with great internet. wow. >> wow supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live. the mercatus center senior research fellow and columnist veronique de rugy discusses the incoming trump administrations department of government efficiency. then bipartisan polities -- policy center chief medical advisor dr. anand parekh discusses the importance of disease prevention and key health care policies issues facing the u.s. ♪ host: good morning. monday, november 25. it is nearly three weeks since donald trump won the electoral

and popular vote, republicans control both houses of congress. democrats say with only a 1.6% difference in the popular vote, it is not. we are asking if you think president-elect donald trump has a mandate. if you do, what do you think that mandate is? give us a call on our lines by party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text, (202) 748-8003, include your name and your city/state. and you can post on social media, facebook.com/c-span or on x with handle @cspanwj. welcome to today's "washington journal." glad you are with us. we start with president-elect donald trump on election day,

followed by house speaker mike johnson claiming a governing mandate. [video clip] pres.-elect trump: america has given us an unprecedented mandate. >> it was a decisive win, the american people want us to implement and deliver that america first agenda. we have to do that while we have that energy and excitement beginning on the very first day of the congress in the new year. it is clear the american people do want secure borders, want to prevent terrorists and criminals from entering the country. they want and deserve lower costs for groceries and gasoline. they want us to project strength on the world stage again and not the weakness from the last four years. they want an end to the wokeness and radical gender ideology and a return to common sense in our children's classrooms and corporate board rooms and

government agencies. we will ensure that is true. we will hit the ground running to deliver president trump's agenda. host: we are taking your calls on whether you think the president elect has a mandate, and if you do, what that mandate is. the numbers are on your screen. now we hear from a democratic leader in the house, hakeem jeffries, say it is not a mandate. [video clip] >> despite the claims of some of my republican colleagues who have spent a lot of time over the last week talking about some big, massive mandate, i am looking for it. that does not mean that we do not have to make adjustments to make sure we can get beyond fighting house republicans with a national weight on top of us to withdraw. but the question about this motion of some mandate to make massive, far right extreme

policy changes, does not exist. it doesn't exist. so in the new congress, for anything to happen, particularly as it relates to an enlightened spending agreement or ensuring that america does not default on our debt and crash the economy and hurt everyday americans for the first time in our nations history, it is clear house republicans cannot do it on their own. host: that was house minority leader hakeem jeffries. we will go to the phones now and get your opinion. curtis in maryland, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. how you doing? host: doing great. go ahead. caller: i just wanted to call this morning and give my opinion on the agenda of the next administration that is coming in. i just feel as though, from just

observing the choices that the incoming president is making for the departments and all for the federal government, i think the agenda is much bigger than what the american citizens even recognize. i still believe that he is going to try to destroy the structure of the democracy that we have in this country as far as the institutions. i think that their agenda may go too far to the right. i do not disagree with all the agendas -- host: give me an example of something you think is too far

to the right. caller: i think that them trying to shut down the department of education and calling for a drastic cut in the federal government, i think that some of the things they are trying to implement will not be good for the country. and i think that some of the things that they are trying to implement will be good for the country. but i think that was hakeem jeffries just speaking, i believe they do need to consider the other half of the country because, like he was saying, he did not win the popular vote by as much as they think they won. host: this is the front page of the post about what curtis is talking about.

it says, some say far-fetched bid for massive federal cuts. elon musk and vivek ramaswamy are interviewing job candidates and seeking advice from experts in washington and silicon valley, pushing a sweeping vision for the department of government efficiency. there are memes and viral posts of potential real-world deception, tapped to lead an advisory panel to find drastic cuts for the federal government, the billionaire doge leaders have been in washington and mar-a-lago speaking to stefan interviewing washington operators, legal specialists, and top tech leaders -- speaking to staff and interviewing washington operators, legal specialists, and top tech leaders. new york, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. me start by -- let me start by

saying he has a mandate to his mandate is white supremacy, misogyny, and ignorance. host: all right. this is james in myrtle beach, south carolina, independent line. caller: there is definitely no mandate. when you have a man in the white house, you have the mental capacity of about a 15-year-old child, he -- and these picks that this man is making in this 2025 plan he has got, this is for all of you maga republicans. sit back and watch this man destroy this country.

two years from now, the democrats will take the house back over. democrats always have to clean up behind a republican president. i can go all the way back to bush and the financial disaster, obama had to come in and put us back up on our feet. then trump comes in and destroys the country because he is not mature enough to handle the pandemic. then here comes biden, he put us back on our feet again, signing bills, the best this country could have. number one is infrastructure. he brought jobs back to this country. i have watched this man, and he will destroy the united states. host: and this is the line for

democrats, debbie in social circle, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. he won by less than 2%, and i do not think that that is a mandate. i happen to agree with the previous speaker, and i think i am very concerned about women's rights, and i am very concerned about marriage and divorce going backwards. host: what do you mean by marriage and divorce? caller: domestic violence. domestic violence is a serious issue in our country. i am almost 70 and have certainly seen it throughout my life. it was terrible. it used to be completely legal when i was a teenager for a man to do whatever he wanted with

his family. and it is not anymore, and thank god for that. i am afraid we are going backwards on that. jd vance, i was worried about with that one. but i think that misogyny is definitely raising its ugly head and that we all need to be very aware of that and fight very hard to keep the rights that we have earned. host: here is republican senator tommy tuberville on the senate floor last tuesday urging senate republican colleagues to get in line on those cabinet approvals. [video clip] >> in addition to sending president trump back to the white house, americans delivered a mandate. every single senate republican, they want president trump's america first agenda, and they want it now. as a result, senate republicans should embrace this mandate in

supporting every single one of president trump's cabinet picks. you would think this would be a no-brainer. not one democrat broke from their party in supporting joe biden's nominees in 2021, not one. however, over the last few days, i have heard some republican colleagues expressed concerns about who president trump is picking for his team. i would expect this from my colleagues on the left, not on the right. what is surprising to me, that i am hearing grumblings from republicans. my advice to them is get on board or get out of the way. host: and this is from mark on facebook. says, absolutely, the mandates to reduce the size and scope of waste in our government and return the rule of law to the cotry, beginning with immigration. thomas said, yes, he has a

mandate, the first republican to win the popular vote since the 2004 election. to give you a couple of numbers to put things in perspective, as i said in the open, mr. trump won the popular vote by 1.6% this time in 2024. in 2020, biden won the popular vote by 4.5%. to 2016, hillary clinton won the popular vote by 2.1%. here is gloria in virginia, republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to make a comment about your callers this morning, seems like everybody kind of got up with venom in their thoughts. we need to move on. we have a president elect who will be coming into office.

yes, he does have a mandate. but it might not be what everyone is thinking about an official mandate. maybe it is just something that he wants to do to improve this country. this country has really gone down the drain. it wasn't four years ago, it has been going down the drain for quite some time now. i am a christian, and i believe that every president -- let's just say world leaders that get into office, they need to improve things that have happened in the past, that they can improve. maybe we really do need to look at the budget. host: i was going to say, like what? when you say the country has been going down the drain for a long time, explain what you mean. caller: our budget. the budget is out of control.

spending is out of control. i think our military needs to be raised up a little bit, as far as our ability to deal with some of these things that are on the world stage like wars, like hunger. anything that we can do to help other countries, we need to do it. host: gloria, you would be in favor of increasing spending for the military and also for humanitarian aid overseas -- what would you cut? caller: wait just a minute. it is not only increasing spending, but we have to cut costs. let's be realistic. if you had a pot of stew on your stove and you had 10 to 12

different people coming in from different countries, coming in and taking a sip out of your stew, pretty soon you will not have any stew in the pot for even your own family. like i say, i am a christian. please turn to the king james version of the bible and read romans 13, it will tell you what our conduct is supposed to be when it comes to our leaders. both their conduct and o urs. and you have to have someone to prop you up, same way social security has to have someone to prop them up. if you do not have workers out here propping up social security, social security will go down the drain. host: all right. let's talk to bob in minnesota, line for democrats. caller: hi, i am totally confused about politics.

we had a jury convicted donald trump. we have got a judge that refuses to set it, the country better wake up and take a look around. there is something going on, and nobody is doing nothing about it. i don't know who hired that judge. [indiscernible] from the bench and get somebody in there to take care of this. thank you. host: let's have a look at what jim newell wrote as an opinion in slate magazine. he says, which issues got trump elected? is a much better question to ask and for his team to consider than whether he has a mandate. two things stand up, immigration was trump's best issue year,

and he has strong support, including from some significant democrats, for stricter policies atheorder. the other major issue was to bring the cost of living down. what we do not see is a b request from the american people to appoint a vaccine antagonist to the vaccine department. we do not see a desireo take a wrecking ball to the justice department and replace it with personal errand boys to the west wing. i am not seeing in the data large-scale support for a managerial novice from television to take over the defense department. this is just the very, very beginning, too. wonder what you think of that, from slate magazine. don in montgomery, alabama, independent line. caller: yes, hello. there is a lot of things about america, the way that the

constitution was written, and then the fact that i am a person of color, the fact that some are saying all men are being created equal, for instance, but that when people realize that all men were men and they began to let it apply. we do not need a person to come into the highest office in the land and not be aware of what things work. and that means that you have to actually talk with people in those different departments, find out what does work, not to go and listen to someone just because he comes on a particular radio program that you listen to and they say something that you like, and you appoint that

person to head these large institutions. you have to have someone who has sense. either this person that we, unfortunately, put into the top level position, either he is that misinformed or our enemies have told him to act as if he was that misinformed so he could destroy america. thank you. host: we are taking your calls for another 40 minutes on this question. what do you think president election -- president elect trump's mandate is, if you think he has a mandate? let's look at the washington examiner. second republican presidential vote since 1988. the popular

he flipped all seven battleground states and outperformed every republican senate candidate in a competitiv, with the exception of larry hogan in the blue state of maryl there were notable shifts toward him in both red and blue states. mandates, landslides, and realignment, it needs to be recalibrated for the post-2000 polarized national electoral environment. er since that election was decided by a few hundred votes in florida after an unprecedented supreme court ruling, the race for the white house every four years has typically been close. marianne and bayside, new york, -- marianne in bayside, new york, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i would have voted for a martian, would have voted for a gorilla if they had as their premise improving quality of

health care. the quality of health care we have in new york is abominable, atrocious. it is been taken over by big pharma, by idiots. and having seen my -- host: did we lose you? ben in washington, d.c., line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. my main concern is who he is hiring to fill his cabinet. i do think he needs to hire people more experienced in the fields he's assigning to them. secretary of education, zero experience in education, just like last time he was in office. devoss had zero expanse in education. how do you do that?

