. that happens. i agree. statistics don't bear out the conversation you're having a people are flooding the border. there have been more apprehensions at the biden administration than before.

they are stopping people. there is not an open border. in addition, all of the costs involved with putting these people in detention then expelling them from the united states back to mexico or haiti is a problem. beyond those issues, it is not what congress intended for outlaws. that is a fundamental argument from the legal side. if they have a right to apply, they should be able to apply. if congress does not want them to apply, congress should pass a bill to say " people at the southern border cannot apply for asylum." they would rather hide behind title 42. i have no stake or any ability of saying how many people will appear. i have a stake in the american system because as a lawyer and went to make sure we follow the

constitution for everybody. we should not revert to some -- so we say we do not have enough people engaged. that could be true, but we can change that. that is a decision that we make in how we decide to manage the border. we could have more parts there. that is not a " can't thing it is a " will" thing. one party is using the border as a scare tactic to a imply that it is open and horace and everyone wants. to come in i need there to be a border because i need people to apply for visas and i believe in an orderly fashion and a

constitution. i think people have the right to apply for asylum. host: when you look at the most notable groups of refugees, you look at the crane ends, afghans before that -- ukrainians, afghans before that, and haitians in the wake of natural disasters. do think the administrations of president biden, president trump, and president biden have treated refugees evenly? guest: no. we have a history of picking winners and losers. we have heard secretly through the news media that over the last month around 2000 ukrainians were processed at the -- 10,000 ukrainians were processed at the southern border. hundreds of patients have been deported -- haitians have been

departed. -- hundreds of haitians have been deported, being sent back to a country that does not have a stable government, that is 90 miles away from our most southern part of the united states, and the costs of doing that. each administration has had their challenges getting away from nationality and looking at people according to the situation in which we find them. right now today, you can pull up " the difference between the way we treat ukrainians and the way we treat haitians and cambodians." the concept that people are coming to the southern border your to apply for entry is -- it is not a port.

the state department could say " let these group of people apply for title 42." it is a place where you can read an officer without getting on a plane to address getting into the united -- meet an officer without getting on a plane to address getting into the united states. we need to think about the southern border as a circumstance we can address. the way to address the circumstances not " we are going to lock everybody up." we need to think of an opportunity to either meet the needs that we have, replace the population depleting from us, and our humanitarian duty. if we had the same focus right now that these individuals are fleeing for their lives, let's step up to that. that is not necessarily on the government.

the government could move out of the way and public groups could step in to help. the catholic charities could step into help these groups of individuals. there is no free gift bag when someone crosses the border. it is -- these individuals have to flee for their lives. it is not as if people are coming to take. they are coming to add. host: bill on twitter asks " is there any modern equivalent to an ellis island type facility?" guest: the biden administration hasn't. the concept is that the statue of liberty is more like the tsa. we will screen you. when we understand that most of

the people in the asylum system are very young, when i was 16 or 17, it is difficult to make a legal case when you do not have an attorney representing you. we have 16,000 attorneys now. the system needs to be set up more equitably. we need to make sure people have the representation they need to matriculate to the system. the biden administration has the policy but it is not the statue of liberty welcoming you. more the vetting. host: let's hear from ron in pennsylvania, independent line. caller: i believe that this whole border issue is an e immigration problem that is solely race-based. no problem accommodating

ukrainian refugees because they are white! anyone of color is not welcome in america, and that is how it is. in poland, they are accommodating and welcoming the ukrainian refugees. but there was a lot of publicist he about how african foreign-exchange -- publicity about how african foreign-exchange students were denied, so they went to slovakia and other countries. i think this whole issue of race is killing our country -- man, without being disrespectful or anything, i believe people with a disability rights focus is

essentially not even half done for meeting the needs of people with disabilities, and i cannot understand how quickly the laws have changed to meet the needs of the sex issues in education and the jabs i appreciate the call. host: -- and the jabs. host: i appreciate the call. guest: we can do all these things. our laws are that way. as martin luther king says " we just need to do what we wrote down on paper." we can do all of those groups together and still be right on the mcgriff and policy. host: baltimore -- right on immigration policy. host: baltimore next.

. the commentary -- caller: the commentary today is far out. my grandparents came over in the 1880's. if they showed up today, they would not be allowed in. they were uneducated, but they do not have any particular skills to bring. i think everyone should be leaden. -- let in who are getting away from those kinds of problems. if people are strong enough to get to that u.s. border, they will be stronger when they get here. they worked hard to get to those points of entry. when they get into the united states, they will not sit on there but -- their butts. they're going to work. host: question for you on twitter -- " please talk about visa violators.

the european people who flew to america in the 1970's and never left. why are visa violators not being departed?" guest: for the same reason it is hard to find them -- they have been here for a long time. visa overstays has been an issue because we are dealing with paper. department of homeland security was not real yet. people come to say they are at school. the amount of energy focused on that does not balance the amount of people that we focus on who are just trying to come into save their lives. the reason for that is the cost benefit analysis that should be applied at the southern border. there have been changes made by the dhs.

the problem is that we have an old system. they have a lot of systems that do not " talk." it used to be that when someone married -- that is a modification that could be addressed if our systems were more aligned. for me, it is important, but the most important issue is pushing more people through the system. then you will see if those options exist -- b most of the people here who are undocumented would have a way through -- most of the people here who are undocumented would have a way through.

the visa overstays are more of an issue then people potentially coming in at the southern part of entry. host: eleanor is president of the american immigration lawyers association -- alan or is president of the american immigration lawyers association. we will talk to former deputy undersecretary of defense jeff babb and. he will talk about the national security strategy of the u.s. and ukraine. your chance to dial in on open forum on any issue go to our reading about in the news on policy, immigration, inflation, and more. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. (202) 748-8000, for democrats. for all others, (202) 748-8002.

your calls in just a moment. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 2:00 p.m. eastern, coverage of the virginia festival of the book with author discussions on american colonialism and " winning and losing the nuclear pieced." at 10:00 p.m. eastern, will heard with his book " american reboot," argues that america needs a restart in order to address the challenges of the 21st century. and how to move the country forward. watch book tv on c-span2 and find a foal schedule -- full schedule on book tv.org.

