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♪ host: good morning. it is sunday, january 12, 2025. we're just a week away from the end of president biden's term in office and we want to know how you would great his presidency. his response to the global pandemic, the economic recovery his administration oversaw. for democrats, (202) 748-8000.

(202) 748-8001, for republicans. for independents, (202) 748-8002 . if you like to text us, that number is (202) 748-8003. please be sure to include your name and where you are writing in from. we are also in social media at facebook.com/cspan and on x at @cspanwj. when president biden was sworn into office amid even more discord at the time kueng he called for unity in the country. here is a bit of his inauguration speech from january 2021. >> politics does not have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. every disagreement does not have to be a cause for total war. and we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

my fellow americans, we have to be different than this. america has to be better than this. i believe america is better than this. just look around. here we stand in the shadow of the capitol dome, completed amid the civil war when the union was hanging in the balance. yet we endure. we prevail. here we stand, looking out on the great wall where dr. king spoke of his dream. here we stand cut where 100 years ago at another inaugural thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. today, we mark the swearing in of the first woman in american history elected to national office vice president kamala harris. do not tell me things cannot change.

here we stand, across the potomac from arlington cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace. here we stand, just days after a mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people. to stop the work of our democracy and drive us from this sacred building. it did not happen. it will never happen. not today. not tomorrow. not ever. for all those who supported our campaign, i'm humbled by the faith you have placed in us. for those who did not support us , hear me out as we move forward. take the measure of me and my heart.

if you still disagree, so be it. that is democracy. that is america. the right to dissent peacefully is perhaps this nation's greatest strength. hear me clearly. disagreement must not lead to disunion. i pledge this to you. i will be a president for all americans. >> and that inauguration video, you can see people wearing masks and social distancing because the covid-19 pandemic was still active in the country. it was in march 2021 when president biden took to the stream of the white house to discuss the impact of the pandemic and also the signing of the american rescue plan. here is a clip. >> a historic piece of legislation that delivers immediate relief to millions of people, including $1400 in

direct rescue check payments. that means a typical family of four earning about hundred $10,000 would get checks for $5,600 deposited if they have direct deposit or in a treasury check. it extends unemployment benefits, helps small businesses , lowers health care premiums for many, provides food and nutrition, q's families in their homes. and it will cut child poverty in this country in half according to experts. it funds all the steps i have described to be to the virus and create aliens of jobs. in the coming weeks and months, i will be traveling along with the first lady and vice president and second gentleman and members of my cabinet to speak strictly to you, to tell you the truth about how the american rescue plan meets the

moment. if it fails, i will acknowledge that it failed, but it will not. after a long, dark years, one whole year, there is hope and light and better days ahead. if we all do our part. this country will be vaccinated soon. our economy will be on the mend. our kids will be back in school. we will have proven again that this country can do anything, hard things, big things, important things. host: our question this morning is how you would grade the biden presidency. the associated press has some numbers on this, finding that in his final weeks in the white house 39% approve of how biden is handling his job compared to his predecessor. fewer saying he was a great or

good president. if you scroll down to what find half of democrats say biden was a good or great president compared with only 10% of independents and 4% of republicans. a majority of republicans view biden is a poor or terrible president, along with 56% of independents and 13% of democrats. overall, about three in 10 think his presidency was average. the public at a more positive view of biden's immediate predecessors. as donald trump was preparing to leave the white house, 36% described him as a great or good president. eight years ago, about half of americans described barack obama's presidency as great or good. before we get to your calls, let's get an update on the wildfires in california from the l.a. times website, which says that aerial assault keeps flames from invading, but more wind is

coming. there have been 16 deaths and more than 10,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed. firefighters made more progress containing the palisades fire's overnight, but the palisades fire grew by about 1000 acres and strong winds are expected overnight. four hours ago, an update to the kenneth fire, 90% contained and we will keep you updated on news about the fires as we get more information through the morning. now for your grades on the presidency of joe biden. let's start with melvin on our line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. without a doubt, i give joe biden a grade of a plus because he was and will go down in history as the last decent

president of the united states. trump will cut once it is all said and done, be shown to be a dictator and also that he probably did not win this election properly. i got a feeling that this elon musk and his use of ai somehow has manipulated th ection. that sd -- host:here have not been credible reports of election interference. caller: that is why i called a conspiratorial bau i do not have any facts. it is based on a feeling i have. people voted for joe in 2020 and only 75 million voted for kamala. what happened to those 6 million

votes? i understand there are some votes -- some people who will change, but 6 million votes? trump did not get the 6 million votes. he only got an extra million from what he had last time. so you want to tell me 5 million people sat on the couch and did not come out and vote? i find that very hard to believe, even though i do not have proof. but in this age of technology and with a man genius like this elon musk, if there is anyone who could manipulate the vote he would be the want to do it. getting back to biden, if i can, he was a good man. he was a decent man. democrats by the most part already sent people -- by the most part are decent people who

care about people while republicans only care about the rich. it is sad that the people who vote for republicans, a lot of whom are poor americans cannot do not see that. host: you were talking about how history might remember biden, especially compared to president elect trump. gallup has done some polling on this and found that americans think history will rate biden's presidency negatively and perceptions of how trump's first term will be regarded have improved considerably. many more americans expect history to judge joe biden's presidency unfavorably rather than favorably. 54% of u.s. adults believe biden will be remembered as a below or poor president, while 19% say he will be evaluated as outstanding or above average. another 26% think he will be

regarded as average, compared with nine recent presidents included in the nine gallup poll, biden rates most similarly to richard nixon, who has a -42 rating. biden receives more poor reviews than nixon does. biden gets more outstanding or above average readings. brad is in texas on our line for republicans. we have lost brad. let's go to andrea in louisiana. >> good morning. is my tv too loud? host: if you could turn it down all the way, that would be great. caller: i give biden and a minus, b plus. he had a good health recovery from covid. what was your second thing you said? the economy? it is better than people

realize. and the whole world had economic downfalls from covid and we have come back stronger than people realize. a lot of people that were complaining were shopping for christmas, so i think we are doing better than people are saying. he gets an a minus from me. host: andrea was mentioning president biden's record on the economy. at a recent speech, president biden gave his own assessment of his economic accomplishments while in office. here is a portion of those comments from december. [video clip] >> i have never agreed with ronald reagan on the economy, but i did agree with something he said. he said facts are stubborn things. they are. here are the facts.

the benchmarks, if you will, through which we should measure success or failure of our next four years, 60,000,002 jobs have been created in america. will the next president create jobs or lose jobs? during my presidency, we saw the lowest average unemployment rate . will be higher or lower in the next four years? we have had a strong economic growth on average. will the next president have stronger or weaker economic growth? and inflation. we are battling the worldwide effects of the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. we have an inflation rate near 2%. where will inflation be at the end of the next president's terms? these are well-established economic benchmarks used to

measure the strength of any economy. they are not political or rhetorical opinions. they are just fact. simple fact, as president reagan called it. host: senator elizabeth warren highlighted the recent jobs numbers that came and strong and said just like the first time around, donald trump is inheriting an economy with a strong job growth. back to your calls. pat is in idaho on our line for democrats. caller: i give biden and a minus. living in an actually conservative state, idaho, i think someone said it was the most conservative in the nation, and i look at what you put on this morning about his speech

and i had forgotten how it was during covid. i was wearing masks and being isolated and now look where we are. as far as being able to be free to walk around and go to stores and hug our friends and i was so touched by his gentleness and sincerity. i do not think he is a showman. i was brokenhearted in the last debate when he faltered a little bit. he had been traveling. he is older. i am older. and when you are exhausted, and he was exhausted for many good reasons and it seemed like our nation judged him.

when he was younger, he stuttered and he has shared how hard it was because people judged him so quickly. he is a kind man. i used to teach junior high and during covid i saw this decline of attitudes toward kindness and it took its toll on junior high kids and now if you look at our crisis, it is not only in our country but worldwide. we have a crisis in depression among young people. we have young people and adults absorbed with their devices and talking incessantly on their devices. they are not having conversations eyeball to eyeball.

i was raised in the 1950's. i had it easy, i think. host: you referenced that debate performance of president biden and how the country responded afterwards. i would like to play a moment from that debate in june, which is when the panic on the democratic side set in. let's listen. [video clip] >> what i am going to do is fix the tax system. we have a thousand trillion errors in america -- billionaires in america. they pay 8.2% in taxes. if they paid 24% or 25%, we would raise $500 million -- billion dollars. we will be able to wipe out debt and help make sure all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure we strengthen our health care system, making sure we are able to make every solitary person

eligible for what i have been able to do with the covid -- with dealing with everything we have to do with -- look, if we finally beat medicare -- host: after that debate performance, there were calls throughout the democratic party for president biden to step back from the race, which he eventually did. rob is in minnesota on our line for republicans. caller: i think you do a great job on c-span. i do not know how you vote, but i think you do a great job on c-span. i have to grade biden a f. that is going to bother democrats, but i cannot see that he did anything for the country. racism increased the last four years.

inflation increase the last four years and covid was really handled better by trump than under biden. there were mask mandates, vaccine mandates. people lost their jobs because of covid. they did not get the vaccination, they lost their jobs. we allowed illegal immigrants into our country by the millions. free taxpayer expense immigrants in our country. i cannot give biden a better grade than a f. a lot of it is not his fault. a lot of it has to do with the people behind him who ran the country. i do not think biden ran the country by himself. there were people behind the scenes, maybe barack obama. i do not know. but it was worse than people make it out to be and i'm glad we have trump back in office today. thank you. host: next is michael in ohio on

our line for independents. caller: thanks for taking my call. i look back at this last 15 or 16 years and our country has been in decline mostly because of the corruption and lien that goes on in our federal government. barack obama tried to divide the country. he was a terrible president. he was not a good president. he was terrible. biden in this last presidential election in 2020, i have had friends in nursing homes that i visit weekly that were in better condition than he was when he ran for this presidency. he had no business running for this presidency. he is a fool.

