charter communications support c-span as a public service, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is going on in washington. keep up with live streams of floor hearings in congress, white house events, campaigns, and more from the world of politics. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of "washington journal" and find scheduling for c-span's tv networks and c-span radio. c-span now is available the apple store and google play. downloaded for free today. c-span now, your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere . host: joining us is liz goodwin

who covers congress for the washington post. she talks about the week of head for lawmakers. let's talk about the chinese spy balloon. what you expect you will hear from lawmakers and the administration this week on this? gast: -- guest: the spy balloon continues to have a lot of fallout on the hill. fallout on the hill. once top congressional leaders receive that briefing this week, majority leader schumer has called for an all senate briefing to happened that following week so this is not going away anytime soon. republicans have a lot of questions about how the administration handled this threat and they have been determined to get answers in the coming days. host: let's listen to one of those lawmakers, senator tom cotton. he was on fox news yesterday. [video clip]

>> shannon, the spy balloon has become a trial balloon testing president biden's strength and resolve and unfortunately the president failed that test. that is dangerous for the american people. the president was paralyzed for an entire week by a balloon. we should never have allowed the balloon to transit the entire continental united states. there are a lot of open questions the administration needs to answer to congress about why they did not do it. part of it was the presidential reluctance to take any action that would be seen as provocative to the chinese communists. i do believe the administration wanted to salvage the secretary of state's trip. they got through thursday afternoon. civilians in billings blew the

whistle on it. it took another 20 four hours for the secretary of state to cancel what was already an ill-advised trip. host: liz goodwin, your reaction? guest: senator cotton is saying what a lot of republican lawmakers are now, which is why didn't the administration shoot the balloon down earlier? there has been some back and forth in how the administration is choosing to answer that. so far biden has said publicly they did not want to cause any harm to civilians, which has been -- we have reporting in the post that some administration officials are saying anonymously that these balloons have been spotted before in past administrations.

they you have trump administration officials saying on the record that is not true. there is a lot of back and forth about how the biden administration handled this, and with them making the case that republicans are blowing it out of proportion essentially, and republicans are saying "no this would have been a scandal if it had happened under trump,." we will find out what came from shooting down the balloon. were they able to salvage any information about the device and how it works? host: president biden is expected to address this and likely to talk about the debt ceiling. "as debt ceiling talks kickoff, schumer fights to stay at the center." explain.

guest: i interviewed chuck schumer about the debt ceiling talks. he has seen a lot of fiscal showdowns, democrats and republicans clashing over these deadlines and trying to use them as leverage. excuse me. host: go ahead, take a drink of water. i had the same issue this morning. we will have liz goodwin clear her throat there. let me tell you what the phone lines will be. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us as well.

are the debt talks continuing this week? are the two sides actually talking? guest: this is the plan schumer has been making. he kind of does not like to call it a negotiation, because he thinks until senator mccarthy talks about what they want and delays at his side of the argument that it is not a negotiation. mccarthy is saying he met with biden in the white house last week. they are negotiating. that is something they are positioning as a win that the democrats are even in the room after biden said no negotiations . he says this is such an important vote, you cannot tie it to anything. you cannot hold it hostage. they are pointing to that on the republican side. they have not set a date for a

new meeting, as far as i know, but they have said that they want to meet again. democrats will be pushing that same message of what do actually want, and is there anything you could pass through the house because mccarthy's majority is very narrow, and he has had one member suggested that he would not vote to lift the limit under any circumstances. there is some questioning of mccarthy's status as a credible negotiator given what is going on in his conference that we will see them continue to bring up. host: to our viewers, we want to hear from you what you want congress to work on this weekend in the coming weeks. we are focusing on legislative work with liz goodwin.

liz goodwin, there is also the state of the union address. how will that dominate the week? guest: the state of the union is tomorrow already. as we talked about earlier, the balloon issue will be hanging over that. biden is expected to address that in some way. house republicans have been bandying about the idea of disapproving of how his administration handled that. that will be one factor for sure tomorrow. another issue is the criminal justice issue. there has been a lot of pressure on biden from democrats to address the tyre nichols situation and push for renewed talks on criminal justice reform on the hill. those broke down a couple of years ago. nothing ended up getting past two addressed any of the police

brutality issues people will were raising in the wake of george floyd's death. nichols' parents will be at the state of the union. there is reporting today in politico that cori bush has michael brown's father, another person who would be pushing for criminal justice reform, and the audience. that is another issue -- in the audience. that is another issue the audience will wait to see if biden is handling. the infrastructure bill, chips, pieces of legislation like that were bipartisan and got through. he will frame that as an investment in america.

