>> coming up this morning on washington journal, we will ke your calls and comments live. we will hear from christine on themui -- mui on the decision to uphold thean of tiktok. and united policy holder amy bach talk to us about the climate disasters on the u.s. insurance markets and consumers. washington journal is next. join the conversation. ♪ host: this is washington journal for saturday, january 18. the supreme court announced a unanimous decision to uphold a federal law effectively banning

the popular social video at, tiktok. president trump announced his inauguration will be moved indoors due to dangerously cold temperatures expected in washington, d.c. on monday. it is the first hour of today's program, we want to hear your thoughts on those stories. the democrats line is (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. an independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text your comments at (202) 748-8002 --(202) 748-8003. be sure to include your name and city. you can also post a question or comment on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. or on x at c-span do bj. good morning and thank you for being with us on this saturday. one of the stories we are following for the first hour is the announcement from president

elect, trump that his inauguration will be held indoors. looking at the front page of this morning's washington post, there is a photo, the caption worker catches his breath friday at the national mall as he and others remove the chairs that had previously been set up. the headline icy blast sends inauguration inside. the article, saying president elect, trump on friday ordered his inauguration moved indoors for the first time in four decades. a sudden, whether induced change that caused a scramble for thousands of people who spent months planning for the swearing in of the nation's 47th president. law-enforcement enforcement officials called emergency meetings. numbers of congress learned about changes in the media and fielded hundreds of calls from confused constituents who had tickets to the festivities. workers inside the capitol rotunda where trump will take

the oval office quickly got to work assembling a new podium and scores of people from across the country who had bought flights and booked hotels reconsidered their trip to the nation's capital. it goes on to say 220,000 tickets disturbed by the joint congressional committee on inaugural ceremonies, a bipartisan group responsible for planning the event will now be commemorative. ticketed guests will not be able to attend the ceremony in person. the capital one arena, where trump said supporters could watch the swearing in can seat up to 20,000 people. we will have more on that story as well as the other story we are talking about, the supreme court's decision to uphold the ban on tiktok. joining us to give us more details about the decision is

christina mui, a tech reporter for politico. thank you for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: why don't we start with the decision by the supreme court, it was unanimous. what did they focus on? guest: they focused -- the justices focused specifically on two concerns congress had when they passed this law. the first was the potential that chinese control of bytedance, tiktok's parent company could compel the company to hand over american assessment data for 170 million americans. the second was the potential they could somehow manipulate the content of the platform. in a way that pushes pro-china and anti-american propaganda. the justices were a lot more

concerned about the data risk than the content manipulation risk. i came across in their ruling which was that the data collection threat alone, they found that the law does not violate the first amendment as the group of creators has been arguing through the courts, all the way up to be supreme court. host: what has been the reaction to the decision on tiktok from the white house and creators? guest: there has been a flurry of reactions. from the white house, their reaction started on wednesday and following into thursday. they preemptively -- there were some murmurings the white house might consider issuing an extension. the president has the power to issue a 90 day extension and

then that was struck down. there immediate reaction was that that was replaced with a new clause president biden could use which was that he could choose not to enforce the law is what it sounded like they were saying. that was the reaction we saw on friday from the white house, given the timing, taking place on president biden's last day and one day before incoming president elect trump comes in, they would pass the implementation of the law to the next administration, that is how the white house secretary put it. trump's reaction was that the supreme court decision must be respected. he left the door open for him to take other action. he said there is more to come, stay tuned. tiktok's reaction was similarly, the ceo, jumped on his own platform and he posted a video doing two things. the first was also previewing

the comments. and the second was appealing to president elect trump. he has made a request to the supreme court to buy more time. he wants to broker a deal that will keep tiktok running in the u.s. he thanked the president for being on the platform himself. he referenced the president elects reach on the platform. that is something the president elect talked about himself and his plans to save the platform. he also said they are going to try to keep the app up for users to come. tiktok came out with another update that they had not received enough assurance from president biden about whether the administration would enforce the law on day one and that they were going to go dark.

and so, that's been the flurry of the updates so far. it's been a whirlwind. host: your most recent headline in politico, tiktok pressures biden at last minute, says it will go dark. the app is set to go -- that is set to happen tomorrow. the band goes into effect -- the ban goes into effect if president biden doesn't step in. what will potential users see if that happens? guest: tiktok saying it is going to go dark, that was referring to last nights update from tiktok. that could be the more to come the ceo previewed. my interpretation of that is it is confirming an option that recent reports said tiktok has been considering. which is that it would switch off the app tomorrow for all users. the assumption is that how that

is enforced is against other service requires. they would have the responsibility of taking tiktok down tomorrow. in that case, there can't be downloads on tiktok. if you have tiktok on your phone, it won't go away immediately. saying the app will go dark appears to change that. that appears that tiktok itself will make it so that even if you already have tiktok on your phone, you won't be able to access the feed and those recent reports suggest it would replace that feed with a pop-up informing the ban of the law. host: the way around a potential ban is for bytedance to sell tiktok. what do we know about any potential acquirers or people interested in buying the app?

guest: that would be the easiest way for this to go away for tiktok. we do know some of the potential buyers. frank mccourt is a billionaire, the founder of project liberty. he has talked about his plans of coming up with a bit with kevin o'leary, mr. wonderful. they confirmed after the supreme court decision that they made their bid and they have a formal offer on the table. that being said, bytedance, all this time has said they have no intention to sell. and it is also -- chinese law prohibits the algorithm itself, the very thing that makes tiktok so popular. that would make it compelling for a buyer to be exported out of the country. it is not clear, even if tiktok is so, what version of u.s. tiktok can still exist.

there has been no indication that -- public indication that that bid is being accepted by bytedance and that they would be willing to sell. if that was the case, there would only be one day. that alone would unlock a potential option that people have been talking about that president biden could put to use. that is that the law said before that it offers a one-time 90 day extension. resident biden would need to certify that progress had been made to a divestiture. having a real offer like that would make that true. that would need to include the relatively binding documents. maybe some of it is coming back together behind the scenes. but at least publicly, we have no indications that a last-minute sale is going to

pull together. host: christine mui is a tech reporter for politico. you can find her work online at politico.com and on x at politico. thank you for your time this morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: the tiktok ban is one of the topics we are talking about this morning. we will take your calls until the next 15 minutes on those. we will start with greg on the line for republicans. caller: i hate to burst the bubble a behold bunch of gen z ers but this is reminding me of 1991 where you had people receiving income versus copyright protection and national security, especially for those underage. similar to the texas law about

port hub. -- pornhub. they will find a buyer of chinese descent. andrew wong, call your office. host: that was greg in florida. stephen on the line for independents, good morning. caller: i have no problem with having the inaugural inside. that way all the people will be safe. it will be cold outside but at least everybody will be safe. that's the main thing. that and president trump gets through this without being shot. host: that was stephen in oregon. herbert in michigan, line for republicans. good morning, herbert. caller: good morning. my comment was on the inauguration being indoors. what i don't understand is why the orange jesus didn't use his

sharpie to change the weather. host: we will go to paul in idaho, line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i feel as though i have no interest in tiktok. therefore it does not affect me. but it does affect me because of the espionage aspect that people are experiencing. that's about all i have on to talk. the other thing i would like to make a comment on is i think that the drones that have the capability of flying distance is quite far could have caused them to take that indoors into the u.s. capitol. i think that was a wise move by

the department, whether or not there were drones available to them to be able to harm them. and the president of the united states and the other dignitaries. i think it is imperative they moved it indoors. i think they have to look toward the future and whether or not it is cold, i think they need to have cover over their heads. that's all i have. thank you. host: that was paul in idaho. we will go to raymond in washington, d.c. caller: good morning. that is captain raymond randy henderson of southwest airlines. i very much welcome the opportunities that have been afforded me. what i am doing here, i have been appointed to president elect trump's advisory board.

i am curious as to what -- how this -- if i'm going to be able to get into the rotunda on the tickets that i have. host: rehman, i believe i have a story about that that i will find and share. but i don't believe that they are allowing individuals into the rotunda other than staff and hill staff and member's of congress. i will find that story and read it soon. our other story that we are focusing on is the supreme court upholding the ban on tiktok from today's wall street journal. the headline, what's next for tiktok and the apps users? donald trump and his advisers are working on options to delay a van according to -- a ban

according to people involved in the discussions. trump said my decision will be made in the not too distant future. shortly after, tiktok ceo posted a video to the app, thanking trump for being committed to finding a solution that keeps it in the u.s. here is that video that the tiktok ceo posted shortly after. >> hi, everyone. as you know, we have been fighting to protect the constitutional right of free speech for the more than 170 million americans who use our platform every day. who connect, create, discover and achieve their dreams. on behalf of everyone at tiktok and all of the users across the country, i want to thank president trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution i keeps tiktok available in the united states.

this is a strong stand for the first amendment and against arbitrary censorship. tiktok is a place where people can create communities, discover new interests and express themselves, including over 7 million american businesses who earn a living and gain new customers using our platform. we are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform. one who has used tiktok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process. for all american users, thank you for making our tiktok community such a rich and vibrant space. for surprising and the lighting us every day, rest assured, we will do everything in our power to make sure our platform thrives as your online home for limitless creativity and discovery as well as a source of inspiration and for years to come. thank you. more to come. host: back to your calls, we

will hear from ron in maryland, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling about the inaugural being moved indoors. all i can say is what a wuss. jfk's inauguration was 22 degrees and obama's was 22 with wind chills in the teens. have a good day. host: that was run in maryland. chris in west virginia, line for independents. good morning, chris. caller: i think all the americans love tiktok and people of it all over the world. the problem is people are making money and our government wants to shut it down because they don't want anybody to make money. they have to have all the money. that's what i think. i think it is ridiculous. they don't want us to have anything. they are going to mess up with us taking that down. anyway, thanks for hearing me.

have a good day. host: that was chris in west virginia. we are talking about the supreme court upholding a ban on tiktok as well as yesterday's announcement that president elect trump's inaugural ceremonies will be held indoors because of cold weather. we will your next from sarah in north carolina, line for independents. good morning, sarah. caller: good morning. i have more of a problem with the drones flying than i do tiktok. the drones, i am more scared of them. host: sarah, what drones are you talking about? caller: any kind of drone that is flying around in the air. any kind of drone. that to me is more dangerous. so, they need to look into drones.