♪ >> 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 b. johnson. you will hear about the march on selma and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's and secretaries new, because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. they are the ones who made sure the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and bears. >> you will also hear some -- his office and bears. >> you will also hear some blunt talk. >> yes sir.

>> if i can't ever go to the bathroom, i want go. >> presidential recordings. find it on the c-span mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> washington journal continues. host: it is open forum, your chance to weigh in on any issue you want to on the news, particularly in politics and public policy, including things we talked about this morning, the high rate of inflation. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. for democrats, it is (202) 748-8000. for others, (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text, (202) 748-8003. just some follow-up tweets to our previous section -- "

embrace your self rn invasion of illegal immigrants, 570 per month, or 17 million plus by election day." chuck says " republicans view immigration as a wedge issue. more trumpism." the attack in brooklyn on the subway station, this is the reporting this morning. " new yorkers start their commutes as police a search. for the gunman many new yorkers were starting -- commutes as police search for the gunman. sunday evening police identified a person of interest in the mass shooting, one of the worst outbreaks of violence on the subway in recent history. frank r. james was named as a

suspect by mayor eric adams. the times writes that the shooting will likely complicate recent efforts by mr. adams and kathy hogle to convince deaths -- kathy hochul to convince people that the subways are safe after months in which a spate of high-profile attacks on the system have hindered efforts to recover ridership that fell at the start of the pandemic." caller: thank you for c-span. bill, i want to make a couple of comments regarding the segment you just had. the thing that concerns me that no one seems to be talking about is the simple issue of overpopulation. i do not know how many people they think they can squeeze into this country and still have this country functioning properly.

with all of these people coming in day after day, this is naturally going to put a strain on the infrastructure, on the water system, on the electricity, everything you can think of, let alone the hospitals and schools. something has to be done. you cannot set down a 10 pound bag of potatoes and a five pound bag. these people because they are unemployed, many will end up on public assistance. a lot of that assistance now is going to the elderly, of which i am one, veterans, and disabled. people need to start looking at this realistically and say " there has got to be a cut off point." we cannot keep piling people into this country. they are just breaking the law. i was shocked. he is supposed to be a lawyer.

they are breaking immigration law, plus the issue of the illness is coming in -- illness es coming in. host: two paul in alec -- to paul in alexandria, virginia. caller: like others, i love c-span. it is the best thing for america we have out there. in regards to mr. or, the biden administration's current customs and border patrol indicated 16,000 border crossings at the southern border and there were 160,000 encounters at the southern border. in regards to mr. orr's earlier response, i would say they were erroneous or disingenuous.

secondly, to the lady who just called, i appreciate what she said. 18,000 people a month in 2022 and these are not phd scholars. these are limited education, limited skills, so how many more landscapers can we handle? are we doing those folks in favor? here is one from mr. orr -- if we want to do great american things, let's get ourselves down to el salvador and honduras and work on changing those countries' business environment some people do not come here. this is about jobs. that is why people are coming. i cannot blame them! to the other colors who referenced our own grandparents coming to america, minded as well, we all spoke the -- mine did as well. we all spoke the language.

i am not sure that is happening. nevertheless, we cannot handle that capacity of people. we need to do more to address that. host: paul talked about the cbp numbers, the number of expulsions at the border. they said through february, 1.7 million expulsions have been carried out. 1.2 million of them during the biden administration. 83% of migrant encounters during the trump administration led to expulsion. it is open forum here on washington journal. your chance to talk about anything you are following in the news. we go to beverly in huron, ohio. caller: hello. i disagree with the past two -- can you hear me? host: yes we

can. caller: i disagree with the past 2 people. we have plenty of room for immigrants. look at poland. poland is absolutely wonderful. the polish people, they are absolutely wonderful. we have plenty of room. just go out. we have plenty of room for people. poland does not have that much room, and look at what they have done. the asylum-seekers that are coming are educated people. they are doctors, nurses, teachers. they are not all migrant workers. i have nothing against migrant workers. migrant workers are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people. if the migrant workers were all sent out, we would have no fruit or vegetables in the united

states because the people in the united states do not want to work like the migrant workers do. host: the washington post and an update on their story -- " biden accuses russia of genocide. the sec says aydin -- putin broke international law. the report from the vienna-based security body released wednesday dives into attacks on civilians in mariupol and follows president biden's declaration that russia is carrying out a 'genocide'in ukraine.

'taken as a whole, the report documents the catalog of inhumanity perpetrated by russia's forces in ukraine,' said michael carpenter, u.s. ambassador to the osce in a speech. 'this includes evidence of direct targeting of civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, executions, looting and first deportation of civilians to russia.'" caller: i think they are on the way to bankrupting our country. if i run out of money, i do not spend anymore. that is the first thing. the second thing is education. i have a grandson who is 13 and two grandchildren who are

juniors in high school. when i sent them a birthday card this year for my 13-year-old, i wrote him in cursive a lovely note from his grandmother and he said " i cannot read this because we do not teach cursive in the schools." my question is " why not?" our constitution is written in cursive. do we have lazy teachers or something? i don't understand why they are dumbing down america. it is really good to learn cursive. those are my two issues. as far as immigration is concerned, i don't know enough about it other than that i have family members from the philippines and russia and they came here legally and they are doing just fine. they are well-educated or if they are not they had to the