200 years ago, he would have been shot for what he has done for this country. host: michael was referencing whether he should have run for president. this came up in an interview that president biden recently did with usa today, where the -- susan page did an interview with president biden for usa today and asked him, you believe you could have won in november? but in respondent, i think yes, based on the polling. she said, do you think you would have had the vigor serve another four years in office biden responded, i do not know. that is thought when i first announced here and i sai i thought i was the person. d no intention of running after beau died. when trump was running for

reelection, i thought i had the best chance of beating him, but i was not looking to be president when i was 85 years old, 86 years old, so i did talk about pasnghe baton. i do not know. who knows what i am going to be when i am 86 years old? peter is in texas on our line for democrats. how would you grade president biden's term in office? caller: i'm calling in reference to the guy that gave president biden a f. host: why don't we start with your grade first? caller: i'm calling in reference to that. i have been a democrat ever since 1986. i was 18 years old since 1986. i never seen two unqualified

presidents in my life, ever since 1986. i'm going to give biden a f and president -- current president to be trump a f plus. both of them are too old. president biden waited too long to say he was not going to run for president and screwed it up for kamala harris and he just screwed it up for her, so i will give president biden a f. i will give president trump a f plus. neither are set to be president. they should have nominated somebody else.

that is all i have to say. have a great day. host: thank you. in reference to those comments that president biden made to usa today and is likely hood of winning in that election, recently a vermont democrat was asked about president biden's interview. here is some of what she had to say in response to biden's comments. [video clip] >> every indication we had as democrats in the caucus was that the president was on a trajectory to lose most specifically that we were going to lose many many house seats because of that meeting the democrats will lose house seats, so we have a very new situation where the republicans have a narrow margin of victories, just one or two seats now when we look at who's been appointed to the administration and it is sad and discouraging that, when you look at all the work that the

president has done on behalf of the american people and all the investments made, that that message did not get through, but it did not get through. it was not getting through. capitol let's get back -- host: let's get back to your calls on how you would grade president biden's administration. caller: i cannot even give him a f. he is the worst president i have ever seen and these people -- the lady said a plus? they must be blind. all these people -- he ain't done nothing but destroy this country. and trump -- i give him an a plus because when he was in there everything was fine. these people keep saying he is a good president. what has he done for the

american people? nothing. he hates us. host: some of the accomplishments that president biden is putting out of what he did for the american people are listed here in a piece in the hill, five compliments biden is touting before leaving office. among several, navigating the pandemic. biden and his staff have made a point to remind voters of the situation they inherited taking office in the covid-19 pandemic. the cases surging again in early 2021. the eventual white house chief of staff lead efforts to coordinate distribution of vaccines all biden elevated dr. anthony found she after he had been sidelined and largely criticized by republicans during the trump administration. moving on, he cited the american rescue plan.

other items the hill highlights the biden administration is pushing out as their compliments, bipartisan bills, including the chips act, the infrastructure law, and bipartisan legislation citing late 2022 -- signed in late 2022 that codified federal protections for same-sex couples. they highlight the appointment of kate jackson -- ketanji brown jackson. she became the first black to serve on the highest court. on student loans, another of biden's most high-profile campaign promises was to forgive student loan debt. while the effort was caught in various lawsuits come he found ways to deliver relief to millions of americans. that story from the hill.

sal is in san diego, california on our line for independence. caller: thank you for having me. i would give him a f for failure and it has been horrible. i live in california. we pay the highest taxes in the u.s. and now we are burning to the ground and all the democrats have done is pass the buck. biden started wars again and warmongers are running our country. that is the main thing. after that, i believe he should -- i have nothing against the man. he served our country for a long time and he deserves better than what was done to him by his party, so i have been a republican. i became an independent thinker and i think that is what we need to do.

in california, we cannot look at the d or r next to the name. we have to look at the person, if they are qualified. we have the worst governor in the history of mankind. all he does is look good and try to pass the buck and he has passed the buck in l.a.. he is the man in charge and mr. biden is the man in charge of america. so i wish him well in his retirement. he deserves better. i give him a d for dementia and that is about all i can say, but i wish that he would reach out to the red states when there is a disaster. he is ready to cover all the expenses of hollywood. they are the people that can afford to rebuild on their own. i have been a realtor for a long

time and i cannot even place insurance on people anymore. my insurance rates are going up. they can only go up 7% a year. otherwise, i would probably be paying more. where i live, we live near mexico and the border is another issue. these people get more money. i live by a transit system and free phones and everything. these people are coming in -- san diego is now the number one border town passing through the desert and our area is probably sheltering these people, which is a crime. i talked to a border patrol agent and he says the comment, where do they leave the busload today? they will take them all around san diego, give them money, and send them places, so the democrat party has become the

party of illegal crime, disaster , so i am sorry but that is all i have to say today. i will be praying for him and the school systems -- they are not teaching them any math or history. the democrats are tearing down our history. they are inventing new words. there is a man, a woman, and then there is people. thank you for taking my call. >> richard is in new york on our line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. i give joe biden an f minus. i would give barack obama and a plus. host: you said you give joe biden an f money -- an f minus? caller: and barack obama and a

plus. host: why would you give joe biden an f minus? caller: his policies i think are horrible. the alternative is worse. what joe biden does, he loves to spend money. as an example, the college loans. he just paid all these college students all this money and what about the students that worked their way through college, that paid for their own college? a better solution would have been let's hire these college educated students to tutor these elementary school students that lost a year. instead of just giving money away. host: derek is in louisiana on

our line for republicans. caller: i give joe biden an f minus. i give him an a minus for treason. he should have been hung years ago. host: let's not call for violence. and warm -- anwar is on our line for independents. caller: to be very clear, i think the question is not so much whether joe biden gets a good grade or not. it is whether we as a country have a decent grade. i would give united states of america a double f based on their policies. they care about money. the fact that you would reelect a man who allowed 700,000 roughly to die of covid and

still think that man is qualified to be president shows the american people have a f as a group, as a nation. we have lost our way. we have people who we could not even go to their funerals, but somehow this country has become avaricious, greedy, capitalistic, and have forgotten our dead and they have no right to question what joe biden did because what he did was for the country. i give the man a b. i think he was doing the best he could with what he had. as a country, we are in the dumps. everyone talks about lynching him. this is what they were doing at the capital january 6. they wanted to lynch the vice president. they brought a gallows and black

people should know about lynch mobs. this is the same thing. every call you get that is below the mason-dixon line, you can hear it in their voice. they have not changed since the civil war. that is our main problem. we are going to have to deal with racism, capitalism, and now that they have gotten elon musk from south africa, we are in trouble, so i give this country a f. i do not give biden a f. i give this country a f because they are putting him -- putting this man back in office who killed so many of our loved ones, of which none of these people seem to care about anymore. that is my statement. host: next is david in south carolina on our line for republicans. caller: good morning. i will try to make two quick points before you cut me off.

since we have new genders, i am going to create a new grade, e. i give him an e minus because of the controlling of the strategic petroleum reserve. i want to make quick points. mostly to independence -- independents and democrats. we have seen obama's transformation of america has its roots in the establishment of identity politics where race seems to matter as much as anything else. and another is we have established the reversal of jfk's call not to ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for the country. it has now become where washington, d.c. is expected to take care of lunches and babysitting. that is probably not thought of by our founding fathers.

some other things that have taken place, because of the speed of media, principally internet and high debt video cut we have seen expansion of the reach of d.c. at the expense of the strength of the states and there is a movement underway to basically eliminate states. we cannot forget our country is the united states of america. we were really diverse colonies that joined together to form a common central government for protection of the country, so there is a move to eliminate states and you can see this with medicare for all the desire to eliminate the electoral college. i also noticed that the points you just made about obama's -- biden's accomplishments, most of

those were about redistributing of wealth and propagation of identity politics. it is not the government's role to redistribute wealth and that has become the primary mission of d.c. if you look at all the agencies. with an incredible growth of the national debt, there will have to be short-term pain coming up and i want people to understand there has to be a rein in on spending. people are addicted to debt spending. we have to get over the addiction and withdrawal is always painful. we need to understand this. i thank you for your time and i think you try to do a fair job though i think i know how you vote, you are very gracious all the time. host: next is paul on our line for democrats. caller: i would like to give joe

biden a b plus. the reason for the b is the border. he could have done a better job on the border. as far as the country, i give him na+. i'm a beneficiary of that -- biden's american rescue plan. it saved my pension. right now, i'm living better and have more income than i ever had. i am living good and all these stupid people calling in talking about how they cannot afford this and cannot afford that -- that is all perception. i think some of these people let people tell them how they ought to do it. this country is fine. the only thing that is on the rise is all these bigots calling in. host: we do not need to insult our other callers, but go ahead.

caller: i apologize for insulting, but that is my opinion. i can see it on the rise and with trumpet is going to really rise. that is my comments. thank you. host: president biden also that legacy said i hope history says that i came in and had a plan to reste economy and reestablish america' leade in the world. that was my hope. who knows? i hope it records i did it with honesty and integrity, that i said what was on my mind and i think the advantage of be an old guy is i have known every major world leader for a long time, so i had a perspective on each of them and their interests, so i tt heed me navigate some of the ndamtal challenges -- ges taking place, whether in europe, latin america, the middle east, the far east. that is what i hope, that i am viewed in that context.

that was president biden's interview with usa today. david is on our line for independence. -- independents. i hope you and yours are doing alright in these fires. caller: i am doing fine. i wanted to give joe biden and a minus. if not for the border, he would go down as the best president we have ever had. if you measure all the statistics, we have record low unemployment. we have a record high stock market. manufacturing jobs are booming even in the midwest. they renamed it the battery belt because of all the manufacturing plants being built, and the infrastructure bill and ships and science act and inflation reduction act. biden also signed the social

security fairness act. many of your callers are criticizing him, the poor anglo southern people calling in are probably beneficiaries of the social security fairness act. that is a kind of irony. can you please check this while i am talking so people know i am telling the truth? joe biden signed the -- opened up the oil drilling in alaska. you can check that online right now. it is supposed to produce 10 million barrels of oil for the next 10 years. and for the gentleman that was talking about joe biden releasing oil from the strategic reserve, he sold it at $95 a barrel and they recently bought the oil back at $70 a barrel and refilled the strategic reserve, netting us a profit.

i could go on and on on biden's successes, but if you look at comparing us to any other modern nation in the world, we have had the fastest recovery of any nation, so if you look at all those facts joe biden is probably the best president we have had. host: he referenced the willow oil project in alaska. here's a story on that. this is from march 2023 that the biden administration approved the willow oil project which has galvanized online activism and approved the massive will oil drilling project in alaska, angering climate advocates and setting the stage for a court challenge. it is a decades long oil drilling venture in the national petroleum reserve, owned by the federal government.

the area holds up to 600 million barrels of oil, although it would take years to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed. david mentioned the outcome -- some of the building happening in the midwest related to the chips in science act investments. in -- and at his speech on his economic accomplishments at the brookings institution president biden spoke about signing the chips in science act. here's a portion of that from december. let's go to anna in california on our line for democrats. caller: thank you for letting me give my opinions. i think this was an incredible presidency that biden gave us.

we -- coming out of a pandemic, a world pandemic, we have done better than the entire rest of the world. right here in the united states, every single month that joe biden was our president, our job grew. every single month. we have come out of an incredible situation. the way misinformation and hatred and angst informed our people of just lies, i am really

scared. i am really sad. for our country. do you think jimmy carter and joe biden would ever want to change the name of the gulf of mexico? would ever want greenland? thank you, joe biden. i am. host: let's listen to the clip of joe biden talking about the chips in science act i referenced earlier during his speech at the brookings institute in december. >> when i came to office, semi conductor manufacturing had moved overseas. i was determined to bring it back. that is what we have done with my chips in science act. which is attracting $350 billion

in private sector investment in america, including from korea and taiwan. i remember we went, to digress to south korea. i said, why are you making billion dollar investments and what they call the field of dreams outside columbus, ohio? he said because you have the most capable workers in the world. it is the safest place for me to make my investment. you all know this, but they are these giant things as big as football fields. they employ thousands of people and the average salary? 102 thousand dollars. and you do not need a college degree to do the job.

he has invested in massive ships factories, the size of several football fields. from new york to ohio to arizona. when i ask these companies why they are investing, i give my word, and you know this, i say we have the most qualified workers in the world. host: next we are going to hear from michael in new york on our line for republicans. caller: as far as grading our presidents and throughout history, i think that when we look at joe biden's track record on the economy can't like the gentleman said, he brought us back from disaster. when president trump was president the first time, he drove our trade deficit up.

we did not have fair trade going on. a lot of were going overseas. joe biden brought that stuff back. so, that being said, the addition to the national debt by mr. trump during his term, people forget that and i am a republican. but i'm not a conservative republican. i look at financials and things these administrations handled and how they handled the trifecta now in place in our government. we need to have some good fiscal policy taking place domestically and across the pond. because it is not happening at a rate yet that we need. mr. biden has been working on that and i want to tell people, i am changing party.

