>> c-span's washington journal, are live form involving you'd discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy. from washington and across the country. the hill emily brooks with a look at the week ahead in congress and the house gop's work with the trump administration his legislative agenda. then white house reporter brett samuels for the hill is an update on news of the day and former congressional staffer casey birgit discusses his book.

executive power. "washington journal" is next. join the conversation.

♪ host: this is the "washington journal" for february 2. president trump announced a new set of tariffs against canada, mexico, and china. canada, in return, announced new tariffs against the united states with china and mexico expressing -- tell us what you think about these new tariffs put in place by the president. here's how you can call and let us know. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 four democrat -- for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to make your comments via these -- about these tariffs via text, (202) 748-8003. you can post on facebook at facebook.com/cspan or on x at

@cspanwj. the president going to truth social to talk about why he did it he said he implemented a 25% tariff on imports from expo and canada, 10% on canadian energy, and 10% additional on china this was done through the international emergency economic powers act because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our citizens. we need to protect americans, and it is my duty as president to ensure the safety of all. i made a promise on my campaign to stop the flood of illegal aliens and drugs from pouring across our borders. that was from truth social about these tariffs. cnbc talks about how these tariffs, if they get put into place and how -- if other countries decide to retaliate, could affect the american consumer. cnbc saying tariffs are attacks on foreign imports. u.s. businesses that import

those goods pay that tax to the federal government. many businesses will follow those extra costs to consumers, which is why tariffs generally trigger higher prices for consumers. americans could find they have fewer choices for brands and products stopped on store shelves. there are many question marks over these looming tariffs on canada, china, and mexico. if you go to the website for "the toronto star," their headline has this in response. canada hits back on trump tariffs. this was an announcement made by prime minister trudeau yesterday. here is the prime minister talking about these tariffs. [video clip] >> tonight, i am announcing canada will be responding to the u.s. trade action with 25% tariffs against $155 billion worth of american goods. this will include immediate tariffs on $30 billion worth of

goods as of tuesday, followed by further tariffs on $125 billion worth of american products in 21 days' time to allow canadian companies and supply chains to seek to find alternatives. our response will also be far-reaching and include everyday items, such as american beer, wine, and bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing, and shoes. it will include major consumer product, like household appliances, furniture, and sports equipment. materials like lumber and plastics, along with much, much more. as part of our response, we are considering, with the provinces and territories, several non-tariff measures, including

some relating to critical minerals, energy procurement, and other partnerships. we will stand strong for canada. we will stand strong to ensure our countries continue to be the best neighbors in the world. host: prime minister justin trudeau from yesterday. you can give your thoughts on these new tariffs placed on canada, mexico, and china. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. and you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. jeffrey's in north carolina, republican line, starting this off on these new tariffs put in place. caller: good morning. thank you for taking the call. i would like to say, it is very unfortunate that, within a short term of his administration, we have to deal with so much that

is at hand right now. knowing that this is just going to increase indefinitely the cost of living for people who cannot afford it. it is something he said on his campaign and promises, he said he would not it. it makes no sense to put people who are already behind and struggling into a very dire situation of trying to make a decision, putting food on the table, taking care of their kids, the bills cannot be paid. these are sacrifices that it is very unfortunate people do not see in the eyes of america, that there are people who just cannot sustain this. and to know that it merely will not affect the people that have this advantage -- where is the humanity to understand this is not a good situation -- host: so what do you think about

republicans like yourself agreeing with this move? caller: i mean, i only took into the position that certain initiatives that he campaigned on that he was going to focus on a stronger economy. this is not a stronger economy, this is going to devastate the economy. you can't keep going back and forth and saying it's biden or obama. it's not. it is decisions he is making now in this administration. host: let's go to trish in seattle, democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. yeah, well, this president said he was going to do this. he said he would lower prices. well, i don't know. don't you know what he has been talking about the last 10 years? he says one thing and does another thing. so, yeah, it's going to hurt.

and for the people who voted for him, schadenfreude. host: what you think about these tariffs to stop illegal trafficking and the like? caller: this is not the way this stuff works. it just isn't. if it worked, why wouldn't the last emaciation have done it? talk to economic people. they will tell you this does not make sense on any strategic level. but to hurt people and satisfy his ego. it's always about that. i don't understand why people don't understand that yet. it's never about the citizens, it's always, always, always about him. so, america, you got what you voted for. host: let's hear from sue in florida, independent line. good morning.

caller: good morning. i can see why trump is doing this, but i think the timing is all wrong. our inflation is kind of iffy right now. you know it is going to go up. there is no other recourse. and the layout in the room, what about all the people who go to canada for drugs? i wonder if it will stop that. -- he is looking at long-term effects, but this is not the time to do that. host: you started by said you agreed -- i think you kind of saw the idea of why he did it. could you elaborate on that? caller: well, i think he did it because he thinks we have unfair trade policies. but when you have inflation the way it is right now, just starting to come down, interest rates are still up, and they

will not go down, not with this move, i think he should have waited until the economy is a little more stable. looking at the long-term results, it will help us, but this is not the right time to do it. host: usa today highlights some of those things that could be from canada impacted and affected by these tariffs. wood, charcoal, aluminum, the list going on to include iron and steel appliances, cereal, fl our, starch, and milk products. wool, animal hair, horsehair yarn and fabric, umbrellas, walking sticks, whips, cotton, photographic and cinematographic goods. also books on what could cost more. you heard the prime minister talk about the tariffs put in place. mexico's various pavers also

talked about the move by the president. just to show you one of those headlines this morning, from the mexican papers. we will show you that in a bit but also take your calls. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independent,s (202) 748-8002. el universal is the paper. here is the front page headline. 25% from the president's announcement. it is in spanish, obviously. it talks about how these new tariffs could be put in lace. the mexican president putting out a statement we categorically reject the white government has alliances with criminal organizations, as well intention of meddling in territory. if united statesovernment and agencies wanted to fight the sale of fentanyl, they could fight the sale of drugs in their doand the laundering of money

th legal activity generates that has done so much harm to its population. those comments from the leaders of canada and mexico. rip in virginia on the republican line. caller: the president's brilliant, unbelievable. come back with tariffs, then put more tariffs on them. just like what took place in south america, is going to take ways across the board with everyone. trump is going to knock it out of the park. the only thing that will really hurt him is the democrat and the left party. everybody acts and talks as though they know exactly what will take place. we really don't know much of anything. but he knows a lot of stuff, and he should, and -- host: you call it brilliant. exactly why is that, do you think? caller: it's just common sense, in my opinion. if somebody is threatening you and you have the upper hand and

the ability to raise tariffs on them, to put them in a position where they are going to really feel pain and agony, they will succumb to your desires and your needs and what you are attending -- attempting. we've been the bread basket, the go-to free meals for the country, the world, forever. that all needs to stop. it can stop, but you got to give it a chance. if you give it a chance, the same thing that just took place in south america will take place -- host: you mentioned that. do you think counter tariffs by other countries could do the u.s. harm? caller: no, i don't. i don't think they will. if you look in the past, when we put up tariffs, they did not put up tariffs. if they put up tariffs, we will put additional tariffs on them. canada is a sitting duck, if it were not for us. they would have to spend 40

times the amount of money they spend to protect themselves if we were not the safeguarding of their entire nation, and have always been an will always be. host: ok. let's hear from otie, democrats line. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead. caller: yes, on the tariffs. it's not no surprise. trump has been talking about tariffs forever. the guy is serious about the tariffs as far as the immigration. he really does not have no kind of solution to the immigration album as far as axing it -- fixing -- he really does not have no kind of solution to the immigration problem as far as fixing it. host: why do you think the tariffs are not a solution?

caller: because it is going to hurt the economy here. it will hurt the middle class people. it will hurt, of course, poor people. he says he will get all the prices down. he is not going to do that. he is not really caring about that. the guy's about himself and for his friends. his only agenda is his agenda and people around him, his rich friends. that's it. he really don't care about the country. but people voted him in. don't be surprised what he's going to do, especially the people that voted for him. host: let's hear from duke in maine, independent line. caller: yes. tariffs have never done anybody any good.

they're just going to make our prices go higher. these businesses can afford to pay tariffs and not pass them on to spirit all the time trump was running, all he did was run his mouth about how -- to bring the prices down on food and gas and this and that, drill, baby, drill, and all this baloney, which i, in my opinion, do not feel he is going to do. all he is out for is retribution. he just is out to ruin this country. and i don't know why. tariffs, i don't see what tariffs are going to do as far as keeping fentanyl or illegals out of this country. host: it was in a back-and-forth exchange with reporters friday before the president and acting this new set of tariffs, where he talked about the impact of tariffs, at least to him, to what it could do for the economy. here is a bit of that exchange. [video clip] >> let me just tell you, i got

elected for a lot of reasons. number one was the border. number two was inflation. because i had almost no inflation, yet i charged hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs to countries. i had almost no inflation and took in $600 million of money from other countries. tariffs don't cause inflation, they cause success. they cause big success. so we will have great success. there could be temporary, short-term disruption, and people will understand that. i have that when i negotiated some of the good you -- good deals for the farmers. unfortunately, those deals have been led astray by biden and his people. we had a deal with china -- enforce it in the biden administration, they let them get away with murder care that is neither -- they let them get away with murder. as soon as i left, they stopped

doing it, because there was nobody in biden to enforce it. but the tariffs will make us very rich and strong. we will treat other countries very fairly. but if you think about it, other countries charge us tariffs. we don't charge from tariffs. it's about time that changes. host: new tariffs from the united states on canada, china, and mexico. you can call in and comment on that, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. nate in indiana, republican line. caller: yes, good morning. i think, when you look at these tariffs, it is not about the economy. it is about corruption. it is about power and money. because when you do across-the-board tariffs, you

can either reward companies by giving them exemptions. or you can punish industries by increasing tariffs. so you create winners all around the world and losers all around the world. you have the power. you have one club in one hand, the largest economy in the world. you have another club and the other hand, the largest military in the world. that's a lot of power. host: so when it comes to these new tariffs, is this a win or a lose for the united states? caller: it is a lose for the united states. everyone is scratching their heads. how is this going to help the united states? you can't look at it like that. you have to look at it as how does this pad the pockets of donald trump? host: as a republican, what do you think about the republicans who support it? caller: they are afraid of him.

they are afraid of him. he is managing like a mafia boss. you know, it's not like -- i know he is just a soft spoken 78-year-old man, and it is not like he has been convicted of fraud three times, and it is not like he has been impeached twice. host: ok. let's go to matt in iowa, democrats line. caller: yes. the last caller said quite. a bit i agree withthese tariffs are not going to help us at all. a lot of these republicans are always talking about the price of goods and how high they are. just take a look at it. we went through a pandemic, and it was across the world, everything going up. especially in this country, it was total greed that these companies wanted to make their money back. guess what will happen with these tariffs? now they will have to raise their prices because of the tariffs.

it will make things even worse for middle-class and the poor. on top of that, with canada now putting on tariffs, where do you think we get a lot of our lumber for building homes? the price of homes will start going up. go ahead, donald, just keep doing what you are doing. it will be a nice four years. host: the senate minority leader, chuck schumer, put out a series of posts on x after the new tariffs were announced. just to show you some of them in succession. this is chuck schumer from yesterday. you are watching the super bowl next week, he writes. wait till trump's tariffs raise your guacamole and beer prices. he also says, you're driving to work, wait until trump's tariffs raise your gas pris. and chuck schumer again, you are watching the super bowl next, wait until trump's tariffs raise your pizza prices.