right universities right away. they are hard-working people. i'm sorry our system is set up so that they have to come in here illegally. host: thanks for out to cursive writing. this is about inflation. you can read it at politico.com. it is a lengthy piece, but interesting, nonetheless. this cheeseburger explains your bigger grocery bill. sumer's are seeing food prices rise at the fastest rate in decades. supply chain snarls, shortages, and climate challenges, plus the conflict in ukraine to share the blame, says the animated piece in politico. they write, to understand what is driving food prices, just take a close look at your all-american cheeseburger. whether it is the humble one or patty, the rising cost of each ingredient is the product of a range of economic forces and geopolitical conditions

disrupting how our food gets from our farm to our tables. dire labor shortages, climate disasters, and the war in ukraine. the march consumer price index shows prices for food both consumed at home and away from home saw the largest 12 month increase since 1981. if you want to dive deeper or chew deeper into that hamburger, you can go to politico.com and read that article. alan is next in east chicago, indiana. good morning. caller: yes, sir. good morning and thank you for taking my call. a huge fan of "washington journal." have been watching it for several decades, and it is the greatest show on cable tv, no question about it. i want to talk about the inflation thing, which i don't believe we actually have inflation. 7% or 8%, i was around during the late 70's -- 1970's, early

1980's, and i thought inflation had at least 20%. i heard someone say 16%. i don't know. the dollar was evaluated -- de- valuated, there was an embargo, people were messing around with the cards for the first time, and people started borrowing more and could not pay it back, so the dollar got de-valuated. i believe it is totally on the fuel prices come on gas. everybody remembers that last year gas prices started to creep up a little bit. they reached their peak just before thanksgiving and the holidays. giant understand. america had been shut down for about a year and a half, and people were going to go out and visit nana for the holidays and get together with people. and, naturally, there would be a bigger demand. the oil companies so i chance, hey, we can recoup some of the

losses in 2020 when nobody was going anywhere by jacking up the price of gas. i have nothing against making a profit. you stay in business, you've got to have a profit. but at some point it reaches over from making a profit the plain old price gouging. somebody called in last night -- modest -- last month, and they said, check the quarterly report for the oil companies. what did they earn during the first quarter this year? and, sure enough, you look it up, they had a record first quarter. they had their highest profit in seven years. to me that says oil companies could have easily cap the price of gas around three dollars. i would not complain about that. but they saw a chance to recoup all of their losses at one time by putting in over four dollars. we had no shortage of gas, no

natural disasters on the refineries, any of that. i think they were just making a bunch of money. and people were complaining because they wanted to get out. sure enough, the prices dropped a little in january, but shot back up when this thing happened in ukraine. that still did not affect our oil supply. russia is still selling oil and gas to europe. what is going on, to me, is because fuel prices went up, shipping costs went up, and then effected things you buy in the store. the price for truck drivers to fill up their trucks is ridiculous nowadays. and i am seeing the price of gas is slowly starting to come down. so this is not inflation because of the devaluation of the dollar. i put it solely at the oil companies jacking up their prices, trying to make up for their loss in 2020, and that affects everything else. host: appreciate that input. you can find out more about that

-- we actually covered a hearing in the energy and commerce committee week ago. the heads of chevron and others were before the committee and ask about this. those profits for that first quarter. that is available in the c-span library at c-span.org. coming up this morning about an hour from now we will take you to hear from the treasury secretary, janet yellen. certainly will address the inflation issue as she looks at the u.s. and global economies. she is at the atlantic council. that event live at 10:00 a.m. eastern. you can follow it on our free mobile app, c-span now. it is an open forum for the next 10 minutes or so. we will go to tennessee and hear from linda on the independent line. caller: it is not the caller of the skin that the people are coming over with. i grew up when the neighborhood with a lot of black people, and they were really good people.

we've got several american citizens that his homeless. and in california maxine waters came out where they were giving housing vouchers out and she told him to go home. bunch of black people -- and white -- and they hollered they did not have a home, and she told him to go home. we need to take care of our citizens first. thank you. host: scott is on the republican line in lafayette, louisiana. good morning. caller: good morning, america, c-span. great day, as always. just a couple of comments. number one, energy independence is the key to getting inflation down. i think that the biden administration has created an environment that is not friendly

to the fossil fuel industry. and because of that, it is not that they don't want to drill -- again, it is all about marketing and making money and doing the right thing at the right time. the keystone pipeline think did not actually affect what is happening today, but it was a sign. that is all. there is more to come like that from the biden administration. again, these guys are -- [inaudible] secondly, nato and the you in our, based on what is happened in ukraine, unfortunately, you know, i keep hearing this word "half measures" from the right. i think that is true. we could definitely do more.

not boots on the ground, but we could do more. the third thing is, i sure would like to hear from c-span on the joe biden, hunter biden issues like we did during trump, russia, trump, russia. so, c-span, step up your game, let's start talking about the president's compromising situations. thank you. host: other news this morning about philadelphia, mask mandates returning in philadelphia. if you are feeling a sense of deja vu you are not alone. less than a month after mask mandates were lifted across the country the city of philadelphia announced monday it would reinstate a mandate next week of a 50% rise -- amid a 50% rise in reported covid-19 cases in the

last 10 days. anthony is on the independent line in detroit. go ahead. caller: good morning. he mentioned something about the organization for security and cooperation in europe with regards to the russia-ukraine thing. host: yes. caller: it's funny, i would think you would want to mention the report three days prior to russia's invasion, which stated that there were 2100 cease-fire violations, which i never heard the minsk agreement mentioned on this channel either. and there were 1100's potions in the period between the 18th and 20th of february. that is three to four days before the russian invasion. but you would never know that if you wash c-span, sees -- cnn, or msnbc. you would think putin is trying to reconstitute the soviet union. would not know there was a war there for eight years that the cia has been arming and training. host: next in jacksonville, north carolina.

