♪ host: good morning. it is tuesday, february 25, 2025.

house and senate returning at noon eastern today and we begin other foreign policy front. yesterday, president trump hosted french president emmanuel macron in the white house. ukraine and the european alliance with the top issues. british prime minister keir starmer will make his visit to the white house. this morning, we begin by asking your opinion of nato. how do you view the u.s. role in the alliance, and do you think ukraine should be allowed to join? phone lines split as usual by party. republicans, (202) 748-8001 is the number to call. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. also, sent us a text this morning. it is (202) 748-8003.if you please include your name and where you are from. on social media, facebook.com/c-span or on x @cspanwj. very good tuesday morning to you. you can go ahead and start calling in now.

as the front page of the washington times this morning. emmanuel macron airs fears. that during the appearance at the white house. donald trump asked if he still believes in the nato alliance. this was his response. [video clip] >> nato is very much involved in this. when i first got elected at the very beginning, the first term, i got hundreds of billions of dollars put into nato. nato had no money because they had not paid for years and i said if you don't pay, we will not be a part of nato. we will not protect. we will not do what we are supposed to do. we took in hundreds of billions of dollars into nato. nato is a good thing if it is done properly and used properly. host: that was the white house yesterday. emmanuel macron and donald trump. meanwhile, as the new york times lead story points out, president trump was barely acknowledged in

a meeting between president volodymyr zelenskyy of ukraine and 13 western leaders who visited kyiv in person yesterday to mark the third anniversary of russia's full skill invasion on ukraine. they descended on kyiv to pledge more money and military assistance to ukraine. that is from the new york times, and this is from today's washington post. meanwhile in germany yesterday within hours of emerging as the next chancellor of germany after sunday's election, a grim prognosis for the transatlantic partnership was offered. europe he said needs to achieve independence from the united states step-by-step. he told the public broadcaster ard europe should hope for good relations with the united states and continue to support the nato military alliance. however, he added, if those who make not just america first also america alone their motto, if

they prevail, it will be difficult. that from germany. this about the discussion of the u.s. and europe alliance. phone lines as usual. we will begin on the line for democrats. this is tad in rhode island. good morning. caller: good morning, john. thank you for taking my call. i think that nato is awesome because the only time that article five was invoked was when we were attacked on 9/11. nato came to our aid, no question, no problem. if i am correct, i think even ukraine helped out. i am not certain about that, but yeah, i am a big fan of nato and hope we stay in it and hope they are not too mad at us for what happened yesterday. host: what do you think the future will be?

what do you think the future of nato should be? should ukraine be allowed to join nato? caller: i think that nato will be strengthened and i believe ukraine should be allowed to enter. i think it would be good. they will be an asset. right? i think they are a very dependable ally. host: your thoughts on the volodymyr zelenskyy saying this past week and he would be willing to step down as president if it meant an end to the war and a guarantee and nato membership for ukraine? caller: that is very valiant. i think he is an outstanding leader in ukraine. this valiant gesture, i hope it does not happen. i hope he remains as president because i think he is awesome. we should have a president like him. host: that is tad in rhode island. we will go to sam in kentucky, louisville. you are next. caller: good morning, john.

how are you doing this morning? host: doing well. caller: ok. my comment is the great ball of destruction is happening to democracy. yesterday, i think we saw that when the united states and mr. trump and his people gave up on ukraine. what i think now is in a time of peril we read from the scripture. exactly those words are coming true, which paul talked about. we have the families, we have the nation fighting against each other, all of these things combined good i think we are about to get ready to come to this end time. it is all about money, john. it is all about money. doge is bringing an end to the money treasury. that is what they want.

money is the only reason that this man is in office right now because the oligarchs, the millionaires, what they are trying to do is trip everything got so they could get the treasury, they could look into it, and like a business, they can find out who has more money than they got and how they can steal from the people. host: this is a scar louis in massachusetts, republican. good morning. caller: hellocaller:. good morning. first of all, i just want to say that as a republican, i do support nato. i think it is one of the most amazing organizations that could possibly exist. however, i do not support including ukraine in it for this very simple reason. there is this video of the ukrainian president zelenskyy, i believe his name is, he is

talking about nato and the united states and out of nowhere -- host: alabama, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. nato was very good during the alliance and fighting hitler's regime and all that. europe came together. host: bill, nato was formed after world war ii. caller: yes sir. yes sir. i'm still waking up. but coming to now, zelenskyy should have known trump would kicked him in the teeth -- kick him in the teeth. i have a problem with the united states sending so much money abroad that when you have the south side of chicago, you have homes in louisiana, houston, and

miami seven -- in miami, 7th avenue, in los angeles, all of these places deprived of the black neighborhoods. chicago. if we could just get an inkling of that money to go to boys and girls clubs or helped rebuild these impoverished neighborhoods while you are giving all of this money to nato, all of this money to zielinski. i feel for them. they are being crushed by putin and killed. gaza and all of these places. that man over there killing 43,000 folks when thousands of israelites died. it is ok to help. but if trump gives money back to us, he will still not put it in our neighborhoods that need help. host: that is bill in alabama. more from the white house

yesterday.donald trump sitting down with emmanuel macron in the oval office. he took questions there and at a bilateral more formal press briefing. this was in the oval office. emmanuel macron talking about the importance of the alliance, countries in europe with ukraine. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> our objective clearly is to build peace and a solid and long-standing peace. this is what we will discuss obviously because i have great respect for bravery and the resistance of the ukrainian people. and we do share the objective of peace. we are very aware of the necessity to have guarantees of peace in order to stabilize the situation. i am here as a friend because through centuries we have been friends and we are personal friends as you mentioned because we work very well together. and i think the u.s. and france always stand on the same side,

on the right side of history. this is exactly what is at stake today. this is a really important moment for europe as well. after discussions with all of my colleagues, to say europe is willing to step up to be a stronger partner, to do more in defense and security for the continent, and as well to be a reliable partner and to be in engaged in trade economy. host: these conversations with emmanuel macron. keir starmer, european leader, coming this week as the trump administration is actively trying to negotiate a deal to end the war in ukraine. this is the washington post op-ed today on that deal. instead of a deal, ukraine is getting a check down, saying the reports of exchanging security for minimal rights makes sense but not on these terms that donald trump is trying to put ukraine.

the editorial board also noting that while volodymyr zelenskyy has asked for nato membership, trump officials already nixing that going into this negotiation. amid all of this, we are talking about the future of the european american lions, the future of nato. want to get your view on nato. this is armando out of hawaii this morning, republican. good morning. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i was a part of nato a long time ago back in 1973, 1974, 1975. and you know, back in those days, i remember the germans, talking to a lot of the germans where i was stationed. they did not want us to be there. they wanted us to leave. at that time, it was the warsaw pact with the soviet union. and i was only stationed 30 kilometers from the czech

border. back in those days, it was a lot different. the nato alliance was a lot different. but i think now it is time for the european countries to step up and take over. host: so, armando, would you agree with ex who writes in this morning sce the united nations exists and the warsaw pact is god and the soviet union is dissolved, nato should be eliminated, that they are increasing tensions and promoting more war? caller: no, i don't think it should be eliminated. i think it is a good thing, but i don't think ukraine should be part of nato because they are right on the doorstep of russia, and it is a very sensitive thing to them. and i think what trump is doing is a very good thing in trying to bring peace. but i think nato is transforming, but i don't think it should be dissolved but it should be changed. we should have less of a part in nato.

still backing them, still being a member of nato but a lesser part. the united states -- it was formed after world war ii, you know? i was involved in the exercises of nato. i remember the german forces, the dutch forces, and everything. i was very much a part of that, and i remember that. i experienced that. but today it is different and there are a lot more members now than there were back then. now you have poland and other countries, a lot more countries. i think sweden also is a member. host: 32 members today in nato. the expectation is spending at least 2% of gdp on military spending, defense spending for nato members. earlier this month, it was nato defense minister is gathering in a meeting in europe at the secretary-general of nato talked about defense spending efforts in member countries. this is from france24 tv.

[video clip] >> since the 2014 defense investment pledged european allies and canada have added more than $700 billion u.s. additional in defense. in 2024, nato allies in europe and canada invested $485 billion u.s., a nearly 20% increase compared with 2023. with a full two thirds of allies spending at least 2% of their gdp on defense. i expect even more allies to meet and in many cases exceed the target in 2025, so we are seeing substantial progress. but we need to do a lot more, so we have what we need to deter and defend. so there is a more equitable burden sharing in place. we also need to produce more

together. and tomorrow, defense ministers will discuss how to strengthen our transatlantic defense capacity, including through an updated plan. in the past few years, we have seen a substantial increase in defense production across the alliance, but we need to go further and faster. there is no time to waste. host: that from earlier this month at the nato defense ministers meeting. the secretary talking about arms buildups and the ability to produce arms. ukraine again not a member of nato, but during this fight against russia over the past three years has received many arms shipments from nato members and the united states particularly. it's is a story on what would happen if the united states weapons stopped going to ukraine. without u.s. military income ukraine has enough weapons to keep fighting at his current pace until the summer, said a

former and current western official. the wall street journal talked to. after that, kyiv could find itself unable to use some of its most of his ticketed weaponry. europe is trto make up that shortfall, but ukraine is also built up its own munitions industry during these war years. it produces some $30 billion a year in weaponry. if you want to read more on that, it is in today's wall street journal. this is roseann in fairfield, new jersey, independent. what is your view on nato? caller: yes, hi. i want to say i am definitely in favor of nato. i think we need it. it is for our protection for the free world. and i have to also say that i am so dismayed about what happened at the u.n. and for our position siding with russia. i am 81 years old.

i never experienced anything like that. just thank you for taking my call. host: that is roseann in fairfield, new jersey. this is peter in texas. good morning. you are next. caller: how are you doing? host: doing well, peter. what are your thoughts on the u.n.? nato, sorry. caller: nato. 26 years in the military dating all the way back, also somalia in 1993. the way i feel about nato, i think each country should be put on trial because we have so much corruption in the world. even ukraine. they have a back history of just bad stuff.

i think before anybody becomes part of the nato alliance, they should be on trial. that is all i have to say, sir. you enjoy your day. host: that is peter from texas on nato. the previous caller referring to what happened yesterday at the u.n. the u.s. sided with russia and china to win the united nations's security council backing. it did not blame moscow for the ukraine war, and called for a swift and to the conflict as president trump said he was in talks with russia about an economic development deal. trump's comments and the u.s. actions on monday at the u.n. show the extent to which the u.s. has changed its posture to the region on the same day that european leaders gathered in ukraine's capital to mark the third anniversary of the invasion. this is richard in indianapolis, republican. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i think trump is going about

this all wrong. i am a republican disavowing trump now. and i think pete hegseth should be fired. he gave away everything before they've even started negotiating. they got russia on the ropes because russia is selling their goal. they don't have any economy. they are about to fall off, and here goes trump. gives them everything as a christmas present for putin. they should take elon musk, put him out in iowa so he can raise chickens. what? host: you say you are a republican who is now against trump. did you vote for him in 2024? caller: yeah, i voted for him three times. you know, the capitol january 6, and this is the last straw.

next to the last straw. he is messing everything up. host: if he lost you on january 6, why did you vote for him in 2024? caller: well, he had the best policies. kamala did not have any policies. she said give everyone $30,000 to buy a house and they were making 3%. the profit was gouging. she did not know what was going on. she did not know any better than biden. host: that is richard in minneapolis. this is james in new hampshire. good morning. caller: yes. prior to this, i stayed in both ukraine and in romania.

now, during that period of time, all of these nations that are now members of nato in eastern europe were soviet. they had soviet allegiance. i believe that in the interest of the americans to keep them out, they should support ukraine in any way possible and stop the russian invasion because they have aspirations to be established in the old soviet type system with the allegiance of all of those eastern european nations. there are 32 of them now. so my feeling is that this is not good policy, and it is threatening our integrity, in the end making division for the rest of the western world, which feels far more exposed than the

united states right now. we could be later exposing ourselves by exposing american lives if this intrusion is not put an end to. ukraine is paying the price with the death of their people. host: that is james in new hampshire. newsweek with a time-lapse map of nato's growth over the years from 12 countries after world war ii to 32 countries today, expanding over the course of the years. you can watch that animation from the newsweek map as we hear from jeremy in madison, wisconsin, independent good morning. caller: good morning. always good to talk to you. first of all, yesterday i thought your question posed and how you performed the show was

well done. i was really impressed. host: what is your view of nato, jeremy? caller: secondly, i did not bother calling in on the independent line. third of all, nato. i am not exactly sure what nato has done. i am not exactly sure how the nato thinks about defending me. to defend. i find this hard to comprehend. two chinese exchange students from 2016 who are in the park next to me in madison less than, talking about c-span.

