Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240704

Host goods nearly a year and a half since washer russias war against ukraine. We have sent military aid and the American People and u. S. Political leaders support show signs of slipping. It has recently had bipartisan support but tracks among the parties there are a few cracks showing in this support. Welcome to the program, the first part of the program will ask you how you view u. S. Support of ukraine. With the money we have given too far, if you think it is too much, is the number 202 7488000 and if you think it is not enough use 202 7488001 or if you think it is the right amount you can text us at or you can call us at 202 7488002. Text us at 202 7488003. And you can also share your thoughts and comments on twitter and facebook. We look at the amount of spinning powering ukraines defense. The United States has committed aid to ukraine since the beginning of russias fullscale invasion. That includes more than 43 billion dollars in military aid. More than the u. S. Has distributed in aid to any other country. U. S. Support for of public support for this is wavering particularly among republicans. Why that becomes a more critical factor this week punch bowl news tweeting this morning that the white house is expected to ask congress for more ukraine money as soon as this week. Teeing up a new dynamic for the september funding. It is a cnn poll that recently has been released this week late last week as i should say. Majority of americans proposed more aid to ukraine for the war with russia. 55 answered should congress provide funding for ukraine and 55 said no. 45 said no. What about the number via party . Republicans proposed opposed to 71 . Independent opposed by 55 percent. Democrat in support. Democrats largely support funding by 62 . Going to a nato summit in july, ukraine president vada mayor zelinski say in his thanks to be u. S. And the support given so far. Thank you so much for this help. We really counted on it. You gave us huge support. I will think all americans for the 3 billion for today, it is big support and i understand that this is not all of your money, but you have to know that you spend this money not for just fighting, you spend this money for our lives. I think that we save the lives for europe and for all of the world. Host president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the nato summit last month. Our question for you on washington journal deals with u. S. Support for ukraine. Is it too much . The line to use is 202 7488000. If you think it is not enough, you call 202 7488001. And if you think it is the right amount you can call 202 7488002. We welcome your comments by twitter and also text at text us at 202 7488003. Broadly the numbers we talked about 60 billion since the start of the Russia Ukraine war 43 billion of that in military aid. The Washington Post pointing out looking at the number saying the day after russia invaded ukraine President Biden offered rise of package of military aid that had small arms, you nations, body armor and equipment for ukraines frontline defenders. As we heard a moment or two ago, there is an additional funding request for ukraine expected this week from the white house. 202 7488000 if you say it is too much. 202 7488001 not enough. Lets go to marvin on the not enough wine. Marvin, philadelphia. Welcome. Caller yeah. Ukraine became a soviet country and when it became a soviet country, russia said that they would not go to war with ukraine, but they did. That is why we are backing ukraine. And we need to give them the equipment to defend themselves because we donts will on in the world with taiwan and china and like that it if we are looking at this too much, i dont think so. I think in the long, long term i think we need even more to ensure everybody else and that nato has got their back. That is just my reasoning. Host jim has another view in florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller yes sir, like most americans i was initially in the port of ukrainian i was in support of our administrations of the ukraine ill jerry effort. Increasingly, it is military effort. Increasingly, it is a pit that we are pouring in honey money money. We are looking at the wisdom of supporting this military effort. I am 70 years old. I remember well the vietnam war fiasco. In addition to the 60,000 lives lost we lost and billions millions of vietnamese on the east coast. The outcome was not a good one for the vietnamese people. We live under communist rule today. We need to look at the wisdom of this policy and we examine why we put in 60 billion of general kane has commentator he is right about that. We have 30 trillion in debt on a fiscal issue for me. It is an issue, and also the fact that the so call sanctions on russia have not affected russia, boudin, or the russian people. They have not turned against putin. And it is a problem with some of them to keep chinese from invading taiwan is some kind of alice in wonderland bazaar thinking. This president the current one, biden, bizarre thinking. The president , the current one, biden, needs to rethink. Host next is keith from what you think. Caller it is money well spent. And it is why a think some president should make some world war ii type war so we could go through 34 years of hardship for everyone. When we do have Something Like this that comes along, we would have the fun to pay for it and not think about was this too much money or too little money because it is the right thing to do beyond the shadow of a doubt. We are not spending it on peoples lives, we are just spending honey. It is a great thing for the world that we do that. Host is there an Endless Supply of that though . Is there a measure that says that that is the end of a conflict in the satisfaction of the ukrainian will ending the, like the conflict . Caller it is the end of conflict because russia should learn i bet anything theres more good people in russia that if they knew what was going on they would not want to be there. It is just a few people that run everything in communism whether the one it or not. And ukraine has to get there durable border, everything that is set up for them should be set up and about is the time to say ok, we have done enough. The whole world the whole free world needs to know this. People want to support the ukrainian people to do good. Host we are touching on a pole at cnn did over the course of july they surveyed some 1300 americans on this issue. The majority of americans oppose more u. S. Aid in the support of ukraine against russia. Looking at this, art of it is the political view the ideology view that they say in terms of some of the 76 of coertive republicans opposed new funding compared with 60 moderate, liberal republican. 51 moderate or conservative democrats. That is some political ideology and the type of assistance that people talk about. In terms of what we should be aiding with, 63 are supporting u. S. Providing more aid intelligence gathering. 53 said yes for more training. 43 with providing more weapons and only 17 said that the u. S. Should assist in combat operations. Lets hear from jackson in griffin, North Carolina. Lets hear about inviting too much aid. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have one comment i agree with supporting ukrainian, but two things after that, who is going to rebuild ukraine and where will that money come from . Is that the United States responsibility because were approaching 100 billion in defense efforts. It will well surpass that to rebuild the rain. Ukraine. Host have you given thought to what responsibility when you look at what nations are aiding them monetarily is that a alignment of nato to repair ukraine . Caller i dont know. I know that they are going to ask for money to help rebuild. They have asked for money to help defend. Russia is not going to go to biden. Thats my comment. Host thank you for raising that point. Thomas is on the road from rhode island. He thinks we are giving too much aid. Good morning. Caller yes, how are you doing, how are you doing . Yes, i believe that the United States is correct 100 sent correct in defending 100 correct in defending ukraine against russia. I think that is a as a as the next military person i was taught to drive draw a line in the sand and i believe that is what the ukrainians are doing against russia. And if we set on the sidelines and add did absolutely nothing, after russia digested ukraine, they would move on and set their sights on another country. So, i believe what we are doing is 100 correct. If it takes another month, six months, or a year, the russians are paying a high price. They are paying a high price for this. Even though it is indicated that the russian people have not made any negative comments against the war, i believe the russian people are fed up with it. They are fed up with putin. Putin may find himself at the end of a rope. Host you mention the russians paying a high price. We are talking about the Financial Aid that the u. S. Provided. Outside in ukraine, what price is too much for the u. S. To pay in terms of Financial Aid to ukraine . Caller ok, i think that bringing up that subject of boots on the ground it is better for the ukrainians to defend their country than to have american troops put their boots on the ground and defend ukraine. And the russians, although their Propaganda Machine has indicated that they are doing quite well, they are getting there but skate their butts kicked. And they are paying a high price. And the morale, this one of citizens is at the lowest point. When the smoke clears, russia will be pushed out of ukraine. Host we appreciate the call. Color from sterling heights, michigan thinks we are providing too much aid. Caller well he was talking about the u. N. Mailing them out bailing them out. From what i hear trump said we are supporting the rib so that means we will pay for that to. With a look at that as a National Debt, that really bothers me. We are spending borrowed money to we are giving away borrowed money and our childrens future to help these people. I heard that ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And that is why biden and his son now was all involved over there, they tried to get in on it. And they got matt russia got mad and that is what caused the fight. We did not have trouble until biden and his son started going over there and stuff it is all about money. They are making money off of the war, they have the war going on with the big money flowing. Government contracts, favoritism on contracts. 