host: at a recent event, the

literacy product of the forum on media accountability and trust. whether it be by print or social media. that took place last week. we will show you portions of that. we want to have you talked to us about not only your consumption habits, also when it comes to your trust of media. here is how you can let us know. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. independents (202) 748-8002. maybe want to texas us and give us your thoughts on your level of trust when it comes to the media. (202) 748-8003. you can post on our facebook page. our twitter feed is there. a nonprofit takes a look at issues of accountability and trust.

a lot of postings and papers and news mid outlets in washington dc. it can be found on several websites. public perception and attentiveness the cans on what's happening and why. trust appears to be at a historic low. recent polling shows only 34% of americans trust the news. 7% of those say they have a great deal of trust and confidence in the media. 27% said they trust the news of fairmount. 28% said they do not have much confidence in newspapers, tv and rita. 38% have no confidence at all. that poll was released last year. it is from october last year. and it comes to taking a look at average americans and overall

opinions, it also broke down bipartisan lenses. this was back in october last year. when it comes to what they think about the media being trustworthy, only 14% of republicans say they had a great deal of trust and confidence. if you go to independent viewers, pony 7% gave their opinion saying they have that level of trust. democrats who were polled, they had a fair amount of trust and confidence in mass media. that polish from october last year. we will show you more polling and what it says about levels of trust. we will show you portions of an event that took place in washington d c. you can let us know while we are doing that. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001.

independents (202) 748-8002. journals discussed accountability issues. one of them responds to a question about the biggest challenge and it comes to rebuilding trust in the media. here is a portion of that from last week. >> one of the things we've lost is this perceived technological advantage. 20 years ago, if we had a cause, we could stand in the corner outside of metro station and handout mimeographed sheets. the want in a post would come out and people would say this is serious news. those minute on the corner are not very serious. anybody can produce professional-looking content, print, video, audio. we have lost that edge. people don't take us more seriously than the people out there with a political point.

we have the technological edge over them. the upside i hope is we got into this business because i do believe the truth is important and the truth will win out. it is simply a matter of keeping these values that we have, mating -- maintain them. we don't have the technological edge we had before. we will own up to our mistakes, which gets us back to the theme. if not, we are lost in the din. host: if you want to see that entire event, go to our website for the opinions of those journalists and other experts talking about news media related issues. some of you are given us your thoughts on facebook.

those are some your thoughts on the level of trust when it comes to media. we go to the phones.

we are talking about levels of trust and news media. caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning. i trust the news media. you have to be careful with news you listen to. with rupert murdoch and roger ailes, they used to give out false statements. unfortunately, those people that do listen to fox believe in that. you've got fox news and newsmax. host: besides the one you

listed, what do you listen to or taken? -- take in? caller: i listen to you. you are bipartisan. i listen to you all. i listen to msnbc. whoever wrote that text is right. anybody on social media can put out news. the majority you have to do your own research and make sure the news is true or not. host: let's hear from jeannie in louisiana.

caller: thank you for taking my call. the last collar you had talking about the media, he is right to an extent. i started watching c-span because you have a lot of live shows. you have the hearings and everything else. can you hear me? i started watching your channel because you have the live senate and every thing. i can see myself what's going on. when you turn to the news, they will spin it. i don't hardly watch it. i watched the live things. when they were electing the speaker, i watched everything. i watch them lie during the hearing and nobody called them on it.

that's why i don't hardly watch them anymore. host: finish your thought. caller: that was it. you have a good day. host: your level of trust in news media, let's go to west virginia. caller: hello. the last two collars, they said they watched msnbc. the lady there just said msnbc and cnn spin the news. if you are republican, you are watching fox. a democrat is watching msnbc. that's not true. i'm a democrat. i watch the local, i watch c-span, i watch a lot of news. to me, i see why we are parted

as a nation. you are in a different universe. fox gives you what they believe and a lot of that is misinformation. in court right now, rupert murdoch, sean hannity, those people are lying because they had to talk about dominion. they know they lied to the viewers. they didn't care. that is who is giving you misinformation. host: when you watch msnbc, do you believe everything on it is true? caller: no. i wouldn't say everything. if you watch a lot of msnbc, yes, they will try to tell you mostly the truth. if you see the news from other

channels like abc, nbc, they are giving you the same facts. when you turn to fox, you are getting new information. why is that? host: andrew is in virginia on the independent line. caller: good morning. i have to thank c-span. c-span is one of the few places where you get all sides of the story and you will give us resources and books that we can go in and search and find information and we can do some more. my trust in the media is low. i trust independent sources. that way, you can get the real

story. you get investigative journalism. i want to know what's the story, the true story, a lot of times, the media presents certain things and it doesn't give us the whole picture. i want to know why. sometimes, any reason, i go to smaller independent sources online. i find the true story, the reason behind what's going on. host: is there an example you would give of and dependent source? is there an example in recent days? caller: i go to -- i use your resources.

guests you had it i will go on certain social media sites or online and i will look up the people to find out. the russia ukraine war is a big one. what's going on with this. that's what i will do. that's where you find investigative journalism. someone who really digs into the story and finds out what's really happening and gives you what's going on. host: when you're watching those sources, why do you trust them? caller: because it really seems like they filling in the gaps. some people call it elite media, some call it the widespread media. they don't give you both sides of the story.

there are gaps. to me, if i have to ask why, they have not answered it. that's why i have to do my digging. that's why i trust these independent sources. that's how i get a complete story. host: this viewer is in colorado. it's an in the panel he operated print newspaper in colorado. kevin from facebook said, it's best when it's produced locally. there are a sample of opinions when it comes to media. you can add yours to the mix. (202) 748-8003 two textus. -- text us.

you can text us with your thoughts. in oregon, this is from carl. hello. caller: thanks for producing your show. i agree with the last caller, this is a good source of up-to-date. you are very close to the source. i don't really have insight. i just know it's pick and choose. from the media. at first, i used to go to cnn. then i go to fox and then i just ballpark down the middle. it was always like that. there was a news from the left in the news from the right. you just try to figure it out. i make up my own mind.

it's kind of scary. host: how much of your news consumption comes from a newspaper or television versus the phone? caller: there is not much off the news print. they charge you, like the new york times. huffington post doesn't. it's tough. it's tough to get good news. the good news will charge you. i don't know if i am your question. you usually have to pay to get good news. that's about all i have to say about that. host: axios has a story looking at newspapers. two newspapers in the u.s. are closing every week. local news crisis spurred by the

pandemic will worsen in coming years. you can put that into the mix when you talk about levels of trust in the media. many people mentioned television

networks. this is fill in independence. caller: good morning. i love your show today. i think the death of good news happened -- no towns have two newspapers anymore. we used to have the hartford current and the hartford times. they balanced each other's opinions and stories. you got a really good view of the news. as far as tv, i lost all credibility when dan rather made up the story of george bush. it turned me off toward regular media. host: that goes back a while.

caller: your first week on c-span, where both gray. host: that story you talked about, it is still a matter of distressed? caller: very much so. you don't have to make up the news. host: i am familiar with the hartford current. the other newspaper close? caller: the new york times closed the door. it was money. they were running out -- they were hemorrhaging cash. they were a great newspaper. the hartford times was a great newspaper. host: in south carolina, this is jason. caller: good morning.

i've got no faith at all in the mainstream media, that includes fox. fox has been taken over by rupert murdoch who is a trump aide her. you can see it everywhere. what i get a kick out of are these people telling you they don't trust msnbc and you not telling them that you are funded by msnbc and your staff is comprised of msnbc employees. host: that's not true. jason, that's not true. caller: it's my call. host: you made an accusation. that is absolutely not true. where -- we do not have their ploys. go ahead. caller: msnbc is owned by

comcast. host: we are funded by local cable, people who watch this program contribute to fund the program. caller: you are filibustering me. you just cut me off. host: you made an accusation and i corrected it. caller: your news media is scumbags. host: are you all done? caller: you are a scumbag. host: let's go to chuck in west virginia. caller: good morning. that last caller was a real piece of work. i graduated from west virginia university in 1981 with a degree in broadcast journalism. three things were hammered into

us and journalism school, accuracy, which is self-explanatory. attribution, you had to name all your sources and they had to be trusted sources. accountability meant you were accountable for what you reported. there weren't many different news sources. public television, may be cnn if it existed at the time was very new. things are different now. there was no internet. there was no social media. things are a lot different now. especially on a lot of social media platforms. when people put stuff out there, which is often times misinformation, it is too late to hold anybody accountable for it. when people talk about whether they trust the news media as if

it were this big monolithic thing, in the internet age, people can construct their own echo chamber. you have people who are going to go to news mac -- newsmax, townhall, they will watch one america news. host: the previous caller said he didn't watch fox news. go ahead. caller: when you have something like open forum, this guy seems to think that he can call in whatever lies he wants to call in about you getting your funding from msnbc. c-span -- i watch religiously every morning. i watch washington journal. you are completely unbiased. you let everybody speak their piece.

having an open forum doesn't mean people can call in lies. if anything, the one thing i don't like about cnn or msnbc or fox, they tend to sensationalize everything. partly because they want ratings. sensationalizing the news is not a good way to go about reporting it. host: that is chuck in west virginia. you can still see that form on her website. the journalists talked about the way they develop news or stories and the sources they use, particularly if they come with an angle or an agenda. here is some of that discussion. >> that his incumbent upon journalists.

that's what we exist to do. that's a difference between using twitter or facebook or tiktok or instagram as your new source and using a legitimate branded journalism organization that has a masthead that you trust and you vetted. our job is to provide that context. i felt like we could've done better in providing that context. it is tough. two things can be true at the same time. somebody can have an angle and they can be entirely factually correct. our focus is to give light so that people find their own way.

adding that transparency, providing that context doesn't dilute the story. it actually provides a greater level of assurance to the audience that we are sharing with you everything we know about the source so you can decide if the person's predisposition perhaps weakens the argument. to do anything other than that is to continue to reinforce the problem people have with the media. we get to decide what you know. when we don't hold ourselves to the same level of accountability , that is where we have failed in the past and we need to evolve.

