victor gao there. thank you forjoining - balloon did. victor gao there.on did. victor gao there. | thank you forjoining us on the programme. thank you for “oining us on the programme.— programme. thank you for “oininu programme. thank you for joining thank— programme. thank you for joining thank you - programme. thank you for joining thank you for - programme. thank you for | joining thank you for having me. in other news out of the us, nikki haley, the former governor of south carolina, has announced she's running to become the next president. she was appointed by former president donald trump as us ambassador to the united nations, and is the first person to challenge mr trump for the party's 2024 nomination. here's some background on the new republican challenger... the people of south carolina chose me as their first minority and first female governor. i was the proud daughter of indian immigrants. not black, not white. i was different. a hate filled murderer who massacred our brothers and sisters in charleston has a sick and twisted view of the flag.

todaro has been with gao -- mr. dodaro has been with gao for 45 years. how did the gao get involved with those programs? guest: in the original cares act legislation in 2020, there was a statutory provision for gao to audited the money and look at its effectiveness. we were asked to provide monthly briefings to senate and congressional committees and to provide bimonthly reports to the congress and the public. that was done through the first year. then we moved to quarterly reports. now we are reporting on a periodic basis. we have issue 10 governmentwide reports. we have issued close to 200 individual reports on selected aspects of the process. we have made over 150 recommendations. we are still reporting and will continue to report as some of the coronavirus money is available to be spent through 2026. host: what has been the take away from all of this investigating and were ports that you have done -- and reports that you have done? guest: we think the funding help to provide stability to the economy. it helped a lot of small businesses. it helps prov

that sounds like an admission, mr gao.dging that the balloon of chinese origin was being used to spy on the us. absolutely not. a balloon is, for everyone to see, it is not very much used in espionage. a balloon is mostly used in weather observation, as the united states acknowledged that the shooting of the three objects after the first shooting were not chinese origin but were balloons for weather observation. i think this whole incident... yes, in the interest of fairness mr gao, washington never said those three objects were of chinese origin, they said they were investigating. i take your point that the investigations are continuing. but i wonder, if indeed what china says is true, that this was a weather balloon then why not tell the us or latin america, where another balloon was also found, in the interest of partnership that we have these balloons that are traveling through the sky to collect information. why not do that ahead of time? let's focus on the balloon. china acknowledges ownership of. china told the unit

let's switch over to the gao then. has the gao examined whether anyone within trump's inner circle including family members were involved in decisions on who should get what contracts and the $10 billion that didn't go through procurement into the pricing that was paid for all sorts of different ppe whether that be masks, ventilators. trust me i've read all the stuff but i just want to know did you specifically look at any of that? >> no we did not. >> so what if i offered to you the states couldn't get this out of fema or hhs that we had to call the white house to get this stuff released directly from his inner circle, would that sound like normal procurement process during an emergency? >> probably not. >> one of the questions that i think we should focus on, mr. chair man in this hearing is that covid was not a two year's event, it was a three year event and i am more than happy to join with the majority and look at the fraud and abuse that went on in the last two years and covid related programs but i think it's on

so helman and gao. so you might have used bitcoins in my day. but i want to talk about cryptography. but you agree, the crypto currency has stunk up the pool for anyone with "crypto" in their title. >> i always say cryptocurrency is very different than cryptography. we have gotten away from the original mission. i got into bitcoin in 2011. back then, anyone who got into it was not getting into it for the gold rush. it wasn't about tokens and selling for, you know, exponentially larger amounts of money, but giving people everywhere alternatives to centralized institutions. and that's exactly what cryptography is really about. >> there are still exciting things in the block chain. i think some people who don't follow cryptocurrency may not understand. there's a big difference between bitcoin and block chain. block chain shows a shows a lot of promise. >> yeah. the block chain was supposed to decentralize all of these things. and people ask why hasn't block chain has its one killer moment. like, there was a killer app that spread like wildfire. and

that sounds like an admission, mr gao.ike you are admitting and acknowledging that the balloon of chinese origin was being used to spy on the us. absolutely not. a balloon is, for everyone to see, it is not very much used in espionage. a balloon is mostly used in weather observation, as the united states acknowledged that the shooting of the three objects after the first shooting were not chinese origin but were balloons for weather observation. i think this whole incident... yes, in the interests of fairness mr gao, washington never said those three objects were of chinese origin, they said they were investigating what they were. i take your point that the investigations are continuing. but i wonder, if indeed what china says is true, that this was a weather balloon then why not tell the us or latin america, where another balloon was also found, in the interest of partnership and communication, that we have these balloons that are going through the sky to collect weather and meteorological information. why not do that ahe