tennessee is where michael is, independent line, on these tariffs put in place. michael in tennessee, hello. caller: hey, pedro. i wanted to address the guy who said trump is brilliant. i was on wall street more than 30 years, made more money than i knew what to do with. i had a side business, importing. let me explain to the trump supporters now. if this product i manufactured in canada and it is on the list, and it is a 25% tariff, let's it is $100. now it is $125. if you think i will eat that $ 125, i have a bridge to sell you, pal. we're in serious trouble with this crook, convicted felon in office. i do not understand how these people just sit there and go he is the greatest. i was just like -- host: well, when it comes to the tariffs themselves, do you think they will accomplish their

things of cutting illegal immigration and the like? caller: last time i checked, i did not see a whole lot of people crossing the canadian border, and the people crossing under biden were actually down. we have to deal with that. if i were president, i would say, instead of 1500 new border agents in the south, let's do 5000, another 2000 on the canadian border. a lot of this stuff is coming through the ports of an -- ports of entry, hidden in refrigerators, washers, dryers. it is not some illegal immigrant caught with a couple pounds of fentanyl. it is coming in disguise. the guy's off his rocker. i feel sorry for the people in the middle class and the poor, how they will suffer the next four years. how they will pay $10 for an avocado, whatever, washing machine -- host: got you. let's hear from bert, republican

line. caller: yes, i am wondering right now if, during trump's first term, when he had massive -- whatever you call it that he is putting up against the other countries. did people back then say that trump's policies are so terrible, we shouldn't be charging all these high tariffs? and while he did, he gave us the best economy we have had in a long time. people complain -- the democrats -- complained and complained and complained. the're doing it again. now, it's not only the border. pedro, you don't mention -- you have said several times that it's because of legals coming over the border, and that's why he's doing it.

that's part of it. well, sure, what's happened the last four years under biden is destroying our country. how many millions of people are here now that we don't know where the heck they are? how many 300,000 children are missing -- host: ok, how does that -- please tell me how that deals with the tariff issue directly. caller: well, trump's main purpose, his goal, is to make us a secure country. make us safe. pedro, 274 people are dying every day. every day. 100,000 people are dying because of the drugs coming over, mostly through our borders, canada, mexico. it's not only the illegal aliens

pouring into the country. host: ok, well, i read the president's statement from truth social off the bat, so at least some of those ideas are directly from his truth social post. let's hear from booker in indiana, democrats line. caller: hi. host: you're on, go ahead. caller: i just want to say i totally agree with the prime minister of canada. not folding to this tyrant. not folding to this tyrant. i wish more countries would get a spine and not fold to this tyrant -- host: what is it directly, what the prime minister said, that you agree with? caller: everything. he is going to fight him. if trump thinks he can wave the banner of the mighty u.s. and

everybody will fall down to him. he wants to rename the gulf of mexico the "gulf of america." ok, what the fuck ever. excuse me. host: ok. that's booker in greenland. johnson posting onpresident trump is positioning america to be safe and successfulga. today, he is holding mexico, canada, and china accountable illegal aliens and illicit drugs across our borders. it goes on from there, if you want to re t full statement on x. representative andy harris, republican, talkinabt the fentanyl piece. fentanyl is a widely available, highly addictive drug that is even more potent than heroin. it is being mass produced in china and smuggled mexican across our mexican and canadian

borders, killing more than 200 americans daily. by effectively using tariffs until this crisis is alleviated, president trump is keeping his promise to stop the flood of illegal drugs into this country. and carlos gimenez from florida, saying the communist president of mexico's threats against the united states will destroy her own economy and create a financial cris expect the mexican to take -- and i expect the mexican stock market to take a beating tomorrow. you can continue to call in and give your thoughts on these new tariffs. canada and mexico getting 25% in new tariffs, china getting 10%. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. william joins us on our independent line from ohio. go ahead. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: my name is william.

i am an 84-year-old who is now ashamed to call myself an american. because the united states elected a 34 time convicted felon. he was not convicted of misdemeanors, traffic tickets and such. he was convicted of crimes. 34 times over convicted, and we elected him to be president -- host: ok, how does that relate to the tariff question and these new tariffs and what you think of them? caller: what do i think of what -- host: hold on. you said --new set of tariffs put on canada, mexico, and china. caller: i think putting tariffs on canada was certainly a mistake.

putting a tariff on china is fine. putting a tariff on mexico is probably fine. but why canada? that i do not understand -- host: why is it good for china and mexico and not canada? caller: i do not think he is doing anything that is going to be an advantage to america. host: i think he's a criminal and how the hell did we elected president? host: let's hear once more from the prime minister of canada, justin trudeau. it was announcing the new tariff that he had a message directly for the american people, and here is part of that. >> this is a choice that yes, will harm canadians, but beyond

that it will have real consequences for you. the american people. as i have consistently said, tariffs against canada will put your jobs at risk. potentially shutting down american auto assembly plants and other manufacturing facilities. they will raise costs for you including food at the grocery stores and gas at the pump. it will impede your access to an affordable supply of vital goods crucial for u.s. security such as nickel, uranium, steel, and aluminum. it will violate the free-trade agreement that the president and i along with our mexican partners negotiated and signed a few years ago. together, we've built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen.

a relationship that has been the envy of the world. yes, we had our differences in the past, but always found a way to get past them. as i said before, if president trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the united states, the better path is to partner with canada, not to punish us. host: that is more from justin trudeau, prime minister of canada. robert in ohio, republican line. caller: how are you doing? host: fine, thank you. caller: these tariffs are going to be amazing for america. it's going to put america in a better position, stronger all the way around. we will stop giving money to canada and mexico, plus not only

that, but what people don't understand is i heard the wall street guy saying something about he's got a business that he put in canada, i don't know why he would put your business in canada, first off, if you are an american atria, but the tariffs are going to come down and you said you are not going to eat that $125 for that $25. if you raise your prices and the american people stop buying that product, you're going to eat all of that loss. if we are americans, if we are patriots, who will make our country strong again. and if they raise these prices on the products, stop buying the products. host: why do you think that would happen? caller: what do you mean? host: if you raise prices and they impose new tariffs on goods

that we take into the u.s. and those prices rise, why do you think americans will just stop buying them? caller: that would be the point, to stop buying them, is for us to get a president into a stronger position. we are the number one consumer in the world that everybody wants to be involved in an american store. all the products we buy every day, we control this whole economy throughout the whole world. america does. we buy everything. we don't discriminate from china to taiwan to mexico, we buy everything. host: ok. caller: that's why everybody wants to be -- that's the whole point. that's the whole point of tariffs. host: dandy, pennsylvania, independent line. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller:, donald trump in my

experience goes back to atlantic city and all the stuff he did there and destroyed that, but anyway, i have friends who work for companies and they get a lot of their raw materials from canon and some from mexico, and these tariffs, some of them are afraid that they may have to start laying off people and some of the products go to europe. donald trump just took that market right away from them by driving up the prices. farming and stuff like that, it's going to drive the price of eggs and milk and a lot of other things out. that is going to hurt our farmers, so whatever donald trump is doing, he should have rethought that.

and tomorrow in the stock market opens up, we are going to crash. this is getting pretty what he is putting out there. host: that is dan in pennsylvania. the new york times takes a look at companies that depend on goods from other countries, how they are reacting. a story that was a couple of days ago. with the deadline near some data shows higher freight volumes on road and rail. rail trucking trucking companies have the capacity to cope, the situation is quite different from 2020 wanted 2022 when a daily of imports overwhelmed supply chains causing shipping costs to skyrocket and rapid acceleration of inflation. the industry has probably never been in a better spot to deal with significant changes in the marketplace and scott shannon, vice president of north america cross-border. it also quotes larry gross who

said transportation of shipping containers by rail is up 10% in the first four weeks of the year across north america compared with the same time while efforts to bring in goods before tariffs very likely can truly come a big desire was to get shipments in before a possible strike at the engulfed ports that could have started in mid-january, but that was some of the takes from other aspects of these possible repercussions of tariffs put in place by the united states, retaliatory ones from other countries. with tear from lisa in massachusetts, democrats line. caller: when i'm looking at the tariffs i sit back and think about his first term. he claims that he raised $600 billion in american tariffs from other countries, yet he added over $8 billion $4 trillion to the debt, the national debt, and

took a national deficit that was at 578 billion dollars and brought it up over $3 trillion. more than five times what it was when he took office. where did that $600 billion in tariffs go? how did make our country stronger? host: what do you think been this time around? caller: i think they are going to end up coming down on the middle class and the poor and that prices are going to continue to skyrocket. he's doing nothing to stop that because importers like a man who was from wall street said, the tariffs are not paid by the countries. the tariffs are paid by the people who import the products here. they are not going to eat that cost, they are going to raise the prices. there was a man from ohio who said that americans won't file those products. think about what he was in office the first time.

he put the tariffs on china. people didn't stop buying cell phones. they didn't stop buying washers and dryers and televisions and confused. most of them were made in china. most of the parts they come from china the has they have cheap labor over there. all of this is just going to cause the cost of everything to go up. host: estella is next in oregon, republican line. caller: hello. i've had personal experience with tariffs when i berry -- work in the very first hydroponic greenhouse oregon, and to send out tomatoes to canada, they charged us double what we charged for them to bring over their tomatoes over here. they more or less put us out of business. then yesterday here in oregon, it says made in thailand.

i don't have very many things made from anywhere china, and they really don't see anything made from canada. you can follow the lumber trucks here, headed down to oregon, putting them on chinese ships. then we buy it back. that is just crazy. and to top that off, there are not very many sawmills open anymore in oregon. that is because they are shutting them all down. host: so all of that said, what do you think of the move itself? caller: i think it's great. it's time to start buying stuff made in america. they shut down almost every line here of the stuff we are buying from china and everything else, the minerals. they shut it all down. they've made the rules and regulations ridiculous. and then some of this stuff on shutting down the propane and everything, it would make a lot

of difference. finally start buying stuff in america. how many steel plants have a shut down here? either any left? one or two in the united states. host: estella in oregon giving us a call. thoughts on the tariffs being put in place by the president. carlos, independent line. caller: i think it is a terrible idea. prices are going to skyrocket. i feel like a lot of people don't realize what tariffs mean in donald trump's first term. and the reason why a lot of people continue to buy during that term when the economy was booming is because also a lot of money was being put in. it wasn't taking a full hit. as of now where that money is not being printed like before.

and a lot of people also don't realize that what if this administration doing for the average american, and the retirees that are all going to be suffering, what i they doing to try to help them live comfortably in this economy were keep up with this economy, this is just going to devastate the economy and devastate the average person living paycheck-to-paycheck or the middle class, and only the wealthy are going to benefit out of this. the 1% of it is going to live comfortably while what is going on with 99% of americans that are middle-class and it is just a bad move for this administration who doesn't know what they are doing. host: carlos and washington, d.c. giving us his thoughts. let's hear from an republican line, bill, columbus ohio. caller: trump gave them a

warning, tighten up your borders, stop the fentanyl and the illegals, and trudeau pretty much thumbed his nose to the united states, so this is what they get. they don't care how many people in this country die of fentanyl, they don't care how many illegals are pouring across our border, even terrorists. they don't care about us. people need to realize that the trump deficit, 3.2 trillion dollars of that was spent on fighting covid, with the vaccine in all about. trump only added $4 trillion to the deficit and he took away covid. host: why do you think tariffs are going to stop things like illegal immigration and drug trafficking and the like? caller: it ain't unless canada tightens up their borders. trump said you had to tighten up your borders, our children are dying of overdoses. canada don't care, when trump is running, people coming --

calling and saying they're going to vote for trump because of how much they're are paying for stuff. host: what do you think about these new tariffs from other countries and how it could affect the average consumer? caller: it will. so you would rather pay lower prices than keep our children from dying? you don't think they overdose, is that what you're saying? host: you are putting words in my mouth but i am just asking the question. caller: why does no one care about the overdoses? the democrats are a joke. there are so pro death, they are all for abortion, all for fentanyl. they was all for doctor-assisted suicide of the elderly. they are so pro-death. host: one of the comments or at least a couple of the comments about the possibility of new tariffs took place earlier this month at the world economic forum. it was two governors talking about the possible impact of new tariffs and from other countries, this was arkansas republican governor huckabee

sanders, andy beshear talking about the potential impact of tariffs. this took place earlier this month before the tariffs were put in place and here are some of their thoughts. >> one of the really important things to look at is this isn't his first time. he's coming and having been president before and he knows some of the tools that he has in his toolbox that he was able to use it successfully. and we saw a really strong economy under president donald trump. we solve relationships across the globe in many cases strength and even if they didn't always like the way he said it and the way he went about it, it's hard to argue that his policies were defective and didn't make our country stronger. so i think it is one of those things that he will use as a tool in his toolbox, and something that he can use in leverage and negotiations. at the end of the day, he is the ultimate dealmaker and they think it is something he will use as he is going about trying to make sure america comes out.

