tv Washington Journal 10202022 CSPAN October 20, 2022 7:00am-10:00am EDT
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announced yesterday a multistage plan for lowering gas prices. we will tell you those plans but in the first hour we invite you to tell us how gasoline prices are impacting her finances and budgets. here is how you can let us know. different lines today. if you make below $40,000, call and tell us how at (202) 748-8000. between 40 and $80,000, (202) 748-8001. and (202) 748-8002 if you make above $80,000. you can always text us your thoughts at (202) 748-8003, follows on facebook, twitter, and instagram. according to aaa taking a look at average prices the national average for regular is three dollars 80 three cents. that's what they are showing. it's down slightly. if you take a look also, yesterday's average was three dollars 85 cents a week ago. $3.91 a month ago.
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$3.67 a year ago this time. that price for regular unleaded gasoline to show you the fluctuation in those prices. if you go to the website of cnbc and take a look at how much inflation has factored into gasoline prices they have a list of things and how much costs have gone up because of inflation for all types of gasoline. the costs of inflationary rises, 18 point 2% according to cnbc and the information released from the labor department. you can check out more of that at the cnbc website. the topic of gas prices yesterday at the white house, planned by the biden administration. stabilizing gasoline prices including going to the strategic trillium reserve. joey garrison and others writing for usa today that he is releasing 15 million barrels of
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oil from the emergency reserve, completing the march directive to release 180 million barrels through the course of the year. you can see the full announcement on c-span. when it comes to gas prices and how it may be impacting your budget, call and let us know. if you make under 40,000, (202) 748-8000. 80,000 -- 40 to 80,000, (202) 748-8001. for those of you above 80,000, (202) 748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. one of the things the president talked about when it comes to consumer prices is the role that gas companies play. here's a portion of that yesterday. [video clip] >> profits at six of the largest producers of publicly traded oil companies were more than $70 billion. that's $70 billion in just one quarter, 90 days.
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70 billion. so far american oil companies are using the windfall of profits to buy back their own stock, passing the money on to their shareholders and not consumers. in fact in the first half of the year, those same companies spent $20 billion buying back their own stock. most importantly, buying back, their most significant buyback in almost a decade. it's great if you own a lot of stock in oil companies or are an executive at oil company. puts a lot of money in your pocket. that is how you get paid. but it's not the case for the vast majority of americans at the pump. here's another thing. when the costs of oil comes down, we should see the price of the gas station, at the pump, come down as well. that is how it is supposed to work but that is not what's happening. in the past two weeks the price
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of oil has fallen four dollars a barrel. thanks in large part of the steps we have taken this year it has fallen $40 a barrel since mid june. that's a 40% drop in the price of a barrel of oil. guess what? gas prices haven't fallen that much and it's not right. host: that's the president from yesterday. again, more of that available at our website and you can go to our app, c-span now. some of the factories factoring into higher gas prices, the rise of them, including production cuts or at least planned production cuts from opec and they also, according to the hill, refineries in the west and midwest. tell us how those prices are impacting her finances. you can text us at (202)
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748-8002. -- at (202) 748-8003. thanks for calling, wesley. caller: my perspective is that we need to start spending money on infrastructure and encourage people to take buses and trains and things instead of wasting money on gas. here in washington we have a variety of transportation options but people still use the major highways like i-5. i don't really have any pity for them. there is a commuter train. in my city there is a light rail they are building and buses like all over the place. so beside, if you don't like, in most areas there is at least a moderate amount of us coverage. public transportation isn't much cheaper than buying a car, paying insurance. granting it. i avoid those costs by using the
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bus. yeah i have to say next to a stranger but i get to where i need to go and i save a ton of money. host: do you have a sense of how much gasoline costs in tacoma? caller: not a clue, doesn't matter, don't pay attention. host: all right, tom, hagerstown, you are next up. caller: good morning, i'm 75, i have a small pension and am retired. i don't go out much anymore. i ride the bus a lot. i can get a pass. i have been riding the bus and i understand that opec, when they raised the price, it wasn't supposed to go into effect until november 1 but i passed two gas stations that mentioned opec was
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going to lower the price of gas from here in hagerstown going from -- it went up $.30 on the same day they mentioned it. that just seems like price gouging. raising that price of gas before the, before the, before they lowered their production. it doesn't make sense. that's two gas stations. both independent, going up 36 per gallon per day. just doesn't make sense to me. host: you said it -- you take the bus a lot. any sense for how much you pay for gas in maryland? caller: it had been down but it went up to three dollars 65 cents from $3.35 since opec made
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the announcement. host: when you look at the costs of taking the bus or driving, is because of gasoline a factor? caller: yes. $30 a month is a heck of a lot cheaper than driving the car. host: ok that was tom in maryland giving his perspective. let's hear from tim in alabama, talking about gasoline prices and the impact on finances. go ahead, you are next. caller: gas prices at my home, it fluctuates. it's been fluctuating. gas prices go up, they come down. it's just one of those things, you know?
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the same with food prices. they go up and they come down. the thing that worries me i guess is some of the other things that when you make changes, like in the rent for homes, or apartments or things like that, they don't come down. they come in they usually stay up. that's my, that's my talk on that. host: what is the price in alabama? caller: for gas right now? you pay between $3.31 and $3.40. host: if you are driving somewhere, driving a distance, do you make a determination by looking at gas prices or are there other factors that determine whether you are going to drive or not?
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caller: guest: well i have to drive to work every day. i can usually go to the bump and say here's $25 and i know that will fill it up or here's 20 and that will fill it up. i have always kept an eye on gas prices in how much it costs me to fill up, but like i say, it fluctuates. host: ok that's the alabama perspective. let's go to st. louis, missouri and steve with his perspective. caller: it's not affecting me. i'm retired, i'm 75. if i was still working, yes it would be affecting me. i notice my kids, it's really affecting them. you know, they are young. families. my neighbors in my division, i have noticed in talking to them
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that it is affecting them. two of them are in construction and they have to drive long distances. while it's not affecting me, i don't drive that much to be honest with you, but people around me, it is affecting them. gas around here is about three dollars 70 nine cents. you know, it's one of those deals. host: your kids, they are telling you how much they are paying or how much it affects their driving? what are they telling you? >> it's affecting their working, you know? filling up the tank wait a bit, getting to work. doing a little pleasure driving on the weekends, going out. like right now my daughter went out 80 miles from here to see the beautiful colors with the
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fall foliage coming in. she said gosh, dad, i used to take it for granted when gas was a little cheaper. costs me a few bucks just to go out to see that, you know. i guess everything is relative. like i said, it's not affecting me, but it does affect the people around me. host: gotcha. stephen st. louis giving us his perspective and you are welcome to give yours as well. if you make under $40,000, (202) 748-8000. 40 to 80, (202) 748-8001. above $80,000, (202) 748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. not long ago on this program we had the opportunity to talk with oil analyst stephen short, who studies oil and the perspective on oil.
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one of the things we talked about in the interview is the factors that go into determining prices of gasoline and oil. here is some of that perspective. [video clip] >> there are two factors around price and consumer behavior. one is price shock. we have had plenty of those beginning with the arab oil embargo, the iran-iraq war, the invasion of kuwait, the war on terrorism after 9/11. these have all been geopolitical events causing significant rises in price. the consumer was never able to respond significantly to these price shocks. they had to consume gasoline, had to drive to work, had to drive their kids to school and so forth. what we are seeing in this industry is the introduction of a second variable impacting consumer behavior, substitute.
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we have never had those before in the hydrocarbon economy. now we do with ev's. that has been compounded by what we saw during covid where workers can i work from home. if they are going back to the office they are not going back five days a week. they have that ability to now respond. opec and oil producers are sensitive to this. if you raise prices high enough, you tend to lose and will start to lose market share. now your customer can go elsewhere to get an alternative product that they have never had to. there's a fine balancing act that opec wants prices at a given level, a level that ensures their investment in future production will have a return, but they also want prices low enough where they don't segregate their customer base because once you lose a customer [no audio]
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>> three. host: if you want to see more of that interview, you can go to our website, c-span.org. that is where we archive everything from this program and you can find out more on that perspective on gasoline and oil production in the united states. some of you commenting on the twitter feed this morning, "we need to build a refinery, diesel is too high, it hits the bottom line too hard. stephen new mexico texting us saying that we all have no options in that with driving a car it's a four dollars 59 cents a gallon and it never went below $3.99 and he has -- he adds that we have no support from the government. the biden administration yesterday announcing plans to stabilize gas prices. you can find out more from yesterday if you want to find more on the talk on that. let's hear from mark in
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jamestown, maryland or north dakota, i should say. mark, hello, you are next. caller: how y'all doing? host: fine, go ahead. caller: i say it's impacting us pretty good. i drive a pickup truck and in the last three weeks i have seen diesel go from $4.59 to $4.99 and now it jumped up to $5.35. i mean right now i don't drive a lot, shoot who can afford it. i just retired last year and barely make over $30,000. host: when it comes to the habit where you say you don't drive a lot, did you drive more before that or just driving is a thing you stop altogether? caller: well yeah, i used to take little fishing trips here and there. i got several lakes here close
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that i don't even go to anymore because i cannot of board the price of fuel. you know? i want to point out also that with the price of diesel it affects everything in the united states. everybody gripes about inflation. everything goes back to diesel. the farmers, they plant, the harvests, the trucking is done by diesel. shipping, it's all diesel. host: when it comes to diesel, why do you drive that instead of a gasoline powered truck? caller: it goes back to my retirement. i was looking at doing some traveling around the country, me and the wife, you know. i got an rv and i got a diesel to pull the rv and all of a sudden with the pandemic everybody decided they wanted to buy rvs. prices on rv campsites went up.
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way, way more than what they should be. i mean places where you can get a campsite for $450 a month, jumped up to $800 a month. i mean what can you do? you can't travel that. with the price of diesel, even back then at $4.50 a gallon, you travel. you get eight miles to the gallon, you know, towing a 12,000 pound trailer. you can't go very far. host: mark in north dakota giving us his perspective as a diesel driver there. steve, south carolina. north charleston. caller: good morning, pedro. pedro, i tell you, i'm not going to smart alec, don't take this wrong, the question kind of answers itself. i don't see how it doesn't impact everybody's finances to
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some degree. maybe a better question is how it impacts your lifestyle. i worked in logistics for years and years. gas prices impact every business on the planet. every industry, every small business. they rolled the prices into goods and services we have to pay. the dollar menu is now the one dollar 20 nine cents menu. it's not hard to figure out. it's just obvious. it impacts our finances. maybe some are hurting more than others and don't do as much, but you can't escape gas prices. they just roll into everything. anybody that uses fuel in the industry has to make up the difference as they pass the costs on to the customers. simple as that. host: the lifestyle thing is good, thanks for pointing that out. viewers, you can stick -- you
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can take steve's queue if you want to talk about finances, specifically you can do that as you talk about how gas prices are impacting your lifestyle. feel free to do that. lodi, california. sheila, hi caller:. we -- hi. caller: we use to be a two vehicle household, truck at a gasket as -- gas guzzling economic car. now the truck stays in the driveway and i have no vehicle to get to where i want to go for whatever i want to do. my husband is a fisherman and it has impacted how many times he can go out and fish in a month. that is how it has impacted us. it's ridiculous.
