caller: regarding social security and these people in congress, making so much money. half the time, they are not even

at work. that is very distressing for me. they want to cut salaries. they do not show at work. people work for 50 years and they do not show up at work. they lose their jobs. let's see people who can represent us. they represent themselves. obviously, they do not care enough about their constituent. then, once they are elected, they do nothing for us. host: do you think there is a conversation to be had about how to preserve social security for future generations? caller: absolutely. the first topic of the conversation should be that these elected officials should have to give up some of their

salary. host: ok. those discussions about debt and spending issues. you saw going into the meeting yesterday, with the house speaker and the president, speaker mccarthy wanted a conversation on this, possibly getting future conversations about spending issues. that took place yesterday. the fbi searching the president's delaware beach home and finding no documents there. then the border hearing we have been telling you about. also the federal reserve raising interest rates once again. chairman powell talking once again in a press conference still see on c-span about what the future holds when it comes to rate hikes and the numeral of tyre nichols. clifford on the california republican line. for next up on the top news story. go ahead. call: representative lou

correa, is he still around? host: know he is already gone for the day. caller: i wanted to tell him he is correct about the mental illness problem. that is why he was elected and that is the only way he could have been elected for democrats. slowness is all over the united states. and the lies he spoke, able to say mayorkas is doing a good job. oh my goodness. that is the problem that the baited admin -- that the biden administration has been. lies and more lies. think you. have a good day. host: barney in florida, democrat line. caller: how many crimes do you have to commit and still be able to run for president?

you have a criminal, a pure criminal running for president. what happened to the justice department? how did they get away with stuff like this? if that was a blackman, there was no way they would let him become president. host: let's clarify a couple things. who are you talking about? caller: president trump. former president trump. he is a stone criminal. host: as far as the issue of him running for president, why is that the top issue for you? caller: because he is a criminal. the man tried to overthrow the government. did he try to overthrow the government or not? host: what is the answer you would give and why? caller: he try to overthrow the whole government. treason. you should be prosecuted for treason. what is going on here? host: that was barney in

florida. if you go to the headline of the independent male, this is a story from south carolina. it talks about the potential entry of another person into the 2024 presidential race. former governor nikki haley. saying she is moving closer to becoming -- making her campaign official. it was reported on wednesday that the federal governor received an invitation to an event in charleston, south carolina in which plans to announce her 2024 bid. that is from the independent mail newspaper. that is the headline you can see if you go to today's paper. from virginia, republican line, tracy. caller: hello. host: take a second and turner network television. caller: ok, i have it turned

down now. my concern is public education. i am just looking at the wall street journal article on to talk -- on tiktok. the aquatic senators are calling for banning the app. my concern is not just for tiktok but all of social media that is accessed by school age children. and that technology being such a presence in our schools today, i worry for the city of our children, and i worry -- the safety of our children, and they worry about public education. host: why is tiktok a safety concern? caller: because students are drawn to it. they can look up anything on there. not just tiktok but social media in general that has been a

problem for students. it is showing how mental illnesses are on the rise in our children in our tv to ears. i think it will show up even more in the future of social media. students posting things about other children is a huge problem. cyber bullying and so forth. host: tracy from virginia, the top story for her is issues of education and social media. one of the stories came out yesterday from florida college board about their curriculu several changes in politics behind it when it comes to the florida governor ron desantis. you can talk about that as a top story as well. that news coming out yesterday. mark in california, democrat line. caller: hello, how are you? host: i am well. thanks. caller: a couple comments.

i cannot riep my head around this. i am 65 and i have been paying social security since i was 16 years old. how were they going to take my money? that's is not just taxes. that is my money and wages. i have been paying since i was 16. you are talked about 50-60 years. $300 a month, every month, religiously. congress talking about taking some cuts. do not cut my money. outrageous. host: i will assess and question i asked to be previous group. do you think changes to the system are needed to preserve it? caller: you cannot be stealing my money. that is the first thing. outrageous. a criminal act. it is unbelievable. host: ok.

brought in new jersey, independent line. caller: good morning thank you for c-span. the thing that i am except -- i am upset about when you were talking about black history stuff. the whole teaching of history with our kids, i feel like we should be honest and deal with it. i do not like the fact that we cannot all agree on the same facts. like either the people were against us or for us. in one or the other. we just need to be honest about that. host: brock in new jersey again. a lot of things happening yesterday in and around washington, the new told you about the house judiciary committee hearing taking a look at border policy. what if the people who made comments was representative tom tiffany from wisconsin who had a chance for a conversation with

sarah from arizona about -- the sheriff from arizona about what he is seen on the border. [video clip] >> i am served daniels and i was on the county since june 2020. what has changed since then? >> around 5% of my ideal population was order related to, up to almost 45%. last year, we put 180 people in jail for pursuits that were deadly. when i say deadly, driving 100 miles per hour plus and a the communities. we see the public safety challenges in our community based on the border every day. it has changed drastically as a result of this border. host: that is just part of the conversation that took place yesterday on capitol hill. you can see the on our website

at c-span.org. if you want to follow along and are on the move, you can go to our c-span now app and download it there. a lot happened even today. the president's expected around 8:00 to make comments at the national prayer breakfast that will take place at the capitol building's center. you will hear from house speaker mccarthy in a news conference run 11:15. the house minority leader joachim jeffries will speak today. the president will have lunch with king abdalla, and prince hussein later on this afternoon. both the president and vice president will speak about the 30th anniversary of family and medical leave act later today. that the president and vice president meeting with members of the congressional black congress amount -- about issues from police and tyre nichols. one of these things may be a top

story for you. maybe the events of yesterday as well. you can stick close to c-span see that. pair in south dakota, republican line. caller: thank you. my top news story has to be our policy to start spending money in this country. we just put a billion dollars here and a billion dollars they, and the border is wide open. people need help when they come across the border. seems to be like we are digging a hole that will not be able to get out of. fiscally, we are spending money like it grows on trees in the backyard. i think it is very much of a problem right now. there has been examples of collapse of countries around the world.

you see it all over the place. in south america, europe. we have to come to a point of understanding that we just cannot take care of everybody in the world. it is a good thing to have a hand on it. i think kevin mccarthy is doing a great job of trying to tackle this problem. host: that was. in south carolina -- south dakota. speaking of, kevin mccarthy spoke with president biden about the issue of the debt ceiling. when he came out of that, he made comments to the press. here is a portion from yesterday. [video clip] >> if i look at anything, it is what a crisis. if you have a child and give them a credit card and the spin that limit, you are responsible for paying the credit card.

if you have a debt, you have to look at not just how you are spending. he puts a 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus bill coming through. the american public does not want that. this is their hard earned money. they do not want the government to take more and waste it. at this moment in time, we have five more months. i just walked out of an hour conversation with this president that in perspective was a good conversation. no agreement or promises except we would continue the conversation. i want to continue on behalf of the american people, the parents, and every taxpayer here who put themselves on this trajectory to make america stronger, secure and balance. host: that was yesterday. that was one of the things that if you wanted to comment on this idea of a top news story, the

speaker meeting with president biden on issues of the debt ceiling and spending. other things you can see there are a lot happening. pick one of those and cause on the line. (202) 748-8001, republicans. (202) 748-8000 for. independents, (202) 748-8002. stephen in south carolina, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. all i have to say for a top news story is they cannot even agree on saying the pledge of allegiance. that is all i have to comment on. thank you. host: bob in ohio, republican line. caller: i would like to say something about this president that we have. i know that he is not an evil person but he has totally wrecked this country.

i want to comment something about c-span too. they are in with the democrats and i know that but that is ok. but i know one thing. trump is the only person that can save us in this country. thank you and goodbye. host: just to clarify, we are in with no political party as we present the information on this network in our 40 plus years of doing that. just to clarify that. the previous color -- caller brought up the pledge of allegiance. or is a story out of news observer.com that said an argument in congress wednesday left one congress member defending herself and the pride she takes in saying the pledge of allegiance. it started when representative matt gaetz asked that the pledge be set for each committee.

it passed unanimously but sparked a debate between democrats and republicans on an issue that lasted more than an hour. a representative from raleigh found yourself in the thick of it when she asked us all to remember a court case of jehovah witnesses being forced to say the pledge at their schools. this left more contention from lawmakers including dan bishop, a republican from charlotte. there is more there in the story from the judiciary committee. it was recorded by sees and. if you want to go to our website at c-span.org to see everything that took place at their, you can do that. this is in texas. go ahead. independent line. caller: i am calling about the justice system in the u.s.

between the democrats and republicans, but religious and nonreligious -- between religious and nonreligious. god is the only one that will be able to straighten this mess out because we are fighting against an enemy that wants to destroy this nation in the democratic party. host: ok, 10 in alabama, democrat line -- tim in alabama, democrat line. caller: i am looking at congress this year. i do not think that congress will pass anything with kevin mccarthy and extremist republicans in the house. the other thing i have noticed over the years, when trump was president, he met in the white house with russian oligarchs.

the secretary of state would not allow anybody else in the white house with him during that time. he also, which we know, met with president putin privately two or three times while he was overseas. what i am thinking is these private discussions that he had have never come to light but i believe it was about ukraine. trump and putin made some kind of talks or arrangement about crimea and ukraine. those are just my two comments. host: what evidence do you have to base that on? caller: nobody has any evidence to that effect that i have heard. if there is, i wish somebody would say because nobody knew about their discussion. there was no representative

there from the u.s. when trump that with putin. it was a private meeting. host: ok. speaking of ukraine, the wall street journal reported in its paper that the u.s. is expected to send what are described as "smart weapons" to ukraine. it will be a precision guided 250 pound bomb that is strapped to a rockets and has a range of 94 miles which is the biggest range bomb the u.s. has provided to ukraine. it can be fired from a rocket launcher. it is equipped with wings, allowing it to guide to its target and a rocket motor to give it extra range. if you want to hear more, the wall street journal is where you can find it. we are asking you to give us a call on topics. we have spent about an half hour and will spend another half hour. (202) 748-8001 f republicans.