>> there is another view which is that it has to be a tollbooth and there is a tollbooth because when it comes to the budget and the deficit in the u.s. is a tool not just to negotiate with other countries but a tool to collect revenue. >> and parts of the administration just said that publicly. i think when you look at this now, he's threatened tariffs about leverage. as president has been very clear that they are about leverage. but the impacts could go right to the reasons that he was elected and could have some significant impact on that very quickly. so there's the threat of a 25% tariff on canada. that will raise gas prices. the threat of a 25% tariff on mexico, that will raise food prices. when you look at the politics of inflation, what are the two things that americans see? first on every corner is gas

prices and then in the grocery store is food prices. host: if you want to see that whole program with these two governors, go to our website. let's go to allen in new york, democrats line. caller: good morning, thank you. this tariff policy is part of the very large picture of the assistant actions by mr. trump that seems to be confined to a prudent in gaining a superior position in the world by creating chaos here and alienating friends, allies and neighbors and disruptions at home. the deportation that will reduce the labor supply, tax cuts on the rich that will increase interest rates, make life more difficult for the poor. host: elaborate on this idea that it benefits the former soviet union, how so

specifically? caller: he mentioned commitment to our allies and our relationship with friends to take other lambs in our hemisphere. we tariff our immediate neighbors canada and mexico. he's making is always among allies and neighbors, which means put in will have a weaker opposing force elsewhere in europe because we are no longer going to be viewed as a linchpin. and he's also giving himself reasons why he can create more chaos at home, by creating more inflation for average people and possibly giving himself a reason to oppose martial law. input an trump have already had a relationship that very closely inset some combination of promises and bribes.

he mentioned he had a moscow hotel deals in the works with putin. host: bob in ohio, independent line. caller: i've been listening to a lot of this, and here's one of the big things, is the fact that trump has been foisting an oligarchy here in the country under people like muska who he has teamed up with. so what he seeks to do with all these policies is in rich the rich. host: specifically when it comes to the tariffs, how so? speak specific to that. caller: these tariffs are going to devastate us. the fact of the matter if the american people are the one to end up paying the tariffs. but the foreign governments do if they turn around and raise prices on americans. that is what it is.

it is an increase on american retail prices for the product. so everything that they do is going that way. i am a retiree. i'm on a fixed income. you know what, what do we get from anybody in our yearly increase? 2%, 2.5% maybe? a could go lower. he could even become worse because he's threatening to take away those things. as well as medicare, medicaid, everything else. let's say he can't get away with that the rest of the stuff is going to put a burden on those americans who are retirees, and almost anyone except the very poor. he is doing it on the very poor

because of the grocery store prices. host: let's go to joy in chicago, republican line. caller: i'm a danger because i am a conservative american business owner. most of my islands, packaging, my boxing comes from china. i can't afford to compete. i can't compete with the major bandwidth of some of the larger frozen food brands now, this is going to really devastate me. what bothers me is people who are blindly supporting republicans. they are not real conservatives, they are just idolizing this man. they are not thinking independently. they are not using any type of discernment whatsoever because it's going to devastate their neighbors. people like their neighbors don't exist but there there is are the ones to go to the store, buy the product, who had a

mortgage. why not go after things like health care? host: because you call yourself a conservative what you think about the larger idea that the president said when it comes to these tariffs and stopping things like fentanyl coming into the united states? caller:i have a message for the state senator whose mother is my sister who died. they are going to find any way they can to get those over here. there are other ways of going about this but you are attacking jobs. these are people who are going to be devastated.

host: let's hear from anthony in ohio, democrats line. caller: i think the tariff idea is really bad and to use it to stop illegal immigrants isn't going to work. america has an addiction problem, period. ever since heroin and alcohol and methamphetamines, there's always going to be something we are addicted to so stopping if and limiting tariffs is not going to work. so it is sad to say and pretty soon we are going to be paying out all kinds of money and we are going to get frustrated and frustration will be people start drinking because candidate is going to tax booze. we are going to have his perpetuating problem that is

going to be a real tough four years. host: that anthony in ohio. let's hear from patrick in michigan, dependent line. caller: good morning pedro and everybody else listening today. i think everybody is missing a very key point, the fact that the people who are in charge all of the world imposing these tariffs i just continuing to get richer and richer and more control of material wealth while everybody else is bickering amongst each other. it will all work out in the end, equality and making things right for children. please stop supporting them. i don't know what the answer is, it could be the green party, they could take corporate donations, i don't know.

but please for me and everybody else, stop. host: a viewer from my trail, canada, hello. caller: yeah, i just want to say i can't understand how america didn't see this coming. this man talked about it before he got elected, he came in with his best buddy, seemed like he is making a bunch of policies with his buddy, but the tariffs here in canada are going to affect you guys as well as us. so i really don't understand the people who are calling in and okaying this for trump that everything is going to be ok, this, that and whatever. we all have inflation, canada had inflation. america had maybe a better solution for inflation, but we all had it around the world.

lack of supply and demand for supply, you guys have got to get rid of this. host: rick, what did you think of the prime minister's response? caller: it was good. host: stronger have? -- how? caller: i think he kind of stalled on putting the 25% on electricity and oil or gas. i would have put that all around the board. electricity as well as the other half of what he did. host: what do you do in canada? caller: i detail cars. host: ok. rick in canada. this is richard in maryland, republican line. caller: good morning. well, i think we need to

understand a little history here. as far as i know, rhode island did not want to sign into the constitution, didn't want to ratify that until we decided that if rhode island was not going to be part of the united states even after the revolution, that there would have to be duties for everything that came out of rhode island, and so that i think was probably the first tariff that was suggested. as far as tariffs, president mckinley, he made america rich on tariffs. and we can have any income tax in those days. and with the excess money, president teddy roosevelt built

the panama canal. host: and how does all that related today? caller: that relates to today because tariffs well-used are wonderful. and the money that we got in on the tariffs was part of what got our country in a position where we could supply the rest of the world in world war i with steel and all the rest of it. host: caller, do you think that the president's use of tariffs as he wants to do that is a well used policy? caller: well, because we have been the victims -- listen, i love the environment, but we, everything is clean. everything that comes from china and whatnot is nothing but polluting.

that is one of the reasons we've lost our steel industry, we've lost everything we've got here, and we just need to put tariffs on things and i think china should be charged an extra tariff for polluting because they were actually building a coal plant every week. host: one more call, this is jack from ontario, canada. caller: so when trump was in office last time he put the tariffs on the chinese and the chinese said well, we won't by your farm products. so the whole soy product in the midwest that was ready for harvest went on bought and in china it went down to brazil and brought -- bought their products anyways. and because of that the brazilian said this looks good, we will burn down the rain forest and we can have a lot more product from china, and in the end, trump had to pay the

american farmers an extra $20 billion for the soy products that were not bought because of his tariffs. host: jack in canada finishing up this hour of calls. thanks to those of you who participated. two guests will join us during the course of the morning today. the first will talk about the entry of the chinese ai company deepseek which cause a reaction from the tech world, wall street and washington, joining us next with why the company made news is the center for strategic and international studies gregory allen. later on, tulane university stephen griffin on president trump's continued use of his executive power and what it means for congress and the courts. this discussion coming up on "washington journal." ♪

announcer: tonight, u.s. district court judge further block shares his book where he talked about the first step act underwood federal prisoners who have served decade and prison can petition the court for reductions in their sentences. >> the first step act is called the first step act in congress with contemplating there would be a second admin a third step act. and finally people are recognizing regardless of your pursuit -- political persuasion and our reactions and the like that it was necessary to do something can create. so the first step act has been considered to be just the most significant sentencing reform,

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helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. washington journal continues. host: this is gregory allen with the center for strategic and international studies, director of the ai center here to talk about china's role in air future of artificial intelligence. good morning. guest: thanks for having me on. host: i hope i said the name right, but what is that exactly? guest: the center is one of the largest think tanks in washington, d.c. we do public policy research with a focus on international affairs and then we make that freely available to everyone in order to improve and enhance the quality of the positive debate in washington, d.c. in particular. and i as the directors of the ai-focused niche, csis has programs on missile defense, military affairs, food and water security, and the ai policy

team. the namesake is the founder of symphony group which is a technology consortium and he provided the sort of initial donation that got the center started. and we have now a diversity of donors including a budget philanthropic organizations and that is how we fund our activities. host: and as that connected to ai, does it involve itself in ai? guest: he did his phd in artificial intelligence in carnegie mellon many decades ago so he has been part of the industry really for a very long time and is really a computer scientist. but i should say he does not direct the policy work. he simply gave us the initial grant. host: there is a company called deepseek, what is it? guest: for folks who have not been paying attention until recently, you may have heard that the u.s. is ahead in the race to advance ai.

and this is a technology has come astonishingly capable. anyone can now log into chatgpt and have an experience where it is almost like talking to a person and a person who is pretty knowledgeable about a bunch of different tasks. the u.s. has been firmly in the lead for the past few years, but just recently we saw the first chinese ai company that is doing something that demonstrates how that lead has shrunk. the u.s. used to be maybe two plus years ahead of the leading chinese ai model developers. deepseek shows that that lead has shrunk to at most around seven months, so there model is doing with the u.s. was doing about seven months ago. but the way that they have approached this demonstrates that they have superior economics which means that they can do what the u.s. did seven months ago but they can do it and a far cheaper price and that is true on training the ai model which is essentially creating the ai model, and also in inferencing the ai model, which is essentially using the ai model.

this now is attracting a lot of attention, engineers around the world are impressed by many of the technical measures that they used it does signal that the ai race today is not what it was two years ago. host: to what degree to what degree does the chinese government assist? guest: the leader of deepseek as met with the leadership of the chinese communist party and was invited to high-profile, meaningful government events and meetings. so he really is recognized as the national leader technologically when it comes to ai technology. however, as a company, they are funded privately which is to say government does not provide revenue. this may mechanisms whereby china provides support for companies in its ecosystem including free real estate, free taxes, all of these kinds of financial benefits, but as far as we know, deepseek does not have direct chinese government customers which makes sense because for the most part they are getting all this away for free. host: if they are seven months

behind the u.s., what factors into if that gap narrows or widens? guest: they are seven months behind in terms of they have replicated a model of ballpark similar performance as to what we were to what we were doing seven months ago. but in the technical papers you can see many things that they've done that are quite impressive technically and i talked the leading engineers of leading u.s. ai companies who are unknown to them. so some of the stuff we were already doing and some of this we learn by looking at their research results and approach. so they are a very impressive group. in the days of china cannot innovate, they can only copy, those days are over. this is a genuinely inventive company even if there are many things they are doing that america already did. there's also a genuine innovation here that america was not already doing. in terms of what it means for policy, the u.s. has a policy of export controls which means we restrict the sale of the advanced computer tips that are used to run ai models or to train ai models.