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all of this is just ridiculous. so anyway, that's all i have to say. host: california i know has some of the highest prices in the united states. what is the costs per gallon where you are? caller: it's close to seven dollars. i haven't been out in a while to actually see. remember, california has designer gas. they do all this weird stuff with it that makes it more expensive. i think that $1.20 is taxes per gallon. yeah. host: not long ago your governor sent out a tweet pointing out that oil and gas companies as far as gouging, making claims of gouging by these companies, what do you think of that argument from your governor? caller: i don't agree with him.
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i know that gas prices to an actual gas station owner, they make very little money. off of what they are doing. so you know, i don't agree with him. i think he's just, just campaigning. host: sheila, they're in lodi, california. let's hear from karen. caller: i wanted to let you know i'm a single woman, retired and on a income below 4k. 40 k, i should say. it has really impacted my lifestyle because usually i would be traveling up north but a bit. my sister had a condo up there and we would travel back and worth. but now under trump i was only paying like $25 to fill up my
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tank, suv, i usually drive suvs. paying $25, under trump. now it's double that. i filled my gas tank for $52. it has kind of curtailed my lifestyle as far as traveling up north more often. hilton head, i cancel a condo there that i was going to do for a month but with gas prices the way they are, it's just too much. it's compounded by the food prices i'm paying now and everything else. it's just really, it's really affected my lifestyle by quite a bit. host: if i may ask, what kind of car do you drive and would you consider changing your car to accommodate for high gas prices? caller: i lease my cars and i
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have been driving and equinox in a blazer so right now i'm driving a blazer so yeah it's kind of difficult to switch over when you are leasing. so yeah. and, and my lease has just come up recently. and with the vehicles out there on the lots, it was really difficult to find really a car that would be more gas efficient so to speak. and i choose to drive a larger vehicle because when i was up north i had a small vehicle and a deer came out in front of me and totally wiped out my car. host: wow. caller: because of that also i like to drive a larger vehicle. host: gotcha. i queue for your perspective, really appreciate it, for those of you giving us talking about that impact on gasoline prices, on your finances.
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steve calling us before. on your lifestyle, roll that in if you wish. on the line from california, we have a viewers saying it's not only the increasing gas prices that has destabilized the financial situation but the increase in costs on everything. no discretionary spending anymore and that when it comes to the political aspects, voters punishing the democrats if it doesn't stabilize. noel, or noel, apologies if i have said it wrong. it's broken my bank. the costs of gas here is lower than other developed countries. major public cities should -- major cities should enhance public transportation and get away from saudi oil spending. you can comment in a variety of ways. our facebook pages -- pages facebook.com/c-span, twitter is
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@cspanwj, you can text us at (202) 748-8003 or call in the lines. stephen, hello. santa barbara. caller: i use premium gas, subaru. it's about $6.29. it's come down $.20 to $.30 since the governor, instead of waiting until november 1 decided to use the regular blend instead of the summer blend. that's one of the reasons why gas prices are quite a bit more because we have to use the special less polluting gas. also i want to point out, i have talked to several gas station owners. the interesting thing is that they make money, more money, when prices come down then when they come up. the reason for that is because
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when gas prices go up, they go up 10, 20, 30, 40, $.50 when you blink your eye. then they come down a penny. so, their margins are higher when the prices come down. i don't know of any other business offhand that that's the case. host: steve, how often do you drive per week would you say? caller: i'm driving a couple of hundred miles. the one thing i would point out about a lot of the country is that gas prices, the national average i saw the other day, three dollars 90 something. when i look compared to inflation, that's spot on. that's exactly what the price of gas should be with adjusted for inflation. in california where you add two dollars to it and then that close that, it has nothing to do with inflation.
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that takes it above and beyond, you know, anything else. because supposedly we have, i'm guessing, 18 refineries and or whatever reason they all go out at the same time or they all get repaired at the same time. so there is something amiss where they are not working together. you can call it that everyone, but it is a way to keep the prices high. host: that was stephen california talking about the national average. $3.83, slightly lower than the day before. aaa also calculates bistate. you can take a look at the average price of gasoline there, if you want to go to the website. yesterday at the white house the president of the united states talked about the plan to use the strategic petroleum reserve in an effort to stabilize gas prices. here is some of that proposal from president biden. @cspanwj --[video clip]
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today the united -- >> today the united states is one of the largest producers of petroleum products in the world. exporting more than we import. i heard from oil companies that they are worried that investing in additional oil today will in the case of demand going down in the future, they will not be able to sell their oil products at a competitive price later. but we have a solution for that. today i'm announcing a man to refill the strategic petroleum oil reserve in the years ahead at a profit for taxpayers. the united states government will purchase oil to refill the strategic petroleum reserve when prices fall to $70 a barrel. meeting oil companies can invest to ramp up production now with confidence that they will be able to sell their oil to us at that price in the future, $70. refining and refilling the reserve at $70 a barrel is a
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good price for companies and a good price for taxpayers and it is critical to our national security. to put it in context, since march the average price of oil has been $90 a barrel. the highest since 2014. by selling from the strategic petroleum reserve and then refilling it in the future at a lower price, around $70, it will actually make money for the taxpayers, lower the price of gas and help bolster production while totally consistent with my commitment to accelerate the transition to clean energy. my message to oil companies is -- you are sitting on record profits. we are giving you more certainty. you can act to increase oil production now. host: president biden, yesterday. you can viewed on the c-span now
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app. yesterday's announcement garnered reaction from republicans, senator mike kelly from pennsylvania, sang cousin biden has defeated the strategic reserve -- depleted the strategic reserve and gimmicks cannot solve energy policy. steve scalise on the house side, the whip saying that biden is sitting on applications to drill. gas prices are sky high. let that sink in. the administration doesn't care about your suffering. and then discussion on the increase for heating fuel, looking at october through march, putting natural gas on heating oil, propane, 05% according to the energy information agency. go to the eia.gov website and it talks about the current
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tradition around strategic oil with crude oil ending october the 14th, 4000 barrels there in the supply. it charts how much that fluctuated starting before 1985 if you want to get a wide scope of the spr and how much it is built. go to the ia.gov for that. jay in salem, pennsylvania. caller: how are you? host: well, yourself? caller: good. just listening along here. i want to make a point, my wife and i, we both make a good living. both above the 80,000 mark, but it impacts everyone. it impacts us as well. you know, heating oil prices, gas prices, food prices,
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electricity, it's all gone up across the board. salaries haven't gone up. something that people need to consider up there. the other thing is, at this stage in our lives, we are looking at, you know, we have a son going to college in a year and a half in fear getting to the point where we would like to eventually retire obviously also after being in the work force for well over 30 plus years. with the situation going on right now even if you make a good living, it's given pause. making you think, can i retire, do i have to hold off a bit longer on my plans? we were looking for a new car for my wife. we have put those plans on hold. just until prices kind of level out with cars and everything else. so i think it's just impacting
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everyone. host: can you give us an idea on spending? caller: in my area right now is $3.99 or more. the heating oil has jumped at least by 150 or more per month. the food costs finally at $150 a month. it's just been significant. host: that was jay in pennsylvania giving us that perspective as far as gasoline, expanding into energy costs. baltimore, maryland and keith, high. -- hi. caller: i'm not here to talk about the public with the supermarkets. the public facing and all that. host: go ahead, keep going. caller: they more concerned
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about democracy. republicans don't really have a plan to talk about. you know, it's a pain at the pump. they talk about a bunch of bs, to be honest with you. democracy, if they get power, the best -- gas prices will be the least of your problems. as far as i'm concerned, it doesn't bother me. host: what are you paying there? caller: it's about three something. you know, three something a gallon. it's not too bad, you know what i mean? i'm saying democracy is the problem. people, if you don't have a democracy? i mean you are going to wish, if they screw that up, you will wish, your problems at the pump. host: let's go to davis in
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flint, michigan. caller: how are you, pedro? host: fine. caller: that's good. the last caller at my son. i retire, but i got a part-time job because i was bored. the gas prices haven't hurt me one bit. i have two cars, cts cadillac and equinox. i don't make a lot but i know how to manage my money. one of the things i wish is that in high school they would start teaching as a part of the graduation teaching people how to balance their money. be within their means. if people start living within their means, if chicken and hamburger get to be too high, find a way to the stores with the sales on. different things we can do.
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i love the united states, i'm worried about democracy. certain people on the right, in a certain party, they get in and change the rules and lock the voting for my people, the black people and this stuff, i'm worried about this. host: you have a cadillac and and equinox. what do you pay to fill those things up? caller: i've never let mine get below half a tank, i don't know what it costs to fill up. i don't let mine get below half a tank. it costs a little more but i don't really feel it. i watch c-span everyday and i hear the callers calling in and they can think and complain. well maybe you living in too
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rich and neighborhood for your money. maybe you need to move to another state that's cheaper to live in. a state that's cheaper to live in then these expensive states. maybe they should move. host: anger in dallas, texas, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. this is all they bait and switch . over the years republicans are in bed with the saudi's. every time they want to make americans angry, look to the republicans for an answer. they play with that gas prices. they play with energy and taxes. we had a whole energy crisis. home bills for heating are higher now. no one is looking into why we are paying so much for our home prices and why they haven't fixed the grid. that's before we come up on the midterms where gas prices start
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going up and saudi arabia is stabbing us in the back. we know that they were in bed with trump. the saudi's like the republicans. because they don't want to save the environment. they don't want to regulate and do things that will give us an advantage over the long term. right now before the midterms they hike up the gas prices to try to make the democrats look bad. we don't have any control over these gas prices in these oil-producing countries. making a promise to buy gas in advance to lower the prices. as americans we need to stop americans as republicans going back to when we had the economic, the gas prices that was what president was that out
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of, jimmy's, out of california when you had the governors, the republican governors that took down all of the doggone electricity out in california to try to make it look bad for the democrat who was the governor at that time. host: ok. caller: they play with our energy and gas prices when it is convenient for them to get back into the office. host: the plan for the strategic petroleum reserve yesterday, kevin cramer in north dakota, he on foxbusiness talking to a former trump administration official about these issues, larry kudlow. here's a portion of that from yesterday. [video clip] >> bad enough that he depleted half this thing, bad enough that he's mistreating saudi's. i don't love them but they are not to blame for all of this.
