♪ host: good morning. today is wednesday, may 24. the nation could be eight days away from defaulting on its debts, which carries the threat of an international financial crisis. talks between the white house and u.s. house republicans continues, but no deal appears to be insight. we want you to weigh in. how do you think this looming crisis should be solved? democrats, call us at (202) 748-8000. if you are a republican, your line is (202) 748-8001. independents, call us at (202) 748-8002.

you can send us a text message at (202) 748-8003. please include your name and where you live. you can find us on facebook.com/c-span, on twitter @c-spanwj, and on instagram . go ahead and start calling and now. i want to start by going through some of the today -- through some of today's newspapers talking about the debt ceiling debate going on in washington. here's an article in the wall street journal. the headline, that talks press on as the clock ticks down. the subheading says still no breakthrough as biden haggled with mccarthy. let's note to the front page of the washington post. here the headline says, federal

agencies urged to pay later. i will read a little bit from this article. "the treasury department has asked federal agencies whether they can make upcoming payments at a later date. two people familiar with the matter say a senior biden officials searched for fresh ways to save cash. " that is in the washington post. here is a look at today's new york times front-page. this article headline, gop speaker is negotiating on a tight rope. i will read a little bit from this article as well. "speaker kevin mccarthy is attempting a difficult balancing act as he tries to extract spending concessions from president biden in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. cobbling together a deal that can win the vote of a majority

of republicans without alienating the critical mass of democrats he needs to push it through the house." hardware republicans have fueled the tenant by demanding deep spending cuts as the price of averting a default. they are all but certain to oppose any compromise. that means mr. mccarthy, a california republican, would need to support of a solid block of democrats in the closely divided chamber." that is this morning's new york times. we are talking about the debt ceiling crisis. go ahead and start calling in. before i get to your calls, here is video from yesterday. this is house majority leader steve scalise slamming the white house's role in debt limit talks thus far. [video] >> president biden has not taken this seriously. he took almost 100 days off

refusing to negotiate with the speaker. we went to work. if the president will try to run out the clock and create a debt crisis in america, republicans will take action. we worked to put together a coalition to pass a bill that actually addresses the debt ceiling. it also addresses washington's spending problem. what is the answer we are seeing in the last few days from joe biden? continuing to run out the clock, not bringing serious ideas to the table, but actually bringing in new ideas that a nonstarter's. -- nonstarters. the president is talking about tax hikes. we made it clear we will not raise taxes. joe biden did that in his first two years and look at how that has worked out. host: that was house majority leader steve scalise. we want to hear from you. how do you think this debt ceiling crisis should be solved? the first caller is frank in

florida on the democratic line. good morning, frank. caller: good morning to you. there republicans should not be holding the country hostage. they need to go ahead and raise the debt ceiling and then they can negotiate the budget. notice what they are doing is they are showing they are in the pocket of the rich. they will not do anything to bring more revenue. everybody just wake up and look at what the republicans are doing. thank you. host: our next caller is william in orange park, florida on the republican line. go ahead. caller: i wish that guy would come to florida. we need more fertilizer. how the democrats ok spending but let more people

into the country that are not making money? they are not paying taxes. how much bs do we have to stand for? host: ok william. juan is calling from castroville, california. independent. go ahead. caller: how is it going? i'm excited to represent the 29 to 35-year-old group of people who are independent. a group of people who seem to think the world is going to crap. we stand back and see what is what from our elders, from our younger constituencies. people who seem to think the world is not going to crap. it's just the people in power taking it that way. it is like we need a younger

generation into office. we need to get younger people with more intelligence, more -- just in general more. we need to bring more people in. as far as the border concerns, i think being a hispanic from castroville, california, one of the most popular agricultural areas in california, the salad bowl. the artichoke capital the world. you are talking about one of the most popular areas for people to visit. santa cruz, california. monterey, california. pebble beach, california. those are some of the most highly visited areas in my area. host: you are a young person. what is your perspective as you watch the debate on the debt ceiling in washington? what would you like to see your elected officials doing? speaker mccarthy is from

california. caller: i would love to see us figure it out. just up arguing about it. throw some money on it. people can throw money at everything. it is just the possibility that we are talking about a debt ceiling where there is no debt ceiling. there should not be this invisible ceiling where we talk about we owe money to these people. let's just make it simple and be like, hey, we can just call it square for now and we will pay it back. an iou. we already owe the world money. tons of money. i'm very aware. host: we will have to leave it there but we appreciate your call this morning. richard and watertown, new york on the independent line. go ahead. caller: yeah.

i think the democrats and republicans should sit down and put their differences aside and try to get our country back together. act like politicians. act like you care about the country. you have one side they want to cut back, cut back. ok. you have to make cuts somewhere. the other thing is the taxes. police officers, school teachers pay more taxes than these billionaire corporations, which i don't think is right. that is all i got to say but thank you. host: let's go to delroy, ohio. jean on the democratic line. good morning. caller: hello. i want to say that other than c-span, when they start talking about the default and the negotiations about the budget i

instantly change the channel. this is nothing but kabuki theater. i have been through it i don't know how many times. they are not going to let wall street crash. that is what would happen. wall street has a lot of losses going on right now. if you will notice, they have plenty of cash to save two banks in the last 60 days. to do it over a weekend in the middle of the night, you know? it will happen this time again. they will raise it again and they are not going to let the rich people go down just yet. it is all right. they are rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. host: let's hear from arlene in new orleans, louisiana, independent line. caller: good morning.

host: yes, good morning. caller: i think they should not hold the law hostage to get what they want, and that is what they are doing. it is wrong. we did not vote them in there to have personal things and hold up our rights and the law hostage. it is wrong. it is not right. you'll have a blessed day. host: our next caller is on the democratic line from miami, florida. henrique, you are on. caller: yeah. i am a disabled american. i had a traffic accident. i suffered severe head trauma. that resulted in a 72 hour c

oma. i retain mental illness. the republicans want to cut medicaid. they want to cut, it cuts in social security. the social security retirement fund that social security administers, that money belongs to the people because they worked for it. they pay taxes. if they cut -- if they don't come to an agreement and the government shuts down and social security goes out of business and medicaid is affected, you will be violating the civil rights of many people.

i would probably say 8 million, 9 million. only a federal grand jury can decide who has the right-of-way. it would be really sad to see somebody actually -- the u.s. department of justice will provide an attorney for the speaker. it would be sad to see a legal situation evolve. host: we appreciate your call. we got your point. we will move onto duncan in cocoa, florida, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 38 years old. i feel very bad about that.

the reason the national debt is so high now is because of the federal reserve system. the fed is a private corporation. when john f. kennedy was president he repealed the federal reserve back to replace it with the u.s. treasury. when lyndon johnson became president he put the federal reserve system back in effect. most of the national debt is money owed to creditors because of the federal reserve system. if you can get rid of the federal reserve all over again and replace it with the government such as the treasury, the national debt would evaporate. host: ok can. -- duncan. appreciate those thoughts. daphne, alabama. mark is on the independent line. go ahead, mark. caller: good morning, c-span.

i have been listening to the callers on hold here. the main thing i see with regard to this is that the politicians in power up in washington have no desire to do the right thing or fix what we perceive is wrong. they have a desire to stay in power and enrich themselves and their friend, whatever they call themselves. republicans or democrats, it does not matter. they are staring at the ball over there while they are doing these other things to stay in power and enrich themselves. that is what is wrong. does not matter who is in power, it is the same game. they are playing chicken. we are watching them play chicken. host: we appreciate that call.

we are talking this morning about that debt limit debate going on in washington. i want to bring up this npr article that has some fresh polling on the issue. the headline says, slim majority once debt ceiling raised without spending cuts. i'm going to scroll down a little bit to where it talks about the results. it says buy a 52% to 42% margin respondent said congress should increase the debt ceiling first to avoid a default and discuss spending cuts separately rather than only increasing it if significant cuts are made at the same time. even if that means the u.s. defaults on its debts. respondents were split on if they would blink congressional republicans or president biden

if the country does default. 45% said republicans and 42% said biden, but independents said they would blame biden by a 47% to 38% margin. you can see here in this chart the question is if the debt limit is not raised at the government goes into default who would you mainly blame for that? overall it is pretty split between biden and congressional republicans. there is the partisan divide with democrats mostly blaming republicans in congress. republicans mostly blaming joe biden. this green is the independents. 47% would put most of the blame on president biden. 30% would put most of the blame -- 38% would put most of

the blame on congress. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. on the republican line is walter and silver springs, maryland. you are on, walter. caller: thank you for c-span. we go through this debt limit every year and they always figure out a way to come up and raise the limit. what i say is let it default. what is really going to happen? nothing. let it default. thank you for c-span. that is my comment. host: next up we have joel in spring, texas, republican line. what are your thoughts? caller: good morning at thank you for c-span. i have been watching since 1979.

i think you do an excellent job. what i would say is that we are over $32 trillion in debt. we cannot default on this. we are the reserve currency of the world. if we lose that, we are out of business. we have to do something to curtail spending. what i say is, we will have to hold biden's feet to the fire. say we are going to change the budget right now. that's where i'm coming from. host: appreciate your kind words. let's go to den in st. paul, minnesota on the independent line. go ahead. caller: hi.

i just like to say this is the same old republican strategy of tar and feathering with leaders of the opposite party. i think this time they probably have gone too far to a default. this could be the end of the republican party. all i have to say is good riddance. thank you very much. host: on the line from oak ridge, tennessee. steve, democratically. -- democratic line. caller: the gop always talks about the fact that the average american has to live on a balanced budget. the fact is the average family is $6,000 in credit card debt right now. another thing is, if i had a

business and i needed more money coming in, i raise my prices. the thing is that with this debt ceiling the gop are using information that is not correct. here is something else. this has always blown me away. when you become a member of congress, he swear an oath to the cost -- you swear an oath to the constitution. it says the constitution has the right to raise taxes. every gop member signs a pledge they will not raise taxes. right there they are throwing out the constitution and their duty to do that. pretty much there was a $6.7 trillion deficit under president trump. now the gop is refusing to help pay off that deficit he created.