25 screwdrivers. All this crazy stuff. But i just cannot sit be cannot see supporting them. We need all we can get on our side, but we are footing the bill with the future of our childrens money and our money. We are destroying the country. Now if you have the frame of mind that you would never pay the National Debt off and never pay the money back, i can see you doing this or you are trying to destroy our country. Obama now this started this with a trillion dollars. And two point 5 trillion from Social Security and everything else. Host you touched on military contractors spending on ukraine. A report shows how mirrored terry industrial, likes sets on ukraine. Wealthy donors have funded tanks with names that produce research that reflect the influence of those wonders funders. A recent report from the Quincy Institute demonstrates how much influence war property years have had on a national discourse. The Quincy Institute his own start of came from the georgian charles coast with 11 months of ukraine war coverage in the New York Times. Washington journal 2022 through january 1 2023. For the first time the thing thanks her mention. Of the 15 mentioned, only one they Human Rights Watch on does not take money from contractors. They said the media was likely to cite think tanks with war industry times than they were to cite them without war industry ties. President biden last month at the nato summit talking about continuing u. S. Support for ukraine. Afternoon. A year and a half of Russian Forces crimes against humanity with the people of ukraine remaining unbroken. Unbroken. [indiscernible] the United States is going to make sure that ukraine can defend itself now and in the future as well. Sending the support that we can us spoke with resident zelenskyy for about an hour for washington, kyiv, and now we declare to the world what i say again, we will not waiver. We will not waiver. I mean that, our commitment to ukraine will not weekend. We will stand for freedom, today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes. [applause] host here on washington journal we are asking you about u. S. Support for ukraine. We totaled about 60 billion. If you think it is too much aid it is 202 7488000, if you say not enough 202 7488001, and if you think we provided about the right amount of Financial Support to ukraine during the conflict 202 7488002. Johnny in tampa, florida up next. Go ahead. Caller yes, i would like to get a little history here what is going on. We forget what is going on with france and germany, there would be no United States. We have no army, we have no support whatsoever, that they came in and told they fall alongside us. World war ii when hitlers took over europe, we sat back and said we will not help them because they are not coming to us, what happened . Pearl harbor happened. If we continue to let this happen we will be in out of war ourselves. We talked about the taxes and all of the money we spend. Lets be real, everybody pays taxes but it does not bother me or anybody else. When i pay taxes it is five or 6,000 a year but that is what we do to support our country. We give israel millions of dollars and we never say one thing about it. We have no qualms with that. But the part i am trying to say is some of the people that are calling again i feel sorry for them. All they want to do is be political this is not political these this is real theres women, men, kids, babies dying. You see little kids without food. And we talk about being religious and christianity, where is your christianity and your feeling . All you are thinking about is yourself. My god there is more than one country in this world. Thank you. Host what are your thoughts on support for ukraine. Caller how support ukraine in a way and that i do not. [indiscernible] biden had all the months in the senate [indiscernible] and he didnt do it. He did this late when he could have stopped the war to begin with so thank you for the call. Bye. Host susan good morning on the not enough line. Caller thank you i have four points to make up will make them quickly please do not cut me off. First of all, when you talk about the u. S. Being number one in giving to ukraine, that is very misleading. The u. S. Is actually around 12 in giving when it is measured as a percentage of gmp. So, obviously, france cannot give the same amount we can, we are the world leading economy. So that is misleading. Secondly, the question is not just are we giving too much or too little but whether we are giving the right type of aid. President biden has to be dragged into giving ukraine what they have asked for that they say in their well informed that they need to succeed. Biden has opposed longerrange missiles, tanks, air defense, and has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into some lying that. Now he is supposed to attack them with jets. No u. S. Battle would go on without air support, so, slow walking with ukraine just leads to more people getting burnt out and they say it is time to cut back when in reality if you gave them the things they needed it in the beginning we would have wrapped this thing up earlier. We need to listen to zelenskyy and give him what is needed. The investment is not in ukraine, it is democracy. 94 90 of cold war spending was on counteracting the soviet union during the cold war. So, we need to stop russia from advancing onto countries that desperately want their sovereign host let me ask you this. A call raised this earlier about the postwar period. Who takes the rebuilding of ukraine . Caller well, i think that we take sometimes the United States as taken the lead in rebuilding places that we have bombed. Of course they need to rebuild ukraine. If we had been supplying the arms and the equipment that ukraine had said it, not just to keep russia at bay, but to drive them out of the country, we stood by while mariupol was bombed and in rubble. We have to rethink our strategy and make it one in which we want ukraine not just to keep the russians out, but to well, not just to you know keep it at a stasis, but to actually evict the russians. Host i appreciate your call this morning. The map updated from institute in the study of war looking at ukraine and where the situation on the ground stands right now. The large country of ukraine bordered by russia and romania dull the and this area here under control of the russians. The crimea territory under control since 2014. That and ask area done a test donetsk area. Since 2022. Richard calling from Frederick Berg maryland. Good morning. Caller yet we are in trouble. 128 trillion in liability. Biden and his son created this mess. I bet you anything it will come out that had they not been doing what they were doing over there, the war probably would have never or possibly could have never happened at all. Russia is going to do with their going to do and china is going to do were not going to talk crimea. Were no longer who we were. America is gone. We are no longer that group. We have over 100 million Illegal Immigrants in our nation that are just flowing. This is a genocide and this is the greatest migration in mankinds history. People are just standing around just the only thing that is important in our nation is illegal immigration. That is the only thing that really we should be paying attention to. Until we get that under half, we will continue to flounder around. Biden and his family they are crime people, they are corrupt, they are cricket as a dogs hind leg. Host the open question on our program this morning on washington journal is about this or of u. S. Funding for ukraine and its war against russia. 202 7488000 is the line to call if you say the eight is too much, the age be u. S. Is dividing. 