$1.2 trillion infrastructure law. a secure congressional reporter. later, the cohost of not another politics podcast join us. us. ♪ host: good morning. it is saturday, july 23, 2022. president biden tested positive for covid thursday. he is isolating at the white house. he is vaccinated and twice boosted. he is being treated with an antiviral drug. we are asking for your comments on president biden's diagnosis and the white house's handling. give us a call by party affiliation. democrats (202)-748-8000, republicans (202)-748-8001, if

you are independent, (202)-748-8002. and you can send us a text at (202)-748-8003. be sure to send your name and city, state. we are on social media at facebook.com/social media and send us a tweet @cspanwj. before we get to your calls, i want to show you the headline from "the washington post." biden continues to work during covid isolation. some officials signal his bout will be short and mild. yesterday, president biden was meeting virtually with advisors and talked about how he was feeling and discussed gas prices. [video clip] >> thanks. let me start by apologizing.

i feel better than i sound. we have some really good news, gas prices are coming down. they have fallen every day this summer for 38 days in a row. you can find gas for $3.99 or less in over 35 states. in some cities, it is down almost a dollar from last month. we have been working hard to bring the price down. four months ago i gave the order to release one million barrels per day from the strategic petroleum reserve. and i love the world to coordinate the largest release of oil reserves in history, including other countries. in total, over 240 million barrels boosted global supply. host: you can hear how the president is sounding. also yesterday, the white house

briefing. dr. jha gave an update on the president's outlook. >> how often is the president being looked at? >> we have been looking at him -- i do not have an exact number -- but multiple times per day either by phone, zoom, physically. the president is doing really well. he does not need an ongoing exam all the time. he is getting examined at least once a day but dr. o'connor has been looking at him at least once per day. >> has president biden been examined by other doctors? >> not that i know of. >> was there a discussion about the possibility of eliminating

the blood thinner even for five days would increase the risk of stroke? >> by the way, we clinically do this a lot. probably thousands of patients i have taken care of that need a procedure who are on blood thinners like, eloquist, and he stopped it because he is on paxlovid. we think it is low risk. dr. o'connor has been consulting with experts around the country and he made the decision to give the president the short course of aspirin. >> this took place whether or not to go with paxlovid over the monoclonal antibody? >> that was made by dr. o'connor. paxlovid is the first line agent we recommend.

that was the decision dr. o'connor made and you have to look at the medication list to make modifications. dr. o'connor made the decision to stop these medicines. they were recommended to be paused and dr. o'connor added aspirin for a short time. host: we are asking your thoughts on president biden's diagnosis. let's look at what the "wall street journal" is saying. some in the press are using this infection to lecture that americans are not taking covid seriously enough. but by now they and the public health have lost much credibility. americans have learned to live with the virus despite continuing risk because they have concluded the cost of mandates, school closures and business shutdowns are too great. we, and a few others, argued against shutdowns from the beginning. but the press and most

politicians did not want to hear it. covid has been a painful lesson in the cost of media and elite conformity. with the we wish we could say the conformists have learned much from it. wonder what you think about that and other things you're seeing in the news regarding the president's diagnosis. first up is victor in silver springs, maryland on the republican line. caller: good morning. a year ago biden made a statement saying, if you get the shot and the boosters, you will not get the virus. boy, that turned out to be one blasted lie. i am not the only one that is done with this administration, with the virus, and if he thinks if he things he is going to have another plandemic in time for the elections, he has a big thing coming.

people are fed up with this administration big-time. host: next is ralph in washington, d.c., independent. caller: how are you doing? i kind of agree with this guy. host: are you there? caller: can you hear me? host: ben in nevada on the republican line. caller: i wanted to start by saying i hope he gets well soon. that being said, i fully agree with the first caller. this is the first time i heard the term plandemic but we have so many more tools to come back from severe illness then we did in march of 2020. hindsight being 2020 i remember president trump saying the treatment cannot be worse than the disease.

unfortunately, that is what happened in this country. lockdowns, people losing businesses, have you gone to a restaurant lately? they are so shortstaffed. it is so sad what happened to this country. i feel for the individuals who passed away or got sick, i do not mean to discount their experience, but the country as a whole suffered a lot more from the democrats shutdowns, mandates, etc., than they did from the virus. host: yesterday's white house briefing we heard from press secretary karine jean-pierre. she pushed back on calls for the president's personal doctor to take calls from the press. [video clip] >> why are we not hearing from dr. o'connor? there was a statement from him but yesterday we had a difficult time comparing the description of the symptom progression from

his letter versus how you laid it out. dr. jha, your last update was from 10:00 the night before. >> a couple of hours ago at 11:00 you got a detailed letter from dr. o'connor. we have given you two detailed letters and you have heard directly from him. look, we -- >> we have not heard from him. >> yes, you have. you have heard directly from the physician. that is hearing -- in his words you are hearing directly from dr. o'connor. but i am answering your colleague's question, give me a second to do that. you heard directly from him and not only that, you have heard more, i would easily argue,

about a mild symptom of a virus than any other president. dr. jha and i were here for an hour field the questions. we are here today. we are going to commit to make sure you are hearing from dr. o'connor, from his daily report, detailed report from dr. o'connor. here's the thing. dr. jha is one of the foremost experts in this field when it comes to covid. he also has dealt with covid patients. he is running our covid response and is a medical doctor. he knows how the process works. again, we should feel good and be very happy that the president is doing better, that he is improving. this is the president of the united states. he is improving, he is reacting well to the treatment, and let's not forget we have the tools to

treat this because of the work this president has done. host: the press secretary yesterday and we have the official letter from the president's physician, dr. o'connor. you can take a look and it will be on the website, c-span.org. we are taking your calls this morning on the president's diagnosis. linda in south gate, michigan on the independent line. caller: hi. i am very happy president biden is doing well, but i would not have expected anything else since he has taken good care of himself as far as covid is concerned. but i am not surprised after all of the going overseas that he did. of course, very often not wearing a mask because he wanted to be accessible to other leaders. i am not surprised he caught it

but thankfully he seems to be suffering mild symptoms. that is what we all want to hear . however, i am disappointed in a publication like "the journal" saying we were overreacting. and a couple of months there were 2000 americans dying per day. i don't think anything was an overreaction. it was a new virus. unfortunately, because of president trump's sort of laying it down we had a patchwork of different things going on in every state. i feel like if we worked together as one nation, since it was a national emergency, probably the lockdowns would not have been so chaotic and having to keep going through surges.

i think everybody should get accident so if they get covid -- vaccinated so if they get covid, they will only suffer mild symptoms. host: judy is in mississippi, another independent. caller: when trump lied about the virus at the beginning. if you listen to bob woodward and trump interview, he knew it was going to be bad. he waited weeks before he actually did anything. damned if you do and damned if you don't. i have been vaccinated twice and

i have not had covid. i have been out but i wear a mask. that was my comment. host: all right, judy. take a look at this from axios. the headline says, trump's tweet on positive test is the most shared ever. just a reminder when the former president got covid his tweet said this, tonight the first lady and i tested positive for covid-19. we will begin our quarantine and recovery immediately. we will get through this together. that was before vaccines were available. len his calling from florida on the republican line. caller: good morning. well, i think joe biden taking care of the virus in the same

way he has taken care of the inflation, gas prices, you name it. he cannot do it. also, we can thank putin for lowering the gas prices since he was blamed for raising them. thank god trump found the virus inoculation. have a good day. host: let's talk to sue in fort wayne, indiana, democrat. caller: hi. i would like to respond to the fact that the president is doing all that he can and people blaming him for this pandemic, are they remembering 45 had a

playbook and decided to throw the playbook away? we would not have even gotten to this point had 45 done what he was supposed to do. host: what do you mean a playbook? caller: the playbook that our then-president, obama, gave him in regards to this virus that was going to be coming. host: you mean a plan for a future pandemic if one were to happen? obama did not know about covid. caller: no, but he knew that there was one coming.

and he gave 45 the playbook so it would not get to this point. host: fox news is saying this, media call biden's covid white house video smartly done after attacking trump as deranged in 2020. president biden elicited farmer sympathetic response for his covid diagnosis appearance than former president trump in 2020. on thursday the white house announced biden tested positive. the statement from the press secretary emphasized he experienced mild symptoms and he was taking paxlovid. she mentioned in line with cdc protocol the president will isolate in the white house and continue his duties there.

mark in martinsville, indiana, republican line. caller: i am a republican and i am just glad to hear that president biden is getting better. he is trying very hard to get the gas prices down. he has got them down. thank you and have a nice day. host: ben is in woodstock, connecticut, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 61-years-old and have not been to a doctor in 30 years.

take your vitamins. my wife is a nurse. we have never caught it. i don't know if people notice but coronavirus is patented in 2015 by rothschild. host: are you vaccinated and boosted? caller: no, no. like i said, vitamin d, zinc, and vitamin c. i have not had a cold and i don't know how long. it is part of taking care of yourself. host: do you take the flu shot? just wondering. caller: no. the virus was patented, so was the vaccine. the u.s. government is in partner with these pharmaceutical companies and they get money from the patent. host: how do you patent a virus?

caller: see how much money he has. host: sarah calling on the democrat line from fayetteville, georgia. caller: i have got one comment to make. i am so tired of these people going around talking about, they don't want to wear a mask, then they get sick, and then they take up hospital rooms. the guy taking the zinc? that is in addition to the shot. i hope president biden feels well and gets back on his feet again. host: angie is next on the independent line from evansville, indiana. caller: good morning. i wanted to say i believe that

president biden did everything the cdc recommended. he had his boosters. he is up in age and comes into contact with a whole lot more people than the average person does during a day. you know, the new variant is a new variant and i think covid is here to stay. it is going to be like the flu and we have to accept it. i hope he is going to do well. it sounds like he is doing well. i have started wearing masks indoors again and i don't think this is going away anytime soon. i have been boosted once. i should have been boosted twice but i have not gotten around to it. taking vitamins, stay healthy, eating right, maintaining weight

. it is like any other virus and i don't think it is going anywhere. i think it is here to stay. i am proud of the president for, you know, maintaining all the cdc recommendations. i wish him well and i think he is going to be fine. my dad was in his 80's and he guided a few months ago. he is fine and he has had multiple heart surgeries. something i think we have to get used to. it should not be a political issue. host: let's hear from lucy calling from florida, democrat. caller: good morning. i want to wish the president well wishes and a speedy recovery. i would like to utilize this type of forum to unite us and stop the controversy.

we need to come together because covid israel. have a blessed day. host: let's look at what our viewers are sending us over twitter. this is from mary lou who says, president biden keeps himself in shape. doing great, unlike trump, he had to be hospitalized. another tweet says, i wish him well and a speedy recovery. what more is there to say? aside from the fact he is lucky to be double vaccinated and boosted. mike is next from reynolds, missouri, independent. caller: i wanted to make a statement about an observation. i noticed people driving down the highway by themselves in their cars wearing masks. to me that is kind of crazy. i was just curious if they are

making a statement or they are truly that scared? if they are that scared, it is a shame somebody put them in that position to be so fearful. just thought i would give that input. host: william in stowe, ohio. caller: hello. how are you? host: good. caller:arg about the covid-19? host: william? caller: i am here. host: you have got to mute your tv. i can hear it in the background. caller: i am 66-years-old and i have seen a lot of things come and go.

