professor on the fbi search of president trump's florida home and the legal and constitutional questions surrendered. join the discussion with your phone calls, text messages, tweets. washington journal is next. host: good morning and, it is monday. it was one year ago today to the capital of afghanistan fell to the taliban, spurring a week long exodus. we will look back on the fault of kabul, the airlift to save personnel, the larger legacy of the 20 year war in afghanistan. we want to hear your thoughts on phone lines split by political party. republicans (202) 748-8001.

democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. a special line this morning for veterans of the war in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. that is also the number you can send a text on this morning. (202) 748-8003, please include your name and where you're from. catch up with us on social media. a very good monday morning too. you can start calling and now as we share headlines on this anniversary of the fall of kabul. this is from the new york times yesterday. that summer that changed the world. city after city fell to the taliban. this is from the front page of usa today.

chaos and uncertainty have become a way of life. thousands still struggle to escape. that is the lead story in usa today. the anniversary was the subject of several conversations on the sunday talk shows. here is one of them. a general attack -- talked about the affairs in afghanistan >> it is such a tragic situation and was so preventable. the economic destitution of the country itself, it's a failed state. the taliban have returned to their draconian rule, denying people individual rights. women can't work or go to school. they are controlling all of the culture. they are just shutting down all the normal cultural aspirations that people would have. what makes it compounded is we

went to afghanistan to stop the taliban from providing sanctuary to al qaeda. we all know that. what the decision get us? it got the taliban again. this resurrected the fact that he is living in a taliban house in a neighborhood i've been to many times where leaders are in residence. obviously, they are protecting the al qaeda leader as well as his organization. we've done nothing against that organization or isis. the fact is, afghanistan is a sanctuary for terrorism, the very reason we went there. the very reason we stayed there for 20 years to ensure that terrorists did not rise again.

we are right back where we started. host: that was a retired general on fox news sunday. we are asking you about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. there is plenty of reporting on this. you will hear a lot more about it in the weeks to come leading up to the one-year anniversary of the eventual final withdrawal at the end of this month. the white house circulated a memo in response to a recent republican reporter, a report that was released. the white house talked about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. axios has a sneak peek at that memo. this is what it says in part:

that part of a memo that is being circulated. axios with their reporting there, that full memo is on their website if you want to

read it. we also want you to call in this morning, asking about the legacy of the 20 year war in afghanistan. that special line for veterans, we will go to that as many times as we can, (202) 748-8003 is that number. otherwise, republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. david is in georgia. good morning. caller: good morning it. host: speak up so we can hear you. caller: i agree about shutting down the war. all the resources that were being wasted there.

host: david, we are losing you a little bit. maybe try to call back and get on a better phone line for you. you said with -- many republicans voiced this on the anniversary with various statements. darrell issa, this was his statement. this tweet from darrell issa, this from tommy tuberville from alabama.

democrats tweeting as well. chris murphy saying: a series of tweets from senator

chris murphy on this topic. that is coming in the wake of a column in the atlantic by the former cia director. the former commanding officer of u.s. forces in afghanistan from 2010-2011. he wrote a column in the atlantic. it got a lot of attention, saying a number of different things. here is part of what he had to say:

we will read more from that column. david petraeus writing in the atlantic. we mostly just want to hear from you. phone lines as usual. that special line is for those who served in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. arlene is in new orleans. good morning. you were next. caller: i have one problem. ever since trump has been running, i have family members that have been placed all over the world in the military. i am very afraid right now of what's going on with this

paperwork they found in his place. i am very worried about my family members and other people who are fighting for our country and our freedom for us to lay down in our beds and sleep comfortably at night. ever since trump came into the political world, i have been very worried. host: we will get to the raid on mar-a-lago. we will spend a segment on it later. on this anniversary, you mentioned you have family members in the military. have you talked to them? caller: they are still in the military. they have served in afghanistan. they are still in the military. i am very worried. host: what have they said to you about the u.s. leaving afghanistan?

have you had that conversation with them over the past year? caller: the way we were raised, we have to follow the law. we have to do what we have to do with what we feel is right. everybody should know what is right and wrong. all of us came here. when they swore to defend our country, that meant they put their lives on the line for us to sleep at night, no mean -- knowing we are protected. as far as afghanistan, they did what they had to do. they are still in the military. that's what makes me very worried about what's going on right now. host: this is ronnie in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning.

my comment on afghanistan is we were there for a very long time. if the afghans could take up the fight like they are doing in ukraine, you are never going to win afghanistan. they couldn't handle it. you need a country that is going to fight for their people. that's what you need. you can't do it by sending an arms and soldiers that aren't connected. ukraine is doing at the right way. we are supporting them and they love their country. that's all i can say. you need the afghans to fight for the afghans. that's the only way you can win. otherwise, you will be there for 100 years and nothing will change. host: it was a year ago today

that kabul fell. there were reports leading up to that that it could hold on for months or longer, that there were military prepared and that melted away. we realized that a year ago. did you have a sense before the fall of kabul that this feeling you're talking about, wanting them to fight for their own country? are you still with us? caller: why did the russians crawl away? that's what it was. host: ok. this is george in tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning.

i will tell you about afghanistan. we spent 20 years training those people, training those troops. we spent our money and lives. in how many days, the cowards they are. they put their arms down and walked away. listen, a week or so ago, biden has the intelligence to take care of these people. host: when you say he proved it, are you talking about the death of the al qaeda leader? caller: yes. that showed he certainly has the intelligence to do that.

host: that was george in tennessee. this is ron in texas. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is just that a lot of presidents had considered getting us out of afghanistan. biden was the only one strong enough to take those measures. i don't think we would've had any casualties had the afghan military not folded up on us. i just wanted to point out that everyone is making joe biden sound week. he took quite a bit of call to get us out of afghanistan. host: what about the manner in which we left afghanistan? that chaotic airlift, scenes from the airport of people trying to get on those planes?

how much will that be the legacy of the u.s. exit from that country? caller: i really wish it wouldn't be. if that's what's being pushed, that's what will stick. over 100 thousand people were evacuated. only 13 casualties, that was not a military conflict with al qaeda. i don't believe he deserves to be put under that light. host: more than 120 thousand people were airlifted out of the country during the u.s. final days. 13 american troops were killed in that bombing along with 200 afghans who were killed. we mentioned this before,

republican set to release a new report on that airlift, offering details about the evacuation. one of the top republicans on the intelligence efforts was on face the nation yesterday. he had a hand in the reporting. here is some of what he said. >> there was no plan. to your point, even before hand, the state department didn't have the resources it needed to carry out an evacuation of this size. they had 36 officers trying to process hundreds of thousands of people. they were overwhelmed. the biggest mistake having lived through it, being in the classified space, listening to the intelligence community tell

the story that this is going to be eminent. it's going to fall sooner rather than later. we went to state and they painted a very rosy picture. there is a disconnect between intelligence on the ground and what the white house is doing. there's no way we are going to evacuate people like we did in vietnam. >> the criticism is this was the minority report that is inherently lyrical. this is going to be a political line of attack. >> i was a federal prosecutor longer than a member of congress. i pride myself on being objective. i think this is a fairly objective report. one of the biggest ones was the taliban -- they made an offer,

you can secure kabul for the evacuation. they do run it up to the white house. they get no response. think of what that would've changed. we had to rely on the taliban to secure the perimeter. that led to the chaos and the suicide bomber that killed 13 service members. it could've been avoided. >> that was michael mccaul, from the house for affairs committee talking about the new republican report on the airlift out of the airport. a few more details from that

report, they note that the investigation found 36 officers were on site at the airport during the peak of the evacuation. the lack of personnel led to an norm us administrative backlogs for the thousands of people who possess the proper documentation to come to the united states but were left behind. 1450 afghan children were evacuated without apparent or guardian. the investigation determined that over 800 american citizens were left behind, several times the amount the administration claims were stranded when the withdrawal concluded. the u.s. government had continued to facilitate evacuations. 84 american citizens remain who are still trying to leave afghanistan. that is according to a committee aide. back to your phone calls.

this is marley in l.a. caller: can you hear me? our people and our military should not be sent into danger unless it's necessary. the least our leadership can do is have good short-term and long-term goals for whatever conflicts they send them to be involved in. host: at some point over those 20 years, do you think it was absolutely necessary for us to be there? caller: i supported the war in afghanistan. they attacked us, al qaeda attacked us and they were base there. it would've been smarter to instead of having a military approach, if you have spies,

using counterintelligence. you shouldn't believe the mainstream media and what's on social media. host: what media do you trust? caller: if it's not first-hand, you shouldn't really believe it. mainstream social media, 99% is complete lies. host: that is marley burley in california. this is timothy in illinois. good morning. caller: hello. talking about the legacy of the war, we went in because of 9/11. it happened because of al qaeda in afghanistan. they were there because we sponsored them against the soviet union. we were against more progressive

government. we sponsored osama bin laden. we sponsored what became al qaeda to fight the russians. in the 90's, we abandon them. they were a mess. the taliban took over. we had to go in again. after we got bored, they are once again starving, being oppressed. it is so immoral. biden has the gall to say he's about human rights. his afghanistan democracy promotion? host: do you think if we had stayed in some capacity that could have prevented the takeover? even if it was for and in determined amount of time?

we lost timothy. michelle is in kansas. good morning. caller: good morning. host: i don't ever hear anybody talk about the president of afghanistan packing up and leaving. we expect the civilians to stay in the country when their leader leaves. the intel came out that it was going to fall and 4-6 months. no one could have planned for all those people running after that plane. we had already lost 13 marines. not everybody is looking at the whole picture. host: that is michelle in kansas. this is joe in indiana. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me ok? thank you. i would like to say to my fellow

baby boomers, please study history. please stop listening to fox news and getting your news from social media. there has been no entity in the world that has ever defeated afghanistan, starting with alexander the great. i thought by now we are doomed to repeat it. there is no reason. i am totally antiwar. i think it's the worst thing human beings do to each other. i would like to encourage you to realize also -- it was donald trump who negotiated with the taliban and set a date for the exit of our troops. just remember that. it was trump that negotiated with the taliban and gave them credibility, which allowed them to take over and cause the government afghanistan to run

out and the troops to stand down. we have no business over there. we should listened to george washington, john quincy adams, dwight eisenhower about getting involved in wars and foreign entanglements. i am so sorry. we shouldn't have ever been in afghanistan, especially as long as we were. i'm sorry. i'm an antiwar person and that's it. host: we are coming up on 7:30 a.m. the legacy of the war in afghanistan, we are asking for your calls and comments. here are a few of your comments from our text messaging service.