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what if you get another opec embargo. furthermore kevin, how are they going to buy it back? $100? no cheap way to buy it back. caller: on that point -- >> on that point alone, it's bizarre. you were there, i was with you when donald trump filled the petroleum reserve with $30 per barrel oil and he did that to help keep our domestic energy sector afloat during the pandemic when the saudi's drove the price to negative. $30. joe biden is talking about replenishing after all of this draining and replenishing it at $80 a barrel. i'm not great at math but i'm pretty sure that's an upside down business decision. your other point, right, the embargo, what if it ever happens again? even if it did happen, this is why we should drill more in the
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united states. we live in a time of oil abundance and not oil scarcity. the embargo of 1973, and i don't need to get overly theological on you, it was because our arab neighbors attacked are very good friends, israel, with the help of syria and none other than the ussr, the soviet union, so here we go again. the difference being that as a weapon of war, oil is now abundant in the united saints, not scarce like was back then. this is wrong on so many levels from a policy perspective. it's hard to imagine what the president is thinking if he is thinking at all. host: democratic legislators commenting yesterday on the president's plan, saying it's the right move at the right time given the opec complicity in fueling the vladimir putin war
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machine. cleaver says that gas prices have continued to fall over the past two weeks but the president isn't finished working to provide additional leaf at the pump. wherever possible keeping working to lower costs for american families. representative colon in new jersey saying that by squeezing the oil market, opec plus is raising the gas prices and i commend the president for raising, the people of america can't afford this and the president and his team continues to fundamentally not understand markets, telling american energy companies they won't need it for 10 years. some comments today off the twitter feed when it comes to the president's plan. this is from south carolina and charleston. phil, hello. caller: how you doing this morning? i like that you put the add-on
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about the oil. joe biden buying a back at $75 a barrel when four years ago the democrats work dead against donald trump buying oil to build up the reserve. $25 a barrel, not $70 a barrel. one quick question, you spoke to a young lady earlier who said she wanted to go to south carolina and what it is an suv and you brought up the fact that maybe you should buy a different?. ok? host: i asked her she considered it. not necessarily my suggestion that she should. ok, sorry about that, sorry about that. do you have a suggestion for the rest of us? i'm a construction worker. we have to drive trucks, you know? to come to y'all houses and fix your homes, you mean, i mean, you know, doing what everybody has done? we have to buy pickup trucks.
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we can't buy a smaller vehicle. that's impossible. what's your suggestion for us on gas? host: how much are you paying for gas there? caller: right now it's $3.69 a gallon. it costs $130 to fill my truck and i have to do it twice a week . that's $1000 a month that i pay for gasoline now. when donald trump was in office my average price for gasoline was $400 a month. host: now we go to jean in ohio. you are next. caller: good morning. i have heard a lot of people that get upset about gas prices. even before this. i have to say it hasn't affected me very much. i'm aware of the gas price changes. my concerns when i hear this is oil. where's this reserve held? where are all these things?
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so much of what we get is blaming different people for it like the last caller, blamed the democrats. who do you blame? the saudi's? oil is a cartel. there's not much we can do about that. host: north carolina, saulsberry, hello. caller: i have a couple of points i want to make. republicans are about obstruction. they don't want to help fight. -- biden. why don't they get together and do something about this oil. people want to drive suvs and complain about how much gas costs? inflation is inflation. we were doing fine. it's what, 8.7%? england has triple that, 30% inflation. what we need to do is stop the transfer of our military
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equipment. that will hurt the saudi's. everyone hollering about trump, trump had it going good. look at everything else he did. hurt the country. these people complaining about gas, we are not living in 1972, expecting 89 sent gas. it's 2022. gas is going to costs more. if they stop buying these big trucks with eight wheels running through town wasting gas and then complaining they don't have enough gas to get to work. maybe they need to start buying these corollas and save gas. don't they know we are at war with the saudi's? host: the previous caller made a point about driving a truck for work, something he couldn't make it out of. he had to do that for his job. what do you make of that? caller: i understand that and he has a valid point. he needs the suv, a truck, in
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order to maintain his life's way of living with his wife and three kids, i understand that. you have single people out here driving these big ass, excuse me, big gas guzzlers, and they complain about gas. for that yesterday on the news saying i'm not going to tell you what our plans are. they have no plans. they want to complain about what biden is doing. if he didn't release our reserves, what did they think one gallon of gas would go up to next week? and then they say you can find another solution? what solution? they are not giving us options. they want to complain so they can take over the house and senate and like caller said, then we are in trouble. one gallon of milk at four dollars now? when republicans get in, they will stop the programs that help. host: we will keep it to that.
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yesterday the president was asked if the decision to tap the strategic petroleum reserve had political implications in the lead up to the midterms. here is part of the presidential response from yesterday. [video clip] >> what about this response that you are only doing this to help out in the midterms? >> where had they been for the last four months? that's my response. >> is it politically motivated for the midterms? >> no, it's not. i've been doing this for how long now? politically motivated at all. it's motivated to make sure that i'm continuing to push on but i have been pushing on, making sure that there's enough oil that is being pumped by the company's so we have the ability to produce enough gas that we have here at home, oil that we have here at home and at the same time keep moving in the direction of providing alternative energy.
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that's what i have been doing. if these guys were asleep, i don't know where they have been. they are trying to reflect what a barrel of oil costs and it isn't going down consistently. host: the biden administration awarding grants for factories in the united states for battery operated car factory. georgia, you are next. caller: this has affected my husband and myself to a minimal degree. we are retired. my husband is recovering from a stroke. our primary concerns are medical bills. in future. thank god we don't have any right now. we were considering getting an
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suv to transport his scooter. we have decided to not do that right now. i purchased a wheelchair for him that i can pick up and fold and put in the trunk of our toyota corolla. and we are going to just maintain with that. we can go where ever we need to go with that. i was considering some kind of premium gas -- i just want one more thing, have any of your experts determine how these companies get their profits? because i think we all need to take a bit of a punishment here. host: that's a good question and
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if you go, have the ability to go to the website, we have had, not long ago, a few months ago we had the head of the u.s. oil and gas association on and one of the topics was how gas is determined and he talked about the perspective he brings to it and if you go to the website you can find the information there. a lot of other perspectives there as well. best to you and your family as your husband recovers. caller: thank you, thank you. host: let's hear from alabama. good morning. [echo] go ahead. >> thank you, thank you. [echo] host: we are going to put you on hold there and while you are doing that, turn down your television, that keeps the feedback from happening. georgia is next, fayetteville --
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george's next, fayetteville. caller: good morning. gas prices and everything we deal with going to inflation is going to be a challenge. i drive a truck. when we first ran into this inflation and prices went up, there was an ouch moment i made adjustments. once you make adjustments, you don't feel, you are not dealing with that problem anymore. it's not going to go away. we cannot wave a magic wand and gas prices suddenly go to $.20 a gallon, so you have to make adjustments like anything else you do in managing or household. lastly, the back-and-forth between democrats and republicans, we are americans and we to start acting like americans and unite our country. as opposed to going against one another. host: what adjustments did you
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make? caller: i drove less. i did things i needed to do. i made all my movements in one outing as opposed to back-and-forth. you make adjustments to accommodate your gas tank. i have a 26 gallon gas tank, ok? i can survive off of that for two weeks if not longer if i manage my routes, take my time and strategically plan how to use my vehicle. host: franklin in connecticut, you are next in berlin. hello, you are. caller: hello, pedro. good morning morning, good morning. two points. it doesn't affect me much at all, i'm retired and i just drive around town but remember some years ago when the gas problem was on they made us drive a 55 mile per hour limit to conserve gas. that was one thing. another thing, listening to my
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friends all day complain about gas constantly and drive big lexuses and they wait in a starbucks line idling their car for 10 to 15 minutes to pay 10 to $12 for a cup of coffee, get tired of that after a while. that's all i have to say. i'm glad i got through finally after all these calls, pedro. thanks for taking my call. host: sally is next in coppell, texas. caller: good morning to you. gas prices definitely, i'm a licensed escrow officer in the state of texas with the department of insurance and i have been doing this for 20 years, irking at home for almost three years since the shutdown of the pandemic. however i got laid off my job two months ago due to the rising interest rates on home
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mortgages. so i'm hoping i can get another job working from home but before the pandemic i was probably spending about $10 a week on toll tags. texas has the highest costs per mile on toll roads. with the gas i have a small car. however, it is a high compression engine so i need to get the supreme unleaded with my rent increase by 15%, that right there is about a $200 increase. with when i start working again hopefully soon with the toll tax and average gas, that's going to be an additional hundred dollars per week. that's $400 a month. plus the additional $200 a month on rent. i'm not even counting utility food because. that's $600 a month increase.
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that's significant. that's more than 50% of my rent. i don't see my industry giving me a raise enough to offset those expenses. i mean, i applaud biden, i'm single, thank you for the $900 increase income in the taxes liability, but you know we aren't going to see that until next year or until we file taxes for the 2023 tax year. we need help now. we really need that. $600 a month is if it can. that's not sustainable and i know there are others in the country who are worse off. host: massachusetts, north attleboro. helen, hello. caller: how are you? host: fine, thank you.
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caller: with regards to how we are doing changing our driving and our way of driving, we make sure the air pressure is appropriate, turning on lights, closing windows when it's old, adjusting the thermostat accordingly. i want to make sure the people are aware. i have three kids in college right now. we pay a lot of money. i look at what happened during pandemic when prices were low. yet they were comparing prices to when no one was going anywhere, no manufacturing. of course prices went down. now you are working on a different trajectory, doing better and working. these things that affect worldwide markets, there is little to nothing biden can do short of what he has already done to offset what opec has done to help when putin is
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creating a war and there are tons of permits in the country that are not even being drilled currently. oil companies don't even pay taxes and meanwhile the average person like me with three kids in college, there has got to be, people, please wake up and realize. is he perfect? no. he's working to get people what they need to try to undo a lot of stupid from the previous administration. host: chicago. she kind of stole my thunder. people forgot in 2020 there was a pandemic, no one was driving, so the gas was low. when the pandemic was over they had embargoes on everything so everything went up. host: james in chicago finishing off this hour of calls on gas
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prices and how it is impacting you. thank you to all of you. first up we will hear from the authors of a new book, rachel bade and karoun demirjian talking about their new book talking about behind the scenes events of both impeachment hearings of donald trump. later on, for burke trump budget official russ vought will discuss the current president's economic and national security policies. those conversations coming up. ♪ >> book tv. every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing e latest nonfiction books. rafael manuel shares his book
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criminal injustice where he argues defunding the police and introducing more leniencyould disproportionately harm black and brn americans. that at 10:00 on afterwards, an activist looks at the relationship between black voters and the democratic party with her book black skinhead, reflections on blackness and our political future. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find the full schedule on our program gde. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. a pouring -- the people and events that tell the american story. your college professor jaclyn beatty talks about women's rights and changing political power in the american revolution
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and the early years of the republic. at 9:30 on the presidency, for 13 days in october of 1962 the u.s. faced the threat of nuclear war with the soviet union and the cuban missile crisis. using tapes from president kennedy the university of virginia's mark silverstone details the players. saturdays on c-span2. find a full schedule on our program guide at c-span.org/history. >> middle and high school students, it is your time to shine. you are invited to participate in this year's studentcam documentary competition. picture yourself as a newly elected member of congress. we asked this year's competitors , what is your top priority and why? make a five to six minute video
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>> "washington journal" continues. host: we are taking a look back at both impeachment hearings for president with authors of a new book. rachel bade is the co-author of the botched impeachment of donald trump. she is joined by karoun demirjian. thank you for joining us. rachel, why the need for this kind of book? guest: she and i felt the first impeachment was moving fast. we were spending 15 hours a day covering the first impeachment and it felt like we were in such a historic moment because impeachments are rare but it was moving so quickly and we were hearing a lot of very different vibes behind the scenes than we were seeing discussed publicly. democrats were second-guessing the strategy the speaker had
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laid out and would not say so on the record. republicans who had private concerns about trump's misconduct and fell in line with the president regardless. we wanted to reinterview all of our sources and ask questions about was impeachment really as inevitable -- was the acquittal as inevitable as everyone seems to think it is? what were these behind the scenes stories we were hearing little bits of? host: what kind of reaction did you get? ? guest: a lot of people were waiting to ask the questions we asked them. they wanted to spill their guts to us with the frustrations they had with their own leadership's,
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with themselves, things they would've done differently, and we started to notice this was not just up partisan fight, but there were real questions inside each party about had we done this wrong, had we compromise the strength of letter legislative ranch because of the choices we make, because of the political time we were in and where has that left us for the next time? there was a next time right after the first time but even more so. a lot of people look at it is a chance to correct what has gone long -- gone wrong but politics took over again and that we have two the four impeachment precedents have never been character fruition, establishing this model where corners were caught and things were left on the cutting room floor and the result is the result for both the president that was acquitted and the tool they have. is it a constitutionally strong failsafe or is it a political
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weapon to express your frustration with the guy the oval office. : you both righth you discovered political calculations, not fact-finding, dominated ery decision of nancy pelosi's impeachment so democrats were sounding dire warnings that -- while some democrats said they wanted bipartisanship when presented with ways to achieve it they chose the opposite. let's start with the first part, political calculation. guest: nancy pelosi came of age as a leader in her party during the clinton impeachment years. that experience was a lesson impeachment can low back on the impeach or. clinton's approval ratings went up. she knew it could be a boomerang. as the call to her party begin for impeachment, which frankly began when trump became president but accelerated after the robert mueller report came
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out, she tried to stamp it out. we document these rivalries, these behind the scenes moment where nancy pelosi and jerry nadler are at loggerheads because he's trying to get courts to release the redacted robert mueller report information. he is saying we are looking at impeachment. she is saying we will never do this. we document how jamie raskin is leading the prosecution was a central force from day one of the first impeachment behind the scenes, trying to say we have to impeach on the mueller report. now they are saying if you want to do that you will have to orchestrate a mutiny from within so nancy pelosi cannot say no. that being the first nine months of 2019 was the speaker slowly having to capitulate to this force within her party, but never wanted to do so, and even after she embraced impeachment never being locked and loaded. guest: you cannot overstate how
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much nancy pelosi's fear of impeachment influenced not only the first nine months after democrats took the house, but also the full strategy she employed in the first impeachment. after she was pushed into embracing impeachment, which is something we write about in the book, it was very reluctant. she did not want to do it and got cornered by her own party via these mutinies and various events we can talk in more detail about later. after that she put the impeachment on a short timeline and said she wanted everything done by christmas so her front liners in these trump district could pivot back to talking about pocketbook issues and other legislative wins. she saw impeachment as a distraction and that would blow back on these moderate members. she wanted it done quickly and that also meant sidelining investigative threats wanted to pull. campaign finance violations.