i do not understand. someone running the health department for the entire country who has zero experience -- [laughs] and people support this. i do not know how. if you were to hire someone for a job, you will look at their qualifications. these people do not have any experience in the field which they are to run the entire department for the country. host: by chance, do you work for the government since you are in washington, d.c.? caller: i do work for the government, yes. host: what are your thoughts on this idea of cutting the waste from government? have you seen a lot of waste in your professional life, a lot of programs, people that can be cut that would save money? caller: downsizing? host: yep. caller: it happens once in a while, yes.

i think it is also used as a tool to get rid of people they do not want to be working. those are just some of the things that happen, even in corporate america. host: but do you see a lot of waste in the government? caller: oh, i see what you mean. well, it is hard to say. it is one of those things where it is usually not in leadership roles, perhaps. otherwise, yeah, in any job, you will have people who do not know what they are doing or do not care about what they are doing. it is maybe not as common as an office job or corporate america job. you are going to get that everywhere you go. host: all right. here is republican georgia

representative marjorie taylor greene, tapped to chair a new congressional subcommittee aimed at eliminating government waste under the newly formed department. [video clip] >> it is not just contracts, let's talk about federal employees that have not showed up to work ever since covid. we're also looking at many -- we have thousands of buildings at the federal government owns and pays for, over $15 billion a year, get those buildings sit empty and these government employees stay at home, still to this day. this is the exact type of waste, fraud, abuse, and failure. honestly, failure. i see the american people as the federal government customers. the federal government should be providing the top and the best government service to the american people. the way to do that is to carefully spend their money, to cut governments, contracts, employees, grant programs, you name it, that are failing the american people.

that is exactly what we are going to do. >> another thing you said a moment ago about sanctuary cities, about officials, that the country might be harboring illegals in this country. are you saying century states and sanctuary cities will lose federal funding? >> it may use their police officers and resources to harbor and protect illegal criminal aliens, then absolutely. those sanctuary states and cities are in danger of losing their federal funding, and rightfully so. host: back to social media. barb on facebook says about the ndate, no, he doesn't. he won by less than 1%. actually, it is one point 6%. we are a 50/50 country, biden won by 4 a he did not have a mandate eith. linda sayse d not even get 50of the vote, that isot a mandate, he did not win in a

landslide, and other country has to suffer because of the crazies he wants in his bit. policies will make things worse, not better. judy in pennsylvania by text says there is no nde for a idea, some for immigration control, some for cutting th mitary, some for no lgbt advances, some for more private schools, a mandate to bring taxes down to a tiny amount. we will talk next to anthony in chattanooga, tennessee, independent line. caller: thank you to c-span for giving us an opportunity to listen. i think everybody needs to just relax and let trump do his thing. biden had his chance, now it is

trump's time. [indiscernible] take you little vacation. part of the reason trump got so much support -- [indiscernible] in other words -- [indiscernible] this is not the time. host: all right, anthony. yesterday on this program, we had a political founder and contributor talk about the 2020 for election results and what he says about a mandate. [video clip] >> no, i think it is baloney. i do not think he had a mandate in 2016 when he lost the popular vote. i do not think joe biden had a mandate in 2020. mandates come from, number one, how big was your margin?

maybe a landslide, which is 10 percentage points. what is very interesting is that in 21 presidential elections between 1900 through 1984, 14 were landslides. starting in 1988, after reagan-mondale 1984, there has not been a single landslide presidential election at all. 1.6 percentage points is not a landslide. no change in the house. one of the narrowest majorities in house history. that is not a landslide. 53 seats in the senate is good but not a landslide. there is absolutely nothing someone could point to that would suggest this was a landslide. to me, it is a cardinal sin for a political figure or a party to pretend or presume they have a mandate when they do not. biden and democrats pretended

they had one in 2020, when they didn't. and republicans, there is a danger of republicans and trump pretending they had one here where they do not either. there are not going to be mandates anytime soon. host: and we are taking your calls for another half-hour. we will go right into open forum, so if there is anything else you would like to talk about, you can feel free to go ahead and do that, talk about that here. on a much lighter note, here's abc news about the turkey pardoning of peach and blossom, minnesota birds will be biden's last thanksgiving pardoning, today at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. you can see that ceremony on the white house south lawn. the president celebrates the 77th anniversary of the national

thanksgiving turkey presentation. he will give short remarks, and you can see that here on the c-span network. donna in ohio, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, first time caller. host: welcome. caller: remote worker since 2020. companies, including the government, are saving money by having all their workers remote. since being placed on remote in 2020 because of the covid pandemic, my company has said we are never going back because we are them so much money. we provide our own computers, our own internet, our own electricity, our own phone, our own toilet paper, our own water. i could go on and on and on. host: not to mention the rent for the office buildings.

caller: exactly. host: do you feel that it is just as efficient? you cannot go by somebody's office or have these conversations, those kinds of things. caller: it is definitely more efficient. and as far as a mandate, no mandate. he hasn't been given a mandate. we are in -- i am a middle-aged woman, but i still watch tiktok. we are in the f.a.f.o. moment of life right now. everyone is getting ready to find out. not only is he going to destroy everything, he is going to destroy every american life. host: what is f.a.f.o.?

unless it is obscene. caller: f around and find out. that is what the american people are getting ready to face. host: also on the line for democrats in north new hampshire, go ahead. caller: yes, we're talking about government waste and stuff that i used to work for a town for 30 years, and a lot of the times the budget, if they do not spend the money they allocate, they do not get as much the following year, the next year. so i think a lot of this government waste depends on how towns and states handle their budget money. if they are spending it on things i do not actually need, that is something to seriously look at, because i have seen that for 30 years. and i have probably shaken my head, if you are saying these things, you are on the outside looking in.

that is my comment. host: all right. john in san antonio, texas, census a text saying i disagree with the slate artic. i 100% voted for trump to take a sledgehammer to d.c. time to drain the swamp for real. scott in kerrville, new york, republican line. we are in open forum. caller: what about hud? i understand it is a $182,000 job. if there is waste in government, i do not know what a climate consultant does for hud. adam schiff, who basically almost tried to bring down the president with false information , still trying to get blockbuster information about russian collusion, apparently as a senator no one questions that.

$40 million in two years of chaos, first two years of office, no one talks about the democrats causing chaos. always the republicans. as far as the mandate goes, i go by states. geographically, how many states went to the democrats? republicans will never win california and new york. he had 45% in new york state, which is incredible. yeah, he only won by 1.5 percent, but it is amazing how when democrats are in office, it is always that they want it. so i am confused. but i want to know what a climate consultant for hud is. host: front page of the washington times about energy, says, trump team to revise fossil fuels, end biden policies, renewable energy advocates prepare to fight.

nominees plan to jumpstart energy production and reverse a slate of biden era policies aimed at eliminating fossil fuels. energy advocates are thrilled with the appointment of chris right to run the energy department, doug burgum to head the interior department, and lee belden to leave the environmental protection agency. climate action groups are preparing lawsuits to challenge the anticipated reversal of president biden's green energy policies. they will work internment to fulfill a top trump campaign promise to restore and expand production in oil and natural gas, which mr. trump calls liquid gold. the biden administration's energy policy curtailed fossil fuel production in some areas. edward is next in west virginia, independent. caller: yes, this mandate, trump

won, he got a mandate, he is the winner. does he have a super mandate? no. number two, policy. that word should be thrown out of the government. policy. i have a law in my town of harrison, speed limit down main street, 35 miles an hour. there's people going down main street at 60 and 70 miles per hour. yes, but our policy is, after 12:00, we ignore that, they say. the law does not say ignore that at 12:00. it is just a policy, not a law. i have another one, but i'm 89 years old and it has done slipped by me. as far as social security, i

have been seeing people since ever, i think, and social security has changed. that dead pile of money over there, and biden went crazy, he is a roosevelt democrat. that social security money now goes into the general fund. they can tell you, no, it don't, but it does. pass the laws, spend the money in the general fund, and then they take the social security paid in, and they used it so they write a little note, i owe social security. then they bring that note and put it in a safe box. i would like for you to spend time -- i know you will probably ignore this -- let's go in have somebody on there ask them, how

much does the united states government owe social security? thank you for taking my time. host: all right, edward. dale in maryland, democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a long time, not too long time, listener, but you guys a very interesting. the question about mandate, sometimes i am listening to you and i get on my computer and start googling things. i googled the definition of mandate. you probably know this, but it has nothing to do with degree. it is just an official order or an authority to carried out a policy. so, of course, since mr. trump won, he has a mandate. there is no question of that, by definition. this idea of degree.

i'm not sure even why you guys brought it up. i was a little disappointed this morning. but there is one thing i would like to tell you from a feeling i have about bad versus good. in my life, looking back -- i am kind of an old guy -- every bad thing that ever happened to me turned out to be good, which is a common experience for people. but i see what happened here in this election as being really bad, but based on my experience, it might turn out to be good. i guess that is pretty much it. host: dale, i want to ask you about 2016. since you are a democrat, i assume you would have seen the election of donald trump the first time as "bad." you feel that turned out good in the end? caller: well, in the sense that he did not get reelected, yes.

there were so many bad debts all the people that got hurt on january 6. i was watching it live, and i was horrified. in fact, i have to tell you one thing, my dad was a pow during world war ii, and he saw the german people, they marched them across germany, he saw the average german people, how they lived in terror under nazi-ism. in his biggest fear as i grew up -- and his biggest fear as i grew up, he would say i am afraid of a mob taking over the capitol. all these protests back in the 1970's, 1980's, which it almost happened. as i am watching this, i am thinking, my god, my dad would be flipping out if he's all something like this. yeah, we live in scary times. i am a big ted talk water, and i

watched a tag -- watcher, and i watched a ted talk the other day about a situation where you could have a population elect someone like this. and according to the ted talk, it is a bad thing, but down the line, with artificial intelligence, this could look pale in comparison to what could happen to our freedom. host: let's talk to vincent, republican line in camden, maine. caller: good morning. longtime tele-political junkie. i am a little bit nervous, but i am calling to talk about a gentleman earlier saying a mandate was supposed to be 10%. people have called in to say there is actually no percentage for a mandate. the gentleman was also saying since 1984, reagan was the last real mandate.