host: your level of trust in the news media. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. you can post on our social media sites. joe allen is in new jersey. caller: i want to believe the media conference. the truth for me is we are so colored by our opinions. one of your collars indicated in terms of calling you names. i am disturbed by the fact that so often when we hear the news, it does have the opinion of the commentator, whether it be on fox or msnbc, which is what i watch. i can't watch joy read. too much of what she says is colored by the idea that she

wants all of us to take it. we want to believe. one of the reason i listen to c-span's i long for the time when the news was presented without all of this commentary and emotion. not just -- not just the fear mongering as well as the color. that's why i listen to c-span. not only do i appreciate the commentators don't weigh in, so many times people call in and they confront my own prejudice. somebody will call from south carolina with an incredible southern drawl and i will assume they are going to be racist and then they say the most informed things. i do try to vary my new sources.

i cannot watch fox. i listen to npr. i love their show to get an idea of other people. i do read conservative commentary. i am a creature of watching news i feel is more progressive. host: let's hear from mark in california. caller: hello. good morning. as far as the media it, i am a fox news viewer because they are fair and balanced from the start. they report, you decide. they bring people on. it's pretty clear and evident to me that the ratings as far as news goes, fox's always

boasting. people believe it. they know it is fair and balanced. sean hannity as someone on, he talks too much sometimes. he doesn't let people talk. he lets other opinions out there. they don't blur the lines. they let you know. it's an op-ed show. it's opinion. the news people are separate. host: the shows later at night? if that's more what's going on in the day? caller: sure. the news people are pretty obvious. these people are the news people.

they're not really giving their opinion. laura ingraham says it right there. when you look at fox news, they are the number one rated show and they reported it for years. o'reilly was the number one rated show. i don't hear people screaming liar. it's the truth. they have become the number one rated news network and all of america. that's because they are fair and balanced and they do tell the truth. the other networks are financed by china. that's obvious. chinese money is floating all

through the fake news media. host: when you say it's obvious, how so? caller: their slants on everything. not one of them will say a one word about the chinese leader. you hear these celebrities that are invested in china. they come on apologize. this is the way it is. host: that is mark in california. kevin in michigan. caller: hopefully, washington journal is ready for a little criticism. when you have guests on it, try not to take up half of the guest time by talking to the guest. you say you are unbiased.

if you look in your archives from last year, there was a show with the bipartisan policy center. out of a 40 minute show, there was not one republican call. if you're not going to call a republican and 42 minutes, there is bias there. they were going to ask about immigration. you guys never did call on a republican. you are on the biased side. host: if that's the case, i'm just going to say are you suggesting we duck republican calls? why do you make that assumption? caller: you didn't take any. you took a call from illinois, from massachusetts, las vegas.

all of them were democrats with one independent. to think there was no republicans calling in is unbelievable. host: i will just answer. we don't duck republican calls. we wouldn't duck them from a segment. finish your thought. caller: find out if anyone called. you have every archive. you can find out for yourselves. i watch newsmax. i watch one guy on newsmax. like i said, as far as news, i am independent leaning republican. i think fox has been compromised. what i'm really upset about is what they are doing to newsmax.

they are taking it off. they are trying to take away conservative news. host: kevin in michigan. let's hear from kelly in north carolina. caller: how are you doing? i would like to say i don't watch any cable news at all. i don't watch any of the major networks like abc, cbs, any of that. it's all controlled. i found out watching c-span when you have the house and senate, i try to find things like that that are live, we can hear the people speaking. i find the documents. i read what it actually says. you are going to get a spin no

matter where you go. i like to use the people who are out live streaming, who are actually out, even if they are just there with their phone. you are watching what is happening. then you compare it, it's a totally different thing. they are not telling you the thing. these people who are risking their lives like friday night. i watched antifa breaking windows and doing all kinds of things. you can see what is happening. there are plenty of live streamers. it's a wonderful thing.

please make sure you look up documents and read them. go to the government websites and read those documents. what you are being told is not the truth. it's very important that you get the truth. what's happening is the opposite of what we are being told. host: that was kelly in south carolina. one of the stories coming from the tyre nichols case is how they were going to handle airing the video you may have seen over the course of the last couple of days. this is the subject of a story in the washington post this morning.

that is some of the stories or part of the story of the tyre nichols case. as far as how media handles certain aspects of that, david is up next. caller: good morning. i love c-span. i watch it every day. my favorite cable news, i can't live without msnbc. every now and then i turn on cnn. i never watch fox news. i never watch newsmax.

the demographic is the largest sum of the population. i do enjoy msnbc. i think they've got the greatest rod casters. i believe the thing they say. i like to watch 360, the black news station to get a voice for my people, the way we see stuff. host: when you say that, what are you looking for when you watch 360? caller: the mainstream news like the big three or four i just told you, i think they give the

perspective of white america. when i turn on 360, i can see the feelings i can't hear the other stations. instead of the overwhelming majority of people in america. host: that was david in flint, michigan, given us his opinion on news and your level of trust. in florida, we will hear next from paul. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to commend you. you are one of the best. i just wanted to commend you. all the news media, it has been

proven nothing happened. $40 million covering trump. i watch newsmax. i don't watch fox anymore. they had all the things true. they said there was no connection to prompt. this news media hid the story. i urge all republicans to drop at&t. i'm very sorry about it. host: you said this, fox news was leaning left. what do you mean like that? caller: it's not the way it used to be. i used to watch fox regularly. now, they are not -- they are

anti-trump. newsmax is one of the best. i watch newsmax on my cell phone. i used to watch all of these shows. i will never be a democrat. they are turning into economist party. america is changing. host: we've got less than 20 minutes. if you want to give a short level of trust, (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. the freedom forum, one of the things that they do on their website is offer a snapshot across the united states and the new stories they are talking about. to give you a sampling, out of

new jersey, a look at egg prices. egg prices are skyrocketing. that is a story they have. if you go to the modesto bee, they look at the fentanyl crisis. the chattanooga times free press follows a story on overdoses, looking at overdoses that spiked. that is the chattanooga times of tennessee. if you go to the gazette in colorado, they took a look at a water packed. when it comes to water. i'm sorry, i lost that. the times news in indiana,

america's dirty secret. thousands of misdemeanor defendants don't get attorneys. that is a sampling across the united states. your level of trust in news media. dan is in kentucky. go ahead. caller: i really believe if we went back to just eight hours of news reporting, that would be best. when you have it 24/7, it's the same old talking points. i used to listen to fox. i think news backs has been doing a good job. the democrats will be watching msnbc.

they spin it the way people want to hear it. they were on point on all three of those. it's all about ratings. i used to watch fox. it has changed. i did like shannon green. sean hannity repeat stuff over and over. he doesn't let people talk. he just keeps repeating stuff over and over. i don't miss him. i miss bill o'reilly. newsmax is really good. i've got a friend at church that

said he had directv and they took newsmax off. he is going to figure some way of getting newsmax. i told him by a fire stick. cable is getting out of hand. host: how are you monitoring this program? caller: i've got alexa. i get my fox through it too. i can listen to the five and jesse waters. i even get one american news on there. i am trying to get alexa. it freaked him out. host: let's hear from scott in

maryland. caller: everybody complains about cable news networks. the majority of the content is editorial. they should put that on the shows. i don't see -- the daily show is only good source for that. people praise their local news, most forget that sinclair owns a lot of them and they push conservative editorials. a lot of new stories feel like commercials. the main difference is liberals are pro-employee. all of these new stories or pushing a narrative that appeals to one of these. when the sources are dishonest, they are wrong. they feel like this takes care

of that. everybody complains about fake news. we are being pummeled by deepfakes on the unit. host: do you treat the daily show as an entertainment program? caller: all of the above. host: how do you make sure that what they are talking about is straightforward? caller: if something is interesting or i feel like there is more to the story, i do the due diligence and look into it. i talked to people about it. maybe they will know. my mom watches fox. we will have a discussion. the same thing i said about the daily show, i find humor and entertainment on cable news

networks and c-span. host: we are not without a sense of humor. we have 10 minutes left in the program if you want to give your comments. a little bit more from that forum for the news literacy week. journalist talking about trump. one asked about the transparency process when bringing people into the news. here is a bit of that discussion. >> we are very proud of the rigor of our process. we also know that we have to work harder to make it visible to our readers and not assume people understand. we had a reporter who knocked on someone's door to try to get comment. they were accused of invading privacy. we think that is fundamental to the process.

it can very easily be misunderstood. our video team did a series. some of the most popular story forms we do, we take source material and documents. this is something they really enjoy. we had a lot of success with our work in visual forensics. we have broader conversations. whether it's using annotations and stories, explain the process

as people are going through, creating a blur. some people don't know what a dateline is. we could do more to take the building blocks of the work and do more to explain them. we have a couple of editors that are going through the process. they make sure they are as clear as possible. host: if you are injured in hearing news consumption, a poll.

u.s. adults under 30 trust information from social media almost as much as from national news outlets. there are a couple of different graphs showing what they think about the reliability, what they put on social media. james in missouri, the democrats line. caller: as far as my level of trust, i check out my local news as well as cnn and msnbc and fox and other news networks i check out. fox news has a tendency to dwell on what's going on on the republican side with donald trump and caters to them.

msnbc and cnn, they are a more democratic station to me. i watch local news. i just like to get a difference of opinion. host: do you mean your local tv newscast in missouri? caller: correct. abc, nbc. they have the same thing your cable networks have on. it's a different outlook. you can get your own opinion instead of listening to one person and that side. some people watch fox news and that's it.

when trump won the presidency, everything was locked in. all they talked about was the border and hunter biden. they just well on that. host: let's hear from greg in oregon. caller: good morning. where really just talking about level of trust in the news media. i just want to address that. the news media has evolved into a propaganda machine. somebody brought up videos that are true. then you see videos that are presented by news media that are

edited. they don't show what truly happened. even on this point, the insurrection that took place. when you look at the different factions of the videos, some videos show the barricades were pulled away and people were allowed to go in. then it got crazy inside. i believe there is an agenda from the top coming down. the news media is a vessel, a tool. it's a tool of that particular agenda. i don't believe the truth is being told. when nichols was killed, it's a shame we don't really talk about

that. we have division that's being pursued right now. the media is not helping. it started when we had things like michael brown and george floyd who were basically thugs that were turned into martyrs. we had all kinds of riots taking place. we need to look at reality. people are bad. you need to tell the truth about that. it is too bad that america is becoming divided. host: this is daniel. daniel is in california. go ahead. caller: thank you for doing what you do.

it's a real refreshing thing to be able to chime in on some of these things. i watch -- i don't watch local news. i watch msnbc. i don't watch too much of it. i look at all of them. fox, my feeling is i take in what they put out. i understand they are trying to do their job. i am pretty balanced as far as what i think of what they put out. my feeling is it's our education system that is failing.

