♪ host: it is the "washington journal" for december 3. part of president trump's proposals is new tariffs on canada, mexico, china, and other countries. as well as reducing illegal immigration.

reaction to those proposals, concern over how the new tariffs will affect the cost of goods for the consumer and the impact to the economy overall. what do you think of this idea of targeting these countries with more tariffs? is that something you support? you can call in our yes line, (202) 748-8000. if you say no, you do not support these proposals, (202) 748-8001. perhaps if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. if you want to express your thoughts on the use of tariffs against these countries and you want to text us those thoughts, (202) 748-8003. you can also post on facebook at facebook.com/c-span and on x @cspanwj. cbs in a recent story of theirs looks at the overall reason the president elect to use these tariffs against other countries. they write in a recent story the president-elect is putting to

enact stiff import duties as soon he is inaugurated in january. for mr. trump, these levees would supercharge the trade policies pursued during his first administration and more broadly help the u.s. achieve key economic and social goals. to that last part of economic and social goals, the president-elect laid out those thoughts in a recent post on truth social. here is a portion of them. one concerning mexico and canada, saying as everyone is aware, thousands of people pouring through those countries bringing crime and drugs at levels never seen before. he goes on to say as of january 20, one of my many executor borders i will sign will charge mexico and canada a 25% tariff on all products coming into the united states and its ridiculous open borders. this tariff will remain in effect until such time that drugs such as fontanelle and all

illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country. canada and mexico have the right and power to solve this long simmering problem. it was more recently the president-elect said he plans to put more tariffs on other countries, brazil, russia, and other countries. he wrote this in that recent post saying the idea that these countries are trying to move away from the dollar while we stand by and watch is over. we require a commitment from these countries that we will -- that they will not create a new currency or back another currency to replace the dollar or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling to the wonderful u.s. economy. that is just some of the president's thinking when it comes to these tariffs. what do you think of the president-elect and what he is saying? if you support it, (202) 748-8000.

if you don't support it, (202) 748-8001. perhaps you are not sure, you could give us your thoughts too, (202) 748-8002. you can post on our social media sites, on facebook and on x. it was recently the president talked about the overall goals when it comes to placing tariffs , what it will do to the economy. he did this in october at the economic club in chicago. here are some of the president-elect's thoughts. [video clip] >> the higher the tariff, the more likely it is to have them come in. >> the higher the tariff, the more you will put on the value of the good. >> ready? the higher the tariffs, the more likely it is the company will come into the united states and build a factory in the united states so it does not have to pay the tariff. >> that would take many, many years. >> i will tell you there is another theory. the tariff, you make it so high,

so horrible, so doctors that they will come right away. when i do 10%, 10% is really -- first of all, 10% when you collect it is hundreds of billions of dollars. all reducing our deficit. there are two ways of looking at a tariff. you can do it as a moneymaking instrument, or you can do it as something to get the companies. if you want the companies to come in, it has to be a lot higher than 10% because 10% is not enough. they are not going to do it for 10%. but you make a 50% tariff, they will come in. host: again, that is back from october. the president-elect's thoughts when it comes to tariffs and the use of them against the countries he specified. the numbers you can use if you support it, (202) 748-8000. if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001 . not sure, (202) 748-8002. let's hear from blake in kansas,

a supporter of this proposal. blake, good morning. go ahead. caller: yeah, i support president trump with the tariffs. i think that is a good move in the regard of whatever country needs to do to move forward for us. host: why do you say that? why do you think that? caller: well, i think it is pretty evident. for so long we have been focusing our attention on what everybody else is doing and all of our money has been going to other countries. i think it is time we focus back on america and keep our jobs, our revenues, and everything congruent with what we are doing here. host: this is otis on our no line on this idea of tariffs good he is in florida, orange park. you are next. good morning. caller: good morning. i say no. tariffs are a great idea in

certain instances, but you are going to hurt us. every time we raise the price on anything, the american people take the cost. tariffs are a tax increase. it is the same thing when we say you give people high wages to work, the companies will raise the price of the products we have to purchase. so when that happens, everybody suffers. i think a lot of people get $15 an hour but you cannot say we will raise the tariffs and will force somebody to come to the united states, bringing billions back to the united states. tit for tat, you do me, i do you. it will hurt everybody. the middle-class and below, it will hurt us really bad.

don't just agree with the man for agreeing with the man. at least understand what affects you. host: ok. otis in florida giving us his thoughts why he is against this idea of the tariffs. the washington post recently took a look at some of those goods that might be affected if the tariffs go into place. beer to barley, how trump's tariff threat could affect your wallet. in talking about beer, the post writes this under the headline that mexican beer is kind of american saying here is the thing about the trade. the companies produce things together thanks in part to the north american free-trade treaty. the mexican beer might be made with barley from america. it does not produce enough barley for its booming industry. barley, one of the main ingredient in beer, roughly tripled since 2000 in total

exports. it mexican beer in the united states becomes pricier and sells less, that could wind up hitting barley producers. there are other things besides beer in that story. it talks about the impact of the tariffs if they were to go into effect. harvey says not sure about this idea. he is in santa monica, california. harvey, tell us why. caller: good morning. about 100 years ago, the crash in 1929, a tariff was passed within a few months, and there are questions as to the growth of the u.s. and around the world. they said it was maybe 15, 20% lower gdp, but it was like 40%. the big question has to do with

inflation. it started use go with opec the price of oil. we see what has happened in the middle east now. energy inflation is what is firing on it. food and fuel is 15%, etc. the equity issues we got keeping our democracy, the other things going on with project 2025, getting rid of justice at education department, changing the epa, etc. we have to learn from the past and study it. i was not aware we had used tariffs extensively for 50 or 100 years going back to the civil war and stuff before. host: ok. harvey there with a bit of history adding to his thoughts this morning. let's hear from john in ohio on our yes line. caller: hey, pedro. yeah, this is john from the cleveland area. yeah, i support the tariffs. i hope they work. will they? i don't know.

i think it is going to be tough to make them work because our workforce right now does not seem to want to work, so you can bring these jobs in. will it work? no, i don't think it will. i want it to work. host: why do you think they won't work? caller: where i live, everywhere you go, they are understaffed. no one is working. particularly fast food places, that type of thing, restaurants, they are all understaffed. what i really wanted to say about the tariffs -- host: ok, go ahead. caller: what i really wanted to say, general motors, buick, they make all of their vehicles in china now so that is good, but my thing with that is general motors is saving money using the china workforce to build their cars, right?

but when you get that buick over here in the u.s. and they sell it, where is all that extra money going? who is getting it? you know, the top end is getting it, not the worker. i worked my whole life i will call it in the trenches, hands and nails and hammers and screws and drills and saws. that is what i did. 45 years. i just retired. my 401(k) is not very good because i could not put enough into it. host: ok. when it comes to other industries, taking a look at tariffs, one of the people calling for more, this is highlighted in the wall street journal this morning, the u.s. steelmaking industry. the call for additional tariffs was part of a trade proposal the steel manufacturers group released on monday that said the

new duties would boost the steel market and help address trade distorting practices that it believes other countries are conducting. economists have said an aggressive use of tariffs would drive up prices on consumer items and the u.s. prices for durable goods with significant steel content such as appliances, automobiles, and farm tractors already higher. the result of supply-chain bottlenecks in the covid-19 pandemic. additional tariffs on imports would give domestic steel companies more leverage, increase their prices by effectively raising the prices for their foreign competitors's products. that is in the wall street journal, the idea of tariffs being placed on specific countries, a proposal by president-elect trump saying he will enact these on the first day. i will ask your thoughts on the use of tariffs and what you think they can do overall and if this is something you support, (202) 748-8000 is the number to call. (202) 748-8001 if you say no to this idea, and (202) 748-8002 if

you are not sure. you can text us and post on our social media sites as well. let's hear from eric, who says he is against this idea. he is in maryland. hello. caller: hello. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: yeah. i am 71 years old, and i remember in junior high school we had economic courses with the economic book that was about two inches thick, ok? and in that book, it talked about tariffs, and they had a picture of a man with a wheelbarrow full of money that could not buy local bread. these tariffs and tariffs in general weaken the economics around the world, not just the united states. i am talking around the world.

since everything is interdependent, we should think long and hard about tariffs. smoot-hawley was not just an aberration. it really affected the economy and made the 1920's crash real and worse. you know, we got to think about this. we put a i will call him not educated, but he is an idiot, back in the white house. you can't do this. he is going to do it and the economy is working just fine right now. host: ok. that is eric in maryland mentioning the smoot-hawley tariff act. abc news taking a look at that, at the history, setting within

the months of the stock market crash, president hoover signed into law the smoot-hawley act, a 1930 measure that increased tariffs for a broad swath of imported goods. countries imposed retaliatory tariffs and trade plummeted. many economists feel that was a factor that exacerbated the economic downturn. a professor of economics at dartmouth college saying a whole generation of republicans and democrats after world war ii was very much conditioned against tariff hikes because of the experience of the 1930's. now we have a new generation of leaders much more willing to pull the trigger on higher tariffs. those are the thoughts of that economist. we are getting your thoughts as well. someone who supports this idea is bradley in west virginia. bradley, tell us why. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. you got to be quick. i am a vietnam veteran, and the

gentleman out of ohio is 100% right. general motors moved to china. not only did general motors i am 100% sure that on the news i saw ford took their lincolns and navigators over there. i don't have a problem. the problem i have, you move there, you sell them there. you do not bring them here. it is against the law to bring them here. general electric, guess where they live, vietnam. it kills me when i see that because i was an engineer to build better roads and everything in vietnam and now they are taking our jobs. my opinion is, and i sent it to c-span years ago, shut the united states down. shut them down. you don't make it here, you don't sell it here. host: specifically to tariffs, why do you think it is an effective move to play tariffs on specific countries? caller: because put the tariffs on them because everything coming in the united states is

coming from foreign countries. support our country. there is nothing that makes me madder than seeing a veterans license plate on the back of a ford piece of junk. it is what i call it good the little buick i bought, i told the dealership the next day i would have $45 -- i would have poured gallons of gas on it. i got rid of it, and i know better. the first digit is america, two is canada, three is mexico. china is ww with crazy numbers on it. if they bring them here and put wheels on them, they have 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 on them. shut america down and build it here. host: ok, bradley in america giving us his thoughts. the chris murphy giving us his thoughts on the proposal from president trump. he did this on sunday during an

interview he had on nbc. [video clip] >> what we know is donald trump has no idea how to use tariffs in order to create american jobs. he imposed tariffs during his four years in office, and we lost manufacturing jobs. joe biden knew how to use tariffs in coordination with subsidies and incentives for domestic manufacturing such that while he was president we grew manufacturing jobs. the headline here is that donald trump's entire economic policy will be about a massive tax break for those billionaires that are in charge of his cabinet. the tariffs are a distraction from what the real agenda is going to be to be able to use government in order to dramatically increase the wealth of his cabinet and the friends of that cabinet. the tariffs if they are not used properly will raise costs on ordinary americans while the billionaires get off scott free. >> that takes me to my next question. economists say tariffs

regardless of how they are imposed ultimately hike prices for consumers, so if they are so bad, why didn't president biden roll back the trump era tariffs? >> because president biden did this the right way. he imposed restrictions for instance on electric vehicles coming into the united states and the technology connected to electric vehicles while also giving subsidies to american vehicle companies. that is the kind of coordinated policy that ends up in hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs being created in the united states. donald trump engages in thoughtless policy that ends up in prices going up but jobs not being created in the united states. host: the president-elect planning new tariffs against specific countries to achieve economic goals. what do you think of that proposal? is that something you support? (202) 748-8000 if you support it. (202) 748-8001 if you don't.