everyone is wondering when he will officially announce that he is running for president again. in a way, this is a kick off of a potential reelection as well. host: you wrote a piece recently, liz goodwin, along with your colleagues about this police reform talks are backing congress, but you wrote there is little hope for a deal. can you explain that part of it? guest: police reform talks were completely dead. after the nichols incident, people are talking to each other again. there are some republicans and democrats talking about what can be done, but the tone is not very optimistic. some republicans involved in the talks who died previously like lindsey graham, john cornyn, they say we are in a divided government now. we were not able to do this when it was all democrats who mostly wanted to get police reform

done. now with house republicans, it does not seem like it will happen. the combination of the divided government and to some republicans who were interested in making this deal a few years ago sounding down on it has not given people a ton of hope in this moment. senator cory booker and tom scott are talking again. there is some movement on the hill. host: let's talk about what house republicans are doing since they controlled that house chamber. hunter biden's laptop story -- what do you know about that hearing? guest: this hearing is interesting because it is focusing mostly on the issue of social media and allegedly bias in, even though it does -- in

how social media works. it is kind of a backdoor into that issue. the witnesses for the hearing will be former twitter executives. it is focused on twitter and the decision not to run a new york post story about hunter's laptop right before the 2020 election. this is something that elon musk who recently bought twitter has been talking about nonstop on his platform. he visited the capital and speaker mccarthy recently. they are friends. this is an issue republicans are taking up on his behalf. it has a couple key issues for them. one is supposedly bias in social media. the other is drawing attention to the president's son and potentially unsavory

behavior of his. host: let's hear from bob in west salem, ohio. democratic caller. you have to mute your television, ok? caller: i have been watching this every day for years, c-span, and i finally decided to call in. i don't understand what is wrong with the american people. donald trump is the most disgusting thing that was ever in the white house. why he is not in jail yet, i cannot figure that one out. host: bob, you have to mute your television when you call in the next time. rob in syracuse, new york. caller: i propose that congress address an issue i think everyone can endorse, regardless of their party affiliation. i would like to see congress

passed the daca bill, the bill that addresses nationalization of infants, toddler's, and little kids brought to the country illegally and know nothing but the united states as their own nation. put doc on the floor. it will at -- put dhaka on the floor -- put daca on the floor. host: liz goodwin? guest: the dhaka issue -- the daca issue is one of those albatross issues. there are republicans and democrats who care about it, but it does not get addressed. there was an effort at the end of the very last session when democrats still controlled the house to do something bipartisan on that. senator thom tillis and kyrsten sinema were working on it, but

they could not get an agreement. a lot of the issue is republicans want the population that gets legalization to be narrow, just that youngest dreamer group, and they want a lot of order security and exchange. democrats pushed for a bigger population and objected to some of their order reforms and asylum reforms they were rushing. it did not happen -- they were pushing. it did not happen. kevin mccarthy has made a pledge not to endorse any measure that includes amnesty, which is the word he uses. a lot of immigration advocates have taken that to mean that any legislation that offers a pass for immigrants is out of the question for the next 2 years. that is some thing dampening

hopes for a daca solution. host: are talking -- we are talking about the week ahead in congress. we would like to hear what you want congress to deal with this week. marty. on the republican line. caller: i want to hear about the surveillance balloon. we do not know. we are not protected. host: liz goodwin, are there any committee hearings scheduled on this yet? guest: there are not any scheduled yet, but i would be surprised if there are not some especially in the house soon. i think people are waiting for

the briefing where the top -- they can find out more about what happened. the question is basically whether there is enough information that can be made public that it can be discussed in a hearing. sometimes there will be an intel hearing where some of it is classified into some of it is public. host: tony in millville, new york, independent. caller: hi again. sorry about that. i have been following up on china stuff lately. i want to address a few issues i have noticed with the coverage here in the united states. it will go back to the compromise point, but basically there is nothing that can be derived from a meteorological weather balloon. that is what china has said it

was. that is what it would generally support. even the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley has shown that there was no risk to the safety of the people. not to shoot it down basically. even u.s. intelligence has shown that our best assessment right now is that it does not. it says china has great military surveillance equipment. they could use xi jinping's policy is one of peaceful coexistence, as he has stated himself. u.s. politicians are aiding the side of imperialism. they are escalating conflict. host: let's talk about the weaponization of the federal government.