deepseek's ceo actually said back in july that the number one challenge facing his company was, in fact, that export control policy so what is interesting is that deepseek has managed to do this in such a computer-efficient way that they were able to wreak that high-level performance despite the export controls. but i want to emphasize here that much of their advantage was elected by the bungled implementation of the first tranche of biden administration controls. essentially they said chips above this performance level cannot be sold. below this performance level can be sold. but it is not just me criticizing the first package, the biden administration admitted that they got wrong and they updated this controls in 2023. the reason why i say this is export controlled have a lagging impact. just because you stop selling something to china doesn't mean everything you've already sold to china magically disappears. and in that one year where we got the technical specifications

wrong, china bought an awful lot of chips. in those chips that were bought during that one your window are the chips that they used to train this ai model. host: our guest with us, his company deepseek and if you have questions for him, (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to text us your thoughts, (202) 748-8003. give us examples of what this ai model does in comparison to what is done by u.s. companies. guest: one of the most appealing use cases for ai right now is perhaps counterintuitively programming and computer code. so it feels like if ai is going to take some of our jobs, it is actually the software engineers creating ai that are the most at risk. specifically on some benchmarks of generating computer code. deepseek performs extremely well. i've talked to some of the best

ai engineers and computer programmers in the world, and they talked about this moment that shifted around a year ago this time, where they went from ai is not that high-performing to suddenly it is jaw-droppingly high-performing and all day every day i'm using ai to support my programming job and one of the world leading technologies companies. really there was a kind of a shift in momentum. so if folks are out there like well, i've used ai, it is kind of fun but not that important for my job, in fields like science and engineering, computer programming, nobody is saying that kind of thing anymore because ai is getting better and better year after year. host: the new york times has a story with an interview of the chief executive of a company that helps consumers with purchases said i am of the pain that ai can already do all the jobs that we as humans do and it goes on from there. how accurate is that statement? guest: specifically what he said

is that his company is no longer ever going to hire a human again. he didn't say every single in my company is fired but what he is getting at is that the pace at which ai is getting better is such that they don't need to hire anyone else gives is the already have is getting so much more productive. and he also perceives a future in which everybody is laid off because ai is better. i want to point out that he is not an outlier in that you. leaders of companies like openai, even elon musk who now leads x-ai as part of his ai company portfolio, they are talking about a future in the not-too-distant future, maybe a handful of years according to some of them, in which ai is so high-performing that could essentially do all of the tasks that generate economic value that human beings can do if it involves a keyboard and mouse. they say we might only be a handful of years away from that. i realize that might sound confusing to people who have used chatgpt and said it is not good at this, and hallucinated out that.

but under the trend of moore's law, computers have gotten more powerful by roughly two fold every two years going back to the 1960's. so that means two years from now it's going to be twice as good. for years from now, four times as good, then eight times and so on. but the point here is that it is not just the computing hardware getting better. companies like deepseek are innovating on the architecture and the algorithm. so maybe it's not going to be 20 times better, but it could be 10,000 times better, a million times better. and that really is the technological progress that we can seeing. and i remember what ai was like 10 years ago and it really is thousands of times better. we are on this kind of technological performance. host: gregory alan joining us. but tear from regina in louisiana, independent line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i do have a question.

i saw this past week that congress held hearings regarding deepseek and their innovation in ai. some of the did kind of father me that they were saying they wanted to convince chinese engineers to come to america to improve our ai, and they were saying that the ai that the chinese had invented was a national ready. and i'm kinda of getting conflicting reports. is it a national security issue the united states, because it is free and everyone can use it, or is it a maximum security issue for the united states because they really kick u.s. tail with this one. host: thank you. caller: artificial intelligence is a general-purpose technology just like regular software on computers. so you use software to type out memos on microsoft word, but you might also use computers and

software to calculate missile trajectories when you were talking about the software that runs in this guidance system. so ai just like regular software is a general-purpose technology. you can use it for innocuous purposes or you can use it for some very scary national security applet nations. and leaders in both the u.s. and china agree that leadership in ai technology is foundational to the future of economic and military power. just like the u.s. with the advantage and regular computers and software was foundational to the u.s. winning the cold war. just to give you one example. at the very end of the cold war, the entire soviet union could handle 16 long-distance phone calls at one time. that is how bad their information technology and telecommute dictation's infrastructure was compared to the u.s. at the same time, which could handle thousands of long-distance phone calls simultaneously.

so while not everything will application of deepseek is directly tied to national security, is definitely the case that there are meaningful national security applications of this exact same technology because it is so foundational. and while deepseek of course as a company is making everything freely available, that in some ways has its own challenges. imagine for example right now if some terrorist organization wanted to create a biological weapon. they would need thousands of technical experts to understand the various aspects of creating, disseminating and using in a hostile manner weaponized disease. it would require a lot of experts. imagine a future in which the number of technical experts needed by a terrorist organization to create a biological weapon is zero because ai has got mag good that it can do all the technical work for the terrorist organization. that is why companies like meta,

even when they open source there ai technologies, they ensure a lot of safeguards in place to make sure it is not going to be misused, and it is unclear that deepseek is committed to any safeguards other than those imposed by chinese propaganda and censorship laws. host: maria up next, democrats line in new york. caller: that's my concern. i use ai. i mean, we all do on a computer. and i find it helpful, but i'm concerned about your saying private donors and the corporations and the people, for example, elon musk. i mean, why should we feel confident for example in this administration? the security, the intent. i'm not happy with the corporate swing here and i am afraid.

i'm afraid too much of our information is out there, and that we have bad players, or even wall street. i mean, all of this, it's out of control. and i want to know who. i mean, china is a calm used nation. they take control totally. the united states hopefully is not. i don't know if it is still a democracy. could you please go into detail about the bad players that we have now with ai? host: thanks, caller. guest: sure. the ai ecosystem is not just one kind of thing. there's the company to design the computer chips that power modern ai algorithms. that is a company like nvidia which many people heard about because stock is so valuable of the current moment. then this company to actually manufacture those chips. the most prominent one here would be a taiwanese company,

and they have a 90% market share in manufacturing the most advanced kinds of ai chips, and really the most advanced logic chips in general. they are exceptionally strong. then you have the companies are actually developing these ai models. these are companies like openai, like anthropic, like google deepmind and like meta, formerly known as facebook. those are some of the strongest players in the u.s. ecosystem at developing a model, but there's also the cloud infrastructure that underpins all that. companies like amazon web services in the u.s., and also google with google cloud. these are all very strong companies at delivering and providing that backend infrastructure that allows the delivering of ai models to end-users such as yourself. and right now that is a very consolidated marketplace. only a handful of companies can really have the technical acumen and the n financial resources to

build out this kind of infrastructure. in china of course, they want to be in leadership as well. they have many companies were really impressive in a lot of ways. ali baba which does a lot of e-commerce work analogous to what amazon does here in the united states is a very strong e-commerce giant and even companies like tencent which provides the dominant social media platform of china, elon musk who now owns ex, formerly twitter and mark zuckerberg who leads meta which includes facebook, instagram and others, both of them have said that they look to tencent and what we chat has done for technical inspiration on new product ideas. so i want to emphasize again, china has some very strong, very competitive companies and the u.s. cannot afford to take its foot off the gas even for a second if we want to maintain our technological leadership. host: however let me was asked

about deepseek during his confirmation hearing last weekend as part of a u.s. competitiveness when it comes to the ai space. i want to play a little of what he had to say and get your response. >> what this showed is that our export controls not backed by tariffs are like a whack a mole model where they get prevented over here and china figures out a way around it over there. we've got to find a way to back our export controls with tariff models so that we tell china you think we are your most important trading partner, we say no, the answer is no. it is a respect thing. they've disrespected us, they've figured out ways around that. i do not believe that deepseek was done all above board, that's nonsense. they stole things, they broke in, they've taken our ip. it's got to end and i'm going to

be rigorous in our pursuit of restrictions and enforcing those restrictions to keep us in the lead because we must stay in the lead. host: mr. alan, what did you think about assessment? caller: -- guest: he talked about the use of tariffs to strengthen export controls but in this case i don't think that is really applicable to the export control strategy, per se. the challenge that we have right now is that number one, can we update those export control staff enough? technology moves fast. if you say we are going to block this technology, maybe next week it will be a new technology and the federal bureaucracy has not demonstrated the ability to keep pace with technological developments. that's why we had that one year window where we thought we had banned the most advanced chips but in fact we were allowing only lightly modified versions to be sold from china. the second big challenge that we hand is with smuggling. reporting by the information in the new york times have

identified no fewer than eight smuggling networks that are moving 100 million dollars plus transactions of advanced ai chips to china. so that is a question about resources. as secretary of commerce, how would let nick would be the bureau of industry and security, the organization charged with enforcing expert controls. their job is done monstrously harder. we are trying to block smuggling in violation of export controls to russia. what do you think has happened to the budget for russian smugglers since the war in ukraine broke out? it has not gone down, it has done monstrously up. what do you think has happened to the budget for smugglers in china who are trying to move these ai chips now that we've enacted this package of export controls beginning in 2022? the budget for chinese smugglers has gone up. but what has happened to the budget for export controls enforcement here in the u.s.? in inflation-adjusted terms, it has gone down.

it is comparable to what it is in the year 2010. so while the top of export controls enforcement has gone so, so, so much harder and the resources available to smugglers have gotten so much higher, there's a big disconnect between the u.s. government strategy and its budgets for implementation of that strategy. host: charlottesville, virginia, eric. democrats line, ni. eric in charlottesville, hello. let's hear from dave in lynchburg, virginia independent line. caller: yes, i was wondering how we know the puzzle they reported as being so much less than what we are able to do using the nvidia chips which caused nvidia stock to take a tumble? how do we know what they are telling us with the chinese people in particular that developed deepseek is true and accurate?

i mean, it is china. don't they sit around and say how can we hurt the u.s.? why don't we just say that we don't need them anymore and this is how we do it. who is validating what they told us? guest: so i am certainly with you that when the chinese government assesses that it is in their strategic interest to live to live the u.s. and the world, they will do so. that much is absolutely true. but in this case i think we should take the claims about their cost structure at face value. deepseek was transparent and the confusion really has to do with the media reporting around sort of thing. because deepseek 75 $.6 million of ai chip computation time is what it cost them to have that one successful training run that created this model. but creating an advanced ai model is a little bit like pharmaceutical drug discovery research. it's not just the cost of the one clinical trial that worked,

it's the cost of all the clinical trial that didn't work. that relates to the cost structure of discovering new drugs. so the number they released is the cost of the one training run that worked. they did not release the cost of all the other training runs that didn't work. i believe that deepseek has billions of dollars of ai computing infrastructure. basically they fought everything they can get their hands on when it was legal to sell computer chips to china of this category. but the point here is that the number that is being discussed in the media is not the most relevant number. they still have a lot of computing needs and i think that we are being honest about that. one final thing here is that those research results, many of them have already been replicated by american computer scientists because deepseek published the technical approach that they taken an american engineers have taken it apart to see does this work, yes. and that is why usc companies

like microsoft now offering deepseek's platform in their cloud services, because it is very cheap to operate. american companies are going to have their rebuttal and come in with very low prices to match in the very near future, but at least for now, all science are saying that this is a real number. host: charlottesville, democrats line, hello. caller: yes, i want to ask the visitor about the potential for mainland china taking over taiwan in the next few years, making a real effort to take over taiwan. what would that mean for the chipmaking potential? guest: sure. that they take a step back first to the covid pandemic era because because of covid and many factories having to change

how many shifts they ran and have any workers big about on a line, there was a major decrease in semiconductor chip supply. there was less chips available then we needed in the global marketplace. the department of commerce did an analysis of that shortage which prevented carmakers from finishing their automobiles, and the department of commerce found that that shortage during the supply chain crisis of covid shaved 1% off the u.s. economy. so our economy is 1% smaller than it would've been if that ship shortage had not been the case. if china was to invade taiwan, that would lead to massive disruption in the global chip supply chain. we are talking far, far worse than the shortage that we experienced during covid. this will begin economic catastrophe that very few people in the u.s. can even remember. it would be an economic apocalypse analogous, the

closest analogous would be the arab oil embargo in this reasons to think it could be considerably worse than that. and of course taiwan, they are the most fans to chip maker which means they are the supplier of all the most advanced ai chips. that is something that china would love to get his hands on. there's a reason why they are building a fleet amphibious assault ships and it is to prepare to retake taiwan. there's a reason why china is just now building a nuclear war survivable-bunker that is basically the size of the pentagon underground. it's because they anticipate that this work in, and they want to maximize the chance that they can fight and win. host: they will bet $300 billion the deepseek will fuel the industry. does more competition come from deepseek? guest: one thing that is really worthwhile here is how efficiency, which most of deepseek's technological

innovations relate to the efficiency of computation and how that relates to overall demand. the way that you can think about their technical innovations is that you can squeeze more iq points out of a given amount of time on an advanced computer chip. how much smarter it is vs. how much competition input. deepseek has shown that they use a bot of efficiency have that to be found, but how does efficiency affect demand? there is something called the paradox which was and observed by an economist in the 19th century and this was during the steam engine, coal era industrial revolution. and he said there is this bizarre phenomenon whereby steam engines are getting more and more efficient every year. we can generate more energy, generate more work with the same amount of: put prayer engine. -- input per engine. but as a country, britain's demand for coal is going to the roof. efficiency is going up but demand is going up even more.