language was hard to deal with and i used to ask them about the chinese since world war ii. that was a topic that did not really go anywhere. if you think about original intentions in 1955, things have changed. host: that is jeremy in wisconsin. this is john in binghamton, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. how you doing, john? host: i'm doing well. what are your thoughts on data? caller: my thought is i hope that people will understand and is very important to be a member of nato supporting our allies and friends across the world, for the mere fact of whatever you think of the ukraine war or not, but by it being the leader of the -- but by being the leader of the free world, it is

the only thing that makes our dollar worth anything. it is not backed by gold anymore. we don't have industry here. why is our dollar sought after by the world? we are the leader of the free world. if you want to pull off being the leader of the free world, people please remember your dollars will turn into the peso. it will be like the ruble. just keep that in mind. host:host: when the previous caller says i don't know what i get from the u.s. being a member of nato, what is your answer to him? caller: that is my exact thing. when i heard him say that, he has to realize the only thing we have left is being leader of the free world it is what makes our dollar sought after. host: that is john in binghamton, new york. keep calling in. phone lines for republicans, democrats, and independents as usual. it is coming up on 7:30 on the east coast.

the house and senate both return at 10:00 a.m. eastern .you can watch them on c-span and c-span2. we will be headed to the house after our program ends today. yesterday we talked about the email that went out to federal employees over the weekend asking them to list five things they did last week from elon musk, his doge committee. a lot of discussion about what that meant ahead of a deadline yesterday, a midnight deadline for federal workers to respond. here is the latest on the "what did you do last week?" email.by monday, the new york times report says, personal officials proclaimed it was a request and was voluntary. several agencies quickly sent out emails telling their employees they did not need to provide the five bullet points about the activity mr. musk

wanted. at virtually the same time, donald trump weighed in during the visit at the white house with emmanuel macron, praising mr. musk's demands as genius and saying employees who did not respond would be semi-fired or fired. many federal workers were left confused by the flip-flopping, they write, but for the first time since the beginning of mr. trump's return to power, government employees appeared to have fended off an ambush between the worlds were just man and the federal workforce. that is how the new york times puts it this morning. one other story to keep you updated on. a sad note from the obituary pages this morning. the secret service agent who leapt onto president john f. kennedy's limousine as it came under fire in dallas and prevented a scribbling jackie kennedy from falling to the ground died on friday at his home in california. mr. hill hale for his bravery was 93 years old.

it is a signature image of the kennedy assassination reproduced in an associated press photograph and the amateur motion picture footage known as the zip router film as he grasps the trunk of the limousine and climbs the rear of the car. as to who was assigned to protect just kennedy and pushed her into her seat alongside her motor -- her mortally wounded husband. mr. powers said mr. kennedy -- mrs. kennedy would have fallen off the rear of the car and would have been in the path of the other cars in the motorcade. days after, mr. hill received the highest award bestowed by the treasury department, the agency that then oversaw the secret service, for his heroic courage and effort in the face

of maximum danger. mr. clint hill, 93 years old, the author and co-author of several books featured several times on c-span's book tv. you can go to booktv.org if you want to learn more about mr. hill, his writing, and his life. back to your phone calls this morning as we talk about nato and the u.s. role in the alliance. this is rory waiting in california, republican. go ahead. caller: i believe that zelenskyy was necessary. i am not saying he isn't a dictator or he is. ukraine war had to happen, and nato -- eastern europe would have been fighting by now under biden. if zelenskyy had gone with biden and left ukraine, it would have failed. all of eastern europe would have been invaded by russia. and biden would have done nothing.

and trump would have to take all of those countries back for that. host: so what is your view on three years in where we are today in a negotiation that has yet to include ukraine to end this war? caller: what is going to happen is they will probably demand tactical weapons and peace. if russia invades, they will a-bomb russia and do that. i have heard rumors that zelenskyy may pop open chernobyl and let the whole place go radioactive if the russians win. i don't know the result of everything. host: before we speculate on something like that, do you think ukraine should be allowed to join nato? caller: probably yes. because what is the point of not doing it? the russians will keep going for it if it is under nato. all of europe and the u.s. would attack russia, and they are

sorry they gave up their atomic bombs about 30 years ago. no one will give up another atomic bomb. also, finland did become part of nato because of the ukraine were. host: and the nato membership now counting 32 countries, the latest additions finland and sweden. this is glenn in illinois, democrat. good morning. what do you think of the nato alliance? glenn, you with us? we go to john in ohio, republican. go ahead. caller: yeah. i think something like this happened before. we almost went to nuclear world war iii with russia wanting to have people in cuba if you remember the missile crisis. those small baltic states that joined nato, russia was unhappy about that.

those small states, not a threat. now they want to put ukraine, which is not a small baltic states. and we want to put a primarily military organization right on their border, so i understand. i like nato, but i would never let ukraine in there when it will lead to nothing good. so i would stay in nato but i would not let ukraine in. there are other things you can do to help protect them but they don't need to be in nato. and i would press harder than ever to make these other countries contribute what they are supposed to. some of this is just so stupid. they are just using the united states as a sugar daddy. it is not good. canada has almost no military now. why would they?

because we are here. we will protect them. that is all across europe. host: nato members to contribute their required share of gross domestic product, that 2% number , has been a major issue for donald trump and his top military officials. pete hegseth has talked about it as well forget the defense secretary was speaking to nato allies about the u.s.-nato relationship earlier this month at that nato summit. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> president gave me a clear mission. achieve peace through strength. as well as put america first. our people, our taxpayers, our borders, and our security. we are doing this by reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence.

nato should pursue these goals as well. nato is a great alliance. the most successful defense alliance in history. but to endure for the future, our partners must do far more for europe's defense. we must make nato great again. it begins with defense spending. but must also include reviving the transatlantic defense industrial base, rapidly fielding emerging technologies, prioritizing readiness and lethality, and establishing real deterrent. finally, i want to close with this. after world war ii, first general and then president eisenhower was one of nato's strongest supporters. he believed in a strong relationship with europe.

however, by the end of eisenhower's presidency, even he was concerned that europe was not shouldering enough of its own defense. nearly making in eisenhower's words "a sucker out of uncle sam." like president eisenhower, this administration believes in alliances. deeply believes in alliances. but make no mistake, president trump will not allow anyone to turn uncle sam into uncle sucker. host: pete hegseth talking to nato members earlier this month. we are talking to you this morning, getting your view of the nato alliance. this is gordon in new jersey, democrat. good morning. caller: hello. first of all, i had a programming question for c-span. i have a couple friends who watch the "washington journal" from abroad, and they what me to

ask, you guys would not still happen to have the international line going, would you? host: international line, sometimes we do it for some segments but i do not have an international number for them to call in. a great thing they can do is text or send in a social media message and we can look for it there. caller: absolutely. i will let them know. i appreciate that. but i did have a point on nato. i fully support nato. it is one of the greatest organizations we could have. and of course, i agree that ukraine should be a part of nato because in a perfect world, every nation in the world should be a part of nato but unfortunately we still have a couple missing. we are missing mexico, brazil. host: independent, good morning. caller: i am one of those that i

believe nato is obsolete. there is no more soviet union. and dado was -- and nato was 32 countries. what does it, the european union? they are big enough or they have enough they can supply their own security. i am tired of the united states being used to protect everybody else. we spent over $900 billion a year on defense. that defense is not just for us. if we spend all this money and we are worried about what goes on in europe, then we have a problem, then we don't need this defense then. every country should be able to handle their own defense. i am tired of us defending everybody else. i did not vote for the president to be the president of the world forget it i voted for him to be

the president of the united states. take care of us first and we can protect our own selves. host: the u.s. spending this year over $7 trillion. if you go to u.s.debtclock.org, they break down the biggest spending items. defense is one of the top four. $882 billion and counting on defense and war spending in this financial year. this is michael in florida, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i was one of the troops in germany as well as korea and several other places, but i can tell you the germans at that time, the school teachers teaching the schoolkids basically were a joke and they were using us to drain us dry and paying practically nothing.

the thing is i believe in keeping up our end of the bargain as far as nato and rebuild it as much as possible. i think president trump scared the living daylights out of most of europe. that is why sweden and finland jumped in. the others want to jump in. because make sure you understand like my predecessor, the woman before, who does not know that the soviet union may be gone but putin is still there. all he did was take off their military uniform and is back to being the same old dictator we had under stalin. matter of fact, stalin is his idol if you take a look at him. that is why we failed at market garden, because they had enough spies, they had the cambridge five. the one who informed jurgens to cross our people all the way up the way when we were in market garden. we would have been in berlin and shut down world war ii right there. instead, we were betrayed. host: that is michael in florida.

this is joan in new york, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say i can't believe what i am witnessing here in america. wake up, america. i see the attack on the military. that makes me feel less safe. trump is giving america to russia. that is the way i see it. if you are going to go up into the military and take the most people who are qualified to be in these high positions, we need those people there. and as i see it, trump is selling america to russia. and i can't believe what is going on now. host: are you referring to what happened on friday evening, i believe, the relieving of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff? caller: that as well as the federal workers that are

experienced in the work that they do. and remember, united we stand, divided we fall. that goes for not only the united states of america but also for the world. i do believe we need to stay in nato. i believe in nato because we are united. and we definitely need to fight against putin and russia. host: that is joan in new york. this is joe in the philly, republican. good morning. caller: yeah, good morning. how are you? host: doing well. caller: i looked at the situation with nato, the leader of poland on france 24 was saying that even the polish should have 5% of their budget put into a military backup like nato because nato is important.

it is necessary. but the united states cannot bear the full burden of nato. host: an poland right now one of the top spenders if you look at the map from the bbc. the darker the shade of the country, the more they spend as a percentage of gdp on military spending. estonia, latvia, that when you, and poland being the most -- lithuania, and poland being the most of the european members. go ahead, joseph. caller: what i am saying is trump has to stay neutral if he is going to be the mediator. and he is not to -- if it is true that putin will allow up to 30,000 soldiers from europe to be in ukraine, that is a major concession by russia.

also, if we have a financial interest in the rare earth minerals, that would also be a guarantee against russia because we would have a financial interest to protect were russia to again coming to ukraine. also, you have to look at the history of eastern ukraine, and it is mostly russian-speaking people, even though they are now very upset with russia as to what has happened. and lastly, who is getting the contracts to rebuild? many of the issues come out later as to who is going to make money on the rebuild of ukraine. host: joseph, what about the debate over the money that the united states and european countries have already given to

ukraine and donald trump's complaint that european countries are getting money paid back and the united states is not getting that money paid back? caller: it is a valid complaint. to say that we are going to get rare earth minerals which we need, but it will take years. we can start immediately, but it would take years to bring that up to speed so that ukraine benefits from it, so that we benefit from it, so that we disengage from china and anyone else who is currently supplying us with rare earth minerals, which are needed for cell phones and whatever else. so i think it would be a good deal, and i am surprised that zelenskyy did not -- was not receptive to that. host: that is joseph in philadelphia on the question of money to ukraine being grants or

loans that need to be paid back. again, that came up yesterday between president trump and french president emmanuel macron. here is that moment at the white house yesterday where emmanuel macron jumps in and correct president trump on what he had to say about it. [video clip] >> will france support the u.s. being compensated? >> i support the idea of ukraine first being compensated because they are the one to lose a lot of their fellow citizens and be destroyed by these attacks. second, all of those will be paid for, compensated, but not by ukraine. by russia because they were the one to address. >> again, just so you understand , europe is loaning the money to ukraine. they get their money back. >> in fact, to be frank, we paid 60% of the total. like the u.s., loans, guaranteed grants, and we provided the money to be clear. we have $230 billion for the

assets in europe, russian assets, but this is not as a collateral of a loan because this is not ever belonging so they are frozen. if at the end of the day the negotiation we will help with russia, they are ready to give it to us, super. russia will have paid for that. >> if you are ok with that, it is ok with me, but they get their money back and we don't and now we do and it is only fair. host: the scene from the oval office yesterday. taking your phone calls this morning. this is richard in san francisco, democrat. go ahead. caller: yeah, good morning. nato, world war i we finally entered the war and help solve that an isolated wilson and created the league of nations, which our nation voted not to join. what we thought would happen. right? hitler got into power and

invaded europe and took over russia. we were actually allies during the war but we supplied them all kinds of equipment. but stalin had another agenda. he beat the germans all the way back to germany, but then he occupied all of those areas and never left the soviet union. host: bring me to 2025. caller: ok, 2025. we have to have a united nato. this is a world situation. we are supposed to be the leader of the world and democracy. i mean, trump is -- we are talking about trillions of dollars over here and he is worried about a few billion to ukraine. by the way, nato has the european union and other countries that have contributed more than the united states in the defense of ukraine. so ukraine is the whole buffer. if putin is not stopped in ukraine, he will move on. that is the whole point.