since then it has been so close. it gets a little crazy here.i am so happy that trump is putting some of the best people around him to try to do what we need to do, because the fact that we have not had a mandate since 1984 shows me -- i have friends from chicago, and they say vote early, vote often. voter fraud is not new. but i feel with the technology today, it is so easy to cheat. i just do not know where to go with this because this election, even though i still think it was tinkering all over the place, it still happened to go the way i wanted it to go. and i am a lifelong independent. most of my family are democrats, and i guess i went the other way. i feel this is the best country in the world. i think most will agree when we

compare ourselves with other countries that are established, we seem to be losing a lot of ground in every single aspect. basically, i want to say to everybody, we need to cool down and relax. i know we say my side won, but we are all americans, and i just want to see this country be what it should be, that shining beacon of light on the hill, asking everyone to come here and be the best you can be and make america better. that is all i want to say. host: this is joe in biddeford, maine, good morning. independent line. caller: donald trump's only mandate is elon musk. he is his mandate. this garbage talk about having policy as mandate? so i don't know what you're talking about with mandate. if you mean policy, which policy are we going to talk about? and then the ukraine war in 15

minutes, -- ending the ukraine war in 15 minutes, ending the immigration problem in 15 minutes, when american people realize if it is a repeat of trump one, where he was going to replace obamacare, it is all lies. so the democratic party has lost, and now the republican party has to govern, which they refused to do for four years. they stopped for three weeks, just shut down the government for no reason. it was just to do what donald trump told them to do. so the republican party, from a republican, this is from the republican party, we have been made a party of liars. we have to say that trump is our

leader, and all of the republican people that have been lifelong republicans, they are all democrats now. so i just wanted to say one more thing. thank you for listening. but what do you think the guy who paid off justice thomas? paid his mother's rent for 50 years, whatever the story is, gave him a $330,000 loan, told him you don't have to pay it back, that guy. what do you think he is going to say? all the politicians come all the money in his lifetime he has pumped into the republican party, and elon is now trump's mandate. elon was at the ufc with trump. everything. he is in the white house, running around making policy commitments. he is not even a lifelong republican, not even a republican. host: got your point.

selma in georgia, line for democrats. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i wanted to comment on what the lady said about f.a.f.o. i believe that, as well. and with the gentleman said about understanding that we have to really around in support our president, because he is. but i was just curious, wondering what could happen with this election. also, because donald -- i used to love donald trump, but upon seeing how he was -- i read about him, looked up his children, this and that, those attached to him. but i was so surprised that the lies and everything, so that turned me off. but he was so confident in this election.

i was saying all along to my partner he is going to win, and my partner was like no way, and i was like yes way. he is so confident. i believe, which i have accepted it, i have only voted three times in my entire life and i am in my 60's, so now i am like i do not want to be a democrat, almost embarrassing that they cannot get behind joe biden. joe biden was too good to be president, i believe. i am like, what are you guys doing? support him. from day one, he never got a chance to be credited for what he did. host: did you vote in this election? caller: i did. i voted in 2016, my first time ever. i would be like, nah, doesn't matter. i voted for hillary because i'm all about girl power.

i thought it was a joke because donald was a lifelong democrat, and i was like he is only doing this to help hillary. they were all good friends. so i am just home with my tv and my books. i had no idea. i was so disappointed and surprised to wake up the next morning to find out he was our president. but again, i was surprised. host: got your point. here is james on facebook. trump has s a fraction of a percentage point l 50%. and the elewas conducted over a backdrop of significant polarization. th victoryves either of those two things, claims of having a mandate is hard to make. obviously, he has the power to do a lot but does not really

have a mandate to do anything. linda says he did not even get 50% of the vote,ot mandate, he did not win in a landslide, and whole country has to suffer. i think we read this one before. and this is -- sorry. michael in florida says, absolutely a mandate, harris spent $1 billion on her campaign and four years demonizing president trump and still lost. that is beyond mandate. to don next in nevada, republican. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i am just surprised at how uninformed the callers are. everybody in the democratic party is trying to delude donald trump's mandate.

look at california, they allow illegals to vote. new york -- host: there is nowhere in the country that allows noncitizens to vote. caller: right. and trump's mandate is getting rid of people like the one in hurricane ravaged north carolina that told the people not to -- to skip the houses that were damaged. and listen, 100,000 new postal workers were hired, and you know what, it takes eight days for me to get mail from the other side of the country.

it hasn't changed one bit. and the illegals are getting a lot of benefits, and trump promised no tax on social security for elderly people and disabled people. he promised no tax on tips. that is his mandate. in the far left is persecuting all the conservatives that are mostly republican. that is a mandate. host: take a look at florida congressman byron donalds, he argued president trump does have a mandate. he was on yesterday fox news sunday morning, about the plan to deport a large number of people. [video clip] >> at first you start with

criminal illegal aliens, easy to identify, working with law enforcement agencies across the country. the team and the secretary and the department of homeland security will be able to get those people out of our country very quickly. then you move to people who already have deportation orders even to them that they simply have not left, you move to that group of people to a secondary level. dealing with ice, local law enforcement. in southwest florida, our local sheriffs are more than prepared to use the 287g program to help remove people from the united states. the hyperbole of using the military, we are nowhere close to that, probably will not need to do that. the truth is, once you start deportation proceedings, illegal immigrants to understand, as well, they do not want to be cut in our country and have to be deported from ice, because if you are, you are barred from returning to the united states for a decade.

so i think you will see a lot of self deportation once the process begins. host: back to the phones, dorothy and milwaukee, wisconsin, independent line. caller: good morning. host: what do you think, dorothy? all right. this is ed in georgia, democrat. caller: yeah, good morning. thanks for taking my call. the comment from don in nevada, in the dictionary, he would be the classic definition of an ignorant republican. the definition of ignorant is lacking accurate information. luckily, you were able to shut him down right away there. the gentleman from maine, he said trump has put in some real good people, well, if tv hosts are good people to run our

cabinet positions, that is something that boggles my mind. and he did not win by a landslide. it was no mandate. they really need to follow all the different news stations. i am not worried about trump. a gentleman in home depot last week, he told me, when you worry, you are not praying, when you are praying, you don't need to worry. so let's see what donald does. he did not do nothing the first time. we will see all the things he campaigned on, see if one of them comes to fruition. thank you for taking my call. host: david next in texas, republican. caller: yes, it is kind of deceiving to say that he only won the popular vote by less

than 2%. if you look at the map of how many counties he actually won, even in the blue states, that was a lot of red. it was not just some big metropolitan areas. it is overwhelmingly red. and people act like he has not been there before. he has been president before, and the country was never in better shape. so he will do this country very well. thank you. host: let's talk to george next in upper durfee, for sylvania, democrat. -- upward rv, pennsylvania, democrat. caller: nobody really cares about the popular vote, because donald trump did win, and it is

a fact that he will be the president. so discussing that part really has no relevance. there was a question regarding how to cut the waste in the federal government. i served in the federal government for 20 years, and i have seen people who just don't want to work. and since covid, they do not even want to come back to work. the thing is, the problem is that the good ones who do want to work, they have to carry the workload of these other people who do not want to work, and they get burnt out. so i think this doge initiative is going to cut out these employees who do not want to work in the federal government. they want to be paid $100,000, gs12 or 13 level. i do not know if president trump will be able to deliver on all the issues that he listed under his mandate, because we have to

understand this, we still have a constitution. i don't care how many cabinet nominees he has, senate republicans do have a responsibility to follow the constitution, and so does the pentagon. so we will wait and see what happens. host: on the line for independents, in new york, aaron. caller: i am just confused here because there's no deep state because the democrats, they did not tell trump to grab a woman by the private parts, they did not tell him to call up the governor of a state and demand a certain amount of votes. i do not understand the deep state. when someone commits a crime in

the police or fbi or whoever is investigating those crimes and charging that person, does not matter who the person is. no one is above the law, but apparently this man is. the supreme court gave him enough leeway to do whatever he wants. so this mandate thing does not really mean anything. these people calling and talking about mandates, it does not mean much because the supreme court already gave him that initiative to do whatever he wants. now it has shifted. can you imagine if a democrat would say, you know what, we lost in the election was rigged, what would happen? what if democrats did that? i voted for the right side because i believe in a woman's right to choose, believe in the rule of law, believe in democracy, believe in the constitution, and i want to take my kids to the park and walk and

enjoy the highway and this beautiful country. i want to go and don't feel like i am dying just to breathe air. there's no shame here in voting for the other side. there are core beliefs everyone should have. host: last call, columbus, ohio, democrat. caller: i am so amazed at the people that donald trump is picking to be in his cabinet. i try to do research on all these people, and robert kennedy has had 14 years of being a heroin addict. he had it for 14 years after his father got assassinated. so amazing, everybody the average person get a job. -- can't get a job.

i do not understand how he can go down. these cops in the capital were getting beat up, millions of dollars of damage and he goes online and says you were great patriots. not one time did he ever say anything like i appreciate the police officers and security who were getting beat up and he talked about wanting to pardon them. how can anybody support this man? this man flies around in a $100 million jet and then they sent him money. >> that is all the te at we got for this segment, but a lot more to come because up next, we got senior research fellow veronique de rugy discussing the incoming trump administration

department of government efficiency, and dr. anand parekh from the bipartisan policy center discussing key health care policies facing the u.s. ♪ >> he considers himself a full-time lawyer and a full-time historian. his latest book is called how the past did it: leadership lessons from our top presidents. she chose the first four of eight off the face of mount rushmore. george washington, thomas jefferson, abraham lincoln and theodore roosevelt. in addition, he chose 24 distinct leadership traits he says were exhibited by these presidents. the others included in his vast leadership category are fdr, dwight eisenhower, john f. kennedy and ronald reagan.