(202) 748-8002 if you are not sure. let's hear from kevin on our no line in texas. hello. caller: yeah, thank you. are you there? host: yeah, you are on. caller: ok. i do oppose it because i believe in the supply-side economics and anything that adds cost to production is, you know, it hurts the economy, but i want to make two important points. one, what trump proposes and does, there is a big difference. we will see what happens through these negotiations. and two, the alternative was the harris increase in corporate taxes, which also would be passed on to consumers. if she had won, then the discussion would not be how this text is adding cost to

consumers. the discussion would be about, do corporations need to pay more taxes or are corporations too greedy? i see a bias there. that is all i wanted to say. host:. ok marsha that's ok, marsha and arkansas also on our no line, you are up. marsha in arkansas? one more time for marsha. ok. let's try tyrone in illinois. good morning on our yes line. caller: good morning. good morning, pedro. what i am seeing is i am a retailer. i deal with china quite a bit myself. the first thing we need to do is put a -- some type of a leverage on all the ships coming in. our freight charges have been as high as 30,000, as low as 3500.

that will help with the inflation part of what is coming into america. as far as china, china is working very hard on their own infrastructure. they cut back on a lot of their factories over there. they consolidate goods they ship over to us. we can work on the tariff part to force companies to bring back more goods, which would help us quite a bit. the gentleman talked before you had on about having companies to come to america under biden. a lot of those companies he went after for the batteries, he gave them billions of dollars and they went bankrupt. i think we need to look at more of a have your infrastructure as far as for america. make sure that at first we are bringing in the goods that we

learned a importantly through covid that the medical supplies, the basic goods that we are getting from china, we are making here so if something happens, we have that stuff in our own infrastructure made here in america so we don't have to sit there and worry about getting our goods from another country. if china gets upset with us or another country, which they are now, we are putting ourselves at pretty high risk, and i cannot believe the biden administration allowed this to happen. that is pretty much all i got. host: tyrone there in illinois. this is albert off of facebook saying depending on the other countries's stance on trade, yes to tariffs. now it is time to drag them back. we are a unique country in that we have the raw materials and population to be self-sufficient. we will not be overpaying for goods.

will be catching up to reality. another saying when it comes to the use of them, absolutely, use it as a negotiating tool. time to grow this contributed people crying that the cost will be passed along to american consumers are the same people who think raising taxes on american business will not raise prices with the american consumer. facebook if you want to communicate with us that way. facebook.com/c-span is how you do that. if you want to post on x, @cspanwj. phone line is also available to you. in texas on our not sure line, kelly. hello. caller: good morning, pedro. host: morning. caller: i so much love your program and you are such a great commentator. thank you so much. yeah. i'm just -- i don't know how these tariffs are going to go. we are paying so much more for goods and services, and that is

not good, especially for the middle class. i think it is eroding and making many people fall out of the middle class, which is not good because as you know, we pay the most on taxes and to keep all the government programs running. i just -- you know, i was speaking to my father the other day, which he is part of the silent generation. my mother is a baby boomer. i am a gen xer. he said when my father went to work, he had one job and he could afford five children. my mother did not -- he said my mother and grandmother did not have to work. we could afford to buy a family home, a family car. we took two weeks in the summer, and you know, went off to

wherever for a family vacation. it was all paid for. a lot of these manufacturing jobs went offshore and i think it was 1996 with the clintons, nafta. those were replaced with service-oriented jobs, which as you know do not pay much. most of them when i was a kid in the 1980's, teenagers worked a lot of those service-oriented jobs, worked at the mall at the retail and whatnot. the thing is that you have too many adults working those now, and they are minimum wage paying jobs, mainly pay $10 over the federal minimum wages, whatever it is. host: got you.

yeah. that is currently in texas. giving us her thoughts when it comes to the use of tariffs. she was on our not sure line and that is fine. if you are not sure any want to express your thoughts or concerns, (202) 748-8002. this is elvin adding to the mix when it comes to facebook saying come i don't think china, mexico, and canada would care if the u.s. imposed more tariffs on them. if so, they will drop the dollar and that will destroy the american economy. that is another way to reach out to us when it comes to this idea of tariffs and their planned use by the president-elect as he talked about on that first day of taking office on january 20. again, you can give us your thoughts on tariffs, the impact, what you might think, if you agree with this or not. pick the line that best represents you and call in. in maryland on our no line, this

is john. hello. caller: morning, pedro. host: morning. caller: i have a slightly specific lens i tend to view tariffs on. my father works in the switchgear industry, big power grid infrastructure whatnot. very raw material like steel of course, copper, and other materials i cannot specify because i cannot remember anything told specifically, but the way that wraps into tariffs specifically problematic is a lot of these materials simply do not exist in the united states. something that his company specifically and i know other companies in the industry have had trouble with, they can only import them because they do not exist here as national resources and it is really expensive simply because the global economy has been struggling. add tariffs onto that and we are talking about increasing tariffs

and it becomes prohibitively spencer. these are industries that employ tens of thousands of people during huge infrastructure projects, so it makes infrastructure projects in and of themselves almost prohibitively expensive to do and there is no other way to do them because there is no other way to get the resources other than buying them from other resources where they are a natural resource. host: ok. john and marilyn, thanks for the example, adding to the mix of competition when it comes to those topics. this is joe in tennessee adding his thoughts on our yes line. caller: hi, good morning. i just want to quickly say it is not just an economic situation, the tariffs. every single one of us knows someone who has died from fentanyl. this is the stick he is using or however you want to look at it in order to get china to not provide the chemicals, the

ingredients to mexico and also to stop it coming in at the canada and mexico borders. we take care of that, we are talking hundreds of thousands of people every year. our children, our families are dying from this stuff. he is using this to stop it, and we are all ahead. he may not even have to use the tariffs, ok? then we solve this problem. that is what i have to say and i appreciate your time. host: joe in tennessee giving us his thoughts. the recent editorial in the las vegas sun talks about the use of tariffs. concerns from the editors there. it weeds and parsing there is no question addressing the devastating toll of drug addiction and creating an orderly and manageable immigration system are necessary goals, but tariffs do not address the root causes of these challenges. even if the tariffs worked exactly as trump promises and are fully paid for by companies

and countries against which they are levied, an unlikely outcome given that tariff costs are almost always passed on to the american consumer in the form of higher prices, similarly the united states drug epidemic is driven not by supply alone but also by unrelenting domestic demand created in large part by a desire to escape pain, insecurity, hopelessness, and other underlying realities. those are the thoughts of the editors of the las vegas sun when it comes to the tariffs and their promised use by the president. you heard the last caller explain the president's thinking with how they would use them against specific countries. if it is something you agree with or not, you can call us on the line to let us know. new york city, this is henry on our no line. you are up next. hi. caller: pedro, let me speak for a minute. i don't think people remember what happened when trump

enforced the last tariffs what he was president. everything went up. everything that came from china, everywhere. you understand? for this man to come up and say he will enforce tariffs again and nobly investigated or did their due diligence. now he is in office again and he already told people what he is going to do. so canada, china, europe already in place for their tariffs on america, and i guarantee you they will not be pretty. america, you get what you voted for, and that is about it. host: ok, henry in new york. let's hear from joe in pennsylvania on our yes line. caller: yeah, good morning. i don't know if anybody realizes this, but when the united states

was founded, the way they funded their treasury was from tariffs. and then after the world wars, the united states decided to rebuild the rest of the world letting the other countries tariff us, so anybody who tariffs us should be tariffed right back the same amount. that would cause a level playing field and then we would not need to have income taxes. host: for those who say tariffs or at least their use and if other countries retaliate, ultimately you think those do harm to an economy or could do harm to an economy? caller: i don't think so. i think if they are equal, especially if they would put a lot of money in the treasury so the government would no longer need to collect income taxes, it would be beneficial to everyone. host: ok, joe in pennsylvania giving his thoughts. the newspaper the guardian took

a recent poll asking to take a look at the survey of 2000 plus adults when it comes to this idea of tariffs and if it will increase prices. the question was, the percentage of tariffs on imports would lead to much or somewhat higher prices on domestic goods. it was 79% of democrats saying that would happen. 68% of independents saying that would occur if the two herbs were put into place. and then amongst republicans who took the survey from the harris poll, 59% of those saying that if those tariffs go into effect, higher prices will be the result. you can add your thoughts to the mix as you call in on the line. let's hear from michael in tyrone, new york, on our no line. michael, you are next up. caller: how are you doing this morning? i love your show. there is a lot of good commentary on it and i would

like to voice my view on what i think about tariffs. i took economics in college when i went to college, and one of the things that tariffs cause, it causes demand to drop. on the supply and demand end of it, demand drops for the economy will actually falter because of less demand. that is because people cannot afford the goods and services that come out of the gross national product, gnp. what i want to say is if people are going to support putting more tariffs against other countries and those items are coming into our nation, they will be charged a higher price, so we will pay a higher price for goods and services and it will cause a falter in our economy in these ways, jobs, we will lose a ton of jobs over this because we will not be able

to produce the demand to support the jobs to push our economy forward. i think the tariffs are a big mistake. i think if you are going to do something like that, it needs to be planned with these other countries so it works for both sides because, let's face it, when all other countries are doing well it seems like the united states has better trade, and right now the way the proposal is of putting higher tariffs on china and mexico and canada, i think the demand of those products coming in our country is going to drop. ok? but the prices of those goods that are here is going to go right through the roof. and inflation is going to be out of control. i think we will be heading into a deep recession under this president. that is my prediction. we have somebody in there now in the white house we voted for. like it or not, it is going to be a problem i think down the

road. mark my word, it is going to be. host: that is michael in tyrone. some of you posted on social media. this is raquel on next saying no -- on x saying no, we cannot afford to pay anymore taxes. also on x, another saying yes, it is a strategic trade policy. they need to be tariffs in place. it would impact the market and ultimately your wallet negatively. since 2017, he finishes by saying the u.s. is a trade imposing country. x available to you @cspanwj if you want to post their. rhonda in illinois on our yes line, good morning, you are next. caller: i totally disagree with your previous caller. i did not go to college, so i still have a little common sense. i think president trump's idea

is good. i think it will bring more business to america. it will be everything made in america again. to can back on our feet, it is the only way. it will stimulate new business here. so i am for it. host: your concern is about the retaliation -- are you concerned about the retaliation? caller: what are they going to do? raise the prices? we will make it here. we send our metal to fabricate and they are brought back. we should be doing all of that here. we have the land. we have the resources. have the equipment. we have everything here. we need to make america great again by making business here be self-sufficient. host: ok, rhonda in illinois giving us her thoughts. somebody giving their thoughts on the idea of tariffs. this is the president-elect's

choice to become the treasury secretary if he does get confirmed by the senate, but it was back in october during an interview that he talked about at least how he approaches tariffs and his thinking on tariffs. here is a bit from back in october. [video clip] >> i suggested maybe with tariffs but some combination, and this came from jared bernstein, the chair of the council of economic advisers. gave a speech at the council on foreign relations about nine months ago. after he had spoken, a woman from a european think tank stood up and said you used a word seven times but never told us what it takes, so to your point, i think we establish criteria, you can call it abc, green, yellow, red, and these are our

real allies like australia. this is how you get in the green box. this is how you stay in the green box. if you are india, you want to have 20% tariffs coming want to buy sentient russian oil, you are in the yellow box and you keep buying oil, you are moving to the red box. i think you have criteria. people can move. the green box share values, economy, defense, currency. host: there is some reaction from other countries when it comes to this idea of imposing new tariffs. this is the associated press saying the canadian prime minister justin trudeau told the president-elect americans would also suffer if he follows through on the plan to impose sweeping tariffs. the story adding that mr. trump threatened to impose tariffs on products from canada and mexico if they do not stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across the border. the story says the canadian

public safety minister whose response ability includes border security attended that dinner with mr. trump and the print minister at the mar-a-lago club last week. mr. trudeau requested the meeting in a bid to avoid the tariffs, saying the prime minister spoke about the important of protecting the canadian economy and canadian workers from tariffs, but we also discussed with our american friends the negative impact that tariffs could have on their economy unaffordability for the united states as well. let's hear from nathan on our no line in indiana. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i don't believe this is about the economy. this is about money, power, and corruption. when you apply tariffs across the board, you can either reward companies by giving them exemptions, or you can punish

companies and countries by imposing stiffer sanctions. you can do that based on, you know, how much money they donate to your campaign or whatever other rewards you look to receive from those companies, and what you end up with is a mafia style economy with one of the largest economies in the world. when you look at the economy, understand a bad economy is not necessarily bad for those who are flush with money. it is during those bad economy times that they go out and buy. they buy real estate. they buy companies. they look for bargains. and they expand their total wealth during those down economies, so in all of this -- so all of this is done on the

backs of the working average american. you know, getting a tax reduction does not help americans that are not paying taxes now. you know, they are not going to get a tax cut but the wealthy will. all they get is higher prices. i think that this creates a situation where we are going to have corruption in this country like we have never seen before. host: ok, on our not sure line, this is ed from maine. caller: hello and thank goodness for c-span. i am not sure about this conversation. it does not make a lot of sense to me since we have an agreement with canada and mexico, the usmca, and we also have an agreement with china for trade, and i would think tariffs would be for when they break the rules of the agreements that we set up in the first place.