the, democrats line. caller: good morning. i just want to say that we are all immigrants. how many immigrants came to the united states between 19 hundred and 1914, during those years? immigrant volume peak between 1900 and 1914, when it averaged it almost 900,000 immigrants each year. also, i think people need to be educated on asylum, which is the law. it allows an individual to remain in the united states instead of being deported to a country where he or she fears persecution or harm. under the united states law people who flee their countries because they fear persecution can apply for asylum. host: thanks for that, rhonda. from the washington times this morning about new york state and their lieutenant governor, regimen resigns after arrest amid corruption scandal. new york's lieutenant governor, brian benjamin, resigned in the

wake of his arrest in a federal corruption investigation. governor kathy hotel said for her seven months after she selected mr. benjamin as a partner to make a fresh mark, mr. benjamin a democrat was thank you -- was accused of participating in a scheme to skim campaign contributions in exchange for mr. benjamin's agreement to use his influence as a state senator to get a $50,000 grant for nonprofit organization that developed your desk that developer -- that developer control. mr. benjamin pleaded not guilty tuesday at an additional appearance in manhattan. he was released and bail was set at 250 thousand dollars. the terms of his release call for his travel to be restricted, and bar him from returning to the state capital in albany. to virginia next up on our democrats line. tim, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i think we've got two problems. with capitalism you always get greedyism. with communism you always get favorism. i don't know how we are going to fix it. and these politicians -- one more thing. we found him up there to look after -- host: tim, you still there? i'm sorry, your call dropped. we apologize about that. we will go to poplar bluff, missouri and welcomed donald to the conversation. donald in poplar bluff, missouri. you there? nice, i'm not hearing any audio. we will try jonathan in -- seem to have lost jonathan as well on

the phone line. we will give you a couple of more minutes. it is open form at (202) 748-8000 -- (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 free democrats. for others, (202) 748-8002. we will see if we can squeeze a call or two more, provided the phone is working. in the meantime, from the washington post about the two alleged agents who were arrested. a case of due to secret service agents is called an alarming security breach. she could service leaders are downplaying any risk to national security after four of the agency's employees, including an agent assigned to protect first lady jill biden, were hoodwinked by two men impersonating federal agents, plying them with gifts, telling committees and allies the severity of the breach has been overblown by prosecutors and the media. several former secret service officers worn the alleged infiltration of the elite action

agency reveals a major vulnerability extending well beyond this particular case. they said the relevant -- the revelations suggest agents had regular access to the item family and were supposed to be trained to spot scammers or spies seeking to ingratiate themselves were either too greedy or gullible to ask questions of a dubious cover story. "if you can compromise secret service personnel by cozying up to their agents and uniformed officers, unwelcome sources can get to the president and first family," said a retired executive and former leader of joe biden's vice presidential detail. let's see if we can get a caller , jennifer in oak park, illinois. you there? caller: i am. good morning host: good morning, go ahead. caller: so, i wanted to talk -- everybody get ready -- about abortion. because of all of the bills

being passed, and then there was a poor woman who had a miscarriage in texas, at the hospital called the police and she was arrested for murder. and i just think it is sort of getting out of control, the way everything is being handled. and a 70% of our country believes roe v. wade should stay in place. but now they are starting to pass things for no rape exceptions, at six. -- at six weeks women don't know they are pregnant. i was thinking about this because of russia and how we just found out that there was a bunch of women cap in a basement in constantly raped for 25 days, and nine of them are pregnant. if that happens in oklahoma, tennessee, missouri, all of those women would be forced to carry a violent rapist's baby to

full term, and if they do get an abortion then that guy, family, can come and sue her family or sue her, or sue whoever helped her to complete poverty. host: right, jennifer. oklahoma and its abortion law, it is a new law. tulsa world with the headline "of a signs near-total abortion ban." "we want oklahoma to be the most pro-life state." there is more of washington journal ahead. next ahead, washington times columnist and former deputy under secretary of defense jed babbin will talk about the national security strategy of the united states. plus, russia's invasion of ukraine. that is next. ♪ ♪ >> 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. >> was a great advantage to know what it was like to work in schools, because education is such an important issue, both for a governor, but also for a president. so that was very helpful to me. >> using materials from c-span's 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 c-span's online video library. we will feature lady bird johnson, betty ford, rosalynn carter, nancy reagan, hillary clinton, laura bush, michelle obama, and aligning a trump. watch "first ladies: in their own words was quote saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on history tv on c-span2, or listen as a

podcast on the c-span now free mobile app, or wherever you get your podcast. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president and other white house officials, pentagon, and the state department, as well as congress. he also have perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders, all on the c-span networks, the c-span now free mobile app, and c-span.org/ukraine, our bribe -- our web resource page where you can watch videos on demand and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. go to c-span.org/ukraine. >> "washington journal" continues. host: jed babbin is thus he is a foreign affair columnist with the "washington times" and served in the george h.w. bush administration as deputy under

secretary of defense. good morning, mr. babbin. jed babbin, you with us? guest: yes, here i am. host: glad to have you on the program. we will start by asking you about that piece you had in the "washington times" on america's deterrence strategy. biden sabotages america's deterrence strategy. explain what a deterrence strategy is, how that fits in with national defense policy, or national security policy. guest: our national security policy is pretty much built around deterrence. you know, since the time of george washington, who said -- i believe he said, one of the best ways to ensure peace to prepare for war. deterrence intends to tell our adversaries that they will have unacceptable consequences, unbearable consequences, if they attack us or our allies.

so all of our defense posture is built around that idea. we don't want war, but we want to make sure everybody knows, the bad guys know, if they attack us or our allies they are going to suffer. that is the whole idea. host: go ahead, yeah. guest: theoretically, everything is built around that. we should have a defense structure, a defense capability, diplomacy that is tough-minded and hard-nosed, and basically america-centric. to support that, and also we would have economics -- you know, our economy has to prosper or our military cannot be supported. frankly, our whole diplomacy cannot be supported. everything is built on american prosperity, so one thing adds to another, and all three, frankly, make up our deterrence. host: you write that "21st century deterrence needs to be effective against nuclear and major conventional conflicts.