again, we have that special phone line for those who served in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003 is that number. we will prioritize that if you call in. otherwise, phone lines are as usual. one veteran of the war, david petraeus the former commanding officer in afghanistan, he wrote an article in the atlantic. here is a little bit more from that.

toward the end he writes:

clark in new jersey. good morning. your next. caller: ok. we had a stable afghanistan until joe biden got in there. he abandoned our people behind the lines. he made the big mistake of taking the military out before our regular people. it was an unbelievable blunder. if donald trump was in there, it never would've happened like

that. that's the legacy. host: this is linda in mississippi. good morning. caller: good morning. that last call, it was not joe biden's fall. trump negotiated with the taliban, not the afghans. if trump had not made a deal with those criminals, there would not have been a need to rush them out. those americans left over there, they knew we were coming out.

if they wanted to come out, they should have been prepared. some did not want to go because they had family over there. joe biden isjoe biden is tryingp a 20 year mess. host: i thought you were done there. 120,000 afghanistan -- afghans that were lifted out, this is a map on where they were eventually resettled in the united states. 76,000 have reached the united states. the others went to other countries. canada is welcoming 40,000. germany, britain, norway have also agreed to accept refugees. if you look at that map, the vast majority of refugees have

been admitted on what is known as a humanitarian -- that allows them to live in the united states for two years. they have to apply for asylum, that process that requires a litany of documents. afghans have landed in every state except wyoming. the largest number is in texas, california, virginia. those numbers, they are from the new york times. back to your phone calls. mark is in florida. good morning. caller: how are you doing. i love the show. i wanted to say my legacy of afghanistan started on 9/11. then we went to war in iraq. that was supposed to be paid for.

if we started in afghanistan, this might have never had that problem. host: this is john, republican. caller: i don't have a horse in the race. trump made a policy with afghanistan that he would try to withdraw by may. he was not the president. he would relied on the military force to come up with a plan. he would have to say let's follow through on it. he was nowhere near the go ahead to do what biden did. biden has total responsibility. his military planners did it. they brought that plan to biden. he is the president. this is just my point of view. you have a stack of newspapers. you never save these are liberal

leaning media publications. the new york times will never come out with anything good to say about trump. the washington post will never say it in good about trump. if you want to prove me wrong, pull one of your newspapers out and pull one good thing out that doesn't blame trump for something or else, something that has a positive take on trump. the american people watch this show every day. they watch the mediators. the mediators looked directly at the television into our eyes and they will deny these are liberal leaning publications. you can do what you want. that's when you lose your credibility. one person that has a conservative point of view. just bring one onto your show.

i don't know why you wouldn't be afraid of doing that. host: just one question, what newspapers do you trust? caller: i watch them all. i listen to the mall. i watch a ton of media. sometimes, it takes a lot. i don't jump to conclusions the way these newspapers do. i don't speculate. i wait and i sit tight to see how things unfold. a lot of times i don't have a point of view. a lot of times, especially with that russian collusion stuff, all of a sudden it goes on for two years and they find out what was underline the whole process. host: i got your point. we are going to stay on afghanistan.

i guarantee you will find somebody on this program you agree with. if you keep watching, you will find that. this is john in california. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i've got an opportunity to voice my opinion. i don't know where else you can do that. i'm glad the previous caller said he didn't have a dog in the race or i would've misunderstood him. i was just in london. i have been -- haven't been out of the united states and prepared i saw people in burqas, i saw all kinds of languages. it was a cultural shock to be honest. i was there eight days. i was in a hotel with a group of muslims.

they were all dressed the same. i had breakfast with them. i saw the humanity of them. some of them weren't wearing -- they were having a bad day. these are people. as the previous caller said, the started with 9/11. i was in new york city when it happened. i was in queens. i worked in new york city. not long after that, to seek out the terrorists that did this. we went there and we had full knowledge of russia and we chased them in the mountains. pakistan the perpetrator of all this. this is a long story. it has many facets to us -- it.

there were small groups of americans fighting in these very dangerous areas. we had air support and we chased the taliban into a place into negotiation. they smooth talk themselves into this position. it went horribly wrong. it was disorganized. it was messy. the only reason it wasn't messier is because we were in conversation with the taliban who had gotten the afghani people convinced they weren't going to change these things. they have changed everything. when the book is written on this, it's going to show all kinds of different influences

and different regions of the country there were supporting the pakistanis and their relationship with them and other groups that were involved in this. you couldn't count how many warlords there were in this country. the country was transformed. those are human beings. now this clamps that democracy that they had is compromised by the brutality we saw when we first went in there. what is to be done about that? it's going to take another coalition of terrorists to invade it again. where is europe going? these people are in a very uncompromising position now. host: do you think we will be

back in afghanistan one day? is the military headed back? caller: i would not be surprised if that happened. i would not be surprised. we just killed the al qaeda leader. didn't we kill him in afghanistan? isn't that where he was killed? yes. we already went back. as far as sending forces in, i think it was a mistake not to have people and therefore intelligence purposes. i think that was criticized in this came down. there was a reason for it. these taliban came in and got closer and closer. we had to negotiate with them to get these people out. host: on the death in the u.s.

strike, a little bit more from david petraeus, it has gotten a lot of attention since it was published. he writes: this is john on the line for veterans of the war. what years were you there? caller: from 02-06. i want to say that the withdrawal was a debacle. there is a way to do it.

president trump wanted to do it and he was talked out of it by general milley and his staff. they said they didn't want to do it so fast. they really didn't want trump to get credit for it. it's absolutely ridiculous. what they have done to him was ridiculous. they want to find nuclear secrets. i've heard people call in and say he sold the military secrets. host: on afghanistan, did you think we would still be there in 2021? caller: i thought we would probably have to be there forever. they aren't willing to fight. their government won't back them

up. their leader left them and took all the money and left. everybody knew this was going to happen. why he gave up the airbase was a strategic lender. the military now, they are just woke. they want to teach people that transgender's are equal. host: do you think it would have been worth it to keep a smaller number of troops in afghanistan indefinitely? caller: perhaps. maybe on that airbase. why did we give away that equipment? it's the weakness of the military. they're not worried about preparedness. they are worried about being

woke. we need to be prepared for war. it's not about being woke. there were gays and nobody cared. i was there with a bunch of gaze. it didn't matter there were gays. we all cared about each other. they don't care about that anymore. they want to push this agenda they have instead of preparing us for what we need to do. people tell me this every day. they want to get out as soon as they can. you are going to get a bunch of the same woke people who aren't going to be prepared to defend us. host: that was john in massachusetts on the line for those who served in afghanistan. (202) 748-8003 is that number. this is ron it good morning. caller: everybody agreed to get

out of afghanistan. what was the mess was how we got out of it. the president botched the exit. he has blood in his hands. he is responsible for having 13 young soldiers killed. when they brought the coffins back, joe biden respected the coffins and he disrespected the goldstar families. we paid for all the billions of dollars of nila terry equipment the joe biden left behind. he armed the taliban. what was a result of this exit, our enemies no longer fear us and our allies never trust us. it was a botched exit. host: barbara in florida.

good morning. caller: good morning. i listen to this and i just want to get sick. we were in afghanistan way longer than we should have ever been there. those countries over there have been fighting for centuries. there is nothing that anyone can do to change the way they think, how they act, what they are doing to the women now. it's exactly what they were doing before. you can never have peace in that region of the country. never. as far as these folks who keep hammering that poor donald trump, let's just get on board and wait for the investigation and see what happens. host: from usa today, a column by a former afghan attorney

general. he writes: that is his column today at usa

today. abdul is in california on the line for people who find in afghanistan. caller: good morning. the reason i'm calling, i fought against russia for three years. i heard from people in the news media. the truth is very tough. it was a fascist regime before the taliban. there is a reason why girls can't go to school. i knew a lot more than anybody because i was in a high rank. my rank was a civilian

lieutenant. host: were you born in afghanistan? caller: i was born f kenaston and -- in afghanistan. host: at what point did you -- at what point did you become a u.s. citizen and join the military? caller: 1989, about 33 years ago. that's no problem. when i went to afghanistan, i was the only muslim to talk. everybody was afraid of their shadow. all the muslims, all the scholars. we know there is no winner in afghanistan. the british lost, alexander the grace loss -- great lost,

getting in is easy, they are losing the war because it's different technology that won't work. united states made a mistake. people fought for two decades, 24 hours. where is democracy when they learned how to kill. where is democracy when you open the zoo. the afghanistan people were like the zoo. when you open the door of the zoo in afghanistan, these people in each other. host: you mentioned all the countries throughout history

that have lost in afghanistan. was there ever a point where you thought the u.s. could win when you were there? did you think there was a chance? caller: no. george bush junior, he said we want to negotiate. that was 2002 or 2003. he announced it on tv. when we went in afghanistan, i know this. there is a small base in the mountains. in the end, the fascist regime are muslim.

people became billionaires. in the administration, a lot of those high ranks were my student. they became billion errors in billionaires. we are talking about 300 million. give the money to our enemy. they are going to help. they are afraid of you and me. they gave the money to everybody else. host: what do you do now in irvine? caller: i work in the mortgage industry. host: the you think you will ever go back? caller: i go all the time.

let me tell you, there -- they brought in christianity. it is from 10:00 in the morning until 11:00. host: do you think afghanistan is better off today than it was a year ago? caller: 100%. people got their land back. the warlords ran away. i know one guy personally, i

used to send them $100 to survive. they have $80 million. what should we do? they were in the justice ministry. the united states is my country. we lost a lot of young soldiers. the young soldiers we can't place. when you get a call from the mom or the wife, what happened to my husband? how are we going to answer that. we don't look at that now. host: thanks for the call from

irvine, california. we've got just a couple of minutes left. more conversation later today on the one-year anniversary of the fall of kabul. that is at 10:00 this morning. that's where we will go right after this program. united states veteran is joining them for that conversation. you can watch it here on c-span. you can also watch on c-span.org and the free video app. your calls now until the top of the hour. this is anita in missouri. go ahead. caller: i would like to reply to the gentleman who called in earlier.

they were trying to make it the trump was so good. trump left us -- he let assad and vladimir putin get away with atrocities in syria. he deserted our allies the kurds. this gave prudent reason to believe the u.s. would allow atrocities against the ukrainians. he did his bullying of them. he set us up for failure in afghanistan with his negotiations before he left office. he used his reality acting experience to sage -- stage negotiations and left us with nothing. his first trip overseas was to do his ridiculous dance with the saudi's. he ignored the murder of khashoggi.

he has done nothing but violate the emoluments clause and the $150 million he gained in wealth. host: do you want to bring it back to afghanistan? caller: i believe that joe biden did the best that he could to get us out of afghanistan. i am very grateful that we have someone with experience taking over the presidency. trump intended to leave it in chaos. host: one more call in missouri. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. trump had six months after his deal in 2020 before the election to get afghans out. because of their muslim ban it, we can't have them come in america.

we can't have brown people come to america. for biden to get started, he did a remarkable job getting out who he did as quick as he did. thank you. good day. host: that was our last caller in this segment. we will come back to this question in about 45 minutes and take a few more calls on the topic. this is the one-year anniversary of the fall of kabul. we will be joined by the fbi see vice chair -- fdic vice chair. the university of texas constitutional law professor will join us, talking about the search of mar-a-lago. stick around.