that is what i thought tariffs were for, but the problem is when you are playing a football game, you cannot throw a flag because the other team is better than you. you throw the flag when they actually break a rule that everybody agrees on. this is the part i don't understand. i would not throw a tariff just because they are making a cheaper product then you where they have a different philosophy. you do that when you got into it in the first place. thanks a lot. host: that is ed in maine. cannot read the whole story but at least show you the headline. it takes a look at the potential of the levying of tariffs against these countries. according to this story, spelling disaster possibly for auto industry giants such as gm and ford and other automobile makers. again, just one of those analysis pieces looking at the end result of tariffs against these specific countries

president-elect trump has laid out in the impact. what do you think of the idea of tariffs overall and specifically towards these countries and asking if you support it or do not support it or you are not sure. if you support, (202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 if you don't. that is our no line. if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. let's go to dennis in indiana on our yes line. thanks for calling. go ahead. caller: yes. i think that these tariffs are just a way to more or less try to get the drugs under control that we got coming into the united states. i lost three family members to fentanyl overdoses. they put this fentanyl into

these normal type pills that these kids take, xanax and hydros. it is a death sentence for our younger generation. they are under so much pressure anyway in schools and everything. i was working in a factory in indiana, and we had 27 factories here in madison county, indiana. they all slowly moved down to louisiana or texas, then they moved on over into mexico. we got to get our factories back here in the united states. we can't let the government move all of our factories over.

and our medicine. like this one guy said earlier, we got to get our medicine built back here in the united states. for sure, you cannot trust china making our medicine here for us. that is really dangerous. people need to wake up and get a little bit of common sense back in the united states. it does not seem like to be people know -- have a whole lot of common sense about what is going on in the world anymore. host: ok, dennis in indiana, thanks for the call. michael in new york on our not sure line. hello. caller: hi. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: with the situation with the economy and taxes, tariffs, the united states goes to

manufacturing and other countries back. the companies will not want to pay the price which will be cheaper than other countries, and this is the reason why tariffs are expensive. the economy here does not allow the company to manufacture prices, so this will be an issue when it comes to taxes and tariffs. we will see if it really helps the economy or not. host: michael in new york. cbs looking at the possible other increases of goods that could happen if tariffs take place. one of the categories they highlight, consumer electronics, saying tariffs would reduce american consumer spending power by $90 billion on products including tv's, head phones, laptops, tablets, videogame consoles, and the like.

that is according to the consumer technology association, the trade group which modeled the impact of a 10% tariff on chinese imports coupled with a 60% levy on goods from the country the president-elect previously floated. estimated that laptops and tablets would see the steepest price hikes and costs urging as much as 45%. you game consoles, smartphones could also see double-digit gains, and researchers assume retailers would add those costs to consumers. the average increase in price to smart phones would be $213 per device. that is from the consumer technology association. so again, another one of those analysis pieces taking a look at the potential of these tariffs, should they take place with the incoming of the trump administration. someone who does not support this idea, in california, this is sam. hello. caller: hi, good morning.thank you for taking my call.

i do not support this idea because it will likely increase prices. that for me was the number one topic on the agenda during the 2024 elections. prices have gone up and good the rate of inflation may have gone down but prices have gone up and they have not gone down yet. before covid, you could buy -- the jingle on tv was the five dollar foot long from subway. the point is prices in general have not come down, so i don't want anything to happen which will not bring down prices. that is my comment. host: that is sam in california. let's hear from mark with moody's analytics, senior economist there. was on this program recently, asked about the potential tariffs and their impact. some of what he had to say on this program not long ago. [video clip] >> obviously the world is a big

place. a lot of countries and trade policies. if you go to europe for example, they have no tariffs. their affected tariff rates are close to zero and has been for quite some time now. in the case of china, i agree with you that that is a very problematic relationship. and i don't think the chinese have played fair in trade and other economic relationships, and so that goes back to my point earlier about what i would call strategic tariffs, tariffs that are very targeted. for example, president biden imposed tariffs on $18 billion worth of imports from china, things like dvds and solar panels and various other manufactured products. $18 billion so in the grand scheme of things it is very small but it is sending a very strong signal to the chinese that you have to play by the rules. i am not saying there is not a role for tariffs.

i don't think there is a role for broad-based tariffs across the board. here is another thing. canada and mexico, they don't impose tariffs on our good. we have a free-trade agreement with them, the so-called usmca, which actually was negotiated, renegotiated by president trump in his first term, and that creates a free-trade zone so there is no tariffs. those are the two biggest sources of trade. some countries opposed tariffs. some countries don't play fair. strategic tariffs make for a lot of sense but most countries do and our biggest trade partners absolutely do not charge tariffs and we are in a free-trade zone. i don't think we should be pushing them with the threat of 25% tariffs, which has happened over the last couple days. host: by the way, if you are interested in seeing that full

interview, you can always go to our website at c-span.org. all of our "washington journal" segments are archived there as well as others looking at the medicine of the economy including the use of tariffs. you can always find those interviews by going and searching our website, again, c-span.org. let's hear from joe in pennsylvania on our not sure line. go ahead. you are next. caller: ok. tariffs would not do anything for our country. we may be one of the biggest consumers, but there are several other countries in the world that will buy these goods and these corporations don't really care. they will sell to anybody, so i cannot see where tariffs are going to help us any, just raise our prices. that's all. host: ok. this is from john. john also a pennsylvania resident on our not sure line. go ahead. caller: good morning. yeah, so i think the tariff

concept is quite interesting because, well, why wouldn't we tariff somebody else who tariffed us? i think the tariffs were put on us by other countries because they wanted to use our economy to help rebuild their countries after wars, and you know, to get them up to where they should be in industry. so that was supposed to go away after a certain amount of time. so i am not really sure but i think if we tariff them, they would take their tariffs off and we would take our tariffs off and everybody would be able to let the market decide like perfect competition instead of having tariffs, thumbs on the scale so to speak. i think they would all go away if we put them back on other countries. if you want to buy a web cycle japan from the united states, you have to pay 100%, so that is

why they don't buy them. germany has no american cars because of the tariffs. host: the president-elect wants to use tariffs to reduce things like illegal immigration and reduce illicit drugs in this country. do you think tariffs can achieve that? caller: i think just by him saying that, it would make the other countries come to the table so there could be negotiations to stop the problems that hurt our country, so i think they would all go away. i think the problem will go away. he is kind of doing that -- the president-elect is doing that because he is trying to make deals and that gives him the leverage he needs. host: ok, john in pennsylvania. you can add your thoughts in the minutes left. (202) 748-8000 if you say yes. no, (202) 748-8001. and if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. if you want to give your thoughts on the idea of tariffs. this is deborah on facebook

saying it means the consumer will have to pay more for goods, which results in a holdup in the supply chain as well. you can always contribute to the conversation. facebook.com/c-span for the facebook page or on x @cspanwj. and as always, you can give us a call on the phone lines to let you know about things happening on the networks today, things to watch out for, with the incoming of a new congress, it means several senators elect will be part of the conversation particularly on the senate side, a conversation with some of those new senators is going to take place at 9:00 this morning on our c-span3 network. that will be a competition with two representatives will be serving in the u.s. senate when the new congress meets in january. they will sit down with punch bowl news to discuss bipartisanship and the lame-duck session.

other things to expect in the 119th congress as well. that coverage starting at 9:00 on c-span3, c-span now, and c-span.org. later on, today health care professionals will gather with lawmakers to talk about health disparities and ways to encourage innovation and preventative measures for treating common diseases. that will be hosted by health and human services director and senator cory booker. they will be among the speakers. 9:00 today, c-span3 is where you will find that. looking at economic challenges, probably the discussion turning to tariffs as well. the white house chief economist jared bernstein talking about tackling those economic challenges. 2:30 this afternoon is that conversation on c-span3. again, you can always find that on the app, our c-span app, and c-span.org.

also, you can find on c-span.org a way to contribute to c-span directly. as we have been telling you for the last couple days, today is giving tuesday. as you know, the last weeks and months, we have been inviting you to be part of c-span directly, contributing financially on this giving tuesday, a special reason to do so because our first $10,000 in donations will be matched dollar to dollar, doubling your effort, and you will have a chance to make sure you can meet that goal and continue our coverage of your government and democracy accessible to everyone. there are a couple ways you can reach out and contribute. if you want to click the qr code with your phone, that will take you to the website where you can contribute. you can do that directly at c-span.org/donate. coming up on the program, a couple of guests joining us. elizabeth goitein will discuss president trump's potential

emergency powers to facilitate mass deportations. later on in the program, we hear from peter morici as he discusses the president-elect's economic proposals. those conversations coming up on "washington journal." ♪ >> are you a nonfiction book lovers are looking for a new podcast? this holiday season, see one of the many podcasts c-span has to offer. you would listen to interesting interviews with authors writing on history and subjects that matter. learn something new on book notes plus through conversations with authors and historians. for wide-ranging, hour-long conversations. and we talk about the business of books with news and interviews about the publishing industry and nonfiction authors.

