know that the republicans have security majority in the house rresentatives as a result of t midterm elections. ter, "washington post" economics from order torry neumeier on the collapse of e crypto exchange fts and what it means for the cryptocurrency industry. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: it became official,

republicans have won control of the next congress. along with speakership, leadership, chairmanship changes ahead, policy changes are possible. what does it mean for military aid to ukraine? with the $38 billion request from the wet -- white house. pentagon officials say support will continue as long as it takes but tuesday's mistral explosion in poland is sure to continue can republican assessment of the report. good morning, and welcome to "washington journal." this morning we will ask you about u.s. support for ukraine. your thoughts on that, for democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents and other 748-8002. for active and former military, (202) 748-8003.

you can also use that line to send us a text. we would like to hear from you on facebook, twitter, and instagram, @cspanwj. we will hear in moments from the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs, and last night mike pence and his thoughts on ukraine. you can go ahead and start calling in. but control of the house has been settled. a republican win in california, this is from "the washington times," republicans setting agenda for the house majority. "dethroning democrats, several undecided races will determine how slim the margin is. republicans reached the threshold wednesday night after the election and the 27th district was called for mike

garcia, who had been leading the count by double-digit percentage points. republicans will have a much smaller majority than they had hoped for but prognosticators had been predicting a red wave would flood the house and there are a handful of outstanding races that could tip to republicans giving them a few more seats and critical breathing room. but the advantage could be historically small, which could make life difficult even for the majority -- host: part of that agenda has of course but support for u.s. aid to ukraine. the money requested would total up to $100 billion in aid. this is the headline in defense

news, $38 billion more. they point out that the office of management and budget asked congress to include that funding , which includes security assistance, in the government funding bill for 2023 while seeking additional funds for covid-19 relief and disaster assistance. ukraine, the continuation of u.s. aid to ukraine. his --(202) 748-8000 is the line for democrat repus, (202) 748-8001. independents and all others, (202) 748-8002. if you are active or former military or would like to tech test -- text us, (202) 748-8003. here is some of the latest headlines here, "backing for

russia sanctions dips further, the share of those who say they should sanction russian exports at the risk of arise of price of goods in america dropping to 39%, the lowest recorded since the invasion." they say that americans remain divided, just 42% say that their government has a responsibility to protect and defend ukraine from russia, up from the previous survey with stark partisan divisions on the question, 54% of democrats agree with the obligation compared to 33% of republicans. a lengthy news conference yesterday at the pentagon with the defense secretary. lloyd austin and the chairman of the joint chiefs mark milley largely reacting to the missile strike in poland.

here's what general milley had to say. [video clip] >> the ukrainians are not asking for anyone to fight for them. they don't want american soldiers, british, french, or anyone else to fight for them. they will fight for themselves. all they are asking for is the means to fight and we are determined to provide the means. ukraine will do this on their timeline and until then we will continue to support all the way for as long as it takes. it is evident to me in the contact group today that that is not only the u.s. position but the position of all the nations there today. we will be there for as long as it takes to keep ukraine free. host: let's get to calls and your thoughts on usaid for ukraine. independent line, doug. caller: hey, good morning. host: good morning. caller: i just wanted to chime

-- thank you. i just wanted to chime in saying that we are giving a lot of money to ukraine right now. it's one of the factors driving up inflation in our country. you know. now we see these missiles hitting poland, a nato ally of ours. and you know, who is doing the check the balance on where the money's going, how it's being spent, you know? is this money worth it? that's with the american people should start thinking about. and yeah, we need to start focusing on american people. american problems. fixing american roads. bridges. host: in a republican congress, do you think that with the house under republican control they will be more focused on how the dollars for ukraine are spent and more interested in directing them in the ways you're talking about?

caller: boulet, it'd be nice if they did. as a person who's a big fan of history, of our government and how it has been run lately, it's probably going to be more about, you know, left issues and right issues. it's not going to be more of the center and for every american. you know. just going to be more of the fighting in the arguing and nothing's going to get done unfortunately. host: all right, let's hear from jv on the democratic line. caller: it might just work. i believe that we should give ukraine back there nuclear weapons that they willingly gave up. i don't keep up enough with politics to remember exactly when that happened but i

understand they gave up their weapons to get into nato and they are still not in nato. i cannot believe that the russian people would permit putin to do what he is doing if they thought there was a threat that ukraine might retaliate with a nuke strike in the middle of moscow over there. of course they aren't going to do this but i would think that that would be one possible solution to ending these things. let russian know they've got the nukes back and tell the russian people just -- if you don't stop putin, it's too bad for you. that's all i have to say. host: good morning, steve, republican line in california. caller: morning, bill, haven't talked to you in a while. looking back to when the war got started, we should have put troops in and it wouldn't be in

the billions to stop it, we could have called that bluff when he was putting all his troops on the border. but that's should a, could've, what a -- would of. we are going to have to be supporting these people from here on out until they do actually drive russia out of ukraine. and so you have to make a choice of whether or not you are going to support democracy or totalitarians and me i think we should keep supporting democracy as far as the money that's being spent that we could have used over there, that we could have used over here being used over here. we wouldn't spend the money anyway, it would just get stuck in congress like it has been for the last 20 years, arguing back and forth. the one thing i have noticed about congress is that the

congressmen are similar to -- host: windham, connecticut, stephen is on the line. hello. caller: thanks for taking my call. geographically, collectively the west and ukraine have pushed the russians back halfway. we are halfway there, guys. just give us some time to finish the rest off. i think, i think we can take crimea. i think we can push the rest of the russians out. the numbers coming out of, you know, people killed on the russian side is, i don't know what they are doing but they are crushing the russians right now. they are crushing them. i'm just appealing. i saw the news conference yesterday. can i go ahead? host: finish your thought, go

ahead. caller: i saw the news conference yesterday. i've always liked mark milley. i know that there have been issues but i always thought he was really good at his game. and secretary austin is, you know, i'm really with these guys. i've been auditing a class by a yale professor, timothy speier. anyone interested in ukrainian history, even the biden administration, reach out to timothy snyder. it's the most interesting course i've ever audited before. it's online, anyway. you can see it. host: you mentioned lloyd austin, the defense secretary. the main reason for the news conference yesterday was to address the errant missal that exploded in poland. here is what secretary austin had to say. [video clip]

>> first of all, the investigation and poland is still ongoing. we are assisting in any way that we can. we do have some experts on the ground helping polish leadership. we have full confidence in their ability to, too, to conduct this investigation in a proper way and until that is complete again , i think it would be premature for anybody to jump to conclusions. i know that ukraine has offered to participate and help in any way they can as well. so, we won't get ahead of you know, of the investigation. but you know, our information supports what president duda said earlier in his preliminary assessment. this was most likely, most likely a result of a ukrainian air defense missile.

but we will let the investigation play out here. host: asking you about usa to ukraine. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents and others (202) 748-8002. the line for current and former military, (202) 748-8003. on text, mike in orlando, republicans hinting they won't be supporting the funding of the ukrainian war in russia. sad and unfortunate that republicans would help putin win the war. a military veteran from ohio, glad that they are defending this unjust invasion. nevertheless, it isn't america's war to fight or fund. from new jersey, a timely reminder that when donald trump withheld military aid to ukraine to extort zelensky, 99% of

republicans in congress refused to remove trump from office and turned their back on ukraine. marjorie taylor greene says she is calling for an audit of every single penny sent to ukraine, the american people deserve transparency and to see where their money is going. new port richey, military line. steve, good morning. caller: hi. uh. yeah. host: steve, steve, mute your volume on your television to go ahead with your comments. caller: ok. we need, what we need to do is support ukraine to our fullest. they are putting up a fight that most american civilians would have no concept of.

i just can't understand anybody possibly backing, you know, backing the russians on this. they've done so well with the amount of stuff we have given them. they should get a fighting chance. they should get tanks. they should get everything they need to fight their war host:. thank you. in washington -- war. thank you. host: washington, d.c. joseph. caller: it's discouraging to hear that people are losing support for funding the war and ukraine. people are forgetting that we really do have everything to lose. i remember back in february of this year when it first started, the human rights violations happening in russia succeeding

in taking over ukraine, a flashpoint may be for another world war. that if he was successful he might want to take over other former soviet territories, you know? it's incredibly shortsighted to say you know it's driving up inflation and hurting -- i mean there are a number of things driving up inflation. i'm suffering, too. we are all suffering the higher prices. we all feel it, right? but i think it's shortsighted to say that this is not a good reason to fight for democracy around the world and looking at [indiscernible] host: you broke up a little bit there towards the end but we had a call or paraphrase something earlier saying that we got kind of stuck in this thing. how do we make sure that we don't get stuck and have a regular assessment of aid to

ukraine? caller: you mean like how do we make sure we don't get stuck again in the future or how do we ease out of this? host: not necessarily ease out, but to do an assessment of what is the appropriate amount of aid for ukraine is conflict continues? caller: yeah i mean i kind of agree with the previous caller that we have to do whatever it takes at this point. the other thing i wanted to say now that you mention is that if we do start pulling away, you know, people want the international community to take us seriously again, that isn't the way to do it. in the thick of it, saying that taking cruise on is a turning point for the war and things are going in the right direction and we start pulling away now? i do think that we will be taken even less seriously and not as a reliable ally.

host: olympia, washington, elaine on the republican line. caller: first of all, europe has the most to lose in all of this, they are the closest to the problem. yet the u.s. is doing most of the support. if you look at the charts, we are hundreds of times more than what they are putting into this. even though we are all nato countries. i don't know if they are not doing it because it's not a nato country or what. that's my first point. then the other point is, if we don't trust, if we want to know what they are doing with the money instead of giving them the money why don't we give them the equipment that they need? that seems like it would be far that are away of knowing what they are spending the money on. host: i think that part of that

actual money is get armaments. missile launchers and things like that. caller: so we are not actually giving them the funds? we are giving them the equivalent? host: i think there is a mix of both. certainly we are giving them a vast amount of artillery and armaments. caller: yeah well i could see where they would have money they would need just to feed people and pay them, but you know, i don't know what's happening to the people in their country. they are really hurting. that's why i can't understand europe not supporting them. just humanitarian, humanitarian. you know? just seems like the thing that you would do. but whatever. but anyway, thank you for taking my call. host: all right, the white house

for testing another $38 billion in aid and it's possible that that will be addressed before the 118th congress. news from overnight last night is that republicans have officially won control, the 218 necessary to become a majority. the headline here in "the washington post," republicans split congress, the tweet last night from the pelosi deputy chief of staff, drew hamel, tweeting this, speaker pelosi has been overwhelmed by calls from colleagues, friends, and supporters, monitoring the returns in the three critical states, planning to address her future plans to her colleagues tomorrow, stay tuned. steve, schenectady. good morning. caller: hello there, sir. i wanted to share a momentary thought. the statement of sharing that

until, until it's complete -- i forget exactly the statement at the exact moment i'm not looking at the, at the show any longer. host: long as it takes, from mark milley. caller: long as it takes. that statement is a very powerful statement, i feel that clearly must have been thought through a lot. because it must have drastic influences on both sides, right? both sides know that they are either getting the support or getting the enemy of the united states no matter what. that's just a large thing to know that is going to continue, ad infinitum. we don't know exactly what the endpoint is at this point. or is that something that has actually been stated? i don't actually know.