but these american people don't want to wear this or that, they don't want to take the shot, they don't want to do anything. i was on a respirator and in the hospital almost 30 days. i almost died. i could not find the vaccine in our area so i suffered through it. i came to the conclusion we are so selfish. we only care about ourselves and what we do is what happens to us we complain and cry about it. but until it happens to you, nobody wants to do a thing about it. they don't want to wear masks, they don't want to take the shot. we have been taking shots all of our life. polio, measles, you name it, we have taken it. but now you're scared of needles? i find that hard to believe. we claim this is america but we

do not really care about each other. host: i am glad you are doing better. conrad is next on the republican line, philadelphia, pennsylvania. caller: how are you doing? when the coronavirus came out we had fellow republicans, women, men, saying, "my body, my choice." they say that when it comes to the virus. shouldn't a woman have the same rights when it comes to abortion? you need to get this together. every country in the world looks at us. we look like we are scrambling around, chickens with our heads cut off. january 6 changed the outlook on the u.s. throughout the country. thank you. host: mark in st. peter's,

missouri. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. just an observation. i have noticed the topic of today is president biden's covid diagnosis but it seems like all of the democrats calling in continue to talk about president trump. even c-span is reading different things concerning president trump. that is unbelievable. we cannot seem to let him go. one of your callers talked about the plandemic and it seems like they are gearing up for this midterm variant where they are changing the election things. they will allow for drop boxes and the american people will not

stand for that. thank you for taking my call. host: cheryl is next, daytona beach, florida, republican. caller: are you talking to me? host: yes, i am. how are you doing? caller: good. sorry, i did not hear you say my name. i am sorry biden got it but it is inevitable. the vaccines, i wish they would admit they do not work like they hoped they would. it is a fact. even dr. birx admitted it after leaving the administration. she finally got the truth. we need to take personal responsibility. our politics are so corrupted, so divisive, and the media is even worse than the politicians. you guys do more to divide this country. i looked at all of your c-span, three stations, all week it has

been pro-dem, anti-republican all week. you showed the january 6 committee ad nausea. you talked about packing the supreme court over and over one night. host: i wanted to go back to the covid-19 diagnosis of the president. you said you do not believe the vaccines are working. do you believe they are lessening symptoms? keeping more people out of the hospital? what are your thoughts on that? caller: look at the studies. this affects your autoimmune system. i am a nurse. i was a trauma icu nurse for many years. when you take a drug and manipulate your system what you are going to see is the longer

out multiple vaccinated and boosted people, their immune system is infected in a more negative way than people who have not been vaxxed. host: have you taken the vaccine? caller: no, i have not and i will not. if you want to take the vaccine, that is your business. i have no, nothing to say about that. that is your choice. host: let's look "the washington times." reporters a sale white house for shielding biden's doctor from questions about the covid test. is as reporters slammed the white house thursday for not making president biden's doctor available to answer questions. one journalist said the staff

were exhibiting, "the least transparency of any white house in 50 years." wonder what you think about that? we are taking your calls on the president's diagnosis. let's hear from a democrat in san antonio, florida. jan, good morning. caller: good morning. i just have to laugh at these callers who think trump got the vaccine. trump did not do anything with the pandemic first started. i read bob woodward's book and it is verbatim out of trump's mouth. he did not want to tell people how bad it was because he did not want to scare people. that is an idiotic assessment of the pandemic. i thank god for joe biden. he had the sense to get his shots. he did not end up in the hospital. i don't know.

the two doctors with trump, they suggested we drink bleach. thank god we got the vaccine. i have had both of my shots, both of my boosters. i am 88-years-old and in great health. president biden did not have to go to the hospital. host: bill is next in massachusetts, republican. caller: hi. how are you doing? host: good. caller: it is remarkable, huh? first we hear, it's my body, my choice. but now it is not my body, my

choice on taking the vaccine. number two, the vaccine does not work. what are we supposed to do? take 500 vaccines from now until five years from now? number three, you destroyed numbers of young kids' minds wearing masks around-the-clock. my last comment is, how come the borders are still wide open allowing everybody to be running through and be placed all around the country if it is like the black plague? host: let me ask you, going back to the virus, do you think there should not have been a shutdown? do you agree with "the wall street journal" that it was all overblown? you think that should not have happened during the early days? caller: no, no, it should not

have been shut down. it should have been isolating people who are 80 plus years old who have cancer and diabetes and copd. they should have been isolated and the other people, the kids mostly, should have been allowed to live. last thing, all these people that got fired? remember americans, vote republican. the democrats are communist. host: next caller on the democrat line. caller: i called to wish president biden good luck. i had covid before they developed the shots and it was three and a half weeks of not breathing, torture. i could not go to the hospital

because they were full in charlotte. my doctor even called and said he was closing the office. i did the best i could with the knowledge i had of vitamins and things like that and eating well. i used old-fashioned, common sense things. but i feel sorry for the guy that called, bill? he is a mad, angry man. the lady that called and said she was a nurse and did not have the shot, i consider that being crazy. she worked around people that she could have gotten it from. these people that trust everything to fate are wrong. i have been healthy. i have been energetic. i have been everything my whole life and then i had a 300 pound steel bookcase fall on the and

crush my hips and knees and now, i am not like i was. pride goeth before the fall. people calling in acting like guiding started the shut down -- like biden started the shutdowns, they started before march. people need to remember who was in control when the pandemic started. i remember joe biden and jill biden walking out to the war thing in d.c. and all the 500,000 plus candles being lit and that is when he took over. how many people have died since? he has not done any worse than trump. i think people need to start learning that they need to

listen to other channels besides fox. i listen to all of them so i can compare. i was a debater in school. there are two sides to everything but you don't have to argue, you can discuss. god bless you, bill, but you need to find the lord and some common sense. host: let's hear from the cdc director rochelle walensky. she spoke to "the washington post" virtually and was asked about the president's diagnosis. [video clip] >> let's start with the president's health. according to the cdc, more than 500,000 americans tested positive this week, joe biden is one of them. if we cannot protect the president from infection, what does it say about our ability to protect the most vulnerable americans? >> really important question. first, good wishes to the president for a speedy recovery.

he is on paxlovid and that should assist with his recovery in addition to the fact he received the vaccine series and two boosters. we know there is a lot of covid out there, as you said, 500,000 documented cases this week. hospitalizations have been on the rise since early april. what we are doing is sending the messages we have been all along. if you are in an area of high community spread level, that is about 60% of the population, we are asking people to take the necessary precautions to wear masks, test if they are going to events, and take the precautions necessary to protect them and their family. host: that was the cdc director. we are talking this morning about president biden's covid diagnosis and taking your calls. next up is harry in georgia,

independent. caller: hello. good morning to you. ok, let's talk about this. you know, i woke up the other day and went over to talk to my neighbor and turns out they were positive for covid. all i was doing was taking some of their mail stuck in my mailbox. i hope to jesus i was not going to get it myself, which i do not seem to have. all i can say is joe biden, if the man has covid -- i mean, i am 71-year-old. i am afraid to get it but on the other hand, if i had somebody to

take care of me like he was being taken care of, i think i would be ok. host: karen in bradenton, florida. caller: my best wishes to biden. however, i think the origins of this disease needs to be looked at. we do not seem to be investigating the cause of this disease and i think it has lost a lot of trust in people. fauci comes out and says, clearly, it did not come from a lab which we know is false. i think trust is what the bottom line is. we have lost trust in our government and it has been so

politicized and people want the truth and we have not gotten it. host: linda is next springhill, florida, independent. caller: hi. host: hi. caller: i have a very strong thing about what half of these people are talking about. first of all, it was brand-new and trump did the right thing. he stamped the flights from china -- stopped the flights from china. that is what he did. a lot of vaccines take at least eight years. he did the right thing and they are knocking him for getting it when nobody knew anything? then comes biden. i'm going to do this about

covid, i'm going to do that about covid. he did nothing but put fear in people. i understand about not knowing and taking some of that advice. i have been vaccinated. i cannot understand why trump is to blame for this. he did the right thing at the right time and nobody knew anything about it. host: take a look at "usa today." biden and trump, a tale of two presidents with covid. this time, things are different. president trump got covid in 2020 before vaccines. president biden has been fully vaccinated and boosted. the biden white house was quicker to acknowledge the president's positive test. trump announced his infection

october 2, 2020. a book later revealed he tested days prior. biden received paxlovid. trump received an experimental antibody. just drawing comparisons with the previous president. sabrina is next in rocky mount, virginia. caller: thank you for taking my call. the last caller you had that made the comment about when everything started donald trump stopped the flights because he suspected something was very wrong? i totally agree. that was the right thing to do and people need to remember that when donald trump got covid there was no vaccine. you had one caller that said, oh, trump got so sick because he

did not take care of himself. then they said, oh, joe biden did the right thing so he is doing ok. that's not fair. just because i am republican i watch fox, i watch you, i watch msnbc and igoogle stuff. i try to keep an open mind. i just pray we can come together. it is ok to disagree but we should not hate each other. host: sally calling from columbus, ohio, democrat. caller: i just have a concern about president biden. it has become evident he has been suffering from cognitive decline, at least the last several years. i understand that some people suffered from brain fog after they suffered covid.

brain fog on top of the positive decline he has been having, i think that is a dangerous thing. i wonder if others have been wondering about that also. host: joseph in cincinnati, ohio, independent. caller: i wanted to start off by saying, thank you, c-span. you are incredible. i know that i am now pulled -- old at 30 and c-span is the new cool thing. it is interesting to see the parallels between trump and biden and how each president handled the situation. i think it is more honorable how biden's team tried to be forthright with everything. the trump administration hid a lot of what was going on,

including his personal health and his finances. that's a whole different topic. it is good to see biden doing everything he can but this is proof that whatever we tried to do, whether we tried to do the right thing or the wrong thing, covid will get you. like the previous caller said, the odds of healthy people dying are minuscule. i think this is a case of personal responsibility. if you cannot be out and about and risk it, you do not take the risk. we need to be more independent and use more common sense in this country, and sadly, that is something that has fallen by the wayside. host: joseph mentioned the former president. this is the video message that then president trump in october 2020 released after his

treatment at walter reed medical center. [video clip] >> i just left walter reed medical center and it is something very special. the doctors, the nurses, the first responders, and i learned so much about coronavirus. one thing that is for certain, do not let it dominate you. do not be afraid of it. you are going to beat it. we have the best medical equipment, the best medicines, all developed recently. i went, i did not feel so good. i could have left two days ago. two days ago i said, i felt better than i did 20 years ago. do not let it take over your lives. do not let that happen. we are the greatest country in the world. we are going back to work. as your leader, i had to do that. i knew there was danger but i had to do it. i stood out front.

nobody that is a leader would not do what i did. i know there is risk, there is danger, but that's ok. i am better and maybe i am immune. i don't know, but don't let it dominate your life. get out there, the careful. we have the best medicines in the world and they are all getting approved. the vaccines are coming momentarily. host: that was in october 2020 after them president trump's because the treatment. there is a tweet i want to assure from you from mlb. one of our previous callers was asking why people drive by themselves with masks on. he or she says, my sister-in-law drives alone with a mask because she does not want to disturb her hair when she is going to a public place where she feels comfortable wearing a mask.