that's all i have to say. host: that was sarah in north carolina. one of our callers bringing up the issue of tiktok and the money that it creates from the new york times business section this morning. tiktok mayonnaise -- tiktok man ban is set to deal a major blow to bytedance. the ban which was signed into federal law last year and upheld by the supreme court is a major blow to bytedance, the world's second most valuable private technology company, worth 300 billion dollars. at least a chunk of the company's value is tied to success in the united states where tiktok has 170 million monthly users according to analyst estimates. tiktok has a larger audience outside the united states. it has 1.2 billion to one point 8 billion monthly users around the world with its largest markets including indonesia and

brazil. the apps american users are the most valuable, analysts say. they sell goods through their tiktok shop. social networks typically get their highest revenue per user in the united states. tiktok took in an estimated $10 billion in revenue in the united states last year. he said out of a total global revenue estimate of $20 billion to $26 million. -- $26 billion. back to your calls, crystal in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. how is everybody. let me talk about the inauguration. i could care less whether it is inside or outside. i wasn't watching or going. i'm not interested in that at all. i know other presidents stood out there in the freezing cold,

including barack obama. the temperature was just as low. the winds were blowing just as hard. so, i think donald trump knew he wasn't getting all of the attention from the people that were coming so, he took his self inside. as far as tiktok is concerned, you know, i barely use the app. however, people were making money off of that. these were entrepreneurs that were making money to supplement their income. some were making money as an income and making a lot of money. for the american government, all of the people on both sides that came together and said we don't need this, it's crazy. i think it was about money. jeff bezos was probably losing money. the guy from facebook was probably losing money.

that's what it was about. it wasn't about security. this app has been around for a very long time. and if the people didn't care about their own security, why should the government care? if they were making money, let them make some money. keep this app alive. it is crazy to say we are a democratic country and then take something away from the people. these chinese people don't scare us. but what did was them going to read book and finding out these chinese people were living better than us. they had better homes than us and better health care. that's what the government didn't want us to know. that these chinese people were living better than us and other people across the world, we became friends with them and we realized they were not enemies, either. including the palestinian people.

they didn't want us to know all of this stuff. they want to keep us scared of the other people. that's all this is about. iq so much and have a good day. -- thank you so much and have a good day. host: that is crystal. charles in florida on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: tiktok is on the biden chinese communist party. we are funding china's living over there bite using tiktok -- by using tiktok. tiktok is not covered under the first amendment because it is a foreign corporation, owned by government. i believe it should be -- they were told for the last year to sell or they would have to get out of the united states. so, for the last year, they have not done anything. now, they want to ask mr. trump for a little hand out, which is wrong. ok.

either they get sold to an american company or they get out. that should be it, period. thank you very much. have a nice day. host: that is charles in florida. matt, also in florida, line for independents. good morning. caller: i think charles is hitting it on the head. the chinese communist party, they are gathering a lot of information and intelligence about americans. a lot of people don't see the big picture. we are giving away vital information of our infrastructure, which gathers the square footage of your home based on your wi-fi. people have washer dryers. why do these items need to be connected to the internet, going right back to china and being documented in their servers? same thing with video games like

pokemon go. there has been comments about some points of entries that have cranes. all this information is being gathered. people walk around with personal drones or cameras and all that information is being gathered in the layout of america. the layout of our military bases , government buildings. all this permission is pertinent because we don't know what they want to do in the long run. and when we become a little older and get into our retirement years and things are happening and we can ask plane why, it's because we are giving away all of our information and security. it may look not like a threat today but down the road, when it is a threat and we lose our infrastructure and our security, that's why this is an issue. thank you. host: that was met in florida.

let's go to john in georgia, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. let me say this. i'm in my 70's. biden has been one of the best presidents we have had during my lifetime. biden cared. obama, he did well. but by him being the first black or african-american president, he could not afford to make a mistake. if obama had made just one mistake, he would have killed the whole entire black generation. using trump for an example, if obama had -- he would have

killed kamala harris or anyone else running for the -- any other woman president running for the united states. a good friend of mine used to say the law is whatever the white folk want it to be. we need to change these laws and apply the laws to every generation and person who are of color or not of color. here is trump with 34 counts. now, he will be our next president of the united states. america has to look at itself. i lived through george wyler. let me say trump will do more for the black generation than you think. because all of our leaders -- [indiscernible] host: that was john in georgia. john was talking about president elect trump. raymond, if you're listening, here is information for you. this is a tweet from nicholas wu

with politico. he tweeted yesterday that all members of congress can still get into the indoor inauguration for guidance sent to members and staff. the guidance recommends that your office relay to constituents that their tickets will be commemorative with some exceptions. it has been about 40 years since and inauguration has been held indoors. it was in 1985. present ronald reagan's second inaugural. here is a clip from his indoor speech. >> history is a ribbon, always unfurling. history is a journey. as we continue our journey, we think of those who traveled before us. we stand again at the steps of this symbol of democracy where we would not be standing at the symbol if it had not gotten so cold. now we are standing inside the symbol of democracy.

and we see here the echoes of the past. a general falls to his knees at the hard snow of valley forge. a president ponders his struggle to preserve the union. the men of the alamo call out in kurds each other. a separate pushes west and sings a song. it is the american sound. it is hopeful, bighearted, idealistic, daring, decent and fair. that is our heritage. that is our song. we sing it, still, for all our problems and differences, we are together. as a whole. we raise our voices to the got who is the author of this most tender music and may he continue to hold us close as we fill the world with our sand, sound in

unity, affection and love. one people, under god, dedicated to the dream of freedom that he has placed in the human heart. called upon now to pass that dream on to a waiting and hopeful world. god bless you and may god bless america. host: you can find president reagan's speech in full on our website, c-span.org. there is a dedicated page to all the inaugural aresses dating back to president harry truman's 1949 address as well as franklin delano roosevelt's 1933 address. for monday's coverage, we will have coverage of the day's events, starting at 7:00 a.m. here on the washington journal followed by the presidential inauguration and the parade which is expected to be held in the capital one arena as well as inaugural balls which the

president is expected to attend. you can watch that live on c-span and c-span.org as well as our digital platforms. getting back to your calls on the topic of the president's inauguration moving indoors and the supreme court's decision upholding the tiktok ban. an additional story from this morning's wall street journal, talking about the is rayleigh agreement -- israeli agreement. the two sides have not agreed on a host of issues, including the list of all of the hostages and prisoners to be released. the timeline and extent of israel's release from gaza. hamas has demanded a guaranteed and to the war, something is

israel's officials never agreed to. the security cabinet approved the multi-fees -- multi-phased deal on friday. the cabinet endorsed it later. an initial pause in the fighting, starting on sunday, they would release some of the hostages in return for hundreds of palestinian prisoners and is and israeli jails. it calls on them to negotiate important aspects of the deal. one or more could find reasons to walk away from the deal after the initial phase, resulting in a resumption of fighting. we have just under 30 minutes left in this first hour, asking your thoughts on the presidents inauguration moving indoors and the supreme court upholding the tiktok band. we will go back to kenny in kentucky, line from republicans.

hi, kenny. caller: high agree on the moving inside. the man was twice almost killed. i agree on that. and the guys in florida, they are hitting on tiktok perfect. because it is a china run company. so i mean really, i think they are talking about the cold weather, obama and kennedy. well, where they almost assassinated before they took the oath? that's a big question right there that i would like to know. they weren't. two of them were almost assassinated. that's all i have to say. thank you. host: that was kenny in kentucky. bill, in florida on the line for independents, good morning. caller: i will tell you the

truth right now. the sec used to be so dominant in college football. as soon as they were legally allowed to start paying players, that's when the sec started to play so poorly. you know? let's all get to say. host: that was built in florida. steven also in florida on the line for democrats. caller: good morning, nice to speak to you all. all i have to say as far as the tiktok situation is i'm a senior citizen and i really don't get it. i do think the supreme court will give donald trump a victory so he can claim he saved tiktok for all the young people. i want to talk about the inauguration. i agree with the previous caller. i definitely think it is a security issue. donald trump is afraid to be outside and he should be. the second thing i want to say

is hell has finally frozen over and that's where our country is. thank you and have a great day. host: stephen in florida. andrew in virginia on the line for independents. good morning, andrew. caller: i also agree with the previous caller about the tiktok ban. this will make the president elect look good when he saves tiktok, if you will. because if there is an issue with tiktok, there would have been an issue with every other social media platform. i think this will give donald trump a win. and this is also a win for the first amendment. host: that was andrew in virginia. mark in new york, line for democrats. good morning. caller: yes, i agree with the

last caller. i also think that the american people allowed all of this to happen. we opened up our information willingly, freely and china owns more businesses in this country then we can even fathom. so, if this little tiktok thing about gathering information, all they have to do is buy it from facebook or x or whatever. i think it's the american people's fault. we are ignorant to the fact that we let the politicians use us. we are ignorant to the fact that we don't work together. it is just sad. thank you. host: that was marked in new york. we will go to bob in massachusetts, line for republicans. good morning, bob. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: doing well. caller: i want to say for you and the other callers in the back who are having the

inauguration indoors, 780,000 people are living in washington, d.c.. only 2000 of them are republicans. they are the staff members, congressmen, senators and their families. that's all you have in washington, d.c. for republicans. he is not safe there. no republican is safe in that town. they have already said businesses discriminate against republicans. if i'm a republican, i stay out of washington, d.c. it's probably one of the worst places in the country to be. host: that is bob in massachusetts. talking about the temperatures expected in washington, d.c. on monday during the inauguration and the weather channel has an article looking at the temperatures, the forecast high in washington, d.c. is in the 20's. again, that prompted the inaugural ceremonies to be moved indoors.

and it was below freezing in 1985 and once before since 1985, that was in 2009. we can look at the historic trends of residential inauguration, whether from the national weather service. it talks about what is normal for january this time of year. the normal high temperature for the day is 45. the normal low is 30. the normal weather for 12:00 noon eastern, that's the time when the president is sworn into office, is around 37 degrees. it talks about some of the additional extreme weather for past inaugurations and has some autos looking at the include inaugurations where you can see there is a lot of snow on the ground. back to your calls, we will go to don in new mexico, line for independents. good morning, don. caller: good morning.

i would like to just say that this is a perfect issue to be on the trump administration. first of all, we see there is conflict between democracy and the self interest of donald trump. first, donald trump was opposed to tiktok. then, the elections happened and he used tiktok to get voters. and he suddenly became interested in tiktok. but more importantly, the thing that happened was there was a major investor who came forward and he gave money to trump's campaign. and then trump became more interested in tiktok. and what this same investor did next is the same investor invested into tiktok social media, truth social. here, we have the perfect issue, the self interest of donald

trump which is always going to win. or, the interest of democracy and the interest of the free world. so, in a way, the weather in washington, d.c. is perfect. this is a cold day in hell for democracy. host: that was don in new mexico. kevin in alabama, line for democrats, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. it's amazing that c-span will take my call but an insurance company i give money to will not. my comment is about tiktok. i'm not a user of social media. my understanding is bytedance is the company that owns tiktok and they are band. -- banned. users will go over to other bytedance social media platforms and use that. i don't understand the ban other than that it is stroking somebody's ego. host: that was kevin in alabama.