host: what is your sense of the general's reason for saying it? it does sound like a political statement. what were some of the influences on that statement, do you think? caller: it sounds to me more like a morale kind of statement on both sides. seems to me it would give the ukrainians the morale to understand that the support from the united states will not be ending anytime soon and the exact opposite for the russians because they would know that the united states will not continue stopping support for their enemies. host: thanks for the insight, steve. brian on the independent line in washington, d.c. caller: good morning. it sounds like another milking of the american people. you have billions for ukraine,

which at one point was iht the most corrupt country over there inope. don't have enough money for health care, don't have enough money to help our students pay off student loans. but unlimited funds it seems when it comes to war. i want to know, everyone talking about where it's going. i want to know where it's coming from. what i mean by that are where are they taking these billions from when it comes to taxpayer money and out of what, out of what areas? i think we are continuously funding the military and of those who make weapons and we are not seeing any returns as far as i'm discerned. i just feel that we have to, people have to do better and understand what's going on. there's going to be a bill to pay for this and who is going to pay it except us?

like someone else said, the people of europe should be doing more, they are right next to it. i don't understand why the united states always has to be the biggest payer. even though i'm an independent, i believe trump was correct. those people when it comes to nato, those people in those countries need to do more of their part instead of depending on the u.s. thank you. host: usa ukraine and the light of a new house majority coming in in january. marty, go ahead. caller: the answer is simple to me, we can't fund ukraine because we don't have the money. [indiscernible] host: marty, your phone is breaking up. sorry about that. ricky, philadelphia, democrats line. hello there. caller: good morning.

yes, my thing is i don't mind we give money to another country to help them with democracy. i don't want it to backfire on us. i can remember in 1980 during the reagan administration, we went to help out the afghanistan freedom fighters and 20 years later it backfired on us, helping them out. they went on into nicaragua when reagan, when reagan had the people, the sandinistas fighting the contra. it backfired on us, sending the arms to iran. it's like the money, the money

is ok. we should find out how much money is reasonable to give to ukraine. like i know, i know we got some work we need to do here in america with the gas price inflation and other things that we needed america. it's like you know, we should clean up our backyard instead of helping out someone else that wants more. eventually we are helping out ukraine and then more likely helping out, helping out -- i forgot. against china. against thailand if i'm mistaken. host: taiwan? caller: taiwan, yeah. will be funding taiwan for them funding -- fighting, that's my

asportation for the day, sir. host: a couple of stories here today on the missile explosion itself. this is from "the washington examiner," zelinski rejects nato view that russia did not fire missile that fell in poland. host: response here from president zelenskyy, this is the headline from nbc. "that's not the evidence." "in a rare display of public discord, open clash over who launched the missile that claimed two civilians in nato member poland.

it may be the most significant rift and comes at a critical crucial moment as russian forces are on the retreat. mike pence held a town hall last night hosted by cnn and was asked by an audience member about his view on u.s. support to ukraine. [video clip] i said from -- >> i said from early on that it's essential that the united states of america and western allies provide the people of ukraine with the support they need to defend themselves and repel the unconscionable russian invasion. i have made it very clear that i believe there is no room in the republican party for not staying the course and we need to stand

strongly with president zelenskyy and the courageous fighters who just this week witnessed a russian retreat from one of their cities. they are making incredible progress but we cannot flag in our commitment. i'm passionate about it because i always believe in what we used to call the reagan doctrine. wherever there are free peoples willing to fight communists, we will give them the resources to fight them so we don't have to fight them. but it's a little more personal than that for us. karen and i were on a trip through the middle east that stopped in poland to thank relief workers in a christian organization called samaritans purse. we actually were able to travel into ukraine that day. just a few miles but we came to a refugee center and i saw a sight i never thought i would see with my own eyes.

women of every age, children of every age with whatever earthly possessions they could carry on their backs, lined up in being processed to leave their home country and leave their men behind to fight against the russians. as a member of the samaritans purse said that day, i never thought we would see those sites that weren't in black-and-white as they harken back to images of europe in the second world war. what's happening in ukraine is unconscionable. as the leader of the free world, the united states of america needs to continue to stand strong with the people of ukraine until the russian, until the russian army is repelled and the sovereignty of ukraine is restored. host: a couple of views from

congress here on aid to ukraine. the missile was likely from ukraine air defense. zelinski chose to live. ukraine, baiting us into world war iii. not a dime more. john garamendi, important to note that russia bears ultimate responsibility for events like this spurred by an unprovoked war taking your calls on aid t ukraine. (202) 748- for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republica independents (202) 748-8002. for active and former military, [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, -- active and former military, (202) 748-8003. bill, good morning. caller: how many more wars do we have to pay for?

our southern borders are open, we don't even know who the hell these people are. we are going to have another 9/11. who is responsible for that? joe biden, the democrats, the media that won't tell the truth. it's an invasion. 5 million people. 50,000 people storming the beaches of normandy. put that in perspective. joe biden, kamala harris, the rest of them, they need to go. they are treasonous rats that should hang by their skinny next. -- necks. host: michael. caller: europe has been sucking off the united states for 25 years. trump was right.

we have pretty much equal gdp between the u.s. and europe. we should be, i believe we need to support ukraine but only as much as europe is. there needs to be an actual audit, we need to know exactly what germany, france, these people -- i don't want to hear yes they are supporting them. how much? we need to focus on china and the asia area. a much bigger threat. as well as our southern border. as the gentleman just said, huge threat, everything from drugs to human trafficking and just craziness with the open border. over in asia we could partner with japan, south korea, australia, possibly india to surround china. it's probably a 10-1 difference

over there. host: you are calling on the republican line. you think that president biden has had any luck that in the g20 meetings in the meetings with the asian countries in these steps you are calling for with surrounding china? politically. host: well japan -- caller: japan has a great -- has agreed to increase defense, but biden, i have no faith in him. he has all kinds of ties to china and he will be 80 next month. the guy needs to be in an old man's home. that's just the bottom line. no, i don't have any faith in this current administration. host: wilmington, north carolina, democratic line. matt, go ahead. caller: every issue that we talk about on c-span is an onion. talking about the outside layer,

could c-span tell americans what a package to ukraine actually looks like? i think some people think it's a blank check. you know what i mean? i think it's probably a package of, you know, military hardware, food aid and stuff like that. but all the stuff that the american government is by getting from the american public is keeping people working, keeping money in our system. it's a $38 billion investment in ukraine being protected but it's also americans producing the weapons and delivering that stuff and all that money goes back into our economy to help america survive while we are also protecting democracy and protecting other small countries from being invaded by anybody who wants to invade them. i wish c-span would let us know what the packages look like so that americans could be more

educated, that it's not just a blank check and we are not just shipping supports of money. its goods and services and stuff like that. host: thank you for that point. bunny, independent line, florida, go ahead. caller: everything that has been said by the viewers, in terms of russia and ukraine, we have to consider how close we want russia near us. where do we want the european border? i agree with the comments that europe needs to cough up and give larger amounts. i think that we need to have our representatives put additional pressure on them. i agree with the previous person who said that it's coming in munitions and equipment, not

cash. and it does provide for american workers to produce those goods. that's why wars always make a country more affluent in the long run, because of that production. but i think that we also need to consider that china is looking at russia and seeing what we do or don't do. the extent to which we commit or don't. i think it behooves us to continue to keep that support up . in terms of money i think the u.s. should have audit functions that go along with the money to track it. i agree with a previous guest who said ukraine has been corrupt. any one the previous satellites or people closely affiliated with russia have been corrupt. that's a given and you just have to work it into the equation.

host: i think it was met in north carolina, we had that headline on the $38 billion request from the white house, defense news on that, but going a bit deeper into the article, which we have done on a nber of programs, certainly, with aid in the past, the funding is for equipment for ukraine, replenishing of defense department stocks and continued military intelligence, including another $14.5 billion in funding for the state department and usaid for direct financial support to the ukrainian government, humanitarian assistance, strengthening global food security. a $900 billion request providing standard assistance, health care, support services for ukrainian parolees, with 600 and

26 million dollars in energy department requests for nuclear security support. congress has previously granted funding to the energy department national nuclear security administration to help ukraine prepare for potential incidents from ongoing russian shelling at the power plant there, writing that in addition to the total request, the white house is also asking for congress to authorize $7 billion in a presidential drawdown for kyiv that allows for a transfer of weapons into existing u.s. stocks. thanks for asking the question, appreciate that. we will try to do more of that. joe, military line, alexandria, virginia. go ahead. caller: i agree with a lot of the points that bonnie just made. it's our surplus stocks. general milley had some great

comments yesterday about what ukraine has been able to do has been amazing and inspiring. we can't walk and chew gum at the same time when it comes to taking care of our own in the united states, as well as helping out our allies and partners. this type of investment is well worth it, on the punch bowl and politically as well. the administration has done a very good job talking about who are the ones that are going to be upheld here. for putin to get away with aggression like this in the long run is a great threat to national security if we don't

support ukraine in their moment of rice's. if we don't have enough funds to help out ukraine and take care of us at home, does that mean they want to draw down the aid given to israel every year? the military aid given to egypt every year? again, these are allies and partners that deserve our aid and consideration. i think it's a false choice to say that we need to focus more on china and taiwan. i'm very cautious about drawing that comparison. ukraine is not taiwan, those are different problem sets. they are only related in the fact that international norms and laws need to be upheld. it's up to other states and countries to decide what their national sovereignty is going to be. host: one of the differences there, correct me if i'm wrong, we have an alliance in nato that

isn't the same sort of arrangement in the south pacific when it comes to taiwan. it's not a similar obligation that we have as we do with nato. caller: there are differences there. the taiwan relations act will draw a lot of that difference. taiwan not being a formal treaty ally. but it does require us the united states to help with defending taiwan. so there are some differences there. ukraine is not a signatory of nato. however the budapest memorandum of 1994 was signed by the united states and russia to respect ukrainian sovereignty as a part of the deal for ukraine to give up russian nuclear weapons on ukrainian soil. host: a couple of weeks ago this

was before last night's news that republicans are taking control of the house and the 118th congress. we will probably get a few more but a couple of weeks ago the president was asked about working with a republican led u.s. house particularly on the issue of aid to ukraine. here's what he said. [video clip] >> people across the country will see positive effects on their day to day lives but i understand why they are hurting right now, so many are concerned. as i have throughout my career i will continue to work across the aisle and deliver for the american people. it's not always easy but we did it in the first term, signing over 210 bipartisan laws since i have become president and are revitalizing american manufacturing. gun safety, we did it together. dozens of laws positively impacting our veterans. let me say this, regardless of what the final tally in the election shows, the american

people have made it clear i think that they respect -- expect republicans to work with me as well. foreign policy i hope will continue the approach in ukraine. when i returned from indonesia with other world leaders i invited the leaders of both political parties, as i have done in the past on my foreign trip, to the white house to discuss working together economics in national security firms in the united states, i'm open to any good ideas. host: you can send us a text message at (202) 748-8003. this one is from bill, saying that with all due respect to general milley i don't believe he's in a position to make policy decisions like the length of u.s. military commitment or

supply of admissions. -- munitions. ukraine refuses to blatantly acknowledge the direct responsibility for maintaining the integrity of our borders. u.s. air force, retired nurse, steve, i'm concerned more military political representatives will continue to fund the military industrial without oversight. one more here, eight-week from shell in illinois, infrastructure like local roads and bridges maintained by local governments and support for ukraine comes from the national defense budget. lobby your senators. america is a military superpower. let's not act surprised when other countries need our help. back to your calls, randy is in kentucky, republican mine.

