>> there should be no doubt our support for ukraine will not waiver. data will not be divided and we will not tire. ♪

host: that was president biden in poland yesterday ahead of the one you're in a bursary of the russian invasion of ukraine. the president's remarks came one day after his surprise visit to kyiv and on the same date of vladimir putin's address. our phone lines are open. we want to know what you think the u.s. role should be in the ongoing conflict in ukraine. you should do so by calling in on phone lines by political party. republicans it is (202) 748-8001 . democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text, that number (202) 748-8003. otherwise catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. you can start calling it now.

the washington post, the headline, biden and koopman delivered dueling speeches -- biden and putin delivered dueling speeches in poland. wall street journal, one of the headlines, global tensions echo the cold war. here is more from president biden yesterday. [video clip] >> one year into this war putin no longer doubts the strength of our coalition, but he still doubts our conviction, he doubts our staying power, he doubts our continued support of ukraine. he doubts whether nato can remain unified. there should be no doubt our support for ukraine will not waiver. nato will not be divided and we will not tire. [applause] president putin's craven lust for land and power will fail and

the ukrainian people's love for their country will prevail. democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow, and forever. that is what is at stake. freedom. that is the message i carried to kyiv yesterday to the people of ukraine. host: that was president biden yesterday in poland. we will show you more from his address and also from russian president's vladimir putin state of the state address yesterday but we also want to hear from you asking you what the u.s. role should be in the ongoing conflict coming up on the one-year anniversary of the russian invasion of ukraine. the associated press recently showing a comparison of where american stand today on various aspects of support when it comes to imposing economic sanctions on russia. the vast majority continue to support and favor that.

63% as of january compared to 71% in may of last year. when it comes to accepting ukrainian refugees, 55% of americans said they favor doing that. when it comes to providing weapons, 48% of americans favor doing that. that comparison 60% in may 2022. when it comes to sending u.s. funding directly to ukraine, 37% of americans favor doing that. 38% say they oppose. inmate 44% of americans favor sending u.s. funding to ukraine. that is some of the polling on this when it comes to those funding numbers. well over $50 billion at this point in aid and various forms sent to ukraine, including humanitarian aid, financial aid, security assistance. we will get into all of that this morning as we hear from you

in the first hour of "washington journal." what should the u.s. role be when it comes to the ongoing russia ukraine conflict. mark, good morning. caller: i do not think we have any role to play over there. i will tell you why. ukraine, despite what we have been told and despite what the media is constantly telling us. ukraine is not a democracy. ukraine is about the most corrupt country in the world. most americans cannot find it on a map. you remember a few years back democrats did not want to spent $2 billion on a border wall for the united states. we have sent them over 100 -- over $100 billion to defend someone else's border. that shows you where the priorities are of the biden administration. president zelenskyy is basically

demanding -- for the last year we have been supplying them with money, we have been supplying them with arms. we have dug ourselves into this whole where if we pull out and ukraine falls we will get the blame for it. we are stuck here because we started this support. host: that is marked in hampstead, maryland. the number is a little over $50 billion at this point, including well over 25 billion dollars in military and security assistance. $10 billion in humanitarian assistance. $15 billion in other financial assistance, and the president proposing another $500 million when he made his surprise visit to kyiv earlier this week. richard in new york. independent. caller: i do not think most americans realize who started this war. the united states cia started

this war in 2014 when during the week of the moscow olympics when russia would be concerned with other things, including the security of the olympics, we took ukraine during that week. it was a coup d'etat in kyiv that forced the democratically elected president to flee for his life. it was under the guise of a protest but it was not a protest, it was an arm cia army. listen to me. we took 100% of ukraine? how did russia respond. they took crimea back. we took 100% of ukraine. we said russia started the war when they took back ukraine. when they took back crimea. why did they take back crimea? that is where the russian navy was. they are not about to give up the entire russian navy because of our coup in 2014. we started the war.

it has been raging for nine years. let me say one thing. we blew up the nord stream pipeline. it has been exposed by seymour hersh. it is an act of war. we blew up that pipeline. it belonged to russia and germany. we started this war. host: that is richard in new york. this is john in florida. line for democrats. caller: i have to agree with my fellow americans. our role in this war, we should not be involved at all. i would like to focus on the reasons why we are going over there. you see the president talking about freedom. we have heard this argument since vietnam. they try to scare the american public. in the vietnam war they were saying the domino theory. then fast forward to the iraq war, where george bush was

saying if we do not fight them over there then we will be fighting them over here. then fast forward to today, ukraine, we are stopping them -- biden just said this involves freedom and we are preventing people's freedoms from around the world. this is total nonsense. we had no role in this war at all. we need to quit spending american taxpayer money for this. we have no reason to be there at all and that is all i have to say. host: that is john in florida. this is wd in virginia, independent, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. he will do nothing but start world war iii.

he has already picked a fight and he will keep going until we get world war iii because he is a dictator. he is a nazi. biden is nothing but a goerbels. host: here is more yesterday from the state of the nation address from vladimir putin blaming the west for starting the war. vladimir putin addressing the nation yesterday. [video clip] >> i am addressing you at a very difficult time. dramatic changes in the world. great historic changes that will determine the future of our country and our people. every single one of us has a huge responsibility. a year ago, to defend our historical land, to provide security and safety of our

country come in to get rid of the danger from the neo-nazi regime that established itself after the coup d'etat in 2014, we took the decision to start the special military operation step-by-step. we are going to solve the problems we are facing starting in the donbass. it is right -- its right to live in its own country and speak the same language. they fought but did not surrender in conditions of blockade. they hoped that they believe russia will come and help them. host: vladimir putin yesterday. at the end of that speech announcing a move on a long-standing nuclear treaty.

suspending russia's participation in the new start treaty, this is the last surviving arms control agreement between the two largest nuclear armed powers. the decades long era of formal arms control may be dying. we will target more about the start treaty, the history, and what that means with the executive director of the arms control association coming up at about 9:20 a.m. eastern time. back to your phone calls asking you as we approach the one-year anniversary of the russian invasion of ukraine watch should the u.s. role be? this is tony in texas. good morning. caller: good morning. do not take my words. just take the facts. trump trusted putin. tucker should work for putin.

putin is the real nazi. he invaded many countries. on record. in europe. just like hitler's did in world war ii. host: this is terry in north carolina. republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. if you're a democrat that voted for joe biden, remember he is the one that called for regime change in russia. i would like to hear from democrats and know how well did it work in afghanistan? iraq? libya? syria? joe biden started this war. if joe biden were to look in the mirror today the reflection would be dick cheney. host: that is terry in north carolina. this is today's washington post.

"what a year of war has revealed about three different leaders." those leaders, loaded near zelinski, joe biden, and vladimir putin. he writes who could have imagined that a ukrainian comic actor could prove to be the first truly heroic reader -- heroic leader of the 21st century. who would bet that vladimir putin would grossly miss read intelligence and history and ransom his country in what amounted to a fairytale about the oneness of russia and ukraine. he writes that who would've bet that the 80-year-old u.s. president would turn out to be the most undervalued american leader in modern times. president biden's visit monday to kyiv was a defining moment in his presidency. even conservative commentators who make a living trashing him had to be stirred by seeing him standing in saint michael square while air raid sirens blared.

this is fred in seattle, democrat, you are next. caller: good morning. during the talk about the insurrection when maga cultists were showing video of the riders and insurrectionists attacking the police -- when people call about the war, you should show video of the russian atrocities. people laying dead in the streets and so forth. thank you. host: david, new york city, republican. you are next. caller: first of all, russia is the aggressor. they are attacking a sovereign nation. as a traditional conservative i feel we should support sovereign nations. ukraine has no designs on

russia. russia is trying to deny them their sovereignty and ukrainians are defending themselves and should stand with them. host: did you say traditional conservative, is that how you describe yourself? what does that mean? caller: more of the line of ronald reagan. not quite william buckley. but more along those lines. host: who does a traditional conservative support right now as we look ahead to the next presidential election? caller: right now not trump. i'm not sure whether there is somebody who is running yet that i will support. i am more interested in somebody who tells the truth and is willing to fight for the right things rather than fight for

their own aggrandize meant. host: that is david in new york city. in the hoosier state this is nick, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to say i am a veteran, i was drafted in 1966. i am calling because i wanted to say i am proud of president biden going over there and standing up against these communists and vladimir putin. it is refreshing. the last guy we had in office, trump, he just cowered when he was in helsinki. you could tell he was controlled by putin. it was obvious. i am happy -- i hope the people

over there can keep their country without expanding the war. that is all i had to say. thank you. host: here is more from president biden yesterday in warsaw responding to vladimir putin's charges the west was to blame for this conflict. [video clip] >> the united states and the nations of europe do not seek to control or destroy russia. the west is not plotting to attack russia as putin said today. millions of russian citizens, all they want is peace with their neighbors, they are not the enemy. this war was never a necessity. it is a tragedy. president putin chose this war. every date the war continues is his choice. he could end the war with a word. it is simple.

if russia stopped invading ukraine it would end the war. if ukraine stopped defending itself against russia it would be the end of ukraine. host: the president said to meet with nato leaders today and returned back to the united states later this evening. the president continuing to be in poland as he continues this trip overseas. back to your phone calls. what you think the u.s. role should be in the ongoing conflict? this is dorothy in baltimore. line for democrats. good morning. caller: i want to say this. we are doing exactly what we said we would do. biden is keeping our word. two, everybody was calling biden week. vladimir putin heard this and he thought he would take his chance

and go in there. we are finding out who is weak. biden is kicking putin's butt without any military feet on the ground, he just gave them weapons. they are fighting the fight and we are keeping our word. biden will go down in history of one of the best presidents we ever had. hold your place, joe, you're doing a great job. host: bruce in maryland, republican, you are next. caller: thanks for taking my call. i've a question. you keep talking about fentanyl. why aren't we calling it chemical warfare? host: do you want to talk about the russia ukraine conflict? we have time for open phones later and we can certainly discuss fentanyl than. caller: i'm just telling you

something right now. host: we have open phones and a little bit. that is your time to lead the discussion on any topic you want to talk about. for this first hour we will stay on this topic, the u.s. role in the russia-ukraine conflict. plenty of callers who want to chime in on that as we approach the one-year anniversary of the russian invasion of ukraine. kevin, independent, good morning. caller: i think it would be stupid to think the u.s. does not have any role at all, especially considering we live under global capitalism. i think our low -- our role should be something of a coalition for sanctions and things of that nature. $50 million in actual aid. when the last caller mentioned

fentanyl. a lot of that should be used to save the lives of people dying of opioid overdoses. we do not need to commit so much money. we do have troubles here. 100,000 people a year are dying here from opioid overdoses. i do not think that last caller's remarks are too far off. i think the point is we need to spend more domestically instead of unilaterally trying to fund another country's defense. host: that is kevin in ohio as we focused on the role the u.s. should play in the ongoing russia and ukraine conflict. a lot of focus today on the role china might be playing in the wake of this news from the wall street journal. chinese leader xi jinping is preparing to visit moscow for a summit with vladimir putin in the coming months according to people familiar with that plan.