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from paying off women who he allegedly had affairs with in 2016. the abuse of power to build his border wall and use of pardons to build his border wall. jamie raskin was pushing for democrats to look at emoluments violation, this notion you cannot profit off of the presidency. we all know trump did not divest from his company and was making a lot of money from taxpayer dollars and people who wanted to curry favor with him by staying at his hotels. because of this fear, pelosi did a very quick impeachment, a very narrow impeachment, and ultimately we saw trump emerge stronger. his poll numbers in gallup where the highest since they had ever been common after that nancy pelosi said no more trump investigation, and eventually we
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end up with january 6. guest: i was about to say that is just the first impeachment. the really striking thing, one of the most striking moments is even after january 6, we see the assault on the capital, we saw the videos come out of what speaker pelosi was doing behind the scenes at fort mcnair. she had an opportunity that night. she is talking about how i will trump -- i will punch trump out. that is a couple hours later. one of the rabble-rousers of the first impeachment says i wrote articles of impeachment and put them on the floor tonight while the iron is hot, while the republicans are angry, before they were chance to think, and she says no thank you. it takes her days before she is willing to embrace that. the fear of impeachment is so deep-seated with nancy pelosi
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that even after her assault on the capital she is not willing. she talks about her right hook but not about the chance she has to take advantage of the moment. these are some of the shocking and potentially tragic moments we document where but for a little bit more of an attitude shift, history might have changed. guest: -- host: joining us about their book unchecked, the story behind congress is botched impeachment of donald trump. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats and (202) 748-8002 for independents. march 23, 2019. here is nancy pelosi being asked about impeachment. [video clip] >> the president's behavior in terms of his obstruction of justice, the things he is doing cannot be denied.
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these could be impeachable offenses. i intend -- three things. we want to follow the facts to get the truth to the american people with the recognition that no one is above the law and that the president is engaged in a cover-up. how we deal with it is a decision our caucus makes and our caucus is saying whatever we do, we need to be ready when we do it. i think impeachment is very divisive place to go in our country and when we can get the facts to the american people through our investigation it may take us to a place that is unavoidable in terms of impeachment or not, but we are not at that place.
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host: that is early in 2019. what changes her mind? guest: she says no one is above the law. she said it all the time in the trump era. just days after this video took place, in june 2019 she saw classified evidence in the basement of the capital that showed maulers investigators thought trump perjured himself. we knew about the mueller report and obstruction of justice, but there was one more piece not in the public document that was released that nancy pelosi knew about and still worked hard to keep the impeachment down. as for what changed her mind, she knows how to count. the reason she has been leader so long and has an iron grip on her caucus she knows when the wind is changing and she cannot fight it anymore. when the revelations came out that trump had tried to strong-arm ukraine with taxpayer money to investigate his
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clinical adversaries, there was a band of these front-line members in moderate districts, members she had been trying to protect the whole year, they had national security backgrounds, bronze stars, cia, fbi. they decided to write an op-ed saying it is time to impeach. that, she knew, would create a jailbreak moment where after they came out the front liners would join this movement and she knew she could not do anything to stop at. the reality is she knew about the ukraine allegations well before we did. she was being kept apprised of it by adam schiff who would end up leading the first impeachment and it still had not changed her mind until that public push happened, and behind the scenes liberal stop saying trump needs to be impeached and started to say house democrats are not doing their job and that is the bigger scandal.
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the anchor started to turn on nancy pelosi. guest: i fully agree with what rachel was saying. there was a moment during the summer when nancy pelosi set i am not letting it happen. clearly when her party became pulled out from under her she had no choice but to go with the flow. rachel just detailed what happened in the first impeachment. it was basically the same playbook on a faster timeline. the second impeachment, it took months and months for that to happen. it took four or five days in the second impeachment. nancy pelosi likes talking about how no one is above the law, and likes quoting abraham lincoln that the american public is everything, which means you're supposed to bring the public around with you. she failed to recognize what the
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public moment was and how to take advantage of moments where you had a coalition saying we are done with trump, to say this is my time to pick the allies i have and change the public's mind. for somebody who is so politically astute it was a misreading of political moments. taking too long when it should have happened then, moving too quickly through impeachments that needed more time to be saturated, and then we are left with what we are left with. the opposite party has time to do political calculations and the democrats are left frustrated and questioning whether they could have taken a better strike. host: it was jerry nadler about the process of gathering evidence. guest: we have this scene. impeachments are about the final
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result. they are also a tool that does not have a very well detailed instruction manual. impeachment is the only power the constitution lays out explicitly. it does not say how do you impeach. during the nixon years, during the clinton years, impeachment had presidents where the impeachers would reach out to the minority party. the rules had buy-in from both sides. they guaranteed the president could mount a defense in the house before the impeachment vote was cast. when we forced forward to now, this is the first time the hill did in impeachment where they did not inherit a charging document, they made their own. as a result they took a long time with putting down the rules for the road. they wanted to make the president's right to due process conditional on him pulling up
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all of the documents they were fighting over. jerry nadler looks at this as he is getting a final draft from adam schiff and says this is unconstitutional, we cannot do this. it will not only blowback on us and give republicans a talking point, but it is bad for the country and the constitutional order. so we had the scene where they basically have fight and adam schiff says pelosi is with me, this is how we will do it. to show that much discord among democrats, even as the first impeachment was pretty new is striking and shows they were having their own fights about whether impeachment was going to stand in history and what it was going to do for the country. guest: we have a huge theme, missed opportunities. this specific fight had effects with republicans. there were members. we follow jamie butler who played a big role in the second impeachment.
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she had a lot of concerns with the ukraine scandal. she stood up and one of her private republican meetings and said washington ipo for something like this? why shouldn't i vote for an impeachment inquiry to look into this? we show in real time how gop leader kevin mccarthy, steve scalise, use this due process problem that democrats had with their roles of the road and used it to spin up moderates against the impeachment inquiry. she ends of voting against that. she votes against impeachment in december and has no issue with it even though she was concerned about what trump was trying to do with ukraine, she dismissed the whole process and said it was democrats railroading this and of due process for the president or traditional due process for the president, and then she was also upset that no democrats ever reached out to her and said how would you want this process to be done? what would you want it to look
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like? by not doing that, like they did even in clinton, which obvious of became very polarized. host: we have a call from sean in colorado. republican line. caller:caller: go ahead. caller: i guess biden hiding 140 records from banks, i guess that is not a big deal. i guess it is not a big deal that the hunter biden laptop was hidden by the media and the fbi. russia also colluded with the fbi to set donald trump up. it is an absolute joke. the people know it and the people will come forward in november unless we have drop boxes to steal another election. host: here we are talking about
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the impeachment of the former president. caller: there is no question. they were all hoaxes. adam schiff lied. nancy pelosi set up january 6. she had a film crew doing a documentary. why we question that. host: you got your points out. guest: we are pulling back the curtain on what happened behind the scenes. i think the caller is upset in a partisan way about certain things that happened. adam schiff's problem was not that he was lying but that he was a bad messenger. the caller focused on nancy pelosi setting up the camera on january 6. she had somebody filming her. we lay out how those were buttressed and reinforced by what republicans were doing. when the january 6 riot happened the leaders were taken off site of fort mcnair and were put in
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two separate rooms, which shows you how everybody instinctively thinks we need to separate these guys. they were both trying to call their points of contact at the justice department, at the pentagon, national guard, anyone who is armed and can put back in insurrection to come to the capital to try to get to the white house. it is mitch mcconnell process enough. i am crossing the aisle. mitch mcconnell crosses into the democrats room and says we need to work together. this is too much. that is not nancy pelosi setting up the arrangement use on camera, it is mitch mcconnell doing it, which illustrates how seriously the republicans were taking this. how worried they were that they were willing to say we are dropping trump. we have to work together to save the capital. the fact that is republicans
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driving that train makes their turnaround that much more striking in that much more damming because we did have this moment where they were saying just as strongly as democrats, if not more strongly, we have to do something together because it is the capital and the congress that matters. guest: i want to make a couple of points on what the caller said. even republicans thought what happened with trump -- not most of them, but a small fraction, there are republicans who believe what trump did january 6 was impeachable. the reason the senate gave for his acquittal was that they argued you cannot try a former president. i was going to comment about the media has covered the hunter biden scandal and i am sure that will come up a lot when the republicans flip the house and they try to impeach biden. 1.i want to try to bring back to the book. the anger at adam schiff.
