>> coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live. moody's analytics chief economist mark zandi will talk about how u.s. economic grth increasingly depends on spending by high income earners. maya macguineas, psident of the committee for responsible federal budget talks about house and senatelans for the 2025 budget, how much it will cost and what it does to the data. gracelin baskaran of the center r strategic and international studies talks about key aspects of the proposed minerals deal between the united stes and ukraine. "washington journal" is next, join the conversation. ♪ host: good morning.

welcome to the "washington journal." friday, february 28. happening in washington today, president trumbull welcome the ukrainian leader to the white house -- president will welcome the ukrainian leader to the white house. a mineral deal in the works. we will hear more when the two leaders hold a joint news conference at 1:00 p.m. eastern today. june into c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. we will cover more about this deal with mr. zelenskyy and president trump on the "washington journal." but in our first hour, we want to talk to democrats only, your view of president trump. should your already find common ground or oppose? eastern and central part of the country, dial in at (202) 748-8000. democrats in the mountain pacific area, (202) 748-8001. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003.

post on facebook.com/c-span or on x with handle @cspanwj. the anti-trump resistance begins to wake in earnest, from the washington post. protesters are packing meetings, states are suing, and democrats are preparing for a budget showdown. we are asking democrats only this morning, should you find common ground with the president or oppose him? from the article in the washington post, they note that crowds are showing up at townhall meetings to protest president donald trump's actions, and some people are wanting to chant no keying or shutting down republican host members -- no king or shutting

down republican host members. bernie sanders of vermont is getting overflow crowds at his own town meetings as he seeks to mobilize voters against trump's budget cuts. there is the video on your screen. more from the washington post article, when sanders recently visited nebraska and iowa to pressure republican lawmakers there, his crowds spilled outside the schedule for gnus. in omaha, they were expecting a crowd up to 1000, but they had to switch to bigger location and said 3500 people showed up. here from that omaha visit with senator bernie sanders. [video clip] >> i am here in omaha because the time to act is now. the time to fight back is now. that we give you some good news and bad news. the bad news is, in my view and

i have some knowledge and experience in this as a u.s. senator, trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the d.c. beltway. that is not going to happen. it will be defeated by millions of americans in nebraska, in iowa, in vermont, and all over this country. will come together at the grassroots level, like we're doing tonight, in a movement which says no to oligarchy, no to authoritarianism, no to

kleptocracy, no to massive cuts in programs that the working class desperately needs, and no to huge tax breaks for the billionaires and the 1%. host: senator bernie sanders holding rallies in iowa and oklahoma recently to rally democrats in opposition to president trump. we are talking with democrats only this morning. do you think your party should find common ground, and if so, where? or do you think your party should oppose? headline out of michigan from governor gretchen whitmer, i want to find common ground with donald trump, is what she had to say recently. from the article, they said some liberals have expressed

disappointment with has not been more vocal -- disappointment whitmer has not been more vocal. she was at the white house over the weekend and said she spoke to the president. she did not talk to president trump about any one project, per se. she was quoted as saying they discussed economic development in one township in michigan and state officials have approved $250 million to prepare a mega site for advanced manufacturing. let's listen to a little bit what the governor had to say in her state of the state address this week. [video clip] >> i took an oath of office to serve the people of michigan, and that means all the people of michigan. that is my commitment to you. no matter who is in the white house or who is on the other side of the aisle in lansing. yes, i do hope to find common ground with president trump and work with the democratic-led

senate and republican-lighthouse on our shared priorities. i am not looking for fights, but i will not back down from them either. in michigan, we have an opportunity and an obligation to lead by example. our state represents america in every way, economically, geographically, politically, and socially. people from every walk of life call michigan home. we do not always agree, but we move forward together. that is the source of our strengths. let's show the rest of the country how to get things done. right now i know that politics, especially national politics, can be exhausting. i feel it, too. at a high level, we are facing two big challenges, economic uncertainty and political division. first, economics.

it is hard to buy a house or car because of high interest rates. it is still hard to pay the bills. just this month, inflation jumped back up to 3%. businesses are facing uncertainty, too. and history leaders and top economic minds on both sides of the aisle are warding -- warning us about the havoc that 25% tariffs would wreak on michigan's auto industry, while also raising expenses, everyday expenses, for our families. and as for politics, there is no sugar coating it, we seem very divided today. partisanship has infected every aspects of our lives, driven by opportunistic politicians and media figures who live by a philosophy, i win if you lose. their divisive rhetoric is

amplified by algorithms designed to make us angry and keep us scrolling. we are all being manipulated by the largest and most powerful companies in the world. they profit more when we start to believe that we have nothing in common. but that is just not true. host: michigan governor there from her state of the state address this week to two different tones from two different democrats, senator bernie sanders and the michigan governor. democrats only this morning your it how do you want your party to respond to president trump and his agenda, find common ground or oppose? michelle is in chicago. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i think that we definitely should find common ground. i do agree with governor whitmer as far as what she said about the financial impact of the financial aspect of finding

common ground. but i think it is also tied to the national security. that aspect. i think that we should sort of look at border strengthening measures and understand that those also impact our unions, our work unions, and just try to work on the report -- work with the republicans on that. because i think it is for national security, and the economy, those are two totally different areas when they are really linked. host: sounds like you would like democrats to work with republicans on border security. caller: absolutely. host: did you vote for president trump as a democrat? caller: i didn't. but now that i see him in office and it has been such a whirlwind 30 plus days, i just think that i can understand now that our economy is linked to the border.

and when i looked at how many people -- i think a lot of people voted for trump for the border reason, and it is because i think the economy sort of ties into that. so i think we should just find common ground. host: all right, michelle there in chicago saying democrats should work with the president and republicans on the border. christine in west bridgewater, massachusetts. good morning. caller: hi how are you? i do not think we have a choice as democrats but to oppose him. i said that because i see a president that demonizes everything that does not agree with him. i do not think he is capable of helping people that are less than what he thinks he is. he just has to go against the grain with everything, with the democrats, with the united states, with canada, with everything. i just do not think he -- i do

not think he is capable of understanding anybody else but himself. host: when you say oppose him and that democrats have no other choice, how do you want to see that opposition play out? what do democrats do? caller: i am fearful he is just trying to break all the laws and is trying to get away with it. host: so more lawsuits? caller: we need him out of presidency, period. host: so more lawsuits from attorneys general on the state level? caller: that is all i can see as doing right now. and the american people waking up. he is not helping. he is helping half the country, not the other half. you have to unite your people. he cannot just be doing what he is doing, cutting people's jobs, and they're kind of mocking the people that are losing their jobs. what kind of president does that? host: what do you think the

lawmakers here in washington, the democratic lawmakers, should do? do you think that the party is being led in a good way by the minority leader in descendant, chuck schumer, and the minority leader in the house, the democratic leader in the house, hakeem jeffries? caller: i think they are doing the best they can. i do not think people ever expected in the united states for president to go rogue like this. you have got to go with the courts because you have got to believe with the law in the united states and hope that people, you know, wanted to follow the laws. if you do not have that, you have nothing, right? host: you say oppose, but the white house is pointing to a new harvard harris poll that shows in his first month as president, trump enjoys majority approval at 52%.

52%. when you break that down, the total is 52 percent versus 43% that oppose. by party, 18% of democrats approve, so far. 78% disapprove. 89% of republicans approve, while only 9% disapprove. here are the independents, split, 45% say they approve, 44% disapprove. so with a high approval number like that, 52%, do democrats face a challenge with opposing him? caller: oh, yeah, they are definitely going to face challenge. there is a lot of hate out there. they have been demonizing immigrants for the last how many years, and they want to blame immigrants for everything in the united states. we all know that it's really not

the case, there is so much more going on. it is really easy to demonize people and make them a blame. now we demonize the government workers. now they are all lazy bums that never worked to begin with. it is something he gets away with doing. host: we move on to pete in mercer, pennsylvania. we're talking with democrats only. go ahead. caller: yeah, no, they have to resist, there is no common ground. he is an evil, incompetent more on that doesn't care about anybody but himself. host: pete, let's refrain from calling people names. instead, make your argument. why should democrats resist and oppose? caller: because he has nothing in the his interest that he wants to do for anybody. he is incapable. he is going to meet zelenskyy today and try and throw him

under the bus. then he will go down to mar-a-lago on taxpayer money and start playing golf again. there is nothing he cares about. this was strictly a power grab, and people went for it, and if people. that harvard harris poll you mentioned, that is a complete outlier. why don't you mentioned the gallup poll from last week? he is well underwater on the approval. i don't know, that poll is not statistically accurate. host: why do you think it is an outlier? anecdotally, what you're hearing, where you live? why? caller: yeah, where i live. i know about polls and the ones that have statistics that are based on real fact. that harvard harris was an outlier even during the election season. so i think maybe he has a 42% to

45% approval, and i think that will go down as the people see how he is dealing with this doge and his lack of negotiating skills and his lack of caring. i don't think the guy works at all, frankly. i think he spends most of his day watching fox news and playing golf. host: that gallup poll you mention put out february 19, trump's job approval rating at 45%, jumps to 29%. less than one month into his second term in office, his job approval rating is at 45%, similar to his first post-inauguration reading a 47% in january. trump's ratings on several issues his administration has targeted in his first weeks of presidency are similar to his overall rating, including immigration already 6%, foreign affairs 44%, foreign trade 42%, and the economy 42%. meanwhile, slightly fewer

americans, 40 percent each, approve of the president's handling of the situation in ukraine and the middle east between the israelis an palestinians as fewer offer opinions on his performance on these two issues. so there are some numbers from gallup to compare to that harris harvard poll that the white house is pointing to. we are asking democrats only this morning their view on president trump and what your party should do, find common ground or oppose. james in fort lauderdale, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span. my opinion is the only way for civilization to be saved is to come to a common ground that would serve every american in the united states. unfortunately, we're going to have to strongly oppose because mr. donald trump is trying to consolidate his power. look at all of the appointees

that he has. ok? host: ok, so go on. caller: so the fact that he is trying to consolidate the power, this then creates chaos in our society to keep people confused and eventually one day what will happen is we are going to turn around and we're going to have a society that is going to oppose him and what he is doing. i also want to say one thing, he is trying to isolate the country. isolation is not good for our country, ok. host: ok, james thoughts there, democrat in fort lauderdale. rhonda in new jersey, let's hear from you next. caller: good morning, c-span, and my beautiful country. i definitely feel that they have to oppose his agenda.

i am terrified and everyone i know is. this man has now given elon musk total control of the checkbook. this is what is so dangerous about donald trump, this man, elon musk, gets $8 million a day from the treasury and now he is giving him additional money. he is giving him verizon's contract to upgrade our systems here, because the south is so far behind. this is incredible, the congress has forfeited their branch of government, which is the power of the purse. they are the only ones who can decide where the money goes, and

the republicans have sold themselves out. and the worst part about all of this is he is now evicting legal immigrants who have the -- what do you call that -- they are allowed to be here, he revoked it and he is selling -- he is selling oligarchs, the kremlin, citizenship for $5 million a pop. next thing you know they are going to be sitting in the white house. come on, america. wake up, people. he lied to you he took your jobs. these are not black jobs, these are white jobs. host: ok, i'm going to leave it there on your point about the budget debate happening here in washington. the house narrowly approving their budget reconciliation proposal that includes the president's plans for tax cuts

and spending cuts, narrowly approved in the house this week. the senate had already approved to their two bills. now the two sides have to come together. they need to negotiate one bill that can be approved by both chambers and signed by the president. the wall street journal this morning looks into the challenge for democrats in the house in trying to stop republicans from moving forward. party leaders order lawmakers, make sure to show up. almost all democrats made it to tuesday's budget vote, but that has been the exception. so take a look at this article, as gop leaders worked to get the handful of holdouts in line, several democrats were seen as possible no-shows, representative of arizona, 77, who has been undergoing treatment for cancer and had not voted since january 3, a 54-year-old california

congressman had missed votes after he was hospitalized for a couple occasions a january knee surgery. florida representative, 82, hadn't voted in nearly a month. peterson of colorado, 43, had just given birth. the push by democrats to get them to show up seemed to work. petersen arrived at the capitol with her three week old son. mullin used a walker to get to the house floor. wilson also showed up but did not respond to questions about her absences. grijalva, undergoing treatment for cancer, was unable to cast a vote. for a moment, it looked like the democrats might have mastered enough opposition to defeat the measure. republicans who were uncertain about their headcount skipped over the expected budget vote to another bill. but minutes later, the put the budget proposal on the floor and it was adopted 217-215.