the idea of being able to think critically and my thing is i go back to a book. an actual physical book goes back to before all the filters and all the people that get between us and the real story. for me, a book is the way that i go. host: daniel in california given us the last call on this topic. thank you for participating. if you want to see more of that forum on news literacy, you can go to our website c-span.org. you can type in the words news literacy project. we have two guests join us to talk about various topics.

the senate is considering some work this week. bloomberg news joins us, plus a look out. the bipartisan policy center will talk about the debt limit. when the u.s. will run of money and pay its bills. those conversations are coming up on washington journal. >> preorder your copy of the congressional directory for the 118 congress and interact with the federal government would bio and contact information for every house and senate member come important information on

congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies and state governors and scam the code of the right to preorder your copy today for early spring delivery. is $29.95 shipping and handling and help support our nonprofit operations at c-spanshop.org. and just about a year, first votes are scheduled to be cast in the 2020 democratic presidential primary and a proposal would make south carolina voting first step we go back to riordan joe biden campaigns for resident and hear what he says then about the importance of iowa and new hampshire leading up the presidential selection process. you can find it on c-span now, every mobile app or wherever you get on asked. -- get your podcasts. >> livsuay, figure wreath five on in-depth, lance tomorrow

will be our desk to talk and take your calls in american culture, politics and history. he is the author of many books. joining the conversation with urhone calls, facebook comments, tt and tweets. in with lance morrow live it sunday, fe 5 at noon eastern on book tv. that's on c-span2. >> there are a lot of places to get political information but only at c-span you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's net work. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or

here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: looking at the week ahead in washington, the bloomberg news congressional reporter is joining us. kevin mccarthy said he will sit down wednesday with president biden to talk about issues of the debt limit and the like. what are the positions of the two men and what does that mean going into the conversation? guest: the most important thing that happens this week. joe biden's position is the position that barack obama had in his second term which is that he will not negotiate concessions for releasing the hostage of the debt limit. kevin mccarthy, the new speaker, new house says you got to negotiate.

that's how are democracy works and we've got to find compromises and we need to try to cut spending, reduce the deficit and come to an accommodation and a deal and what the republicans want ultimately is a deal that lays at a path to a balanced budget. when you have $1 trillion in deficits, that's not likely to happen in the next few months. a lot of times, these negotiations start off with each side saying no at each other and then you get more and maybe you get closer to a deadline and people start getting upset at market start reacting and eventually, you get to some kind of accommodation. it's possible that other things get added to the debt limit like a bill and maybe the democrats will get some things and republicans will get some things. this is something that will be

basically of big topic for the next several months until june when the first moment when we might actually hit that cliff. host: we some mitch mcconnell say last week that they seem to be staying out of it. guest: that's what he did in 2011 back when john boehner was there with the new house. they were intent on cutting the deficit and they wanted to pass a balanced budget amendment to the debt limit, it was much more ambitious than what kevin mccarthy is talking about which is a more modest cap deal on spending. i think mitch mcconnell is in the wings and if the house is unable to get its act together and unable to pass anything, there is a chance that macconnell in the end could pick up the phone to joe biden and try to craft a deal that they think may enough folks in the

house would fix it up. host: you and others at bloomberg had a story published about the options that the government may consider when taking care of these issues so what's the genesis of this story? guest: a lot of folks have been talking about ways to bypass the house of representatives. it's very inconvenient with a house of representative that disagrees that you don't want to raise the debt limit. people are saying you could raise cash to keep paying the bills, one of which has been popular is minting platinum coins and there's an old law from decades ago that gives the secretary of the treasury to mint platinum coins of any dim emanation to theoretically meant a trillion dollar coin. then the federal reserve can credit our account and we can keep paying the bill. her problems with that.

you have to figure at how to not have that affected by inflation. it's not really a great thing for economies around the world and it shake confidence in u.s. credit. it's not a great option but it is theoretically possible with another option called premium bonds. this is a way to disguise the size of the debt. you basically would say we will issue new bonds we will pay an extra 100% or something in interest on those bonds. the value that investors would put on those bonds would be higher and they would pay a giant premium but that won't count against the -- against the debt limit. theoretically, you could find -- finance lots and lots of bonds. it's kind of a shell game and

the $31 trillion debt would look smaller but in reality, you are in the exact same financial position, you still owe the $31 trillion, you've just gone through some games to look at dez to make it look smaller and you would potentially also have the rest of the world saying is is not really we dish the economy we all put our money in. there is a potential that could cause higher interest rates because people would have less confidence. host: that story is on the blooerg website. you can call and ask questions.

legislatively, bills that could be debated this week both deal with the pandemic, one would in the public health emergency and the national emergency declared by president trump relit -- related to covid-19 so what's the messaging behind these bills? guest: basically, the house republicans have several goals related to this and they are trying to say that the pandemic is over, that we should not still be using emergency authorities 2020, that federal worker should have to show up for work, they want to revert to the leap policies of 2019. a lot of federal workers are working from home these days. they call it does show up to work act. there is also one on vaccine mandates on health care workers. these are all things that republicans have been talking about campaigning on. the problem for them is they

only have the house. most of these things are not going anywhere in the senate and even if they did, if you are repealing an executive order, you need an executive to sign your bill or else you need 2/3 to override. they don't have that. it's going to be interesting to see when people put out their pressed releases in their fundraising emails. you see that when the new house takes over. we've done all these things but until you actually accomplish a law, then it's just a well organized press release. that's for things like the debt limit and the big-budget fight later this year when the year expires september 30 and that to pass a law to give the government operating after that and a lot of these things are going to be in those fights.

those are the two moments where you hit the debt limit and funding cliff where republicans have some leverage and they intend to use it. host: let's hear from our viewers, daly city, california, democrats line. caller: good morning. i wanted to talk about the media, am i too late? host: that was the previous segment but if you have a question about what's ahead in washington this week, go ahead. caller: washington will always play its games and credit is that it and they are using it in america. they are always poor. that's my opinion for that, thank you. host: thank you. guest: when it comes to the u.s. credit, we have something called the 14th amendment where section four of that amendment says the

edit of the united states shall not be west you and. it was passed after the civil war were there was some question how they would pay back civil war bonds and they wanted to put it rest to that. there are folks on capitol hill who say we would not default on our debt because of that, the treasury secretary would prioritize paying back debt coupons. that is untested and it's kind of a risky thing to pay because we have a very -- the federal budget is very lumpy. we have some days when $50 billion is going out for social security checks and other days when money is going up or medicare and other days where you have to met -- make these debt coupon payments and those days don't always correlate when people pay their taxes. we have some months where we have surpluses and some months where we have giant deficit. the idea that you would manage and prioritize statements and have that make any kind of sense

for any length of time beyond a few days would be very difficult. host: in maryland, independent line, you are next. caller: good morning. i don't need to be nostra donna's do not -- to be nostradamus to know that it's democrats doing their best to govern and republicans doing performative nonsense. i just wish we would frame the actions is not one side and the other side when we literally have one group of people, one party in our country that fomented a coup and is still doing so, is antidemocratic and is not looking at the best interest of all americans. our news coverage, unfortunately, continues to cover things as on one hand on the other hand as if kevin mccarthy or any of these other

yahoos are trying to govern this country. as an independent, my main source of perspective on this is the lincoln project. these are former republicans. they know the deal. they know there is russian money and other corruption going on and, unfortunately, we continue to do the one side and the other . even on c-span, i wish there was some fact checking in real time whether it be when members come on and lie, democrat or republican. we really need some perspective here. happy country believes that climate change is real which is true -- host: you are putting a lot out there for air guest. do we expect these kind of things in a divided government when it comes to messaging bills? guest: i think there is a big

divide in the congress and the country. people are talking past each other. we will have a hearing this week in the judiciary committee on the border. the two porter -- the two borders approach this issue differently and it's hard to see them coming up with a deal and congress has failed to come up with a deal now for like 30 years. it will be another attempt this year in the senate where kyrsten sinema's working with republicans and democrats to try to cobble together a deal. it would be unusual if she were to succeed. there are certain things they have to come together on, even if they don't like each other, even if they think the other person is an insurrectionist or they don't like what somebody else has said.

almost every year for 200 years, we have managed to pass a bill to fund the government so we will find a way to pay her bills. it's going to be messy and it's always messy when you have a new divided government because people are testing their limits, how far they can go. in the meantime, even if you get close to some of these cliffs, it can have a big impact on viewers. if you are in the stock market you're worried about the on any and 2011 where there was a big hostage of the debt that might, consumer confidence plunged, markets freaked out, the economy took a hit. ultimately, they can up with a deal but they cut spending by $2 trillion over 10 years and some people think that was worth it. there are other people who look at that and say never again.

we cannot be playing thermonuclear football in the economic sense. we didn't go over the cliff when we had those things happen. if we had, janet yellen, the treasury secretary is warning of the big economic catastrophe, you would have a recession. it would be completely avoidable. at some point, things have to happen or else the government doesn't work. i think the viewers call -- i think there are a lot of folks feeling that way. yet these folks will have two meet and discuss and work things out. one of the great things about that building was the capitol dome, despite their messy fights every year, they eventually pass

a bill. it will be a messy time before then. i went viral a few times on twitter pointing out the weight congress works is no like 100 times and they yes at the end. this year will probably not be any different. in the end, we will have a deal. if you want to be optimistic, the deal might be a little less problematic than 2011 as far as the impact on the economy. the house is extremely closely divided, 200 22 republicans, 218 control the house. kevin mccarthy doesn't have a lot of margin. he really is under pressure from the right. we saw he barely became speaker

but john painter had lots of pressure as well. there is also pressure from moderates this not as loud. they do not necessarily want to go over the cliff and they don't want to have the economy blamed on them. they were elected in districts that joe biden one. what happened in 2011 is barack obama's popularity dropped a lot but so did house republicans. usually, when you are both staring at something that's bad for both of you, sometimes it brings together folks on some way out. host: let's hear from steven in montana come republican line caller: good morning and thank you very much. i've been watching for 50 years with urgency the continual breakdown of our economy since

1971. it's been a sadness that we all knew as soon as we lost control over our economy which is the gold and silver standard that it's prevalent right now that the control of the economy has been manipulated and controlled by a constituency beyond the norm of understanding. as a result, we have had this raked down a very economy and a manipulation from the group situation that has extended to what we see today. we have this parallel -- not parallel -- we have this political pendulum that's been swinging back-and-forth from one extreme to the next and i've been watching this for 50 years. there is only one constituency that has had no change at all.