i was watching fox news and i am going to stop watching it because they are spewing nothing but lies to the public and that is one of the reasons there is so much hatred in this country. the 1% -- one person just called in and assented the -- and said they wanted to hang the president. are you serious? who is the one who has hate? that is the problem. we have to bring our country together. we have to have somebody that brings us together. i do not see that happening in the next four years, not on they are talking about jailing adversaries because they found mr. trump guilty of something. the supreme court is very corrupt. we have corruption through all three branches of government. we have to change that at the ballot box. i am going to be changing to democrat because they are the

ones that make sense out there. thank you for letting me get on. i love c-span. it is a great commentary and you guys are doing a great job. let's pray for our country. we have a guy in office now that will lead us down a terrible path. it is a precursor to what is to come, but we have to unelected these people -- unelect these people. host: good morning, benjamin. how would you grade president biden's term? caller: i would give him a passing grade, nothing extreme. folk right now have extreme views meant that the president deserves something on the letter a or f range. i believe a little bit of

long-term perspective would probably benefit the majority of us. the previous caller from new york alerted to folks taking things seriously. president biden appears as much of an institutionalist as he is and has been to have taken the job and has not been an arsonist firefighter that some folks seem to want to have as leadership in our country. i would rate him in the middle, b minus, something like that as president. i believe we have a significant issue where we have hyperbole and extremism seeping into our

everyday lives to such a degree that we cannot see the forest for the trees. politicians take things seriously. we have a consent to re-govern the agreement the population has with her leadership and the reason why we can is because they take the job seriously. and do it honest upfront, accountable, performing for their term. host: next is salina in new york. caller: good morning. my grade for mr. biden is b plus. and the reason that i give him

na+ relates directly to where i am in united states of america, or the economy is. i am a low income person and being in the position i am in am a snap recipient and during the pandemic it was the first time in my life that i was not food insecure because the democrats and mr. biden took care of people because i saw people being taken care of who had jobs and lost them. i saw them on tv and people were throwing their food in the back of their cars, so somebody may accuse me of being biased, calling mr. biden -- giving him na+ grade, and what i am saying directly relates to how the

pandemic and mr. biden took care of all the poor people because nobody ever really thinks that much about really poor people like me. but last thing i would like to say is that even though i am on here and people hear me talking about being poor and all that, i am college educated and then some, so they should not just think that these ignorant poor people always want something for free but sometimes we get educated and then life throws us a curve and we are poor again. one last thing. i think that you are so poised and graceful and whoever hired you, i hope he saw you had temperament and judgment to do the job, so i saved that for last so you would not cut me off. i know you do not need that, but thank you. goodbye. host: michael is in wisconsin on

our line for republicans. good morning. caller: i would say he gets a flat f for sure. you should pull up in your archives at the dnc. his own secretary of commerce got called out that the job numbers were 800,000 less than what they were tallying up. and he was also in charge of getting us out of ftse. that was a disaster. that is not real leadership. he has us in two foreign wars. he is writing blank checks to ukraine. meanwhile, we have people in north carolina still trying to get their stuff together. california is on fire and he is willing to pay for them because they are known democrats. it is just -- i don't know why

democrats keep thinking he is doing a good job. host: i want you to finish your point, but i want to add additional context for the number you gave about the 800,000 jobs so folks know what you're talking about. here's a story from nbc news. u.s. added 818,000 fewer jobs then thought, adding to concerns about the economy. the annual change had been anticipated by market observers who fear the federal reserve should have cut rates sooner. this is a story from april and the commerce department did its annual revision of jobs numbers. it said u.s. job gains over the 12 months ending in march were revised downward wednesday by 818,000, a significant revision that adds to recent concerns that the economy has been slowing. the change means roughly 2.1 million jobs were created in the u.s. in the past year compared with about 2.9 million prior to the revision. the new figures to not represent job losses -- do not represent

job losses, merely new estimates of how many jobs were created. caller: just reading an article does not even do it. i'm talking about justice. i am talking about the dnc where she was interviewed and called it trump disinformation. it came from a reliable source, from the department of jobs or something. she got called out on it and meanwhile after the election biden is going to africa with all these world leaders and wandering around aimlessly because he is so demented. that is not our president. he is falling asleep at meetings with african leaders. host: i encourage you to stay tuned to our next segment, we will discuss foreign policy and biden's record on it. tomorrow, president biden is scheduled to deliver a capstone

address on foreign policy as he makes way for trump's return, as is reported in the associated press. we will carry that speech live on c-span. david is in new york on our line for independents. caller: good morning. to the guy in wisconsin, he just spewed out basically a lie. but joe biden deserves an a plus. the border was a problem, but from what he got from trump, our last president very bad job. we had a very professional administration. even-handed, some problems, but he got us through. ukraine, he brought the world together to back ukraine. we don't need another third world war that russia is trying to instigate.

but donald trump, he would be for putin again. joe biden did an excellent job. i can't say that enough. in the american people, it is sad to say that they could not vote for a good man and they put a traitor in the white house again. thank you very much, have a good day. thank you to everyone who called inityour thoughts this hour. coming up next we are going to hear from the cain institute to discuss foreign policy challenges facing the incoming trump administration and later, host of npr's full disclosure roben farzad will be here to discuss financial and economic stories to watch in the year ahead. we will be right back. ♪

>> this week on the c-span networks, the house and senate are broken session. the house continues work on the republican priority list of 12 bills focusing on border security and immigration policy. the senate continues work on the lake and riley act, legislation through our homeland security department officials to detain migran for theft related crimes. also stay tuned to the c-span networks for cumbrian coverage of confirmation hearings for president-elect trump's cabinet nominees. tuesday, ptech seth, nominee for defense secretary will testify before the senate armed services committee. wednesday, kristi noem tapped to lead the department of homeland security will be -- appear before the senate homeland security committee. marco rubio, nominee for secretary of state heads to the senate foreign relations committee. also former florida attorney general pam bondi nominated for u.s. attorney general will begin

her confirmation hearings. shall testify before the senate judiciary committee across two days, wednesday and thursday. watch live on the c-span networks or on c-span now, a free mobile video app. also head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or want to watch live or on-demand anytime. c-span, democracy unfiltered. >> sharon mcmahon, host of the here's where it gets interesting podcast and author of the small and the mighty is our guest tonight on c-span's q&a. she profiled lesser-known americans or change the course of american history including retail pioneers richard sears and alvah roeback, clara brown, and others. >> if you ask people who is the best person that you know, almost never will they say jeff bezos. right?

almost never will they say some tv star. they will almost always say somebody that has impacted them in some really, really important way, and very often those people are not rich or famous, they don't have daddy's money or their name on the side of the building. there are thousands of americans who have shaped the course of history, who have changed who the united states has become through their actions, but for a variety of reasons their stories have not been recorded in those boldfaced fonts in the history textbooks. >> sharon mcmahon with her book "the small and the mighty" tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> senator mitch mcconnell has

been for years in the u.s. senate. 17 of those as leader of his apology colleagues, the longest any senator has been at the top of the leadership running either political party. senator john fetterman was elected a few weeks ago in 2025. journalist michael tackett's book is called the price of power, and subtitled how mitch mcconnell mastered the senate, changed america and lost his party. the deadly washington bureau chief of the associated press conducted over 50 hours of interviews and was granted access to never before released histories. >> journalist michael tackett with his book "the price of power: how mitch mcconnell mastered the senate,hanged america and lost his party" host brian lamb. booknotes+ is available wherever

you get your podcasts. washington journal continues. >> welcome back. here to discuss some of the foreign policy changes facing the country in the incoming administration, we are joined by the executive director of the mccain institute at arizona state university. good morning. as well as the foreign policy vice president at stans together. good morning. first of all, can you talk about the background of your group, we were affiliated with and how you view funding? >> pra philanthropic organization that also works towards policy advocacy and change. we were originally founded by businessman charles koch, although we know benefit from a community of donors who share certain principles to advancing

a better america. one of the dimensions of our work focuses on foreign policy were i had been fortunate to meet foreign policy, trade and veterans affairs, not just at the va. host: and do you have any affiliation with the income demonstration? guest: we are technically nonpartisan but i acknowledge a certain valence that some people might suppose. host: and can you talk a little bit about the mccain institute and some more information about that? guest: the mccain institute was founded by the mccain family and friends in cooperation with arizona state university but we are here in washington, d.c., we operate independently. we are a nonpartisan nonprofit focus on democracy, human rights and leadership, and it's really with the spirit of john mccain advancing internationalist foreign policy and again, in order to strengthen democracy here and around the world. host: i want to talk about a

piece you recently co-authored in foreign affairs. trump must not betray america first, the case for a foreign policy that issues privacy and embraces restraint. can you talk about how you expect president-elect trump's foreign policy to differ from that of president biden, and what you think they should be doing differently? guest: i think that most observers of american foreign policy would agree that president trump has rather blithely parted ways with a lot of the orthodoxies in washington and america's role in the world. this dates back to 2016 where he was slaughtering sacred cows on the way to the white house talking about the obsolescence of nato to the potential for nuclear breakout in states and the indo pacific and kind of just questioning. i think we some more of this on the campaign trail in 2024 and

we heard more of this from running mate jd vance. jd vance obviously parted ways with the republican caucus in a number of important ways on u.s. foreign policy, not least of all with respect to ukraine. i think that some of those statements and commitments made by trump and vance helped propel their candidacy, especially in contrast to the harris-walz campaign, which embraced a lot of the orthodoxies assumed by president biden with respect to ukraine or kind of campaigning with liz cheney, things like that. so there was a studied contrast between both campaigns, and i think that trump and vance benefited from breaking. host: can you be specific about what you mean by the orthodoxy. guest: i think orthodoxies assume a sort of almost indefinite assurance of nato.

not that i think trump and vance are talking about stepping away from the alliance, but asking more of our european allies and partners to reserve their commitments. i do think that trump talking about ending the war in ukraine presents a sort of studied contrast from president biden's support at least rhetorically to the ukrainian cause. and i think that with respect to trump's track record vis-a-vis north korea, to actually commit, there are some differences here in trump's application of foreign policy, the way he talks about it, the way he intends to go about it, from president biden who i do think it's frankly kind of a mainstay of those foreign policy orthodoxies.

host: evelyn, can you sort of talk, i know we talked about the contrast between biden and trump now, but what are some of the top foreign policy challenges you see facing the united date in the incoming administration? guest: first just to add to the earlier conversation about the contrast, president biden, president obama, president george h w bush, the orthodoxy has always been america engaged, america leading a coalition of allies, working with our allies in order to create a world that is more prosperous, that fosters american foreign policy interest and economic interests. and so the alliances have been important from that perspective because we are a lot stronger and right now we are in an environment, i'm getting to your question, where the biggest challenge is the fact that we are in standout as a democracy. america is the strongest economic political and military power in the world, we shouldn't

forget that, but we are in a standoff with autocracies. china, russia, north korea, iran, but they are now working together and that is a distinction that is really important and really dangerous. we are in a world where our government needs to be actively working internationally to reduce the threats and frankly countering those autocracies from a position of strength, increasing our deterrence, increasing our diplomacy. so that is number one threat. of course there are still issues with nuclear proliferation validity climate change, few global threats host: as well. host:both of you have mentioned ukraine, i will point to a reuters article that has been reported in many places that trump says he sympathizes with russia's opposition to nato membership ukraine and president-elect donald trump settled tuesday, this is january 7, he sympathized with the russian position that ukraine

should not be a part of nato and he lamented that he will not meet russian president vladimir putin before his administration. he was asked about the future of the war in ukraine and the role of nato as well as russia's posture last week. with listen to a clip of that. >> ukraine, it is a lot more complicated. >> much more complicated because it would have never started. >> but it has started. >> not only started, cities are largely knocked down. >> to hold on the leverage in dealing with president putin, would you make a commitment to the ukrainians that you will keep supporting them? >> i wouldn't tell you if that were the case. >> provide a security guarantee if they do enter into an armistice or a cease-fire along the lines of the french and the germans. trump: you know a big part of the problem was russia, for many

years, long before putin said you could never have nato involved with ukraine. they said that. that has been written in stone. and somewhere along the line biden said no, they should be able to join nato. then russia has somebody right on their doorstep and i can understand their feelings about that. but there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation and when i heard the way that biden was negotiating i said you are going to end up in a war and it turned out to be a very bad war and he could escalate. that war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now. my view is that it was always understood. in fact, i believe that they had a deal and that biden broke it. they had a deal which would have been a satisfactory deal to ukraine and everybody else, but that biden said no, you have to be able to join nato. nobody knows more about nato than i do. years ago when i first started this, i didn't know too much about nato, i got it right anyway.