pete in massachusetts on the line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. the tiktok thing, the supreme court made the right decision. now, they are going to delay it. the owner of tiktok is sitting with donald trump. 60 feet, 80 feet up in the air. i live in massachusetts. it's been very cold and we have snow and everything else. i dressed for it. they all can dress for it. that's not going to happen. it's kind of cheesy. he's a tough guy. he can hang out in the rotunda. thank you for taking my call. have yourself a great day and

god bless the people of california. host: that was pete in massachusetts. pete talking about the temperatures in the northeast. it was a tweet from meredith lee hill, a congressional reporter for politico. she tweeted yesterday afternoon that she ran into amy klobuchar, the democrat of minnesota. on trump moving the inauguration inside due to frigid temperatures on monday, she said yeah, we respect the decision of the president elect and his team. she adds no cracks about non-minnesotans thinking 20 degrees is cold. back to your calls, nancy on the line for democrats. caller: i think tiktok should be banned. i don't think there should be any type of tiktok. when tiktok came along in our

world, it seems like a lot of people's mothers and kids died from things they were learning on tiktok. trump, i don't care if they did drop all of the charges. he is still a criminal. a criminal who don't know what to do and what to say. trump is evil. elon musk is evil. his whole cabinet is evil because they are criminals. that's all i have to say. host: that was nancy in missouri. also from missouri, senator josh hawley. the reporters caught up to him yesterday after the supreme court's announcement that they were upholding the tiktok band. -- tiktok ban. here is an exchange. >> yeah, right. >> would you support if

president trump found a way to keep tiktok? >> the best way for tiktok to continue to exist is for it to be sold. the law explicitly allows for it. the problem with tiktok from a national security perspective is not the content of it all people raise concerns and i have my own concerns. why you ban it is it is controlled by beijing. if it were sold or firewalls, that would be fine. -- firewalled, that would be fine. >> what do you think about the ceo being a guest? >> he's not my favorite guest but if he wants to keep his job, i would suggest he sells his company. the president has the authority under the law to delay the sale or the ban by 90 days. i suspect president trump will invoke that authority when he comes into office to allow a sale to go through. that's fine. that's what the law

contemplates. host: just under 15 minutes left in this first hour, talking about the supreme court upholding the ban on tiktok, as well as the announcement that president trump -- president elect trumps inauguration will be moving indoors because of cold weather. if you want to call into the conversation, the lines for the democrats is (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002,. the inauguration is happening on monday. the inaugural celebration is kicking off today. in virginia, president elect trump is set to arrive at the washington area golf club, trump national golf club later today for an event there with supporters.

and tomorrow, there is an event. president elect donald trump will appear at a pre-inauguration make america great again rally to celebrate his victory in the 2024 presidential election. that will be at capital one arena in washington, d.c. you can watch that live at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. let's hear from jan in morton, illinois. line for independents, good morning. caller: i have a comment about tiktok. i am an older adult and have never used it. i have used instagram and i am on facebook. i wanted to say from my viewpoint, this is a business decision, number one. all i would really like to see as far as tiktok in the u.s. is the diversity of their ceo and of their high level management

people. there should have been a deal whereby if bytedance can create a firewall that will not allow personal data to go outside the country, i.e. back to bytedance and china, if that firewall could also provide the updates needed to keep tiktok moving ahead, that would have been a great i.t. agreement. if that agreement could have been reached, there's no reason why people in the u.s. could not use tiktok. if everybody would look at what you get from any kind of platform or business platform, if you buy clinique or whatever you might buy, they have privacy statements about selling your data to third parties. and if you don't like that, don't get on their website. i think if they actually reached an agreement with bytedance and tiktok, i would like to see

tiktok's upper echelon as far as businesses. are there other diverse people within the tiktok america? and if they built that firewall that allows updates from bytedance without any creepy things that could crawl in and get the data to go back to bytedance and if they could have prevented any privacy issues of american users, any of their private data, there's and personal information going back to bytedance, i think everybody would be happy. host: that was jan in illinois. laurie in wisconsin, line for democrats. good morning. lori, are you there? lori, one more chance? lori, if you're listening, give us a call back. we will go to theodore in california on the line for

republicans. good morning. caller: hello. good morning, all. i am pro-american and it seems like the republican party wants to build and strengthen. i don't know much about tiktok. i don't have internet on my phone. things can be used for good and bad. i'm just grateful this country has taken a turn to go in a positive direction of healing. and that you guys are gracious enough to let us speak about that. host: that was theodore in california. kendra in glenallen, virginia. line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning, tammy. i am a black, african-american.

i am an independent as well. i consider myself an independent. what is the reason again for the inauguration being inside? is it because of the cold or safety? host: they said it was due to the weather. it is supposed to be 20 degrees, where is glen allen from dce? -- from dce? ? caller: it is about two hours away. two months after trump won the election, they are calling the show and seem angry. it is unhealthy to carry so much hate and anger. hopefully people will stop letting trump live rent free in their head for the next four years. tammy, my neck statement is not directly toward you but i wonder why washington journal has so many topics about the incoming

president, because all this does is cause more division. and it opens the door for people to call in with disrespectful comments of our soon to be president. washington journal has been very respectful to joe biden, by really never talking about him these past four years, even though there were plenty of topics to discuss about him and his administration. please do the same for trump while he is president. the past couple of weeks, it seems like there were a lot of topics about trump like maybe i think the hush money trial when, you know, there were never any topics after jimmy carter's funeral occurred like the interaction that we all witnessed between trump and obama. that topic, that was never a topic, jimmy carter's funeral,

after it occurred. people who are convinced trump is a racist, go to youtube and look up interviews of trump and oprah winfrey and wendy williams and watch how he interacts with them and their audience. he's not a racist. and there are also a few interviews on youtube with angela stanton king, a very intelligent black woman who was pardoned by trump as she talks about what trump has done for black and brown americans. let me say a couple of more things. host: we are running short on time, kendra. i'll give you another 30 seconds. caller: for almost 10 years, we have been hearing trump's name on a daily basis. i have heard trump's name more times in the last two months then i have heard the current president's name within his four year term and also obama's name within his eight year term.

i'm just hoping that, tammy, as far as washington journal goes, i'm hoping that maybe i know people call in sometimes, they feel like washington journal is being very biased. it seems like they lean toward the left. hopefully that will change. people like independents and republicans probably won't watch the show anymore because it seems like it is always leaning toward the left. host: we appreciate your comments. we will leave it there. we do talk to a variety of guests and a variety of topics. we focus on present electron, especially right now, because, again, he's being inaugurated and coming into his second term here on monday. we have also covered president biden and his administration extensively for the past four years. it is common for us to talk about the current or upcoming

president during their administration. just a few minutes left, we will go to market manhattan, new york , on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: hi. donald trump is not racist. he gave more to jesse jackson's presidential campaign than anybody else did. about tiktok, the concern about tiktok is more about the brain damage done to people. i know very intelligent people who used tiktok and they lost their attention span. we can't even listen to programs like c-span's. host: that was marked in new york. in d.c. on the line for democrats, good morning. now you're on. caller: i'm calling from washington, d.c.

timing has a lot to do with it. i think donald trump, i'm a democrat but i think the timing for him to be president, this is a good time right now because i think we need someone who will take us into a new, transitional era because with tiktok and youtube and facebook, we have such outside influence. we need someone who can centralize our direction that the country is going in. i think we are getting pulled in so many different directions, we need a centralized theme that will take over america as far as making america great again. it sounds good. but this is just what we need right now. i think from, his resilience, you have to respect that. his first term in office, most of the time was spent being impeached, he was under investigation. or charges were against him and covid came. he had a rough four years, more than any president that i've ever seen. i think this time with the

country behind him and the senate and the congress behind him, he can go in the right direction. we have a check and balance type system in america where one person will not overthrow the thought process of the american people. this is the right time for him, i believe. we need to get our country centralized because i think it is getting diluted. host: it sounds like you are supportive of president elect donald trump, were you planning on attending any of the inaugural events on monday? caller: being in washington, d.c., i know it's going to be cold. we had a president before, during the inauguration, he took the overcoat off and he didn't last 60 days. they can be inside, outside or whatever. just do it safely. i remember one year the clintons had to walk down pennsylvania avenue and it was very cold and the young lady took her coat off. it was pageantry.

let's make it healthy and not let the pageantry decide what is best. it's just a one-day event and it is ceremonial. i think as far as doing the job. host: we will leave it there. we will go to brian, our last caller for this hour in alabama on the independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i think this country needs to come together. it doesn't matter what political affiliation you are from, we need to come together. and we need to solve these issues. these are big issues. issues of morality. issues of institutionalism. we need to solve them and get on it. thank you so much. host: that was brian in alabama. our last call for this hour. next on "washington journal." voting college government

professor andrew will join us. and later, amy bock will discuss how climate disasters are impacting the u.s. insurance market and consumers. we will be right back. ♪ >> get ready for inauguration day with a special 48 hour marathon on c-span two2. all weekend 20 presidential inaugurations in full from franklin roosevelt in 1933 to joe biden in 2021. enjoy historic newsreel footage capturing the energy in washington, d.c. and discover fascinating stories like the suit coat that george washington wore in 1789. do not miss this journey through history. watch our marathon a presidential inaugural's all weekend on c-span2's american

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of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. scan the qr code to download it today or visit c-span.org/c-spannow. your front row space to washington anytime, anywhere. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us now to discuss president -- precedent in the use of executive order is andrew rudalevige. thank you so much for being with us this morning. guest: great to be with you. host: we will start by talking about an overview of executive ordinance. tell us what they are and what gives the president a power to use them. guest: executive orders are not in the constitution explicitly but they flow from the president's power in article two to faithfully execute the law,

and the grant of the executive power to the president at the very beginning of article two. presidents have used them since the beginning of the republic, every president has issued at least one order, william henry harrison did, even though he died quickly after taking office. they are accepted and they are orders to the executive branch. and executive orders, formally are published in the federal register and often produced with great pomp and circumstance but they are just one part of a whole category of executive actions and directives. this include memoranda and national security directives. they include guidance documents to agencies about what kind of regulations to issue. executive orders are the most formal of the category of presidential directives but they are many directives that get

mixed up together in a jumble. host: this is a topic you are familiar with. you are an author of the book " by executive order: bureaucratic management and the limits of presidential power." often we hear that it is the president issuing a presidential order, that there is a process and a lot involved. tell us who is involved in putting together an executive order and what the process looks like? guest: the final product is what we see on tv which is the president signing and then holding up perhaps a big sharpie signature in a folder containing a new executive order. but there is often a long back story to that directive. anyone really can oppose an executive order in the white house and in the various executive agencies. since the 1930's there has been a process called central clearance which is a peer review

process run by the office and management of -- office of management and budget. and that is a manager conceit that was created back in the 1920's and has been a key agency since the 30's. their job is to receive these draft executive orders, send them out to different agencies who might have an interest, get feedback and find out if this will work and if it is legal. importantly, the department of justice is supposed to look at all executive orders for "form and legality," to make sure that the order has been properly formatted but also is legal under the president's powers. it is worth noting that the executive order can only do what the president has the power to do, whether in the constitution directly or delegated through an act of congress. there are arguments about whether an executive order goes too far. those orders will often go to

court. the internal process is quite multilateral. we think of this as unilateral, but it is very rarely the president just sitting down to issue the order. there is a big back story and that is intentional, to make sure that the expertise is actually brought to bear on the order itself. host: we are talking with professor andrew rudalevige. he has a professor of government at bowdoin college. we are talking to him about the use of executive orders and he will be with us for the next 40 minutes or so. if you havestn or comment you can start calling in. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. professor, i wanted to ask you and you mentioned it and you might see it on tv, a president