>> lawyer and historian with his how the best did it, leadership lessons from o t presidents on this episode of notes plus. bo notes plus is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span to 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 for free today or visit our website, c-span.org/c-spannow. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> be up-to-date in the latest in publishing the book tv podcast about books. with current, nonfiction book releases plus bestseller list as well as industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find on c-span now, our free mobile app, or wherever you giggle podcasts. washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we're joined now by senior research fellow at george mason university veronique de rugy. welcome to the program. guest: thank you for having me. host: we are talking about efficiency and this new department of government

efficiency. can you explain to us what the goals are? >> so the goal is --. behind it is that we have an enormous debt problem, which we have. we are on very unsustainable trajectory and something needs to be done. congress has been unwilling to really do much on that front for a decade. so they are creating this department and they are going to be cutting to trillion dollars. they are also going to work with other areas to cut, but in ways that can be done through the executive powers. >> elon musk has said he wants to cut to trillion dollars from the federal government. that is about one third of total spending. the budget is about $6 trillion. he called for a 75% cut in federal workforce.

let's talk about both of those things. to trillion dollars, can that be done just through cutting federal workers? guest: no, it can't. host: so with that have to go into entitlements, or? guest: i think we need to back up a little bit. first, the question is can we actually do it without going through congress? i'm not a lawyer but i think there are questions about this. it is a very untested theory. there are something that they could do, no doubt. they say they can direct congress or even the agencies to not enforce some regulations and to prioritize others.

i assume they can do some of that. guest: -- host: so they certainly can work with congress to figure out what needs to be cut, but 75% of the workforce don't know if this can be done or if this even if the right way to think about this. i think working with congress is the most important thing. power of spending resides with congress. so that to me seems really important. and i absolutely agree with what it is deriving from which is congress doesn't really want to do its job because the incentives are against actually doing their job. we are on an unsustainable path

because of a few programs. there are really three programs like social security, medicare and medicaid. there are three programs on a sustainable path that actually preserve the benefits for those who need it most. that is long-term. he can be done by making reforms that are not drastic, that actually make these programs more efficient. and then making the government more efficient itself. in along these lines, i would think about what are the programs that the federal government is doing now and that it shouldn't do? for instance, should we be subsidizing so may private companies? host: what companies, explain that. guest: green energy, export subsidies for boeing clients.

there are just lots of things. small business loans to companies that end up competing in a very competitive industry like restaurants, competing next to each other with one who has a government loan meaning much preferable borrowing terms than others. should the government be doing this? and if the answer is no, i would work on reducing this across the board, not just for specific programs that you don't like, or i could explain to the public what logic is driving this move to reduce subsidies to the private sector. and then the other big part is like, if the federal government is doing a lot of things that are state and local functions. i would work on reducing some of these functions to the state. host: i want to play something for you and get your reaction to it.

she led a government efficiency project and the clinton administration and she is talking about doge and says the goals are not realistic. >> the central government each year spends about $6.1 trillion. more than half of that money is spent on what is called mandatory spending. that means social security payments, medicare payments, retirement payments for veterans, etc. so you can't touch that unless you want to raise a greatly political stink which guess what, i don't think trump really wants to do. i don't think he is going to care about social security payments or things like that. then you got interest on the debt, then you've got $1.7 trillion left for what we call discretionary spending. that is the military, that is the faa, that is the justice

department, the education department, all of the rest of the government. elon musk and vivek ramaswamy have said they want to cut to trillion dollars. that's more than the entire federal discretionary spending. so what you have to ask them is what are you going to cut? what are you going to do without? this is where the devil is in the details. >> i first some folks say he is really targeting the regulatory state. government duplication and efficiency, what do you make of that argument? >> it is not in the regulatory personnel. we should be looking at regulations. there is no doubt that we should take a look at permitting and all this stuff. but that doesn't cut bureaucrats. that doesn't save money. the number of people who are

involved in administrative regulatory status is really small, above kiss compared to the money in the federal government. that is a different exercise then cutting the government. and i think until you understand that, we did that twice. we did that with internal agency regulations. it is a very good thing to do. they did a little of this in the bush administration, some of this in the obama administration. but it doesn't save you to trillion dollars and it doesn't cut 80% of the workforce. host: steve agree? guest: i agree with the fact that it is unrealistic to think you could be cutting $2 trillion, or even that it is a sound goal because politically it would be so difficult and so disruptive. that said, i will disagree on one important fact, which is it is true that most of the money

is on medicare social security and medicaid. that is absolutely true. but it is not true that we can't do anything about it. in fact, by law, benefits for social security when the trust fund dries out would be cut by 21%. so congress is going to have to do something to make sure it preserves the benefits for lower income beneficiaries. because the 21% cut across the board is going to be very painful. it's also not right to say that these programs because they are on the mandatory side shouldn't be cut because they are the driver of our future dead. but what congress decides to do in the trust fund expires is to pay all the benefits the way they are which means we are going to have just social security and medicare to borrow

$160 trillion. just to give a perspective, that is more than the entire history of the united states. in just 30 years. who is going to be lending us all that money? it is correct to say all of the money is in these programs. it is also correct to say that the last two years, the rise of interest payment has made it even harder because we cannot default on these interest payments. they are a bigger and bigger part of the problem but i don't think it is right to say we just can't touch these programs. now, the question is whether you can do it the way they want to do it, and i don't think you can address this question this way. but there's a lot they can do. they have an enormous microphone and they are bringing attention to the fact that we have a big problem.

that is the beginning of the conversation. host: and we are talking about federal spending and the new department of government efficiency. if you would like to join our conversation, you can do so. our lines are democrats, (202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 if you are a republican. (202) 748-8002 if you are an independent. we also have a line set aside for federal workers. you can calls on (202) 748-8003. use that line also for texting. you mentioned state and local functions that the federal government is doing that you think needs to be offloaded. give us some examples of what you mean. guest: a fair amount of the formula that is used for medicaid where the relative share of the federal government, what it pays to medicaid

compared to the state, that is a formula that hasn't been updated in 75 years, i believe. that is something that should be recalibrated because the way it is now, you have a lot a very high income states that could become much more the burden of medicaid for the people they put on than they do now. and the federal government is taking a lot of that burden. there are things that could be done to kind of rebalance the share of medicaid payments going to the state. transportation. there is a lot that can be developed in the states because a lot of the transportation functions are purely state and local functions. they are also private functions. education is something, it is arguable whether we can actually save a lot of money with

education. that can be done more at the state and local level. the advantage of this, it is not just one about saving money, it is one of putting the incentives where they matter the most. they have an incentive to think about whether this is really a program that is efficient, whether it is serving the population it needs to serve. the federal government takes on so much of the burden of medicaid they don't have much of an incentive to clear the roles, to rethink their eligibility. it's not just about the money, it is about actually thinking about how should we serve the people we say we want to serve?

host: you mentioned several things that you would cut, but you said reform the department of defense entitlement system. what does that mean? host: defense is a core function of the federal government, an important function. the defense department has pretty much the same problems that the federal government has, which is it has an enormous entitlement. the benefit side of the program is actually eating up a growing an enormous share of the budget. most: this is for military and civilian workers. >> yes. in the end, the part that is growing with fast and the department of defense is the

back part. and if the amount you give to department of defense isn't growing as fast as that part of the budget, you end up with less money going to the part that is actually about growing defense capabilities. so i don't know how to do it, but i think this is something the department of defense need to focus on, to put itself by sustainable path. host: and you think that military veterans, their benefits need to be cut in some way. guest: that is not my area of expertise but there are a lot of people who actually look at the fence and say this is going to be a growing problem going forward. how do you fix it? like where those dollars are needed the most and how you can perform it without hurting. how you reduce eligibility

without cutting the muscle. this is the hard part and this is why it is not done much. because it is really hard to do. the problem is, can we afford to neglect the federal budget as we have, and can we stay on this path and do nothing? in the answer is no. something is going to have to be done and it is going to be hard, there is no doubt. host: david, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i'd like to say back in the early 80's when the government decided to go in and raise social security and they took out almost $1 trillion, i think it was $400 million the first time in $500 million the second time, i'm not quite sure that i think that is what it is, i

think marjorie taylor greene is going to do a hell of a job taking care of fraud and abuse in the government. thank you for your call. host: thank you. what do you think about marjorie taylor greene and what that subcommittee in the house is? guest: i'm not exactly sure, we haven't seen much but i want to comment on something said about fraud and abuse. i know people like to talk about fraud and abuse. we are not going to be balance the budget on the back of fraud and abuse, in large part because waste, fraud and abuse is embedded in programs that are popular with special interests. that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. just doing away with waste, fraud and abuse, that doesn't remove the difficulty

politically to address the problem. that said, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. government accountability office looks at fraud in the federal government and has identified between $200 billion and $500 billion of fraud every year the federal government. a lot of it in medicare and medicaid. it should be a priority. we shouldn't tolerate that. and the reason why it is there is mostly because of neglect. mostly because no one is actually really trying to go after the fraud, and we need to do something. but it is going to be hard. it is going to be hard but it needs to be done. it is a real issue. host: we've got a text from sheila in massachusetts. could you please ask your guest

who sets the interest rate for the government borrowing and why can't that interest rate below her? -- the lower? guest: basically no. you can't artificially fix it, but ultimately it is not going to work because if investors think that the u.s. has become risky, or riskier than it has been, and what they really want to do this to get a premium for lending us money, meaning higher interest rates, they are not going to lend us that money. we can't have a price control applied to interest rates because it is going to have real consequences. host: let's talk to pete,

connecticut, independent. caller: yeah. i'm very concerned about the deficit. it's over $25 trillion now, and the interest rate is $1 trillion every year. so my question is if somebody is running for president or be election or the incumbent say that we are going to tax the billionaires more to get the revenue down? from what i understand, there is one prison population of the united states is billionaires. why does nothing get done to tax the billionaires every time they talk about it? that is my question. guest: the collar is right, the data has just crossed $36 trillion.

our deficit is heading to much higher numbers in the next 10 years. these are enormous numbers, it is enormous. and by the way, are taxing is already very progressive. they tax the middle class and lower income people a lot anyway the u.s. doesn't. it doesn't mean there's not a lot of money on the revenue side. tax expenditures are tax breaks that are given to special interests. not all of the market special interests, some of them are to

prevent double taxation of income. there is a lot that can be done. all these tax breaks that are given to special projects, the inflation reduction act has some green energy subsidies through the tax code that are supposed to be $300 billion over 10 years. host: those are lost revenues. guest: yes. $4 trillion over 30 years. that sign of revenue, and by the way, these tax subsidies go to big companies who they like these companies, but it is not that they need them. i can tell you a vast majority of the subsidies and the tax

breaks are already doing the work host: william, you are next. republican, tennessee. caller: thank you. host: go ahead. caller: thank you for your hard study of the economics of government. i worked for the los angeles air force and they would take they would put in mickey mouse ovens and with the good ovens rot on the loading dock. government waste is a big part of the problem because we have a huge number of military bases, and they raise money like it is

going out of style. guest: there is a lot of waste that is happening. there is a lack of accountability that is unquestionable in government, and we should address these issues, and i'm glad if the doge is actually bringing attention to these issues of fraud, waste and abuse. but again, we are not going to be balancing and addressing our long-term budget on the back of waste, fraud and abuse. it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, we should do it. but the first step, 230 $6 trillion the last time they looked. congress doesn't do anything.

host: companies, contractors? guest: mostly through programs like the improper payments going through social security, medicare, and congress doesn't do anything. it is just a priority to actually look at how to fix this. i believe it's probably a technology problem. probably the lack of the ability to track these payments and maybe that is one way that doge really can help. host: modernizing the technology would be a cost. guest: it would be a cost but ultimately we are not going to do anything in one year. it is a long-term project and i am glad that these guys are paying attention to the issue. improper payments are something we have been complaining about and i would be -- congress

doesn't seem to want to address it. a lot of this goes to people, it is overpayment. i think 76% of it is overpayment. the very middle of it is underpayment. that said, it is wrong for the federal government if someone is eligible for benefits and they are making a mistake in the wrong direction, the problem we have is that congress doesn't do its job. congress has really advocated -- host: why do you think that is? guest: i think the incentives are to delegate a lot of the power to the agencies, to the executive branch, and they don't want to take unpopular decisions because voters don't want to hear that there is a problem.

