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♪ host: this is "washington journal" for saturday, november 16. this week, president-elect trump announced his pick for several key cabinet positions and other top roles in his administration. among the appointments, tesla and spacex c.e.o. elon musk and the newly elected government efficiency and reducing waste. spending. we're asking you how would you cut federal spend something here are the lines -- democrats -- 202-748-8000. republicans -- 202-748-8001, and independents, 202-748-8002. text your comments to 202-748-8003. be sure to include your name and city or post your questions on facebook at facebook.com/cspan

or on x at @cspanwj. i wanted to give you a little information about that newly created agency, the department of government -- department of government efficient city from fox news. president-elect trump announced the billionaire elon musk -- trump said the pair will work together to dismantle government bureaucracy, cut waste. expenditures and restructure federal agencies. it will become potentially the manhattan project of our time t. they will partner with the white

house and the office of management and budget -- it was last -- it was last month and madison square garden rallied that elon musk was asked about potential heads to the federal government. here is that clip. >> i've only got one question for you. and then i'm getting out of here because this is your stage. but we set up doje. how much do you think we can rip out this wasted $6.5 trillion harris budget? >> well, i think at least $2 trillion. >> yeah!

>> i mean, at the end of the day, you're being taxed. you're being taxed. so whether it's direct taxation or all government spending. it becomes inflation or a direct taxation. your money is being wasted, and the department of government efficiency's going to fix that. [applause] we're going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbooks. [applause] and america's going to reach heights that it has never seen before. the future is going to be amazing! host: from the associated press, last year, 2023, it did a poll talking about government spending and the size of the government says it founded u.s. adults are closely divided on whether they want to see a bigger government offering more services or a smaller government

offering fewer services, but a clear majority, 60%, say they think the government is spending too much altogether. just 15% say the government is spending too little while 22% say spending levels are about right. looking at some of the specifics, you can see this chart, the 60% in the orange is the number of people who believe the government is spending too much. when it comes to a breakdown of where that money is going, 12% say too much is being spent on education. 16% too much is spent on health care. 17%, too much is being spent on social security. 10% say medicare has too much spending. 23% say border security. and the largest percentage, 29% of people say the military has -- the government is spending too much on the military. again, this morning, went to

hear from you and how you would cut federal spending. we'll start with miguel in grammable hills, maryland, line for republicans. good morning, miguel. caller: good morning. there's a lot of places that could be cut. i've personally feel like the atf is a big one. elon musk, he's pointed this out is that alcohol and tobacco and firearms are all legal in america. i'm sure we spend funding to address these things. it's like addressing studies. the government is paying studies on whale and other animals and sometimes they're even paying for studies on other countries which is just totally odd. unless you're paying for a study that something that's in america's direct interest, these

kind of grants and stuff like that, they need to get cut out. help somebody on the streets, help somebody to the shelter or help somebody in need here first. america first should also be americans first, you know? so, that's my comment. host: that was miguel. in massachusetts, line for democrats, good morning, betty. caller: hi, i wouldn't cut any spending at all. i'd tax the rich. and people realize musk and ramaswamy are both immigrants. they're not americans. they're out for their own pockets. elon musk bought america. they're out for themselves. putin, and elon musk all own america. i wouldn't cut anything. host: todd in california, line for independents. good morning, todd.

caller: good morning. i could cut unnecessary departments like the department of education. everything should be returned to the states. things such as like the department to have interior could be merged with, you know, the department of energy. and then we have like entirely too many, you know, three-letter government agencies. we don't really need the nsa and the cia and the dia. you can just lump it all under f.b.i., things like that. host: yolanda, line for republicans. good morning. caller: hello.

can you hear me? host: yes. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm really excited to see just some of the big names that he puts for the cabinet. so, a little self-disclosure, i don't want to make that is sob story but this is definitely my last primary election i voted and i'm currently in hospice care. and i'm just really excited that, you know, i was able to participate in this historical election and i'm not going to be able to see the next four years. to be honest, i wish this terminal diagnosis would have came up four years ago during biden's campaign. but no one's here to listen to some yahoo from nashville.

i'm not going to see it, but i'm excited. host: let's talk about the question we're asking. what about federal spend something what would you cut? caller: what i would cut, the first caller made a really good point with the whale studies. that doesn't make any sense to me. host: eddie in atlanta, line for democrats. good morning, eddie. caller: good morning, everybody. it's hard to say what can you cut because it take money. it take money to make money. so what we need do is cut, stop giving all these billionaires, you know, they happy. when they die, they can't take that money. all the billion of dollars with them. so, they need to cut -- what we need to cut is debt. people that can go out and get

donations from people that ain't got money and -- what they want to -- republicans want to talk about when they want to do some cuts, they want to cut money all for social security and medicaid and medicare just like the governor of republican government. and he didn't want to pass the bill for -- to extend medicaid for the people. so, donald trump is in there. he all about the rich. he ain't going to get nothing done. ain't nothing going to get done under his watch. i don't see why these people put him in charge and put him back in this office. because i mean, the poor people going to suffer more. we're fixing to -- and then trump, you better watch trump going to try to put all the

republicans that they 25, they are going to try to get to your bank account now and put the trump tax -- trump stamp on your forehead and on your bank account. host: that was eddie in atlanta. jim in florida, line for republicans. good morning, jim. caller: good morning. my first thing that i would cut is first of all, i would cut these people out that are not going to work. we have gotten to the point now what do we have? like 50% or 60% of people that work for the government work from their homes instead of going the offices that we are still paying rent on? washington, d.c.? it's like a ghost town in those buildings. so, either cut the buildings or cut the people. the gentleman from tennessee said we need to take more money from the rich. i mean, it takes money to make

money. there you go. the government doesn't make any money. we make the money. the government takes it from us. host: jim, when you said people who don't work anymore, are you talking about federal employees who are working remote? caller: yes. i can tell you because i've seen people that are working from their homes and we live on a lake. and i can tell you that i see a guy who works from his home and every day, he's out doing yoga on his waterboard rather than being on his computer doing his job. for hours. and, you know, he's supposed to be working 8:00 to 5:00 because he used to drive out here every morning and go to work and come back after 5:00. host: that was jim in florida. ralph in new york, line for democrats. good morning, ralph. caller: good morning. i'm a uaw worker from new york. i'm not looking to cut.

i'm looking to -- we need to raise revenue in this country. we're not raising revenue and the republican party, they don't want to raise any revenue. they want to cut everything that is vital to working people. and when all comes down, you're going to see cuts in osha that protects the health and safety of workers in the workplace. they're going to cut the funding for the labors board for over 80 million private sector workers. so that's where the cuts are coming from. so federal workers are going to be cut. so all these workers that voted for the trump administration they're on the menu right now. and that's what they're going to start seeing these cuts that really benefit working people and i thank you. host: that was ralph. vivek ramaswamy was on fox news on wednesday talking about the

new department. here is a clip from that interview. >> when ronald reagan became president on the issue of defense, he called it a gap of vulnerability. china, russia, they have hypersonic missile technology. we do not. we're going to have to spend a lot of money on defense to catch up and to surpass our enemies. social security, medicare are headed towards invol sensey and we'll have to spend money there. that money has to make money. dominance is where our greatest opportunity is. your thoughts. >> look, part of what's holding back energy dominance in this country is the state. look at the regulations. how hard it is to open a new refinery. so i think that is the root cause of our failure as a country is this unelected fourth branch of government. and i think they look at elected officials as these cute little puppets that come and go. not anymore.

there's a new sheriff in town. donald trump's the president. he has mandate us for drastic reform of this federal bureaucracy with the learnings of that first term. and elon and i, we solved major problems of physics. what we're solving here is a man made problem and when you have a man made problem, you better have a man made solution. that's what we're bringing to the table. we're assembling the brightist minds in the country. i think the major problem holding our country back is the federal bureaucracy. if i just want to say, this government -- "in-depth," it is built -- department of government efficiency, it is built with an end date. that's on the 250th of

independence and that's the gift we want to give this country. host: i wanted to show you this chart from the congressional budget office showing the federal budget for fiscal year 2023. the outer ring is the mandatory spending. that is accounts for $3.8 trillion. the inner ring is the discretionary. and that is at $1.7 trillion. the mandatory spending includes social security, medicare, medicaid, income security program and others the discretionary spending includes non-defense and defense. defense alone is $800.5. we'll hear from james from boston next on the line for independence. good morning, james. caller: there's a great opportunity to raise revenue and lower mortgage rates. and that is actually merging the

entities -- freddie mac as in come up and having -- order sell the equity that the u.s. government has in those entities. they have like $200 billion and if you merge them, you could reduce mortgage guarantee fees which would be a win for housing, for people trying to do housing formation but also bring in $200 billion to $300 million. i think mr. ramaswamy -- [indiscernible] which now is loaded and now is starting to have the -- which nobody wants. it's a great opportunity to move the role into the treasury, eliminate -- and merge fannie and freddie. it will be a triple win.

lower guarantee rates and up holding the constitutional standards of eliminating separation of powers. host: james, do you work in the industry? caller: no, i used to work in the largest industry a long time ago and been following it since the financial crisis and the role of the u.s. treasury and participating that. i was an investor in some fannie mae preferred and i did not know that the u.s. treasury had a memo out there where they said it was insolvent. i bought that from my wife not knowing that. and since then, i've been waiting for the government to do the right thing and that's conservatorship and just speaking how much money has come in to these entities and still being held by government control and also raising guarantee fees.

i think this is a real example of how the administrative has grown. host: as somebody who's familiar with how it works, is it an idea that you have come up with or is this an idea that's been floating in the mortgage industry circle? caller: it's actually an issue some people don't want to happen because there's legacy businesses that are protected by the cap visittity of these very important institutions. there's a lot of room. there's proposals by the heritage foundation of brookings foundation. there were proposals on the

table of how this would be a win-win for housing. but there -- it was very disappointing the biden administration did not take action. this is something that president trump was going to work on but actually had to wait for the pus supreme court to rule on a separations power issue and didn't have time to finish it. so, you know, when you look at all this stuff, it's actually very complicated with separation of power issues, but ultimately, doing the right thing is a win for future home buyers and people who want to refinance the mortgages. it brings $200 billion to u.s. treasury and it really represents how the state can harm and make our government

pleasant efficient. host: that was james in boston. jim in florida. line for republicans. good morning, jim. caller: good morning. i'd like to have a ton of money by not delivering residential mail on saturday. the time -- any check you get, my nail today will be delivered around 2:30. if i get a bank, my bank closes at noon. they should keep the branches open till noon but they could save a ton of money by not delivering residential mail on saturday. think about all those trucks on the roads today and all the gas they're using and you could consider changing those trucks to electric trucks. they think about saving the environment, have those trucks electric trucks. because regardless of what you get today, you can't do anything with it until monday. so it would save a lot of money to not have residential mail

delivered on saturday. just monday through friday. what do you think? host: that was jim in florida. bradley in georgia, line for democrats. good morning, bradley. caller: yes. i have a couple of ideas. as far as cutting things, maybe some subsidies to maybe the oil industry. but what i would like to say bringing up revenue, the capital gains tax need to be raised. the corporate tax rate should be raised. why do we not tax churches? like it seems to me like obviously, the churches right now are really involved in politics. and i can't really think of anything i've ever seen where churches do anything with all that money. and it seems like there's a lot of revenues for taxing churches and i'm sure the religious people are -- it's time to be done. thank you. host: richard in alaska, line

for independence. good morning. caller: thank you very much. and the prevea just spurred another interest of mine but i was initially going to say that -- the first way to reduce spending is finding the indiscretionary spending with the department of defense. the black hole money there. i am now going to say -- agree with the previous gentleman that taxing with churches is exactly something that needs to will be done. -- to be done. taxing the rich and the corporations and multinationals so the money goes directly into the general funds should be done. i also believe that congressman,

congress people, should have their wages lowered to minimum wage. [laughter] now, i know that's silly, but if it -- and it won't happen because trump's in office now. but i do believe the incriminate -- indiscriminate and the department of defense, it's a huge black hole that nobody looks into. and raise the minimum to meet $15 an hour so that money gets spent locally. i live in a town of roughly 5,000 people. everybody's busy. it's very few unemployed.