the guy is maniacal in his wanting to put the soviet union back together. so basically in like a month, trump has almost shook our allies and all the people in europe and the rest of the people around the world are wondering, can they count on the united states being an ally? he is calling zelenskyy a dictator, but he won't even admit that the aggression from russia. this is not a game. this is not a deal. this is not a real estate deal. this is the security of europe and the world. that is why it is important. host: richard, on the question of who is a dictator and who is not a dictator, that came up yesterday at that meeting that emmanuel macron was with donald trump. here is the question that got put to donald trump. [video clip] >> mr. president, you said zelenskyy is a dictator but you

did not say if putin is. >> i don't use those words lightly. i think that we will see how it all works out. let's see what happens. i think we have a chance of a really good settlement between various countries. you are talking about your. you are talking about ukraine as part of that whole situation. the other side has a lot of support also, so let's see how it all works out. it might work out. you can never make up lives. you can make up the money but you can't make up the lives. a lot of lives lost. i think probably a lot more lives than people are talking about. it has been a rough war but i think we are getting close to getting it solved -- but i think we are close to getting it solved. host: about 10 minutes left in this segment of "washington journal," taking your calls come asking for your view of nato. this is nicole in brooklyn, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for this platform. i want to go back to jeremy's

question from wisconsin. is it true the golden seat rule was a treaty with china about the ban of trading for a period of time in america? what changed that? now china with limiting regulations for fair wages and mass production for goods in america. that is the question. host: nicole, bring me to nato. that is what we are talking about. caller: i know. nato is leading into that. moved to foreign countries which causes problems in our country. so nato to me is important because in the history, it seems like russia and america never had a war. they always had some form of treaty. host: ok, that is nicole. this is lou in georgia, republican. good morning. caller: hi. i don't mean to give folks a history lesson because you have the smartest listeners in the world, but the original purpose

of nato was after world war i and the treaty of versailles where germany had to relinquish land to france and it linked up to world war ii. it was to keep the european nations together. not necessarily as a buffer against the soviet union. because the european nations are expansionist. the french, the dutch colonized africa, colonized countries. france kicked us out of nato i think in 1965. so when people think that nato was formed as a buffer against the soviet union, the original idea of truman under the marshall plan was to build up the nato countries to

keep them from fighting each other or getting into conflict with each other. france claiming land in germany. germany claiming land from france. that is all i wanted to say. the soviet union. host: so, lou, what do you think then the relevance of the soviet union is to data and how it -- to nato and how it expanded over time, the cold war, the warsaw pact? caller: well, that is it. it has morphed into americans' idea of keeping the european countries from conflict with each other into the threat from the soviet union, but the original idea, and that is the only point i am not smart enough to figure out how it works today internally, but it changes to

something else than its original intent and i think history may support that because that was the purpose of truman and the marshall plan. host: we will stay in the peach state. this is dee, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call but i would like to piggyback off of the gentlemen there from georgia. i believe it is in our best interest to stay in nato. from my understanding, it is kind of like car insurance, some kind of insurance. you pay into it and it is there if you need it. and so we kind of have each other's back. also as far as zelenskyy paying them back, i think my opinion is, and i watched a lot of the cable news, but it was in our interest to have the things we were giving him to find this war that putin started.

it was not just money they sent over there to him. as far as him paying it back, i believe it should be -- i don't believe that should happen. i believe we helped that country because it is good and it was a beautiful country tricked into the war, i believe. that is my opinion on nato. host: that is dee in georgia. this during the munich security conference. it was north carolina republican senator thom tillis speaking about the importance of nato but also this idea of cost-sharing. this is about two minutes of what he had to say. [video clip] >> i try to preface all my discussions around my family, about the concept of family. i am one of six children. and i view our nato partners and allies like family members. we are not friends.

we are family. and that means we have arguments, we have fights. sometimes we don't talk to each other for months at a time. but at the end of the day, even my sister i am convinced would never vote for me, she is so liberal, and would probably endorse my opponent. there is no doubt if i were in trouble, my sister would come to my aid. i think that has to be foundational to the discussion of the people in nato. does anyone honestly believe if we were threatened, regardless whether we are the high or the low, that we would not come together to defend the countries of nato? of course we would. we also have to have an honest discussion. pay the 2%. period. we have been well above 2% forever. don't give the american people a reason to say, why should we spend more? why should we do more? one countries who were founders of the nato observer group -- i see people with uniforms on.

they can appreciate this. over the last 24 years if you total the shortfall below 2% of the nations who have failed to make the 2% threshold, it is more than $2 trillion for mutual defense and modernization. it is $2 trillion that would have been demand signals that would have increased our industrial base. it is $2 trillion that may have been a capability that vladimir putin would not have thought he could stress test nato alliance and take advantage of ukraine. so let's be good family members and tell our brothers and sisters the truth. your failure to commit to the 2% threshold has made our world more dangerous. host: north carolina republican senator thom tillis. that was from earlier this month at the munich security conference. time for just a couple more calls. we have asked you in the first hour of "washington journal"

today simply your view of the nato alliance, the united states role in it. should ukraine join nato? dave and at leading city, new jersey, independent, what do you think -- dave in atlantic city, new jersey, independent of what do you think? caller: the negotiation the president is carrying on his doing nothing for us and nato. if putin was sincere about any of the things, giving up any of the things we want, he would not care if ukraine was part of nato because he would not be planning to continue his war against the west. so it makes no sense. what we really need is something for us, for america. like you really want to save some money, why don't you ask putin to take all the nuclear submarines out of the atlantic? president trump praised the

atlantic ocean, the great atlantic ocean in one of his statements. he is living 100 years ago. the atlantic ocean was no defense to what russia has. they have the missiles that can take out -- submarines that can take out 50 million americans before we could retaliate. why don't we get some concession from putin as part of the giveaway of a free country, a free brave people with who trump has no identification? people like our founders. people like the 2000 marines that are lying in the grave in france. trump has no identification with them. he only has identification with countries he has established a policy like putin, taking money, taking freedom away from people. like erdogan. all the people that he praises and collects himself with are

not americans who have not wanted to maintain freedom, free countries for our own defense. host:host: that is dave in new jersey, our last caller in this segment of "washington journal." hope you stickith us this morning on c-span, but if energy policy is more your thing, on c-an2 and 15 minutes, an event being hosted by politico with color medical senator hickenlooper, randy wer of texas, a discussion ou.s. energy policy. that gets underway in 15 minutes. if you stay here on "washington journal," up next we will be joined by elaine kamarck of the brookings institution. we will talk about the trump efforts and previous administrations to reduce the size and spending of the federal government and later, gen z

founder and president joseph mitchell discusses his efforts to recruit and train young conservatives in politics. we will be right back. ♪ >> tuesday, watch live coverage of president trump's address to congress, the first address of his second term in less than two months since taking office. live coverage begins with a preview of the evening from capitol hill followed by his speech which begins at 9:00 p.m. eastern, then watch the democratic response to the president's speech. we will also take your calls and get your reaction on social media. you can also watch a simulcast of the evening's coverage followed by reaction from lawmakers, live from capitol hill. watch the address to congress

live tuesday, march four, beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, or simulcast live on c-span two or on c-span now, our free mobile video app. also online at c-span.org. c-span, bringing your democracy unfiltered. >> 100 years ago this past august was the beginning of what has often been called the great war. world war i had military casualties of over 9 million and billions more injured. nine books since 2003 on subjects that incle german history, russian history, the ottoman empire, communism, world war ii a one titled july 1914. this last book will be the focus of our conversation. world war i was triggered in late june of 1914 with the

assassination of archduke fred ferdinand and his wife sophie in bosnia. they were gunned down by a serbian 19-year-old. >> author sean mcmeekin talks about his brian lamb. but notes plus is available on the free mobile app or wherever you gear podcasts. washington journal continues. host: elaine kamarck joins us now, center for effective public management. some 32 years ago she served as director of the reinventing government initiative at the start of the clinton administration. what was your mission at the reinventing government initiative? >> we began in march of 1993. we issued our first of many reports in september of 1993. we thought we were moving

quickly, but nothing compared to mr. mosk. and our mission was to create a government that works better and cost less. so we had in it works better as well as costing less. we wanted to save money, we wanted to cut some personnel, but we also wanted to fix ongoing problems in the federal government. host: is it fair to call it the doge of its day? guest: it probably was but with a lot of exceptions. a lot of important differences. the doge people have all come from outside government and they have no government experience. we recruited several hundred people from within the government who had reputations as innovators in the government. and so they were familiar with the government's processes, whether it is personnel procurement, setter, we did not allow them to work on their agency. we assigned them to teams looking at other agencies, and

they interacted with the agency personnel about what is going on in this place, where is the waste, where is the malfunction, etc. is it an ancient statute that needs revision, is it a regulation from the federal regulations? what is the problem here? and we tried to fix the problems. host: that initiative has obviously gotten a lot of attention. guest: it's gotten more attention now than it did 32 years ago. host: plenty of press reports on it about the results. from various news organizations, it reduced the federal wce by about 426,000 people. over the course of seven years. that yielded 130 $6 billion in taxpayer savings, authorized buyouts to the tune of $25,000 for some federal workers, and pushed at the time for the workforce to embrace the internet. how did you go about doing that,

especially when we are talking about workforce reductions, nearly half a million workers? guest: one thing that we had going for us was al gore. as you know, al gore is a techi e from way back and he saw instantly the advantages of the internet and the new technology. so he pushed of the government and pushed us to get the government to use new technology. it's hard to imagine now, but in 1993, agencies didn't have websites. if you wanted to know where the closest social security office was, you had to call somebody up on the phone or go to the yellow pages maybe. but there were no websites. so we knew that by using this new technology we could cut out management layers, and that is what we did. so we had a theory of the case, so to speak, when we engaged in cutting the government. host: where there any specific

agencies, offices that were fully closed under the reinventing government initiative? guest: about 126 of them that were fully closed. we did not close any cabinet departments or anything like that because we thought that was sort of a waste of time. host: what are some examples? guest: there's the tea tasters board which had been around for a long time. there's the group that gave tax breaks to subsidies, dating from the korean war. so there were a lot of smaller things that we closed and just got rid of. there was a columbus day something celebration agency, and we got rid of that. they were all kind of small things that some member of congress at some point had put in the government, but no longer really meant anything. host: when you look at the

federal government now, and you continued to be an active part of researching and writing about the federal government and the time since, you look at 2.2, $2.4 million federal government staff, how many cuts do you think are there? steve agree that there is room to cut the federal government? guest: absolutely. probably 5%, 10%. and if you want to actually stop doing things, then there's room for a lot more cuts. that is hard as they are discovering with usaid. if you want to get rid of the whole department, you really do have to go to congress and get the statute reversed. i statute it was amended in 1998 when clinton was president. the law is on the books.

they are going to be in lawsuits and lawsuits and lawsuits. host: usaid is under the state department and the state department is part of the executive branch. why can't the president, the head of the executive branch say this organization is no longer working, i don't want this part of the executive branch anymore? guest: get the losses that you cannot reorganize usaid without congressional approval first. in other words, there's a statute on the books. the real underlying philosophical fight is just the president truly control all of the bureaucracy, or is an also controlled by congress, which after all, authorizes it and appropriates the money for it? that is ready tension is here. host: take us back to 1993 to 2000, how much pushback were you getting at the time as you were going through this process?