per gao's website and testimony we have heard, fraud detection is a difficult task. in gao, describe monetary cost for retroactive certification payments, if not, can you describe potential opportunity costs to the taxpayer of directing agency attention toward auditing massive covid payments after they are distributed? >> it is more efficient to prevent the fraud from occurring in the first place. that's why we work with congress back in 2015-16 to pass the fraud reduction data analytics act to put in place a framework we develop for best practices on how to prevent fraud in the first place, more efficient, much more effective. >> mister horwitz? >> same thing we talked about earlier about the recovery rate when the money is already gone, we have to chase it down, 10%, 12% rate as indicated, keep in mind, money that goes overseas takes a long time. that is the challenge. there is no better way to eliminate or reduce fraud than to detect and prevent it at the outset. >> the winner of the easiest name award on the panel today, mister smith. >> i agree with my colleague

todaro has been with gao -- mr. dodaro has been with gao for 45 years.ow did the gao get involved with those programs? guest: in the original cares act legislation in 2020, there was a statutory provision for gao to audited the money and look at its effectiveness. we were asked to provide monthly briefings to senate and congressional committees and to provide bimonthly reports to the congress and the public. that was done through the first year. then we moved to quarterly reports. now we are reporting on a periodic basis. we have issue 10 governmentwide reports. we have issued close to 200 individual reports on selected aspects of the process. we have made over 150 recommendations. we are still reporting and will continue to report as some of the coronavirus money is available to be spent through 2026. host: what has been the take away from all of this investigating and were ports that you have done -- and reports that you have done? guest: we think the funding help to provide stability to the economy. it helped a lot of small businesses. it helps provid

as gao recently documented, they used a sloppy process with an accelerated schedule. usda new the outcome it wanted and then backed into it. because of these actions, fncs' political appointees have made passage of the 2023 farm bill much more difficult. because they showed a lack of good judgment and a gross abuse of discretion. by leaning on the scales, they chose to disrupt the delicate balance of the farm bill coalition and severely eroded the trust that is crucial to legislate and to govern. when one program constitutes more than 80% of the spending in the next farm bill, thereby effectively crowds out the ability to make crucial investments in every other title, is there really any room for farmers and traditional farm bill coalition? as a reminder, snap is intended to supplement a beneficiary's monthly grocery budget. it was not created to serve as the beneficiary's monthly grocery budget. snap is available to anyone who qualifies because of the entitlement program. there is no participation caps. there are however specific requirements to receive benefits. one

>> one way would be to make sure they implement the recommendations that we've made by the gao, inspector general's and state auditors. the figures that you quote from the state auditors office and other states, california, kansas and others have issued reports as well so one way is to make sure all the recommendations are implemented and another way is to make sure the states certify the systems meet certain standards and that there is an appropriate independent verification that the systems are now able to meet certain standards. the department of labor should also provide some standards to the states but each state has its own different system in eligibility requirements so it has to be tailored to the individual states. >> are there any mechanisms or penalties available to prevent this sort of thing from happening again with states that won't listen to the guidance? >> not to my knowledge right now. they would have to be instituted and i think it would be good to be able to do that. >> it seems like we put ourselves in these positions in the federal government if we continue to allow

that sounds like an admission, mr gao. balloon of chinese origin was being used to spy on the us. absolutely not. a balloon is, for everyone to see, it is not very much used in espionage. a balloon is mostly used in weather observation, as the united states acknowledged, that the shooting of the three objects after the first shooting were not chinese origin were balloons for weather observations. nikki hayley, the former south carolina governor and united nations ambassador, has announced she will run for the republican 2024 nomination. her former boss donald trump is the only other canadidate to formerly announce, but more are coming, and they are expected to include florida governor ron desantis and former vice president mike pence. nikki haley made her announcement by launching a campaign video calling for "generational change" — let�*s have a listen. some people look at america and see vulnerability. the socialist left sees an opportunity to rewrite history. china and russia are on the march. they all think we can be b

gao pointed out several areas where there was evidence but r t wasn't in our mind clear and convincingdence to make a change and the areas that they suggested had we made a change would have increased it even further. we just wanted to follow the four specific areas and updated where there was clear and compelling evidence and the primary place where there was evidence commended were change to use new price data instead of household recollection of how much they paid we had the ability to pull the data right off of the store shelf. that change was the primary results of why they increased although there were a few other and again as you said it resulted in a modest household change but it did put healthy food within reach for millions of struggling americans. >> i think it's also important to note that a just as any increases that come in the commodity title of insurance because of conditions and so on its to the baseline so now this is in the baseline it's not something that has to be paid for every year, correct? and again because that was a 40 some year look back. you have basically