signing an executive order and holding it up for the camera. what happens once that is signed and when does it go into effect? guest: well, i hate to use the academic answer, but it depends. it depends on what the order says. sometimes they are self-executing. they might change something administratively within an agency. not executive or -- not all executive orders are big, sweeping or important. others might ask an agency to work on solving a problem and look at an issue in a whole of government sense. sort of a planning to make plans kind of order. those might not have much immediate impact at all, although they serve the purpose of a president showing that he cares about an issue and wants to take action. it depends on who is being ordered to do what in terms of what happens next. we know that the presidents often complain that executive

orders are not fully implemented. this is hard to study because once the order leaves the public pages of the federal register and goes down pennsylvania avenue into one of the government office buildings we do not quite see it as academics or often even as members of congress or political actors. we know that not all executive orders are fully implemented. we know that some are not meant to be fully implemented. some are for show. if you look at the text over the last number of years, really starting with the obama administration but ramping up significantly under trump and biden, you have long sections at the beginning of the orders which are essentially press releases, preambles or policy sections that lay out what the president wants to achieve and it is not actually clear that it being achieved is the important part. the president want us -- wants to say i am ordering this to be

done and if it does not get done there is some hope that the public might not notice that as romantically. host: an executive order is enforceable as long as the action is within the president's constitutional authority. give us something as -- and ask that -- give us an example of something that will fall within and without that authority. guest: let me just say that executive orders are literally orders to the executive branch. so, a member of the public would not receive an order from the president in that form. indeed, the president does not have the power to order you to do anything unless you are an active member of the armed services. the general rule is that presidents are relying on the power of federal government to have knock on effects that will have effects on the wider public. a good example is contracting procurement. presidents for a long time have taken advantage of the fact that

the federal government buys a lot of stuff from the fight -- from the private sector to place conditions. john f said -- john f. kennedy issued an executive order designed to prevent any federal contracts going to those who discriminated in the area of housing. we have seen other uses in the civil rights arena to try and limit the contracts that go out. if you and the private sector want to federal contracts, you have to pay attention to the conditions placed on that. so, it is not a general order to the public but it has sweeping impact when you are talking about half a trillion or more of funding that is going out from the federal government to the private sector. president obama, for example did not get a minimum wage increase through congress, but he did order the federal contracts only go to federal contractors who paid a certain minimum wage. as the present is contractor --

president is contractor and chief he -- he has the authority to do that may be the most famous example of an order that was overturned is harry truman's back in the early 1950's during the korean war. he had ordered that the steel meals -- deal mills be nationalized and brought into american governmental ownership because there was a threat of a strike. so the famous steel seizure case results. truman argued that a strike would harm national security and undermine the korean war effort. and, therefore using his powers he said as commander-in-chief he could order that the steelworkers effectively became federal employees and unable to strike. this went to the court, and the supreme court famously ruled that no, president truman had

overstepped his powers and this was not something that he could do. and, therefore steel meals returned to private ownership and labor negotiations proceeded on that basis. you could have some pretty high-stakes, high drama confrontations over executive orders or they could just be administrative housekeeping. it marries a lot. host: we have callers waiting to ask you questions. we will start with fred in pennsylvania, line for democrats. caller: good morning. i would like to say that if a president uses executive orders to legislate his entire presidency as donald trump did his first presidency and intends to do in the second he will bypass the house and senate. the senate and the house are republican and he has a republican supreme court, and he can get away with being a dictator. this is something that should be stopped immediately. we should get rid of executive

orders in the case of environmental protection and national emergency to protect the country, not to legislate his own personal agenda that he makes up in his campaign. this is what i would like to say and i would like to get your opinion on this. thank you. guest: sure. first a big shout out to camp hill, pennsylvania. i used to live in carlisle, down the street. the charge of dictatorship is a long-standing one. there was a book about franklin roosevelt called "roosevelt: the democrats are dictator," back in the 40's. when i dug into the presidential libraries i found that there were in some administrations form letters that they had developed when people wrote in saying this is a dictatorial action you are taking and there is an explanation, not even so much of the action, but of the role of executive orders. again, they are only legal when

they are applying actual presidential power. when they are grounded in powers that the president has. one thing that has increased their appeal, first of course we know that congress finds it hard to act, especially in its current polarized version. but, congress has delegated a lot of power to the president over time. often when we see a president using an executive order to try and guide the actions of a federal agency, they are looking back to old statutes. and, there are plenty of those on the books. and some of them should be reined in. you think about the national emergencies act that grants the president an awful lot of authority to declare a national emergency and then to issue executive orders under some statutes that are unlocked by virtue of that declaration. we could look at something at

the insurrection act and things going back on immigration. when we look at for example president trump's travel ban in his first term. the first version caused chaos at the beginning of 2017. it was in fact withdrawn and replaced. it had not gone through the process of bureaucratic feedback that i had talked about and it did not work. it went through a couple of other iterations and finally emerged later as a proclamation and not an executive order. it went to the supreme court and the supreme court said it is ok because the way the law was written it "exudes deference" to the present -- to the president. so if congress are going to pass laws that exude deference, we have to accept that presidents will take advantage. i would place a lot of the concern with congress being unwilling to fulfill its own constitutional imperatives and a lot of narrowed -- in a lot of

areas and handing that power off to the president. host: this is coming in on x from jimbo in bakersfield, california. he is an independent and says " what happens when a legal executive order conflicts with laws in a state, like california?" guest: again, the executive order itself or any kind of federal directive is going to be to the actions of the federal government. there is a supremacy cause whereby if laws directly conflict, then the federal law would play out. but, there is a lot of play in those laws. we are going to see some interesting and sometimes scary conflicts as we sort of run up against the bounds of federalism. if you think of president trump's stated immigration agenda and that some of the states lack of excitement, i think it is safe to say, about

that agenda. we could see efforts by the federal government to try and overrule state action, but i am not sure that will always work. states have a lot of otani over different policy areas. i think this will be battled out. if the executive order is legal under federal law, and there is a direct conflict with state law , federal law will prevail in those cases. host: let us hear from alan in mississippi. line for republicans. did morning. caller: good morning. am i on? host: yes. caller: the general -- the gentle man is still talking on my channel -- on my television. host: do not pay attention. there is a delay. caller: isn't it amazing that all of a sudden now president trump is going to become president that dictatorship of

the executive orders has come to the fore. it is amazing how these democrats will think of these programs. when president biden became president, his first day in government was to make nonsense executive orders regarding energy, his agenda on greenpeace and put this country into a four year flat spin down. now, i am sorry to say to the democrats, that president trump is going to correct all of their wrongdoings over the last four years. and make america great again. so, all the controversy

regarding executive orders is just pure democratic publisher the to trot -- club is -- pubilcity to put another spike in president trump's premiership. thank you for taking my call. host: professor. guest: as i mentioned, dictatorship has been a very bipartisan charge against presidents for a long time when they use executive authority. there is indeed, if you go back let us say to the obama administration. 2014 when congress had gridlocked president obama and obama promised he would use his pen and his phone to move an agenda forward. and he was accused of a literal dictatorship. there was a report i remember from the house report -- the house was republican at the time, and the house report -- majority leader put out a report

charging obama from overstepping his constitutional bounds. these go back to john kennedy, franklin roosevelt, ronald reagan. we have had effectively whenever -- in the polarized state of american parties we do have quite strong likelihood that those who like the current president will say that issuing executive orders as a function of strong leadership and those who do not say it is dictatorship and then those positions can switch white quickly and dramatically. a lot of what they do at the beginning of terms is to revoke the caller mentioned this. and promised that president trump will do the same. and promised that president trump will do the same. executive orders can be fragile.

some have a long time and some last only for the duration of a presidential term and can be overturned. we will see a lot of orders overcoming -- overturning past orders. host: something that you pointed out at the beginning was that every president has signed executive orders. if you -- for anybody interested the federal register has all of the executive orders issued by presidents since 1937. it looks like president biden has signed 160 including 11 just this year. president elect donald trump signed 220 during his turn. obama, 277. george w. bush, 291. you can go onto the website and find them broken down by year

and read what each of those all are. judy in phoenix, arizona. line for democrats. good morning. caller: i do not have access to internet, but i was watching on the news in the past week or so saying that biden had announced a major opinion that the e.r.a. is ratified, enshrining its protections into the constitution, a last-minute move that some believe could pave the way to bolstering reproductive rights. does that have anything to do with your topic right now? guest: in a way it does because, as i said earlier a lot of the things that presidents do our executive actions and not specifically executive orders. every time the president directs something it is in order so it makes sense to talk about a lot of things as executive orders

that are not. a lot of things happen through regulation in the different government agencies. and those are not conducted by executive order. you know, even some of the things that we automatically think of like daca, issued by president obama. there is not even a presidential document associated with it. it was done by the department of homeland security at the behest of the white house. it is not unfair to talk about it as an executive directive, it is not in order. the statement on the e.r.a. that president biden issued recently is sort of in the cap -- is in this category, a statement but not an executive order. it will not be in that category a federally registered pages that was just referred to. it is a statement saying that he believes that the equal rights amendment was in fact ratified it and sufficient states had

been ratified -- have ratified it and it should be part of a cotton -- of the constitution. that does not make it show -- make it so. it is an intriguing claim to make a few days before leaving office. there are legal scholars that agree that the deadline that congress placed on the ratification of what would be the 28th amendment, the e.r.a., congress did not have the authority to place a deadline on that ratification, 38 states needed was only reached quite a ways after the statutory deadline that congress had placed and some other states decided they did not want to ratify it. it is very far from being a clear issue. i suspect that president biden's action in this case is what i referred to as almost a press release order. it is a statement of belief, i do not think we will have a lot of practical impact with that. host: dave in michigan.