202 7488001 if you think it is not enough and we need to provide more aid. If you think it is the right amount you think 202 7488002. Lets hear from frank in new york. Hello there. Caller good morning, good morning america. I think we are spending too much proportionately. I think theres two countries the last saw where when you put up a graph some time ago poland and another seem to be holding up their end fortunately, but we need an effective leader that can put a Real Coalition together economically. What i mean is economically, we cannot let this stand. You cannot invade another country so it cannot stand and we need a leader that will push economics, real economics sanctions on russia, not lipservice, that will make it unpalatable for them to stay. It will also send a message to china do not give any idea about taiwan because it will be crushed economically. It can be done and i believe that is the way we need to do it. Host all right the Washington Post headline trump calls on defending ukraine the former president this to say in a weekend rally in prince of vania in pennsylvania. Ukraine gets billions of dollars from the american taxpayer. Joe biden has compromised and dragged us into a global conflict on the behalf of the very same country ukraine that apparently paid his family all these millions of dollars. In light of his information, the u. S. Congress refused to authorize a single additional payment of our depleted stockpile. Did you see last week . Last week he said we have no ammunition, the united dates you know i rebuilt the military. We have so much ammunition we had to buy massive storage bins. It is almost gone. First of all, that should have happened. But who would release that and say that . That was classified information, wasnt it . But the weapon stockpiles to the ukraine doj and irs and over every scrap of evidence that they have on the biden family corrupt is in his dealings. We have to know in the public deserves to know. Host twitter on the opening topic ukraine aid. They say way too much food military conflict is running at key peak capacity. I am a libertarian who did not believe in defensive wars and would you send your neighbors kids a die . Another says assuming victory in ukraine and a decision is made to repay war reparations should russia pay what they can afford alongside rebuilding their government . And economy. From michael, we are supposed to prioritize the need of americans but the predator class used american taxpayers to globe fund their global agenda. Like she, we just take it. David is up next in las vegas. Hello there. Caller well first of all we should not give the money to ukraine. We should support it but we should loan the money. That is a communist country. Biden cares about their borders but he does not care about hours. There is something wrong. You loan the money but you do not get it. People are here that need help theres homeless people, the money should. We should not send a penny. Where is my 60 billion . We have been fighting communist all these years and now we will give money . We should loan it to them, stupid. That is my comment. Host lynyrd in north california he says we are giving about the right amount. Hello area caller my call, look, this goes all the way back to actually Obama Administration when russia walked into crimea. We should have stopped them, we should have stopped for them on the spot right there, but we did not do anything. We should have assisted ukraine and not let them take over crimea. That gave put in a lot of confidence and then he advanced war. I think it is a terrible war and russia is a terrible country. You want to talk about freedom, there is no such thing as freedom in russia. Here, we can say and do what we want as long as it is legal, but in russia if you say anything against putin, you will be in trouble. All right we look at some of our Live Programming today across cspan network coming of it to 00 eastern here on cspan 10 00 eastern a conversation of the u. S. Housing Financial System and ginnie mae. And they discussed government insured mortgage loans. It will be 10 a. M. On cspan or on cspan now our mobile a or online at cspan. Org. And then there is a conversation hosted by the Washington Post live at 11 00 eastern on cspan. Will get an update on the Artemis Moon Mission with other nasser nasa officials live from the Kennedy Space center at two p. M. Eastern. At 2 30asrn it is campaign 20 four coverage. Former President Donald Trump will campaign in New Hampshire. We will have his coverage in windham, New Hampshire that will stream on our mobile app cspan now around 2 30 eastern. And we talk about the aid to ukraine, this is david. Welcome to the program. Caller yes, i did not think we should be involved at all with ukraine. We would have peace right now if there would not have been. Oh did not look at the two countries, i look at the people because i have traveled around the world and i have seen that. I have seen the protests of americans and in korea when i was there, they were protesting as some of the americans did, but they did not see the individuals. What we have is we have peace right now and there would be no fighting. It would be all the destruction. We will cause all of that because we are as a nato country, have supplied all of the weapons. It is ridiculous. People die and they will keep dying in till we wit doing that. We really are just killing people. This country is doing that because we supported this stuff and provided this stuff. When people said there are tanks over their people will die on both sides. Theres good people on both sides of this conflict. The ukrainians cannot stop this war. They cannot take anything back without us. They do not need to take anything back. That used to be one country, the soviet union. That area right there is mostly russians from my understanding. We really do not need to be over there and we should have never started this thing. It seems like there is still a lot of corruption and everything going on. Host on to marion, louisiana up next is robert. Hello there. Caller good morning how are yall doing . Host great, thank you. Caller [indiscernible] if it was black people over there like in sudan, we do not send that money over there, but what we have a war over here in ukraine. I feel sorry for those people that russia is annihilating on people over there, but money aint going to solve their problems. Thank you. Host robert, this is from european television. Ukraine says productive russia calls them doomed. Senior ukrainian officials said sunday that the talks with saudi arabia have made headway for a easel resolve meant. They called the meeting a doomed attempt to swing the global south beyond kyvi with more than 40 countries including china and the United States took part in the talks that ended on sunday. Ukraine and the allies call this an attempt to secure broader National Support for principles that heave once to be the basis of peace. With the return of all ukrainian territory to it control. The president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wanted a global summit to take place based on those principles later this year. Participants agreed on the importance of continuing conversations to pave the way for peace. They say that they have planned to establish working groups to address specific problems raged by the ward. Any prospect of direct talks between heave and moscow we hear from james next in queensboro, North Carolina. Do you think we are providing too much aid . Yes i do. Let me preface my statement real quick. If we look back, trumpet was the last premiere of the soviet union was born in northeastern ukraine. At a very young age, his family moved to russia. He was born near sarah noble jared noble other countries that were affiliated with the soviet union that was with United States, great britain, france, germany, and poland. It did not work out but with every country there was a deal made between natoled by the United States and it was made with independent countries. And it was in their own constitution. It would never become art of the nato. If we renege on that and it does become part of nato, no one in the world will believe the United States germany, poland, and other countries involved with nato. Now, ukraines primary export for or over the years even though they did not get along with russia to well and known politicians have been known to be less than honest for the people, usually becoming quite wealthy and making their deposits in switzerland or elsewhere. Excuse me. The major product exported from ukraine was weak, grains. Ok they have 300 million acres prior to the war of grain production. The soviet union has been the biggest customer of the United States with grain and wheat since the 1920s. Because then it is a basic item like bread and etc. We agreed to not let ukraine become part of nato. All the other end, lets look at russia. Russia became an independent nation with the constitution unfortunately not exactly like the United States. They do have district representation. So, as a result, rashes 53 year and a half ago 53 of russias economy comes from petroleum products. The petroleum deliveries were made prior to vices war in the middle east that builds a pipeline across southern russia during the soviet era all the way across and emptied the northeastern syria which had the deepwater port. That became threatened with the isis war and with the thing that runs syria. As a result they need another water port, russia does, that is only one they do not have anything the only one near to it would be on the black sea. So as a result they pushed ukraine to give up crimea by vote by boat. And they supported that in the population of crimea voted and became part of the soviet federation. Host and do you think the russians managed do you think they made that vote happen in their favor . Caller oh, yes, i am sure in they did. There was no way to prove it exactly because i understand millions of rubles have been sent to radio advertising, newspaper and so on to get people to vote. That also happens in the United States with france, germany, and other countries that have a democratic republic constitution. Anyway, that was done. So they build the pipeline down through jesus dan could you the southeastern corner of crimea to be able to ship the oil out. They have one pipeline out there after that was done. That would still not satisfied the growing and elation and russia. We have every country that is a democratic republic regardless of where it is always has inflation because population increases, services increase. Therefore Government Spending also increases with it tends to leaned toward inflation or any country on earth. Host alright we appreciate your observation this morning. Back to the poll from cnn, their poll about the u. S. Support for ukraine. Part of the poll asks people about 1300 americans were surveyed in this poll that was published last friday. Part of it was peoples concern about the wider impact of the conflict. Willis from the u. S. National security, 66 of those surveyed said yes. And those ask that question earlier this year, 72 had said down six points from february but 5 said it will increase democracy elsewhere. Others 59 felt it could lead to a broader war in europe. About 15 minutes for you to get in on the conversation talking about military and humanitarian aid. In our u. S. Aid to ukraine. 