(202) 748-8000 for democrats. for independents, (202) 748-8002 . text us at (202) 748-8003. in pennsylvania, republican line, this is mark. caller: good morning. i watched the hearing yesterday. it was the most or thing i have ever watched. the guests were terrible except for one guy. there were three people that came. one was a father who lost someone to fit into was horrible. the other was an open borders judge who i assume was bought by deming. then we had a representative from border protection. i do not know what the purpose was besides getting political points. it was clear democrats did not want we had a guest, representative al green, in reference to the asylum claims and how many are adjudicated and how many show up.

it was clear he did not know the answer. but one of your callers called back with the response from al green which was nice of him to respond. he said that out of a million people who apply for asylum, 250 thousand so up and only 10% are granted asylum. the problem with our border is the have a massive asylum fraud going on. people come in the country in claim asylum and have no reason to do so. only a very small percentage get put through. they be less than 5%. that was 10% but that is the people who showed up in court. not talking about those who did not show up in court. it is stunning to me. what we need to do to change is say you need to put a pause on asylum until we can adjudicate the backlog cases which is about eight years at this point. they are not doing this for

whatever reason. democrats want open borders and want to allow people to come in because they know once they are in here, they are staying. host: ok. mark in pennsylvania. one of the democrats to speak at the hearing was washington state the crop all. -- democrat paul. here is a person from her speech yesterday. [video clip] >> in june of 2020, congress passed the infrastructure bill which included money to modernize our country and approve -- and improve our ability to detect illicit drugs. 200 house republicans voted against it. put the money in because we know over 90% of fentanyl is seized at ports of entry. i understand that the issues we are talking about today require my republican colleagues to tell a lot of statements that are not

true, to use native as frederick words like invasion and -- as rhetoric, words like "invasion" and "flooding" to demonize waves of immigrants that have come into this country. that is not the way we are going to solve the problem. host: the hearing took place yesterday on capitol hill. you can see this on our website at c-span.org and follow along on our app c-span now. if you're interested in hearing comments from republicans, democrats, the witness says. also on capitol hill, president biden will speak at the 71st annual national prayer breakfast along with congresswoman lucy mack that and congressman tim walberg. you can see that on c-span two, c-span now, and our website. let's keep going with your top news stories. this is from our independent

line, in vermont, chris. hello. caller: hello. i watched the hearings yesterday also. i was thinking, as they were talking about the fentanyl issue, people do not take fentanyl to take fentanyl. it is usually because it is laced with some other drug. the bigger picture is we have several generations that are dependent upon drugs. if that were adjusted, the fentanyl issue with dissipate because if you are not taking drugs, you do not have the chance to take fentanyl. i work in middle school and kids that young are starting to bake. -- to vape. get into diet pills at all that other stuff. but we are becoming a drug reliant society to cure all ills. if it were not fentanyl, it would be something else but the

big thing is the mental health issue to get people stabilized that they can function without taking a pill. host: lawrence in florida. democrat line. hello. caller: the. good morning. i am just trying to talk about multiple antics. i find it totally insulting that donald trump is allowed to run for president, knowing that he has everything to do with this sedition that took place on january 6. i find it insulting and repulsive that people are acting like they do not have a clue of the stuff he has done. thank you. host: john from augusta, georgia. republican line. or top news story. caller: my father was one of the

first social security administrators under lyndon johnson. after living in birmingham for several years, we moved to greenwood, mississippi. in order for me to go fishing, i had to type a certain number of claims of people that were signing up of social security and were supposed to come back in six months and requalify. that never happened. then, we have the rise of the welfare industry, people getting money in the mailbox that they bought goods and services from republican and democrats owned businesses. that was started in mississippi. i knew -- who lived in tupelo, mississippi.

the roastery that begs to be said is the damage that has been done -- damage that begs to be said is what has been done by paying women to have babies. it is a monster. when huckabee came to south carolina in february of 2016, i had a dream that morning and i bounced out of bed at 6:00 in the morning and got dressed and jumped in my jag wire -- jaguar. i told mike huckabee that in a dream, i was told that donald trump was the anointed. host: ok. we were expecting a short visit from representative victoria spartz of indiana. a republican and a member of the dish eerie committee that had to cancel for unknown reasons but we hope to have her -- of the judiciary committee that had to

cancel for unknown reasons but we hope to have her back. as for some of you referenced, you can still watch the house judiciary committee if you did not watch it yesterday. you can see it on our app and website. terry in albany, new york. caller: hello c-span. my news story deals with the president biden documents. i think the justice department should be searching the delaware documents that president biden has deposited there. host: why do you think that should be a place of interest for those investigating? caller: because i was just reading on the internet and they said that he has deposited a lot of documents there.

it would be a treasure trove. it may be accidental but there very well may be secret documents there. host: that is terry in new york. by the way, the front page of the washington times talks about that very location when it comes to searches of the president's various places in documents, saying the university of delaware's trove of documents from president biden finds the senator and the justice department's next likely target after investigators searched the president speech delaware residents for classified material wednesday. from her fbi agent's and government transparency people say to connect a search for papers that mr. biden gave his alma mater after leaving the senate to become vice president in 2009. the university is the only other known location where mr. biden's papers were stored in 2012.

he gave boxes and electronic records including committee reports and correspondence. that is from the washington times was the white house counsel spokesperson who talked to reporters about the search of the beach property and potential reviews of other locations associated with mr. biden. there is mr. simpson yesterday. [video clip] >> as the fbi conducted searches of any other locations associated with the president that you or the white house are aware of? >> i think we are providing information as this goes on. i do not want to speak too much to the doj practices in an ongoing investigation but we have cooperated fully. the president's personal attorneys have provided information to the doj. have addressed openly and directly the searches conducted at the presidents wilmington residence inn today at the rep. vela: was evidence.

you saw in the statement that no documents of classified markings were found in the beach house today. we are going to continue to provide information as this goes on to ensure you guys have the ability to share with the american people the information that is important for them to see as the president cooperates with this investigation. so i want to be careful to respect the integrity of the investigation and outlook too much into their activity. as appropriate, like today, if we have activity to share, we will do that. host: that was at the white house yesterday from ian sams of the white house counsel office. another story associated with mr. biden is his son, hunter biden. a strategy will call for probes of his critics, described as a new strategy, saying mr. biden's lawyers are asking state and federal law enforcement agencies

to investigate individuals who came into possession of the data, some that couldn't have come from a laptop he reportedly dropped off in delaware of april 2019. half a dozen people have violated statutes including accessing stolen property and making false statements. congress going on to letters are focused on john paul macisaac, computer repair shop owner, who claimed he first received the materials from president biden in april of 2019. he has written a book and spoken at political events. biden's lawyers point to inconsistencies in his accounts. from francis in michigan, democrat line. caller: i would like to see the social security extend all the way out. everybody has to pay up to the top. the second thing that i have been thinking about is lies that

have been told by politicians who were never held to it. it is time people start telling the truth. host: back to social security. when you mean people paying to the top, what do you mean by that? caller: i mean that when you pay every week, like i have all my life, when i gets to a certain point, it cuts off. so if you take away that point, let it keep going on up, and there should be enough money to pay for it. but maybe the politicians do not have the guts to do it. host: why do you think that is? caller: because the rich are paying them. there are lining their pockets. host: what do you think about recommendations others have made including raising the age of when you can claim social security? caller: i don't know about that.

i am on it right now and i waited until i was older to start taking it. then i worked and paid into it until i was 79. i think i deserve it. host: daniel in texas, republican line. hello. caller: ok. i think we need to remember how this country was created. the congressman and the senators puts all their money into developing our country. 75 years ago or so. now, they used to get eight dollars but now they get $200,000. there are working for the money,

not for the people. they used to show up to congress and then go work on their farms and do whatever for their livelihood. but now they are milking the system, so to speak. it is sad. host: ok. shannon in north carolina. independent line. caller: hello. sorry, i have a cold. i just want to say that i agree with the young man who just called in from texas and the one from michigan. we have a system that does not work for anybody except those who go into congress and get there and line their pockets. they are not working for us. as a disabled veteran, they are not working for us either. what we all need to do is stop what is going on in our government, come together, put

all of our differences aside and get them out the way. if they are not going to work for us, i do not know who they are working for, because they are not doing anything for anybody except getting rich. host: when you say they are not working for us, give me a specific example. caller: lets us take ukraine for example. why is all of that money going over there? we have homeless people and homeless veterans. you should not have anybody homeless anywhere that you can give money. why is our food going higher, skyrocketing? stop battling other peoples business. the only terrorists i see is we are the terrorists because we want to whatever they have so we can get rich. i don't know who threatens this country but it is not those in washington. host: sharon in north carolina on the independent line.