there are some and there are homeless on the key nine peninsula. there's only 45,000 population. and we do ok but it's still tough. we know now that with the trump administration that it's going to be tougher to do anything for the middle class and the lower class people. host: richard, what's the minimum wage in alaska? caller: between $7 and $8. host: you know the last time it went up? caller: maybe five years ago, roughly. but the average working wage though, i may have to back up on there a little bit. it may be closer to $8 or $9. but the average person here

makes around $10 an hour. but there's a lot of the population is in sales, retail sales or government or oil or fish. so, there's a lot of seasonal. sol the balance of the wages from tough to do. well, i'm retired now. i'm 77. i've never worked for $25 in the last 15 years in my working experience. i do not hire as a mcfor less than -- mechanic for less than $40 on a part-time basis. as an ex-musician, i worked for $25-40 a night an hour at night. so i mean, it varies. host: that was richard in

alaska. i wanted to show you this article from today's "washington post." government efficiency panels like those saying that since at least the administration as theodore rose svelte have been recommended in the name of making government more efficient or saving money. but many have come up short. commissions that attempts to deliver private sectors, the government are all --

host: let's hear from manny in daytona beach, florida, line for republicans. good morning, manny. caller: good morning. the first thing i would do is i would research the original reason that the federal government was set up. in other words, for defense and

so forth. and i would eliminate any duplication that there would be between -- if the states are having a duplication of the federal government doing it also. i would make the congress go back to go home. might be six months a year or whatever and have to live under the laws that they're making. and then i would cut out the fraud and the abuse and people should be able to keep their money. the problem is there's so much taxation. i mean, it's crazy. there's too much duplication. the people should learn to work hard and be able to keep their money. and that's my opinion. host: that was manny.

laurie in ohio, line for democrats. good morning. caller: i want to comment on the fellow that was talking about working home remotely which is something i do. i feature college. i don't keep regular hours and the college doesn't require that i do that. so i just wanted to point out that because he may see somebody out between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00, whatever the case may be, that doesn't mean they're not doing their job and doing their job effectively and efficiently. so that's something that i want to point out. host: that was laurie. douglas in wyoming, line for independents. good morning, douglas. caller: good morning. i would eliminate useless and fruitless research project. but for the best advice, i would go to rand paul.

i would very much appreciate hearing more from david i didn' swifford. caller: i want to limit the ethanol subsidies. be good for the environment and lower food prices. my information is not up to date. it's been years since i checked on this but as i recall, about a third of all the corn grown the united states was turned intoest knoll. there was a professor who determined that the energy requirements for manufacturing ethanol are five and a half times greater than the energy you could extract from the

ethanol that was produced. your egg prices, chickens, corn is the primary food for the chickens. beef, pork, and on like that. the reason for having ethanol was it came out shortly after the oil embargo of the 1970's when people started stockpiling fuel. so if you have e-15 ethanol fuel, then you have maybe a year -- six months for small engines, a year for your vehicle before it no thunderstorm warning works.

and all chemicals that are used to clean up the mess left behind for either that will really damages the environment. caller: one of the ways to cut government spending ills to accomplishment dibs for large corporations who -- if they're profitable, why do they need subsidies?

and especially where it's affected. i would look at there are two people who will run that agency. number one, with lack of control. how are they going to be funded? but are those two people paying taxes to be able to support? do they even pay taxes? and that was something that taxing people on a -- there's like a pay as you go, pay as you can, you know. people who can't afford it shouldn't be paying taxes at all. you know, you make under a certain amount, zero, but when a teacher is going to being paid less money than someone in congress, you know? and who has lifetime medical after they evelyn if they've been there one term and their pensions when they are on the

circus and they can -- they have other income sources. especially when they're efficient and they're not going to work. teachers, they get paid -- you know, when to eliminate the department of education and bring it to the states. how about focus on the education is the thing that's going to bring us through the future to be able to educate our youth and make it affordable by someone else said about these -- there's sort of like when you want to get a student loan. and all of a sudden, you're literally paying for your lifetime when you tripled, you

know, it's one thing that you have a mortgage. you pay your mortgage and the interest, you know, just pay it. i love what the woman said about people who without me. why are we giving space and subsidies and we give subsidies by allowing rich people not to pay taxes. that's basically putting money in their pockets. prices are high but corporate profits are over the top right now. so, price caps is another thing that i would be looking at. and rather than eliminate some of the things is also reducing waste and military spending.

and fixed prices by in the -- make the lowest bidding -- the bidding process a little bit more competitive. thank you. host: that was liz in connecticut. this from today's "wall street journal" opinion page. the musk-ramaswamy project has skeptics sneer that the deal is interest about shrinking project. saying the doge would be a non-government operation working with allies inside the white house --

host: just about 20 minutes left in this first segment of today's program asking you how would you cut federal spend something brian, athens, georgia, line for independence. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. so, yeah, my answer's going to be really, really counterintuitive. so i used to work as a show contracts administrator about 10 years in the force. and i would still be doing it now if my mom hadn't gotten alzheimer's and i had to bail and move down to georgia to take care of things. but the thing that i noticed when i was working was when you started switching over to a model where we're relying super

heavily on contracting to get almost everything done. like we were sitting there contracting out and the toilets we have that -- and then, you know, like that's just a good example. and then we started contracting out the pumping of the playlist. and then we started contracting out all of the campgrounds. and unfortunately, our desire to cut the personnel costs resulted in us having to take on these contracts. they put us in a really bad situation because the contractors would essentially bend the agency over the barrel and force it since these first of all high contract rates. on paper, it would look like it was going to be efficient and then they would use the contract provision where hey, they shut

down all of the campgrounds. the vendor, he bid so low on the project that he wasn't actually able to cover his operating costs. and the way that he amended the situation was he claims every single tree in every single campground that he was in charge of with a hazard tree and needed to be cut and then when the forest service told him no, you're being silly, he just suspended the contract. it's provision where it's a breach of suspension. and so we ended up with the national forest lost every campground reservation, because of this one vendor. and, you know, when we were doing the timber operations, you know, i was on one of the high test production timber districts

in the united states. and, you know, it was me and two timber markers and yeah, you know, we could accomplish maybe 40-50% of our annual timber target. the rest of it had the lion's share had be carried by contractors. so mind you like a gf-5 timber marker which was the standard in that pay range runs from about 21-26 dollars an hour and we were having to pay these timber markers approximately like i think it worked out to be like $60 an anchor with the average and they would run through the sale because we were paying them by the acre.

so the faster they do the job and the faster they get it done, the more money they're paid per unit effort. unfortunately when that happens is they do a terrible job. they just mark random trees. when you're going in with logging machinery, you have to make sure there's enough space. we have to comply with the policy act. we have to comply with the forest plan. we have all this stuff that we need done confidently. but these timber markers just move so fast. they're just trying to make as much money as possible for the total effort as possible sun and fortunately on the forester side where we do -- we send out a contracting representative to go in and inspect these -- host: brian, talk to me about a dollar amount. do you have any idea how much if the government were to hire

contractors and vendors and examples like that? how much it could save? caller: well, for example, i got the stoney south timber sale. it would have taken us $40,000 in-house to go and mark that timber sale. we bidded out to a timber marker for $35,000. the contracting officers representative that we had sent out, he had been administering to i think seven or eight -- he did not have the time to inspect it on top of that, he was so -- didn't have the experience. he ended up approving a lot of the stuff just because it was too much of a pain because the timber markers would make it too much of a pain to go and fight to get it actually done right. we just didn't have the time. so, what ended up happening was

it good sold. i got thrown on my lap. and realized that everything was messed up and i had to spend an additional $35,000 in timber marking in overtime with my guys who were already worn out from keeping up with our timber target. so instead of costing $40,000, it costs $70,000. that's the sort of thing that we could avoid. host: that was brian in georgia. don in virginia, line for republicans. good morning, don. caller: hi. i think they spend a lot of money in compulsory education on a federal level so that money that winds up with the federal government that might not have come through compulsory education system could be transferred or otherwise

transited to a federal management financial program -- and that i don't know what other sorts of implications would be inherent or incumbent to say that if you're not spending on compulsory education that people have a choice whether they want to go to school, etc., what are they going to be doing. but there's a jefferson quote that says that whatever debt that you accrue, it doesn't transfer to the next generation. so in federal government borrowing or spending or that

money that they don't have or that on local or state level or local level and then so with your constituents your trading partners, internationally. if it's contract, the get the federal government accrues is whomever acquires it can -- is responsible for it. so that it's payable to whomever it is. so i know it's large in scope but that's one thing that i would think that a free society and an advanced society would not compel education from people where that they say that a debt, one that is going to cost and two, that well, you know, you had choices. you're free, but in a very primary sense, you have -- that

you have to meet domestically and so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. host: john, do you work in education or do you have children that are in -- school age children? caller: no. my experience with the education system is primary. having had to go through school, my mother was in public education, compulsory education field pretty much all, everything entitled in the united states is compulsory when they say that it's universal, in other words. but then -- and so if -- in my experience now like the town that i live and really

essentially the entire economy is consumed by the -- that system, the educational system. so that if or that if, if, so any experience that -- i don't know how else you would approach it but to say that either it's free education, free whether it's by choice or that it's sort of like a dark space, i guess, in other words. but thank you for your time and i don't know if -- i know it's large in scope. but then -- host: that was john in virginia. matt in wilmington, north carolina, line for democrats. good morning, matt. caller: hey, good morning. my name is matt and i'm from wilmington, north carolina, and

i call from time to time to remind you guys that i don't like us to use the term trillion. i'd rather we use one thousand billion. some people can't really grasp the size and scope of america's budget or the united states budget per year. and we're currently not collecting -- we're overspending by almost $2 million or should i say two thousand billion. most people don't understand the budget. as far as how much is in the budget and how many things that the americans are trying to do. we need to collect more taxes. that's one thing. but rich people write the tax codes. so that's never going to get done. they're always going write-foot benefit them and their business cohorts. so that's really super frustrating. also, i'd like to suggest that we get medicare the ability to