it is not fear, it is personal preference. jason in grove city, ohio, republican. caller: good morning. unfortunately, as things become so political between the left and the right i personally want a president who is going to do the right thing and make america great, as donald trump said in the beginning. i voted for him the first time i ever voted, actually. but the way things are going today -- i am not vaccinated, my family is not vaccinated. we are all healthy. my daughter has a rare immune disorder and is too young to get the vaccine. if it is something that would help you more than anything, i believe you should get it. host: how old is your daughter? caller: she is four years old. host: are you going to have her vaccinated? caller: me and my wife are

researching. it is still too early to tell what is going to come out of it. we are in, what, three years? when everything first happened we were scared and were wiping all the groceries down, panicking. i do think shutting everything down was the right thing because we did not know what was going to come out of it. it could have been the next black plague. other than that, if you want to get vaccinated, that's your choice. me and my family, if it gets out of hand, where putting masks on and sanitizing. i think you should wear face masks because of our elders. some of them may not have got the vaccine. some people do not have a way to get them. host: you said you are not vaccinated.

are you not planning on ever getting vaccinated? caller: if my health turns for the worst, i will. but i never got the first shot either and i have never gotten the flu. any times i felt symptoms i washed my hands, stayed home away from the community. as far as the vaccinated it is too early for me and my family to tell. there is not enough research in it for me and my family to get vaccinated. host: newfoundland, pennsylvania, bob is on the independent line. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: good. caller: good. i have not been vaccinated because my primary doctor told me i got covid but i have an enlarged heart and other

symptoms which are personal to me and my doctor. i wish president biden -- i am republican -- i wish him luck and good fortune, absolutely. people have to make their own choices. individuals of the united states -- i am not supporting the war with ukraine -- but my money is still being sent there. that's another issue. but if you feel you need to get the vaccine and a booster -- my mother is 84 and she's had three or four. that is good for her. she dealt with with her doctor. but if we have doctors coming on fox, abc, any channel, and telling us it is mandatory, that

you cannot go into a store or residence without a mask -- i am claustrophobic. it is hard for me to wear the mask. for me, the bottom line is understanding it is a personal choice just like with this pro-choice with women. i am a man. you are a woman. you should absolutely make your own choice about the situation. host: you mentioned you are republican. next time, call on the republican line instead of the independent line. dana is in new york, new york. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to wish the president good health getting through this. if you do not mind me saying a couple of things in addition to that?

yes, he is vaccinated and boosted. we do not know for certain what the true story of the vaccine is. i am vaccinated and boosted. it is still early. for people to say because he came on tv, president biden came on tv last year to say, get your vaccine, you will not get covid. i do not believe that is what he said but i got covid even after being vaxxed. i was so ill and they said had i not been vaccinated i would have been in the hospital on a ventilator. i think for everyone to say, because your vaccinated, you will not get it. that is not the true story. we do not know the true story because we do not have to handle things like this before. what i want to say is you may

get it but you will be dying less of it. secondly, please stop having people -- not you -- make this a political issue between the choice of vaccination and abortion. they should not be in the same context or discussion. they are two totally different things that have nothing to do with each other. the woman who says she watches everything, so do i. i read. i look at both sides. but if you are going to do that and still not have an open mind, because if we go back to 2020 and how things were handled, there is no way you can say this was handled properly. host: joe a republican in

morristown, new jersey. caller: how are you? host: good. caller: i am calling because i think everybody should make their own choice what is going on. i am sorry the president got sick. i wish him all the luck in the world. i have been working since this is first come out. i have never gotten sick. i got two shots. i am not getting anymore because the first two put me up for two weeks. this is unknown. we do not know what is going to happen. putting masks on everybody again -- they did not tell the truth. i am just so tired of the whole thing. it is absolutely unbelievable. host: when you say they did not tell the truth, what are you talking about? caller: all the information that came from the health department. i believe one woman wrote a book

about it. i am not sure. but i think the cdc has done a lot of lying about things. it is a mess. you cannot believe anything on the tv anymore. people are having a hard enough time buying food, getting gas and all of that going on, and he is sitting in his private room telling everybody, i'm fine. you know when he will be fine? when he is finished with as little illness. he has to have a test to see if he is mentally fit to run this country. host: robert is on the republican line in east hampton, connecticut. caller: i would like to make a couple of quick points. the first variant was much more deadly than the variants of today.

second, i feel the cdc has been dishonest. they are in bed with the drug companies and they are pushing the shots. she came out six months ago and said 75% of the deaths were people that work 75 years and older and had comorbidities. we should have been protecting the elderly, not sending them back into nursing homes where they were dying. i believe 30% of the deaths were in the nursing homes. they are pushing these vaccines that have no history. young kids, masking them up, when their percentage is low. germany came out with a study that one in 5000 germans had adverse effects from the covid shots.

if i was young, i would never get the shot. host: robert is our last call for this segment. i want to thank everybody that called in. up next, it has been nearly eight months since the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law is in place. we follow the money with eugene mulero, senior correspondent for transport topics. later, we meet with the hosts of the "not another politics podcast." william howell, anthony fowler and wioletta dziuda >> next week on the c-span networks, wednesday morning, ceo's of some of the leading firearm manufacturers will testify before the house oversight committee on the practices and profits of gun makers.

on thursday morning the house judiciary committee conducts an oversight hearing on the justice department's national security division, and the veterans affairs committee will look at ending sexual harassment at v.a.. the senate returns to capitol hill on monday the vote on a bill to provide help to the u.s. computer chip industry and plans to expand health care veterans to benefits of exposed to toxins. the house is in on tuesday expecting to take up the computer chip legislation and they will also vote on a wildfire and drought relief bill. watch live next week or on c-span now. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> book tv, every sunday on

c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. 9:00 p.m. eastern, joseph henrik , harvard professor and a book prize winner on his book "the weirdest people in the world." he recounts how and why western democratic societies prospered. 10:00 p.m. eastern, former nasa deputy administrator provides a first-hand account of the efforts to modernize nasa, and to expand space exploration with her book "escaping gravity." she is interviewed by the washington post space reporter christian davenport. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch any time at booktv.org. ♪ >> join washington journal every sunday for a special six part

series on landmark legislation. each week historians and experts will explore a piece of legislation that shaped america on how we get around, pay for health care, and welcome new citizens of the country. this sunday morning we will look at the welfare reform act act of 1996 which requires recipients to begin working within two years of receiving benefits and enacting a five lifetime cap. watch landmark legislation on washington journal live at 9:00 a.m. eastern on sunday morning on c-span or c-span now. >> there are a lot of places to get political information. but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from it, or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network, unfiltered, unbiased,

word for word, if it happens here, or here, or here, or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. my guest is eugene mulero, he is a congressional reporter for transport topics, eugene, welcome. nice to see you. the transportation secretary p jute -- pete buttigieg was on capitol hill to give an update on the rollout of the 1.2 trillion dollars infrastructure law that the president signed last november. what were the big takeaways? caller: secretary -- guest: secretary buttigieg gave a progress report on the halfway mark for the anniversary of the enactment of the law and reminded lawmakers of the law impacts on the supply chain

improving connectivity across frates networks as well as the ports and the core doors for the freight transportation system. also, very significant, he updated the lawmakers that about $80 million has thus far been dedicated for funding for projects, like i mentioned, supply chain as well as climate change, and modernizing the transportation system. this is pretty much the electric vehicle charging network that the biden white house wants to it -- once to implement nationwide. another major take away is that he forecasted and previewed two dozen funding opportunities are really coming up and online soon as the department of transportation or state agencies to be able to access more money of this $1.2 trillion of the law, or again transit systems,

modernizing their freight core doors and repairing communities that have been disenfranchised economically. there is a whole theme on equity that the biden white house is pushing. and money for recruitment and retention for individuals to come into the transportation sectors, not just frates, to get people to work in transit, to get people to work at the ports and waterways, all of that to help address the connectivity, as the supply chains, and then lastly, another theme that was really throughout the hearing, was a sense of urgency that was bipartisan, lawmakers were really emphasizing as well as the secretary that with inflation, with rising fuel prices that improving the transportation system is

urgently needed now at this economic time. host: we will be taking your calls this our on the infrastructure law implementation, it is the 1.2 trillion dollar law, and you can call us on our lines by party affiliation. democrats can call1. -- can call 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. well, as we mentioned the secretary was on capitol hill earlier this week and he talked about something called intersecting challenges, let us take a look and then i will ask you to comments. [video clip] >> thanks to leaders like representative young, chair defazio and many of you we have the most transformative transportation investment in most of our lifetimes in the form of the infrastructure

investment and jobs act and it could not have come at a more important time. from delays at ports to freight congestion and shortages at aviation, american transportation has rarely confronted this many intersecting challenges at once. nearly 43,000 people died in traffic crashes last year, each of them a parent, child, colleague, or friend. it produces more carbon emissions in any sector at a time when the nations at the world are rallying to confront the climate challenge. as americans grapple with the -- with inflation we know that transportation is the second-largest household expense after housing, affecting every family budget. this is also a mark -- a moment of opportunity with reasons for optimism. thanks to the law my department has never seen a moment of greater potential that now. to build transportation resources that connect everyone safely, efficiently, and

affordably to the things we need and the people we love. [end video clip] host: what do you think of what you just heard? guest: the secretary is echoing what transportation experts and observers have dropped -- have talked about for several years. because of our population growth and freight demand, e-commerce, and because of climate change, there is a moment of time right now where it is, and this is something that president biden has hammered home, that there is a moment of time right now to really modernize the transportation system, that the eisenhower era model of transportation is outdated and not serving communities, not only with safety but economically. the transit systems for the most part are somewhat aging, the roads need a lot of repair. and when you look at technologies there has been a

major adoption of electric vehicle technology. we continue to overall just upgrade the existing infrastructure, so that is what he is talking about, climate change that really focuses on the umbrella of modernizing the system, and then that also links to safety, that if you make the transportation system able to communicate better through technology, through wireless communication that all of that has potential safety benefits. and then the elephant in the room is the economy, inflation, and the secretary reminded the lawmakers that the administration is aware and are responding to inflation whereas republican lawmakers really hit at the secretary telling them that the administration needs to do more, especially in the transportation arena to address

the impact of inflation on motorists and the freight -- and the freight sector. host: let us talk about how the money gets to where it needs to go, what is the challenges getting to -- getting funding to states and localities, how is that decided and despairs? guest: it is actually a process that requires, if it is not under an emergency provision it requires a state agency, a locality to go through an application process, for the most part. and explain and justify why they need x amount of dollars, let me just say $100 million. the department of transportation will review the application for a grant for a loan application and determine if that justifies the merits of the process. the good news is that they do

have the money available for these projects, and there is an awareness and acknowledgment that there are megaprojects around the prop -- around the country, conductivity sectors that need to be fixed and they need to be safer for the traveling public, and then once the applications are in, the process will take several months, sometimes a year or two to be awarded so it is a multi-year process, and then once the money is awarded, the transportation agency will begin the process of using those funds , and sometimes those projects, just because of the nature of the projects, especially if they are large and complex are not going to be materializing overnight, that will not happen in a day or two, it will not take several years for that bridge modernization project to

be finished, and that is pretty much the theme and definition when president biden at the state of the union said this is the infrastructure decade. he was saying that it would take several years for a project, once it receives the money from the dot and once it begins the construction process, it will not happen overnight, it is long-term. host: are there any projects currently underway around the country, or -- or are things in a regulatory process or the grant process? guest: there are some very big flagship poster process already in the works prior to the enactment of this law. one of them is a bridge and tunnel project in the new york-new jersey area at the hudson river called the gateway project. and governors from new york and new jersey were very agreeable