♪ >> history of pulitzer prices, very few winners have turned out these awards. one of those who did was a famous armenian american. his name, william. he turned out a pulitzer for time of your life in 1940. he was opposed in principle to awards in the arts and is quoted as saying such awards vitiate and embarrass art at its very source. a well-known poet in his on right has written about about his father and his relationship with them. we asked him to talk about has book last rites. on this episode of buck knotts plus, but that's plus is available on the c-span no app or wherever you get your

podcasts. >> over the past few months, the january 6 committee held a series of hearings revealing the findings from its investigations. only, watch c-span as we look back at the eight hearings featuring never before seen evidence, depositions, and witness testimony on the u.s. attack. tonight at 8:00 eastern the officer knocked unconscious during the first breach of the capitol grounds shares her story along a filmmaker who was filming proud boys. watch on c-span, or the free c-span app at c-span.org. >> 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: our focus on the economy now with thomas hoenig. george mason university's marquita senna. guest: good morning to you as well. host: we want to start with the definition of a recession and do you think the united states is currently in recession? guest: there are various different -- definitions. the standard most people check is two quarters, consecutive quarters of negative gdp and

under that definition, technically we would be called in a recession. alternatively, the bureau of economic analysis called a recession but they usually do that several months after when it starts. the official definition will finally come out but that is a ways off. i think the real facts are that the economy has slowed. that is the most important part of it. if you want to technically call that a recession or not, you can argue about that but it has slowed and will probably remain at a fairly slow pace, maybe another negative if a host of circumstances going forward. that is what the policymaker has to focus on. host: is it unusual for the united states to be adding hundreds of thousands of jobs to the tune of 400,000 jobs a month

averaged over the past three months at a time when the economy is slowing? guest: no, that is not necessarily normal. the unemployment or the employment statistics or employment itself usually lags the economy so you can have a slaughter and still have jumper essentially the job growth slows as recession continues or goes negative with rising unemployment. sometime soon after the recession gets underway so in that sense, this is different. having this kind of growth, especially these lost numbers that came out or very strong and that is unusual for a slowing economy. also, remember the pandemic was not something we normally have and the response to the pandemic has been more than mild. it has been very strong,

government additions to spending so those factors would also influence how the economy goes forward and tell employment develops through the early parts of any slowdown in the economy. host: on the jobs being added, the reports have been tallied by president biden in the white house can you explain those numbers at a time when the labor force participation rates is shrinking? it was 52.1% in july don't from 62.4% in march. much lower than the pre-pandemic 63.4 percentage. can you explain why those numbers are going different directions? guest: gives you a sense of how many people who have been looking for work and have joined it have come in. so that is the large number in terms of the increase. the facts are behind that new

interest coming in, searching for jobs is slowing even though more people are entering the labor force. people are in fact scratching their heads as to why the rate has come down. there is a lot of discussions about it. whether or not it has to do with the pandemic and people's fears of command, especially in the lower paying jobs were some of the participant -- participation rate has slowed. also during the pandemic and following that in the last year have actually increased benefits to people not working. your drive to get back in the labor force may be less. these are all factors but i don't have a clear answer for you and i have not seen anyone who has put everything together to say here is the of exact reason. i would say this may go on for

of a white because the demographics are changing and it will take just a little time to sort out. i don't expect participation rate to rise externally anytime soon. host: talking to thomas hoenig this morning. if you want to join this conversation about the economy. from lines as usual republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. he is going to be with us until about a: 45 eastern. a conversation seven minutes in. we have not talked inflation yet. how long do you expect us to be in these decades long highs of inflation? we saw the numbers move in the right direction in its latest report. do you expect it to continue to come down? guest: i do expect it to moderate as the fed has

increased interest rates from external people levels. they were a little slow on doing that. i think that's why the inflation is as high is that is that they are beginning to take some of that away. the rates have come up from basically zero. number two, they are beginning to shrink the balance sheet which is the amount of money they put into the economy so they are letting that run out. that will take some of the demand at of the economy. the real question will be how long they will be willing to hold to a less accommodated policy. if unemployment were to start to rise, with a still let the rates remain higher? or were they begin to ease? if they begin to ease,

especially if they begin to ease when inflation is above six or 7% that i think inflation would continue to return again to higher numbers. it's up to the policymaker and how willing they are to of operates to stay tight are modestly tight going forward at the moment. they are higher than zero, they are still not what i would call a tight policy. so we will see what the policymaker does and that will affect the future inflation. wages, because of the shortage of labor that we just talked about a minute ago are rising, that means that the cost of production will be higher. so those prices will be affected. that puts pressure on inflation. it's how these things balance out over time, how committed the fed is to keeping the rates

increasing and tight. to bring down demand, and how strong the demand for labor is during that. that will define how quickly if inflation comes down or whether it returns to higher levels. a lot of unknowns, dependent on the policymaker and depending on how circumstances change in the economy over the next several months. host: why your interest rate hikes the main tool we have for fighting inflation and are there other tools at the fed's disposal? guest: the reason interest rates are the primary toll for the federal reserve is because that is what they can most readily control through monetary policy actions. interest rates do affect the economy because they affect so much of it. number one, as you have already seen it affects housing as we

saw interest rates on housing almost double. it affects borrowing costs for manufacturers into their businesses, small businesses. so that means they are unable to provide goods at a lower price. prices rise and that means demand is reduced. as you reduce demand, inflation begins to moderate. you go through that cycle and part of it is the fed has to get it right. if they raise rates too high, it cuts too much off and you get a deeper recession than you otherwise need but if they, metoo stadia zero then inflation goes to 9.1% in june. it is a tool, it is a very blunt tool in the sense that it affects a broad base of the

economy and it is hard to gauge exactly what it should be to get the economy just right. that is a strong employment, and low inflation. that is a difficult balancing act for the economy itself and it is very difficult for the federal reserve to gauge when interest rates will take to that so-called sweet spot for the economy. host: we will bring in some callers for you. thomas hoenig always a topic that generates plenty of calls. republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. this is jay out of edgewater, florida. go ahead. song good morning, how are you. host: i am curious to find out why his deficient -- definition

is different. also when he talks about the unemployment we are still not where we were before the lockdown began once we reach that level then after that i would consider that growth but until then we are still at negative even though the unemployment figures show that we are at three you have for 3.1% unemployment. one person working two jobs, labor participation like you said was down and as long as that stays down and the economy stays down that would be seriously considered a depression. i lived through the 70's. i was born in the late 50's. i saw what it was like not to have a job when you graduated high school and there was overcome available. the only choice we had was

military at the time and now i can't even imagine what these kids would turn to. it seems like they just, there is no desire for self employment of any kind. i'm just wanting to know why he had such a different and what he is describing is what is coming up in the white house thank you. guest: number one, the definition that i provided is not my deficient -- definition so much as it is the general economics profession and that is two quarters of negative growth. that is not an official definition but that is what it has been long-standing definition. they are saying we are not in a recession because the unemployment rate remains low. that is their argument and given the fact that 3.1 percent is

very low rate i see where they are coming from. that is not necessarily the definition and that's not necessarily the definition of the economic research will come out with. number two, you mentioned the fact that people in the 70's couldn't find a job. the unemployment rate was higher as the lack of participation rate was also in place but the unemployment rate was higher at that point. now, in this. , you actually have more jobs available than people searching for jobs. that is different. that is part of the reason the white house is saying there is a lot of position. whether you agree with that or not, the fact is there are more

jobs than jobseekers right now. i would say there is probably fewer access jobs -- excess jobs but we do know there are more jobs than seekers. part of this will be the demographics that we talked about. and the fact that the labor participation rate means people are not coming into the market as quickly or it is demographics. we have a retiring population now which is at a how your freight because baby boomers are retiring. they don't have as much emigration today as we did in earlier periods. i think those are all factors that we have to be mindful of. i think there is a greater support system for those who are not working. there are all sorts of things that don't make finding a job as

necessarily as urgent for the record. this will all take time to shake out but the fact of the matter is in the meantime, we do have a significant inflationary problem in on the labor side and the general price level and we have had a long history for more than a decade of asset inflation which is also affecting the economy. these oral factors that have to be worked through as we try and return to a more normal economic set of circumstances. host: one point with this latest report in july that 528,000 jobs added the u.s. back to its pre-pandemic job level. so regaining the jobs lost over the course of the plandemic. i wonder -- pandemic i wonder

those job gains not in those sectors were the losses came especially early in the pandemic. how did it reshape u.s. workforce and u.s. industries? guest: it changes in many ways. first of all, there is a slow return to the office, slow return to the factory. at those things are beginning to change. i think that makes entry beckon in this larger number more understandable. but the pandemic also increased the amount of fear among those who are in lower paying jobs that require that they not be able to work at home. they actually have to go to these locations. that has a big effect on the labor participation for the group of people. it will take time i think as people reenter the market, we

are still not through all of the fears of the pandemic because we still have many cases of it. we have a whole host of reasons, vaccines, people becoming shall be saved less affected by the covid virus. people are going to reenter and i think the lever participation rate will modestly increase over time. it has put the emphasis on working from home. that is going to change again. but that's going to take time. host: this is jeff in nebraska. republican, good morning. caller: just out of curiosity, we know now because of getaways and the people coming across the border there are about 2 million or that was the last count.