negotiate drug prices and so we could find out where they're really spending the money. when we talk about elon musk doing cust cutting, what he's talking about is americans losing job. he's going to be firing people in d.c. which is where i used to live. people are going to be losing jobs. they're going to be losing jobs and be out on the streets. please remind the american public this. people are going to be losing jobs. thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs. people are going to be out on the streets. host: that was matt in north carolina. elon musk did talk about government spending during a town hall in pennsylvania last month before the election. here's a clip from that event. >> well, i've had some exposure to government spending because of spacex has -- does have a lot of government contracts. there's a lot of work for nasa

and for dod, intel and whatnot. so i've seen the level of waste that happens and people in the government, they agree. it's very waste. and inefficient. and i'm like why don't we do something about it? it has to be a mandate from the top. and if the president -- if we have a great president like donald trump who is willing to make major changes and physical, because the system will fight you. the system is not going to be like oh, yeah. we're totally happy being smaller. that will not be -- like the antibody reaction of the system will be quite severe. i don't think this is going to be -- they're not going to like it, basically. so, but you have to have that mandate from the president. and we need a real president, not a puppet. host: from news nation, they did a piece looking at the examples

of government ways and one of them is -- waste and one of them is congressional funding for expired programs. says the congressional budget office found that congress provided $516 billion in appropriations this fiscal year to programs that had expired under federal law. the funds were associated with nearly 500 expired authorizations, according to the cbo's july report. nearly two thirds or $320 billion was provided for activities whose authorizations expired more than a decade agoing the report said. about half of the authorized appropriations in the report expired at least 10 years ago and the oldest expired in 1980. in 2023, the amount was $519 million. just a few minutes left. we'll hear from propelled and alexandria, virginia.

good morning, ronald. caller: hi. host: i'm sorry, is it donald? caller: yes, it's donald. host: apologies. good morning, donald. caller: ok. thanks for c-span to begin with. and "wall street journal" stole a little of my thunder, but regulations are created by the executive branch to enforce laws written by the congress and signed by the president. each agency has an expected general's office and inspector general's office is charged with monitoring the activities of the agency for waste, fraud and abuse the government accounting office is a congressional office responsible for investigating the executive branch for waste, fraud and abuse. as the congress can use that to go into any agency and do audits to make sure that they are following the regulations or following the laws that's been

assigned to them. the congress is responsible for conducting hearings to investigate the executive branch for waste, fraud and abuse as well. they can do this through their own hearing. which kind of indicates that we have a whole lot of ways to look for waste, fraud and v.c.u. already in existence. maybe they need to be augmented by an added staff to help them out. but the bottom line is the congress needs to repeal laws that they don't think are -- that they think -- contributing to waste, fraud and abuse. host: that was donald in virginia. trina in lawrence, new york. line for republicans. good morning, trina. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a few points, but mainly, my overall point is that i think too much money is spent on not

fixing that's broken and trying to fix things that are not broken. so, for example, some of the things that are broken would be the nih, definitely, how much money have we sunk into trying to develop vaccines and medications when we're not preventing the things that they're trying to address with those sorts of things? torture animals. -- torturing animals. there's so much fraud and evil that's going on in that department. i agree with turning the department of education's control over to the state. a lot of people have called in about -- i have a one size fits all idea. i don't agree with those things. another thing that's ineffective is the i.r.s. let's minimize that right down to the bare bones just for a little oversight. if there was a flat tax and a tax on consumption, life would be fair for everybody.

we would have to stop worrying about corporations not paying their fair share and everybody would be paying a proportion and amount of what they're buying. so, just money that's wasted on the election. let's look at that. if you're going to add any rules and i'm not a big person about rules, but if you're going to add any kind of rules, then every dollar that you donate to some kind of politician, you should be able to -- you should have to pay one dollar into social security or medicare. it is a good idea. i think that one of the things i wanted to respond to -- there was two things i wanted to respond to with callers. one person said that people are working from home and not doing anything. well, again, one size fits all is not the case. some people are working very, very hard from home. and this is saving us dollars from the office spaces that can

be turned into the much-needed housing. there are many people who are working at home well, quote-unquote working at home that aren't doing anything and that's the bloated government and politicians that were duplicating things and those are some of the folks that are fixing, what's not broken, coming up with more policies and procedures for us to follow when it's working just fine. those things need to be taken care of and looked at. and i just -- the second thing -- thank you so much for allowing me the pace and this is the last thing i want to say is that the person that said what do churches do with their money and they should be taxed. that is -- those people are voluntarily besides spreading the lifesaving gospel, feed the hungry, helping with disaster cleanup, providing health care and isolated areas in places of poverty, all volunteers. they're doing wonderful things with their dollars. and they're not mandated to do this. so, i just wanted to respond to

that because i couldn't believe that one. thank you for your time. host: that was trina in new york. and our last call, line for independents, from jones in new york. caller: good morning. i agree with matt who said we need to talk about the federal spending in thousands of billions of dollars. it makes it more real. and also with his idea of increasing the federal revenue. someone mentioned diffing away with the nonprofit status of churches and the thread just talked all the good things that they do. i supported church very much. but i would be much, but i would be ok with that, if it also would do away with all other nonprofits, because these other nonprofits also have thousands, millions in their bank accounts that they can put aside.

and a lot of them are not properly monitored. i looked at the small one in new jersey. they hadn't filed their appropriate papers they are supposed to file. but nobody's really providing accountability for them, and they can also be a cover for people who just want to have salaries for their own use. i'd like to see cuts in higher education or it turned over to the state. and i'd like to see them do away with all these federal grants. the last couple decades, we have had these grants to educate people about dementia. right up in washington, d.c., we had a president sitting in office who obviously had signs of it. so i think the millions spent on dementia education were a total waste. host: that's joan in virginia, our last call this first hour. next on "washington journal," r

street institute resident senior fellow and former senate aide james wallner will discuss a gop-controlled senate in the 119th congress and president-elect trump's potential recess nominations. later, brookings institution governance studies senior fellow john valent -- jon valant will discuss president-elect trump's education policy proposals, including eliminating the department of education. we will be right back. ♪ >> join book tv this weekend for the texas book festival, live from boston. our coverage begins today at 11:00 a.m. eastern and sunday at noon. highlights include the book "we are home," on immigration and the process of becoming an american. "the sisterhood" on women in the cia. "watchdogs" on the role of an

inspector general. and "the fall of roe" on post-roe america. watch the texas book festival live on c-span 2. to see the full texas book festival schedule, visit our website,booktv.org. >> next week on the c-span networks, the house and senate are in. house democrats will hold their leadership elections for the 119th congress, and orientation continues forewly elected house members. the hous will re-vote onedger -- legislation. and the senate will vote on more of president biden's remaining judicial nominations. tuesday, fema's administrator testifies on disaster readiness and response. then, homeland security alejandra mayorkas, fbi director christopher wray, and the acting director of the national

counteerrorism center testified onorwide threats to the u.s. on wednesday, before the house homeland security committee, then thursday before the senate homeland security. watch live o the c-span networks or on-span now. also, head to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979, we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policy is debated and decided, all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered cable --by cable.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now to discuss a gop-controlled senate in the 119th congress and president-elect trump's potential recess nominations is james wallner, a senior fellow at r street institute. welcome back to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: remind people what the r street institute is. guest: it is a terrific organization. it looks at real solutions for real problems. it is one of the best laces for creative inquiry in washington, d.c. today. it really tries to get above the stale left right dichotomy that has led us to this point, where many people feel pressured with paralysis and gridlock in d.c. i focus on the governance program. i focus on the constitution and how our system operates, but more specifically congress and

the united states senate, something near and dear to my heart, having spent many years working there. i am fascinated by the rules, what can i say. host: we are going to talk about the senate for the next 45 minutes. this week, president-elect trump announced several key cabinet nominations and has asked republican leaders in the chamber to allow recess appointments. explain what that is. guest: the constitution's opening clause requires the president to nominate, the senate to confirm any judge or other officer of the united states. this is advise and consent. it also has a provision in the constitution that allows for the president to put officials in positions, including judges, when the senate is in recess. for much of senate history, senators were not in town, and it took a long time to get to town. this was before you could hop on a plane and get to d.c. from anywhere in the country in a few hours. the idea was to ensure the functioning of the government.

but when the senate returned, the senate within have to vote on that nominee, if the president wanted that person to continue in that job for a longer period of time. recess appointment nominees can only serve for a limited amount of time. host: one was a last time a recess appointment -- when was the last time a recess appointment was used? has ever been used for a cabinet level position? guest: recess appointees have been used for pretty much every position. the president has used them on a routine basis. they are not controversial in and of themselves. however, they gained added controversy in this era of partisanship. -- when the senate was ostensibly not in recess, but he claimed they were a pair that went to the supreme court. there was a case which spoke to this issue and limited the power

of the president to make recess appointments. host: this may be a tricky question, but who decides if a recess appointment can be used? guest: at the end of the day, no one is in charge. no one rules america. that is the point of america. ultimately, it is the people. the people will make the decision as to how their elected officials in the white house and congress act when they go back to the polls in the next election. with regard to the powers of each branch, each branch gets to decide how it will execute its power, use its power under the constitution. the president can certainly decide, like president obama did, that he wants to make a recess appointment. but if the senate and house disagree, they have tools they can use, the power of the purse, even impeach. and the courts also have a role to play, as we saw in 2014. host: you were talking about the

chambers having control over recess appointments. it was during former president trump, now present electron, his first term, that he threatened to adjourn congress to push through nominees using recess appointments. how does that work? guest: the constitution does give the president power to adjourn the house and senate on extra ordinary occasions. that is the term it uses, "extraordinary occasions." when they can't agree, cases of disagreement between the two chambers on the time of the appointment. so the president has floated the idea may be the president could use that to forcibly adjourn congress and therefore create a recess, create the opportunity he could then use this power in the constitution to make recess appointments. if you actually look at it, it has never been done before. it would be an x ordinary power the president would use,

something more akin to what the king had in great britain, when we declared independence, when the king dissolved polymers at will. that is not something the founding fathers were thrilled about. also, you have to be in a state of disagreement. that is a very precise term and it seems clear the senate can control when it wants to be in a state -- state of disagreement with the house and when it doesn't. host: we are talking with james wallner, a senior resident, fellow at the archery institute, about the gop controlled senate and the upcoming congress, and also president-elect trump's potential recess nominations. if you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now. the line for democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicanss, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. james, you talked about both

chambers. you mentioned both chambers, although appointments and nominations usually go through the senate. what is the house's role? what can they do when it comes to nominations? guest: your absolutely correct that the senate and only the senate has a role in that confirmation process. the house does not. however, if the president wants to make a recess appointment or if the president is to make a recess appointment, the senate has to be in recess. the senate can control when it goes into recess, when it adjourns and does not adjourn. however, the constitution requires the senate to get the permission of the house if it wants to adjourn for more than three days. this will involve the house, whether the senate wants to or not or whether the president wants to or not. you have to have both chambers in agreement to adjourn for a sufficient period of time in order for the president to have the opportunity to make a recess appointment. host: for viewers who regularly watch "washington journal," you probably see us dip into a house pro forma every now and then.