line for independents. good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: you came around to what i was going to get out. who has the right to do amendments and what length of time as the time frames on these and what can be amended when it is reviewed and legalized. and basically you know where i am getting at. i will let you carry on with that. that is all i have got. guest: not technically an executive order, but the process for amending the constitution is in article five. usually, in all of the cases so far in fact, it has come first through a super majority of congress which is required to vote on a resolution that sends the proposed amendments to the states and then you need three quarters of the states to sign off as well. and there have been some amendments that have reached

that level of ratification after a very long time. the 27th amendment was originally sent out to the states as part of the will of rights. there were 12 sent out way back in 1789. only 10 of them became the bill of rights. one of the extras was rediscovered years later. this is the 27th amendment which i knew that i do not need to explain to c-span viewers. for those casually tuning in. it make sure that there is an election intervening between a vote to raise the pay and the actual pay raise so the voters can weigh in. that was adopted in 1992 were something like that, long after it had been provided. in the case of the equal rights amendment when congress approved it they put a deadline on the ratification and they said if it is not approved within seven years, then the ratification is over and that is your time window for states to act. it did not get to that level

when jimmy carter was in office. he proposed extending the deadline and it was until 1982. and again, not enough states got to that point by the deadline. and so, the -- the amendment is considered null and void. there has been some argument about what makes it part and the legal process, technically has the archivist of the united states. she does not have power to do anything on her own, but when she receives the requisite number of certificates from states saying that they ratified she would say it is done and official and is now part of the document. my understanding is that the office of legal counsel and the department of justice has said that is not the case with regards to the e.r.a.. i think even president brightman -- president bryden -- biden's

statement does not change that. usually it is clear you get to the right number of states and it is done, but this has not been the case. host: bill in albany, new york. line for republicans. caller: i would like to ask andrew regarding executive orders. i looked up when president biden put the pause on drilling of oil. if you could help me out with that. because when i read it, it is a lot of legal terms in there that i was not sure of. but i wanted to know if that paused executive order is still on the books for not drilling whether it is private or public land. i could not see that. because, i feel like when that went on, that is when the price of gas went up and that is when we started getting inflation

because the trucks had delivered things to the stores and they had to raise their prices dramatically, almost double or triple the price of gas and we had inflation. is that executive order still on the books? and, if it is, what did it do and what does it say regarding inflation and gas? and do you think that president trump can reverse that and get it off there on monday? guest: well, so, as you know president biden has been trying to limit offshore drilling. and i think there was a subsequent order in the last couple of weeks that expanded the ban on offshore drilling, although it is worth noting that american domestic oil production is way up overall over the last number of years. it has not affected the overall supply as much as it has

affected where companies can look for it. going back to the original order, yes. these are basically -- congress passes broad statutes that give the president discretion to decide on the specifics. sometimes that power is granted directly to an agency or department like the department of energy to issue regulations about how and when drilling might be allowed in certain places. often as isa brett -- suggested there will be interagency discussion because the department of the interior and noaa and others might have ideas especially as you get into public waterways. it would apply only to public land. but once you get far enough offshore it is all public. there is i think, the order as far as i know is still on the books.

and there would be a process that in law for a future president to rescind that should they desire to do so and president trump has talked eagerly about rolling back that order and other things that he sees as limits on fossil fuel production. host: what are some other ways that executive orders can be rolled back or revoked? guest: by congressional action. congress could say no, we do not like what you have done so they will directly overturn that order in the statute. or they will reign in some of the broad delegation and discretion that they had granted a president earlier. and that can certainly happen when they decide now i see what you can do with the discretion that we can give you we need to shift that and rein it in. the presidents have an advantage where they can act while congress has congressional --

collective action difficulties and takes a wild to act. courts can weigh in. executive orders are effectively instruments for executing the law. the president is commanded in the constitution to faithfully execute the law. often in our system the courts get to decide whether a particular kind of implementation is faithful with this text of the statute or not. and they have weighed in with a lot of different ways. this was not technically an executive order but president biden's efforts to forgive student debt through some older statutes that they had found governing education department discretion in this regard. that quite famously was dismissed by the courts. and they said that is not what the statute was meant to be used for. that is a pretty common process as well. besides presidents revoking their own predecessors orders,

congress and the courts have a way to way and as well. host: jonathan in connecticut. line for democrats. good morning. caller: thank you for c-span and taking my question. i am a federal employee with social security. and the commissioner, martin o'malley, signed an agreement to lock in our telework as it stands now. a two part question. could you talk about the limits or the ability of the president to renounce that kind of's executive order and the other strategy i heard of that if you want to work from home, you will be paid at the all of the united states rate which does not include things like new york pay ? thank you very much. guest: i think actually dealings with the civil service and the civil service act will be really interesting to watch play forward over the next few years.

obviously the outgoing president much more sympathetic i think to collective bargaining and certainly by governing employees than the incoming president. it will be interesting to see what actions are taken to overturn the ways the biden administration has sought to bolster some of the agreements reached with federal employee unions. i am not an expert specifically on the telework question. i have heard that mentioned as a possible way to try to sort of give employees incentives or to bludgeon them into coming back into the office full-time. you know, there are obviously a myriad of regulations that come out of the office of personnel management. and so, it is going to be, i do think you will see executive actions by the trump

administration to try and rollback some of the concessions granted by the biden administration. if those are written into collective bargaining contracts, i think they are fairly safe to the extent that they are an executive order only that might be harder. one thing worth noting is that courts look at the property rights if you will granted by a particular order. they might require a longer process to repeal something that has granted people rights and might start to take it away. i mentioned daca, which president obama put it in place. president trump tried to repeal it. but he did so effectively by unilateral directive and not by a regulatory process that would require notice, comment and public input in a longer period of deliberation before going into effect. the supreme court shot that down and said you did not follow the

correct process because folks were within the program and they have these rights and those rights cannot be taken away without due process. and that due process would at least require a lengthy regulatory review and that is not what happened. i think there will be quite a lot of questions about due process as it relates to federal employees. there is a whole another way, which i am sure the caller is familiar with the questioning about schedule f, whether the president has the power to create a whole new class of employees within the civil service schedule, to effectively make them exempt from civil service sections with because of dismissal and so forth. and to make a whole new group of employees effectively political and point these serving at the will of the present -- print political appointees serving at the will of the president. that was issued quite late and it never took effect and

president biden rescinded the order and we can expect to see that again. i suspect that will be heavily litigated to weather the president has the authority under civil service law to make that kind of change. that is an example of the contestation over executive orders that so often occurs. host: pat in keyport, new jersey. line for republicans. caller: you answered part of my question because i would like some more information about daca. you said that president obama issued a proclamation, but what gave him the right to not to provide for illegal aliens rights that are not accorded to them by the constitution and go against immigration law? under what other situations can a presidential order not be rescinded? i have heard people talk about the recent orders that biden has given out in the last week or

so. they said that the trump administration would have a hard time undoing them. can you expand a little more on daca and other situations? thank you. guest: with daca, it was not a proclamation. the president gave a speech, i think and said this is what i would like to do. the administrative process of doing that was under the department of homeland security's protocols for how they dealt with deporting folks who could legally be deported. right? that included the daca population and that includes a lot of people. congress has never included enough stunned -- and a funding to actually deport everyone who could be legally deported. it is a huge logistical effort as well as a funding question. so, president obama never said that folks in the daca category

were citizens. he did not have the power to do that. what he did say they were at the bottom of the list for being deported and they would be effectively protected. congress could have called his bluff and said actually we will give you enough money to deport everybody and it did not. the president said give me may be 10% of what i needed a given year therefore i have to prioritize who among the deportable population will be. and this group i am just declaring is right at the bottom of the list. and either formally or informally every president has done that. they have chosen priorities about immigration enforcement and this is under the immigration and nationality act. it is the current version really, the 1952 version has been amended a number of times since then. these are cases where presidents

are saying i have to make choices. i cannot implement the law entirely as written because of lack of resources provided by congress therefore i am going to set prosecutorial priority is. and that is how i am going to carry out the law. so, in that case as mentioned, president specified a group that was at the very bottom of the list. it will be interesting to see has president trump comes into office, he has promised more aggressive enforcement of deportation. and he still is going to have to make some calls about the priorities, about who gets deported first. normally those who have committed crimes and criminals have been at the top of the list and daca recipients at the bottom and we will celia -- there will see -- and we will see of some deal is reached. there been multiple efforts to try and put the daca program in

a statutory basis or into law for various reasons over the last six to eight years those have never come to fruition. it does not seem like they are the top of the list for anyone, it is a sympathetic population who has made their lives here. even on the gop side of the aisle i do not think there is a lot of eagerness to move them up the list even as resources are expanded for immigration enforcement, generally. host: just a few minutes left. robert in texas. line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning, i want to ring to our attention something that would cause us concern. so many say the architect of 2025 had his confirmation hearing and put together a whole battery of orders ready to sign on day one which was intentionally captive kickoff

phase two of 2025 which was kept off-line in order to avoid oversight from watchdog groups in the eyes of congress. we do not know what those orders are. and i wanted to know if there is a way to find out what those are and how we can prevent that because trump is being inaugurated on monday and it is very likely that he will get confirmed and that will give him a great deal of power to advance the trump agenda and the agenda of project 2025. guest: as you note, he was the director at the end of the first trump administration over at

omb. he has done the job before and he has a good sense of how to do it. and it was one of the folks that was in the trump government in exile also working on the agenda or a specific list of policy proposals that they could move forward in a new term. if mr. trump were to win a second term. and there is a lot of question about what will be implemented. i have heard that 100 executive order number as well. i will guess that it will not be 100 and it will be a mix of memoranda and different kinds of directives. the last time there were 100 executive orders issued in a whole year was 1952. you know, the average over the last 40 or 45 years has been about 40 a year. clearly there is some desire to flood the zone with executive actions, partly i think, not to

make it hard for those who oppose those orders to be able to organize themselves. because they will just be so much that they have to deal with. that is the advantage of having been out of power so you have time to develop these orders, specifically drafted directives. there can be a downside. you are not asking for input from the agencies that have to implement the orders. that is a big problem at the beginning of trump's first term in 2017. you know, it will be interesting to see whether the transition has learned that lesson and works to vet the new orders and directives in a way that will make them workable. some might be more on the grounds of signaling and others will be revoking biden directives. some will be new in a variety of areas and some are honestly, we have heard talk of an executive order overturning the 14th amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship.

that seems like simply creating a court case. so you know, there has not, i do not think the normal vetting process within the executive branch for these orders as -- and as we get further into the administration that will return and it will be an open question to how this new flood of orders is at the beginning of mr. trump's new term. host: one last call. henrietta in florida. line for republicans. good morning. caller: yes good morning andrew and young lady. question. the illegal order for forgiving student loans, which was turned down by the supreme court and biden just disregarded that order. can, out of those loan moneys be

clawed back? i went to school, and i paid my own way. and i had to live in substandard housing. i had to eat substandard food for quite a while, meaning that i did not get to eat steak or hamburger. and i want to know if that money can be clawed back as it should be? and i am wondering if you agree. guest: well, there are a few questions wrapped up in that. one is that order was again, a directive to the secretary of education to use power that the administration thought was embodied in an older law, in one case a 2003 act dealing with student loans and the net -- in the case of national emergency. the beginning of his term, the pandemic emergency was in effect so they tried to activate that

older law to rollback a wide range of student debt obligations. as the caller notes the supreme court said no, that was not the way the law was intended to be used. there were other programs already on the books, some of which you know were kind of newer interpretations of existing law others had been on the books for quite a while. the biden administration tried a bunch of different things. having been pushed back on that one law they went to another one and that one was pushed back. they ended up relying on a series of programs already in place for forgiving student, especially for those in public service, teachers and public servants in general. those were already in place and those were established. the biden administration ramped them up and was more aggressive

and how they reached out to possible beneficiaries of that and so in the end, did forgive a fair bit of debt. i think took law it back if you want under those earlier programs, the ones that were turned down, you would have to get an act of congress to require that. you would have to go through a statutory means rather than a simple executive means. so, it will be interesting to how strong a line the incoming trump administration wants to take. they could ask congress to look into it. and perhaps, if they did not want any student debt forgiveness they could change the statute to change the way that is done. and so, it will be a real area of politics. it is a very contentious area. and one that in the end, i think the biden administration did not do as much as it wanted, but it

did a fair bit. it will be interesting to see how much that stays on the table. host: andrew rudalevige is a professor at bowdoin college and the author of "by executive order: bureaucratic management and the limits of presidential power." thank you for being with us. guest: it has been a pleasure. host: later this morning on washington journal, united policyholders executive director amy bach will discuss the impact of climate disasters on the u.s. insurance market and consumers. first more of your calls during open forum. there is a public policy issue that you would like to discuss, you can call in now. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. we will be right back. ♪

>> a new chapter in u.s. history begins this monday with a presidential inauguration of donald trump. witness democracy in action with c-span and for the first time since ronald reagan's inaugural, this day will be held inside the capitol rotunda due to frigid temperatures. watch c-span's coverage where we will take your calls, and hear insights from historians and speak with attendees in washington, d.c.. this historic day begins at 7:00 a.m. eastern with live coverage including the outgoing president greeting the president-elect at the white house. we will bring you the swearing-in ceremony as donald trump takes the oath of office, becoming president of the united states followed by his inaugural to -- inaugural address. see the presidential parade inside the capital one arena and later the inaugural ball's. also do not miss our special coverage on c-span2.