people don't want to hear that really, ultimately, if we wanted to put the country on a sound fiscal path, it requires to look where the money is and where the money is his social security, medicare and medicaid. and again, we've talked about interest rates. there is a moment where investors are going to be looking at the u.s. and say you know what, for all of this debt, we would like higher interest rates. higher interest rate means higher interest payment. one third of our debt needs to be rolled over every year. we feel that pain. very quickly, because every year we have higher and higher interest payments, in the span of the last three years. we went from over $200 billion

in interest payment to close to $2 trillion. imagine that in the next 10 years. we need to do it, and the problem is that congress so far has not signaled that it was ready to be serious. improper payments. they had over 5000 unused recommendations of how to make the government more efficient. saving money on a span of 10 years, if you put up all these recommendations. host: gao is the government accountability office and they answer to congress. guest: these are things that we

could do to improve efficiency and save some money but ultimately to put us on a sustainable path, congress is going to have to do its job in reforming social security. they can do it by removing benefits for those who need it most, but they have to be willing to actually even talk about it. host: barbara, oklahoma, independent line. caller: i can't believe you're letting her filibuster for 10 minutes between calls and lie about -- this is not a tax on the government that reagan stole from first. he put $1 trillion in his budget to the elites and now trump did in his budget, that was $1 trillion of our money. and he's going to do it again. when he gets in there, he will give it all to the billionaires.

it is a trust. not one dime should go to them. and also, i would like to say the border thing, russia, russia, then he pardoned them all. they all went to prison. 400 or something were indicted. the hoax with hillary. no one indicted there. host: ok, barbara. guest: the trust is real. it has real assets that were built. collected on workers, and the way social security works is with tax people who are working,

current retirees, and for many years until 2010, there was more revenue collected than benefits paid. and ever since then, basically there has been a gap between what was collected in social security and the payroll tax and what is needed for workers. we've been using basically the access -- the excess in the trust fund. no one is touching this. the reason it is going away is because it is being used right now. what a lot of people fail to understand is the money they pay is not going to an account with their name on it. now, there is a lot of the tax

cut to be expanded because there is an enormous tax on a lot of people that is going to be very unpopular. but also, it can be cut their spending. -- the extension of the tax cut. host: next call is david in north carolina, republican. caller: good morning, can you hear me? i googled some statistics on government spending and revenue collection and as you go back to 2018, the government spending was $4.1 trillion. the revenue collections were $3.4 trillion that year.

2019, 4 point four $5 trillion spending. 2020, 6 point seven $5 trillion spending. meanwhile, our revenue collections went from $3.4 trillion in 2018 top $4.9 trillion in 2024. there's been a complete refusal to address the spending problem, and i know there is inflation over those years, but if we simply cut our budgets back to prior year in trump your numbers, we would basically at this point have a surplus. it is a spending problem and you have many uneducated people in collin and just don't understand that. guest: we do have a spending problem and i would be all in

favor of rolling back spending, putting a cap on spending. but we have to understand, in nominal terms between 20, $2.4 trillion. adjusted for inflation, $1.5 trillion. i can come interest payment on the dead have exploded. roughly $900 million and they are going up. right now you do a saving just by rolling everything back, $500 billion. and again, as long as you don't control social security, medicare and medicaid which are effectively automatic growth, you are going to have a problem. we were still in 2019 having

that long-term problem heading our way. i think the way congress behaved in the administration has been very responsible. they were throwing money at everything and after the pandemic ended, this is the first time and we scale it back. congress, discretionary spending, it is crazy. it is an enormous increase. host: we've got a question from you x that says earlier today rson mentioned cutting the federal workforce by 80%. these people have functions and

inform important duties. how much would get done? very little. what are your thoughts on that if a judge does go through with what they're saying, what kind of disruptive might we be seeing? guest: huge disruption, but can they do it? can they do it legally? i'm not sure. for instance, air traffic control. 1800 workers. you cut 80% of this, it makes the agency impossible to function. however, there is an alternative which is we could privatize air traffic control which is what other countries are doing, have done.

there is a way to do what we want to do any different place. you can't just say we are going to cut across the board. there are different options. privatizing air traffic control has been done in a lot of countries. it is not as an air traffic control is not very problematic, we seen it last summer and the summer before that. same thing for amtrak. japan successfully privatized tr stem. that is better than just saying we are going to cut across the board the number of employees. i would actually go with a scalpel and just think about what needs to be done. host: democrat, new york. caller: good morning. traditionally, the republican party is a party of fiscal responsibility. yet in this situation, the

biggest items of cost are social security, medicare and medicaid. what i feel is that doge is saying that for some kind of special place where we can find loads of money that we can cut. you just mentioned the example of the faa. ok, perhaps they could be privatized and reorganized that way. that is not going to get into the goal of controlling interest rates in the end. i am on social security, i am a senior citizen. especially for those who are in better economic circumstances than those who are living day-to-day on their budgets. it feels unserious by trump and now he has a republican congress if they don't cut medicare and

medicaid spending. and do they have the will and the guts to do it? in the meantime, trump is playing santa claus. he is saying i am not going to tax social security, i am not going to tax tips. so it feels that there is not a political will to do this because they haven't brought it up in the campaign. they are not serious. guest: i think this is the problem of politics. politicians like to give stuff away and they don't like to tell people we are going to cut spending. the american people are also responsible because as much as people talk about, and this caller is remarkably responsible, you rarely hear that. people say they want us to be on

a fiscal, sound path but when you ask them what they would like to cut, they would cut foreign aid, little things. that is not the way it is going to be solved. politicians, and we seen this on the campaign trail, everyone says whether it was vp harris or trump, they are not going to touch medicare. even talked about not taxing the police and firefighters i believe, and that is just not responsible. let's see what they do when they are in office. the truth of the matter is a debate next year about extending the tax provision that are set to expire at the end of the year. a process that is going to start

first by setting a deficit goal, and there are a lot of people who are going to want to make this -- because there are a fair amount of people in congress who care about not exploding the deficit. host: some people make the argument that all the money we're spending on illegals or migrants living in the country, if we stop doing that we could save a lot of money and reduce the debt. what are your thoughts on that? guest: we are not balancing the budget on the back of illegal immigrants. people who are not eligible for these benefits are getting them. we should make a stop to this. but we are not going to fix our fiscal problem by cutting small things. this is why i think we need to think more about what are the

principles that are guiding, and again, look at what other countries have done. what have they privatized? host: let's take one more call from helen, republican. caller: does anyone else think the unofficial first buddy of the line trump's co-chair on doge promises to cut government waste? seems like from what i've been reading, the point of doge is to deregulate, which is removing federal rules that would limit contracts, specifically military contracts.

this is what i'm seeing. a lot of this might just be for personal profit. that they are going to cut wasteful spending and this would be returned to the tax. so anyway, what is your guest have to say about the deregulation of rules between private corporations and private entities? guest: i'm glad you bring this up. there is bipartisan support for deregulating. in large part because the government and government regulations are completely outdated and getting in the way. it is really a top priority to

actually look at all these rules that need to go away to allow people to want to build in this country to build. and that will be beneficial to everyone because the moment you increase the supply of all sorts of things, whether it is housing, all sorts of infrastructure, whether it is innovation is going to lead to lower prices. i asked would give more than the benefit of the doubt that they are actually responding to a call that has been in alarm, that has been sent on both sides of the aisle to look at regulation, to deregulate where we need it the most, to the country that built and that innovates and produces for the good of everyone. host: that is veronique de rugy.

thanks so much for joining us today. more of your phone because after the break on open for them. and later, from the bipartisan policy center, discussing key health care policy issues facing the u.s. we will be right back. announcer: attention middle and high school students across america. it is time to make your voice heard. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness and make an impact. your documentary should answer the question your message to the president, what issue is most important to you and your community? whether you are passionate about politics, the environment or community stories. studentcam is your platform to

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and gather me, about the books that inspired and shaped her and her book club-turned nonprofit. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern time, book tv presents coverage of the 75th annual national book awards hosted by the national book foundation. the award celebrates the best literature published in the united states. author and actor kate mckinnon hosted the ceremony and awards were given for the best works of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we are in open forum, you can go ahead and start calling in now.

democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. you can address any public-policy policy topic on your mind. a few programs for you for your schedule, starting shortly in about ven minutes, the peace corps director will speak about the future of its role in the end of pacific. lives at 9:00 a.m. eastern, that is around c-span 2. also today, dr. mandy coven will discuss serving as director of the agency, successes of the den administration and some of the public health challenges ahead at the state and federal levels. you can watch that foreign relations ent live at 6:30 also on the app and on

c-span.org. we will go to your calls now for open forms. texas, democrat. caller: how are you doing? host: good. caller: you just had a caller from new york: and say that social security and medicare are the biggest government expenditures. i disagree. our national defense bill is outrageous. we had accountants go into the pentagon and redo the contracts and this is all of the expenditures going out. seizing 10% of whatever they can see. we could save 200 billion dollars a year on just national defense. that is ridiculous. host: all right, gary. let's talk to robert in hollywood, maryland. independent line. caller: i was hoping to get your

guest on earlier but i'm going to just spit it out here. my wife works for the government and with her past history of three years, she's the hardest worker i've ever known. but what is killing me as your guest said that, she cap saying that this once all the deficit, this once all the deficit. a little bit here and there, it all adds up over time. if you show that you are actually serious about cutting the fat from the government, the big might help. but the defense industry, they've let company after company merge and merge to where you only have a few players in it now, and it is open checkbook for whatever you want done. that is one of the biggest problems, no competition. host: you said your wife works

in the federal government. if she in the office or is she remote? caller: she is remote because she has had two back surgeries in the last three years and she sits at her desk in terrible pain and does her job better than anybody i know works. and go into the early point about getting rid of the people who don't want to do their job in the government. host: so elon musk has been saying we need to put all the government workers back in the office, and that that will cause some of them to quit on their own. what with your wife say about that? caller: she would probably say i'm retiring. [laughter] host: carol, new jersey, line for democrats. caller: hello. good morning. i wanted to say when trump was president for four years, he took his vacations every weekend

from friday to monday and his daughter was sitting in the white house in his seat. he was charging $1 million a year just for his room and board for him to take a vacation. he really didn't do anything for four years, except the ruined farmers, and then he messed up covid. host: we are in open forum until about 9:15. we will take your calls. the lines are democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. we will talk to clark in west

virginia, independent line. caller: thank you very much. i listen to a person explaining to me talking about cutting social security from those who are well-off. that is robbing the rich to give to the poor. i am probably one of the first guys that worked 80 hours a week in a coal mine. if i had to drag one leg, talking about the pentagon and all these people, you can't watch a person at home and see how much work they are actually accomplishing. maybe so, but we can keep going the way we are done.