that requires constantly-evolving nila terry strength." -- military strength. do you think our budgets have kept pace over the years for what our current challenges are, especially in the last decade or so? guest: when we break that down a little bit, because you cannot just say we are spending x and getting the deterrent we need. the answer has never been to pour money on the pentagon. but we need to do is to structure our forces smarter and i think we have slipped quite a bit in the past few years. i'm going back may be 10 years or 20 years, because we have been buying things like f-35, which can fight. we have the main battle tank, which is -- as the javelin initials -- javelin muscles are proving in ukraine, they are vulnerable. have aircraft carriers that used to be the best symbol of american power being sent

anywhere there was a hotspot. well, the chinese, among other nations, have told area-denial weapons that are bringing our carriers within range of their ground targets. so, we have to really think a lot harder and a lot more imaginatively to figure out what we really need. again, that is a long answer to a short question, but i think you have to understand why things have to be bought smarter and put together smarter in order to really have an effective deterrence. host: your conclusion in this piece, laying out the challenges not just for the biden administration but potential future administrations is, our conventional nuclear deterrence are fading. our diplomacy is in the hands of people who are bullying even eager, to -- to trade strength for appeasement, and our economy may already be incapable of staining -- of sustaining us in wartime. what do you mean by that --

unable to sustain us in wartime? guest: we have an ability to fight. you know, we have a massive armed force. whether it is constructed correctly or not is another matter. have an economy that was much weaker than it was 20 years ago. you can see it in inflation. you can see it in the fact we are no longer energy independent. you can see it in the fact that we import rare earth metals that are key to manufacturing the weapon systems we need. all of those things point to a weaker economy. our manufacturing is still largely done overseas. those are the kinds of things you look at. quite frankly, we look at shorter wars these days. god forbid they were ever a nuclear war. that is a whole separate issue. however, a long term, conventional war where we are in it for five or six or 10 years, like we were in -- well, 20-something years in afghanistan -- our peer to peer

ratio -- we are not fighting peers in afghanistan or iraq. if we were engaged in a long war against china, our economy would be cut off from china. there is would be cut off from ours. how are we going to survive? is our economy capable of supporting us in that kind of war? i don't think so. host: tell us about the diplomatic criticism you have there. talk about diplomats who are willing to trade strength for appeasement. what are you referring to there? guest: he looked back at mr. biden's track record. for starters, he gave away the russians -- he gave them on their own terms a five-year extension of the new start nuclear weapons agreement. you know, the strategic arms reduction talks agreement that obama had originally negotiated. he gave them a five-year extension without, for example, including their hypersonic weapons. i would we not insist on hypersonic weapons being

included? i don't know. as to biden seems to give away things and not getting anything in return. he rejoined the paris new where -- the paris climate records without putting in more restrictions on china and india, who are the world's roast polluters. and now he is about to do some new deal with iran, the new obama deal, the joint cooperative -- sorry, joined comprehensive plan of action, which is going to be worse than the original deal. and he is about to give away billions of dollars in relief in sanctions to iran. he is about to, we are told, give iran -- pardon me, remove -- sorry, iran revolutionary guard corps, their principal terrorist arm, is about to remove them from our terrorist list. these people do not know anything other than appeasement, because they keep giving things away. we need tough-minded diplomacy, we need heart-nosed diplomacy

that is america-centric. host: jed babbin is our guest. he writes for the "washington times." we welcome your calls and comments at (202) 748-8001, the line for republicans. democrats, it is (202) 748-8000. and for independents and others, it is (202) 748-8002. i wanted to ask you about the administration's response to the ukraine -- the russia-ukraine war. a headline this morning, pentagon looks to vastly expand weapons provided ukraine. they write in the washington post that the biden administration is poised to dramatically expand the scope of weapons it is providing to the ukraine. u.s. officials said on tuesday, with the pentagon looking at the transfer of armored humvees and a range of other sophisticated equipment. with this news, what is your impression of how the u.s. has responded militarily day ukraine? guest: first, let me say i don't

believe we should have u.s. troops on the ground or u.s. aircraft in the air. i think that is a good call by mr. biden to stay out of this war. however, all of this nonsense about, we are sending them what they need, what the ukrainians need most are air combat power, combat fighters and bombers, which we have refused -- we have not even let the poles supply the may 29's ukraine. slovakia just sent an antiaircraft system to ukraine. need to give them more of those. we have given them effective weapons, that in the most part we need to give them the systems they really need. and the thing they most need our combat aircraft, and we are refusing to give that to them. host: do you believe that the u.s. and more broadly nato can remain, can keep boots off the ground there, as much as they are giving in weapons and

advisers and supplies, that we cannot get involved military -- militarily? guest: i think we can and should. again, nato does not include ukraine as a member, so they are not entitled to the article five protection it would be different if they were, but they are not. we do not have a viable national security interest in ukraine it is sad to say. but we still stand for freedom, bill. we still stand in opposition to tyranny and oppression. and that is why we should and can continue to help ukrainians. host: let's get to our calls for jed babbin. i will go first to coral in oregon on our democrats line. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i appreciate c-span and all they represent. fair news.

anyhow, i would like to hear anything besides military help for the ukrainians. what else is there on the back burner for people to give to the ukrainians? guest: well, thanks for the call, carl. frankly there is not anything that is going to mean anything. they are getting a lot of humanitarian aid, there is endless number of shipments of humanitarian goods, medical supplies and so forth, we need to give them the hard power. crane is in a war. they are fighting for their own independence, they are fighting for their freedom, and they need certain kinds of weapons, mr. biden is refusing to give to them. that is a bad call, he is wrong, and we need to reverse that. host: let's hear from darrell in eastpointe, michigan. independents line. caller: thanks for letting me on.