beijing says it wants to play a more active role in ending the conflict. people familiar with xi jinping's plans said the meeting would be part of a push for multiparty peace talks, allowing china to reiterate its call nuclear weapons not be used in the conflict. western capitals have expressed some skepticism about china's diplomatic outreach. the public stance, the wall street journal notes, is part of an ongoing effort by china. officials reacted with skepticism to the peace plan. the nato secretary-general called china's ideas -- kelly in texas, a republican. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. 30 years ago, i guess when ukraine became a sovereign

country, the thing was that they would get rid of their nukes and their weapons of war. the thing is if russia or the former soviet union ever attacked the sovereign country of ukraine, that britain and america would come to their aid. host: you are talking about the budapest memorandum. caller: thank you so much for remembering. yes. i do not know how much britain has given to the war effort as far as money or the planes or whatever it is that ukraine

needs. i pray for the ukrainian people, even though their government was not so democratic. there was some corruption there. however, it takes more than a generation or two to get into a democracy. they are striving towards that end i pray for those people. the thing is it is not just about the government. it is the people that suffer the most. host: that is kelly in texas. from the brookings institution, a little bit of history on the 1990 four budapest memorandum in which the united states and russia and britain committed to respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of ukraine and to refrain from the use of force against the country. those assurances played a key role in persuading the ukrainian government to give up what amounted to the world's

third-largest nuclear arsenal, consisting of some 1900 strategic nuclear warheads. we can talk more about the history of that when daryl kimball joins us, the executive director of the arms control organization at 9:20 eastern. this is laurel in connecticut. democrat. good morning. caller: i am praying for peace throughout the world. our spirits yard for thy love. now make a strong. we need that deeper healing of love and faith and kindness from above. they will be done. amen. host: that is laurel's prayer in connecticut. this is marsha in north carolina. independent. good morning. caller: good and thanks for taking my call. maybe you can correct me if i am

wrong. i heard yesterday a former republican congressman say a lot of republicans are thinking that all the money we are giving to ukraine is in money, but it is actually an old military equipment. is that correct? they are placing monetary value on the equipment. thank you. host: terry in cleveland, tennessee. republican. your next. caller: how are you doing today. i would like to find out how much we could tape -- we could take up on ukraine to keep him over there. he is thinking if he gets into a world war he will stay president and i pray to god we will not get into it. host: the caller was talking

about republicans who have criticized the amount of spending when it comes to ukraine. a tweet yesterday after president biden's address, do you think president biden went to ukraine to demand an itemized receipt on how president zelenskyy is spending. this is nothing more than america last, president doing america last things. the republican congressman from texas paul gosar say we need to stop promoting more in ukraine and start depending our border and deporting illegal aliens. those are the comments of two republicans on twitter. this is the comment of a senior member of the republican party, mitch mcconnell. at the munich security conference last week, reiterating the u.s. commitment to ukraine. [video clip] >> russia has to lose in ukraine. we cannot put a time limit on it. the one thing we can do to address the problem raised by

our friend in ukraine is speed up the decision-making. get the weapons there quicker. the whole defense production throughout nato is under stress. there is no question about it. we are providing a lot more ammunition and weapons systems then we were anticipating. we need to speed it up, to cut through the bureaucracy, to get you the weapons you need as soon as you need them so you can win the war. as far as i am concerned, and i think i can speak thoroughly for most of the members of my party in congress, we are in this to win. losing is not an option. imagine how much it would cost all of us if russia won. and what about the implications in the far east? the prime minister of japan said the single most important thing you can do to send a message to president xi is to beat putin in

ukraine, you know this has worldwide implications. we need to change our thinking. bob gates served under both bush and obama and was one of the great secretaries of defense said that after the cold war we all took a holiday from history. we thought everything would be just fine. evil is back. peace through strength is the only way to deal not only with the present but with the future. host: mitch mcconnell last week. reminder the house and senate are not in this week. a few pro forma sessions this week but otherwise members at home during the president's day week and are expected to return next week. the supreme court is in today. meeting once again to hear a

case focusing on section 230 of the communications decency act, the so-called web shield. we heard a case yesterday. the case today from relatives killed in an isis attack in his temple nightclub accused that facebook provided support to isis by enhancing his messages. facebook says there is no causal links between -- a decision in yesterday's case. this case, both expected in july. our live coverage begins when the supreme court comes in at 10:00 eastern. they will be doing a bit of business on the front end before hearing that case. twitterverse is tammany is the name of that case.

watch on c-span.org and our free mobile app. just after 7:30 on the east coast as we hear from you about the united states role in the russia and ukraine conflict. coming up on the one you're in a bursary of that conflict. this is bobby in california. democrat. caller: i would like to make a comment about where this war started and how it started. nobody seems to be wanting to give credit to trump for starting it and allowing vladimir putin to carry it out. it all started with trump and putin. that is why putin is doing what he is doing now because trump gave him the ok to do it. host: how did he give him the ok? caller: by refusing to give the

president of ukraine the ammunition, the weapons, and stuff like that. when trump turned his back on that country that gave putin the ok to do it. host: what you think of how president biden has responded in the past year? caller: i think he is doing great. he is doing everything he can to help those people. putin attacked this country for no reason claiming he is ridding it of nazis. putin is acting like a nazi himself. host: that is bobby in california. this is vince. independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to get my thoughts. mitch mcconnell said russia has to lose. why? it seems like the media is trying to sell is our war. we have already contributed in excess of what russia's annual

military budget is. we have given ukraine more money than what russia's annual military budget is. it feels like we are being sold another story for war. i've not heard very much about the nord stream pipeline. there is an author, seymour hersh, who wrote a story about the nord stream pipeline, that it was actually the united states that did that. the prime minister of israel last weekend talked about how the united states killed the negotiations that were going on in march of 2022 when there were up to 17 or 18 draft. another thing is why should russia trust us? the minsk agreements, 2015,

angela merkel and hollande disclosed there was no intent to implement that peace agreement. it was intended to give more time to ukraine to arm to prepare for this war that has been going on since 2014. i feel betrayed by the media not telling us the truth. host: vince in pennsylvania. voice of america reporting that russia's 2023 defense budget is $84 billion. at this point in terms of military and economic and humanitarian assistance we are over $50 billion in the past year that the united states has given to ukraine. this is jerry in new jersey, republican, you are next. caller: i do believe that when

biden left hundreds of americans in afghanistan and left that that showed weakness on all of us. we went from the afghan war now to the ukraine war. it is terrible. when trump was in office, trump and pompeo sat down across from the table and talked. mike pompeo put a picture in front of vladimir putin and putin said this is a picture of my house, why would you give me this. trump said we just wanted to let you know we know where you live. he did not threaten him, but he sure implied it. i thought that showed power. we are protecting ukraine's border.

why aren't we protecting our own border? i do not understand that. hello? host: i am listening. anything else you want to add? caller: when we left the war in afghanistan, there were so many americans and so many people that helped us in afghanistan. that was the point where biden showed the weakness that now china and russia and everywhere is taking advantage of us. isn't that true? host: that is jerry in fort river, new jersey. a republican. this is jason will look in the washington post today. another column as we approach the one you're in a bursary of the russian invasion of you right. how bidens ukraine strategy benefits from republican opposition. he writes that behind the scenes

i suspect some officials are grateful congress is no longer united support of escalating america's role when it comes to the war in ukraine. that gives the administration more flexibility in the next year. it could say that why it wants to make available the full sweep of weaponry, it is politically constrained at home. the presence of a battop in congress could help the good cop administration nudge torch the negotiating table which is crucial for making any settlement sustainable. republican skepticism of the war is likely to persist, he writes. one interpretation is this will undercut america's strategic objectives. another interpretation is it will help the biden administration triangulate and make its real objectives more likely to be vindicated in the end. read more in today's washington post.

this is selma in the bronx, democrat, you are next. caller: good morning. this is ms. brown. i am so proud of president biden. president biden is doing a wonderful job. i am so proud. i am so excited. i am almost in tears. he is doing a wonderful job. republicans, you are jealous of president biden. support our president. he is looking out for everyone, republican, democrat, independent. the man is a wonderful human being. host: that is selma in the bronx. a few text messages we have received. this is frank out of oregon.

"i am not sure about her nation's role, we should help support ukraine butter national debt is high. i am rather conservative but we should not let a small nation get bullied." " ukraine should be treated equally like the nato ally. our support of ukraine is reflective of the strength of our alliance against russia and a vital moment in history." this is john in california, republican, good morning. caller: i would like to say that both biden and putin started this war. divided could have ended the war -- biden could have ended the war before it began by saying ukraine would not be in nato. russia does not want it -- russia does not want nato missiles in a border country like we do not want missiles in

cuba. that was a legitimate concern by russia. ukraine did not qualify to be in nato because it was so corrupt. both putin and biden are making a lot of money off of this war with oil at $80 a barrel. we know that hunter biden is in bed with ukraine making money off oil in the biden family is enriching themselves by prolonging this war and getting us deeper into it when he could have prevented it. all i saw with biden -- he is leading us into world war iii and all you democrats that are so proud of president biden, you will beat your pride when we get bombed. this whole thing is escalating. you have china escalating, you have russia escalating. they are all getting out of our nuclear treaties. russia and china are combining.

this is a bad situation. we have balloons coming over our country. looking out for us. this whole thing is slow walking into a huge nuclear conflict. host: that is john in california. this is connie in california. independent. caller: good morning, john. i was just wondering, it is always put up how much the united states is continuing to the war in ukraine. i've never seen how much the other nations are contributing, like nato. if all of the nations are so great and everything, why is this war continuing? i would like to know how much they are contributing to this war. i would have thought that if we are very united russia would be

out of this war already. i thank you for everything you do. you are a great contributor. thank you. host: that is connie in highland, california. this is susan in iowa. caller: good morning. maybe i am putting this too simplistic. i would say as an example, you look out your window and you see a young child walking on his way to school. that is his goal. he is just living his life. bullies come along and pick on him. i am not going to stand aside and not do anything. i will jump in. these ukrainians, it breaks my heart to see what they are going through. they need help. they were just wanting to live their lives.

vladimir putin is a bully. they were not shooting rockets into russia. they were not harming russia. they were just living their lives. i am proud of biden. for him to go there and speak, i pray to god those people that are in the cold have a radio and they could hear this. he gave them hope. thank you very much. host: that is susan in iowa. the previous caller was asking about eight by country. the united states by far the biggest contributor to ukraine. these numbers are as of the end of 2022. a chart put together by the council on foreign relations. the united states number there, well above $45 billion. today it is well over $50 billion.

various eu institutions giving only financial and humanitarian aid to the tune of $30 billion. if you want to talk about military assistance, that is the red numbers on this chart. the united states, well over $25 billion. the united kingdom $4.1 billion. canada and poland and france rounding out some of the other larger contributors. norway with half $1 billion as well along with sweden. those are the numbers. cfr.org if you want to check out the report. how much aid has the u.s. into ukraine. host: this is rose out of tennessee, good morning. caller: i have not called in for about three years so i hope you will let me speak my piece. i agree with john from california who said this war never should have started.

biden let china know that we were considering ukraine to be let into nato and china told russia. they are working in cahoots. anyway, vladimir putin went in. let me say i feel sorry for the ukrainian people. i really do. it is pitiful, their plight. but this whole thing could have been avoided. we have spent between what we have spent already and what he just went over and promised is going to come out to about 112, $113 billion. if anyone thinks there are not americans over there they are just kidding themselves. we know there has to be department of state people over there and cia people and advisors and everything else,

and i do not want to see american boots on the ground. biden goes over there and he is not concerned about our borders, he is concerned about ukraine's borders, but not about our borders. he goes over there on presidents' day, which was a slap in the face to all americans. as far as east palestine, ohio, he has not done anything. fema has not done anything for those people and our real president will be over there today to give solace to the poor people of east palestine. he goes on and on about the green agenda, biden does, and yet he blew up the nord stream pipeline. that is an act of war against russia. this is a bad situation. we are headed for world war iii and the media is so corrupt, it does not give all the facts. putin went in and destroyed bio labs.