people lost the election because your party didn'tabout it and 'r and try to make this country, i've never seen so much visceral hatred because of an election, i'm 73. never seen anything like it. let's come together and try to make us love one another like god said. this is ridiculous. host: allen in huntington west virginia saying it will take than spending cuts to significant lower the debt. it will take additional revenue not tax cuts. more than pay for themselvesill because growth they will stimulate economists believe -- this is fantasy. scott in los angeles, independent line. >> good morning to everybody and that is a timely act to follow because i would like to say when bob marley had a concert he would always say it's so good and pleasant for brothers and

sisters to be together in one identity. and the reason i'm calling as a true independent, i mean the truest independent you will ever talk to is i was trying to make a case up till the very end to vote for both of these folks and unfortunately it just never landed. i am not a fan of the know it all, the haughtiness, the person who knows more than everything. i'm just never get to be a fan of that. and unfortunately ms. harris just never landed a blow in terms of what she dealt with and i'm calling in terms of to be informative, after the election as a true independent i listen and follow everybody. they had sent a reporter into arizona and they found a puerto rican family.

and the lady interviewed puerto rican lady in the household and wanted to know how she could still vote, she had voted for trump and she wanted to know how she could have voted for that in the face of the commentary at that rally in new york. she said didn't you feel disrespected. how could you vote for that. and the lady very calm lean and this is why hope people pay attention, she said no, she felt more disrespected i not being able to pay for her families food. and she felt more disrespected and please do not cut me off, i see that long arm of the law heading over. please let me get this out. she felt disrespected when people come traipsing across the border and are put ahead of her family. she said she felt disrespected when we were told all along that

food had gone up 20% and when she in her words said food is up a minimum of 50% which i will vouch for and she also said some items have completely doubled. host: scott i've got to move on. just so you know for your schedule also the annual national thanksgiving turkey pardoning is happening today at the white house. joe biden will be doing that at 11:00 a.m., you can watch that later today again 11:00 a.m. on c-span. and this is texas, line for fred patrick. caller: good morning. the researcher fellow very smart. going back to bill clinton's eight years, there's a balanced budget. three events after that, it is

almost completely responsible for the deficit. two wars, the savings and loan scandal of 2007-2008. the question, she was talking about how we would get the deficit which is over 36 trillion now. host: the national debt. caller: she's done the research, but she did not really get -- she gave a lot of answers we can take from here and there. in 2033, people are living longer so that means there's going to be fewer people actually probably working where there will be medicaid and social security benefits taken from their checks. so i was just listening and was not really impressed because she

did not really give specific answers. host: let's go to staten island, new york. republican jim -- jill, good morning. >> thank you for taking my call. host: you two. caller: i was listening to a lady from new jersey a few minutes ago and i don't understand first of all this rhetoric going back we should all unite together. when trump was in we did not have wars, we had order. the economy was great. trump never got paid by being a president so i don't know where this lady is coming from that he's been millions of dollars and went on vacation. we have to stop this and unite together. this is the greatest can live f. whoever it is we are all one in god and why can't we all be in one and respect the president of our country. god bless everybody. host: this is john in capital heights maryland.

>> good morning america. good morning c-span listeners. i've always been known as a problem solver in my family and amongst my business constituents. i listen to everybody talking about how much money we owe and how much debt we are in. it's almost like we're in a conundrum and can't find a way out. how many individuals of the baby boomer era started out as common workers. and became rich as their life progressed? why are they still eligible for social security? they can still get checks even though they are rich and have gone beyond the common person. so how about we start doing a means test to find out who is eligible and who is not eligible for social security. it was created to take care of our seniors and our elderly who will be in dire straits as they get older.

then you should not be eligible anymore if you get richer. why don't we have a moratorium on the finances that we give to foreign countries. i'm not saying cut them off completely but let's have a moratorium for a year or we don't give you anything, we use that for our own structure here in america. and the last one, how about we have a moratorium on illegal aliens coming across the border. how about we shut it down for time, a process the ones we have here, after we finish processing and deporting the ones we have here then we open the border up and shut the border down again. what that will do is solve our financial problems as wasting giving money to illegal aliens that are here as we are able to restrict it in a way where you take the ones that are legal until they get themselves together, the port the ones that are not here legally and then

cut down on a whole lot of expense. we have common sense things we can do in america but we just don't want to do it. thank you so much for listening. host: on the lines for democrat in michigan, donna. caller: good morning. what i would like to talk about is politicians pay. back in the founding fathers days they volunteered their time. now they are definitely not volunteering. they are making good money and they are making money when they retire. if you looked at some of that stuff you would find a whole lot to cut. try paying the minimum wage for when they work and not giving them all those days off like they get. that's my two cents. host: thanks donna. nbc news has this, matt says he doesn't plan to rejoin congress after withdrawing as trump's pick for attorney general. there was some question as to

whether matt gaetz, who resigned from the house after trump chosen for attorney general would want to be sworn into the next congress. that's nbc.com. here is his quote. i'm still going to be in the fight but it is going to be from a new perch. i do not intend to join the 119th congress. sal in new jersey, republican. >> good morning. i would like to say i support the great chip roy of texas. he's got a good idea. he said we would close the border completely and stop all immigration for the time being and get our act together and find out these people who are in here, deport all of them, get all the criminals out and when we get our act together reformer immigration system and then reopen the border because we

don't know who is coming in. we have to have common sense immigration reform. host: what kind of reform would you like to see? caller: excuse me? host: tell me about the reforms for the immigration. caller: well we should have more -- we should, not that we should have reform, we should just let people in here legally read we are a nation of immigrants but we shouldn't let just people in here willy-nilly because we are a nation of immigrants. should let people in that we know who they are, what their intentions are, what contributions they want to make to the country and we should also -- let me just letting these immigrants and now are bringing in diseases that have been eradicated years ago. we don't know where they are coming from or what they are doing to this country and these democrats that are letting these immigrants into these country, they are letting them in because

they want them to become loyal democrats and the thing is --, we have to just be careful who we let in here. >> here is carrie in spotsylvania, virginia. caller: good morning. i have been a democrat and a republican and i am not sure if people remember but i have been a defense contractor and the government worker and at one time our government was very small so we had an enormous amount of defense contractors which we used to call beltway bandits because they could charge whatever they want and the government had to pay for it. so i think if you actually went back and cut back the government again that's what's can happen you have the defense contractors come in and they will make this enormous amount of money and there will be at disparage among people.

that's my comment. thank you. >> this is mike in new york, democrats. caller: i missed the woman on that was talking about balancing the budget. whatever they were going to do. when we go back to the last time we to balanced budget of course was under bill clinton. and we got there, we did a little welfare reform and we increased taxes on the wealthy, 3% more. all the stuff they don't want to get taxed 3% more. they are billionaire and they don't want to get taxed a measly 3% or corporations don't and they call it socialism or communism. that's the last time it was out of balance. elon musk makes all his money off of taxpayers.

we give him loans, contracts, he's can end up cutting any funds given the competition. only one of elon musk's companies makes money and that's the car company. the rest is done through stock options. he's a wizard as an engineer, but as a businessman all the, basic along time to make money. and they tried this before. with cutting stuff here and there. and as soon as he sees things taken out of the republican area or a district it will stop. even if you do not like how much they are paid or don't like welfare, that money is spent, those people buy groceries and cars and washers and dryers. the economy is a living thing, it is balanced. host: let's talk to eric in palm

beach, florida, republican. caller: thanks very much. i'm glad to have this open forum. i really enjoy c-span. i'm going to make a point and a request that you do some follow-up on the topic i'm going to describe. it is an important topic. it's the russian ukrainian war and conflict. i think people are being getting in incomplete story on it. that russia invaded for no reason. i think the true history goes back to the early 1990's when the ussr broke up and became russia. at the time there were negotiations between nato and the united states and germany. where russia agreed to do that in negotiations. part of which there was an agreement not to expand nato.

later in the late 90's nato did start to expand. 2004 they expanded further and in 2008 there was the nato annual summit in istanbul where at that point they decided at one point ukraine and other countries ordering russia would be part of nato. and russia resisted that and said that was a redline for them and always resisted. in 2014 there was a cia coup d'etat in russia where they overthrew the president of russia who was favorable in terms of trade negotiations with europe and with russia. in favor of someone who only wants to trade with the western europe. so there was a treaty that is not mentioned in the context of this involved in the eastern province. host: regarding another conflict this is the times of israel that

says israel set to agree in principle to lebanon cease fire offer though some issues remain. netanyahu holds consultation reportedly focused on how to sell the agreement to the public. u.s. envoy said to of warned it's no truce now, sides would have to wait for trump. coming up after the break a conversation from the bipartisan policy center. a former top hhs official for both president bush and obama will discuss key health care policy issues facing the u.s.. stay with us. ♪ >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio is easy.

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you can find a c-span bookshelf lot -- podcast feed on the free c-span now mobile video app. or wherever you get your podcasts. and on our website, c-span.org/podcasts. >> washington journal continues. >> welcome back washington journal we are joined by the chief medical advisor to the bipartisan policy center formerly deputy assistant hhs secretary for health under george w. bush and obama administrations. welcome to the program. >> great to be here. tell us about the mission of the partisan policy center and what you do as chief medical advisor. >> the policy center is a nonprofit organization founded in two thousand seven by former senate majority leader's really trying to take the best points from both sides on health security and opportunity. so we engage individuals on both sides of the aisle, we tackle

pressing issues, ones that congress is about to face and we come up with expert analysis and recommendations for congress. i provide both the clinical and public health piece for the organization so really on the health care side as chief medical advisor. host: you wrote a book called prevention first, policymaking for a healthier america. the second edition is out now. it sounds kind of obvious but why has prevention not been a priority. eyes american health care not focused on the cures and the medication instead of preventing illness in the first place. >> we live in a pretty reactive town here where there's a crisis it seems like all most every single day or week. prevention demands you be proactive so it's a whole different mindset there. my experience i've seen policymakers not always

understand the evidence behind prevention and if you don't you can certainly have misconceptions you can think of it as the nanny state. secondly we had a stickier system still in our country we are trying to change that. the incentives, harder to make money on preventing illness than treating illness. and that i've also noticed don't really have a grassroots movement in the country pushing prevention but at the end of the day my book is that prevention ought to be the top health priority. it's what the majority what afflicts us. and the majority of health care costs. >> president elect trump is picked rfk junior to head hhs. you worked there. under several administrations. tell us about the extent of the agencies in the programs that would fall under his purview. >> vast number of programs, hundreds of programs, a lot of