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krisit noem had her confirmation hearing. the governor is one of several of president-elect trump's nominees who had their confirmation hearings this week. here is part of the governor's confirmation hearing talking about her qualifications and how she would approach the role of homeland security secretary. [video clip] >> i have led south dakota with a focus on making our state safer, stronger and freer. i focused every day on making the best decisions not just for right now but for generations to come. i have overseen a state budget of over $7 billion in a state employee workforce of 13,000 including 7000 reporting directly to the governor. i have addressed issues like cybersecurity, human trafficking, drug interdiction and natural disasters, the same

challenges facing you and the people that you represent back home. i have secured our state and supported the rule of law. if confirmed, that is the same approach that i will take to leading the department of homeland security. as we face the evolving threats of the 21st century the mission and the success is more critical than ever. we must be vigilant, proactive and innovative to protect the homeland. the challenges in front of us are extremely significant and we must ask -- secure our borders against illegal trafficking and immigration. we must safeguard to protect against cyber attacks and also terrorism. i firmly believe that we can make those talent -- can meet those challenges. you can use collaboration with state and federal partners and senators, i want your input. border security must remain a top priority. as a nation we have the right

and responsibility to secure our borders against those who would do us harm. and we must create a fair and lawful immigration system that is efficient and effective and reflects our values. president trump was elected with a clear mandate, he needs to achieve this mission because two thirds of americans support his immigration and border policies, including the majority of hispanic americans. i was the first governor to send troops to our border when texas asked for help and when they were being overwhelmed by an unprecedented border crisis. if confirmed i will ensure that the exceptional and extraordinary border control agents have all of the tools and resources they need to carry out their mission effectively. the same is true of my commitment to the outstanding men and women of the u.s. immigrations and customs enforcement. they are responsible for apprehending, attaining and deporting illegal immigrants and

getting criminal aliens off of the streets and out of the country will help american communities be safer again. the bravery and dedication of the border patrol are unmatched and that will restore dignity to their work. [end video clip] host: we will start our calls for the segment with new york on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling in to say a few things. and one was about someone mentioned the loans with education. and i firmly believe that in the united states, here, it is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world, i think everyone should have a free education, including if you are going to get a doctor's degree. the reason why is that this makes everyone -- it makes it affordable for everyone to get an education if you wanted. if you do not want that but you

want other kinds of projects to learn, that should be available to you. actually, because someone else had to pay for their education is no reason why everybody should not agree that at this stage that you should be able to have free education. the only thing that you could suggest is that after you get through education you can give back for your community for three years in some way and that would be helpful. the other thing is someone mentioned about someone is not racist. you cannot say who is or is not because you are not that person. you can only say and believe what you are. the other thing and i am rattling here. the other thing is about children and killing and whatnot. some people think you shall kill over here but not over there. it said thou shalt not kill, and did not say who, where, when and

why. if you have a problem of mental health, get some help. do not leave it out on the street. because you do not have money or anything to get help, and actually, my greatest fear is we should stop killing each other and stop trying to own this country. this country belongs to god. he made heaven and earth and we do not own anything and we cannot take anything with us. stop beating so greedy over money and let us give more with love to everyone. love is the key. stop being greedy and wanting money because even if you have a lot of money what will you do with all of it? you have to decease at some point and leave it anyway. let us share it and spread more love. thanks you for listening and may god bless everyone. host: that is new york.

massachusetts, line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i would like to start off by a mary lay christmas and happy new year to all. i am very thankful to be living in this beautiful america and a handful of people just want to bring us down and i hope they get what is coming for them. i would also like to send my condolences to the new orleans for the people who got ran down. the souls -- their souls and the guy who got shot down, rest in peace. i will ask the corrupt establishment if the giving the young people can go online so they can see how much social security income tax or what can be invested into stocks or a small business or maybe, when a

loved one expires, how can we dip into that account to bury our loved i would like to give my condolences to the people in california. it is hard to see those people suffering from the burn down. i'm from louisiana. i was there when katrina hit. i saw bodies on the streets whenever the floods happened and we had to wait for the buses to come through with water. i will end with this. i thank god president trump is still here with us and i will never be so happy to look forward to the next four years of my life. i will end with this. i look forward to putting my money in the bank and donating to c-span and watch the bald

eagle come january 20 to see other world leaders at the inauguration of we the people the 47th president to be inaugurated back into the white house. are we happy with trump? yes, we are happy. thank you for taking my call. host: mike in washington, d.c. line for independents. caller: first of all i want to say happy new year to everybody and as we start and also i want to give a public shout out to raleigh gains. this young woman is so wise beyond the years she understands that a lot of people did vote for donald trump not because they believe in america first but as a protest against the left and democratic party.

for this young woman to put her life at risk to only want to fight for weapons rights to have their own personal space, for women to be able to have the opportunity to compete as females sports instead of men who identify as women tacking opportunities away from them. the one make that she made in congress, she should have challenged every member of congress that believes that men who identify as women's have a right to invade women's personal space. when you allow your wife or daughter to talk showers with men who identify as women or go to the bathroom with women? if any of them can't answer that you need it tell them they need it move out of the way because the politicians need to practice

what they teach. it never was asked of barack obama when the lgbtq community used economic power to purchase political power. i'm not angry at them for doing that. but when barack obama came on his that he was making these women go it bathroom with women . i don't think he would allow his wife or daughters to go to bathrooms with men who identify as women. i think the journalists had an obligation to ask him that. the seam thing right now they have to ask any member of congress any politician that comes on this station or say i believe men have that -- that boys who identify as women have the right.

see if your wife or daughter can do that. i find it appalling in this has to be discussed in this year. then i keep hearing the older block generation that calls on the station why they crying about donald trump i don't see that with the younger generation. i don't see young brothers afraid of donald trump or even brown brothers. i like that a lot of young men understand you negotiate the person who is coming in office right now. i remember when i saw this brown brother on news hour he was being interviewed and guy said donald trump is a dictator we are not voting him because of that, we are voting for him because of his policy and he had to agree to certain things before when gave him our vote. he says donald trump is a dictator --

host: we got your point, mike. one of our callers early jude brought up the president biden supporting the e.r.a. this headline from the "wall street journal" he backs equal rights amendments and statements with unclear legal weight. it says he moved to enshrine equal rights amendment in the constitution declaring that it to present section based discrimination had cleared. that was days before he is set to surrender power to president-elect trump and it is certain to face legal challenges and objections from republicans. president biden made comments yesterday about the e.r.a. during a meeting with governors. here are some of his remarks. >> just over 100 years ago a pioneer group of women proposed an equal rights amendment to enshrine the principles of

skwrerpbltd. i have been clear no one should be discriminated against based on sex. to have that ratified it requires three fourths of the states. that was passed when virginia ratified e.r.a. today i affirm the e.r.a. has cleared all hurdles to be added to the u.s. constitution now. it is the law of the land now. the 28th amendment to the constitution now.

i have consulted dozens of constitutional scholars to make sure i was in the power to do this. host: the article says senior administration officials said biden was stating an opinion that the amendment had been ratified. it was not immediately clear if it had any legal or practical weight. back to calls, maria in atlanta line for democrats. maria? we will -- caller: hello. hi, how are you doing? host: doing well. caller: i'm calling because i have been watching washington journal 20-something years and i know what i see. i want to know why y'all don't

have african-american guests on this any longer. i know who are your guests from 7:00 to 10,000 -- 10:00 and i want to know why they don't do it. because i get tired of listening to caucasian opinions and facts and to caucasian lies. it is a different c-span and i want to know why no -- people who think it don't make a difference. you have three weeks of african-american guests and see how they will feel. you have diverse people calling. why don't you have any african-americans? look at year guests this morning and monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday. whoever took over it is a disgrace to treat us like this. we can tell it is no longer brian lamb.

host: maria, we make every effort to get a variety of voices on the program. we urge you to continue watching and if you have a suggestion for somebody you would like to see you can shoot us a tweet. deandre in baltimore, line four, republicans. caller: good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call. it is always a pleasure. i want to say that we are seeing the death of the first amendment essentially the foundation of democracy. over the last 15 months we have seen journalists being removed from press briefings an extremes of protests and with tiktok the ban coming in essentially americans, the average american could see the flip between what was happening in gaza versus what mainstream media is

reporting. people are going to platforms like x and divert and we are witnessing what is really happening and a lot of americans are no longer in support of the zionist state and we would like to see our lourdes do the same. thank you very much and god bless. host: that is deandre in maryland. alicia in maryland independent. caller: good morning and happy new year to everyone. however, the people in california and people going through hard times, i want to let you know that our hearts go out to you. i hope that things will finalize

in a good way. i would like to remind everyone when pelosi was the speaker and president trump was the president, the president said to pelosi, i will give you daca if you give me the money for the border. and what did pelosi do? she went on vacation. and never responded. and this daca business has been going on for a long time. and i'm sorry that at that time when president trump offered

that to pelosi she didn't take it. she was more interested in how she felt instead of feeling for the people who have been wanting to become citizens of this country. and i hope that they find these children. i know that when obama was the prsident there were about, i think, 40 -- any way, we have some children come to maryland. no one has ever said anything

about it after that. now, what are we doing to these children? host: that is alicia. ursula in spring lake, north carolina for democrats. caller: good morning, c-span. i'm a registered democrat but guess what. i voted for trump. the reason i did this is we need change in our country. it is getting harder and harder. but my call is a question to all the c-span listeners, because trump is a registered felon. and i believe that a lot of countries in this world do not allow felons to come to their country. how are we going to work with

president trump? please answer my question and have a great day. host: tommy in kentucky, line for democrats. good morning, tommy. caller: yes. i don't understand how these people call in and say they voted for trump and his policies. the only policies i have heard him talk about is putting up walls against the mocksens. but the onlily "good morning america"s --. old "good morning america"s from russia he buddies with putin is ridiculous. and i will tell you this. when their parents and grandparents get cut out of their social security and health care and i promise you maybe