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c-span, powered by cable. >> be up-to-date in the latest in publishing the book tv's podcast about books. with nonfiction book releases plus industry news and trends for insider interviews. you can find about books on c-span now, free mobile at wherever you get your podcasts. washington journal continues. host: joining us for a conversation on the incoming trump administration, the possible use of emergency powers by the president elect, she serves as the senior director. thank you for giving us your time today. i suppose that when you hear the term emergency power, and a lot of things can emerge. what is the best way of understanding what that is? guest: great question.

emergency powers take very different forms in different countries. most countries have in their constitutions for emergency regimes where some or all of the rights that the people have under the constitution can be set aside by the president or the head of state, the prime minister. it's very different in this country. there are no emergency powers granted directly to the president in the constitution. the power that look like emergency powers are given to congress. so presidents for the most part rely on congress to provide them with the powers that they need to deal with military or economic craziness and congress has done that three nor -- a number of very poor laws, several of which could come into play in trump's plan to conduct mass deportation. host: do they limit the powers of the president, or how

expansive are these powers as they stand currently? guest: they can be quite expensive. the powers that trump has referred to explicitly include the power to declare a national emergency, the insurrection act and the alien enemies act. each is a little bit different but to give you a sense, the national emergencies act authorizes the president to declare a national emergency. there is no criteria for the definition of emergency. the president signs an executive order, a proclamation. at that point that declaration frees up, unlocks enhanced powers included in more than 150 different provisions that span almost every imaginable area of government. whether it is military or economic or agriculture or health. to give you a sense what one of

those laws allows the president to take over or shut down communication facilities in the country so we are talking about some very, very potent powers with very few, unfortunately, checks against abuse. host: the national emergencies act was the process of declaring a national emergency. the president can declare that emergency by executive order. but the third part talks about congress and their ability to terminate that power. how does that work? guest: it works differently now than it did when the law was passed. it included a provision that allows congress to terminate a national emergency declaration using a simple majority vote of both houses and the president did not have to sign it for it to go into effect. in 1983 the supreme court held that legislative vetoes are unconstitutional so today if congress wants to end an emergency declaration, it

basically has to muster a veto- proof super majority in both houses of congress. they have to pass a law, and that as you know is nearly impossible in today's polarized political environment. host: could you offer some examples on how previous presidents have used national emergency powers or are using these emergency powers? guest: the obvious example would be after 9/11 a national emergency was declared and it we used -- it was used to call on reservists and bolster military strength which is one way emergency powers can be used. it was also used to impose sanctions on foreign terrorist groups. so that is a classic example of an actual emergency in which emergency powers were appropriately used. what is concerning to me is that every president since 9/11 has

renewed that particular emergency declaration. so we are still in a state of emergency over 9/11 even though al qaeda has been decimated and it is just being used to sort of prop up military strength, bypassing the usual means by which congress allocates the resources to the military. host: if you what to learn more about these emergency powers from our guest and ask about that, (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats. independent, (202) 748-8002. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. the president elect saying that he is interested in using these powers particularly when it comes to mass deportation. remind our viewers with the president has implied using these powers for, and can he do it? guest: in terms of declaring a

national emergency, he has said he would do that. he hasn't specify the particular powers he would then invoke. but we can look at what he did in the first administration. he declared a national emergency at the southern border and invoked a power that allows the president to engage in military construction projects, essentially diverting funding from other military construction projects. providing resources for military construction and to trying to secure funds to build the border wall. several courts held that that was a misuse of that provision but by the time it got to the supreme court there had been a change in administration and the whole thing was moot. so we don't know whether that was illegal or not or whether the supreme court would have held. but really trump is more likely to be relying on the insurrection act which is a different set of emergency powers, and that allows the

president, well, it gives the president tremendous discretion to deploy the military, to deploy federal armed forces inside the united states to quell civil unrest or to execute the law. and this is an exception to the general rule that federal armed forces cannot participate in civilian law enforcement activities, but the act allows for statutory excesses and that is what the insurrection act is. the conversation about whether or not this deployment would be legal or illegal is a pretty long conversation. i think despite the great discretion or the very broad discretion that the president has, even the broadest of discretion can be abused, and i do think depending on what happens and what trump does, there are certainly legal challenges that could be brought. host: the insurrection act that

you referenced goes back to 1807 . how have previous presidents used this specific act? guest: it has been used in a number of different ways, i would say probably four categories. one has been to put down rebellions, including during the civil war, for example. it's been used to suppress labor movements on behalf of the employer. that was not within the century. and it has been used to protect civil rights during reconstruction, and then again during the civil rights era, and then it has been used most recently, or the most recent time it was used was in 1992. but between 1965 and 1992 it was used primarily to intervene or to support state and local law

enforcement in dealing with the so-called race riots. host: reacting to the rodney king decision. guest: that with the most recent use of the institution. host: president eisenhower used it, i think i read. guest: president eisenhower used it to enforce a federal court order desegregating the schools in little rock arkansas. host: when these powers are used, how does the public react to the use of these powers, or at least what does history tell us about that? guest: i think over time it has become less and less accepted to see the military intervening in civilian life inside the country. i think that is why we haven't seen it since 1992, and there's a couple reasons for that. modern sensibility stone -- it

just doesn't sit right with americans to see tanks rolling into their cities. but i would also say that the capacity of police and police departments to handle civil unrest is so much greater than it was when the insurrection act was passed because at the time, they really were no professionalized police departments. law enforcement was a nascent concept in this country, and so really in order to deal with serious civil unrest or situations like that, it wasn't necessary. as time has gone on, we now have police departments that have forces that are really comprised -- the size of armies of smaller countries and have the equipment and technology needed that

otherwise the military might need to have. host: talking about these emergency powers, you can send us a text. if you have a question about those powers, on our republican line, from michigan we start off with ron. good morning, you are on. caller: it seems to me that the people have chosen the direction they want to go. are you still there? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: it seems like the people have chosen the direction they want to go with trump. people don't see the communists, that they are anti-god, they are trying to like satan did and use god's word against himself.

that is why he loses in the end. they are still fighting, the democrats are still fighting, they are not going to give up. host: do you have a specific question forever guest? caller: why are you against the ways of god? why are you fighting? host: the sense that the president won the election, he can use these powers if he pleases. take it from there. guest: he has the right to use the law within the bounds of the law. there are certainly some concerns that could come into play if he were to use the insurrection act for example to have the interior of the country conducting arrests. there are some very strong legal arguments for why that would be illegal. he has to act within the bounds

of the law. that is obvious, i think. regardless of whether it would satisfy the electorate. the other point to me, the electorate is not a monolith. people voted for trump for different reasons and i don't think we have any basis to say that a majority of people in this country would support his use of emergency powers in the insurrection act in this context. i just don't think we have the evidence to say that. host: if the president-elect does put this act into play, who could he pull from as far as military or otherwise to achieve these goals, particularly when it comes to mass deportation? guest: what the law allows is for the president to call up the militia, which in modern terms means that he could federalize the national guard. the national guard ordinarily operates under state command and control of the president could federalize the guard and then it becomes a regular part of the federal armed forces.

he could deploy the federalize guard, he can also deploy active duty armed forces as well, and there is some question over whether or not the term militia in the law would allow him to actually call on or deputize private militias or even just other groups of people because the term militia as defined by congress includes not just the organized militia, but the unorganized militia, which is defined essentially as able-bodied males between the ages of 17 and 45 and a couple other categories. host: what do you think about the possibility of pushback against the use of these laws, particularly now that both house and senate will be in republican hands? guest: it's hard to see how congress is going to intervene because again, congress would have to pass a law. there is no mechanism in the insurrection act for congress to otherwise terminate a deployment

under the insurrection act, but i do think that there are legal challenges to be brought. there are department of justice opinions interpreting the insurrection act more narrowly than the tests would seem to suggest. the law is quite broad in terms of what it allows but the department of justice historically has set this law must interpreted consistently with the constitution and with tradition. if you do that, it has to be a last resort, it has to be a situation where civilian law enforcement has completely broken down. and given that president-elect trump intervened to prevent congress from passing a bipartisan border security bill, it's going to be hard for him to argue that this is a last resort , that everything else has been tried. host: those legal options that you were talking about, to

someone have to have standing to go against the president? guest: definitely somebody has to have standing that for example if trump were to deploy troops overseas over the wishes of the state there are circumstances in which that state might have standing and certainly anyone who is directly affected would be able to bring a lawsuit. host: let's hear from margo, democrat, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for to my call. i wanted to know one the insurrection act is applicable now and not january 6, 2021. guest: so the insurrection act -- it is a great question, first of all. it would have been applicable on january 6 if president trump had chosen to invoke the insurrection act in order to put down the insurrection act the capitol building. i think he would have been on solid legal ground because by

any honest account, that checks the boxes in the insurrection act in terms of the criteria. it was an obstruction of federal law, preventing the vote count. it was domestic violence, it was an insurrection. and even if you want to quell the word insurrection, it certainly checks some other boxes in that law. so it would've been appropriate. the problem and the concern that top military leaders within trump's administration had was that he might invoke the insurrection act not to suppress the insurrection, but to sort of further impede the transition of power. for example, he could have shut down the capitol building for days or longer on the pretext of keeping the peace, but with the purpose of delaying or preventing certification of the votes. host: switching to the larger

idea of emergency powers, if you or texted us this morning if president biden has deployed any of these powers. guest: yes, biden has deployed emergency powers. he declared a national emergency for international drug trafficking and under that emergency declaration he actually called up the reservists in case they were needed to supplement the military forces that he deployed to the border. so the military has been at the border for decades, and they are subsist -- assisting the department of homeland security. if they are assisting, they are not actually conducting law enforcement itself. so the military has been legally at the border doing some supporting immigration enforcement for decades and biden used emergency powers to

supplement the manpower available for that. he also relied on emergency powers to forgive student loan debt, something the supreme court actually struck down. host: if you want to ask questions about these emergency powers, republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. let's hear from jean in kentucky, independent line. good morning. one more time for jean. ok. you talked about this several times, i am interested in the name itself. describe the act, if you would. guest: it is essentially a group of people who can be rounded up or called up by the sheriff of the county to go pursue somebody

who has broken the law. that is why you hear the term policy in old western movies, the sheriff gets together a posse to chase a robber or whoever. that is where that comes from, obviously latin. the meaning in the law at this point is law enforcement, essentially. what the act says is that it is unlawful to use it to otherwise execute the law. it basically means using the military for law enforcement. host: which branches of the military does it fall under, all branches equally or are certain refrain from being part of that? guest: basically all branches. the u.s. coast guard is not included and the space force was only recently added but other

than that it covers pretty much not just the federal armed forces, but the national guard when called into federal service. host: what situation with a view to use that vs. some of the other acts you talked about? guest: that is a really good question. some of these other authorities allow deployment of the military to assist in law enforcement activities, but they don't actually allow direct measure. it is a very fine distinction but basically core law enforcement activities are things like arrests, searches, seizures. but if the military is essentially conducting a reconnaissance, if it is sharing intelligence, if it is providing or maintaining equipment, that does not fall within. so there are plenty of laws that allow the military to support

law enforcement in these indirect ways. the insurrection act is different in that it actually is an exception. it allows the military to participate in core law enforcement activities. having said that, there is a department of justice opinion again that says that it should be construed to stop short of allowing arrest, because arrests are perhaps the most core law enforcement function, because they are essentially part of charging someone with a crime. so that is an unsettled legal question whether or not the insurrection act allows oldest directly go up to people and put them under arrest. host: robert joins us from alabama, republican line, good morning. caller: i have a couple of quick questions. the emergency powers act has been used several times by several different presidents to

enforce federal law. what is the difference between forcing schools to accept desegregation, breaking the law there, and cities to have declared themselves sanctuaries in violation of federal law, stopping federal enforcement from removing illegal aliens? guest: semi-set essentially will not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, they are not legally required to cooperate. sorry, with federal immigration enforcement. so it is different, there is no federal court order that cities are defying when they are sanctuary cities. there was a federal court order that was clearly being defied in

little rock in one of the things the department of justice has done interpreting the insurrection act is that the conditions that need to apply are either insurrection at the state level where a state has requested assistance, or state and local law enforcement has completely broken down, or there is a federal court ordered that is being defied. sobel rock falls squarely within that circumstance where i think sanctuary cities are a different fashion. host: democrats line, dave is in baltimore. good morning. caller: it seems kind of danger is that the supreme court struck down one part of the legislative veto since now, maybe they would want the whole thing to be struck down, they wouldn't want to give the president those sorts of powers if they couldn't have the final say. so it seems like the kind of cut off the safety guard of the act. if there any discretion about this?