those people we don't hear about. i have my experience and strength in hope in all that matters. there will be no political answer to any of these problems because they do not want to establish two facts of our existence which is to establish truth and righteousness interactions. that is the only way we will establish justice in our whole civilization. host: thank you, caller. guest: the last time i heard the gold standard, there was a federal reserve nominee a few years ago who had previously espoused it and then she rolled back the idea. i don't think there are many members of congress that say we should go back to the gold standard. if you look at the federal

reserve, they looked at 100 trillion dollars of personal assets by the american people. there is no one who says that would solve her problems. up until a few years ago we had the pandemic, we had an unprecedented stretch of growth, low rates, low inflation and there are some good things and some not so great things about the current economy. we have the lowest unemployment rate in the long time so it's easy to find a job in many places. there has been inflation which is starting to come down. you are starting to see people with a higher interest rate that the fed has put in place to make some car payments, struggling with buying a house. those are issues i think

congress will be looking at. theoretically, you can bring inflation down faster and then the federal reserve can take its foot off the gas and interest rates. that can help the economy as well. host: we will hear from jerome powell this week to hear about the january numbers. guest: yeah, and if you look at the markets, they are starting to expect the federal reserve not to raise interest rates as fast or as much because inflation has been coming down. look at used car prices which are down a lot. some new car prices have been coming down as well. we will see what happens but what they that is absolutely sure if you look at what will come out of congress this year is that the era of being bipartisan spending deals where we spend more money, we've seen

in the past six years" parties whoever is in control, that is on a pause, probably a multiyear pause like it was from 2011-2016. there will not be the votes in the house for a spending increase. i don't know the democrats in the senate will be expecting one. they are mostly playing defense to maintain whatever they got the last couple of years. the other big question include things like ukraine, house republicans are divided on that the american public is increasingly divided so we will see what happens with that as well. host: this is stephen dennis from bluebird -- from bloomberg news joining us. we will hear next from steve from south carolina, independent line. caller: good morning.

it's an interesting topic. it's the definition of insanity, the same thing has been going on for years and everybody expected to change. and the powers that be on both sides of the aisle, they are so irresponsible with us, the taxpayers money. it's like there is an endless supply. so they run the debt up higher, let's check of the taxes higher. with the amount of money spent on pork and nonessentials, it's sickening. the american public knows it's the season now and it's because of the media that was the previous topic. it's in our faces. you have to be blind not to see the corruption and this government has been going on for years area it's all about self gain.

if the american people think when they talk in congress was good for the american people, they are in disneyland. they are not part of it. it's about power. host: thank you. guest: members of congress want to get reelected and you don't have to do to be pulled to fight at what people want. spending more money on social security is very popular. would you like spend more money on social -- on medicare, that's very popular. defense spending is pretty popular. these spending programs say we should spend more. when you generate taxes that to pay for all that, they are

generally unpopular. what ends up happening or what we've seen in the nearly 20 years of been covering congress and certainly before that is when the republicans are in charge or have power, they have successfully cut tax rates again and again. those rates are lower than they were 30 or 40 years ago. democrats have wanted to increase spending and when trump came to power, he said he was going to get rid of the debt. he proposed a pretty austere budgets and instantly decided to increase spending, he increased defense, nondefense a lot, and he cut taxes as well. the deficit went half a trillion to $1 trillion which it is now.

congress is reflective of the people's desires. you end up with deficits from people not ending on taxes. it people decided to balance their budget and it they said cut these particular programs, and they could get those numbers to change so that more people want to raise taxes or cut areas government benefits, they would start reflecting that. they generally want to get reelected and these are the politics that will get them reelected. host: you talked about the new congress and one thing we saw play out last week was the removal of adam schiff from the intelligence committee. i want to play you of what his

reaction was on cnn yesterday and we will talk about the third player in this what might happen there. guest: mccarthy has said adam schiff prosecute a case against trump and the ukraine impeachment was a hoax. he gives 15 explanations in the only real explanation is he needs marjorie taylor greene's vote and he wants to retaliate for their removal from the committee and apparently believes i was effective in exposing his misconduct and trumps misconduct and that's what they are trying to stop. i think he benefits from having these smears repeated that's part of what he gains from it but this is a pretext and nothing more. host: that also leaves the fate of the democrat from minnesota up in the air. talk about what we might expect? guest: there has to be a vote on the house floor to remove her from that committee. it's not clear that mccarthy

would win that boat. he's confident that he could win that vote and he has sent out many fundraising email saying i'm firing these guys. it has become a cause for him. there are some house republicans were uncomfortable with this and i've talked to some who were not certain how they will vote. it's also the democrats making hey over mccarthy taking these people off committees while keeping george santos on committees when george santos has basically acknowledged a large chunk of his resume that he used to get votes or convince voters he had a strong resume was a fabrication. mccarthy was asked about that last week.

he kind of bristled and implied that certain committees take matters seriously more than others. he's basically not going to take action against george santos and let the x -- unless the ethics committee says he broke laws. santos continues to be the gift that keeps on giving for democrats. for the republicans, when you have 222 votes and unity 218 to control the house, every vote matters. santos will be with us. one thing i did last week as i changed things around. i went over to the house side and talk to him a few times and he's not answering questions about $3000 he would say he is

enjoying being a member congress. those who think he's on the verge of resigning are kidding themselves. you would think you be able to answer pretty weekly, yes it was the dying dog money or not. we will see if that happens this week. host: let's hear from willie in ohio democrats line. caller: thank you for allowing me to speak. the question i have is how in the world can you trust mccarthy? he has been wishy-washy on everything and he reminds me of a desperate man trying to go

someplace but he doesn't know where he's starting. for taking people off the committee and allowing george sanchez to stay on the committee is insane. you have to understand the budget is a trick. democrats want to raise it and they want the rich to pay their fair share. that's all it is. that got so much money that their money is going out with them. it's not hard. host: thank you. guest: i think the house republicans, one of the refrains you hear from democrats like chuck schumer last week is what is your land? house republicans have talked a lot about having spending cuts,

no specifics. yesterday on cbs, kevin mccarthy took off the table doing medicare and social security cuts as part of the debt limit deal because it was becoming i think a political albatross for republicans to keep talking about to the most popular programs in america. if you take them off the table, is less of the was talk about. if you are only talking about domestic discretionary spending, that's $800 billion per year out of the $6 trillion budget so you're not going to eliminate the trillion dollar deficit that way. you have to find some other things if you're not going to do taxes and veterans benefits, you run out of things to talk about. what will be interesting is they are tasked with passing a budget

resolution. many times, congress just meets up and i don't think politically the house republicans cannot at least try to do that. they've got to get 218 votes for that. you can always put a magic asterisk in a budget resolution because it's not real or a law, but if you junket up with magic asterisk,s imagine things we cannot name, it's a credibility hit. one thing they had going for them is paul ryan had been putting out budgets for years and he put out a budget. the budget -- his original budgets on social security and other things did what he wants to do but he had to compromise within the republican conference. they were kind of ready to be

united and they were able to pass that. they had a much bigger majority back then. it's very hard to bring people together on a real budget resolution with a real proposed cuts. it's one thing that is clear is house republicans conference is united in the general idea of cutting spending but they are very divided on whether medicare and social security should be part of it or defense, what kind of cuts he would want to do and how deep they would have to be before you vote for a debt limit increase. some don't want to vote on it at all. some want to cut spending 20% overnight and be done with it. i'm not sure they will be able to easily pass a budget resolution. host: he is a congressional reporter and his work can be found at bloomberg.com and

thanks for your time. we will continue discussing the debt ceiling and the options that congress on the white house have. we will have the economic policy director and he's you -- and he joins is next on "washington journal." >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker to select c-span radio listening to "washington journal" daily at 7 a.m. eastern with important congressional hearings and other public affairs events all day and weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. eastern, catch washington today. listen to c-span any time, tell your smart feature -- your smart speaker to play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. >> the state of the union is strong because you, the american people are strong.

>> president biden delivers the annual state of the union address, outlining his priorities to congress on tuesday, february 7, his first state of the union speech since republicans won control of the house and we will have the republican response and take your phone calls, texts and tweets beginning at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now or online at www.c-span.org. >> c-span now is a free mobile app drink your unfilled review of what's happening in washington, live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with live streams and full -- and floor proceedings the white house events, campaigns and more from the world politics at your fingertips. stay current with the latest episodes of "washington journal" and find scheduling information for the c-span tv network and radio network and podcasts.

it's available at the apple store and google place of downloaded for free today. >> the up to date in the latest in publishing with the book tv podcast about books. there are current nonfiction book releases and industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find it on c-span now, our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this is shia kabbas talking about issues of the debt ceiling and federal spending. thanks for giving us your time again. guest: good to be with you. host: back in september of 2021,

we were talking about the same thing, needing a debate about debt limit so why have we come to this point where we are still dealing with these issues and we bump up against these deadlines? guest: here we go again, as they say. the federal debt limit is in law by congress that limits the ability of the treasury department to borrow a certain dollar figure. right now, the dollar figure is $31.4 trillion. it has increased many times over the course of the last hundred or so years. especially over the last decade, you have these recurring debt limit apples where there are negotiations and demands about what should be attached to the debt limit and an extendedperiod about uncertainty how that will take place in the debt limit gets extended. the last time we had one of these was in 2021 and we are here again at the beginning of

2023. it comes in the cycle of having these debates. there is no clear path off that road. we need to get out of the paradigm we are in otherwise we will keep having this over and over and. we have very large fiscal challenge. that is expected to grow substantially larger over the coming year. the reason we keep running up against the debt limit is because we have this federal credit problem. it's not an effective tool to manage that. unfortunately, we will keep running back to this unless congress says they want to change the process. host: we heard house speaker mccarthy expect to sit in with president biden to discuss those matters. what are your feelings about this conversation? do you have a sense of optimism?

guest: it's a necessary first step. you have to get the two sides talking together before there is any negotiation. unfortunately, it seems this meeting is largely going to be an opportunity for both sides to restate the talking points they've been sharing with the media. that's not necessarily a cook -- because her optimism. i'm sure we will pay off her bills on time. we've had a debt problem for many years and congress has been externally reluctant to take that on a do anything about it. the only deficit reduction we've had in the past decade is the inflation reduction act which the democrats passed last year which only had a moderate impact.