ahmedabad, the table was in your sleep and there was an area that we had changed the name of, this was gao del, my name is malik, that day i was working, hello, google, when did you die, maliki? i will change it, you see, this lady had the right to choose herself. the important questions of the central province of anjdan village, hamadan, which has gone through a turbulent history , has always been prosperous with unceasing efforts. mr. saeed najafi's village is so that he can accompany us to get to know our village better, sir thank you very much. you are very welcome. you are very welcome. you are very welcome. you are very welcome. you are very welcome . you are very welcome to our village. it is 36 kilometers from arak on the road to khoon. it has a friend who has eyes for water and is very old. it is several hundred years old. it is several thousand years old and has very good places to see, it has very good antiquities, it is very famous for handicrafts that include carpet weaving , and it has a lot of tourism and a very beautiful nature that we can go to see the beautiful example th

comptroller general ahead of the government accountability office talks about the gao's examination of coronavirus spending. watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning on c-span, or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community center so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> georgia governor brian kemp delivered his state of the state address the capitol in atlanta. his remarks focused o

stefani to the gao committee. i also want to thank supervisor peskin for reappointing me as chair and thank him also for reappointing supervisor chan to the committee as we continue a lot of our work and strengthened by the addition of supervisor stefani so welcome. we will go ahead madam clerk and call item number 1. >> item 1 is resolution receiving and approving the annual report for great union square business improvement district for fiscal year 2020-2021. members who wish to provide public comment should call 415-655-0001. when prompted enter meeting id, 2 (499) 524-8697 and press pound twice. if you haven't done so please dial star 3 to be added to the queue. the system will indicate you riseed your hand. please raise for the system to indicate you are unmuted and begin your comments. >> thank you madam clerk. for this item, i want to welcome mimi (inaudible) and chris corgas of economic and workforce development and hear first from looks likeplace rocky and then executive director of the union square allia

from ahmad ahmedabad, sefere tu khab and there was an area that we had changed the name of, this was gao del, and the name was ismail malik. that day i was working. your death, i will change the owner, the choice this lady was with herself. before the revolution, most of mashhad 's neighborhoods had people who said four types instead of sera kashan. imam javad zanzad is pregnant . it was golden darya street, where bari was one of the students for the most part of 23 months we were named ali asghar mihrab hosseini, which is because i became very interested in this student of the movie "khane pedri, baba", two of us with an age difference of 13 years and andy. in football, no matter what we were, we were not brave and fearless, and in the interpretation of that childhood, it was the eastern head that he had

stefani to the gao committee. i also want to thank supervisor peskin for reappointing me as chair and thank him also for reappointing supervisor chan to the committee as we continue a lot of our work and strengthened by the addition of supervisor stefani so welcome. we will go ahead madam clerk and call item number 1. >> item 1 is resolution receiving and approving the annual report for great union square business improvement district for fiscal year 2020-2021. members who wish to provide public comment should call 415-655-0001. when prompted enter meeting id, 2 (499) 524-8697 and press pound twice. if you haven't done so please dial star 3 to be added to the queue. the system will indicate you riseed your hand. please raise for the system to indicate you are unmuted and begin your comments. >> thank you madam clerk. for this item, i want to welcome mimi (inaudible) and chris corgas of economic and workforce development and hear first from looks likeplace rocky and then executive director of the union square allia

questions raised by gao we would like you to respond too.o the results provided a modest but meaningful increase to benefit millions of people across the country as i indicated about $2 a day because it being comprehensive update of assumptions that were made in 1975. but at this point, could you talk about how the usa conducted their review and more about what this really means to real people? over time about what this means about individual person, individual family as they try to get some help to be able to feed their family. >> to talk about the evaluation it was a sounder process. it was robust and evidence-based first increase in purchasing power in over 45 years. there is of course in aggregate. it was a insignificant increase. also very clearly put healthy food within reach for tens of millions of americans. just a comment briefly on the process as you pointed out the farmville's language directed us to reevaluate and essentially update our estimate of the cost of a budget conscious healthy diet. it was very specific to do that updat

comptroller general talks about the gao's examination of coronavirus spending.ton journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning on c-span, or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. >> preorder your copy of the congressional directory, your access to the federal government with bio and contact information for every house and senate member. important information on congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies and state governments. preorder your copy todafo early spring delivery. it's $2ents plus shipping and handling, and every purchase help support our nonprofit organizations at c-span shop.org. >> c-span is youunfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including mediacom. >> at media com whether your way out in the middle of anywhere, you should have access to fast, reliable internet. >> mediacom supports c-span as a public service, along with these other providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy.