all republicans were in attendance, and just one, representative massey of kentucky, cited with democrats in voting no. the voting pattern could continue to play out this year. while lawmakers regularly miss votes because of travel delays and one-off conflicts, more disruptive are long-term absences due to age, health issues, and other circumstances. attendance will remain an issue as republicans take the framework they adopted tuesday and work to pass president trump's plans for border security, tax relief, and spending later this year. the journal did an analysis of house voting records, showing how much weaker democrats' attendance has been compared to republicans'. democrats accounted for 17 of the 20 chronic vote-missers, defined as members who missed at least 20% of the votes passed from the session start on january 3 through february 23. so that narrow margin, democrats

are needed and their votes on the house floor, the wall street journal says that could prove difficult due to issues. we are asking democrats only this morning, how does your party respond to president trump, do you find common ground or do you oppose? sarah in brooklyn, good morning to you. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: we can. caller: all right. i would say oppose, oppose, oppose. host: ok. caller: not only oppose, resist. host: how? caller: today, economic boycott where people who want to oppose this regime are not buying anything. he likes money. that is his favorite thing. that is his god, money. so we're going to continue to

resist and protest. do you remember that old saying that popped up during world war ii were they said, they came for the jewish people, i didn't speak up, they came for the artist, i did not speak up, when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up. and that is the position we're in today. host: all right, sarah in brooklyn with her thoughts. sacramento, california, good morning to you, caller. what do you think your party should do here? caller: yes, what is going on? host: morning, what do you want the democrats to do? caller: well, i oppose trump. you know, i oppose what trump is doing. he is prepping himself to be the leader of world war iii, and he is setting it up, just like

hitler did, so i oppose that. host: what should your party do? caller: like i just heard, the one that pointed his finger, bernie sanders, no, no, no, no. that is the main thing. host: say no at every turn, is what he says the democratic party should do. listen to the leader of the democratic national committee, newly appointed, can martin from minnesota, here is what he had to say about how the party should respond to president trump. [video clip] >> what we need to do right now, because donald trump is failing the american people, not delivering the promises he made to help improve people's lives, is to remind them that part of that is getting out there and throwing a punch and show that he is failing the american people, remind them of that.

i do not know how in the hell of changing the name of the gulf of mexico to the gulf of america helps people's lives, right? i do not know how the tariffs will help bring down costs for people struggling in this country. on inaugural day, i was in atlanta celebrating dr. mlk, jr., day, and it was striking to me as i watch the video of his inauguration, that right under the portrait of our founding fathers were four of the richest men in the world, and the cabinet sitting behind them, the combined wealth of that cabinet, $460 billion. not the top 1%, but the top 0 .001%, do you think they give a damn about the american people and improving their lives? so you have these people controlling our federal government, and basically they are there to help enrich themselves.

this is what we're up against. so we need to remind democrats, not just democrats, we need to remind americans all over this country but the stakes are right now. i just think we have got a real opportunity as democrats to get up and do something definitive. host: you heard from the democratic national committee chair there, ken martin, about what the party needs to do. we are asking you, democrats only, this morning, do you find common ground or do you oppose? liz in new jersey. caller: good morning, and thanks for this opportunity to hear from the democratic points of view. normally, we get a diatribe of rehashed lies on the president. i am tired of hearing the lies, tired of the scapegoating of immigrants and other people, tired of all the nonsense as he does not execute his oath of

office to implement all parts of the u.s. constitution. i think if you sit down with the devil, sit down with a man that wants to be a dictator and does not wish to follow the u.s. constitution, you are not going to find much you can agree on. because his agenda is not for the betterment of this nation. i have long -- from 10 to 12 generations, fought in the revolution, they did not fight for this type of man to sit as president of the united states. host: liz, what does your party do that? caller: they need to oppose him. they need to try to win the special elections that will be held for a couple seats in congress, see if they can win

those back. but, america, when you vote, there are consequences. when you leave the power of the purse and leave these things unchecked -- when you leave the power to the person who thinks these things can go unchecked and that is a person that runs the nation, you're not helping your country. host: all right. we shared with all of you earlier at the top of the show this article by the washington post, that antitrust resistance begins to wake in artist after an initial period of stunned confusion, protesters are packing meetings, states are suing, and democrats are preparing for a budget showdown. from the washington post reporting, they say that a town hall -- at town hall meetings, citizens are showing up in larger than expected numbers. bernie sanders held rallies in republican districts in iowa and

oklahoma, more people showed up than they expected. from the washington times reporting this morning, they say, republicans are saying they are shrugging off these protests by anti-doge activists, acknowledged that change is hard but they think this is all just from democrats. the house speaker, mike johnson, and his leadership team have thrown cold water on the pushback republicans received last week and shrugged off the back lash as a divisive play from democratic activists. the video you saw of the town halls were paid protesters in many of those places. these were democrats that went to the events early and filled up their seats, johnson told cnn during an appearance on wednesday. it says that a handful of progressive activist groups, including indivisible, move.org, and the working families party, lined up protesters around the country to criticize republican

support of mr. musk and doge. the washington times reporting on these protests that we have seen around the country at town hall meetings. republicans shrugging them off as democratic activists. we are talking to democrats only. timbo in arkansas, what do you say? caller: good morning, america. in the famous words of our dictator loving psychopath in the white house, you better fight like hell or you're not going to have a country left. host: all right, david in south dakota, what do you say? caller: i oppose everything this man has done. i opposed him since 2016, 2015, whenever, when he made fun of people with disabilities. he is not fit to be our president. i believe we have got a democracy, and hundreds of

thousands of men fought for this democracy and died, and he is against everything. he is against everything we have ever fought for in this country. he sides with russia. we just voted with the u.n., everything we voted for was with russia. he is a disgrace to the country, and so is his doge guy. his doge guy is nothing but a -- i do not know what you call him. i seen him with that chainsaw, i don't think he has all his marbles, maybe he does. but i am against everything he does. you ask about what we can do, i think we are doing all we can. i mean, he is shutting down every -- i understand, i agree with the republican party on several different things, but this is not the republican party that i knew.

i did not agree with everything reagan did, but reagan, i agreed with the republican party. this man to me is a disgrace. host: david, you do not see any common ground with this president and this republican party today? caller: no, i do not. i think the republican congress are scared to death of him and musk. they do not do anything. i am in south dakota and i have thune, justin, -- johnson, and mike rounds, and to me, they are traitors to my state into the country. i do nothing they had the backbone to stand up to watch our democracy going to -- just like russia. has he watched everything he has done since he has come in? it boils down to the 1940's with hitler. host: i am going to pick up on

david's comments with russia and they were with ukraine. front page of the washington headline says that zielinski gained support at home as he is set to talk with president trump today. next to that headline on the front page, trump insists on ukraine deal quickly or not at all. the british prime minister pressed president trump for a more substantial u.s. commitment to protect ukraine if they were ends and warned his u.s. counterpart the to reward the russian president in any peace deal, and mr. trump brushed aside those pleas, insisting that it was now or never to negotiate an end to the brutal war. mr. zielinski will be at the white house today, arrives at 11:00 a.m. there will be meetings between the two leaders, and then they will hold a joint news conference at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. we will have live coverage of that news conference on c-span, c-span.org, as well as our free

video mobile app, c-span now. then we will also hear from mr. zelenskyy again at 4:00 p.m. eastern time at the hudson institute, and we will have coverage on that on c-span, as well, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. the wall street journal this morning in their opinion pages, and mineral deal ukraine cannot refuse is what they argue, the agreement gives the u.s. a stake in the country's peaceful future. they note that mr. trump continues to peddle falsehoods about how much aid the u.s. and europe have provided ukraine, claims the u.s. is in for $350 billion in ukraine, but through december, the real u.s. total was nearly $120 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian support. he says europe has given much less than the u.s., but it has spent or promised $137 billion.

mr. trump on thursday walk back to his claim last week that mr. zelenskyy is a dictator. press question, do you still think zelenskyy is a dictator? mr. trump, did i say that? i cannot believe i said that question. that welcome, if head spinning, reversal is more proof that what matters is not what mr. trump says but what he does. that is especially true as they were negotiations begin in earnest between the u.s. and russia. french and british leaders traveled to washington this week to lobby mr. trump to provide a u.s. backstop for any european trips they deployed to ukraine after a deal is struck. the mineral deal makes mr. trump more inclined to provide the guarantee, if so, better for europe and the u.s. we will get more into the potential mineral deal later in the "washington journal," so stay with us this morning. our first hour here though, democrats only. what should your party do in

response to the president's agenda, find common ground or oppose? chris in maryland, good morning to you. caller: hey, how are you? host: doing well, go ahead. what do you think your party should do? caller: oppose trump. he is trying to cut money, but he is also trying to find pro-trump propaganda adds on local tv's around washington, d.c., and other areas, upwards of $400 million in some cases around the country. it is like fahrenheit 451 or big brother ad said show up on my tv. he has social media and gets all that out there in the world, and now he is trying to get into everybody's homes and into their faces all the time. it is oppressive. host: what does your party do?

the leaders of the party, lawmakers, what do they do? caller: call out what he does. if he spends a fortune golfing or traveling around the country for no reason, not saving the country many, call it out. call out everything he does. every agency that wastes money and spends money on pro-trump shenanigans, you have got to call it out. host: chris, tell me some names of democrats, high-profile democrats, that you think are in the best position to call him out. caller: democrats have to bring up the younger generations. everybody knows that, that is the standard thing. you have to get the younger people involved. host: can you think of any? caller: there has to be new blood in there. i love bernie, he is a great guy, good ideas.

all these republicans who oppose trump have good ideas. trump will do the opposite of whatever they do because he's contrarian. host: chris, let me jump in and ask you, because you said we need younger people, younger democrats, to stand up to the president. here is the washington times, the new democratic senator from michigan has been tapped by her party to give the rebuttal to president trump's address to a joint session of congress next week on tuesday, march 4. democrats have looked to elevate more of their bench after former president biden's age and signs of decline. at age 48, ms. slotkin is young for a senator and 30 years younger than 78-year-old president. and there is a representative of new york that will deliver the spanish language response to the address. what do you think about senator

slotkin giving the democratic response to the presidents joint address to congress? caller: anybody who has good ideas and good thoughts and is intelligent should be in there. trump has issues. ever look up oppositional defiance disorder, odd, google it and you will see what it means. it is a condition where the person does not like authority, has to rebel against all authorities. trump has to have enemies in order to have his minions and someone to focus on. host: ok. darnell in philadelphia is next, good morning. caller: good morning. i think that democrats should stop being anti-republican. i think democrats need to learn how to be pro-democrat. i am on so many forms were everybody says 1930's germany

and not one person will mention 1930's roosevelt. i think democrats have lost sight of public infrastructure, public education, public health, civilization itself. a civilization that went back to abraham lincoln. lincoln, who not too many republicans mention. i see many forms of republicans and nobody mentions abraham lincoln. i think -- host: darnell, who in your party can do what you're are talking about doing? don't be antirepublican, be pro-democratic party, so who should deliver that message? caller: the last person who i heard was on july 27, 2004, and economy by surprise. i saw this tall black guy with a strange name, and he said not the red states, not the blue

states, but the united states. and at that moment, i remember that republicans, they love to say america, america, and america, and i was waiting for the democrat to say united states, and finally i heard barack obama say the united states. and he came out of the blue. he came out of the blue because even though i understand people knew him in chicago, they knew the speech to hundred percent, were mouthing the words while the rest of america were shocked. host: so you think right now the party needs somebody to come out of the blue? caller: yes, because everybody i see is talking antirepublican. nobody has a clue about pro-democrat. they completely forgot roosevelt, forgot 1930's roosevelt, while they blabber endlessly about 1930's germany. host: you might be interested in

gavin newsom, california governor, not coming out of the blue, but he announced a new podcast this week on x, looking to talk with those he politically disagrees with. here is the introduction video. [video clip] >> we need to change the conversation and that is why i am launching a new podcast. this is going to be anything but the ordinary politician podcast. i am going to talk to people directly that i disagree with, as well as people i look up to. more important, i will be talking directly to you, the listener, real conversations. what is going on with the cost of eggs? what are the real impacts to you around tariffs? what power does an executive order really have? what is really going on inside of doge? there is an onslaught of information we take in, so let's take it to the sources without the typical political mumbo-jumbo. in the first few weeks, i will sit down with some of the biggest leaders and architects in the maga movement.