guest: we got ignored by the media. we were basically ignored, that is why i say we are getting more attention now than we did 32 years ago, because it was too boring. the way we went about it was boring. you could argue that was a good thing. we got pushback from federal employees, not just from unions, more from employee organizations that represented management. because we were basically bringing the federal government into the information age, and what had been happening in the 80's even in the private sector was that information technology was allowing companies to cut middle-management, and that is what we were doing in the government. it really came from managers more so than unions because the other thing we did is we established customer service standards for the government. we wanted citizens to be treated as if they were valued customers

and not told to wait all day in a waiting room and then have the office close on them at 3:00 in the afternoon. we pushed to have offices open later and on weekends. the best, most poignant letter we got was from a gentle man in los angeles who told us that the previous year he had paid $4 million in taxes. so this was obviously a very rich man. and what really, really made him mad was he went to get passports for his children, and he waited and waited and waited and then at 3:00 in the afternoon, the office closed and said come back tomorrow. and matt said to us something is really wrong here. host: he wasn't getting his money's worth. guest: he needed a passport, only the passport office could give him a passport and look out

he was treated. that created a whole change process for passports. and these days you can get expedited passports, etc. it's different. and a lot of the things we did back then, whether it was filing your taxes online or do another kind the transactions are now standard operating procedure in the federal government. host: in terms of donald trump and elon musk saying there's precedent for this and pointing back to things like you were involved with in the clinton administration, was there precedent that you were looking back to of a previous ministration, the reagan administration or the h w bush administration? guest: the reagan administration had something called the grace commission, and it was a lot of people from the business world coming in, spending a year, looking at the government and saying to this or do this. we decided that nothing happened, and we decided that

no, what we really had to do was we really had to get inside the belly of the beast. just like any good consultant does when they come to a company, they get in there to figure out how does this work and what is working and what is not working. and that, by the way, is not what elon musk is doing. they are not trying to understand what the mission is. otherwise, there wouldn't have fire people working on avian bird flu just as avian bird flu seems to be peaking. host: they have gotten a lot of pushback for wanting access to the agency systems of doge staffers going in. you read the news stories that staffers arrived at x agency this week, if that part of what they are trying to do, go into these agencies and learn about them? guest: they are going into the agencies but they are not trying to learn about them, that is the difference. the other difference was we were looking for fat.

they are cutting muscle, and that is going to boomerang on them, already has. host: she is currently with the brookings institution, the governance studies center, senior fellow and is taking your phone calls as we talk about doge, cuts to the federal government. her work back in 1993. what if the government studies initiative at the brookings institution and what do you do now? host: we look at the federal government, we look at elections, american politics. we look at all the aspects of governance. so we look at how the cms is run and we look at what election administration is like. so we encompass everything. we are a small team but we are powerful. host: phone lines as usual, republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we would especially like to hear

from federal workers in this segment. a number for federal workers, (202) 748-8003. steve is up first out of st. louis. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have 37 years with the federal government. i was a veteran. i went through probably three or four reductions in forces. and each agency, each department was given, and i don't know how many people trump means to get rid of, i have no idea, but some of our cuts were 10, 15%, and we had to go through the reduction in force procedure. my way of thinking is this is what is going to happen. they will see how many they can get with buyouts and people not coming back, but the end result

is they are going to have a massive reduction in forces. so if you could just comment. thank you. guest: well the problem with just doing massive reduction in forces is that you cut muscle as well as fat. so the question is what is your objective? are you going to literally stop doing something and say the federal government is no longer going to build low income housing or give money for low income housing? if you do that you could get rid of a lot of people. but if you keep the nation on the books and as a veteran you understand the mission concept, if the mission is still there and you are cutting vast numbers of people without regard to what you want to accomplish, what is going to happen, and it's already happened, is you're going to end up doing a reduction of force and then trying to get these people to come back to work.

and that is already happening with the nuclear safety administration, it's already happening with the people who look for bird flu. it's happening with the indian health service. it's all over the government, that they are letting people go and then saying oops, we actually need those people, and they are getting them back. host: so the buyouts can be a fairly blunt instrument, the fork in the road email that went out. you did buyouts back in the 90's. were they a blunt instrument then, or how did you keep them from being a blunt instrument? guest: first of all, we passed a buyout bill through congress in march of 1994 with bipartisan support. so the federal workers taking the buyout could assume yeah, the government is behind us, we are going to get paid. there is no guarantee here, which is why so few people

actually took this buyout and why many people were urging federal workers don't do this, don't go there. the problem with buyouts is always that you risk losing the best people because you risk losing younger people and people with high skills who can go get a job somewhere else. and my guess is people who took the buyout frankly already had a job lined up and this was a good deal for them. so that is the problem with buyouts. we try to target our buyouts to management that we no longer needed, to offices we were about to close. we closed a lot of regional offices, finding them redundant in the age of information technology and we didn't have zoom back then, but we certainly had conference calls and things like that. so we tried to target it. but frankly, buyouts are hard to target. host: what was the toughest office to crack, something that

you saw as a redundant office or program that you put up as something that we should try to get rid of and just couldn't make it happen? guest: it wasn't a particular office, but the toughest was civil service reform. we knew that the processes for governing civil servants were somewhat obsolete. it was too hard to hire talent and it was too hard to fire people who were not doing a good job, and we knew that needed to change. and we worked and worked and worked, but frankly we never found an advocate in the congress. the congress already was beginning to be very polarized. so on the left, you found people who only wanted to enhance the power of unions, and on the right, you found only people who wanted to kill unions, and we had no center to work with. and so one by one, agencies did

make adjustments to the civil service laws to allow for more flexibility in hiring, but civil service was the hardest issue. we made a lot of progress on procurement, lots of procurement reform, enhancing the government ability to buy technology at a faster rate. so we made a lot of progress in areas, but that was i think the biggest disappointment. host: what is your view on unions, particularly federal employee unions which make up a lot larger percentage of the federal work within union members in the private sector workforce? guest: i think by and large they are good. i think a lot of times they protect poor performers more than they should. and that is a problem. but basically, if you think about who is unionized, they are the front-line workers that americans actually interact with. so you could argue that they

represent the people that we need more of, not fewer of. we need more people, frankly, it is tax season. you need more people answering the phones at irs and instead they are cutting. you need more people at the border protecting the borders. now, that one may increase. you need more people finding foodborne illnesses, doing that trace back process that is so difficult. so the front-line workers are the ones generally represented by unions, and i think that they do a pretty good job. host: would you rather be a federal employee part of the federal employees union and not right now? guest: i think so because you have somebody looking out for you. there's a lot of chaos out there, a lot of confusion out there. host: dorothy, republican, you are on.

caller: yes, hello. i am a disgruntled democrat, one of the ones that switched over for the selection, and i've been sort of standing back and taking a look at all of the things that maga people have said for years and today i think your show is an example of people are really cautious and don't really trust the media. you were doing a show about doge, and your distinguished guest is the head of something that i've never heard of, she is from 1993, i'm sure she's getting retirement benefits, and in america that is what taxpayers are tired of. host: so what we're trying to do

is provide some historical perspective. not a member of the federal government right now. do you want to explain what brookings is? guest: brookings is an independent think tank not funded by the federal government. i left the government in 1997 and at that point, i went to harvard university where i taught government management for 17 years and came to brookings. so i don't have a federal pension. i don't have any financial attachments to federal government. i'm not getting a pension. i just study this. i study it a i write about it and i use my own experience in the government to try to look at what is going right and what is going wrong. let me say that one of the things that i think elon musk could do, if you would stop the sort of silliness like tell me five things you did last week, if he could really bring some sophistication to the federal

government information technology systems. the federal government has always had trouble keeping up with the private sector because they simply can't pay enough money. but top software engineer at microsoft makes a lot more money than a top software engineer in the federal government. so i was sort of hopeful that doge, the group would go in and really start fixing the it systems so they were very much part of the 21st century. instead i think they are off to a sort of useless numbers game, and frankly what is already happening and what will happen is they will cut people and then they will have to hire them back because there will be a job that is not getting done. host: if history can be a good teacher and the reinventing government initiative was a precursor to doge, did anybody from doge reach out to you at the former director of that initiative to learn from how you went about doing this? guest: no.

nobody reached out. we reached out to people on the grace commission and we talked to people who had done this before, and we learned some valuable lessons. one of them was don't move the boxes around on the organization chart. host: what does that mean? guest: let's take the department of education. it has two big emissions. one is the student loan program. most americans probably think that is a pretty good idea and that people should be able to get these loans to go to college. the other is title i, which gives money to schools that are at or below the poverty rate. that money goes all over the country wherever there is a poor school, and it also funds disabled students. and that is a big deal, because believe me, i've been in these town hall meetings and parents of disabled children are very, very intent on getting the child

educated in the public school system, that cost a lot of money. so you've got two big programs. in than everything else is small. if you got rid of the department, my guess is they would move the student loan program to the treasury, they would move title i to hhs -- host: still the same number of boxes. guest: you might have a couple hundred people less, but you wouldn't really have done anything big. and so we stayed away from moving the boxes around and concentrated on how are they working and if they are not working, what can we do to fix them, and are there savings to be had in these agencies? host: texas, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i've got more of a statement. i think there's a difference between downsizing government and cutting waste, fraud and

abuse. i am all for finding waste, fraud and abuse in all the other stuff but the bottom line is that isn't what this was all about. if it was about that, it wouldn't have been so careless. and my point is not only is it -- this is about implementing project 2025. it has not anything to do with anything else, nothing else. because let me tell you something, getting rid of the inspector general has nothing to do with fraud, waste and abuse. getting rid of the top generals in the military has got nothing to do with fraud, waste and abuse, that is my point. i just wanted to get that across. and last but not least, this is not normal. donald trump is a convicted felon. host: this is darren in texas.

guest: it is not normal. in one of the ironies of this is that if you really want to get to waste, fraud and abuse, you actually have to increase government workers, and here is why. the irs estimates that there's almost half $1 billion -- i'm sorry, half $1 trillion in unpaid taxes every year. now that is a huge amount of money that could go to many other things. so what have they done? they've cut 7000 tax collectors. you need more people looking for fraud, and building those cases, bringing them to the justice department, prosecuting fraudsters. you need more people, not less. same thing with the centers for medicare and medicaid. we know there's a lot of fraud in there, but you actually need people finding it.

if you are cutting personnel you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. same thing with the social security administration. all of these agencies are facing cuts, and the more cuts you make, the less able the government is to find the fraud. there is fraud bear, but it is something that you have to go after with people. host: if agencies are crucial, that you need staff to do it, in your mind right now what is the most bloated agency? guest: social security is probably the least bloated. they are about 60,000 people which is the same as they've been for a while and they are retiring the baby boomers right now. the biggest generation in american history are retiring and guess what, social security is not beefing up. that is a pretty good mark of efficiency.

medicare and medicaid, the problem is different. it is a massive outpouring of money to doctors and hospitals and health care providers. seniors love their medicare and medicaid, there is no doubt about it. the problem is that there's, it is easy to have fraud in the system, and i was hoping that elon musk and his team would basically concentrate on using new technologies like ai to ferret out the fraud, as opposed to just doing this cutting, because it is one thing to identify suspicious patterns, but then you have to actually have somebody build a case, give it to the justice department and go out and prosecute people. and they are not doing that. host: the caller also brought up inspectors general. go back to the reinventing government initiative in the early 1990's. to be had inspectors general

back then, and how did you work with them? guest: we did, of course. we worked pretty well with them, although sometimes what would happen is we would make a management change and they would see that as somehow improper, so we sometimes butted heads with them. we butted heads with the unions, this is not an easy thing to do. but we certainly didn't fire them en masse. host: andrew, independent, thanks are waiting. caller: yes, good morning. we had a bank failure in 2008 of financial mess. out of that came this agency, i don't remember the name of it but it was to protect consumers against fraud created by the financial industry.