i want to mention a couple of things. that is, the advantage of the javelin missile at $180,000 a cop. in other ukraine can have 22 missiles and one russian tank. the question is, how soon can we get to them? another thing i wonder is that if the russians have a hundred 90,000 troops on the border, versus 14 million conscripted ukrainian soldiers, 7 million of which can be on the front lines and 7 million two provide support, so they have a fantastic advantage in actual manpower. the last thing is, and i think the most important, is morale.

ukrainian troops are fighting to save their country and their freedom. the russians are fighting for putin's glory. plus, the russian soldiers are hearing about their family members at home suffering. i think as long as we can get those missiles to them quickly, i think the end would be inevitable against the russians. inc. you very much. -- thank you very much. your thoughts. basically, the issue is not the cost of the weapons. missiles are relatively cheap compared to the mig 20 knots. we are not sending may 29, we are not sending tanks. we should be. we are sending surface missiles, ammunition, military supplies of

other kinds. what we need to be supplying them is the stuff they really need. if poland wanted to send those aircraft over there, we should give them permission, we should help them do it. aydin refuses to help them do that. the 190,000 troops, they are not in the border -- on the border anymore. they're in the country, almost all of them. there are more reinforcements coming. we can see them mounting another russian offensive, particularly in the best region of eastern ukraine. they are building up something more again, so they can take those two so-called separate, independent republics. they are neither separate nor independent peer they are part of ukraine. the russians may want to just do that and call it a day. this is not going to end. it is not going to end on peaceful terms. the russians took crimea eight years ago. it was part of ukraine. they used their so-called

"little green men strategy" and infiltrated troops wearing the uniforms without the russian insignia. crimea was part of ukraine. now, they are trying to do the same thing in donbass. they're trying to do the same thing to the whole country. there are 190,000 troops that can invade. it cannot occupy. that is not enough. crane is about the size of texas or the size of france. it is a huge country. ukrainian people, as you point out, they are extraordinarily brave. they are fighting for their homeland. they have not just the morale, but they also have the moral advantage. i think we are going to continue to see that. zelenskyy has been a wonderful leader. he is all most like churchill in what he said and what he has done. he said, "i don't need a ride, i need ammo." i think ukraine is lucky to have

him. at -- a lot is going on here. we need to continue to support the ukrainians. we do not need to send in crews -- troops, we do not need to send in aircraft. i don't think nato will ever get involved there. they are scared as hell of the russians. host: question for you on twitter. our ukrainian pilots trained to fly american jets and drones? guest: yes, they can fly american drones, but not american jets. they have been flying these forever. they are not well trained on them. god only knows i wish we could just send them a squad or two that would probably win the war for them, but they don't know how to operate them. can we get them the make -- migs ? yes, we can. but i cannot do this. minutes -- mr. biden refuses to do this. russia could escalate more if

they go nuclear, and i don't think they're going to do that. host: here is cheryl on the line, democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call this morning. one of the things that i want to ask you a question about, because i understand and i hear what you are saying about president biden. one of the things that i see in watching all of the coverage on the news is that we are a house divided amongst ourselves. i think at a time where what we are seeing in ukraine, and i think why ukraine has such an advantage over russia, is because they are united as a people. we can, when something happens, but instead of rallying together, all we talk about is blaming someone for inaction

instead of helping the person. if we are a country and we really care about what is really going on, we would support the decisions of our president, because he has more information than we have. i think that is a failure of us. i don't care how money weapons we send, if we are a house divided amongst ourselves, how are we going to stand if we are attacked? i would like you to address that, please. thank you. guest: cheryl, i think you raise a very good point and i largely agree with you. but there is a very key point that you are missing. we are united -- we are very much a divided country right now. i don't see any way that is going to be stopped or we can be united around mr. biden. the problem is not that we are a

divided country, the problem is that we have a president who projects and act on weakness constantly. we cannot unite around weakness. as i said earlier, we america, we stand for freedom, we oppose tierney, and our actions have to support that. we have a president starting the situation -- it's like the situation england faced in 1938 through 1940. they had a very, very weak prime minister in never tabling. he tried to pose hitler's and it didn't work. they found a man with whom they could identify, around whom they could unite. it is not just a question on supporting mr. biden right or wrong, it is supporting mr. biden when he is right and opposing him when he is wrong. as i said earlier, he is partly right on ukraine, but he is very, very significantly wrong on things like his appeasement of iran and russia and china. that is basically the point and

i think we have to stick with it. host: our guest is the former debbie under secretary of defense and writes columns on national security foreign policy for " the washington times." we welcome your calls at (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, and (202) 748-8002 for independents. i want to look at the proposed 2023 budget that will be considered by congress. there is a 4.1% increase for the current euro -- year. 56.5 billion -- including nine additional battle force ships. $12.6 billion to modernize the army, marines -- army marine fighting vehicles. guest: i think the question of

what they are actively doing with the money, and when you see that the navy is retiring 24 ships this coming year and replacing it with nine, you have to wonder. the fleet that the navy says they need, a 500 vessel fleet to oppose china, we are now down to 280 within the next five years. that doesn't add up. the air force, quoting the air force association, is now older in terms of the aircraft that they have. it is weaker and less ready to fight then we have been -- then the air force has ever been in its history. the question of military integrity and military capability involves two things and two things only -- the lethality of the force and the readiness of the force. when you have the wokeness in the pentagon, you have the wrong things being built or

structured, you see more and more aircraft being retired and getting too old, you see ships that are being tired and getting too old, you wonder if our capabilities don't match, and frankly, our readiness is in the toilet also. you see a lot of things going on. the army is now, for example, saying that they are not going to be able to have gender-neutral physical fitness tests. what does that mean? it means the women and older soldiers get separate standards from the younger, more fit soldiers. that is not readiness. that is exactly the opposite of readiness. there are so many things going on, so many things we could talk about, but right now, the force capabilities, the lethality of the force, is less than it has been in decades. it's readiness is just not when needs to be. those are the things they ought to be concerned with. it is not what they are doing