on the needs to modernize that freight network and the passenger rail network in the area. this law helps facilitate additional money for the completion of the project, which stakeholders and senators from that area says has a lot of potential economic benefits. that is also a major project, long-standing bridge concerns in kentucky in the midwest, waterways, the ports, there were already concerns that these infrastructure projects were decaying and were structurally deficient, they were ready to face repairing them, and with the additional influx of funding, these state agencies were able to continue the maintenance, modernize and update these bridges. host: let us look on the screen

and remind people to break down of the $1.2 trillion where the money is going, the big one being i've hundred $50 billion in new funds to transportation -- $550 billion to new funds on transportation. another 110 billion included for roads, bridges and projects. $66 billion for passenger rate -- for freight and passenger rails. what are the estimates of job creation, this will require a lot of people to do this. what we have a pretty low unemployment rate. do we have enough people to do the projects? guest: this is an area where i have studied the numbers, i have talked to the experts and there is really no exact precise number. i cannot say 10 million jobs will be created because of the law. the hope from the white house is for millions of jobs to be created as a result of the

projects that will be approved by this law, but it is still undetermined right now in the freight sector as well as throughout the transit sector as to exactly how much and how many jobs will be created. secretary buttigieg early on had issued a statement. he stated that several million jobs would be created as a result of this law, but quickly there was a lot of pushback from critics of the law. but the department of labor, led by secretary marty walsh has talked with the dot on retention and recruitment efforts and their hope is for further gaps in the jobs that are missing across the freight sector. there is a long answer to tell you to say that there is no number on the jobs front. host: let us look at a few more

notes before we get to your calls on what is included. 65 billion for broadband. 55 billion dollars for improving water systems and replacing led pratt -- lead pipes. timmy $5 billion for electric vehicle charging -- 65 -- 75 billion dollars for electric vehicle charges. but as talk to elizabeth in maryland. hello. caller: thank you for talking to me. i live in a small town in maryland and i am a senior. and we have no buses in my town. and we need electric buses so badly. i have no transportation, i do not have a car and no one who can drive me. i have to take a taxi and it cost me $30 in taxi fare to go to the grocery store for five minutes. i shop in five minutes and it cost me $30. i spend over $500 a month on cab fare to go to the grocery stores and into the pharmacy.

i need buses in my community. because if i could get a bus, if i could take a bus and get a job, i have been looking for a job for four years since i retired. and if i had a bus to take i could get a job, and then i could buy a car, and then i would be set. that is all i want to say. we need electric buses so badly and i have to pay the cab fare and i cannot afford it. host: let us get a response on public transit. guest: elizabeth is really the example of the proponents of transit funding on capitol hill. they have dedicated, as you mentioned, severn -- several billion dollars to improve access to transit. at the very local level, her town needs to work with the maryland state transportation agency to access funds to create a bus system and expand bus

access for residents such as herself, and that is something that members on capitol hill are very keenly aware, and she made the argument that if you are able to give her transit opportunities, transportation opportunities than she is able to be in the workforce, and that will then presumably help the economy. so, in her case it is not unique. you hear people in the major cities saying they struggle to have access to budget -- to buses in an adequate subway system. host: gregory is an fort washington, maryland. republican. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call and thank you to c-span for all that you do. my question and comment is about the electric vehicle charging. it seems that we always look at things in hindsight without thinking in the forehand about

them. what i was thinking about is a universal charging receptacle, we will have all of these companies making all of their vehicles, we want to have a network, that we have to have a universal connector. i am wondering if any thought has gone into that. host: we will get a response. guest: so, the dot is working to ensure that there is somewhat of a standard. so every electric vehicle is able to use the same charging station. in the near term. and that is something that will go through the regulatory process once we have a national framework of electric charging stations. the whole issue of electric vehicles, the administration dedicated $7.5 billion over five years to create this national framework on electric vehicles. the aim, the white house says,

is to respond to climate change. host: let us take a look because secretary buttigieg was asked about electric vehicles and he spoke with republican congressman thomas massie. [video clip] >> it would take four times as much electricity to charge the average household's cars as the average household uses on air conditioning. so, if we reach the goal by 2030 that biden has of 50% adoption instead of 100% adoption which means the average household would use twice as much electricity charging one of their cars as they would for all of the air conditioning that they use for the entire year. do you think this could contribute to rolling lack outs and brownouts in areas of the country where air conditioning has basically considered essential? >> not if we prepare. the fact that people who have electric vehicles are going to

use more electricity cannot be a reason to give up. the idea that america is inferior to the other countries who have figured this out does not sit well with us. >> in the time that i have left, let me say, i am not saying we should not prepare. i told you at the beginning i am bullish on this technology, but the numbers and the rate of adoption has been developed using political science, not engineering. they are impractical. if we blindly follow those goals it will call his pain-and-suffering for the middle class. [end video clip] guest: the congressman really echoed his fellow republicans in insisting that electric vehicles are just not ready for prime time right now, and the immediate needs of the american consumer and the american motorist art linked to the rising fuel price -- are linked

to rising fuel prices so there are calls from the gop caucus for the white house to do more and for democratic leaders to do more to respond to fuel prices as well as inflation. when it comes to electric vehicles, as we heard the secretary, the biden administration has a 10 year plan for dedicating billions of dollars for a national system in order to have ideally about half of drivers to have electric vehicles there would be as a dod explains for that to happen, there must be massive upgrades to electrical grid throughout the country to satisfy electrical needs that would require. host: what about the cost? what about that cost plus the electricity cost outweighed the

gas prices. host: -- guest: this is an economic debate in transportation circles and it is one that the administration is addressing through subsidies. they are arguing that before you subsidize, electric vehicles, in the long term the savings would be used for addressing other consumer demands, this way you would have more money for -- the owner of the electric vehicle would have more money for expenses, and also less emissions related before climate change. and then you would have a greater access to pushing electric vehicles models with greater electric vehicles in the marketplace that would ideally say -- ideally have more

economic vehicles available you are not looking at one brand of automakers providing an electric vehicle for the middle class, that is the mindset of the proposal for electric vehicles, as we heard the opinions of electric vehicles, they are just too expensive, we do not have the infrastructure in place and the immediate needs need to be addressed right now. host: william, quincy massachusetts, independents line. -- independent line. caller: i have a question, the bill whatever it was, i was wondering why president biden has agreed to take 2 billion dollars out of that to buy air conditioners for low income people. it sounds to me like he is buying votes, and it is kind of upsetting. that is all i have to say, thank

you for taking my call. host: do you know anything about that? guest: i know there are programs to retrofit homes and making them more resilient to climate change. this specific, if the details of this program are accurate, then i would see it falling under that umbrella. host: john, georgia on the democrats line. caller: i have a question for your guests, i do not know the name of the project or the plan for the pacific northwest that is a very integrated plan that involves revitalizing realigns, and it would run the electricity , they would be electric trains, they would modernize the trains, it would be passenger rail, freight plus passenger.

you would get your electric power through wind, mostly. it would revitalize smaller towns along the railroads. it is a multi-year, highly integrated plan that has several different parts of the transportation sector. one of your guests has heard about this plan or vision, it is something that the pacific northwest is looking at doing. and then possibly scaling it up. host: eugene? guest: you know, i am well-informed in the transportation space, but if this is a plan and not a project that is already underway, and i just have to say it is still being debated at -- under state legislature. but i also know that there are many regions around the country looking to have multimodal projects and they are seeking money from the federal government to help advance them. host: mike.

stockton, california. independent. caller: hello, the question i have is a californian and someone in the west, we are getting scare stories almost daily that within a year or two we are going to be in a situation of a forced migration due to lack of water. the stories out of las vegas, lake mead, the colorado river drying up, all the different states vying for limited water. what, if anything, is a great joe biden doing to prepare for this water shortage? we have the ability to build pipelines, what is our national government doing to protect the people in the west with its shortfall of water. this is something that president roosevelt did back in the 30's with national plans to build

real infrastructure for our people out here. host: what do you think? guest: the governors of arizona, colorado they are already working with the federal government under emergency programs to expand access to water to businesses and residents in those states, and there is an embellishment that there is a water shortage in that part of the country, and right now, most of the response falls under an emergency provision, but there are long-term projects, but they are pretty much at the state level that would seek federal funding to get them to fruition. host: the top republican on the transportation committee, sam

graves, was talking about the impact of inflation and supply chain issues on infrastructure jobs. take a look. [video clip] >> americans know that they can no longer buy the same amount of food, gasoline or other necessities with their hard earned dollars. as i could just a year and a half ago, obviously not by a longshot, and the same holds true for our infrastructure dollars. republicans heard grim warnings last week during our roundtable on inflation. companies working in the transportation space are struggling with exploding costs and some of these companies cannot shoulder the risk of inflation meaning that some businesses especially smaller ones are unable to bid on some of the jobs. at the same time states are running over there transportation budget as they have the impossible task of estimating project costs which are going to continue to increase exponentially. in missouri, it is estimated that they are going to go $140

million over budget in the current year's transportation plan. states are receiving fewer bids on their projects with all of the regulatory red tape, they hardly get to the processing time for a proposal to stay true to their original estimated cost. that is why it is incumbent upon the department and congress to make sure that every single dollar from the law counts and is directed towards project safely and efficiently to move people, goods, and to clear the bottlenecks that are adding to the supply chain crisis. [end video clip] host: what do you think of that? guest: congressman graves has been meeting with stakeholders, especially freight companies and the stakeholders have told the republican leader of the committee that inflation is a big problem, workforce, recruitment and retention is also hindering the operation as well as rising fuel prices.

and all of that is a recipe according to these companies for potential problems, especially with moving goods across the supply chain. congressman graves is sharing those concerns with the democratic majority. i do want to point out that if republicans do when the house after the midterms he has favored to be the chairman of the committee, so it is very likely, my sources tell me, that he will then pursue policies and legislation that aims to address the concerns of these companies, and he will touch on oversight and oversight in the implementation of this law is something that not only his caucus has been dedicated to doing, also the democrats, but the white house created a task force exclusively to looking at how the money is being

maneuvered across the agencies and dispersed the state agencies because the government watchdogs, u.s. dot inspector general also provides oversight and then at the state level, lawmakers and state watchdogs also follow the money on this infrastructure. host: mark in north carolina, republican. mark. caller: i noticed in your exhibit you had $700 billion listed as to where the money was earmarked for. what about the other half trillion dollars that is not listed? is it more projects or are you talking about government watchdogs, there is no such thing. the government is spinning out of control. what is the other half trillion dollars that were not listed, where and what is that going for? is it more pork projects like a navy in kansas? what specifically is it supposed

to go to? guest: that is a great question. there are a lot of operational costs with the implementation of this law. their operational costs in multi agencies, so the dot, fm cma, the federal transmit test transit administration, it costs a lot of money to implement something along those lines. the bulk of the funds you referred to are for operational expenses. there are also projects that have already been earmarked for a lack of a better term to be dedicated money and that is money that has already been obligated to get into the weeds right now. there are already commitments by the federal government to subsidize these product -- these connectivity projects as well as funding that is set aside for emergencies. so, when there is a -- when

there is flooding in the midwest there is a pool of money available and -- to address these transportation emergencies. that is a snapshot of the money you referred to. i also encourage everyone to go to the u.s. dot and the white house and there is a guidebook on the implementation of the infrastructure investment and jobs act, and they detail and itemize every single budget line. host: as you said you could go to transportation. house.gov and see this, here's the website for the infrastructure investment and jobs act which is what that bill is called. raymond, illinois on the republican line. good morning. caller: i have a couple of points. the first point is that there is a federal highway use tax for every gallon of diesel and gasoline that is collected by the u.s. government.