there were nazis in there. host: got your point. from the pages of the york times today on the trained arraignment and continuing to have chemicals that spilled in eastern ohio. the environmental protection agency ordering the operator of the train that carried those chemicals on that train to clean up any contamination. the operator norfolk southern will be compelled to identify and clean contaminated soil and water and reimburse the epa for the cost of cleaning private homes and businesses. if the epa deems norfolk southern has failed, the agency will conduct a cleanup operation itself and charge the company triple the cost. the announcement made by the epa administrator at a news conference in east palestine. the sight of that realm it. he was accompanied by the governor of ohio.

this is sean in virginia. you are next. caller: good morning, america. the question we have to ask, the russian doctrine they are using right now is pushing us into a corner. nato came together. if it was not for that, this would have gone further. you have to look at finland, you have to look at sweden, latvia, lithuania. you have to portray their thoughts as people. they are scared to death of what is going on. nato has been together 60 years or more. they have had americans over there. we are the ones that are structuring democracy. the united states needs to come

together as a nation to see what is really going on. there is too much division in congress. let's hope for the best and pray and think about the americans on the ground over there right now. you have all of these divisions, all of the american divisions are over there right now. host: more reaction from capitol hill yesterday in the wake of president biden's remarks in poland. democratic senator jeanne shaheen. we will stand by ukraine in their hour of need. we will send a message to vladimir putin that his fantasy will not be allowed to come to fruition at we will defend the future of liberal democracies around the world. that was the senator on twitter. democratic congresswoman on twitter, when prudent launched his attack on ukraine he thought ukraine was weak and the west was wrong. thank you for showing president

putin we continue to stand strong with ukraine. from the republican side, arizona congressman andy biggs was on fox yesterday. here are some of his comments on foxbusiness about u.s. spending in aid to ukraine. [video clip] >> we are sending money and weapons over there. we are now importing ammunition and sending it over to ukraine. how is that a win for the united states? what is our national interest. >> your saying no more, that is it? >> that's right. i am telling them they need to be encouraging diplomatic solutions. this administration has never once said we should try to get these sites to the table and resolve this issue peacefully and ratchet this down. instead they will ratchet it up and what will happen is you will see more and more people die through violent means.

you will see more people through probation instead trying to ratchet this down. host: republican congressman andy biggs on foxbusiness. less than 10 minutes or so left in this segment of washington journal as we continue to get your thoughts as we approach the one you're in a verse three of the russian invasion of ukraine, asking you what you think the u.s. role should be in the ongoing conflict. this is kenny in north carolina, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i love it. a couple of things about ukraine. there are many facets to this. we spent 20 years in afghanistan and iraq. how much did that cost us and went to the afghanistan stew? they took our money and when it came the hard part they threw down their guns and ran. ukrainians are not running. they will fight for the last man to defend their own land.

i am so proud of them. i wish we had more of those here. the u.s. representatives in the house that support neo-nazis, the insurrectionists are in the leadership. you think they negotiate anything in good faith? ukraine gave up their nukes so they could trade with the west. if they had kept their nukes vladimir putin would not have attacked. i am surprised our president has gotten anything passed. our president, when he first got in i do not care much about him. he is building more support from me daily. this whole thing is about globalization and the sanctions we put on.

every major bank in the world is laundering money for cartels and now they are having to make new ways to launder the money because of the sanctions. people who have asked about the border, do we never asked the mexican government, do they have control of their border? to they have to have visas to be in mexico? the mexican government is part of the drug cartel? that is the reason we cannot do anything with the border. host: you started by asking what the cost of two decades in afghanistan was. the watson institute at brown university has their cost of war project. it is a group we featured on this program before. their estimates from 2001 to 2022 is $2.3 trillion the united states spent on the war in afghanistan, including over $1

trillion through the department of military spending. $60 billion in the state department's budget. veteran care, $230 billion. veterans of the war in afghanistan. if you want to go through all of the numbers, watson. brown.edu or google the cost of war project and it will come up on google. there is jerry in over 10, nebraska, good morning. caller: i wanted to correct that caller from california that said trump was the reason for this war. it was obama that lost crimea to the russians. he sent blankets and mre's for them. during the trump administration

there was no ukrainian property lost. it was lost during the obama administration. host: what should we be sending today? caller: i do not think we should be sending anything. let the europeans take care of their own backyard. we have done that twice for them. we got in in world war i, world war ii we did the same thing. we just keep coming and spending. eventually we will spend lives down the road. you can be sure of that. host: are you glad president obama did not do more the time? caller: if he would've put a stop to it than i think it would have stopped russia totally. he let them get away with taking crimea. that started the war. he got crimea and he thought --

trump had a strong policy and he stopped him. biden got in and they see a weak president and they will do what they want to do. if china and russia get together we will have troops there. caller: -- host: this is emil in fort lauderdale, florida. independent bank. caller: the biggest problem with this war is it is america that is instigating it. if congress did not send billions of dollars in weapons, there would be no war. they would be talking peace. it is sad that america is not only terrorizing people around the world but also terrorizing their own citizens in america. every department should stop being funding and they should all be reviewed to see if they are beneficial or if they are

hurting americans. we have to stop sending money everywhere. the american government is the one that is causing all the conflict around the world and in america. host: what a federal department you think is helping americans? are there any you think you're helping americans? caller: honestly, you tell me. i don't know. you tell me which one is helping america. i don't know. i cannot name one. host: this is charles in livingston, tennessee, democrat. last caller in this segment. caller: i will answer the colors question. social security is helping the american people, medicare is helping the american people. we need to do what we can. people need to realize what will happen if russia takes that

over. they will control so much over there and i do not understand why all of the republican sympathize with putin since donald trump was in there. it is crazy. this is america. they are pro-life. if they are pro-life, over there there bomb and children's hospitals, bombing little kids to oblivion. see what the bible says about being pro-life and everything. host: that is charles in livingston, tennessee. that will be our last caller in this first segment. charles did mention social security. step around for more on that discussion. will be joined by max to richmond -- by max richmond and mark warshawsky of the united enterprise institute to discuss the future of social security as

part of our weeklong series examining key segments of the federal budget. later russia suspending its role in the key nuclear pact, the new start treaty. we will look at the history of that treaty with daryl kimball of the arms control association. we will be right back. ♪ >> >> book tv every sunday on c-span two features authors discussing their latest nonfiction book. arthur laffer shares his book, where he argues that history shows tax rates and policy affect economic growth and policy. at 10:00 p.m. on afterwords, we

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focus on social security we are joined by mark warshawsky and max richtman. good morning to you both. guest: good morning. host: mr. richtman, on social security, why do we have it? who qualifies for it? how much do you get? guest: that changes every year a little bit. the average benefit is $681 a year. barely enough for some people to get by. this program has been around for over 80 years, has lifted more people out of poverty than all other federal programs combined, and one of the things i try to emphasize when i talk to groups, when i talk to you, it is an earned benefit. when you are working, you are paying payroll tax, fica.

you are contributing to the program. you are buying disability insurance, coverage for when you do retire. it will be 67 for everybody soon, and coverage for survivors, children, spouses. what is important to keep in mind, and the debate about the debt ceiling, social security, this is insurance for families. it is important for retirees. it is insurance for families. if you are a 27-year-old worker with a spouse and 2 children, you have $8,000 of value to social security. it is an earned benefit. host: we hear about the social security trust fund. what are the trust funds, how

does the dollar move into the trust funds, and when and how does the dollar move out of the trust funds? guest: the trust funds are largely accounting devices that the government has set up. the actual cash flow of the system is that taxes are collected. mainly payroll taxes. they are paid out. the difference, which is now a deficit of $180 billion comes from the federal budget, from borrowing or from other taxes and that will be growing. it was $100 billion last year. the congressional budget office says it will be $150 billion this year. that grows to $500 billion i the time that they trust fund is

exhausted in 2032. host: when did we start having deficits? guest: 2010. they are building up because we have a lot of retirees. everyone is familiar with the baby boom generation. there are a lot more people drawing on the system than was originally thought. there is a lot of money going out and not sufficient funds going in. host: what is a solvency date? guest: that is the date at which the trust fund that mark referred to runs out of money. the only revenue that can be used to pay for benefits comes from the payroll tax and that data has changed a little bit in the last few years. the trustees have it at 2023 or -- 2034 or 2035.

when there is not enough money coming in, in the payroll taxes to pay everyone there benefits, that difference is not coming from the federal government. it is coming from the money that has been saved in the social security trust fund -- almost $3 trillion. the interest applied on the money that is used wearing the time that the government borrows money so it is an important distinction. the program is self-funded. it has not contributed a single penny to the federal deficit. it should not be part of the discussion about the debt limit. it has not added to the debt. it is self-funded. that is an important distinction we need to make. >> i disagree.

it does add to the deficit. the money in the trust fund has the interest of being paid. those bonds are being redeemed as the trust fund runs out. that money is coming from the federal government. host: is this an accounting disagreement between the two of you, or is this in the end where is the money eventually going? guest: i'm talking about the actual flow of the cash. the way i described it os the way the congressional -- is the way the congressional budget office describes it. host: we talked about solvency date. what happens after we hit a solvency date? guest: benefits are cut. technically, it hasn't happened to no one knows exactly. will some people's payments not be made?

will everyone get a total haircut? host: then what happens? guest: we don't want that to happen, right? we are trying to do everything we can. the people who care about social security in congress, policymakers are trying to do everything they can to make sure we do not get to that date. i think we can both agree we do not want that to happen. >> i agree. the real question is how do we prevent that date, from getting to that date where benefits will be cut about 20%? i think the fairest way -- i know my colleague will disagree -- is to bring more revenue into the program in affair, responsible way -- in a fair, responsible way. we have already cut benefits a lot. we are very happy there is a good cost of living adjustment

this year. i think it is 8.9%. this does not even begin to make up for the loss in buying power of the social security check over time. 3 of the last 12 years the adjustment was 0, no adjustment for inflation. if you go to town hall meetings and you tell the audience that your adjustment will be 0 because the cost of living did not go up, they will laugh at you. host: we will talk about some of those proposals out there. we one viewers to join the conversation as we look into how the united states got into the fiscal state it is in. today we are focusing on social security. phone lines as usual. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002.

max richtman, a little bit about your group and how long you have been around? guest: we were founded by james roosevelt in 1983. he had retired from congress as a member from california and was worried about what was happening with social security at the beginning of the reagan administration. he wanted to preserve what he felt was his father's greatest legacy. his father was president roosevelt. he created the organization, and we have been about preserving that and medicare for the last 40 years. host: mark warshawsky is with the american enterprise institute. how long have you been studying social security? guest: i have been studying social security my whole professional life, so almost 40 years. i have been with the american enterprise2 with the american

enterprise institute for only 2 years. i follow social security very closely. host: what is the conclusion you, have come to if we want to avoid the solvency date? is it more revenue or less benefits? guest: there are a couple of things to say about benefits. max was quoting the average benefit, but if you look at the top benefit, it is very high. for a 2 earner couple earning at the top, they can earn -- this may sound a lot, but it is on the social security website -- they can earn 100 $10,000 from social security a year. we can trim those benefits -- $110,000 from social security a year.