now, i have to agree with you that, you know, this is all about project 2025. this was developed by the heritage foundation. getting back to this agency, do you agree that we needed an agency like this one to protect consumers against predatory lending, because this is going on today, and now with no protection in place. guest: absolutely, i think we need it. it wasn't a very big agency, it wasn't known for being bloated or anything. already, they have reinstated one piece of it, which is there is a measurement that measures data about mortgage rates in the united states, and that is centered in the consumer financial protection agency, and guess what, they realized that they would seriously mess up

mortgage markets if they were not collecting the data and doing those calculations, so they already backtracked on one piece of that agency. and remember, the big agencies where they were really trying to take them apart, these will be in lawsuits because the fundamental question here is going to boil down to does the president, does the executive branch had the authority to dismantle an agency that congress created? without going back to congress and saying hey, we think usaid shouldn't happen or we think the cfpb shouldn't happen? that is the fundamental question. i do believe that we'll get to the supreme court. i hope for the sake of federal workers out there who are in chaos because of this that it gets there sooner rather than later. host: you said you were methodical in your pets in the 1990's during this process, but

did it happen at all in which federal workers were let go and you realized we needed that, and you had to go back and rehire them? and when that happens, are you rehiring the same people or somebody else to fill that job? guest: i don't recall that anybody had to be rehired. i don't know if that was the case. again, remember our cuts were taking place. this went on for seven years. this with the longest government reform effort in american history, and we kept doing it. we worked on airlines, cutting regulations. we did a lot of different sorts of things. but i don't recall if we did. i know as a provision, couldn't be rehired. you couldn't take your $25,000 and then come back in, that was obvious. host: how involved was president clinton in this effort, how

often review you meeting with him and going over we want to get rid of this office or this is the place where we think we can find some cuts? guest: pretty regularly. remember, al gore had a lot of access to clinton, so what would happen is we would have these big, massive meetings usually over the weekend where we would go over, and clinton would say no to some things and say yes to some things. but also, gore met with clinton every week at the famous lunch between the president and vice president, and we would go in, we called it the lunch memo, and we would go in and i would put my two things. is it ok if we go ahead with x or y and he would come out of that with yes, hold on this, little notes. clinton was regularly kept abreast of what we were doing. host: was there ever a cut that

you recommended that he said no to that you still think should have been cut? guest: there a funny one, which is that the federal government spends a fair amount of money each year drug testing civil servants. and frankly, it is kind of a waste because over 90% of those tests come back negative. in other words, this was an older population, there really weren't a lot of people using drugs. so we said you know, we could get rid of this. and bill clinton, remember who had been accused of not inhaling, though clinton looked at us and said you know, i think that's a good idea but we will let some other president do that one. sometimes he did say no. host: this is peter on the republican line, peter, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you. so as a medical oncologist i understand the importance of a

lot of medicare patients, obviously it is important, medicare. however as a conservative, i'm kind of amazed that there's been so much waste down at usaid in terms of all these radical left which has nothing to do with foreign aid, and the department of education had i think $350 billion or maybe it was million, $350 million. they had to cancel it, it was all for critical race theory, diversity, inclusion and equity, which i call die, d-i-e. that has nothing to do with education. if i'm not mistaken, president carter created the education department by executive order and president kennedy created usaid by executive order.

guest: no. they were statutes. caller: what date was the statute? guest: 1961. caller: so that is in the record. guest: it is in the law. caller: so why is it that senator joni ernst tried for years to get to the bottom of all the spending at usaid and she was rebuffed repeatedly and told we are not accountable to congress? guest: i don't know what she did or what she was told. there are missions that congress specifically says you should do, and then there are things that a given administration says hey, we ought to have an office of di. the president is within his rights to say we should shutdown these offices and we are doing that.

i looked at the list that doge put out of usaid and i must agree with you, i think a lot of them are ridiculous. but they total $129 million. the amount that the u.s. government spends on rice, wheat and soybeans that they ship overseas to starving nations was $2.1 billion. that is what i mean by this is a process that is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. it is one thing to say we shouldn't have lgbtq grants, etc. but you have grain rotting on the docks all around the world that is supposed to go to starving people and you have american farmers who had these contracts with usaid to feed people and famine situations and they are not getting paid.

that is why i'm always saying you need to cut government with a scalpel, not an axe, and they are cutting it with an axe. host: do you go on x much? guest: i do, more these days obviously. host: this was last week, i believe elon musk's x post, what doge is to biggest similar to clinton/gore dem policies of the 1990's, with the democratic party is doing now is going so crazy far left that it is not recognizable anymore and then re-tweeting's feet from the engine in the 90's. guest: we were very serious about cutting government. bill clinton is a democratic president who said the ear of the government is over. and by the time you've and in 1996, he said two things on the campaign trail. he said 21 million new jobs created in the smallest government since john kennedy was president. and that was very, very popular.

and i think the democrats ought to get back to that and understand that being conservative with people's money is actually good politics. and the democrats don't always send that message out very clearly, and there's a lot of talk among democrats about bill clinton and what he did right and where is bill clinton when we need him. host: time for just a couple more calls. by the way, as brookings.gov -- guest: .edu, it is not a government agency. host: very good point. this is anthony in brooklyn, new york, democrat. morning. anthony, are you with us? caller: yeah, can you hear me? host: yes sir. caller: sorry about that. i was going to talk about the bureaucracy and cutting it in the 90's like your guest was saying, but now that you brought up these lgbt dei funding issues

and things like that, or that last collar did, i feel like being a gay man i have to address what you're talking about. i think that the lgbt funding in the ddi parts of schools and school settings, it is not as important as usaid. if not more. it makes people socially tolerant so there's not people getting shot, you know? we talk about grain rotting in a silo because of then cutting back on these initiatives. cutting that stuff from children's curriculums is like brain rotting. host: anything you want to add? guest: no, it is a good point. host: utah, independent. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i just want to say i really respect her because when she did

massive layoffs she did it with dignity and respect and i'm sure firing people is very stressful, and my daughter works at the irs. they laid everyone off, which were mainly people who made at most maybe $45,000. one person would stand up and say i just got the email, i'm fired. they would all say i'm really sorry, go back to work. and then another person would stand up and say i got the email, i'm fired. there was no dignity or respect. and i believe the way she did it was the correct way. she did a wonderful job. thank you for taking my call. guest: 12 thank you for saying that, and we did try to respect people's dignity and give them time to adjust.

one thing about downsizing the federal government is the federal government is the most educated workforce in the world. more four-year college degrees and then advanced degrees because of the nature of what it does. and when we downsized, we found that guess what, it didn't touch the unemployment numbers. and the reason was that people went out and they got jobs very quickly in the new economy. that's one of the ways that you can do it. but this is with enormous disrespect. elon musk is calling people criminals who work for the federal government. i don't think so. so thank you. host: texas, republican, go ahead. caller: yes, i have a question. am i on the air? yes, i have a question.

i wondered why are they cutting social security by $600 a month? guest: so far they have not cut social security. you should, in fact, still get your checks. however the doge team went in and asked for access to the master file of everybody in america who gets social security, and everyone is very nervous that they may have screwed this up in some way and that we may begin to see mistakes in social security, intended or unintended, but probably unintended. when there are mistakes and you've cut people, you have no one to fix the mistakes. if you don't get your check and you call them up, there will be no one to answer the phones. so this is very, very serious. the carelessness with which they are doing this is extremely

serious, and social security and irs and medicare, they are the three biggies. if there is a problem, you need somebody who is going to answer the phone and help you with your problem and they are getting rid of people, and i think that is going to backfire on them. host: we will ended there for now. the government studies program, brookings.edu is where you can go if you want to check out her work and we appreciate the time. a little later in the program today, run gen z founder and president joseph mitchell will join us to explain his efforts to recruit young conservatives to run for public office. any political issue that you want to talk about, now is your time to start calling in, the numbers are on and we will get to your calls right after the break.

>> saturdays, watch american history tv's 10 week series first 100 days. we explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and for the c-span archives. we learn accomplishment and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day. saturday, the first 100 days of lyndon johnson's presidency. he became president on november 22, 19 63 after the assassination of president john kennedy. president lyndon johnson kept kennedy's cabinet in place and proceeded to push for legislation on taxes and on civil rights. early in his term he also declared a war on poverty in america. watch our american history tv series first 100 days, saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, on c-span 2. >> looking to contactor memos of congress? c-span is making it easy for you

with our 2025 congressional directory. get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. this compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every house and senate member of the 119th congress. contact information congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. the congressional directory cost $32.95 plus shipping and handling and every purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operations. scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to preorder your copy today. >> democracy is always an unfinished creation. >> democracy is worth dying for. >> democracy belongs to us all. >> we are here in the sanctuary of democracy. >> great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.

>> american democracy is bigger than any one person. >> freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. >> we are still at our core a democracy. >> this is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. >> washington journal continues. >> case where we are on capitol hill today. the house and senate both come in at 10:00 a.m. eastern. you can watch them respectively here on c-span and c-span 2. here are some of the other hearings we are coveri today. in about 45 minutes, it is a senate confirmation hearing for the nominations of troy edgar to be deputy secretary of homeland security and dan bishop to be deputy director of the office of management and budget. that is live from the senate homeland security and government affairs committee. again, c-span 3 is where you can

go for that. the free c-span now app. in this afternoon, testimony on the higher list as it is call of latencies both susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse according to the goverenaccountability office. the comptroller gener testifying before the house oversight and government reform committee, 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span three, c-span.org and the free c-span now app. and now it is time for your phone calls, open forum. any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is your time to call in. cynthia, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what is on your mind? caller: i'm just calling because the lady that was on said there's no one to answer your phones at social security, or answer the phone, and there's no one answering the phone there anyway, it's all automated, it's

really hard to get through to a person. so that was not a good excuse. i think reducing government is great. and that is it. host: how many times have you tried to call? caller: just once, right away. host: would you rather talk to a person who picked up the phone? caller: sometimes, yes. just a quick question, that is it. get the answer without listening to automated phone calls, recordings. host: cynthia in arizona. this is betty in kentucky, democrat. caller: good morning. i want to know why nobody has ever said anything about that he would keep these foreigners here legal if they were smart enough, and he would fire the ones in the united states and take them because they were working a lot cheaper.

i heard this but it caught -- cut off in the middle, i heard them telling this. and i saw it happen in another country when i was living overseas. it is very dangerous, very dangerous. that is what he said, they would work very cheap. but nobody has ever said a word about it since. host: gary in the pine tree state, good morning, independent. caller: yes, good morning. the first thing i want to talk about is the transparency they want to have and who we should talk to to get the cameras back in the senate and congress. we can see that no one is there. what congress needs is to do their job. every time i seen them talking they are talking about stuff other than what they should be doing and there is no one in the senate to vote on anything. no one wants to be there to take

a vote because they don't want to stand behind what they are voting for. host: what should they be talking about today, gary? caller: they should be in there voting on a bill to pass. if they want to cut something they can vote and cut it. when trump was in office the first time, he had it on the floor of the senate voting on it by the end of the day. so i know he can bring up any bill he wants to and have them voting on it by the end of the day, they are just not bear to do their jobs. i thought trump said everyone should be back in office, but they are doing their work. host: shall be in wisconsin, republican, good morning. caller: i am not a republican, i am a democrat. host: so shall, do me a favor and call in on the proper line just because it is not fair to the folks who do if we get out

of order here. this is stephen michigan, line for democrats. caller: i just have three points. one is i am mystified by the american people who failed to see unelected officials making cuts to payments authorized by congress. that is unusual and weird. two, i'm certain that the deemphasizing of education in america will be the final straw. based on the majority of calls you receive this morning and every other morning of the week. host: the final straw to what? caller: for a solid democracy because people are unaware of what is going on and they are totally fooled and disguised by conspiracies and fear that the right seems to promote constantly, that de i, lgbtq and transgender athletes are running amok.