that is some of what james is talking about, in order to continue to keep chambers in session. james, the republicans won control of the chamber for the upcoming 119th congress. right now, they will have an expected 53 seats. there is one race in pennsylvania that is going into a recount, but they are expected have 53 seats, two democrats and one independent for 47. what does that mean for wanting to gavel out and potential legislation? guest: the first thing your viewers need to understand is a simple majority can adjourn the senate. ever since we saw them use the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster for executive branch nominations, a simple majority can confirm a nominee. this isn't a problem.

there is no crisis if you are president-elect trump, if you have the support of all the republicans, because you have the votes right there. you can't filibuster these nominations. however, if you do not have the support of all these nominations, this will not happen, because you have to be in a state of disagreement for the president to use this extraordinary power on this, as the constitution says, x ordinary occasion. it seems to me you cannot force the house into a state of disagreement, has to take action on its own, which itself takes a majority. in the meantime, we see this going back to president george w. bush and more, majorities will take these pro forma sessions, which will sound bizarre to those a home, where you come in, gavel in, there's no one else around, they say we are here, then they adjourn, and that is it. they do that every three days. as long as they keep doing that, that prevents the president for

making a recess appointment, because the senate is not in a recess. host: our first caller for you, james in georgia, line for independents. caller: good morning. i was a progressive democrat, but i agree that trump should be able to put into place anybody he wants. the democrats are weak. they can interpret the constitution, trump can. i'm sick of the democrats crying. we gave them obama and 60 votes. they could have done whatever they wanted. do not use the filibuster to stop you from passing legislation. the people who voted for trump -- they should live throughout whatever he wanted to do. all the democrats are complaining all the time and stuff about the constitution and this and that everything, but the constitution can be interpreted to mean anything any administration wants. democrats, shut up, especially

you hispanics who voted for trump -- host: any response? guest: the first thing i would point out is we have been in this position before. we had unified republican-controlled government, donald trump in the white house making cabinet level appointments, and democrats were very much opposed to that. at that time, senator chris murphy -- versus february of 2017. they went around the clock, one night, stayed in session all night long voting on cabinet level nominations. afterwards, senator chris murphy spoke to a process of group, and they asked him, they were like, this is exciting, we will take the fight to them. senator murphy looked at them and said i am exhausted, i do not know how watch -- how much longer we can sustain this pair that is important to remember. we have not seen all out obstruction with the filibuster, even without the filibuster, of presidential nominations because

it takes effort and time. if you know you will lose in the end, that is hard to do. it is important we keep this context in mind. in reality, we have seen this before. the president typically gets his nominations. the only thing i would say is a lot of the people right now who are alarmed by this idea the president would use recess appointments in this way and are pushing back aggressively against the president were also the same people who argued aggressively that the president ought to have -- ought to be able to put people in executive branch positions with george w. bush. if you look at george w. bush's judicial nominations, these very same people would say things like it is unconstitutional for the senate to not have a vote, and up or down vote on a presidential nomination. it is important to keep this history in mind. the moment we're in, maybe they changed their talking points,

maybe people turned things around a little, but it is never totally unique in american history. host: to the caller's point, there is a reuters headline, expect to hear the f word a lot in the senate next year. f word is the filibuster. it is something republicans have said they want to keep in place. how could that impact president-elect trump's legislative efforts? guest: as we understand the filibuster, it often means a veto. it means you need 60 votes, not 51, to get anything done. because were republicans do not have 60 votes, that means they would need to moderate their agenda in order to get things done. that is the conventional understanding of the filibuster. after having worked in the senate many years, watching senators tried to filibuster things, i can assure you the filibuster is not a veto. it does not seem like that until you are tasked for trying to filibuster something. the filibuster is an opportunity to speak, an opportunity to speak and be heard and participate in the debate, and

you have to sustain that filibuster and that obstruction. that is very hard. for much of american history, there was no way to end the filibuster, and the senate still be -- did big things on narrow majority votes. we can still see lots of things pass even with the filibuster on legislation, because that is up to the republicans, not democrats. it is up to how they manage the senate and how aggressively they push through their agenda. host: remind us what type of legislation 60 votes is not needed on. guest: in recent years, people have heard the term "budget reconciliation." budget reconciliation is a fancy term that refers to a bill that cannot be filibuster, that there is a time limit for its debate on the senate floor and the house floor. but the house floor can do whatever they want with the special rules. so this really only applies to the senate. the ideas when congress passes a budget and it has topline level

for spending and revenue, later on, they can look at that budget, look at the permanent law, see how they are compared. and if we are spending more than the budget said we ought to come if we are not bringing in as much, bringing into little, as the budget said we ought to, then they can pass a bill to reconcile or align that permanent law with the budget. that is what the budget reconciliation measure does. it is ostensibly meant to focus only on budget related items, not policy related items. but both parties have used budget reconciliation to do purely policy related stuff. host: richard in illinois, line for democrats. good morning. caller: i just had a basic question. due to the fact trump says he wants to put two czars up there for major cuts -- these are two billionaires -- where does the american people fit in, where if they disagree with what he is

doing, that they can call and put in a complaint? because he is eliminating congress, too. i just want to know. that's my question, sir. guest: we have seen the executive office of the president and the executive staff grow significantly since its first real appearance with franklin delano roosevelt. presidents of both parties have used non-senate confirmed positions and people to get advice and carry their agenda to capitol hill and out into the press. i can reassure you, unless congress gives the president this power, congress ultimately has the power of the purse. james madison called it the most effectual power any people can give to defend themselves against tyranny. it is the most important power. the congress has to approve any cuts. and i would go one step further. the constitution is explicit. no many can even leave the

treasury -- no money can even leave the treasury unless the house first asks to prove that. if the house decides to do nothing, no money leaves. if the house decides to spend money, it goes to the senate, if they disagree, they vote on a bill, then they are in a state of disagreement, then they work that out, then that bill goes to the president. that may or may not be under the czar, but ultimately, the people's representatives in the congress have to make that decision. host: another james for you, this one in new jersey, line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a question regarding these recess appointments. what would be the political cost -- i am not even sure what the correct term without b, recalling a trump nominee? for example, matt gaetz seems to be one of the more controversial choices for a very consequential position.

hypothetically, matt gaetz is put in that role via recess appointment. what happens when the republican-controlled senate returns? is it even remotely possible, after president trump's resounding victory, that a republican-controlled senate would even consider something like that? it seems to me -- i am no expert by any means -- it seems like a huge political risk. some of them are up for reelection in 2026. to me, it seems they want to do anything and everything to keep president trump and his supporters happy after a resounding landslide victory. guest: so the president can't nominate the presumptive attorney general nominee until he is sworn in office. once he is in office, that nomination can be made to her that goes to the senate. the senate judiciary committee will review it. after reviewing it and having a hearing, they vote on it, then it does to the full senate. at any point in that process, that nomination can be withdrawn by the president. we have seen this with former

majority leader tom daschle. president obama avoided -- appointed daschle, and ultimately, because of a tax issue, that nomination was withdrawn. presidents can withdraw nominations anytime. defeating a cabinet level nominee in a vote will be rare, but what is much more likely to happen is that the senate will lean on the president, tell the president, make it clear to the president that he does not have the votes, at which point the president with then presumably withdraw the nominee. of course, president-elect trump is unlike other presidents in many respects, so it is unclear whether that would be the case. host: a question coming in on x. he says, to your guest, explain the filibuster used by tommy tuberville used in promoting generals. guest: what senator tuberville

did was not a filibuster. this is why we think the filibuster is the veto. again, the filibusters just the opportunity to stand and talk. as all of you know, standing up and talking takes a lot of effort. you get the lights on you and the cameras are rolling and there are other places you want to be and your colleagues are grumbling, maybe your spouse or kids back home are like, why are you not coming home? there are a lot of things that factor into make it hard to sustain. what senator tuberville simply said was say no. the senate has rules, and it can follow those rules, and for much of its history, the rules led it to do great and big things. just like the house today, the senate does not follow its rules all the time. instead, it creates new rules. the mechanism used to do that is what is called a unanimous consent agreement. they say, i ask unanimous consent that we take these five nominations and put them together and just confirm care that is something you would do. when you ask for unanimous consent, you're asking for

everyone's consent. this is a vote which requires 100 senators to vote yes. you are asking for senator tuberville's permission, at which point, senator tuberville's is completely justified to say no, because you are asking for his permission. if you do not want to senator tuberville to say no, do not ask for his permission, and just use the rules instead of asking for unanimous consent. host: david in new york, line for independents. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. my question is framed around matt gaetz and whether trump has the ability to install whoever he wants in that position. the way i'm looking at it is basically i am looking back a generation and what have -- looking back at january 6 and what happened on january 6, a terrible time for our country. on january 6, it was framed at the viewpoint that donald trump

was trying to stop the certification of the votes. but i am looking at it from a different perspective. i am tried to figure out what was actually happening in the house when january 6 happened. what happened was ted cruz was standing there with two congressmen, ready to try to debate whether the election was fair or not. so i am looking at that as motive. why would trump want to stop that? who would want to stop that? from my perspective, trump would not have wanted to stop that. when everything stopped and went back, they did not pick up with ted cruz. everyone, i guess, got scared and just said we are going to certify this election. so my point is, what really happens? do we need to investigate that? does trump have a duty to get

someone in government that would actually look at people in our government who may have done something illegal that they, right? host: james? guest: well, what the members of congress were doing, apart from the people who broke into the capitol and ransacked the place, separate from all of that, what the members of congress were doing, whether we like that or not, was they were using rules on the books, the electoral count act establishes procedures. they were using those procedures to adjudicate presidential electors. their motive, we can question their motives, we can question all kinds of things. but ultimately, they were using rules that congress, under the constitution, has the authority to make and set. when we talk about punching members for using the rules or punishing members for what we call legal acts that are sensibly just sanctioned by the

rules, we get into a very slippery situation. ultimately, then it becomes any behavior we don't like, pursuant to the rules, is somehow going to be damaging to the constitution, and we ought not to do it. what i would encourage everyone to do, in thinking about january 6, is separate the institutional processes playing out inside and the stuff happening outside. i don't think the institutional processes because what happened on the outside. maybe they were both manifestations of the same thing, but rulebound behavior, in and of itself, in my opinion, is not illegal. that is an important thing to remember. host: kyle in hawaii, line for independents. good morning. caller: aloha, c-span, thanks for doing this program.