we can trim those benefits. at the top it is reasonable given the finances in the program to trim those benefits. social security was funded in 1935. we have a whole retirement system of pensions and retirement accounts. retirement accounts and pensions are the major sources of retirement income now. social security comes in second and the third is earnings. people still work after the age of 65, 67. i think there is scope to make those benefit changes, even -- i think there is scope to make some very minor changes, but over time they really add up. this is a long-term program. these changes need to be made gradually. it would have been great to do this many years ago. i worked in the administration of president bush, and we had a

proposal. it was a shame we could not make changes back then, because everyone knew this was going to happen. this was not a surprise. the finances of this program were known for years. host: as we hear from callers, this is roy, woodstock, georgia. you are up first in this segment. caller: i have a question for your guests. we have something called medicare advantage. to my understanding, medicare advantage is offered by private insurance companies. the premium is paid by the social security trust fund. that money leaves the trust fund every month to pay premiums for citizens. if medicare advantage is a good program, i think social security should look at providing similar benefits that you get under

medicare advantage, and to stop that money from leaving social security. host: let's focus on that. mark warshawsky, is that something that draws on the social security trust fund? guest: medicare has its own trust fund. there is also a supplemental medical insurance, which pays for doctors and drugs. those are their own trust funds. it does not come from social security. medicare is funded by the payroll tax. some income taxes go in there, premiums, and the federal government. the premise of. the question is not correct host: what is -- the premise of the question is not correct. host: what is disability insurance? guest: it helps people who need

help and have had a disability for a long time. it has been part of the program for 30 years. may longer than that. it is a very important part. i cannot let mark's comment about social security adding to the deficit, the debt, go unanswered. it is wrong. i hope your audience will get this. it is important that people understand that it is a self-funded program. there is a surplus, because we knew as mark said, we would get to this place of almost $3 trillion to help paid benefits going forward. when you have a program that is self-funded, that money that is extra beyond what is paid in benefits is invested in government bonds. those bonds are redeemed

regularly, used to pay benefits. those years mark mentioned, 2010 going forward when there was not enough money because of high unemployment, everyone. there benefits because the trust fund was there. the trust fund actually grew during those years because of the interest of that was applied to that money. i hate to have the argument, the discussion be about" we need to cut social security because it is part of the debt. it is adding to this problem, which is a serious problem," and it is really not true. host: yout -- 56 million americans receive social security, the old age and survivors insurance benefits. about -- we are talking about,

social security this morning taking your questions with our panel. lance is in fort lauderdale, florida, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, john. good morning, gentlemen. i would like to thank all of my fellow americans for not letting me die on the street. i received ssi and without it i would be on the street. maybe i am being too simplistic, but it seems easy to save social security. you need to do 3 things. take the caps off. whatever you make, that continues. there should be no caps on what you make. the idea is to prevent people like me from dying on the street. this is something we all agree on. there should be. you should -- there should be no cap. you should raise the age. when social security was instituted, i think the average

life expectancy was 63. it should be means tested. it seems ridiculous to me that someone like warren buffett, a lot of millionaires are well-to-do people in this country are receiving social security. to this mine -- to my mind this was set up to be a safety net not a savings account. people can argue about it, pick a number, $100,000 a year in your pension, you should not receive social security. it should be for people who do not have money, or like me who have become disabled, and would be dead on the street is did not have it. i will take your thoughts off-line. . thank you. host: lance laying out some of the options. "take the caps off" -- what does that mean? guest: there is a limit on wages

subject to the payroll tax. it changes a little bit every year. it is $160,000 this year in 2023. you pay your social security, your fica tax on all of your earnings. it does not stop at $160,000. that is a pretty controversial idea. i have read some things that mark has written about it. there were proposals that we have endorsed in the past. keep the cap at what it is, but begin collecting payroll taxes at $400,000 a year. senator sanders has a bill that would started again at $250,000 . this is a way to bring more revenue into the program. there are other ways to bring more revenue into the program that i think need to be

discussed. as mark has written about, more and more people are getting paid, especially at the higher income level in no way other than wages. stocks, benefits that go beyond wages. why not have something like the net investment tax. there is already some money going to medicare through that, going to the social security program? there is a lot of people who do not even know that there is a cap on wages. host: why do we have a cap in the first place? guest: the logic -- it is a good logic -- it was designed that way. i think max described early on, your benefits are related to your earnings. the program was never designed

to provide very large benefits to millionaires. the benefits are only up to, related to a certain amount of earnings. that is a good logic for that. removing the cap, there is no need for that extra money. it would be a pure tax. it would be a very large tax increase. it sounds easy. a lot of people would not pay it, but it is a large tax increase. essentially 1.4%, an indoor miss tax rate -- enormous tax rate. those was $250,000 -- those with $250,000, that is not indexed. that really gets into the middle

class. i would characterize that as a middle-class tax. >> what we support, those people who would pay additional payroll tax, if the tax started again at $250,000 do get an increase in benefits. i don't know if that is where you are coming from. it is important there be a connection between earnings and benefits and that it be maintained, if those earnings go beyond the current cap. host: one of the caller's other options was means testing. id it true that -- is it true that warren buffett get social security? guest: it may very well be true, if he qualifies. you can decline getting your benefits. host: why should someone like warren buffett -- guest: the point really is, it isn't about why should someone

like warren buffett get social security. means testing is a bad idea. the reason social security has such strong support goes back to what i said at the outset. it is an earned benefit. it is not a welfare program. we do not want to turn it into a welfare program. when you start means testing social security, it becomes welfare. we do not have a lot of support affair programs in this country. the new are -- support for welfare programs in this country. if you do really well, love this money i am paying into social security and wages, i will not get much back because it is a means tested program. why would you support a program like that? host: mr. warshawsky, do you support it?

guest: i don't. i can imagine them implementing such a test. i don't think it is really realistic. with that being said, you can make changes in the benefit formula that would bring down the higher earners' benefits. economically it would -- means testing means you look and see what the person's pension is, you look at what they have in their portfolio. it is a lot of work for the government. guest: a cut, is a cut, is a cut. host: brett in rockport, indiana, republican, good morning. brett there? then we will go to jay in walnut, mississippi, independent. caller: good morning, gentlemen.

i would like to ask one question. what is a maximum social security anybody can receive a months? two, i think the cap should be raised. i am going to tell you this -- i don't think a republican is going to cut out everybody's social security. i think that is a lie the democrats tell. another thing, we need to look at the people working to pay more ssi tax. guest: there is a very straightforward answer to your question -- it is 4004 hundred

$55 -- $4455 a month at the top of the earnings cap. >> i don't know where to begin with. all of that -- begin with all of that. that is the correct amount. mark knows that. he is a numbers guy. he knows this stuff inside and out. the caller seemed to indicate that democrats are lying about republicans being focused on cutting social security. look at the history. look at the last 40 years. efforts to reduce the cost of loving adjustment, to privatize the program, to means test the program, to change the formula for determining the cost of living adjustment is calculated,

which would reduce the benefit. the republican study committee, 180 house members put out their plan late last year to means test, cut the cola. this is not something democrats have thought of out of thin air. there is a long record. you do not have to go back far. go back to president george w. bush. i remember it well. the day after he was reelected, he came to the podium in 2004. he said, "i have earned political capital. i am going to use it to privatize social security." you remember that! barn storm the country, 30 town hall meetings in 30 days trying to jet up support, and he did not get any -- gen up support,

and he did not get anywhere. congress realized this is not a winning issue. host: this is the third rail of american politics. why does it occasionally get reached for over the years? why does it get touched? why is it something that people come back to? guest: it is a gigantic program. expenditures from social security are $1.2, $1.3 trillion annually. it affects everybody. the program is very much in need of modernization. it was designed in the 1930's but the world has moved on. there are so many changes needed to reflect the labor force, to reflect people retiring later and later.

it needs a refresh. even aside from the finances of the program, it needs a redesign . when president bush put forward his idea, it used to be that when social security was defined it was a pension. now most people go out of retirement with a 401(k) account. the idea was to change the structure of the program to reflect that this is the way retirement is funded nowadays. >> i would say, yes, the program needs to be refreshed. we need to have a more accurate cost-of-living adjustment that reflects how inflation is impacting a beneficiary. the purpose of cola so that

inflation -- let's improve the survivor benefits, the spousal benefits. it lets look at how many years a child can continue receiving benefits. there are ways this program needs to be refreshed, but everything that we hear from your colleagues is about cutting benefits. we do not hear anything about improving benefits, bringing more revenue into the program. that is off the table. coming back to whether social security adds to the debt, ronald reagan in 1984 said social security is not add a penny to the federal debt. he was right about it. >> it was not actually 1984. [laughter] host: fort lauderdale, florida, your next. caller: a couple of early

callers have stolen my thunder. i sat here listening to the calls coming back and forth, it makes you lose what you originally called for. keep up your good fight. everything that mr. warshawsky and everything they stand for are people spohn. you had a guy -- people -- for are evil spawn. host: what is aei? guest: it is a think tank. there are many think tanks here. aei looks at a lot of domestic issues, international and military issues. it looks at poverty programs as well as the budget, social security, and medicare. host: mr. rickman -- mr.

richtman talked about you and your colleagues. does aei have a stance on social security? guest: no. there independent and they come up with viewpoints based on their research. in general aei takes a conservative market point of view, each individual scholar is on their own. host: aei.org, if you want to check them out and to see. baltimore, maryland, you are up next, democrat. go ahead. caller: i have a suggestion that may add to the social security pot. it would not solve the problem, but it might help. my idea is to get seniors to either return to the workforce

or stay in the workforce. i am not talking about raising the retirement age. politicians would like to raise the retirement age. i am talking about incentivizing people on social security to return to the workforce, because we have a whole untapped workforce out here that could be adding to the pot. a live of people retire because they cannot do a job anymore. i retired in 2019 because of hearing loss, but i returned to the workforce so i am adding to the pot again. i retired because of hearing loss, but i found a job that i could do that did not -- that was not affected by my hearing loss. host: thank you for bringing up

the idea. guest: that is an interesting idea. i'm not sure how you would do that, but the mechanism is for doing that. -- what the mechanism is for doing that. he said he is not in favor of raising the retirement age. i like that. when i hear aei or others talk about raising the retirement age because people are living longer, that is a good thing! we can both agree on that. but that is not true for low income individuals, people of color are not living as long. the lifespan numbers have gone down a little bit just -- bit not just because of covid. because of obesity, health conditions. it is not really true that all

people are living longer. where are these jobs? you are saying people should raise the retirement age to 70, people can work. where are all these jobs? if you look at the workforce, it is not easy for older people to continue working. we can sit here and keep talking to you about this for a wild but if you are working in a factory, if you are working on construction, you cannot keep doing that for many, many years. know this is noti what the color specifically talked about, but it is important -- caller specifically talked about, but it is important to dispel the myth that because people are living longer we should raise the retirement age. host: about 25 minutes left in our roundtable this morning as we focus on social security. (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. and we have that special line we have been promoting on your screen, (202) 748-8003 for social security recipients. call in to talk about your experience with the program. neil in ohio, republican. good morning. caller: you had one gentleman there saying that baby boomers were going to take the money, but i think the baby boomers are the largest group, so there should be a surplus of money, you would think. i have a question about medicaid. do the people who collect medicaid, pay into it because i have been paying into social security for like 45 years and i have not collected anything yet.

you want to cut programs? i think you should cut welfare first, because i know they do not pay into any of it. why don't you start cutting other programs before you start cutting social security? thank you. host: mr. warshawsky, where do you want to start? guest: medicare is covered by federal revenues. there is no specific taxes for it. they do not pay into medicaid. the premise of the question is a good one. the budget situation is really quite dire. the deficit and the debt that the country faces, all of these will have to be reviewed. medicaid, food stamps, all of that, but social security as part of the picture. with regard to the caller, he says he has been working for 45 years. that is great. i think there are ways in which

social security can encourage longer working lives. i think this would be something, to have a notion that once you have worked for 45 years, you have earned your benefit, let's start the apparel tax for them. it is a paid-up benefit. i think that would encourage more to work later in life because your employer wouldn't have to pay taxes for you anymore. host: that would encourage the employee to work and the employee your to hire them. guest: because they are not paying payroll tax. we have the lowest unemployment we have had since the 1960's. i think the premise of the prior question was a good one. we should encourage people to work and pay taxes and to support all of these programs.