guest: that is such a great point. this been a lot of discussion in the last few years. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been working to try to basically replace the legislative veto that was taken out of along with some other mechanism for congress to meaningfully be able to step in. there is actually a bill that passed overwhelmingly out of committees in both the senate and house, it was unanimous in the house. that would try to create a similar mechanism by requiring presidential e-declared emergency is to expire unless approved by congress using expedited procedures. and those expedited procedures would allow any member to force a vote. the senate can't filibuster, so it kind of tries to re-create as well as congress can, a way for

congress to terminate a national emergency declaration without having to muster either a 60 vote threshold in the senate for a super majority in the case of having to override a presidential veto. dark company president decides to use any of his emergency powers, what legal counsel as he turned to to make sure he's on the right standing for you the powers? guest: the president has a lot of lawyers at his disposal. lawyers from the national security council, he has the department of justice. he could turn to any of them. that is one of the reasons why the people who serve in a presidents administration are so important, and the president's ability and willingness to speak and listen to wise counsel is so important. and i will just leave it there. >> let me follow-up. get the president hasn't an incoming team of lawyers, and if they've been described as

loyalists generally, is that a concern as to how this president might apply those powers. guest: absolutely. there's a reason why the department of justice has a tradition of independence and why the office of legal counsel within the department of justice is digging the best legal advice can rather than simply giving the president of the answer that he wants to hear. that has been a long and proud apartment just as there are a lot about the department of justice would really undermine fundamental tenets of the rule of law in the ministration. host: tell us about that program. >> our program was founded in the aftermath of 9/11, and what we seek to do is to advance respected national security policies that respect constitutional values of law.

host: jim joined us from connecticut, you're on with our guest. jim, go ahead. caller: i just want to say that we civilians have a voice when it comes to opinions using military to deport migrants here. our sons and daughters in the military must obey orders, wise exercise of their own maybe needed reminder -- i will take my answer off the air, thank you. guest: these are all such great questions. yes, the people who serve in the military, they don't have a choice, there is a legal requirement for soldiers. soldiers are not supposed to follow unlawful orders, but that

is an extreme situation. you wouldn't expect a rank-and-file member to not follow in order to deploy under the insurrection act, for example. and this is one of the reasons why the military is not fond of domestic deployments, for deployments enforcing civilian law or to quell civil unrest. there are many service members and retired justices who have gone on record to say this is not what we are trained for. this is not what we signed up to do, but it is also not really what we are trained, the population to the cost all right and also diverse personality resources from the very real overseas threats that we face.

so there is a real sense within -- obviously the military is not a monolith, but retired general with whom i've spoken and many who have gone record this is really not the core of what we do. it is not what we would prefer to be doing. host: john who joins us from florida, independent line for our guest, go ahead, you are on. caller: yes, she brought it up, that the bipartisan order bill that was killed by trump, but this bipartisan order bill was just letting people in faster. i'm insulted when i hear the word bipartisan and there's only like seven people on each side,

that doesn't make it bipartisan. so how do you reconcile liberals that are overtaking meet the press, washington journal? guest: you are talking about the vote that happened. that vote was trump reportedly intervened and encouraged republicans not to vote for him. we don't know what the vote would have been otherwise. certainly it was bipartisan in its creation, and it did not let in more people across the border, it was quite the opposite. host: to come to the president's plan for deportation, if you wanted to expand or build new ones, for use powers to do that? guest: under existing law without invoking the insurrection or any other version power, the federal armed

forces can provide support to civilian law enforcement, and that is a provision military bases and equipment. so without declaring a national emergency, the president's use of military bases to detain migrants. in fact, the afghan refugees who came to this country, they were housed in military bases. however, the resources available to do that would quickly run into resource issues. a national emergency in theory could be used to try to get more resources for that. trump could use the same power that he used funding the border wall to secure funding to build additional military bases.

some courts held that that was a misuse of the military insurrection provision. so it is not clear that that would withstand a legal challenge, but that is one thing that the president might try to do. host: rhode island, independent line. caller: how are you? host: go ahead please. caller: does the president have the power or the authority to hold back federal funding for sanctuary cities? i'm hoping he can, that would make my day. guest: that issue was actually litigated during the first trump administration and it never the supreme court. there was a court that held that he did not have the authority to withhold federal funding, another said that he did. we did not get a final answer on that from the supreme court. host: i think you highlighted this, but if a state or locality says that they want to -- the

president who wants to use emergency powers, that might impact that state or locality. how much power does the state or locality have to push back on that? guest: if we are talking about a use of emergency powers like the insurrection act, there is not much they can do in advance to prevent the president from invoking the insurrection act. the state cannot order its national guard not to be federalize. the president can federalize the national guard even if the state objects. however, if the president is violating the law in the course of invoking the insurrection act or deploy national guard forces, the state can challenge that. certainly if trump were to federalize a state national guard in a situation where the state is using the national guard for other purposes, the state would have standing in that situation to bring a legal challenge. and so it is really a question

of how the president uses these powers and if the president is misusing the powers, than the states have the opportunity, and other people will have the opportunity. host: massachusetts, line for democrats, richard is up next. caller: hello. i'm concerned that this whole discussion ignores the fact that trump has said he would use his emergency powers to oppose everybody who disagrees with him and even to prosecute them and use the army to round them up. it is just impossible to be reasonable about trusting a man like that with emergency powers, and that is the root of the problem and the american people have fallen for that. that leaves us in this mess. the rest of the discussion about emergency powers, it is the elephant in the room.

thank you. guest: we are discussing emergency powers specifically in the context of immigration enforcement absolutely, trump has threatened to use emergency powers. he threatened to use the insurrection act to put down protest against his presidency. he said he would use the insurrection act and send it into what he calls crime dens such as new york and chicago, so he has threatened. there were protests in edc and across the country over the police killing of george floyd, president trump said he would invoke the insurrection act for largely peaceful protests with not a single mayor or governor saying our state and local law enforcement are overwhelmed, but he still wanted to use the insurrection act and at the time, the secretary of defense publicly said you can't use the insurrection act for this and that is pretty much what put a stop to it and one of the reasons that person was fired. but absolutely i think we have

heard trump say that he will use emergency powers essentially to quash dissent or opposition to his presidency. it was a frightening and alarming prospect and certainly a situation that could and would be brought. host: new hampshire, independent line. caller: you had talked about the insurrection and called and insurrection. there were no weapons there. if you look back at the hearing that was held, the real hearing, not the january 6 hearing, the hearing that actually had the chief of police, he will tell you it wasn't and insurrection. he will tell you he didn't have enough resources, that he requested before the event that

trump tried to supply these people. i don't know if you believe that liberals have taken over state houses the country, if you believe those were insurrections also. thank you for your time. guest: so one of the reasons i said it is not necessary to discuss the word insurrection is because the insurrection act itself does not apply only to insurrections, and certainly not only in situations where people have weapons. it also applies to obstructing federal law. i don't think it is worth getting into a discussion of what is and isn't and insurrection. it is quite clear that the criteria for the insurrection act were met on january 6. host: as the new administration comes in next year, what are you watching for, what is a red flag for you? guest: trump has said that he will declare a national emergency on day one, i think he said that. we can expect to see that.

i'm not sure this is the right word, but i'm curious which emergency powers he plans to invoke. at the time the president declares a national emergency, he has to specify the power that he intends to invoke. he can then later add new powers that that he has to issue an executive order identifying the powers he is planning to rely on. so i will be looking to see what powers he thinks he can use for mass deportation. as i said there are about 150 different emergency powers. i will say that none of them is designed to facilitate deportation. and i'm not saying that none of them could possibly be used to free up resources, i think there are legal questions around that at the courts will resolve, but because none of those were designed for that purpose, it is likely that he will be stretching powers beyond what they were intended to be used for in a way that is going to be

legally questionable. so i will be looking to see what powers he relies on, and if he invoke the insurrection act, he could use it in any number of ways, or he could not use it at all. we could invoke it simply for the shock and he could simply continue to rely on existing statutory authorities that give him a good amount of ore that allow federal armed forces to support civilian law enforcement in a number of ways. he's been very vague about what he would do under a national emergency declaration, but he would do under the insurrection act. and i will be looking to see those details. i don't know that we are going to see them on day one. i don't know that we are going to see them on day 30, but that is what i am looking carefully to see. host: the senior director of the

brennan center for justice, liberty, and national security program. here to talk about presidential emergency powers. thanks for your time. guest: they stare much. host: later on we are going to talk about the incoming policy goals of the incoming trump administration with a university of maryland emeritus. first, open forum if you want to participate. here is how you can do so. (202) 748-8001 republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will take those calls and open forum when washington journal continues. ♪ >> there is something for every c-span fan when you let your fingers to the shopping during our cyber monday sale going on right now at c-spanshop.org. save up to 35% off site wide.

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dig your podcasts, and on our website. washington journal continues. host: this is the part of the program we call open forum and if you want to make comment on issues of politics and public policy, (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. the associated press reported the president biden arriving for that long-awaited first presidential business in sub-saharan africa. he did that on monday to the cheers of thousands of angola where he will highlight a railway project on the continent of 1.4 billion people. the three-day visit will largely focus on the railway development that aims to advance the u.s. presence in the region rich in minerals for batteries,

electronic devices and clean energy technology. you are seeing video there from his arrival. on the way over, the white house press secretary had a chance to talk with reporters about the president's apartment was given to the president's son hunter biden. this is audio only of that conversation that took place on air force one and here is part of that press conference. >> you have said repeatedly yourself, the president said for months no pardon was coming. i wanted to ask you, can maze -- can those statements now be seen as lies? >> first of all, one of the things that the president always believes, to be truthful to the american people. that is something he always truly believes. i assume that you read his statement and you look at the end of that statement, and he

actually said that in the last paragraph. in respect of thinking at how the american people will actually see this in his decision-making, i would encourage everyone to read in full the president's statement. i think he lays out his thought process. he lays out how he changes his position. he came to this decision this weekend. he's he said he changes his decision this weekend, and he said he wrestled with it. he also believes in a miscarriage of justice. this is his word. he also said that no reasonable person if you are looking at this in a good-faith way, if you are looking at the fact of hunter's cases, you can't reach any other conclusion.

host: that press conference available on our website at c-span.org. let's hear from adriana in los angeles, democrats line. caller: i'm calling about the last guest that was on your program and the last caller. my criticism is that the last caller asked three questions and the guest selectively answered partially only one of them, and the host, which i'm not criticizing the host really because i know there is a time factor involved sometimes, but the host should say wait a minute, can you answer the questions that is caller just made? and i feel that is very important to cross-examine some of the guests, because sometimes they are propagandists and they are promoting their own position rather than educating the public on the issues. and that is my sort of criticism, but i love c-span,

and i'm sure there must at a time factor but it would be nice to hear that the host or hostess probes the guest more and gets them to answer the questions. host: well you're talking to the host, and thanks for the comment. time was a factor, but thank you for that. let's hear from francisco in california, independent line. caller: yeah, with all this debate on biden with his son and everything, he said that he was going to not pardon him, and he pardoned him. he should have just not got into it with pardoning his son. then you've got trump. they are accusing him of all

this. let him get in the house before you accuse him of doing this for doing that. give him a chance. nobody gives the president a chance. he never did a bad thing. what he did was to make it good for our government. i don't understand that. host: florida, republican line. caller: good morning, wonderful show. i just want to make a statement regarding a person that you had on before, and that she speaks to president trump as trump. that is very disrespectful. she always says president biden. but this is our president, president trump. the majority has spoken. he is our president, and now the opposition are walking around

like a dog with a broken leg and they are trying to rehabilitate themselves, but it is not going to work. the american majority has spoken, and will remain that way. now, we will come back and we will love each other no matter what color or race. this is the united states of america. and everybody should hold hands and enjoy our life here. it could be a lot worse, thank you. host: representative jamie raskin launching a challenge to jerry nadler, the bid sets up a generational clash for the leadership of high-profile congressional battles as democrats look to do work against donald trump's presidency. after a week of consulting, and

engaging serious introspection about where we are, i am running today to be a ranking member of the house judiciary committee on the 190 congress. this is where we will wage our front line defense of the freedoms and rights of people, integrity of the department of justice and the fbi, and the security of the most precious birthright, e constitution and bill of rights, the rule of law and democracy itself. more about that decision by representative raskin, part of the changing that will take place between now and next year. let's hear from joe on the line for democrats in pennsylvania. caller: a couple months ago, they passed a bill to get funding for candidates and got it done, which is all right, but when mitch mcconnell, years ago kids were getting killed in school and he said this is not

the time to take care of this, so you never did nothing. i think the man should be thrown out of office. that is my opinion. thank you. >> albany, new york, sergio, independent line. start out as i observed what was going on there in this election, it always makes me giggle or laugh. it seems to be that republicans always seem to think that all of the government programs that they are looking to destroy only benefit democrats. for example, 52% of the nursing homes in this country, any percent to 100% of their funding comes from medicare. now, i've got to believe that there are some republicans who need the services for medicare.