go ahead. caller: good morning. russia is a orthodox christian country with traditional social values and for that reason it must be destroyed no matter the costs to us. this is a jihad, it must be said . are we being deceived here, being lied to? 5000 nuclear weapons going to russia out of ukraine at the end of the soviet socialist republic breaking up? did we do that or not to that? we want to be russia with nato on their door if we were in their place like it was in cuba with the missiles in cuba when cruiseship was there and we threatened nuclear war? the general said that no matter what or how long it takes or

what it costs us to start a nuclear war that will kill your children, grandchildren, your friends, your family, your neighbors. these people are insane. we are being lied to like dogs. we know better than this. we are a better country than this. we have got to get away from this news media the leads you down one way of thinking. they are bought off and paid for. host: alright let's hear from helena, clayton, north carolina. caller: hello, can you hear me? host: yes, you are on the air. caller: thank you so much. i am a ukrainian immigrant and i am surprised nobody is asking the ukrainian people, just the regular people, how they feel. i'm surprised so many good

american people who called, nobody says how it is. i'm sure they understand that this is a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. it's a tragedy for regular people. host: how long have you been in the united states? caller: i just came about a year ago. this is a tragedy for the -- for the ukrainian people. everybody understands that this is a civil war, south ukraine against north, which is russia. basically ukraine in the russian language means the border, the area on the border of russia.

so this is a civil war. of course for regular ukrainian people like me, it doesn't, we don't care who's in power. russian oligarchs or ukrainian oligarchs. they are all corrupt. they all want money. they just kill regular people. it's host: -- host: alright, thanks for your call. politico this morning, the headline, ukraine tells allies they may not be able to recover from more russian attacks on energy systems, warning that they are and to supporting increased attacks on the energy infrastructure in the coming days and kyiv does that have enough replacement parts to bring heat and power back on line if that occurs. general mark milley in the press conference yesterday spoke about recent battleground gains by the

ukrainians and the potential for negotiations to end the war. [video clip] >> ukraine has had great success on the defense, they've done a tremendous job. then they went on the offense of in the beginning of september and they had great success in kharkiv with better success in cure some, as you just witnessed. but physically, geographically those are relatively small compared to the whole. so that military task of militarily kicking the russians physically out of ukraine is a very difficult task. it's that going to happen in the next couple of weeks unless the russian army completely collapses, which is unlikely. in terms of probability, the probability of a ukrainian military victory to -- defined as kicking the russians out of all of ukraine to include what

they claim as crime era -- crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon as that high, militarily. politically there might be a political solution where the russians withdraw. it's possible. you want to negotiate from a position of strength. the russian military right now is suffering tremendously, on its back. their leadership is hurting bad. they have lost allowed -- a lot of casualties to killed and wounded, a tremendous amount of the tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. the russian military is really hurting bad. you want to negotiate at a time when you are at strength in your opponent is at this and it's possible maybe there will be a political solution. all i'm saying is the possibility for, that's all i'm

saying. host: these are comments by text and twitter, long as it takes. anytime they try to give money to americans, no one is deserving enough. the gop blocks it. the money going to america isn't really a talking point. it's very simple, u.s. aid to ukraine is three things, corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex, fighting a proxy war against russia to control their fossil fuel resources, and propping up corporate neoliberal empire. terry and new jersey says i'm wary of ukraine, as someone already said, if you want to give them weapons for weapons, fine, but no cash. pleasant grove, alabama, arnett. military line. caller: good morning, sir, thank you for taking my call. host: thank you. caller: as a former military

member who joined under the reagan administration, one thing he talked about was the great people empire and we at that time stood up to face down this great people empire. but here we are again, watching an incident in which, let's say this is czechoslovakia in 1938. if the british had given them the weapons in everything they needed, there probably wouldn't have been a world war ii. the czechoslovakian military equipment was far superior than the germans. the germans used the equipment to attack. so for all the people out there who say we should abandon ukraine and that we need to look here in america, as a person from a state that has been run by republicans, no infrastructure has been done in

the 50 years they run this state . they have been going after national issues and neglecting the state of alabama. especially the lower southern part of the state. they ask for industrial growth but if you don't have the infrastructure for it, you can't grow. so in that case my state, always 50 or 50. the people who rule here don't see a need for the citizens to do anything. and then they fight against something that is an inherent people to america. because of the russians can do this to their cousins, the ukrainians, what makes them think they won't the power stations here or just attack our civilians? this is what ronald reagan spoke of. for those who say they are republicans, like myself, i voted for reagan is my first vote in the primaries in 1980 before i joined the military and

became a political. it amazes me that veterans would fight to destroy our government and won't see that what reagan said was true. we have to fight the people empire. host: how long did you serve? caller: 1980 to 1995. host: thank you for getting on the phone this morning. brooksville, florida is next. republican line. caller: yes, hello. the answer is simple. we don't have the money to give ukraine. we can't finance anything over there. we are broke. $31 trillion in debt. and we are also borrowing money and paying interest on the money . paying even more than the $90 million they are talking about. we just got out of afghanistan. i thought getting out of that we could use the money for us.

no now we are giving it to ukraine? besides that we need money to pay for all of the illegals coming across the border. democrats want them to be future voters. we are going to have to pay for them. i don't know where this money is coming from. host: here's what kevin mccarthy said about the seats. republicans win the house, officially winning control of the house tonight and kevin mccarthy was on the sean hannity 's show last night and also commented on the potential changes in ukrainian aid. this from the republican leader a month or so ago before the election, before the results o the election he said that he in a recession and would ntting

write a blank check to ukraine, they won't do it. then the a the things the biden administration is not doingomtically and at the border. ukraine is important but at the same time it can't be the only thing and it can't be a blank check. chuck, democrats line. frederick, maryland, go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i would like to bring some fact into the discussion. i looked this up online. i believe it to be correct, from a reliable source. u.s. contributions to ukraine come to about 52 billion. that's in euros. close enough i think to dollars.

the eu has contributed about 16, 16, billion in euros. so far. now you know, people can make of that what they will. i would conclude that, you know, it would be, it would be appropriate for the europeans to spend more. but it's not like they haven't done anything. they have put in about $16 billion. by the way, the, the u.s. contributions includes $28 million in military aid. that's where the europeans have not provided very much. so that 28 million is i think -- sorry, 28 billion for military

hardware, that has come from the united states. now i would also like to say that i think the, the current u.s. military budget overall is about $900 billion. so we are talking about 52 billion dollars going to, going to, going to help ukraine. and i think that, that since they are doing, since the ukrainians are doing the fighting we are not having to send troops there. i think we are getting a bargain , to be honest with you. had we not sacrificed in world

war ii, maybe we would all be speaking german now. host: appreciate that. one more call. let's go to frank in rochester, new york. independent line. caller: the united states over the past 15 years in the ukraine have sabotaged every piece negotiation. sabotaged by the united states. 2014, emile con cia coup from the government. you know the phone call with who the people are going to plug into positions? the ukrainians burnt to death over 40 people who they opposed who were chased into a union hall. this is totally crazy. if you want to help the ukrainians, shut the weapons off and force everyone to the

negotiating table. i want to tell you something funny. the mainline media is not telling the american people russia is winning. if they are provoked into a winter counteroffensive, they are going to seize odessa. ukraine will be landlocked and totally ruined. zelenskyy is a bad leader p he is refusing negotiations. if you want to help the ukrainians, they are in an unequal battle to begin with. host: we appreciate your calls the segment on washington journal. more of the program ahead. next, brookings institution governance studies senior fellow molly reynolds will talk about what to expect from a divided congress following the results of the 2022 midterm and the news republicans will take control over the u.s. house. later, washington post economic policy provider tory newmyer

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america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> "washington journal continues. >> joining us from capitol hill is lisa mcclain, the congresswoman from michigan who is the new republican conference secretary. congresswoman mclean, thanks for joining us on washington journal this morning. host: you are the conference sec., got elected this week. what does that mean for you personally, and in terms of the role you will take on for the gop leadership? guest: i am humbled and excited to have earned this position from my colleagues yesterday, or tuesday when the elections were. i am excited. we have a lot of work to do. i am excited to get to work. i am excited to get started.

the biggest thing i want to bring to the table is the bridge -- to bridge that gap between the conference and leadership. that i think is going to be critical. we have a diverse conference -- congress p not everybody is in a ruby red district like mine. in order to move america forward, which is exactly what the american people are counting and praying on to do, we have to be able to listen to all of the members of congress. listen to their ideas, listen to what their constituents are telling them at home so when we sit at the leadership table, we can put forward policies and market those policies to the american people so that they understand that and we have a ladder on the right wall and we are moving in a direction that is best for all of america. host: interesting you mention you are in a ruby red district,

you are in a district north of detroit. in a state that this time around in 2022 led the governor -- the democratic governor retained her governorship. the legislature there flipped. much more of a democratic win in michigan than in prior years. guest: yeah, it was extremely unfortunate. i think we got a couple messages wrong. i think we did not listen closely enough to the people of the great state of michigan. we've got to do a better job of marketing and educating the voters on what the real issues are. that is what i intend to do. prior to coming to congress, i spent 30 plus years in business. the number one skill i learned is, you have to surround yourself with people that will tell you the truth. even if it is not what you want

to hear. in order to make good decisions for your district, state or the country, you have got to listen to the people. sometimes, i think we all confuse -- could use just a little more of our listening skills. host: what do you think those messages are that the party got wrong in michigan, and do you think some of those messages have national implications and are getting it wrong on a national level? at least in the republican conference on the hill. guest: on the hill, what we have to do moving forward is lay out a vision for the american people. the country right now is so divided. we have to figure out instead of what divides us, we have to figure out what can we put forth that the majority of people will agree upon. that is what we have done with the commitment to america.

our commitment is to figure out how to move this country forward with an economy that is strong. we have got to get this country back on track. inflation is at a 40 year high. the cost of everything is so expensive. we have got to figure out the labor shortage issues, the pricing issues, the supply chain issues. we have a lot of issues we need to deal with in the economy that affect everyone. while we care more about the criminals then we do the victims, that is a problem. we have to get back to law and order and rule of law in this country. listen, we lock our doors at night. that doesn't mean you do not welcome people into our home, but we know who is coming in. we have vetted them. host: do you think there is room for you to work with the biden administration on some of those

issues and at the same time hold some of these planned hearings? we are hearing today from representative coble are on about the biden family enterprises in the past. guest: absolutely. we will give the op -- the president the opportunity to join us. we will put forth legislation to give him the opportunity to join us on that, upholding people accountable. we went to hold the government accountable. we still do not have answers on where the covid virus came from. what is going on in our southern border? the american people deserve answers. i do not think the american people expect us to be perfect, but they expect us to make progress and expect us to be honest and transparent. let's dive into the issues. we cannot fix all of these problems unless we first admit we have a problem.

rest assured, i will absolutely hold the government accountable, as well as share with the american people what is going on, good, bad or ugly. they deserve to know. host: last question for you. kevin mccarthy won the republican leadership post on that tuesday election. will he have the 218 votes to become speaker in that january vote later in the year? guest: absolutely. he will get to 218, no question. host: lisa mcclain is the new conference sec. for republicans in the house. thanks for being here. guest: thank you. have a great day. host: join next by molly reynolds, senior fellow at the brookings institution to talk about the divided government we now have in washington. no surprise that the republicans

are now to 218. following on what we heard the congresswoman say, what are the challenges for a republican-led house to move forward with their agenda? guest: i think the real question is, what are the things over the next two years that the republicans in the house one to do versus what are the things the republicans need to do? we think about the basic blocking and tackling of american government. we think about keeping the government open, a lot of discussion about raising the debt limit and those big, fiscal issues. those are things that need to get done. if they do not get done, there are big consequences for the country. there is a set of things republicans would like to do, some issues that are the kinds of ones the congresswoman was talking about. i think republicans will have big challenges on some of those things they would like to see

done, since democrats still control the summit -- the senate and there is a democratic president in the white house. what really matters is whether they are going to be able to come to the table with democrats and the biden administration to get those must pass, important bills. if not done, there will be profound consequences. host: there is a minority into u.s. house. we are hearing a potential an announcement from speaker pelosi. what does being in the minority position now mean for democrats? guest: being in the minority power -- party in the house is not always the most fun place to be for its members, particularly for democratic members who will have just come out of four years in the majority. they have to get used to a different playing field. they will not control committees

anymore, that sort of thing. i think on some of these big picture issues over the next two years, things like raising the debt limit, funding the government, the real question about whether ultimately the republican speaker, whether it is kevin mccarthy or otherwise, will have to go to democrats to get some votes that are necessary to get some big things across the finish line. host: what do you think of the mike change in the u.s. senate? we know it is 15-40 nine, with a potential wind by incumbent rafael warnock. the democrats could have a broader majority, 51-49. what does that mean for them? guest: if democrats get to 51 if senator warnock is reelected first week in december, that gives democrats in the senate a little more breathing room then they have right now. we think about the three big

responsibilities of congress. we have talked about legislating. we will get to talking about oversight. in the senate, we have nominations confirming nominees to federal judge ships and executive branch points. with the majority in the senate, democrats will continue doing that. if they get 251, they will be able to do it easily than they have the past two years. one, because if you have 51 votes, that is you one more vote, more flexibility. one if one of your senators is absent or opposes the nominee in the briefing room. we have seen situations because of a tie, we have had nominees get stuck in committee. there are procedures to get them out that were adopted at the beginning of this congress. those can take time. we know time is not always on congress's side. from the democrats perspective,

any steps may be easier to process those nominations the next two years, i think they will welcome that. host: molly reynolds is with the brookings institution. we are talking about, now that we know officially, a divided government in washington with republicans gaining control of the u.s. house. at least 218 seats. if you want to join in on the conversation (202) 748-8000 four democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8002 for independence and all others. let's talk about oversight. we had congresswoman lisa mc clain, and the news conference today with james comer, who will be the incoming chair of the oversight committee. the hearings, the probes will be of the biden family, of hunter biden in particular. if you look back on the last decade or more of the oversight

committee, has the further politicization of that committee help or hurt the role of oversight on congress and capitol hill? guest: great question. oversight is the thing that is easiest to change when you change the majority. when republicans take over the committees, those chairman, mr. cole or and otherwise will get to decide what their committees do in a way that doesn't decide the negation over parties and legislation. over the past decade, we have seen changes in congressional oversight. one of them is one you alluded to, the idea that we have seen oversight becoming in many cases, targeted at the president himself. that is not to say we do not have a history of this, we go back over the postwar period. we see particularly in period subdivided government, aggressive oversight at times of

the executive branch of the government. i think it is telling you see a number of republican members saying service on the oversight committee is a thing they want to do. it is getting to be seen as a plumb committee assignment at the moment, which i do not think has always been true. i think this will be the big feature of the house in the next two years. host: the question is, how much does a speaker kevin mccarthy prioritized those oversight hearings, versus trying to pass the agenda they have talked about? how much has he pried to her diced -- prioritized congressional hearings over legislation? guest: one of the things we have seen over time is that as the legislative process more generally has gotten centralized in the hands of party leaders and they do more than

negotiating over bills than they used to, committee chairs left legislating on their agenda have started to fill that space with more oversight. i think that whatever mr. cole are priority -- mr.comer's priorities are, i think this will be another chairman who will amount to vigorous oversight effort. what their priorities are will shape where those committees go. i think generally in a period of divided government where it will be difficult for republicans in the house to get things they really want to see past all the way through and signed into law into president -- by the president, oversight will be an attractive use of their time and something that i expect them to try and draw attention and contrast between them and president biden. host: a projection from nbc

might wind up being 221 republican, to -- 214 democrats. that is a slim majority. guest: it is. the democrats over the last two years have also had a slim majority. one of the consequences such as the nature of our politics at this moment, this is -- these majorities are not unusual to be this small. the question that follows from that, do you have a leader of the majority party who is adept at managing whatever divisions there are in his or her congress or conference in order to complete the basic response abilities? host: historical context might be important. not going back that far, washington post did a piece on congress with divided government. slim majorities in particular in the u.s. house. 107 congress, they write, this congress convened with an eight

seat republican majority in january 2001, the same month president george w. bush took office having lost the popular vote. then came the terrorist attacks of 9/11, spurring a momentary unity not unlike the 65th congress among world war i. the patriot act, the authorization of the use of a rock and afghanistan, the party split didn't matter. the vote margins were over one. guest: i think there have been profound changes in our politics even since the early 2000's. i would not help our country would see something like september 11 again, but that was a profound change and a profound moment in our history. i think the magnitude of that, and the country and parties have gotten more polarized since the

early 2000's. even the early 2000's, we still saw more moderate republicans, more conservative, democrats then we see now. there simply isn't that kind of middle of the two parties where there is overlap. host: molly reynolds is with us, we are talking about the changes ahead of the 118th congress. let's go to charles on the democrats line in california. make sure you mute your volume. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: yes, good morning. host: good morning. caller: i appreciate the congresswoman for her eloquent speech this morning. she was talking about how we favor the criminals over the victims. i just want to make sure she remembers her party when our ex-president is brought before

the courts and some of the dealings he has done in the past. host: ok. congresswoman mclean joined us a while ago. ohio, republican line. caller: two questions. one, in ukraine, the president of ukraine has a net worth of $100 million. so, we do not hear him taking money out to take care of his country, but we are supposed to. that is my first question. host: go ahead with your second question, richard. caller: technically, by the constitution, taxes are to take care of the government. so, it is highly unconstitutional to give transit trillions of dollars to these countries. we give $7 trillion away, what

right do they have to give -- borrow and give it away? that is my question. host: molly reynolds, we started the program with talking about ukraine, a potential $38 billion requested from the white house. how do you see the debate changing in the u.s. house when those requests come, future requests like that for ukraine and otherwise for defense issues? guest: i think up until now, aid ukraine has been an issue that has bucked the issues we have seen in congas. it has been an area we have seen broad bipartisan support maintained in part by leader mcconnell in the senate, and effort to maintain party unity on the republican side around the issue. i think going into the new congress, it remains to be seen whether republicans will be able to keep that unity together

around continuing to provide aid to ukraine. that is part of why we saw the biden administration make this big ask in the lame-duck session. if they can do it now, it will be easier than when republicans control the house. i think one of the quotes you had up from leader mccarthy from this last month, earlier this morning, referenced this idea of it cannot be a blank check. i think that is a place i will be watching closely. what does he mean when he says that? will he perhaps agree to a continued aid for ukraine, but require an exchange -- in exchange less oversight of it? to me, that is a telling comment from him. host: doesn't it make any difference that the parties have changed, but the leadership or dynamic among the leadership has not changed?

you're going to have likely senator schumer as the leader, mitch mcconnell got reelected as the republican leader yesterday. more than likely, a change perhaps in democratic leadership in the house. of course, president biden and all likely house speaker kevin mccarthy. does that dynamic change at all because republicans are in control now? guest: i think it changes a little bit. republicans control of the house, it will be up to presumptive speaker mccarthy on whether to bring those to the floor. if we look back at the last period where we had a republican-controlled house, a democratic-controlled senate and a democratic president in the white house, one of the challenges in getting some of these big, important, must pass things done is convincing then speaker boehner to bring them to the floor over the wishes of some of the members of his conference. host: let's hear from michigan,

tony on the democrats line. caller: yes sir, thank you for taking my call. host: you bet. caller: i'm calling to say i am in port huron, lisa mcclain does not represent port huron. that is a manufacturing town. she does not know anything about it. do not like you have a representing port huron. mccarthy needs to go away. they need to get somebody else. thank you. host: the congresswoman mentioned in our conversation, molly, that she thought republicans missed some of the messages in michigan. clearly, they are going to win the majority, but not that red wave that wasn't dissipated. what are some of the messages nationally that you think republicans missed? guest: great question. i think we are still figuring out the answer. i think in some places, michigan may have been one of them, the

extent to which abortion and the decision in the summer of the dobbs case was driving some voters to the polls. in michigan, there was a ballot question involving abortion that i think may have driven up turnout for folks who care about that issue. that is one possibility. a second possibility is this discussion of, how are boaters feeling about the overall threats to our democracy -- voters feeling about the overall threats to our democracy? january 6 and the investigations that have flown from that, but more generally, are voters feeling more nervous then maybe some folks about where we are with the health of our democracy? host: (202) 748-8000 is the line for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

for all others (202) 748-8002. molly reynolds with the brookings institution with us. brighton, colorado, democrats line. manwell, go ahead. caller: yes, you have been talking about both parties pushing their agendas. one of the issues that has been prevalent last 20 years has been immigration. but, republicans as i see it, has used immigration as a wedge issue to support people in the united -- i mean, divide people in the united states. when are both parties going to sit down and address immigration? i am so tired of this being a wedge issue every election.

the republicans claiming there is an open border, and all of this rubbish. when are they going to address immigration properly, and get something done? guest: yeah, i think in perhaps a earlier era, this period of divided government might have been the kind of time we would have seen an effort to address something like immigration. but, i think given where the issue has been over the past several years, i am not optimistic that the republicans in the house and the democrats in the senate and the white house can find a comprehensive solution to the issue over the next two years, especially since we know from tuesday night, president trump has announced his intention to run again in

2020 four. immigration was and always has been his signature issue. i think that alone will loom over any efforts in congress to address immigration over the next two years. host: after the election, my friend said something to the effect of, americans must be poor in divided government. we keep voting for it, we do not want any one party to get control of government. guest: there is a long history of that dynamic. one of the reasons going into tuesday night -- last tuesday night, folks expected a big push for republicans, if you look back at the postwar period in the united states, the president's party almost always loses seats in the midterm. those are big losses, we saw that quite notably for president obama in 2010 and the tea party wave when republicans picked up 60 plus seats in the house.

this idea that a president runs for election on a platform has trouble satisfying that platform, satisfying those promises in his first two years in office, even if there is unified party control. voters react to that at the ballot box. that is a long-standing, historical pattern in the united states. host: overton, nebraska. jerry is on the republican line. caller: yes, i believe this last election was swayed by the vote from the college kids that wanted the free money that biden promised to them. he knew he couldn't do that. nancy pelosi said two years ago he could not do that, it wasn't legal. why did he promise that to them when he knows it cannot be done? i believe that is what swung the selection to the democrats. thank you. host: do you think that was a factor? guest: we did see to the best at

smith's we have so far -- estimates we have so far, increase in voter turnout. it is impossible to know whether that was driven by an interest in the biden administration debt forgiveness policy, it might have been driven by the abortion issue, or many other things. that might have led voters to turn out in the election. host: i want to ask you about the vote that happened yesterday in the senate, the procedural vote on the same-sex marriage bill. the significance on the senate's history of same-sex marriage, a bipartisan majority has voted to move forward on a bill protecting marriage equality. that vote expected quite policy -- quite possibly before thanksgiving. there is bipartisan support for that in the u.s. senate. does that give us any indication of potential, other legislation which may find support in the senate into 118th congress?

guest: evolution on that issue specifically, protection for same-sex marriages. pretty remarkable over the past decade plus in american politics. i think it was telling when there was discussion whether the senate would bring this matter before the election and ultimately to know, we are going to hold it after the election. which i think and others took to signal, they are going to get this done. it is going to be a vote that failed, they would have taken that before the election. i am not sure how much i would extrapolate from that specific issue to other issues. i think the big challenge for legislating in the 118th congress is not going to be just what can get 60 votes in the senate. and 218 votes in the house, given we will have divided party control. host: tennessee, gloria on the

democrats line. caller: good morning. host: good morning, gloria. go ahead. caller: we are all talking today about how the house is so divided, not equal. but, i believe that could turn out to be a good thing to anyone that watches c-span, as i do, and watches people working. we can find out who really is an american. we are tired of having the communist party trying to take over our country. we need to keep our american values american. if that means sending money to help another country to be able to find themselves, to be an actual democratic country, we need to remember if over everything else, we are all human. that is all i had to say. host: molly, any thoughts? guest: one thing the caller

raises that is important to remember, even with -- when things get done in congress, they still generally get done on a bipartisan basis. whether we will see a burst of productivity in the 118th congress, not terribly optimistic. but, if the 118th congress does things, they are most likely to be going with broad bipartisan support. whether the parties can come together to figure out what those look like, that is still a big dynamic and characteristic of lawmaking. host: your view that both in this election and in recent elections, members, republican or democrat, calm to washington with more set in their ways views. there partisan views, more siloed and not amenable to opening the door to negotiation to considering another members views, or another members opposed legislation. guest: it depends.

i think there are members for that is true, and some members who do come to washington with the goal of trying to find common ground with members may be in their own party with whom they do not agree and across party lines. we have seen in the past two years, some partisan legislating. things like the american rescue plan, the inflation reduction act, but bipartisan legislating. we call it the bipartisan infrastructure bill for a reason, that has broad bipartisan support. we were just talking about the perspective legislation on protecting same-sex marriage. that will have bipartisan support. there is still plenty of issues that i think common ground can be found on, and the question is, do full see -- do they have an incentive to do that? host: tim in dell toner, florida. republican caller.

caller: i want to say one thing before i start. for the lady in colorado, she talked about immigration being a wedge issue by the republicans for the last 20 years. that is been going on since reagan, ok? the democrats use it as a wedge issue, so to the republicans. they both do. they never want to solve the issues, they never went to address the immigration laws. ok? my question to the lady here is this, ok? with these oversight committees, let's look at the southern countries down there. guatemala, honduras, where we send a lot money to. why don't they take in these oversight committees and dig into how the money is being used? as americans, we do not mind helping other countries, but we like to have accountability for

the money that is being spent in these countries, whether it is ukraine, honduras, guatemala, puerto rico, you name it. we hear from our mainstream media and our national news that, oh, they are trying to come here for a better life because everything is so corrupt and they do not have the economic chance in their countries. well, if that's the case, then why are not our congressional people really looking into it and finding out what is the root problem? if you have the root problem, then root it out. ok? one other thing i would like to say, ok? people have a hard time respecting some of our government agencies, like the fbi, the doj, the irs, you name it.

the reason people do is because, as american citizens, we are not dumb. we are pretty intelligent people. we can see that a lot of these agencies have become politicized . you've got a lot of political bias in them because these are career people. a lot of times, they are career appointees. this stuff needs to be -- they need to be moved out. host: all right. a couple of issues there. oversight in congress and the trust in government. guest: to the oversight question, the caller raises the issue of, the u.s. sends a two countries, puerto rico is a part of the united states, so a different category. i think it illustrates the notion that congress has a fixed

amount of time. congressional committees need to decide of all the things they could be spending time doing oversight of, which ones do they see as most important? i think the caller is right, perhaps over the last several years, this particular issue has not may be received as much congressional attention as others. i do not know if that will change, but it does remind us that there is lots that congress can be doing at the committee level and legislative level. they need to make choices on how to spend their time. trust in government, i think going beyond the colors specific issues related to the fbi or the doj, the government broadly is a real challenge in this country. it has been a challenge for a long time. i think there are a lot of ideas about how folks may address that. i think it is difficult for

people across the country to feel like congress is serving them well if they do not trust members in office. host: here is arkansas, robert on the democrats line. you are on with molly reynolds. caller: i just want to make a comment. the republican party always talking about what the democrats are not doing. what have they told you they are going to do in the case of being in power? the last four years they were in power, i cannot understand anything they have done to benefit ordinary people. investigate is the only thing they talk about. investigate, investigate, investigate. host: sergio in florida, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you, sir? host: i good, thank you. caller: molly, how are you? guest: i am good, thank you. caller: my question is, i know the republicans won by a small

majority. how are they going to work with president biden particularly on his issues to progress a better america? how can they get things done? now, i am worried that republicans are -- in division. now that mitch mcconnell is running it, they are going to have problems more on getting things done. what can president biden do to get things done? host: how will the white house change, is a game plan. good question, sergio. guest: great question. the two things to keep in mind, one is -- even under the last two years of democratic control, a lot of what we have seen in washington has been executive action by the biden administration because of the difficulty of getting a lot of things through congress.

we were talking before about debt forgiveness. that might be the biggest example of where there was a policy priority that was shared by many democrats. was not going to get done through congress. the president came in, there is some question about the legality of doing that via executive action. he did it that way because congressional action was not an option on that issue. i expect now that we have divided party control, we will see more of that. i think one of the other things to remember is that, sometimes, when we have divided party control, the -- having the president insert himself into legislative negotiations can sometimes backfire. often, members of the other party, in this case republicans, may not want to be seen as doing something that is helping the white house, doing something joe

biden wants to do. we saw this in the last period to this, when republicans controlled the house and democrats control the senate's. there was a saying president obama wanted on the trade front which we thought historically republicans would have agreed. there was reticence to be seen in siding with the white house, citing with president obama. i think the biden administration, the biden white house will need to be careful and judicious in the ways they insert themselves at least publicly into negotiations by congress. host: that use of executive action by the biden administration, president trump used a number of executive actions during his presidency. during the obama presidency, as well. it has become used more frequently in the past three presidencies now. is that an indication that congress is stuck, that we

cannot get legislation through congress? guest: i think it is. i think it is telling, particularly when you see members of congress of the president's party say -- thorough up their hands and say, we cannot do this legislatively. we, as the first branch of government, are ok with giving up some of our power to the president because we have this policy goal that we share and want to get accomplished. we are not going to be able to do it legislatively. we are going to be ok with the executive branch doing this. on the student debt forgiveness, you saw democratic members of congress openly advocating for this strategy with the biden administration because they knew they could not do it themselves. host: independent cases, in many cases, the courts struck down that executive action and it goes back to square one. guest: yeah, in that way it is indicative of the growing power of the federal courts. really, at the extent of

congress. where we have seen more and more actions get deferred to the executive branch, challenged in court. the court becomes the ultimate arbiter of the policy. host: real quick on federal judgeships, that is a real priority for senator schumer, moving at a roll judges through the u.s. senate and confirming them. guest: that is what i expect, in large part because it will be something the senate will be able to do without needing to work with republicans since now you only need a simple majority to end debate on a judicial nomination. host: let's hear from reba in maryland. there you are. caller: two comments. the first is about accountability. several people have brought it up here and i think it is a real issue on both sides of the aisle. on all sorts of different issues, whether it is giving money or for me, i want to know more about the wall.

how that money was spent. it is all varied -- buried in different journal articles that cannot prove it. i think it is out there, i just think it is out there washington talking to itself. i really wish there were websites citizens could go to where they could see the outcomes of legislation in a simple format, not accounted -- if they wanted to dig deeper, they would know where to go. i think all of us citizens would like that. pass it on to any legislature. the other thing is, about what republicans are going to do or not do, which i hear on some of the calls. we pay our representatives a huge amount of money. i think that the republican

house ought to try and get legislation done on issues that their people voted them in for. but, it is not going to be 100%. it is going to have to be bipartisan. it is going to have to pass the senate. it is going to have to pass the president's desk. it is going to have to, in the case of immigration, deal with international laws we signed up for. so, they are going to have to do hard work, which they get paid to do. host: thanks for that, reba. molly reynolds. guest: to the caller's point about the challenges facing members of congress and legislating is a good one. i think we have to ask hard questions about what sorts of people think that running for congress and being in congress

is going to be a rewarding career for them now. we were talking about the difficulty congress has legislating and the amount of action that has been deferred to the executive branch. as congress has become less powerful in the three branches of government arrangement, i think many folks in previous decades would have wanted to come to washington to be a real legislator, real workhorses. beat the gridlock and say, this is not going to be the place in public service where i can do the most good. then, we get different kinds of folks, folks who are perhaps more interested in messaging than they are in legislating. that is a challenge for the institution. host: in terms of reba's comments about getting accountability, there are fights out -- there are sites out there, plenty where you can find how that money is spent. in my inbox this morning, i got an email from the special

inspector general for rock green it's -- construction. the resources are out there. good for you for asking about that. but, you can find some of that on your own. let's hear from earl in aurora, indiana. go ahead. republican line. caller: yes, sir. i have so many things to talk about. having these meetings on same-sex marriage. god made woman for man. she is a help maid to man. god has control over life and death. when they have these abortions, god got these women pregnant for a reason. it is not our reason. we always think about ourselves. everything about what god gives us. he gives us freedom to choose and he says, choose me or choose

the world. that is what we've got in this world today. host: all right, tell lexington park, maryland. independent line. lisa, go ahead. caller: good morning. molly, i wanted to ask if you could please explain. there was a program the obama administration came out with that helped. it was a program for the three countries together, el salvador, guatemala, honduras. if i am not confused, i am not sure. i thought it was canceled by the trump administration. i wanted to comment on the young lady who called earlier regarding the wall. yes, there are a lot of sites out there like you mentioned for accountability, where the money

goes. there was someone, cannot remember his name off the top of my head, that took money, contributions from the trump administration donors. that he was charged for, if i am not correct, for spending the money that was given for the wall. i am just wondering if someone would answer that question. i do not remember his name, i am sorry about that. i remember reading an article a few months ago about it. host: molly, i do not know if you have anything. guest: i don't. but the questions remind us of the real, genuine, vigorous congressional oversight. i think you and i were talking aboard -- before about the degree to which oversight has

become politicized. age remains in congress is responsible it is, a place for digging into what is happening into money that congress has pushed out the door. these callers are reminding us of another important part of what congress can do. host: we haven't touched much on the likely change in leadership on the democratic side in the house. this is a tweet this morning from politico, today is the day pelosi announcement expected to come to the floor. she took home as you mentioned earlier to me, two versions of that speech last night, according to her source. where was a low seat night, another source spotted her at a victory event for henry cuellar. the speaker will be out of power, she will not be the speaker next time. assuming she steps down from her leadership position on the senate side, what does the shape

of the new democratic leadership going to look like? guest: all of the reporting i have seen, jeffries, congressman from new york is the front runner to be the next democratic leader. i think something that is important to remember is that speaker pelosi has a lot of gifts as a legislative leader. there have also been for several years a lot of pressure from other members of her caucus to pass the torch. in the democratic caucus, folks who are earlier in their career feel like they want to be able to ascend the ranks, bringing new and different perspectives to the democratic leadership. i think that is a big dynamic going on here. we talk about it most in the form of speaker pelosi, but i

think there are other dynamics and elements of that going on here. host: phil is in land of lakes, florida on the democratic line. go ahead. caller: hello. had a couple of points to make. one regarding the democrats and republicans, is there an advantage to keeping the masses so involved in the fight between the two so no other parties common? two, when it comes to usaid to other countries or countries or bailout whether it be for military or otherwise, we do not vote on those things. when it comes to u.s. aid to its citizens, the veterans or college student debt, we complain and say, no, do not do it. three, is it too simplified to think republicans will say, what can you do for your country, and well often off, not really to need social welfare?

while democrats i think in, what can my country do for me? can you speak to those items? host: several things there. guest: to start on the last point, there are big differences between the parties in how they think about the roles of the safety net. i think the caller is getting at that. i think his question of foreign aid, americans vastly overestimate the share of our federal budget that goes to spending on foreign aid. i think because often we see it reported on but do not have any real sense of where the money is actually going, it creates a disconnect. host: molly reynolds is a

governance studies senior fellow at the brookings institution. you can follow her on twitter. thanks for being with us this morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: still to come, we are joined later by washington post economic policy reporter tory ne wmyer to talk about the collapse of the ftx crypto exchange and cryptocurrency. first, we go to open forum to weigh in on any issues we have talked about so far and things you are following in the news. the lines have stayed the same. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. and for independence (202) 748-8002. start dialing, we will be right back. ♪ >> congress gets back to work in the wake of the midterm election. watching the next weeks as the incoming 118 congress alexis new

leaders, greets its new members and sets an agenda for january 2023. meanwhile, the outgoing 117th congress uses its final weeks to tackle unfinished business such as dissent spending, judicial nominations and funding for the federal government, which is set to expire on december 16. follow it live on the c-span networks and c-span now, our free mobile video app or anytime on demand at c-span.org. fridays at 8:00 eastern, c-span brings you afterwards from book tv, a program where nonfiction authors are interviewed by journalists, legislators, and more. this week's the new yo times emily flitter reports on the barriers blacks and people of color face when interacting with u.s. financial services industry.

she is interviewed by brookings institution senior fellow andre perry. watch afterwords at 8:00 eastern every friday on c-span. american history tv saturdays on c-span2. exploring the people that tell the american story. at 8:00 david dalton talks about 19th century american history and the rise of american industry and we break away from american history tv at 1:00 eastern to feature coverage of the miami book fair. featured authors include katie couric and scott tauro. watch american hto tv saturdays on c-span2.

find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time c-span.org/history. >> washington journal continues. host: it is open forum on washington journal, a chance to call it on news items you are following. (202) 748-8000 is the line for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, and (202) 748-8002 for independents. i half an hour of open phone calls. the house at 10:00 and shortly after we should hear about the plans of nancy pelosi. this is from the hill, nancy pelosi to address her future amid questions as to whether she will stay speaker. the speaker will address her future plans.

speaker pelosi has been overwhelmed by calls for colleagues. pelosi's deputy chief of staff wrote in a tweet saying the speaker plans to address her future plans to her colleagues and added stay tuned. a source told the hill nancy pelosi brought two versions of her speech home with her wednesday night. the u.s. house at 10:00 eastern. let's get you are calls. ron in florida, democrats line. caller: good morning. i'm going to talk about ukraine and all of the misinformation i've heard this morning. one of the reasons we are getting all the military equipment is because we are one

of the biggest armies in the world and we have the most. the size of europe matches the size of the united states. the ukrainians shot down a missile in the president said he shot it down. it came from the russians. we are giving money for aid for the people and we are giving blankets to the army. as a marine i support them completely and we should back them until russia runs out of equipment. nancy pelosi, whatever she does, she deserves what she wants. she served this country very

well. thank you. host: bob is up next in illinois, republican line. caller: good morning. love c-span. i want to touch on a couple of things. elections, wyatt takes so long to count the votes. something is going long. i do not know if it is corrupt or whatever. there is no excuse not to know the night of her the morning after. i think trump is the only one that can win the election so i think desantis should wait four years and then he can try. if that one lady is still listening i think that story is steve banded was trying to collect money on his own to do something with the wall. maybe that is what she is referring to. host: anthony in st. paul,

minnesota. independent line. caller: good morning. i was just going to say there should be more accountability for the money being sent over there, it is close to 140 billion over the last 10 months if we go back to jen psaki's press interviews, you will see fun date already starting to go in. $40 billion in aid had already went in on monday, by friday zelinski was asking for an additional $1 billion in aid. low near zelinski -- zelinksyy's background as a comedian and associated with neo-nazis goes back into putin's invasion of eastern ukraine. it was to push out the neo-nazis

living there. those soldiers who volunteered are not telling their story. if americans want to know, russians are not being pushed out by force from the ukrainian assistance they are receiving. they are moving through strategic poise after they retrieve resources from those regions. one more thing is nato membership has been requested twice by zelenskyy in the last four months. many americans do not know that the refugees that have been accepted into the united states on fast track have received over $250,000 in aid. the median 850 credit score and also homes to move into for their families. an article was just published, minneapolis paper did today,

that highlights the amount of resources going into dismembered individuals coming over to united states for rehabilitation. if those services were offered to our servicemembers, we would be a lot stronger country. i believe we are being duped out from the ukrainians. thank you. host: open forum. the death of columnist and former presidential speechwriter michael garson. he died at age 58. a speechwriter for president george w. bush who helped craft messages of brief and resolved after 9/11. then explored politics and faith as a washington post columnist, writing on issues as diverse as donald trump's grip on the gop in his own struggles with depression died november 17 in a hospital in washington.

the cause of death was complications from cancer. after years of working as a writer for conservative and evangelical leaders, including prison fellowship ministries founder and a watergate felon, mr. gerson joined the bush campaign in 1999. he wrote with an eye towards religious imagery and that melted well with bush's personality as a leader. next to louisiana. ronald on the democrats line. caller: good morning. i am calling on the ukraine situation. there are things that have been set in motion that no one really talks about, and that was the time when president trump was in office. he took two hours alone with putin. no documentation, nobody knows

what was said. i think in that meeting, there is no proof, there is no facts, there is a series of things that was said. i see he has taken white house delicate information. who knows what he said, what he set in motion for ukraine to be at this point in time. thank you. host: memphis, tennessee. we will hear from william on the republican line. caller: how are you doing? i was calling about the presidential race that president trump announced. i feel like how long does it take to get a vice president? since trump and desantis are the number one and two running, i

feel like it would be a good idea for trump to run and have desantis as his vice president and that would be desantis campaigning for trump and then get four years of a republican and then eight years of republican with desantis. the other thing i had is about this early voting. i understand people need early voting, but if you have 10 days before the election, including saturdays, have two saturdays, and then have two days to count all of the absentee and have election day, it should not take a month to have the election results after that. what is your opinion? thank you. host: the former vice president

mike pence was on cnn last night , townhall hosted by jake tapper. the former vice president was asked about his meetings with former president trump in the days after the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol. >> we sat for more than an hour and a half and i was candid with the president about my disappointment. i must tell you that i sensed the president was deeply remorseful in that moment. i know that is at odds with people's public perception about him. i want to tell you it is true. i can tell he was saddened by what had happened and we spoke through it that day. i encouraged him to pray. he told me many times that he was a believer and i told him turn to jesus, hoping he would find the comfort there i was

finding in that moment. in the days that followed i made my way back in that office for another meeting in the president, days later, was still that i would call downcast. his voice was fainter than i remember at any time in our years together. after we finished talking through some end of the administration business, i reminded him i was praying for him. he was dismissive about it. as our meeting came to a close i stood up and he was seated at that small table, and i looked at him and i said i guess they're two things will probably never agree on. he looked up and said what? i refer to my role in january 6 and that i said i am never going

to stop praying for you. he smiled faintly and said that's right. don't ever change. we parted amicably, as much as we could in the aftermath of those events. host: the former vice president is promoting his new book so help me god. we will have live coverage tonight of an event with the former vice president at the ronald reagan presidential library museum in california coming up live on c-span, 9:00 eastern. it will also stream live at c-span.org and are free mobile app c-span now. our live coverage today includes a hearing looking at national security threats, u.s. homeland security secretary, fb director , and national counterterrorism director will testify before the senate homelandecurity and

governmental affairs committee. live coverage at 10:15 eastern on c-span3 and streaming at c-span.org and the mobile app. more calls it open forum. we hear from charles in new jersey, independent line. caller: how are you? host: find, thanks. caller: i am calling about zelenskyy. i think he would have loved for that missile from russia to hit poland without any interference from where he is because that would bring us to a war. i am up in the air about how he is talking and how his story has been changing. also as far as trump and pence,

the next two years, it will tell me which way i'm going to vote for the president. thank you. host: texas, we hear from miles, democrat line. caller: i am a democrat and a liberal. it is hard for me to believe people do not realize what has happened to our country. they say our kids are not learning well and that must go back 40 or 50 years because they do not seem to understand what treason is, what lies are, especially on a political scale. the january 6 insurrection was the worst thing i've ever seen in my life since the towers going down for no reason other than a couple of plates going in there. i will never get over 9/11. people are talking about bush and i feel sorry for mr. gerson

who has passed away. january 6 it clips 9/11 totally. going back to january 6, i cannot believe those two years have gone by and this guy will run again? i bet people and i lost a lot of money saying he will flee the country, he has money, he has a so-called gorgeous wife and all this legacy, he did 70 great things for the country -- right. i did not want to go off on you. thank you to c-span. i appreciate it. i did not have tv for a year, living in squalor. so great to be living under trump. that is my fault. host: st. petersburg, florida. republican line. welcome. caller: first time caller. i want to say a couple of things that seems to upset me. i want you all the time.