this is gavin newsom. host: california democratic governor gavin newsom, his approach to respond to president trump, sitting down with those that support him and that he disagrees with. do you think that is a good approach? we are talking to democrats only this morning about your party boss response to president trump at his agenda. in the national newspapers this morning, the washington post, judge blocks mass firings, san francisco federal judge on thursday ordered the office of personnel management to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary workers across the government, ruling that the terminations are probably illegal, as a group of labor unions argued in court. there firings included national parks service, defense department, bureau of land management, national science foundation, and others identified in the lawsuit. from the judge, this is a quote, the office of personnel management does not have any

authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency. they can hire and fire their own employees. front page of the washington post this morning. related to the firings of federal workers, here is the metro section of the washington post. d.c. unemployment claims jumped amid federal job cuts. the claims were up 25% increase from the previous week and up four-fold compared with the same week a year ago. metro section of the washington post this morning on the federal cuts seen under this trump administration. we are asking the democrats only this morning, how do you respond to moves like this from president trump and his administration? another headline to share with you on the front page of most

national newspapers this morning, the tariffs will start on tuesday, 25% of levees are planned for canada and mexico, another 10% for china. we will talk about that and the economy coming up here on the "washington journal" with economist mark zandi. michael in suffolk, virginia, a democrat. what do you think your party should do? caller: good morning, c-span. our party has to vote. nobody in our party at this time can do anything. i do not know why you keep asking that question. it is nothing that the democrats in office can do. it has to go through the courts. everybody knows the courts is on donald trump's side, so we have to vote. host: you mean vote in the 2026 midterms? caller: 2026 and 2028. host: so you do not think

there's anything the party can do until then? caller: no, everybody knows if they could do anything, it would have been done. all they can do is go to the court speared all they can do is talk about it you cannot do anything but talk and go to the courts and vote. that is it. so i do not understand why that is your main question this morning. host: because we are seeing protests around the country, people showing up at town hall meetings for lawmakers, republicans and democrats. bernie sanders holding rallies in republican districts in iowa and oklahoma. you have heard the governor of michigan say i will try to find common ground. you have heard bernie sanders say we have to say no, no, no. that is why we're asking the question this morning, we are hearing from national democratic leaders and in different tones on how to respond to the president. lupe in california, what do you say? caller: good morning.

this is what i say, and please give me some time. in various ways, it says l ies with the law. if you love the law, you hate the lies. remember who is still sitting on the throne. it is not god right now. the prince of peace running the earth is satan. he is stirring all this up, and he is using trump. remember one thing, have peace inside of you with the word of god, with his promises. the lies are running this world right now. host: all right. jeffrey in ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to just ask my fellow democrats, everyone, please take a big deep breaths. i am 70 years old and remember bobby kennedy and george mcgovern are, i remember the vietnam war, and i remember what

it is like for literally millions of people to die needlessly. again, this is what is happening in ukraine, there are people lying dead everywhere over there. that has stopped, and the people want to understand what has happened in regards to ukraine, they need to listen to professor jeffrey sachs. he talks about what has let up to that war, and i think a lot of people do not know that and do not understand it. on the border, the american people right now have very limited resources. to allow 15 million people to come across the border, that has to draw upon those resources. we have hurt our inner cities, hurt the people in this country who are good democrats that need help. and there has to be some governance, has to be some understanding. for anybody that has worked in

the public sector, people get laid off when there is money problems. i have been laid off several times in my life. i hated it, did not like it. but i understood the company i worked for was having money trouble. and i think it is very clear right now that we are having money trouble. and i do not understand why people feel like democrat, republican, whatever you are, that you are entitled to a job without being laid off. host: so you are a democrat because we're talking to democrats only, a lifelong democrat. so you think your party just needs to relax, wait and see? caller: i think we need to go back and remember what the people that run our party 30 years ago and 50 years ago, whether thoughts and what their ideals were. we have lost that. we have a lot of great people. by the way, even our opponents,

barry goldwater, the democrats got along with barry goldwater. tip o'neill with reagan. we have lost that ability to laugh together, put our arms around each other, and find a way forward. i would like to remind my fellow democrats that nafta was brought on board by a democrat. the removal of the glass-steagall act was brought on board by democrats. that was put in place so that the banks could not invest in the stock market and take our money. i want everybody -- and listen, of all colors, all backgrounds, take a deep breath. i know this guy has some flaws and i understand that, but we have to start to get things in order thank you so much. host: that is jeffrey in ohio, his message to his party. we are talking to democrats only this morning.

we showed you in the washington post, there headline about anti-trump resistance beginning to wake in earnest. that is there headline, and they note that democrats are resisting the president and republicans over their budget framework, where they want to include the president's tax cuts from 2017, want to pay for them by cutting spending across the federal government. president trump was asked about cuts to spending, and here's what he had to say about benefits under medicare, medicaid, and social security. [video clip] >> the spending bill aims to cut $2 trillion. can you guarantee them medicare, medicaid, social security will not be touched? >> i have said it so many times, you should not be asking me that question. it is not read my lips anymore. we are not going to touch it.

we are going to look for fraud. i am sure you are ok with that, like people that should not be on it, illegal aliens and others, criminals in many cases, and that is was social security. you see that immediately, when you see people that are 200 years old being sent checks from social security, some of them are actually being sent check spirit so we are tracing that down. there is a lot of fraud. no, we're not doing anything. host: president trump saying those programs, medicaid, medicare, social security, would not be touched with their spending cuts proposed by republicans as they try to come together on a budget framework. house democratic leader hakeem jeffries of new york responded to a question at his news conference this week about how republicans are denying that they are looking at medicaid cuts. here is what he said. [video clip] >> republicans are lying to the american people about medicaid.

the republican budget authorizes up to $880 billion in cuts to medicaid. by directing the energy and commerce committee to find those spending cuts. everybody knows who has had any connection to the congressional budget that if you are directing the energy and commerce committee to find up to $880 billion, if not more, and they spending cuts, that means medicaid. that will hurt children, hurt families, hurt everyday americans with disabilities, and hurt seniors.

i cannot say it any other way, republicans are lying. prove me wrong. there is nothing more that i would like better, that we as house democrats would like better, than for republicans to prove us wrong, that they are not planning to cut medicaid. host: the leader of the democratic party in the house, hakeem jeffries of new york, responding to the republicans upon streak claims that they will not touch medicaid benefits come a they will not be cutting them for people that are on that program. the budget showdown looms between the two parties as republicans in the house and senate have to reconcile their different frameworks before sending a proposal to the president for his signature. we are asking democrats only this money, how should your party respond to the president and republicans? chris in maryland, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i would say oppose, oppose all the way.

i was a little shocked when the election happened. i would have thought there would have been some questioning at that point, but i think they chose the side of stability, for the betterment of our country, because there's too many people on the other side that are not stable. we saw that on january 6. having said that, they also think that what we need to do is we need some new voices. i am 50 years old. i hope to have a retirement someday. and i am tired of some of the people, tired of the chuck schumers, the nancy pelosis, and the reason why is because they have been beaten down. trump has just -- there is no decorum anymore. host: tell us a new voice. caller: i heard last night for the first time, a straight shooter, ro khanna from

california. first time i ever heard him, seeing his face, but he was very direct. one of the callers said we need people to call out trump, and we absolutely do. the schumers do not have that fire anymore. i am 50 years old and do not want to stand behind that. i am hoping someone else jobs up, like a different type of party. host: what about gavin newsom? caller: no, no, no. host: why not? caller: he is too exposed. he should have fought back when trump started saying all this crap about him, too many people think negatively about him. the majority of the people in this country are stupid and do nothing for themselves. they hear a clip of a news article that it is gavin newsom 's fault, and they just run with it.

there are so many people that are really not in tune with what is going on. host: let me ask about gretchen whitmer, what about her? caller: i do not know too much about her to comment. maybe the democrats could do what i am saying, get some new voices here, push these people out. bernie sanders, take her along with you, take this moment along with you, give a face -- the thing with trump is, he is like a bad stain, you cannot get him out, just smears himself everywhere. that is what he has done. and that is why these people who are not in tune with things, they see that -- how can you forget about him, he is in your face every day. it is disgusting. what i really want to know is who are these people in agencies that gave all of these contracts to musk?

didn't anybody at one point look at how much money they were shelling out to one company alone? host: i have to leave it there. we are at the top of the hour. we will take a bear -- a break and we come back we will turn our attention to the economy. we will talk with mark sandy -- mark zandi discussing on how dependent the u.s. economy is on wealthy earners and then the center for responsible federal budget will discuss the house and senate's approach to passing the 2025 budget. stay with us, we will be right back. ♪ >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span two, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 2:00 p.m. eastern on the civil war. kelly hancock talks about the lives of mary talk -- todd

lincoln and rena davis the wives of the civil war leaders. and then a visit to the college park aviation newseum with luke perez to explore the history of the world's oldest continually operating airfield and artifacts within the museum. at 7:00 p.m. eastern watch the series first 100 days as we look at the start of presidential terms. this week we focus on the early months of president lyndon johnson's term following the assassination of president john f. kennedy. he addressed congress shortly after kennedy's death and calls called on members took past civil rights legislation and then the university of southern californian sociology professor brittany friedman on the evolution of american prison gangs in the 20th and 21st century. exploring the american his -- the american story. watch american history tv. find a full schedule on your

program guide or c-span.org/history. booktv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussi their latest nonfiction books. here is what is coming up this weekend. ross douthat and jonathan rouch examine the decline average yield -- religiosity in america and what it means for the health of american democracy. and then kevin fagan with "the lost in the found: a true story of homelessness, found family and second chances" reports on the underlying issues of homelessness in america. he traces the experiences of two on housed unhoused people in san francisco. at :00 p.m. eastern, pagan kennedy with "the secret history of the rape kit."

watch booktv every sunday on c-span2, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at booktv.org. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us this morning is mark zandi chief economist for moody's analytics here to talk about the u.s. economy's reliance on high income earners. talk about your research and what did you find. what is the headline? guest: thank you for the opportunity. the american economy is very dependent on the spending of the well-to-do, the folks in the top part of the income and wealth distribution. to give you a stats to make that concrete. the folks in the top 10% of the income distribution account for almost 50% of the personal outlays that we do as consumers.

that gives you a sense of context. in -- it obviously goes to the strength of their financial is -- finances and the wage growth is strong. they have been enjoying record stock prices and housing values. if they have any debt it is a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. they are in a good financial spot. and folks in the bottom part of the income distribution, the lower income households, they are struggling. obviously, they do not own stocks and they may not own a home. they have credit card debt and consumer finance loans to take on to maintain their purchasing power when inflation was raging. they have a job and that is key to keeping things moving forward. other than that, they are struggling with finances. very large differences between the folks at the top part of the distribution and the folks at the bottom. host: more from your report.