that will raise some amount of money. the solution need to be much bigger than that. we need the two sides to talk to each other to make that happen. well the meeting is a necessary first step, i'm not encouraged we will get a resolution out of it. host: you can ask air guest questions. -- our guest questions. you can call in and pick the line the best represents you and you can also text us. you can also post on our social media sites. let's play a little bit of the house speaker yesterday talking about his responses. let's hear from him directly. [video clip] >> are you willing to consider any reductions to medicare and social security? >> let's take those off the table. we talk about strengthening

social security. the president says he doesn't want to look at it but we have to make sure we strengthen those. >> you mean lift the retirement age? >> what i want to look at is they have increased spending by 30%. when you look at what they have done, adding $10 trillion of debt for the next 10 years in a short time, they went through and they never passed a bill through appropriations in the senate. mr. schumer has been the leader and he is never passed a budget and is never passed in appropriation bill and he simply waits until the end of the year to allow two senators were no longer here to write a $1.8 trillion on the biz bill. >> you want to come to an agreement on a budget? >> yeah, i think our first responsibility is we should both pass a budget. this way the country can see the

direction we are going you cannot continue the spending that is brought this inflation and economic problems. we got to get our spending under control. host: that was the house speaker's take on upcoming conversation. do you want to respond to anything else? guest: the speaker makes interesting points. some of them i strongly agree with. we should have a budget resolution passed in the congress. they are supposed to do that every year but far too often, they pass that responsibility that makes it difficult to go from where we don't have an outline to an agreement on how we will fix our fiscal problems. what is ironic is that both parties basically don't want to touch medicare and social parity. -- and social security but those are the two biggest programs in the federal budget but those are off limits so it becomes externally difficult to extend revenue.

ultimately, we will need to have conversations about those programs sooner rather than later. unfortunately, the debt limit is not an effective pointed wish to have this conversation. it's the only point when we have this conversation was his why -- which is why we are where we are today. there is no other opportunity where republicans and democrats get together and have serious conversations about our fiscal problems. we need a change in the paradigm reset up another rosses that will work at her than the one we have today. i don't think that will fix all of our challenges but if we replace the debt limit debate over 31 trillion dollars in threats about not paying the bills and replace that with an actual serious process where there is a debate over her spending program and tax programs, that would be a much more constructive conversation. host: here are the phone lines

-- you can also text us. let's hear from john in cleveland, ohio. hello. caller: the money is already appropriated. it's an oxymoron. [indiscernible] medicare and payroll tax, they've had it for 70 years. the answers are there.

they should take a lie detector test. host: that's john cleveland, ohio. guest: the caller makes some good points where the solutions have been known for some time especially in the social security challenge. it's more about math problems and medicare problems. we know what the options are in social security and they are opportunities to tweak those. republicans and democrats nearly -- need to come to the table and examine those options. we will probably need them to get the system into balance. host: the white house yesterday had put out a statementaying congressional republicans have advocated for cutting earned benefits.

their policies would privatize meca and social security rates and theetement age or cut benefits. he says house republicans refused to raise revenue from the wealthy but strengthen earned benefits programs. is that a fair characterization? guest: we will need some of both. we will need the wealthy to contribute more than they are today area we will need changes on the benefit side as well and for both sides to say any tax increase will kill the economy or the other side saying any benefit adjustment will throw millions of seniors into poverty, that's just not the case. the more both sides continue to use talking points and view the issue as a cudgel, the less likely we are to get any kind of progress. to be more optimistic, there are serious conversations owing on in the senate right now around

social security that are much-needed because that graham, the trust fund is projected to be insolvent in a decade area in 10 years, if congress doesn't take action, there would be an across-the-board cut of about 25% and everybody's benefits. that's unfathomable and we cannot let that happen. the sooner congress acts, the more gradually they can phase in those changes. i am encouraged by the fact that they were these earnest conversations in the senate across party lines and i'm hopeful there'll be some type of package that comes out of the trap this year to advance those conversations and hopefully see some reforms in the next couple of years. host: when it comes to social security and medicare, is there a least painful approach of changing these programs to preserve their solvency? guest: absolutely, there are reforms we can put into place they go into effect many years in the future and gradually and are targeted at the people can afford the most. all of those are things we

should welcome. less time social security was informed in the early 1980's, they put in in just retirement age increases that just finished going into effect recently. those were 30 or 40 years. we have time to do phase in's to make sure people on the program have limited or no impact on the benefits and people early in their careers were coming into the workforce will see modest changes to how their benefits are calculated years down the road area that's what we need to do on the benefits to make sure there are enough revenues coming to the program to funded and that will mean modest tax increases especially groups of people who can afford it most. host: if that's the case and you've west is for a long time, if solutions are easy, why can't congress come together and enact these? guest: it's politically unpopular. it's much easier, is logical

that the average person in the country hears about benefit cuts and taxing pieces and says i don't want those that impact me but i would rather see other changes. in reality, we will need changes to the program that will impact a large group of beneficiaries but not the county and. -- but not in a draconian way. if both sides are trying to get a political win out of the situation which is what we've seen for chart -- for far too long, we will not get progress. we will need a change in that dynamic in the possibility of legislation passing. caller: doug in new york, independent line. the debt went down and in 1980

with the tax cuts, that has been increasing ever since. there is a slight remission of change when george bush the first change taxes. why can't we learn from that experience? what we use that to get out of this debt problem? we did it once before. we should go back and analyze the mechanics of that time and reapply it. thank you. host: thank you, caller. guest: a good question i think we should be looking for lessons we can take a way to solve the current problem. a couple of dynamics make the situation different from what we had historically even though we

had similar elevated levels of dance. we drew down our forces and were spending on our military dramatically as well as other programs supporting that effort overseas. it made for a natural opportunity where our debt came down. that was not the entirety of the situation but it made up a lot of the reason way from well over one her percent of gbp -- of gdp to sustainable levels. today, we have a situation we don't have that same situation. our military budget is not the same as world war ii. we don't have that easy ability to draw down the defense forces. the other is that the democrats it -- the demographics we face are different. we have a situation where older americans are increasing rapidly and people are going out to social security and medicare and that is outpacing the people paying into those programs.

they are contributed to social security and medicare and we expect that trend to go on for several decades as well as people living longer and longer so they are spending more in retirement collecting those benefits. to change that, we will need reforms that fundamentally form the basis system because we cannot keep paying out benefits for more and more years otherwise we had to keep raising taxes more and more and that ultimately becomes unsustainable. we need more revenue in the program but we will have to make some adjustments to the benefit trajectory. host: you talk about history. take us back to 2011 when president obama faced a similar situation with debt control and the budget control act of 2011. what did that do and how was it as a solution? guest: with the bipartisan

policy center, we been working on debt limits for about 12 years. the first time in modern era where came up in the political fashion it did in 2011 is when republicans were insisting particular budget reforms and extending the debt limit under obama. that summer, there was a very protracted debate over how we would get this done. they ultimately passed a government extension but it closed to what we call the date where the government could not meet its obligations on time that led to a credit rating downgrade by the s&p 500 which has ramifications in the short and longer term it. what that did was to put in place caps on discretionary spending on nondefense and defense appropriate accounts. it also put in place a sequester which would be automatic across-the-board cuts. that failed.

the bipartisan supercommittee did ultimately fail and that sequester kicked in. since then, they rolled back a lot of those because they weren't tenable. both sides of the aisle felt they couldn't live with those cuts to domestic in defense spending and there were subsequent increases going into effect. most of those cuts were not heeded. that's what happens when we negotiate against the law and the deadline and not having awful deliberations about how we tackle our fiscal challenges. i'm hopeful we can get to a place where we have these conversations well in advance of the deadline. the deadline is not an effective tool to have these conversations and change that paradigm where there is a process and agreed upon time in congress where we have these conversations. host: thank you for joining us from the bipartisan policy

center. but hear from joan in colorado, independent line. caller: good morning, no business could be run away this country has been run lately. when the budget is due, it should be -- and shouldn't be a 4000 page document and i believe that they will now go back and do appropriations for each department separately thus may be preventing some of the politicians from doing wrong. apparently we have too little money for too many people and i say why aren't we doing something. the answers are simple but no one wants to go there. close the border. i heard one day that they would make cuts to social security and that same day, i heard that

resident by said we will give illegal emigrants free health care. none of it is making sense and if you are paying attention, we all know what needs to be done. some and congress are fearful to make that decision. thank you. host: thank you. guest: the immigration issue is important for the fiscal challenge. it impacts things in many different directions. when immigrants come, they receive benefits in the country so that has a cost. the other side is that they often participate in the workforce and contribute taxes to the other side of the asian. they help grow the economy in that fashion. there is a balance and i'm not

an immigration policy expert. it's well worth noting that immigration policy contributes to our fiscal challenge both through helping to grow the economy by welcoming more legal immigrants and the benefits we are paying out. in some cases, illegal immigrants may be accessing those benefits but there are restrictions in many of those programs. host: this is from justice kagan: good morning -- caller: good morning. how are you guys? i was curious about this narrative i heard with the national debt, that the ratio is about 1.2 times what our annual income as a country is. that seems to be national debt to the public, which governments

expense. we have a law of costs and i agree that we should debate what we are spending this money on. but this perception that this debt is out of control and the republicans keep saying it is 1.2 times the national debt is a bad thing, yet when it comes to personal debt to private interest, it's ok to have a 200 some $5,000 mortgage and still make $54,000 per year. this is crazy talk, to talk about a debt limit when we need to talk about specific issues. when you talk about the popularity of programs that could really go far toward saving a lot of money for the taxpayers, we have 50 million votes from the republicans to repeal and replace, but nobody wants to talk about medicare for all. we spend over $1.5 trillion in private insurance that could go

directly toward medical costs and cutting down medicare and medicaid costs directly. host: ok, thank you caller. guest: there are a lot of subs to tend to -- a lot of substantive issues when it comes to fiscal spending, and the debt limit is not a format for those discussions. i do think it is important to recognize that we have a serious fiscal problem ahead. right now or -- right now, our debt to gdp is higher than it has ever been in modern history. it is unfortunately headed on a very upward trajectory from there. we need to put in place reforms that in that curve, otherwise things like interest on debt will end up eating a larger and larger portion that we are all paying into the federal program. eventually, that becomes so -- that becomes unsustainable. the longer we let this go on,

the more that type of spending is going to crowd out the important programs you were just talking about. we do need to have those conversations both about the spending side and the tax side of the equation. the two sides need to be coming together on that. in any advanced democracy, we should have the ability to negotiate over our differences and compromise on a challenge that already exists. unfortunately, we have not seen that from our policymakers over the last decade. the polarization we have in our country, frankly, we need to change that dynamic or we will be in a lot of trouble. host: this is mark in fort lauderdale, asking us to ask you if it is true that the debt ceiling has actually reached that, if the first thing that doesn't get paid is the u.s. treasury bill on note. guest: we have reached the debt limit now.