it is just an exaggeration and fear mongering, and waste of time when the majority get killed by gun violence and there's 10 million children that live at the poverty level right now. disguising it with lgbtq and these issues that are a small, small minority and people get excited about those and forget about the big picture. starving children have been killed by guns, it is simple. host: michigan, this is mike, independent. caller: good morning. the j edgar hoover building and says law dies, tierney rise. that is what is happening in this country right now. we have a man that would be in prison if it weren't for his

crooked judges that he put in their. that judge in florida by the three-judge panels, i wish i could move to another country. this is going down the tubes. host: you mentioned the fbi, this is the story on the front page of the washington post this morning. podcaster who bashed the fbi will be its deputy leader on sunday. kash patel tapped as a steady director a bombastic podcast host who has never worked at the fbi and has spent years pushing conspiracy theories about the bureau and the deep state. the story goes on to note a former new york police officer and secret service agent who said he resigned from the secret

service more than a decade ago because he thought it was dysfunctional. he was a fox news commentator who unsuccessfully ran for u.s. senate seat in maryland in 2012 and for a congressional seat in maryland in 2014 and in florida in 2016. he launched his pro-trump podcasted 2015 attracting millions of listeners and using the platform to call the fbi irredeemable to corrupt -- irredeemably corrupt. this is magdalena in boca raton, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. my question is i would like to know what are they going to do for haiti. the land that is shared with us. host: that is magdalena. this is anne, wisconsin, democrat. caller: good morning.

i just want to let everybody know friday is an economic blackout protest, do no spending for the whole day because the only thing these people care about is money. elon musk and all the multibillionaire's. host: who is organizing the protest? caller: i believe that 50501 and indivisible, they are kind of joining together and loosely organizing things to try and get our voices heard, because obviously the government is not listening to us. people are upset about all these firings of good workers. maybe some bad, but they are eroding the trust, and that is

what our country runs on is trust, the trust that the government is going to stand up for what we believe in and they are not doing that. and also in march, they are going to be boycotting amazon for a week and they are going to have a large march on friday the 14th, a national strike, no work for 24 hours. host: you mentioned trust. when do you think the last time was that the majority of americans trusted the government? caller: probably... i'm not sure. i mean, i would say i think that it started to really be more distrusted when they started the war with iraq because there was no reason to do that and it has

just created all these problems since. and there is no accountability, and that just started snowballing. i mean, there's been leaders who have tried to write things, but it just seems like then you get somebody in like trump who is just blatantly lying and blatantly doing what he wants without any guardrails. host: who is the most trusted politician, leader in america right now, who do we trust in this country right now,is theres universally trusted? caller: boy, that is a hard question. i really like pete buttigieg. he is very knowledgeable and was

trying. he seems like he is very smart and trying to do the right thing for people. it is hard for me to know. there is not a whole lot, unfortunately. i understand they have to make deals, they have to give up a little to get some, but the republicans have stonewalled. they won't give anything. they completely want to destroy the opposing party. but, you know, other people have other ideas. host: that is ann in wisconsin. this is catherine in texas, independent begin good morning. caller: hi. good morning. i tried to get in yesterday when people were calling in, and i have two topics.

people were complaining or very scared about doge, musk, when they forget that for years ago we had a tech person in also, bill gates, microsoft. and my other main comment is i am not on either side. i am just watching what is happening. we have federal employees that are very fearful, and of course that is totally understandable, but for just responding and that they might lose their job or their position 140 years ago in 2021, there were teachers, police officers, mailman, small business owners, nurses, doctors

that it was more than just responding to an email. it was having to decide to accept doing something to their physical body and if they did not do that, then they would lose their job and they did lose their jobs. so i think we are kind of in a cycle and people forget what happens each round of these cycles. host: that is catherine from texas on federal workers and reductions. this is the op-ed page of the usa today. the headline, walked role workers? let me give you 36 trillion reasons. tim swarens is the deputy opinion editor of usa today. he writes the average federal

employee makes $40,000, more than the typical american worker. the value of federal employee benefits outpaces the private sector, including a generous pension system that most employers had abandoned decades ago. the number of federal employees has increased steadily for years even as the government continues to pile up debt. he writes the federal workforce of two point 4 million excluding the postal service and military has grown almost 30% since 2000. does anyone believe the quality of government services has improved 30% over that same time? that he return for investment on taxpayers should be the point of hiring and firing, especially for a government that cannot pay its bills and faces a financial disaster of dramatic change is not made. in usa today this morning. this is rene out of san diego. good morning. you are next. caller: good morning.

i just wanted to call in and actually i think a lot of people are also fearful because of some of the appointments that were made that seem to be putting people in power that have no experience, and that is scaring people. i know that trump is trying to change the status quo, but to have people not know anything about systems, especially mr. musk, make changes to them willy-nilly it seems like is pretty detrimental as it seems to be that they keep backtracking on different things. and then another thing i wanted to mention is the corporations and the wealthy do not need the brakes -- breaks. i really wish that if doge makes all this money back, which it

does not appear it is, if he does not give it back to the people that he pays down the debt but they do not give these huge tax breaks to the wealthy. the people that work hard every day that they are cutting jobs from really need to get the tax breaks because they are paying more than the wealthy. thank you very much for your time this morning. host: that is rene in san diego. go ahead and keep calling. a reminder the house is in at 10:00 a.m. eastern, about 55 minutes from now. the house version of the federal budget and the senate version of the federal budget certainly part of the discussion today on the house floor to watch for. yesterday, speaker mike johnson spoke to the press. he was talking about passing a budget reconciliation bill this week and this is some of what the speaker had to say. [video clip]

>> the thing about having a small majority is it brings great clarity. it is clarifying. i don't think anybody wants to be in front of this train. i think they want to be on it. and people come in with genuine conviction about the debt and deficit and these issues and that issue but i am often reminded and remind my colleagues all the time what ronald reagan reminded us. i would rather get 80% of what i want. for those of us who believe in limited government and liberty and opportunity and security and prosperity, we were have to recognize an aircraft carrier is not turned on a dime. it takes three miles to turn an aircraft carrier. it took decades to get where we are. we will not likely fix everything in one fell swoop we can make great strides in these areas and change the trajectory of the carrier, we can make a change and if we do that well and demonstrate the demographics of the pocket that it is truly our core conservative principles

that lead, it is our principles that are better for them as individuals, families, community, the state, the nation as a whole that we will be able to hold this as a governing majority for years to come. host: that was speaker mike johnson yesterday talking about the budget battles ahead. for more on that, we turn now to a guest who h btracki what is going on with the buet vote. just bring us up-to-date on what you are expecting today and where this stands right now in the house and the senate. guest: thanks for having me. house leadership is still hoping to have boat this evening on their version of the budget resolution. we just got the notice that it is still on as of now at 6:00 this evening so we will have to wait and s how that goes. it is currently a very small margin in thhouse republican conference as we talked about

repeatedly and they can only lose a handful of votes. we will have to wait and see what the attendance looks like before we can say for sure what thatargin will be. there are a handful of conservativesnot members of the house freedom caucus, but they areind of allies who are worried th does not go far enough, right now saying they will vote no. similar in theoderate camp. it appears most of those votes wi get to yes on this, but mikeohnson is kinda being squeezed on both ses of his conference at this point. host: when nservative publicans say is doenot go far eugh and moderates are concerned about it, what mo does the conservative sideant to see in this budget bill, and what do moderates want to see? guest: so the conservatives won deeper spending cuts. right now, the number is at $2 trillion. they want mo than that. speaker johnson is saying he

wi not make last-minute changes to this at least a this point until the bt so we will have to see if he changes his mind, but no indicion he would do that. on the moderate side, ey want to make sure it does not affect medicaid that much. they are talking about getting rid of waste within medicaid. these members are very worried this will actually cut services that people depend on. host:e are talking about a budget bill. explaiwhy th is importa, especially for iividuals who think ngress does not stick to itbudget. whare we having su a fight within the republin part even about budget numbe and budget line items? guest: so, the budget resolution is what kind of paves the way for the reconciliation process, which means in the senate you need 50 votes. that is how both parties recently have been able to pass their priorities when they had united government.

this is effort from the federal -- this is separate from the federal spending deadline, which i ha been very focused on in recent weeks. that is coming up around the corner. that is the appropriations process, which is separate fm the budget. the budget is again tied to the reconciliation bill whh the republicans are hoping to pass. over in the sete, they did pass their budget lasteek but that is different from the house budget. it is aiming to set up a vote on a package that includes defense and border enforcement primarily it does noinclude tax cuts, ich thhouse rsion uld do. host: it'ousleyiewers can wch the house debate that it sods like the viers can wch the house debate today. how likely is it we are walking into anoth government shutdown? guest: we are definitely not in a good place right now on appropriations. the leaders of the committee are

continuing to work very closely a number, which is a topline number, which is the first step in the process, but demoats are insisng they need some sort of a or language in the bills that would basicay affirm congress has the poweof the purse, which is the congress ' main way they influence power. the white house is trying to impod funds. they believe the president can choose what he wants to spend. it is the main issue rightow. house republicans are saying there is no way they wod vote for anything that would limit president trump's power and trump would sign it. we are kind of at a standill on that specific issue. host: is that a standstill that ll have to wait until after this budget vote? what ultimately moves us into going one direction or the other? guest: so speaker johnson is meeting with the house appropriators, republican

appropriators this afternoon right fore this vote is scheduled, which shoulgive us some clarity on which direction we are hding. he has been more leading to a full cr versus negotiated bills withemocrats. but think we shou have a lot more clarity this afternoon on which direction rublicans will go. but democrats sathey will not vote for a full cr. it is really a tense moment right now and we only have three weeks until the deadline. host: always a good place to go for clarity is roll call. aidan quigley is reporter at roll call. you can see his work, his colleaes' and we always appreciate your time. guest: thank you for having me. i appreciate it. host: back to your phone calls. if you minutes left in open forum. what do you want to talkbout? our phone lines as usual. this is a meal yet in west bridgewater, massachusetts, independent. good morning. caller: i just want to say here

in america, it doe't matter if you are independent, republican, democrat. we do not take kindly to kings. have seen trump appoint himself as king. including oucongress members. trump is going to do trump. i think we should namthis administration the circus. he plays his role and musk is doing the dirty work. that is fine. the only hope for this country especially yesterday siding with russia and china, my heart breaks literally. but the only hope we have literally is congress. the republicans need to stand up. i mean, they are so scared of being threatened by primaries, which is so spineless, but i think the only thing they can do is threaten trump back with imachment because he has abdicated his duties. he has not pledged loyalty to the constitution. he pledged loyalty to ump, and

it is not one man. you are supposed to pledge loyalty to the office of the presidency, not the one person that is president. host: got your point. running short on time. let me get a couple more calls in. this is patrk. caller: real quick, i excellently called on the wrong line but my point is everybody is complaining about piticians being crooked. in ohio, jd vance has been in the senate. he vetoed almost half $1 million from the nra alone in the dirty fight against sherrod brown. the democrats are constantly accused of being people that take money for their own finance , but again, jd vance, he loves our kids, but half a million. he is right 17's overall in progress on money given to him by the nra alone and he has only been in for one term. host: it sounds like you are a democrat yourself. caller: i accident when called on the wrong line. host: do me a favor.

try to call in on the right lines because it helps us keep track here. this is patrick in hawaii, independent. good morning caller: good morning. yes. two point. one request i would like to have of c-span is if at some point in time you can have a guest that can really explain what the budget write down is through pie diagrams, maybe some video. we hear these figures. even the editorial chose a certain percentage of budget but we don't see the amounts. i heard 25% of the budget goes to pay the national debt and 25% to 35% goes to pay the military. i don't know if that is true or somebody's soundbite. host: so, patrick, the budget that you are talking about, that is still coming together. there will be a vote today. a version coming together n may not be the final version. if you are talking aboutederal

spending, where the money goes, it is a website we go to a lot but it is helpful cause it does a lot of breaking down what you are looking for. debtclock not only shows it spending but talks about federal tax revenues, the federal deficit, the difference between those numbers, the top spending line items, including medicare and medicaid, social security, defense and war spending, interest on the debt. there is even a line for doge cuts. they he added that line to the usdebtclock. it is actually a pretty helpful tool with a lot more information than just a topline numbers w talked about but that might be what you are looking for in terms of trying to understand where this money is going. caller: yeah. thank you so much. i apprecia you would tell us how that is. that is wonderful. the other point i would like to brg up as part of the issue that is happening here is the phrase that is quite popular now is people live in their

immediate tribes. i see the right, left wing, whatever wings get stuck in their media channels and don't break out of it and they believe the people on the radio, tv, twitter, tiktok. i think it is better people branch out to other types of media because of course in america, 95%, at least 90% of apparently, of america's media are owned by corporations and actions we are being controlled by these large media corporations. i think we need to break out of these bubbles and see what other people are saying. host: that isatrick way out in hawaii this morning. this is daniel a bit closer to d.c. in virginia, republican. good morning. caller: hey, good morning. thanks for taking my call. i do you mentioned the usa today article about the federal government and how it has grown. 30% think you said it was. i appreciate that you brought that up. we have to ask ourselves, who

pays for these positions? every one of these government sitions is paid for by garnishing wages of working americans, plumbers, electricians, welders. they have to have their way just taken to pay for these positions. what do we get for that? what do the american people get for these positions? these are well-paid positions. like you mentioned, they have benefits that the private sector had to get rid of long ago because it is not affordable. we do not have the money. we are $36 trillion in debt. you cannot do this. second point, some caller earlier mentioned the number one killer being guns. the number one killer is abortion. abortion kills worldwide more people than anything else. ththird point i want to make as he mentioned the trans community is a very small percentage of what is going on. it is not. within the public school systems, within the counties around the country, these issues are huge. iny county, we have the school board president is an activist for lgbtqia+ whatever it is.