what still requires a two thirds vote? i'll listen off the. guest: so the filibuster essentially says you need 3/5 of all senators -- if you have 100 senators in office, that is 60. you need 60 senators a vote to end debate if a senator or senators don't want to end debate and go to a final vote. since the nuclear option, that does not apply to nominations anymore. it still applies to legislation. the legislative realm, there are some things like budget reconciliation measures and the past trade approval measures, there are things that don't require 60 that we call fast track. they have time limits on their debate. then we get to the 2/3 level, any efforts on a filibuster to change the senate rules requires two thirds of senators present and voting. if you'll have all 100 senators on the floor, it will take 60

senators in order to change the senate's rules. you also you also need 2/3 to confirm treaties or impeach a president. host: james wallner talking about the gop winning control of the senate chamber for next term. the house, also, republicans were able to hang onto it. it is likely they will also have a slim majority. what does that mean when it comes to legislative effort? when was the last time a party had a trifecta? guest: the republican party had a trifecta in 2017. we have been here before. very narrow control in the house and senate with president trump in the white house. this was after seven years of the party signing blood oath's they would repeal obama care.

they walked away and did not so much as mention it again. the minority leader on the floor , the majority leader after that said if there is anything republicans agree on, it is tax reform. we all love tax reform. they barely passed tax reform. that was only after senators came in and led an effort to the finance committee to jumpstart the process. if you do not like the republican agenda and you do not like president-elect trump's agenda, a lot of the concerns you have are fully justified but i think it is not likely based on past history that republicans will be able to steamroll and pass what they want. if you are a big fan of that agenda, if you want to make america great again, i think a lot of the excitement and expectation may lead to disappointment. in reality, republicans do not

all agree on the agenda. they just do not do that. immigration is a great example. the same with the democrats. i think what we will see over the next seven or eight months is the reality of our partisan divisions within the party coming to the forefront and it will change our expectations we have right now. host: you mentioned senator mitch mcconnell. he has stepped down from his leadership role of the party after 18 years. this week, the senate republicans elected john thune of south dakota as their new leader. what do we know about his relationship with president-elect trump? guest: senator thune, like most senate republicans, has a relationship with president-elect trump. he has been making efforts to get closer with president-elect trump. even when he was president before, he comes from a state where the president is popular.

any senator will have a relationship with the president, especially a president of your own party. when that senate leader is seen as just doing the job as opposed to facilitating for their own party. alvin barclay was another majority leader from kentucky and his president was franklin delano roosevelt. he was criticized for being too close to f.d.r. at one point, he resigned his seat as leader. they reelected him unanimously the next day. there is a give and take here. when we say the president's agenda, we are talking about an agenda the voters of the senator s want to pass. they are doing things their voters want them to do. when their voters decide they do not want that to happen or they say that is a bridge too far for

me, they will expect their leader to work for them and not the president. host: audrey in west babylon, new york, on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: if the senators refused to do the recess, will their states be impacted? host: will their states be impacted, james? guest: the impact would be if they refuse to help president trump, if they vote against his nomination's or speak out aggressively against the president and his effort to make a recess appointment. that would play out as soon as two years from now when they are up for reelection. in the near term, it is not likely it will have an impact on anyone particular state. host: catherine in maine on the

line for independents. good morning,. caller: good morning. i would like to ask, can there be more than one president at a time? biden is currently president. therefore, how can trump who has not been inaugurated yet do recess appointments? guest: the president elect actually nominate anybody and be sworn into office until he takes the office in january of next year. we only have one president. at the constitutional convention in 1787, he wanted three presidents. the idea we have one president is something the framers believed in strongly because the president is meant to have unity in the executive so it can manage the executive branch, hierarchical organization, that

ultimately represents the nation abroad. we only have one president at a time. the president may be eclipsed by their successor, like in this case, people are talking about trump and what is to come as opposed to biden and what we have right now. we still have from a legal perspective only one president. if we did not, edmund randolph would be very happy. he called having one president the elitist of monarchies. he ultimately lost. host: rick in idaho, line for democrats, good morning. caller: how you doing? i want to know if somebody is appointed or confirmed, what mechanism can the senate used to get them out of there if they do not like them, if he is messing up or whatever? guest: the constitution gives the congress the power to impeach. it gives the house the power to impeach.

impeachment is like an indictment. we are going to charge you with this crime. the house will pass the resolution of impeachment. it goes to the senate. the senate would have a trial and ultimately decide. senators are the judge and jury. they would decide whether to convict. if they convict, that official is removed from office. that is not the only power they have. that is the power of the purse. you can cut off salaries. you can limit the way funding is used. you can use your power of the purse and your power to pass laws to insulate that person so they cannot cause a lot of trouble, and try to make their lives miserable so they can ultimately leave. the president can veto anything. but then congress has the ability to override that veto. lastly, they have the ability to connect oversight. that is not nothing. . you have hearings. those hearings are opportunities for the media to cover something. you can draw attention to stuff

and let the american people know what is happening. it is a very important tool to use in between elections because it shines a light on what the government is doing. the people can make it very clear to their elected officials what they expect them to do moving forward. if they do not comply, they are not going to go back to d.c. after the next election. host: ralph in washington, d.c., line for independents. good morning. caller: harvard did a study and said they only vote for them 30% of the time. people say how can you not be a democrat or republican, i think both parties are full of crap. 90 leave congress rich -- 95% leave congress rich. how can you leave congress with a million dollars in your pocket and not be corrupt?

we have a media, for example, we have a media bought by the drug companies. then we have a vaccine that was funded by pyeongchang -- fauci, a virus funded by fauci. they have a rule that you cannot leave the house unless you get a vaccine shot because the politicians are bought and the media is bought. fighting has pfizer has made $100 million off the vaccine. the death rate is even higher. i do not trust any of these guys anymore. guest: i can assure you i did not leave congress with millions of dollars in my pocket. there will be bad apples. there will be things that happen. i cannot explain everything in our system. it is by no means perfect.

i also believe deeply our system of government, while not perfect, and it has gotten better over time, all the things we have done in our history, those things have happened not in spite of our constitution but because of it and through it. one of the big tragedies we see with a lot of the frustration right now, genuine frustration, frustration i understand with the government on both sides without has up -- with how it has operated, that frustration when it is turned on the system itself, that is the danger. the way you rein in an executive that you do not like, that you stop a president, that you replace congress, the way you do that is through the system, not in spite of the system. the american people have all the tools they need to get the government they want but we have to see the system as the place

where we go to adjudicate our disagreements and govern ourselves. after all, we are a self-government. that means we have to govern ourselves. we need a place to do that. for better or worse, that is congress. that is where we go to negotiate the nonnegotiable's. host: mark in new york, line for democrats. caller: i'm interested in what he has to say about presidential immunity. i'm sure that must extend to biden as well. with all of trump's threats about martial law and bo crept, i am assuming biden would be able to do the same thing. guest: the supreme court declared the president in an official act is immune. this is one we will continue to see the consequences of. we have to see what happens.

when we think about these types of questions, we are trained almost today to think of them in terms of the law, as a legal process with a legal decision and outcome. that is good because it is certain. when we think about presidents abusing their power, when we think about congress abusing their power like with the alien sedition act, when we think about the branches of the government abusing their power under the constitution that they have, i think we need to think of it in terms of political, fundamental type law where the people are tasked with protecting their own liberty by replacing that government. let's say the president is not doing something, congress needs to step up to rein in the president. that is the notion of the

separation of powers. instead, today, we handed over to a legal process in judges because we expect that is what it will take to make sure president do not abuse their power. i can assure you if you have a popular and aggressive executive, and this has been the case throughout human history, judges are not going to be able to stop the executive. they will not be able to stop napoleon. the only thing that stops executives like that, the only thing that stops pirates, are the people themselves. it is up to them acting through the political branches established through the constitution to preserve the constitution and separation of powers upon which it depends. host: liz, connecticut, on the line for democrats. caller: a couple of callers asked how president trump could put nominations forward if he is

not the president and if the senate and house are on recess. he did not answer the question. he told the history of how there is only one president, but he did not answer the question. president-elect trump cannot make a recess appointment until he is the president. the president-elect will not be the president until the end of january next year. host: for a point of clarification, when we are talking about the nomination this week, it is who president-elect trump is planning to nominate when he is sworn in january 20. he is just getting a head start. james, we appreciate your time. our guest, james wallner, is a senior fellow at r street institute. thank you very much. next, we will be joined by

brookings institution governance studies senior fellow jambalaya -- jon valant. he will discuss educational proposals including eliminating the department of education. we will be right back. ♪ >> joined booktv this weekend for the texas book festival live from austin. our coverage begins today. highlights include the book "we are home" on immigration and the process of becoming an american. she discusses her book, "sisterhood."

watch the texas book festival live this weekend on c-span [laughter] -- c-span2. see the full schedule, visit our website. >> the investigative journalist talks about the physical and psychological abuse she says was experienced by women and girls connected to the kennedy family going back to joe kennedy, sr., and her book "ask not." bobby moved his new girlfriend, the actress cheryl heinz, into a home just a few yards away, maybe 200 yards away. they were flaunting their relationship all over the place. he is threatening he is going to get the kids. it became this whole thing. she felt hopeless and that she had nothing to live for.

this culminates in her suicide in may of 2012. she hung herself in their barn on their property in westchester. almost immediately, they talked to the new york times about what a mess mary was and how amazing it was that bobby survived his marriage to her. this is the mother of his four children. >> the investigative journalist sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." you can listen to "q&a" in all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979, we have been your primary source for capitol hill,

providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government. taking you to where the policy is debated and decided, all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now to discuss a second president trump term and education policy is jon valant. he is the brookings institution governance studies senior fellow and also the brown center director. welcome to the program. why don't we talk about your roles? what exactly do you focus on? guest: the brookings is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institution and a think tank in washington, d.c. within brookings, we have a center that focuses on education policy called the brown center on education policy. i do research also pay attention

to policy and politics. host: do you focus mainly on pre-k, k-12, or higher education? guest: mostly k-12. host: president trump will be sworn in again come january pick what impact did he have on education in his first term? guest: i was saved there was not much lasting impact from the first term. lasting impact often comes from legislation where they passed new laws that fundamentally change something about our education system or whatever else it may be. we did not see much of anything when it came to big, important k-12 legislation in the first trump term. the impact it had mostly was in regulations and guidance the department of providing districts and some of the

short-term impacts related to title ix in particular. that is protections against's ex-based discriminations where they changed what constitutes sexual harassment and assault. they had some of these shorter-term impacts. when you are making policy for rulemaking and guidance, the next administration can quickly undo whatever it is that you do. we have seen this back-and-forth we have had them where they have undone the rules and regulations their predecessors have put in place. that is most of what we saw trump do. host: we could see that happen again come january when president-elect trump is back in office. he has said he will implement

universal school choice. when we hear "woke issues," what are those and how much control do he and his administration have? guest: we have seen a lot of political heat around questions of how they teach civics and about race and gender and sexuality. it has become a popular issue on the right to say schools are too woke and progressive and talking too much about these issues. it is important to keep in mind the federal government has very little role in defining curriculum or determining what it is students are learning. that is a function left to states and localities. at the root of that is the constitution says nothing about schools, nothing about education. that is really left to the states. how exactly president trump or even congress would plan to go