are there republicans to get pell grant and student loan from the department of education? if you have a child with special needs, the department of education oversees how we help those children. is it only democratic children that need the services? i don't think so. the last thing i want to mention is social security and medicare. when you look at those programs, i have to ask the people who are listening, since their inception there has been one political party that has looked to take them away from you. and that is the republican party. so as an independent, i've got to look at this and say is it only democrats that need government support or government help? i hope that my republican colleagues out there are listening and realize -- host: ok. pennsylvania, republican line.

caller: yes, i was wondering if anything they did is going to build up the economy. i've been in a nursing home. i'm telling you is amazing we can get anything at all. we need help here. there is no food. are you there? host: right here. caller: there's really no food here. i am in retirement and rehab. now, i have to go to the doctor and there is no doctor. at least, i've never seen one. they said he will be here tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes and that was like six months ago. i don't know what they are trying to pull here, but when they first started here, they were happy and now they are walking around sad.

i'm one of them. host: the biden administration announcing a new seven to 25 million dollars security assistance package for ukraine on monday. it also includes a provision for more landmines and precision rocket launchers. this goes on to say the president has committed to a surgeon in a before he leaves office. president-elect trump hasn't public with criticized military aid of ukraine. also for the retired attorney general keith kellogg ukraine and russia has perfect postal to end the war between the two nations that would include requiring them to relink was the goal of regaining these territories. when it comes to defense issues, senate republican leader on the senate floor monday talking about defense legislation, the need to pass it and accusing democrats of pushing through judicial nominations.

here are some of mitch mcconnell from the senate floor. >> the majority leader seven the united states is ready to compete vigorously with the prc. the overwhelming consensus can that view. but even if we were once ready to compete from the adversaries who threaten us to collect dust, it is one heck of a way to sustain readiness or project american resolve. host: from iowa, democrats line. caller: i'm going back to that

other segment also. the caller who said there was no weapons during the insurrection is wrong. jamie raskin would be awesome in charge of the democratic party and i am so proud of president biden for pardoning his son who was wrongly prosecuted and targeted. and also for everything that he is trying to accomplish, he is going out there and getting stuff done for the american people, for progress. what you just talk it out in africa, hopefully trump won't come in and eliminate that, chances are he will. thank you very much.

host: as the viewer mentioned, president biden in the last stages of his presidency, he is in angola currently visiting leaders there to talk about railways and other things when it comes to u.s. interests there. that is some of the more recent footage of the president's travels as he makes his first visit there. i will show you a little bit of that and also to let you know when it comes to actions by the biden administration, that includes lending $10 million to build batteries in the united states. saying that the loan that was announced monday for a 6.8 5 billion dollars not including interest -- will be used to finance battery plants in a joint venture between stellantis and samsung, a south korean company, employing 2800 people when their up and running. they will be capable of making batteries for 600 70,000 vehicles per year according to

the department of energy. the loan agreements will be, once the government and the company signed the contracts expected to take place before the trump inauguration in january. bill, arizona, republican line, go ahead. caller: yeah, how you doing? i don't know what everybody is so worried about. within the next 90 days, the dollar and the banks are going to collapse. thank you. host: why do you say that? caller: caller: it's going to sap -- happen, you will see. the rest of the world is rejecting the dollar. that's what's going to happen. thank you. host: ok. this is from douglas. douglas in maryland, independent line. caller: i am piggybacking on the first caller who called into question why you didn't hold the

guests feet to the fire. i want you to think about the number of guests you have had on since biden has been in office who have said that illegal immigrants do not receive special gifts or things from state and federal people, the taxpayers. and they do. they have. at times i find your stance biased, you don't contest these guests properly. now, you have before. you had a guest on their a week or two ago talking about the mass deportation proposed by trump. you had a lot of questions. but now here we are, fast-forward, and all of these

immigrants, illegal immigrants are here in this country and you don't seem to ask why. that's all i got. be fair. host: we are fair all the way through as far as the questioning of our guests. we will leave this program as a conduit for you, the viewer, getting results from the guests, whether they be experts, politicians, or whomever. as far as our goals, we moderate , but really, you are the star of the show in terms of asking questions of the guests in the house as well, when you think about it. let's hear from dave in las vegas. democratic line, you are next up. hello. caller: hope you don't cut me off like you cut off every democrat. shame on you and c-span, you never let people talk. i got something to say. first of all, trump had 34 felonies, convicted in court, nobody does effort -- anything.

try to overthrow the government. he did that. people were killed. from the covid people were killed. one million people died because of trump. this sucker is going to ruin this country. he isn't going to make america great again, he is going to make america hate again. but when you say things like he didn't rape that lady? host: i said that what the jury decided was that he was held liable for sexual abuse, that's what we have held all the way through. caller: bull. the judge said that he raped her. you go out against it? host: i said what the jury decided. i will let you finish. go ahead, please. caller: there's something wrong with the american people. he's going to hurt the middle class. going to cut social security, medicare, and everything. you people don't care.

there's something wrong with you. host: ok. that is dave in las vegas. front page of "the washington times," when it comes to the issue of covid, the headline from last week, the house select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic falls to u.s. health officials and anthony fauci for discrediting the lab leak explanation and pushing the theory that the virus indigent -- originated in nature. a ohio republican subcommittee chairman said that the explanation doesn't fit the facts or the timing of the virus, the unexplained illnesses , and of the specific biological characteristics of the virus were heavily human made. a report released by republican house select subcommittees there. you can read "the washington times," for more of that. al, new jersey, you are next up.

caller: the democratic people, the people who voted against trump, they are very angry people. they have to embrace the new presidency. he's going to make the country president trump, so much better, much better ideas than biden. biden wrecked the country. i'm 66 years old and i've never seen so much trouble in my life. biden caused the most of the years of damage. so, people got embrace president trump. he's making all the best people in position, straighten the country out, make it safe again. the people have spoken. seems like these democratic voters, they've got a lot of hatred. all they want to do is say president trump picks a person for the cabinet and they don't like nothing. everybody's got a problem. let him do what he has got to

do. get everything straightened out and move forward. i don't want to see more money, billions of dollars, people are struggling in america. all of that money going to ukraine, pedro? i don't think it's fair. i'm on social security and a fixed income, struggling. i just make all my bills. i think we should be increasing social security for us people, the cost-of-living is so high and we don't get raised. $12, $25. $200, $300 is what we need in the check to help us get by. thank you, pedro. host: allen, new jersey. it was the process of nominations that was the topic of chuck schumer on monday when it comes to the process of presidential nominations and what goes on and confirming that. here's part of what chuck schumer said yesterday. [video clip]

>> the advise and consent power will be especially important next year given that the president-elect has at times made statements about potentially working around of the senate to appoint his nominees. hopefully, this doesn't become an issue. nevertheless, it will be the responsibility of the incoming republican majority to protect the senate against any attempt to erode its authority. so, today i sent a letter to leader thune, urging him to uphold the constitutional duty of the senate to provide advise and consent on presidential nominations. democrats will be ready to work with republicans in a bipartisan way on the nominations process and give each nominee the same fair and thorough consideration the previous nominees of both parties have received. we should hold hearings with the nominees in committee. senators should be given the chance to vote on nominees here

on the senate floor. the american people deserve public servants who put the needs of the country ahead of the political needs of any individual, republican or democrat. the american people deserve public servants whose judgment, character, and experience reflects our highest national ideals. most of all, the american people deserve public servants who will uphold the oath to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. the best mechanism for ensuring that the president appoints qualified, capable, ethical officials is precisely the advise and consent power of the senate and it will be the responsibility of the incoming majority and incoming majority leader to ensure that the authority of the senate is carried out and preserved. host: again, senator schumer from the floor, yesterday.

nora is up next on the democrats line. caller: hello? host: hi, you're on. caller: i'm calling, concerned. president biden, i think he did a great thing. if they can put a felon in the white house, and just because joe biden told one my he is no good? think about all what trump aide did before he became president in 2017. they have no room to talk. just because the president told one lie? everybody, the republicans especially, feel that trump is above the law. as the lobbyists said, no man above the law. think about the debt. go back and think about what

they are holding in those last days. they were called right wrong, wrong right. so, the republicans feel that whatever they do is right. but not in the eyes of god. if you put a convicted felon in the white house? joe biden told one lie? compared to the lies that trump told? get real. host: go ahead and finish. caller: pardon me? host: go ahead and finish. caller: president biden told one lie, they are going to scold him? but in his last days, god will pay all liars because he said he despises a liar. host: "the new york times" takes a look at a film made by dinesh

desousa. remember, it was called "2000 mules." going back into some of the findings of the film were wrong, saying "after it poured gasoline on right wing conspiracy theories about election fraud, the writer and director acknowledged that the findings were based on a faulty analysis and in a statement on his website he said that the analysis use claimed to depict a vast ring of mules illegally gathering ballots and placing them in drop boxes was incorrect , the premise was based on surveillance videos with geo-located cell phone that appeared to show repeated trips to areas near drop boxes." more of that available in "the new york times." guilder, ohio, independent line, you are next up. gilbert ohio, hello. caller: are you there?

host: go ahead. caller: i want to make a statement to all the americans listening to the station. we have got to start attacking term limits for these politicians. i'm 75 years old and all i listen to is schumer, mcconnell, nader, all these old people that have been there way too long. this country needs, needs term limits for these politicians. you know, i'm 75 years old and that's all i've heard. biden, 50 years. come on, enough is enough. we need term policies. thank you. host: one more call. michael, texas caller: to publish. hey, good morning -- texas, good morning. caller: good morning. the woman who stated that joe biden told a lie?

people come help me. joe biden has lied his entire life. his life is a lie. with that being said, y'all need to get off of trump. trump will get us back to where we once were. all this bs that people spread and talk about, it's getting old, you know? we, the people, are sick of it. we would love for them to put term limits on the ballot. let the people decide. if it goes through congress, it will never pass. nobody's ever going to cut off their own job. put it on the ballot. let us vote on it. host: thank you to all of you who participated in the open forum this morning. again, as we told you, you are the reason we exist as far as your avenue to talk to experts and politicians on issues of politics. especially on this giving

