bill, and the gramm-rudman bill was basically automatic spending cuts if we couldn't get the deficit down, and all of washington had palpitations over this but as one of the few times, senator, we actually cut spending under that gramm-rudman bill and has been a crusader as well and also hails from the great state of texas so give a warm welcome to phil gramm of texas. [applause] >> thank you, steve. well, nobody told me that i was going to say anything. i will say a few things. president reagan once put his arm around me and said, i want you to look me in the eye, and he said, cap weinberger tells me that your gramm-rudman is more dangerous than soviet menace. [laughing] will you assure me that that's not the case? i said yes, mr. president, i'll assure you it's not the case.de well, dick and i were destined to become friends because we were both from texas, we were both economists, and we both came to washington because weee wanted less government and more freedom. there is not a lot of people who come to government with the idea of having less of the very institution they come to

that your graham rudman is more dangerous than the soviet menace.you assure me that that's not the case? and i said yes, mr. president, i'll assure you is not the case. well --, and i were destined to become friends. because we will both from texas. we're both economists. and we both came to washington because we wanted less government and more freedom. they're not a lot of people who come to government with the idea of having less of the very institution. that come to be part of. and the thing that i always found was very interesting and i never lost. my sort of all of it. and that was that --. always had this view that he was like a spy in the soviet union. that had become a leader of the central committee. and was one of the people actually running the soviet. so that when we got together, it was sort of like i was there as his american handler and he was telling me what was we were actually doing inside the belly of the beast. and i never cease to find that fascinating. i served in washington for quarter of a century. and i dealt with a lot of p

sarah rudman. >> there is still a fair amount of covid out there.or space in public, there is a good chance somebody in there has covid. >> that is why dr. rodman is still wearing a mask indoors, especially with data from the cdc showing that people are suffering from lung covid. as well as masking, staying up-to-date with boosters is proving to be beneficial -- proving to be beneficial. >> the boosters that came out this past fall and winter served us very well to keep people out of the hospital from the variance of circulating, and even some of the new ones that surprised us. >> the cdc announced that boosters also cut your risk of symptomatic infection in half. the goal is to have shot given out on a yearly basis to normalize covid like the flu. but until that happens, doctors say protective measures are best to mitigate risk for now. >> we are hoping for the day it went covid becomes one more disease we sometimes have to battle but do not fear. >> we have the right tools, the technology to really live with this. we are still waiting to make sure

when we're dealing with discretionary spending and come up with things like sequestration or graham-rudman-hollings, they don't work and changing the trajectory of our debt. that's going to have to change. so if we don't do that, if we're not addressing the fundamental changes and the way we spend taxpayers' money i don't know how we proceed in a way that doesn't create problems for us with regard to our debt ceiling. bill: time for one more question and circle back one more type to the classified documents of the you're on the intel committee. what are you hearing is actually in some of the documents found? if you aren't hearing anything, are you requesting that information and asking for a briefing? >> well, mike turner is the chairman of the committee so he's read in, but unfortunately our committee has not officially stood up so we don't have opportunities to go down and receive the briefings we would otherwise and attributed to the fact that we got off to a slow start in this congress so it takes a long time to get these committees stood up. it's a permanent select committee one of the last co

whether you're going way, way back to gramm-rudman, stick towing very harsh spending limits they break it like a bad diet and that is the history here. so i suspect even if a deal is made on spending, that might be a leap, it will be short-lived. i just wonder stepping back from all of this, mitch, how the markets respond to all of this? >> i think the market is used to this kind of chaos because it has happened so many times. neil: i think you're right. >> as you said earlier, once we get past thursday and if we're now on extreme measures by the treasury department and we get closer and closer to some june drop-dead date and and you start hearing noise on the street. lord knows what happens. lord knows on earnings season reports on inflation and gdp, then i think the market will get more and more nervous, that the thing that, world economy banks on, which is the u.s. dollar being reserve currency if that is in trouble because u.s. treasurys, held by so many foreign central banks, u.s. treasurys run the risk of not making a debt service payment, then i think you have a global calamity.

and warren rudman, anthony lewis, ellen, all turned that television off and said he doesn't want it. and he's trying to to stop it before. it gets started now. others will tell you that, you know, psychological pattern. but i really believe that there was a part of him which just said to himself over and over again, i'm not as good as jack. yeah. and i can no way meet the burden. now that these guys are frozen in time martyrs. but he thought he was better than carter. he thought he was better than carter. and he probably would have been a decent president. he knew to assemble coalitions. he how to work the hill. he he had for many years the greatest staff on capitol hill. it was his hidden weapon. it was almost his hidden barony up on the that represented liberalism. everything went around it. republicans and democrat, moderate democrats. but there was, you know, if you needed something and you were a liberal, you went to kennedy staff and kennedy brought it to the boss, and they decided that, well, somebody's got to do it, and i guess it's going to be your discussion. the carter ken