about fundamentally changing the curriculum and doing whatever it is they have in mind when it comes to restricting woke teaching is very unclear. one path people talk about, and president-elect trump has suggested this, is may be funding to schools that do not teach the type of lessons he would like them to teach. but really, if we are talking about withholding title i funds which are funds that go to schools that disproportionally educate kids in poverty, it is explicitly written into the legislation that created title i that you cannot make decisions about what schools teach. it is very unclear how they would go about doing that. is certainly a talking point if nothing else -- it is certainly a talking point, if nothing else. host: you talked about withholding funding. how are public schools funded, k-12, and how much comes from

the federal government? guest: about 10% of funds come from the federal government. the other 90% come from a mix of state and local sources. it is about half and half of state and local sources. that mix is important because the funds look very different and where they come from and what schools they go to. if we had a school system based entirely on property taxes where we were raising funds locally and using those to fund local schools, we would have wild inequality in school funding. it is much easier to raise funds from property taxes when you have wealthy properties around. we see the local funds tend to disproportionately create funds for schools in wealthier areas and federal funds and state funds tend to move in the other direction. they offset what would be disproportionate funding for wealthier areas by providing additional funds for areas with fewer resources. host: you mentioned about 10% of

funding comes from the federal government, which may sound like a small amount but it is not. can president-elect trump when he is in office cut off money to states for schools? guest: he can certainly request it. the president will present a budget to congress. the recent history when it has come to attempt to try to cut education funding at the federal level, and even from president trump himself, is a president might request cuts. getting the cuts through congress is very difficult. the reason is a lot of the programs the federal government manages are really popular. they are popular among democrats and republicans. for example, if president trump set i want to cut title i funding. title i funding is a substantial piece of that 10% the federal government funds. that would have really significant effects not just and democratic areas but in a lot of areas that congressional

republicans represent. if you were to look state to state at the states that receive the greatest share of their funding from title i, it is a lot of republican states. i think mississippi is at the top of the list. when you start to threaten that funding as a president, as the secretary of education, you find resistance not just from democrats but also republicans. there is a good chance any cuts they propose will not get through congress. host: when he is in office, president trump could withhold the funding. it does not mean it would happen. but if it were to happen, what impact could that have on those schools? guest: if that funding were withheld, it would disproportionately come from the schools that need the funds the most. the schools and the students. it would be schools serving students in concentrated poverty. students with disabilities who have a lot of needs that cost

money to provide for. without those federal funds, you would create a lot of serious problems for those schools. if they tried to withhold those funds, there is a good chance that would get tied up in court if they were to go around the typical legal process. there are political obstacles. there are legal obstacles. if they did push down that path, and i'm skeptical they would use their put call capital on it, it would have potentially catastrophic consequences for students who need the help. host: we are talking with jon valant about a second president trump term and education policy. if you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002.

we have a special line for teachers and administrators, 202-748-8003. when we are talking about funding, the associated press has done a survey looking at where the public is dissatisfied with where money is being spent and education is at the top with sify 5% of americans saying too little is being spent on education. what are challenges to increasing funding for education? guest: good question. when people ask what they think about schools, they consistently say we do not invest enough. that would primarily be work that would happen at the state level and local level if we were to substantially increase education spending most likely. democratic presidents suggest we

should be spending more at the federal level. part of the obstacles, a lot of the obstacles are political. it costs a lot of money to run education systems because we have 3 million or 4 million public school teachers and it costs a lot of money to run school systems. but it is the case that we have generally under invested in schools when you think about what the payoff might be investing more, and we could be more strategic when it comes to how we spend the funds we do. host: our first caller, joe, from melbourne, michigan, on the line for independents. good morning. caller: sure. are you familiar with the office of education? guest: the department of education. the department has many offices within it. caller: can i read you an expert -- excerpt from the funk and wagnall's dictionary circa

1966? the 1860 seven legislation established a federal department of education. in 1870, because the states were unwilling to accept any national control, the agency was made a division of the department of the interior. the executive order in 1939 transferred control to the federal security agency. what is that? the main function of the office of education is the collection of statistical data concerning the status of american education. other functions assigned to the agency include administration of funds appropriated by congress for education matters such as funds for vocational education and land-grant colleges.

hello? elon? guest: the department of education has a long and interesting history that does go back to the 19th century. they can to pray department of education started at the tail end of the carter administration. but the history goes back much longer. in the mid-19th century, it was set up as an agency collecting data and producing reports so we could have some view of washington of what was going on in u.s. schools across the country. over time, the department has taken on different roles. that has include vocational education. -- that does include vocational education. the current department as we know it now came into being in the early 1980's and in part because whether there is a u.s. department of education or not, there is legislation that touches schools in various ways. it is the title i funds we were

talking about that provide funds for students in concentrated poverty, protection for students with disabilities, the act which relates to some of what you are talking about. when we have all of this legislation and all of these programs and funds, there was a sense that we needed an agency to keep track of all of that in a coordinated and coherent way to administer the programs. today's department of education really exists to administer a bunch of programs and laws that in particular started to come together in the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century. host: kyle in buffalo, new york, is on the line for teachers and administrators. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span, and to the guest. i have been a teacher for about 22 years. one thing i can honestly say is

there is a disparity between urban schools for funding and the suburban schools which functions on a higher tax base. the playgrounds are not fair and equal for the students that come from poor districts -- poorer districts. if the federal government is involved, it should be dissolved because there is no equal opportunity, if you understand me. what do you think about that? guest: thanks for the question and thanks for your 22 years of service in the classroom. it is absolutely the case that if we leaned heavily on property taxes to fund schools that we would have enormous disparities in the resources available to different communities. part of the role of the federal government is to offset those funding disparities. it is true now that we still do not fund schools the way we need to. it is true too that some

students just require more funds than others. it cost a lot more to educate students with disabilities. the same goes for students growing up in poverty and who may come to school behind grade level. i agree with a lot of the diagnosis of the problem. it comes to the solution, the federal government plays an important role in offsetting what would be even worse disparities and even worse inequities in resources. when i think of the role the federal government is playing in funding schools, it is very targeted, and not always in the best ways it could be, but it is targeted to students who need the funds the most. host: robin in columbus, ohio, also on the line for teachers and administrators. good morning. caller: yes. thank you for being with us to talk about education. i am calling as an educator who

is also doing research on access to opportunities to get free college educations before students leave high school. what we are seeing in my state and across the nation is that students who are able to take advantage of the dual enrollment, dual credit opportunities are usually the students who need that access to free college the least, so it is increasing the gap, particularly the racial gap, in college education attainment. i was wondering what you can say about that and what was being done to close that gap, that access to college, free college. thank you. guest: thank you, robin. free college has been an issue we have seen, but the state level in particular and in some cities, too.

i think cost of college is top of mind for a lot of people right now. in the biden administration, we saw a lot of attention on student debt forgiveness and questions of how we reduce the cost of college. i do not think we quite know what we will see from the trump administration. if there is one place where there seems to be some agreement between republicans and democrats right now as a potential area of focus when it comes to federal policy or state policy, it is career and technical education. there seems to be some interest in trying to think about how we create opportunities for students who might not want to enroll in a four-year college right from high school. i think we may see some movement on that front. it is a persistent challenge when it comes to making policy that if you want policies that benefit the students who need it the most, the policies have to be constructed in a way to do that. there are certain issues when it comes to college affordability on that front. we may talk about school choice

policy. it is another area where i think the trump administration has given signals it would like to make policy. i have a lot of concerns about school choice policies that may benefit students who need it the least. host: president-elect trump has said he plans to eliminate the department of education. they also play a role in funding for college and loans. how would closing the department impact those in higher ed? guest: when they talk about closing the department of education, it is important to ask what they mean. we are talking about closing all the programs the department administers, it would be catastrophic and chaos inducing. it would mean funds stripped from k-12 schools, it would be a troop mess. that is not going to happen.

there is no appetite for that among democrats or republicans. another way people sometimes talk about closing the department is changing the agencies that administer the programs. that would not mean treading down every program the department runs but maybe title i moves into health and human services, maybe the office of civil rights moves to the department of justice. i think that is more likely but still unlikely, we would likely see not major changes in higher education or k-12, except it would be agencies running those programs. host: one of the suggestions for is if -- one of the suggestions floated is if it closes, the

money would go to the states. what would that look like? guest: this has been a proposal republican's have made for a long time. it would mean taking the funds, bundling them together, and providing no strings attached funding to states to decide what they want to do with that money. i have concerns about the reproach -- approach. a lot of people have concerns about that approach. when you start offering no strings attached money, there is real money that goes to support students with disabilities. students with disabilities require protections in schools. we know from our history you can easily fall into a place where those students are not protected, whether they are not getting access to the services they need in school, if we block that money, i would worry about

what happens to those funds in the long run and help stable and secure the funding is in the long run if it becomes block grants and we start doing away with some of those programs. it is difficult to do politically. a lot of those individual programs are popular across the political spectrum. that may be a move we see the trump administration take. i think it is far from a foregone conclusion they would be successful. host: dave in palm city, florida, on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 72 years old. in 1965, i recall that is when the foray into secondary education really took off with the johnson administration. living up north, it was different from living in the south. i think things have evolved over

the years to where the states are much more ubiquitous in the way in which they handle different matters, including education. what amazes me is how the federal government has grown. would like to know, how many employees are there in the department of education? and if you have any historical perspective as to how many there were when it was called health, education, and welfare department in 1965? guest: thanks for the question. don't quote me on this, i think the current department has somewhere in the range of 4000 employees. it is a few thousand employees. it is actually one of our smaller federal departments. size wise, it is not stuck up with the others around d.c. i think you are raising important and interesting question around what is the federal role in education.

you are right that a lot of current operations of the department traced back to the mid-20th century and the civil rights movement and we did see additional funds and protections and laws passed at that time. the key roles the federal government plays in education are they protect students'civil rights. that may have looked different in the 1960's from the way it looks now. now it makes sure we do not have sex-based discrimination in school, race, or whatever else it may be. a key function the department plays is enforcing civil rights protections and making sure students' rights are protected. a second role is the federal government has a compensatory funding role that it plays which we have talked about a bit, which is making sure it is providing funds so students have

a real shot at a good education. and then, the federal government still plays the role it has played since the mid-19th century when it comes to data collection and helping us learn about what is working and what is not working so we can spend our resources well. what the federal government does not do is the federal government is not the entity making decisions about curriculum. it is not deciding who teaches and what types of teachers can be hired and cannot be hired. if you are a parent and you are frustrated and you do not like your kids' math lessons from yesterday and you do not like the lesson in high school social studies class or you think your daughter has a bad spanish teacher, whatever the problem may be, it is likely the origin of the problem is someplace other than the federal government. that is not really what the federal government does. that really is about school districts and the state department of education and

sometimes state legislatures and governors. host: just to share some facts about the u.s. department of education, as our guest mentioned earlier, it was put into place in 1979 by president jimmy carter and began operating in 1980. it currently has 4400 employees per the department of education. as he noted, it is the smallest staff of the cabinet agencies. in 2024, it had a budget of $238 million -- billion dollars which is 1.8% of the u.s. federal budget. next is hillary in washington, on the line for teachers and educators. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question about the direction for supporting states and educating the number of undocumented children that have entered the system in the last