they are going to keep coming. i mean, they are getting like 5000 and day coming across the border. as the administration going to make special situations for these people to go to work? or is that going to fall on the towns and communities? are they going to have to support them somehow or what is quote -- going to happen with these people? are they going to make available jobs for these people or what? guest: i am not part of the administration so i don't know what their plans are for these individuals at the moment. so-called illegal entry, they are not able as easily to get a job although there are people -- ways of working around those restraints.

for the most part, they will be here and up depending on what the administration chooses to do, they will be supported in some way and the issues about returning them if they are found and returned back across where they came from, those are all decisions the administration is in the process of dealing with. i am not sure where they are going to come out on that but the fact of the matter is as they come across, there is a cost to that. the american people will pay through our spending programs but i don't think that there is a easy solution that i see congress or administration come up with in dealing with illegal immigration in the united states . that is going to remain a problem for some time. i don't know that there is a

quick solution to that as we have proven by decades of dealing with this very difficult problem. it will be, it does cost, it is not free like anything else. i hope it would cause both the congress, both parties and the white house to find solutions for it. but at the moment, i don't see them getting close to a solution. host: mark on twitter going to the passage friday of the inflation reduction act asking to explain how the inflation reduction act is going to reduce inflation? guest: i don't think it's going to reduce inflation quickly. number one, many of the subsidies are generous and they will start in the not-too-distant future. it may not address but think that it is an indirect form of government spending because you

receive the stalks us. you help other industries and at those will increase demand. that will be -- that should decrease inflation. the decrease taxes. they are lucky tighter monetary policy. as you text, you restrain the amount of funds available and you have done it because you think there are other important items that you want to spend money on but that will also reduce demand for those particular industries or funds for those industries who invest in resources. that will, i think actually adversely affect the inflation outlook from that point of view. down the road, as the supposedly we are supposed to get increase in productivity because these

new initiatives on clean energy and so forth. hopefully, that will be true. i don't know that it will be but that is kind of the goal. when you boil that down, you have very little intermediate effects on inflation and long-term is an unknown that we have to kind of sort through and only time will tell. i don't see a lot of inflation reduction. host: after the latest inflation report about inflation during the month of july, president biden stepping out two microphones at the white house to count the numbers in that report after going down from near record high the months before. this is about one minute of president biden from last week. [video clip] pres. biden: the price of something is,. the price of other things went

down for the same amount. the result is lower inflation last month. but people were still hurting. economists look at the measure of inflation that ignores food and energy prices and they call it core inflation. that is the lowest amount in several months. when you couple that with last week's booming jobs created last month, the underscore is the economy we have been building we're seeing a stronger labor markets were jobs are booming. we are seeing some signs that inflation may be beginning to moderate per that is what happens when you build an economy from the bottom up. the wealthy do very well and everyone has a chance. it gives everyone a chance to make progress. host: president biden last week. it wasn't too rosy of a picture he was painting? guest: i think it was perhaps a

bit rosy. i don't think inflation was zero. i think the fact is inflation year-over-year has declined from 9.1 28.5 but 8.5 inflation is still in the for your high category. i think the fact is energy prices did come down. that was the major contributing factor to the lower inflation. it was actually the same year-over-year in july as it was in june. we didn't see a lot of improvement there. food prices were still very high, double-digit inflation. so that is still a factor. i think the employment part of it was accurate. the number of individuals coming into the labor force did increase and that was a positive.

but also wages were up pretty significantly. 5.7% if i got the number freight. so there is still an enormous amount of inflation in the economy. i think it's going to take several months, perhaps years to bring that inflation down. and whether you are able to keep that inflation down depends on whether policy in washington in the sense of our fiscal policy is moderated in terms of spending and whether the federal reserve in its policy can maintain, willing to maintain a policy that allows interest rates and a sense -- in essence reduce the economy over time. for example, from 2019 to 2020

the government spending increased about 50%. that is a huge increase when you are spending $4.5 trillion and you increase it and then you do that again in 2021. that demand has entered the economy and will take time for that to come back out. i think if washington continues to spend more money than i think that demand part of it will continue. if the central bank decides it wants to reverse its policy because the economy slows and becomes fearful, then they will print more money and more interest rates and that will increase demand in the economy and increase the excess demand and we will have inflation. a gentleman earlier said he lived through the 70's, all that was a good example. the fed taken to policy but when the unemployment rate started to

rise it reversed itself and therefore caused demand to increase but inflation increased even more. only the course of the deaf eight inflation went from less than 4%, 3% to about 14% by the end of the decade of the 70's. it is up to the policymakers to determine how they moderate or how they calibrate their spending on the physical side and the federal reserve will have a calibrates its monetary policy and how welding it is to say with the policy until the inflation numbers are brought back down to the 2% target. that is not easy when you have, if unemployment starts to rise. unfortunately it has not risen yet. they can stay modestly tight and bring the nexus down -- excess down. we will see how that works and

if it does it will bring inflation back down and people will not be paying a .5% inflation talks that we are paying now. it affects the middle-class and those below much more than it is the wealthy. host: rate in louisiana. point for democrats, good morning. caller: how much can we rely on trump's economic policies likely tariffs on china? the very low interest rates, it seems like it the economic experts were saying you have to watch if you are pouring gas on the fire. it will burn but then it burns up fast. you know, he was paying farmers because the farmers couldn't trade their stuff with china.

you know, he gave tax breaks to the wealthy. it seems to me it takes about four years for economic policies of one president to start kicking in. and that is my question. guest: in terms of blame, i say you have many administrations that can sure the plane. -- blame. i'm not naming administrations but in 2010, the total government that of the united states was about $10 trillion. over the course of the decade, to the pandemic that went from 10 to about 24 cholla dollars. from the pandemic to today, it is now over $31 trillion.

later it is spending increases or text east -- decreases these administrations, if they would just step forward and share blame. that is a huge increase. on the other psych, the central bank which helped fund that debt increase whose balance sheet increase from 2010 to about $2 trillion to nine trillion dollars today. it took 100 years from the central bank's balance sheet to grow. they can accept some of the blame as well. as well that falls on the american people. all they did, everyone, the administrations, they did it because they thought it would

help the american people spend more money. whether it's agriculture or health care or income support, they were doing what they thought was right reasons but they borrowed money to do it. the federal reserve increase the amount of money because they wanted to make sure the interest rates stayed at low and in fact, they created inflation. it harms the middle-class. the policy caused us to have this very difficult economy we have today and everyone can share the blame. i think that's why the american people are changing who they bring into office thinking that will change the outcome but it really is a matter of discipline around spending, not that you don't spend money but that you

have a discipline. you cannot occur your debt that strongly and you cannot print that much money and not have consequences that are inflationary and that are a burden to the american taxpayer in the long term. host: what about return policies, this from harry in pennsylvania why do we have a 2% annual inflation target? what is good with -2%? i would want a strong dollar like if i under any other comedy. guest: 2% target is arbitrary. the concept behind that is with a modest amount of inflation you have a systematic modest increase in demand. but the point if it is really that if you have zero inflation and over time you have modest a that increases the value by savings.

they can be very positive on modest inflation and over time you have about zero that would be ideal. noah policymakers think that for some reason if you have it there you can't have interest rates go negative that are much more stimulating. i think that is an area that probably needs much greater debate in the institutions that are studying these concepts. but i think zero invasion -- inflation overall would be a much better policy. that is a minority view today. right now everybody thinks that having modest inflation is a good thing. his question is very well taken and i help more people ask the question. host: you mentioned it savings just a second ago. we know you worked at the federal reserve bank of kansas city but also the former fbi see chart.

as a current? guest: yes sir. host: what does the fbi cd? guest: it is set up by government but it is funding -- funded by the banking industry. should they be banking with the bank that goes, that fails, the goes broke that they don't lose their money. if a bank fails, they can get to that bank, the fbi see will be there -- fdic will be there and you can get your money up to 250,000. so you don't lose money. that is something that came about through the great depression when people did lose their life savings and their money over time and no one was

there in a sense to allow them to get their money back. so they created this corporation to provide that. if you have $500,000 in the bank, you are only guaranteed 250,000 but at least you got that much that you can have almost immediate access to. also, the corporation always works with the largest banks should they fail there probably is not enough funds in the deposit insurance corporation to pay everyone but that, behind the fdic it is the federal government who will provide support necessary to stay there is up to 250,000 dollars. in some cases depending on the circumstances around the bank failure. host: is that a uniquely american institution? do other first world countries

have something i can to the fdic ? guest: there are some questions -- countries that are very similar. others are more private organizations where it isn't quite as government supported but they still have the deposit insurance of modest amounts that payoff should the institutions fail. there is about, i would say roughly about 85 countries in the overall the have some form of deposit insurance either private or public. host: let's try to get some callers. luis, philadelphia. >> good morning, i would like to know why do american people pay taxes for their golden ticket for health care? but they refused to do it for the people?