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this was a problem for the impeachment from the beginning. nancy pelosi and adam schiff are very close allies. both from california, great relationship, think similarly about protecting their majority. adam schiff for a long time was one of the most hated figures on the right. by choosing him, she alienated a bunch of republicans. these are republicans who are furious at him for saying he saw classified evidence that trump polluted with russia and then the mueller report comes out and they say they found no evidence of a conspiracy, yet republicans were member that moment. adam schiff going on television and saying that thing, even moderate republicans did not trust him. that was a problem with impeachment from the get-go. host: johnny louisiana, democrats line. go ahead. caller: i am thinking that what
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is going on in congress with january 6 -- people are egomaniacs. the country is changing demographically and changing globally. a certain segment of the united states does not want that to take place. in order to grow we have to come together because that is the only way you will grow and learn. this country was founded through growth and learning. i honestly believe that ancient thing that took place hundred years ago is still -- it is sad.
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i pray every night for the united states to come together because we are the beacon of the world. host: john in louisiana. you talked about republicans who expressed concern. you highlight representative francis rooney of florida, susan collins and lisa murkowski in the senate. how they play a role in what we saw out? guest: francis rooney, conservative from florida, he approached nancy pelosi on the house floor and told her i am willing to impeach trump as a republican if you get a witness who can say i heard from trump's own lips that he was orchestrating the quid pro quo. he wanted someone who could put the quid pro quo in trump's mouth to testify and he tried to say to pelosi you need to call and someone like john bolton, who knew about this. rudy giuliani was involved, mick mulvaney.
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pelosi was on a timeline and wanted this done by christmas. they knew if they wanted these sorts of first-hand witnesses they would have to fight in court and that could take months. she said no. she turns down a potential republican vote in the house for that reason. murkowski had the same problem. she wanted the house to do a fuller investigation. she compared the impeachment in the house to a dead cat on the senate doorstep, basically that pelosi did not do her homework and expected the senate would do it. because of that she ends up voting -- for various reasons -- that is one of the reason she was turned off from the case in the senate. host: it was john bolton who would eventually change the scene for the senate side. he had a book coming out. guest: the very dramatic moment
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after the trial starts in the first impeachment trial where the new york times publishes, not an certain, but gets their eyes on a subsection of his book. it is saying the quid pro quo israel and it flows everything into a tailspin and all of the sudden you have mitch mcconnell has to put down a potential mutiny in his party of people who were very worried they will have to get the book into this did so people can read it. this highlights -- the whole time, mcconnell had pointed to senators with legal experience and called them his legal eagles. ted cruz was one of the main actors and he does keep telling the trump defense, they basically orchestrated the trump defense because the trump defense cannot figure out how to make their case. he said there's not a single senator in this chamber out of 100 that will buy there is no quid pro quo. you just have to argued that a quid pro quo is ok.
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that is why mitch mcconnell ends up being able to control and get his rank-and-file to believe, the last holdout he squeezes is lisa murkowski, she does not believe it, but he convinces her the witness boat is left to a tiebreaker with supreme court justice john roberts presiding, it will pull the judicial branch into the general dumpster fire and she decides to bed with her party to prevent that from happening. generally speaking, that is a breakout moment. the other thing that is striking , as much as bolton and his unwillingness to come forward without a subpoena was pivotal in impeachment one, bolton's lawyers ends up helping the democrat greatly in impeachment two and ends up being someone who tries to be the facilitator to get them to bring it republican witnesses, exactly
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what he was pushing back against an impeachment one which is again yang comparison between how the second tried to be an answer to the first. host: the book is unchecked, the untold story behind the botched impeachment of donald trump. kenny in maryland, republican line. caller: hello. can you hear me benchmark host: go ahead. caller: i am a hogan republican in maryland. a lot of us elected hogan for his ability to cross the aisle and work with democrats and hold the middle ground. there are a lot of people in the republican party that no matter what facts you present to them they will not believe it. they will believe what they want to believe, some conspiracy, they will talk about what about this and that.
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i did not think this idea of this due process would have changed any of their minds. some of them are beholden to trump and some kind of cold way, which is why i do not like what is going on in the republican party today. -- in some kind of cult way, which is why i do not like what is going on in the republican party today. the first impeachment, i think democrats burned a lot of political capital. when it came to the second impeachment, even when the evidence was in full display, we have the videos and a lot of the documentary articles and all of the books that came out from that, still a lot of people do not believe how culpable trump is. i do not think any investigation
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driving people testify -- if john bolton had testified in the first impeachment, i do not believe that would've changed any of the senators minds. host: thank you for the comments. guest: your caller raises an interesting point and he has put his finger on something that is true. there a lot of people that it does not matter what you tell them, they will believe what they believe. that is a problem in the country. two points. in the first place, you're saying if you give the due process it would not have changed anything. we are arguing counterfactual. putting in republican witnesses, and i will focus on the second impeachment, there is an effort by jamie raskin to call in the aids to mike pence, to initially expect interest in helping them and kind of chickened out, which speaks to the callers point.
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to bring in these republican witnesses and make the case the january 6 committee is trying to do now, and fight the subpoenas. that establishes a record for the public to try to keep going and try to convince them to abandon their preconceptions. even if it does not fully do that, it puts republicans forward standing against the president and this is the problem you have. within a week of january 6 you do not have republican voices going on camera with their faces on the record saying this is wrong, except for those 10 republicans who voted to impeach. they did that as part of a larger body. the idea is the more republicans -- you have mike pence at that point saying this is wrong, to the point where i'm willing to testify under oath against this president. if you have that mitch mcconnell -- he said i know this is wrong
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but he will try to take this offramp, it is an excuse. that creates the buildup, but it also gives you leaders who are willing to publicly break with trump. that is what was missing in the second impeachment. no one was willing to publicly take that stand. it is ok to follow. without that is ok to follow, it was difficult for the rank-and-file to go in a direction. that perpetuates what the caller was talking about, i do not care what you show me, i will believe what i believe. guest: he mentioned democrats burning political capital with the first impeachment. i think we have seen in the country very much there is impeachment fatigue and that is why the january 6 committee, while they are unearthing a bunch of new evidence, half the country is not listening anymore because they feel like the
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democrats cried wolf first impeachment and second impeachment. he is raising a point that i think this is a totally fair debate and one people are having when it comes to our book. this notion of if certain things changed, with the end result have been different? i can see the skepticism. we show in the book help people like francis rooney, lisa murkowski, other moderate republicans how they were whipped back in line in their own concerns with the president. i wanted to make this point that impeachment is not just about removing a president. if you think about it, nixon resigned because the public turns to against him. that took months. well over a year of high-profile hearings, court fights, basically congress fighting to bring out this evidence, which
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they did not doing either of the trump impeachments. the point being if you cannot impeach and convict a president, you can try to lay out the best case to the public. what democrats have a problem doing as they were talking to themselves. they did not give themselves the time to make the case to independent voters and moderate republicans who could be their allies in boating out of trump, just turning against him. guest: even if the caller is right there was no way you would get enough republicans to vote to convict trump. let's grant that point. if you take all of the steps that were not taken that were short-circuited, at least what you are doing is preserving the integrity of impeachment as a tool. the problem is the ends do not justify the means, although that was the reproach both parties
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took during donald trump. the problem is now you have a president where the two most recent impeachments that went to fruition, you do not need to fight with the ports, you do not need to do a bunch of things that they did not do, that they did do during the nixon and clinton impeachments. the next time, if republicans flip the house, is next year. they have already said they want to impeach president biden and then i'll have a recent past a point to and say you get it, why is it so bad we are doing it? we're are just cutting the same corners. procedurally speaking impeachment is now weaker because of these cut corners democrats chose not to run all the way down. host: line for democrats.
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this is in maryland. hello. caller: i will disagree with your guests that the proceedings was hurried. they did not have a choice and they needed to act. the reality is no matter what the democrats do, whichever where they did it, republicans, we are not going to vote against trump. trump has these people locked down. when trump was running for office he said he could shoot somebody in the middle of the treat and these people will love me. at the time it seemed this guys underestimating the republicans. he is right. that is what is happening right now. i do not think anything trump can do no matter how egregious.
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because the republicans will not agree, let's let them get away with it. that is not how to go about things. they have to do what they have to do. host: thank you. maybe to the idea of they had no choice but the route they took. guest: i'm going to make one quick comment, this notion of him saying it was not rushed. when we were covering this there was so much going on that we who lived in the capital, 15 hours a day, sometimes 20 hours a day, barely speaking. we cannot digest all of the information because it was coming out so quickly and we were living and breathing the story. out of the american public follow something like that when it is moving so quickly? it was moving quickly.
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two weeks. compared to nixon. with clinton there was the ken starr report which took a long time. it was rushed compared to plebeians impeachments -- compared to previous impeachment in this notion it was rushed was also believed by democrats. we have scenes in the book where jerry nadler's aides and adam schiff's aides are fighting about the days in the calendar because we need more time to find a hearing. it gave life to this idea of holding the articles in the house. nancy pelosi held the articles in the house. that created a big scandal. one of the reasons democrats were pushing her is because they felt they had not turned over every stone they are starting to see their case was falling flat and they needed to keep investigating. wanted to comment on the first part of this.
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guest: i would just add that they had no choice -- in the end from the procedural corners that were cut were excuses republicans used. at the day after impeachment trump's numbers were higher. the rush to impeachment is not what brought trump down. if that election had happened in 2020 right after that -- it was his pandemic and his bumbling of the pandemic that compromised him and all of his other antics that ensued after in his panic in that race to the bottom. i think we can always argue it is impossible, but we need to be able to scrutinize our heroes. it does not mean they were wrong to try or does not mean the intentions were bad. the execution was imperfect and i do not think it is a stretch to say that. there is maybe a handful of democrats who are the subject of critique. i think people in both parties
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would say this is not a perfect system. if we are unwilling to examine the imperfections because we are so upset about the fault on the other cited of the aisle, you cannot improve it for the next time. you cannot put a bubble around the trump impeachment and say that is different because it was trump. precedent matters and the parties are going to be flipped very soon the next time th happens. host: this is from the book, democrats pursue an expeditious limited impeachment inquiry with onlyespect to the president's actions in ukraine. adam schiff would try to lead it witharrative that trump had had to use ukraine's commander-in-chief -- closely argued a clean kill shot. it goes to the speakers concerns you cannot package this and away the average american could follow because there a lot of twists and turns and that was the concern going forward and watching the hearings.
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could you elaborate on that? guest: i think one of the reasons the speaker wanted to only focus on ukraine is this was a complicated narrative and there is a fear that if you add other pieces to this investigation, you will confuse people even more. there was a believe that if you focused on one thing, even though that thing was very difficult to follow, we write in the book about how most americans cannot find ukraine on the map, but maybe they could now given what is happening. it was a complex narrative and flows he believed that if you could find -- it would be easier to digest by the public. it ended up costing her. jamie raskin would try to argue privately that if you start with something like the president profiting off the oval office, simple corruption, people could digest that easily.