he is a homosexual man who does not have kidin the school system. his job is to be an activist. he was sworn in on the back of those books which are pornographic books instead of the bible. you cannot take the books to the hool board and rd them at the school board meeting. they will keep you out because of thagraphic. these books, the entire catalog of books toughout history. there are millions of books. ey insist that these books be included in scho libraries. why does that? we as parentwill not stand for it. we will t let this happen to our ki. st: that is daniel in virgia, our last caller in this open forum. stick around. about 40 minutes left. in that time, we will be joined by run genz founder and president, joseph mitchell. we will talk about his effort to get young people to run for office. stick around.

we will be right back. ♪ >> democracy. it is not just an idea. it is a process. a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest office and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. it is where debates unfold, decisions are made, in the natio's crse is charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> lteningo programs on c-span through c-span radio is easy. tell your smart speaker, "play c-span radio" and listen to "washington jourl"aily, important events throughout the day, and weekdays catch "wngton today." listen to c-span anytime.

an, c-eated by cable. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. browse through our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home to -- decor, and accessories. something for every c-span fa and every purchase supports our not-for-profit operations. c-spanshop.org. >> nonfictionook lovers, c-span has number of podcasts for you. listen to best-selling nonfiction authors and influential intviewers on the afterwards podcast. an on a coming here wide-ranging conversations with nonficonuthors and other making things happen and book nos plus episod that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction words on a wi variety of topics.

find all of our podcasts by downloading spent now app or wherever you getour podcasts, and on our website, c-span.org/podcasts. >> 100 years ago this past august was the beginning of what has oftebeen cled thgreat war. world war i had military casualties of over 9 million and millions more of civilians. a professor of a college located in new york state has written ne books since003 on subjects that include german history, russian history, the ottoman empire, communism, world war ii, and one titled "july 1914." his last book will be the focus of our conversation with the professor. world war i was triggered in late june of 1914 with the assassination of archduke frantz ferdinand and his wife sophie in sarajevo, bosnia.

they were gunned down by a serbian 19-year-old. >> the author talks about his book "july 1914, countdown to war" on this episo of booknotes+, available wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our next guest is working to shape the future of conservative politics. joe mitchell is the founder and president of run genz. mr. mitchell, what is t mission of run genz? guest: john, it is good to be here today, and thank you for having me in. the mission of run genz is to empower, or train, recruit the next generation of conservative leaders across this country. host: how do you do that? guest: we do that by going out to conferences, young professional, young conservative groups across the couny like rning usa chapters, young republican, college republican

chapters, and recruiting the next generation of leaders, speaking to them, taking elected officials, people like myself that are formerly elected as young people come and show them to have the maand training and skill set to n for a school fice or city council or state legislative office. host: wn d why did you start this group? guest: so i started this back in 2020. almost five years ago is when i started the organization, inc. it. i got elected to the state legislature when i was 21 so i ran as a junior in college at the time. i was attending drake university in iowa and ran for my home seatback home in southeast iowa. mount pleasant, henry county. my predecessor of 24 years decided to retire. dave heat was my predecessor. dave had been there longer than i have been alive. when he decided to retire, i kicked the idea around of running for office, something i contemplated doing since working

up as a page and in turn during my hig school and college years. ultimately decided to pull the trigger and throw my hatn the ring. went out and got the necessary signatures needed to get on the ballot and went out to knock on thousands of doors across my district, won the primary in june of 2018, went on to win the general election of 2018, went to junior college the next month, the sword into the iowa house as the youngest member ever in january of 2019. ultimately what i learned from that experience as i am not special. i am not an outlier. i got my name on the ballot by doing the hard work and i knew i could get more young people to do the same tng did and start a revolution for young conservatives to start winning office and building this bench for the next several decades. host: why does a 21-year-old want to run for the state legislature? and what was the reaction when you were knocking on those doors

and they opened up and they are looking at a 21-year-old? guest: right. threason why i had to run, my parents are small business owners so i grew up in a household where my entire life revolved around what kind of things the government can do to impact your life. it can be negative. it can be positive. i wanted to go and fight for small business owners and employers and job creators across our state, help lower taxes, balance the budget, prott our rural public schools. that is what i did a the message i took to voters. ultimately what i did that my opponents didn't in the primary was show up to their house and knock on their door and talk to them and deliver my message one-on-one. if you show up, you normally win. that is a lesson i learned in life. no matter if it is business or politics,f you show up, you are normly several steps ahead of youcompetitor. host:ow is run genz funded?

do you help fund campaigns? as we know, congressional campaigns especially have become very expensive these days. guest: right. that is interesting thing. this is not a congressional campaign. so you are not speing millions of dollars or raising millions of dollars to run typically for these schoolboard and city council and state legislative offices. you get to places like california and new york and florida and texas and they look a lotore like a congressional ra. but ultimately, the race i ran for, we spent less than $10,000 on my primary. that is typical in a lot of states across this country to be able to win strictly from grassroots and raising those $50 to $100 ches from friends and neighbors. so that is what we did. a lot of times, the school board and city council can be less resources. you just need yourself in a message and go out there and convince the voters who are the right peon for the job.

ho: whereo you get your source forun genz? guest: we are a 501(c) for some it is peonalonations. cannot tap into down desk into fountion money. we are a ssidiary of the c3 that has a c4 arm. they acquired us last year we work in combination to help raise dollars, but it is mainly personal dollars from donors, which is an interesting way of raising money because it is not a cash right out they can take -- write-out the content so they have to truly be bought into the mission. whether it is a 50 other check or a $50,000 check, they are bought into the mission of getting yog conservatives to run for office and t them elected on this bench for years to come. host: howany peoplere we talking bett than the year yohave been around? what a some the success

stories? guest: we have 100 30 elected officials our coalition so these are typically people under 30. some of our success storiesrom this past year, one of them is state nator amber holes. amber is from south dakota, now the youngest state senator in south dakota. ran in a consted primary actually again an incumbent. wothat race by a few hundred votes and went out to the general and won it handily but islready making huge strides in the legislature. a month ago,he got sworn in. we have someone in pennsylvania that actuay won a very contested race in philadelphia. as a conservative, that is a hard thing to do. that is hard to do. he is 29 years old, the youngest state senator in pennsylvania. we have caroline from amarillo, texas, youngest woman in the texas state house. one of the stories that like

to tell specifically about caroline is there is another caroline in texas, caroline harris. caroline hars got elected that 29 to the state legislature in 2022 and she was the youngest woman legislator in the legislature at the time and went on to mentor caroline, who is now the youngest texas. that's the culture, getting the youngest people in the country who arelected to these state houses in local ras t mentor the next pele. make sure that they stay the youngest first long as possible until we get the next person in there. guest: i staed in 2020. host: are conservatives doing this better than progressives, or did you start because progressives were doing better with young people than conservatives?

guest: at first this was nonexistent. no one had a group, an organization to help train, equip, and emper young conservatives at all. obviousl run for something, who was on the show last week, where around for several years before us. that is one thing we looked at. why do we not have an organization, a movement that is helping these young people? really having role modelfor these people? there have to be so many young people across the country that didn't have anybody to look up to, so they didn't run for that race. that is the reality that we put together. we will fund this coalition of diverse individuals in the conservative movement to show everybody, regardless of their background, regardless of their demographic, that they can run for office, they can win, and that could be on a localized or state-level. that was the ultimate reason for starting. we needed to compete. i think we are doing a phenomenal job competing with the left. i think we are clearly winning

on a nional scale, but also a more localized scale. we focus on quality over quantity. we have over 70% win rate at run ge, which is pretty good. we are doing a lot of winning, getting the right people in, quality people and folks that will be around for a long time. i want to point out that we had several cofounders, former governors who were cofounders in this organization. one being terry brand -- terry brand stan, the longest serving governor in american history. the youngest elected at 36 but he was elected to the state legislature at 25. his story is one that we utilize to show that you can get elected at an early age and go on to do great things and be an impactful figure in american history.

governor branstad recruited a few of his other retired governor colleagues to help us as well. it has been amazing to see the support across the conservative movement help these young peopleinspire them, however they want to run for office. host: you mentioned run for something, the segment of recruiting young progressives and politics. that was sunday. aman litman, on your screen, s on this program talking out it if you want to wch that. maybe wah that after you watch this segment. you n do that at c-span.org. about 20 five mutes left with joseph mitchell. run genzs the name of his group. it is (202) 748-8001 for republicans to call in. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. a special line for gen z, if you are under 30, (202) 748-800.

setting aside that number. theouse is in at 10:00 a.m. eastern and that is where we will go on c-span after this segment ends. you can watch all of the action in the house today on c-span in the senate on c-span two. as folks are calli in, donald trump at 78 is the olst esident to take the oath of office. you mentioned you are from iowa. chucgrassley i believe is 91, the senate president pro tem. is there such a thing as being too old to hold public office? guest: i don't think so. president trump doesn't look 78 or act 78. he acts like he is 30 years younger than he is. looks like it, too. president trump, who had a swing of 20 plus percentage points of the youth vote that he was able to garner back this last race. clearly, young pple, gen z ves president trump and millennials like him as well.

got a majority of young men to vote for him. he has kind of a pop-culture appeal that people like and appreciate. i certainly enjoy it. senator grassley runs several miles a week. that is more than me. i don't think it is about your age. i think it's about your competen. we have a mission to empower more young people to run for office. we are not trying kick out oldepeople fro being in there. host: is there -- if there is not an age limit, should there be term limits? we hear from viewers that they have been in fever and it is time for a neweneration. guest: it a debate worth having. on the hou level, most certainly. i think that the senate and the house procedurally worked different, so i would be more openo that decision or discussion on the house level.