i think president biden needs to stick to his guns. tell them i want a clean debt ceiling. we can work on other things. they want to do -- the republicans want to undo everything he has done. as another caller said, it's all about making the president footbed if you're in the gop. i hope that makes sense. i have not had my coffee this morning. thanks again for taking my call. host: let's go to baltimore now. curtis is on the line from baltimore, independent line. you are on. caller: good morning everyone. correct me if i'm wrong. the united states of america is

really a corporation. it is all about business. a lot of people don't realize that. we are all slaves in this country. just look at our government. they make rules and regulations that don't even consider what the people in this country think. if there is a problem with this deficit, which occurs every year or every couple of years when there is an election or something going on in the government, it's always about a debt ceiling deficit. it has been going on forever. why can't they just come up with a piece of the pie in the budget where this thing does not have to return every year? it is all foolishness.

it is not about the people. it's about the country making money. it's about them up there and washington, d.c. making money. as soon as the people in america wake up the better off we will be. thank you very much. host: i want to bring up some video. this is white house press secretary karine john deere yesterday -- karine john pierre yesterday. she was talking about the president and house republicans. [video] >> the republicans said the white house has shown a lack of urgency about negotiations. they can take four -- it can take four days. >> as i stated, the conversation -- as the speaker has stated and

we have stated is productive. clearly we are moving forward. i think moments ago the team from the white house on the hill for the budget negotiations, they just ended. they met for hours. they will be returning and clearly give the president an update. this is urgent. this is not political. it's about doing the work and the business of the american people. it is something we have said over and over for the past five months. this is for congress to act. this is their constitutional duty. we have been very clear. we have shown urgency from here. look, we think republicans say that the white house is not showing any urgency. it's a ridiculous statement for them to be making. host: that was white house press secretary karine john pierre on

the status of those budget talks, the ceiling talks. let's go back to the phone lines. lisa in palmyra, new york, republican line. caller: hello. how are you today? host: good. caller: i have a couple questions. host: go ahead with your thoughts. caller: they still have not reached a decision, is that correct? host: they have not. caller: i'm very worried. host: what worries you most? caller: might income is social security. -- the source of my income is social security. i don't know if they will put a hold on that or not. nobody knows. host: it is one of those things we are definitely waiting to hear more from the ramifications if there is a default. anne in peachtree city, georgia,

independent line. caller: hello. i know the american people are very smart. i don't think they are asleep but this is a game. you would not stop what is going on in the government just went a democratic president is in office. if you are not concerned when a republican president is in office and you don't care how much they spend at that time, why would you be so worried now that you are willing to destroy the country? that is something the american voter has to think about. it is the people that have the power. we can vote these people out. we can vote them in. it is up to us the people. thank you so much. host: let's go to the democratic

line. emile from louisiana. caller: yes. i'm on the social security check and i'm waiting for that check and i probably might not get it. if i had my way 60 million people will not get there checks to pay the bills. they should demand these people come up to their standards of living. i don't care if i was in a wheelchair or on crutches, i would march on washington and demand they change their policy and demand we get our money. it is not right what they are doing. they are playing this game with our money and with our lives. this is wrong. they are getting a check every month. people retire with only $3000,

4000 dollars, $5,000. everybody is paying their salary and they are getting rich and we are not. why not cut their salaries? they should take a cut. but they are not taking a cut and they don't care about the little guys. that is the point. we are playing this game and we are the ones getting hurt. host: let's go to virginia now. john on the republican line. what are your thoughts, john? caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of things i would like to point out. i have been listening for a few days now. some people call in and want to blame donald trump's tax cuts for the debt. on the tax plan the united states treasury has received record high revenue. that is a good thing.

the other thing is, if we don't start cutting we are getting deeper and deeper into debt. default will come. it is coming down the road if we don't do something. have a good day. host: we are going to take a quick break. after the break we will talk to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about this looming default on debt and their priorities in any deal. first is republican congressman greg murphy of north carolina, a member of the ways and means committee. later another member of the committee, democrat john larson of connecticut. that's after the break. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on

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the where with metropolitan museum of art president and ceo daniel vice. -- weiss. michael o'donnell went missing during the work after the helicopter he was piloting was shot down over cambodia. >> o'donnell made the decision to medially he would rescue these men. he went down and these landing zone areas. he hovered on the ground for four minutes waiting for the reconnaissance team to arrive, which is in about condition and attorney. it's a very long time to be sitting vulnerable to the enemy. he waited. the reconnaissance team arrived, injured but safe. they boarded the helicopter. o'donnell began to pull the helicopter up about the tree line and radiod i have everyone and i'm coming out. >> daniel weiss with his book on sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a.

you can listen to q&a at our podcast on our free c-span now app. >> washington journal continues. host: good morning. we are back with representative greg murphy. he's a republican from north carolina, a member of the house ways and means committee and we will be discussing this stalemate over raising the debt ceiling and other republican priorities. guest: it good morning to you. host: thank you for joining us. let's start by talking about the debt ceiling talks. can you give us the latest? where do things stand? guest: sadly enough, it does not sound like there is much progress made. each side is saying this is what we want to do. the white house is saying we want a clean debt ceiling and

want to raise taxes. the republican site says we are willing to raise the debt ceiling but there has to be spending cuts. so far i'm not overly optimistic there will be an agreement today. host: have you started to panic? we have heard a lot about deadlines and what needs to be done in order for legislation to be passed before this x date, which may be june 1 at the earliest. you said there might not be a deal today. are we getting to the time where a default is eminent or a strong possibility? guest: absolutely i'm worried. this should have been started 100 days ago and that is what speaker mccarthy asked the white house to do. president biden said they would be no negotiations. i lay that flat on the feet of president biden.

this should have been 100 days ago, people talking the entire time. this is the finances of the american people. it is not something that is to be taken lightly. sadly enough, i'm going to pin that on the president. now we are at the 12th hour and there is no agreement. there's a high likelihood the default might occur. host: we are talking with representative greg murphy. we want our listeners and viewers to go ahead and start calling and now with either your questions for representative murphy or any comments you have on this debt ceiling crisis or other republican priorities. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003.

go ahead and start calling in. we will get to your calls in a moment. representative murphy, i want to ask you, are you willing or open to a deal that may not be all that republicans had approved in its debt ceiling legislation but something that speaker mccarthy brings back to the conference as a compromise? would you be willing to compromise? guest: i think so. that is what negotiations are about. nobody gets everything they want. that is the spirit of negotiations. we said limit, save and grow. it is not that much. let us cut some of the insane spending that has been inflationary to this country. let's pull back some of these absolutely absurd regulations this administration has put in place and allow the economy to grow. that is not really radical.

it is not extremist. it is common sense. this is what negotiations are. two sides of an issue sit at a table and discuss what they like and what they don't like. i have done this many, many times before. i don't think what we sent to the white house is the final product. i would be flabbergasted if it is. i don't think the white house saying no negotiations and no -- a total clean debt ceiling is what is going to happen. this is where you put smart people in a room, people who care about the country and understand the finances today that affect our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. we have to be good stewards of the money for the future of this country. no, or yes rather, i'm willing to accept a compromise. until the white house takes this seriously, not treating it like a used car salesman, i don't see

us making much movement. host: we are talking to representative greg murphy of north carolina. let's get to some of your calls now. first up is alex and washington, d.c., democratic line. caller: good morning to both of you. i'm interested to hear from the congressman. what parts of the budget or spending are you in particular willing to cut? it seems like all the areas people talk about, the things i have heard people call about saying we should cut the national endowment of the arts or things doing with diversity training, i'm sure that sounds nice to your republican supporters, conservative supporters, but those are drops in the bucket compared to what we spend on defense and what we spend on other things. i'm interested to hear what you think what spending cuts would make a difference in terms of cutting back the national debt.

i was calling earlier to point out i don't think people understand the difference between the deficit and the debt. under pretty much every republican president since reagan the deficit has gone up into the billions and trillions. every democratic president since that has either cut it to zero or credit at least in half. it seems like democrats are more responsible with the deficit, but overall the debt, the accumulation of the deficit under republican presidents is why we are in the situation we are in. host: representative murphy, let's go to the first question. what specifically would you like to cut to make the savings into federal spending? guest: alex, thank you for calling. you bring up some interesting points. what things need to be cut? let's look at the things that were disastrous spending initiatives by this administration. the whole student bail out.

the student loan giveaway. no person, and this is a horrible lesson for our children or anybody, that when you sign on the dotted line you did not agree or feel like you on anything afterwards. -- you owe anything afterwards. the problem is not the fact the federal government gives it away, which is in and of itself a beginning of all this. the fact that colleges and universities have had no constraint whatsoever in their spending over the last quarter-century. no, i believe you sign on the dotted line -- i worked in college despite being full scholarship. that is one of the initiatives. they say we will cut back veterans money. that is an absolute lie. absolute lie. we gave up millions and billions of dollars in covid money. if it is not being used for covid and they have not used it yet, you give it back.

my dad gave me $20 growing up for pizza and a movie and i did not spend that, that was not my money. that was my father's money. so many other things that have gone into the green giveaways. the fact we are giving tax breaks to china, american money to china to feed a small anchor mental thing as far as any type of co2 emissions is absurd. we are giving money to our greatest adversary. these drops in the bucket, i worked in plenty of places and nasty parts of the world where you just help one person it is a drop in the bucket. it makes a difference. it is not necessarily the action. it is the thought of where it goes. we cannot continue reckless spending. host: lee is calling from grand, georgia. good morning. caller: first off, a couple of

years ago they said we would reach $25 trillion and we would be in trouble. now i find the interest on the debt is almost half a trillion dollars. 20% of treasury bonds are owned by foreign countries. over $1 trillion by china alone. if these countries start retrieving their money, we are in trouble. also, the congressman said a few days ago the government increased its size by 40%. no agency ever says they have enough money. we need an across the board 10% reduction in each agency's spending. guest: thank you for the question. i will tell you there has been no government program put in place -- it is so hard to cut

them. it's been the mentality of the democratic side, they have never seen a new program that did not like. there is a part of fiscal responsibility. our deficit is now 126% of the gdp. anytime it's been close to that, anytime close to that was right after world war ii. i'm not blaming democrats for that. i'm blaming some republicans. i have no problem putting blame where it should be. there is a point in time for the adults have to come into the room and understand it is not free giveaway. you cannot just create money in leslie and not have rep -- create money endlessly and not have repercussions. host: allen in wisconsin, independent line. caller: good morning. i wanted to circle back to the student loan issue he just discussed.