the three letter acronyms but the public is familiar with. the food and drug administration, the nih, national institutes of health. center disease control and prevention. medicare and medicaid, those are a couple of examples. 80,000 employees, the majority of which are civil servants as you would expect so a massive organization there that rfk is currently nominated to lead. host: a couple issues rfk junior has brought up and one of them i want to ask you about is fluoride in the drinking water. this is an ap report with this headline. u.s. government reports fluoride at twice the recommended limit is linked to lower iq in kids. break this down for us. how do we know what is considered too high, what do we know about the levels of

fluoride in the drinking water now and what effect they might be having. >> this is one of public health's greatest achievements in the 20th century, insuring our water has fluoride. it has tremendous impact in preventing oral cavities and promoting floral health. the question now is do we still see that coronation in our water given that we can get that from other sources and there are an array of studies out there. some are suggesting higher doses than what we currently get water. there could potentially be neurodevelopmental impacts particularly in front and that's really the scientific issue here where i think we want our scientific agencies like nih and cdc and epa to take a look at this. but right now our water is currently safe. a dose of fluoride in the water is absolutely fine and it is as intended reducing cavities and

improving oral health. host: if that were to be taken out, what can we expect to see either with dental health, or also with iq and the allegations these are lowering iqs in children. host: so again the majority of these studies are using doses much higher than are currently what we drink in the water. in terms of other jurisdictions around the country or in other countries. saying we are not going to florida eight anymore. many have seen increases in oral cavity infections increase hospitalizations, health care costs as well. it's a complex issue that deserves i would say more study, probably not a day one recommendation that we ought to stop flora dating. >> but those decisions are done at the local or state level. they are not done at the federal

level. if the federal government were to say stop putting fluoride in the water, would anything happen or would it just be a matter of people just saying maybe this is dangerous maybe we should ask our local officials to make a change. guest: exactly you would not see that uniformity we see and we don't see complete uniformity of the united states. you see jurisdictions then approaching it in many different ways. i think what we rather want is get the best minds together and let's see where we are at and let's study this. >> we are talking about health policy with the doctor at the bipartisan policy center. you can do so, our lines are by party so democrats, 202-748-8000 . republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. you can start calling in now.

if you want to ask about vaccines because this to kennedy has been a skeptic on vaccines paired what's your take on that. >> i think this will come up in the confirmation hearings and you will hear from both sides and i suspect there will be some threshold questions, do vaccines cause autism. no. childhood vaccine save millions of lives yes. mr. kennedy is going to have to be unequivocal on those statements and if not i think he is going to get pushback again on both sides. first he has to say the correct things, but then senators have to believe him because he's got a track record and history of making these types of statements. so i think it will be interesting, let's see how the confirmation hearing goes. i think it is perfectly fine for him to say you know what we spend a lot in terms of vaccine procurement and development.

we need to spend more, there are some research questions, do we need to better coordinate the system. i think all of those are fine points but he starts questioning the basics in terms of what we know from a science perspective i think you will have a hard time on both sides. >> the kaiser family foundation reports childhood vaccination rates continue to decline as trump heads for a second term. why do you think childhood vaccination rates are falling? guest: it's unfortunately some spillover effect from the covid pandemic and we know that was a pandemic that was very much polarized. we are seeing for vaccines like measles, mumps and rubella in 14 states across the country less than 90% of childhood kids take these vaccines. why that matters is we are seeing more and more outbreaks across the country and they need about 95% of the vaccination

rate to ensure there is herd immunity in a community so there are many people who can be vaccinated so to protect them it's important to keep that. >> i want to ask you about the covid vaccine. that has been on a lot of people's minds. dr. deborah birx served as the white house coronavirus response coordinator in the first trump administration. she was asked about rfk junior's comments about that vaccine and here she is and i will have you respond to that. [video clip] >> so it's not good enough to say vaccines don't cause autism, it's us finding what is the cause of autism. >> i would absolutely agree but it is ridiculous that there isn't a lot of research and established causation on autism but what he has said in the past is autism is caused by vaccines and there is no scientific basis for that conclusion. >> that's correct.

so when he talks about transparency i'm excited that in a senate hearing he would bring forward his data and the questions from the senators would bring forth their data. what i know for sure is he is a very smart man who can bring his data and evidence base forward and we can have a discussion that many americans believe already is a problem. until we can have that transparency and open discussion from both sides. i know the members have incredible staffers who will bring great questions from their constituents and that hearing would be a way for americans to really see the data you are talking about that we can see that causation right now but what is causing it. so you are absolutely right. what the cause is will be critical and i think why this confuses people's we weren't clear about what covid vaccines do and do not. so now people are questioning what did my childhood vaccines do or don't and they don't understand that some of the vaccines their children are

getting attacked them from both disease and create herd immunity and some of them that they get are just for their child. to prevent their child from getting very serious illness. host: what do you think? >> i agree with that dialogue. during the pandemic we were learning as we were going and as the science changed i don't think we always communicated well with the public to keep them up to speed. they heard mixed messages and that affected public trust. i think all of the topics that were raised really need to come out in this confirmation hearing. hhs is a massive department. you cannot really pick and choose what you work on. you have to work on multiple things. host: one more question than we will go to calls. one more test drinking raw milk, something mr. kennedy has brought up. can you explain why we

pasteurize milk, what are the risks and benefits. >> the main benefit is to reduce the risk of infection via transmission. pasteurization heats the milk to such a degree that you are really reducing the potential of a microbe or infectious disease to be transmitted. right now that's important given the avian influenza outbreak particularly in dairy cattle. therefore the public health recommendation is that you do not drink unpasteurized, raw milk. host: are there any health benefits to raw milk that we might be missing out on? guest: it's a great question. it's not an area i am an expert in but particularly on the infectious disease side it is important. host: here is mary, you're up first in wisconsin on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. that prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that's the last

mature in the late 20's for boys and girls and prior to that development, the only thing important for them is relationships and societal acceptance. and the part that seems to mature in the late 20's is responsible for decision-making. they are trying to get puberty blockers to kids in their teens and early teens. and those kids get to their late 20's and say why did you do this to me. so we are taking sort of an abused society taking advantage of kids to change their sex when they can even make that decision on their own. but we should as parents all be informed about that so we can help our children grow and be beautiful human beings. host: what do you know about puberty blockers? guest: i think this broader

issue of gender identity is also going to come up during the confirmation hearings of rfk and it was an issue in the presidential election as well. and there are issues related to science, of their issues related to families and culture here so there are an array of complicated issues here where i think we will have discussions and certainly help desk health and human services you will have different policies than the biden administration as well in terms of flexibility and what is allowed and what's not allowed. >> here is richard in oceanside, california. >> thank you for taking my call. we are talking about fluoride in the water, talking about pasteurization and vaccinations. and it amazes me, i know a

fellow up the street from me 30 years marine corps veteran and the fact they chew left and right and then make it to 1000 push-ups. will he believes against vaccinations now. and i asked him i said how did you survive 30 years in foreign countries with his malaria and typhoid and everything else imaginable. how can you not believe in vaccinations for people to change. fluoride in the water. i don't know what year they started doing fluoride but i was born in 1947. i'd a lot of cavities and i was a kid. my teeth are amassed. my entire family lost their teeth. their older people born back in the 20's and stuff. i'm the only one of the whole crowd that has any teeth left at all and there's a lot of them. so a lot of those people around here and they used to teach in the schools about such matters.

i'm wondering now do they teach this stuff anymore in schools to little kids about louis pasteur and his miracle about fluoride in the water and so on. >> what do you think doctor? >> i hope so and i wish that's the case because i think we forgotten a lot. we take public health for granted. it's saving our lives and has saved our lives in the last century. public health is credited for raising our life expectancy 25 out of the 30 years. all of these things whether it's vaccine, is we don't see anymore fluoride in the water preventing or enhancing oral health, these are all very important things and i think education is critical. with times changing as well we have to keep up with the times so always important to do research and remember why we do all of this stuff. host: axios is reporting one

quarter of americans suffer from chronic pain. what's causing that? >> an array of conditions cause chronic pain. some primary, others secondary. let's say you're in a motor vehicle accident. let's say you have a particular neuropathy like you have in diabetes. there are many different reasons why people suffer chronic pain. about 100 million americans actually suffer. there's been a lot of focus on how do you best treat this chronic pain and try to ensure efficient -- people don't just get prescribed opioids willy-nilly. a really important public health challenge for millions of americans. host: jennifer in evans. you are next. caller: yes i have a question, i think his book is really timely

at this point. you talked about how preventive health will help our health care industry and you are tying it. if robert kennedy is the health and human services head, what would be the three things you would like to see him do when it comes to the american diet. because my belief is it's the american diet causing a lot of these economic issue and the health issue and we could save a lot of money if all americans tomorrow decided to go on a healthy diet we would save a lot of money. we talk about inflation and we look at the cost of inflation in terms of food, most of the inflation is higher in things like fats and processed meats, inflation for fresh produce and unprocessed meats is much lower. we eat so much more than we need to and all of these statistics say 30% of americans are

overweight, 42% are obese. tilden born today have a 50% chance of being diabetic. so your book i think is important in talking about that how it could help us from a health care cost perspective, and overall economic perspective what would be the three things you would suggest to robert kennedy to get implemented right away policy wise. host: it is important to note to the public that poor diet now is the leading risk factor for mortality in the united states. it surpassed cigarette smoking and 2019. probably the most important arguably health policy issue that we are facing. so to your question what are a couple of specific policy issues. i think we need more healthy food finance initiatives. we need to ensure the healthy food is not the most expensive food. we need to make sure for example in underserved areas we get grocery stores in those areas.