but also, we have ections for a ason. if you don't like your congressmaor your senator or president you can vote tm out and get somebody new. ultimately, i don't think that it's a door that we should shut on that discussion, but it's interesting. en you look at the races that were involved with run genz o the local and stateevel, it is sometis incredibly hard for recruitment people to run for office. t necessarily that they believe on state level term mits, but on the federal level ving that discussion for the house of representatives would be an interesting discussion to have. host: do you find that on the state and localevel? we get focused on congress, 14 or 18 term lim in coress, do ople sy that longt stat and local government? guest: at times. my predecessor was there for 24 years and did a fantastic job. i would have never ran against dave in a primary for any reason, because he was a great

leader for our district. don't know if there's anybody in those 20 for years -- 24 years tt would have done as good of a job as he did. host: school boards, local elections you are talking about? guest: that is where ultimately if you look at the school boards, you're talking about towns sometimes, like where i grew up in wa, where there are 1000 people in the town. if they're willing to put out their name and serve in a very volunteer capacity, true publ service, putting term limits othose kinds of things would be mista. host: matthew up first in north carolina on the line for republicans. matthew, you are on th joe mitchell. caller: i am a bit older than th generation by about 10 years. what can someone like me do who would like to if not necessarily run for something get involved. i was recently in d.c., and i

searched out a director of a govement entity, former director, and i asked, what do i do? do i offer to work for free? he said, don't do that, just put your lure in the water and apply for something. i did. host: are you talking 30's, 40's? caller: i am 40 years old, i was born in 1984 recently, very recently, i called a representative of a state, their office in d.c.. look, i am too old for an internship, can i work for free getting your coffee or gting or mailed to prove my val? instead of taking my name their response was go to the website. everyone says to go to the weite. it is a convoluted system where i am fully healthy and willing to work for free for about a year. i'm living off of investment i'm so frustratethat ian even do ything. gut: my first question is, did

you go to the website? host: i think we lost the caller. est: if they ask you to go to the website, typicly congssional officehave volunteer capacity where they want volunteers to help out with orknocng and contacting voters, especially during the election if they ask you to go to the bsite, i would go tthe website and the volunteer page. the other thing is i would get involved in yourocal party. every county across e country has -- or should have -- a local democrat or republican party. get involved in that. figure out how y can serve in some kind of offer role wh that county party. a lot of times they veay of actions, different things that u can do to help out your local candidates. i would contact your local party, shoup to the next

committee meeting that they have, which is probably in the next few weeks. you can look at when that will be on the internet, or facebook, or their website. ifhey ask you to go to e website to lp out with congressional campaigns, that is what i would do. host: patty in pennsylvania, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i was watching this morni. there is a young gentleman on, gen zand he was talking about -- the gentleman aed him about age. ould psident trump, 78, grassley at1, should there be ange limit? i agree with what he said. there shouldn't be. he was mentioning president trump in a very positive way. this man is a felon and a fraud. he ls constantly. when he was with macron

yesterday, macron looked very presidential. trump was lying through his teeth. every other word was blaming biden, biden, biden. when is he going to take responsibility? guest: bet, he is your president and i am proud he is my president for sure. i think he has done more in the past month than any other president in american history. we will have world peace soon. our economy is going to start driving again very soon. we are unleashing erican energy. i think the world leaders understand that an adult is back on the world stage. i'm certaiy proud that he is our president. host: from federal elections to the local elections that you want tfocus with young conservatis, how much, how important is d&r behind a

candida's name on the local level. how do you tell young people to emphase thatn a political party? or is it more about conservative policies? guest: we run conservative candidates. are not a27 pac. we runonservative candidates. obviously, it differs. if you are in a local race, a lot of the time school board races are nonpartisan and you don't say your party of gistration. but party campaigns are, it differs whether you are running for the state legislature or a more local race. host: catherine in new hampshire, independent. you are next. caller: good morning, hi. i think to bring young conservatives into politics you need issues that may affect their future lives. one topic would be the asteroid

that has been in the news. it is supposedly going to, maybe, maybe hit us in the year 2032. nasa and other agencies are watching. my questions, which are very short, and i have three of them, concern what will happen before the asteroid makes it to the earth and maybe hits us. number one, will it change our tides? numb two, what if it hits our moon instead of the earth? host: catherine, a pretty big what if on the asteroid tuation. are you having candidates run on the asteroid? guest: i will leave the asteroid to spacex for now. i'm sure he will. our young people, what they are

concerned about, is the cost of inflation, housing, the price of eggs, and being ae to survive right now. we have so many young people in so much college debt, they are drowning in it. that is what we are focused on. we are focused on economical issues and makg sure that young people at some point can buy a house and have a family and ovide for that family. ose are t bread-and-butr issues tt we are focus on. host: icolleg debt is a bread-and-butter issue for young people and young conservatives, how did you feel about joe den's multie efforts to forgive college loans? guest: totally ainst it. there are so many other people who don't go to college. young people who don't go to a four-year university so it's not fair for young people who decided too the trade route or get an associates degree, or just start a business or have a

normal job out of high school. host: what do you want for the young people who are drowning in debt? guest: we want to make sure that inflation comes down. that the price of eggs comes down so they can pay off their debt that they took out. they are not able to do that right now because of the disastrous by them economy over the past -- disastrous biden economy over the past four yes. it is difficulto pay that debt off. we have to make sure the economy gets back and people cld get good paying jobs to be able to live their life. again, people who did decide to take the debt out,an get that paid off. certainly now it is harder than ever to be able to do that and manage that. host: go ahead and keep calls coming in. we do have the line open for those under 30. (202) 748-8003 is that number. we certainly want to hear from gen z. josh out of philly, independent. caller: hi, good morning.

i just want to ask mr.itchell about what his comment is abou all of the loudest for the conservative movement, from kanas went to r friend kanye west to their mutual friend joe rogan, continually embracing fascist ideology and the infamous heil hitler sales fr mus and bannon lately. i would like to hear his respse. guest: i would like to hear what your responses were to the antisrael pro-hamas demonstrations that were happening across the country last year. we had a record amount of jewish support in the last election. i have several jewish friends personally, that if president trump did not win they didn't know if the existence of israel would still be there after a kamala harris term. we are clearly nondiscriminatory

but also the pro-israel party. i guess i would take that up with the actors that you talked about. but most certainly i think that the nservatives are on the right side of history on this issue. host: what issu get young people engaged, at least in 2024? you talked about the turnout for donald trump among young voters. what did he key o-ey inn that drove that vote? guest: i think it was the economy. if you look at the harvard youth pole it was all about the economy. socialssues,limate change, gun violence, abortion policy, for instance, those were all much lower on the list then housing price inflation, the cost of groceri.

you know, peop worried about being able to have a good job and keep it. the economy was the driver the last election, whether you were someon in the boomer generation or the gen z generation, that is what people were wored about and cared about d that's wh showed novembe5. host: do you think democrats focused too much on the abortion issue talking to young voters? guest: clely the cultural issues that democrats are trying to run on did not work out. people wanted to hear more about the economy, more about their solutions. on the economy, i don't think they have many and are trying to fear tt out now. very happy to be a republicaat the moment. i think this is the most united we've ever been in the party's history, in the country's history. ultimately, we are the party of common sense right now. that is the way president trump has branded us. i think it's a phenomenal

message. we are the party of common sense. we are the party of 8020 issues. we will fight for the american worker. host: when was the party the least united in your lifetime? guest: it wasn't good when we had two straight terms of barack obama. i don't think there was a clear leader at that point. president trump has clearlyeen thleader for at least the last eight years. since being in office. and will be for at least t next four and may be passed that. -- maybe past that. i'm excited for the future of the party and where the president has led us and the messaging that he has brought forth and the coalition building. we have one of the most multicultural diverse coalition seen before for republicans, particularly with working-class americans across racial divides and religious divides. i think we are going to do well for many years to come because

of that revolutionary ange with the coalition building that he has done over the past four years. host: when you said may be passed that for donald trump, are you talking about repealing the 22nd amendment? guest: no, president trump will have significant influce because he has been the most successful president in our lifetime. even when he is out of office and we have president jd vance, or whatever that may be, president trump will contin to stay involved because he loves his country if he wants to see this country succeed and do well . people respect him greatly and for good reason will follow his advice and endorsements that he makes. host: do you think jd vance should follow donald trump? guest: i think it would be smart too. host: into the oval office? guest: in 2028i believe he will run and should continue to

project and stand for the, you know, picies they are starting to enact in the last yearnd ran off the last six mons. host: hyattsville, maryland, line for democrats. caller yes, go morning. i'm sorry. i'mot trying to ll names o anything, t you are saying that donald trump has made this country great and brought people together. we are supposed to be all happy with our jobs getting taken away. i don't understand. if he is trying to get rid of wae and everying, w is it to where he can take the air force one anywhere he wants, have our tax dollars pay for him to go over to his private golf course or to the super bowl games, have everyone that he wants on the airplane, how is that saving us money?

our tax dollar is paying for it. two, every time that we turn arnd he's saying thahe is making a decision, but elon musk is making all the decisions and he is following him like a little puppy. it's unbelievable. you talk about going out and getting anotr job, how are we going to get another job when all of these people are getting fired? theseeople going into our xes and everything, what experience are they having? host: let me give joe mitchell a chance to respond. guest: president trump won the populavote overwhelmingly, by millions and millions of votes. i think he is bringing the cotry together. it showed on november 5. elon musis an advisor to the president, just like david aa -- just like one to president obama, and some who

started the most important and incredible busesses that we've ever seen, including spacex, neuralink, tesla. there no better person leading the effort to rid the vernment of waste, fraud, and abuse. there is a lot of it. we are using the united stat judicial service andurn that into doge to be able to do these audits and figure out whe the fraud and abuse is. ultimately, we have record amounts of investment coming in. apple announced $500 billion investing in the united states over the nexfour years. there will be pley of jobs coming here domestically. president trump is t leader, and is the best salesman. he will bring many jobs here over the next few ars, i believe. we will have a record low unemployment and record high wages. host: run genz is aroup

dedicated to try to getoung conservatives to run for oice. would you encourage young conservatives to join the federal government? to become a federal employee right now? guest: yeah, i would. i have a lot of friends who are actually being hired as political appointees to come in. they are ultimately also going to help rid out wte, fraud, and abuse from the system. i am a small business owner. outside of run genz i am a real estate developer. i have waste and abuse in my business that i have to go through every year and look at and do budgeting. there can be abuse and efficiencies in every single business, no matter how big or small. to tell me that the largest organization on the face of the earth does not have waste, fraud, and abuse is ridiculous. that is why president obama and

vi psident biden at the time started the united states service. but clinton and al gore at the time had an initiative to get out the waste, fraud, and abuse and do audits. this is the first time that we've had a president who has utilized the full power of the executive branch authority to be able to get to a place where we are making massive cuts to be able to balance the budget. we are $ trillion in debt. we talked about that in the last segment. there is no way that we will be able to get a balanced budget again unless we make cuts. we want to make cuts to the places we are committing fraud from. it seems like common sense to me to be able to do. and then some of the discretionary spending. we have to do this to be able to balance a budget ain. the debt is highly important to the future of this cotry. president trump is committed to tackling that. host: i think it is at $36.5

trillion at this point. could you see yourself as onof the political appointees in the second trump administration? guest: if the president asked me to serve, i would serve. i don't think there is any greater honor than serving the president, especially this president. i am a huge fan, obviously, and i think he has done a wonderful job. it takes a lot of sacrifice as well. when y have a business and you have other stuff going on, like run genz, to step back from that -- but i would certainly do that for the presidt. host: would you run for office again? guest: not rht now. i'm enjoying my time not being in office. it's truly a sacrifice that you make. it is a hard job at times. at the moment i'm not looking to run for any office. i'm looking to help more young people run for office d get involved. we will see what my future lies, but at the moment i'm enjoying what i'm doing. host: in l.a., kevin, republican

li. caller:ood morning, joe. i have a question for you. i think most people trust the local used cars salesman in this country more than local politicians. i want to know for young people becoming politicians, may be making a change in the future. host: on the trust issue? caller: generally on young politicians, through young politicians. guest: i think typically people don't trust politicians. there is good reason to not trust liticians a lot of the times, and that is why president trump is won in 2016 and 2024. because ultimately people didn't wa politicians in office. they want someone who is going to shoot it to themtraight, someone who is a businessman,

and that is not all talk and no action like most politicians are. ultimately, that is what we are trying to instill, people to be authentic whenhey are on the campaign trail talking to voters. i think that's highly important. it is a lost art to a certain extent. obviously, public trust in our institutions and congress at an all-time low, and that is something we are working to get changed. host: evelyn and marshall, minnesota asks via text message, do you recruit women as well? guest: yes. actually more women are in our coalition then men. we have large contingent of women who are inter-coation who ran forffice. thats someing that we highly support and encouraged. we have several individual initiatives to get young women to run for office. host: what is run genz's plans

for election 2026? guest: to win more races. host: how many didou win in 2024 and what would be the number to beat? guest: around 70 in 2024 and we are trying to double the numbe every year hopefully we are close to 150 wins in 20 would be the idea. we are gaining momentum and we have been very excited withhe results we've had. i'm very proud of them, too. i have no doubt that we are going to get to at number and we will contie to empower, trai and mentor these young people across the country for years to come. host: the group is run genz. joe mitchell is the founder and president. appreciate your time on "washington journal." that will do it for us this morning. we are back here tomorrow morning 7:00 a.m. eastern. we now take you to the floor of the house of representatives with gavel-to-gavel cove