10 minutes left on your top news story segment. again, something from the list that we have shown you this morning. and lots of things happening in washington from yesterday. you can call the line, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for. independents, (202) 748-8002. figure mccarthy says the house will vote on a resolution to remove representative ilhan omar from the house foreign affairs committee thursday. it is after representative kim buck of colorado said he would back the congresswoman. mr. mccarthy's announcement of a thursday vote came after a approval of unanimous consent -- animus is set. they set up a four battle for leadership and republicans sought to remove her from the

panel for comments she said in the past that were labeled anti-semitic. as far as activity on capitol hill, the prayer breakfast we told you about starts in 10 minutes if you are interested. you can go to c-span 2 to watch that. figure mccarthy and the house minority leader, hakeem jeffries and all that to watch for on our networks and out at c-span now. gema in hudson florida, republican line. caller: i would like to address the congressman you had on at the beginning of the show. he is on the committee for immigration. he said we have two years to straighten this out. it seems like democrats that i would be nice but that is to can down the road. and you ask him about omar and he said she should be on the committee but you should've

said, why wasn't jim jordan and the other congressman allowed to build a january 1 committee. they were taken off of that. nancy pelosi would not let them on. mccarthy will not let them on. you should have followed with that in mind. the democrats want to be nice and kick the can down the road because they do not want to address anybody who thinks or borders are close. they have to be blind in their dog is blind to. host: villa in columbia, maryland. independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. the top story that caught my attention was talked about the debt limit. the problem we have is both parties, and i'm calling on the independent line, both parties seem to be engaged in what i would call a dog and coney show when it comes to the finances.

we are definitely bankrupt. there is no way they are going to do anything about addressing the entitlement programs which are messing with the budget. the democrats were trying to paint republicans into a corner and get them to go on record saying what they would cuts. the reality is the only way the budget is going to be addressed is if they address the entitlement programs like they did in the 1980's with tim o'neill and reagan. they cut a deal where they raised the retirement age. i don't know where they increased the cap at that time but one thing they did that was outraging everybody today is during those discussions, they started tax and social security. before 1984, they did not tack social security. the only way this will be addressed is if there is change

in washington. the only way that is going to happen is if we amend the constitution so we have term limits, a balanced budget amendment. the only way that is going to happen is if the article five convention of state happens where they propose amendments to the constitution and that goes out to states and three quarters of the states ratify the amendments. a heavy lift but god willing that will happen at some point. host: ok bill in maryland, let's hear from christine in 4:00. caller: i agree with the caller from michigan i'm not -- from michigan about not putting a cap of social security. but also what upset me is i live in florida and governor ron desantis is raging a war to change our education system to

eliminate public schools, adding so many charters, and to change any black study that is in college or schools. i would just like to say if we cannot teach life studies -- cannot teach black studies, i am surprised germany is able to teach about hitler and the holocaust because that was the truth and they are not denying it. but we deny what we did in the past. host: armand in florida. independent line. caller:'s thank you. everybody is talking about social security. social security is not in trouble. the biggest problem we have is the republicans in the as both -- republicans and democrats both are in corporate interests.

nobody wants to give people the social security benefits because employers have to pay into the system of the same as everybody else who has to pay into social security. nobody is paying into social security so there is no revenue coming into social security and they keep taking everything out of it, borrowing, and never putting it back. all of these corporate shills do not want to pay their taxes and complain about taxes all the time. donald trump pay less taxes than i did and he is a multibillionaire. do not know why you cannot find all this money being stolen by the federal government. host: republican line. caller: in response to the

judiciary committee hearing that was held yesterday, the first judiciary committee hearing in the 118th congress was profound. host: we had a representative at the top of the program talk about it. caller: i saw that. a democrat who talked about him wishing there was less rhetoric and more facts. his party -- i watch the whole thing and his party was all about rhetoric and not very much fact-based rhetoric. you might be thinking that this guy who is calling is a republican and he is biased but watch it for yourself. one thing that c-span omitted was a 20 minute debate at the beginning of the hearing on whether or not to have a national anthem -- sorry, the pledge of allegiance.

to say the pledge of allegiance before each meeting. the two parties debated that for 20 or 30 minutes. host: they went for about an hour according to the story i read earlier but go ahead. caller: that specific debate was about 30 minutes but the democrats opposed, several of them, opposed saying the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of each day. i was shocked. i did not think they would go that far but they did. it was a profound meeting and very useful. there are 10,000 illegal crossings every day. host: ok. the hearing that he talked about was developed as a top story for them is available on our website at c-span.org in our c-span now app -- and our c-span now app. the judiciary committee taking a

look at porter policy issues. jim. hello. caller: good morning. i wanted to respond to an earlier caller on crime and how it is so important for republicans to remove ilhan omar . most republicans have a very strange selective memory. he was talking about the january 6 committee but he called it the january 1 committee. he talked about jim jordan and i think scott perry. they were not allowed to sit on the committee because they were under investigation for what the january 6 committee was focused on. is he not remember that -- does he not remember that? and number houchins -- and the

republicans were offered, since those two were not eligible to sit on the committee, to give two alternatives instead of those guys. they threw a hissy fit and decided that we are not going to even be on the committee at all. first of all, before that, the republicans were offered that we should have an independent, outside like a 9/11 commission. host: we will leave it there. larry last call on the independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i think along with the rest of americans, this system that we have, an idea is required -- n id is required, stop late and

early voting day. -- early and voting. exceptions for military, that is good. host: larry in virginia finishing off those our, thank you for all who participated. the houses in at 9:30 because of the expected vote on whether representative ill hot omar will serve on the -- ilhan omar will serve on foreign affairs committee. we have two guests coming up including jon hilsenrath, that conversation next, and then later on, dr. amesh adalja will talk about the biden administration's plan to end the public health emergency. those coming up on washington journal.

♪ >> the name of america, which belongs to you in your national capacity, four -- four score and seven years ago. >> ask not what your country can do for you. >> throughout american history, presidents have delivered pivotal speeches from inauguration, times of tragedies, wars, and farewells. on saturday watch the first of our series, speeches that defined a presidency. here from lien -- hear from ronald ragan, george w. bush, abraham lincoln and barack obama. this week will feature the farewell address of president washington. >> it has been a uniform

sacrifice of inclination, with me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions. >> watch the 10 part series, beaches that defined a presidency, saturdays at 9:30 a.m. and peas -- a.m. and p.m. eastern on c-span two. booktv, every sunday on c-span 2 features authors discussing their books. live on in-dth, lance morrow joins us to talk intake your calls on american culture, politics and history. he is the author of several books including "the noise of typewriters." at 10:00 p.m. eastern, a community orgazer, author of " the great escape" retells how a

group from -- a group of men from india enter into the u.s. as guestworkers only to be trapped in forced labor. watched booktv -- watch booktv every sunday on c-span two and find a full schedule online or any time at booktv.org. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us for an discussion on the economy is jon hilsenrath and also the author of "yellen" welcome to the program. the federal reserve is making a decision on rates yesterday. what did you take away from the decision? guest: that they are slowing down the process of interest rate increases. they moved aggressively in 2022 and they are starting to see

signs that the inflation that hurt so many households is slowing down but they do not want to declare victory yet. they will probably raise rates at least one more time this year. we might see an end of it by the middle of the year. host: when you take a look at the fed and how it does these things, what is the process? where does the board fit in, how does the process work? guest: it is complicated and it is like the old tanker analogy, it takes time for it to turn around. our 19 and officials involved in these discussions, and the original 12 -- the original 12 federal banks around the country, and then seven governors, 12 of them kind of rotate to make a decision. and they have to reach a consensus. it takes time for them to reach a consensus and for them to

become convinced that the data is moving one way or the other. because of that they can be late to things. most economists agree now that they were too slow to start raising interest rates which is why we got inflation in the first place. the risk and why one of -- and why many people are talking about a recession is that they might be too slow to stop the process that they intensified last year. host: they make a decision collectively and it is the chair that delivers the message. i want to play portion from yesterday. [end video clip] >> my colleagues and i understand the hardship that high inflation is causing and we are strongly committed to bringing inflation back down to the 2% goal. over the past year we have taken forceful actions to tighten the stance of monetary policy. we have covered the grant -- we have covered a lot of ground and the full effects are yet to be felt. even so we have more work to do.