10 years. the amount of resources for go to educating children with technical specialties in that they do not speak english and are not able to come into the system and benefit right away simply because of the shortage of language teachers. how does the department of education play a role in supporting the cost of doing that? that is my question. guest: that is a good question. that is largely a function of state and local government. the federal government is not particularly engaged on that front.

one area where it may become important is if we start to see some real movement with deportation and thinking through moving people out of the country, that could have real implications for a lot of students around the country. it could be more costly. we could when into cases where students are pulled out of school and left out of school for some time. one of the true great unknowns about what we will see the next few years is how schools and education might interact with immigration and deportation. this is true for immigrant students and other english-speaking students, often they require additional resources. not just resources but additional work to make sure they are having good experiences

in classes. it is a good feature of our education system that we welcome all kids into public schools. that was not always the case in u.s. school systems. i think it can be a point of pride in our school systems. it has not always been the case elsewhere around the world. that we welcome all kids into our public school system. it is also the case that there are challenges and we need to respond to those challenges. i would say it is primarily state and local role and not so much a federal role. host: are you still on the line? caller: i am. host: are you a teacher in the edmonds school district? caller: i teach in washington. i do not teach in the area i live in. i am in the area. welcoming these children and and providing them the education, but the financial challenge and the shortage of teachers that speak -- i work at a school that

represents over 40 languages, so it becomes a challenge to be able to integrate these children into the community simply because of the lack of resources. and yet, the states do not have the control over the budget to bring in the additional support to provide this for this population. i guess that is my question about the federal role. the states do not control the immigration policies. we are just trying to support these families when they are here. part two of that is not only specialty teachers but also the mental health support and the community support to get the whole family working and productive, because that is part of what these kids need as well. guest: that is not unique to western washington. those are challenges that come up across the country. i would say the federal government has not done enough on that front when it comes to providing funds, providing support, because, as you say, it is much difficult and costlier.

it may be the case you need additional staff to work with students. it may have implications for teacher hiring. there may be shortages of teachers particularly helpful in those schools. the federal government funding is roughly 10% of funding in schools. it has not focused on that area. i think there is a case that it should. we have relied much more on states and localities to pick up for what the federal government has not done in that area. i think in a lot of states, we have seen students, english-language learners, and other groups that have more needs that tend to be costlier to educate, do not necessarily have the funding they need through the state funding formula. host: president-elect trump has also said that he wants to provide public subsidies for private school tuition and other educational expenses outside the public school system, likely through legislation like the

education choice for cldren act. we want to show our audience what that includes. it is bicameral legislation making its way through t hse ways and means committee earlier this year. it provides $10 billion in annual tax credits to be made available to taxpayers. it has a base amount that will be set for each state. and then the credits are distributed on a first-come, first- basis. it uses a limited government apprchith respect to federalism, thusvoiding and school districts.ocalities, it also includes provisions that govern scholarship granting organizations as they are given the ability to determine the individual amount of scholarships awarded. what is your response to the legislation and proposal to provide subsidies for private school tuition?

guest: i think this is a really important topic to be talking about. a lot of discussion is focused on the potential closing on the department of education is less important than these questions. two stepback, for a long time, conservatives have like the idea of school choice, of giving funds to family so they can choose the schools they want for their kids. for a long time, we have had charter schools that are privately run that families opt into that are subject to a lot of the same accountabilities public schools r. lately, there has been a push at the state level in a lot of republican leaning states toward big private choice programs where funds go to families and they can choose private schools instead of the funds going to public schools.

a lot of people know the idea of vouchers. there are different forms these programs take. there are different names. it is a bit confusing. it is a bit of a shell game as far as where the money goes. what we have seen lately at the state level are called universal education savings account programs. those programs take a lot of funds from the state and provide them to families and accounts the families can use to pay for private schools or other approved educational expenses. in about a dozen states over the last few years, we have seen programs different from anything we have seen in the past in that they are available to any family in the state. it is not matter if you are the wealthiest family already sending your kids to the most of private school in the state. you can take those funds from the government and use them to pay for the private school education. i believe those programs create

a host of problems. i think our real questions about government waste and efficiency. they do not provide the same protections for students per day are not subject to the same accountability could they do not take the same tests so we do not know how students perform. there are questions about separation of church and state. there are a lot of questions and concerns about this program. that particular type of school choice program is very unlikely to happen at the federal level. what is possible is that the trump administration would push for this kind of federal tax credit scholarship program. this is essentially a voucher program but it takes a different form. the way that would work is taxpayers could get a credit for donating funds to an organization. it could be a one to one so they do not feel a difference.

it provides vouchers to families to pay for private school education. it is a voucher program with a different structure. what we have seen around the country is voucher programs were really unpopular. they are universally unpopular among democratic lawmakers across the country. we have also seen a lot of opposition from rural republicans who look at their own school system and say we do not have a lot of private schools in our community. if are going to redirect resources to private schools, that is redistribute in funds from our public school which is the anchor in our community to wealthier schools that might be an suburbs of cities. there has been a lot of opposition among state legislators to that idea, and among voters too. on election day, on the same day donald trump slept through a lot of states, three states had school choice referenda on their ballot.

they performed terribly. all three failed. they filled with a lot of opposition not just from democrats but republicans -- they failed with a lot of opposition from democrats and republicans. what you may look to do is to sneak the scholarship program into the more comprehensive tax reform bill. we almost certain he will see some action on tax reform maybe next year. if the voucher program becomes one among many programs that are part of that bigger tax reform, it could sneak under the radar. even though if they were to try to create the bill on its own, it would likely fail because of republican opposition joining democratic opposition in the house of representatives. i think that is something to keep and i on. if you are concerned about that that's her system and school choice policy or if you are opposed to the universal voucher

programs you may have seen in your state, this is another version of that. i hope people are paying attention to what this could be if it does get tucked into the more comprehensive tax reform. host: jill in indiana, the line for teachers and academics, good morning. caller: good morning. i had two things. the first, was, two days ago, our school board had a discussion and they were up in arms. there was a private company trying to push cte. cte is great. cte was a smaller portion of the account but growing. it is a wonderful opportunity. i do not know if you have any comment on that.

more of my real question has to do with something totally separate. that was just a comment of things turning. we have a 21st century scholarship program which means free education for college in the state. i was wanting to know the origin of that. visit our state they came up with that or is that other states that have come up with the free tuition program to allow kids from eighth grade to do certain things and then they graduate and can go to a state run college for free? is that something you know more about? guest: could question. it is not unique to anyone place. there are free college programs. some are local at the city level. kalamazoo, michigan, has a program that pays for college tuition and has for some time. some are at the state level. they take different forms from one another. they are not federal programs.

they are state and local programs. host: as you mentioned, it is unlikely the department of education would be eliminated. president-elect trump is looking at nominations and who could head up the department. what do we know about them and what they could bring to the department? guest: good question. a lot of us are waiting for a name. we have not yet heard a name for secretary of education. the way i have been thinking about potential choices for secretary is there are a few types of candidates president-elect trump could choose. there is one group of candidates i would regard as kind of true culture warriors where they do not have a lot of experience in schools, they do not have a lot of expense running agencies or programs -- experience running

agencies or programs, and would be unqualified to run the department. a couple of names i would put on that list are lee justice, who has no experience that would qualify her to run the department of education. the other is part of discussions about how republicans can make gains politically but in no way has any background that would make him prepared to deal with very real challenges in schools right now, coming out of covid trying to recover. there is a group i would think of in some ways as being the matt gaetz type combination if we see that. there is a second group of state superintendents. ryan walters from oklahoma is a particularly controversial one. a lot of people heard about ryan

walters through a story about oklahoma calling for schools to purchase bibles and then putting stipulations on the types of bibles they could purchase so essentially they were the trump bibles that would direct funds to the former president. cade brumley from louisiana. there is a third group that would be the more traditional republican type of choice. some names i have seen are mitch daniels, the governor of indiana and the president of purdue, glenn youngkin, the current governor of virginia. even if people do not agree with all of their policies, i think they would be more conventional and heavy types of qualifications you might expect of someone to run a department of education. host: daniel in illinois on the line for democrats. good morning. are you there? caller: yes.

when i was in high school, the high school offered not only academic opportunities but also offered a plethora of skilled opportunities. mechanics, carpentry, all of these skills that are now in the private sector. so, my question is, since the inception of the department of education in 1979, all of these budgets from the past 40 years in schools have been cut. so now, we are faced with shortages in mechanics, in hospitality, in all of these areas that high schools used to offer to students who were more -- who were more geared towards these skilled types of jobs.

now, it is all in the private sector. what i want to know is, first of all, what good has your institute done for education? you've done nothing. we have these academics and these think tanks, oh, well, we have to do this policy and that policy. for me, the department of education is useless. they've done nothing to curtail the salaries of these board administrators in these areas of education, and they make more money than the teachers make. what i want to know is, what good have any of you people done? we are 13th in developed countries. we in some areas, math and science, are 27th in the world. what i want to know, we've thrown all this money at schools

and what have we done -- host: your response. guest: i agree with part, you can probably agree with what part. there has been a push for college for all. they are operating from a belief that everyone wants to go to a four-year college and injure a profession. that pendulum has swung back quite a bit. where you're talking about trying to make place for the trades and skill building in high schools, i think that that is the direction we are going in. a lot of school districts, states, the federal government are trying to figure out, what does career and technical education look like right now, and how do we operate when the reality is if you try to send everyone to a four-year college

you're going to create a lot of disappointment for a lot of people and you're not serving a lot of students well for him that might not be what they actually want to do -- for whom that might not be what they actually want to do. sometimes when people hear career or technical education or think about vocational education, it conjures up images of very particular types of professions that schools would be preparing students for. for example, working in auto factories. there is a renewed attention on trying to think more broadly about how we can do that. is it the case that if you want your skill to be coding you have to go to a four-year college to get a strong background that would prepare you to be a really productive worker with a really good career? we can probably do more of that in high schools and with community college systems. i think that that is the direction that we are moving.

again, it is one of the more interesting places where there is some correspondence in what republicans and democrats seem to want to do. host: our guest is the brown center education fellow at brookings institution. jon, thank you for being with us. we are wrapping up today's program with more of your calls during open forum. you can start dialing in now. the lines are on your screen. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will be right back. ♪ >> join book tv this weekend for

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floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the court, campaign, and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span tv networks and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. scan the qr code to download it for free today or visit c-span.org/c-spannow. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are in open forum for the next 23 minutes or so, until the top of the hour. mike from rockford, illinois on the line for independents. caller: looking at our country from 30,000 feet, there are some big issues no one is talking about.