the state budget of north carolina is $46 billion. guest: $26 billion. caller: ok. the two-your budget is about double that -- two-year budget is about double that. student loan debts in north carolina is $58 billion. i heard you say earlier you want to solve the budget by not canceling student loans. guest: that's incorrect. caller: solving the debt by not canceling student loans. the president can cancel these loans without needing one dime from the treasury or adding one penny to the national debt. that's true. talking about absolute lies, you just told an absolute lie. host: let the congressman respond. guest: your information is inaccurate. north carolina doesn't have anything a question about the

student loans. you make a promissory note. you sign on a dotted line that you will pay back money. the fact of the president of the net states wants to destroy the fact you put your name on a line to do something is absolutely absurd. these moneys -- guess where you apply? you apply to the federal government to pay universities and colleges. i will say very clearly i used to be on the board of a college where our spending went out of control. you put your name on the line but these colleges and universities have had no restriction in what they have been doing with spending. i appreciate your sentiment but is inaccurate. -- but it is inaccurate. host: marcus in silver spring, maryland, democratic line. go ahead. caller: i have two questions for the congressman please. number one, why wasn't this exact same thing done under

president trump? the debt ceiling was raised twice without conditions. the second question and then i will hang up, isn't it a fact that if you set a precedent that democrats in the future will be able to hold republican presidents hostage and ask for a demand for things they want that were not passed through congress. isn't that a fact? host: go ahead. guest: you have a very good point. i have been very clear about this. i don't think this is necessarily a rep. pocan: or democratic president problem. it's an american problem. i don't agree with clean -- raising of a clean debt ceiling, unless we are having some fiscal responsibility. president trump said for every one new regulation he will cut two regulations.

they did the tax cuts and jobs act which actually cut taxes but grew the economy. employed more individuals and had been employed in 50 years across all demographics. i don't disagree with your sentiment. i think we ought to have every president accountable for the financial future of this country. host: congressman birth he -- congressman murphy, i wanted to ask a couple of questions myself. number one, treasury secretary yellen has talked about june 1 being this debt ceiling deadline. do you agree? we are hearing republicans think that is not really when the debt limit be reached. do you agree june 1 is the x date? guest: i will trust the secretary. she knows the financial -- he is the secretary of the treasury. she knows about the finances of the country. i am not going to speculate on

any other dates or whatever. this is what our deadline has been. we have been talking with this for six months. we asked the president to negotiate over these things for 100 plus days. i will take her at face value as to what that is. even if it is a little further, it is time to get down to business and get this issue settled. host: what are you hearing from your constituents, the people who are calling your office or at your home and your district? what are you telling them in response question mark guest: i'm hearing -- response? guest: i'm hearing with the cnn poll said. 60% what the debt ceiling raised. they want cuts to go along with it. 24% said raise the debt ceiling cleanly. 15% said no, let the country default because we have too much debt. i think is a good representation of what i'm hearing.

ec so many government programs. our mantra during this particular session has been accountability. we had the v.a. come before us yesterday. they had so many billions in covid funds. yes, they did spend a lot of those appropriately. a lot was not spent appropriately. this is where you have to put the adults back in the room and understand even though somebody may want money, when you were a child you wanted money from your parents but they knew better. it's time for the adults to understand we have a fiscal responsibility. we don't want to turn out that greece did a decade ago and go to massive default. host: let's head back to the phone lines. robert from connecticut on the independent line. go ahead, robert. caller: good morning, sir. i am a disabled vietnam veteran marine.

my first question is, when i go to the bank on june 1 is my disability check going to be in my account? secondly, sir, why aren't you doing an audit of the v.a. and what happened to the covid numbers? guest: i'm sorry, could you repeat your second question? my earpiece popped up. caller: audit the v.a., or audit the defense department. what happens in these audits, sir? can you hear me now? guest: thank you for your question and your service to our country. let me say clearly it is the intention of the house republicans that on june 1 you will get your check. that is the reason we have been asking for negotiations for 100 days and the president has been traveling, going other

places and said they would be no negotiations. that is not taking this issue seriously. second, i'm on veterans affairs and we audited and brought the v.a. folks in front of us just yesterday to try to bring some clarity to this. i will be honest with you. i was not happy with some of their answers. they were defiant. a couple of individuals were absolutely defiant that they will spend their money and would have no accountability. it was very disappointing. if that had happened in the private world, many people would be fired. host: let's go to louisville, kentucky. donny is on the republican line. caller: i am calling -- everybody keeps calling saying president trump got a clean bill on raising the debt ceiling. that is not true. nancy pelosi would not even talk to him so he had to have someone talk to her and chuck schumer. they had to race social issues.

give more money to social issues the past the debt ceiling. we need to get the colleges for the student loans and the federal government out of student loans. guest: i thank you for that question. i agree 100% about colleges and universities. they need to have skin in the game on student loans. they are happy to take a student in and they don't have skin in the game. there are so many majors and things going on in colleges today that should be electives. people graduate with a major -- i will not talk about certain ones but there are certain majors that have no marketability. this administration crated marketability for some of them but there is no marketability. you go to college to learn how to learn. if you wanted to take a particular field of study, it is fine to do it as an elective but at the end of the time it is time to get a job.

that is what colleges and universities should be helping students prepare for. there should be skin in the game. they should have to pay for some of these loans if they do not prepare the student for the future employment. host: let's go to the democratic line. ron calling from maryland. ron? caller: good morning, congressman. i have a couple of questions for you. do you guys plan on cutting social security? i have heard this. i would like to know. guest: let me say absolutely not . that is an absolute lie by president biden. point-blank. caller: ok. what are you guys planning on cutting? would you cut your own salary 10% or 20%? guest: i will tell you this.

i calculated it cost me over $100,000 last year to be in congress. the congressional members have not gotten a raise in more than a decade. i have been a surgeon my whole life. i'm only doing this as a part of service. yes, that helps pay the bills little bit but it does not pay any of the bills when you have to live both in washington, d.c. and back home. that said, if, god forbid, the government defaults we should not get a paycheck either. i agree with that 100%. host: w.d. is on the line from stuart, virginia, independent. you are on. caller: yes. a good talk with you, representative. the party of lincoln. why don't y'all let the

democrats and eight democrat plantation owner -- a democrat plantation owner send our precious black citizens reparations money over to ukraine and giving it to white people that are foreign -- host: we will go to the next caller. robert in st. clair shores, michigan. democratic line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to say republicans are lying. president biden did put forth a budget in march. that would have cut the debt by $2 trillion. you asked congress forward their budget so they could negotiate and meet in the middle. they refused to negotiate the debt limit in order to negotiate

the budget. they finally put forward this cockamamie budget which would cut 800,000 jobs and add billions of dollars to the deficit. it is completely unworkable. they know that. there are a lot of republicans who want to default on the deficit because they have insane notions that will help them politically. it's insane. there are a lot of republicans who don't even know who the president is. if your mentality was in question, the first question i ask is who is the president? if you don't know that you are

not psychologically stable. republicans still don't know who the president is. something should be done about that. host: let's let representative murphy respond to your initial comments which were that president biden did put out a budget he said would reduce deficit spending and therefore the debt. what did you think of that? guest: let's make sure we understand the difference between the debt ceiling in the budget itself. the debt ceiling says how much money we are going to borrow to finance all of our programs and all of our initiatives. that is different. the budget is what we are going to spend. the white house always puts out a budget. the house put out a budget also. they negotiate and that is what they do. as far as cutting all these jobs, it's absolutely inaccurate.

it's inaccurate. what we are trying to do is limit the reckless spending while at the same time pullback regulations. why they are insisting on taxing, taxing, taxing? when you tax people, a small business, most corporations are small businesses. what happens when you tax them so much? they cannot try to expand. they cannot hire the next person or raise wages for the next person. it goes into the federal government forces just yet another handout programmed. we are 11th in the world now as far as capital structure. we are getting more socialist as it goes by the day. president obama wanted this. i believe president biden is continuing this. it is the redistributing of wealth. we are lowering everything for everybody.

in the soviet union, china, we have seen of that happens. you end up with one ruling party. the rest is depressed across the country. host: we are running out of time. i want to ask you, you are a medical doctor by training, cochair of the gop doctors caucus, and he wrote an op-ed about tackling the latest drug epidemic, fentanyl. can you tell us what you what congress to accomplish? guest: this is a tragic epidemic that has been on the scourge of our country for the last 40 years. what we need to do today -- we have a good hold over overprescribing for doctors. i will take full responsibility for my field. number two, we need to start enforcing our laws. not letting drug dealers run on the streets and get away without any bail. if you give away a drug that kills

you should be convicted. finally, it is a three luggage store. if they got not prescribing, law enforcement, mental health programs. opioid dish addiction -- opioid addiction is a brain disease. will happen in lifetime needs treatment. congress needs to find these programs, which i believe, enforce the laws we have and clear our southern border. our opioid epidemic killed 110,000 americans last year. china is the beginning of where these things start. china has declared war on the country. they are killing americans on the street today. we to get tough on china and stop the absolute flooding at our southern border. host: one last caller, joe. i need you to make it quick pretty -- make it quick.

caller: one thing i would like to explain to some callers that do not know what ways and means mean. the other thing i want your opinion on the 14th amendment. i think it is a dangerous precedent. is it legal? guest: it's not constitutional. it is a far left progressive's that want to try to pull some amendment scheme to get the president dictatorial powers, which by the way he had by continuing the national emergency for so long, that is absurd to think that is something he can unilaterally decide is going to roll over the country. we have checks and balances. three different parts of government. this is between the congressional branch and the executive branch to try to

figure out the finances of the country. foreign left progressive -- far left progressive that want to destroy the country want to invoke that and it's going to be unconstitutional. host: we will stop there. thank you for joining us representative murphy. guest: thank you so much. host: at the bottom of the hour we are joined by democratic john larson of connecticut, senior member of the ways and means committee and he will be talking about the debt limit but first we want to hr more from you. eight days until potential default. what iyour message on the debt limi? start calling in now. ♪ ♪ >> american history tv saturday