price stability is a responsibility of the federal reserve and serves as the bedrock of our economy. without price stability the economy does not work for anyone. without price stability we will not achieve a sustained period of labor market conditions that benefit all. today the fomc raised the policy interest rate by 25 basis points. we continue to anticipate that ongoing increases will be appropriate to obtain a stance of monetary policy -- monetary policy that is sufficient to return inflation to 2%. we are continuing the process of reducing the size of our balance sheet. restoring price stability will likely require maintaining a restrictive stance for some time. host: that is the chair from yesterday. what is magic about the 2% figure? guest: the fed set a target about a decade ago, 2%

inflation. they do not want inflation to be more than 2% or less than 2%. for a long time after the financial crisis of 2008 inflation was running below that target. they did not expect that it would jump so much above that, and they are trying to get back to 2%. why is to present important? what the fed is looking for is a stable rate that everyone can plan around. if you are a business and you want to know how much you should expect to be able to increase your prices next year, if you are a worker you want to know how much you expect to see wages increase to keep up with the price increases. and the fed came to a conclusion and most central banks around the world came to a conclusion that 2% is around the right number. they do not want to have zero inflation because if you have zero inflation than interest

rates are low all of the time. what that means is that in a recession it cannot deal with the kind of interest rate cutting that they try to do during a recession to stimulate the economy. they thought 2% is a number that gives them operating room, but leaves us with inflation that is not so out-of-control that it depletes paychex. host: he also used the term price stability. how does that factor into the decision? guest: it means the same thing, it means basically 2% inflation. the key thing is that it is stable around the 2% level. you do not want to see it going wildly below, which is deflation or wildly above it because all of a sudden people have been planning for their budgets or for household budgets or business investments around 2% and then all of a sudden it goes to 5%, 6% or negative two and

then you have to change things and it causes disruptions. host: if you have questions for him about the economy you can call the lines. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents, 202-748-8002, he is a article writer and the author of a book, what is the treasury secretary's role? guest: the federal reserve and the treasury are two of the main economic guardians of the policymaking arena. what the fed's is controls the supply of money. pulled up a dollar bill and it says federal reserve note across the top. they decide how much money is out there. while that matters because that affects the interest rate which is the cost of money.

if you want to borrow $10,000 to get a new car it will cost you 20 or 30,000 nowadays, but if you want to buy a new car and you have to borrow money, the cost of the interest rate is the cost of the money, buy a new house and credit card, all of those things. when the fed is talking about this, why does it matter to households? one, it affects the day-to-day borrowing. credit card, mortgage and auto rates. it also affects the stock market portfolio because the stock market is also very important, evaluation of companies and how they invest is very influenced by the cost. that is why they see the market kind of going nuts every time people think jay powell sneezed or walked into the office differently. that is the fed. the treasury manages the government's budget. they are responsible for making

sure that the government has the funds to pay social security recipients and military contractors and medicare beneficiaries. and so it manages the borrowing and spending and revenue conduction of the government -- collection of the government which happens to be a big deal because debt increases and there is a fight at the capital brewing between congress and the white house about the debt limit and how much debt should the government take on. and should there be spending restraints. janet yellen is in the middle of those conversations. host: what prompted the book? especially navigating this era of upheaval? guest: it was an important part of the book. i covered yelling when she was the fed chair -- yellen when she was the fed chair of the obama administration and the first two years of the trumpet ministration. donald trump thought about

re-nominating her but also decided he should have a republican in that job. janet yellen is a democrat. when biden asked her to become the treasury secretary i said here is someone who has been in the middle of every major economic debate and she is a vehicle or character that i could examine the economy upheaval. american households have been through a lot. trade disruptions, covid crisis, and here is an economic policymaker who has been in the middle of all of it. the reason -- she is a consequential figure in the first woman to ever run the treasury and fed. what really drew me to writing about her was actually a love story. so janet yellen is married to a nobel prize winner, he is a pharaoh with -- theorist.

and between the two of them they have been in the middle of every major economic debate. i saw them as two characters through which i could examine 60 years of economic debate and upheaval. the book i wrote, she has on the cover of it but it is a story of modern economics and how did the united states get to this place? how did we get this really disruptive economy that we are living through. host: we have some calls lined up. we start with mark, las vegas. democrats line. you are on. caller: hello, could you tell me or update us on the effect of trump's failed trade war with china and the money that has been given to the farmers in the united states? how has that affected the economy? and what do you expect the effects will be in the future? guest: so trump's trade war was a turning point in global

economic policy. and frankly, the has continued u.s. confrontation -- the biden administration has continued the confrontation. the tariffs have not been removed by the biden administration and they have dialed up the pressure. for instance by placing restrictions on china's access to u.s. ships and high technology. i think that the u.s. trade confrontation with china is a seminal event. and the u.s. trade relationship with china was a seminal event over the last 25 years. we let the united states assure the chinese into the world trade organization. and china imports from china to

the u.s. had profound effects on the economy. it lowered the cost of a lot of goods. any american who shops at walmart, costco or almost anywhere got access to really cheap clothing, cheap household appliances etc. etc. and at the same time it was disruptive to manufacturing communities. i spent a lot of time in my book in hickory, north carolina which was the furniture manufacturing capital of the united states and it got washed out by china. as a country we are trying to reorient how we deal with the chinese as a rival and a trade rival. and that is a story that will play out for many years. and both sides have a lot at stake. the chinese really depend on us as the primary export market.

our supply chains, american companies invested billions of dollars into manufacturing operations in china over the last 25 years. so they have a lot at stake. we saw the cost of disruptions during covid and our prices went up. it will take time to sort it out. i think we have a long cold war, so to speak, but this is a cold economic war. host: the president mentioned china when he was talking about infrastructure spending. we have a weaponize asian -- weaponization committee looking at congress. talk about how this might lead to economic concern. guest: are trade relationship is fascinating. it is just one of the things it does not make sense to me is that the united states helped bring china into a global trading system. no country benefited more from its entrance into that global

trading system than the chinese. 700 million chinese were lifted out of poverty during this economic boom that they experienced. there have been huge gains. but xi jinping and the communist party control the levers of the government. and there is only so much liberalization that they can tolerate and out looks like they will tolerate less liberalization in order to keep control of the economy and ironically to me, they say the united states is a rival trying to hold them back when in fact it was a united states that made them prosperous. we are trying to hold them back. the biden administration made it clear that we do not trust their intentions and we are concerned about them getting access to high technology.

we are treating them as a rival and not as a partner. host: barbara in martha's vineyard. independent line. caller: good morning. your guests are just spectacular. the way he answered the first question about the 2% target, in 90 seconds he just listed -- lifted the cloud of mystery for me, and then he goes on to this china answer, you guys, you have to do a block five day a week 8:00 a.m. series where you bring this guy back or his equivalent geniuses and we get all of our question answered 1, 2, 3. guest: can i ask you a question before you answer? can you cover me on my book jacket? i need someone to talk about the job i am doing and i appreciate what you just said. i am sorry i interrupted you. caller: i am a regular hotshot caller to this extraordinary

program. a dual in the crown of the united -- jewel in the crown of the united states if i may say so, even though my cable rates aren't -- are obscene. we talked about globalization and i believe that we are tied to each other as a planet and there is no going back so let us make lemonade if there are any lemons. what i am curious about now is why is there so much attention on the financial news programs about what the other european banks are doing, what the bank of england is doing? why is so much focus on their interest rates and how are they related to our interest rates? is that a clear question? guest: i will give you two answers, one specifically about that and then globalization. you answered your own question. we are all tied together as a global economy, not just through

trade channels and the sneakers and washers that we bring in from vietnam and china, but also through financial channels. european banks lend money to you american -- lend money to american banks. the dollar is at the center of a global financial system. oil is traded in u.s. dollars. so when the europeans raise interest rates or the japanese for that matter, that affects our economy and our interest rate increases affect their economy. one of the links between our economies is through currency. so, if we are raising interest rates more than the europeans are raising their interest rates, that is going to tend to make the dollar stronger than the euro, and that will affect an american business that wants

to export to the europeans and it will affect an american who is thinking about taking a trip this summer. so we are tied together. and this leads to the broader point that i wanted to make about globalization. there has been a lot of talk in part because the growing rivalry with the chinese and also because of the disruption in world relations with russia that globalization is dead. if you look at the numbers it is not dead. trade flows have flattened out and they are not rising they way they did in the to thousands and 2010 -- in the 2000's or 2010's, but they are raising. it is the same thing with financial flows we are not seeing a deglobalization but a shifting of trade and financial channels. american companies are pulling businesses out of china and

putting them in vietnam because vietnam's economy is booming. ironically it is another country run by a one party communist government and offending from the movement out of china. because of technology, communication, and travel we are bound together with the rest of the world and we have to find ways to operate in a world with more rivalries, and that has led to inefficiencies and volatile markets and it has led to supply chain disruption that we keep hearing about. and it is also -- it has also led to volatility in stock markets. it is not going away. host: matt is in maryland, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question has to do with the

inflation topic specifically from the perspective of the regular guy, the regular worker. i take issue with the fact that 2% is a good level of inflation. i think the argument is that in less you are heavily leveraged and you are just a person trying to save any type of erosion over the value of money is not the best thing. specifically my question has to do with cpi and its calculation over time. i was hoping you could inform me how that changed and you think that the way that cpi is calculated is a true representation of what we experience as consumers? thank you. guest: i will give you two answers one about cpi and 2% inflation in workers. cpi, is it a true representation of inflation? the simple answer is no, it is the best that the labor

department does at coming up with an estimate. the inflation that any individual experiences appends on a lot of factors unique to that individual. so, if you are a renter, the inflation you are a renter -- the inflation you experience will be different than someone who has a family with kids that you are putting through college because education inflation is different than medical inflation. what the government does with the consumer price index is that an estimate for the population as a whole and it is imperfect and everyone will experience something different.