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the timeline was of concern and she -- let's hear from cory in canada. republican line. caller: good morning. i am baffled as to why none of these reporters has ever thought to approach a former business associate of hunter biden. he came forward with hard-core evidence he presented to the fbi about all the primes of the bidens. how come nobody is talking about this? the senator charles grassley has information on the hunter biden who received $5 billion from a chinese energy firm. this is a huge cover-up. stop the nonsense about trump and his impeachment. what about the bidens? they are getting away with impunity. host: i think you both said this
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is something you will hear in the next congress. guest: your collar is letting out what people will try to impeach biden over. we can argue the substance. what impeachment does influence the next even if the subject matter is completely different. guest: there's a lot of scrutiny on hunter biden and the money he has been making, potentially because of his father. i would ask your collar what about trump and making the money he was making when he was in the white house in terms of his bottom line? we just saw a report he was charging the secret service $1200 a night for a room. guest: taxpayer money. this was the moment he almost lost republicans were having to support him through the impeachment. it was the one moment in which
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we showed trump had to listen to his own party. they were not willing to stand for what was a black-and-white constitutional violation. him saying i want to hold the g-7 have my own resort, which means to rake in the cash that comes from all of that. this is a bridge too far. it sent the white house into panic mode. they started this willing campaign, bringing in a bunch of republicans who are criticizing the president to get them back on the team. they drop it. it does give republicans of all sense of power, but it also shows there are moments trump would not listen to the rest of the party but actually means the party has had more power to influence the president than they chose to insert. there is an element of not having full confidence in the powers you have as lawmakers and abdicating them, whether that is abdicating them in deference to trump because he seems to be so
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all-powerful, or advocating them in deference to the calendar because you have an election coming down the line. as a result, there is a simple sort of if you do not use it you lose it element to this that is endemic to the balance of power and keeping them balanced. these impeachments started to throw them out of whack. host: the president, to give you an impression of the things he would say. september 2019, speaking to reporters about the ukraine phone call, here is a portion of that. [video clip] >> we had a great conversation. the conversation i had was largely congratulatory. it was largely corruption. it was largely the fact that we do not want our people like vice president biden and his son creating the corruption in the ukraine. ukraine has a lot of problems.
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the new president is that you will be able to rid the country of corruption. i said that would be a great thing. we had a great conversation. we had a conversation on many things. i believe ukraine put out a statement saying we covered many different topics and it was a warm and friendly conversation. host: these are refrains we would hear over and over again from the president. guest: a perfect call. that was the original name of our book when it was focused on impeachment one. that impeachment two happened and it was very clearly not the right title anymore. in terms of the president saying the call was fine, i did nothing wrong, we have a colorful anecdote in the book about mitch mcconnell's reaction when he read the call transcript. this call would completely
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exonerate me, there's nothing in there committed to a show the democrats are being ridiculous. mitch mcconnell says release the transcript. his office, all his aides, they know the president is not good at self reflection and often has a problem with the truth. they are extremely nervous about what this will say. it comes out and they say the "do us a favor" line. right away mitch mcconnell knows this is horrible, he calls in his counsel and says did trump just commit a crime? he himself was really concerned about that. that same day he puts out a statement saying it is ridiculous that democrats are talking about impeachment and telling his members not to say anything publicly. behind the scenes he knew it was really bad and he told trump
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that this call was not perfect, far from it, and you will get in big trouble. guest: let's not forget the substance of that was withholding eight congress had approved to send ukraine. at that time we did not know there would be a russian invasion, but republicans knowing it was bad did not come out of nowhere. they could imagine a situation like we are in now. host: maryland, independent line for our guests. caller: i have a question. i have heard the reporters talking about how impeachment is a constitutional solution versus a political one. i think, there is all sorts of political solutions in the constitution. impeachment is one of them. elections is another. why are we fixating on questions like due process when due process has never applied to the united states congress? the most commonly impeached has
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been federal justices themselves. due process has never been realistic. why do the reporters think that is a thing? it is not in the constitution when it comes to congress. it is silly to say impeachment is anything other than political and nancy pelosi was enormously successful in ensuring trump's political success and the republican political success was greatly blunted in this process. guest: that is a fair point, but the absence of language in the constitution explicating the path you are supposed to follow is precisely the point in presidential impeachment. the president matters in the president establishing -- and the precident establishing biases in the minority party is mimicking the court process. there mimic get for a reason -- they are mimicking it for a
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reason. to believe the process is fair and addressing all of these points, and it is not just one sort of "witchhunt," to borrow a phrase from someone who used that incorrectly, it is to keep the public from thinking that is what is going on. everything that happens in the congress is political. impeachment was written in the constitution to bring down a tyrant and a desperate, not as a political weapon. political parties did not exist at the time the constitution was written. it was about we do not want to have a king, not we want to get mad at the other side and say angrily and scarily. the fact that it has become that means you no longer have the failsafe intended to be there to keep a potential abuser of the country out of the office. guest: i was talking to a professor at new york university
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who is an impeachment expert, a presidential historian, and he and i were talking about this the other day. he was talking about how the founders of the country writing the constitution did not want impeachment to be used for policy disagreements. but now you have republican talking about impeaching biden over the border issue. there are policy issues they are talking about in terms of impeaching biden. it is becoming more and more political. there was always going to be a political element. these are elected people. they will have a political thought on this. as karoun this was supposed to be a failsafe to ensure the democratic order continued and now is being cheapened and we could see republicans cheapened it even more if they end up impeaching biden as opposed to
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policy -- impeaching biden over policy issues. host: democrats line in illinois. good morning. caller: good morning to your guests. it is very something -- it is a very interesting topic, i will look into getting the book. my question is some of the things which feed into that, which talk about the weakening of the impeachment process, which is very similar to things like the court process for the supreme court, which is now very much a question, and also the election process with gerrymandering and all of that. maybe if your next book this is something you can talk to, what are some of the solutions you see for this, specifically with respect to the impeachment problem. it seems like everyone is resigned to thinking there is
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nothing that can be done and this becomes a political tool. host: thanks. guest: your collar is right to identify this is not the only institution suffering from erosion. this is something people have been sounding alarms about the last couple of years. the example i would point to for people recognizing this institutional impeachment -- let's say impeachment and congressional oversight, the congressional power to check a president, the january 6 committee that just had its last public hearing has basically been re-treading the same subject matter ground at the second impeachment. look at how differently they are trying to do it. they're trying to call in gop witnesses, they are trying to run down every subpoena to the court, they just subpoenaed the president, trying to force him to show up. they're probably running out of time because of the gop takes over the house they will not let that happen and trump has a
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penchant for stalling these processes. the fact they are doing this so differently and trying to flex congressional muscle is a tacit acknowledgment we should have done this the first time when we were talking about the same subject and the guy was still in the oval office. the problem is that is not enough to fix it. some have pointed to the january 6 committee as the solution to the problem we outline. they are doing this with a friend in the white house. they are not flexing against an administration that does not want to help them and take their power away from them and not cooperate. the test will have to be what happens the next time, how hard this congress fights the subpoenas, to they look to say we are not doing it again this way or do they take advantage of doing it faster and more politically conveniently and that is a question late at the feet of whoever ends up taking up the next impeachment, whether or not we like the substance. are we going to try to build
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back up the procedural walls or are they going to let them keep crumbling? guest: democrats had a case to try to enforce the subpoena against trump's former top counsel in the white house with they tried to bring in for testimony. they pushed back on the subpoena and it went through the court system. they were fighting to reinforce their oversight power in this case, to say you have to listen when we call you, when you come in and testify. the problem was once the biden white house came in, they put pressure on democrats in congress to cave on that court fight. there was concern about republicans taking the house, and if they had this court ruling it would embolden house republicans against biden. ultimately democrats settled. they did not get the relay they had been fighting for for months .
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the caller was asking about solutions. one thing adam schiff was talking about is there needs to be some sort of mechanism so when there is a dispute over witnesses and evidence and testimony between congress and the white house that it moves quickly through the courts, not dragging out for months and months and years and years. we show in the book how trump was able to exploit the slow-moving court process to hinder democrats oversight. they had all of these different investigations and trump was able to say fight me in the court if you want this information. because of that we are still seeing court fights and things are still not coming out. that is a real -- that isn't real problem. -- is a real problem.
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that passed in the house installed in the senate so we don't have a solution. host: rachael bade is with political. karoun demirjian -- thanks for much for -- thanks so much for your time. you will hear from rust belt -- russ about --vought, and later on, we will have that discussion but i want to show you a little bit from yesterday of former vice president mike pence taking questions from students from georgetown diversity of whether the questions he is asked is about january 6 and whether or not he would vote for president trump. >> january 6 was a tragic day but thanks to the courage of law enforcement, the violence is
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quote and we reconvened the congress the very same day and we complete our duty under the constitution of the united states and the loss of this country --laws of this country. [applause] i made some remarks from the united states senate. the first thing i did was condemned the violence -- west condemn the violence. [applause] >> i said violence never wins. freedom wins. we did our duty that day under the constitution but i have traveled all over the country. they have told me i have been in 32 states the last year in -- and a half. there are americans from many
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experiences that expressed support for our actions that day and when we reconvened the united states senate, i think the members in both political parties for staying at their posts and coming back to work in completing the peaceful transfer of power and making what began a day of tragedy as a triumph for freedom and i never described -- if that day in the way i described today. it was unacceptable. it was a triumph for freedom thanks to people in both political parties to do their job -- who did their job. >> thank you for the question and let's go to this quarter. >> thank you for being here. i, phd candidate in the history department.
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donald trump is the republican nominee for president in 2024, will you vote for him? [laughter] >> what i can tell you is that i have every confidence that the republican party will sort out leadership in all my focus has been in the midterm elections but after that, we will think about the future. ours and the nations and i will keep you posted. [laughter] [applause] host: for the next 20 minutes, open phones and if you want to participate, (202) 748-8001 four republicans, (202) 748-8000 four
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democrats and four independents (202) 748-8002 --. this coming out of the u.k., liz truss announced resignation -- and her party turned on her and she will be the strongest serving prime minister in history and she said that she rep. massie: cannot "deliver the mandate in which i was elected". the axial story saying that is a remarkably short timetable. she will remain in office in the interim some -- in the interim. when it comes to domestic policy, the president traveling to pennsylvanianhe will return to the site of a major
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bridge collapsed in pittsburgh. they are helping to improve the bridges in disrepair nationwide and he will speak at the firm hollow bridge. the bridge collapsed in january injuring a dozen people, illustrating how many of the richest were convoy -- bridges are clambering -- humbling -- crumbling. the story added that the president will attend a fundraiser later today so you can follow along. this all to the lead of other midterm elections under three weeks from now and you could talk about that and open phones. john starts us off in
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california. republican line. good morning. guest: -- caller: i have been watching the last [indiscernible] on tuesday or wednesday, we got peter baker and his wife and they had a severe look out on the shortcomings of trump and yesterday, you had a major -- [indiscernible] and all this stuff and you had these two women for impeachment -- for botched impeachment and the reason that they were botched, was that didn't have evidence. none of these people -- [indiscernible] one bite is done -- once biden is done. i don't know the big obstacle
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that is kamala harris. if biden [indiscernible] i think his this app -- disaster in afghanistan is another impeachable offense. i would like c-span to be what he claims to be which -- is a neutral arbiter and all have seen for the last three days is hammering on trump and i am a republican who is not a big trump guy. he was asinine with the debate with president biden. impolite to say the least --
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host: let's hear from linda in slidell, louisiana. caller: i wanted to say that people who are hurting from inflation should consider this. if there is a nationwide abortion ban, people will be having kids they didn't plan for an when you have financial trouble to begin with and you have a bunch of unwanted kids, you will really know hurts because i came from a large, poor family and all those kids were 20 pounds underweight because there was so much money for food and every time a new kid was born, its way through on the people who were there -- it took away food from the people who were there. i decided i never wanted kids because kids people property unless you are rich. host: charles in owings mills,
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maryland. caller: the only thing i wanted to comment on after listening -- listening to the ladies earlier is that every representative and every senator takes an old before god and country to do the right thing -- old before god and country to do the right thing --oath before got country to do the right thing and to put party over country is wrong. those other the things we should be a sampling -- examining -- do examine their character because it matters and that is all i wanted to say. host: mike from d.c. in -- florida, democrats line. caller: how are you doing, brother. host: i'm fine. caller: the republicans don't care. they knew that man was dirty
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from day one and should not have been president. he's not qualified and look what happened to this country. it went straight to hell. they know this man is wrong and for him to say that is a lie. the republicans did not want to impeach him because they have something -- yet something on them. it is a matter who you are. this country has problems and we -- will keep things going and lie and lie and i pray to god something happens to that man because he is dirty. host: the bbc reported that it was the former president donald undergrowth in a lawsuit brought against him against -- from someone who said he raped her. mr. trump denied the claim, prompting her to sue him for defamation.