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journal". we want to get to your calls on the debt limit. get call link in. -- gets a call link in. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. there's lots of news going on today. florida governor ron desantis is expected to make his 2024 presidential bid official today in an evening chat with elon musk on twitter. that is expected to happen later this evening. also today president biden will mark one year since the school shooting in uvalde, texas. that will be remarks in a speech at the white hou. that will happen around 3:30 p.m. today. you can look for that speech.

also at 10:00 a.m. this morning, the house oversight and accountability subcommittee will hold a hearing on proposals to regulate gas those in houses. you can watch live coverage of the hearing starting at 10 a.m. eastern c-span 2 and art mobile video app -- our mobile video app our online at c-span.org. 2:00 p.m. house ways and means committee holding a hearing on social security administration roles in combating identity fraud. that will be on c-span two and c-span now. a lots going on. right now all eyes in washington on those ongoing discussions between biden administration and house republicans on raising the debt ceiling a head of what we think could be the nation

running out of reserves as soon as june 1. we want to hear your thoughts on the issue. mat is up first from falls church, virginia on the democratic line. caller: good morning. i want to comment two things about the debt limit. the previous congressman is very -- he is following george santos playbook on lies and half-truths in terms of health increases. he says we cannot tax small businesses. i think the primary idea of a wealth tax on those with over $100 million is a great idea with the wealth and equality we have in the country. there are plenty of ways to tax this country without affecting small businesses. republican party is only focused on that one kind of tax shows

they are disingenuous in the argument. my second point in the fourth team commitment -- 14th amendment created by congress so they would never default on the debt. it is a congress passed a commitment to the constitution -- amendment to the constitution. if congress tries to default, it is in the president's power to follow the constitution and not default on the debt, according to the 14th amendment. the congressman discussion that the 14th amendment -- well the congress says in that amendment they will not default on the debt. i think we as a society are sick of republicans saying we're going to destroy the economy and your pensions and your retirement plans if we do not get poor people to not get food stamps or poor people to lose benefits. i think a lot of us are sick of

that. go ahead joe biden. host: let's go to selma, alabama. jamaal on the republican line. caller: hello, good morning. thank you for taking my call and i enjoy "washington journal." i was hoping to be on with your next gas to directly ask this question in reference to the debt ceiling discussion. my whole think about the debt ceiling is no one is discussing where the actual ballots is -- balance is. how much money do we have? that is important in any financial discussion. there is no discussion about that. this needs -- this question needs to be communicated to your

next guest. i would really appreciate you asking him how much money do we actually have in the federal reserve before -- and would he consider taking that into account before any discussions move ahead? host: all right. george is up next from st. louis, missouri on the independent line. caller: hello. i just think debt limit is a ridiculous mechanism. i do not think we should have a debt limit. we should limit our debt but we should do it with negotiation between congress and the president. the debt limit is just extortion to refuse to raise the debt limit.

i think the debt limit is a dumb thing to have in our government. host: ok. let's go to the democratic line. michael is calling from chester, maryland. caller: yes. on the debt limit, i am thinking about what the debt base is. if they would get off of their tails and raise the minimum wage, each dollar they raise would increase the amount of money brought in taxes. in my age group, the money brought into social security and medicare would be increased so that would relax the pressures on that, too. that is my thought. i wanted to bring that up because north carolina next to a state i am moving to has 720 5 -- $7.25 minimum wage and that

has not changed since 2009. that is my thoughts. please pass that on and bring up the numbers minimum age -- wage would raise in the amount of money brought into the coffers of our government. host: all right, michael. let's hear from rob calling from alabama on the republican line. caller: yes. the default direct is not true. we bring in enough in revenues to pay the debt, to maintain the debt. we do not pay anything on the debt. we are servicing the debt. that is with the 14th amendment says that the debt must be paid, not every social program, not every wage of every government

employee. the debt must be paid. that means congress who has control of the purse pays the service on the debt. the 14th amendment has nothing to do with what is extended over the year except paying the debt which we have enough revenue coming in every day to the federal government to service the debt. there is no default. we may have to stop paying for programs but there is no default. that is out right lie. what we need to do and the reason this has become an annual problem is because this is the only way we can get any cuts in federal spending. there has been two times in history our national debt has exceeded our gross national product and those times are world war ii and right now.

our national debt exceeds our gross national product so the second time in history and it is not because we are in a major war like world war ii, but it is because we are spending too much money on things we do not need. host: we will leave it there. we have been talking about the 14th amendment. i'm bringing up an article in the hill the headline says the white house says 14th amendment will not solve the current debt ceiling standoff. that is based on remarks white house press secretary gave yesterday. let's watch what she had to say. [video clip] >> has been any more discussion on the 14th amendment? >> the president has been a clear. it is not going to deal with the

problem we are currently having. what we need to focus on is congress acting, congress doing their constitutional duty and dealing with the debt limit. host: that was white house press secretary pierre relink out the use of the 14th amendment to solve -- ruling out the use of the 14th amendment to solve the debt limit crisis. from the washington post, i will read from it, some the biggest expenses that the country may not be able to pay in fourth -- first week in a half at the treasury runs out of reserve starting june 1. if that debt ceiling reach june 1, it is says first day 10 billion in one million pay in retirement -- $10 billion in

military pay in retirement. $12 million in veterans benefits and 47 billion dollars in payments to medicare providers. by june 2 $25 billion in social security benefits. by monday, june 5, $1 billion in snap assistance and a goes down more to medicaid reimbursement. individual tax refunds and on the. this is a chart from the washington post about what payments could be missed if that debt limit is reached. two more of your calls on the issue. joe in baltimore, maryland on the independent line. host: good morning. i watched c-span. i like watching it. we are in a pseudo-capitalist country anyway. we have people from everywhere. there is way you're going to

balance the budget. second of all, you have been after the snap program, republicans, and medicaid this and that but you are cutting the veterans. you're cutting such security. they're going to have to do it. the sad think is no way you're going to stop this. it is a slow ball rolling down the hill. that is all i got to say. host: i want to read messages we have received from our viewers. this is chris in elven, illinois who says this is another cultivated crisis intended to keep the people fighting and distract that neither the democrats or gop care about anything but perpetuating their hold on u.s. government and serving their large donor

. when the debt ceiling is raised, party politicians will revise another continuous but somehow never actually resolved crisis for americans talking about. this one is from denise in minnesota who says having polls showing to the american people will blame in this dumb inflicted manufactured crisis is not productive at all. blame does not matter when we end up in economic disaster. to the phone calls, robert in spring lake, north carolina on the democratic line. what are your thoughts? caller: yes. i'm a retired veteran. of course -- they talk about the debt the u.s. owes. we never hear anything about the debt other countries owe us.

all this money we have been giving out to other countries, why can't that money be coming back to pay off our national debt? we never hear anything about other countries that owe us. please ask vanessa representative concerning that. thank you -- please ask the next representative concerning that. host: joan next in missouri on the independent line. caller: good morning. i believe the debt ceiling should never be tied in with the budget. those are two different things. why is it -- i would like you to ask this question to your democratic -- i cannot remember who you said. why and when did they start tying in little things to the

budget into to the debt ceiling? because that has already been the starting. host: i will make a note of that. we have representative larson coming up in a few minutes. i want to bring up more video. house majority leader asked if he believes the treasury secretary janet yellen prediction that june 1 is the true default date that line. [video clip] >> a lot of your people do not believe the june 1 deadline is the actual heart deadline for a default. do you believe that deadline? what do you think of your members skepticism? >> we would like to see more transparency and how they come to that date but janet yellen left the door open to delaying

that in her tweets yesterday. the comments she sent out implied that it is june 1 or later giving some openness to the idea that june 1 may not be the x date. have not been able to see transparency but it looks like there opening the door to move the date back. host: house majority leader on that june 1 deadline. back to your phone calls. charles is calling from bentonville, arkansas on the republican line. caller: good morning. i think june 1 is an artificial date. the one thing the government has -- concerns buildings, land, gold, permits, leases -- there is also half $1 trillion for

improper covid patients and fbi irs working day and night to get some of that money back. additionally, in a business when things go bad, people take a pay cuts. i think of the entire executive branch of the government should get about a 50% pay cut to meet up later until this is worked out. this is ridiculous to go into a crisis situation. reasonable things you can do to extend the debt limit and cut spending long-term. that is what i have to say. host: let's hear from tim calling from new york on the democratic line. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i want to bring up a point nobody seems to be focusing on and that is that the congress

main job is to provide a balanced budget and they have not done that for many years. there should be no cap. there should be no debt ceiling. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: david in gaithersburg, maryland on the independent line. what are your thoughts? caller: good morning. mainly i want to make sure to get across i think a lot of issues, this is being compounded, exacerbated by complete failure in mass media to properly investigate and cover this. c-span exempt, your mission you explain what the government is showing that our investigative journalist taking with the major

parties are giving them and just running with that instead of asking questions your callers are that i think are fantastic. how much money do we actually have? the media is letting these politicians jump around from talking points talking 500 trillion in st. louis to cut things for poor people -- then saying need to cut things for poor people. then callers who think we can sell a few buildings as solve this and i do not blame him because there are several investigative journalism about parts of the government. defense would be healthy, house the people in homeland work defending. how much money is in the defense budget? let's go line by line and talk about how many of our social programs could be repurposed think of that money. we need real journalism on this.