some households are living paycheck-to-paycheck, they are going to feel the rise in prices at the grocery store a lot more acutely than someone who has a lot of disposable income and is spending a lot of that disposable income on other things like fancy cars or meals out or vacations or whatever. in terms of the 2% inflation target, which you said you have your doubts about, i think what is really important is not only what is happening on the inflation front, but with wages. you will be better off as long as your wages are rising faster than inflation. if inflation is going up 2% a year you are better off as long as your wages are rising because your paycheck is growing faster than cost-of-living. things get bad if inflation

grows above your inflated -- above your paycheck or if your paycheck goes below inflation. what happened in 2022, inflation started growing faster than paychecks so when the cost of eggs and milk was going up faster than what you are bringing home, then the bank account was getting smaller. i think in 2023, one piece of good news could be that we see that flip because workers negotiated for higher wage increases. social security adjusted in september based on a very strong consumer price index report. so they will be getting wage increases this year at a time when inflation looks like it is slowing. so there might be relief coming on the horizon this year. but we really have these debates if 2% is the right number or

should it be zero? it comes down to our wages growing fast enough to keep up with the inflation. host: there was a debate last year on whether the country was entering recession, what do you think about that and what is the potential for this year? guest: it is a fascinating question. here is my model for whether we are going into a recession. it is hard to know. last year gross domestic product which is a measure of how much stuff we produce as a nation, all the goods and services, cars, restaurants and hospital visited -- visits. that contracted because companies were cutting back on inventories. they had built up too much during covid so they produce less to bring back there inventories. a traditional measure of a recession is when gdp contracts and gdp contracted so a lot of people were saying that was a recession.

at the same time companies cap hiring workers. so the question is what was going on? my analogy is think about a big tank filled with water, think about the economy has a big tank filled with water. if you drop rocks in the water you are going to get splashes that make it kind of hard to know what the undercurrents are and we have had a lot of rocks dropped. we had covid, the government's response to covid with all of the stimulus, the low interest rates and all of the checks that people that households and businesses got, rent relief. and then we had russia's invasion of ukraine and then the withdrawal of covid, there is a lot of splashing going on. it makes it hard to say if this is or is not a recession. there was some indicator that people on wall street suggest that a recession is coming in

2023. but it is a lot horror -- a lot harder to make that call now than it is in normal times because we have had all of the shocks and splashes in the water tank. host: indiana where tom is. democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question deals with the fault and i will paraphrase shakespeare who says the fault, dear brutus lies not in the stars but in that we like cheaper goods. and isn't that why china can bring our good -- there goods in and mess up our businesses because americans want to buy cheap goods. the other point is, on the other end where americans -- american companies will sell out to these -- it seems to me that is a very

anti-american business attitude, but that is so widespread. nobody seems to talk about the fact that it boils down to americans want to cheap goods and therefore they will go to walmart and buy it. thank you. i will take my answer off air. host: i think your guest is completely right. the main benefits to the united -- that the united states got by bringing china into the global system is that it held down inflation for a lot of time, which is another way of saying is that you got to shop at walmart and costco and those benefits are real, the cost of clothing your children went down and that helps millions of american households. the cost of getting to and from work was held down because we imported tires, windshields and other products from overseas and there were benefits from that.

the problem is that it was a shock and many manufacturing communities that people felt very discreetly. and i think what we are going through as a country is a reassessment of just how deeply connected that we want to be in sourcing goods from around the world. we saw during covid that there are cost trade-offs. that the supply chain disruption and we depend on china and all of a sudden covid strikes and they shut down their economy and we cannot get there -- we cannot get our hands on the goods we expected and maybe china is less of a partner and more a rival than we realize. on companies, absolutely. they call themselves multinational. they are multinational companies which means that companies, not just american companies but

european company and global companies' adherence for many years to what the shareholders. what shareholders want is a return. and sourcing cheap labor in china held down your cost, and also allows you to export and sell to american companies at a lower cost. you can increase your profit margin and sales. and by the way, they saw it as an entry point to selling it to the chinese as a win-win. it turned out the world was more complex. a lot of these multinational companies went overseas to china and discovered some of their technology was ripped off and some of them also discovered that getting access to these supply chains could be disrupted in the case of a shock like covid.

we are going through as a country and world economy a reorientation where people are looking for more safety valves for work, for supply chains and for allies and alliances. host: adam, kentucky. independent line. caller: good morning. my question ties into that. we just saw the biden administration propose a moratorium of 24,000 acres outside of minnesota on a copper/nickel deposit operated by twin metals. you talk about reorientation on different commodity sectors and people looking inward. i want to know the opinion on how does any administration, how does the biden administration reconcile that there is a demand for mineral commodities that are

needed for ev's, batteries, and high end electronics and their environmental policy? it seems like they are trying to do two things at once and government has a hard time walking and chewing at the same time. it is a question of how does the government and biden administration's approach for the demand to high end minerals equate to the -- the environmental demands that they are getting from mostly the left on environmental policy? host: let me say first of all i am not familiar with the minnesota decision that the caller asked about. i would say that the caller certainly is right that minerals and minerals specific to the creation of green energy are really important. minerals that are used in the production of batteries, one of the things that we discovered about our alliance with china

over the years is that we became dependent on them for criminal cash for critical minerals -- for critical minerals and there is a search for more diversification. i cannot speak to that specific case, but i have looked at the case of fossil fuels. it is really interesting what is going on. the biden administration cannot be called a friend to the fossil fuel industry and permitting on public lands has receded and was receding during the trump administration. we are still a market driven economy. and what happened despite the reduction of permitting on public land is that we have had a revival, actually, and 2022 of fracking on private land. the united states produced record amounts of natural gas, a lot exported to our allies in

europe and in exported records of -- record amounts of petroleum coming out of private lands and places like louisiana and the haynesville basin. and taxes. the government affects the way the flows go, these are still market economies and there are still demand and supply considerations. and if there is a demand for mineral diversification put in -- in places away from china, it is already finding places such as latin america. i do not know what is going on in minnesota but the private sector is at work. host: you can find his work at wsj.com. the book is "yellen." thank you for the time. guest: thank you. host: we will take a look at the president's decision to end the covid-19 public health emergency and what implications are there.

joining us for that is dr. amesh adalja. that will be next. ♪ >> live sund on in-depth, lance morrow will be our guest to talk and take calls on american culture, politics, and history. he is the author of many books including "the chief," and the soon to be published "the noise of typewriters," about his career in journalism. join in the conversation with your phone calls, texts, and tweets. in-depth live this sunday at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2. ♪ >> in the two years since january 6, 2021, close to 1000

people have been charged with federal crimes relating to the attack on the u.s. capitol. the legal process used by the federal justice system to deal with these cases is complicated and often out of sight to the american people. roger, an attorney and journalist, has been live tweeting the high-profile trials of the oath keepers and proud boys over the past several weeks. we asked him to explain to us in some detail how it all works. roger parr love is a senior editor at law fair. >> roger on this episode of book notes+ which is available on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcast. ♪ listening to programs on c-span radio, it just got easier. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily,

important congressional hearings and other important affairs and weekdays at 5:00 or 9:00 a.m. eastern. listen to c-span any time and just tell your smart speaker play c-span radio, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us right now is dr. amesh adalja. he serves as the senior scholar to talk about decisions when it comes to the biden administration and covid-19. thank you for joining us. we saw the biden administration announce an end or a planned end of emergency declarations coming may 11, can you explain what that means? guest: what that means is that the current status that we have where the federal government has a major role in dealing with covid-19 at the hospital,

pharmaceutical and vaccine level will start to wind down and covid-19 will be handled like other respiratory viruses are handled in the current system meaning the regular formats that people are used to with insurance and all of that will be what will happen with covid-19 going forward. host: as far as the data itself, what is specific about may 11? guest: there is nothing that makes it special otherwise -- other than some notice that would have to occur before the emergency ended, because many of these programs need to wind down , transition and handoff to the commercial market or regular health care apparatus and that takes time and they want to anticipate hiccups and i think that is why that is the date. it was always said when this emergency ended there would be plenty of notice. host: what do you think about the decision itself? guest: i agree. when you think about what