but the resolution for that is that as the machines become more efficient, you want to use those machines in more places because the return on investment is higher. it's a more attractive thing to invest in the more efficient it gets and that leads to overall demand going up. so apply that same paradox to computing here. if ai is more efficient, if it requires fewer resources, is that mean we are going to have less ai or more ai? and does that mean we are going to have less computer chips or more computer chips? the paradox suggests that in the long term this is going to be fabulous news for ai. it's going to mean that ai is efficient and effective and cost-competitive to introduce in a much wider suite of applications then would have otherwise been the case. in the productivity enhancements and economic growth opportunities that that-- host: this is gregory allen joining us. jean is next in maine.

republican line. caller: hello? host: you are on. go ahead. caller: hello, mr. allen. i'm not hearing anything on my phone. host: he's not talking yet. go ahead and ask your question. caller: i understand bitcoin is outlawed in china. i have heard a rumor that all of the hardware and research is used in --, which is very successful. i mean very sophisticated. it has been used by people who invented deepseek. i am wondering if there is any truth to be rumor. thank you. guest: one thing that bitcoin and ai technology have in common is they are both very compute intensive, which is to say if you want to mind bitcoin, --

mine bitcoin, you want a data center with a lot of electricity going into it and a lot of computer hardware inside of it. while there is not a lot of one-on-one relationship with bitcoin and ai, you are doing different computations. a lot of the infrastructure is similar. as the chinese government has increasingly cracked down on cryptocurrencies in china, what that means is there is a lot of data centers that are basically looking for customers. and they would love to bring in a bunch of ai companies to replace those bitcoin companies who are no longer their customers. this is where the chip export controls come in. what china has is a lot of infrastructure hooked up to a lot of power. they don't have the advanced kind of chips you need to train

ai models, at least not in the quantities they want them. the chips you used to mine bitcoin are not the same but you would use to run or train and ai model. there are a lot of similarities but it is not identical. host: who is the chief maker of those chips? guest: the leading maker of those trips, who nvidia calls, that is tsmc of taiwan. in china, it's different. the number one ai chip designer in china is huawei, of all companies, who folks may have heard of and think of as a telecommunications giant. they have a very sophisticated chip design operation and they market a chip called the huawei ascend, which is their competitor. it's not as good as the nvidia chip. part of the reason it's not as good is, once again, export controls. in this case, it's not export

controls on the chips. it's export controls on the machines you use to make the chips. the biden administration put in place very strict restrictions on what types of machines can go into china to be sold for uses of semi conductor manufacturing equipment. there were some loopholes which i am hopeful the trump administration will work to rapidly close. they were mostly effective. huawei would love to be making hundreds of thousands or millions of silicon waivers worth of ai chips per year or per month. -- wafers of ai chips per year or per month. they can only make 20,000. four or five don't work when they come up the production line. if the united states were to reverse course, that could change quickly. expert controls -- export controls, that's one of the key

strategic competitive advantages the united states has over china in the ai race. host: president trump and some of his executive orders rolled back the biden administration efforts on ai if i'm correct. what were the changes in how would you judge trump's approach to ai overall? guest: that's a different policy than what we are talking about. the trump administration has not rolled back any export controls relating to competition with china. what the trump administration has rolled back is the biden administration's ai executive order, which included a lot of work around safety and ensuring the u.s. government did not use artificial intelligence technology in a way that violated americans rights or lead to undue risks into the american economy or american health. those are areas where the trump administration has said this is not a time to be putting breaks on the u.s. ai ecosystem. we need to be moving faster. all of this regulatory red tape

is slowing us down. one thing the trump administration did not say is a lot of the due dates for the biden administration's ai executive order had already passed. you must do this by 180 days, you must do this by 90 days and you must do this by 270 days and a lot of that stuff has been done. the trump administration, if it wanted to get under the hood and reshape what the biden administration did, there's more work to be done. host: let's hear from robin in ohio on the democrats line. hello? caller: hello. i am also interested in the human rights aspect of this. what's the human faith a hind ai in terms of digital labor? we have seen countries like kenya where people are being treated like slaves behind ai. can you speak to that? guest: i believe the phenomenon

you are referring to relates to a specific aspect of creating ai models, which is called supervised fine tuning or reinforcement learning with human feedback. essentially, what those workers are doing is they are interacting with the ai systems while it is under development and they are trying to see is it saying something that is offensive? is it saying something that is inaccurate? is it saying something that is harmful? it has to go through and interact with ai. ai is trained by downloading most of the data on the internet. and force-feeding it into a learning algorithm that tries to strip out and say here's how we make a useful intelligence that is learned from everything there is to learn on the internet. a lot of what's on the internet is offensive. a lot of what's on the internet is pretty inaccurate. there is a process of data cleaning that takes place and

training supervision. that's what those workers and can are doing. as to whether or not those jobs are especially fun to do, interacting with some of the worst parts of the internet is not really fun. but, that is what those companies do to protect their end-users, so they don't have to have those kinds of interactions. host: to what degree are you concerned about misinformation and disinformation being connected to ai use? guest: this is a significant risk. imagine if you wanted to run a disinformation operation but you only had the resources of one human. how many tweets per hour are you going to create? how customized are you going to be able to make those tweets to every single demographic you are trying to go after? you plus a super powered ai, you could not only post 1000 tweets per hour, you could have a billion conversations per hour with almost every single person on earth.

that is not available today or possible on earth. if you look at the trajectory of ai progress, it seems we will be able to create ever more sophisticated forgeries. things purporting to be from a real event that never took place. and also, scaling the distribution of that misinformation. putting safeguards on this for the american ecosystem is really tough. if you want to understand how you can make sure that what people see on their social media feeds and what people see on their nightly news programs is always real, it takes a lot of hard work to make sure. ai authentication, making sure something is real video and not generated by ai, that's a tough technical challenge. it's one that keeps getting harder and harder as ai keeps getting better and better. host: congress had concerns of media misinformation and disinformation. could you consider congress doing that for ai companies? guest: congress looked poised to

regulate ai in the middle of 2023. that is when chuck schumer was the senate majority leader and came to my institution, the center for strategic and international studies and we had a conversation where he talked about drafting comprehensive ai legislation as soon as over the next six months. january of 2024 came and went and there was no comprehensive ai legislation in the united states, nor was anything passed later in 2024. the trump administration and now republican majorities in congress are not signaling much appetite to regulate ai. to the extent that there is an exception to that story, you could imagine it coming around areas like -- excuse me -- child sexual abuse material. this is something where there is some appetite in congress that i can observe to ensure that ai systems are not used to generate nonconsensual pornography or not

used to generate child sexual abuse material. that aspect of ai is the one area where there is real momentum for regulation in congress. otherwise, the u.s. appears to be in a deregulatory moment. by contrast, in europe, the ai act was passed and they are in the process of implementing that law, which means coming up with standards that companies are forced to follow. it's possible that american companies, because they want access to the european marketplace, will adopt protections on how they implement and deploy their ai systems and some of that might come back to american consumers and consumers around the world. host: let's hear from jesse. jesse is in florida on the republican line. hi there. caller: i suppose i have a question for the guest. and that is, i would like to know the essence of ai. exactly what it is. as i understand, ai is dependent upon existing knowledge. is there any way that an ai

system can create new knowledge? and if so, is there a danger that that knowledge might be controlled more than help us? guest: you are asking about the fundamental technology. i think it is helpful to think about artificial intelligence as an umbrella category with two big subcategories. these are constantly conflated or confused in common discourse or in the media. bear with me for a second. there are two approaches you can take. the first is what you might call an expert system. there, the system is following rules. this is a computer program with a long list of if this, then do that statements of inputs and outputs.

in 1997, when ibm created an ai system called deep blue that beat the world chess champion, gary kasparov, it was this exact system. it was created by a team of chess experts, working with a team of computer programmers to take their chest expert knowledge and run it on a supercomputer with rules much faster than a human brain would. that's one category of ai. it's difficult for that to create any new knowledge because when it is is very good implementing rules that were given to it by humans. that is one category of artificial intelligence. another category is called machine learning. in machine learning, it's not really humans who are creating the program, so to speak. what you are doing is taking a data set. you are feeding it to a learning algorithm. that algorithm is spreading out

the ai model which is the package that does the work. this activity is supervised by humans and humans are involved in calibrating and fine-tuning a lot of aspects of it. on the mentally, the system is programming itself based on one it learns from data. that machine learning approach to artificial intelligence, you can absolutely generate new knowledge. where is gary kasparov, when he lost to a computer chess simulator, he said it so good, it can think so far into the future. but it was doing things that humorous championship. -- that human chess champion understood. in 2014, the world go champion at the time was playing against a go machine, go is a game that is important in asian cultures. this move the machine have

learned, move 37, was like nothing in the history of human reasoning about go. no human would have ever come up with that move. he called it a beautifully creative moment. and that's the entire paradigm of ai, this machine learning paradigm that everyone has been working so diligently on ever since that alpha go moment. it depends on which product you are interacting with and what the developers had in mind. in a general abstract sense, can artificial intelligence be creative? the answer is yes. host: david in new york, independent line. hello. caller: hello. this is very interesting to me. feeding off of what you are just speaking of, openai has stated they believe deepseek has made such huge jumps and leaps in their progress because they

stole their large language models. they took it and sanitized it. i was just wondering, how can we guard against that? is there an idea, i was thinking of blocking technology where the record of truth is not in one place so it is harder to manipulate the data in one frame . it sounds like what you were saying was the interaction that a user like me or anyone would have with a chatgpt or deepseek,

i'm not sure about deepseek but chatgpt would have a conversation with. you are basically training that model. host: got you. we are out of time but you got your point across. thank you. guest: sure. i think there are a couple of things that i want to speak to. the first of which is did deepseek harvest intellectual property from openai in order to create its models? well, there is no official answer out there. according to microsoft, the investigation is still ongoing. for my two cents, i think that investigation will be quite short. if you interact with deepseek, the original version, they have updated it because of this embarrassing fact, but when it first came out, if you asked deepseek what ai model are you, it would say hi, i am chatgpt.