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c-span fan when you let your fingers do the shopping during the cyber monday sale. our online store, save up to 35% off site wide. save on hoodies, glassware, mugs, and more. every purchase helps to support our nonprofit operation. shop our c-span cyber monday sale, going on now at c-spanshop.org, or scan the code on the right. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by peter morici, national columnist and business professor emeritus at the university of maryland, talking about the incoming economic policy of the new administration. good morning one of the beliefs of this new administration? guest: well, they are certainly populist. in some ways they are similar to biden, they have nostalgia about

manufacturing, they want good union jobs in the midwest, a tough line against china. in those ways they are similar. what is different is that in leveraging up the economy as you deal with the chinese problem, the republicans, it's a classic republican administration, they want to lower taxes, cut spending. even the biden folks wanted to raise spending and if they could get away with it, raise taxes. that doesn't change much. regarding the rest of the world? joe biden did a remarkably good job reforming and connecting us in terms of alliances. that was good for the economy. unfortunately, they are both protectionists at their core. neither of them see much value, for example, in aussie on. this region from thailand to the philippines, extraordinarily dynamic, alternative to the

chinese, growing like gangbusters, having problems with the chinese the same way that we are. president obama wanted to link us through a pacific trade agreement. they both shut that. it's a terrible mistake, it leaves an open door for the chinese and that is where the growth is. it is remarkable. malaysia has a tech sector now. who would have thought india would a fat tech sector 25, 30 years ago? the world is changing rapidly. where they are both weak is they tend to be too isolationist. we will pay dearly in terms of economics for what's going on in europe right now. we have to ask ourselves, the appeasement of the 1930's was a good economic choice? the answer is no. we are on the verge of that in europe. it could cause incredibly in

terms of defense spending. host: while europe and why defense spending? guest: simply, if we have to spend much more on defense to achieve victories in the ukraine , if putin wins in the ukraine, he has got the economy on a war footing, he will be emboldened, he is spending huge sums on offense of military. in turn, someone will have to match that, or in the end we will have him gradually eat up europe. that will be very costly to us. americans don't realize this, they talk about nvidia making chips, but nvidia makes nothing. nvidia designs chips, the most powerful in the world, the crown jewels of the american economy, the equivalent of the model t. they designed those chips. they can only be manufactured in taiwan, which is a brush away from china. they can only be manufactured in

taiwan with machinery made in the netherlands. the dutch have a lock on the machine tools that make the chips, through certain visionary decisions that they made. we have an economic and security interest in defending europe. we have an economic security interest in defending taiwan. permitting the access to become stronger and bolder will mean that ultimately we have to defend those places at much higher costs then we will today. there is a profound connection between security and economics these days. the nostalgic view of america is that we can live here in splendid isolation and make everything we need on our own. it might costs us more but it is worth it to not be engaged in the nasty and terrible world. it's just not true.

host: is that reflected in the president's current ideas for trade? guest: it's not. the europeans have made a lot of bad decisions over the last 25, 30 five years. they haven't invested in their economy. during covid, the way that the equivalent of our counties and states sent information in about cases ends so forth? you know how they did it? fax machine. they didn't do it through email or the internet, they did it by fax. the germans make a great 20th century scenery. they haven't modernized. they are more capable in competing with the chinese in general motors than the chinese -- with the chinese in general motors. if you cut off this enormously important market to them, it could send the economy tanking into the ground in ways that we just don't want to see. then how will they defend themselves and those factories

in holland that make those machine tools? if i were president, confronted by the sanctions we have imposed by denying access to technology, if i were the resident of china, the things i would want most, not the ball bearings factories, bomb those german ball bearing factory so they can't make the machinery. the assets i really want are the factory that makes the chips in taiwan and the factory that make the machine tools to make the chips in the netherlands. if we don't defend those, the american economy is going to look like a very different place. guest: when the president -- host: when the president talks about using trade to achieve policy goals, is that a good direction? guest: threatening china? yes. threatening our friends? no. well before nafta, since the 60's, a free-trade arrangement with canada in the automobile sector.

there are no american cars. they are canadian-american. the parts go back and forth. put a 20% tariff on that, you might as well just say, the japanese are going to make all the cars and sell them here. it completely comes up that supply chain. who was writing the script for donald trump when he said that? who was giving any thought to that? if you look at who he is appointing, he decided the trade is going to be handled by the commerce secretary. the trade representatives will not be senior jobs. he will take orders. let nick has no experience whatsoever with trade. it's probably someone right now who is explaining to him what section 337 of the trade act is. you can't have people like that making those kinds of policies. we are not getting janet yellen in treasury. we are getting a derivatives trader.

i'm not a democrat, you know that. but credentials matter. experience matters. defense secretary, your job, if you look at the very significant challenges the military faces over the next four years in terms of modernization, structures out there, compensating for that, the distance that we will have to fight to defend taiwan, someone who has been a platoon leader in the military should be can -- commended for their service, but not handed the keys to become the executive. host: let me invite viewers who have questions about the economic policy of the incoming administration, it's (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 free democrats, and (202) 748-8002 for independents. you work at the international trade commission. how does that inform your views? guest: i wrote my doctoral

dissertation on the structure of the u.s. tariff. it's my whole career. i work on that through my entire career. it comes and goes, i work on other things. so, that gave me an inside view of how for example these laws that trump will have to access to impose the tariffs, they have to perform investigations to impose the tariffs. my office did the economics on those investigations. i signed off on them. my signature was on those investigations. so, my feeling is that we need people, like for example, the last u.s. trade representative for mr. biden, she's an experienced trade loiter -- lawyer who worked the cases. the last trump representative really carried the ball. he quickly -- it was commerce department as she quickly

wrestled at territory away because over there they had an investor as well. he's a trade lawyer. i have worked with him on some cases. economists do get called in. he knew what he was doing. i believe that people should be loyal to donald trump to work in his administration, but it would be kind of nice if -- which you hand his surgery to someone who picked it up on the web two weeks before they met you? host: rhetorical question. let's hear from milton. philadelphia, democratic line, you are on with peter morici caller:. thank you for taking my call. three points. one, trump, when he comes in, he's going to destroy this economy. he starts a trade war with mexico, canada, and china. you know what they are going to do? retaliate. that will cause even more jobs

and because prices here in america to go up. i don't understand how people supported this idiot. second of all, now he's talking about mass deportation, right? you go out and you deport all of these illegals. who's doing the work in our country right now? who is picking those produce crops from the farmers fields right now? illegals. you deport all of them? they work out of hotels. they work on restaurants. host: what's your third point, please? caller: who is going to do them jobs? prices for produce, restaurants, hotels, gotta go through the roof. guest: you make a good point. i don't expect all of these tariffs to go into effect. first of all, he can't put them into effect right away, with the exception of china. if someone doesn't challenge a president in court, that was the biden strategy. donald trump kept forgiving

student loans, even though the courts -- biden kept forgiving student loans and said catch me if you can. but if he imposes tariffs, i expect him to be challenged in court. i don't think he can declare a national security emergency on trade with a 20% tariff unless there is strong sentiment in the congress that he is on strong ground. by and large, he will get an injunction. a tariff on china? he can go back to the prior investigations that he did and invoke authority from that. normally that sort of thing, that authority there takes about a year to get do. he can move pretty quick on that. if he does it in the right way, he is going to comment -- cause the kind of harm you say. on the immigration point, probably the most dangerous man in america right now to the u.s. economy is stephen miller. he's the architect of this deport everybody kind of thing.

when i tell republican operatives, you know, somebody's going to have to pick their crops, they say they will pay more americans to do it. 40% of the fieldwork in american agriculture is probably irregular immigrants. not necessarily illegal, some of the very asylum, the cases have to come up and that. -- that may never happen. in macro terms, the concentration in construction and the hospitality industry, macro terms, through our regular program of innovation and population increase for people becoming a teen, the u.s. economy hit 80,000 new workers a month once they got to full deployment. by the summer of 2023 we were surely at full employment, unemployment was well less than 4%. everything was right out there.

at that point you can only add 80,000 jobs a month. yet from september to september, 23 to 24, we added 195,000 jobs a month. unless martians were landing in the arizona desert -- if we think it's the population? workers to pick lettuce and work in hotels, working on our construction projects, unless martians were bringing people in , those were irregular immigrants who found some way -- some with permits, many don't have them. let's turn it around. what will it look like if he starts deporting people beyond felons in those with a deportation order who haven't left? we can find them, apparently, pretty easily. what's going to happen is all of a sudden the person that cleans your house is going to disappear. the person that cleans her office is going to disappear. you won't be able to do an improvement on your home.

construction will stop. the economy will stop. what's more, go to the supermarket and try to find lettuce. it will be interesting when there are these kinds of shortages. i don't know that stephen miller ever goes to the supermarket and asks himself who picks the lettuce. but the trust that donald trump has in this man to craft this kind of policy and put this noise in his ear to say the things he's now saying? the election is over. everybody makes campaign promises, they exaggerate. everyone knows that. if he enforces the border and exercises the kind of deportation policy that he and barack obama did as opposed to joe biden who was let them in, let them stay, the economy will continue to function. otherwise this place is going to grind to a halt. host: brian, massachusetts, republican line. caller: i would like to ask the

professor for a comment or an answer to my question. one of the campaign promises of the president-elect was to raise tariffs, that has been in the news recently with canada and mexico. a bunch of folks lost their jobs to john deere. mr. trump said that he was going to raise tariffs on tractors made in mexico by 200%. it's been reported in publications such as "successful farmer," places like that. what do you think of that campaign promise? and he said something about 25%, not 200%. all of those folks losing their jobs at john deere. host: the larger aspect of tariffs and then the agriculture industry. guest: he was talking about tractors, the 25% was trade

generally. the mexicans can turn around and do the same thing to us. then where are we? denying our exports. one of the problems that we have is joe biden had a very promiscuous -- i believe that the john deere workers are represented by the uaw. i was caught offguard here being asked about john deere. but he adopted a supportive and promiscuous attitude towards them and they made outrageous wage demands and basically leaned on general motors, much as he did with folks that run the docs. as if this money would be readily available. you know, general motors might have been able to sustain those wage increases because they were getting lots of subsidies to build electric cars, but john deere isn't getting much in a way of that to build tractors. you have to ask yourself, why is the costs structure at john deere so noncompetitive that

these tractors made in america for generations because of those technological sophistication's, these tractors today are not the ones you see from a 1940's movie on turner classic. these are very sophisticated contraptions and farming has become extraordinarily technological. folks don't realize that. why is it not cost-effective to make them here? the entire auto belt has a problem. up and down the line to the people on the plant floor, they pay themselves too much. they simply do. they have a great deal of bureaucracy. they have learned how to be good government agencies that comply with a lot of agencies. one of the toughest things that mr. muska had in establishing out of whole cloth a new car company was learning how to deal with all of these government regulations. they have become civil servants making cars at high prices.

they don't make economic sense anymore. host: there'anher sector that chris and alabama brought up, saying that in fairfield, out of japan, can you explain the impact and importance of that decision. host: it's a terrible -- guest: it's a terrible decision that both presidents supported. the decision not to sell u.s. steel was terrible. u.s. steel is kind of like the german automobile industry. it needs modernization. the japanese company was willing to come in and put a lot of money into those facilities and was willing to, you know, provide a lot of technology to modernize them, which was sorely needed. the german seat -- german steel sector in the united states, recycling steel, not just some rebar going into the concrete, it is steel for the automotive industry that is highly competitive. the old integrated, they are

back for more, and not as modern as they could be. there's no particular threat of those jobs leaving. the reason is you don't ship steel across the ocean to make automobiles. you make it down the street from the plant, so to speak. not quite down the street, but a lot of the steel from cars and so forth is locally sourced. it wouldn't have made much sense to take that production across the ocean. if you, if you look at the importance of labor in the steel industry, it's not nearly as important as the importance of technology, because of the costs of transportation across the ocean. this is very different from vehicles where there is a lot of value added. as we say, you have to look at economics in the value ratio. steel, the weight is very big relative to the value. cars, it's not.