i'm the one that got in, the secretary-general is your two weeks ago saying that if it work for me, nato wouldn't even exist right now because from countries that were paying their bills at that time, 28 countries, 20 of them were not paying their bills. 21 to be exact. they weren't paying. or they were paying a very small portion. and i raised over $680 billion. that was the number he gave. by saying if you don't pay we are not going to protect you. and it soon as i said that, the money came pouring in. but obama could have said it. bush could have said it. nobody said it but me. host: the biden administration is expected to deliver about 500 million dollars weapons package to ukraine before trump takes office. obviously trump has been reported to have a pretty close relationship with russian president vladimir putin to ukraine's disadvantage. what is your take on how trump

will handle the conflict in ukraine? guest: i can't of course speak you president-elect trump's relationship with lender the i do think what he's offering is an ejection of honesty which is long overdue. we've been making frankly hollow promises to ukrainians for at least the 2008 bucharest summit when we provided a sort of gauzy pathway to membership for them, which frankly achieved the worst of all worlds, provoking russia to the response of putin and offering nothing the ukrainians by way of actual or material security commitment. so we keep talking about our ironclad assurances to ukraine, and we offer our material support in this conflict, but the understanding has long been that the alliance would not accept ukraine.

and if president trump is going to be honest with the ukrainians, i think that does less morals and the fury of injury to the ukrainians than promising something that we don't intend to deliver. host: what does an end to this conflict actually look like under a trump administration? guest: i don't know but first of all i think it is really important to correct the record. there were so much that president trump said that was historically inaccurate. the most important thing to understand is that vladimir putin is an imperialist. he wants to refashion the russian empire. it's not even just the soviet union, it's going back even further. he thinks he is now the new peter the great. he does not believe that the state of ukraine, that the ukrainian people have the right to determine their political and economic associations. that is what they have the right to do and that's what they are asking for. they are afraid that if there is a cease-fire without a security guarantee, meaning without the united states or nato saying we will come to your aid if russia tax again, russia will attack

again, and why do we know that? because vladimir putin is dead set on getting ukraine under his control. we don't want to go back to a world of empires. so president trump, if he wants peace, and he says he wants peace, the only way he's going to get peace, even though both sides are tired, is to put pressure on the russian government to allow some kind of security guarantee to ukraine. it doesn't have to be nato membership, but it needs to be a bilateral u.s.-senate ratified agreement, and only president trump can deliver that right now. post: i want to move onto another big foreign policy issue which is the ongoing war in gaza, a story here in the ap pointing out that earlier this month, congress was notified that the biden administration is planning an additional $8 billion in weapons sales to israel that would add to record of almost $18 million in aid

that the united states has given to israel since the hamas attacks in october of 2023. what are you looking for in terms of u.s. policy in the middle east under a trump administration? guest: it's a little bit similar. we need to put pressure on our ally, our partner israel to come . a certainly we need to put pressure on iran and we need to demonstrate to hamas, make it very clear that there is no future for them in the middle east and in gaza. if we can do that successfully than we can at least get the hostages home. you need to get about 100 or less hostages out of there and then we need an agreement for peace. saudi arabia, the other gulf countries can step in and help, but only if there is a cease-fire and a path towards peace. and that means we have to be negotiating. we can't just give assistance to the government of israel, we need to also make sure that they understand what our expectations

are with regard to the promising. make no mistake the bad guy here is iran and hamas, but we need a peace deal and we need the hostages home as soon as possible. guest: my crystal ball is pretty murky on this one, frankly. it's difficult for me to predict with certainty, and i appreciate her jumping into the fray here to make some assurances, which i think all sound completely sensible, but looking ahead to the trump administration, it's difficult for me to ascertain how he is going to approach this. you can imagine some call back to the imuran records which he obviously proudly conducted. you can imagine some throwback to maximum pressure on iran. this is complicated by the fact that he has also talked about negotiating with iran. he has a famous relationship with benjamin netanyahu.

one wonders how his personal style of diplomacy will engage with the myriad and complicated factors. host: we are going to be taking your calls with questions for our guests on foreign policy. ahead for the trump administration. the number for democrats, (202) 748-8000. the number for republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. another foreign policy national security issue is climate change. looking at these terrible fires happening in los angeles and obviously hurricanes becoming more severe and a variety of threats in that regard. president-elect trump set on truth social talking about this the fires are still raging, in allayed the incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out. thousands of magnificent houses are gone, many more will soon be gone. this is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our country, they just can't put

out the fires. what is wrong with them? how do you see the threats from climate change in terms of national security and our threats? guest: climate change is actually probably the number one existential threat because people can die. thankfully so far contrary to what the president-elect said, there actually happened and that many lives lost relatively speaking. 11 is too many and there may be more lives lost and that is horrible, but the reality is that we need to get a handle on mitigation. so how do we strengthen our societies, our buildings, our communities, so that we can better withstand what is already happening, and then how do we get ahead of the problems? we have policies that the biden administration put in to incentivize business to come up with more solutions, to move us to electric cars, for example. we have elon musk clearly has an entire industry betting on this for the future.

the president-elect, it is unclear exactly where he stands because he's made a lot of statements that are really very retro. we don't really know what his actual policy will be. hopefully it will before leaning, hopefully he will embrace the reality. i think the business community and the grassroots communities across america will be calling for more help from the federal government. guest: president trump is a resident of florida, undoubtedly on the front lines of some of the biggest challenges confronting us because of climate change. i suspect that his concerns for real estate values and frankly just the integrity of our material world will hopefully propel him in the right direction. i don't have a good sense of what this administration will shoulder in terms of the burdens presented by climate change. too soon to tell for me at the moment. host: during his first term he

very famously withdrew the united states from paris climate court and are taught that he would do the same again this time. guest: and unbinding treaty and one that i think is perhaps more symbolic or moral in a sense than material. i do wonder about the impact of mosque in this relationship, the bet on tesla and the proximity of him to the president. he does seem to be serving as something of a defect of diplomat at the moment. it will be interesting to see but again, it is too soon to tell. guest: and there is a china competition aspect because the chinese understand that the future is electric because of climate change and they have pivoted, but so many of the resources behind it, which is a challenge to auto industries across the world. so that is another aspect. make no mistake, an electric car is a computer that can be weaponized, beckett spy on you. there are implications here for our geopolitical contest with

china. host: hope we get a chance to chat a bit more about china with our callers but i do want to go to a comment we received v text message saying that trump wants to buy greenlands. china threatened to invade taiwan. russia invaded ukraine. peace not war. dan in pennsylvania referencing statements from the president-elect on wanting to buy greenland, also wanting to purchase the panama canal back from panama. the hill.com has a story about house republicans introducing a bill that would pave the way for trump to acquire the panama canal. before i get to your comments i do want to play a clip of president-elect trump last week when he was asked for more specifics about his plans for the panama canal and greenland. let's listen. >> let's start if we could to greenland and the panama canal. can you assure the world but as

we tried to gain control of these areas, you are not going to use the military or economic war? trump: no. >> can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is, are you going to negotiate, are you going to ask the canadians to hold, what is your strategy? trump: no, i can assure you of either of those two, but i can say this, we need them for economic security. the panama canal was built for military. i'm not going to commit to that. it might be that we will have to do something. look, the panama canal is vital to our country. it's being operated by china. china. and we gave the panama canal to panama, we didn't give it to china. and they've abused it. it should have never been made, by the way. giving the panama canal is why jimmy carter lost the election in my opinion.

more so maybe then the hostages. hostages were a big deal if you remember, and nobody wants to talk about the panama canal because it is inappropriate i guess, because it is a bad part of the carter legacy, he was a good man. look, he was a good man, i knew him a little bit and he was a very fine person that that was a big mistake. given the panama canal to panama with a big mistake. we lost 38,000 people, it cost us the equivalent of $1 trillion, probably the most expensive, they say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which i guess you can, ever built. and giving that way was a horrible thing. and i believe that is why jimmy carter lost the election even more so than the hostages. those two things. host: before we go to you, i will point out that he was a story in fox news that the panama canal ceo has denied trump's claim that china is in control of the panama canal.

thematically, some of the things that trump is talking about here would lead that reorientation that we referenced with my co-author. what i think we are looking at right now is a broader reorientation on foreign policy that is more focused on the western hemisphere. talking about greenland or the panama canal as opposed to some sort of far-flung and distant theater that has more or less monopolize our attention over the last 30 years -- host: are you referring to the middle east? guest: afghanistan, syria, etc. the thing that those places have in common is probably less strategic value to the united states than either greenman or the panama canal. greenland, there is kind of a rich history of america flirting

with and courting acquisition of greenland. this dates back to frankly seward's folly, settlement on alaska. at that time we had investigated actually acquiring greenland. fdr during the second world war more or less militarily annexed greenland with the permissions of denmark, who were unable to defend it. so they still have a military base. there's kind of a long history of america thinking about the strategic dimension of greenland with respect to the panama canal. there's probably no more vital strategic chokepoint in the western hemisphere. if we want to move naval assets from norfork to the pacific, that is where they are going through the fact that trump has expressed some concerns about chinese holdings buying the canal including at least one or two of the locks is not completely incommensurate with i

think legitimate strategic concerns that relate to frankly stuff that they factor the monroe doctrine. host: i think this is really a misguided message that president trump is sending, underlying it is a rational concern which is frankly the competition with china. there are rare earth minerals and greenland. magnesium, all kinds of things that are required frankly for the future of air industry, especially when it comes to electric vehicles. so there's rare earth minerals are important. there's also the arctic sea lands. we are having arctic sea melting and that means there is a transport area there, but it is also a military corridor, an area we need to wash because of russia. and we do have a space-based there in order to watch with the russians are doing in terms of missiles. so there is a geostrategic region because the chinese have been trying to make deals with greenland to get the rare earth minerals, and also they are interested in having control and

more access to that land in the north pole. in addition to that, there is also a competition with china for influence for trade, for ability to transit, but we don't need to threaten military force against our partners and allies. in the case of panama, we are sending transport through there. let's just focus on what the threat is, which is china. greenland is part of denmark, they have their own home rule, it is very complicated. they have historically enjoyed working with the united states to counterbalance the big government in denmark, so they will be very open to making a deal with us and in fact we've seen pushback against the chinese. i don't think the president