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they said it took place on wednesday. " we are pleased on we have our client. we were able to take the best position -- deposition." mr. trump's attorney saying the case is apolitical ploy. that is at the bbc and if you go to be associated press, adding that it was the former president siding leaking -- legal documents -- that included voter rights -- voter claims he knew to be -- voter fraud claims he need to be false. -- investigating the january 6 attack on the capital and he said the imo cannot be without because they include evidence of potential crimes. that is stories playing out today. bill in evans, georgia.
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caller: how are you today. host: i am fine, thank you. caller: i can't believe that people still support donald trump. is there any doubt about him that being an upright citizen. going back to when they caught him -- could grab a girl by the you know what and bragging about it. i believe he has been the death of the republican party and -- that is all i got. host: charlotte in alabama. democrats line. caller: i wanted to speak to the lady when she was there. the previous guest who was talking about trump. my point is i keep hearing the
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republicans that called in, talking about biden's son and laptop. they have not done an investigation on donald trump, jr. and eric trump and even you ivanka trump when he -- she sat in putin's chair. the only woman that i have ever seen who was televised to sit in the power of that seat. there is something going on with putin and trump. get putin out of the white house and i wanted to add this one comment. a lie these help to stated the truth stands alone and got bless america -- god bless america and we to push forward and vote because our world is going down. host: that is charlotte any am
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-- in alabama. the wall street journal talk about this facet perspective of the republicans gaining the house. -- has been cut by more than half since the late september and that is according to 538 after polling results finds democrats leads in many state races have declined. impressed trail in surveys in wisconsin and nevada. both chambers hang in the balance. we are taking a look at the ohio senate race. our senator question why he is not getting more support from other democrats when it comes to money and he is quoted and -- as saying that national democrats have been not -- not been known to make many good decisions over the waves. he says the leadership doesn't
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understand where we want this party to be. j.d. vance and tim ryan won their nominations and groups have been outspent by vance aligned groups. the senate majority back --p has not spent anyack have spent seven figures on ryan's back. a goes on from there. you can read more in the papers eddie to follow along on c-span is very -- various debates play out. something you can see on our network. the pennsylvania eht district debate. live coverage -- it is max cartwrig --ou can see that on cpan, c-span now and our website at 7:00n hour later, a
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debate with the last incumbent -- probably piece an independent bill walker -- and independent bill walker. the minnesota's goverrs debate. m lt faces a republican challenger. a debate hostedy ktvbc. you can see that at 9:00. joan is next. caller: good morning. i have been listening to your show and i caught you. i wanted to say i miss donald trump being president of us. he was the best. every night, i go to bed and wake up and i didn't have to worry what could be the next problem. everyday i get up now, it is like, what the -- could biden
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have done overnight that i have to worry about today. this is disastrous and i only wish i could have worked for donald trump. i would have been his best worker and all this about this other lady coming in, sexual harassment, are you kidding me? now? i don't know how anyone else feels but when donald trump was in, we didn't have high gas and we had gas in the usa and we did not have trouble would put her -- with border. on the other countries, he seemingly got along with everyone and joe biden comes on and he is eating ice cream. going to pennsylvania -- with him going to pennsylvania, i am glad dr. oz is winning. host: let's hear from break in washington. independent line. caller: i want to know what
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they're going to do with the fentanyl problem. i am out -- a man in recovery. i try to get on the bus and get a job and do the right thing and do the next best thing. i am not sure about either one of these guys running the government but they say the border problem and that problem, when will we start a solution? host: radel -- myrtle is in mississippi. caller: i don't know where people get their information from. it sounds ludicrous but that is not why i am calling. voting has started in certain states and i know many washers and callers received --watchers
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and callers receive social security and medicare and it these people are not aware what the republicans intend to do if they take over the house and senate, without social security and medicare, look into it. they have said in public their intention is to cut both of those, not entitlement. those are things you have paid for from the game -- dave you started to work. you need to figure out what these people will do to you because they are so anti-help american people that stay awake at night coming up with ways to destroy american people, the working people, to support their big far right donors. guest: -- host: that is myrtle in mississippi. we are going to hear from a former budget official russ
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vought. you will -- we will take a look at policies of the president. that conversation coming up went washington journal continues. >> he struggled to fill the seat. his biography notes that scholars have traded frankfurter as a judicial baylor -- failure. nonef these characterizations ring true. ad schneider uses 700 pages to
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examine justice frankfurter's life. >> brad schneid hisook democratic justice on n -- book notes plus. it is available on c-span now or wherever you get podcasts. >> listening to programs -- just got easier. tell your smart speaker -- important congressional hearings and other public affairs events throughout the day and weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. eastern, that's washington today for a fast-paced stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime. c-span, powered by cable. ♪ >> this election day, the control of power in congress is
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at stake. will republicans retake the house? kenneth democrats take control of the senate --can democrats take control of the senate? events as th happen on tv and the c-span now on demand on our e and find our election page at c-span.org/ campaign2022. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. shop for books, decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime as he spent shop -- at c-spanshop.org. host: our next guest served in
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the trump administration and he did that from 20 -- 20222021 -- 2020 to 2020 one. guest: -- have long been followed by the wayside in terms of what posen a washington would work on the border, the perspective of keeping us out of wars and these are something we work on and want to make sure he has been out of office now, that these issues are paramount in the agenda setting process. >> -- host: did he start the organization? >> no. we chevys will -- we share these viewpoints.
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we want to make sure these ideas are developed and we are working along the border to make sure that state governors have the ability to unilaterally secure the border. that is paradigm shifting and we are looking for result in and out the political arrangements. that is the kind of thing we are working on. host: how are you funded? guest: we are funded through nations through the country. we don't take corporate money but people involved in the political process and want to see the country better, they are the ones giving. host: you talked about immigration and you had a were put out -- had a paper put out talk about what you would declare as a war on mexican -- cartels. can you describe what this paper is? guest: we basically have isis along our border and it is not just drugs.
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they make more from human trafficking now than they do from the drug trade so it is a crisis. mexico doesn't have control of the territory. after government is -- half their government is in cahoots with the cartel. this is a national security threat. the national security experts and out pentagon -- the pentagon, dhs, they are looking at intel's and plans on how to address this and that was a subject that was not viewed as a serious one. they viewed it as, this is a security issue. we have a paradigm shift that has to occur. we are not calling for military action immediately. we want to put pressure on them and president trump showed that pressure does work with the
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mexican government and they took dramatic steps to rein in legal -- illegal immigration. if diplomatic efforts don't work, military has to be on the table. host: what is military aspect look like? guest: it requires identifying where the cartel is and requires being able to go and have military plans thing put on the table. we want to be able to say in future conservative administration, we want to turn to the department of defense and say, give us military options to deal with the cartel. host: antony blinken was in mexican city -- mexico city -- i want to play what he had to say about the topic. >> we have deepened our law enforcement cooperation and information sharing and we are working together more
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effectively to deal with drug interdiction's -- and to deal with arm stretching -- arms trafficking. we criminalized for the first time this year, the illicit trafficking and weapons. that is an important tool. the numbers of seizures are up from a year ago so i would disagree with the proposition that there have not been results. there have been and there are. they are also not sufficient and that is exactly what we recognized and talked about today. how do we intensify these efforts? every weapon seized is potentially a life slate. --saved. every drug lab that is disrupted is potentially a life saved. as you heard from all of us today, and we happy detailed
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information -- have the detailed information to support it, lots of lives have been saved. host: we talked about other efforts and what you think about those efforts compared to what you are looking for? guest: insufficient. to the extent to which this demonstration has let the border be uncontrolled, they put a light over the border saying we are open for business. that is not his fault. i don't doubt they are not having conversations -- they are having conversations and having some results to -- and have arms that are captured but anyone who looks at the border sees the reality that it is on fire and that is not changing and there has not been serious policy level support.
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the president put kamala harris in charge. it is unserious efforts. it is hard to take any of the figures that the secretary puts out seriously. host: is that prove a factor in what you are trying to see happen? guest: they have a view that the only way to stop migration is to solve the economic problems of the entire world, whether that is in central american countries or elsewhere and that is not a good strategy. we can have a situation where everyone in the world comes here because they want a better economic life so we do need to stop the flow. one of the reasons we put forth our strategy is because it is the only thing -- when people realize they are being turned away at the border and we saw some of that under title 42. the trumpet administration came up with policy ideas to ensure that we are putting an end to
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what is going on and we had to deal with law that acts like map it's --magnets. host: russ vought is with us. if you want to asking questions, (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independence. you can text suggestions at (202) 748-8003. what are the metrics to establish when it stays open or if it closes? guest: the centerpiece of our proposal is that we are looking at a situation with joe biden in office for two years and open borden -- open border policies want change.
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court cases can be ignored by bureaucracies. we looked at what would a founding father -- if he was governor of the state of texas or arizona, how would they respond? we found an article that allows a state facing a invasion and we looked and said, what today mean by invasion? what they were talking about is jobs and smugglers and indian nations and those are the kinds of things they had in mind and we put it on the facts and we realized what -- that is what we are facing so it allows a governor using commander in chief type authorities to be able to say we will interdict individuals. we won't just give them over to
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customs and border patrol so they can be captured and released into the system. there have been back cases -- bad cases. we will get them out of the bucket of legal authorities and we will put it under constitutional authorities to meet the moment we face and we are making progress on this. if kari lake wins the race for errors on -- arizona governor, she admitted she will do this on day one. as soon as early months on that year, we will have the opportunity to do this in two states? --./ they will not be able to vote across the border like they have done so but we look very similar to title 42. title 42 has been the
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public-health weight that has allowed for you to return the individual in mexico with 80% and 82 hours. it works in all of these things -- and all of these things -- host: you talk about giving governors to power or support directly. we see governors bussing people. are you saying taking those and sending them to original companies? guest: we won't use the word deport. newport is a federal immigration returned but we will move them across the border to mexico. that is the neon lights that turns it in reverse. water is close and stay work -- the border is closed and stay where you are. host: we start with dan in virginia. go ahead. caller: thanks.