we are not having more discussions and were getting numbers thrown around by two parties having a field day. the two parties and media pointing at each other. it is not stopping. host: to another david in texas on the republican line. caller: good morning. it is hard to keep things in perspective without using percentages in relation to the past. previous caller mentioned the defense budget and while i admit there is a lot that can be done with the budget such as producing actions we have been involved in since vietnam, which have virtually all filled and caused chinese of dollars, but the defense budget is only -- cost trays of dollars, but the

defense budget is only have a bit of it has been the past decades. our debt is growing faster than gdp. that is the issue. fear growing faster than your debt you can handle increase in dead. we have movement towards monetary policy confuse with freeman's monetary theory which took over the way the government works since the carter inflation times. monetary theory believes they can believe all the money they want and it will work out. our national debt is 125% of our gdp. the previous height was in world war ii we are fighting a global war which is when countries print money like crazy. going back to that and more because 9/11 and 2008 crisis

then covid. republicans have passed a bill to raise the debt limit. the democrats may not like what is in it but the problem is our current fed chief will not go to congress. he always refuses to answer anything to tell congress they need to slow down the spending. pulp poker who saw the biggest interest rate problem ever had a window congress and tell them over and over they had to slow down the spending. powell not telling congress they need to do this is telling them whatever you do, will take care of it on our end they have done to take care of it is come up with tricks and things to keep the money coming such as buying u.s. debt, monetizing debt, where the treasury issues the dead, the fed prints the money out of thin air, which is why you look at the size of the federal balance sheet it is

gonna. it was a trillion dollars a few years ago. every time they try to reduce it, the markets crash. because our markets are not functioning like normal markets anymore. they depend on this may be trained of money from the federal government. that is why inequality between upper level and lower level has gotten high. most of this money stays in investment class area, close to wall street and not the real economy. host: we are to have to leave it there. we appreciate your call this morning. joni from minnesota on the democratic line. caller: hi and good morning. how does the republicans mess around with the budget? i do not know why -- republicans

do not know anything. i have a question for your senator or congressman who comes up. how can we not pass an audit? how can the military not pass an audit? i would like to know why they cannot pass an audit. we had this money in budget but they cannot pass an audit. they care more about the military-industrial complex instead of working people who need to survive. host: john in michigan, independent line. caller: hello. how are you today? host: good. caller: the one think mccarthy had more money coming in more than before. i did not see where a problem would be. also, when it came in to debt

problem, i do not think we should be held hostage. i do not know. sooner or later these parties are going to -- have to start getting along. it is scary time. thank you for my time on the air. host: were going to take a quick break. we will be joined by democratic john larson of connecticut. a senior member of the ways and means committee talking about his priorities in debt limit deals and later, george croner from foreign policy research institute will be discussing government surveillance laws and debate over renewing section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. ♪

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connecticut. good morning. guest: good morning to you. host: thank you for joining us. we are getting lots of calls. were going to dive in. i want to share the numbers again. our listeners can start calling in now. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. representative larson, let's start with this. you are the top democrat on the ways and means subcommittee on social security. we received a lot of calls this morning. people are concerned that come june 1 they may not get there social security checks. how possible is that?

guest: there is a distinct possibility if we do not take action. that is why i believe the president, if necessary, while invoke and i encourage him to do so the 14th amendment to make sure the 66 million fellow americans expecting social security checks to make sure they get them. this is not the time to play politics and use people as political chips. that is what is going on here. when you consider we have raise the debt ceiling three times in donald trump's four years, and then to have republicans take a country to the brink and hold the economy hostage and therefore holding people hostage, not to social security, but medicare, veteran payments as well. let us hope they come to a deal.

every time it gets reported they have a deal and they're making progress, they come back to their caucus and it seems like there's about 25 people over there, the tail wagging the dog instead of getting the job done on behalf of the american people. host: you mentioned the 14th amendment. we just showed in our previous segment video from press secretary pierre saying that president biden does not seem keen on invoking the 14th amendment. what other options have democrats discuss could be done if we get to that deadline, there is no deal? guest: ray going to follow the president's lead. -- we are going to follow the president's lead. he has said is preferable to negotiate a deal. the senate is together. the president is together.

the only remaining think is house republicans. it is 25 of them that are holding this up preventing it from going forward. if continue to dig in, it is not clear if they strike a deal, will they vote afford? that is what we are facing over the next coming weeks. let us hope there is a deal that is struck in the american people and concerns that is very worrisome, especially people around fixed income, because they have no other income. there is more than 5 million americans who get below poverty level checks. they pay it into social security system -- they paid into social security. the system needs help as well. host: i know discussions are

ongoing but house democratic leader hakeem jeffries said he would be willing to support a spending freeze at current levels, is that something you can get behind as part of a compromise to lift the debt ceiling? guest: absolutely. how did this come about? it came about in the summer when they said what we are going to do is hold social security and medicare hostage in to achieve deeper cuts we desire maga republicans. i give trump some credit he said, what? are you crazy? the people of america who rely on social security and medicare are voters. this does not make any sense to put them in jeopardy. they have backed away from that is saying, no, we are not going

to hurt social security but their actions have and continue to do so. again, you cannot use people as political chips in this debate and argument. let's have the discussion of medicare, social security, defense make up 70% of the budget, but isn't that discussion better had in the committee, public, open where everyone can see it and where you can debate? there are two chambers in both the house and senate the have to debate the issue back and forth, that is called a democracy. it is not a small group of people who say, no, this is what we're going to extract from the people and from the government before we will vote on it. host: to the phone lines now. a mean -- amin in temple, texas.

on the democratic line. caller: thank you congressman for coming and talking to us. the first thing i want to know, why social security, which i paid in, i'm 72 years old, when i pass away, i am not worried because i'm 100% disabled veteran and the v.a. is going to do my service for me and my wife. they only give you $250 for burial. i put in thousands and thousands of dollars. i cannot understand. it is not bothering me but other people cannot understand why they give us is $250. i think i'm lucky i am a disabled veteran because the

v.a. is burying me and my wife. that is one of the questions. i want to know when trump was here, money, money, money. they gave it all to the people that do not need money and they gave it all to the people who are the ones charging us high prices for all this stuff. what can you guys do to stop this? this is our country and we are the ones that are important in this country, american people. you need to do something. guest: thank you for your service, especially as we approached memorial day weekend. this is a time when the nation pauses to remember those who have worn the uniform and served the country. thank you for that surface.

all the more reason i should point out why we need to address issues like social security that impacts veterans directly and i did not know most people realize more veterans allow social security disability then they do on the v.a.. to your point about social security, there has not been an enhancement of social security in more than 52 years. richard nixon was the president of the united states the last time social security benefits were is -- enhanced. it has been 40 years since the last time social security extended insolvency. it did so back in 1983 and ronald reagan was the president. chip o'neill the speaker of the house. bottom line is social security needs to be enhance. we came together yesterday with hakeem jeffries and talked about

not only the need to protect social security, but to expand benefits and expand the service of social security administration. social security is the most efficient and effective plan in government. it is also the number one antipoverty program for the elderly. number one antipoverty program from church -- for children. i come from an assurance area. social security has a program 99% loss ratio. that means they are able to administer social security with less than 1% of the budget. there is no other governmental agency that does that. it is because they get the money out they need. they need more support, not unless because they are the number one insurance program in the country that provides relief to people like yourself. host: to kansas city, missouri.

paul on the republican line. caller: yes ma'am. thank you for your service. guest: thank you, sir. caller: we have corporate tax receipts coming in at a record number. we need to pay our international to get that. there's plenty of money to pay the interest often continue to negotiate the debt settlement. let's be realistic about it. i'm a social security recipient and military retiree. i've got no problem with you guys -- brooke requirements do not bother me -- work requirements do not bother me. $31 trillion debt expected, you have to do something. guest: totally agree with you

but the way to do it is not in -- by holding the country hostage. the way to do it is debating and taking the bill forward and discussing what the formulas are what we're going to make the cuts and how much will be achieved. to do it in a manner that is consistent with our democracy as opposed to negotiations behind closed doors and then the decision made, not by the congress, but by 25 members of the republican party to see whether or not there's going to be the nation's going to be driven to default. it does not make sense. it does make sense and we should always be concerned about the inflation and where we spent the national debt.

i recommend a book to everyone to read called, the money revolution by richard duncan. i believe we have to grow the economy and create the kind of jobs that are needed and make sure everybody is paying their fair share with respect to taxes, not just the people like yourself that have served the country and worked hard all of your life and deserve those benefits from both military and social security. host: to the independent line, rich in fairfax, virginia. you are on the. caller: hi. guest: good morning. caller: i have three questions. i do not understand what is so magical about june 1. the guy talking before, i own a business, my quarterly taxes are not due until june 15. inflation has run up the price of everything and so have taxes

going up, states and federal government, nobody is giving us a break. i do not understand the fed toolbox. i hear that term all the time but it is almost like the wizard of oz. they have the toolbox but they would not tell you what is in it. my two other comments are there's a lot of unspent money link around covid -- laying around from covid we are in a position where we have to cut stuff. finally, brazil, russia, india, and china are watching this stuff. from my perspective, even though i am an independent, i think we have to let this thing run. let it run and see what happens because enough is enough is enough. guest: you're right about them watching. they're hoping this will be a signal the united states loses

is preeminent position in global economy as the leading state, country in the globe. it would diminish our status immediately and would cause economic chaos if this were to happen. with all due respect, very much opposed rolling the dice on this because all of the economists that have come before our committee, i think people on both side of the aisle, understand this would be disaster. we were downgraded the last time people tried or attempt to hold the economy hostage. we do not need to go through that again. we do need economic growth. we do need to act responsibly and before the debt -- deadline

and it is only there because in terms of the amount of money being taken in and our ability to pay those debts off. there's a difference also between the national debt and the debt ceiling. the debt ceiling is paying for the bills we have already incurred. the united states has never defaulted on its responsibilities. so, i believe we have to face that straightforward. but then continue the discussion about how we are going to strengthen these programs and strengthen the economy. everybody ought to be concerned about the national debt and how we are going to pay for it and that ought to be a public discussion that happens in congress, in committees, and is voted on.

that is another issue here is to make sure we are voting on these issues and debating them. host: can you explain to our viewers that june 1 deadline? what contributes to it? guest: yes, the deadline was established when janet yellen indicated that on weighing the balanced -- balance sheet this is what is projected to be the case. the reason that is the deadline is based on her look at the revenue of this -- coming through the door and what kind of a position we would be in to pay that. traditionally, congress acts as it has more than 80 times in the past teresa debt ceiling so we do not default -- to raise the debt ceiling so we do not default. want to make sure to the markets around the globe to send a

message we are a responsible country. brazil, russia, china, india are all looking on this. in fact china holds a great deal of our currency. we have got to make sure we are paying these bills and the full faith and credit of united states remains in tact. host: i want to bring up questions in writing or in previous segment, someone wanted to make sure i ask you about audits, like auditing defense spending. someone asked about auditing veteran affairs. on twitter, how much waste is in the federal budget? 10%? 20% two more? these programs have not been cut since the clinton administration. guest: i think he's is referring to is not been a allan's since

the clinton administration -- balance budget since the clinton mensuration. there are committees and oversight that goes on. they have to continue to do so and continue to do their job. there should be a regular and routine audits and there are many agencies. all of them are subject to the process on the hill. there is a number of reforms that can take place. not the least of which is the cultural vote in u.s. senate where house of representatives traditionally vote on legislation, has hearings, holes the vote in the committee, the bill comes to the floor, it is voted on and never taken up in u.s. senate.