should be threatening military force. i do think that he should be looking at the situation and making deals in the interest of u.s. national security. host: maxi and is in kansas on the line for democrats, good morning. caller: yes, i have a comment and a question for mr. smith. first about, the comment is that the abraham accords were by negotiations with the palestinians. and my question is donald trump on the campaign trail that he could end the war in ukraine with a phone call. do you think when he made that statement that he could actually do that? thank you. guest: thank you for the question. i wish it was the case that president trump could end the war in ukraine with a phone call, but i suspect that is not

the case. i would actually love to get your thoughts on this, too. there's going to be a lot to negotiate with respect to what those security obligations look like, what territory swaps look like, what prisoner swap's look like. what the contours of this dealer going to look like, that is anybody's guess at this point in time. i can reflect upon the eisenhower administration in its negotiations to end the korean war. if i recall correctly, that took about two years and more americans in this case died in the latter two years than in the preceding time, so i think there's a lot of that before us. i do believe trump is committed to ending the war in ukraine but i don't think he could be settled with a phone call. host: i should point out that

you recently had a piece pointing out that if he is able to resolve the conflict in ukraine, one of the way that president trump could potentially win a nobel peace prize. guest: if he really wants to bring peace, and it is admirable but that he said he wants to, that's fantastic, but he could not do it with a phone call. and he could not do it if he eases up any pressure on vladimir putin right now because those sides are exhausted militarily. the ukrainians have more of a manpower problem than the russians and mostly because the russians have brought in the north koreans. putin doesn't want to mobilize more of the russian people. the ukrainians have mobilized more but they have fewer people to mobilize. when both parties are tired there is the opportunity to make a deal but the thing is, what president trump will soon figure out is that the ukrainian people, i mean it is a democracy, unlike russia which is a nominal democracy but not really, it is an autocracy. in ukraine if the ukrainian

president accepts a deal that doesn't offer a security guarantee, meaning a guarantee that russia will not re-invade, then he will he moved out of power, they will be demonstrations in the street. ukraine has to have some kind of guarantee. that means putting pressure on putin because putin wants to control ukraine and come back in. guest: can i just reflect on that briefly? i do have some concerns about an american security guarantee, only insofar as i think we've already demonstrated that america is not willing to send its sons and daughters to fight and die in the donbas. i actually worry that any american guarantee or security obligation would be dubious from the start. host: so the alternative being that you would want to see that come from european nations, from ukraine's neighbors. or nato. which could also be the united states. guest: that's correct. the reality is i don't think we

would have to put boots on the ground to defend ukraine against russia. russia right now cannot win the war against ukraine. if nato were to enter in militarily, it would be over. we would defeat russia. we don't want a war with russia but the threat of a war with russia is what would make russia back down. guest: do you worry about the potential for security escalation there, either vertical or horizontal, something like nuclear war? guest: i do not, the reason because there are a lot of factors that mitigate against vladimir putin wanting to use nuclear force even though he threatens it all the time. they would be literal fallout for him, he also doesn't know what it would mean politically for him inside of russia. he's not in a very strong position politically inside russia, let's not forget about a year and a half ago when the russian warlord leader marched on moscow and if he had had a real partner inside the military

establishment in russia he could have taken vladimir putin down. vladimir putin has demonstrated to be very weak in that instance. host: earlier this month, represented adam smith was a top democrat on the armed services committee as you both know, he was asked about the incoming trump administration and how a gop controlled congress might approach the conflict in ukraine and also continued military assistance to that nation. i'm going to play a clip of that. >> when it comes to supporting ukraine, additional weapons or money to buy them, what is your confidence level that that happens in the 119 congress with republicans controlling washington? >> it's not high. idly worry about the approach that donald trump has taken to this. look, we need a negotiating done, i completely agree. this war cannot go on forever. it has been devastating to

ukrainian to the broader world in many ways. but you don't get to a negotiating settlement if you don't fund ukraine, if you don't give ukraine the power to defend itself. if putin seizes ukraine, he will not stop. so when candidate donald trump said he opposed an additional supplemental to support ukraine, he was basically handing ukraine to the russians. has he changed his mind on that? is he going to give ukraine the power to defend themselves? if ukraine is strong and has security guarantees, but i think that forces putin to the table to negotiate. and then donald trump, the great dealmaker wants to make that happen, good for him. but there's going to be no deal to be made if you don't give ukraine the power to defend itself. host: it was a challenge to get ukraine funding through congress even when democrats were in control of the senate. what do you see ahead for funding for ukraine moving forward? guest: it would still be a

challenge but there is still bipartisan support at large, meaning in the senate. and in the house as well, it is just that there is a very vocal, powerful minority in the house, the house republicans and perhaps the speaker himself has aligned himself with assistance ukraine, so it remains to be seen how that shakes out. i think it is possible to get aid through again, but it would be a very difficult way ahead, and of course you can have a presidential veto if president trump tales to understand that peace through strength, at representative adam schiff said -- sorry, smith said, peace through strength means strengthening ukraine. guest: so agree that it could be complicated, however if president trump wants to negotiate from a position of leverage with russia regarding ultimate termination of the war, something that is both swift and solid, it may be that he will

turn to congress and request some sort of additional aid to demonstrate that leverage and show putin that he is not civilly backing out. so i can imagine circumstances such that trump in the interest of war termination goes to the congress and says this is what we need to get the job done, and this is what we need to provide ukraine to assure its defense and to give us the best position at the negotiating table. so we will have to wait and see how it plays out, but i think that is not an unforeseeable hypothetical. host: david is a new york on the line for republicans, good morning. dave, are you there? we've got you, go ahead. caller: i'm sorry. there's so many things to talk about. venezuela, cuba, this new triad of people with north korea,

iran, russia, china all working together. i think that poses the biggest danger in the very near term. and anything we can do to obstruct that relationship, be it through the relationship between trump and putin, whether the media likes it or not, that is a good thing because people who have big egos like putin and trump can get along. i just hope that the media, the elitists, the orthodoxy of the military-industrial complex who have been taking our ideology and have weakened this country, america needs to lead. i said i was going to talk about

ukraine, but there are so many issues. host: let's take this point that you raised about kind of going back to the point on orthodoxy and trump's potentially unique ability to negotiate with some of these players. guest: this is a point that i think we relay in the fa piece. it's become unfashionable in washington to negotiate and do diplomacy, especially with implacable foes. we don't like to talk to our adversaries anymore. this was once a hallmark of frankly, republican strength in foreign affairs, and i think donald trump and the art of the deal is willing to at least engage with adversaries. be it putin or kim, he has demonstrated willingness to talk, which is not a demonstration of weakness, but rather in some cases, a show strength that america can come and negotiate on behalf of their

interests, our allies and their partners. so i do think for -- this is orthodoxy. guest: i think just talking in meeting on the international stage is fruitless and can actually be dangerous because what president trump did in his previous administration was essentially bring the north korean leader out of the darkness and make him appear legitimate by putting him on the stage with the number one political and economic military power, which of the united states. and we got nothing in exchange for it. we got a little bit of freezing of the missile development, but that was scrapped as soon as the north korean leader realized he wasn't getting anywhere with the united states because president trump thankfully didn't compromise anything that was in our national security interest. same thing with vladimir putin and it was even worse when he met with vladimir putin. he said well, russia has told me they haven't interfered in our elections when our intelligence committee had told them that russia had. so he was deciding very publicly with our adversary on the international stage.

that is dangerous. speaking with leaders is important, but you have to do a lot of diplomatic round work to get it where you are actually having a fruitful conversation. guest: on the north korea front, i agree that talking without gaining is for the birds, so to speak. but actually achieving a cessation in nuclear and long-range missile test was more than we had gotten. so yes, perhaps scraps, but not nothing. i do think the instinct to actually engage with these adversaries is of critical import. i do hope that trump with at least test their mettle. guest: can i say something about venezuela? post: rich in sout korea to massachusetts said our national security depends in pa sharing information with our allies. given trims famously careless

approach to protecting classified information how do you think this will affect our working relationship with our allies? i wonder if we could talk a bit about that as well. guest: it's going to be a very slow start because allies are going to be looking can we trust president trump? we know that when he was in the oval office he met with the russian ambassador and foreign minister and gave them highly sensitive intelligence that was shared by ourselves and our israeli allies and he gave it to them right there in the oval office and we know because reported on. it was classified information. and while the president can certainly give classified information because there is an idea that the president can it declassify the resumption our when he is in office, not what he is not in office, but that is something that allies would be really nervous about, but president trump just give away some classified information? you're also concerned about his nominees including tulsa gabbert who has basically made excuses for autocratic leaders like

al-assad of syria. just a quick thing in venezuela, that is an opportunity also for president trump to make a positive difference in terms of helping bring about democratic change in venezuela, and we know that the hopefully incoming secretary of state marco rubio is motivated also to work on this part of the hemisphere, in the western hemisphere. i have to mention that a mccain global leader is being held hostage along with other americans, so he's not american, he's venezuelan, but there are many people being held hostage by the brutal regime in venezuela which is illegitimate. i just wanted to apply the caller for mentioning it. host: jeff is in new jersey on the line for independence. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. i want to just give you a little history of me.

i'm a proud american, i come from a military family. my father fought in world war ii and was awarded a purple heart which i still have. i want to ask the caller, especially the doctor a question. if russia put missiles in mexico or canada, how would we feel about that? you know, the whole thing about ukraine, the warsaw agreement, they dropped that and we kept going with nato. we broke our agreement with nato. the war in ukraine never had to happen. i'm not a fan of donald trump but what he talked about ukraine, he is speaking the truth. that is a war that never had to happen. so you put yourself in that position. host: ok, so there is another side to the story. so the history is that the cold

war, communism collapsed. the cold war meant the warsaw pact dismantle because the eastern european countries which had been under the russian soviet spray said we don't want to be part of the warsaw pact. the act shall he would prefer to be part of nato. and nato transformed itself in terms of mission as not being aligned against the soviet union because there was no soviet union between 1989 in 1991 but after that there wasn't. nato said we are going to be a collective security alliance and we are going to provide security and stability so that there can be another development. we are going to make sure that all the members of the expand make a commitment to not have war with one another, so would had as much to do with stability among countries that had border conflict in the past, that had fought one another. so what was about creating stability and security initially, not about russia. russia invaded in 2008, georgia,

a neighboring sovereign country and then of course in 2014 invaded ukraine. if you don't like nato, the way to express your discomfort with nato is not to invade other countries. so the problem really is russia in terms of what to do. ukraine is a sovereign country, it is a decision by ukraine and the nato members whether ukraine enters or not, not anything to do with russia, per se. guest: let me just reflect on the colors analogy. i don't think we have to imagine circumstances whereby russia or china places nukes close to us. we actually ran that experiment in the cuban missile crisis and we brought the world to the brink of annihilation. so i think we actually know how america would react to provocation with nuclear adversaries dropping strategic bombs pretty close to our home shores. i am a little less suede perhaps

regarding the benign neglect of nato vis-a-vis russia. i do think that when russia watched giving assurance, they were concerned, alarmed, and even if ukraine was not going into the alliance, it did appear that the alliance was going into ukraine with arms sales and upper ability. i think those concerns underlined russia's determination to alternately invade again. host:nother question we've received from text message, is israel guilty of genocide in gaza? several prominent hughts organizations have studied the situatio and find them to be guilty of that horrific crime. do you agree with them? guest: this is an easy one.

genocide is a term of international humanitarian law and is also hotly contested and debated in academia. outside of match parties, i do think what has happened in gaza is unprecedented, at least in my memory, and a tragedy on both sides. i believe my answer there. guest: i would say that genocide does imply intent. i don't believe that the israeli government is trying to eradicate the palestinian people, although there is a far right in israel and in the israeli government that doesn't want a two state solution, they want in one state solution which means that there is not a good future for the palestinian people can israel and the palestinian people, the united states government have said they have the right to their own sovereign state. the way that israel has waged war in gaza is appalling.