with this budget. host: the defense secretary testified before the firearms services committee last week. i wanted to play you his comments in response to senator elizabeth warren and her comments on defense contractors, but with -- both u.s. senator warren and lloyd austin's response here is a look. [video clip] >> one of the things the defense contractors love to do with their flush with extra cash, courtesy of the taxpayers, is to use it to use their stock prices. the pentagon's top contractors spent $15.5 billion on net buybacks last year, sending their stock prices zooming up. that is the most of any year on record ever. but it is not just members of congress who are using inflation as an excuse to ask for more money from the pentagon. i was actually troubled to hear some pentagon officials doing the same earlier this week.

so, secretary austen, let me ask you directly. are you comfortable with the figure in the president's proposed budget? >> i am comfortable and here is why, senator. you may have heard me say earlier that we went from -- we develop the national defense strategy and we knew that our budget would have to match that strategy. we went through great pains to make sure that that was the case. this is a robust budget and i think it allows us to get the capabilities we need to support our operational concepts. host: your thoughts on the secretary's response to the question posed by senator warren? guest: senator warren is often the ozone, as she usually is, as we look to other parts of other industries to talk about stock

buybacks and inflated stock prices. i think mr. alston is best characterized as it is some bystander. from what i can see, what i can read, he does not seem to have a lot of influence over president biden and he is not one of the key advisors. having said that, he is talking about a robust budget, a significant budget. he is not talking about lethality and readiness. this is a man who is, quite friendly, imposing this on the military in a very great many ways. that is the absolute opposite of readiness. wokeness for the military is a form of national suicide. i really just can't take mr. austin very fiercely. host: when you say wokeness, what do you mean? what are some specifics on what you think that pentagon is doing , the secretary of defense is doing? guest: i look back at his

memorandum and i have been a copy right here. 12 april, 2021, he was talking about how the united states military has to emphasize lgbtq rights in its relations with other governments. frankly, that is not something we have a lot of time to do. if there is time allowed, whatever. but this is the kind of thing, and again, the military doing things that do not increase lethality and readiness. again, the army's gender-neutral physical fitness test is out the window. there is a lot of that going on. when mr. alston said, as he has many times, that the most important things are climate change, diversity, and so forth, that is not what a military commander needs to be concerned about. he is not the kind of guy to do it. he was a mediocre commander. again, i just don't think he is

someone that the president even attempt to rely on. host: let's get back to our collars. edward is up next in florida, independent line. caller: greetings. i was stationed in korea for 17 months in the minefields. we were very successful in keeping the enemy out of our area. relating to our southern border, our military is capable of descending our border in lieu of going to foreign countries. i have six members of my family in the military and they are skilled, trained, and ready around-the-clock. so, at this time, our military is capable. thank you. guest: our military is capable, our military job is not to defend the border. military's job is to defend the nation. i have no problem with our

border patrol or national guard being used for exactly that purpose. but i don't think the military's job is to go ahead and defend the border. if it comes down to it, perhaps in an emergency, if the president were to declare a national insurrection of some sort, then maybe, yes. right now, our military has a lot more to do and a lot more expensive things it needs to deal with. i think the border is a national tragedy. i think the president has created a crisis down there and it would be very easy for him to fix it, but he simply does not want to. it comes down to governors like adams in texas, who is building his own border wall. that is the answer to it. quite frankly, i salute your members of the military in your family. i just don't think that they have a role to play at this point. host: next up is jill in it

would work, iowa, on our crestline. caller: i have just a couple of issues. one, there is a lot of talk about how far we can go to support ukraine. i just wanted to compare that to in the past, another country that was not associated with nato at all, kuwait, where we more than definitely put boots on the ground to save kuwait. i just wonder if petroleum is the only national interest we should be thinking about. ukraine, of course, does play a huge role in food security globally. so, i would like to hear, compare why we went into quite, but we cannot send planes to ukraine. my concern about readiness is the right wing reichel is a of the troops. you said they could go to the border because of an interaction, but what about if you have a president who tries

to seize the election through an insurrection? there was a lot about president trump wanting to call martial law. about kuwait and what about radicalization? host: ok, thank you. guest: i think you have a very good point on several of your points. but you are missing the entire issue on so-called radicalization of the military. a recent study, i believe by the defense department inspector general, said that there was no systematic radicalization in the military. there is a problem that president biden and mr. alston are trying to solve, it just doesn't exist. the question came down and kuwait. i was in the pentagon and that was going on. that came down to, we believed that the criticality of the kuwait oil was of severe national interest and we had to defend kuwait.

ukraine, yes, they do have significant influence over world food prices and we may be writing about that for the next few weeks. but the question comes down to, do we have other adequate supplies? in 1990, when saddam invaded new -- invaded kuwait, there was not enough oil that we were getting from our own sources, from the saudis, to make up for the kuwaiti oil. it was a critical national defense issue, so we went in, drove saddam out of kuwait, and quite frankly, thank god we did not lose a lot of american lives doing so. it was a very short war. it was unquestionably worth what we did. host: let's go to new york and hear from joan. she is on the republican line. caller: hi and good morning, thank you for taking my call. thank you to c-span. i want to talk about the iran deal and what the government really expects to get out of the deal, and if putin is still part

of the negotiations, which in my mind would be a total disgrace to have him part of anything of negotiations. and why is there not more pressure from the american public against this iran deal, sending billions of dollars to them and we know we can't trust them? thank you for answering the question. i will stay on the line. guest: thank you for asking that question. the latter question about why the american people don't take more interest in it. you are hitting me right in the heart because i spend my time during the day, my waking hours, reading the news, analyzing the news, about national security and foreign policy. many people in the country really care about it. unless we care about national security and foreign policy, we do not get it right. we only get one chance to get it