the top 10% of u.s. earners, people who make $250,000 plus in their household account for 49.7% of all spending. that is a record going back to 1989. this counts -- this was accounted for about 86% three decades ago. that is the change. could you talk about that change? guest: that is a very significant change. it does go to the ongoing so-called skewing of the income and wealth distribution. very simply, folks that are doing well are doing better and better and taking a bigger share of the economic pie. that does not mean that wages and incomes have not been rising for everyone else, they have. it just means that the share of that income of that wealth and spending is increasingly accrued to the folks at the top part of

the distribution. you know, there is a lot of obvious concerns about equity. there are also concerns about what this means for the economy. in that if the economy is so dependent on such a small group of folks, and that group of folks is so dependent on things like stock prices and housing values, this gives you the sense that the economy is value -- is vulnerable if it does not stick to script. if the stock market starts to go down, that poses a broader moral threat to the economy because of the impact on the well-to-do and the fact that the well-to-do account for a large share of what is going on. host: how vulnerable? guest: i think it is a concern. that has been brought into clear relief in the last two days. i do not know if you follow the stock market like i do. a lot of red on the screen and concerned about the stock market.

the market is very highly valued, richly valued and the prices are very high through the underlying corporate earnings to support the prices. even in the stock market gains are very concentrated. if you look at the stock of the companies driving the stock market, it is the big tech companies. so fault -- so-called magnificent seven. not only is spending is dependent on a small group at the stock market itself is only dependent on a few companies driving the train. in my mind, that is a key vulnerability to the broader economy. host: do you see bubbles in the economy that could pop or burst? guest: i do not know i would go so far to say bubble. that implies speculation and people are buying because the price rose yesterday. maybe there is some of that creeping in. and when i see president trump

issued a crypto coin soon after his inauguration. the value of that jumped significantly. it has come back down but it is still worth three or $4 billion. there is no value, and there is nothing. that gives you a sense that things are frothy speculative, may. bubble-like. i do not want to extrapolate that too far. those companies that i just mentioned that are driving the gains, they are real companies. they are juggernauts. they add real value and they are very profitable and highly profitable and the prospects are good. that is not consistent with the idea that the market is in a bubble. you could just argue that it is very highly valued and overvalued and may be bordered on frothy. but a bubble is probably too far. host: we are talking with mark zandi, chief economist with

moody is analytics. we are here to talk about the u.s. economy and the new report on high income earners. here is how we have divided the lines. if you make under 100,000, dial in at 202-748-8000. if you make between $100,000 and $250,000, your line is 202-748-8001. and if you make over $250,000, the 10%, call us at 202-748-8002 . we welcome your comments and your questions is morning. before we get to the calls, let us take some headlines from the papers. "the wall street journal," "the u.s. vows to raise tariffs on three countries. mexico, canada and china. the china move slated to take effect tuesday along with the canada and mexico actions doubles up on the previous 10% additional tariffs that trump placed on chinese products this month." and then there is this in the

business and finance section of "the wall street journal." "tariff threats hit s&p and nasdaq. fresh tariff threats and tech selloff dragged the stock slower with the s&p 500 surrendering the last of the gains for the year." are the two tied in your opinion and if so, why? guest: indeed. i think that the tariffs are starting to spook investors. it has taken time for that to happen and investors thought that the president when he was talking about tariffs, he did not mean that he would raise tariffs to the degree he is talking about now or to the extent that he is talking about. it appears with each passing day and announcement that the president is serious. we are going to see broad-based tariffs on a lot of different countries and products over an extended period of time. and that is really bad for business and the economy. it is a tax on american

consumers, so we will be paying more for the things that come from other countries. everything from the fruit products that we get from canada and mexico to the appliances and game consoles that we get from china. so, we will pay more for that and that hurts our ability to buy other things. it is hard on businesses that import a product to help them do whatever they do, machine -- machine tools, materials and supplies. say you are a homebuilder and you need to bring in london -- lumber from canada. you will be paying more for that and it makes you difficult to build a home at an affordable price point. or all of the electrical equipment that -- and other tools and things that come from mexico that go into building the home. or the building materials and appliances from china that filled the home. all of those things will be more expensive. obviously, there will be

retaliation. it is not clear to what degree. some countries will retaliate tit for tat and others not so much. maybe canada will be circumspect. retaliation means that they will raise tariffs on what we sent to them and they will put trade restrictions which will cost american jobs. as you can tell i can go on and on. the uncertainty that this creates is really pernicious and corrosive. you know, tariffs on which countries and products. so the president could change his mind and if you are a business person you need some clarity and certainty before you make investment decisions. it is bad for business and if it is bad for business it is bad for the stock market. if it is bad for the stock market it could be bad for the broader economy. host: let us get to calls.

ryan in albuquerque, new mexico. making out over $250,000. your comment? caller: i want to comment on immigration and the housing market. housing, we need to solve the housing market because they are not making land so that is part of the problem. where to put the new houses. and people cannot afford them because there is such a high demand. i wanted to point at immigration. the combination of globalization , extremely high immigration. we have essentially devalued average working americans in real terms. we are devaluing the hourly were eight -- rate of a worker in america and people cannot make it anymore. i would like to hear why we do not control immigration. i know we need some immigration, it is healthy. but too much as a problem.

we never frame it that way, it is all or nothing. host: before you answer on housing i want to share this headline, pending u.s. own shares -- home sales hit a new low in january. take what he said and also respond to this headline. guest: he makes some good points. clearly on housing we have a very severe shortage. this has been long in the making and goes back to the housing collapse. we have not put up a a lot of homes to meet the demand from all of the households that have formed and will continue to form.

there are a lot of different things going on. part of the problem is zoning and permitting in many communities are reticent to allow development in the communities particularly in densely populated parts of the country where there is a lot of demand. we need to work on that. unfortunately, i have not -- it has taken a generation to get into this housing shortage and it will take a generation to get out unless we get the cooperation of homebuilders. tying us back to the tariffs on the housing front, let us do no harm in the tariffs clearly do harm. they raise the cost of building a home. i talked to the national association of homebuilders, the trade group that advocates for the homebuilding industry. they make a very clear case that tariffs are a real problem. they add to the cost of constructing homes. if you have to raise the cost it is unaffordable for many

americans and people cannot afford to buy them. i do think this is a significant issue. on immigration, i agree. i think we need to have a much more rational immigration system and policy. i do think that controlling our borders is critical. i do think it gone it goes beyond economics. i think we have made a lot of progress beginning with the executive order last summer and putting restrictions on asylum-seekers with a big impact by the time president trump took office and president trump is clamping down further. having said that, i do think we need a of immigrants and lots of immigrants of all skills across the folks that work in the agricultural and food processing industry to those who work in health care and work as hospitals as elder and job

caregivers to sophisticated individuals. going back to the tech companies , look at the senior management of those companies. many are immigrants that have come to the country. we need immigration but we need a rational policy that aligns the immigrants that come into the country that have the skills that are needed to drive our economy going forward. so you know, there was a good all in saying that there was legislation making its way through congress last summer and a lot of bipartisan support. and some very conservative republican senators were on board with immigration reform that looked like it might get through but got nailed by the election process. but hopefully lawmakers will come back around and address this because we need immigration reform. host: john in california.

good morning. caller: good morning. such an honor to talk to mr. a andi. i would like to talk about three points. i use assault -- the stock market similar to the grocery stores. the stock market expanded because there is too much money in the economy. my second point concerns of 49% that do pay taxes and what i see with the tax cuts is that we are creating more billionaires. there are more billionaires and millionaires than ever before. so you can lower the corporate taxes by 6%. they would be paying 21%. so you add more and you gain 21. and that is why if you go to the cbo and look at the budget histories, that is why the trump tax cuts hit $4 trillion for the first time in revenues. they created revenues because they added more people paying

taxes and that 49% range. host: i'm in a take those two because we have a lot of people waiting to talk. if you want to start with the stock market and grocery prices, he tied them together and move on to the corporate tax rate in the first round of tax cuts

actually increasing revenue. but fundamentally, the reason stock prices are up is because american companies, certainly the ones that are publicly traded are doing quite well. host: on the second point the corporate tax rates being underdone under the lower -- under the first trump administration tax bill and that increasing revenues. guest: here i am not on board with that. you know, i like tax cuts like anybody else. i have no problem. but i do think -- if we are giving tax cuts to businesses or individuals certainly in the context of the large budget deficit and debt we need to pay for them. i do not think the corporate tax cuts put into place under president trump were paid for. you know the caller called out the congressional budget office, the cbo. the partisan group that does the budgeting for the government.

and if you go take a look at their work, it is not consistent with the idea that the tax cuts were paid for, just the opposite. you know, i am all for lower tax rates and i think they are key. but we need to figure out for weight -- ways to pay for them if we are providing that. host: jesse in milwaukee, making under 100,000. your turn. caller: i have one question and goes back to what he was talking about before, that the tech stocks, the ones that are really hot and making a lot of money, but it also sounds like he was going to say that there is no diversity within this. could you elaborate more on that? guest: yes. you have heard the magnificent seven. there are seven technology stocks. everyone from nvidia, who is benefiting from selling all of the chips related to the boom

in artificial intelligence to apple to meta. those companies are driving the stock market. if you look at the increase of the value stocks overall, a big chunk is those companies. having said that, if you look at the rest of the stock market and everyone else in the hundreds of thousands of companies with publicly traded stocks. they are doing well, just not nearly as well as the juggernauts, the large companies that have done fabulously well. the market is top-heavy. the magnificent seven is driving the train. and that is a risk. it adds to the concerns we were talking about about concentration, relying too heavily on a few companies and the well-to-do. the stock market has done well more broadly, if you look across the entire market, at least most

companies that have publicly traded stocks have done quite well. business has been good. host: what do you make about headlines of warren buffett hoarding cash and then this one "is warren buffett selling before a stock market crash?" guest: that goes back to my point about valuation. overvalued and frothy. i expect that warren buffett is seeing the same things and historically, what he has done when people are optimistic and driving up stock prices and it looks like they are getting overvalued and frothy, with some signs of speculation creeping in and people start thinking about that. that is when he tends to pull back which raises more cash. historically, he has been rewarded by doing that. it is really hard to do because you see the stock price rising every day and you get somo and

you worry about missing out. he is very good at that a very disciplined investor and generally the market goes down and if it is overvalued by definition it is to highly prized. and the market goes down and that is when he buys and steps in. you can tell, not many people are up to the ability to do that and have that patients and discipline and understanding -- patience, disc -- discipline and patient understanding. he is saying the markets are valued and i will step away like i did in the past and i expect that he will have an opportunity in the not-too-distant future. host: andrew in florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a strange question,

actually. does the economy that is relying on high income earners benefit or detract from people like us lower income earners? host: he is calling in on the line for under $100,000? guest: not an odd question and i have a great affinity for ormond beach. my wife is from ormand. a great place, great beaches. well, no. it is not detracting. i am speaking in aggregate, not for a specific individual or smaller group. but in aggregate, all of the incomes have been rising. and we got nailed back a couple of three years ago when inflation took off.