host: margaret, wyoming, you are up next on the independent line. margaret in wyoming, hello? one more time for margaret? go ahead, margaret. you are on. ok, let's go to matt. dearborn, michigan. you're on. caller: i would like to ask about trump's plan over crypto. he wants to make it like a reserve currency and spend billions or trillions, can't remember the number. i don't think it's a good idea, but i would like to hear what he thinks about it. guest: like so many things, donald trump wants to control inflation but put on tariffs. grow the economy but take the immigrants out of the labor force. the same thing goes with

cryptocurrency. the u.s. dollar is the reserve currency around the world. that gives us great benefit. what do i mean? central banks hold dollars around the world to back up their currency. they hold some gold. they hold it in the form of treasury securities. it is also the transaction currency. for example, you are in thailand and you are going to send toys that you manufactured to chi lay. there is not much of a market for pesos. but they do is the chileans by the dollars and trade the dollars to purchase bahts, they pay for it that way. the dollar transaction currency is on one side of an exchange for the other end 90% of that goes on in the world. in order to have that, in order to have that, you need two

things. a sound economy whose currency is respected. it has to be one that is respected militarily. the global superpowers have the currency. people don't recognize that. the second thing you have to have is what you call a messaging system at the banks to trade currency, perform these transactions. citibank has a transaction system. swift systems. those things are provided to the dollar. to have an alternative currency like the bricks nations described, there has to be an alternative messaging system. out of the cryptosystem should come that. second, if we abandon the idea that a country should have some basket of currency to do a job, like facebook was proposing, something called libra, the government would have to back it up.

empowering the crypto world is a great way to undermine the dollar because it encourages the development of the infrastructure necessary for an outside government system. right now, governments control money. this creates a passage from outside the government system. host: this headline, families could be out $2500 if the world lets go of the dollar. guest: we have a bigger budget deficit than anyone else in the world could tolerate. ours is 7% of gdp. the reason we get away with that is because people need dollars to perform trade, need dollars to invest. where are you going to put your money if you are an argentinian schoolteacher?

in the argentinian currency or u.s. currency? you probably want to find a way to put it here. every year, we float bonds to finance the deficit and some get bought up abroad and they function as dollars. you don't really want to keep your dollars out of interest-bearing assets. the 10 year pays 4%. inflation in the u.s. is less than that, it will go up in value not down. your government will not inflate it out of sight. you not worried about the russians swallowing your country, so on and so forth. you don't want to keep it in chinese assets. at any given point, president g can wake up and decide he doesn't like you and take the company and he kind of does that. in saudi arabia, he locked up all his relatives to get the money, you don't want it there.

my feeling is the only places that are really secure are the pound, the dollar, the yen. historically, historically. that is worth about 2500 to $3000. host: rick, idaho, republican line. caller: top of the morning to you. i can chop the debt by 16 trillion dollars in two years as the secretary of transportation. part of the puzzle would coming from china is the shipping and handling costs, $.51 a gallon.

offsetting the costs picks up that production in the united states with representatives and engineers. guest: so none, slow down. host: rick, what's the question? caller: when you look at the oceangoing congress to identify what they did? host: i will leave it there, we will talk about shipping overall as it fits into the conversation. guest: i guess what he is saying is there is a subsidy in the shipping because of the price of fuel. he went by so fast it was like reading the back of a theater ticket inside the theater in the dark. it's a bit prejudiced there. i would like to know about it. it was hard to work all that out. host: you recently wrote that when it comes to the president's of views on immigration, they need to be moderated? guest: we certainly don't want

the kind of border that joe biden gave us. the aoc foreign policy is one of let anybody who wants come here and don't worry about the crowding in the cities, the homelessness in new york, things like that. we need to enforce the border and we need to regulate immigration again. but we probably need to have about twice as many legal immigrants as we are currently letting in. you know? we need another one million to 1.5 million workers per year over what we can provide from the programs we already have and we need to make it skills-based. i don't mean they all need to be electrical engineers. we need a lot of ordinary workers. my feeling would be is that you would look where you need people in where they are willing to go to work. that's what the canadians do and that is hardly a fascist society. host: margaret, thanks for

trying again from wyoming, independent line, hello. caller: yes, hello. can you hear me? guest: we can hear you. caller: getting back to the question regarding immigration and labor, economically speaking. you mentioned the need for so many foreigners to come in and do these jobs. what about the other side of the equation? the costs to the american economy for maintaining these people, since many of them do not leave? what i am talking about is -- what about the costs of snap? what about the costs of medicare? what about the costs of medicaid? many of these people will want to get government-subsidized benefits. what about the costs of all of that to the economy?

that's my question. host: margaret, thank you. guest: the labor force participation rate of immigrants is higher the native americans. they come for the american dream, they don't particularly want to get involved in identity politics. we saw that in the last election. white guys oppressing you, vote democratic, they pull the lever for donald trump. despite all of his personal liabilities. why? they don't buy into it. my family came here at the turn of the 20th century. poor immigrants who married here and so forth. my older brother summarized it best, we actually knew immigrants in the 50's, elderly at the end of their working lives, still working. one of them was a longshoreman. one was a buttonhole maker. the other two women were seamstresses. my brother says -- these

hispanics coming across the border, you know who i see? my grandparents. trust me, my brother and i are hardly viewed as progressive. the reality is, these are hard-working people. now you need to screen your immigrants, like they did the italians when you came in. are you healthy, are you going to go to work, things like that. that's what the canadians to. the canadians have a population that is 10% the size of ours but they immigrant 500,000 immigrants per year because of their economy because they have the same demographic problem we do. reaping the harvest of a birthrate that went down. unless we want to have more babies in america, we will need more immigrants to keep the country going. who's going to pay that social security tax to support you in your old age of we don't admit people? the number of workers in america, it will get too low to

do that. want to work until you're at -- 85? keep the hispanics in the asians out of america. and the kind of reaction we are getting today is no different than the reaction i saw as a boy to an puerto ricans first started coming here. they lived in new york, west side story, true story, prejudice. i felt the residual consequences of going through the school system. you know, one day i was sitting in the cafeteria with some faculty from other departments where i went to graduate school. they didn't catch my last name really well. i listened to distinguished professors talking about how all of the italians were in the mob. wish i had those connections, i would have gotten instant tenure. [laughter] i would have gone to the dean and said to peter should have been a full professor. host: ed, pennsylvania,

democratic line. hello? you are on, go ahead. caller: yeah, as i said before, we need these immigrants that are here. not the ones that are here now. it's not been controlled like it should have been. but what they are talking about, putting them on a plane and sending them all back to where they came from? who's going to pay for that and are the companies going to accept them back? no one has ever said anything about if the country's accept them back. guest: one of the problems that we have in that great britain has -- by the way, great britain has a moat. they still can't stop it. think about all of those bodies of water going from africa into britain. getting across the mediterranean, which you can't do in an inflatable raft. then they have to get through europe one way or another, which isn't that hard.

you have to get across the channel and they manage. the problem with sending them back is the country has to be willing to accept them. if they come from nicaragua, you send them to nicaragua and you are then faced with the choice of sending a battalion of marines to clear a path at the airport. we are going to do that. the costs has been estimated, i think, sending back 13 million per year in the program would be like 87, 80 billion per year to send back one million per year. probably it's a lot worse than that. also, do you have the stomach to watch the army, as mr. trump says he would do, the national guard, knock on doors and pull grandmothers out of their beds, throw them in wagons and take them away? do you really expect all of these folks to go peaceably?

i don't know that stephen miller really understands the social dynamite he's playing with and how much it could make us look like places from the 1930's in europe. or how much he fully appreciates that he won't be able to get lettuce again if he gets his way. this administration is badly advised on trade and immigration. likely taxes, too. we now have a treasury secretary announcing that terrorists won't raise prices. if tariffs won't raise prices, close your eyes, open them again in 30 seconds, i will be 26, 6'2", playing linebacker for the giants. host: john, florida, independent line four peter morici. caller: the grocery stores with increasing prices, immigrants picking all the fruit and vegetables. florida actually did crackdown

on that, stopping people who were illegal from picking your fruits and vegetables. no prices increased. there was a small worker shortage that lasted between one month to three months depending on the story and then everything went back to normal at actually help to the economy. people in places like mcdonald's started speaking english again. it was fantastic, the best thing that ever happened to florida. no prices increased and there was more opportunity and more jobs. i want to hear your take on that. guest: i would have to see the documentation on the size of the industry you're talking about. if you take the immigrants out of central valley in california, you can't find enough people in california to work in those places, even if you force them to. even if you told me that they were going to get rid of food stamps and everything and you forced people to work, i don't think you could find enough

bodies to do it. finding one million people to replace all of the agricultural workers in the united states is different than replacing some orange pickers in florida. it's a much bigger scale. so, frankly the reason i expect this won't happen is because cooler heads will eventually prevail. let nick and the new treasury secretary are not stupid men. they will go over to those buildings and people will start to explain these numbers to them. and we do know this about both of them, they read. host: mark, also florida, democratic line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. it's a real pleasure to get to speak to peter morici. i'm 100% behind a lot of what you are saying were now. i don't know what is wrong with our country, this is my last

call is a democrat. i will be switching back to independent. guest: join the republican party, it's good for your soul. i'm being cute. be what you want. host: short on time, go ahead, caller. caller: my grandparents came in through ellis island, much like your guests grandparents. it was a great thing that led to our country growing and prospering. that is what is wrong with things right now. it's what's wrong with the democratic party. they become republican light when they keep saying build bipartisan. we should be filling up the lots with these people that walked 3000 miles to get here, they've got to have some initiative and let them come in through that modern ellis island. put one in texas where they can come in, get registered to work,

start earning a living, start paying taxes and filling up the empty slots. maybe that will help our country. i'm no longer going to be a democrat, they don't support that. host: can we revamp the education system on those goals? guest: sure, look at what candidate is doing, admitting the kinds of an quantity of immigrants we are talking about, they are getting it done. my feeling is it can be done and it's a matter of getting organized like we decided to help the semiconductor industry. nothing can save intel from itself, it is that general motors of the chips world. but the rest of the chips business could be reinforced, strengthened, it will be. we can do the same thing when it comes to this. when americans set their mind to an organizational task, they get it done. they have to decide it's a good thing to do and then they get it

done. and you have an administration that believes in it. kind of like free trade. right now maybe 11 of us in the city of washington believed free trade is a good thing. it's unfortunate. it creates jobs, wealth, and opportunity. it's unfortunate, the attitudes around it. host: you hinted at the previous trump administration and the tax cuts, what should be done with the debt overall? guest: we can probably get away with extending it, but the notion that tariffs will replace it? a 60% tariff on china where they didn't retaliate? we can probably get 100 billion per year out of it, tops. extending the tax cuts will costs 300 $50 billion per year. that's about the limit of what we can do.

then we get into that kind of 2020 four deficit. 2025 it will be a bit smaller as a percentage of gdp. the economy is growing so rapidly that they can get away with that, that's about the limit. one thing to also recognize and my parting thought is that joe biden will tell you differently. donald trump bequeathed to joe biden a good and strong economy. covid required it to shut down. it was running like an olympic athlete during the trump time. growing 2.8% per year. when it woke up from covid, it woke up like a prizefighter. for the last eight years the u.s. economy has been accomplishing 8% annualized growth, light years above what obama accomplished. the economy was going gangbusters. this isn't a time to mess with this well oiled machine. host: peter morici, university

of maryland, emeritus, thank you for your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: another edition of "washington journal," coming your way tomorrow at 7 a.m.. see you then. [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 ter today at noon eastern on c-span, the u.s. house rerns to session for the first time since the start of the thangiving holiday break. lawmakers are expected to work on several judicial and natural resources bills and they could vote on whether to relee the ethics committee's report on former florida congressmanatt gaetz. the houswill consider legislation to posthumously what

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