this is from vehicles that use gas and diesel. how come we do not collect any money from these manufacturers of electric vehicles because those vehicles are using the same highway system for electric vehicles that we use for gas vehicles? we are not collecting -- we are charging the american people and overspending our revenue in order to to supplement the electric manufacturers of vehicles. we should be collecting road use tax for those vehicles on the highway, just like we do for trucks and cars and we collected and we sell them a gallon of gasoline and a gallon of diesel. explained to me why we are subsidizing these electric company -- explained to me why we are subsidizing these electric companies? people should not be getting a

$12,000 tax credit on their refund for buying an electric vehicle that is $60,000. i am on social security. i cannot afford a $60,000 car, i cannot afford a new car anymore. the government is going haywire under this administration. these people are thinkers are too high level. they have never had real dog -- real jobs in a real industry. i worked for a transportation industry. we pay taxes and everything. i will let him explain. host: go ahead. guest: raymond, that is a good point. and how to ensure that the owners of electric vehicles contribute to the highway system is a debate on capitol hill that is ongoing. and there is proposals to tax -- to issue attacks on the purchase of electric vehicles and use

that vehicle -- use that revenue to help feed the highway trust fund, the account used for maintenance of the highway transportation system. and there is also a provision in the infrastructure law to create -- that is studying the potential benefits of having a vehicle miles traveled fee to collect money from every mile that a person drives in order to subsidize the lack of revenue that will come from the fuel tax. host: james is next on the independent line from new work -- newark, new jersey. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am upset and i will tell you why. i agree with him. the money should go for travel

ready jobs. i do not want projects. that should go away. emergency funding, just in case, it should just go straight to the projects. thank you. guest: james has a good point, and that is not all of the money in the infrastructure law is for schappell ready jobs -- shovel ready projects, but there are grants dedicated for jobs and projects that are shovel ready. there is a grant program for freight projects and those are for projects that are already

existing and in need of minor repairs all the way to major upgrades, so that is an instance of a shovel ready project. and also the bridge repair program, you can make the argument that they are shovel ready if you are just fixing a bridge. but, but then there are also city planners who have identified the need for brand-new infrastructure projects, and some of that money will go to that. his concern is one that he would need to share with his lawmakers. host: richard is next in royal hall, north carolina. independent line. caller: i have an opinion. why don't you just admit it, you do not want the general public to have cars, electricity, or food? you are just trying to run us into a one line government.

you are trying to make is so weak that you can just take us into it. i grew up in colorado and in 1970i had friends who could like my what -- like their water on fire. they were doing solo -- solar and wind. if you have not gotten it by now you will not get it. and you are not going to run the united states on it. just admit what you are trying to do. and c-span, you are very biased. host: what do you think? guest: so i am just going to address the issue of cars. because there was a good and lively debate at the committee with buttigieg and republican leaders, sure it was republican leader massey, but there was other debate on the availability and the argument of expanding access to cars or dedicating

that money for electric vehicles. i know there are cars, but not traditional cars as well as transit systems and passenger rail. there is a school of thought in the transportation arena that the ideal viewpoint is to have a multimodal system, to have cars, pedestrian, past your past passenger rail, -- passenger rail, transit, and all options available to individuals like the car, and i am not trying to be funny here. the last i checked there is not an effort to remove cars from the road. there is an effort by the administration to create more options. host: we will take one more call from ed in new york, on the republican line. caller: good morning, a couple of questions. this solar stuff, i had an

estimate at my home and they told me i had to cut down an acre of trees, number one problem. everyone that lives in my area is cutting down every tree to burn it for heat this winter. i spent $3000 last winter and the prices were not as high as they were now. the other thing is and i have a solution to the whole problem. let us give everybody in america free electric. that will stop the trees from being cut down, that will give you the heat and the coal, i would get rid of my oil heat and change to the electric, the electric bill is out of control. that is the second-highest bill that i have in my household. i cannot afford it. i am a senior citizen living on social security. one little pension, we cannot do it. i do not know what will happen in the northeast this winter, but god help us because a lot of people will freeze. that is all i have to say. guest: free electric, i know

that the administration has funding opportunities for individuals to help connect them with energy resources. and his concern is one that he would need to share with his policymakers. on a different topic, one point that i want to emphasize from the secretary's testimony, he obviously garnered bipartisan support is that there is a need to improve safety on roadways, that 43,000 people died on our roadways nationwide last year. and the dot has been pushing a safe streets initiative as well as additional funding to improve roadway safety and that is an area of bipartisan agreement. congressman sam graves and chairman peter defazio ci to eye and improving safety on roadways -- see eye to eye on improving

safety on roadways. host: thank you so much for being with us. later we will meet the hosts of "not another politics podcast," professors william howell, anthony fowler and wioletta dziuda will talk about the week in politics and how to restore americans' faith in government. first, more of your calls on open forum. we will be right back. ♪ >> american history tv, exploring the people and events that tell the american story marking the 75th anniversary of the cia with several programs looking at its founding after president harry truman signed the national security act of 1947 into law. it will feature lectures in history about the cia and national intelligence agencies

during the kennedy administration and armor president george h w bush bidding farewell to cia employees during the final days of his presidency. also at 2:00 p.m. eastern on " the presidency" bob with his book "quest for the presidency" where he documents the stories of every presidential campaign from george washington to donald trump. exploring the american story, watch american history tv every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. ♪ >> new york times reporter david gellis claims in his latest book that legendary general electric ceo jack welsh is the root of all that is wrong with capitalism today. his book is titled "the man who broke capitalism: how jack welsh

gutted the heartland and crushed the soul of corporate america and how to undo his legacy." he says that while welsh made ge the most valuable company on earth his strategies ultimately destroyed what he loved so dearly. >> david gellis and his book " the man who broke capitalism" on this episode of booknotes+, available on the c-span now free mobile app or where ever you get your podcasts. >> at least six presidents recording -- recorded conversations in office. hear many of them during the podcast presidential recordings. >> the nixon tapes, part private conversations, deliberations and 100% unfiltered. let me say that the main thing is we will say that my heart

goes out people who with the best of intentions are overzealous, and i am sure that you know, i will tell you if i could have spent a little more time being a people of public interest and less time being a president i would've kicked them out. >> watch it now on the c-span2 mobile app. >> c-span brings you an filtered view of government. "word for word" recaps the day from the halls of congress to daily press briefings to remarks from the president. scan the qr code at the right bottom to sign up for the email and stay up-to-date with everything happening in washington each day. describe using the qr code or visit c-span.org/connect to subscribe any time. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back.

it is open forum. i am taking your calls for about half an hour on anything that you want to talk about. what is on your mind, public policy wise or politics, anything happening in washington , give us a call by party affiliation. the lines are democrats can call 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. if you could -- you could also send us a text at 202-748-8003. and you can tweet @cspanwj. something to bring to your attention, here's a front page of the washington post this morning, jury finds bannon guilty of contempt and says that the trompe l'oeil is convicted overcome fusel to comply with january 6 -- subpoena. he is a right wing podcaster and

longtime confidant of president trump convicted of contempt upon congress for his refusal to provide documents or testimony to a house committee proving the january 26, 2021 attack. he is 68, the closest person to trump to be convicted of a crime amid the fallout from the capital -- the attack on the capitol which occurred as lawmakers met to tally the 2020 presidential election results. contempt case involves legislative efforts to investigate the january 6 violence and what led up to it, however rather than the events of -- rather than the actual events of the day. "steve bannon was convicted -- steve bannon was convicted and following the verdict he spoke to the media. here is a short clipped -- click. [video clip] >> i want to thank the jury, judge and court administration, i only had one disappointment is that the gutless members of that

show trial committee, the january 6 committee did not have the guts to come down here and testify in open court. and that is it. [end video clip] host: that was steve bannon and you can give us a call if you would like to talk about that. other news on the international front from ukraine, it says here also on "the washington post," a beacon of relief on the black sea. "russia and ukraine agree on the release of blockaded grain giving hope to a hungry world." but there have been reports of explosions on that court on the black sea, so we will be watching that. also regarding ukraine, this is interesting from "the wall street journal," that says the u.s. considered supplying jet fighters to ukraine. "the move to send aircraft to ukraine would raise u.s. risk involvement with russia." and here's the article that says

"the pentagon is considering providing ukrainian forces with writers. marking what would be a u.s. expansion of involvement in the war and carrying a risk of more direct confrontation with moscow. the pentagon," and this is a quote from john kirby says "the pentagon is making sampler -- preliminary expert -- explorations into the feasibility of providing fighter aircraft but that is not something that we will be able to execute immediately or in the short term." we are taking your calls on open forum and rob is first from phoenix, arizona. democrat. hello. caller: good morning. i wanted to remind listeners or watchers that the situation with the sacred service is not the for the secret service is not

the first time it has been involved in a deep stand scandal involving a coup d'etat. i do not want to mix up conspiracy theories with wild ideas like pizzagate but there are truths that the public knows about and that involves the secret service involvement with the john f. kennedy assassination, you know, he was slowed down in the kill zone, and the secret service was implicated in that historical event. and you know the presidential limousine was whisked away and destroyed. so, there is something to the effect that the secret service has a bias, and i do not know exactly what happened with the text messages and what happened with trump.

but we are aware that there was more than a subtle opinions that happened with the secret service. so i just want to remind people that the secret service has a tainted history and people should be aware of that. thank you. host: i wanted to just bring to your attention a brief programming note because later this morning we will be carrying live at 10:45 eastern the january 6 committee and -- committee member jamie raskin and michael ludwig, they will be joining a panel discussion on the events surrounding the u.s. capitol attack hosted by the virginia bar association and you can watch that live on c-span, 1045 a.m. eastern and all -- 10:45 a.m. eastern, c-span now, or on c-span.org. let us check -- let us talk next to don, new orleans, louisiana.

independent. caller: good morning. i want to speak quickly on inflation, ongoing battle with inflation, if you will. and it says that since 1950 u.s. dollar has lost 92% of its value. and so this is not a recent occurrence when we talk about inflation. my oldest sibling, my brother, a vietnam veteran disabled, he was born in 1950. he has lived that experience and was telling stories about how things were. the interesting thing is that when we talk about inflation and the value of the dollar, we have to look at the implications to the years of what does that mean for us the american people in 202020 -- 2022 and forward. the economy is humming along, and we are looking at 2%

inflation rate. is that a reasonable level in this day? it might have been more apropos to times in the 60's, 50's, or 70's. but right now is 2% a good inflation call, or should it be 4%? because he inflation went -- inflation rate during those last years has been almost 3.5%. when we have these numbers, do we have the right approach to looking at the economy? another part of the economy is, we talk about the people who are too old for their jobs, or if they are mentally competent. the largest segment of volunteers in the united states of america are those 65 and older. and they donate millions of hours of volunteer time, which equates to billions of dollars to the economy.

they are not compensated in cash, they are compensating in service. ask not what your country can do to you, but what seniors can -- but what you can do to your country. the seniors are contributing billions of hours of times. if the average volunteer hour has been increased to 29 -- $29 and $.99, that is the national average not based on regional averages. new orleans is really close to the $25, so it is based on the region. why do we have a blanket inflation rate for every region collectively, but we do not have breakdown or how inflation affects each region. host: our previous caller was talking about the secret service, and i wanted to share with you an article yield from -- an article from vox.com.

