state dinner, tonight the fifth state dinner, the first state dinner for a german leaders since helmut kohlonight with 200 guests. all of tonight's events and the events held earlier this morning with the chancellor can be found on our website. we are taking your phone calls and tweets tonight. our guest is with the council of foreign relations. we talked earlier about germany's economy and its exporting that it is able to do, and the strength of that. but there are intricacies to the german economy. a man was on our program who lives in germany and consults with the german economy. here is what he had to say about how it works over there. >> they have ridiculously pushy social programs in europe. they can pay for that partly because they have lower defense spending. if you list in germany the most popular programs, defense is always last in every poll. it is not left-wing or right- wing. everyone thinks it. they have wonderful safety nets, a wonderful train system, for instance. they do not spend money on defense. they are still in terrible trouble. they have demographic problems worse tha

state dinner, tonight the fifth state dinner, the first state dinner for a german leaders since helmut kohl. all of tonight's events and the events held earlier this morning with the chancellor can be found on our website. we are taking your phone calls and tweets tonight. our guest is with the council of foreign relations. we talked earlier about germany's economy and its exporting that it is able to do, and the strength of that. but there are intricacies to the german economy. a man was on our program who lives in germany and consults with the german economy. here is what he had to say about how it works over there. >> they have ridiculously pushy social programs in europe. they can pay for that partly because they have lower defense spending. if you list in germany the most popular programs, defense is always last in every poll. it is not left-wing or right- wing. everyone thinks it. they have wonderful safety nets, a wonderful train system, for instance. they do not spend money on defense. they are still in terrible trouble. they have demographic problems worse than ours. we have even w

only a few others have received it, among them, pope john paul ii, nelson mandela and helmut kohl.he next medal of freedom. [applause] >> presidential medal of freedom to dr. angela merkel. dr. angela merkel came to symbolize the triumph of freedom by becoming the first east german to serve as chancellor of the united federal republic of germany and made history when she became germany's first female chancellor. a dedicated public servant, chancellor merkel has promoted liberty and freedom in her own country and throughout the world. >> you can all applaud. [applause] i've got to do the toast. i want to conclude by inviting all of you to stand and join me in a toast. and i want to do so with the words that angela spoke two years ago when she became the first german leader to address our congress since chancellor adenaeur all those years ago. her words spoke not only to the dreams of the young girl in the east, but for the dreams of all those who yearn for rights and dignity today, to freedom, which must be struggled for and defended anew every day of our lives. cheers. [applause] >

this is the first white house dinner for a german leader since chancellor helmut kohl.e wait for that conference to begin at the east room. we have more from "washington journal." ere, from "the calling daily news." host: that is from "the daily news" this morning. from "the daily journal" -- host: that is from "the wall street journal." this is from "the new york times" this morning -- host: that is "the new york times." we finish up with "the new yor post" this morning. host: again, new york papers waiting in this morning. we have asked to new york residence to call in this morning. matt, manhattan. what do you think about resignation? caller: i do not think that he should resign. only if they determine that some of the e-mails to these e-mail addresses were with -- if it was an underage thing, he should get out. it is a whole lot of nothing, i think. if this were a whole other country, it would be water under the bridge. i think that with all of the discussion so far, what people are not taking into account is not dissimilar to this congreman. my background, my locat

the most notable was helmut kohl and clinton, who were known to go out on the town in washington, d.c eating at italian restaurants. these are two different kinds of leaders and two different kinds of personalities. people that watch this relationship will be interested to see how they interact with each other. host: as far as the pomp and circumstance going on, talk about the big events being discussed this morning. host: there -- caller: there is an expectation that one of the issues that will be talked about will be nuclear power. in germany, angela merkel has been embroiled in a controversy about the use of nuclear power. it was a decision that was made prior to her time in office to phase out nuclear power in germany. initially, she supported phasing out in a way that would have taken more years. since the japanese catastrophe has peddled backwards on that and come up with an earlier phase out, this could create some conflict with people in the u.s. government who have been supportive of the notion of nuclear power and say that it is a positive form of energy that could be an alt