the treasury department isn't lamenting what they call extraordinary measures. these are legal accounting maneuvers they are permitted to undertake in the treasury department to give us a bit of a grace period for congress to address the debt ceiling. congress often takes things to the last minute, as we have seen in many occasions in the past. they may very well do so again this time. once they reach that point where the government can no longer reach its quotas on time, we don't know what will happen. the u.s. is considered the foundation of the global economic system. if all of a sudden we are not making good on all of our promises, that could really shake that foundation. what would get paid and what would not get paid is a really open-ended question. we have never been there, as i said. it will be up to the treasury department to chart a path forward. but any course they take would

be inviting legal challenges, operational challenges, because that is not an environment they are used to living in. they are used to paying the bills as they come due on time. there will be a situation where they have to choose among millions of bills coming in and out of the government each month and figuring out which ones they will pay and which ones they will not. that will be incredibly difficult and will likely have severe ramifications for financial markets, the economy, american households and businesses, and likely around the globe. host: others of you ask a similar question. in the larger sense, just how much is the government managing to pay off the nation's debt? how any billions actually go toward paying off that debt? guest: right now, none is actually going to pay off the debt because it is continuing to grow. we are spending about $6 trillion a year and only taking in roughly $5 trillion per year. there is about $1 trillion that gets added to the debt each

year. what we are paying is principal and interest payments that are on debt that is outstanding. as our debt grows, that portion of the federal budget, as i mentioned, is continuing to increase. but we have not even pay down our debt since the late 1990's, when president clinton was in office and republicans controlled congress, and they made deals that, along with economic growth, balanced the budget and helped us pay down our debt. since the year 2000, we have been running deficits, in many cases very large, projected to grow now into the future. we are not expected to pay down any of our debt anytime soon. host: john in wisconsin, independent line, thanks for calling. go ahead. caller: my question is, i would like to know what percentage of household income -- household debt there is to income, in comparison to our federal government. and secondly, with japan having

2.5 times their gdp currently with that -- with debt, why we are overly alarmed with our 1.2 times gdp. and what will happen if republican measures to cut the irs are implemented to the interest portion of our debt. thank you for taking my call. guest: sure. good questions there. i don't offhand no -- know that household debt to income ratio. it is interesting to look at. the government and several a lot of differences from individuals, so it is not necessarily a comparison we should draw strong conclusions from. but it will be worth looking at and exploring that comparison. in terms of japan, that's a good point. they own the vast majority of their debt domestically. that's a bit of a different situation then we have here. it's a fair point. as i said earlier, i don't think we are going to hit a crisis

when we get to a slightly higher level of debt than we have today. unfortunately, that trajectory continues to be sharply upward. we need to put in place reforms to address the fiscal policy we have. it is highly unlikely they are going to address themselves. the sooner we can start tackling them, the better, because we know we are going to have to do it at some point. the last question you raised was around the irs and the reforms that were put into place as part of the inflation reduction act last year. those, i think, were quite necessary from two perspectives. one is that the irs has had significant operational challenges with their customer service and processing. those are things we needed to address upfront in order to see things on the backend. i'm curious to see some of the dollars going into the irs put toward customer service and operations as a whole. on the other side is closing the tax debt.

if we put in place these dollars and have more audits, basically a modern era low, if we get them back to a more reasonable level, we will catch more people who are evading taxes and collect more revenue. that will more than pay for the investment we are making in the irs. i think the details matter, but that is generally a good thing. it will ensure people are paying the taxes they owe and help us pay our deficit. if that money is repealed, in the opposite direction, that will increase our deficits. i don't think that will be a good policy, nor would it be helpful for getting our fiscal policy in order. host: a story out today, taking a look at the ideas that go along the debt limit and what we are seeing currently play out in congress. they have suggestions, such as minting a trillion dollar coin. the other would be to declare

the debt ceiling non-comparable with our fiscal spending. guest: there's a lot of ideas floating around when we look at the debt limit. we could be headed there again this time and that's why those ideas are resurfacing. frankly, policies are worse than they ever have been. fuller's asian continues to worsen. some ideas are back on the table. my concerns about all of them, and i put them all in a similar category, are that we have never been in a situation where we are testing out these unprecedented taxes. more so than the substance of whatever the treasury does, whether it is minting a $1 trillion coin or declaring the debt limit incompatible with spending laws, all of these are likely to provoke significant reaction from investors and financial markets, and perhaps credit rating issues --

agencies. once these reactions occur, they could be quite severe. we don't know, but that could have a ripple effects and broader ramifications for the domestic and global economy. once the toothpaste is out of the tube, we can't put it back in. we don't know what the consequences would be in that situation, but i think will be very difficult for the treasury department and congress to get a hold of any of that fallout. i am very concerned about any of those measures that go into place, which is why i think to mitigate risk, we need to address this before that exit date. instead of defaulting on our debt, which could have extremely severe repercussions in the long term, in terms of our global placing an economic system, but all of these ideas are untested and i think, with a very significant dose of risk. host: for the buy policy partisan center, shai akabas. democrat line.

caller: good morning. i am not an expert at all in this, but it seems if you look at it simply, if you had more workers paying taxes, the social security would continue on. and i don't understand how come we don't bring in more immigrants that are paying taxes and we wouldn't have to worry. is it that simple or what? guest: that's a very good question. i would not say it's that simple, but i do very much agree with you that that is a portion to the solution. if we have greater numbers of legal immigration, participating and paying taxes, that would much help the social security system finances. caveat is that that alone is unlikely to solve the entirety of the problem, because there

has been such a large mismatch in terms of what's happening in the coming decades with the baby boomers moving into retirement. between the amount we are paying out and if it's an electing in taxes, it cannot all be fixed with immigration solutions. we need to look at other changes on the tax and benefits side. the by policy partisan -- the bipartisan policy center has put this out in 2016. friendly, the situation has not changed dramatically. we haven't made any significant reforms to the program since then. that packages out there. there are lots of other ideas floating around out there. we need the political will to do something. i am hopeful there may be some of that in the senate this year, as bipartisan members are looking at serious solutions. host: what did you think of senator mcconnell saying that when it came to debt ceiling discussions, it is up between the house speaker the president himself? guest: i wasn't surprised by

senator mcconnell's comments. the political world we have today, a democratically controlled senate, a republican house, and a immigrant in the executive office, it means we definitely -- we ultimately need agreement from the house and the executive branch in order to find resolution. the republicans being minority in the senate are in a difficult place, or even if they were trying to negotiate some type of solution with their counterparts, the majority, the democrats in the senate, that could be rejected by the house of representatives and we could be back at square one. i think senator mcconnell doesn't want to have the rug pulled out from under him in that way. he is letting the house taking the lead -- take the lead, ultimately recognizing speaker mccarthy and the republicans -- democrats need to lead the way. host: we are hearing from pat. caller: you are speaking earlier about the structural changes

made to social security, raising the retirement. what impact does that have when more and more of us people who are older and are being displaced are able to collect benefits at age 62? guest: raising the retirement age, there are two ages. or the terminology we use for these ages are just incorrect and misleading. we should be calling these claiming ages. many people claim benefits before they retire. many people retire before they claim benefits. should not be thinking about these is one and the same. some need that if it's earlier and some don't. that is how we should be approaching that decision for themselves. when it comes to social security, we have two ages. there is the normal retirement age, which is 67 years old, and the early retirement age, which is the earliest eligibility age. or maybe the reduced benefit

age, to help people understand that this is an age where you get significantly reduced benefits for the rest of your retirement. we don't expect that will change in any reform, because many people do need to retire at earlier ages based on the careers they have, based on their life expectancies. but what i do you think is that with the majority of the population seeing increases in retirement, age will likely increase in the coming years. that will probably not impact people already on the program, but it will impact people who are maybe 10 years, 20 years, 30 years away from retiring and need to take that into consideration for their long-term financial planning. host: stephen in illinois, independent line, good morning. caller: pedro, good morning. thank you, always nice to hear from you. i am 77 years old and i receive benefits from social security and medicare. i would not be of any objection to the tweaking of those programs.

however, what always rubs me the wrong way is the government subsidies to farmers, businesses, and whomever else. the free money going to people that really don't need it. the tax cuts for the very wealthy, where rich people don't pay their fair share. that's the problem. nobody wants to give up their share of the pie when other people don't. i think my only suggestion to the problem is, there should be tweaking to programs such as social security and medicare, and straight, automatic cuts, whether it be 3% or 4% across-the-board in spending. the democrats should demand that there be tax increases for the rich, which i will bet my house on that the republicans will never agree to. thank you for listening to me. host: stephen from illinois. guest: that's a good idea. we definitely need more revenue

coming in, as i said, and a reduction in standing. i'm not sure across-the-board cuts are as effective. we need to realize their programs providing much more value than others and some are run much more efficiently than others. but i wholeheartedly agree that there is chaff in government programs that we can look toward reducing. we need to be targeting resources on people who need them the most. for example, recent student loan action, forgiving student debt for all student borrowers across-the-board, which is now tied up in the courts, that is not a well targeted policy. there are many people that have graduate degrees, who are going to have very high earnings in the coming years, certainly later in their careers, who don't need a handout of $10,000 from the federal government to repay some of that debt. they are going to get a large dividend from the education they paid for. with that policy and many others, both sides have implement it over the year, i think the 2016 tax cuts, we

certainly didn't need some of those tax cuts irate -- higher income individuals received. there are things on both sides peered what we need to do looking forward is figure out where in the spending programs and tax code we can target benefits more toward people who need them and ask more out of the people who can most afford it. host: this call comes from victor in florida, independent line. caller: good morning, favor -- pedro, mr. aqaba's. some people stole my thunder. if you don't mind, could i mention a couple of things about your last caller? he said a couple of things that, pardon me, pistol me off a little bit. like the platinum coin printing. why can't i just grab a piece of paper and put a 1 and a couple of zeros after it? stupid things like this need to be removed from the laws that we

have passed. that is something that i think so many of us are upset about. there is a tremendous amount of waste. this whole thing about congress isn't perfect, or they say a lot of no, then at the end of the year, they say yes and pass the bill. the bills, yes, they pass. they are bad bills. it simply shouldn't happen. how about this new gentleman who has just lied his way into congress? they are now saying that the reason he wanted to run for congress is so he could get free health care. i was a registered nurse for 30 years and i just retired. i don't have free health care. why should congress be awarded these huge benefits that every day john public doesn't get? i'm just upset seeing these politicians saying no, we can't do this, we can't do that. it's not right.