"the mysterious and maybe criminal disappearance of the secret service's january 6 text messages. it is a lot like indoor plumbing, you only think about it when there is a problem, last week the inspector general of the department of homeland security sent a letter to congress informing them that text messages sent by agents on and before january 6 had been erased. a spokesperson for the secret service claimed that this was part of a long planned system vibrate -- migration, but the erasures have spurred a criminal investigation after investigators could find only a single relevant text message from two dozen agents subject to a congressional subpoena. host: let us talk next to lester, minnesota. republican.

caller: i want to talk about electric cars and electric stuff, because we do not make the batteries, we buy the batteries from china who gets material from russia. and when you get up north where it is cold, it gets to 30 below, if you leave your ion battery outside it will not work and you cannot charge it. host: so what do you think? do you think it will never happen having ill a lot of people that having a lot of people have electric cars? caller: if you go south. but then again we do not have the power lines and the charging systems now when it gets real cold. they shut off. i have a building where the demand for -- for electricity got so hot star so high they

shut it off. and if you have an electric car, that is going to be on the off-peak system, the house is more important in the car, so you will be -- you will be without a vehicle. host: argue in favor of upgrading the electrical grid? caller: if we have electric cars you will have to. we will have to have a backup system. right now it is cloudy and there is no wind. so if you have an electric system, or if you have a solar system, or a windmill system they are not going to be working. you're going to have an equal amount of backups that you do for your regular system running. host: patricia eyes in chicago, it will annoy on the democrats line. caller: hi. this is patricia in chicago. host: go ahead. caller: i just want to give all

americans a frame of reference when it comes to the 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure budget. there is like 300 million people in america, so that is 150% of the population. then 10% would be like 30 million. about 3 million gallon is about 50,000 miles. we can reference any amount of money that is spent by 3 million people. as a rate of 55,000 per year. that is pretty much what the budget is, 3 million people spending $55,000 a year which is in our budget because so many people have to use their economy to make a living. i am calling for a frame of reference. $1.2 trillion budget is like 55,000 gallons. host: i'm not sure what your point is.

are you saying it is not a lot or that it is too much? caller: it's 1% of the population, you told me. it will be $1.2 trillion. host: michael is next in middletown, new york, independent. hi, michael. caller: good morning. i'm trying to figure out where all this money is coming from. we have one million here, one trillion here. this country is broke. with $33 trillion in the hole area -- hole. if we are to catch that number, we do not have enough money to pay the interest on that debt. so where did all of these trillions and billions coming from? host: ok. mickey is next in los angeles, california on the democrats line. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. i also enjoyed the program on saturdays when you're on. thank you for your great hosting. i would like to speak about the failed presidency of donald trump. he promised he would stop illegal immigration about the wall, he got the funding in the first-round of the budgets, he denied it, he did not take it, then with one stroke of a pen, he could have stopped illegal immigration. that is to imprison employers who hire illegal migrants. he never went that far because republicans want the cheap labor. he said i am backing the blue. he never did anything for the blue. he said i am back in the vets, he never did anything for the vets armed forces. he was in denial of the covid, the start of the covid. all of it was a failed presidency and to sum it all up with his their election of duty

on january 6, he intentionally and willfully wanted to overthrow legitimate election, wanted to have his own vice president killed, and he took an oath to office and he broke that oath. donald trump is a criminal who needs to be imprisoned. host: you started with immigration. what you think of president biden's immigration policy? caller: i tell you, i am an employer and many years ago, during the clinton administration, somebody from the immigration service came to my office and she wanted to see my payroll books and she said i will give you 30 days to clean things up, and she gave me a machine you could put a green card, a resident alien card in it to make sure it was fake or not. i had to employees who did not have the proper work permits. this can be solved very easily,

whether it is a democrat or republican. punish employer who hires illegal immigrants. at this time, i was in minnesota. now men los angeles. landlords who house illegal immigrants will have to imprison the landlord. if they do not have a job and if they don't have a shelter, they have to go back. biden is doing the best -- during covid, obviously, illegal immigration stopped. now they are coming across the border. i do not think this open border is right and i do not think biden wants it either but it is uncontrollable. punish the employer who gives them a job. if they do not have a job monday will not come here. host: beverly is in new albany, indiana, independent. how are you? caller: i'm good. i wanted to talk about why when you homes are built or buildings

are built with all of this global warming and climate ordeal going on why are they not looking at the science of having mature trees and keeping mature trees in their planning whenever they built anything. everyone knows you can walk into a forest and the temperature with mature trees, the temperature could drop 10 degrees. if you built accordingly with materials and the way the homes are structured or buildings are structured, implicating what god gave us on this earth, we would not have the problem we have today. host: all right, beverly. i want to give you a quick programming note on something that is happening later. former vice president mike pence is on the campaign trail, contemplating a presidential run

in 2024. he recently traveled to south carolina to talk about policy proposals after the supreme court struck down roe v. wade. you can watch his remarks sunday at 9:50 eastern on c-span. also, we have a live event monday afternoon. former president pence goings the heritage foundation in a discussion on policies and america's future. you can watch that live at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org as well. let's talk next lee in raleigh, north carolina. democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. i appreciate c-span so much. i just wanted to change topics a little bit until you that i am really appreciative to the resident expertise in our state and governments.

i know that is maybe not as popular as it used to be, but as imperfect as our systems are, we really attract motivated and dedicated people who have a great deal of expertise. i am just very concerned about what i have heard with former president making plans to do away with the scheduled for convert civil service to schedule f. we all saw that favoring partisanship and young people, senator mcconnell put in awful lot of unqualified people into lifetime tenure, judiciary. i am so concerned that should mr. trump ever get into power again, he will convert our resident expertise in federal government with the elevation of

mediocre people. i think this is something that is on our event horizon and we need to take precautions about that. i am just very concerned. i have been wondering what he has been doing, gathering all of that money, hundreds of millions of dollars to thought it was maybe just a successful graft but now i think he will make a serious run for the presidency and i wondered why people would continue to support him. that is an awful lot of trump patronage. if you can convert virtually all the jobs in the federal government to political appointees. i guess i should point out every administration has them. we allocated a generous amount of those provisions for political appointees, but i'm fearful and worried that the plans are afoot to convert most of them. that is all i wanted to say.

host: wendy in new waterford, ohio. hi, wendy. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have two questions. mine is on security. someone recently told me that seniors were supposed to be getting an extra $200 check this month and i would just wonder if you could pull something up to find out if it is true or not. i saw yesterday i think it was the state of texas and all residents in the state, state residents, checked $450 but i'm not sure if you could pull up -- i do not have a computer to pull up or find out if i guess it was passed. i don't know if it is waiting for biden or pelosi to sign it

or -- host: we will have somebody look that up and hopefully we can get you an answer also. caller: because our seniors really need help. thank you. host: looks like i messed up the phones again. trying to get to john. john in fort river, new jersey, are you there? caller: yes, good morning. i would like to get my observation over the last 5.5 years and simply put, words have consequences. i'm so tired of the democrats, republicans, and news media of being right instead of doing right. simply put, do your job, do your job with honesty and accountability and stop the grandstanding. stop patting yourself on the

back. sibley put, i believe that the majority of americans are good people, hard-working people, generous people, and we deserve so much better than what we are getting. that's about it. host: let's go next to william in lansford, pennsylvania on the republican line. good morning morning, william. caller: yes. i want to call in about the california guy who just called in about the immigration. the immigration could have been fixed under president trump, but nancy pelosi did not want to do the deal with president trump, the border wall for the eight years of dreamers under barack obama. so anybody who is an illegal immigrant and dreamer, you can thank joe biden for that. immigration could be under control right now if nancy and the democrats could sign that bill. host: so you're talking about

the dreamers. you are against the dreamers being able to stay in united states? caller: i said trump made a deal, the border law, for the eight years of dreamers that they would be legalized. the immigration could have been older, but democrats wanted an issue and have more voters for this year. host: all right. vanessa is calling from maryland. on the independent line. caller: yes, i am a republican but i think i called on the wrong line. i just had two observations listening today. from the democrats, a concession with trump is just getting so ridiculous. they really should move on. with the republicans, there are interesting things going on in maryland.

some of the party is so extreme and these people are winning and they are not electable in the general and i just see this gigantic division and the two parties and i do not know. host: i want to ask you about that, when you say they need to move on from president trump but president trump has hinted at running again in 2024. isn't it understandable to still be talking about him? caller: if you were to run, yes i guess if he kept himself in the news but just continuing to skip over everything the biden administration has done and continues to pile the blame onto trump who, in my opinion, did good things for this country, very good on the economy, on the social -- i am a social conservatives are like what he did there too, but skipping over everything the biden administration is doing and continuing to pile the blame onto trump, i do not understand

it. i do not see how they could sustain this hate for one person and not see what is going on right now. host: vanessa, next time you have to call on the right line, ok? caller: i'm sorry. i was on my app and hit the wrong one. host: thanks for everybody that called during open forward -- open forum. that is all the time we have. i'm next, we meet the host of the podcast called not another politics podcast. university of shock -- of chicago professor william howell and others will talk about the weekend -- week in politics and how to restore america's faith in government. we will be right back. >> next week, on the c-span network, wednesday morning, ceos of some of america's leading firearms manufacturers will testify before the house

oversight committee on the practices and profits of gun makers. thursday morning, the house judiciary committee conducts an oversight hearing on the justice department's national security division and the house veterans affairs committee committee examines the department of veterans affairs on ending sexual harassment at the v.a.. the senate returns to capitol hill monday to vote on a bill to provide help to the u.s. computer industry and plan to expand about -- if it's for veterans exposed to toxins during the service. the house is back tuesday with plans to take up the computer chip legislation expected in the senate. watch next week, live on the c-span networks or on c-span now, our free mobile video app. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or stream video, live or on-demand anytime . c-span, your unfiltered view of government.

♪ >> join "washington journal" every sunday for a special six part series on landmark legislation. each week, historians and experts explore a piece of legislation that helped shape today's america, how we get around, educate kids, pay for health care, and welcome new citizens to the country. this sunday morning, we look at the welfare reform act of 1996 which requires recipients to begin working within two years of receiving benefits and enacting a five year lifetime cap. watch landmark legislation on "washington journal", live at 9:00 a.m. eastern sunday morning on c-span or on c-span now, our free mobile app. ♪ >> in march 2020, america's cruise ship experienced a covid-19 outbreak while sailing around south america and no port would allow them to dock area did sunday on q&a, journalist

michael smith and jonathan franklin recount what happened with their book, cabin fever and the safe harbor given to this and am in florida. >> the virus became apparent about a week into the cruise, though some of the people we talked to, looking back on it, say that they noticed certain people were getting sick or people were coughing even before then. >> it felt the cruise company gambled that perhaps one last cruise could go out. this one ship in 2000 people aboard is a journey that symbolizes a lot of the hardships. >> their book, cabin free -- cabin fever, sunday on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and podcasts on our free c-span now app.