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my question is why do we not hear anything about either -- being verified? all we care about is the physicality of the border and motorization. aspects like that. being verified is never mentioned. guest: we should talk about it and we do support and it is something we supported in trump administration. -- the trump administration and you have to make sure employees are incentivized to check for the immigration status of these individuals but i think the reality of what we are facing now is the system is overrun with the numbers of people that are coming. in the last year, we have had -- the number of people equals the size of the state of utah. when you are talking about that,
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it provides a level of urgency to look at new paradigms to be able to deal with it and not to put this all on the backs of employers to deal with what is essentially a federal government problem with a state solution to be able to deal with the numbers that they are talking about. it is a good point. it is one that resonates with a lot of us but it cannot be the kind of thing that shifts the paradigm because that paradigm is to be states taking action unilaterally. host: from west virginia. charlie -- charlene. caller: i am tried to -- up. -- i am tired of hearing about the border and that is the only thing republicans have and i believe they got mad when kamala harris told him -- them -- they
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made it up big d also and it is a political thing with the poor -- republicans. thank you. guest: if you have ever been to the border, you see it is not made up issues. i have been to the wheel and i have talked to ranchers who are right on the border. they are scared for their life. they can't let their family members go out in the way -- without being -- someone guarding them. they have to rebuild the st. francis. -- the same fences. they deal with property damage. it is a serious situation and it is not just along the border. as this goes into the lane when -- mainland with texas and even in states like new mexico, you have jails filling up and health
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care systems overwhelmed. this is a major problem and people understand that this is not something that is desirable. we learned that from what ron desantis did. he called the bluff of the liberals in other parts of the country that say, do you want this in your area? if you don't, be a part of the solution to fix this by focusing on this at a federal level or helping with governors taking action. host: some describe what mr. ron desantis did as a political stunt. do you see it that way? guest: with regard to governor abbott, we have been calling on him to take action and we believe that is the only thing he can do. to the extent he has not, we have been critical of that. with governor desantis, his
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tools are different from what governor abbott's are because he doesn't have the ability to do what governor abbott has done and that matters. the extent to which dissent is -- ron desantis was able to send illegal immigrants to the northeast, helped the debate and exposing hypocrisy but we are pushing to make sure the shifting things happen as soon as possible. host: who else developed this idea? guest: this is something that can --ken -- his brainchild. he has been working on this for a long time and he has put pen to paper right after we came on board. host: the same story axios. the story. she described it is a dumb idea
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not least because the s. have -- kingpin actor decades and sounds like someone saw governor abbott stunt and declared -- and decided to go one better without recognizing that these actions bring anti-american dna in mexico and will likely increase rather than increase scan cooperation -- mexican cooperation. guest: the ambassador believes -- she is referring to a new proposal to think about how to think about cartels as a conference of country and to help mexico game all of their territory and have operational control, not our proposal, which i don't expect her to agree with but in terms of, that is under the constitution and it has not been used before but we believe there is legal authority to do that and the attorney general in arizona adopted the legal theory and put it out as the official
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up arizona. is it paradigm shifting for those in democratic committees, it is certainly. to the extent you are not thinking through the possibility of military action if diplomacy fails, that is something that causes you to come up short. host: rachel in texas. caller: great cap it has made it so easy for anybody to buy a gun and i understand there are drug cartels coming into texas and buying guns and taking them back into mexico and selling them 3-4 times they are worth and i believe they are tied into the nra. we have steve bannon that trump parted and raised money for the border wall. you put money in his pocket and
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trump parted him --pardoned him. do you know everything? tell us what you think. guest: steve bannon is a patriot and to the extent that the left is trying to weaponize the apparatus to go after him, it is an example -- we are seeing him in a well-known instance but we are seeing across the country with people who don't have as famous names who are pro-life activists and people who are concerned about critical race theory. people who sign up as poll watchers. agencies of the federal government are weaponized against them. that is what is very scary at this moment and one of the areas we don't know enough as the extent to which this is
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prevalent and is cultural and one of the reasons we are calling for a church style committee is to get to the bottom of this. we know something is off and the fbi has been politicized. when there is two tracks for government, one for those who had the preferred regime narrative, and one who doesn't, we believe that is unhealthy for democracy and we care about how the left cares about protecting our democracy. i believe they mean protecting their oligarchy. we have to have real reform to be able to have a constitutional republic that requires what we believe mr. president that senator frank church provided -- to be able to create a committee that has investigators that provides real oversight to get to the bottom of and to be able to get both of us -- get both of
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us to be able to know for sure that our federal government does not weaponized against the left or the right. host: jodi says that former president trump's title 42 is still being used by president biden. he is still doing the same policies. guest: title 42 is in operation but not being enforced. it is always about -- are you leading into -- leaning into your authorities are not. -- or not. they are not. when title 42 is the way it will look at the state level, i am suggesting it will look like what it did when ken cuccinelli was in charge of it. and mark morgan was in charge of it. host: this is jim in missouri. republican life. --line.
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caller: i like your ideas and the only problem i have is that this isn't a questionable issue invasion. there is an invasion. there are 3 million people that have come in and i would like to suggest that the mexicans on the cartels out as bad as we do and i strongly suggest that we have a joint military force wiped out the cartels. i would love to live in mexico but it is too dangerous. guest: that is the kind of thing where we need to have military plans on the table if double cracked -- if diplomatic efforts fail. you have isis on your southern border. we went to the middle -- middle east to deal with crisis but now we have them on the southern border. that is what we are trying to
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change and mexico could be part of the solution. i am sure it is not a unanimous opinion within the government that that is a good situation. i'm sure some people are being bribed. we want to make it so that the government has an incentive to get the cartel under control and deal with this so we don't have -- so that a growing narco state doesn't become a narco state in the telling. host: what you think mexico -- is stopping mexico from taking a more aggressive stance? guest: they are spreading money around -- that can be overcome with higher and more serious incentives. we saw when president trump said i will shut the border down, and
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that got mexico's attention to where they are -- work yet -- work/were willing to stop karen pence -- caravans from coming to the border. host: do you believe it can be shut down? guest: i do believe it can be effectively shut down. when planes and people land into the central american companies, people bet laid the track up, that is when you know the incentive structure will change. host: marietta georgia. this is bradley. caller: steve bannon is a patriot? he is a traitor. he tried to over no -- he tried to overthrow the country. our work with drugs in the
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country turn south and central america into the situation it is. this will continue but if you want to -- you would arrest anyone who hired an illegal immigrant but you will -- don't want to do it. you want to keep the cost of layer -- labor law. you are a traitor. guest: go ahead -- host: go ahead. guest: in terms of the drug war, there is an aspect of truth in what you're saying. we are a pull on the system and we have a cultural complacency in the country as to whether it is good to be using drugs. i am curious and i can't ask the question but i am curious
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whether you support marijuana usage. it is a gateway drug to other serious drugs. can't go to a big city without being involved with this -- the smell of it. it is a serious problem and that extends to -- there are calls to legalize cocaine. it is where the elite opinion is going. fentanyl is crushing communities. if we had the same number of people dying for cars are playing rights as we are firm fentanyl -- for fentanyl, we would have a national conversation and i welcome that conversation. i don't have the spirit of complexity -- complacency you are suggesting and that is what people should be crying to debate about but people in washington don't want to tackle it because there is a libertine
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spirit among senators and others that say whatever you want to do, you can be autonomous over you. that is wrong and we want to make sure communities are healthy because you can't enjoy freedom and individual rights without just lost --laws. host: i guess served as the previous budget director in the white house and that is from 2021. he was the policy of the -- mr. pentz making news yesterday for calling for other republicans for increased support for ukraine and terms of funding. do you agree? guest: it is not our job to police the border between ukraine and russia. it is a sign of the foreign policy -- mine site of the right not knowing what american interest are and i have great respect for my old boss but when
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we are spending $54 billion to support ukraine, that is more than major departments of the government. there is a misallocation of priority and it is dangerous. when you -- they are not a nato member and when you are pushing propping up this government in such a way that russia's only ability is to use tactical nukes to defend their interest, we are pushing the world towards nuclear war. it is something that the american people never signed up for but never had a debate to treat ukraine if they are -- as if they are a nato partner. that is one of the reasons we have our organization because we will not let this old way of thinking with foreign policy
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rein in conservative circles and we note that will get is called names and being called appeasers but it is not. are we protecting the interests of the american people as opposed to being caught up in what the international community wants us to do. host: it sure organize desk organization working with democrats if they take power and share in terms of policies. guest: we will have -- i am working on a budget for them to show how to balance the budget and deal with inflation. to reorient away from -- entitlement -- retirement reform and go after actors -- overseas
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that. the only people who are fiscally responsible are people who want to post on a problem who don't -- they don't get to vote on every year. host: are you asking republicans to do that? guest: we are doing it as a project and we have been asked by many people saying what you help us take the principles of what you would put in a a trump budget and turn that into a -- something we could use that for a republican majority. host: go ahead. caller: this idea of returning people to mexico, i think it has created a bottleneck and this is the reason why we have the folks, is coming back and forth. before, at least we could track the caravans that was coming every year to -- we knew when
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they were coming and we could manage it better than what is going on now. the other point i have is the fact that the last demonstration got it the process we did -- gutted the process we get half and did not replace it. to come out and use our military as a muzzle is wrong. that is not what our military is for. i don't know if you have served in the military but i am a veteran. none of these skirmishes that we have to deal with to the military, -- i don't think we have had a real war in decades. guest: -- we will -- host: we. will leave it there. guest: it is the one heart to know there are many people in the country that have served and
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many policymakers are not as prone to get the next generations of people into wars that require such sacrifice. as it pertains to the border prophecies, the obama administration left us nothing. we had lost --laws in place that i referred to as maggots. it took ours a while to figure out how to put policies in place. these were all things that help us to get control of it and what we saw with the biden administration is that they wiped it away. anything we done -- we had done, even if it worked, they wiped it away. that is why we are where we are and why we have to have paradigm shifting proposals and we are not suggesting that the military be used in the way he talked about.
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we are suggesting that the military be used to go after cartels that are not unlike isis along the southern border. that is what they are supposed to be used for an governors can use the state troopers and sheriff's and guardsmen to be able to interdict and remove these individuals. host: republican line. jim is next. caller: i appreciate your passion for this. i will probably get hung up on. this town is a border down -- town. i am in rhode island and this place is a mix -- mess. i could be a guest on the show and talk about being verified, forget about that. they are working on the books. properties are being used as businesses that put legitimate businesses at a disadvantage
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because they are using their backyard as a people -- depot. they are not -- building legal apartment so they are paying taxes. my schools up here -- the marquees are in spanish. i don't know any other group that came from another country doing what they are doing. buying radio stations and putting up schools in's -- in spanish. guest: i think it is a testament to the problems that people who are not in border states are seeing their communities as a result of what is going on in the border and it is funny. the congressman who visited the border are often the one were willing to take action because they say they deal with the ranch families and see the
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reality. we have talked to border patrol agents are -- who are great patriots. they are trying to do the best they can and they are getting overwhelmed with paperwork. the cartels -- their strategy is not to avoid the border patrol agents. they take these big groups of people and hand them over to border control and we know -- they know they will process them and release them into the interior and we know they will be distracted and then they deliver drugs. we need a strategy that will deal with the problem. host: russ vought is the president of the center for renewing america and served as the former white house budget director. that is if our program today and another addition of washington journal comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning.
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we will see you then. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies are more including charter communication. charter has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. charter communication support
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