the overuse of military force without sufficient concern for civilian loss of life, the humanitarian cost. sidney mccain, she runs the world food program. they have said time and time again they don't have enough access provided to the israeli government to get food to the people in gaza. a lot of military assistance right now, there have been reports of freezing conditions. so it is a humanitarian catastrophe that we haven't seen the israeli government addressed properly, and that is another reason why we need to bring a cease-fire as fast as possible to address the humanitarian suffering and put us back on track with the palestinians can see a future for sounds. host: massachusetts, line for democrats. caller: i hope you guys give me enough time to answer without

cutting me off please. i'd like to see that america is the master of the inside job great, terrific. you guys funded communism, fascism and zionism. i want people to listen to a book that anthony sutton wrote a long time ago. this war was funded by both sides and it was created by the elites. it's like government and corporate fascism disguised as capitalism. so your globalist elite want to create a one world government. so that is why we are going to sit here, we are going to kill this economy, going through a crypto world government that your elite wanted. the world health organization. you will own nothing and you will be happy. is that why hollywood is burning it, because all the pedophiles -- host: ok.

guest: ok, i think that my fears of a one world government are rather subdued at the moment looking ahead to president-elect from snakes administration. if anything i think he places great emphasis on nationalism and state sovereignty. so i'm not too concerned, but all due respect to the caller. guest: i think that that sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, i'm just going to call it out as such. having said that, there is a lot of concern about elites and regular people, and that did come out in this election, it has come out in elections around the world. the capitalist market needs to be tweaked in order to better provide for more people in a way that is perceived as more legitimate and fair. host: hurricane, utah on the line for republicans, good morning. caller: thank you so much for taking my call.

i'd like to ask your very knowledgeable guests about their opinion on if the ukraine war ever would have been started from the israeli conflict we are in now if donald trump would have been elected to a second term. guest: i'll just start. ukraine war was ongoing of course one dollar trump came into office the first time. it was still ongoing when he left so i don't think that vladimir putin is afraid of donald trump and he knows vladimir putin has his interest in his agendas, he is an imperialist. he's not going to let donald trump stop insulin urgently i don't think that would have happened. on gaza, the israelis suffered a horrendous attack inside their country, but from gaza into israel. and then of course, hezbollah across the border from lebanon into israel. the israelis had no choice, they had to defend themselves and all the trouble wouldn't have even tried to stop them from doing that. it's just the way the war has

unfolded. perhaps president trump would have counseled netanyahu and he would have listened. having said that, president trump didn't try to hold president netanyahu or prime minister netanyahu accountable or bringing him in earlier. so it is really hard to predict what would have happened but i can assure you i don't think any of them changed guest: i tend to agree in this case. i think notably, the first trump administration did begin the provision of aid to ukraine, so i think there is a claim that they could make that in fact they were more hard-nosed about ukrainian security than the preceding administrations. however, i can't say with certainty that this would have closed the possibility, given the reason that i think underlie prudence determination to go into ukraine, i can't presuppose that provision of lethal aid would necessarily have taken

that away. it is difficult to say, i think part of the reason for the horrors occurring for the fact that hamas felt like the palestinian situation was being rapidly erased from the consciousness of their fellow aarons, and if you saw further normalization between israel and their large arab states, the palestinian cause would simply cease to exist. so if you pursued additional treaty lines along the lines of the abraham accords, i can't say with certainty that that would have done anything to remove the concerns that perhaps motivated hamas. guests: in the last couple minutes we have left, we will take one more caller. ryan is in albuquerque, new

mexico, good morning. caller: i'd like to go back to israel and focus on the west bank. corporate media pays very little attention to what is going on in the west bank. i find it really appalling that the israelis are asking for money, asking for money to support them, and then we've had multiple american presidents. and then a few months later we have them another -- host: what is your question? caller: why don't you tell america with the palestinians are going to be at the end of trump's term? are we going to allow the israelis to just push them out of the country? host: we are out of time. guest: i was in israel in june. i wake to the west bank. it is really pretty horrible. we had a history and i think our caller alluded to it, under george w. bush, under his

father, under successive presidents, of course clinton who brokered the oslo accords, every president has told the israelis to stop building settlements in the west bank because it goes counter to the oslo accords and the future that we promised the palestinian people and the israeli people in order to have peace in the region. and that is a two state solution. if they start making all these settlements in the west bank that is the territory that the palestinians would have to have their futures state. and so the west bank is also becoming an area where you can see palestinians rising up right now what is happening is the israelis are forcibly removing people from their towns and the united states government under president biden was also kind of slow to act on this they said no settlements but they were also very slow with sanctions. the government that is right now sitting in power under prime minister netanyahu's are right government and unfortunately they do not, they are not

fostering a two state solution for a stable middle east. guest: i agree with all of the above. i actually lived in the west bank when i was in grad school in bethlehem and the obvious impact of occupation settlemente to ignore. it's gotten worse since then. it's been accelerated, ultimately to work some sort of viable deal one would imagine between say israel and some sort of triangular normalization with saudi arabia you would have to imagine the trump would insist on putting the brakes on settlements in the west bank, whether or not israel is willing or able to -- >> but he did not do that in his first term and many are funding the far-right movement and the violence. host: we will have to ended

their bread we could talk for hours longer. thank you very much the desired -- executive director of the mccain institute at arizona state university. in the foreign policy vice president of stand together. then you expertise this morning. coming up next we will hear from business journalist and host of npr's full disclosure to discuss the financial and economic stories you may want to watch in the year ahead. we will be right back. ♪ >> kentucky senator mitch mcconnell has spent 40 years on the united states senate, 17 of those as leader of his or public and colleagues, the longest any senator has been at the top of the leadership wrong and either

political party. senator john thune was elected a few weeks ago to head up the republican majority in the senate in 2025. journalist michael tactics book a profile of senator mcconnell was called the price of power and subtitled how mitch mcconnell mastered the senate and changed america and lost his party. the deputy washington bureau chief in the associated press conducted over 50 hours of interviews and was granted access to never before released histories. >> journalist michael tackett with his boothe price of power. on this episode of book notes with our host brian lamb. notes plus is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. witness democracy unfiltered with c-span, experience history as it unfolds with c-span's live

coverage this month as a republicans take control both chambers of powers and a new chapter begins with the swearing in of the 47th president of the united states. on monday, january 20, tune into our live coverage as donald trump takes the oath of office. stay with c-span this month for comprehensive live unfiltered coverage of the 100 19th congress and the presidential inauguration, c-span democracy unfilter. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store browse through our latest collection of c-span products apparel, books, home to core and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase help support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> washington journal continues.

>> welcome back we are joined now by the host of public radios for disclosure. i'll come to the washington journal. >> thank you for having me. host: let's get a chat about the big economic stories in the year ahead, but first what is full disclosure can you talk a bit about the program and where people can find you. >> we prepare in small batches its artisanal he sourced and you can find it on the npr app wherever you get your podcasts. spotify, apple podcasts and it's roughly about the business of culture. we delve into everything from markets to policy, media and technology, a foreign affairs or whatever really fascinates me that i would like to hold in fascination. host: where do you see the economy headed in 2025, the big economic trends you are watching. host: in one respect i think we have a first world problem in

that we keep creating way too many jobs -- more than a quarter million jobs created in the latest tally which was about 100,000 more than expected. this would be great because we have been crushing it coming out of the depths of the pandemic now for the better part of five years, but so many people had banked on the federal reserve finding enough weakness and enough pullback in inflation in job growth to cut rates and the fed seems to have everybody on hold for a while. they put us on ice. we are in this i wouldn't call it purgatory, but with so many people with expectations and rate cuts and clearly the sugar rush of market highs on the trump win, than there is the sobriety evaluations and potential for tariffs. what if inflation sticks around longer than we imagine. it's kind of temperate for the time being. >> speaking of the fed there was

a lot of talk last year about whether or not the fed had engineered a soft landing of the economic recovery do you think we are on track to that. >> we keep creating jobs per there hasn't been a pullback in jobs. there hasn't been a sign of deflation. nothing like what we anticipated. how did the first quarter of 2000 when we visited unemployment in the mid teens a couple of weeks of course that was an extraordinary exhaustion this shock. even back to 2010 and 2011 the united states has been the envy of the world and the powell fed has indeed so far been able to land this. in the past when you had inflation the likes of which we saw three years ago you kind of have to hike in a way that would take the economy to a recession to break the back of inflation with what we had to do in the early 1980's. indeed the fed did take up rates quite a bit in 12 months and 15

months but that did not crash the economy. it showed how much was still sloshing out there from the pandemic and how resilient this economy was. we are well into full employment, the problem is inflation remained stubbornly above the feds. >> there are also members of the fed including mary -- mary daly in this article who warned that some of the policies of the incoming trump administration could potentially contribute to inflation, what are your thoughts on that? guest: who pays for tariffs ultimately? getting that multilateral warfare, u.s. consumers who already have to suffer through inflation price hikes, they still get a shock in the grocery aisle at target and walmart, various things. the fear is that china has been exporting what would have been inflationary in china. they kind of need inflation

right now. need is stagnating and they need the manufacturing vessel to run on full tilt sore they dumping their wares in the united states that tends down the deflationary effect. if we are in a terror for certainly people are no mood to feel that right now on top of the price increases in the product shrinkage if you will. >> what about one of the other big elements of trump's agenda he's talked about which are mass deportations. what impact do you see that potentially having on the economy if they roll out the way trump has said they would. >> talk to any restaurant owner where in the past the chamber of commerce would kind of look the other way as regards to all sorts. throwing a lot of baby out with the bathwater if you just have these mass deportations it will have a chilling effect on even legal immigrants or people in the process of seeking that legality.

we have a shock in the service sector at least with hospitality there aren't enough people out there even if the wage prevails at something like $15 an hour which is well north of the federal minimum wage. is it can have an even more chilling effect on the labor market right now which is inflationary. they will have to sweeten the pot and pay people more and then pass those through two service costs or in some respect is a great investor i spoke taking the shock of inflation right now our time. the time it takes to get seated or served at a restaurant or to pursue -- professional services which is understaffed. >> we will be taking your questions on inflation and the broader economy anything you would like to ask robin prater number for democrats. 202-748-8000. republicans 202-748-8001. independents 202-748-8002.

before we get to the callers are there any other big economic stories you may be watching in the year ahead that maybe aren't getting the attention you think they should. >> i'm still fascinated by this tipping tug-of-war. have people completely had it with tipflation. we saw unbelievable generosity with tip paying and the new prompt with the ipad payment systems across the industry and now i guess the prevailing mood is is this too much, where you draw the line. it's also caused a chasm between management and labor. if you look at the labor situation at starbucks just try to organize itself, the servers want a more standardized tipped prompt. they want something this unified with the app. so the a trends amount of tip fatigue right there.

i think it's endemic people are just negotiable -- getting nickel and dime to everywhere. i mentioned this before but shrinkflation, this idea you could literally cut corners on product and even charge more on it. they notice the size of the cereal box, of the size of the croissant of the cafe it's just smaller and you're charging me more for it and on top of that of being asked to tip so there is a breaking point and one other headline for you is i'm still fascinated by this return to office tug-of-war. see j.p. morgan and others mandating for five days a week back at the office. i wonder if that results in some sort of reverse outcome where the cream of your performance review crop says i don't have to deal with this i will make myself available on linkedin and go elsewhere or maybe they are more tolerant. there will be the haves and the

have-nots bifurcation. >> this is one of the things that elon musk and the potential department of government efficiency group has talked about, using a return to office mandate for federal workers as a way to intentionally reduce the size of the federal workforce. what do you see is the sort of economic implications of some of the things that group is calling for. guest: that's called managing people out, you make the job less pleasant. you reduce the flexibility. this is a big problem right now for federal office spends. if you go to washington dc or around the country, it's unbelievable. even if you have people back in the office three out of five days of the week. their people doing -- they sip the coffee and they leave.