they harvested a lot of chatgpt data to train this model. it is a clear-cut case that is what took place. that is a technique called model distillation. what it means is chatgpt had to download the entire internet. they had to have supercomputers analyze the entire internet. once they have created that first very compute expensive ai model, they can have it interact with a smaller model who can teach itself through learning what the big model has to teach it. it's sort of a student and teacher relationship in these ai models. what that means is you can create a much smaller model, a more compute efficient model using this teacher-student distillation technique with the training data for the student model is millions of conversations with the teacher model. the problem for a company like openai, it has been using distillation in its own

technologies. the problem is companies like deepseek can pretend to be chatgpt customers who have customer type queries and they are harvesting the data to use it and train their own competing ai models. nobody is saying deepseek hacked into openai or stole a bunch of hard drives and ran off. the key is this technique called model distillation. they are interacting with openai and chatgpt like any customer would but they are doing it on a scale of millions or tens of millions of conversations and harvesting that data. companies like openai and thro pic can ask two questions. number one, is this fair and legal? drug smuggling is illegal but it is hard to stop it. is it fair, is it legal and can we stop it are two separate questions. if i was an investor in those come base, i would want to ask can you stop it? host: gregory alan with the center for strategic and

international studies. thanks for your time. guest: thank you. host: coming up, we will hear from stephen griffin who studies constitutional law. we will talk about president trump's approach to executive powers that were granted to the president by the constitution. that conversation coming up on "washington journal." >> weekends bring you book tv, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. here's a look at what is coming up this weekend. charles marino argues that president biden's border policies have weakened u.s. national security in his book, terrorists on the border and in our country. colette shaded, author of y2k, reflects on how cultural and technological innovations of the early 2000's impact of the past, present and future. and then on afterwards, eva dou

shares her book, house of huawei, which examines how huawei came china's most powerful company and what that means for its competitors. she is interviewed by adam segal. watch book tv every weekend on c-span two. >> democracy, it isn't just an idea. it's a process. a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. it's where debates unfold, decisions are made and the nation's is charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span. giving you your democracy, unfiltered. >> if you ever miss any of

c-span's coverage, you can find it any time online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this timeline told makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's point of interest -- points of interest. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us from new orleans, stephen griffin of tulane law school, a constitutional law professor here to talk about the president's use of executive power. professor griffin, thanks for your time. guest: no problem at all. i'm happy to be here. host: we have seen the president use his power for a little over a week. from that approach you have seen, what would you say is his approach to the use of executive power? guest: well, that's a pretty big

question. because there are several things going on at once. in one sense, president trump is using executive orders to establish the -- some of the themes and programs he talked about on the campaign. he's giving directives to executive agencies to sort of line them up along his policy objectives. and perhaps spark some action. but there are other executive actions that raise serious constitutional questions and/or our attempts to follow up on a lead. this is a theme i would like to introduce. a lead given to him by the supreme court. so, in some sense, the supreme court has teed up the power he's now exercising through executive orders. there are several categories there. some are more controversial than others.

host: that lead you talk about, is not connected to the supreme court case or the trump case connected to executive power in the united states? guest: i've had this -- sorry -- i've had this question but i am not talking about the executive immunity decisions. i would like to highlight the cases that are in every casebook that are called removal power. -- removal power cases. people have noticed that the president is doing some arguably unusual things as far as removals. what i don't think they have quite grasped the either direct connection between what the robbins court has been -- roberts court has been doing since roberts got there in 2005 and what president trump is following up on or pushing the envelope on. those are removal cases like the free enterprise fund case or the

seller law case in 2020. host: can you elaborate when it comes to removal cases, where has the president applied his power? guest: all right, so i also should have said that all of these cases were linked to the important concept, which we really started hearing about perhaps in the bush ii administration of the unitary executive. for quite a while, conservative legal thinkers, justice scalia on the court, and other people on the court, have been pushing the idea that the president really should be in sole control of the executive branch. when i talk about removals, you need to think power over the executive branch, president versus congress. and it can seem like a technical issue of who gets to fire whom. but the real issue, the underlying issue, is control. and power over direct power over

the executive branch. those decisions had to do with extending the reach of presidential authority to fire. for example, until the seller law decision, you can remove the head of the consumer finance protection board. both president trump and president biden availed themselves of the power. president trump did it again to get his own people in. but there are broader issues. broader issues having to do with so-called independent regulatory agencies that congress designed to be somewhat independent of presidential power. and also, a huge issue, control over civil service employees. and those are really big issues. and i am not sure they have been discussed that much, quite yet. host: we will continue on with our conversation with our guest. if you want to ask about the president's use of executive

power, stephen griffin joins us for that conversation. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. an independents, (202) 748-8002. -- and independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to texas, (202) 748-8003 -- text us, (202) 748-8003. what has the court done as far as giving this type of power to the president? guest: i would characterize it this way. there was an easy balance in the law and an understanding, stemming from two early 20th century decisions. the myers decision in the 1920's, having to do with the post office of all things. and the humphrey's executor decision in 1935, about 90 years ago. the humphrey's executor decision has been mentioned in recent news stories.

the supreme court seemed to say the president cannot exercise removal authority and could not control what we would call independent regulatory agencies, such as the federal trade commission, the securities and exchange commission. and president trump's specific action that has to do with the equal opportunity employment commission. the eo ec. this is a thin layer of people in charge of operating these agencies where it has been designed in by congress that they should have fixed terms and can only be removed for cause. at the same time, everyone agreed on the basis of the myers decision that the president should have removal authority over cabinet level agencies and there has been no question about that. there is an uneasy compromise or

line drawn between, for example, cabinet level agencies and these independent regulatory commissions. starting in the 1980's, people associated with the reagan administration and justice scalia in particular started raising serious questions about this line and, in effect, embracing the unitary executive model announced in the myers decision. and they have been responsible for sort of a decades long campaign to get that removal authority at will, removal authority extended to the entire executive branch. and if that were to happen, that would indeed be big news. separately from that, there is the whole question of presidential authority over the civil service, which are lower-level employees which are protected. you see, it's not just about removal. it is about influence and control. and president trump, pretty

clearly, wants to control in a very direct sense, the entire executive branch of government. irrespective of laws passed by congress. that's the issue i would like to highlight. there arethere are other imports like birthright citizenship. i do not want to ignore those but this issue that i've talked about as we've seen got less attention. host: you probably get this question a lot specifically what the constitution says about executive power and why you think it has grown so much since then? guest: well. i will start with what i learned and where many books start which is article two of the constitution does not give a lot of detail about presidential power and it certainly does not give a lot of detail about the structure of the executive branch. that's really for congress to build out. that is the conflict. what is the limit of congress's

power to specifically organize the executive branch, versus you ask the source of the power. it's a famous gap in the constitution. the constitution has an appointments clause but it does not have a removal clause. but the people who have been advancing the unitary executive idea believe it is encapsulated in the very first sentence of article two which talks about vesting the executive power in the president. justice scalia argued in a case morrison versus olson, he lay down -- laid down a marker, he was a lonely dissent. saying this means all the executive power and what he meant is what chief justice taft talked about in the myers case about limited power removal even in the face of congressional statutes to the contrary. at least in separation of powers

land that is a big conflict and it has real-world implications. host: republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats 202-748-8000. independent, 202-748-8002. ron is in michigan, a democrats line. good morning, go ahead. >> good morning. in my opinion what trump is doing he is eliminating all supervisory roles the federal government had to safeguard -- we will just take social security and put elon musk in charge of going to the records of social security to eliminate people from social security and what that's can do is there going to eliminate people from social security and in the past we could call the federal government and get help, there will no longer be any help. so though go through with trumps and the billionaires forcing

them down our throats and there will be no more recourse. benefits social security will start and then they will go on to v.a. and medicare cuts and there will no longer be any recourse in the billionaires are in charge. he is taking control of the fbi and federal law enforcement agencies -- they are no longer in place. the only thing that stands in his way now is the military and he's got pete in there. so it's either fascism or fight. host: puts out a lot of scenarios. the fbi we saw a lot of removal within. does that fall within the president's power because it's not an outside board? you would know more than i. we're just a power fall on that front? guest: the new stories about the fbi often make it sound like an independent agency and these

confusions trip up a lot of people. similarly with stories about the food and drug administration. but these are not independent agencies. the fbi is inside the department of justice and that was commented on in the hearings on pam bondi for example. but there is another issue here when you are talking about the department of justice and i can perhaps talk a little bit about elon musk. the issue is there's been a post-watergate understanding that the department of justice should operate informally independently at arms length from the white house. president trump pretty clearly even from his first term does not have much time for that, does not believe in that in there is a connection between that and trump versus the united

states, of the immunity decision. because the supreme court in that case if they had been more mindful of what some of us regard as watergate precedents, the decision would not of come out that way. because nixon was clearly -- people thought it was possible certainly to indict nixon. i am sorry that's a little telegraphic but the point is the conservative legal thinkers including people on the board -- court, obviously don't have the same respect for the post-watergate precedents with respect to the fbi and the doj, as do the people in the trump administration and possibly on the supreme court as well. host: in kentucky, a republican line, this is george. caller: good morning. at what point would they say that a president has crossed the line? what would that line be and what exactly could they do to stop

him? as a disabled veteran i would like to know. guest: if this is about the possible interference with the payment systems i don't think there is enough details on why mr. mosk has asked for this permission to scrutinize what's called the bureau of fiscal service in the department of the treasury. i think we are at early days as far as whether that represents even something that president trump is interested in. but, in terms of the doj fbi angle, i think there's just a desire for more direct control and this is often been thought to be sort of a limiting case that no one would really be in favor of presidents directly controlling who gets prosecuted and who doesn't. but that may be challenged.

another way for me to engage with the question is is it really true that the supreme court would back up president trump on all of these removal questions. i am not saying it's guaranteed at all. i think the judiciary is going to be a check on president trump just like it was in the first term. people forget about that. but president trump lost a lot of the cases brought in court that the court was not a rubber stamp and i think that's important to say. host: i was going to ask you to elaborate the role the courts have about crossing a line that the viewer brought up, can you elaborate more on where you see the courts going even in these first tranche of executive orders. guest: to the extent that somehow teed up control the department of justice. i'm not quite sure how that

would arise. what i was trying to get across is the supreme court has kind of given trump whether he knows it or not, a green light to challenge the independence of these agencies i was talking about. as well as even possibly undermining the civil service and it is unclear just how far the court would let trump go and you can read the decisions that i just mentioned in a limited way that they're not interested in destroying the whole structure of independent agencies, but i think we have to face the fact that the roberts court gave a green light, sort of opened the door and president trump is walking through it. it's not to say he is going to win all the cases that i mentioned, but there is an interactive here that i think we have to pay attention to. >> andrea in north carolina,

democrats line. >> good morning, things for taking my call. this is something that's really concerning me and i would like to know what to think about this. based on the fact the president does not believe in the law, he does not respect the country, what is the worst case scenario? can you use these exec's powers to gain access -- can he for example legalize the use of -- two maintain power. how much should we rely on the president's morals in the country not to see something like this happen, or is there any way -- i think we cannot stop trump.

i think at this point i'm very concerned about this country. what do think about this. guest: to the extent you are raising the 22nd amendment, limiting presidents to two terms in office. i really don't see somehow some magic way around that. so i think this is president trump's last term. i was thinking to myself some of the earlier callers might of been raising concerns about executive orders with respect to appropriations. and there is a serious concern that has to do with what's call -- there a lot of issues to keep track of here. that's one of the most direct ways that a president trump could in theory do something about -- but the caller was raising what's the worst case.

the worst case i will just stick with my watergate era observation that people haven't wanted to think about what would happen with this formal understanding having to do the doj fbi collapse. if it did collapse, that means the worst case scenario as well. what was asked about in the pam bondi hearings that president trump will constitute himself and enemies list and direct government agencies to go after all the people on the list and if people complain, they will be on the list. there is no doubt that an investigation by the fbi or other agencies because people serious problems even if there are no court cases. i think that is one concern, that at least people in my area constitutional law professors have worried about. guest: the president has requiring people to come back to

work in washington dc offices, he's offering some resignations to some within the civil services does that fall within the president's power. you were talking about what to the extent it does to civil service employees? guest: i was discussing blowing through the protections people have. i'm not sure this has been well covered. he dismissed a bunch of the january 6 prosecutors with no real reason other than they don't have trust and confidence in them. in the language of the law that is not a reason. a reason for the civil service would be people aren't doing their jobs, they are incompetent, they are not showing up for work. it requires proof that would satisfy a court. but with the courts -- if the courts help president trump tear down the civil service protections and make civil service employees the equivalent of that will political appointees.