another change social security could make is your benefit is based on your highest 35 years of earnings. if we extended that to 40 years, i think that would also encourage longer working lives.and i think the retirement age has to be on the table. as a bipartisan point, i believe congressman steny hoyer and president obama back 10 or so years ago they put that on the table as well, raising the retirement age. people are working longer. the average retirement age has increased 3 years in the last decade, so it seems like a reasonable change to make. >> again, some of these ideas they sound harmless, but they are really insidious. changing the formula from 35 to

40 years, you will have a lower benefit. that is what this is about. will we improve benefits, maintain the program, or will we cut benefits? that is one way benefits could be reduced. i thought one of the most interesting parts of the caller's question was about medicaid. we need to cut that program. this is why it is so important that social security is not means tested, that it does not become a welfare program. there is not support in the program -- i'm not saying there should be or shouldn't be --but there is not the kind of support for welfare programs like medicaid as there is for the social security program. although polling we have seen over the last 10 or 15 years, democrats, republicans, independents support the

program. that is my take away from that question, the last question. let's not turn this program into a welfare program and have the support that is almost universal dissipate. host: congressman john larson was on this show in the past couple of weeks. he has a proposal called social security 2100. what would that do? guest: it has changed a little bit over time, so i'm not sure i could characterize it. in its essence it is a small benefit increase for some beneficiaries. it is a large tax increase. it is creating -- with regards to the cap four taxation earnings, but because that is

fixed in nominal terms with inflation, it means it would be a very large tax increase. i would say again, i know max and his group has supported it, congressman larson introduced the will and a lot of cosponsors were democrats who controlled the house. there was no vote on it. they could have brought it up for a vote but they didn't. i don't think it would be very popular. >> i have to disagree. he had 203 cosponsors. i would say that is pretty popular around the country. it is unfortunate that it did not come up for a vote. it would increase benefits a lot. it had a more generous cost-of-living adjustment. the oldest of the old who have

been on social security for 20 years. to call this the biggest tax increase in history, i know some have characterized it that way. the larson bill would have done what i mentioned earlier, would have started collecting payroll taxes at $400,000. if you have a better idea, maybe $500,000, $600,000, let's talk about a way you think more revenue can be brought into the program in a fairway rather than talking about changing the formula, all of that stuff that you know better than i do end up hurting people, and cutting benefits. host: about 15 minutes left in our segment with max richtman and mark warshawsky. we are taking your phone calls.

just a note to our previous caller who brought up medicaid, focusing on that program specifically, tomorrow in our 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. hour on washington journal, tune in for a full hour's discussion on that. 90 a is worry -- nadia is waiting in mclean, virginia. caller: my data -- i am a social security expert as well -- is that the majority of americans collect social security as their primary source of income. let me repeat, the majority of americans collect social security as their primary source of income. on top of that, the illiteracy issue in this country is so up

hauling -- i teach financial literacy -- is so appalling that having americans rely on 401k would produce mass poverty. i want to comment on the fact that there is this concerted effort by republicans to destroy social security because they want to privatize everything. they want to privatize all services in this country. by the way, the gentleman, from the aei, the average 401(k) balance for the average american is $40,000. how do you expect americans to live above poverty when $40,000 is the average balance?

host: i think she is saying the average who are on the social security collect social security as their main point of income. caller: that is old data. it has been found to be inaccurate. it is based on a survey. we have found, and i direct you to look at the social security website on the research -- under the research area, which improves the data, including tax return information, and the statistics i quoted are accurate. they are exactly from that research paper that the social security researchers put out. you are citing old data, and i would say inaccurate information. social security stopped putting that out 10 years ago because they found out they could not rely on that data source. i stand by what i said. >> what i think is accurate data

is along the lines of what the caller mentioned. about half of beneficiaries rely on social security for about half of their income. for 20%, it is about 90% of their income. it is good data. i know you have been fiddling with your numbers and come up with some different numbers. guest: it is not fiddling! >> yeah, it is, mark. what i really hope at some point, mark and others, his colleagues would engage with us, is do we want to dismantle programs like social security? it seems like the philosophy behind some of aei's proposals is basically to go back 100

years to a time when you are on your own. you have got your 401(k), if you have one. you have your pension, most have disappeared. you are on your own. that is the whole driving philosophy behind paul ryan's medicare voucher plan. you remember that? we remember coop -- we called it coupon care. you go out and buy your own insurance. y our onou -- you are on your own. host: do you want to dismantle social security? guest: no. it is a necessary program. it supports lower income people who do not have 401(k) plans. the 30,000 -- $40,000 that the

caller referenced as the average amount, those are people who have just started out work. the number you should be looking at is how much people have when they retire. , the data which i am siding which was a carefully done study, which included a survey and tax return information, so it is accurate, found that the largest source of retirement income for retirees, people above age 65 comes from pensions and retirement accounts. host: we will go to aggie. caller: i am a democrat. i get survivors benefits. my husband died in july. he would have been 65 in seven months. he would have worked 50 years. you do not have to work past

your retirement age to have that many years worked. right now i am drawing on his benefits, but they took my social security account because you cannot draw from both. i think we have a lot of people on social security should not have it. democrats and republicans both have done this. they started out putting mentally and physically disabled kids. they were supposed to be put on the ssi program. they have been on the social security program, over 10 million of them every month, and i think they should be kicked off the regular social security program and put on the program they were supposed to be put on. host: let's focus on that comment. guest: i'm not sure where she is coming from. i don't know that any money has been stolen from the program. i'm not aware of that. i don't know what her specific

case involves. >> i'm not sure i understand either. they get ssi, which is a welfare program. host: republican, chuck, good morning. caller: i have several questions. does the government borrow from the social security fund? if so, do they pay it back, or how do they pay it back? guest: the only borrowing that occurred, there are two trust funds in social security the retirement and survivor's fund and the disability fund. in 2016 when the disability fund was a, there was -- was exhausted, there was a payroll tax that went to the disability tax and that was never paid back. i'm not sure if that is what the

caller is referring to, but that did occur. >> i think what the caller is referring to -- i am assuming this -- is the result of some of the awful myths that have been perpetuated over many years about social security. it is broke. not true. it is bankrupt. not true. the money was, stolen there is no money there, just a bunch of worthless iou's. president george bush did not help when he was on his privatization tour. i am getting to the point of the question. when more money comes into social security that is paid out in benefits every year, and that has been going on for while -- for a while, that extra money is

put in the trust fund. there is no actual cash. we do not have $3 trillion sitting in a vault somewhere in cash. that would not make any sense. the money is invested in government bonds. it is not stolen. bonds are redeemed regularly. there is interest. it is not great interest, but it has the backing of the full credit of the u.s. government, so it is about the best, safest investment you could have. that interest goes back into the social security program. in a sense you might be thinking of that as borrowing the money, but it is repaid with interest. that is why i pointed out earlier in this program that even when less money was paid into the program by payroll taxes, because we had a lot of unemployment, everyone got their full benefits and the trust fund group because of the interest of that was applied on these bonds.

host: how did social security fare during covid? guest: benefits were being paid. , field offices were closed, so everything was moved to the phones or online. there apparently have been some difficulties getting people back in the offices. there are apparently long waits on the phone, so i think there are some administrative problems that need to be worked on. >> that is something we do agree on. i think it has been well documented, including in the washington post in the last few weeks and months. we need to put more money into the social security program. one of the reasons is that they are having backlogs, difficulty calling. talking to somebody at

social security -- calling, talking to somebody at social security. they had an increase that has barely made up for some of the cuts called for by congress over the last few years. it is a shame. i testified once before the house ways and means committee about the long wait times when you called the 800 number, and that has not gotten much better. at the hearing i had my cell phone and i called the number at the beginning of the hearing. i was still on hold at the end of the hearing. to make a point that we do need to spend some more money to hire staff to improve the technology,, to open field offices to the public. i do agree with you on that. host: one more call in hot

springs, south dakota, this is danielle. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. a question i have had for eight years -- ima baby boomer and i have been collecting -- i am a baby boomer and i started collecting social security 8 years ago. i have been working those 8 years. the social security representative said the first year, for the one year that i made $150,000 from a settlement it did not count in my calculations. he said it does not work that way, so he used my regular working years to calculate my benefits.was that accurate ? if not, what can i do about it? guest: that is a very detailed question.

it sounds accurate because it is based on earnings. i don't think a settlement is considered earnings. that is very fact specific. >> i'm glad it went to you! guest: [laughter] >> this is the reason we need people at social security, someone like this color can talk to, to go down to the local office and get some answers. a a lot of people are not getting that, and even worse on the disability program, i think the averages over 2 years you need to wait to get on appeal resolved if you have a disability claim. so money people die waiting for that resolution. it is really unconscionable. . host: i.e. appreciate you taking the time to talk to the callers this morning. max richtman is part of nscp.

let's do it again down the road. still ahead this morning, russia has said it is suspending its role in the key nuclear packed. we will take a look at the history of that treaty and what that could mean with daryl kimball. that is coming up of the arms control association. but now, it's open phones. any issue you want to talk about, you are free to do so. republicans, (202) 748-8000. democrats, -- republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independence and all others, (202) 748-8002.

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the time for our open forum. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and all others, (202) 748-8002. some news about the folks who work in that building over my shoulder, the seat in the united states house of representatives was won by a democrat for virginia's fourth district. she will be the first black woman to represent virginia in congress. she is a legislator from richmond, easily pair -- prevailing over pastor leon benjamin. in other news, a veteran member of congress announces his reelection, senator jon tester announced he will run for reelection, a major boost, as

politico puts it, to senate democrats, after a tough map predicted for senate democrats in 2024. he said, i am running for montana democrats and montanans need to hold washington accountable, and i'm fighting to defend our values. our open forum will start in michigan, ann arbor, michigan. democrats, good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. i was interested in hearing an answer from the two gentlemen, but it seems like we ran out of time. they were very talkative towards the end there. i looked at this, and i googled this and found it, that there were four republicans, democrats and republican presidents, that borrowed from social security

balances, and they took it and balanced their budget with it. there is a caveat on that that money cannot be returned into social security accounts until, it had to be from the general fund. no, let me correct that -- host: we talked a lot about how to extend the solvency date of social security. what do you support today, diane, as we stare down the solvency date in the next 10 years or so? caller: the point i was trying to make, if four presidents had not taken for trillion dolla rs, -- $4 trillion, we would be sitting pretty well. that money could not be returned

to social security unless it was from a line item. it went back into the fund to make the presidents looked good and then they kept it and it was never returned. host: that's diane. this is jerry and kokomo, indiana, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling about social security. what i was interested in, the people that are coming across the border, and they get to come over here, and if they get to stay, they can also send for their family to come over. are they going to be able to come over and get on social security, disability? that was one of the questions i wanted to ask. the other question is, these people that are on disability, eating up our social security, why are they not going back to the doctor and finding out how

come they they can't go back to work? some of these people have been on disability for 10 or 15 years and some people on disability have raised families, three or four generations of families on disability. i am wondering why they are not checking these people out and having them go back to the doctor and getting them off of disability and putting them back to work? host: craig in dearborn, michigan. good morning. you are next. caller: yeah, that last guy is a liability issue with the companies, but i am talking about the railroads and the accident there in palestinian, ohio -- palestine, ohio. there were the caboose on that train? it was 9:30 at night and there were sparks. the company makes a heck of a