comptroller general talks about the gao's examination of coronavirus spending. watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning on c-span, or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio, and listen to washington journal daily. and weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. eastern. listen to c-span any time, just tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy.

help run the program as they were giving emergency flexibility to do so at the height of the pandemic gaooted a major cause of increased fraud is the insufficient neighbor on —- number of staff and then to be undertrained. although intended to handle increasing claims and experienced in those through no fault of their own contributed to increased fraudulent activity creating greater obstacles for those seeking benefits. as for the outdated it system congress has divided much need increases in federal funding for the administration and technology modernization over the past few years congress must continue making investments because sophisticated criminal enterprises seek the vulnerabilities in the state agencies to keep pace. in conclusion the pandemic combined to a critical lifeline for workers, families and communities and in the nation's economy of the committee will recognize the tremendous value to work together to find meaningful solutions with the problems of identity fraud that has undermined the effectiveness. thank you. >> the chair recognizes the gentle lady from ohio. >> this

in beijing, victor gao, vice president of the center for china and globalization over in london, we have zeno leoni, who's a lecture in defense studies at kings college london. welcome to you all. thanks so much for your time with us. on inside story, xena leoni to you 1st, do you believe that this was an accident, a weather balloon thrown off course? is the chinese say, or was it deliberate a spy balloon, as the americans allege to the terminal? but the most important thing is that 1st of all, the chinese apologize for that. i'm not saying that this was a mistake, but also these balloon is biggest 3 boxes. and so it seems eventually more a photo be a clancy, a pen that's buying over the u. s. territory rather than a soco operational section. but anyway, i mean you, for the united states at this point the, the sewing bar to determine whether this is a press, these was enough, then spine over the u. s. they should do anything they can to bring it down and find out whether it was optional or no. in fact, it sounds like you're going to let it fly. you know the, the u. s. failure to eat for

a 1st specialist, victor gao told my colleague, re sushi relations between the 2 countries. helping dealt a further blow by b, incident this shooting down of an innocent, humblest, as ship all the balloon of china by the u. s. military using one of its best. airplanes, for example, is an affront to china, is a damage to the china us, ah, understanding with each other and is all over reaction to what to a balloon wake up. therefore, i think it's absolutely legitimate for child that the refuse to have any paul call phone call or beating with the u. s. secretary of defense. so if a chinese balloon is an american ad space, or even just above it and america shoots it down, wouldn't this then give the right to china to shoot down any number of american assets that violate its air space nearly every single day? absolutely. i think for the recall the china has been condemn in the united states again and again and again, not just for days or weeks or months for years, for the flagrant violation of channels, sovereignty and territorial integrity for violating the one china policy, etc. so if charla

we're going to stay with this and that's bringing victor gao. he's vice president at the center for china and globalization. he joins us from basing. welcome to the program. so overall, then how critical do you think is this 12 point proposal from china? festival. what china has proposed is the only viable. ready framework for ending the war being ukraine. now, whether china does the media issue or another country does mediation, that's another issue. so let's separate these 2 things. whereas other countries are prolonging the war, you're praying, leading towards greater em all sufferings of the civilians in ukraine. what china is urging for russia and ukraine to do is to end the war, achieve a cities via and use diplomacy and negotiation to resolve whatever disputes there are between them and restore peace debility development for the ukrainian people. now of utmost importance is the number one that is being measured that is to respect the united nations charter to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the you are members. for ex

you jovi most live now to victor gao, vice president of the senate for china and globalization on regular, on the program. victor, very good to have you on again. thank you very much for having me. that festival, i'd just like to get your take on these u. s. allegations that china's planning to send arms to bush. first of all, everyone in the world knows for sure that the united states is the biggest supply of weapons of all kinds equal to offensive weapons, long range missiles, for example, to the war. be great. as a matter of fact, the united states is currently the war ukraine fast into a proxy war by the united states and nato, using ukraine as a proxy of the states to achieve geopolitical goals of the united states and nato. as a hope for the chinese side, from the very beginning of the outbreak of the special literary operations of the war, great challenges be argued for peace and sci fi. and china is doing this to both ukraine as well as to a russia. on the other hand, allow me to emphasize that russia and china as to sol, relations, have complete discretion and sovereignty to deci