>> there are a lot of places to get political information. but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back to "washington journal." it is our spotlight on podcast segment which we have every saturday and today i'm joined by william howell, from the university of chicago center for effective government director. also anthony fowler, a professor

at the university of chicago harris school of public policy and wioletta dziuda, associate professor at the university of chicago harris school of public policy. the podcast is called not another politics podcast and we are going to be taking your calls. you can call us on our phone lines split up by party affiliation. the numbers are (202) 748-8000 if you are a democrat. if you are republican, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. welcome to all of you. well, i will start with you. tell us a little about the center for effective government at the university of chicago. what is the mission and why was it started? guest: share. it was created in 2019 at the university of chicago in harris school and it is thinking seriously about challenges to effective government, the inability of government in

important ways to solve public problems. in the center, we do a lot of things to lift up scholarship and the end sub -- insights of political scientists who fought long and hard about how we build and sustain institutions that allow people who disagree with one another to speak across the differences in order to solve public problems. so we do conferences and training sessions and we work with media outlets of various forms. an important thing is we do this politics, not another politics podcast. from the top, the reason why it is not another politics podcast is we focus squarely on research and try to think about the particular paper and how it speaks to big, hard questions and politics. we are not leaning back in our chairs and holding forward about our views about what happened in politics, we are trying to ask foundational questions and see what scholars had to say about it. host: do you have one political

affiliation as opposed to another? i know you said you focus on foundational questions, but is there any part -- any partisanship there. guest: there is not. we left up papers by people whose partisan identity we do not know. these are scholars who have been written -- writing about how elections work and the role of the media and what happens in the senate, asking foundational questions. we are really not to rooting for the left or right. we are in a space in which there is a lot of barking happening, we are trying to shed more light and get clear about how our politics are functioning, how power works, how elections function, how some groups are advantaged and others are not. host: speaking of that, you did an episode on voter turnout in communities of color. watch was the shelby decision at the supreme court in 2013? guest: we have done a lot of

episodes on voter turnout. this particular paper we covered focused on the shelby decision as you said, which essentially got rid of one portion of the voting rights act, the portion that's determined which parts of the country recovered by what is called preclearance. there were some parts of the country, mostly southern states, that had to get approval from the department of justice anytime they wanted to make any change to their electoral system. shelby decision got rid of that requirement. the study we covered by maia kaminski was an interesting paper where they look at the effects of that and essentially they found little effect of that. it turned out not to matter much. there was not affect much on voter turnout and registration and so forth. host: there was an episode recently on money in politics and you asked a question, who exactly is donating the money? what is the answer? guest: that's an interesting question. we talked from someone from

georgetown university and he has an amazing data set from virtually all donors for the democratic party and most of the donors for the republican party so he can look into this question and it seems donors over time are becoming more like a representative voter because recently it is becoming easier and easier to donate. you have those online platforms where you can donate with a click of a mouse and more people who are like an average voter decides to donate. what he also finds is that donors are pretty strategic. they donate in races for the donation can make a difference, where the races are close. they seem to donate to races that are close in their neighborhood, in their state, in their district. they donate to people that is sort of reasonable that they would like them if they were

represented as are their parties. they donate to similar people, people with similar views and demographics. host: while a lot has been made about threats to democracy. i'm wondering what you think is the biggest threat to democracy, is it the money or something else? what do you think? guest: i would not say it is the money. we have looked at some papers and in the larger literature on the effective of money on downstream outcomes like votes that legislators cast, and the effect is reasonably underwhelming. i think a big theme we have been exploring the podcast is how the levels of polarization on the right and left among lytic goal leaders does not seem to match the levels of polarization in the public. we struggled looking at various papers trying to make sense of why i could be very to the extent the polarization is exacerbated within say congress, that is -- has applications for representation, like whose views

are being articulated on capitol hill. it also has to do with the incapacity of the two parties to come together and has basic -- and pass basic legislation. we looked at lots of papers trying to grapple with that issue and there is not a hard answer. there are more questions than answers in that particular space and it is something we need to continue to look squarely at. host: there is a really interesting study you guys talked about on an episode and it is about what happens when fox news viewers watch cnn instead. tell us about that study and what the results were. guest: this was interesting. david brockman and josh kaul and wrote a paper where they had incentivize people who watch fox news to switch to cnn, so they had done this really clever experiment and gotten people who spend a lot of time watching fox news to switch and watch cnn and they wanted to see what effects that had. so we talked through all of

that, we talked about the applications of that area it was interesting. they found some effect on beliefs, the kind of information you're exposed to and your belief. the effects were not as large as you might think. they had no effect on voter choice, they did not convert anyone to vote for a different party but there were interesting facts and they shed light on what the obligations apart is a media are for democracy. guest: and can i jump in on this? host: sure. guest: the thing we do on the show and spent some time doing his impact where the findings come from. if what you wanted to do is think about what the effect of watching fox news was on political attitudes, it would not do to just survey the fox news viewers and compare them to all of the cnn viewers and say what you know, we observe these differences because people self select into different spaces. this paper does a nice job of trying to grapple with the first-order question of how do we get a set of comparisons that

are fair so we can back out the effective actual changes in media consumption happening? in the show, we try to unpack what their approach was and what they might have done differently and how they might apply -- how we might deploy the -- how we might apply that in other policy domains. host: i want to ask about fixing the filibuster. you did an episode on that. what did you learn from that? guest: this was a fun episode that was done without friend and colleague out at harvard who is thinking about the role of the filibuster in the senate, a super majoritarian requirement and whether or not we ought to get rid of it and he comes forward with the interesting proposal of saying we should not just get rid of it because that will exacerbate concerns about minority rule. the senate has these big problems and the people in north and south dakota are vastly overrepresented and are the people in california and new york so they come out with this proposal that says what we

should do as part of the legislative process is require a majority of senators to vote in favor of a bill but a majority of senators who represent a majority of the whole. it is playing with both the super majoritarian requirements but also trying to attend to this problem in an effort to attend to the basic problems of the legislative process which are widely recognized as dysfunctional. host: let's go to the calls now. jody is first in sun city, california. democrats. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i have a quick comment. i do not understand how human beings in this universe do not see what trump has done. people died. that is some buddies father that some of his brother some buddies wife summaries mom, some buddies dad and how he should not be charged for that, i do not understand what he is not in

jail right now. i know because of politics and he was the president. he is enticing people to kill people and enjoying that and you can't look up to that. he did not stop it. that is my comment. host: wioletta, do you want to take that? guest: yeah. think you for sharing your sentiment. i think with all of the january 6 hearings watched, very intensely, and with a lot of emotion, i definitely did and i learned a lot about january 6. i thing this kind of hearings definitely stir emotions and they are about something we care deeply about, democracy, but i think we can also try to find positive aspects of this here -- this hearing. what i would like to focus on is

the fact that we have seen a lot of election officials who now we know were really strongly pressured to either go against the constitution, change the rules, or change the count. this has become to light in the entire story that our democracy perhaps is stronger than what we are fearing right now and moving forward we are going to have more people coming forward and being more in favor of breaking the rules. we talked about the issues in our podcast but we cannot seek particular opinions of ours because that is not what our focus is about but we talked abut a question of to what extent we can track party should -- partisan officials to oversee elections and run elections in a way that actually serves

everyone and leased outcomes like the will of the american people. for example, we had an episode where we look at elected -- election officials are partisan elected officials and we look at the paper that tried to see whether election results, the election outcomes differ in a systematic way when election officials are republicans versus democrats. the finding is that they do not. i think this all actually is a positive signal that we get from the story of january 6 that we can still trust the larger extent of our electoral system. host: that is quite a positive spin on that. let's talk to cindy in great falls, montana, republican. caller: hi. i was not going to talk about january 6, ok? but i don't care what happened 18 months ago.

it is just not important to me. i can't believe how trump lives run free in the democrats heads. it is disgusting that somebody can live rent free in their heads and they cannot get off of trump. and move on. what i would like to know is how do we get our voting system back to where it used to be? where you went and voted, you did not have much to vote, you voted on the same day and it came out on the same day. here in montana, we do not have the problem. we have to show id, we going vote. if you want to vote by mail, you have to go sign a paper, show

your id, and they will send it to you. no problem. we do not have all of these problems the country has on voting. so how can we get our voting system back to what it was? that is what i want to know. host: who wants to take that? guest: i can say a little about that. i do not have -- we do not take strong positions on what the voting system should be but we covered a lot of research on one of -- what are the effects of different electoral reforms and how we run elections. i have been genuinely surprised both a voting and voter id laws turn out to not have very much affect on who votes or who wins elections. that does not necessarily tell us what the right solution is but despite all of those partisan bickering over the electoral reforms, it turns out to have not much partisan effect. whether or not we vote by mail or require ids turns out to not affect two votes or who wins. there is a slight effect on the vote by mail and increasing turnout but it is small and does

not play to the benefit of one party or the other. this is where we are not trying to hold up an ideal type of a model on the show, rather again and again trying to think about what is the effect of this change without change on the electoral system more on how the legislative process works or how the administering of state is organized. these are at root empirical questions and also raise questions about theory and incentives and we try to honor those and scrutinize them without partisan favor. guest: if i can jump in, i think the story really illustrates well what we hope our podcast can achieve. there are a lot of issues like this where americans really have strong opinions about and they bicker and fight in the media fights about them and i think how we organize our elections and whether they are working or not is one of those and i think by taking a step back and looking at research and papers

where someone really carefully collected data and spent a lot of time analyzing it, i think that can help the dispute. perhaps we are focusing on the wrong issues, barking up the wrong tree, and perhaps we should be focusing on things that are right now alienating the american people -- ailing the american people like climate change. host: let's talk to eric in california, democrat. caller: good morning. it is an honor to talk to you. i think i have a solution and it is written on the liberty bell, everybody knows it. it is called jubilee and i'm only telling you this because we are not done this in america. all political public officials need to resign. start over. all public officials resign, from the president to supreme court, state legislators, and everybody. gets religion out of politics. this is one of the biggest problems i was talking about, watching y'all, it is religion

in politics. how do we get religion out of politics? as originally intended, start over. all public officials must resign. if they resign, we simply just get to vote whoever we like to vote over again. start over. host: let's get a response. erik wants to throw everybody out, will. [laughter] guest: there is a big literature on something called term effects that is sort of a policy reform put forward with people who have that particular sentiment. we have to get rid of the people in office and start anew. the literature is not especially -- it does not lend a lot of credence to that view that somehow a lot of good will follow. in part that is because it creates incentives for people who are higher-quality and no more are less likely to run for office.