triggered those notices it was at a time when we were nuri to -- when we were worried about the hospitals' ability to care for patients, icu beds, and when we had no vaccines, no testing, and home testing was not something we had thought about. if you think about how far we have come, covid-19 is now manageable. it is not something that inundates hospitals and we do not worry about hospital capacity the way we once did. i am working in a hospital tomorrow and it is not likely i will see very many covid patients. host: caller: is this -- host: this decision looks at the public health emergency. what is the difference between that and the national emergency? guest: that is more broader and gives the federal government more powers. both of these are going to be and sometimes you might have public health emergencies without a national emergency. covid 19 was such a disruptive

force in the population as a whole that both of these emergencies were invoked. this will get things back to the norm after may 11 and the business transition period to make sure it does not fall through the cracks. host: if you want to call the lines are 202-748-8000 if you live in the eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001 if you live in the mountain and position taught -- mountain and pacific time zones. 202-748-8002 for a medical professional. and you can text us at 202-748-8003. at the same time that the president made his decision, that -- at the same time they made this immediately you talked about the transition time. what do you think about the two approaches ending it within a few months of transition versus what the republicans wanted in the house? guest: you do need to have a

transition because a lot of things will need to happen fairly quickly. in the access to certain medical countermeasures like boosters and antivirals there needs to be some period of time. i do not think the approach of ending it immediately without absorbing all of these tasks makes sense. it is that you do not create more havoc and you need to have some notice. public health emergency could have ended now, but we would've had noticed several months ago that it would happen so you can prepare the process. the process is ongoing but it will really begin in earnest. it is not so much about the date but the notice that it will occur so they can actually start to transition the tasks. host: you talked about the hiccups, what are the scenarios that will happen in time of transition? guest: their example hospitals

get extra payments for covid-19 patients and that will go away so you want to make sure that hospitals plan for that. we know that people are getting vaccines, boosters, antivirals with zero out-of-pocket cost and there needs to be a discussion with medicare or medicaid. the same goes for home testing, all of those types of things need to be worked out that people are not left in limbo or a state of uncertainty when the public health emergency ends, and these things are not exclusively funded with taxpayer funds. host: if someone was getting free testing or medications in order to counter, that could stop within this time period? guest: and eventually it will and this will be something that people will get through their ensure were out-of-pocket for -- insurer or out-of-pocket for.

that happens with every other respiratory disease. because people have become so accustomed to it and insur ers have not been dealing with reimbursement, that has to be worked out. and that sometimes takes time because it is a bureaucratic process. host: before we take you to calls, what are you thinking as far as the current state of covid-19? guest: i think we are in a decent place. this is a virus that cannot be eradicated. we will always have covid-19 in this country. the key thing is to make it more manageable and to decouple it from hospitals in crisis. when you think about vaccines, home tests, immune modulating drugs, i think we are in a place with no other respiratory virus. i wish that we had tools similar to those with covid-19. i do not get has a disruptive

affected once had and i do not think it requires a public health emergency to be in place. it does not mean that they will not be cases or debts and that there is still not work to do to get more people vaccinated and get more people boosted and to get more people subscribe -- prescribed paxil they. i think this has moved from a public health emergency because of the tools that science and medicine have given to us. host: dr. amesh adalja at bloomberg school of public health. the first call is from linda in pennsylvania. you are on with our guest. good morning. caller: thank you for c-span, i watch often. concerning the public health emergency and dropping certain requirements, how will this -- what will happen to the risk of the average person to contract

covid if the requirements or government recommendations go down? i think people might be less likely to be vaccinated and to be boosted. would you recommend that a 68-year-old do to protect herself if i am in a crowd? do you have any insight on my concerns? thank you. guest: it is important to recognize that the ending of the emergencies do not change the recommendations put in place at the state and local health departments. what this really is about is funding and how vaccines are paid for and how hospitalizations are paid for. this does not change any recommendations in place for vaccines or boosters. all of those stay the same. it is about funding and who is paying for it whether it is taxpayer-funded or if it will go to the private market or the

government insurance plans. as a 68-year-old you are covered by medicare and this is something handled through medicare. if you are somebody that is high risk make sure you are up-to-date with your shots and think about when you are in crowded places that you might want to wear a mask because it will decrease your risk of ercot -- of acquiring covid-19. if you get sick have a low threshold to test yourself and call your doctor and ask for a prescription. host: alabama, democrats line. good morning. caller: hello. i remember in october of 2019 when johns hopkins did an event. my question is who organize that? january 2000, we were getting propaganda that people dead -- were getting -- that we were -- that people were dropping dead in the streets. guest: one was pandemic

exercises that the john hopkins center has done. it has been doing exercises since before 2001. in 1990's we started doing pandemic exercises. it was in collaboration with some groups to illustrate how unprepared a were -- the world was very pandemic and it was a good way to get policymakers engaged with the decisions they would have to make during an emergency. regarding the people dropping dead in china, i do not know what happened with that and i do not know what was true and false. you do not know what was going on in china at that time and today. there is a lot of lack of transparency. i do not know what happened to those videos or how true they were. covid-19 does not cause you to drop dead so i do not know what that refers to. which i know we do not have an understanding with what a true

impact of the virus has been. host: what is the current rate of covid vaccination in the united states and are you comfortable with the rate? guest: it is around 70% or so give or take of the population is fully vaccinated. what is more concerning is not that rate but the rate of high-risk individuals, people that are above 65 who are pregnant and immunocompromised that are obese and overweight, that group needs to be boosted and they are not to the degree necessary. in the current era of omicron the vaccines are good at preventing disease and death. not enough people who have those risk factors are boosted. when we look at the 300 to 400 people dying of covid, they are often people with a high-risk condition so that rate needs to go up higher. that is where the work needs to be done making sure that high-risk individuals know that they should be up-to-date and

calling their doctor immediately. host: what is your sense of the hesitancy get boosted? guest: hesitancy because people are unsure what is going on because there have been four cycles of boosting in a message from everyone that everyone needs to be boosted when the benefit is in the high-risk population so people are confused. if the method is that everyone needs to be boosted the high-risk people do not realize i need to get boosted today and that was a mistake. we should've targeted them to high-risk individuals as the way they targeted them in the united kingdom and denmark when we recognize boosting low-risk people does not do much but boosting high-risk people can be beneficial in preventing hospitalization and death. host: we saw the fda proposing a process where it switches to an annual coronavirus vaccine being similar to the flu model, what do you think of that? guest: i do not think we should force covid-19 into a flu model

because it is a different virus and vaccine. it will not be one-size-fits-all. there are some people who do not need annual shots and there might be -- and there are some that might need two a year. this is bettel -- better handled by using precision medicine. looking at risk factors for his severe disease and then timing the booster based on when the protection wanes. for a young and healthy person that might not -- that may -- that might be never. someone who has a liver transplant, that might be twice a year. you cannot telegraph that at this point and just because it is convenient to make it harmonize with the flu makes it the right decision. host: barbara is in silver spring maryland. hello. caller: my question was -- covid was a global pandemic and the declaration is looking at the united dates, covid is still an issue and africa, and mexico, what do you think should be the

declaration from a global standpoint or how should we has the united states view the global pandemic and we are going to end ours. it is still real and other countries. thank you for taking my call. host: thank you. guest: the world is not synchronized and there are countries that have more work to do than the united states that do not have enough resiliency the way the u.s. does. they -- the world health organization continued their public health emergency of international concern. they say that they are at an inflection point and i believe we are. it is not a question of vaccine supply anymore globally. it is more about vaccine hesitancy preventing people from getting vaccinated. i think we are not seeing the same stress on health-care systems around the world except with china because we do not know what is happening. but i do not think it

necessarily has to be synchronized. what we need to do is make sure that high-risk people wherever they live are getting access to vaccines and boosters, getting access to antivirals and that their health care systems are fortifying themselves because this is an opportunity to prepare for the next infectious disease emergency and we know that many parts of the world are not capable of responding well. i think this is something that needs to be done, more coordination and shoring up of critical care in the countries in the midst of covid-19. i think in general globally we are not in a bad place because of the tools that we said, certainly with the exception of china. host: could you elaborate a little bit more, for those who get free coverage under medicare or medicaid, what happens may 11? guest: after may 11 medicare or medicaid would be the mechanism for how they get vaccines and

boosted, how they would get paxlovid and home tests. most of that will be seamless for medicare and medicaid. when it comes to home tests there might be limited -- there might be limits. that is still being worked out. it would be the same process that you use when you get your flu vaccine or where you get your saint cashier shingles vaccine or anything through the systems and it will be very similarly integrated. caller: we talked -- host: we talked expansions under medicaid, will that change. guest: some of the people who became eligible were removed because of their income levels and those income levels -- and those of the will be removed. people who have gotten their coverage because of medicaid expansion recognize that that will not last and they need to think about other ways that they might be able to purchase insurance on the private market. host: youngstown, ohio.