202 7488000 is if you say it is too much. 202 7488001 if you say it is not enough in your view and 202 7488002 if you think it is about the right amount. Lets go to mike in kentucky. Youre on the air, good morning. Caller good morning, ok. I think we are giving too much money and aid. This is bidens thing and he needs to be impeached. You know, zelenskyy needs to make them make peace. Bargain with the russians. I got nothing again the russians and hes got us in shes going to get his and world war iii. He needs to get out of there. The whole party does. Thats about all ive got to say. Host to greg in pennsylvania. Hello. Caller good morning. Interesting analysis the guy from North Carolina to callers ago was excellent analysis. I think we had to do something, we are trending too much so i think it is time much time to reconsider their current position. What we should have done way back when a year and a half ago is send u. S. Troops to the border and say you guys work this out and give them a timeline. We did not do that. And we did not do that for political reasons because they would not do anything the donald j would do and that is why we are in this mess. And then we spent a boatload of money, yes we have, but russia is not a friend and so we have to add that to the mix. I think cspan should have john mayor steinberg and he is a classmate of mine class of 1970 west White University of chicago. He should be one of your guests one day. On this issue. Host what is his specialty or focus . Caller international relations. He wrote the israel lobby which got a lot of press, not all positive. He calls it right down the middle the ball is striped. That is not what we are doing right now. We need to have people look at the situation objectively. Every time i see this guy, zelenskyy, he looks like he just got out of the massage and a haircut. I mean, he is in a war supposedly. So we need to reconsider where we are at. We spent a boatload of money more than any other country. Host i dont want to put you on the spot caller probably required early on. Host i did not mean to interrupt you but i do not want to put you on the spot. When you say objectively in the factors of continuing aid to ukraine, what would yours be . Caller what are the american interests here . What is the interest of the United States . Host ok, well put, greg. Thank you for getting through. We go to laurel from connecticut. Hello there. Caller hello, thank you. When you look in the deal traffic geographic location of ukraine, the country was supported between russia and the rest of the middle east and onto europe. For that region, i think we should support those fighting for their independence i am not saying that right but they are trying to defend ukraine. And they should not go into the rest of the world to hit the middle east and then europe. Host all right lets go to farmersville, ohio. Brian good morning. Caller good morning, how are you . Host fine, thank you. Caller a couple quick observations. I want to remind everyone that once upon a time you had a guy named Ronald Reagan that looked at this and said tear down this wall. At that point in time things were headed on the white right track in russia and the whole region was under can whole. But when you look back on time and things escalated between now and then is that there has been extortion of ukraine pretty much if you look at uranium and the whole entire democracy debacle the way that was handled with i did not need to go into that, that is an entire you will understand it if you study it. The mishandling of Nuclear Materials between two countries and it is missing imagine that. If you step back and look at what russia why they do what they do, i will just ask you when was the last time you saw this country or abroad that had a sticker on it that would have showed that the russian government was after being dissolved, attempting to be part of the world since the main economy. At that point, you pretty much see what has gone on. There is no russia stickers going on in anything in the world. They have opportunity and they have a lot of deploying products over there. They have opportunity to make a lot of goods the same goods that other regions of the world make. It is pretty much a nonstop. Weve been extorting ukraine to seven capacity. To some capacity. They in turn give the money back to the bidens. They showed this. It is not magic, so, i think it is too much. I think if you have a problem in this country we solve it between our own state that region over there is a bunch of little states with a bunch of little countries. They should be able to figure it out themselves. It is not science it is a matter of trying to force their will on someone else and that is where the grind is. You have to make that stop to get progress. Everybody has got to quit fighting. We are all trying to stay doing the same thing in the same place but we cannot afford to give our hard earned tax money away when the economy and people in this country are in shambles. Host we appreciate your input. Chris christie 2024 president ial candidate was asked last week about the republican divide over 18 ukraine here is what he said. To the case of donald trump at all come up with your meeting with the president . No. To followup up on that question, did you since any concern from zelenskyy about whoever wins the republican nomination would shape the level of 80 would get . Level of aid he would get . No i think it is bipartisan support for ukraine. He was very complementary of President Biden and some of the things that he got. He also felt that there was more needed to be done, but there was no conversation at all from him about he talked about america in general and the need for support forever. He said at one point whoever meant expresident is i need that person to build a partnership with ukraine. Itd not talk about either party in particular but just in general. Host did anything in the meeting change your thinking about ukraine and your position on it . It strengthen it because his resolve is impressive. The resolve of and the candor of his work habit was impressive as well. They were not Holding Back Information or playing cubed, when i ask questions they answered them playing cute and when i as questions they answered them directly. President zelenskyy raised his issue of corruption and the effort to try to get that eliminated. I told him i thought that was an important factor in getting the American People the confidence that the support that they are giving will be used appropriately. Host politico with a story about the aid to ukraine. Some views among democrats, top democrats. Sending cluster bombs to ukraine some lawmakers say the decision supersedes the moral high ground and will kill civilians. In a Statement Released by her office she said a victory for ukraine is an essential victory for democracy but it cannot come against our American Values and demoacy itself. I challenge all of us to member that this war will end and the broken pieces of ukraine will need to be rebuilt. It is not only those who win the war but also how a war is won. Brandy is in millington, michigan. Go ahead. Caller good morning i would like to start by thanking you and all the men and women it takes to bring us this great program. You are doing the nation a great service. I believe we are not sending enough and i base that on the fact looking up putins actions over the last two years. He went into afghanistan, got kicked out. Waited a little bit, decided to go into syria. And then crimea and overtake that. When he took that, he rested up for a little bit now he is in syria messing around. That is not going so good so he built up his forces and decided he would take over ukraine. This man will always keep knowing to take stuff. We have to put a stop to him over there. The we spent 20 years fighting a socalled terrorist. A terrorist. They do not have any standing armies, new your weapon, air force, and we spent 20 years doing that. This putin is an actual threat to this nation. I would much rather fight him over there than over here. It is nice to see that all the russians are watching the show calling in this morning telling us we have since them too much. Money to ukrainians and too much equipment because the ukrainians must really be putting a hurt on them russians. As you give her your time. Have a good day. Host going back to a Washington Post survey. The total aid from the u. S. To ukraine is at a 43 billion dollars in military aid which represents dixie 5 of u. S. Aid to ukraine. United states have provided about 25 billion in budget support to ukraine and more than 2. 