gao noted a major cause of increased identity fraud was the insufficient number of state and staff and new staff that were severely undertrained. although in scented to handle increase in claims, inexperienced and insufficiently trained contractors through no fault of their own contributed to increased fraudulent activity and created obstacles for workers seeking benefits. as for the outdated it system used by so many state programs congress has provided much-needed increases in federal funding for administration and worker technology modernization over the past few years. congress must continue making these investments because sophisticated criminal enterprises will continue to seek vulnerabilities in state systems, and state agencies need to keep pace. in conclusion, the pandemic relief congress enacted combined to provide critical lifelines to workers, families and communities in the nation's economy. i hope this can he will recognize the tremendous value of covid relief programs, and work together to find meaningful solutions to the problem of identity fraud that has undermined the

we did get cost data from the air force and gao about what it takes to fly these flying jets. cost per hour is $85,000 per hour. the cost of an f-35 is $35,000, and each missile file -- fired costs over, $400,000, as well as the tinker aircraft, they cost $25,000 to $30,000 per hour, depending on which they use. it costs a decent amount of money to shoot down these objects in u.s. airspace. amna: thank you. laura: thank you. ♪ amna: in the day other headline a grand jury in georgia has concluded one or more witnesses lied under oh about efforts to overturn the. 2020 election results the panel focused on former president trump and his allies. the allegations are part of a final report released today. the grand jurors urged prosecutors to seek indictments for such cris where the evidence is compelling. the report stayed silent on who might have lied. police in michigan shed more light today on the shootings that killed three students at michigan state university. they said the gunman anthony mcrae had two guns purchased legally but not registered. they found a note on mrae when

i think upon even the mayor's office representatives when they came before the gao committee on these practices vowed not to condition them. the city attorney's memo i referenced earlier made clear. and so i will say i'm disappointed hear any defense of this practice. i think this is the kind of back room approaches and potential manipulation of commissioners that stands in the way of change and leads people to lose faith in government. i do want to note that you know this is today the first time i'm hearing at my office heard concerns from any colleagues about this ordinance. again i thought this was something we come together and decided it would be good to be moving forward with clarity and make sure this does not happen again. on the issue -- around the mayor's power. i want to issue clear and don't anyone to wuk away thinking the mayor lacks the power to remove a commissioner. you know the mayor has the power to remove someone she ash pointses she has to follow the chart exert go through the process. that is set fourth and follow the law. that dependses on the commission and appo

you know about this a 2015 rule, fought over in court, there was not enough data and gao said there was not enough data to support the rule. people are saying it should be r -- reinstated. >> i think rather than pointing fingers, we want to communicate what is going on, make sure everyone that understands this surrounded control. i -- this is under control, secretary buttigieg saying a those of these, that makes people could that rail, transport is not safe. that is not accurate. we want to put this in to context. this is rare, thank goodness this kind of accident with this kind of hazardous material is rare. the fact that we want to try to blame the previous administration or make it seem like this happens every day or every week that say problem. elizabeth: pete buttigieg declined an invitation from ohio congressman bill johnson to a town hall last night. secretary not visited the site of the toxic train derailment or been to other than the rail crashes in the last year or the year before, we checked, he waited a week and a half to tweet his concern about what is going on in ohio, her

. >> i think the whales are the great wake-up call the due diligence has not been done, i want the gaois. and determine whether or not every i has been dotted and t crossed. we have a conformity among the government scientists, they say the same thing, group think. kennedy: what is it? wind power? or whales? it is so funny, lefties were antiwar. they used to be pro whale, now they are ain' antiwhale and pro war. >> save the whales, there were protests in new jersey. mostly i assume from environmental leftists, this is about trade offs, related to some points you made about the train derailment and the ties between big business and big government and regulatory agencies. everyone in new jersey knows, you can't build a shed in your backyard in new jersey without 20 thousand environmental impact assessments in is all of this red tape for small, private projects, yet due dilldiligence to level of killing whales was not done for the large corporate back wind farm projects, it does highlight t cozy relationship. kennedy: they are cannibalizing themselves, doug. if you remember, whole foods r

but the nonpartisan gao has found the border seizures found that legal crossings 90 percent are fromcitizens. it was for potentially removable immigrants those that possess any fentanyl from the cato institute is.02 percent.y the truth is the vast majority is smuggled the us citizens at least courts eventually. many colleagues have brought this up alluding to this earlierta today. so when asylum-seekers i with venezuela or in my home country of peru or cuba they present themselves to make a legal claim for asylum they are not traffickers supported think the people we are talking about today as human beings those thatte are suffering for assistance and for help is also been interesting many colleagues claim to be concerned with custom and bordert protection to improve screening at ports of entry of course this was the infrastructure investment and jobspa act. so with the immigration debate we don't have any interest of solving the problem to make the country safer the last president to sign real comprehensive immigration reform was president reagan his leadership back ino the eighties