good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, you are on. caller: i am glad that they are stopping the funds. i think it should have never really started because everything about covid-19 was blown out of proportion. in my opinion, it was a way for these drug companies to automatically manufacture all of these vaccines that did not really work and get paid for it. it was a way for the hospitals to capitalize on it. it was just, to me, i mean i caught it. i am probably the sickest person that i know at my age.

and i have never been vaccinated, and i am still at home. i refuse to be admitted into a hospital, you know. i kind of you know, took care of myself as best i could. there is more to it, and i'm glad that the money has stopped. host: go ahead. guest: so there were multiple and a myriad of mistakes in handling covid-19, primarily the lack of a proactive response in january, february and half of march that led to a massive calamity. i think of what the caller is saying is simply not true. hospitals lost money on covid-19. hospitals are in worse shape than before covid-19. you can look at any balance sheet and see what is happening

to rural hospitals because of what covid-19 did to them. i think that the vaccines worked well at prevention of a severe disease, hospitalization and death. they saved hundreds of thousands of lives. they are still a key tool to making covid-19 a much more manageable disease. and i think that if it were not for the pharmaceutical companies that develop the vaccines at breakneck speed using innovative technology i think we would be much worse, and just remember over one million people died. and it has been a hit to the average lifespan of the united states. this was not nothing. it was managed horribly and it could have been done better and we have would have had less disruption but covid-19 was a real calamity and i think we do have those tools that have made it more manageable. host: we saw coming out of covid-19 the large debate over

the efficacy of masks. in retrospect what do you think? guest: it is hard to test whether or not masks work. in health-care settings it prevents them from getting infected. just recently there have been data being published on that in the general public and you do not see a big impact. i think that has to do with it is hard to task masks and randomized trials because people do not wear them very well in the real world. they put their nose hanging out, they are touching their face and eyes a lot, and you do not get that same impact. if someone wears a well fitted mask and a good mask like an n95 they are likely to get a benefit in crowded indoor spaces. i do not think mask mandates made sense. should've been something people decided to do and i do not think that -- this is not one-size-fits-all. i think we got into the culture i think it's a tool people can

use if they choose to use it. if they use a good mask, they likely will get some been fit. only if they -- benefit. only if they wear it correctly. host: terry in minnesota. go ahead. caller: hello. i'd like to thank you for saying what is obvious that for the healthy the vaccines really are not very effective. i think what happened for the medical field, it got hurt bad because of stating all the vaccines will prevent the illness. all the vaccines will prevent -- we just never accepted what was true, that this was a disease that mainly happened to the very vulnerable people. and the harm it did by closing schools where not very vulnerable people were located for years, then to say maybe the hospitals didn't make money, certainly you are not arguing that big pharma didn't make money. with their main showman, dr. fauci. why did a government work or

receive benefits from big pharma. this is going to be investigated and should. i think this. when you go down the line, what happened, the line about -- lying about the efficacy and all the other things and truth of it, because they felt the american public was so stupid they couldn't take it. the other thing -- i have never seen the numbers of who died of covid and who died of covid related? i would be interested to see that. yet it doesn't come out. host: thanks, terry. guest: a couple of things i'll respond to. certainly i was not somebody who supported the closure of schools. i did not think that made sense. i think schools should have been the last thing to close and first thing to open in the united states. it was mostly casinos last to close and first to opened. we had lessons from europe how schools could open and be operated safely. when it comes to vaccine and transmission, it did transmit, stop transmission until probably around -- till the end of the delta variant era.

it's just the virus mutated away. the ability to stop infection wasn't intact the way it once was we were dealing with the alpha variant or delta vare can'tant -- variant. it became something about prevention of severe disease. i don't think dr. fauci got money from pharmaceutical companies. he was the head of n.i.h. and helped coordinate. i don't think he was taking money from pharmaceutical companies. don't think that is a major issue even if he d we wouldn't have this these vaccines if it wasn't for pfizer, vieon tech, astrazeneca. this is the pharmaceutical company being pulled into a task. it's a thankless task. no one is staying they did a good job. everybody is criticizing them. everybody wants to sue them and comes up with conspiracy theories y do that? they could have made more

cholesterol drugs. they deserve thanks for this. they do deserve the money they are making. i'm happy they engaged in this and will continue to engage in. that's where the solutions to these problems come from. and i think that's something that people don't remember or think about. when joes in a salk developed the polio vaccine there was a ticker tape parade. if did he that today, robert f. kennedy jr. would call him names and compare him to nazis, that's what happened today. what happened with this pandemic was horrible and there were lots of mistakes made. i think one of the success stories is the vaccines. host: is there a difference between deaths related strictly to covid and deaths related to covid related matters? guest: clearly there is that difference when it comes to hospitalizations. there are probably less deaths

occurring with covid than because of covid. it's something we are clear on when we are filling out death certificates and getting that data. there may be some discrepancy there, don't think it's as big as people are making it out to be. there clearly is a discrepancy when it comes to hospitalized for covid or with covid. that's clear. with deaths it's a little more stark. i don't necessarily think that there is overcounting of deaths for covid. there may be misclassifications occurring. host: let's hear from keith. evansville, indiana. last call, go ahead. caller: i was just wondering if they ever incorporated a way to use something to put in your mask where you didn't have to take that vaccine if you didn't want to. i've got two shots. and they did nothing but just make me feel real wore out. can't think straight. aggravated.

i just wondered if there is a possibility of working besides drugs. host: as you talk about the response specifically, talk about this idea of long covid and what you're hearing about that. guest: to answer the caller's questions, ultraviolet light does work on surfaces. if there are surface was covid-19 you can disinfect it with ultraviolet. there hasn't been much strong data on using the light in your throat. there were some initial studies that showed that maybe turns on your immune system in a different way. that's not something that anything but experimental at this time. u.v. is mostly for industrial uses to disinfect surfaces. long covid is something i think we are going to be talking about for quite some time and just scratching the surface of this condition. we don't have a good definition or diagnostic criteria. and not a lot of good studies because many of the studies that talk about long covid don't have control groups. don't separate people out who

have been hospital iced or i.c.u. -- hospitalized or i.c.u. but i think this is going to be something that is a priority to understand because there is some subset of people who don't get back to their baseline and have real problems with their activities of daily hreufbg even after a mild case. i think it's lower than some of the numbers you might see in the headlines. it's probably closer to the 35% when you use strict criteria and use study and control groups. this will be a priority to understand. maybe this is something that happens with many other respiratory virus, we just don't notice it because we don't have them all occurring at the same quantity as covid-19 did. this is one of the long tales of this pandemic. host: in this time of transition and specifically as far as your medical expertise, what are you watching for as this transition takes place? guest: i'm watching to see what happens with people's testing. are they testing more, less? i'm wondering how hospitals are going to think about covid now

and the way they change their operations throughout this public health emergency, if that changes. i'm going to look and see what happens with vaccine uptick and booster uptick and how different insurance companies and medicare and medicaid and v.a., and pay for certain vaccines, how much they pay for certain drugs. how that impacts the usage of that. it will be just a lot of insights -- inside baseball to see how the normal health care system absorbs this new disease. host: dr. amash adalja at the bloomberg school of public heflt. their senior scholar. the website center for health security dot-org. doctor, thanks for your time. the house comes in at 9:30 this morning. so for the next 20-odd minutes your chance to participate in open forum. 202-748-8001. 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002.

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picture there with the reverend al sharpton speaking. one of the people who spoke at that event yesterday was vice president kamala harris. here's a portion. >> this violent act was not in pursuit of public safety. it was not in the interest of keeping the public safe because one must ask was not it in the interest of keeping the public safe that tyre would be with us here today? was he not also entitled to the right to be safe? so when we talk about public safety, let us understand what it means in its truist form. tyre nick ols should have been -- nickols should have been

safe. i'll close by saying this, as a united states senator, a co-author of the original george floyd justice in policing act. and as vice president of the united states, we demand that congress pass the george floyd justice and policing act. joe biden will sign it. and we should not delay, and we will not be denied. it is nonnegotiable. host: see that full event yesterday at our website at c-span.org and our app, c-span now. michelle from brooklyn new york, republican line, go ahead. caller: good morning, pedro. i think it's wonderful that our elected officials show up for these tragic funerals. however, i also think it's an

experience when two young police officers were shot to death in our streets and no president or vice president or call for justice was made. also i'm very glad to have such a hard time getting through to you which tells me more people are listening to this program, which is a delight in that our local media is just not getting us full stories. and isn't really concerned with what we as americans are experiencing in our daily lives today. again, i haven't had my coffee yet, pedro, please don't ask me any questions. host: we'll leave it there. then we'll go to kirk, north carolina, democrats line. hi. caller: i would like to call

about a week ago, maybe seven, eight days, business days you all going to the house and they do these one-minute speeches after the pledge of allegiance. man got up there from mississippi lawmaker. said that they are smoking cigarettes in the republicans' little conference rooms. i could have sworn they probably passed a lot of bills where you can't smoke anywhere anymore but outside, maybe. and the reason they need to smoke is because they call drink liquor. anybody who drinks liquor needs a cigarette. it's just disgusting that we pay their health care as well. god bless america. host: abraham in georgia, independent line. next up. caller: good morning, pedro. i was wanted to call and ask a question to dr. amesh but got on too late. my concern was that when it