6 billion in order to port refugees and other vulnerable populations within and outside of the country. A few comments on social media. Sheila says this on twitter area the war is a coverup of bidens association with worries and the imf. I am going with too much, at nicks this country and let them worry about theirs. And brought into nato prior to the invasion. Any country that did not make this happen and some running russia in the invasion of ukraine sending bombs was not the solution. Lets hear from john the alabama. Welcome. Caller yeah, it is john. I was calling about it is ondemand United States basis buying up the land and building you know bunkers of underground to undermine the United States military. That is what is concerning me. Weve got to keep our eyes open. That is all i have to say0 thank you. That is all i have to say. Thank you. Caller good morning. I was going to say that now that we are in, we are in because we got to give them whatever they need because now with the Wagoner Group and belarus they are at the gap. If they go into the gap, it is world war iii. We have to be able to make sure that the ukrainians can keep their stalemate going. I do not believe that the ukrainians win, i am just hoping for a stalemate. Right now, they run 30 of the stuff that we gave them so we have tothem they will need more. Host i appreciate your input in this first input. There is of the program coming up next. We will be joined by peter feaver talking about how to restore americans confidence in the american mayor tillery american military. Then we will talk about how spending battles on capitol hill could Impact Health care with dr. Parekh. Book tv celebrates 25 years. For the 22nd book in a row book tv is live with the washington, d. C. Book festival. Book tv has provided uninterrupted coverage of the National Book festival. Watch saturday as book tv once again brings you live, all day coverage of the National Book festival. Guests include carla hayden, a chest and buttigieg, and r. K. Russell. Find the full schedule online at book tv. Org. The National Book festival Live Saturday on cspan2. These cspan bookshelf podcast feed makes it easy to listen to all of cspans podcast on nonfiction books in one place. We are making it convenient for you to listen to multiple episodes. From our signature programs afterwards and q and a, listen to cspans bookshelf podcast feed today. You can find the cspan bookshelf podcast feed anywhere you get your podcasts. Since 1979 in partnership with the cable industry, cspan has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress from the house and Senate Floors to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee hearings, cspan gives you a friend proceed to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions and completely unfiltered. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Washington journal continues. Host our guest is peter feaver. He is a Political Science professor at Duke University. He served in the National Security advisors role in the clinton and george w. Bush administration. Peter is here to talk to us about Public Confidence in the u. S. Military. Welcome to washington journal. Guest thanks for having me. Host you keep regular track of this gallup organization, trust in the u. S. Military the lowest in 2 decades. When we use the term confidence, what does it mean . Guest the military can do what we have asked them to do, and what we have asked them to do is meaningful to our lives. It is declining for predictable reasons. Host what does that mean guest the props that prop up Public Confidence in the military are all eroding. It is also hollow because part of what props up Public Confidence is political correctness, the belief that you have to say thank you to the military for their service. If you had a chance, you might have a different attitude. That bias is propping it up by as much as seven points. Host i was going to ask you about the title of your book, thank you for your service. That has become an oft used phrase. Your book is an inside look at where that confidence has been among americans. Guest americans dont know much about the military, but the one thing that they know is that i other americans seem to hav confidence in the military and it is corrected to show thanks. Part of the thank you for your service, awkwardness is i feel like i have to say thank you. High regard for the military, but at high remove from my personal life and that creates opportunities for misunderstanding, alienation, and then as we have seen, a dramatic drop in confidence. Guest whats up host what surprised you the most . Guest i was genuinely surprised by the degree of hollowness. We were saying we had confidence when in fact we didnt. I was also surprised at the way american so far have shielded the military from accountability for their performance. One of the props of Public Confidence is our belief that the military has performed well. The outcome of the war in afghanistan, quite negative. The American People are not blaming that on the military yet. They are blaming that on the political leaders of the other party. That gives the military an opportunity to play the partisan blame game. They side with that insulates them from criticism and perhaps from accountability. Host does our confidence in the military track with more fewer and fewer people are being a part of the military. Guest yes. One of the props undergirding Public Confidence is personal connection. Did you personally serve . If you did then you are likely to have higher confidence than someone who didnt. But the percentage of americans who had that personal connection either directly or through their family is declining. It is the demographics. The two generations has passed. A generation that was drafted has passed too. The size of the military forces are shrinking. It is becoming smaller and recruiting from within their own ranks, recruiting the children of those who have served. That means fewer and fewer americans have a personal connection, and thus we would expect over time there confidence will go down. Host i want to ask you about the struggles of recruiting. We are talking about Public Confidence in the u. S. Military. Peter feaver is our guest, professor at Duke University and author of a new book. Thanks for your service is the book. We welcome your calls and comments. 202 7488000 is the line for republicans. 202 7488001 is the line for democrats. 202 7488002 for all others. If you are a veteran or activeduty, 202 7488003. How do the confidence numbers pair with recruitment efforts by the military . Guest they work on the margins. That is to say, a driver of the recruiting crisis. The driver is the labor economics of available jobs outside in the civilian workforce. When the economy is going well, the civilian economy is hard to recruit. When the economy isnt doing well, the civilian economy is easier to recruit. The percentage of americans who qualify, who are of age to serve and qualify on medical and ability grounds, they do not have waivers for using drugs for instance that pool is shrinking. The percentage of americans who are of that group, shrinking pool who are inclined to join, that goes down. Those are all the major drivers. Confidence on the margins affects it by saying if you have higher confidence in the military, you are more likely to recommend to others that they serve, so it influences the influencers, the coaches and uncles who say you should serve. Host peter feavers book points out that the primary drivers of Public Confidence in the military are patriotism, performance, professional ethics, party, personal contact, and public pressure tell us more about party do you mean Political Party . Guest yes. It is high in the aggregate relative to other public institutions, but that is driven by historically very high levels of confidence among republicans. The gap between a republican and democrat on average is very wide. What has happened in the last several years as Republican Party members have begun to attack them military is republicans going down in there confidence. It has contributed to a decline in confidence among republicans. Host you mentioned the withdrawal from afghanistan. That brings me to a chart in your book that does not convey that well on here. War events by party. The invasion of grenada during Ronald Reagans term, the gulf war in george w. Bushs term, the u. S. Support in bosnia, 9 11 of course, the capture the killing of Osama Bin Laden during the Obama Administration. Each of those you see a spike in Public Confidence in the military. Guest this is the single highest driver. If americans feel they are at war, they will rally to the flag. Part of rallying to the flag is rallying to support the troops. Particularly after a dramatic event like 9 11 when suddenly all of the danger that used to be over there is now over here, that caused a big driveup in Public