guest: why should american people pay taxes for health care? caller: no why do some people say give it to the people in the senate but they don't need it. why do you refuse it to give it to the people? why do you refuse to give health care to the people? guest: host: they can buy plans? is that what you're talking about? all are cut out, there is no health care profit. it's bullshit. why do we pay for you -- guest:'s. companies, private companies and government agencies can provide insurance to their employees just like has been done for decades. under the obama administration

and the expansion of medicaid and medicare insurance is provided to almost all american citizens and the taxpayer pays for that. that has been expanded dramatically over the last decade and a half and i don't see that they are somehow being, not being able to get health insurance today compared to what it was two decades ago. host: this is john in ohio. caller: good morning. the guy that sent the text in a while ago kind of stole my thunder but at the end of his explanation he said i help more people: with this point. what it is my biggest gripe with the government, which is the fdi

c are not thefdic but the value they value our dollar fight inflation year after year and i will give you an example. in 2009 and mother asked me to rebuild her kitchen faucet. i went in and got a rebuilt kit that cost $.88. three years ago i rebuilt it again and i went to the same home depot, got the same rebuild kit and it cost nine dollars. the value of my dollar dropped tenfold over 10 years. my point being why can't the fed make our dollar work more rather than forking it less. it compounds probably 100%

value. guest: your point is well taken. even modest inflation, like any rate change over time is inflation and it devalues the purchasing power of the dollar. there is a view among economists and congress that putting that artificial increase in demand through modest inflation allows unemployment to stay lowered then it otherwise would be and that's a good thing. now whether that is accurate, people have argued about it for decades but your point is well taken. the purpose of the federal reserve is to keep the value of the currency constant. that way that was part of the

original mission. as congress has set out, to make sure that both unemployment is low and that interest rates are stable over the long run and have modest growth. they have taken that mandate and said alright, we have a better chance of maintaining modest growth if we have mild inflation. 2% is their number. that will also help keep unemployment low. because of that mandate and that interpretation of that mandate we have this modest inflation. whether we would be better off with zero inflation over time and a constant purchasing power of the dollar, so the pricing is reliable, that is a debate the probably needs to happen but i haven't seen it happen in some time. people have actually talked about going back to zero

inflation over time. host: time for probably just one more call. scott in dallas, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. my question as i navy early 80's went crime rate hit 18%, the savings, the interest on savings was at one time i think you could get 12% on a passbook savings account. why hasn't interest rates increased for people that are saving money in cds, bank accounts, etc.? it seems like this negative interest rate have punished savers and hurt seniors to a great extent forcing them to invest in riskier assets the stock market. could you please answer my question?

thank you. guest: your question is a good one. i think the fact of the matter is central bank, the federal reserve in an effort to stimulate the economy kept interest rates at zero for a long time and printed extreme amounts of money. that would put pressure on interest rates temporarily but it did increase the active value per defect of the matter is people who were savers in bank accounts and cds and so forth, because there was so much money, thanks didn't need to pay interest because there was so many -- so much money already available to them. so the savers in that sense, subsidized to borrowers. you are better off borrowing money at very low rates then you've are in savings because you couldn't earn anything on it and the idea was if you did go

to riskier assets and you stimulate that part of the economy whether that is a good policy or not, people will long debate. my own view is it was a very shortsighted policy that has hurt those on fixed incomes. the value of the dollar has been hurt. it has caused inflation that we didn't otherwise have or need. so your questions are very valid and i think that policymakers have to consider how important it is to get their job done in terms of maintaining the value of their dollar and not have inflation -- and not have interest rates that are so low for those on a fixed income are those who want to be savers. it is a very good question. host: we have to end of questions there.

always helpful to have yuko on and talk about these economic issues. thomas hoenig with the university of arcadia -- makeda's center. we do appreciate the time this morning. guest: think is so much for having me. host: it is 8:45 from the east coast. we are going to be joined by university of texas university college professor we will take a look at the fbi raid on donald trump's florida home but in this 30 minutes imminent we will return to the question that we began our program with today. the one year anniversary of the fall of kabul we are asking your thoughts on the legacy of the 20 year war in afghanistan. found lines are on your screen. you can start calling in. (202) 748-8003 four afghan war veterans. go ahead and start calling now.

you will get to your calls after the break. ♪ >> in the history of pulitzer prizes and oscars very few winners have turned out these awards. one of those who did was a firmest -- famous armenian writer. he turned down a pulitzer for the drama called the time of your life in 1940. he said he was opposed in principle to awards and was quoted as saying such arts of words vitiate and embarrass art at its very source. a well-known poet in his own right has written a lot about his father and his relationship with him we asked her to talk about his book last rites the death of william saroyan. on this episode of notes plus book notes plus is available on

the c-span now apple wherever you get your podcasts. >> if you are enjoying book tv for sign-up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen. get schedules and discussions. big tv, every sunday on c-span2 or anytime time at book tv.org. television for serious readers. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the russian you creation -- invasion of ukraine. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and to from foreign leaders all on the c-span network, the c-span now free mobile app and to c-span.org/ukraine. our rib resource page where you

can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. go to c-span.org/ukraine. >> "washington journal" continues. host: in this half-hour returning to the question we begin our program with. one year ago today that the capital of afghanistan fell to the taliban spurring a weeklong exit by the united states and the end of america's longest war. we want to get your thoughts on the legacy of the war in afghanistan. phone lines, (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. and a special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan. (202) 748-8003. we will get to that line as often as you, on the outline. we do want to hear from veterans of america's longest war. from yesterday's washington post on this topic kabul fell one

year ago here are the lessons we should learn. that is the headline of the column. he is one of the losses -- lessons pointed out. in the middle of a complex civil war and at the new afghan government was never able to gain the legitimacy it needed. it was seen as corrupt and from client on america and those charges were true. when a conflict -- when a government has internal when it lacks internal strength and support outside help often weakens. he said there is also another important lesson for america the danger of not looking at reality carefully. for a long time washington's elite saw afghanistan as a good for, morally justified and sanctioned by the united nations. people were invested in thinking it was working.

the military is often very clear died -- clear eyed. it will provide a stream of reports that it provides is succeeding. in afghanistan it was the growing numbers of the international army speaking which turned out to be massively inflated. washington post column yesterday if you want to read it. looking for your comments on phone lines and the line for veterans of the war in afghanistan. this is sandra in independent in virginia. what do you -- what would you say is the legacy. caller: the frightening fact of all the drugs from afghanistan and it is showing callable insecurity and the empowerment of leaders such as putin. american under president biden

has shown itself to be weak and we can be thwarted at any turn. host: this is dan also in virginia. republican, good morning. caller: you have to look back at history. one week before 9/11 osama bin laden killed the head of the northern alliance. the cia went in after bush got has war on terrorism built and the cag put in there with their own contacts from the russian war when they were in afghanistan and briefcases full of cash and viagra had we let them take over, the land -- tele-bandwidth have existed. the same people, the elites, the legislature, did the same thing as a same in vietnam.

afghanistan government was corrupt. there was a common border, isi in pakistan control everything. we have to not get involved in wars and also in ukraine, there is a common border and puts on the others? russia. the elite have gotten us in too much trouble. host: this is craig, houston, texas. caller: actually my name is chris. the legacy of the war in afghanistan, i just really don't understand exactly why we went over there and second of all,

why did it take so long for us, what was actually allegorical for going over there? joe biden is actually one of the people that supported and voted on the war in afghanistan. that is one of the reasons we are over there. we never really accomplished anything over there. that is a legacy of afghanistan. it still in the same situation that it was in the beginning. and, you know, everyone says 9/11 they only mention the two towers per they never mentioned the pentagon being attacked. host: that is correct in texas. this is from twitter if afghans had 10% of the will of the ukrainians, the evacuation would've been flawless. talking about the one-year anniversary of the fall of couple leading to the fall of

afghanistan and plenty of columns on this and you will probably see more over the next two weeks leading up to the august 31 anniversary of the final u.s. pullout of the final flight leaving from the airport that was august 31, 2021. this is a column in yesterday's new york times about the last days americans reflecting on their withdrawal and ross wilson was the acting ambassador in couple during the evacuations. this is what he wrote in his column. most of the staff rests. -- left afghanistan that night or early the next day. mr. wilson and about 30 other american diplomats stayed on for two weeks more trying to find a way to evaluate other u.s. citizens among the tens of

thousands of panic asked afghans who were just outside the airport begging to be rescued. they are having to make choices, yes, you can come in. no, so you can't come in. the diplomats or chet the airport. against the constant roar of that crowd, no one who wasn't out there really can imagine how awful it was he's a different lots of people left behind and that is the person -- the bird. everybody is carrying around a big set of burdens over decisions made or that they were involved in or actions they took and actions that were not taken either individually or as a country. we all think about that, he said. i think about it every day. ross wilson the former acting ambassador this is david in pensacola, florida. on the line for veterans, good morning, sir. >> good morning to you.

host: when were you in afghanistan? how the army ran in a how the pieces made so to speak. each step is with the operations . it's not secret, but the point is i wanted took about a legacy i want to star -- stay on point. i wasn't in the second the fate i was a staff officer. but you still know what is going on with the work and your tuning and just to make a brief parallel i was in iraq from post 7-08 and my frustration was we split resources and personnel and military care to fight a two front war and we saw how that worked out for hitler's. thank god it worked out, didn't

work out for him but it did work out for the united states either. we were fighting over for and then we go on this expeditionary thing to iraq and with her all the trees or the savoy. i'm paraphrasing here on the numbers but it got whittled down to a little over a quarter million. we never do anything correct. we should have learned our lesson. the army had a plan to win the peace using stability and support cost -- you need one trip on the ground for every 1600 civilians. we spent dollars upon dollars to stay there about 10 years longer than we had to. something with afghanistan that you had an underfunded, understaffed logistic or. it makes it impossible for us to do our missions. i just wish that when the military comes up with a plan

that has been paid for in blood, slick, and tears and we spent all these millions of dollars studying this alarming to do it quickly i wish our civilian layers would actually listen to those plans and say you want us to wend a it and actually listen and not say, hey, i have a great idea. then they try to whittle it down and do things on the cheap. that is what happened in afghanistan. the legacy of the war in afghanistan is part of the legacy of splitting resources to iraq in the first place. that is just a take on it. host: do you think it would have been a good strategy to not necessarily win the war but not lose it? would you have been ok with a modest force staying in afghanistan indefinitely, no end date but keeping the country from falling? caller: i would. unlike most -- most until

officers, i will give you a straight answer. absolutely. when we left, and this is not nothing that is classified, we had all kinds of new equipment that was shrink-wrapped with maintenance kids and everything else. we were spending millions of dollars building these new buildings. we were building bagram to be a showcase, what we call a stateside base. we gave them not just -- you have heard maybe $5 million of military equipment. they have top military equipment and military readiness condition and new buildings and all this infrastructure. we gave it to them. we are going to have to fight to get it back if we go back in. we should have maintained a presence and we could have. that was the argument you heard going back to politics with frustration over how the current administration did the withdrawal. they could have sent people to bagram. they could have protected groups because we held a lot of ground

and could have been strategic. the military always has plans for these things. we have plans forgetting people out, strategic retrograde operations. none of that. it was thrown out the window. host: when you talk about an indefinite -- that we could have done it, that we could have kept afghanistan from falling if we had kept people there and definitely got what you say to callers who point to the 3587 u.s. and allied troops who died in afghanistan? you mentioned the money. 145 billion dollars trying to rebuild afghanistan. that is on top of the hundred $37 billion of u.s. taxpayer money spent on war fighting there. what you say to the people who say it is not worth it, especially if the afghanistan army and leaders of that country were not willing to stand up