that issue really needs, both senators from my home state of connecticut, are opposed to the culture vote. where in the constitution does it say you need 60 votes to pass a bill in u.s. senate? it is not. -- it does not. that is why i think it can be frustrating if you are watching this from the outside and you are not seeing legislation that has been enacted in one chamber, enacted in the other, and you do not see oversight that is got in to -- going in to what is going on in military, but people are also interested in oversight in social security and medicare, making these agencies that more efficient. i'm on the ways and means committee and oversee social security. social security operates, the whole administration, operates

and sent out checks to everyone and has never missed a payment under 1% administrative cost. what other agency can say that in government at any level? what we need to do there is strengthen and what we need to do their is also apply the same accountability and auditing that should be a regular basis that is a part of the responsibility of congress as oversight and by oversight, i mean holding people accountable, having budgets that are balanced. host: jamaal in alabama, republican wanted us to ask how much money do we have in the federal reserve? would you consider taking that into account before any discussions ahead? guest: what does he want to know ? host: i think the concern is the

health with the debt ceiling. guest: no. that is paying the current debts that you have and just like there is social security trust fund, there is money in that trust, there is no question about it. but you would not be dipping in the trust to pay for current debts you have incurred three spending and through -- three spending and trade and what u.s. owes in terms of its responsibilities. host: chris social security trust fund be rated at the nation get desperate? guest: over my dead body. host: a concise answer. larry in alabama on the democratic line. caller: good morning. you have been over here a long time coming to "washington

journal". guest: that is true. reporter: back when former president obama was president. send money for the health care, medicaid down here in alabama. the governor back then damn near us into the bag. you tried and i'm glad you did. on the debt ceiling, you made a point and republicans on the show here, murphy, he said the president would be to blame and he made a point earlier that congress holds the purse. they make the law, not the president. if anybody should have to blame, it should come from congress. they are the ones who control the taxes. i have one question.

i want everybody else to have an opportunity to speak. my question is what are the republicans opposed to cut? we asked the republican on before you came, he still not given out a straight answer even though veterans who are on medicaid, medicare also have proposed in spending cut. if you cut that, you cut also the veterans benefits. i want to know from you. guest: they did pass a bill but to your point, that bill in my state, that would mean 223,000 people would be impacted, offer medicaid. 80,000 students would not receive their pell grants. more than 23,000 people would

not be able to get food and nutrition to the snap program. that is just for starters. it is unrealistic and did not make any sense if they did it. let's be honest with what this is. this is a political maneuver, a political stunt where they are actually using people as political bargaining chips. people are not bargaining chips. they have to go on with their lives and these programs, including social security, veteran benefits, these sustained people. there are more than 40% of people that are on social security. that is the only thing they have. otherwise they cannot exist. to use them as a bargaining chip and to threaten unless those

programs are cut, you're going to throw the country in economic chaos, does not make any sense. yes, there should always be negotiations and bargaining. that is why you have a democracy. that is what you have committees and hearings and the process in which you examine in the full light of day to the media can be looking in and not behind closed doors, what is your proposal? what will that do? what are the consequences of that host: one mark caller, dennis in and gola, indiana, republican line. caller: yes, i have a couple of questions for the congressman. we want to cut budgets. let's start by cutting departments we do not need like the department of education which is a farce, a

joke. the epa and let's remind the congress that yes, the republicans have passed a bill. it's the democrats that are threatening the country's fiscal reality, not the republicans, the democrats are refusing to negotiate. the president of the united states, a man owned by mr. x ini china and that's all i have to say. guest: thank you again for your insight and comments. they do need a reality check. if you believe there is no need for the department of education and the environmental protection agency, well, you live in the greatest country in the world and you are entitled to your opinion. you are not entitled to your own set of facts.

i think when put to the test and when people in a democracy have an opportunity to vote, they believe the department of education and the department of environmental protection provide a valuable service to the country both in terms of the education of our children and also in terms of protecting our environment. but thank you for your opinions. host: i want to thank you, representative larson, for joining us this morning on "washington journal" \ guest: thank you, it's great to be with you. host: we will talk more about social security next time. we will take a quick break and is george kroner from the foreign policy research institute discussing government surveillance laws and the debate over renewing section 702 of the

foreign intelligence surveillance act. ♪ >> 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the vietnam war and sunday night on q&a, we will scott -- we will discuss the war with daniel weiss. his book in that time tells the story of poets and musician michael o'donnell who went missing in action during the war after the helicopter he piloted was shot down over cambodia. >> because there was no one else there and it had to be done, he made the decision immediately that he would rescue these men. he went into the landing zone area and he offered on the ground performance, waiting for

the reconnaissance team to arrive there, which is in a battle condition, and attorney t. he was sitting vulnerable to the enemy. he waited and a risk since team arrived, injured but safe and they boarded the helicopter, all of them and he began to pull the helicopter up above the tree line and radioed i have everyone, i'm coming out. >> daniel weiss, with his book " in that time" sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on q& you cana listen to it and all of our podcasts and are. -- all of our pad casts. >> order the new congressional directory now. it has bio and contact information for every house and senate member and important information on congressional committees, the presence cabinet, federal agencies and state governors.

scan the code at the right to order your copy today or go to c-spanshop.org. it's $29.95 plus shipping and handling and supports our nonprofit operations. >> visit c-span shop.org, our online store and save during our father's day sale going on now. save up to 20% our latest collection of c-span apparel, home decor, bobbleheads, puzzles and more, bobbleheads, puzzles and more. support our nonprofit operation. scan the code on the right to shop during the father's day sale going on now at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined today by george croner, the national security program senior fellow at the foreign policy research

institute. we will talk about the reauthorization debate surrounding section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. good morning. guest: good morning to you and thanks for having me. host: thank you so much for joining us. let's start off -- section 702 is supposed to sunset at the end of the year unless congress votes to extend it. what does it allow u.s. government to do and how is it different from other types of surveillance the government is authorizing. guest: sure, what 702 allows the government to do is to target non-us persons, foreigners, not u.s. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the united states. they are outside of the domestic u.s. to acquire foreign intelligence information.

it does that and is implemented principally by the national security agency through a couple of surveillance techniques it uses. the critical distinction between section 702, which is a program that grew out of the post 9/11 intelligence issues and changes in the telecommute occasions environment that happened in the 21st century, that differs from what i will call traditional fisa which was the act first passed by congress in 1978. there is no warrant. the foreign intelligence surveillance court which is the court that was established by the fisa act consisting of 11 u.s. district court judges that served in a secret, compartmented facility in washington, d.c. and they

handled applications for court orders both under traditional fisa they also handled certifications that are presented to them under section 702. the difference is, traditional fisa, you are -- your target is either a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. you have to convince the foreign intelligence surveillance court that there is probable cause to believe that the target is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. you are using the telecommunications facilities to target or transmit foreign intelligence information. there is an individualized determination by the foreign intelligence surveillance court based upon probable cause that the target is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. under 70 two, there is no probable cause hearing. there is no individualized targeting.

instead, because the targets are all foreigners, who do not possess fourth amendment rights under the constitution, the government instead submits a certification that describes various types of foreign intelligence information that the government is seeking to obtain by targeting individuals who they believe possess or transmit that type of foreign intelligence information. that certification go to the foreign intelligence of real -- surveillance court with a series of procedures that are designed to protect u.s. citizens. the reason those procedures were inc. -- were included, congress recognize when it created section 702 in 2008 that even if you are targeting and solely limited to targeting foreigners outside the united states, there are u.s. persons communicating with those partners, it was in

an inevitable byproduct of 702 collection that u.s. personal commit occasion would be collected, the term used is incidentally collected, as part of the 702 new collection program which does not involve individualized probable cause determinations with respect to those individuals, foreign individuals were targeted. without the probable hearing, without the individualized targeting determination by the foreign intelligence surveillance court, the law instead says that we have to set procedures. they are targeting procedures and minimization procedures inquiry procedures along with the attorney general's acquisition guidelines. those procedures are designed to serve as a proxy for the warrant requirement that would otherwise exist under title 1 of pfizer or

title iii which of the law enforcement analog of electronic surveillance to fisa. those procedures were created and 702 collection proceeds without any individualized targeting determination. but there is significant incidental collection of the u.s. persons communications. host: i want to ask you another question but i also want to remind our viewers of the phone lines. they can start calling in with their comments about foreign surveillance or their questions for george ceroner. croner

host: before wehost: get to some of those calls, i want to bring up, this is video of representative jim jordan. he brings up what he sees as the government exceeding their surveillance authority under the fbi. i want to watch his comments about data he says is being collected on americans and get your thoughts. [video clip] >> we have no idea on the amount of data collected on the american people. [inaudible] 10,000 people, proximally 10,000 people at the justice department have the ability to query this database without any probable cause. and we know there were 3.4 million queries of this database and 30% of those were in error,

is that right? >> i don't have at my fingertips all of those numbers but i do recall specifically the 3.4 million number of queries conducted in the prior calendar year. >> it's require probable cause if you are going to query the database on american citizens. >> as i have stated, urge congress to require that the fisa court review those terms. >> do you agree? >> that's something we are looking at now. you put your finger on it which is that you want to increase privacy and civil liberties as much as possible for u.s. persons. it would make it harder to run a u.s. person search. it would also make it harder to run a u.s. person search. there is a balance there. >> americans are being picked up in this incidental collection. we don't know the number and my guess is that it's pretty darn big. they won't tell us.