many people's purchasing power declined and it is harder on folks with lower incomes. we have made it back and we are still paying higher prices for things but wage growth has been stronger, so we are all starting to catch up. everyone is benefiting and participating in the economy's success over the last couple of years and the couple or three years. so since we have broken free from the pandemic and the ill effects of the russian war in ukraine. but, the folks in the top part, the well-to-do and folks with higher incomes and more wealth, they have benefited more. if you look at the totality of their financial situation, it has improved a lot more than anyone else. it is not like the success is diminishing everyone else's. they are just much more

successful, if that makes sense. host: your thoughts on the impact of federal employees losing their jobs and the freezing of funds. this is in the metro section of "the washington post." "d.c. unemployment claims jumped 25% the previous week and compare -- and up fourfold and paired with the same week of -- the same number a week ago." could this trigger a recession, if not nationally, but local? guest: i am nervous about what i am observing. i am all for taking a good, hard look at what government is doing to make sure it is doing things well and properly. just like every business in america does, continually. i am a business person and i do that in my daily business life. i am looking for ways to make

sure that i am operating as efficiently as possible and everyone is doing the things they should be doing and we are all executing. that is fair game, appropriate and what we should be doing. i do worry that what we are observing now is just quite haphazard. it is not surgical. it looks like when you pull out a chainsaw. it does not give you the sense that there is careful thought to what is going on and how things are being done. it makes people nervous, the fact that things seem so capricious. and, i do not think that is conducive to those folks, or to the broader economy. or, to the regional economies in which these folks are living and working. i think it is a great thing

lawmakers are taking a good, hard look at the way we are operating government. we should be doing that all the time. i just worry about the way it is being done. the other thing i worry about, i say this with less confidence, i do worry about jobs and funding for things that ultimately are going to be really impactful because we do not have the people we need for the funding that is appropriate, from air traffic control to food and drug, to environmental issues and climate, to just tracking the weather systems. these are things government does, and we absolutely need them. we have got to make sure when we strive for efficiency that we do not undermine the ability of the government to provide the services necessary for a well-functioning economy and also for the private sector and

american businesses. they require heavily on good weather reports and making sure the transportation system is safe and works well. that makes me nervous. i worry about that. i am not the only one. you can see that sentiment out there. people are anxious about how this is unfolding. host: mark zandi, the chief economist with moody's analytics. you can go to economy.com. you can follow him on x. learn more about his recent report on u.s. economy's growing reliance on high income earners. thank you for the conversation this morning. guest: any time. i love talking with folks. host: we appreciate the conversation as well. we are going to take a break. when we come back, maya macguineas will discuss the house and senate plans for the 2025 budget and what it will mean for the fiscal outlook. later, president trump and president zelenskyy will meet in

washington today, reportedly to sign a deal for ukraine's minerals. we will be back to talk about that later in the "washington journal." digging into the minerals inside ukraine. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> tuesday night, watch c-span's live coverage of president trump address to congress, the first address in his second term and less than two months since taking office. live coverage begins at 8:00 with a preview from capitol hill followed by the president's speech which begins at 9:00 eastern. then watch the democratic response after the president's speech. we will take your calls and get your reaction on social media. on c-span2, you can watch a simulcast with reactions from lawmakers.

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>> sunday, we will talk with national geographic explorer tara roberts on slave ships. in her memoir, she discusses the training and preparation required to undertake the diving missions in the work done by the nonprofit diving with a purpose, primarily composed of african american divers. >> when i saw this picture in a museum of these women and it turned out they were part of this group of diving with a purpose and they spent their time searching for and documenting slave shipwrecks around the world, i was like, oh, my god, people who look like me who are living a life of adventure. maybe this could be for me too. >> tara roberts with her book

sunday night at 8:00 eastern. you can listen to all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome back to the "washington journal" maya macguineas, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget. let's begin with what was passed by house republicans this week on a narrow boat by -- narrow vote by party lines. the house budget resolution includes $4.5 trillion, to trillion dollars in spending cuts, $100 billion in new spending and immigration enforcement and the military. it would raise the debt limit by $4 trillion and requires the house energy and commerce committee to find 800 $80 billion in cuts to federal

programs, possibly from medicaid. what will this do to our fiscal outlook? guest: good morning, nice to be with you. always happy to be talking about budgeting. this process is going to be a multistep process because you have the house working on one end and the senate on the other. they were coming at this passing a budget in different approaches. neither is focusing on the overall big picture budget. both are focused on budgets that unlock the powerful tool of reconciliation which allows congress to pass something just with republicans. they will not need democrats to help with the voting. what we saw out of the house budget committee and the full house, and it was a nail-biter of a night, did not look like it would pass, and at the last minute, it did, sounds like with some arm-twisting from the president, overall, this is a

budget that would cut taxes very significantly. like you said, by $4.5 trillion, and would have spending cuts or offsets of up to $2 trillion. what does that leave? that leaves a lot of borrowing because there is also a couple of hundred billion dollars in spending. that leaves about $2.8 trillion in new borrowing, in new debt we would add. from our perspective, and we are a nonpartisan group worried about deficits and debt in this country, that does not make any sense at all. this is a moment when our debt is at near record levels. it is almost as large of a share of the economy as it was right after world war ii. our interest payments are the second-largest item in the budget, larger than the national defense, and they are the fastest-growing item in the budget. the point i would make, particularly with the backdrop of inflation and strong economic growth, we should not be passing

any bills whatsoever the add to the national debt. this is a moment when we should be taking steps to reduce the debt. anything that falls short of that is not fiscally responsible. $2.8 trillion very far from fiscally responsible. host: explain how the debt impacts inflation. guest: i will also explain how it affects households if that is ok because it is one of those issues where it sounds like it is not a great thing, but why should i care about the national debt? that is one of the challenges of these issues. when we are borrowing too much, and by all accounts we are, that has negative effects on the economy. it is squeezing out private investments. it slows economic growth. it slows wages. it slows our standard of living. if you put too much borrowing into the economy, can lead to inflation because you are creating too much demand for too little supply. we have very high levels of inflation a few years ago. that was the result of three things. excessive borrowing that came

right after covid, the american rescue plan, supply chain problems from covid where we were not able to get the inputs we needed, and energy shocks. those three combined to have very high levels of inflation. right now, inflation is still above the target. it has not come down to 2%. it looks like it could go back up again. if you put more stimulus in the economy, every dollar we borrow pushes prices up to some extent. every dollar we reduce deficits hopefully will help the fed do the work of bringing inflation back down. it also has negative effects or positive effects -- it also pushes up interest rates. when you are fighting inflation, that pushes up interest rates. that means things you are borrowing for, whether credit cards, mortgages, car loans, any of those things, become more costly as well. we have seen that in the mortgage market and lots of other places that affect households. it has lots of effects on the

economy even though it is not something people see and understand the direct connection on a daily basis. host: what about republican efforts to cut spending to help pay for these tax cuts? guest: it is interesting because more than ever one point of view will not capture what is going on. in the battle, there have been two adamant sides of the debate. one i would call the fiscal conservatives, those who want to borrow less and spend less. they are pushing for more spending cuts. they like cuts but many are concerned the tax cuts should be -- would be too large compared to the spending cuts. they want to push up spending to reduce borrowing and bring the government spending down. then there are the moderates who are very concerned about the direction. when you have a reconciliation bill, you are telling different committees they have to find a certain amount of savings. they have been concerned about the levels of savings they are

going to have to find, particularly in the areas of medicaid, possibly medicare. they have been deep concerns about that amount of spending cuts. i will put the number in context. if we say $2 trillion, they are required in the budget solution is a 1.5 trillion dollars and then there was another add-on that will bring it up to $2 trillion. over the same time, we will be spending $86 trillion. my perspective, political independent, bipartisan group, where i sit, we should not be doing a single thing before we are putting together a debt deal. i would make the case we need to have a lot of spending cuts. they should not just be one area of the budget. we should be looking at every area of the budget. we should be increasing taxes, not decreasing them. these are the things people do not like and politicians do not like. but that is how you fix huge deficits and debt.

i would argue the $2 trillion in spending cuts is a tiny amount out of the $86 trillion we will be spending over the same time. we need to find much more in terms of savings. i would use it to reduce deficits rather than cutting taxes with the goal of fiscal responsibility. host: what you are talking about would take bipartisan support. republicans and democrats have been reluctant to look at the drivers of our debt and deficits. what are they? guest: what i am talking about would require bipartisan support and hard budget choices. we don't see much of that on anything. we see bipartisan support when borrowing. there was one exception. we did have a fiscal responsibility act recently, the last time we had to increase the debt ceiling they also attached something called the fiscal responsibility act which put in spending caps. that saved $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion. not enough to get us where we

need to go but a tremendous first step. it was only one part of the budget, the discretionary portion. that was something where congress did something difficult and put in spending caps. those will be coming to an end at the end of the year. there was the suggestion they increase them for another four years. i would suggest they do that. it would make a lot of sense. it forces them to look for where they might find savings. is that the problem with the overall federal budget? it is not. if you look at the growth in the budget, you can see growth is concentrated in the other portion of our budget called mandatory. those are the areas that grow. they do not go through the appropriations process every year. they are on automatic pilot, meaning if people qualify for the programs they will receive benefits. the biggest drivers of our debt by far our social security, medicare, medicaid, other health

care programs, and interest on the debt. interest is the single fastest-growing of all of that. if we are going to get a handle on our out-of-control fiscal situation, and not just for economic reasons we discussed a minute ago, but it is a great national security threat. i could talk more about that. it is undermining our strength on the global stage, the fact that we are as indebted as we are independent on borrowing from elsewhere. if we are going to truly watch our leaders govern in a fiscally responsible way, we are going to have to fix social security which is headed towards insolvency in about a decade. when that program hits insolvency and the trust funds do not have the money to pay full benefits, there will be automatic across-the-board cuts of 22% for all beneficiaries. that is crazy. it is crazy there people that depend on the program right now where politicians of all sides are saying i promise to not cut social security when what we

should be doing is fixing it. there are lots of ways to do that. we can do it while protecting current beneficiaries. they do not need to be affected at all, but we need to make changes going forward whether lifting the payroll tax cap or increasing the retirement age for young workers, changing the way we calculate benefits for the well-off. there is a variety of choices. there is no right or wrong answer. but we have to do something. likewise, we have to make changes on medicare. political promises across-the-board are that i promise not to touch these programs. anybody that cares about their well-being should say don't promise not to touch them, tell me how you will fix them. when those trust funds become insolvent for social security and medicare, there will be across-the-board benefit and provider cuts unless there are legal changes made. i think every leader who has ignored this issue is ignoring their fiduciary responsibility as someone who oversees these programs. host: let's get two calls.

guest: i'm sorry, before some caller yells at me, it is the truth, we need to make changes. we can protect people and make thoughtful changes. at the same time, we cannot fix this program from spending alone. we are also going to have to raise taxes. we should probably look at $20 trillion in tax breaks or lost revenue over the next budget window where we could generate tons of savings. to be very clear, you cannot fix this problem from spending cuts or tax increases alone. the problem is really large. it takes about $8 trillion in savings. i know it is hard to identify what a trillion is. the biggest budget deal recently we had $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions. we need $8 trillion in reductions in the next 10 years

just to keep the debt from growing. we should get at much lower. that is only half of what you need to balance the budget. we have a lot of savings we need to be searching for. we should not be talking about tax cuts or spending increases. we should be talking about debt deals to get control of this looking every single part of the budget. host: let's go to gina in alabama, republican. caller: hi, greta. hi, maya. you have some good points. the other solution to social security, but my question is, why in the world back in the last c.r. or whatever they did, they passed a year coming more out of social security -- $20

billion coming out of social security i hear. ted is ridiculous. i look at the vote count and it was overwhelming bipartisan. they always say they cannot touch social security, they cannot do anything. they have already done it. that will cost us $200 billion over the next 10 years. but i do agree with everything you said. the means testing, leave the existing beneficiaries alone, and everything. thank you so much. i feel like i am spitting in the wind. i call and say the same thing over and over. but y'all have a very blessed day. thank you very much. host: maya macguineas, you have been at this a long time. guest: i am with you. i feel like that all the time. thank you for the call. clearly a very informed caller. at the end of last year, so we have something on our website

called the debt thermometer. we follow every year how much congress and the president have signed into law that would increase the overall debt and deficits. most years, it is kind of astronomically high, very depressing. around the fiscal responsibility act, it showed improvements, that is great. last year, more on track to do well until the end of the world when spending deal -- whirlwind spending deal. there was something in it that would give additional benefits to some social security beneficiaries who collect money from social security and private pensions. there is a lot of confusion about how this works. a lot of state and local workers do not pay into social security at some points and pay into private pensions. this affects the way the benefit is calculated. for many people, it provides windfalls. there was an attempt to get rid of the windfalls in the past. it was imperfect. at the end of this year, there

was a plan that would say we need to give everybody back those additional benefits even if it ups the windfalls again. a lot of people in the house, it passed in the house. i talked to a lot of members. i said, why are you doing a fix that does not fix the problem that will cost $200 billion, which will add an incredible amount to the national debt, and will make social security's insolvency hit us even sooner? it will make those trust funds become insolvent even sooner because it is draining funds out of them. a lot of members of congress said, do not worry, it is a messaging bill, this will not happen. that is not true. it did happen. they ended up passing this. there were many mistakes around this. it is very blunt policy and does not get the job done. there were alternate bills out there that made more sense. they should have been the ones we adopted. it was a big mistake. the reason is the power of the

seniors lobby. if aarp says to a member i am going to phone bank, i'm going to go against you just for saying you want to fix this program or you are not going to get even more benefits despite the fact that giving more benefits weakens the program, and i would have sent the long run but it is not long now, aarp has a lot of power. it is to the detriment of our overall budget. what we have right now is a regular willingness of congress to act to give more in benefits and social security or medicare without fixing the programs. we should be doing them all at once. there are places we should think about showing up the programs but we should do it comprehensively. the result is we have a federal budget where we spend $6 per senior on every $1 we spend on kids under 18. that is the power of certain lobbying groups in this country. i think if you ask anybody, is that the right way to divide resources?