the article that the cr had, hal f a trillion dollars being paid each year since 1980. i have been seeing cr is a four letter word, but there should be a budget. you had representative newman talking about what should we be cutting? he said the budget committee. where is the budget bill? that is the first thing. you should also ask them, now they are allowed, they have a big pay increase with this thing through the supreme court where now they could get tips and gratuity after they passed a law. it is no more illegal to accept gifts. in other words, they are making millions after passing laws. they can accept gifts after they do a verdict. the cr, the gratuity clause, and the clawback.

they can pass a law, pass money for it, then called the money back. it was supposedly just for covid, but now the president is saying he can cloud the money back. those three things along with ice being the big trojan horse. ice being deployed in each state to police. they're not even telling us what they're going to police. they are allowing our local police -- ice it's going to come save the day. looking down, we have a lot of things that we need to talk about. host: monte in providence, kentucky on the line for democrats. caller: good morning. looking at you right now. i'm better off -- i thought we've been better off. i'm better off back then, but what worries me --

host: go ahead, monty. caller: what worries me is when i walk down the street i look people in the face and they look down. they won't even look me in the face because of this election. it's terrible. i'm kind of scared. i look up at these people who our new president has elected, put in with him, i don't see tim scott in there. he is behind donald trump, but i don't see him putting tim scott or brian donaldson, all of these guys, i don't see none of them in these people that he picked. i'm just telling you, i'm really scared for our country with our new president, because i am scared that he is going to start world war iii and all that. thank you. host: jim in ohio on the line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, in a general comment way, i'm glad people are

starting to get used to the delay on c-span and washington journal and the call ins. i'm very happy that you went to the delay because some of our daily enter courses have become course. my pointed remark has to do with the discussions this morning, both very excellent, particularly jon valant from the brookings institution. i'm happy to have that kind of a discussion on saturday. very often discussions regarding education occur on weekdays when teachers, administrators, retired teachers like myself, and other people have a little trouble sometimes getting in or contributing on weekdays. the discussion on education today was very on point and enlightening. the call ins, you probably noticed, were generally speaking

excellent. thank you for that. host: when did you teach and how long did you teach? caller: 38 years. i taught from ages 12 to 85. not my age, student age. middle school, high school, college, adult. science and math mostly, and a little bit of foundational courses to the ged learners later in my career. 38 years altogether. host: i hope that you are enjoying your retirement. we will go to lori in hamburg, pennsylvania on the line for democrats. caller: good morning. after the election i found out i've been able to have a better dialogue with people that think differently than me. at first it was very not good. but we have learned to discuss and are able to give our own views without becoming angry and nasty to one another.

i'm grateful that happened. i worry about education. both of my daughters are teachers. one on the west coast and one on the east coast. i don't think we put enough money into education or we don't have the right policies as far as using money to teach. -- teach the students. i think instead the brookings institute is like a think tank for people to get ideas and push things forward. i think that there should be a think tank made up of plain vote rs. we have money that we can go give a lot of money to campaigns, but we have ideas that could make things better. i think an assimilation program for immigrants coming into the country would make our country so much stronger, so we can learn from them and they could

learn from us and it wouldn't have to be this side, that side. it's a humanity thing that would make our whole, entire country stronger. we are the strongest country in the world. we have the best economy. but things change. ai is coming up. unless things change, i think the people need more voice. making policy, and not just sitting back and watching things go by and being divided by this side or that side. i think the left, the right, and dividing people is really bad for this country. we need to start looking at things in a way that brings altogether and doesn't breed hatred and division. where we can solve problems. i also have a problem with for -profit schools. i have been watching for-profit health care in pennsylvania, everywhere, really. health care it has gotten -- it

is hard. i know that things are changing and they are changing very fast. it makes it hard for people to understand, but there are a lot of complex issues out there that affect everything. host: that is lori in pennsylvania. i wanted to share this headline from this morning. trump nears decision on top treasury post. the president-elect has been naming several people to key cabinet positions this week. the article says that donald trump appears to be nearing a decision on his nominee to lead the treasury department. he met friday with investor scott bessent, who is seen as a top contender for the job. scott bessent it is the founder of investment firm key square. he's the cabinet secretary candidate alongside the chief executive howard lutnick.

trump and scott bessent met on friday according to people familiar with the matter. it's the second time the two have met over the last week. trump separately met with larry kudlow at mar-a-lago. the president-elect's private club. the people said that trump's advisors saw kudlow as a contender to lead the national economic council and possibly the treasury department. but kudlow told the team he doesn't want a government job. he goes on to say that scott does not -- scott bessent and howard lutnick have made aggressive moves to lead the department with their allies making the case for them and against each other in public and private. the campaigning has irritated trump, some of his advisors said, and lengthened the internal deliberations over the job as trump considers other candidates. trump's team also discussed

robert lighthizer who served as the u.s. trade representative during trump's first term and apollo global management ceo mark rowen for high-profile economic roles, including treasury secretary. in addition to a new administration coming in, there are also new members of congress who will be joining the house and senate come january. c-span caught up with some new house members after they made their first visit to the house floor this week. here is some of what they had to say. [video clip] >> that is sort of an awe -inspiring moment. speaker johnson is an incredible constitutional attorney and he knows his history inside and out. having his personal reflections and explanation of things was very meaningful. it was a great evening when we walked onto the floor. >> it was surreal. you know how much history has

happened in that chamber. to be part of it, to be there, to be sitting in those seats knowing what we are about to take on his humbling, exciting -- is humbling, exciting, and real. i am also used to assigned seating. i'm a former teacher but also a state senator, so we will have to figure that one out. >> i got emotional when we got to go on the house floor for the first time. i had never been there. i grew up watching the state of the union. watching everyone walk in with the full congress. now, i will be able to be there myself. i didn't expect to get emotional, but all of us have worked hard to get here. we are still very excited and sometimes have to pinch ourselves that we are here. >> for me it was very emotional. it was an opportunity to remember how important our

country is, how important it is that we do all the right things. i love my country. as an american to walk into the halls of congress is such an amazing, great feeling. host: indiana come the line for republicans. good morning. caller: hi. host: good morning. caller: i am a lifelong republican, right. i voted republican in almost every election except for 2016, 2020, 2024. during the tea party years in 2008, something was up. the republican party has lost itself in the last 14 years. i don't know what to do from here. i don't know what has happened with people around this country. i don't know how people are voting for a convicted rapist, a

convicted felon, a convicted insurrectionist. he literally tried to overthrow the government. he tried to have his own vice president hanged. everybody is saying, that wasn't him. you know, they are just blind. i'm tired of it. i'm telling you, i'm tired of it. a lot of people are tired of it. host: can i ask you a question? president trump will be, president-elect trouble be sworn back into office on january 20. how would you like to see -- what would you like to see him do or not do this term? caller: i don't want him to do anything. host: he is coming into office regardless. is there a piece of advice you would give him? caller: advice i could give donald trump? oh, lord. well, my first piece of advice would be to resign, honestly.

he's going to start something in this country that he has no idea what comes. he has no idea what is coming. everybody who voted for trump, they think it is some game, some joke, trying to own libs. guess what, you are all in for it. host: sarah in california on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: hi. host: hi, sarah. caller: i have a question for everyone calling and except for the last caller. he was great. why is everyone whitewashing all of this? this is not a normal wanting your favorite person to be your secretary of state. no. these appointments have been approved by putin. why is everyone whitewashing this? it's ridiculous. trump is not a normal

politician. this is not going to be a normal four years in office. the sooner everyone gets with the program and realizes that putin is going to be directing every policy that trump makes, the better off we will be. at least we will have our eyes wide open. host: ava in columbus, mississippi on the line for republicans. caller: hi, i am in columbia, not columbus, and new orleans. i want to make a suggestion. i would like to see tim scott i believe from south carolina or north carolina as treasury secretary, commerce, or transportation. i would like to see monica crawley in one of those. adam west to take the job that dr. ben carson has had. dr. carson to be the head of the cdc. ronny jackson be attorney

general of the united states. i approve of everybody trump has picked so far, but go to other states and stop amount of congress. the last two callers, i feel sorry for them. host: are you still there? you mention that you made suggestions for who you would like to see in the cabinet. why do you like those people? caller: because they are honest. they know the job. they're not like the cabinet up there now. those people up there now are joke. biden's picks, they are jokes. we are talking about real americans who stand up for america. host: pennsylvania, line for independents. good morning, wally. caller: i would like to make a quick comment on the department of education. jimmy carter created that in 1980. apparently, the public school system flourished before the

bureaucracy was created. the more salient point that i would like to make is under the 10th amendment, the federal government should not be involved in education. it's not mentioned anywhere in the constitution. to me, it is actually an illegal department. i appreciate your taking my call. thank you. host: harry also in pennsylvania on the line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. host: terry, you are on. caller: hi. this is about the election itself. i have been studying it. everybody was saying that the president is untouchable.

that's not exactly true. it's a fraudulent belief based on fraudulent pronouncements. the same is true regarding the united states supreme court justices. the constitution does say they have a lifetime appointment, there are technicality clauses of condition that actually unends that for both the supreme court justices and the president. meaning, technically, by law, they can be held accountable, military law and military court-martial law.

the supreme court justices, in being the very top oversight of the constitution, by virtue of oath of office and solemn promise to -- i'm sorry. pledges of allegiances, not just to the president but first and foremost to the constitution itself, federally and militarily, as well as constitutionally redacted -- constitutionally protected under all those offices.

even as regards to the vote of the people, when they are taking their pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, they are also upholding our u.s. constitution. host: we will leave it there. we want to get in a few more calls and we only have a few minutes left. good morning, john. caller: hi. how are you doing? trump won the election. i hate to say this, but the american people are just dumb. they watch fox news. things are so bad. so bad, you know? nobody pays attention. talking to the trump guy, he didn't know that trump was a convicted felon. it's just before the election.

nobody is paying attention. they want a bully. he is almost like a religion. they know that he is full of cra p, but they want to believe. things are so bad. trump is going to make everything wonderful. host: that was john in connecticut. the last call for this morning's program, we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. , 4:00 a.m. pacific for another washington journal. enjoy the rest of your saturday. ♪

>> c-span's washington

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] ♪ host: this is "washington journal" for saturday, november 16. this week, president-elect trump announced his pick for several key cabinet positions and other top roles in his administration. among the appointments, tesla and spacex c.e.o. elon musk and the newly elected government efficiency and reducing waste. spending. we're asking you how would you cut federal spend something here are the lines -- democrats -- 202-748-8000. republicans -- 202-748-8001, and

independents, 202-748-8002. text your comments to 202-748-8003. be sure to include your name and city or post your questions on facebook at facebook.com/cspan or on x at @cspanwj. i wanted to give you a little information about that newly created agency, the department of government -- department of government efficient city from fox news. president-elect trump announced the billionaire elon musk -- trump said the pair will work together to dismantle government bureaucracy, cut waste. expenditures and restructure federal agencies. it will become potentially