lot more money without the caboose, but they threw safety out the window. host: are you in the rail industry? caller: i was. host: how many years? what did you do? caller: i was a conductor and locomotive engineer. host: what does the caboose do? why does that add safety? caller: the primary job is riding the caboose, but when reagan got rid of it, it was doing a lot of nothing. but you are supposed to observe your train. they have defect detectors now so many miles apart, and apparently that didn't work. that would have picked up the hotbox railcar that was throwing sparks, and it had nothing to do with the brakes. they are trying to blame some kind of breaking on it. they only came out of those trains -- they are quite

complex, the brake calipers and everything for the train was not a caliper, but they maintain them -- they sit out in the cold, water getting them, but they sit out in the cold. host: the epa ordered norfolk southern, the operator of the train carrying those chemicals, to clean up the contamination and pay the costs. if they don't do it, the epa will do it and charge them three times the amount? what do you think of that? caller: three times? i did not think three times, but that is pretty good. it all could have been avoided. the people who will have cancer here in the next 10 years -- how much is that worth? make it mandatory for the federal government, that's all

i'm saying. they observe the train as it is going down the track. that's their job. host: earl in wilborn, delaware, good morning. caller: i have an idea about social security. everyone, even if they are retired or working, should pay into social security, take some out of their social security or disability check and so it can last for people who are still working. host: you think that would help make it last? caller: yes it will. host: earl in wilmington, delaware this morning. john and hampton, virginia. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say to the american people, ukraine did not send missiles into russia. we have republicans and some

democrats that say, don't give ukraine any money. but i don't want anyone to get hurt, don't take this the wrong way, but just suppose if ukraine had the ability to drop bombs on moscow, one of the largest cities, i grant you, the russian people do not see what we are seeing in the western world, buildings getting bombed, churches, hospitals. if they could see that, they would be kicking his butt out of office. host: there are discussions over providing f-16s, fighter jets to ukraine, the next asked by the ukrainian government. do you support it? caller: i support it 100%. i am sitting on an air force base and you hear jets in the background. could give them the a-10

warbirds. i was in europe for 22 years in the military and those are good aircraft. but planes shooting missiles at a civilian building -- the rest of it is not going to stop. host: are you saying you think ukraine should do that? caller: yeah, they should do it, they are doing it to their people. there's something that needs to get their attention. host: john and hampton, virginia. this is dwight in fairfield, california, independent. good morning. caller: good morning, good morning, washington journal. i am glad i got on board. i want to speak about black history month, since we are coming to the tail end of it. in the 1920's, they came up with black history week to kind of put blacks in american history,

put our story in place. the american story is generally told by european in new -- immigrants, and to the victor goes the spoils. but african-americans, which we are all americans, we have as much of a risk -- rich history in this country as any other immigrant does. our story needs to be told and doesn't need to be told in a week or month. it needs to be incorporated into american history. the good, the bad, and the ugly. everybody is not racist because they are republican or a trump's of order, unless you are, but the word they throw out there to get people riled up on race, we are all wanting to benefit america. we all love america, from the wars we have had, from the stories we tell, the entertainment that we do.

we are all americans. but systematically, john, it's a thing that we are all victims of. systematic racism has been going on since this country was founded, and black, white, and brown immigrants were all victims of that. the stories of world war i, world war ii, there was no such thing as a world war. three quarters of the world was not involved in the world war, it was a white war. it was a war between the european nations, not the world. mr. desantis is listening, i will wrap this here, why is this an advanced placement class? to mr. desantis, before you got

here, before your dad, granddad, americans of african descent are here. we contributed much to this country and our stories need to be told, not by europeans, but by ourselves. thank you for listening. host: white in fairfield, california. this is pam in florida, the line for democrats. your next. caller: thank you. host: it's open forum, what is on your mind? caller: i started working in the 1960's and made $1.35 an hour. part of that, my employer chipped in and i chipped in, and most of that i got, my weekly paycheck. but that was chipped in by both of us, that was for later, for social security. so the social security money was invested. to me, rick scott scott and the republicans want to cut back on social security or get rid of it

totally, to me that his grand theft. i disagree with the gentleman who was on the other show about social security, there are hardly any companies that do pensions anymore. if you work for the government, the state, or may be big airline, hardly anybody -- i only work for one company, but you had to be 28 before they would start giving a pension. during the savings-and-loan fiasco, one of the companies bought our company and went belly up, so everyone who put money and lost those pensions. now, i did chip and where i could buy stock, and my employer would pay some and match what i would pay. again, my stock went belly up to because of that. i definitely agree with the gentleman who said that it's a majority of people, social security is there only income,

that is more true and there is less people getting pensions. host: that's pam in florida. this is our next caller, good morning. caller: so hunter biden and president biden went over to ukraine with his brothers -- and when there was the coup against russia and they had all the riots, that seems like the same thing that happened in 2020 with trump. you guys started the riots, made massive problems, and then you had the media and the government -- you had the government paying the media to cover everything up and you guys all went along with it. that's why you guys still haven't done my laptop from

hell, which is true, but you have not put it on your show. host: who is you guys? caller: what you mean you guys? host: you said you guys -- caller: everyone asked you to do the laptop from hell, but you guys said no. you should be reporting on that. host: you are talking about the book? caller: yeah. host: we cover in an event for that now had several segments about hunter biden's laptop as well, available on our website at c-span.org. bill in budd lake, new jersey, independent line. go ahead. caller: yeah, good morning everybody. i am really struck by the fact that no use talking about where we are as far as new your or goes. this has never been like this in my entire life. nobody is talking about it. we are talking about sending

weapons, sending weapons, sending weapons -- nobody is talking about. -- about peace. everybody is thinking about war. let's stop and figure out who these guys are, hunter biden, the carrying goal -- let's find out what all this is before we continue sending weapons that are killing people. we may be doing this for all the wrong reasons. there's not enough information out there that we should be stopping at least, taking a breath, looking at it and deciding if the people with this kind of judgment are doing what they are doing -- are they doing it because of personal ties to it? host: you might be interested in our next segment, coming up in a couple minutes here with arms control association executive director daryl kimball.

we will be talking about the new treaties, the new start treaty, the latest move by president and what it means. one or two more calls -- this is alan out of brooklyn. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you. i know we have had a lot of news about sending arms to ukraine and about the chat gpt software ai. the discussion about hardware and software deserve to have a discussion, a more wide-angle view. we seem to require to spend more in armaments, in inverse proportion to the knowledge of people in our democracy. the more we know how to govern ourselves and make the right decisions, the less likely we will have to make or use weapons. we have failed miserably on two accounts in the last four years of keeping software in our democracy up.

shortly after reagan made a great deal of peace with gorbachev and ended the cold war, he allowed the fairness doctrine in media to be revoked. ever since then, we have ended up turning our population, which used to be very unified in foreign affairs, into an incredibly polarized affair where all of the stations that wanted to air only one pointed view would silo all the viewers who like that pointed view and keep them from hearing anything contrary. we now have a population that, aside from very few people who listen to c-span and other fair outlet, are totally polarized and unable to discuss the merits of issues objectively. that's been compounded by a failure to finance public education in a way that teaches history and politics and government appropriately. and informs people of the importance of voting. if they had more education, we would have had a better public knowledge of the suffering the

russians went through in world war ii. not as a reason to cave into them, but as a reason to have a greater regard for building a sound, sustainable democracy there instead of treating them like an enemy in another form. i think what we do with software, hardware, aim software of the way our democracy build public awareness and consensus to help us make the right choices. host: alan in brooklyn, our last call in this open forum. up next, we will be talking about russia suspending its role in the key new your packed known as new start. we will take a look at the history of the treaty and what it means going forward. we will be joined by daryl kimball of the arms control association. stick around for that discussion, right after the break. ♪ >> start your day with

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executive director of the arms control association. for those who don't know, what are you and how are you funded? guest: we were established in 1972, and we do research and publish information on arms control today, and we try to advocate policies that reduce the threats posed by the world's most dangerous weapons, including what we will talk about today, nuclear weapons. host: what is new start and how long has it been around? guest: it was negotiated in 2010, ratified in 2011 after moving forward. it's one of a series of bilateral agreements between the u.s. and the soviets, later the russians, to regulate the most deadly nuclear weapons, the long-range systems on land-based missiles, heat-based missiles, and long-range bombers. this particular treaty was modest in terms of the reductions. it capped each side at 1005

hundred 50 deployed strategic nuclear weapons on no more than 700 missiles and bombers. it does allow for intrusive inspections, on-site inspections, data exchanges, so what president putin formally announced yesterday, something we have seen coming for a while, russia is not cooperating with respect to the resumption of on-site inspections with the u.s.. those were suspended in 2020 because of the pandemic. he is not going to continue to exchange data on how many nuclear weapons each side currently possesses. that's going to make it harder to verify compliance. most importantly, he's cutting off contact with the u.s. on the most important security issue between the two countries in addition to the war in ukraine, and that means when new start expires on february 5, 2020 six,

putin and biden, within days of bidens -- biden posey arrival at the white house, they agreed to extend this by five years. they do not resume this di have limits on the two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time since 1972. that's not just a footnote in a bad u.s.-russia relationship, that would open the door to unconstrained nuclear arms racing involving the most deadly types of weapons, and a dangerous relationship that will become more difficult to manage. host: president putin made this announcement yesterday. and when asked about the announcement in poland by reporters, this was 50 seconds president biden earlier today with reporters. [video clip]

>> [inaudible] >> i don't have time. [inaudible] host: calling it a big mistake right there. what have you seen in terms of the official reaction by the u.s. government? what is it mean to suspend, as opposed to officially pulling out? guest: on the second question, what putin is doing here, he is trying not to fully pull out of the treaty. the russians will respect the central limits of the treaty, the caps, even if they are not cooperating. there is a violation of the treaty. it's unclear what putin's goal is -- you might be trying to go to the united dates into pulling out of the treaty. this is something we need to try to understand better, but the u.s. direction, i think, has

been appropriate and prudent so far. secretary blinken said yesterday morning when putin's speech was delivered that the united states will continue to be ready to negotiate with russia on issues of aging arms control, no matter what the relationship is with the united states and russia on other issues. i would also note that president biden last august said quite clearly that he is ready to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework to supersede new start when it expires in 2026. but he needs a negotiating partner acting in good faith. by acting in good faith, he wants the russians to sit down and talk about how to resume these inspections, which are an important part of the existing treaty. host: we have talked about iran and whether or not they have enough nuclear material to make a weapon, and how long that breakout eight is. we were talking about russia here -- if there are, could they make new warheads tomorrow?

when you are talking about no limits, how fast can they make nuclear weapons if that's what they decide they want to do? guest: it takes a relatively long time to make new nuclear warheads or missiles. it's extremely costly hardware. the united states and russia have massive numbers of long-range nuclear weapons. russia has a stockpile in storage of short range nuclear weapons, the kind of weapons we are concerned about putin possibly using in the endgame and the war in ukraine. the concern here is not that all of a sudden, russia will manufacture more nuclear warheads and build more missiles , but the united states and russia have something called an upload potential. not all of the warheads -- or all of the missiles that are currently deployed carry the maximum number of new your warheads they could area. there is analysis that my colleagues at the federation of american scientists recently did, and it indicates the united

states and russia could, within a couple of years if they wanted to, after new start expires, could double the number of deployed long-range nuclear weapons, from about 1500 and the united states to about 3500, or in the russian case, about 3000. that's what could happen in a worst-case scenario. that's the door that could be opened if the united states and russia don't somehow get back to the negotiating table. president biden is interested in doing that, but prudent in his speech yesterday, it was almost two hours, he established certain conditions, it seems, for resuming the dialogue with the united dates on arms control. one of those was a change in attitude by the united policy vis-a-vis ukraine. that's not going to happen anytime soon. putin was also complaining about

the fact the fact that france and the u.k. are not part of the new start agreement. they have not been for decades, they have smaller nuclear stockpiles -- russia knew that when they joined new start, so putin is coming up with excuses for not participating in the treaty. it's unclear what his endgame really is, but this will harm russian security as much as that harms u.s. and international sick ready if we don't have limit on the world's two largest arsenals. host: some calls and questions from viewers. pat in massachusetts, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. one of the things you mentioned, sir -- you used the lack of colloquy -- there is a lot of open debate -- i would like he something like the question time in england.