should we be making more investments in people over 65 or under 18? i do not think they would say the right ratio is 6 to 1. i think we need to look at how we allocate our budget. i think we need to look at the power of interest groups. i would think aarp if they are really protecting members should be saying these programs are about to go insolvent, when they do, there will be across-the-board benefit and provider cuts, we have to do something to protect our constituents. i do not understand why had they are unwilling to go out and push for the actual reforms that should be top of the agenda these days. the question i was going to ask. is i'm thinking about the budget resolution, i'm interested, there are three choices with this. should wait not cut taxes or by not as much? this is a continuation of existing tax cuts.

many of these tax cuts are expiring because when they put the bill in place they did not want to have a cost as high so they said they will expire. now the decision is whether to extend them or not. do people want to extend and have more tax cuts, either $4.5 trillion or a lesser amount? do they want fewer tax cuts, morton spending, or do they want to borrow? do they want to add this to the debt? i'm curious how people see the issue. host: let's go to jeffrey, independent. caller: i have a quick question as an ordinary citizen, la yman. and economist who wrote the book, "the deficit myth," argues federal deficit spending is healthy for the economy. it becomes black ink because it

is the federal government through its currency putting more money into the economy, enriching the economy without relying on taxes to pay for it. deficit spending in a large part becomes healthy, it helps stabilize the economy. she cites as one example, because she had a ted talk she did several years ago, she points out the fact the shortest recession in the history of the united states was as we came out of the pandemic, the covid pandemic. the extra money the federal government put into the economy to help us get through the recession that we would have experienced as a result of covid. i just wonder the degree to which deficit spending becomes a

healthy activity for the stabilization of the united states economy. host: let's pose that question. guest: wouldn't it be great if that was true? this one is don't worry, print money, there won't be a problem, we won't default. it was a very short recovery from a deep recession but it was one where we had inflation at 9.1%. we overstimulated the economy. one of the problems of oh excess borrowing as you cause inflation. we saw that. it is painful for households. people used to say don't worry, you can inflate deficits away. that is not the case at all when one third of our treasuries are short-term. that leads to higher and higher interest payments. that is part of why our interest payments are growing so quickly

and squeezing out all other areas of the budget. there is no sensible way where you should say, don't worry, we should just keep printing money where it does not end in higher inflation. this is one of the many myths people put out there because they do not want to do the hard work of budgeting. it is the same people who make the case tax cuts pay for themselves. they don't come close. tax cuts grow the economy and create enough growth to pay for maybe 20%, 25% of the lost revenue from a tax cut depending on the structure, but they do not pay for themselves. if we keep listening to these myths, that is how you end up with near record levels of debt at a time when we have not fought a world war like last time, at a time when it keeps our budget. if you keep borrowing more

money, your interest payments on the federal budget which are almost $1,000,000,000,000 a year and growing, they push out other things. they push out other things at an incredibly important moment. our economy is changing massively from globalization and deglobalization, you need the government to be able to help deal with the disruptions that are going to happen. whether we like them or not, there will be massive structural changes in the economy. you need the federal government to have the school flexibility to respond and work with those changes to help ease have -- have the fiscal flexibility to respond and work with those changes. the u.s. needs to have the flexibility to determine our national security posture, not being constrained by growing interest payments on the debt. that is what we have because we

borrowed trillions of dollars when people said don't worry, be happy. it is great, it is a permission slip to politicians who say thank goodness i did not have to pay for this. there are arguments on both sides. if something sounds too good to beat her, it is. there is a basic premise of budgeting and it does apply to the federal government, either you have to raise taxes or reduce spending so we are not borrowing so much every year that our interest payments will spiral and continue to grow and push out other parts of the budget. that is where we are now. we are unsafe, it leaves us vulnerable. it is hard work to fix it. the polarized political class is not making the changes we need. there is no free lunch. i wish there were. there is absolutely not. we will do a lot of damage if we continue to fall for those arguments. host: let's hear from jimmy in buffalo, new york, democratic caller.

caller: hi, maya. host: jimmy, go ahead with your question or comment please. caller: just wanted to make a quick comment on the chainsaw balancing act of a budget. you mentioned a little while ago about social security, i receive social security disability, i am 65 years old. what type of changes can the president make and what type of changes can he not make? does he have to go through congress? host: jimmy, let's take that question. maya macguineas. guest: you are asking the question i wish i had all the answers to right now. we are watching a moment where the president, the executive, is trying to do a lot of policy changes through that branch alone. we need to have legal experts

explaining this more than i am able to. we saw this in the last administration too with pushing the limits. in that case, it was mainly focused on student debt forgiveness. congress needs to be a partner in any of these big-ticket issues for programs originated out of congress. if something started as an executive action, you can make those changes from the white house. if something originated from congress, you cannot make changes to the program. you cannot redirect the funds or withhold the funds except in small, isolated examples. we are finding out where those land in the courts. it seems the effort is getting ahead of where congress needs to be. congress needs to reengage and say, how are we going to do this? are we going to alter discretionary caps? you cannot make major structural

changes from the executive branch alone. host: a couple of headlines i want cnbc headline about inflation. the third's port inflation measure hits 2.6 percent for january. the numbers are in line with estimates and likely will keep the central bank on hold for the time being regarding interest rates. the second headline i want to share with our viewers coming out of capitol hill this week, lawmakers start work on a year-long funding patch, a continuing resolution for the year is what they are working on as the republicans in the house and the senate work out their budget plans. maya macguineas, we are out of time but we appreciate the conversation. thank you for being with us. guest: thanks a lot. host: we will take a break. when we come back, gracelin

baskaran will discuss key aspects of the proposed minerals deal. stay with us. >> american history tv, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. this weekend at 2:00 p.m. eastern, kelly hancock talks about the lives of mary todd lincoln and marina davis -- var ina davis. a visit to the operation

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continues. host: joining us is gracelin baskaran at the center for strategic and international studies, program director that looks at critical minerals security to talk about the proposed u.s.-ukraine minerals deal. president zelensky will be in washington today. he will arrive at the white house in a couple of hours and there will be negotiations that have been behind hold forth between president trump and mr. zelensky. big picture, what minerals are in the country of ukraine and what is their status? guest: ukraine has a basket of minerals. it occupies 4% of the world's land but it is estimated to have about 5% of the world's minerals. we have coal and uranium on the energy side and rare earth which they will probably talk about earlier which we use for different technology, advanced semiconductors, titanium,

graphite, a basket of resources. host: aluminum as well. what is their status? the country has been in war with three years for -- in war for three years with russia. are these minerals able to be extracted now? guest: it is a lot of untapped potential. the majority of minerals in ukraine were done so 30 to 60 years ago about the soviet union. there are a couple of challenges. we need to know what is there. we need to know whether the private sector wants to mine it. here in the u.s., we have minerals but the deposit may not be big enough, it is too deep so they end up not actually getting extracted. we don't have a lot of data on i s it economically viable to mine them. two, how quickly can we do them?

on average it takes 18 years to build a mine. that is a long time. so we have to map and add the time it takes to develop the mine. host: does ukraine have the infrastructure to mine these minerals from their country? guest: mining is incredibly infrastructure intensive. 60% of the world's electricity supply is used by the mining industry. we know that most of that energy infrastructure has been wiped out during the course of the war. so there is a lot of rebuilding from the energy, roads, the part that has to be rebuilt along the side of geological mapping before we get to a point of production. host: when you look at a map of ukraine and this is put together by reuters, they show the different minerals across the country of ukraine. here is titanium, graphite over

here, rare earth minerals here, lithium, uranium, others across the country. iron, etc. why is the u.s. interested in these minerals? guest: we will start with rare earth because we have seen rare earth feature very prominently in the conversation about ukraine but also greenland, it has been a broader concern. we are really stressed out by china's dominance in rare earth. they processed 90% of the worlds rare earth and they are very willing to weaponized them. we first saw this in 2010. there was a dispute with japan about a fishing trawler and time cut japan off. rare earths are not just a clean energy story. it is really a different story. they are in warships, fighter jets, missiles, tanks, lasers, pretty much the backbone that keeps our country safe is a rare earth story. what we started doing five years

ago in the u.s. through the defense production act as we have spent $300 million to build that processing capability here at home in the u.s., texas and california, which is fantastic. except we only have 1.3% of the worlds were -- of the world's rare earth. we are looking to strategically source rare earth from other places that can come back to the u.s., be processed and manufactured into these various technologies. we have seen the development finance corporation of the government financing agency is looking at financing a project in brazil. then you add the agreement story and ukraine and you really see rare eartha are a top focus and other commodities remain very important. host: define rare earths. guest: they are a group of 17 minerals. this proscenium, scandium, they

are hard to say and spell. some of them are really important. the other thing about rare earths, they are a misnomer because they are not actually rare. they are actually everywhere. they are often found in small quantities and are expensive to extract and process which is why there are so few processing facilities globally. the trick is where can we find them in as large quantities as possible. they are a large group of minerals. host: is that in ukraine? is there a large quantity? guest: we have to map it. host: what does that entail? because it has not been done in 30 years. guest: it is very old mapping. the director of the ukrainian geological survey, the former director, has said there is no modern mapping of rare earths. from the initial deal that was being discussed whereby ukraine was asked to repay $500 billion to the united states through

minimal revenue for military aid that was paid, president zelensky said i am not on board with that because there was not $500 billion of aid that we received. we note that figure to be closer to 128 billion dollars. from that point to where we are now ukraine has gotten a much better deal. now if there is no repayment, what zelenskyy will get with time from the world and not just the u.s. is a mapping. the mapping comes before the investment. host: tell us about the deal. when you look at what we know so far, how does ukraine benefit from this and how does the u.s. benefit? guest: ukraine gets one really big thing. the deal puts forward a fund, a reconstruction fund in a sense. it would take 50% of all future mineral revenue. oil and gas too. and put it into this fund and this fund could be used to turn

around and invest in ukraine. the way it also becomes an economic development tool for some of this infrastructure that we need to rebuild. what the deal does not include is a does not include the repayment that was originally discussed. it also does not include any security guarantees which president zelenskyy really wanted and president trump said that is what europe's job is for. we are not here for that. will this affect mineral investment? that is a real question. president macron said there is almost in implicit security that comes with this cooperation. it is to be determined whether the private sector think that is enough. here is why. land is very easy to appropriate in that region as we have seen over the last 11 years. in the last few days blue boy -- president putin has said i want a minerals deal too. not just russia but russia-occupied land which means

he is willing to negotiate with minerals that are not really on his own land. expropriation globally, history has told us, we conquer where minerals are. let me go stays in africa -- let me go to king leopold stays in africa. -- king leopold's days in africa. that is another invasion or a further look, expansion of an occupation could potentially take some of these assets. prior to the war, there were two lithium as its that companies were looking to develop. there is no guarantee that that will not happen again. host: let's get to calls. rome in california, independent. your questions or comments about this potential minerals deal. caller: thank you for letting me speak. this whole program that is being

advocated by the president and his followers is basically an experiment or a demonstration of modern-day colonialism. you can trace back in history how the lady who was speaking before was talking about africa and you can see how africa is now regarding what took place in earlier colonialism. i am not saying it's wrong. basically the chinese owned a lot of american ports. for countries to go into different areas, not necessarily invade them with their military but invade them with their capitalistic enterprises to grab minerals or utilize facilities to generate money for their own particular beliefs, is a very complicated and difficult thing. more than likely it will eventually be a nightmare.