themselves and those final months without the united states? caller: you are covering a lot of great questions that go and a lot of directions. i was just an intel officer and just a soldier. i did not agree with building of the country. that is a separate issue that i am not qualified to speak on because that was not my personal mission and i do not support that anyway and i agree with most americans who say, why are to building up u.s. infrastructure with that money -- aren't we building up u.s. infrastructure with that money? i am no hero. i am just a chubby stuff officer now. i was over there too. at least i can speak because i went there. since we paid for it in blood, we can hold it. i'm not saying we are to go into villages and places will be were vulnerable and put lives unnecessarily at risk. we could hold major areas. i'm using bagram airbase as an

example and places in the north that we had that we could hold onto. we could hold onto parts of afghanistan and the appropriate term would've been to maintain a presence. versus continuing to fight the counterinsurgency that we were not allowed to win in the first place. host: why do you think so many americans have no problem with maintaining a presence in the demilitarized zone between north korea and south korea? that is not something that often gets spoken about, but something we have done for 70 years at this point. americans are ok with that continued, long-term presence, but so many americans were not ok with indefinite presence current weather it be just kabul or other places in afghanistan as well, try to hold that country. caller: with regards to korea, a cease-fire was declared, so

maintaining the demilitarized zone, we have interests in the asian and pacific theater, same reason for world war two. there are resources. there is a lot of interests over there with trade and everything. that is not why the demilitarized zone exists. it is a different government philosophy, a paramount -- paradigm of anti-communism. the country was unified back then against communism, so that was the main threat so people did not have a problem with that. you have not heard anybody in the public have a huge cry against it now. there is a historical precedent backed by a unified population and or interests in the middle east. it gives us a form -- forward position in asia. there is an interest there that benefits all americans through trade.

host: finish your comment. caller: versus what other country as opposed to korea? afghanistan? host: afghanistan, the idea of a 70 year presence with tens of thousands of americans in korea versus americans dead set against a couple thousand americans having stayed in afghanistan indefinitely. caller: we are talking about a reduced footprint, like under president trump part of the withdrawal plan that he was looking at doing against the taliban was maintaining intelligence, maintaining aviation assets, maintaining special operations presence. i'm not volunteering these other people. but to maintain a presence would be a reduced footprint, well defended areas, and a place from which we could branch off

instead having to fight back in again. that is pennies on the dollar. host: from pensacola, florida, that line for afghan veterans. to our republican line, this is tom, woodbridge, virginia. go ahead. caller: you guys are a national treasure. thank you. i am also an afghan vet and i was there from 2007 to 2008. i deployed with u.s. special forces. i was on the pakistan border and ultimately at bagram, where i conducted interrogations. this is a big, huge deal. people do not understand why. we abandoned the afghan people

just like we abandoned the vietnamese people. if you go and watch a documentary on vietnam, there is an excellent three-part series on vietnam and you compare it would happen in afghanistan. it is almost the exact same timeline and same sequence of events. your previous caller was hitting on it. the military leaders want to win the war and the politicians get in the way and interfere with success. so for those of us -- we ultimately have done the same in iraq. we have not complete withdrawn. we also abandoned iraq. those are huge errors. alternately, our benda meant of the kurds is what gave rise to isis in iraq, because once we

turned our back on them they basically retrograde and to defend their own bases instead of helping us so if you look at what the russians did in iraq and syria that is how you defeat this type of enemy. the american people do not have the stomach i think today for what it will take to fight a war like you have to fight -- like had to be fought against isis and iraq and the same kind of problem in afghanistan. host: meeting what? -- meeting what? -- meaning what? are you talking about leveling cities? caller: you have to wage war anyway that makes the supporters of the war not want to support

the war effort. i do not agree with carpet bombing, but i am saying you have to make the war so painful for the enemy that they surrender. i do not think we are willing -- the american people have the stomach to wage a war, a total war to defeat an enemy like isis. isis has not been defeated as an organization. they still exist. isis is an ideology. they basically hid their guns and they are waiting. they hid their guns and they are waiting. host: you said you were special forces. caller: i was intelligence to the u.s. special forces in afghanistan. host: do you think america has become too reliant on special

forces, that special forces can go in and the dark of night and solve every problem? do you think americans are too reliant on special forces especially in light of watching a conventional land war unfold in europe and how that war is being fought? caller: this is a great question for the american people to understand. i do not want to say too reliant because you have to -- you have to think of the type of enemy we are fighting. if you look at going in and getting out osama bin laden in pakistan and the raids -- i cannot remember the other guy they went in after, but it was in iraq or syria. there are all kinds of other missions u.s. special forces do.

u.s. special forces were in ukraine training ukrainians before there was a crisis in ukraine. lakin go in behind enemy lines and helpers distance fighters. there are a lot of mission special forces do that are -- that nobody pays much attention to. these are people who are willing to do it. it is not a matter of -- they want to do it. that is why when we turn our backs on our allies in afghanistan and among the or vietnam, that is why the u.s. military becomes -- the actual members, not the generals. generals cannot speak their minds publicly, but the junior officers and enlisted and young soldiers, they cannot speak their minds at a fear of persecution but the reality is we all know the problem is.

the problem is -- if you give us the mission we will go in and carry out the mission to a high rate of success. the problem is you put all these political constraints on them or you do not resource them properly. that is what it is. it is money. there is one side of the government that does not want a strong military. the other side of the government sees a strong military as a force of peace in the world, like the stronger we are the less likely people are to mess with us or our allies. this is why we are on the brink of a problem with taiwan, because the chinese see our leaders as feckless and unwilling to defend taiwan. they know it is just lip service. host: i have a couple more calls i want to get in before we run out of time.

george is waiting in philadelphia. caller: good morning. you called a war. who declared it was a war by the constitution? host: what do you think of the legacy of the conflict in afghanistan? caller: this is a way for the country to make money. the rich people make money sacrificing the poor people. host: that is georgia pennsylvania. about 45 minutes left this morning. coming up, we will be joined by a constitutional law professor, stephen vladeck of the university texas law school, to discuss the fbi search of former president trump's home in florida. stick around for the discussion. we will be right back. ♪

>> live sunday custom timber fourth on in-depth, a scholar will talk about leadership, ronald reagan's political career, and the american conservative movement. he is the author of several books, including two volumes of the age of reagan series about the scholars who changed the course of conservative politics in america. join in the conversation with your phone calls, texts, and tweets. in-depth live september 4 at noon eastern on book tv. >> c-span brings you an unfiltered view of government. our newsletter recaps the day for you met the halls of congress to daily press briefings to remarks from the president. scan the qr code to sign up for the email and stay up-to-date on

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the university law professor joins us for the discussion. we have now seen the warrant used for the search. what were your takeaways from reading the warrant? guest: there are two big takeaways i have. the first is there is a lot we do not know. it is worth underscoring that there is a lot of information to which the government is privy and none of us are. there is an affidavit that accompanied the warrant application that we have not seen and probably will not see any time soon. that will have even more information about what this is about, why the government was doing this. and the three criminal statutes listed on the warrant as the basis for the application of the search, these are 793 and 2071. the first is the espionage act, which is a misnomer. it is not about spy and, per se.

it is about mishandling of national security information. the second is not about class but information at all. it is about concealing or destroying information that is relevant to an ongoing government investigation. the third is about mishandling records that the president might lawfully have been entitled to at some point but that there are rules for how they can be handled. we still do not know a lot but what we do know suggests this is about more than just president trump keeping some papers he should not have been keeping at mar-a-lago. host: what is an affidavit versus a warrant? caller: with the government goes to a judge and asks for a search warrant, the judge wants to know the basis for the probable cause and the factual ground that led you to believe that the search is going to help uncover evidence of ongoing criminal

activity. those tend to be 5, 10, 15 pages, where usually fbi agent or other government officers swear under penalty of perjury before a judge all of these pieces of information that they are aware of. so we saw this happen or have reason to believe this happened and we were told this by someone close to former president trump. the actual basis for the warrant is still sealed because presumably includes a lot of sensitive information, information about ongoing law enforcement investigations. we do not tend to see the affidavit at this stage in the process, but that would have a lot of information to help us figure it was going on and how big of a problem this could be for former president trump. host: at what point in the process can we usually see affidavit? caller: it depends. there are contexts where we

never see it. if this goes to criminal proceeding, one thing a defendant would have a right to is to contest the factual basis for the warrant got named after a 1978 supreme court decision. it is possible there will be efforts by the justice department in conjunction with president trump's lawyers to have that unsealed even before we get that far because of obvious public interest. the three statutes that are cited give at least the appearance to outsiders that this is about more than just fear that president trump was keeping sensitive information at mar-a-lago in a way he should not have been. the one other piece that may not get enough attention is there has been reporting over the weekend about how this did not come out of the blue, about how this was in some respects the culmination of a multistep process where there had been a

subpoena for some materials, where apparently a lawyer for former president trump had represented to the government that all the requested materials had been turned over and government had reason to believe that was false. the folks who think we biden administration woke up one morning and said let's go read president trump, -- raid president trump, that is missing out on how detailed and back and forth the process appears to have been since january of this year. this seems to be the last moment where everything had broken down and president trump and his team were no longer cooperating. host: president trump's team has published said the former declassified all the documents -- publicly said the former president declassified all the documents at mar-a-lago before he left the white house. can he do that? host: -- caller: there are two things to

say before we get to that point. that is consistent with president trump's representation -- that is inconsistent with his -- the second point is the three statutes we talked about, none of those actually turn on the classification or declassification question. they do not care about whether the -- two do not care about whether the information's classified at all. it is worth stressing that even if this story were plausible, and i have my doubts, i do not think it solves the problem of the underlying allegations that led to the warrant given the statutes listed in the warrant. to the broader point about powers to declassify, there are two separate things that are true. the first is the president has

almost unfettered -- there is one exception, but almost unfettered authority to classify and declassify information. the exception is the atomic energy act of 1954, which requires approval of the department of energy for certain very sensitive national nuclear weapon related information. it is not like the president can just think to himself i have declassify the documents and thus it is so. there is a process the president is supposed to follow prescribed by an. president trump is free to override that executive order, or at least he was, but we need some kind of contemporaneous evidence that he did so, some kind of proof that there was a formal effort while he was president, when he had the power to do so, to actually declassify the documents. then if we go to the point where we say here is the memo that was

signed on january 15 got 2021, it is still remarkable that every single document the president took with him he was declassify and. at the end of the day, even if you do not see all the ways in which that ought not to be sufficient or persuasive, the best defense the president and his team seem to have is we just created a massive risk to our national security by declassify all this material that ought to be classified. host: we offer up the numbers for viewers to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001 -- independents, (202) 748-8002. stephen vladeck is with us until the end of our program today. you can easily find him on twitter and follow him. he has talked a lot about this subject over the past week or so .