Confidence acrosstheboard. We are leaving that war frame, and more and more americans are not considering themselves to be at war. Yes, they see a future threat in china, but it did not feel the same as it did in the weeks and months after 9 11. That opens the door for americans to return to a more traditional view about the military, which is ambivalence. Host how long has gallup been tracking this . Guest it has been going on mostly since the vietnam war. There has been a steady increase in Public Confidence in the military since the vietnam war. It drove up particularly in the reagan years. In the 70s there was this malaise, this belief that the military was hollow itself. The attempt to rescue the hostages in iran went poorly. Reagan buildup and from the victory in the cold war helped propped up Public Confidence in the military. As the chart indicates it goes up and down with perceived performance and perceived need. There have not been those dramatic successes are dramatic urgent threats that would create that war frame. Host what about factors like how much we spend on the military, or you mentioned the withdrawal from afghanistan or things like Sexual Harassment cases in the military, how much does that play into confidence in the military . Guest americans have a high expectation of high ethical behavior by the military. That is one of the props that supports Public Confidence. When there are reports of scandals, when it looks like the military is struggling to control the problem of Sexual Harassment, that is also going to drive down Public Confidence in the military, and rightfully so. Public confidence should not be untethered to the actual performance and deserving this. The military needs to not worried about being liked. It needs to worry about being deserved of Public Confidence by being professionally competent, by being professionally ethical, and staying out of partisan politics. This is the big change over the last several years. We have made the military combatants in our culture war. We have dragged them into some of our most divisive social issues, and then held them hostage or put them in the limelight and ask them to defend controversial policy so they become combatants in a culture war that should be fought by civilians alone. Host peter feaver is our guest. We welcome your calls and comments. Joseph is next, syracuse, new york. Joseph, are you there . Ok, hogans ville, georgia, activeduty lined, mike, go ahead. Caller veteran, drafted vietnam, 1972. Our armed forces are very much divided as you accurately said, sir. Most of the officer corps when i was in were independents, and most of them still are because we were taught early in basic training that we all wear green and we all bleed red. My immigrant family came to this country in the early 1900s, and it was after the armenians were slaughtered by the turks and were going back after grace. We all know that greece and turkey have been at war for thousands of years. That has never been resolved. I commend you on your insight. I would only make one suggestion. My grandfather served in world war i for the u. S. Army. He said that is the price you pay for the privilege to live in this country. I would change the name of your book. Instead of thanks for your service, how about welcome home . Guest that is a great suggestion. You raise a number of points. The military is a traditional Halfway Point into American Society for those on the margins. We are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the integration of africanamericans into the military. The struggle of civil rights was played out in the u. S. Military, and the success of senior africanamerican leaders in the military became something of an inspiration for folks outside the military ranks to push for civil rights. This has been a role of the military, but it was driven primarily by the mission need, the need to have a Capable Military. You are seeing some of the current culture war controversies playing out in a similar way. People say do we need to focus on these issues . And the u. S. Military says yea h, we do thanks for your service. You are a child of someone who served in the military. That is good but that becomes a recruiting challenge as the percentage of americans who have served go down. Those are the only americans propensed to join. Host up next is bob in pittsburgh. Good morning. Caller i never thought i would say this five years ago, but i have four neighbors who have kids. I have seen on tv they are going to go after terrorist white people in the military. Right off the back to these white kids are not going to go in. The other thing is bmi. They are going for military people. This is crazy. This has never happened in this country. Vei is about White Supremacy in the military. Host bob bringing up diversity, equity and inclusion. Guest one of the things that color demonstrates is the partisan critiques of the military have penetrated. There was a recent poll from the Reagan Foundation that shows when you primed the American People and ask them Public Confidence is going down, why do you think it is going down . The answers you get follow the talking points in the culture war. Democrats would say the confidences going down in the military due to a rise of extremism, meeting right wing extremism, and the military. Republicans would say confidence is going down in the military due to a rise of wokeness. That is a different matter from saying these problems are actually rampant in the military. The military is not woke. Very few members of the military would meet the technical definition of woke whatever your personal definition of that is. The military does need to recruit from every walks of life. The the u. S. Military has a disproportionate number of africanamericans serving. They want to make sure africanamericans are represented in the enlisted ranks and at the top ranks of military leadership. Having a military with leaders who look like the rankandfile, that is good for morale and it helps improve the performance of the military. Last thing i would say as the caller did point out, the recruiter draws disproportionately from the recruiter smile, the american midwest where most bases are. Those who claim falsely that the military is obsessed with dei, that could shape the attitudes of influencers. Host lets hear from alex on the republican side. Silver spring, michigan. Guest its maryland. I have a kind of unique perspective, as you can tell from my voice i am a little bit younger than the previous couple of callers. I would like to comment a little bit on the difference between the age group of the people who would have been in a prior Generation Service members and the millennial generation, but also have a little bit of background in myself in my family, both of my parents are academics, but i joined the military afterwards, first time in my family the army andi was stationed in afghanistan the army and i was stationed in afghanistan. My brother joined after me in the navy and a few years ago finished his service. The thing is with your particular topic being what the public thinks about the military in terms of, i believe, effectiveness and utility is it is really from the perspective of everybody i have served worth in terms of the enlisted and stuff like that, you get a sense of the incompetency of everything. I understand the sense of patriotism that people get into, and the outside perspective people have, but when you are in it and you are doing all the dumb stuff and you have things like, my brother served on the uss boxer and they come up years later with news articles being like all the Water Systems on the entire ship or polluted from backwash from dumping into the ocean, and things like that, nobody i have served with our i work with now or i work with now wait even bat an eye at that. That is perfectly reasonable given what our expectations are. It has been a big, generational issue for all of the people i have served with at least. Guest you raise two important issues. One is the generational issue. Younger generations on average have lower confidence than older generations. It is ironic because the baby boomers who are raised in the 60s when there was so much social turmoil about them military and draft dodging and charges of baby killing leveled against the military, that generation has now some of the highest confidence in the military of any of the cohorts in america and it is the youngest generation, which has the lowest confidence in the military, however, the youngest generation has the lowest confidence across all public institutions, not just to the military, so there seems to be a problem with organized institutions in general for the younger generation. It is not narrowly focused on the military. In terms of military incompetence, that is a perennial of american sentiments towards the military. That is part of war. War produces all sorts of chaotic mistakes. The winning side is not the side that never makes a mistake, but the site who corrects their mistakes faster. World war ii was the paragon of American Pride in its military, but many things went wrong in world war ii. Today, our military is far more professionally competent, far more capable of protecting and saving its own members of the military then was the world war ii generation, but you are right. When they do fall down, when they dont provide those expectations, that hurts morale, that hurts recruiting. Host did you