then we are looking at a new politicization, something that looks more like a patronage system of the 19th century and the jacksonian area. that's another concern that people in my area worry about that you'll lose the benefits and they are very real, of the civil service and have a more chaotic administration government. host: jim in minnesota, independent line. caller: good morning. thanks for coming onto this and for your comments here. president trump's use of these executive orders -- for me it reflects project 2025 and also the powell memos, you talk about

president nixon and the supreme court, their power grab, this whole thing is just for me it looks like a massive power grab to take over and basically rule by authoritarian -- authoritarianism, just look at what elon musk has done with social security when he has no business even legally to be in that place. i would like your thoughts on that. guest: i think this has been under covered by the news media that there are some parallels between the nixon administration and nixon personally and trump. because nixon came in after multiple democratic presidents from kennedy to johnson and he

had been vice president and he had a good knowledge of the executive branch but he also believed the executive branch was controlled by democrats, people hostile to him. so he really wanted to run things, run the entire executive branch from inside the white house and he wanted very direct control over what was happening in the executive branch. i am not recalling that he challenged the independent agencies, but the point is he believed that the executive branch was fundamentally hostile to him. and he had a program to combat that are undermined that and part of why -- part of watergate grew out of nixon's desire to run things from inside the white house. there is a parallel here with trump's view that democrats have been in power for four years, but furthermore he is using the

civil service as party base and i'm really not sure that's true to the extent you have that attitude you'd be looking to undermine the civil service. as far as what people keep mentioning about payments to social security or whatever i am afraid i cannot speak to that. host: where does congress fit into this? you kind of insinuated they had a role to play but how do they flex that muscle so to speak to push back against the power used by the president? guest: this may sound abstract, but this tees up our civics book understanding of the way the constitution is supposed to work versus how it actually works. in the civics book understanding each branch has a check and there is no doubt whatsoever that congress has a lot of tools it can use if it wants to to defend the traditional way of

organizing the executive branch where you have silos in the president can instantly control everything if he wants but then you a party based government and president trump's party is in control of congress and has so far shown no inclination to check him. that's why a talk about the courts first. rather than congress. i think congress especially the senate may become more concerned if president trump actually does something more concrete with the way especially government is funded. congress is very jealous historically of its appropriations power. that would run into the fact of if president trump wants to us this to happen, he has plenty of supporters in congress and they are very likely the first instance to give him a pass so i don't think congress, you want

to say the republican congress isn't going to be much of a check on what trump wants to do at least at first. host: this is dan in indiana, republican line good morning. caller: i'm watching the show and i'm kind of shocked. biden started the executive orders. the biden harris controlled the fbi. they went after trump at every station they could get him. and it's common sense trump is following common sense and the law. he didn't break the law like hunter biden. and talking about the j six. i watch for two years the democrats burned all the cities and killed people. i feel like i'm watching msnbc. host: so what's the question for our guest? he's gone. if you want to respond to that.

guest: first of all i probably should've said something about the biden administration's use of power. by way of providing a little perspective i do go back and look. this tendency to use the first weeks of the presidency to lay down and through executive orders, you might attribute this to the bush administration but you really see it happening with president obama where he wanted to set a new tone for how we fought the war against terror. it really did take off with president trump's first term, president biden follows with a lot of exec of orders himself so now we are in a tit-for-tat situation. yes, republicans believe that the whole doj, fbi has been politicized anyway and they are

very resentful of all the investigations, especially the russia investigation, the special prosecutor muller. from their point of view it did not go anywhere. i have the traditional point of view that you had to investigate some of these but you were taking a clear risk in building an image of the fbi is politicized and so this stuff about post watergate obviously does not impress some republicans because they do not see that there was much of an arm's-length talking about that arm's-length relationship in the biden administration. so there is a real problem being set here. the issues i discussed are real and despite any mistakes that were made in the obama or biden administration, the dangers that could follow from a more thorough presidential control of

the fbi or doj are still there. they do not go away simply because bad things happened in the obama or biden administration's. we've got a bad situation here with respect to the administration of justice and president biden did try to take some steps to rebuild it, but once the january 6 prosecutions got going obviously that proved difficult. and furthermore, president biden , all these recent presidents have arguably abused their pardon power in such a way as to make people cynical perhaps about the administration of justice. that is a serious problem. host: democrats line, you are on, good morning. caller: i wanted to ask if the president can send funds that have already been appropriated by the previous congress and can

he allow a visitor to run the social security funds. guest: i really can't speak to social security, but i wish i had said more about this impoundment situation. this badly worded order from the office of management and budget which has now been enjoined or rescinded, but there is -- it is a troubling feature. there is a more general issue which is president trump has acted as if since he won, he ought to be able to put on pause any flow of federal funding that he does not like. put that way, that is not right. that is illegal under the impoundment control act and unconstitutional. but the way he has gone about it so far has been so unclear that

it's unclear even if he wanted to impound some of these funds. i tend to give him a pass on that, some of these orders were unclear even if the president knew about them. but, there are a people associated with the administration who somehow believe that the impoundment control act that congress enacted in the watergate era there's a reason we keep talking about it. is unconstitutional. and i don't follow that reasoning and i don't think it is right. the supreme court in a previous decision written by justice thomas lee declared that congress has control of the purse and i don't think these impoundments are what they are will succeed. >> joy in savannah, georgia republican line you are next up for our guest. caller: what i want to say is trump is so far ahead of all of

you. he is the one trying to take the drugs out of this country so our businesses can function. my mother-in-law came from china in 1928. the country was brain-dead on opium. she walked her grandfather to the opium house. the japanese took them over. if he wasn't getting the drugs out of our country we will not have a country because everybody wants to be a dishwasher just to get enough money to be able to buy the next fixed for drug. we have to have people with smart minds, drugs don't make you smart. we've got to clean the country up before we can get anywhere before china. that's how they are eating our lunch. that's what's wrong with us. please, i beg get the people off

the drugs. >> joy in savannah, georgia and i wonder if there is any parallel to this idea of use of power from the president yesterday signing these new tariffs against these three countries, of the larger idea to stop trafficking of drugs and things like that. guest: i don't mean to give the impression at all that somehow all of these executive order are legally questionable. and areas include trade policy, congress has delegated vast power to the president. there can be questions raised about this or that tariff, but president trump is on pretty firm ground in exercising authority given to him by congress. that's generally true in the trade area. let me drive a larger point from what the caller just said which is to the extent president trump links otherwise questionable

exercises of executive power to goals that most americans share, he has a good chance to expand executive power. to the extent he does it in a blended fashion and puts in question programs that everyone likes like social security, but to the extent he does some extremely broad actions that cross a lot of wires, then he is likely to fail. host: james in maryland, independent line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my whole thing is it seems like we live in a tiered justice system. i feel like trump is really allowing us to see that criminals can actually live by different standards of rules. the whole time i was under the

impression that america has a justice system that will take care of itself and it is not as such not only to the trump administration blame or give a lot of credit to the constitution, but it seems like when they do an executive order to do away with the second amendment, my bad, of the 14th amendment, there is no squabbles about this. it seems like the trump members are critical when it comes to his moves and actions and i don't understand the process. guest: i'm not sure, was the question about having to do with birthright citizenship? host: he talked about that and the larger aspects of who gets protection under the law. i am paraphrasing. guest: i will respond in may be not helpful abstract way which is president biden did have the goal of trying to make people

feel that the justice system was nonpartisan and he did this by appointing people like merrick garland that he thought would have the confidence of both parties. but i think it is apparent that the only real way to approach these issues in terms of something presidents actually accomplished is not simply to appoint people or say things, but actually bite the bullet and propose legislation so that we would have a new understanding of our justice system should work. if you think the prosecutorial functions of the department of justice should really be above party and executed in a nonpartisan fashion, then you kind of have to make it formally independent in such a way that both parties would have confidence going forward. that would be changing the

structure. in president biden didn't think about that pretty appointed a commission about the supreme court and it did produce some suggestions, but president biden was never interested too much in rocking the boat. but that caused -- that sort of came back to haunt him when the department of justice made a decisions that were seen as politicized. >> one more call from marion, ohio. democrats line. caller: my original question was on elon musk but it sounds like we don't have anything to say on that. i guess my next question would be during trump's last term mcconnell was very good at blocking -- packing the court with were bubbly leaning judges. pretty much on all levels. so now that trump is basically the only guard rail against

judges, what are the odds of them not making horrible decisions? on the issues that trump is trying to put forward that are unconstitutional. i would like to know if you think that our judges will actually do their job. i will take my comment offline. thank you. >> the baseline here. i will stick with what i see is the conventional wisdom among legal commentators that i respect, which is first let's remember, and viewed globally, president trump lost a lot of cases in court in his first term. that is solid empirical evidence that the courts did not simply rollover for whatever he wanted. at the same time in some really high profile decisions including the immunity decision, the court

also seemed to support trump down the line. that is why i highlight the importance of court opening the door on questions over removal. an ethic you will also see the courts stand up to president trump on the issue of birthright citizenship. i do not think there is much doubt about that. but the caller seemed really interested in these issues of appropriations and possible interference with the flow of the payment system. it is early days on that. it's why i have not had much to say about it. host: constitutional law professor. professor griffin, thanks for your time. guest: thank you. host: if you want to participate it is 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats print independents 202-748-8002. you can call in and we will

start open forum in washington journal continues. ♪ >> in his latest book, author robert kaplan focuses on the importance of technology on determining the world's future. kaplan holds the chair in geopolitics at the foreign policy institute and the chapter number three in his 177 page book chaplain claims civilization is now in flux, on decay of the west is manifested not only in racial tensions coupled with new barriers to free speech but in the deterioration of dre codes, erosion of grammar and decline in sales of serious books and classical music and so on. all of which have traditionally been signs of civilization. >> author robert kaplan talks about his book a wasteland, a world in permanent crisis.

with our host brian lamb. >> tonight on c-span skew and day. u.s. district court judge frederic block discusses his book a second chance, where he discusses the first step act. >> the first step act is called the first step act, implicit discussing there be a third step , it was the beginning. and finally people are recognizing political persuasion regardless of the emotionality and our reactions that it was necessary for us to do something concrete. so that -- the first step act

has been considered -- judge gorsuch wrote about it the most significant sentencing reform piece of a century. >> judge frederick bloch with his book "a second chance" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q1 day. >> washington journal continues. host: again it is open forum. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents 202-748-8002. this is from london, kentucky paid charlotte starts us off. caller: i would just like some clarification about executive orders that biden did on student loan forgiveness and to my knowledge the supreme court even said that they could not do that. yet it's been done.

so i would like a little clarification what's the difference between him for giving student loans and trump putting on executive orders to stop excessive spending? that's what i would like to know please. >> unfortunately our guest is gone per die am sorry about that. let's hear from david in new york. independent line. caller: i voted for three republicans and i voted for three democrats over the years. i grew up through watergate and what i'm seeing now is more divisive from our government than ever. and people are saying they are saying that bush lied about going into afghanistan and iraq,

especially iraq. and they are saying that um, trump is lying all the time, and they are saying that biden there he lied about -- basically the doors were closed to the country and that's not the case. and then i'm listening to you guys talking here about removing the president and it's like we have had a lot of opportunities in the past that we could have and should have and -- i just, i don't know. it's kind of like there's an old song i used to hear all the time that went they are coming to take you all away. i think that's probably may be the movers of place for democrats to go. host: that's david in new york.