one column today for you, a defense of what about-ism. alan dershowitz wrote a column taking a look at hillary clinton , noting that she was suspected of mis-handling confidential material by removing them from the national archives and transmitting them to a private email server while secretary of state. she was not subject to a search warrant or criminal prosecution. he said those who reject this comparison -- treating like cases alike is crucial to equal protection of the law. guest: it is funny how far people can fall. there are a couple of significant differences between what happened in the hillary clinton case and what happened here. secretary clinton cooperated with the request from the executive branch during the investigation. she turned over materials that were requested. people say she destroy these

emails. once she was asked for materials, she turned materials over. the same thing happened here where before last week there had been this behind-the-scenes process where the national archives and records administration were in an ongoing dialogue with president trump and his team to turn over material that president trump was suspected of wrongfully having taken with him. up until that point, this process mirrored the process for what happened with celery -- secretary clinton. where things broke down apparently is the president stopped cooperating and his lawyers apparently told the government something that was false, that he had turned over all materials when he had not. it is not enough to simply say at the superficial level these cases are the same. the cases are similar up to a point. part of what happened last week

is the cause that is because the patterns diverged. host: you're on with stephen vladeck. are you with us, jean? yet to stick by your phone if you want to join the conversation. this is nathan in brooklyn, democrat. good morning. caller: i am a democrat but i did not lose my mind. i have a civil question. the same people who let -- how should i call it? a whole new thing -- host: stephen vladeck on trusting law enforcement here. guest: to quote president

reagan, trust but verify. we have a process in cases big and small, and government investigations of former president's of the united states as well as folks going about their lives and keeping out of the news where the government goes to a neutral magistrate, says here is our evidence to believe there is probable cause that the target of the search is engaged in criminal activity and is up -- it is up to the neutral magistrate, to say i agree with you or i do not. if the judge agrees with you and grants a warrant and it turns out the warrant was wrong, based on misleading fact from the government, there are remedies for that. we ought to be able to separate whether president trump is entitled to contest the search with -- which nona sankey is not, and whether the search is at least on its face valid. our legal system is set up

entirely to handle that phenomenon, that process, where if there was a misleading statement come if there was misconduct by fbi officers involved, that can come out through the legal process. the possibility of that does not invalidate the search on its face. otherwise, no search would ever be valid. this is why we have a process. this is why the process needs to be followed. host: in michigan, this is iris, independent. caller: i am amazed there are people outside the government who understand how the government is supposed to operate. you would think it would be the attorney general, but how did they get past all that security at mar-a-lago that the former president is supposed to have around him? don't they have to show cause while they are there? there is so much protection

around former president's -- presidents. and paper cartons. i cannot believe the stuff would be stored in paper cartons, cardboard cartons. how are these people outside the -- how do these people outside the government know so much about how the government works? host: often they become constitutional law professors. i will let you pick it up. guest: or they describe themselves as constitutional law experts on twitter. i think it is worth underscoring the legal process that was followed in this case is not unusual. there is effort by president trump and his supporters to say the search is unprecedented. every search is at a specific level of factual detail. it would be unprecedented if the fbi searched my house, if they search yours. to the question, this was not

some kind of showoff -- showdown and standoff between the fbi and secret service. by all accounts, this was carefully coordinated where the fbi made it known to former president trump that it was going to execute a search. they coordinated with secret service and went on a day when they knew president trump would not be there to minimize disruption. in some respects, this is a courtesy that the average person on the street would not be shown by the fbi if they were subject to a search. we have to be careful to separate rhetoric surrounding all of this. there is always rhetoric when comes to president trump. by all accounts, at least so far, the fbi was by the book and went out of its way to accommodate former president trump. the fbi went out of its way to not make a public spectacle of

this and did not break this was happening until local reporters and the former president meet a big deal of it. -- made a big deal of it. that does not prove the legitimacy of the search but there are legal methods in place for former president trump to contest if something happened that was wrong. host: can we come back to declassification? if any current president wanted to for some reason declassify the current nuclear codes that control our nuclear weapons, can a president just do that? guest: the one limit is there is one constraint in the atomic energy act of 1954 that requires the approval of the department of energy for the declassification of certain information related to new clear technology. with the codes involved in that codicil -- what -- would the

codes fall in that codicil? a sitting president could declassify information in ways that were harmful to the national security of the united states. it is part of why we have a process for declassification. there was a significant case during the trump administration where some reporters and public interest groups sued president trump or the government, claiming that on careful public comments by president trump -- uncareful public comment by president trump had effectively declassified a secret cia program in syria because president trump had talked to some of the details of the program. therefore, the lawsuit alleged, he had declassified it. the federal appeals court said no. even presidents, when they declassify information, have to follow procedures. those are procedures presidents

have created. until those procedures are modified -- the short answer is yes. a sitting president can declassify almost anything, including stuff that would be terribly harmful to the united states, but he cannot just do it by thinking it. he cannot just do it by wishful -- he cannot do it after the fact. did president trump memorialize while he was president any of what he now claims were these standing orders and decisions to declassify apparently massive amounts of national security information? host: this is eva, republican. caller: i think all this last week -- trump's home was a diversion to get people not watching them trying to pass that big bill. i know nothing about declassify material, but people keep saying trump is not above the law.

i agree. but neither is he below the law. nobody else is below the law. we are all equal. people need to accrete -- quit hollering he is not above the law. host: where do you think he was treated unfairly? caller: i do not know anything about it. that is what i am saying. people say he is not about the law. nobody is above the law, no matter who you are. we all deserve to be treated the same. if there is some reason that guys with holding affidavit, i want to know what it is. guest: the affidavit is not been withheld. it is standard procedure in these cases for the affidavit to be sealed at least in part because the affidavit typically contains details about the investigation that the government does not want to

share with the target of the investigation until it goes to trial. that has nothing to do with president trump. that is standard procedure. to eva's point, no one is above the law, i look at's what president trump supporters -- at what president trump's supporters have been saying and i wish many of them listened to eva. that was the comment president nixon made to david frost that ended any chance of reviving his reputation, but here we are. no one should be below the law. i agree with you. the law in this case requires the government, when it has probable cause to believe someone has committed a crime, to go before a judge and say, here is our evidence. do you agree with us there is probable cause? if so, will you give us a warrant to search for the evidence we are looking for?

if anything about the search is true, it is that the fbi pleaded even more carefully than i would have for any other private citizen -- that it would have for any other private citizen. in negotiated with president trump and his team after months of a timid -- attempted accommodation. the notion that if this could happen to president trump it could happen to any of us is a red herring. what happened only happened after he stopped cooperating with the executive branch. it happened in the same way it is supposed to happen to all of us. if anything, with more kid gloves than the average person would receive if similar circumstances were present. host: this is richard in little rock, democrat. caller: i have a question about the 2018 to 2019 law that president trump signed.

it is somewhere in one of his executive orders saying it is a felony toward anyone who met sandals secret -- ms. handles mishandles -- mishandles secret sensitive documents. guest: there is a statute that was already on the books. if you google it, you will find it. it was already on the books before the trump administration. this makes it an offense to mishandle classified information even if you were lawfully entitled to have it. if you were the head of the cia and you bring hypersensitive documents home with you in a briefcase and do not store them correctly, you have violated the statute. president trump signed an amendment to this statute that increased the penalty.

so the statute had been either a serious misdemeanor or a moderate felony. the 2018 statute ramps up the potential penalty. now it is a maximum of five years per offense. what is interesting about this is this statute is not one of the ones listed on the search warrant. that is telling in two respects. first, it is a sign that the biden administration and justice department is trying to avoid any fight over whether information is properly classified or not because this statute, it would matter. second, there is a debate, an academic one, about whether the statute applies to the president himself as opposed to every other officer in the executive branch. the fact this statute is not in the -- in at all, says the doj is being careful. there were lying on statutes

where they would not have to rely on whether particular items were or were not declassified. that reinforces what appears to be the story so far, which is doj was treading lightly and going by the book versus this hyper politicized witchhunt been portrayed by president trump and his supporters. host: on googling these things and trying to understand them better, if you do that, 18 usc 1924, the number one result is the cornell law school legal information institute. is that a good place to go to try to understand these things? guest: the legal information institute is a service of the library at cornell university law school and provides up-to-date real-time text for the statutes. it is not an official store's --

source. people could also look at the government website. i have never found a discrepancy between how a statute is set out on the legal information institute, which is easier to read and access, so i use it for my own research. host: law.cornell.edu. about 20 minutes left with stephen vladeck this morning. ray, independent, good morning. caller: i had a question on the timing of the destruction of hillary's emails. a news article said those were subpoenaed before they were destroyed. she gave over everything she had once she started cooperating, but those were destroyed after they were subpoenaed. any comment? personal research rather than just a fact checker? guest: i do not remember the

exact timing of what happened with the secretary and her emails. i will say there is an important factual distinction between the allegations in that case and here. there was no suggestion, for example, and the hillary clinton case, that whatever happened with the emails was part of a delivered effort to obstruct justice. section 1519, one of the statutes listed on the warrant for president trump, was never invoked with hillary clinton. secretary clinton had never been president. she did not have the same statutory obligations to preserve records and information that president trump did and does under this post nixon statute. i understand the temptation for folks to say it look what did not happen with secretary clinton. it is worth stressing there are significant inferences at least

so far with what appears to have happened here and what happened in that case. host: to go over it one more time, that warrant seeking evidence of three potential violations of a section of the espionage act that makes it a crime to share national defense secret without authorization, a law against destroying or concealing documents to thwart an investigation, and a law against stealing, destroying, or mutilating government records. if a person is convicted of those things, what kind of penalties are we looking at? guest: this is a great question. it is one that is not getting enough attention. if you are the executive branch and your concern is the threat posed by president trump having these materials in his possession, presumably the search has obviated that threat and the recovery of those

materials has ended the problem at least in those respects. it is possible that even from the fbi's perspective this was about getting those materials back into safe custody and nothing further. it is possible this never goes any further. if it does, if we actually were to see a criminal indictment, all three of the statutes ring potentially serious implications. -- bring potentially serious application -- implications. they are at least felonies, which means you could face multiple years in prison. there is one cork with the third statute -- quirk with the third statute. that says someone convicted of violating it can be disqualified from holding federal office again. there is a debate among scholars as to whether that is something congress has the power to do outside of the context of insurrection, outside the context of section three of the

14th amend meant of the constitution -- amendment of the constitution. if you wanted to look at the worst-case scenario for president trump, it is bleak. i think this is at least in the short-term much more about the urgency of getting the stuff back into government custody. if there are going to be criminal charges coming down the pipe, maybe that is a downstream effect as opposed to the entire plan. host: 15 minutes left here with professor stephen vladeck. a reminder to viewers, at 10:00 a.m. eastern we will take you to an event taking a look at the fall of afghanistan, the u.s. exit of afghanistan one year later. congressman and veteran peter meyer -- peter meijer will be speaking at that event. you can go online and switch over to c-span.org and the free

c-span now video app. until then, your calls with fester vladek -- professor vladeck. this is anthony, a republican. caller: good morning, john. thank you for c-span. mr. vladeck, you're not an impartial voice on this. you definitely have a bias toward the prosecution of president trump. as you mentioned recently, this is all designed to keep president trump from running in 2024 because the democrats are absolutely frightened that he might come back and do the right thing by the country again. the liberal world order is set on their agenda and that is what they want to do. apparently you agree with that. you smeared professor durso which -- professor durso which -- professor allen -- the

magistrate that wrote this warrant or approved this warrant recused themselves in a similar lawsuit against hillary clinton. what made him think he can do this warrant now without looking unbiased? it is ridiculous. the democrats have no other option. they have tried for four years. they have changed warrants to get his campaign bugged. we do not trust the fbi anymore for a reason. host: you bring up a lot of issues. let me give professor vladeck a chance to respond. guest: first, you put a lot of words into my mouth that you did not say. someone a bias should actually quote them -- someone who accuses someone a bias should actually quote them. i am biased toward the notion that we have legal processes in this country. the processes are imperfect, but part of why they exist is so the

-- that folks like anthony and i cannot just say i am sure person x is guilty or person y is innocent. until or unless there's reason to believe this was not a by the book warrant where the government went to a magistrate and said we believe there is a crime, i'm inclined to suggest we should take it at face value and give president trump every possible opportunity to contest the warrant legally, which plenty of citizens do not have, and to see how it shakes out. the notion that anything the government does is presumptively invalid because i do not trust them is a world in which the government would not be able to do anything. we have to get back to being able to talk in this country about how our legal institutions exist in many respects to insulate us from our biases. if the notion is if they could do this to president trump they could do this to anyone, yes.

if anyone were to bring home lots of national security information they either were not entitled to possession or -- possessed or that were possessing a way that was not consistent legal requirements, i will go on record and say i would hope the government would investigate that just as the government did with hillary clinton. we have to be careful about just assuming that things are flawed because we support the target when we have legal processes to protect us from even our own worst impressions. host: how quick do expect this process to play out from here? guest: contrary to what the last caller said, i'm not sure the end game here is a criminal prosecution. i said the opposite. i think in short-term the real priority was getting information out of president trump's hands. in that respect, it appears to have succeeded. i do not know how fast this will move, if it moves at all.

i do not know if from the fbi's perspective the problem has been solved and there is no need to pursue president trump any further. that goes to the point of how we should be careful about assuming we know what everyone's motives and purposes are. there is a legal process that protects against being driven by our biases. we could know more this week. we could never hear about this from official sources again. to underscore the point, that is not uncommon for search warrants. there are hundreds, if not thousands, of search warrants executed across this country every year that never lead to criminal charges. that would have nothing necessarily to do with the fact that this warrant was for president trump. host: this is peggy in washington state cannot line for democrats. -- state, line for democrats. caller: i believe you are biased

toward the law and that is it. of the three crimes on the warrant, these were nuclear secrets and protected under the atomic energy act of 1946, 1954. there was -- he might have been able to identify cia case officers or agents under the intelligence act of 1980 two. this is dangerous. the fbi was there in january collecting 15 boxes and then went there in june under a grand jury subpoena and they had assurances that they had no more documents there that were of any significance. then they had to go back in august. that was only after there was an informant that contacted them. i am concerned with why would he

want this stuff in his presence? what was he going to do with this stuff? thank you. guest: i do not know. part of being careful about biases is been careful about assuming we know what someone's motives are. i do not know why president trump thought it was important to have this information in his possession. i am not sure what information was were how he was holding it. we can all agree there is more to this story than just the fbi waking up one day and saying, let's go get president trump. the more to the store suggests there was a monthly -- a lengthy cannot months long process to reach an accommodation with president trump. part of what triggered fbi involvement was the sense that the president or his lawyers had misrepresented what was turned

back to the government in june. i do not know what the motives are. the notion that it was biased for the government to keep investigating this, i would ask folks who believe that if they would feel the same way if the shoe were on the other foot. i like the comment about being biased toward the law. we have legal processes to sort out what happened here. that process should be allowed to run its course. host: rand paul's twitter page from over the weekend -- he wrote the espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters from world war i. he linked to a future freedom foundation effort to repeal the espionage act. any thoughts on that effort or the espionage act and its history? guest: in one sense, senator paul is right.

the espionage act is stunningly broad and how it is written. there are contexts in which it would make a crime for some of us to even read the new york times and not immediately burn our copy of it. i am one of those who has pushed congress since the mid to thousands to reform the espionage -- mid-2000's to reform the espionage act. a treats actual espionage -- it treats actual espionage is the same as retention. for those saying we should appeal the espionage act, some of us have been there for 15 years. the notion that this is a new thing is incorrect. on the point about the breadth of the espionage act, where folks like i have historically been troubled by the breadth of the statute is how it applies to

downstream recipients of national security information. for example, efforts to go after reporters who received national security leaks as opposed to leakers themselves. i am not sure this is that. president trump is not a leaker or a downstream recipients of national secure information. he was a government officer. he was in a position of being entrusted with this material. even for those who have raised concerns about the espionage act over the years, and i'm one of them, this is not as close to the margin of that statute as people might think compared to cases like wikileaks and edward snowden, where there were more sustained and legitimate concerns about the espionage act being used to prosecute those who were simply whistleblowers, those who were receiving information without actually being responsible for leaking it.

it is a complicated story, but i do not think it is as simple as we should repeal the entire statute. i doubt senator paul actually believes that and would think that classic espionage should not be a crime under u.s. law. the tricky part is the margins. host: just a couple minutes left with stephen vladeck and our program. mark is in kentucky, an independent. caller: you seem so ready to dismiss this as just fbi rates happen everyday, like -- raids happen every day, like it is a normal thing. why don't you talk about the legal process we have for presidents sending armed agents after a former president? there is no legal process there. why are you not saying this is a big deal for one president to send armed agents after another? this could send us down a bad

path. it is unprecedented. i do not know why you dismiss this. tell me five misdeeds of the fbi. guest: first, i do not think there's any evidence that president biden directly ordered or perhaps was aware in advance of this search. we said this already but i will say it again. it is unprecedented in the sense that it is unprecedented for the government to conduct a search of a former president's home but all searches are unprecedented. the question is rather whether, when you have a former president for whom there is probable cause to believe he has engaged or is continuing to engage in illegal activity, what is better for the rule of law, sitting on your hands or following the same procedures you would follow if it were any other member of our society?

it seems to me the world of folks who were convinced this was all a set up and all just president biden trying to get former president trump, the world they would prefer is a world where presidents are above the law. is that all presidents or just presidents for whom they voted? either way, that is not a stable system, especially not if it is only one direction. i do not think the fbi is perfect. i think the fbi is flawed. i have written at length especially in a national security context in which the fbi process for search warrants ought to be modified and how we ought to have broader remedies when government officers violate fourth amendment rights. that would extend to former president trump. the notion that we should sit on our hands because a person who is believed to have committed a crime used to be president of united states is a dangerous road to go down. i'm not sure it is a row these folks want to go down in general

as opposed to when it is just a president of the support. host: scott, arkansas, our last caller of the day. go ahead, scott. caller: please explain to the listeners why 30,000 subpoenaed emails were deleted and communication devices were smashed with hammers and then there was no repercussions for former secretary of state who -- hillary clinton. guest: this is the third time we have done this on this program. we have discussed what happened with secretary clinton. i understand there are folks who wish government had been more aggressive and potentially prosecuting her. it is ironic that these are many of the same folks who think the government should not have with president trump. at the end of the day, one of two things is true. either we live by the rule of law or of whoever is in charge

at the moment. it seems to me the rule of whoever is in charge at the moment is a rule that is going to hurt more people than it helps. the rule of law is going to have bruises along the way. is going to have mistakes and errors and misconduct, but we have legal processes for routing that out. and the notion that folks are comfortable saying i'm convinced this is fraudulent is deeply consistent with the 2020 election where many of the same folks were saying i think this is fraudulent even though every single legal process, whether it is true, has proved to the contrary. i am willing to defer to the notion that they are better situated to assess legitimacy of what the government is doing that uri at home. host: for more from the professor, you can find him

online, he is at university of texas school of law and we appreciate your time on washington journal. thank you. guest: thank you. host: that will do it for our program, we will be back here tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we will take your viewers to the center for strategic and international studies, on the one year and adversity -- when your anniversary of the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. stick around, that will begin shortly.

[no audio] >> we are waiting for the start of a conversation on the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan of year later. military veteran congressman peter meijer joins us for a panel to explore the consequent as of the withdrawal and the u.s. responsibilities to the afghan people. this is expected to start shortly live on c-span.

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[indiscernible] >> go ahead? ok, great. i'm dan and i hold the chair here at csis. we are having a conversation