without probable cause, that databases being searched, 3.4 million times with all kinds of air raids as was determined earlier. why don't we get the fbi out of the business altogether? host: that was representative jim jordan. he says the fbi may be exceeding its authority in collecting data on americans in an unknown amount. what is your response to that? guest: first of all, the fbi does not collect the data on americans. representative jordan is incorrect in styling it in that fashion. the national security agency is the principal agency involved in implementing the 702 program. the fbi can nominate a much smaller percentage of what's in the database as targets based on its own investigations and so on. but the data is stored and

collected by the national security agency. the fbi actually only gets access to a very small art of that data, 3.2%, according to the latest statistical transparency report which was issued by the director of national intelligence about three weeks ago at the end of april. of the -- it is a large, large programmatic surveillance program. there are 246,000+ foreign targets. but the fbi getting access to only 3.2% of the database only sees the data for about 8000 of those targets. that said, let's cut to the chase -- the fbi's query of the database has been a thorn for a decade or more. it continues to be problematic because the fbi is in a position of having both foreign counterintelligence mission and

a law enforcement mission. i might point out that it is congress who in 1978 said you can use data derived from foreign intelligence surveillance searches conducted under fisa both for foreign intelligence purposes and for evidence of crime. congress said that. they created that law and they have never changed that law. the fbi as part of its law enforcement mission is entitled to search within certain restrictive parameters parts of the section 702 database for evidence of a crime. it can do that in conjunction with its foreign intelligence activities. the fbi isn't collecting the data but it is in the database. all queries and this is what it gets down to, it's not the original collection. u.s. person commit occasions and represent them jordan is correct, the collection is large. if you're talking about 246

thousand foreign targets, you're talking about probably one billion or more communications per year collected under the 702 program. congress also recognize when it created this that it was impossible to target foreigners outside the united states without obviously including as an inevitable bright -- byproduct, the collection of u.s. persons can indications who are communicating whether it's by telephone or by email with those foreign targets. representative jordan is probably also correct that the incidental collection, given the scope of the program, is also large, probably numbering in the millions of communications. what's important to note is when they are first collected, no one knows what's in the 702 database. the collection is so large and probe organic -- and programmatic, they are stored in the only way you ever identify a

communication and who the communicants are is by querying the database, sitting at your computer and typing in a series of search terms. the search turned the represent of jordan is talking about is the use of u.s. person query terms. typing in my name, my social security number, my address, something that identifies me as a u.s. person. representative jordan says you should only be able to do that if you a probable cause. the queries are required to basically be reasonably designed in a way that you can have a specific factual basis for sure that the query will retrace and extract foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime. they are not unstructured and an agent doesn't get to sit at his terminal and type in whatever he wants whenever he wants. the fbi has made numerous changes in its technical systems to restrict access to the -- to that part of the 702 database

that the agents can query and it's consistently worked to sharpen its querying standards as to how those queries are shaped. i will just say this, if you adopted representative jordan proposal -- believe me there are many critics out there who want a probable cause standard before you can query the database. i assume implicit in that notion is that the fbi doesn't get to decide when it has probable cause but the foreign intelligence surveillance court would decide that. if that's the case, the use of u.s. person query terms which is a very important part of the intelligence process of the ability to take the information that 702 collects and turn it into usable intelligence. that part of the process would essentially grind to a halt. because the foreign intelligence surveillance court is comprised

of 11 district justices, u.s. district court judges who have other jobs. they serve in the foreign intelligence surveillance court for one term which is seven years. they are appointed by the chief justice of the united states. but this is another full-time job and their only 11 of them. title one of the fisa does require a probable cause standard. the foreign intelligence surveillance court last year issued slightly under 400 title i foreign intelligence surveillance court orders for title i surveillance, probable cause based surveillance, 400. i have already said that even setting aside the fbi, the other three agencies, nsa, cia and the national counterterrorism center use the database. the used about 9000 times last year. they have no ability to hear and

decide 9000 probable cause cases for every time any agency wants to use a u.s. person query term. they say they are very tight procedures that govern the process but if you introduced a probable cause standard in the manner representative jordan suggests, it would eliminate a very important intelligence component of the 702 program. host: let's go to the phone lines now. ethel be our first caller from decatur, georgia, democratic line. what is your question or comment? are you with us this morning? alright, we will have to come back to her. joel is in bulloch and dishes in brooklyn, new york. caller: good morning. i have a question for your

guest. you are talk about queries and names. do they ever query chuck schumer in their involvement in sex trafficking and jamie diamond and the founders of google? they are all american citizens. why are they being query to find it what they are doing and being compromised by people who occupy palestine and epstein. how did get -- how did epstein get $600 million? host: before you get to that, i want to bring up that this is a tweet we received from robert douglas.

we are receiving a lot of questions about the use and could be used to either target individual americans for different things in the news? guest: good is a very broad word. if you had rogue agents, if you had people if they were completely able or had in their own minds, the ability to disregard all of the compliance and regulatory restrictions that are in place about accessing the database, yes, there is a lot of information in the database. if you want to skirt the restrictions and ignore them and risk getting caught and getting

fired from your job, yes, you could dip into the database and see what you can find. in a broader casting of how the program works, the answer is, no, the 702 program is probably the most highly regulated government program certainly that i'm aware of. the compliance rules and regulations that exist, all of the recent news you read perhaps in the paper last week about foreign intelligence surveillance court, representative jordan talked about the widespread violations of fbi practices. the only reason those violations are publicly known is because they are reported by the fbi and the other agencies that use or have access to 702 data. the law requires it and they abide by those requirements.

in the 15 years section 702 has been in existence, no inspection or review of 702 procedures have ever revealed an intentional violation of the procedures and guidelines that regulate the compliance with access to section 702 database. the answer is, it doesn't happen. nonetheless, it's a very complex program and the fbi has had a rather checkered history of trying to comply with all of those rules and regulations. the answer as to why jeffrey epstein or jamie diamond or others are not being reviewed is precisely because the 702 program is a foreign intelligence program. it's a national security-related program. you cannot access the section 702 database with a query unless that query is reasonably

designed to find and extract foreign intelligence information. or the fbi can do it for evidence of a crime but only with respect to crimes that relate to the national security. if the fbi went into the 702 database for a crime that is not national security-related, a bank robbery or drug ring but what i would call the more mundane criminal activities, you cannot go into the 702 database if you are investigating a stolen social security check for example. it's not allowed. the reason why some of the criminal activity the colas have identified, why does 702 database used to explore that is because congress said it's not supposed to happen that way. it's not supposed to be used that way. you cannot just go in and rummage around trying to find information about isolated

criminal activity. there is a whole set of regulations and procedures that govern that and while the fbi has had problems with that over time and does more querying than any other agencies because of its law enforcement role, it has instituted a series of changes especially in the past roughly two years. the results so far according to the foreign intelligence surveillance court have been promising in terms of correcting those past violations. host: let's go to marie from houston, texas on the independent line. caller: hi. host: go ahead. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: if there is limited access with probable cause, there cannot be an established and appointed probable cause judge or judges. host: for the 702 program?

guest: the answer is simply that congress, when it created the foreign intelligence surveillance or chose this mechanism to populate that court. it's the idea that you would have actual u.s. district court judges, judges were sitting in courtrooms around the country every day, 11 of them now is the current number appointed for seven-year terms by the chief justice. that is how you would populate the foreign intelligence surveillance court. they are entitled, those judges, there is a board of amicus c uriae, folks who are qualified in areas of privacy and civil liberties or telecommuting -- or italic medications technology, there is a group they can call upon to assist the

judges and some of the rather thornier issues that are presented to the foreign intelligence surveillance court. it is certainly possible that congress, much as it has with many administrative law judges in many other areas of the law like social security disability benefits, that congress could have created a specialized branch consisting of people who do nothing but review foreign intelligence surveillance applications for title i authority, certifications for 702 authority. it's possible it could be done that way but congress chose to infect set it up differently. interestingly, the wall street journal this morning called its editorial board home for the abolition of the surveillance court and they say there should be no court at all and because it says the court is essentially shielding the fbi from

accountability 702 excesses. they made the same pitch about five years ago when i wrote a piece at the time that said you cannot do that mom my view. you cannot abolish the foreign intelligence surveillance court and congress could add more judges, it could create a different tribunal to handle other parts of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. it certainly has the ability to do that. what it cannot do in my view constitutionally is abolish the foreign intelligence surveillance court and have no substitute. back in 1972, the supreme court said even if you are trying to get authorization to conduct foreign surveillance, you have to have, at least for a investigations, you have to have a detached judicial person pass on those requests.

prior to fisa, there were no restrictions on the conduct of electronics surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. it was entirely committed to the discretion of the executive branch and more particularly, to the president and the president role under article two under commander-in-chief and the principal of conducting foreign affairs. before fisa, the executive branch and the executive branch alone dictated how electronic surveillance was conducted for foreign intelligence purposes. for those folks like the wall street journal editorial board which simplifies a court should be abolished, i don't think it constitutionally can be without something replacing it in some form, pfizer was designed entirely to add a judicial role, a neutral judicial role in the conduct of american foreign intelligence operations with

respect to electronic surveillance. i might point out, to this date as far as i know, the united states is the only country in the world that imposes any kind of judicial intervention in its foreign intelligence surveillance process. host: let's go to mountain home, arkansas on the republican line, go ahead. caller: thank you. i think they should kick the fbi out of it. we know we cannot trust them. we know they don't fire anybody. the big smart guys, they should never be allowed to be around anything. host: any thoughts, george? guest: as i say, the fbi is the only agency in the government that has the responsibility for conducting domestic counterintelligence operations

and foreign intelligence collection in some respects within the united states. if the only agency that has in its charter, the ability to do that. the cia is barred by law from conducting any such activity in the united states. if you take the fbi out of the equation, there is no one looking for domestic terrorist. there is no one looking for terrorist plots in the united states. i don't think that's tenable or workable. i agree with the caller. i've acknowledged that the fbi has a very checkered and a very difficult time conforming with all of the requirements that relate to accessing these 702 database. they are trying to make improvements. those improvements have shown progress.