there are tons of ways to save money. host: ok, ok. victor finishing us off in florida. anything for that mr. akabas? guest: we have far too much polarization in society and politics today. that is one thing the bipartisan policy tries to help with. we just celebrated a for the anniversary of the congressional exchange paired with two members of congress visit each other's districts. i heard from more than a dozen members who were there. i think we had 40 or so of those trips go back and forth, where members get to see the constituents and the districts of a congressperson on the others to the aisle. it really helps open their eyes to their vantage point, their perspective. many of these pairings have actually worked on bipartisan dissolution since they have taken those trips together. it's not going to fix our entire system, but there are programs like that and folks who are

trying to push the two sides to work together on problems. as we have been talking about today, that is ultimately part of the longer-term solution here. the two sides are talking and developing solutions. if we don't have that rapport with each other, things will never be fixed. host: shai akabas of the bipartisan policy center. you can check out some of the work that they do. he is the director of economic policy. thank you for your time today. guest: thank you for having me, pedro. host: we go into open form next. if you want to call in and give your comment, you can do so. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we will take those calls in open forum on washington journal continues. ♪ >> if you are enjoying book tv,

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if it happens here or here or here, or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: you can participate in this open form by text if you wish. (202) 748-8003. a couple of things to tell you about. watch out for the networks right after this program on this network. it is the national press club newsmaker program, with the new chairman of the house oversight and accountability committee, representative jim comer of kentucky. he is expected to talk about government waste, fraud, and abuse. see that at 10:00 on this network. follow along on our app, c-span now. you can also watch on our website, c-span.org. later today, wayne state university will talk about the january 6 committee investigation, what it means for the future of government oversight. if you are interested in that

topic, that is at noon. see that on c-span2. the website and the apps are available to you as well. again, if you want to participate in open form, a couple of things we have called in the last 30 days. if you can hold off from doing so today, we would appreciate it. also, pick the line that best represents you. also, in light of recent public events, the congressional black caucus calling for a sit down meeting with president biden over the topic of police reform, they sent the statement yesterday, saying, "th congressional black caucus takes its role to advocate for the safety atection of the people in our communities very seriously. to that end, cbc is requesting a meeting with the president by the end of teek to push much-needed reforms to our justice system, specifically the actions and conduct of law enforcement. nobody should fear interacting with police officers who serve our diverse communities, large and small. we all want to be safe."

it was on the sunday show yesterday that the senate judiciary chair talked about efforts of congress on legislation and improving oversight on policing practices. here's a portion of the interview from yesterday. >> the republican, tim scott, blamed democrats for squandering an opportunity to pass those reforms you talked about. both parties did agree on those in any 21, like increased mental health resources. why not pass what was already agreed upon? isn't something better than nothing? >> it's the right starting point. senator booker, chairman of the crime subcommittee, has been working on this for years. i think he and senator scott should sit down again quickly, to see if we can revise that effort. that in and of itself is not enough. we need a national conversation about policing and responsible, constitutional, and humane ways. these people with badges put

them on each day and risked their lives for us. i know that. but we also see from these videos horrible conduct by the same officers in unacceptable situations. we have got to change this for the better. >> senator, we talked about the fact that the memphis police had already implement it reforms after the george floyd killing, including a requirement to de-escalate or intervene if they saw others using excessive force. aside from these conversations, how you change that culture? >> by screening, by training, by accreditation, to up the game so that the people who have this responsibility to keep us safe really are stable in approaching this in a professional manner. what we saw on the streets of memphis was just inhumane and horrible. i don't know what created this rage in these police officers, that they would congratulate themselves for beating a man to death.

but that is literally what happened. >> and there are calls for a federal investigation into the entire memphis police department, not just this specific incident. you think that should happen? >> i would not rule that out. host: again, the first call is from greg, michigan, independent line. hello. caller: hello. i had a few points, as far as the tax debt goes. we could do a lot of things, like eliminate all tax loopholes. congress can make laws to where there are zero tax loopholes. that would solve a lot of problems. then, immigration. that is a big, serious problem. nobody being vetted. everything going on in this world is just crazy. as far as the police go, maybe they need some psychological help. host: texas is next.

this is where linda is, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? i love c-span. you all are doing a great job. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: what i want to mention is what the last person you had on. i am a senior, 74 years old. i noticed that when you go to a doctor, they try to push medication that seniors really don't know. my opinion is that medicare should require why they are giving medicine to seniors when they reach a certain age, and ask the doctor to explain why. because there is a problem there. a lot of seniors that don't need all this medication are being push medication that they don't really need. host: what medication? can you give an example? is there a doctor who push medication on you, so to speak?

caller: yes, i had high cholesterol. my cholesterol has always been at 220 to 240. i asked my doctor because i was worried about it. they said that my good cholesterol was taking bad of -- taking care of bad cholesterol. once i reached over the age of 70 years old, my doctor said that i needed to get on cholesterol medication because i would have a stroke when i am 10 years older. i still don't take it. when i have some pain, she gave me over-the-counter medication that had coding. -- codien. i see a lot of seniors walking around, taking all this medication, because they track their doctor -- they trust their doctor. medicare should step in and regulate. costs would come down. stop giving all this medication.

host: that is linda there. let's go to john in virginia, independent line. caller: hi, i was just wondering, whenever they start talking about the national debt and the debt ceiling, the democrats right away saved the republicans, without fail, want to cut your social security, cut medicare. while there may be some adjustments, raising the retirement age, i figure there are some adjustments for that, but nobody talks about any of the other spending. do you realize how many people work in the washington, d.c. area? you are they are. the federal workforce is so huge , why don't they start cutting back the federal workforce instead of it constantly growing? i heard the department of education had 120,000 employees. what would 120,000 employees do all day? they are not teaching in

classrooms. there is so much waste in washington. i know you couldn't balance the budget just cutting the waste. look at the ominous spending bill. why would we be sending millions of dollars to pakistan for gender studies? if we are worried about the national debt, there are some of the places to cut before we even get to social security. host: ok, that's john in virginia. it's tear from trent in alabama, democrats line. caller: hello, sir, how are you doing? host: i'm fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: it's open forum, right? host: it is. caller: i'm worried about the little lady in memphis, tennessee and her son. other than that, i want to wish you all a belated merry christmas and happy new year. i didn't get to tell you all that. merry christmas and happy new year. anyway, i was just thinking, there ought to be a law against -- i am military.

i was in the military for 14 years, the army reserves. i have seen the many faces of death. it terrorizes us sometimes and frightens the core. i want mr. biden and them to come up with a law, one they want to pass, and see if it stands up to what it says and pass the law, put into law. we respect it, go about our daily lives. if someone wants to bring kate, like you said, too bad. -- to break it, like you said, too bad. anyway, have a great evening. host: you heard the senate judiciary chair talk about perspectives on policing on the sunday show yesterday. the judiciary committee chair, the new one, from ohio, said he saw underlying issues with law enforcement. here's a portion of that from yesterday. [video clip] >> we are not getting enough

good people applying because of the disparagement on police officers. i talk to them all the time. whenever i fly through chicago airport, phoenix airport, i talk with officers there. right now, they're not getting enough people applying to the academy to be an officer because there has been this police that this anti-police an attack on law enforcement. >> do you think there should be a case for federal standards? >> we shouldn't have this whole attitude about defund the police and disparaging police. not all police officers are doing what we saw in that video. >> i don't think anyone in washington is seriously pushing to defund the police. >> a number of my colleagues were on the others of the aisle, talking about defunding the police.

when you have people trying to defund the police to the tune of $2 billion, that's a big problem. i know you have other investigations you want to do. should police reform be among the top? this was a weaponization of government and abuse of the state, authority against the people they are actually supposed to serve. we have a number of things we are going to look at in the judiciary committee and select committee as well. let's hear from oklahoma, republican line. i'm not sure people heard joe biden call those peaceful protests. but i believe the nfl needs to be disbanded for all the hatred. it takes all of us. there is more racism and hatred in the nfl than there is in the whole world.

why don't you will do something about that? i believe joe biden ought to be impeached and put in prison for saying, "me and that boys mama call for no peaceful protests let's hear from mississippi, independent line. this is jack. hello. hopefully everybody knows, america has had a war against african-americans. you put drugs into our neighborhoods. i love this country. you do everything to discombobulated us to take our $1.5 trillion to go to immigrants and white americans. you make us pay for education, like for everything else, while you denied us education for hundreds of years, while you deputized every american to enslave us, whether we were former slaves or not. everybody is involved, everybody

is complicit. but it is a trick on all the black people. a number of people have tried it. america was an experiment. people look out for their own families. when you have all these people in the so-called melting pot agreeing to slaves and you give billions of dollars to immigrants and not even an inch tavern -- to african-americans, we would have made millions more if we were free. but now you want us to pay? host: ok, that is zach in mississippi. by the way, after the tyree nichols decision, this is from the white house, part of it from president biden, saying, "as the americas -- as america grieves, the authorities continue to investigate.

i call, with the family, for peaceful protests. violence is never the answer." that is part of the statement from the white house. let's hear from joan in minnesota, democrat line. joan in minnesota, hello? one more time for joan before we move on. ok, we will go to jeremy. jeremy in ohio, hello. caller: hello, good morning. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: thank you for the conversation. host: go ahead, you are on. i believe he dropped. apologies for that. if you want to call back and try it again before we finish out this open form, please do so and we will put you through. the president is in baltimore today to talk about

infrastructure and particularly the results of the bipartisan infrastructure law he will be in new york city tomorrow, talking about the same thing. some things you may hear him going forward, especially with talk about the president making another run for the office of presidency, the "right street -- "wall street journal" writing, "mr. biden's speech offers latest preview of how he plans to point to the nation's emergence from covid-19, a resilient economy, and his role as a check against the republicans who hold majority of the house. donors are preparing a fundraising blitz later this spring. top aides are a sibling the campaign staff, with announcements expected after the state of the union speech." it may offer mr. biden his largest televised audience of the year.