serve or did close members of your family serve . Guest my dad served in the canadian air force. My parents were immigrants. I served in the navy reserves. Host the headline is recruitment is down, a real threat. The wall street journal points out the shortfalls just this year. This army is 15,000 short of they are 5000 goal, the navy is 10,000 of their 65 of their 65,000 goal the navy is 10,000 short of their goal. Host the main challenge guest the main challenge recruiters identify is competing with civilian jobs providing the same benefits as the military and that seemed to be more flexible in what they are offering. One recruiter mentioned he was trying to recruit a kid to join the military, and the kids said can i do this since working remotely working . This generation approaches the military and all Job Opportunities with a much more flexible approach. There is no question there is a recruiting crisis. Retention numbers remain very high, so those who are in the military, and see the value of it, and to see the mission necessity of a Capable Military to meet the chinese threat, they are staying in for now. I am hopeful with aggressive efforts, reforming the way we recruit, may be reforming the flexibility of the options we give, that we can recruit the next generation, but there is no short it is a challenge, and it is a number one challenge. Host the graphics showed that the marines had met their goal for recruiting for 2023. Our line for active military is 202 7488003. On that line is pete in ventura, california. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I served in the air force in the late 70s under president carter, so it was a time of peace. There wasnt a lot going on. No wars. It was right before the shah was still in power in iran. Right when i got out was when the hostages were taken. I think carter send a force over to try and get them, but it ended up in disaster in the desert, and then reagan was ready to come in, and he warned in his speeches that they had to be released, and they were. I served because there were 4 friends of us growing up. We were 19, 20 not doing much with our lives. We talk to a recruiter and they offered guaranteed jobs and to have my buddies went to the winter. I had to wait until the summer to go to training. It was kind of an adventure. My dad served in world war ii. He was actually off the coast somewhere off of finland on a ship when the war was one in europe was won in europe. At that Time Merchant marine was not a qualifier of service, so he knew he would get drafted in korea. He was a communications guy. He rarely talked about it. I think that something with young people today with the, not compulsory, but may be more incentive to file sense of pride, or at least get involved with a program like a job corps where you can serve and get a sense of helping your country. Right now though, if you look at what is going on in the world, when President Biden abandoned afghanistan, and left the base there, and the fiasco that ensued after that, to me that was a real slap in the face to veterans. They left all that hardware there. If we ever have to go back in there for any reason, they will be using all of that equipment and hardware against our troops and their allies. I like the model that president bush the first did when he went in and liberated kuwait. He stopped and said we will not take iran iraq rather. That was it. Everybody knows what happened after 9 11. Bush the second went in and we broke it, and we didnt have a plan in place, and chaos and sued ensued. I see that pattern. World war ii, we go in war is bad enough. You need a mission. You need to go in, wipe out the enemy host thank you for your call. Guest there are a lot of threads to pull on. You joined the military at a time when Public Confidence in the military was fairly low and probably deservedly so. Those years military leaders themselves said they had a hollow force. It shifted from a very problematic draft to a very controversial decision that we can do this just through recruiting. In the late 70s, mid 70s they were struggling. Stripes captures that moment very well. The two leads in the military are running because they dont have anything else. They failed as taxi drivers. That was at a low in the esteem of the military. It is where you go when you dont have anything else. Since they have raised the profile on of course, we do not want to move back into the recruiting we faced in the 70s where we are only taking those who have no hope of contributing to society. Some people say because the recruitment challenge is so great, we should shift back to a draft. I think that is a cure that is worse than the disease. The draft army worked in the crisis moment of world war ii, but did not work over the long term, meeting the longterm challenge of a military during the cold war. We just expect a higher level of professional competence from our military today than what a draft military can produce. I would rather save the all volunteer force for other reforms and fixes then go back to a military draft. Finding other ways for the public to contribute to the public good, yes, but a draft . That is not the way to go. Host on to pennsylvania. Good morning to dave. Caller i am a retired military officer. I started off as an enlisted infantryman. I am a baby boomer generation. My dad was a world war ii veteran. All the males in my family started in the early part of the 1900s in the service. One of the things i would like to say in my time as a military member, enlisted and as an officer, i have learned so many things that you can apply to everything. I work at the post office now, which is totally fubar. I learned great decisionmaking skills, leadership, communications training, so many things i can apply to all walks of life. How to be a great team member, other than being in really competitive sports, there is nothing like the military, especially if you are in tactical type units or you go, to the field a lot you get to go to war. I was in iraq. All those things come together. I have a lot of confidence in the systems. Guys or girls are going into tactical units. Regardless of what other kind of political things are out there, there is good training and good people. The people who stay in our dedicated in are dedicated. The economy always plays a big part in these cycles of recruiting and retention. Usually recruiting. People get into the Higher Company grade officer levels at the 8 or 10 year mark, and people decide to stay in. Guest i will give a shout out to for the Postal Service, because that is another institution that traditionally the public does have high regard for. The public seems to love their postmen or post women, the letter carrier. It is an institution that was in financial crisis, and then briefly in 2020 was in danger of being pulled into the partisan wars. The debate whether postmaster general louis dejoys, the reforms he was proposing were going to interfere with the election. What we have seen is an example of the turnaround where because those charges against the post office were ungrounded, because the post office was able to meet the demands of the mai lin, election the ballots arrived safe and secure and because postmaster general louis dejoy was able to forge a bipartisan consensus, working with both republicans and democrats to have a Financial Plan to save the post office, the Postal Service now is on a better footing than it was 3 or 4 years ago. There may be some lessons therefore the military. Take the military out of the bipartisan debate, and look skeptically at the most partisan critique. S is there any evidence for this . It works on cable news shows, but is there evidence for this . Have leadership focus on the mission. When that happened in the Postal Service, they were able to turn the organization around. Host does your book offer solutions . How do we restore confidence the military . Guest some of the drivers of declining confidence are demographic we cant control. I im not advocating a return to a war. That is another chair that is worse than the disease cure that is worse than the disease. The challenge will be for military leaders to meet the mission without the prop of high confidence. I have a device for the military and it is twofold. Focus on deserve it. Do not focus on deservedness. Focus on professional confidence, performance, staying out of partisan politics, deservedness the rest will follow. When you get that awkward moment in the airport, thanks for your service, and many personnel have told me that it is an awkward moment. Ask the person who is thanking you what do you do . If they say i run a Television Show that informs the public. Thank you for your service. I teach eighth grade math. Thank you for your service there are many ways to serve honorably. We in the military celebrate all the ways, we want to recruit some of the best but we also went to acknowledge what everyone else is doing. If the military focuses on that they will not have to worry about the consequences of declining confidence. Host we go to dave in florida. Go ahead. Caller thank you for my call. Feaver, i am very impressed with your book and your knowledge. I agree with a lot of what you have to say. My grandfather served in world war i in the coast guard. My father was in world war ii in the navy. I was in the navy from 79 to 98. We see a trend in the military after vietnam. , after vietnam, after president carter was