patients have demonstrated it throughout time in essence. the russian situation in ukraine , who really knows the bottom line answer? i surely don't. i have spoken to ukrainians. i have spoken to russians. presently -- surprisingly enough ukrainian individual has no problems with it since the majority of people in that particular area that russia now occupies is russian speaking, which is an interesting thought. ukraine over the years has gone through tremendous problems as any country that does not have a sea as a boundary. host: we will have our guest respond. thank you. guest: thanks for the question. you are absolutely right that there is an easy trap that has been happening for centuries on

colonialism. president zelenskyy has gone to great length to avoid that and here's what i mean. in the initial deal there was conversation about the u.s. owning the land or owning mineral rights of ukraine. that is not the case anymore. we see this recently in 2007 after the conflict in the democratic republic of congo. china negotiated a deal whereby they gave the congo $3 billion of infrastructure and in exchange they got access to $93 billion of copper and cobalt. today 15 of the 19 biggest mines are owned by chinese companies. a couple years ago they realized they got the short end of the stick and they declared that they would go back and review the deal. there are a lot of lessons learned from that in terms of trying to avoid ownership, where another country gets to make decisions and get excessively

favorable terms to the detriment of their own development. we have seen just this last week the drc has said that he would like a minerals deal because there is the growing war with rwanda. president trump is said to be thinking about it in the new york times. president zelenskyy has been strategic to avoid the pitfalls of having sovereign autonomy, being forced to take a bad deal and where we have landed with this deal is more of a cooperation agreement. it is more of a government to government cooperation agreement than an ownership deal. host: how dependent is this on private investment? guest: 100% dependent on private investment because the u.s. government unlike saudi arabia or china or russia does not have a state owned mining company. if we want the 50% of revenue to go into this fund, the revenue is not generated by u.s.

government money. it is ultimately determined by private sector mining output and revenue coming from that which is why the best thing the government can do with this piece of paper to keep it from being just a piece of paper is to support infrastructure development, to support mapping, to support the things that make the private sector willing to go in and take that risk. host: what companies, u.s. companies would go in? what are some names that people will recognize? guest: the private sector has been fairly quiet in this conversation so far for a couple of reasons. on the american side part of the challenge is we don't have a lot of big american mining companies. if you look at the majors, eight of the 10 or nine of the 10 are foreign, british, australian, canadian, chinese or saudi arabian. we only have a couple of american mining companies and the majors are only covering gold. we do rely on companies in

allied nations. the second thing is companies are hesitant given volatility to make a statement. mining companies are also mysteriously quiet on terrorists. they are staying quiet right now to see how this unfolds. host: we will go to mike in michigan, democratic. caller: good morning. a couple of years ago i recall seeing an article that there is a vast store of these rare earth minerals on the seabed between california and hawaii. crittenden something or another. i cannot remember the name of the area. possibly as many as one dozen nations have state claims to these rare earth minerals that could actually be vacuumed up.

even though it is so deep, we have the capability of drilling for oil through a couple of miles of water before we hit the basin. i was just wondering what you know about this store of rare earth minerals sitting there on the seabed. thank you. guest: the clippard in zone. deep-sea mining has a significant amount of minerals. minerals that we look at are things like nickel, cobalt, these tend to sit in large quantity. the u.s. is one of the only major companies that have not ratified the u.n. convention on deep-sea mining. we have stayed very quiet. some of the challenges that exist are that there could be we don't know the environmental impact of deep-sea mining. could it devastate the underwaters? we don't know.

norway is actually leading the way in deep-sea mining alongside japan. we will learn from norway and japan on the environmental side of things. we can take lessons and apply them here. while deep-sea mining is important, we will not meet all of our needs from the seas which makes terrestrial land-based mining very important. host: we will go to florida, republican caller. good morning. caller: good morning. there are a couple of key points that are mentioned in regard to minerals. i believe that is what the russian leader putin has been trying to obtain this whole time but he has done that in a war tactic like it later mentality. -- like hitler mentality.

israel is a nation that the u.s. response to. but the jews are a ukrainian nation spread around the world. if the united states backs up israel and ukraine being an israel-related nation, wouldn't it be in the best interest for the united states to back up ukraine with military status and considering putin is an anti-biblical figure as well as many other nations that are muslim-related -- host: some thoughts on that? guest: i think president trump's foreign policy is far more transactional than ideological. in his first 30 days he is looking at annexing resources in canada, greenland, ukraine and

it has been a minerals story. we see a far more transactional foreign policy in this administration. host: illinois, independent. your comment or question on this potential deal between the u.s. and ukraine on minerals. go ahead. caller in illinois, you are next. caller: my question is simple. would putin allow this deal to go through as he is looking for a victory rather than piece? will this deal really secure our investments in ukraine? guest: that's a great question. through this negotiation putin has not come out against it. he has tried to negotiate his own deal. people have asked why is he trying to negotiate his own critical minerals and facilitate a deal. putin has been on the global pariah list for several years

and is looking to leverage mineral resources as a way to forage and get off of sanctions, get back on the geopolitical stage and minerals are speaking very loudly not only to the u.s. but a number of other governments seeking to bolster their supply. it will be interesting to see, someone said to me yesterday, a minerals deal is ending the war. what we have seen this president trump has not said that putin must give back the region. there must be a big compromise in that way in terms of he gets certain things and president zelenskyy get certain things but minerals will be on both sides of that. host: doris is in georgia, independent. caller: good morning. my question is how many of you are aware that that strip of land in ukraine is part of the original garden of eden?

it was placed there at the very beginning of creation. host: your point is what? caller: my point is they are tearing up the garden of eden just to get to those minerals. those are regardless -- those are godless men with no conscious and don't care the damage they do. where do you think they will go from here? host: walter, nevada, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. caller: we keep hearing from donald trump about how ukraine has to give minerals, money to europe, to the united states. what does russia have to give to the destruction of the children, the families, the infrastructure and the lives they took in ukraine for an unprovoked attack on a democracy?

guest: this agreement is focusing on minerals. like i said earlier, it is a transactional environment and ultimately this agreement is a minerals investment kind of agreement. it does not go beyond that. host: keith in new york, republican. caller: hi. i called on the independent line. host: go ahead. caller: i wanted to make a comment. it appears that this whole minerals deal is another dog and pony show like trump to appease his supporters and they will praise him up and down. it appears there is nothing to the subtle. it is to make trump look good and he will stand ukrainians in the back. these callers who keep calling with this religious context everything, this is why everything is going south. host: i will jump in and have our guest respond to there is nothing to this.

guest: this is a piece of paper that is a cooperation agreement. as he aptly said, whether investment comes in, it is to be determined by the private sector. there are all kinds of challenges. energy infrastructure has been wiped out. we have mapping. we have a security risk. whether the private sector decides if it is commercially viable is entirely a market dynamic. host: mary in las vegas, democratic. hi. caller: another big lie by donald trump is that we gave ukraine over $350 billion. it was more like $120 billion. he likes to inflate numbers to get people riled up. we have already agreed to help ukraine when they gave up their nuclear weapons. we are not holding to that agreement. why would we hold to any agreement with donald trump?

he is citing in the u.n. with putin, north korea. what does that tell you? the alignment is changing in the united states. this should be scaring people. i don't know why it isn't. he talks fast and loose with numbers but i agree with the last caller. i think he will stab ukraine in the back. if somebody came after the united states, which state would you be willing to give up? host: your final thoughts? guest: this is why the implicit security guarantee is the explicit security guarantee that is the concern for me is that president trump is here for four years but a mining investment could be another 40 to 80 years. this is so long-term that changes, even if putin and president trump are on the same page, it does not mean it will

be the development time of a mine. there are four more presidential cycles before you have a producing asset. that is a long time for something to change. this is a long time that a -- an explicit guarantee could be better. host: gracelin baskaran is the program director on critical minerals security at the center for strategic and international studies. thank you very much for the conversation this morning. we appreciate it. guest: thank you for having me. host: we will continue with our conversation with ukraine along with president zelenskyyup nextw of u.s. support for ukraine. there are the numbers. republicans dial in at (202) 748-8001 cap mike krantz at (202) 748-8000 -- democrats at (202) 748-8000.

independents, your line is (202) 748-8002. we want to show you what the president had to sate yesterday about a potential deal to end the war in ukraine and his relationship with the russian leader and ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy. >> what would you be willing to do vladimir putin do not stick to the terms of any deal on ukraine since he is known for not sticking to his word? >> i think he will keep his word. i have spoken to them and i have known him for a long time. we had to go through the russian hoax together. that was a rigged deal and had nothing to do with russia. it was a rigged deal inside the country and they had to put up with a lot. they had to put up with a phony story that was made up. i have known him for a long time

and i do not believe he will violate his word. when we make a deal i think the deal will hold. >> this or anything you can say to president zelenskyy to reassure him the country's war has not been in vain and his country's sovereignty will not be threatened. >> he is coming, perhaps he is already on his way and we will be signing the deal together, probably in front of the media and we will be having a good conversation. we want to work with him. once work with him and we will work with him. the president and i have had a very good relationship. it may be got a little bit testy because we wanted to have a little bit of what the european nations had. they get their money back by giving money. we do not get the money back. biden made a deal and put in $350 billion. >> quite a bit of ours was

gifted, was given. there were some loans but mainly it was gifted. >> [indiscernible] >> it i say that? i cannot believe i said that. next question. host: president trump ex-white house talking about his relationship -- president trump at the white house talking about his relationship with the russian leader and ukrainian leader. president trump and president zelenskyy meeting today at the white house. they will hold a joint news conference at 1:00 p.m. eastern time and we will have coverage live on c-span, on our free video mobile app or online at c-span.org. president zelenskyy will are live -- will arrive at the white house at 11:00 eastern time. the leaders go behind closed doors to negotiate a possible mineral deal we have been

talking about here on the washington journal as well as an end to the war between russia and ukraine. your thoughts right now at the end of today's washington journal on how the president's handling the situation in ukraine. your view of u.s. support for the country. let's hear from robert who is in michigan. independent. what is your view of u.s. support for ukraine? caller: we need to stay strong. we need to stay strong with the european union and nato. trump is transactional. he is just trying to extort money out of ukraine for this mineral thing. it sounds to me like russia is occupying most of the area where these minerals are located. trump says he has a good relationship with president zelenskyy but he has probably the man a dictator and everything else.

wherever the money is, that is what trump is about. it is all about him. the prime minister from britain kind of put him in his place on this loan deal. he did the same thing two days in a row with macron from france. we need to stay strong and president zelenskyy needs to stay strong. trump made a statement that he does not have a deal with putin. if they are not together at the table it will not ever happen. not anything good. host: those are robert's thoughts in michigan. the new york times this morning has a headline similar to what roger was saying. "in trump's foreign policy alliances come with strings attached." george in new jersey, democratic caller. what is your view of u.s. supporting ukraine? caller: we need to continue to

support ukraine. if you look at it the russians have lost almost 400,000 wounded, killed, and their economic status in the world has completely dropped. we have them on the ropes without one u.s. soldier, one person in the united states being wounded or harmed we have taken out a lot of what russia has asked for and has used their paper tiger power for all of these years. now this man, trump, is trying to give it all back to vladimir putin. if you think about it it looks more like putin has something on him. host: you and others may be

interested in this article in the wall street journal. "you kane rattled -- ukraine rattled as u.s. eyes 2022 plan. the suggestion that he ukraine peace deal would be based on talks conducted in istanbul three years ago as russian officials spook ukraine and its backers. russian president vladimir putin has demanded any future peace talks be based on a return to the istanbul parameters which in moscow's interpretation foresee a sharp cut in ukraine's military, a ban on foreign weapons and troops, and a russian veto on western security assistance in case of renewed conflict. ukraine refuses to return to that draft which was never completed or approved by president zelenskyy." that report by the wall street journal also part of this conversation this morning. sylvia in virginia.