there is this broad realization you could be substantially as productive as you were back in the pre-pandemic without having to get on a commuter train, without having to do with bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate and i think that's a battle for the soul between capital and labor. unfortunately a lot of that will diminish for workers when and if the unemployment rate shoots up. you get a lot more honesty in terms of what they're willing to do when a plum is twice what it is. >> james is in akron, ohio on a line for democrats per good morning james. >> i have three items. i don't think the inflation is bad other than the cost of poultry product and i think that has to do with the bird flu and things are killing poultry by the millions. i think donald trump made it a political item invaded worse

replica purposes. the other thing is been going on for quite some time is the cost of insurance. my automobile insurance in my home insurance has been constant going up for the last eight years. and the third thing that's really craving a problem is the ability of the big companies to kind of put a kibosh on social security instead of social security being something that is livable, most seniors almost every senior i know that's counting on social security they are eligible for food stamps and everything else. when you look at the other 30 industrialized countries, that's not a problem. i don't know why we have that problem here.

thank you. >> that's the inflation related to the price of eggs and poultry due to the bird flu and there's a story here in the washington post that egg prices continue to climb amid the bird flu outbreak , empty shells and eye-popping prices aren't going anywhere. maybe we can circle back on home insurance and social security. guest: i don't think the person at the grocery store, a lot of stores of loss leaders. this is something that gets you in the door to buy prepared foods and other things on a much higher margin in a low margin business. it's not like anyone likes charging four dollars for eggs. it is something that is subsidized through the agriculture industry. it's very wasteful industry. in the same tone i would say

very few people actually stop and look at that of $3.50 and say it's because of bird flu. i think they are angry. we sustainably had price hikes is more expensive eggs, you talk about the cliche of bread-and-butter issues. eggs is a corollary it's adjacent to that. so don't think people are as forgiving. the longer this persists under president-elect trump, they will blame him as well. much of the inflation happened as a result of the economic interventions from the pandemic. insurance is something that really creeps up on you. a lot of people whether car insurance or home insurance they only checked their statements every now and then they might be built -- build once or twice. they strategically have been pushed through premium hikes. and that is annoying people, the group that increasingly with greed flechette and, a 500

companies increasingly squeezing at a time when it wasn't really great for them. you had a drop off and drivers, and there's a tremendous amount of anger towards the insurance industry writ large. >> speaking specific of home insurance this is become quite the big story in relation to the fires raging in los angeles is a story in the l.a. times here they lost their home insurance policies, then came the fires. we are seeing people dropped from policies in fire prone areas, hurricane prone areas and this has become an increasing affordability issues for many homeowners. guest: my hometown in miami, if something were to happen with a category five hurricane or constant atmospheric rivers these flooding situations happened or the sealevel rise

become so inexorable you will have insurance companies pull out in the state has to become the insurer of last resort. those are prohibitively priced plans and they are very stingy in terms of the payout. some economists would argue the market is working in that case if you're going to live in an area has a disproportionate brush fire risk for flooding risk increasingly across the coast and the boundaries of the united states at the gulf region, the mid-atlantic areas of virginia beach that are increasingly prone to flood, this is happening in new england. we saw this in new york with superstorm stand -- sandy. no one is immune to the effects of climate change. and the insurance industry cover itself first. host: very briefly on social security before we get back to the calls. guest: i felt that very personally last year. my father's decline in realizing what you have to have two have a

dignified end-of-life care. in a facility and the caller really spoke to it beautifully. you have to show poverty or you have to be very wealthy. those who out there on social security inevitably nine a 10 seem to rely on other government programs to support them. there is a very frayed safety net, people are living longer, they're more lonely people out there. the system is so aggressively means tested the you can't really buy a great long-term care insurance plan. the solvency of that industry is really questioned so the surreal call cliff. -- so there is this real cliff in 2020 five years. that has to get in line with so many other pressing issues that will confront this administration and capitol hill. host: indiana on our line for independent.

good morning. guest: i had a couple of -- caller: i had a couple of questions on tariffs and the last comment about health care. nobody ever seems to talk about tariffs that are given against our products, which has caused in the past us to lose market share and the production that employs people. the other thing about social security, which i've never heard anybody talk about is how many people are passing away before they have a chance to --

host: to take their benefits. caller: or if they pass away before they use all their benefits, where does that money go. host: respond on tariffs on u.s. products as well as were all that social security money goes. >> the big dividend from nafta with all these former presidents of both parties looking on there's a tremendous amount of bipartisanship. and donald trump of course in his first term came in and retooled nafta. there is a big dividend to enjoy if you go into a walmart which by itself would be one of the largest trading nations on the planet. you can buy things that you are not able to buy in 20 -- from 20

or 30 years ago. so that is something or even looking at the availability of produce, the availability of avocados. the eligibility of a's avocado whose demand has exploded, these are all functions of free trade without being larded up and gummed up by tariffs. so the evidence is out there to see which industries here have been protected successfully by tariffs. we do know there is some sort of asymmetric warfare, but china has national champions, china backs certain telco players, a power players. we don't know where the public sector ends and the private sector begins and that's kind of more pronounced in the united states. the chinese can say look who bailed out general motors and 2008 and 2009. there is stuff all over the place. even elon musk, who we want to call him like something of a prime minister or great eminence

for president-elect trump, his company benefited greatly from government largess and benefits and backing. and maybe not to the extent it's a national champion the way one of the big two or three is, but here he is right now one of the wealthiest people on the planet if not the wealthiest the toggles day in and day out and he's used his money to have an outsized megaphone so that should be a case study onto itself. >> any thoughts on social security, the question about what happens to benefits. >> there are survivorship benefits but we simply -- it is simply confusing for people. overwhelmingly you get the impression life expectancy coming out of the pandemic but as people live longer and as their children have to understand they might not have what it takes to house mom and dad to pay for groceries and the like, there's a commenced amount of confusion over it.

and speaking to any widow about this. any family trying to decide between the pension that overwhelmingly no longer exists because 401(k)s if you have a benefit plan it replaced some of the. more and more people are depending on that social security. >> john's and shingle springs california on our line for democrats. -- jonah excuse me. caller: how are you. host: alan is in connecticut on our line for republicans. good morning allen. caller: good sunday morning to you. my question is this. write down the street from me is a charles schwab. i would like to have his opinion on what professional expertise a

professional wealth manager or investment strategist would have like schwab, t. rowe price or oppenheimer rather than doing it yourself. guest: that industry, this is an interesting question. i cannot recommend clearly advisors or stocks or strategies, but what has happened quietly over the last five to seven years is the death of the equity commission. time was you would have to call the broker and pay a lot, of the bid ask spread, there was a lot in terms of waste, in terms of what would happen in the industry has moved enormously self-directed investing and index funds paid and ultra low cost exchange traded funds char liquid. the democratization of investing is fascinating. having said that there's a multitrillion dollar transfer of wealth happening from the boomer

and greatest generations down onto gen x and millenials. overwhelmingly generations that have not been tuned into the stock market. if you look at the volatility and letdowns of the past 20 journey five years. so there is a huge demand on wall street to find out how you get to the heart of these investments. if you go to silicon valley some of the young investors with robo advisors even with the benefit of ai. you get have very dispassionately managed computer manage portfolios. there are others who love the handholding, who want to call financial advisor and when the market is down 10 to 20%. so it's wide open there. in the complication with crypto. we don't even know, that's broken heights we've never seen, it would been unimaginable to a person holding crypto in 2012 to

see where that cross the hundred thousand dollars recently. there is a debate whether you should own crypto assets and so advisors i think there's more of an emphasis right now for that handholding. are you willing to pay what these firms are asking and that's the trade-off you get. it's ultracheap and do-it-yourself. if you're out there indexing. but sometimes it can get lonely. host: julian is in meridian, connecticut. caller: hello. the previous question leads into my question per death perfectly. democratization of financial services and my question is with the new administration and its crypto currency policy, the biden administration has been quite anti-crypto and there's a stark difference in the trump

administration with her guards to the attitude towards crypto and crypto policy. if you could talk about what you think in 22 -- what might happen impacting the actual economy and what that would mean for gen xers and baby boomers as well. guest: elon musk, the oligarchy -- they seem to attract love crypto adjacent attention. and so that's been a great vibe. since trump selection. in november. i don't know what in the way of policy taking down sec or any street impediments to more easily marketing or transacting cryptocurrencies. it's amazing how history rhymes

we are nearing the hundred anniversary of the great crash of 1929. under tremendous amount of speculation and people hawking all manner of products before the security administration. we've had 100 years of learning the hard way from worldcom in the crash of 87 and junk bonds and insider trading spread i'm not convinced that folks in the u.s. senate and house of representatives are some of the regular tory bodies are up to speed on some of thing is newfangled and hard to explain as crypto so it's susceptible to a lot of volatility on the upside and downside. in various things happen if you see a crypto exchange fail which we've had with at san bankman-fried saga a couple years ago, how will that affect the market. a lot of psychology of play. i think a lot of the exuberance you have on crypto friendly

administration that has to play out over the long term. >> historian bloomberg. how trump came around to crypto and what crypto wants in return which says in part president-elect donald trump was one skeptical of digital assets saying bitcoin seems like a scam and that crypto's value was based on thin air. times have changed, during his latest presidential campaign he pivoted to a crypto cheerleader. a july speech cap his complete about-face since his reelection prices have surged specially bitcoin which hit a record high in december amid expectations that his incoming administration will pursue a pro crypto agenda. let's get back to the calls. kelly is in clinton, louisiana on our line for republicans. caller: good morning. i would just like to say i have

full confidence in president trump. i think he is a great man. and i don't want to be unfair. it seems we are bypassing president biden. are you there? host: who is bypassing present abiding? caller: we are not speaking of what the last four years have been -- what's happened under president biden. host: what specifically are you talking about? caller: all the stuff that's happened it's negative. let me just say we are under a dark cloud since biden was elected. and that's a true fact. and so i have full confidence that the light of president trump is going to shine through.

forever for all americans, whether you are democrat, republican, independent. there are those that want to stop the light. host: kelly, in terms of actual economic policies and how the economy is doing, what specifically are you talking about under the biden administration that you think didn't work that you think will be done differently. caller: at the beginning when he sat at his desk and he had a stack of executive orders that he got rid of when he tried to sell the wall, the border wall. all of these things were negative. host: i think we got the idea. let's go to matthew in michigan on our line for democrats. good morning matthew. caller: good morning. you talk about the food inflation. i think one of the things we could do is 40% of our craft

land is used to raise ethanol. we pump oil like crazy. we could use that land to grow food and they don't want to subsidize it because they subsidize the ethanol production for the farmers. subsidize the food, i think that would be a great thing. guest: especially when oil breaks a certain level of gasoline a certain lovely search see this debate of food versus fuel. it's zero-sum if you're denoted -- devoted acreage and photosynthesis to the growth of corn that will be an input for biofuels or biodiesel, ethanol. that has been a very difficult how would you say, beneficiary to tune out the last several decades. various independent present candidates run against it, you have influential western states and farmers who are loath to give that up and candidates who

are loath to speak truth to it, but if you have low gas prices, if you have an overabundance of hydrocarbons coming out of the shale formations in the united states oil patch then you really don't have much of a market for ethanol, that this corn is very much needed at the time of food inflation. word makes sense to commit this to grains and cereals and foodstuffs if you will. so i think the -- right now this has been eclipsed because food has been so costly and it's worthwhile and certain farmers and assets you look at certain other commodities it makes sense to grow that an increase production of that and sell into that as opposed to diverting that for the production of fuel. but test that. host: lee roy our line for

independence. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. you mentioned general motors, what you don't seem to get is china has almost unlimited excess production capacity. they're sharing it with africa, central america, south america and that area. you guys -- i don't know if you just don't see it, but you don't mention it. what i would like you to do is consider that. thank you for taking my call. guest: the big concern with respect to china and they think it's fascinating and the proximity of the tesla ceo elon musk to the president-elect is this enormous fear and loathing in detroit among the big two and a half and among tesla of these ultracheap chinese vehicles.