it bothers me from a republican point of view that i can watch a hearing and see democrats spout information that i believe to be totally false and not be questioned on that? thank you very much. i appreciate it. host: so you want to see more debate on these nuclear limits on the russian viewpoint on it? caller: all the issues in congress, you know? host: we try to give you as much on c-span as we can, the house and the senate, plenty of hearings to cover, but we will keep doing that for you as we hear from jack in hot springs, arkansas, a democrat. good morning. caller: yes sir, mr. campbell, i don't know much about the nuclear situation, but i understand that you rain at one time possessed him types of new your weapon. i don't know if that is true or

not. if that is true and they gave them up, that might've been the biggest mistake they ever made. i think if they still had them, i don't believe russia would be doing what they are doing over there. i would like your opinion on that. host: the budapest memorandum. caller: let me describe -- guest: let me describe this piece of history from the 1990's. when the soviet union broke up into independent countries, including belarus, because asked on, and ukraine, they inherited part of the soviet union's former nuclear arsenal. each of these three countries agreed to return those weapons to russia, to become nonnuclear weapon states -- that was important for each of them to build stronger relationships with the international community and with russia, because russia was not going to allow its three neighbors to continue to possess these nuclear weapons.

we should also remember, these three countries did not have the capacity to maintain these weapons. it takes industrial infrastructure to maintain nuclear arms, long-range ballistic missiles. so some people say yeah, if ukraine had nuclear weapons today, this war may not have happened. that's not really a possibility, because ukraine first of all probably would not be independent, because russia would not have allowed ukraine to continue to possess those nuclear weapons. and ukraine did have the capacity -- didn't have the capacity or the interest to maintain these weapons back to the 1990's. but it was an important move that helped reduce the cold war dangers and it's another reason why the international community has more responsibility to assist ukraine in defending against russia's aggression in this war. host: nor folk, new york. this is dave, an independent.

good morning. caller: good morning, i have a quick question. i think this is a very serious situation and this seems like another escalation we are seeing around the rain war. the problem i think is going back to the iraq war, with the media and the information we get -- there was a lot of lying, weapons of mass destruction, but we are all confident -- they try to throw it on that, how the media lied. no bring it to ukraine -- we are getting more information and there is also the seymour hurst article and the attack on the nord stream pipeline. what is that mean for germany? how does germany feel about that, and president biden is now in poland, right? what exactly is going on with poland? are we looking at a situation where germany, who needed that cheap natural gas, we boo love

host: -- blew up there pipeline. host: they were focusing on russia's participation in nuclear treaties. on the issue of misinformation that the caller is concerned about, how do we know that the information we've been getting from russia on their nuclear warheads, on their delivery capabilities, how do we know that what they are giving us is the truth? guest: that's a great question. that's why these agreements are so important. as ronald reagan famously said, trust must verify. what's unique about this agreement, each side according to the treaty can inspect the others nuclear weapons facilities 18 times. they are noted, arrangements are made, inspectors are there -- they are going to spot check to make sure the information that each side is exchanging twice a

year is accurate. in addition, the united states and russia have technical means of intelligence, by satellites and other means to try to find out whether the declarations by each side are accurate. we can also see from commercial satellite imagery these days exactly where russia's nuclear submarines are parked. we can see where their bombers are and where their missile fields are. that can give independent analysts a good idea of how many warheads could erratically on those systems. we have a very good idea -- host: are there russian inspectors that come to the bunkers? guest: that has been since 2011. what's unfortunate about what russia is doing over the past year since the war began, russia and the united states have, despite their difficulties through the decades, going back to the soviet era, they have

prioritized nuclear arms control and strategic stability. that's avoiding nuclear war. for decades. they both understand this is vital to their own security and their own survival. they have separated this from their other disputes. in 1972, when the johnson administration started this negotiation, but then the next in administration finished negotiations with the soviets on the first strategic arms limitation treaty -- what was happening? the soviets were supplying fighters to the north vietnamese, weapons to the viet cong, and both sides realized they needed to stabilize their nuclear relationship.

prudent is making this issue som -- somewhat of a hostage to his new -- ukrainian wargames. he is reducing russia's cooperation, and there's a lot of debate in the russian establishment about whether this is a good idea in the long term. it's not a good idea for russia, because russia can ill afford an expensive nuclear arms race, given how their military has been decimated in this war against ukraine. host: about 20 minutes left with darrell campbell -- daryl kimball of the arms control association. the supreme court, their session today beginning at 10:00 a.m. it's where we will take you after this program ends. you can watch on c-span, c-span.org, and the free c-span video app.

a key case on protections for internet companies being heard today, will be decided until likely the end of spring or summer, but you can watch it here on c-span. back to your phone calls, this is robin in new york. the line for democrats. robin, you are on with darrell campbell. -- with daryl kimball. caller: thank you for taking my call. now that russia has suspended the treaty, do we not allow russian inspectors in the united date more? what happens to the united states inspectors in russia? guest: as i said, this dispute over new start has been rumbling for quite a while. we have seen this coming in some ways from russia -- as i said, in 20 because of the pandemic, both sides agreed to suspend these inspections and have been

talking until recently about how to resume those inspections. the russians have complained, and i think this is a bit of misinformation, that they have not had access to united states because of visa restrictions, and they cannot fly commercial directly to the united states, etc. the united states has addressed those issues and is ready to begin these inspections, but the russians have refused to sit down and talk about the procedures for resuming inspections. so that's where we are. the inspectors right now are not visiting each site. they are not in each country. the united states requested in 2022 access to russia under the terms of the treaty, but the russians denied it. that's a problem going forward, it makes it harder to confirm whether russia is complying, but we can see through other means how close or far they are from

the caps that the treaty establishes. the more important issue here, what happens in the months ahead, especially after this treaty does expire? is there another agreement between these two countries to cap their arsenals that could be a formal agreement? but is there an agreement? if not, there will be no inspections or limits on either side, and that's a security problem i don't think the pentagon or the president, whether he or she is a democrat or republican, are going to want to have to face. host: you're talking about the caps from the state department when it comes to deployable strategic warheads, the united states at 1420 with 600 59 deployed strategic delivery systems. i want to come back to that. russia with 1549 deployed

warheads, the app is 1550, and 500 and 40 delivery vehicles. guest: those numbers came out in december, and the russian numbers have come down a little bit. they go up and down -- submarines are coming in and out of port and being serviced, but strategic delivery vehicles -- this describes the hardware that delivers the warhead. that includes the intercontinental ballistic missile at each side has, the submarine missiles as well as strategic bombers. strategic bombers in this treaty, each farmer is one delivery vehicle when in reality, if bombers can carry more than one warhead -- that's what it means and it limits the missiles and the bombers.

host: to dave in massachusetts -- you are on with daryl kimball . caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question. on this particular treaty, we are talking about the number of warheads and that kind of ring. does the treaty include the yield of these warheads? for example, russia successfully tested a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb and the largest one the u.s. tested was a 15 megaton, supposed to be a five, but they had a problem. when we talk about 1000 warheads that are maybe one megaton each versus the 1000 that are 50 or something larger, does the treaty cover that? guest: good question. this treaty did not regulate the yield of nuclear warheads that are carried.

you are referring to some of the past nuclear testing by the united states and russia -- those two explosions were conducted in the 1950's. the united states and russia stopped nuclear testing, the russians in 1990, the united states in 1992. there is another treaty that the russians ratified, the united states has not yet ratified that prohibits all nuclear test explosions, but the new start treaty, it does not regulate yields. but i will tell you, the vast majority of the nuclear warheads on his long-range ballistic missiles and bombers, they are higher yield warheads. they are designed primarily to hit military targets and they are -- they are the larger end of the range, 100 kilotons, 250

kilotons -- some are smaller, but they are generally larger. to put that in perspective, the bombs that the united states dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki in 1945 were the 15 to 20 kiloton range. these are weapons that are far more powerful than those that were dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki 78 years ago. to put all of this in total perspective, if there were a conflict between the united states and russian military forces, and if one side or the other resorted to the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield, like short range nuclear weapons, there is no guarantee that the conflict wouldn't escalate, involving more and more nuclear weapons. if each side were to use of version of their strategic arsenal, 500 to 800 of these higher yield nuclear weapons, we

are talking about 100 million more people in russia, europe, the united states, being killed within hours of these attacks. these are the kinds of weapons that create a kind of devastation that none of us can really imagine and we all want to avoid. host: the short range nuclear weapons, the tactical battlefield ones, what are the limits on those? guest: when we talk about strategic and tactical, that refers to the range of the delivery system, not so much the yield. shorter range nuclear weapons are generally a bit smaller and yield, but are still extremely large. still a nuke. there's been a lot of discussion in 2022 in relation to prudence nuclear threats, right? i can talk about that a little bit -- the main thrust of these

threats was designed to the -- to deter the united states from getting involved, from getting their boots on the ground in the war of ukraine. these were reckless threats at the time and luckily, to bidens credit, he did not reply with nuclear threats or raise the readiness of u.s. nuclear forces -- not necessary. but in the fall, as russian forces were being defeated in eastern ukraine, falling back, russia, putin issued another threat in the context of the situation. that language is that he might be considering the use of short range nuclear weapons to turn the tide on the battlefield in eastern europe rain. he did not do that, i think mainly because using nuclear weapons for the first time in 78 years would be catastrophic in the sense that it's not useful

on the battlefield so much. it would not stop the war. it would perhaps lead to the defeat of russia in the long term, because russia might lose its support from china, and there might be called for putin's resignation inside russia. so he didn't do it, but that does not mean there is a risk that he might about that again if, at the very endgame of this war, which none of us can see with the endgame is, he is desperate and issues more nuclear threats in a desperate attempt to try to avoid a catastrophic, humiliating defeat on the battlefield. we are not out of the woods yet and there is risk as this goes on, that u.s. and nato forces could come involved, even though no one wants that to happen. host: in your estimation, are we at the most dangerous moment right now? guest: we are in a dangerous

moment. the way i would describe it, so long as this conflict continues, we are going to be in a heightened state of nuclear risk. how high is the risk? it's hard to put a number on it. but we have to be vigilant. we have to guard against additional nuclear threats on vladimir putin in the context of the war. we need to organize the international community to push back against that. one good thing that happened in 2022, even russia's closest allies, china, india, they publicly urged putin not to issue these threats. the group of 20 countries at their summit in indonesia, they issued a strong statement that said nuclear weapon use and threats of use are inadmissible -- a very strong statement.