some of them will change their mind but the majority that is calling in for trump is hoping for that, a billions he gave the first. the elon musk might as well be the president. he ain't elected nothing but he is making decisionses on things. he has $250 billion he had people registered as republican. that is buying votes. why are americans taking this? i will tell you why. you have that 1% of the rich that is making money hand over fist with trump. he has done nothing for the poor and he ain't going to do nothing for the poor or the sickly or the aged. he sits back like he is a strong man. he took six deferments to keep

out of the military. host: we will go to dave our last call. we will give you the last minute. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm an immigrant and what this country is going through right now is so bad in the sense that nobody elects people based on merits. if anybody think that donald trump deserves to be president he is a felon, that is one and people are so divided they stkpwroepbts their own interest. i think that what is needed is education, know the policies and know what they are voting for. the last caller, one of them

talked about daca. that shouldn't be a bargaining chip. if any president wants to give rights to those people it should be done. it is not right to bargain with people's lives. the country, elon musk is making money happened over fist because he knows in the end donald trump will be in favor of all the things he wants to do. we don't have a democracy. what we have is a mob system where all the republicans, they change their fuse because donald trump will get them back elected in the senate, in the congress. anybody who goes against him they know they are doomed people need to realize what is going on. host: that is dave in new jersey our last call. next on "washington journal"

united policy hold executive director will excuse the impact of climate disasters. >> witness democracy unfilter the with c-span. experience history with c-span live coverage as republicans attack control of both chambers of congress and we have the 47th president sworn in monday january 20. tune in nor the coverage of the presidential inauguration as donald trump takes the oath of office becoming president of the united states. stay with c-span this month for comprehensive live unfiltered coverage of the 119th congress. c-span, democracy unfiltered.

>> we have a inauguration button from c-span. scan the q.r. code on the right or visit c-span.org/buttons. quantities are limited. >> since his first interview on c-span on 1993 he has appeared close to 200 times. up to that year he had written or edited six books on abraham lincoln. he has added another 50 books. viewers have had the opportunity for him talk about his life from his birth until his assassination in washington, d.c. in 1865. the following conversation is meant to be extensive. the center of attention it mr. lincoln but the live of

harold holzer. he talks about his life and work on this episode of book notes with bryan lamb. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us to discuss climate disaster and insurance market is amy bach the executive director of united policyholders. guest: good morning. host: joining us early from san francisco. we appreciate that. let's talk about year organization. tell us about united policyholders when and why did you start it? guest: actually, the original history came from new york. i was working in the new york

state legislature on behalf of the consumer protection board where i was the insurance analyst and hank greenberg came up to lobby for a whole slate of reforms that would have made it harder for people to sue insurance companies and there was no one saying is that a good idea. i said i could make myself useful so i got my law degree, came to campbell and met a whistle blower from state farm and felt they were not handling claims properly and we started to form a group and they had the oakland fire and how do you get through it. we built our road map to recovery and preparedness program and advocacy. so for three decades we have

been providing information and a voice to people across the country and businesses that have bought insurance and want the straight scoop and be treated fairly. host: when were talking about those issues who are you working with? guest: right now in california it has been in the grip of an insurance crisis which has been impacting a lot of or states. in the past we were focused on disaster recovery which we are doing in l.a. we have in recent years built a very robust work stream around advancing mitigation and risk reduction. this is not just in california. helping people deal with insurance companies' increasing reluctance for a price people can afford but very severely in florida and california and now a little bit colorado.

we have been thinking of strategies to help people take steps to be less likely that their homes will be damaged and improve insurability. insurance companies were one of the first economic powerhouses to recognize that climate change is a thing and it is real and they have been moving to protect themselves and my organization has been working to help consumers adapt to how insurers are changing. host: explain what home insurance is, homeowners insurance, what it is and what it course, what it doesn't cover. guest: home insurance in california covers the peril of fire. wildfire, house fire. unlike after a hurricane, people here don't have to worry about whether their insurance policy will cover them for fire.

home insurance is supposed to put you back where you were before the loss, for everyday adversity and tipically gives you a defense if somebody sues you but basically it is supposed to give you money to be what is called indemnified put back as close as possible before the thing that happened. that is the basic purpose of it. host: we have been hearing a lot about homeowners insurance this month and even late last year with the climate disasters we are seeing. the cost of homeowners insurance like a lot of our insurances has jumped. according to landing tree the state of home insurance in 2024 reset 37.8% accumulate la actively since 2019. what are some of the factors as to why the rate are increasing

the way they are? guest: one of the first one is that inconvenient truth that al gore talked about that there is a increasing price tag for the change of weather higher winds, more frequent hurricanes, tornados like wildfires in january. that is number one, climate change, insurance companies saw it coming many years ago. then making changes which includes raising rates saying we need to charge more because risk has increased. there is also inflation since the early covid era supply chain interruption that drove,the cost of materials, car parts, all they are asked to pay out on claims from customers.

that is two. number three is the explosion in unregulated tech tools that insurance companies buy and use to run their operations. to decide who they want to insure and that is including aerial drone, ai. like shall has a credit score and that affects the interest rate when they borrow people have an insurance score based on their claim history and rick characteristics -- risk characteristics. now, instead of insuring a lot of risks more blindly the way at the used to they have tmi, too much information. they can see all the warts in your home or business, they can see it from the air, read it in the stats they get. and some of those technique

tools are exaggerating risks. that is where the projections they are using, catastrophe models that purport to crystal ball see the future, they always seem to err on the side of guessing higher. leak this risk is higher. it is more likely that the insurance company will get a claim on this property and that information is really scaring insurers out of doing what they have traditionally done and what we expect them to do which is to take on risk in return for money. host: our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is amy bach the executive director of policy unite -- i'm sorry -- united policyholders. we are talking about the impact climate disasters are having on the insurance market. if you have a question or comment being call in now.

the lines are broken down regionally. in you are in the 1-202-748-8200. 1-202-748-8201 and you can shoot us texts at 202 shall a head line from cbs thousand of los angeles homeowners were dropped by the insurer before the palisades fire. not just the increasing costs of homeowner insurance but the availability. talk to us about what is happening there. guest: what is happening here is very similar to what has been hang in florida for a number of years. the company people have been relying on have been becoming were pickier about which

properties they will ensure and they have been shrinking their footprint basically selling fewer policies and being a lot more selective at the point of sale. that is leading to some shifts. coverage is more expensive for people that have to go into a state run insured of last resort. in florida it is citizens. in california it is california fair plan. we have seen more people lose their brand name policies and have to go to either a state run insurer of last resort where the price is higher because it is high risk an coverage is thinner or turn to a new brand that they have never heard of that may not have a track record of paying claims and may be highly regulated.

insurance has been fairly well regulate and treated like a utility. so insurance companies by law in california do not have to insure people they don't want to insure. there is no rule that says they must offer a policy to mrs. smith in the palisades. it is their choice. there are rules about when they have been insuring mrs. smith and don't want to insure her any more they have to give her 75 days notice and be fair in applying underwriting guidelines which are the internal criteria of what customers they want and don't want and then what they are going to charge customers based on their rick -- risk profile are they a good risk or

somebody that is likely to file claims. we are learning the hard way we didn't treat utilities that they can pick and choose customers within some very narrow grounds. we have a few exceptions. in california we have the insurance commissioner has the authority that is the regulator who keeps an eye on the insurance industry has the authority to if the governor declares a state of emergency which he has had a lot of opportunities to do the last year and going into this year, once he declares that emergency that allows the commissioner to put a unanimous renewal and puts pause on insurance companies dropping policies in the zip code of that moratorium but other than that we don't have a

lot to force insurance companies to insure people they don't want. we have the fair plan which does require them to talk a percentage of the risk of those customers they said they don't want and share among themselves. that is what the scenario is. it turns out insurers don't always compete. we rely on them to compete to keep rates down and keep options open. when they stop competing it is a bad situation. that is what we have been in now. host: we have callers waiting. we start with garry in newport, kentucky. caller: i would like to make everybody aware of a benefit that insurance companies offer you. it has to do with homeowners. it affects homeowners but it has

nothing to do with home ownership at all. it is like they come out and jump start your car, cold weather like it is here in kentucky. they charge that as a claim. that goes into your home policy. i tacked to -- i realize the lady said benefits went up. mine has slowly being going up the last four or five years 30 to 40%. i won't mention who i'm with but their initials are ln and they explain it is replacement cost. i said in other words you are charging me in advance for stuff that hasn't happened yet. so there's a lot of shell games

going on with the insurance company that they hide to raise your rates or whaofr. within being that auto thing that is considered a claim. guest: spot on as far as the fact that they are counting things on your report as a claim and just like i was saying about people know they have a credit score, a lot of people don't know that they have an insurance score. and there is something called clue standing for comprehensive loss and underwriting exchange. we tell people to get a clue because you can get a copy of your clue report. if you see things that are wrong or unfair, for example you see a claim on your record that are getting dinged for that wasn't

your fault, you want to contact clue and ask them to physician it because that is a very important tool for insurance companies. the thing that issen fair about it is that no matter whether it is your insurance company or not, if you apply for insurance with a different company income look at your clue report and see what your report was with a competitor of theirs and whether you filed claims and all of that. so the consumer is at a huge zack. you cannot control some of the information that is coming to insurance companies about you. but that information really hits you in the pocketbook because insurance companies are using that clue report to decide are you a good risk or not and what are we going to charge you.

host: we have seen images of some of the climate disasters that have been happening. the california wildfires, hurricane hell rain, tornadoes in the midwest. ran texts this why do all policy owners pay more for the few that live in a risk place? guest: the truth is there are risks everywhere. it is not just the disasters that insurers are having to adjust their rates to account for. it is the everyday car accidents, people are distracted with driving. that is what is happening all over the country. so, pointing the finger of blame to me why should people inland subsidize the coast, the whole nature of insurance is we all have vulnerabilities and risks.

we throw -- we put or money into a big pot, the insurance companies pool it. we are all in this together so saying i'm paying for the other people is not really the case. it is all a big pool of risk. so people in the midwest have tornadoes and we don't have throws in california. similarly, hurricanes. but people in the midwest don't often have wildfires. the beauty of insurance when it works the way it should is we are all helping each other out with the risks. it doesn't matter where you live, there are risks and they balance each other out. in the midwest there are -- there is frost, droughts, flooding. so, no place in the country is immune from some level of risk.