right. again and again and again. that is really the issue here. i forget the other parts of your question. please remind me. but the point really comes down to, we have to have a national security policy that is supported by action. host: how would you compare the national secured a policy of the biden administration with that of the trump administration? guest: wow. mr. trump was much stronger most of the time. he was much too friendly with mr. putin to suit me. but i think all in all, mr. trump got it right a lot more often than mr. biden is getting it right. mr. trump was much tougher. for example, mr. trump insisted that our nato allies spend more on defense and he read killed them regularly for their failure to do so. biden says, "well, ok, no big deal." as we are seeing in ukraine,

less the american people understand this, they really missed the whole lesson of ukraine. nato is not prepared. the commander of germany's army, the one that is there, he said, i think february 25 or 26, 1 or two days right after the ukrainian invasion by russia, he said, "we are bare. we have no options to offer in defense of the alliance." in most other nations armies, navies, are the same status. nato is flat on its back. it has shot its last bolt in libya in 2009. we went in, in support of the french oil company that wanted access to libyan oil. we ended up with mr. obama calling on our air forces and naval air forces to go in and help nato toss out -- i'm getting it all wrong today. the libyan dictator.

basically, we went in, nato shot its last bolt. nato is not capable of doing anything. the german army right now, for example, would not be able to put down a decent sized right in los angeles. host: let's get to the question the previous caller was asking about vladimir putin, his role in middle east peace. obviously, -- guest: vladimir putin made much more inroads into the middle east with their troops in syria, helping the syrian leader. one of the motivations of vladimir putin during those years, getting involved in middle east and how did that come to be? guest: personal, thank you for reminding me about that part of the ladies question. he has basically been running the negotiations between the united states and iran. iran will not meet with our negotiators directly, so we go

through the russians. they are doing everything they can, i am sure, to accelerate the iranian interests and denigrate ours. we have a situation where we are allowing them. biden is allowing them, the russians, to run the negotiations with iran. how can greasy -- how crazy is that? at this point, it is wrong for us to be negotiating that deal at all. if biting goes ahead with it, and he is -- and he will because he is obsessed with it. mr. biden believes he needs to revive this deal to make a great foreign policy because he needs to live up to his predecessor, obama. he is going to be massively worse if he completes this deal. i certainly hope he fails. the russians are in charge of the negotiations. that should tell you everything you need to know about how this deal is going. host: a few more calls here. we will go to james in

california on the republican line. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. go ahead, james. caller: i want to speak on our continued support for ukraine and i want to tie our policy and. you spoke about policy. that is the exact problem right there. we don't have a policy. we haven't had a contentious policy for years. perfect example, the iran deal you just spoke of. it was worked out with one administration. another administration comes in and decides, "i don't like it." he tears it up. on the world stage, it makes america look indecisive. "how can i make a deal with america when the next administration may not like it for whatever reason, be it personal, moral, be it just?" it could be an improvement of

policy, of method on our part, of who is in the white house. the problem is, we don't have a continuous policy. therefore, we are still going to always be running around as each administration changes. you say we have the trump policy. we had an obama policy, we had a bush policy, we had a carter policy, we had a clinton policy. why don't we have a u.s. policy that is continued and has some consistency to it? host: thank you, james, we will get a response. guest: you raise an interesting point. but that is a difference between a democracy and monarchy. chinese policy has been consistent over 50 years. russian policy for 20 something years, under mr. putin, has been very consistent. marcus he is messy and god bless us for it. we don't have the ability for

it. we should not have the ability for one president to tie the hands of another. look at the nuclear deal mr. obama negotiated. if you wanted to get that deal so the next president could not mess with it, he would have submitted it to the senate for ratification. but he did it. do you know why? he knew he couldn't get ratified because it was a bad deal. the same thing goes for mr. trump. he has absolutely the right to withdraw from that deal. he could have made other deals. he made some very good deals in the middle east, but he did not submit them for route -- for ratification. they have all been positive and there has not been a lot of outcry to the contrary. you have democracy versus autocracy or dictatorship. that is the difference. we don't have a consistent american policy because the american government is not consistent again, that is one of the features of democracy that i am very happy with. host: let's hear from pat new

york on the infinite line. caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. i think that your way of thinking is outdated, which is why it is going out the door with yourself and a lot of the people in your generation. we have a problem in ukraine. we have to do something about it. militarily, yes, because we have reached the point where it has gotten bloody. we also have to try to make a deal as fast as we can to prevent any further destruction, bloodshed, and everything else. my question has always been, up to this point, when they continuously told us before the invasion that they wanted a guarantee that we would not go into ukraine and not bring in nato forces, not bring an american bases, not bring in american military installations, what kept biden, the oligarchs

who pull his strings in this country -- because that is what this is, it is not a democracy. it is an industrial oligarchy. what kept him from being able to tell those people that we won't go in, we won't send, provided you do not invade? host: we will get a follow-up there, as we were about the program. guest: that is what biden said. he said we are not going to inject nato forces, we are not going to provide nato missiles in ukraine. he said exactly the things that you wanted. what else do you want? he said we have to do something for ukraine. what do we have to do? we have to do a lot and we have been doing a lot, but maybe not enough. as far as mi outdated? yeah, maybe. at the fact is, realism, facing the facts, never goes out of date. that is what we are doing now. that is what i always try to do. the fact remains, president biden is not dealing with facts,

he is dealing with fantasy and he is not making good policy. host: our viewers and listeners can read our guests columns at washington times.com. thank you for being here with us this morning. guest: thank you. host: that will wrap it up for today's "washington journal." we are back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern. we hope you will join us then. janet yellen is talking about the u.s. and global economies and certainly more on inflation in the u.s. that is next.