additional work may be necessary. we certainly consider additional reforms. in the abstract, trying to run an effective foreign intelligence and counterintelligence program without the principal law enforcement agency and the federal government being involved is very problematic. host: let's go to tennessee, john, democratic line. caller: thank you. could you please give me a moment to try to understand. i hope these maggot people understand. ma --ga people. i have family in hawaii, military, x military and had a contractor group in hawaii. hawaii is the 50th state but in

the military, it's considered overseas. the last thing i've heard with the cia is with bush during the war. he said thelbi and cia would work together. all i'm trying to say is hawaii is the 50th state and surveillance is going to ramp it over there. that's what i meant tennessee. as a private government contractor, that's all i had to say and i called the fbi but what is that situation with the fisa court? hawaii is the 50th state but in the military, it's considered overseas, thank you. host: any thoughts, george? guest: my only thought is with respect to foreign intelligence surveillance act and the application of 702, hawaii is

certainly part of the union. it's considered part of the united states. as i said, by law, section 702 prohibits the targeting of any u.s. person whether located in the united states or abroad. hawaii is considered part of the united states. there is no 702 activity being directed at hawaiians or anything like that. with respect to how the defense department defines hawaii for operational purposes, i cannot speak to that and i don't know the answer to that. i know that hawaii, alaska are certainly considered even for title i fisa purposes, there considered part of the united states and fisa applies within the states. host: let's go to the

independent line, melissa from bloomfield, iowa. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. my take on everything with the cia and the fbi and the 702 court and fisa -- all the upper management needs to go. no one has the availability to make sure they are doing with they are supposed to be doing and that they are not looking at the average citizen just because they are going to a school board meeting or anything like that. upper management all needs to go and start over. they have lied to the congress, they don't turn over documents like they are supposed to. they lie on phis applications and the fbi agent that rights on the application what happened to him, he got reprimanded and lost a little bit of pay but didn't

get fired. anybody else, if you're in the police department and pull something like that, you will get fired and you will get prosecuted for filing a false police report. this government is rampant and most of them just need to go. host: any thoughts, george? guest: first of all, i assume the application the caller was referring to was the carter page application which is fairly famous by now. there were mistakes certainly made with respect to the application. once again, i would point out that was fully investigated and vetted. the only reason everyone knows the details about the carter page phis application is because the department of justice inspector general issued, they had a full investigation and released a detailed report. i think the individual she was referring to, there has been one

person who is either convicted or pled guilty in connection with that. when she said they lied on the application, they didn't tell the court and subsequent applications about concerns they had particular with respect to the steel dossier. by any measure, the carter page application was not a shining moment in the fbi's history. as i say, the fisa court passes on hundreds of those per year and has since the pfizer was implemented back in 1978. it's the only time there has ever been a situation like that. i'm not apologizing or trying to be an apologist for the fbi in that regard but i think people need to keep that at a certain level of perspective. i cannot tell you how many times

that may or may not happened in connection with title iii law enforcement surveillance measures. but i suspect it has happened. as far as all of the people in charge, with respect to the foreign intelligence surveillance court, i told you how that court is populated. you cannot get rid of them. they are life tenured district court judges. no one has ever suggested at any time that a fisa court judge has done anything improper in carrying out the duties of that court. we have talked about the fbi's issues with respect to its querying problems. on the whole, if the basic context here is that the fbi and perhaps other agencies in the intelligence community are politicized or weaponized against a particular viewpoint,

i really cannot speak to that. i don't agree with it. i know many of the people who work at these agencies or have worked them in the past. i worked at the national security agency quite some years ago but i worked there. i don't consider myself to be weaponized in any way. if that's your political viewpoint, you are entitled in this country to hold it. i don't think that viewpoint is one that can or should be used in any important intelligent way to structure consider what reforms might be needed. host: on the line from provo, utah, ken, independent. caller: good morning and thank you to c-span. this is more or less a technical question. i don't know whether you can answer or not. it's a comment, not a question.

i am an american citizen by family members -- in a country that the u.s. may not consider friendly. i would amass in the phone calls are being monitored and that's perfectly fine. there is nothing secret going on in my conversation. however, what i've noticed many times and this is not recent but been going on for the less seven or eight years, in the middle of the conversation sometimes, you hear exactly what you been saying and what you been hearing as they use a tape recorder orbits not working properly and it is playing back your conversation. i hope one of the nsa folks is watching the tv and pays attention to fix the problem. even if i didn't know i was monitored, now i do because they played it back. thank you very much.

host: any thoughts? guest: sure, i can explain more about how the collection works. first of all, caller obviously was referring to telephone calls. the section 72 program has two types of fairlamb just surveillance it uses for this program. one is called upstream surveillance that takes place at the very backbone downstream surveillance takes place at the ending point of the telecommunications process because downstream surveillance only connects internet communications, email that sort of thing. all of this is accomplished with the cooperation directed by law

of electronic communication service providers like verizon and at&t or email providers like xfinity or comcast or microsoft. roughly 90% or so of section 702 collection is downstream collection. that is emailed munication so it wouldn't involve telephone calls of all. it is possible the caller is correct, that if he's having a telephone call that the upstream program would pick up that communication even though he is an american, a u.s. person but that's only possible if his relatives somehow in the foreign country are surrogates in other words, people the government has to reasonable leave incredibly believe in accordance with very detailed regulatory procedures,

possess or communicate or will come into possession of foreign intelligence information. in the unlikely event that this caller's relatives are such persons, then yes, it's possible they are foreign targets in his telephone calls would be incidentally collected3..they would go into the database where no one would know they existed until someone ran a query that pulled that communication out at which point, the query has to be designed to find and extract foreign intelligence information and only at that point would you go into the process of being used for foreign intelligence purposes. i could add one last point -- oh if and when one is finally extract from the database and you are the u.s. person and it's your call.

it turns out that the foreign target, the information in one form or another has foreign intelligence value. let's go further and say therefore this foreign intelligence value is analyzed and put into intel's report that it's in the elsewhere in the community -- in a telecommunications community. the rules would require that any time that happens, that the identity of the u.s. person be masked. in other words, if i have an intelligence report based on telephone conversation that he was person is participating in, the report would say a u.s. person and they would be completely blocked out. any identifying information would be blocked out and deleted. instead, it would say a u.s. person spoke with and discussed x. that would be the sort of intelligence report that would be issued and there is another

whole set of procedures -- there are other circumstance where that person's identity can ultimately be revealed but there is another whole set of procedures that govern that. this is a very highly regulated foreign intelligence collection program. host: we will have to end it there. george croner from the foreign policy research institute, thank you for joining us. guest: thanks again for having me. host: we will take a quick break and up next, more of your phone caand time for open forum. start calling in now. ♪ ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors

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the florida governor ron desantis is expected to launch his presidential bid later today and talks are ongoing between the biden white house and house republicans on raising the debt ceiling. we want to hear from you, first up is karen in alabaster, alabama on the republican line. what is your comment today. caller: i had called in to make a comment for the last guest. what i wanted to say was he seemed to think of the fisa court was all up and up and it was never abused. with the fbi did you don't chose campaign in conjunction with hillary clinton's campaign. she had one of her lawyers went to the fbi and said we've got a steel dossier in the acted upon without verification. it led the court. there weren't and they kept

going. there is a two-tier justice system the need to be looked at and someone needs to be held accountable for what happened back then. it continued into president trump presidency, knowing full well that it was a lie. host: let's go to pearl river, new york on the democratic line. caller: good morning. i want to celebrate the los angeles dodgers doing the right thing. they invited to gay rights group to their 16th ride died at sartre stadium. they were going to grant this group and award for community service over decades. called the sisters of perpetual indulgence which perform as a comedic troop in the use religious imagery. the use other forms of

entertainment to promote lgbtq+ themes. the dodgers had reversed a determination they made not to grant the award to entity. there is a very good thing for progress of human rights and civil-rights that the dodgers are now going to grant the award. this should be celebrated by all. host: all right, let's go to bob calling from newfield indiana, republican line. >> yes, i'm calling about the fda -- the fbi and pfizer situation. you've done a wonderful job describing how the system should work. but you realize the system is being abused and it's basically my comment. host: all right, the news of the day includes the new six week

abortion ban in the state of south carolina. i want to show you an article from the washington post in courier. here is a little bit of that article.

that's from the post and coming out in south carolina. let's get more to your cause. gary in minnesota, independent line. caller: yes. host: what's your comment this morning? caller: my comment is, biden is letting so many people come over and i cannot believe he's letting so many people come over and they are talking about social security and all these benefits that you can get. i'm a veteran and i want to get a little help for my wife and get it because i making too much money. millionaires put in social security as well. they can get their share of money and i'll think it's right for the veterans.

i think these parties now are both wrong. they are not doing a good job but the president has more common sense to run this country. terrible the way they're doing it now, letting these people come to us. there will be so much in the populace that her grandparents will have this country is really going down fast. host: we are in open form and you can call in which her thoughts about the news of the day. today is the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in uvalde, texas. president joe biden is scheduled to deliver remarks from the white house marking that one year. that will be at 3:30 p.m. eastern. i want to show a special four-page section in today's new york times dedicated to honoring

the victims of the uvalde shooting also speaking about those who were left behind. i want to show the final page of this special section. it says remembering the victims. there were 21 victims in total, 19 children to adults today's the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in uvalde, texas. let's go back to the phone -- phone line. maryland, democratic line. caller: good morning. i'm sitting here fuming at a conversation. i'm going back and forth between your two - host: did we lose you?

caller: no you haven't lost me. host: go ahead, you were talking about our guests today. caller: not the ones on your show, i was watching the book review the founder of prince at the university. i have for the maker reverence -- i'm wondering why white has to be the standard. host: all right, let's go to phil in plymouth, indiana, republican line. caller: i am calling about the debt ceiling. i am wondering why congress and the senate do not suspend their

pay well we are discussing the debt ceiling so the we get an agreement that is bipartisan because everybody has sacrificed their pay for their time it tasted discussed this. i would like a reaction from you about that. host: all right, let's go to gary in marissa, illinois, independent line, go ahead. it's jerry. my apologies. caller: thank you. host: what would you like to say with us? caller: the only thing i wanted to say is that we should all get back along. remember the golden rule, do

unto others as you have them do unto you. that's all i have, thank you. host: all right, let's go to sherman, texas, georgia and the democratic line. the debt ceiling is to inflict pain before the election. every time there is a democratic congress, there are republicans in control of the house. obama was in office and they wanted to make him a one term president. he wanted the infrastructure plan and they rejected that. this is ridiculous. thank you. host: sherman, texas. our next caller is sally in

edwardsville illinois, independent line. caller: hi, good morning, everybody. i just wanted to let some people know about the fbi. if you would just watch the hearings on c-span, go to c-span.org, you will see christopher steel testimony under oath. also the fbi agent's. the fbi agent's did not they'll her he had paul manafort under surveillance and jumped tear be good use meeting the agents. they testified they always have four agents host: on duty. we will have to leave it there today. thank you for your call. we are going out to the u.s. house that will vote on