that is the focus of a new-committee under the gop led house. tell us about the committee and what they have planned. guest: the weaponization subcommittee has a hearing planned for this thursday, that they have not released topics or a title for it so it is hard to glean what their opening move is going to be. the general thrust of the committee in general is the thought that house republicans have been pushing, which is that the fbi has been weaponized to go after president trump. that is why they have " weaponization," in the title, that is something law enforcement agencies themselves and democrats have been saying is not true, and there is a lot of bad feeling around the point of that committee being to

lesson trust in -- lessen trust in federal law enforcement. it is unclear if they will start their. will they start with the russian probe in 2017? we will have to wait and see. host: tom is in bloomington, indiana, republican. caller: a quick question about the censorship on directv. i wonder if they will be doing anything about that. host: liz goodwin, is that on the agenda? guest: i have not heard of that. this week house republicans are voting on some covid measures and some measures dealing with washington, d.c., actually, some policies of the city that they disapprove of. i am actually not familiar with.

that issue. host: that is what the house will be voting on. what will the senate be voting on? guest: the senate has had a very slow start so far. they have just been voting on nominations and symbolic measures the past couple of week. there was a national stocking awareness month vote, votes that are, not normally full votes votes that are usually unanimously accepted. there is a vote that rises to the level of a full vote, appeals court nominations, and aside from that they are chugging along. in an era of divided government, it is slowing down on the senate side. host: justin in california, democratic caller. caller: i wanted to comment

about the balloon. there are a few things the administration said i just don't believe. it doesn't pass the smell test. i lived in montana. i did the basic math. it turns out to be 85 acres per person in montana. there is a lot of big space. they couldn't have shot this thing down because they were afraid of it landing on people? it's just not true. the chinese know we could have shot it down. the only people getting fooled are us. i i'm not saying there is some big conspiracy. i don't know what their reasoning is, the biden administration. why did they want to lead this thing float across the country? host: do you want the president to address the question that the

state of the union tomorrow night? caller: he doesn't have to do it at the state of the union, but he should. i don't know if it rises to the level of the state of the union, but yes, maybe he walks into the pressroom room and addresses it and allows questions. i just don't believe they couldn't have shot it down. then they shot it down with a missile! it was a balloon! you could have put some bullets into it and then it would have been more easily recoverable. they lead it 00 -- it is the dream for what the chinese would like so it is as unrecoverable as possible. host: a lot of questions there. liz goodwin? guest: there was a question and earlier color brought up about

how serious a threat -- that is something we will probably be hearing more in the coming days. whatever information a balloon is able to gather, topographical information was not deemed enough of a threat to risk shooting it down overland, even if it was a rural area. these kind of decisions, i think that is what people want more insight to because it is obviously a very striking image to have a chinese spy balloon flying over the continental united states, but yes it is still an open question of how much of a national security threat its presence really posed. host: donald in indiana, republican. caller: how are you doing?

people are not saying anything about it. that balloon was going over and gathering precise locations. forget about that hypersonic missile that we do not have. they have. people are worried about taiwan. they will fly over taiwan and come straight to america, hypersonic missiles to finish it once and for all. biden just paid his services. host: terry in winterhaven, florida, independent. caller: as far as compromise, liz cheney sums it up for me. the corruption of former president trump and those who tried to corrupt president

zelenskyy are outlandish. republicans want to stay in. the santos, -- desantis, green e, boebert. marco rubio paid cash for his mention -- mansion. governor desantis wants no -- host: we are talking about this week in congress with liz goodwin. after last week's vote to rim move ill hand omar from the foreign affairs -- remove ill hand omar -- remove ilhan omar from the foreign affairs committee --

guest: they had objections to votingguest: omar off. they had process concerns about what if this becomes a situation where every time a republican becomes in charge they kick off members of the other party that they do not like and there is not a fair process. a lot of the followed of that vote is speaker mccarthy taking steps to streamline that, make there be an actual process that has rules to it so it is a little less subjective in the coming years. part of that is making an official code of conduct for members of congress that is very vague right now what that code of conduct is right now. do not engage in behavior unbecoming of a representative.

now there is an effort underway to spell at what that means what conduct is unbecoming of a representative and how that could guide future decisions. host: what are the big issues this week before we let you go that people should be watching for? guest: the biggest event of this week, i would say, is the state of the union. how does joe biden addressed some of these concerns about the spy balloon that republicans are bringing up? what happens after they gang of eight briefing? how do republicans respond to whatever the pentagon explains when they are able to explain their decision on the spy balloon? what is the next step? is that something that makes the issue go away for republicans or is that something that will merit more investigation hearings, as you brought up.