independent. caller: hello, thank you for c-span. i believe we need to find out a way for them to have nato protect them. i think the mineral thing is low on the totem pole. i believe -- putin does not want us to let them have help from nato but we need to get them in that. thank you so much. host: benjamin in michigan, democratic caller. what do you say? rosemary in alabama, democratic caller. we go to you. caller: i feel like we should continue to support ukraine. there should be no strings attached. if you're going to support democracies around the world you

have to do that without attaching conditions on the country you are helping. host: wall street journal editorial board, "mineral deal ukraine cannot refuse. under the final deal ukraine will pay half of all revenue from these resources to an investment fund jointly owned by the u.s. the agreement says contributions will promote the safety and security of ukraine. the details will be worked out between the economic ministries and ukraine's parliament will have to ratify it. the war has caused enormous destruction in ukraine which we need hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild. foreign taxpayers cannot be expected to cover the cost and ukraine will need private investment. other investors might be more inclined to help ukraine rebuild if the u.s. is involved. the u.s. will not apply to resources that have already been developed and contribute to ukraine's budget.

that is important because ukraine uses domestic revenue to fund its military including soldier pay and weapons. russia wants a peace deal that limits ukraine's military. the deal includes no us -- includes no security guarantees but says the u.s. supports ukraine's efforts to obtain security guarantees to establish a lasting peace. it is hard to know what that unspecified promise means but in mr. trump's mind it probably means europeans help first. mr. trump continues to pedal falsehoods about how much aid the u.s. and europe have provided ukraine. he claims the u.s. is in for $350 billion in ukraine but through december the real total was $120 billion in chaim yet -- in humanitarian and support. he says europe has given less than the u.s. but it has spent $137 billion. the u.s. has provided more arms because it has more but europe

has provided more eight overall -- more aid overall." jim in michigan. republican. your view of u.s. support for ukraine. caller: i am all for president trump. i am old enough to know he is the first president in my lifetime i do come up with solutions to pay down the debt that we owe and the democrats, if you will notice what they did in their administration, they just keep sending money after money to different countries, different organizations. at least donald trump is trying to do something to pay down our debt of the united states. if we don't pay that debt down the day is coming where we will be bankrupt and your grandkids and your children will be speaking another language.

you better let donald trump or somebody tried to pay down that debt. i could care less about ukraine and russia. i am worried about our grandkids and the united states of america. host: to accomplish what you are talking about do you agree with the president and you think there should be no more aid -- military and money for ukraine? caller: i did not say that. it is no problem giving the money. let's get something back for our money no matter if it is ukraine or iraq or afghanistan. we need to get some of that money back. host: jim supporting what the president wants to do with this mineral earth deal. this is from pew research.

they found republicans are more likely than democrats to say the u.s. is providing too much support ukraine. here is the percentage of those who say when it comes to russia's invasion of ukraine the u.s. is providing not enough, about right, and too much support to ukraine. 30% overall said it was too much. when you break it down by party it was republicans who are more likely than democrats to say the support is too much. democrats, those that lean democratic and democrats 35% say not enough. edward in burbank, california. independent. caller: how are you? can you hear me ok? host: we can. caller: there is an expression that history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme. i have never been a member of either party do not anticipate ever being a member of either

party but i see the current president donald trump as the modern-day version of neville chamberlain who negotiated a deal with hitler's to take over the sudeten land which eventually resulted in hitler's taking all of czechoslovakia. i see this as the first step of capitulation on the part of this guy called president and it will lead to nothing good. the other thing is all that money they talk about provided by the united states to ukraine, 90% of that money is spent in the united states to provide all the support. it is not like we give them buckets of money and they spend it elsewhere. that money is spent here in the united states providing jobs for americans. host: edwards thoughts in burbank. ed in fort lauderdale, florida. caller: i am 100% behind the ukrainian president.

i think his problem was that he did not go after russia as soon as they took over that little crimea area. he should have acted faster in united states and europe should have gotten in faster and backed him up 100% and then vladimir putin would not be where he is now. host: what you want to hear from president zelenskyy when he is at the white house today? caller: i would like peace in that country, i would like peace in the world. i think the ukrainian people are the ones that will decide whether he stays in office or not. he has already said he is willing to give up his presidency. unlike the one we have running this country of ours that i spent six years defending.

this guy is a circus man. he sends this ridiculous elon musk out with a chainsaw to cut the government. host: i will leave it at that point. we will hear from president zelenskyy when he holds a news conference with president trump at the white house today. 1:00 eastern time. watch it right here on c-span or our free video or mobile app or online at c-span.org. then we will hear from president zelenskyy again at the hudson institute. it will be talking about securing peace in ukraine three years after the russian invasion into his country. we will have live coverage of that also on c-span, c-span now, the free video app, or online at c-span.org. that is 4:00 eastern time.

just a reminder that the president is likely to be talking about russia and ukraine next week. he is scheduled to address a joint session of congress on tuesday to lay out his priorities and vision for the country during his second term. live coverage beginning at 8:00 eastern time on c-span with a preview of his remarks followed by the president speech at 9:00 at the democratic response. we will also take the viewer calls and get reaction on social media. that is live on c-span, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. the democratic response will be given by democratic senator police lock-in from michigan -- elise slotkin from michigan. pat, your view on u.s. support for ukraine? caller: i believe we should continue to support ukraine and president zelenskyy provided there are safeguards that the

money is spent where it is supposed to be. if you read different books. folks that have spent time on the ground there. they do not believe all of the money that has been spent is getting to the troops and equipment should be more than what they are seeing. people do not have good first-aid kits and so forth. i do with conditions -- there is a lot of documentation. host: what kind of conditions would you put on the money? caller: you might not like elon musk but i would like to see him audit where the money is going or at least have some form of auditors. right now there is no oversight. i'm talking about from a financial standpoint. are you investing the money where it is supposed to go and not back in somebody's pocket. that is my thought.

there are other things i think trump onto ratchet up things against putin because there is evidence they committed significant work crimes and they have attacked the population, not soldiers in many cases. they attacked bridges with cars and then come back and bomb the cars and they know those are civilians and they are doing it just for the shock and to push the envelope. they are doing crazy things, shutting down electricity and trying to push people out. a lot of things going on. is a terrible situation and should not have happened but i think we are invested. as far as trump saying $300 billion versus the $125 billion the number is, he knows what he is. he is playing a game and putting these guys back on their heels for them to prove him wrong. host: joseph in michigan,

independent, let's turn to you. your view of u.s. support for ukraine. caller: i could care less. one time. ukraine seceded from russia, was a part of russia. why would we get into the war? it does not make much sense. billions of billions of dollars was waste. we wasted a lot of money on that work -- it is like us -- it is like texas seceding from the united states. host: we will see if a reporter asked that of president zelenskyy when he appears with president trump at that joint news conference. what is his response if a reporter asked him not all americans support continuing aid and they think that is joseph just said it was a waste. if he gets asked that question.

we will have live coverage of the joint news conference on c-span and c-span.org or our free mobile app c-span now at 1:00 eastern time. sarah in ohio, democratic caller. good morning to you. caller: i don't support president trump because i do not trust him. back in 2019 he allowed turkey to go in, let them go in there. the kurds were keeping isis under control and he said will just take our troops out and go home. that is the end of that. not to mention how much money on that one when he was in office. i am 70 years old and my country has never voted with the communist bloc in the united

nations against another country that we were considered allies with and in data with. -- and in nato with. why would we vote in a communist bloc with them? host: stephen arizona. republican. we are listening to you, steve. caller: good morning. i am sorry, i had a beep. it is interesting that president trump, for all his faults, people love to take what he says and make that the viewpoint. the reality is he did not start this war. this war was started by joe biden and like everything else he is not started any of it. he has to clean it up. he was in office for four years and we have seen what he is capable of doing. vladimir putin is a dictator. he is evil, he is very smart.

trump is trying to combat that. the fact that he has voted with putin and some of the things he has done is just him playing the game. host: are you blame president biden and say he started the war when it was russia that invaded ukraine? caller: biden made many comments to allow prudent to understand biden was ok with basically anything he wanted to do. he was not tough. he did not tell him not to do it. i think that has been proven and the same thing with israel. it is proven that one trump says something it matters or it holds weight. the bottom line is the ultimate result we want is peace. we want to see the killing to stop. we want to see the war end. when trump ends this war because

he is going to come and if he does not that means we will be at war with russia. as soon as that happens then what do people say? host: why would we be at war with russia? caller: if this continues and we continue to fund it at europe continues to sit in the sidelines, although now that trump is in office -- we did not hear anything for the last three and a half years about europe and how they were helping to stop this war. all of the sudden trump comes into office and everyone wants to help end this war. it was doing that? that is trump. let's forget about what he says about $300 million or $100 million. he is just like every other politician. they lie. stop thinking about what he says and look at his actions. at home and abroad. host: i will share two headlines with you and the others.

president zelenskyy gain support at home as he is said to talk with president trump. "ukrainian faces significant risks and an unsaved certain -- and an uncertain reception when he meets to discuss russia. the centerpiece is expected to be an economic development and mineral access deal that trump is pitching to nail down security guarantees from the u.s. and the war." next to that is "trump insists on ukraine deal quickly or not at all. the british prime minister pressed president trump for more substantial u.s. commitment to protecting ukraine if the war ends and warned his u.s. counterpart not to reward the russian president in any peace deal. mr. trump brushed aside those please, insisting it was now or never to negotiate an end the

brutal war." carol in pittsburgh. democratic caller. caller: that last call was hard to take. people make things up in their brain? what kind of story was that. he had a story. listen. putin is a war criminal, none of which trump has recognized. he treats putin with all due respect and they are friends. it is the same deal. host: i will go to carl in utah, independent. share your thoughts with us. caller: too many things to say, if i say the all you do not have time.

with respect to ukraine we should not give russia a chance to do anything. we should give them more firepower to push russia out of the country all the way. secondly, trump distorts everything. he has an opportunity to be a great president but he keeps blowing it by lying, twisting, cheating, and extorting people. biden did not get tough enough with russia but he still tried. president zelenskyy is a good guy and he is being extorted to give away a lot of his stuff. i agree with trump to some degree that we need to have a financial exchange to help return some of the money we have given. it should not be in an extortion way. it should be in a gentlemanly way with good commerce going back and forth.

russia out of there and don't let putin get to first base. host: lewis is in arizona. republican. caller: everybody has an opinion on what trump thinks. nobody knows. he is a negotiator. he will throw things out, he will look for the effects and so forth. why is he putting up with putin? he is the biggest fish in the tank. you have to get him to the table. this economic deal for the mineral rights in ukraine. that solidifies the protection of ukraine by our government. host: we will learn more at 1:00 eastern time when we hear from

president trump and president zelenskyy. you can watch right here on c-span, c-span.org, or our mobile app c-span now. that does it for today's washington journal. thank you for joining us and participating in the conversation. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> coming up live today on c-span at 11:00 a.m. eastern a conversation on trade relations between the u.s. and canada amid trade disputes between the countries. president trump will meet with volodymyr zelenskyy at the white house. they are in talks on a mineral show it -- sharing deal.

we plan to show you a few events including an oval office meeting between the leaders and a joint news conference. they will speak to the press live. the ukrainian president will talk about securing peace three years after the russian invasion of his country that is hosted by the huns -- hudson institute at 4:00. you could watch online at c-span.org. >> c-span, democracy unfiltered. we are funded by these television companies and more including cox. >> when connection is needed most, cox is there to help. bringing affordable internet to families in need. support to veterans. whenever and wherever it matters most, we will be there. >> cox supports c-span as a public service giving you a front row seat to democracy.

>> democracy is always an unfinished creation. >> democracy is worth dying for. >> democracy belongs to us all. >> 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. >> it is a massive decade for democracy and freedom. >> during her state of the state address, michigan governor gretchen whitmer said she hopes to find common ground with president trump that she's not looking for fights, but won't back down from them. her remarks are 50 minutes. [applause]