comes to covid or any kind of virus defense, does diet play a major role in one's immune system development and strong functionality? the other concern is that in terms of diet food products, there are two food products consumed in large quantities on a daily basis. i know that for a fact that nurses are taught that these products reduce our immune system's functionality. from experience that when my family and i avoid these products, we have very few problems with any kind of virus or even with the covid. i was wondering if anybody could address that question on concern so that the public can be better informed regarding those two products which are dairy and sugar. refined sugar, i should say. thank you very much. host: democratic national committee set to meet this

weekend. one of the discussions at play is the positioning of the new hampshire as far as its primary process. steph writing for the "washington times" saying the standoff between d.n.c. and new hampshire democrats will take center stage at the national party's meeting in philadelphia where members are expected to pass president biden's plan to overhall the presidential nomination calendar. new hampshire democrats have been recalcitrant to strip them as host of the first of the nation primary. they cannot fall in line because the governor and republicans refuse to rewrite a decades' old state law mandating new hampshire hold the nation's first presidential primary. the vote on saturday won't end the game of chicken. new hampshire will have until june 3 to try to fulfill the d.n.c.'s demands. otherwise they could be hit with penalties including being stripped of delegates to the national convention. that story in the "washington times." go to james, west virginia, republican line. caller: yes, sir.

i'm trying to understand why they are making martyrs out of criminals. that's what the judicial system is set up for. you got a complaint or you want to argue with them, you go to the court. get you a lawyer. why do you have to fight them on the street. a criminal shouldn't be made into martyrs. sorry. you are showing children the wrong idea. host: shirley in ohio, democrats line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning, pedro. thank you so much for your effort. you are very, very fair, all of you all. no matter what people call in and say about you not being fair, you give everyone a chance. people want to argue with you. you are not there to argue. i'm not an argumentive person. two things budget for the united states of america, it is nonnegotiable. mccarthy wants to keep himself in his 15 seconds of fame at the white house to argue with the

president. the president is the president. and it's nonnegotiable. as far as russia, i really believe that the last president has helped them against ukraine. there was a man in the white house in trump's office, trump turns around, this russian in his office, he turns around and say who are you? roll the tape. he didn't even know who the russian was in his office. thank you all so much. you have a blessed day. host: bill in bryan, ohio, independent line. hi. caller: hi, pedro. i wish coy have talked to the doctor -- i could have talked to the doctor. hi the polio vaccine when i was a kid. guess what? i didn't get polio. i don't believe this is technically a vaccine. if you have to keep getting boosters and boothest and boosters, when does it end? what really got my ire was when he said they deserve the money

they are making, these companies. it's an object seen amount of -- object seen -- obscene amount of money. they don't deserve t. host: one of the events that took place on capitol hill yesterday, you probably didn't see it in many places, it was representative george santos on the hill yesterday asked by reporters on recent poll that was taken saying since 74% of constituents in the place he represents say he should resign, here's part of that from yesterday. >> what was the decision to -- [indiscernible] mr. santos: i don't discuss campaign matters on the hill. reporter: another question. a poll 70% of voters in your district said you should resign. do you have any comments or remarks to those folks? mr. santos: i don't comment on political matters. i didn't order a poll. you should debate it with

whoever reported the poll. i'm done with you after your performance this morning. reporter: being on the committee is the -- relationships that are needed. what would you do with that time if you are not on the committee? reporter: congressman, immigration documents showed you lied about that. it's an important question to ask that people are wondering about. host: that was done by the santa college research institute. from voters in new york's third district saying that representative santos should resign. there is the poll on the left side if you want to check out the results of the poll yourself. from jim in ohio. republican line. hi. caller: how you doing. i got a few comments. our politicians, they don't have

a clue about what's going on on the ground here with the little people like me. i work with latinos, hardworking people. why don't they try to figure that out at the border? we got so many issues in this country. the drug addiction in this country. it's crazy. nobody cares. politicians just playing to the people. that's all. thank you. host: north carolina, democrats line, kenneth, go ahead. caller: hello, how you doing today. i appreciate you taking my phone call. at this point i was wondering is there any way possible anyone can think that the situation with the tennessee police officers and the people will be more effective than it was previously? the fact that those people are now in a situation where everyone is scared to be pulled over because they do not have the opportunity to even be protected. because if you are pulled over

you have two things in your mind, you are going to get beat up or shot. thank you. host: if you go to today's front page of the anchorage daily news out of alaska, there is a story associated press story, deals with environmental policies, saying the biden administration released a long awaited study wednesday that recommends allowing a major oil development on alaska's north slope. supporters say could boost u.s. energy security and the climate abg have i 'tises decry as a carbon bomb. they saw it is as a debraille of the president's pledges -- detrail of the president as pledges to reduce emissions. it's part of the willow project and preferred alternative by the bureau of land management and calls for up to three drill sites initially. the u.s. interior department said in a separate statement that it has, quote, substantial concerns about the project. you can read more there.

the anchorage daily news picked up the story. from the appreciated -- associated press. hear from margaret in wyoming, independent line. caller: yes. good morning. i am only calling about ilhan omar. i do hope that she is removed from her committee seat on foreign affairs. this woman is a bigot. she hates israel. she does not belong on that committee. she's more of a street activist than she is a congressional rep. thank you. host: margaret. if you watched the house floor today that's one of two pieces of legislation to be debated. the house comes in in about seven minutes from now, about 9:30, the decision or vote of the full house on whether representative omar will remain on the foreign affairs committee. clarence in michigan, democrats line, you are next, good morning.

caller: thank you for taking my call. concerned about the person that commented previously. and it saddens me to the effect that they are trying to save lives and the previous president we had, all he could do was just it is what it is. and drink bleach. host: the "wall street journal" in its paper today saying the biden administration has proposed a rule to limit late fees on credit cards. kicking off a regulatory battle. the rule was put forward on the consumer financial protection bureau, it aims to lower penalties from $8 to as much as $41 for a missed payment which said the fees typically far exceed the card issuer's cost to collect those late payments. it quotes industry representatives saying the proposed rule would backfire to

increase late payments. if the fee isn't high enough to dissuade people from falling behind. can you read more of that on the "wall street journal." from wyche in illinois, independent line. caller: -- mike in illinois, independent line. caller: good morning. i think there is a couple of preud quo pros wees missed and the media missed. the in the mid terms, take georgia for instance, that the two candidates were neck in neck. the democratic candidate had 50 million. the republican candidate had 25 million being neck in neck. we find out the republican national committee releases the money for the republicans. host: can you clarify which candidate you are talking about? caller: the football player and the -- host: you are talking the georgia senate race. caller: yes. yes. host: go ahead. caller: and they were so close.

one got 50 million. the other got 25 million. tells me that republican committee did a backdoor deal with the white house and congress to get trump a special prosecutor. i believe trump is a rino, orange rino. they missed it totally by him appointing the chairman to the republican national committee that hands out the money. host: how do you connect all those dots? caller: he refuses to hand out the money when it's a neck and neck race. i believe did he that for the special prosecutor instead of grand jury being seated for him. i believe that's one quick one we missed. host: what do you base that on? what evidence? caller: all the actual amount that the candidates got during

their run. one got 50 million. the democratic got 50 million. and trump's person that he appointed, republican national committee, one of his -- forget her name. host: the chair of the r.n.c.? caller: yes. she refused to hand republicans money to go head and head. which made that neck in neck race go to democratic way. i feel he did that to give the backdoor deal for a special prosecutor. host: patrick in san diego, california. democrats line. go ahead. caller: hi, good morning. i wanted to speak about student loans. we have a lull going on right now while we are waiting for the supreme court to make a decision on biden's $10,000 forgiveness. to me that is merely a bad system whether you are in favor of it or not.

the department of education just dancing around the edges with their repayment programs. fundamentally i believe that we should change the application process. the fasa is not a complete credit check. it asks income and assets. it doesn't ask the income ratio as a regular credit check would. you are lending money to people who may not qualify. on the back end removing bankruptcy protections. we are trapping people. the colleges are taking advantage of this. the states are taking advantage of this. and we have a $2 trillion problem that could be swept under the rug. we need fundamental changes to this program. host: leesburg, virginia, independent line. this is bob. just about to go to the house shortly. go ahead. caller: i was struck by the language that vice president harris used in describing how the legislative branch had to do something. it was nonnegotiable. i haven't read the legislation.

it's quite possible i support the legislation she's referring to. it's an observation. curious what my fellow americans think where the vice president demands the legislative branch does something and saying it's nonnegotiable. that's all. host: this is cheryl in california. independent line. again we are just about to go to the house. caller: ok. i wanted-different before me a bunch of books i have been reading. these are legal books. and i have got a legal case here that they did not want to hear. and i'm willing to tell the world about it. host: i apologize that you won't be able to because the house of representatives is coming in. we'll take you to them now. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication