president's speech will focus on what they are calling the battle for the soul of the nation. this comes two months ahead of the midterm elections. live coverage from outside the historic independence hall begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern on sees dan also of free mobile video app -- on c-span and also our free mobile video app in c-span.org. >> ahead of president biden's speech on democracy, house minority leader kevin mccarthy will speak in pennsylvania about the biden administration and the democratic party agenda. watch live at 5:45 p.m. eastern on c-span now, our free mobile video app. this evening, a virtual baptist old town hall including discussions about covid-19, gun violence and teacher shortages with education secretary mikal cardona andy cdc director dr. rochelle will and ski.

-- dr. rochelle walensky. host: daryl kimball is the executive director of the arms control association. you just celebrated six years, your -- 50 years, your group. guest: indeed, 1972 the arms control association was established to deal with problems related to the world's most dangerous weapons, namely nuclear weapons. the work continues. we have made a lot of progress over the last two decades to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to prevent the spread , working with governments and legislators. but the nuclear age is not over and there are a tremendous number of nuclear threats that we face today, which is why this conference that was held at the united nations on the nuclear nonproliferation treaty was such an important opportunity to address these issues. host: month-long negotiations were happening and according to

a news report, collapsed last week in new york, what happened? guest: this is the keystone agreement that concluded in 1968. the nuclear nonproliferation treaty that obligates countries to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons. nonnuclear states agreed not to produce nuclear weapons. the nuclear arms states. at the time there were five recognized. the u.s., u.k., france, china, and russia agreed to take steps to end the arms race and to negotiate to stand down and pursue disarmament. it also allows for the peaceful use of nuclear energy under safeguards and that was a big issue at this conference. that is why there was severe disagreement over who controls ukraine's nuclear power plant. a large number of countries wanted the conference to recognize that it is competent

ukrainian authorities who should be able to control the plant. at the very last hour, the russian delegation objected which meant that the whole meeting collapsed. they could not agree by consensus to the 35 page document. the purpose of these meetings is to reflect on what happens over the last five years. they take place every five years. to try to assess where things are to respect -- in respect to the obligations and to set out steps to advance the goals, like disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation. there was disagreement in those areas but no other countries were willing to block consensus but russia did. there was more that the countries agreed on then the disagree, although the ambition of the conference was relatively low. a lot of countries complained about that. that is because we faced some pretty severe problems with

competition between the u.s. and russia and china on nuclear weapons crises with the iran nuclear program still going on. north korea as well. and some of the treaties that

-- the u.s. delegation did a very good job of trying to bring countries together but there were a lot of differences. what happens with these documents as they are negotiating through the month is those items on the draft document that somebody objects to are usually dropped. it means that it is a least common denominator kind of document. but the united states and many other european countries were also intent to make it clear that russia's war against

ukraine has threatened some of the very foundations of this treaty. earlier this year as we all recall president putin threatened the use of nuclear weapons against any country that my entropy or -- interfere with the invasion of ukraine. one big issue is how to respond to that. there were innovations on that. the u.s., u.k. and france tried to distinguish between those threats which they called irresponsible threats and other kinds of threats of nuclear use that are important for maintaining nuclear deterrence. donnie clear states -- nonnuclear states to not agree with that. other issues that were under debate included the u.s., australia, u.k. deal to supply australia with nuclear powered

submarine technology. china was very concerned about that. there was compromise language reached on that. and the chinese were pushing -- under debate with the u.s.. they had failed -- supply australia with nuclear powered submarine technology and china was concerned about that. and the chinese were pushing back on any additional requirements for the united states to report on progress. and they are not interested in transparency. and they were referring to any calls for the end of production of physical material. which could be used to produce nuclear weapons.

and that is because the chinese are observing the option to increase the amount of material they have and weapons just to clear out that china is on the -- china is relative on building up their smaller arsenal around 300 nuclear weapons total. we might aaa bringing it closer -- not to the same size of the russian and u.s. arsenals. you -- >> what are your questions about the different countries and the pact in the u.s. strategy here. democrats, dial in at 202-748-8000. republicans at 202-748-8001. independence -- -- independents at 202-748-8002 and you can text that include your first name city and state at 202-748-8003. what is the situation with iran? show

? guest: as we sit here this morning, the -- day -- they are looking into a proposal for the two countries to return to the nuclear deal that president obama or other european powers negotiated to constrain the nuclear program to put rigorous inspections in place. they are very close to doing this, this is an important way to keep iran's nuclear technologies under watch to prevent them from being amassing enough material to produce a nuclear bomb. there are issues on the margins, iranians are concerned about. we will receive a response by the end of the week. there was a

nuclear nonproliferation treaty conference in new york but it is critical to the future because if iran's program continues apace we could see other countries hedging its bets and making preparations to give itself a nuclear weapons capability. it is very important that for many reasons to keep the program in check, and the best option we have in my view is to bring the deal back in place and i hope that the iranian leadership and president biden see the larger issues at stake and do not let this fall apart over side issues. host: is there a timeline for getting this done? guest: that is a good question, everybody has been saying it has to be in the next month but they have been saying that for months. it is an indication of how important it is to get two countries to content best to return to compliance and bring iran back within the strict limiir