i am tired of the dems constantly saying we have no plan. meeting the republicans. i will say it slow. we will bring back the trump policies. i do not care trump comes back. i like his policy. if anything will bring it back times two. the democrats would've had a plan if they did not spend seven years beating down donald trump and his family. they took seven years doing nothing. i am tired of it. there is so much division in this country it is crazy. i am getting emotional. just ridiculous. to the people like the last element from texas who said he was living in squalor under trump, his last words out of his mouth work that is my fault and you are exactly right. opportunities are all over the place and they still are. it is a great country.

this last little flip-flop of congress is only the beginning. we will take our country back and everybody is welcome. big tent. host: we talked about the changes of potential news from speaker pelosi on her future plan. republicans have held their election for the 118th. republicans in the senate, mcconnell thwarts challenge for gop leadership is the headline in the washington times. mitch mcconnell remain at the helm, defeating senator rick scott spit. after more than three hours of private debate and a failed attempt to postpone the elections until after the december 6 georgia senate runoff , clear majority of senate republicans chose mr. mcconnell as their leader in the secret ballot. the final tally was 37 to 10 with one member voting present. the challenge of mr. scott came

amid a fierce blame game over the party midterm failure to capture the chamber from democrats. next up is donna in hampton, virginia. caller: good morning. the guy from tennessee took my thunder. i have the same feelings. i am an independent but i am leading to the right after the last two years. i believe trump should pick desantis as his running mate and him for the next eight years. i also wanted to warn the republicans, i have been watching mike pence go from one liberal station to the other and i look at him as being in other liz cheney. the republicans need to beware of him. i have one last question. where is peter?

he is one of my favorite host and he is never on anymore. host: he is hosting a lot on book tv, he hosted our election night coverage. i am he appreciates the kudos. richard in for, missouri, on the democrats line. caller: i am calling on the democrats line. i have been a republican for many years but i've i've changed over lightly. the 14th amendment states it pretty well, article three of the 13th of -- of the 14th amendment. if you are part of it insurrection or rebellion you can never be in office again. that is in black-and-white in the constitution. the democrats, the republicans have won the house. pelosi will not spend two years crying about it like some little baby.

we will see what they do. see what they do. they have two years to show us how great they are. if they do not they are out the door like they should be. people fighting, sending money and machinery, they are giving their lives. how do you replace that? i am going to get off. thank you for listening. host: up next from lake city, tennessee on the republican line, go ahead. caller: i think we need to look at what is the great reset that is going on. chuck schumer yesterday said americans are not having babies so they are bringing these illegals into america to replace american babies. 7000 a day are coming across our border. they lied about abortion saying republicans wanted to take away

abortion. now we have american women, stacey abrams said in abortion would cure inflation. they think abortion will be lollipops and ice cream. the whole thing was is a reset. the democrats want to replace americans who are not as easy to manipulate as are these people that come across illegally and they will be the new slavery institution that the democrats can control and they have no desire to stop it. when they are talking about taking an oath, biden took an oath to protect this country. he is protecting ukraine's border but he is letting our border be controlled by criminal gangs. he did not even mention fentanyl to president xi when he had the meeting with him. he did not mention covid which also killed one million americans, most of them hunter

biden. host: is open forum on washington journal. following several of the cases that are happening in the washington area, the january 6 cases, there are two headlines. defendant downplays violence in january 6 riot. her attire navy officer is one of two oath keepers associates. this one is about the january 6 theft trial. a jury deliberating on an accused rider which authorities say urged a man to computer. -- urged amanda steal a laptop computer from nancy pelosi's office. air force combat veteran

convicted of felony role in capital insurrection. 21 minutes after mike pence was evacuated from the senate chamber, and air force combat veteran used a set of keys to try to open the door he had left through. he did not succeed. there is no evidence he knew how close he had come to the vice president but judge john d bates cited that moment in finding brought guilty of six crimes in his participation in the riot. brought is a retired lieutenant colonel from texas. he identified himself to new yorker magazine which had captured footage of him very cap -- wearing tactical gear and tying -- and zip tie handcuffs. gilbert is on the independent line. caller: thank you for c-span. i would like to express my disdain and discussed in the

majority of black elected officials across this country. with the advent of the john lewis deal about the right to vote, are we not standing up for trying to get this bill passed during this lame-duck session? is my contention that if we do not get this bill passed now it will never be passed. why do we as descendants from africa have to even go through this process? that is a question i want to ask everybody. we pay taxes, we have fought for this country. why do we have to go through the process of getting the right to vote in america? if they would pass the bill it would be a step in the right direction, but america does not want to go in the right direction. they've oppressed us for 400 years and now they want to keep oppressing us. if they pass a bill it is a step in the right direction. host: to chanel in new orleans

on the democrats lied. caller: -- on the democrats line. caller: i want to comment on the caller from florida talking about trump and bringing back trump policies. it is mind-boggling to me that people and some of the media continue to talk about donald trump like e did not just try to overthrow our government. to me the rollout of his announcing another run for president is insanity. he incited a riot to overthrow the government because he was upset he lost. i think people should not lose sight of that. what policies are he trying to bring back? trump had a corrupt four years. people need to remember those four years in the covid deaths. i want to say that.

i think people lose sight of the level of corruption that came from the trump administration. just look at how many people in his administration have been indicted and have gone to jail. thanks. host: we will go to lonnie in north carolina, republican line. caller: i've been watching c-span quite a while. i've been trying to get on for quite a while. i am 82 years old, native american from north carolina. i have listen to what is going on, i was a democrat most of my life and my mother and father were democrats and they did not understand what democrats were because they did not have an education. i would listen to what was going on. something that shocked me was yesterday when i was watching the senators and when he said

his daughter, his wife was going to have a baby. that is shocking to hear. thank you for taking my call. host: charles in warrenton, north carolina on the independent line. caller: let's get america straight. when columbus came here he was headed to india to get spices, he ended up on this land and when he came over here the first thing you saw was the red person and decided to call them indians. this place had people already here. everybody knows when you elected a president he has four years.

only two years for his own presidency. the first is two years he is carrying out the plans of the last president. that is where trump got his safety, his big think about doing so much for america. he was running off obama's legacy. host: lots of calls and open forum. on the program we have half an hour left and up next we will be joined by washington post economic reporter tory newmyer who will talk about the collapse of ftx crypto and concerns about the cryptocurrency industry. that is next. ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing the latest nonfiction books. at 3:00, live coverage of the

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or wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: tory newmyer is washington post economic policy reporter, joining us to talk about specifically the collapse of the ftx cryptocurrency exchange and broadly about the state of the cryptocurrency industry. like we do with a lot of these conversations, remind us what cryptocurrency is and how it is valued. what is it worth? guest: it is worth what people will pay for it. cryptocurrency was conceived and launched in the wake of the great financial crisis as an alternative financial system that was hoping to avoid the mistakes of traditional finance that had created some of the conditions that led to that collapse. its key feature is this ledger

that is distributed across computer networks around the world and allows for this thing, cryptocurrency, to exist without any kind of central intermediary or authority. the idea the -- the idea is that returns power to people to take control over their own financial assets and the transactions they do with them and allows them to also operate in a pseudo-private way beyond the prying eyes of the government or traditional wall street powers. host: what is it that has made cryptocurrency so popular with investors? guest: it enjoyed a boom during the pandemic, when you saw investors on wall street who had a greater appetite for risk and an easy money environment in terms of monetary policy, so it

inflated the value of the cryptocurrency market, inflated alongside riskier stocks like in the tech sector, but there is also this retail boom where people were getting very rich very quickly and there was this fear of missing out affect that took place where people were getting stimulus checks and did not necessarily have a need for them, opening accounts on some of these exchanges and buying coins and getting very swept up in this get-rich-quick mentality that drove this boom that crested about a year ago and over the course of the past year we have seen a tremendous selloff in the overall market, where it is down about 70% from where it was a year ago. the total value of the market was $3 trillion a year ago, now it is $850 billion. on top of that you have had all

of these failures by high-profile platforms that have had a knock on effect and have shaken customer conference -- customer confidence in the entire system. host: how is cryptocurrency regulated by the federal government or state entities? guest: there is a patchwork of regulations that apply. at the state level, some of these platforms get transmitter licenses. a lot of these crypto platforms are registered with an office in the treasury department and you will see people from the industry say it is not true we are regulated. look at these licenses we have. the important thing for regular people to understand is that for all important purposes, the history remains unregulated. the things you think backstop

your traditional investments, deposits you have in the bank, investments you have in the stock market, those, with a certain expectation that the players you are investing in or giving your money to our abiding by certain rules. there are people in washington looking at their books. they are disposing fundamental things about their operations on a regular basis. if you're interested you can go look. none of those apply to the crypto industry and there has been a debate that has picked up urgency over the last year as the industry has grown and as we have seen these failures in washington, both on the hill and among financial regulators about the right way to go about regulating this space. in the meantime no important decisions have been made about who should be taking the lead and how washington should be applying a century of financial

regulations that they have applied to traditional players to this new space. host: we will get into the ftx collapse in a minute. how these exchanges work? are they like traditional stock market exchanges? guest: in some ways they feel that way. ftx, which i assume we will be talking about, it is the thing that has captured everybody's attention with the spectacular collapse is one of these players, but there are a number of them and they are designed to make the user experience easy. you sign up, you hook up your account to a traditional bank account, you trade dollars for tokens and then you are off to the races and you can trade and stash money and do all sorts of things.