after the speech, he is expected to travel to battleground states and will continue a steady stream of official events to draw attention to the new laws that will pipe -- that will pump billions into new projects. as the president travels, stay close to c-span for those events and to hear from him. we will go next to bill in georgia, democrats line. caller: good morning. [laughter] it's tough when i have to wait 30 days. i go crazy. we are fortunate to have a president who has been in government for as long as he has and made plenty of mistakes and learned from them. eventually, you get wisdom, which i believe our president right now has. he is looking at having to deal with so many problems that were on a plate that he didn't want

when he first came in the office. whether it be overseas problems or that kind of thing, he is trying to push the united states into joining the rest of the industrialized world along a couple of lines. for instance, health care should not be a profit-making thing. you shouldn't make profit on health care. because of the rest of the civilized industrial world, our allies, they don't do that. they don't make a profit something goes with regard to education. education should not be profit-making. and of course, prisons. [laughter] one can throw that in, too. but i am happy with the way the country is. i think that right now, the republican-controlled congress

are going to be the death of what i see as the old trump people. host: moving on. let's go to danny in west virginia, independent line. you are next. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, sir, people talked about social security. it is true that publicans are cutting social security so they can give these big billionaires their tax breaks. that is all they have ever been about. they talk about biden being a little bit slow. yeah, he is a little slow, but that only makes them nine times smarter than donald trump. they're never going to cut social security while biden is in there because he said he is going to veto every time they put it up there. i believe every word he says. people better wake up and vote for biden and quit worrying about the republicans. they should cut their pay before they cut anybody else's. thank you. host: that is west virginia.

taking a look at border policy. the department of homeland security has told congress it will not allow senior or patrol officials to testified next month. that share -- the chair is inviting officials to testify about what they're seeing. he wrote in a letter, challenging the move. they might use compulsory measures like a subpoena to force the issue. by the way, representative jim, will be giving an interview at 10:00 this morning about his work as the chair of the oversight committee, what he plans to do with that. you can see that on this network, c-span, starting at

10:00 or shortly thereafter. our app is c-span now, and c-span.org is the website. this is from wanda in california, republican line. caller: hi, yes, talking about the debt. it took germany almost 100 years to pay off its world war i debt. they say that treaty of versailles was partly the cause of world war ii. anyhow, another point. i would like to see the whole video of the man that was abused by the police. i would like to see the video from the start, because his drunk driving, they say, was very bad. we need to see the whole video. i think that's what made the cops mad. host: and do you think that justifies the end result? caller: no, i don't. but i just think that we need to see the whole video.

that's my point. host: ok. this is from nick in arizona, democrats line. hello. caller: good morning morning, how are you? host: i'm fine, thank you. caller: i want to talk about the war with ukraine and russia. anyone who has been paying attention knows that our american intelligence has helped overthrow the legitimate government of ukraine. anybody who remembers hillary clinton and john mccain handing out doughnuts to what would be the equivalent of the january 6 people here, we helped overthrow the government. and now, joe biden, a man i voted for, is trying to convince the american people that russia is going to lose a war to ukraine. so, what is he doing? what is his in game? is he just trying to hurt russia by using the ukrainian people as fodder? i am an orthodox christian and both of these countries are 80%

orthodox christian. they are killing each other because the west kept pushing and pushing the nato borders, in spite of promises that our government gave to gorbachev back in the day. russia is not the soviet union, it is not a communist country. why are we trying to go to war with them? is it because the economy is failing and joe biden needs to kind of do something because 0% is over and now they have to start another war to keep our economy from faltering because it is a pyramid scheme where the rich keep getting richer and the poor get poorer, and the middle-class is shrinking? this is so ridiculous. our country is so crazy. host: ok, that is right. let's hear from a viewer in indiana, steve, republican line. caller: hi, i just want to talk a little bit about the economy. our economy, everything here in

indiana has went up about 50%. i don't see how they can ever figure that our economy is not this 6.9 or 6.6, whatever they want to say it is. that hasn't even come close to what it is. our gas is twice as high as what it was when trump was in office. why don't they make our country energy independent? it affects the whole world when our energy is shut off here. this is what is destroying the here world. we have got more resources right here in the united states than anywhere in the world. everybody wants it. russia wants the united states's oil, china wants it, everyone in

the world once it. host: ok, we will hear from jim, another republican, in texas. caller: hey, good morning. i just wanted to comment on several calls back, when that democrat said that there should be no profit in health care or education. that's a typical, done that democrat talking. they don't understand that nothing works without profit. how do they think anything happens without profit? thank you. host: jim in texas, calling on our republican time -- republican line. a hierarchy member of the senate intelligence committee, this is a story by ramsey. in pursuit of answers about the content of classified documents found in the possession of president biden and former president donald trump, senators

on the committee on sunday blasted officials over the lack of transparency. the chair, a democrat of virginia, and marco rubio of florida, said that it seems the press knows more about the contents of the sensitive material than they do. here is a portion of the interview from yesterday. [video clip] >> the justice department has had the term documents about six months, the biden documents about three months. our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those. our job is to make sure there is not an intelligence compromise. and while the director of national intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you've have got this special counsel, the notion that we are going to be left in limbo and cannot do our job, that just cannot stand. >> the intelligence community would say their hands are tied because this is an active, ongoing investing issue. what would address your concerns about copper mazen that? --

about compromising that? >> these are probably materials we already have access to, we just don't know what they are. it's not about being nosy. here's the bottom line. if in fact those documents and materials are sensitive, and they pose counterintelligence or national security threats to the united states, it is their job become up with a way to mitigate that. >> does the director even know about that? >> we got a bit of vagueness on that. we wanted to make sure intelligence professionals, not political appointees, have information on that. that makes sense to me. there may still be violations on handling. >> let me tell you how absurd this is there isn't a day that goes by that doesn't have a media report on some sort of characterization of the material in the press. somehow, the only people not allowed to know what was in

there, our congressional oversight committees. it is an untenable situation i think has to be resolved. host: that was yesterday on cbs. this is roger in massachusetts, independent line. you are next, hello. caller: hello. i have a question on congressional spending. i am old enough to remember when congress, most weekends, would remain in washington. i can remember comments from both sides, where they found it beneficial in working and getting to know one another better. but my main concern or question is, it now, it seems like congress goes back home every weekend. who the heck pays for that? most of that involves air traffic. i just wanted to know whether

that comes out of congress's pockets or taxpayers pockets. and roughly what kind of expenditure is that every week? thank you. host: that is a viewer there in massachusetts, roger. let me see i can find the answer for you. i won't guarantee i will be able to do that before 10:00, but we will see. this is corbyn, democrats line. hello. caller: good morning. one of my primary concerns is how congress has a self-regulating entity. they make their own pay, set their own rules for themselves that are separate from the american people. i know the judiciary branch has court cases that define what they go through and make what's legal or not. i don't understand why there's not a part of the judicial branch that can't say what they are doing is borderline unconstitutional ultimately, it's not, but it is definitely

some quid pro quo amongst themselves to do whatever they have to do to protect themselves and give themselves benefits. host: that is corbyn. dave is next, in las vegas, independent line. good morning. caller: hello. first of all, the media never gets anything right. first of all, trump tries to overthrow the united states government. the attorney general hasn't done anything about it. the media backs away from it. he should be in jail. when you go into the military, i was in the military, and they ask you, "are you a communist? do you plan to overthrow the united states government?" trump tried to do that. all the people backing them, i guess they are communists now. the attorney general needs to step up, do his job, and a restaurant. everybody's talking about documents. you have to do do that ship to

do something about trump erie he was trying to overthrow the government. nobody cares. why doesn't the attorney general do his job? trump is no good. he is trying to cut social security and everything. those republicans are coming after social security and medicare. they don't want to strengthen it, they want to ruin it. that's my comment. host: wallace is next up. edison, new jersey. hello. caller: hi, i didn't think i would get through. i have a very quick comment. the one thing i don't understand with all of these sanctions on russia and penalties there, we are trying to circumvent and go through georgia. i don't know why this is not done. every country in nato, to break off relations with russia, 25% of the raid would be cut off.

russia does not want to be cut off from the entire world. that is my comment, thank you so much. host: that is a viewer in new jersey. carol calling us from virginia. caller: hello, i would like to address the comment by the woman who said she wanted to see the entire tape. she saw three minutes of a man being beaten to death. that should be more than enough. as far as the police getting mad, it's not their job to get mad. their job is to restrain the person if they believe probable cause is taking place, and take them in. they should have enough control over their emotions to do that, and not to beat someone down. it is disgraceful. what do you want to see? what they had for breakfast in the morning? this is ridiculous. host: that is carol in pennsylvania.

according to a document from the house ethics committee, this is going to the travel that the previous caller said. official travel is paid for or authorized by the house. this includes travel paid with the members representational allowance or committee fun. travel is paid with members representative -- representational allowance. they talk about trips and foreign travel. it must be authorized by the speaker and committee chair. it goes on from there. as far as the questions you have about it, as far as trips are paid for, hadley in pennsylvania, republican line. good morning, you are next up. you are going to have to turn down your television. caller: hello.

host: caller, you're going to have to turn down your television. it is causing background noise. can you do that? caller: it is off. host: ok, go ahead. caller: i would like donald trump -- host: ok, anything else? caller: no. host: ok, diana from wisconsin, democrats line. caller: yes, my comment is, i would like to know when these republicans that are all for the big lie that the orange pulled down in florida started are going to be held responsible for their fake electorates. i'm talking about scott fitzgerald, ron johnson, and the

rest of them that are making decisions about how the government is run and how money is dispersed. why are these people not in jail? we have them on tape, ron johnson, trying to deliver on january 6, 2020, fake electric documents. why are these people not in jail he? -- jail? they are caught on tv and their signatures are on fake documents. host: ok, diana there in wisconsin. diana, as well as others, if you're going to be on the phone, if you could, turn down your television so there is no feedback when you finally have a chance to give your opinion. robert in florida, republican

line. hello. caller: good morning, pedro. how are you today? i know you're doing well. to all my brothers and vietnam veterans, please file your claim. please have someone help you. you earned it. a shout out to the 84th engineer battalion. 1977 to 1980, thank you, my brothers. host: caller: good morning how are you today i know you're are doing well. tell all of those that are making the claims and agent orange please have someone help you. and to shelter you. cleanup 1977 through 1980. thank you. host: that