we need to also continue working with the industry to significantly reduce what i call the hyper palatable ingredients in the food supply. the added sugars and sodium's, the saturated fats really driving the epidemic in this country paid we need to look at agricultural subsidies as well particularly with congress looking at farm bill reauthorization next year. and then we ought to look at that policy also. why is it the marketing of unhealthy food to children leads to tax breaks. should we be perhaps taxing certain types of foods. as an array of policy issues there that the next hhs secretary will take a look at. those are really important healthy ises. shortage of primary careon the physicians which is a thing you

talk about in your book. many don't have phd's, how can we better intensify -- incee doctors to become a primary care physician. should medical school take the initiative to reduce tuition for those committing to the practice for at least 10 years after graduation. guest: there are a lot of important solutions we should think about, loan repayments, scholarships, other ways to reduce debt, ways to reduce tuition. 50 years ago in the country, half of physicians were primary care physicians like myself. now today it is less than a quarter. the reason why that matters is primary care is the one health care that is been associated with better health and greater life expectancies. we are certainly in a crisis today where we have a primary care shortage. not supporting the team-based care that primary care would provide. you can imagine the reimagined primary care system showing

americans get their services and medications for opioid use disorder. but they are providing care for individuals who have physical and mental health issues. that is what primary care can do and that's why i think other than obesity i would put primary care there. those two issues are really fundamental to build a high functioning health care system as well as saving lives. >> we talked to john in memphis, tennessee. >> good morning. i'm concerned about the fluoride in the water. i'm 80 years old and a lot of my friends died from brain cancer and stomach cancer and bladder cancer and all the different cancers due to drinking the fluoride water in memphis. i was concerned about that also. but the main thing i'm concerned about kind of like the fox in

the chicken house and the fox loves eating chicken and that's where i see it. host: you are worried about fluoride in the water causing cancer? let's get you an answer. guest: i have not seen any scientific evidence for fluoride causing cancer. they will be are talking about particularly and a couple of studies have reported lower iq scores in neurodevelopment harms for individuals who are consuming higher doses of fluoride then you normally would've get. that being said i think this is an area that ought to be looked at. we ought to get the scientists together, the cdc, epa, efforts here. and really chart a path court forward. what's the best recommendation. host: you mentioned getting

doctors and scientists together to study this but the pew research center has talked about public trust in scientists and views on the role in policymaking going down, especially if you break that up among party, republicans have a much lower trust in scientists and democrats having a higher degree of trust in scientists. talk about that and what impact you are seeing. guest: it is really concerning. the silver lining in the latest poll for the first time since the pandemic those numbers have come up in particular for republicans which i think is really important. so we don't have that divergence by party. but i think it is really important that there be trust in science and public health and also it goes sort of both ways so signs of public health officials and edible

professionals how they better connect to the public, how do i make sure they are communicating in the right way that they are demonstrating empathy, that they are able to communicate that. so it's really important lessons over the last few years. >> i'm just wondering if we are going to be able to get robert kennedy past big pharma they are the ones who don't like his opinions. the thing about elon musk. i watch the cost per pound for lunch go from 60,000 pounds to 25,000 pounds so a person like -- who doesn't like elon musk but he has a way of defending costs and making a profit. i'm all for rfk getting involved in turn things up with big pharma. guest: i suspect that is also going to be a topic in the confirmation hearing, there are a lot of issues to talk about

their from the cost of pharmaceuticals to how much we rely on pharmaceutical drugs for conditions that could be prevented. so certainly i think that's going to come up, it's probably not the only sector that will be watching the confirmation hearings closely i think the agriculture sector and pharmaceutical sector there are many sectors there that have special interests that will be watching to see what he has to say. >> naples, florida wants to go back to the fluoride issue and asks toothpaste and mouth wash, florida is in the process of eliminating it now. guest: many would argue it certainly because we can get fluoride from different parts of society now but maybe we don't need it in our water and i think this is one of those things that we look at very closely, other countries in the world do it differently.

communities in the united states to a differently as well but we haven't really had a concerted analysis. before we make knee-jerk recommendations let's look at this as a comp kid issue and then we can go from there. host: robert in new york, democrat. caller: hello. i have a question. isn't it labeled as a hazardous material? host: it is a natural element and it is critical particularly again for oral health and has been shown to improve oral health and reduce cavities and provide fluoride to the population through the water supply for decades now has been

shown to be a really effective way to improve oral health. that's really been the bottom line and also at what dose should there still be fluoride if any in the water given what we just talked about that could potentially get fluoride now from different sources. host: john in massachusetts, good morning. caller: this is what happens when you have doctors and corporations on the payroll. they do not tell you real history. the real history is fluoride was created from a derivative of oil processing. the goulash during the days of the bolsheviks used to use this to calm down the -- the prisoners, dumb them down. this is government corporate fascism. host: let's get a response to that. guest: you know i don't really know what to say to that. i don't know that background

that the caller is discussing. i can tell you what we know from the science is community florida a show in providing fluoride in the water for decades has improved oral health in the united states. i think it is perfectly valid to assess whether that is now the required given some of the studies we've seen related to infants and neurodevelopmental health, those doses were higher than what are currently provided. i don't want anyone thinking right now that the water is unsafe but let's look at this and provide recommendations. host: this is on x who says after the covid-1peods we won't trust the "science for a long time. don't need a mk, get and, kids need to get the shot, it may give them myocarditis. give them a shot even if they

had covid-19 already. host: so the thing about covid in the pandemic is we were learning as we were responding and i think as the science changed i do not think officials did as well as they could in explaining to the public here is what we knew and here's what we know now and this is what we think the best recommendation is. at times we were to definitive and the recommendations did change. people were rightfully so discussing. there were a lot of lessons related to the covid-19 pandemic, leadership matters, real-time data is important not only for situational awareness but in convincing the public to take the right action of the right time. a lot of things we learned i will say and i write about this in my book. the overarching lessons are still that of the four .1 million deaths in the united states, the majority were

preventable and had we done nothing alien's more would have died. it's important also to keep in mind those bigger themes of it. no question about it could be communication and building trust with the public could that have gone better? absolutely. host: john in virginia, a for democrats. caller: dr., if i'm an engineer and i tell the people this building will collapse by tomorrow if you do not move out, people would move out. you are dealing with people who do not believe science. no matter how you slice it or dice it, they are not going to believe it, these people are sometimes they don't seek the reality. we have a president who's been telling people lies day in and day out. people were saying yesterday the hurricane was created by joe

biden soy understand what you are saying. you do not have to explain anything, they don't even believe in science. how will you explain to somebody i don't believe what you are saying. it is ridiculous. it's the kind of ignorance that i've never seen anything like this my entire life. i'm sorry to say this. people they think they know better than you. i do not understand this. host: what do you think as far as how do you overcome science skepticism? guest: i think people's opinions matters, life experience matters. i think it is important to have empathy when you are discussing scientific recommendations with the public. after all we call it public health, we focus a lot on that second word, but the first word is public so few build that with the public, you can have the science totally right but those recommendations -- i still think

and i understand what the caller is saying, that we as medical professionals, scientists and scientific experts. we still have to try our best to build that trust, to speak with empathy, understand where people are coming from and meet them where they are. but then communicate the facts as we know it. i still think that we have to do that even if there is a segment of the population that does not want to hear it. >> a new york times article says entities vowed to take on big food alienating new gop allies and processed foods are in the crosshairs of rfk junior but battling major companies could collide with president-elect trumps corporate friendly goals. how likely is it some of these public-health changes can actually happen given the enormous influence that big food companies have.

>> those of the two sectors that i highlighted i think there will be some senators from iowa will absolutely ask about how rfk's thoughts on big foods might impact agriculture. but these are a think the issues we want to hear about. we want to hear about his answers, it is not easy to take on these corporate interests so the question is how do you work with these sectors to improve health in a way where you can get most policymakers and most of america behind you. that is going to be a big challenge for him. what's good to be different this time around. other secretaries have said let's take a look, it's been more of a secondary than a primary. he wants to make it a primary issue.

that's what you want to wait and hear. >> nelson in florida, public and you are next. >> i really just have a question. 75 years old and i've been hearing most of my life how important it is to pasteurize milk and orange juice and how important it is to treat foods that are going onto the market in order to prevent the public from getting sick. and i'm wondering are we overdoing it. did we used to much antidote by -- antibiotics that what you're trying to deal with gets worse over time. is it possible that we are just doing too much to try to make food and drink safe. thank you and that is my question. >> so two issues you raise there

which are important. one is from a food safety perspective, it is amazing how many foodborne outbreaks are prevented every year by the fda and states that we never hear about. i think actually that is really important to think about the health and economic devastation that many of these foodborne illnesses have. on the other part it is an important point in terms of the amount of antibiotics used in for example livestock and agriculture, that can promote antimicrobial also in humans and that is a big public health issue. take for granted all of these antibiotics that we have had in the past to treat bacterial infections. there may come a day where we don't have any more antibiotics because of the growing antimicrobial resistance. and therefore i think we have to be very careful certainly in the

health care community, but certainly the agriculture sector as well. very judicious about how we use these antibiotics. >> we have a question for you in new jersey. can you explain generic drugs. the pharmacist tells me it's the same but cheaper it seems ridiculous. does anybody have those other compounds. >> they go through testing, they are essentially like the brand-name drugs but the brand-name drugs no longer have that so manufacturers can take the chemical compound and make a generic drug. those are far cheaper than the brand names and in fact have reduced health care costs by significant amount over the last many decades. and so yes generic drugs are critical and important in particular enhance the affordability of the drugs. >> so they really are the same thing just cheaper. >> same chemical compound.

and yes essentially they are going to provide the exact same health effects but they are substantially cheaper. >> we have a question from tatyana new york sayin shouldn't we be asking if our policies are based on outdated d flawed data. why do we promote e for meals when researchers rec highlighe health benefits of intermittent fasting. simithe food pyramid. a cornerstoneas been criticizeding scientifically inaccurate and potential group because of the obesity epidemic. >> i think we use now my plate instead of the pyramid fruits and vegetables and grains. and so this is a really important area of how we educate the public about dietary guidelines every five years. using that the end of 2025, the next iteration would come out,

rfk junior if he was confirmed he would be overseeing that process. but how we communicate dietary guidelines even health care professionals don't always know exactly what her in the dietary guidelines with a lack of nutrition education in medical school training so we need to do a better job disseminating and translating dietary guidelines as consumer education is absolutely important and with the changing times to the caller's point, the signs need to be updated as well. host: as an advisor, what do you think are the public health issues that you think can gain bipartisan support and actually gain traction and get done in the next few years. guest: really they are the list. talking about that let's see if he is confirmed. i guess poor diet is now the leading for mortality in the united states we need to change

and do better. consumer health professional education, health care sector has a role as well whether it's downstream in ensuring treatments for individuals who have obesity you are able to access them all the way upstream to prevention so i do think this area of poor diet tackling the obesity crisis is important. other areas such behavioral health particularly fighting the opioid overdose epidemic absolutely critical, mental health as well. as with -- both kids as well as adults. they are public health challenges where we've seen premature mortality, we see drops in life expectancy because of these issues and think they're >> prime for bipartisan focus. >>dr., the chief political advisor for the partisan policy center. also former jeopardy assistant hhs secretary for health under the george w. bush and obama

administrations. thanks for joining us today. thank you for watching, that is it for us we will see you again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a great day everybody. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] ♪ >> coming up live this morning at 11:00 eastern on c-span, president biden will issue his annual turkey pardoning. you can watch it live on the c-span now app or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> he considers himself a full-time lawyer and ll