just the way insurance has always been relatively affordable is the smoothing out, pooling of we throw it in together so you have old and young people, older homes and newer homes, older drivers and younger drivers and when you put it together it creates this pool of diverse risk. honestly, that is what makes it work. so every time we try to pull something out it reduces people's protection. for example, in california we had a big earthquake in 1994. the insurance compaai know what, if you continue to make us include earthquake coverage in our home policies we are out. the legislature said we will change it, you don't have to. now like 8% of californians have

earthquake insurance because once you pull it out -- people in florida know this as well -- you don't have coverage for high winds in an insurance policy. insurers were successful to say no. now you have to buy two policies when you used to buy one. same with flood. if you don't buy that separate policy you are out of look if you have a claim for something that coverage was cut out of your policy. so we are cautions public policy makers to stop this trend of insurers removing coverage for specific peril and then requiring that property owner to buy one or two or three more policies just to have that whole protection at the used to have in the home policy. host: let's hear from roderick in scottsdale, arizona. caller: good morning. kudos on the work you have done,

amy. i'm a native of sacramento and was at the place i worked for the p.r. america and cna and cigna. i worked in the forest products so, about 20 years ago and we were putting out industry reports about california on fire in 2020 and being laughed out of rooms in sacramento and by legislators in sacramento, my hometown and i know you're family with the area. who is going to lead the moratorium on looking back at some policy decisions like they want to do forest management to make money for timber harvest terse which were off base. does that come from insurance companies or sacramento or insurances like yours? who is going to be interviewed about that so it is concerning

because you are doing the same thing. you are passing blame, not accepting responsibility for decisions made in sacramento. who leads the after action of we made a lot of decisions or do they keep living in denial? guest: i don't think anyone is living in denial any more certainly around wildfires. it is easy to simplify things but in reality it is complicated. to be honest with you, we have a conflicting public policy situation around housing and development. one of the things that happened, forests have to burned, they have always burned. we often will stop a fire that -- to save homes. we prioritize home ownership and people very often over nature so that means that we have been

allowing people to continue to live and also we have been allowing development to go deeper into what is called the wild land interface. blaming environmentists i think this is -- environmentalist it is is off base. there are logical places to leave. they are moving out of cities. developers are building this these areas and people are living there and it creates it -- it creates this dynamic. and people love their trees. i don't like to point blame especially after a lore fighting disaster like the one we are now in the process of tackling in l.a., but we tell people, experts tell people you need to create defensible space and take out the trees and bushes and

give firefighters the clear space and people are reluctant. we also have a problem with money. the u.s. forest service i believe they are in a deep budget crisis. there's not enough money. the city of oakland is talking about closing five fire stations. we have a lot of challenges today. i know you know that. but i will say this about insurance industry in recent years. we have been seeing some movement of insurance companies being willing to reward people for the risks. that is incredibly important. we have seen some progress certainly in california we've standards to make it less likely that your home will burn an community wide standards. how when get critical mass in an area that people are living up against nature.

and then we have seen some insurers starting to embrace that and incentivize rick reduction by saying if you reduce rick -- risk we will ensure you. that is the progress we were seeing before this disaster and we will have to continue to push. we are human so we have the smarts, we have to be less, in my opinion, less busy pointing fingers,and more busy looking at the things that are working and making those things work better for more people and that includes risk reduction. we know more about with people can do with their roofs an around their homes and things that need to be done on public lands. shaded fuel breaks and controlled burns. there's a lot we can do. we just don't as have enough

monday to do it and don't always have the will there to do these things that we know we have to do. host: timothy in anchorage, alaska. caller: good morning. this is very helpful information. my question is two fold. i have a problem with being concerned with them continuing to rebuild and put more money back in place. i know part of an insurance policy is to bring you back to where you previously were. but if you continue to build in places that were already dangerous it seems counterintuitive. i don't see why the financial institutions allow the insurance

companies to continue to put these buildings back into very precarious places whether on beaches or in rivers or on sides of hills. it seems like they should have an opportunity to say we shouldn't invest here. if you want to invest money in your nails and you say i think they are worth $5 million somebody says i really don't think that is what it is going to be, you couldn't get that policy. but here we are not really pricing -- we don't do that with flood insurance. you talk about 100-year-old floods but we're not pricing with things cost, not just the replacement cost but with it cost in the first place. as were talking about we build

out and out we don't build infrastructure or the thing in california, i think, is going to go. they have to rebuild because they talk about what insurance is -- host: timothy, we will get a response. guest: some good points in there. there's a lot of conversation about should people continue to be able to live in places right on a beach or up in the two hoe area or places that have vulnerable. the answer is like, well, they do. so should or shouldn't, that is where they leave. what we see after a lot of wildfires my organization has been bringing our recovery resources to wildfire impacted households over three decades. we have seen the bumper stickers

boulder strong and sonoma strong and the drive for people to i'm coming back. we are going to rebuild. that is a powerful kind of human american optimism that i don't think you stop that. i think that insurance companies are definitely sending those signals. and environmentalists say the cost should be the signal this is a risky place and you will pay more nor insurance. it is not happening as much as it should i hear people say i had somebody say to me we bought a condo in florida and the insurance is not bad and it is on the beach, ok, that is

interesting. so i think insurance companies are for profit businesss so they are behaving like rational capital ists and putting increases in effect and need to charge people more. and that is causing a reaction. people don't want to pay more and i get that. a lot of households can't. one of the things that we are having a couple news announcements we are waiting for very nervously in california, one is how many people that lost their homes in these tragic wildfires don't have insurance at all because the markets have been bad. you talk about $18,000 premiums. that is not something most households can tack on to their

budget. so we have this complicated dynamic of people want to live where they live. that is where they live. insurance companies are saying well, in most cases unless we are feeling particularly competitive and want to insure condos in florida you are going to pay for your choice. that is happening and it is very painful. giant caller's point there was a recent opinion essay in the "new york times" we have to stop underwriting people who move to climate danger zones and they suggest putting in place a federal reinsurance program. the federal government has a very limited role in insurance regulation. what would that do? would it help? what would it look like? guest: i think that we do need

that. at least for the state sponsored insurance plans of last resort that are take all comers. they are that safety valves. the wheels of insurance keep to need turning. there needs to be insurance for people. the fall back plans they have to generally insure anybody who comes. they can charge what at the charge and it can be the higher rate for the higher rick -- risk pools. insurance plans have to buy reinsurance. that is the insurance that insurance companies buy for those, the icon of l.a. wildfire multibillion dollar price tags, hurricanes, katrina. those kind of price tags.

reinsurance is key because when the claims go into that level of dollars that is where reinsurance kicks it. it is an regulated. they charge what the market will bear. many of them are international companies, off shore so they have their own bubble whatever they get to charge and that is not regulated by the state or the feds. because of this, reinsurance is one of those things that is driving home insurance costs up and making it harmed for some of the state supported last resort plans that are fall back so people continue to have financial security and buy and sell houses because they have to buy reinsurance and it is not regulated they have to charge more because whatever they have to pay nor reinsurance. it is complicated, but the

bottom line is if we have a federal reinsurance facility of some kind that would provide some sort of supplement, then -- meaning systematical catastrophic risk exposure for the state right hand plans or insurers in general -- they would be able to buy less reinsurance to bring the cost of the premiums down and reinsurance only kicks in if there is something really big that happens. so, most of the time the facility would sit there unless there's been a disaster that really gets a high dollar mark, then there would be this pot of federal loan guarantees that would be available. it is a little my indicated but that's an idea that is one of the lowest hanging fruits we have on the table right now, is

some kind of -- why? because the states land don't have that kind of financial strengths to be that back stop and reinsurance is such a big cost driver for consumers. we don't know about it, but down in the food chain consumers are the ones that are paying for these higher reinsurance prices. and as we see climate change reinsurers are cashing in because they are much more in the game so they are setting some of the rules amount they are saying you are going to pay more for this high dollar claim capacity that they bring because we are seeing more of these high dollar events. host: let's hear from daniel in scranton, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. term, thank you for taking my call. i think that one of the most important points -- i know that

year organization says this -- since most insurance -- not all but most is regulated by the state legislatures were talking about your local state legislature has won by maybe a few hundred votes or maybe they are in california but you won the primary by less than a few00 upon the. you talk about people if you e-mail this is an differ situation i cannot accumulate wealth and people are ripping us. if you can write a more nuanced later but i'm telling you as a political scientist there is nothing that will wipe a smile off a lobbyists face when they sit down with the rep and i want to help you but i have 40

letters on this last month alone? i only won by 250 votes. that is the thing about the state legislatures and especially in states like florida insurance is generally not recorded as a existential issue. they will be amenable and will respond. i'm not saying you should write and threaten but there is causing me a lot of distress and i want to see you do something about it in a meaningful way. host: let's get a response. guest: the caller is correct. the federal government, congress, has very little control over insurance companies. it is a unique scenario in the united states where the states regulate insurance. so each state has its own system. each state has its own system for whether insurance companies

can just file and use whatever rates they want or have to seek prior approval from the regulator so we have a patch work of rules and there is this dynamic that the last caller refers to between affordability and availability. we started this conversation talking about how thinking about insurance as a necessity instead of a luxury. but we have been relying on a for profit sector to provide insurance and it was working when they were competing more and they didn't have as were information as they have now and they were more willing to insure risks than they are now. we are in a very challenging situation with this now because a perfect example is california. we regulate rates here. so when insurance companies want

to charge more they have to get permission and we have a process and insurers were saying it is taking too long to get increases so the commissioner made a suite of reforms to make it easier for the insurance companies to do business in california. that said, we can't just let them charge whatever they want. we have to kind of keep things in balance because it is for profit and a lot of them are shareholder companies so when they have some extra money they don't give it back to the policyholders in the form of rate reduction, they give it to shareholders. so we have a system where we are relying on a for profit sector to provide something that people now recognize is not just something that you can buy or not buy. you need it to buy a home, to own a home, to get back on your feet after you have been knocked

down by some bad thing. so, we are in this catch 22. we want to regulate more, we want to make it harder for insurance companies to just drop people based on some picture that some company took of their roof. but to do more mandates now when insurance companies are saying we have one foot out the door was to risky for public policy makers is it is a tricky dynamic for lawmakers. do we put new restrictions on insurance companies knowing that they might be able to say fine, we are going to go to another state with is -- what is happening in florida. you see names there you have never heard of. we are trying to hold the market together in california so we have this balancing act. the moratoriums are great.

insurance companies don't like them. they are really important. but every time a ladies and gentlemen -- legislature talks about forcing an insurance company to take customers they would reject they hit a wall because they are afraid the insurance company will sigh bye, we are going somewhere else. so it is -- i don't want to say there is no solution. the solution is reasonable restrictions. so we are advancing a legislative proposal that would require insure ebbers to be more transparent about their rolls about year roof and plumbing and electrical so that you know the rules and you can make year decisions as a homeowner. but right now -- and then to give people a chance if there are things at the house that are out of compliance with their guidelines, give that homeowner

a chance to do the work and if they do the work and send you pictures saying i fixed this, then you must give them a renewal policy. we want to advance that. we are trying to advance that across the country. it has been advanced in massachusetts. i think we will see similar things in colorado but the insurance companies have a powerful lobbying structure, thousands of lobbyists. in many states you will see the most powerful lobbyists are the ones for insurance companies. so they will resist regulation and public officials will have to find the balance to keep their being affordable, valuable insurance but address the fact that insurance companies are for profit. so we have to kind of do some

adjusting. we have the flood program. you have a lot of private insurers in that program. it is not a poor government program. so this hybrid public-private is where we need to go. host: amy bach the executive director of united policyholders. you can find out more on up p help.org. thank you for being. guest: it is my pressure. host: that is it for today's "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 pacific with another program. have a good saturday.