what a lot of retail investors do not understand is there are ways traditional finance is segregated. functions of traditional finance are segregated to protect investors. in traditional finance banks are not also broker-dealers and are not taking custody of your assets, lending it out the back door, executing trades. all of these functions of traditional finance completed by different actors in that industry are collapsed into these big centralized companies in crypto and we have seen that is not working out for investors who do not have any real visibility into that. host: we will be talking about ftx momentarily. i want to make sure our viewers and listeners can get in. for democrats, (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, and

independents and others, (202) 748-8002. among your report on ftx was reporting over the weekend, sam bankman-fried charmed washington and then his crypto empire exploded. sam bankman-fried. who is he? how did he amass such wealth and stature in the crypto world? guest: he is a 30-year-old guy who comes from a distinguished family. both of his parents are stanford law professors. he grew up in the bay area and went to m.i.t. where he studied physics and math and got very enamored when he was there by this philanthropic movement known as affective altruism that is now very en vogue in silicon valley and has at its core the idea you should go out and try to earn as much as you can to then give away as much as you can and do as much good in the world as he can.

he said he swears by this philosophy and that is what drove him into finance. he started in traditional finance at a wall street trading firm called jan street and discovered crypto while he was there and saw inefficiencies in the market he thought he could exploit. ended up launching his own trading shop and a few years ago launched ftx, which is the retail facing trading platform for regular people to get in on this. host: this seems sort of a meteor rise. he has stadium naming rights for ftx, other branding. clearly he had financial support and backers behind him, correct? guest: he had a lot of backers, traditional finance people, venture capital, the state investing arm in singapore, up

and down silicon valley and beyond. he was also making his own money through the trades he was doing with the hedge fund he started which is called alameda research. by charging fees on trades he was doing at ftx, that is the business model for these crypto exchanges as they take a piece of every trade, and the higher the volume they do the more money they make in this entire empire was based offshore, it was originally set up in hong kong, then covid hit and he moved to the bahamas very much on purpose because there was a bunch -- there was a much friendlier regulatory environment there then he would be facing in the united states and it the trading platform to offer a much fuller menu of riskier trades to their customers than he would have been allowed to head he set up in the united states. host: what happened to cause ftx

to collapse and why did the rest of the other markets -- it did not seem to have any other effect on the other markets. what happened with ftx? guest: the proximate cause, the straw that broke the camels back was he had a frenemy, a rival, original investor who runs a rival exchange called binance, a guy known in crypto as cz who had an equity stake in ftx as an investor. once it became clear they would be competing with each other he sold his investment. what he got out of the investment was tokens, instead of just getting dollars the way you would expect normally, he got these tokens, a cryptocurrency issued by ftx.

it is a rather illiquid token, it is hard to trade. couple of weeks ago there was a leak of the steps shot of the hedge fund, sam bankman-fried's sister hedge fund, and it showed, to the supplies of a lot of people, that a lot of the debt the hedge fund was maintaining was collateralized by this token. the important thing to understand is sam bankman-fried, there are always questions about the hedge fund and the exchange and wasn't this a conflict of interest and are you trading against your customers and are these things as separate as you claim? sam bankman-fried would claim these things are entirely separate. the snapshot of the balance sheet showed they were really intimately interlinked, and in fact if there was a run on this

token, the entire system was going to be vulnerable. cz spotted an opportunity and announced he was selling a half billion dollars worth of the token he held, and that sparked avon on the bank. investors panicked and rushed to get their withdrawals, get their deposits out of ftx and expose this problem at ftx. they did not have liquidity to make those redemptions because sam bankman-fried had been lending customer deposits over to the hedge fund to cover risky bets and losses the hedge fund had made. that is a little bit complicated. the important thing to understand is sam bankman-fried was lying to his own customers. we know there are more than a million people there are people

who will not be made whole because he was taking their deposits, claiming they were safe, and then lending them to the hedge fund. host: any idea what the average loss will be for crypto investors? guest: we do not know, there is a lot of out exactly what he was doing, where the money went. there was a $10 billion hole on the hedge fund balance sheet. we do not understand where the money went. it feels like the trading platform should have been profitable. why did he need to make these bets and where did the money go? these are questions investigators are looking at and will try to understand as they do a forensic analysis of the wreckage and this will play out in bankruptcy court. host: a question from steve on twitter. convince us crypto is not a

scam, a ponzi scheme, a confidence game. he says block chain is useful for contracts come as a foundation for crypto he is skeptical. guest: i am not here to give investment advice and i am not going to try to convince anybody of anything when it comes to this. the watchwords for everybody our buyer beware. there are plenty of reasons to be especially careful if not skeptical of investing in a space that investor protections are not there but people have any rate to make these decisions for themselves. host: let's hear from raymond in silver spring, maryland. go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i wanted to comment about this scam coming out of hong kong where you have people who

pretend to be pretty girls looking for relationships, then before you know it they convince you to invest in crypto. a friend of mine, the victim sent $75,000, it is his account grew up to $600,000, then when you went to cash out they told him they needed to pay a tax out-of-pocket for about $100,000. is there a way to recover some of the money or did you speak about the scam that is going on? guest: this is a scam known as a pig butchering scheme that has become very popular among scammers because it works.

people who are perpetrating this manage to collect, we do not totally know the universe of victims, but the estimates are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions that these perpetrators have managed to rip people off for. it is one of these situations where if you do not know somebody that you have met online in your trusting them, you've have never met them in person, and at a certain point you're asking them to buy something and telling them they have an investment opportunity, it should set off a lot of red flags for people. the way they typically gain trust in this scheme is they will tell you your investment just doubled or tripled and you should make a withdraw against the account you set up to gain some confidence and to prove to yourself that this was real.

people do that, figure they have crossed some kind of threshold and establish the legitimacy of the thing they are investing in and will double down and put significant amounts of money into this investment. that is when the scammers will make off with your money and you will never hear from them again. that is why it is known as a pig butchering scheme. they are fattening up there victims for the kill. it is horrible there have been way too many victims. as far as recourse, it depends on the particulars of the case. a lot of these are being done over some of these namebrand crypto exchange is that we have talked about. they have differing records when it comes to working with victims and working with law enforcement authorities to help people

recover funds. it is a massive problem. host: let's go to ken calling from michigan. good morning. caller: i have a question. is this kind of like what bernie made off did? i heard he gave billions to the democrats. if they know that the money went there, can they go back and get it from them? can they help the 46,000 people that got ripped off? guest: sam bankman-fried has drawn comparisons to a lot of fraudsters. bernie madoff's name has come up, who was running a classic ponzi scheme, elizabeth holmes, he joins an take no many us

list of fraudsters -- he joins an ignominious list of fraudsters who had outsized personalities and were revealed to be scammers. i think we will see the full extent of this in time. as far as the political dimension of this, it is very interesting. it is something that distinguishes sam bankman-fried. he understood he could get a real competitive advantage for his company by crafting the rules which have not really been written yet by spending a lot of time and a lot of money in washington winning political favor, buddy and up to the right people on capitol hill, butting up to the regulators, and in a shockingly short amount of time managed to ingratiate himself with the right people and was on

the verge of a major win with a favored piece of legislation he helped craft that was going to help establish his company and a handful of others as safer bets and his investment thesis relied on this. it would waive a lot of institutional investment that had been hugging the sidelines. he was close to getting there. that bill is probably on hold for now as lawmakers turned to fact-finding. he spent about $40 million in the midterms and made the second-biggest democratic donor in the cycle behind george soros. he had a partner who was giving a little less to republicans.

that explained a lot about the rapid entree into the innermost circles of power in washington. you already saw members who got individual contributions from sam bankman-fried return them or give them to charity. the fact that a lot of the spending he did was through super pac's not giving directly to candidates but spending money in primaries on add support for these candidates. the candidates are not technically, they were not coordinating with the super pac. i would be surprised if some of the support he spent in those races returned by candidates that emerged victorious. host: let's hear from george in albany, georgia. caller: i have a question and a comment. my question is is this ftx, is

that legal, the way they are doing that? my comment is i would say 85% or 90% of the people putting money in there do not have money know how, they need to hold the money in the regular backs. that is it -- in the regular banks. go ahead. guest: the sec is investigating this entire collapse. they were already investigating months ago issues around compliance by the exchange. the justice department is investigating and there are jurisdictional questions about exactly how far their reach extends considering the main platform he was operating in the hedge fund were both headquartered offshore on

purpose. he also had a u.s. arm, a little brother trading platform called ftx u.s. that did a sliver of the volume of the main one comment to be compliant it offered a limited menu of trades to customers and people were not using it so much. this is something investigators are going to be looking at, and sam bankman-fried has lawyered up and the question about criminal liability is definitely a live one. host: maxine wated this. the fall of ftx has posed tremendous harm to one million users, many were everyday people the ftx cryptocurrency exchange, to watch it all disappear. unfortunately this is just one out of many examples of

cryptocurrency platforms that have collapsed this past year. that is why it is with great urgency that i along with my colleague rick henry announced the committee's intention to hold a hearing to investigate the collapse of ftx. you report in your article on this that maxine waters is one of those tory newmyer was actively lobbying. guest: sam bankman-fried. host: i am sorry. that sam bankman-fried was lobbying. guest: he was lobbying the financial services committee. his big play was to try to get the trading commission established as the primary regulator for this phase. they would have oversight of the stock markets for bitcoin and a theory of which together make up 60% of the total value of the entire crypto market.

there would be a compliance regime for exchanges that listed those tokens and they would also register with the cftc. the important thing is it would take authority away from the sec , which is overseen by maxine waters it is considered to be a much tougher regulator. they have six times the staff, they have an investor protection mandate, they have decades of experience enforcing rules around investor protection, whereas the cftc was starting from scratch. presumably the industry would get a seat at the table and help them craft the rule that would apply to them. he was pushing a bill through the senate ag committee that would enshrine the authority of the cftc and the senate ag committee has jurisdiction over the cftc and an end run around

traditional financial regulators that mixing waters overseas. he was not being picky about who he lobbied and was covering the hill. host: let's see if we can get one more quick call. susan in south carolina. caller: i have been on here so long until my question finally got answered about what he used the money for on the donations he made to the democratic party. i think that money needs to go to charities, back to the people that lost the money. host: tory newmyer, will this make it easier to get some sort of bill passed through to tighten regulations on the crypto markets? guest: i think it underlines the urgency of establishing rules for the industry, whether that means congress moves faster to

get this done or the regulators move into this vacuum and start enforcing more aggressively and doing their own rulemaking absent legislation is something we will get an answer to in the weeks and months ahead. host: he is the economic policy reporter for the washington post. you can follow his reporting at washington post.com. thanks for being with us this morning. host: thanks -- guest: thanks for having me. host: that will do it for the program this morning. we are back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern. next up we take you live to the u.s. house for legislative business. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]