after these date mints, many people believe that's one reason why putin has dialed back his rhetoric. we remain concerned about the possibility of escalation on the battlefield and the possibility that nato and russian forces could come in direct contact. president biden has been pursuing a policy of support in ukraine that reduces that risk. he has been making it clear to the ukrainians that he does not want them to use u.s. weapons to strike targets in russia, which russia could recognize or see as a provocation and lead them to start attacking nato supply lines or targets in poland. we are still in a situation where these are possibilities that we cannot discount. at the same time, we need to engage in direct talks with the russians, the united states and russia, to reduce these risks, to make sure there are lines of communication and to restore the

guardrails that have constrained the u.s. and russian in long-range nuclear weapons for about 50 years. host: a little more than five minutes left with daryl kimball of the arms control association. our next caller, good morning. caller: [inaudible] host: jerry, are you with us? stick by that phone. we will go to our next caller in wisconsin, democrat. good morning. caller: thank you for your time. i was wondering your thoughts on the difference between the 1990's and today? i don't know if you have seen the whiskey report -- that's extensive coverage of this issue, and i want to hear your thoughts on it. guest: what is that issue? caller: the amount of weapons, i should say, before the end of the cold war and now, in this era but also the era of the

1990's -- the level of disarmament and so forth. guest: we have to recognize that as troubled as the relationship is today, we have seen the progress over the decades. many people will call the crisis of 1962, where the united states and soviet union almost came to total nuclear war over soviet missiles that were placed in cuba. that led the two sides to recognize that they needed to talk more often, regulate their out-of-control arms race in the 1960's, and gradually, since 1972, these bilateral remit -- they have not been perfect, but they have reduce the competition and regulated the competition, created a little more predictability in the relationship and each successive administration, republicans and

democrats have pursued in many cases and negotiated these agreements. we are now at a point where the nuclear numbers are far lower. united states and russia are in the range of 4000 5000 total nuclear weapons. that is a large number, but less than during the height of the cold war. we need to keep reducing those numbers. as i said, the number of nuclear weapons far exceeds what is necessary to deter the other side from launching a nuclear attack and far exceeds any reasonable sense of what it takes to inflict destruction on the others. host: what do you think is necessary to determine attack? a handful of nuclear weapons? if we talked to you, where would you set the number? guest: that's a great question,

but there is another question we need to ask -- what is the purpose of these weapons? what are nuclear weapons for? that has been debated for a long time. president biden has spoken about this. official u.s. policy, the primary purpose is to deter a nuclear attack against the united states or our allies. i think it should be, the sole purpose. if that is the sole purpose, how many nuclear weapons are necessary to deter russia from launching an attack on the continental u.s., or china launching an attack on the continental u.s.? not as many as we have today. i think we can and should go far lower. i think the next prudent step would be for the united states and russia to reduce their strategic arsenals to below 1000 and begin reducing the other types of nuclear weapons that each side has. the shorter range and intermediate range weapons. we also need to bring china into

this conversation. china has 300 50 nuclear weapons, about a hundred 50 are long-range systems, but they appear to be expanding those numbers. they could, according to the pentagon, increase that number to over 1000 total nuclear weapons by the end of the decade. we need to bring china into the nuclear production and arms-control process, but right now, china, like russia, is refusing u.s. overtures to engage in talks about these issues. so that's a longer answer to a very short question, which is a good one, but it's one we should all be thinking about as we, our leaders debate these issues. host: in the minute we have left, is congress debating this issue? what do you believe we will see from them when they come back into town? guest: well, we need more sober debate on capitol hill about these issues. i agree. this issue transcends politics,

politicians -- we need to be thinking about what is best for the american people and our national security. i think we will be hearing from republicans and democrats about this issue. there are some congressman, some republican congressman, and i have said this is wrong, that we need to increase our arsenal based on what russia is doing. but getting into an arms race and increasing our nuclear weapons does not help our security. it makes us less secure, because each side is trying to outrace the other and we have more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy one another. we need to be thinking about ok, how do we get the united states and russia back to the negotiating table? how do we maintain an efficient but not an excessive number of nuclear weapons to deter the threats we see out there? host: for much more on this

topic, armscontrol.org is where you can go. daryl kimball, always appreciate you stopping by. that will do it for our program this morning. we are back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific. coming up in just a minute or two here on c-span, we will take you to the supreme court. today, it is twitterverse's hamdi, a hearing -- twitter vs. hamney, a hearing on internet protections. we will see you tomorrow morning here on the washington journal. ♪ ♪

>> coming, u.s. supreme court hears a case considering whether internet hot forms are liable for aiding and abetting global terrorism based on the content they allow on their site. the case today at a similar case yesterday are the court's first-ever review of a federal law that largely protects websites from lawsuits over user generated content. we will have coverage of the argument when it gets underway here on c-span.

>> one year into this war, putin no longer doubts our coalition. but he doubts our support for ukraine, he doubts whether nato can remain unified. there should be no doubt. our support for ukraine will not waver. nato will not be divided and we will not tire.

[applause] pres. biden: president putin's craven lust will fail and ukrainian people's love for their country will prevail. democracy will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever. that is what is at stake here. freedom. that is the message i carried to kyiv yesterday. directly to the people of ukraine. host: that was president biden yesterday from poland, will show you more of his address and some of the russian president's state of the state address yesterday. in the ongoing russia and ukraine -- this is showing a comparison of where americans stand today on various aspects of support when it comes to

imposing economic sanctions on russia. the vast majority continue to support and favor that. 63% as of january 2023 compared to 71% back in may of last year. when it comes to accepting ukrainian refugees, 55% of americans last month say they favor doing that. when it comes to providing weapons ukraine, 48 percent of americans support or favor doing that. that compares to 60% in may of 2022 and when it comes to sending u.s. funding to ukraine, 37% of americans favor doing that today and 38% say they oppose doing that. it was just 32% opposed. that is some polling when it comes to those numbers, while over $50 billion at this point in aid in various forms since

--sent to ukraine including humanitarian aid, financial aid, security assistance. we'll get into all of that as we hear from you in this first hour of the washington journal. which of the u.s. role be when it comes to the ongoing russia ukraine conflict? first out of hempstead maryland, a republican, good morning. >> good morning. >> i don't think we have any role to play over there and i will tell you why. ukraine despite what we've been told and what the media is telling us, ukraine is not a democracy. it is about the most corrupt country in the world. most americans can even find it on a map and if you remember a few years back, democrats did not want to spend $2 billion on a border wall for the united states, yet we have sent them over $100 billion to defend somebody else's border. that kind of shows you where the priorities are of the biden

administration. zelenskyy is basically demanding -- for the last year we have been supplying them with money, arms. unfortunately, we have dug ourselves into this whole now where if we pull out and ukraine falls, we will get the blame for it. we are kind of stuck here because we started this support. host: that is market hempstead, maryland. the number is a little over $50 billion at this point, including well over $25 billion in military and security assistance , some $10 billion in humanitarian assistance, $15 billion in other financial assistance and the president is proposing another 500 million when he made a visit to kyiv earlier this week. richard in a schenectady, new york. independent.

good morning. caller: good morning. i don't think most americans realize who started this war. the united states cia started this war in 2014. during the week of the moscow olympics, when russia would be concerned with other things including their security at the olympics, we took ukraine during that week. it was a coup d'etat in kyiv that forced the legally and democratically elected president to flee for his life. it was under the guise of a protest it was not protest, it was an armed army. host: what do you think the role should be today? caller: listen to make about how did russia sponsor? we took -- they took 1% of it back. chuck 100% of ukraine and we took -- and we say russia started the war with her took back crimea. that is where the russian navy

was. they are not about to give up their russian navy because of our coup in 2014. we started the war, it is been raising for nine years. and we blew up the nord stream pipeline. it has been exposed by seymour hersh. it is an act of war. it did not belong to us. it belongs to russia and germany, 50-50. we started this war. host: that is richard in new york. jacksonville, florida, the line for democrats, good morning. caller: good morning i have to agree with my fellow americans, our role in this war, we should not be involved at all. i would like to focus on the reasons we are going over there. we hear the president talk about freedom to these countries and for whatever reason. we have heard this argument all the way back since vietnam. they tried to scare the american public, the same with the domino

theory. one country falls took, it is him, another country will fall. then the iraq war, george bush was saying we are trying to -- if we don't fight them over there, we need to fight over here -- they will be fighting over here. and fast forward to ukraine, we are stopping them from dusk what biden just said. this is about freedom. we are preventing them from -- preventing people's freedoms from around the world. this is total nonsense. we had no role in this war at all and we need to quit spending american taxpayer money when we don't have a say-so in it. quit spending our tax. dust taxpayer money for this. have no reason to be there. thank you. host: john in florida, this is wg in virginia. independent.

caller: thank you. he's got 10%. he started world war iii over there, he is going to keep on until we've got world war iii, he is a dictator and a nazi. biden is nothing but a global. host: wg in virginia. from the state of the nation address from vladimir putin, limning the west for starting the war. put in addressing the nation yesterday. >> i am addressing you in a very difficult time. pneumatic changes in the world. great historical changes that will determine the future of our country and our people. when every single one of us has a huge responsibility. a year ago, to defend our

historical land, provide security and safety of our country and to get rid of the danger from the neo-nazi regime that held the coup d'état in 2014. we took the decision, the special military operation step-by-step, consistently. we're going to solve the problems we are facing. enjoy 14, the donbass defended its right to live in its own country and speak the same language. they did not surrender in the conditions of the blockade and continued shutting down the kyiv regime. they hoped and believed that russia will come and help them. host: vladimir putin yesterday, about a 100 minute speech at the

end of that speech announcing move of a long-standing nuclear treaty. as the new york times puts it, suspending the per dissipation in the new start treaty, the last surviving arms control agreement between the two largest nuclear armed powers. they write the decades -- the era of formal arms control may be dying. we'll talk more about the history and what that means with the executive director of the arms control association coming up at about 9:20 a.m. time eastern time. back to your phone calls this morning, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the russian invasion of ukraine, what should the u.s. role be? tony in texas. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. don't take my words, just take the facts.

trump -- who when he was president. putin is the real heather, a nazi. he invaded many countries in the past, on history. in europe. just like adolf hitler did in world war ii. host: this is terry in canton, north carolina. republican, go ahead. caller: hello, c-span. to every democrat that voted for joe biden, the number he is the one who called for regime change in russia. how well did it work in afghanistan? libya, syria? joe biden started this war. if joe biden was to look in the mirror today, the reflection would be dick cheney. host: that is terry in north

carolina. this is david nations in the pages of today's washington post, his column, what a year of war has revealed about three different leaders. those are full or mere zelenskyy, joe biden and vladimir putin. we will reveal the essential traits of human character, he writes, who could imagine the ukrainian comic actor named volodymyr zelenskyy would be the first truly heroic leader of the 21st century? who would vent -- a bet that putin, a kgb officer would grossly mistreat intelligence in history in his country and a fairytale about that one russia and ukraine? and who would bet that an 80-year-old u.s. president will be the most undervalued american leader in modern times? his visit to keefe was a defining moment in his presidency, -- if

you want to read more from david ignatius, today's washington post. seattle, washington. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i remember during the talk about the insurrection when one of the callers -- you showed the video of the riders of the insurrectionists attacking the police. so when people called about the war, and ukraine, you should show video of the russian atrocities. people laying dead in the streets and so forth. thank you. host: david, new york city, republican. your next. caller: good morning. first of all, russia is the aggressor here. there attacking a sovereign

nation. and as a traditional conservative i feel that we should support sovereign nations. the ukraine has no designs on russia. but russia is trying to design them there -- deny them their sovereignty. and ukrainians are defending themselves and we should stand with them. host: did you say traditional conservative, is that how you describe yourself? caller: that is how i describe myself. host: what do you mean? caller: more the line of a reagan or not quite william butler, but along those lines. host: who do the traditional conservatives support as we look ahead to the presidential election? caller: right now, not trump. i'm not sure whether there is somebody who is running yet that i will support. i am more interested in somebody who tells the truth.