people in office in their final term are less likely to work hard. people have studied this reasonably carefully and it is not clear that we are going to recover a blank slate where in all of the best and brightest are going to step forward and work on the public's benefits. just if we could get rid of the bombs from office. guest: let me briefly ad from that. the two reasons we think elections are a great idea are that we are allowing the voters to select the candidates they believe other best and also elections create incentive for candidates who want to get reelected to work hard, do a good job, cater to the preferences of voters, and if you as a rule kick out the politicians, you're getting rid of both of those benefits of elections. the voters have the opportunity to vote out the candidates they do not like so that is an option in the fact when given the choice they often choose to reelect their incumbents, i would be inclined to think there is good reason for that. i understand the impulse and

there are arguments in favor of term limits but a lot of evidence suggests electoral selection and accountability work well and we do not want to get rid of those forces. host: there is a gallup poll that came out about confidence in u.s. institutions that they are down and at an average new low. the lowest being the confidence in congress is only 7%. which is kind of surprising area what you think, violeta -- wioletta? guest: it's not surprising to me. it's enough to turn on the media and hear what is going on there. we hear all the time about the disputes in congress, there is good luck, no one agrees on anything, one party proposes a policy and the other one immediately says it is a partisan grab. it's not a surprise that the citizens struggling with the

economy, they do not have faith in government. the same is true about the supreme court, even if you like the recent decisions about the supreme court, if you start reading the arguments that were put forward in favor of the decision, they seem partisan. it is hard to have faith we have this institution that is devoid of partisan conflict. everything seems to be about conflict. i'm not surprised about those poles and i want to throw one thing -- we talk on our show quite a bit about surveys and polls and about how to read them and one message that comes out from research is we should understand what people are saying when they are saying them. they don't have confidence in congress or in the government overall. that does not mean they want to throw everything and start over, it probably just means they are suppressing -- expressing their frustration with the current polarized environment, that they

see is coming from washington. host: let's talk to rex in west virginia on the independent line. rex? caller: hello? host: go ahead, rex. caller: this problem about how trump has not done nothing and everything. in the four years trump was in there, our grasp -- gas prices were down where they need to be. we made money. it was a good deal. now we have biden in there and gas prices are over five dollars per gallon appear, it is outrageous. this insurrection at the capitol they are talking about down there, trump did everything, trump did everything. trump did not do all that. he said peacefully protest. he said peacefully marched down there and protest. he did not tell them to go into

the capitol. everything trump has done they want to blame them for. they want to say he has done this wrong, that's wrong. why don't the government do their job like they are elected in their to do. democrats and republicans, all of them should be put in there on an eight-year term and if you've done nothing in eight years, get them out of there. you are done, over with, because they are not doing the job we elected them to do. host: i will give you that one. guest: so look, there is a lot of -- i think we hear this on this last call, you might call partisan cheerleading. it is somebody fairly well situated on one party and sees things with that valence. a thing we struggle with on the show again and again is to think about what is the role of partisanship in shaping people's

views and it is views not just about what their policy preferences are but understanding of tax, the narratives they understand about how politics is playing out. this is really hard to back it out and it is at that level that i think we try to engage these issues on this particular show. we are not coming in cheerleading for trump or trying to argue that trump is awful but we are interested in basic foundational questions. about the role of partisanship and the mass public and how people organize themselves in the role of the presidency and powers they wield incapacity of congress or incapacity of congress to address the kinds of problems we need. be at gas prices or something else altogether different. host: let's talk to tom on the republican line from schaumburg, illinois. hey, tom. caller: hi. i have got three points.

one, the fiasco of the january 6 inquisition to try and point out that there is -- if this was any insurrection by the most heavily armed population in the world and there were no guns involved, it gets to be a little laugh. second, i get tired of the anti-gun people who claim the mass shootings seem to be concentrated in the u.s. when we have 4.5% of the worlds population, we have less than 3% of the mass shootings. as defined by the fbi. the third item, 94% of the mass shootings in the u.s. since 1950

happened in no guns. mass shooters, look for them. host: let's get a response. who wants to take at? guest: i can jump in on the first point. i think one thing i like to keep in mind is that i thing nowadays revolutions might necessarily happen with a gun in one's hand. we might not see necessarily people marching on the capitol or armies storming the capitol. they might happen in a more subtle way. we covered on our podcast for example the issue of propaganda, how propaganda even from a source we know is biased in effect those beliefs. i think some of us know what is happening in eastern europe, hungary, and poland, and we see how democracy is being undermined slowly in a very

deliberate way and no one is waving guns. so i think when we think about anyway six, we should not be thinking about the people entering the capitol and how many guns they had but we should think about can we see a pattern where a group of people was trying to change the system, change the way we run elections in a way that next time makes it slightly easier for someone to stay in office even though they did not win the election. i think those are the issues i would focus on. host: let's talk to calvin in atlanta, georgia on the democrats line. caller: hello. host: go ahead, calvin. caller: i want to talk about voter suppression in georgia. there is voter suppression in georgia and i want to talk about trump. trump is trying to put people in positions right now so that he

can be the president forever, just like in other countries that have presidents like putin and as long as they want to be ready much. i do not like that and i think it is wrong. also want to -- that is good. if y'all can talk about that, please, give your feedback thank you. host: anthony? guest: i will say something about the voter suppression, and it could be that there are some election officials and state legislatures in georgia who would like to suppress the vote and make it harder for some people to vote. that is certainly something we should be concerned about as people who believe in democracy. at the same time, we can try to rigorously study what impacts of different reforms are, and if you look at the practices being employed in places like georgia,

we have good studies on some of those things. that suggests these effects are likely small. in some ways, that is somewhat reassuring our democracy is perhaps more resilient than you might think. people motivated to vote are going to vote regardless of whether or not they have an extra hour or regardless of whether they have extra time to vote early and so forth. that is mostly reassuring. a lot of the studies suggest these reforms to our electoral rules have minimal effects on who actually votes and wins elections. that is reassuring because we know there will always be partisan officials who would like to make it harder for some people to vote and easy for supporters to vote. host: let's talk next pat in decatur, illinois. republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i guess two to three points i would like to try to throw out there to the discussion and get the guest opinions on. when we talked about january 6

and the election and efforts by the republicans to supposedly overthrow the system, i think there would be a great opportunity for journalists and podcasters to put that into context rather than focusing on it in isolation. by that i mean looking back to as recently as 2016 and compare the efforts to those that took place at that point where we saw democrats actually try to undercut the electoral, try to turn electors away from their legal responsibilities to reflect their states votes. there was a huge effort to overturn the results by getting electors to vote differently. we saw also some variety -- fighting throughout washington, d.c. instead of following along with the democratic narrative, it would be interesting to look at a real comparison of the events that went on and efforts to work

the system. now we use the terminology like undermine the system and the press and the podcasters seem to fall right in with that terminology instead of talking about working the system which is probably with a used when it was going on in 2016. another thing that is never pointed out is instead of just treating the january 6 committee findings as though it was a legitimate committee, why not point out a never before has the congressional committee had members of an opposing party selected by the leadership and minority party selected by them. they turned down the minorities party, minority party nominations for membership on the committee that makes a complete one-sided. the whole basis of our judicial system, the basis of congressional committees is based on an adversarial system

where both sides are represent ed. this is a one-sided show and it is discouraging the way in which these elite intellectual lists and podcasters seem to fall in line with the idea that this is a totally -- totally legitimate committee. host: let's get a response. wioletta? guest: i think the caller is bringing up a very interesting point that we ask screw -- we are scrutinizing what happened on january 6 to the extent we have not seen before. we are not scrutinized in the look -- and the other elections so much and i would not be surprised if we did, we would find examples of officials trying to sort of work around the system and trying to skew the elections in their direction. i do not know. i do not know if that is what is happening, but it is a valid point. what i want to point out is that

what we can do is we can try to look at the data and try to see to what extent this was happening and i think is what the researchers are good at. better than congressional committees and i think we can try to look at whether these attempts actually have any impact. i think if anything came out from our podcast on related issues, we have been doing pretty well so far. i'm repeating myself but i think this is really something that -- we have seen election officials even if they are elected, they seem to be doing their job. it seems the system is pretty resilient, so i would be more optimistic. this is not to say we should not be worried and not the say january 16 was not different than the previous elections -- january 6, the event was not

different than the events we have seen at the previous elections, but i think the point to keep in mind is we are still a democracy. guest: if i could jump in too recent -- briefly. the spirit of this podcast is not to frame it in any way along the lines of what this past caller was suggesting. like somehow we will take a narrative from one party or another. an talk about who is right or who is wrong. what we do is we feature scholars where someone is asking a foundational question. it could be about what the effect of the electoral college is on who votes or how campaign money is spent or whether or not there is evidence of the electoral college benefiting republicans or democrats as an empirical facts. we focus in on careful research investigating the issues and then we think as a group what we can learn from the research. one of the limitations? to what extent can we generalize from those findings? . this is not a show where we are

leaning left or leaning right. we are trying to shed light in a space where too many people have -- are committed to barking and not trying to get clarity about what is happening in our politics. guest: i thickly share some concerns of the previous color that we talk a lot on the show about how congress and elected officials and sometimes media outlets and other leads are way too partisan and out of step with the general public. the general public tends to be pre-moderate. almost every american is somewhere between nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell yet we see so much polarization in congress, so many polarization in the way the media presents stories and so forth so i think share in some of those concerns and we talk about that a lot on the show and we are trying to use research to inform those discussions. host: let's talk to mike on the independent line. are you in bahrain? mike? caller: yes. i'm in bahrain.

i watched the show -- can you hear me? host: yes i can. caller: ok. first of all, i watch the show. you look like the beat of a lebanese women in this part of the world. my point i want to make to your guest is this, i think it starts in high school, and i think -- i grew up on the southside of chicago, i was educated in chicago public schools in the early 70's. -- 1970's. i think there needs to be a push for civics. i was fortunate. i do not know how this may come across but i was fortunate as a black american educated in the chicago public school system in the 1970's. we had good, jewish professors and teachers who educated those black kids, who cared. i do not know what the disconnect is now, but i was thankful for those jewish professionals that taught us and i think somehow, i'm talking for

the black american point of view, that there needs to be something when it comes to civics to teach the kids about the founding fathers, the electoral college, because black americans are emotional voters. my people are not educated when it comes to emotional voting. there -- not educated when it comes to voting, they are emotional voters. host: who would like to take that? guest: i'm sure we could do a better job in civics education across the board. there is research on civics education that suggests the effects are minimal and that could be because we are not doing a good job. i'm looking forward to seeing better research and innovation in that area. guest: we've done a number of shows where we have looked at the capacity of citizens to reason and engage politics in a way that reflects their views, even as they may not know a

great deal about how the government actually functions. this is a big debate in the discipline and i would encourage the caller to check out some of the shows. this is a big debate in the issue and if you have strong views about the matter. guest: anthony comes in and again is pointing out ways in which we can understand what voters are doing as being perfect consistent with basic notions of rationality and not just about people taking a flyer on one issue or another or proceeding ways that are haphazard. host: as we start to wrap up, well, why don't you preview some of the next episode you are going to be having on the program? guest: we are going to continue to ask foundational questions about our politics, about the way elections work, about the information voters have and how they reason about politics, about the design of political institutions.

all of these things sit behind the kind of key that animates our politics, the yelling across the left and right and our hope is the show can be a productive source of adding to knowledge as we try to make sense of what is clearly a lot of dysfunction but have it be grounded in facts and not ideological or partisan commitments. guest: we should also admit we do not plan ahead very much. sometimes we are behind deadline so there will be an episode, we are planning an episode on primaries in polarization. there an interesting paper we hope to cover the extent primaries are exacerbating polarization. if you asked us to the three episodes down the line, we are still figuring out what it needs to be an hearing from our listeners what topics they would like to hear about. host: that is it for our spotlight on podcast segment. i want to thank william howell, anthony fowler, wioletta dziuda

from the university of chicago. the podcast is called "not another politics" podcast. thank you for being on the program. guest: thank you for having us. guest: thank you. host: thanks to everybody that called in. if you like podcasts, check out the c-span podcast, on our webpage, c-span.org/podcast. you can find everything on our website and mobile app, c-span now. that is it for today's "washington journal." things for joining me today. we will be back again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. in the meantime, have a great saturday. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

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