lewis is in alabama, democrats line. caller: what i would like to say is the blacks that voted for trump did not have to wait long to regret what's going on. look at scott over in south carolina. down in florida, the blacks that voted for trump now they have tucked their tails. but they see that wasn't happening. host: axios reporting it is ken martin who was elected saturday to service the next chair of the democratic national committee which puts him at the helm of a party trying to rebuild its image after disappointing 2024 cycle. the longtime chair of the

minnesota democratic farmer labor party and wants to help the party "get back to basics" with a revamped messaging strategy and winning back working-class voters who have drifted to the right. c-span was there as the process of electing a new democratic national committee chair took place. here are the comments of the incoming chair. [video clip] >> it is time for our party to do three things. first is to unite. we have to rebuild our coalition, ignore the noise, focus with intensity on the goal ahead which is winning elections to improve people's lives. second, we need to go on offense. trump's first weeks have shown us what happens when amateur hour meets demolition derby. at the same time he has invited all these billionaires into the oval office to extract and profit off of our government. this is our time right now. it is the people's government. it is not another resource for

altar elites to exploit. the third is we will take tonight to enjoy the moment and we will build new alliances, then we will get to work. we are going to get to work. we will fight, go out there and take this fight to donald trump and the republicans and we will fight for working people again in this party. thank you democrats, thank you so much pride it is the honor of my life. >> the incoming chair ken martin you can see that full speech on a variety of our platforms. our app, c-span.org, our website. carl and connecticut, republican line hello. >> good morning and it is a blessed morning, just all the opportunities we have in this country. we have to stay focus on the important things and am 68 years old today. today is my birthday and i grew up during the ending of the vietnam war, the men and women

were coming home is a tissue or crippled as a result of the drugs in vietnam. this child of ours that has become a major problem, the drug wars has not been addressed by the majority of all of our presidents in the last 50 years. it needs to be put down and stopped because it has too much of an influence of taking out our children every single day whether it is fentanyl or heroin . whatever you want to call it. and the impact is 100% on every person's life, every industry that you can imagine is affected by this. the problem is that we've adopted it because it's been in our living room for so long we expect it to be there and we tolerate it. that's not the way this is supposed to go. drugs are taking out our future

children ended must be stopped if we have to declare war on the country that's providing this stuff, whether it is china or mexico, then so be it. it means we stop and i think this is paramount over all of other aspects. host: calling in on his birthday, asked birthdays to you. mary in north carolina. caller: there he interesting discussion regarding the constitution and separation of powers. i would suggest that we go back to fdr and his implementation of changes to our government, i am not speaking in terms of republican or democrat. because constitutionally there is no tradition for political parties. which has become a big problem

given that the funding of campaigns, people sacrificed principles to the party. i would suggest that back when i was in college, i was a democrat looking to get democrats elected, but i voted for ronald reagan for one reason. he said we needed to change the scope and direction of the federal government. this was not accomplished under his term and we have a multitude of problems on a variety of threats which can be traced back to the fact that we do not have term limits for the house or the senate. thank you.

host: one of the changes to how government runs being highlighted and profiled in the washington post this morning saying elon musk step 87 gained access to sensitive treasury department system over trillions of dollars in u.s. government payments after administration ousted a career official at the department according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity on friday. the treasury secretary scott bessent approved access to the payment system for a team led by tom krause, a silicon valley executive working income -- concert with his government efficiency department. serving and nonpolitical roles a treasury for several decades and had been the acting secretary before the confirmation of scott bessent had refused to turn over access to his surrogates, people familiar with the situation told the washington post trump officials placed him on administrative leave and announces retirement friday emailing colleagues. adding the spokesperson for treasury, but it says the

sensitive systems run by the bureau fiscal service control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to millions of people across the country rely on those systems for social security payments, payments to government contractors. tax refunds amongst tens of thousands. lynn up next in illinois, a democrats line. >> can you hear me? >> you are on, go ahead. i missed the beginning of the show, but i have extreme concern by the older gen x and an uncle and father who was in world war ii. we were originally from poland, polish immigrants. i'm a second generation born here. i have an aunt who is 100 years old and is still lucid and they

left poland and lithuania from the tyranny caused by russia which we see is going on again. and it seems that trump has aligned himself. i'm old enough that trump was bought out and helped by russia and russian mafia to bail him out in his bankruptcies and finds over the years. considering what abuse of power several times the first time he ran in 2016 through 2020 and was one of the worst presidents we've ever seen in this country if not the world, and again he's come back to inflict more arterial and abusive power and he really should have been impeached and i just want to know what is our country and

judges going to do to stop his abusive power especially with you on taking over our treasury department recently. his dismantling of the government. and we warned people about not allowing him to run again after he even tried to murder his own vice president to stop an election. host: jim in new york, republican line. caller: i wanted to bring up something about your station, about a month or so ago commercials on c-span and that brian lam had retired and i noticed brian lam retired because is doing something that caused me to leave pbs.

i used to support pbs, i used to send them money. i don't watch them much anymore. doing what a lot of the stations are doing. i turned you off. it's a shame. i only have two stations i can watch the don't do what you are doing now. they have these little pop up things in the corner of the screen that are completely unnecessary on what's coming up next. i think it's silly, i can read them because i have a small screen tv. host: it helps inform viewers about what's coming up on our various networks. caller: you've got a remote control. and you can push the thing on the bottom here at 8:00 you've got to end a paid i can see that. host: that's fine but it's a means of advertising what we're are doing on our network. >> i can see on the bottom of my

screen and i can push the button and see what's coming up. it's an unnecessary distraction. host: ok, let's go to van in ohio, independent line, you are next. van in paris, ohio. let's hear from annie in florida , a democrats line hello. caller: hello and good morning. happy birthday to the gentleman who called and to the lady who was concerned about the student loans. other countries invest in their students and their professionals and just go to any hospital and see if you can find how many american doctors are there. if you do not want to invest in your own professionals then what do you want to invest in? regarding trump, no americans especially democrats hate trump,

elon, jd or rfk, we simply did not vote for them. no one hates them. trump recognized he wanted an iron dome like israel has and that's when they started to look around. i don't do conspiracies i just know that kim out of his mouth so don't think -- it's not necessarily to look at media it's necessary to look at trump's mouth and what comes out of it. and he wanted an iron dome just like israel has and that's when they started looking around and that's when the military was brand-new doing his dome project in that area. i don't do conspiracies, i don't do media, i watched trump's mouth and that's where i get my information. >> that's annie in florida. >> the prime minister left sunday where he is set to meet later this week with the president declaring before boarding his flight in

cooperation with the new administration would draw -- netanyahu said we will deal with important critical issues facing israel and the region. victory over hamas, achieving the release of our hostages and dealing with the iranian terror access and its components. an access that threatens the middle east and the entire world. let's go to james in tennessee, independent line. caller: hello. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: yes. i'm calling to say i don't believe in the constitution. god said he made man. in this country. so you can have god come down off his throne -- and another thing, the white house is ran by nazis. >> ok.

we will go to becky on the republican line north carolina hello. >> good morning, how are you. i was just wanting to know when are they going to confirm cash patel's nomination? host: not sure the exact schedule, the confirmation hearings took place last week still available on c-span if you want to go see those series of questions posed to cash patel who is the president's nominee to head the fbi. go to our website to do that and if you want to find out more about all those confirmation hearings that are taking place, you can do that at the website there as part of the president knew administration coming in, kenneth is up next. kenneth and illinois, go ahead. caller: good morning, i'm recent

from chicago illinois, i was a drug addict, i went to prison. to stop the drugs we have to stop pointing at other countries, we have to point at ourselves, they are not bringing that over here. we get money from them over here to the united states. we're complaining about things that we can stop -- that we can stop right we can stop drugs in the prison in illinois in florida and then were worried about what happened in another world in another country. we need to worry about united states. i am a democrat, i don't like the president as a man, but he is the president and i respect him and i'm listening to him and him looking at these taxes on canada. we need to stop building -- start building stuff here in the

united states because most my clothes have mexico on it and italy and everyplace else. not chicago or washington dc on the clothes, that's on us. we need to stop pointing fingers at other countries. i want to thank you for being on the station. i wish you on seven stations at one time. god bless you and have a blessed one. host: you've probably heard much about the collision that took place in washington dc between that airliner and helicopter. the bill ticks a look at what congress might be doing when it comes to investigating that matter. this is story that appears today. congress has an important role in discussing oversight and federal agencies including the faa and ensuring the aviation industry is the gold standard of the world, that's represent of troy nehls of texas, chair of the transportation committees aviation subpanel telling the hell we want the ntsb to do their job and investigate the

situation and we will do hours. top lawmakers on both sides of the aisle urging a cautious path forward as the ntsb continues the investigation. a source said the ntsb briefed the congressman long withrow presented sam graves, republican of missouri and transportation infrastructure committee and republican rick larsen, democrat from washington who handle -- along -- among others were present of larson is quoted as saying it's important to let the ntsb complete its work before we consider any potential policies. carol in texas, independent line. >> thank you for taking my call. thanks for c-span. i'm sorry for the earlier gentleman you had the confuses pbs with c-span, two different networks in two different things. i wanted to say about the constitution to inform people the first three words of the constitution are the most important and they say we the

people. all of this stuff that everybody is concerned about where elon musk is taking control of part of the government, he's taking control of parts of our government the government does not belong to donald trump, it does not belong to the republican party. or the democratic party. the government does not belong to elon musk, it is our government. the money he is playing with is our money. it does not belong to him. we will have to fire him, either he starts being -- this common word all people talk about, transparency, either he starts being transparent and start outlining and saying exactly what he is doing with our money in our government, if he does not start doing that right now, it better start tomorrow. right now he better start saying what he is doing with our money and making it clear what he is doing or we will fire him

because the only way is by taking to the streets. host: theodore in north carolina, republican line. caller: to allow a billionaire who wants to play god to act like a dictator. host: theodore north carolina paid forbes reporting president trump issued a proclamation friday night declaring february to be black history month in a more muted announcement than those he issued during the first term following weeks of mr. trump attacking diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives via executive orders. mr. trump said black americans of been among the night since most consequential leaders naming frederick douglass, harriet tubman, conservative economist thomas salvo, justice clarence thomas and tiger woods. he also expressed gratitude to

black americans for all they've done to bring us to this moment and for advancing the tradition of the quality under the law. the story adding the proclamation is typical for presidents and trump made one each year throughout his first term. alexandria virginia democrats line. >> i just want to correct you on your last segment you're talking about doge and the treasury. you said doge decided to talk about the situation -- and you showed this on tv, they declined to talk about the situation. what i was reading they declined to talk about it. so i know it's the end of your morning show, but you have to

get those words right. host: it did not mean anything about it. caller: play it back, it did happen. host: didn't mean anything by it. independent line. >> american administration of the canal is key because they are draining the reservoir. america wants to ensure the flow for all of the americans, there's different ways to do this. it will also lower some of the tariff effect. daca and dreamers need to become citizens and i think that the positive administration is done, they reinstated the soldiers that rejected covid and they gave them back pay but what about the ones that they force the shot on. they should pay them -- national guard and border patrol, i think

that c-span should do a morning, and afternoon and night time for adults only or you can cost. thank you. host: for what it's worth on this groundhog day, a punxsutawney phil seeing his shadow, six more weeks of winter with the headline there from usa today. this is our last call, north carolina republican line. caller: hi, i just want to make a statement about the previous administration. the consul he referred to trump being a threat to democracy. i guess they wanted to make it a democracy but it's unfortunately the united states or fortunately for us, we are a constitutional republic, can you please comment. host: the last call we will take on this morning we've been on from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. as we do every day thanks to all of you will participate. another edition of washington journal comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will see you then. ♪

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