we've done various episodes, pyd, the chinese ev maker can churn these out, i don't know if it's profitable or not, but 10,000, $15,000 vehicles. you might think to the smartphone and how their premium smartphones but there are smartphone models or tablet models you can buy at a cvs or walgreens that get the job done. the fear is that the chinese are able to inundate the united states with these vehicles through mexico, certain production limitations in terms of having to have vehicle substantially manufactured in the united states, their union protections. but that something you can look at the ceo ford hanging onto a chinese model he recently borrowed and is refusing to let it go because he so fascinated and of stencil he scooped by this. so there is a huge concern right there. it's been a bring up

protectionism versus progress, would you rather flood the plane with ultracheap ev vehicles making it possible to accelerate the adoption of charging infrastructure, much like the iphone's introduction 18 years ago. completely changed the phone market, the mobile market. it was 2007. i remember it would've been unthinkable. people are holding the same this is great but why do we need a better phone and you might say i have a dumb vehicle right now and i want a smart vehicle. and there is concern over that. will protection be enough to keep those cars out of the system in the united states. already we are seeing nissan potentially talking to honda about a merger. we have other tertiary players pulling back and that distress will extend to detroit as well.

host: terrel on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: happy new year. i saw that interview with bloomberg with donald trump about crypto. that's an old article. what i want to ask the gentleman is how much did crypto contribute to donald trump's campaign? guest: i don't know how much. are you talking a financial amount of crypto donated? caller: yes. when he changed his mind, of interview bloomberg did her donald trump say that he didn't know much about crypto and he would prefer the dollar. that's the same article kimberly was talking about. i saw that about a year and a half ago. guest: it is a fair question. i think his proximity and popularity with young non-college-educated males, as

evidence by going on the joe rogan podcast, he was very smart about going on the shows and espousing elon musk in the galaxy around him, elon musk has had dalliances i think with doge coyne and other things in the past. this general feeling by even going on a joe rogan podcast, i think -- you think about crypto brose in miami or other parts of the country and they would find that amenable. the fact he would go on a podcast is popular with young men and hold forth -- hold court for several hours. that's really without precedent in electoral history. he used to be so guarded and careful. that's one of the bigger stories out of this election is the access, the podcasts that some of these candidates went on and where the attention especially for younger americans shifted

away from legacy media. host: i was not able to find more recent article but there was a story from cnbc back in october that found trump's pack had raised about 7.5 million dollars in crypto donations since early june of that year. obviously that was with a little under a month to go before the election and we are waiting on more recent numbers since then. that's all of the time we have, but thank you so much for your time, the host of public radios for disclosure. thank you for joining us this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: thank you to everybody who called in with your questions. we will be back shortly with open forum ready for your questions and comments and other thoughts about foreign policy, domestic policy, whatever is on your mind. phone numbers are on your screen, you can start calling and right now. we will be right back. ♪

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here is a story from the associated press. los angeles wildfires death toll rises as crews fight heavy winds to save homes and landmarks. with the story saying the death toll from the wildfires ravaging the los angeles area rose to 16 as crews battled to coffee spreading blazes before potentially strong winds returned to push the flames towards some of the cities tour most famous landmarks. five of the deaths were attributed to the palisades fire and 11 resulting from the eaton fire. terrible images coming out of those fires. the previous numbers of confirmed fatalities before saturday was 11. official said they expect that figure to rise as teams conduct grid searches in neighborhoods. following up on our previous segment about the economy, we

received a message on x who points out the stock market and the average citizen have different goals, especially when it comes to the economy. your thoughts in open forum. we will start in -- with tony in texas on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. i wanted to speak on the gentleman who was there before about if a person dies. i came in with that conversation and i missed out on what happens if a person dies who is on medicare. my next question is it appears the insurance companies changing from medicare aetna medicare or humana medicare and my question is what happened to medicare being 80% and your supplemental insurance paying 20%? all of that has changed completely. i'm a senior citizen trying to

find out what in the world is going on. i'm sorry to bring this this early in the morning but i thank you for the call. host: thank you for your call. i believe that you are referencing are the medicare advantage plans that are run through private insurance companies to supplement medicare. medicare.gov has a page with information about that that describes those medicare advantage plans along with some suggestions for how to navigate that so if you go to medicare.gov you can find some information about those and how they differ from reddit -- regular medicare. rodni in san antonio, texas. caller: i want to quote roe v. wade. let the 50 governors figure out what's cannot go on. i wanted all to go back to the

governors. i want the federal government to go back to foreign policy. i don't wanted really doing anything. epa, all of those things. let them decide what they will do with their state. let the governor of texas decide what he's going to do with his state. get closer to the people than the federal government which is in washington dc. that's my opinion. host: bob is in maine on our line for independence. caller: i would like to dovetail back to the economy and the second you had before. this book i read recently called finding our compass: setting a course for democracy to succeed written by robert raymond and they put forth an economic theory called oaktree economics.

and in that theory he talks about the redistribution of wealth and points out that capitalism itself is a redistribution of wealth from the consumer to the business owner or service provider. and in order to get that money back down to people who spend it, he points out it needs to be done through social programs because you can't keep printing money, you can keep extending credit to people who don't deserve the credit in order to float the economy. a lot of time when republicans get in office they float the economy through federal spending. you look at reagan and he doubled the entire federal budget, tripled the debt during his years. if we are going to do it sustainably, a sustainable economy, then you have to

redistribute some of the wealth from the top back down to the bottom to be spent again. i just wanted to make that point on the economy and that a great book. host: gordon in cincinnati on our line for democrats. caller: i would like to know they want to extend the budget for trillion dollars for elon musk to take $2 trillion away from the spending. if you look at the stock market, i've been watching it because i'm ready to retire and i keep losing money every day and that's trump talking about tariffs and all the other stuff he is talking about. canada, i don't know. but a rich man doesn't want to help the poor man out. thank you. host: frank is in silver creek,

georgia on our line for republicans. caller: good morning. i want to make a few comments, i tried to when you had to talking heads on. two of them. one with the mccain institute i understand and she talked about nato and how would promote economic development in europe and i thought well let's see here, russia, 140 million people , they are no threat to america. they are a threat to europe however, western europe because when putin was president he did not make nato back bill those troops. if they put those troops back in europe, europe should've done their part, russia would've seen

i won't mess with western europe and joe biden is responsible for pushing putin in a corner to develop an allegiance with north korea, china and iran. the second point i want to make is the economy. the economy has always been based on gdp, not how many jobs you create. those jobs are for people retired and leaving the workforce. he's got a bring chip making companies from taiwan and china to america. we've already got foreign investors in this country and what's can happen when they say ok, we will close up our factories and pull out of your country. that's economic warfare setting us up. give it to a democrat and they will screw it up. host: steve is in florence, alabama on our line for independence.

good morning steve. caller: good morning kimberly. thanks for c-span and for allowing us to give our opinions . i just wanted to say a few things briefly. there is a saying in the towel mode that if you control what a man knows, if you control what a man knows you control what he thinks. it's occurred to me listening to washington journal over a lengthy period of time, the reference to facts and the facts checking, i've noticed sometimes there is a qualifying word. the listener should listen carefully. there are so many lawyers that will argue as this is a fact. the country is overrun with lawyers and they could be one for qualifying word in a statement that can render a

statement which misleads people to say well this is the fact. so you are wrong about this or that. beware of legal speak when it comes to fact checking. the other thing is i am very distressed about what israel is doing with the palestinians, but i am horrified by what the international elites are doing to the citizenry, principally the white citizenry of russia and ukraine. there militaries, all of that which was pointed out by getting them to fight and kill each other. america listen, do not allow yourself to be tricked into volunteering for military service. do not allow yourself to be drafted to leave your home and

family and go to some foreign land where you will be pitted against your own kind in order that you be eradicated. host: ron is in new hampshire on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. i'm going to try and touch and a couple of things. a guy earlier i believe he was -- i don't believe any state in the united states should have -- able to tell a woman that she has to give birth. ukraine, russia, nobody attacked russia. russia attacked ukraine. as far as i know it's always been in america's best interest, sort of our credo to hold up

democracy and this is a fledgling democracy and it has a lot of repercussions for our friends over in europe. i think we are doing the right thing. i have to say i'm so proud to have convicted felon as my leader now again. it's so great. somebody with no moral standards or ethics. somebody that every american should look up to. republicans are taking us right to it. thank you. host: pat is in north dakota on our line for independents. good morning pat. caller: good morning. i just want to say i would like c-span to have something on air about money going digital. i've tried to buy some check

blanks and they're not allowing you to have as many. sometimes they charge you a fee if you pay by mail. so they are just trying to force you into going online to do your banking. i think the american people would like to have something to say about this and they are not consulting us at all. that's all i have to say, thanks. host: pat was referencing the decline in the use of checks. this is something that's been tracked by the federal reserve bank of atlanta which found global data track the decades long decline in check payments from around the world pride we have more evidence people are shifting from checks to other means of non-cash payments are using data from the bank for international systems they found from 2012 to 22 anyone in all 20 countries they examined the number of checks declined as the

number of cashless payments increased since checks are cashless payment instruments they increase even as a component of this calculation declined. wanda is in chico, california on our line for republicans. caller: this is an incident i'm just calling about in california. i was walking my dog down the sidewalk about a month ago and there was a fire right in the middle of the sidewalk and it was right after several school buses had stopped by to pick up a bunch of kids, so it wasn't a very big fire but it would have been because of dead leaves all around it and i stomped it out and i saw dust told the police about it. i think a lot of these fires are arson. host: john is in madison,

wisconsin our line for democrats. caller: hello. i have family in utah and colorado. i love wisconsin because of the cheese and soybeans and corn. i'm originally from illinois and illinois is going to become a great state in the near future i think because of jamie pritzker and because los angeles doesn't have much water and i think chicago will become a lot bigger city. thank you. host: thank you everyone who called in for open forum and all of our other segments on washington journal today. i will point out that tomorrow, president biden is set to deliver a capstone address on his foreign policy legacy as he makes way for trump's return as reported here in the associated press, this is going to be the outgoing president is expected

to use his address at the state department to highlight his administration's efforts to expand nato, a rally dozens of allies to provide ukraine with a steady stream of military aid to fight russia, forge a historic agreement between japan and south korea to expand security and economic cooperation and more according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity. he also picked state department first first major policy speech nearly four years ago. we will be carrying that speech of course live on c-span and our website c-span.org. thank you to everybody who joined us for washington journal. we will be back with another edition at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a great day. [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. 2025] ♪