elected in 76, great man, i dont feel a great president , but i can dictate history. From the military i cant dictate history. From the military side we had decreased troop levels and internal investment in the military, medical, housing, the commissary, all the big things that make the big picture of service in the military. In 80 we saw president reagan elected. We saw a huge increase in spending. Uyr operational temp our operational tempo picked up significantly. Then the goal for in gulf war in 91. With that came decreased funding. We almost experience a mini vietnam hangover. Then from 9 11, it was another increase in funding in the military and patriotic fever. I think some things that hurt the military sometimes, or hurts military recruiting is we need to make sure that we have clear rules about what is expected from the military. Guest you raise a very important point. One of the reasons military leaders track how people feel about the military is it correlates whether the public supports increased funding for the military. The military today feel like that the level of funding is not commensurate with the threat, the increased threat. While funding has gone up a little, bit in recent years it is below the rate of inflation and it will create a larger and larger gap between what is asked of the military to meet the new political environment and what is given the military to meet it. There is nothing more american than underfunding defense. Every great war the American People have found themselves in, these wars happened after dramatic cuts in the u. S. Military, and we paid for that mistake in the blood and lives of the earliest responders who were sent to fight with inadequate training and inadequate arms. What todays military leaders are trying to do is avoid that problem happening again, but it is a daunting fiscal environment. Host here is david in denniston, texas. Caller your book sounds fascinating. You just mentioned the wars we got onto when we were under prepared and underfunded. You can say the same thing about the spanishamerican war. It happened after the civil war. We were in the same scenario that way. The indian wars after the u. S. Was first founded, the 1890 indian wars. We had far greater losses of troops by far than what happened with custer in 1876. You need to go back to the founding of the country and the issues related to the founding of the military where the militia was not paid for months, if not years and went into all sorts of deprivations and separation from the rest of the population. The difference now yo me to m e, england would have lost to napoleon or hitlers, because napoleon and hitler were both ready to invade england. They couldnt figure out a way to deal with the english navy. In the case of hitler he had a problem with the air force. We are blessed by 3000 miles of water on one side, and more than that on the other, and that is the only thing that has saved the u. S. From its inception. Guest you raised, an important point and this is a point that i emphasize in the book. If i have advice for the military, i also have advice for the civilian side of the house. Civilians need to be more careful about not making the military combatants in the culture war. Much of the politicization of the military is done by us. Civilians need to do a better job of teaching our own history to our people, to our younger generations. Many of the historical incidents you mentioned might be new to a lot of students in america. They might not have studied those parts of american history, the warts but also the successes of american history. I am a proponent of reviving civil studies education in america. You will realize there is a lot to celebrate as well. That is one of the things we can do on the civilian side to boost civilian understanding of the military institution on which we depend to defend our constitution. Host the new book is thanks for your service, the author peter feaver is our guest this morning. At 9 15 a. M. Eastern we will be joined by dr. Anand parekh. We will talk about the upcoming spending battles in congress and how this could affect your health care. Up next we open our phone lines for open forum and give you a chance to weigh in on any topics we have spoken about this morning. The lines are 202 7488000 four republicans which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] 202 7488000 for republicans. 202 7488001 for democrats. 202 7488002 for independents. We will be right back. This fall watch cspans new series books that shaped america. We explore key works of literature from american history. The books featured in our series have provoked thought, led to significant societal changes and are still, talked about today. Here from Renowned Experts who will shed light on the profound impact of these works. Among our featured books, common sense by thomas payne, Huckleberry Finn by mark twain, their eyes were watching god by zora neale hurston, and free to choose by milton rose friedman. Wathc are 10 part series watch our 10 part series on cspan now or online at cspan. Org. Cspanshop. Org is cspans online store. Breast through our latests collection of cspan product,s apparel, books and home accessories. Products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. Shop anytime at cspanshop. Org. Listening to programs on cspan3 cspan radio just got easier. Tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio, and listen to washington journal daily. Weekdays at 5 00 pm eastern catch washington today. Listen to cspan any time, just tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio. Cspan, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host open forum here on washington journal up until 9 15 eastern or so. The republican 202 7488000, the republican line. 202 7488001 for democrats. 202 7488002 for independents. This is from the New York Times this morning. Gop contenders feed voters distrust in courts and schools. Governor desantis says the military is more tim scott says the Justice Department continues to hunt republicans. the vectra must want me has sworn ramaswamy has vowed to shut down the trump focuses his fe on the Justice Department. There is more at nytimes. Com. Robert is in davenport, iowa. Your first. Go ahead you are first. Go ahead. Caller we have real problems and they keep talking about carter under whatever. That is minuscule compared to the climate, compared to election integrity, all of the Different Things what we need to do first thing is we need to make sure that donald trump is not reelected. I propose that people that are democratic and want to make sure our country can survive this man will switch our allegiance during the primaries over to republican and make sure they have a healthy debate so that we can start getting some real good people in congress, who know between right and wrong, and will really stand up for the country and not for this particular party. Host sherman oaks california is next. It is gregory on the democrats line. Caller hello. It is interesting that ron desantis seems to think that global warming, which really should be called global heating, is some kind of tertiary issue that we can ignore. The planet is burning up. We need to make that the main focus of everything we do going forward. He and the rest of the Republican Party are totally missing the point. What we need to do is get serious about something called carbon budgeting. We have an economic budget. We need to have a carbon budget. We will never get, control of the endless growing emissions, the heat trapping gases and lest we plot out how we are going to reduce these emissions year on year with a rational and scientifically determined carbon budget. That should be part of the federal budgeting. Lets apply intelligence to save our collective rear end, both americans and the world. We also need to start treating the fossil fuel companies as having not one function, mainly producing energy with fossil fuel, oil, petroleum, coal, methane and the rest. We also have to reorganize the fossil fuel companies in a way that year on year they will do less of their first job. It sounds contradictory, but i think the way it can be done is if the Oil Companies and the other fossil fuel companies become a different type of entity. Host it is a special election day in ohio. This is from cleveland. Com. State issue one campaigns matter to voters. The highstakes election to decide state issue one, the proposal to make it harder to amend the states constitution is here. They are attempting to mobilize the support of voters and what looks like a tight race. Hundreds of thousands of voters have already cast early ballots for the race in what is a proxy campaign for a November Vote on abortion rights. It has been more reminiscent numbers have been more reminiscent of a contentious spring primary. Winning remains morebout mobilizing faithful voters than persuading the public. That is from cleveland. Com. It is luck risha lacretia on align in maryland. It is lacretia on the line in maryland. Caller the military here does contain the little bit more. As far as recruiting, we do not have the same Family Structures as other generations had, and we need to be compensated. We are not coming out with competitive salaries. There is an older generation of people who have come they are just different as far as gender. That needs to be addressed if they want to recruit the entire population of my generation. That is my thoughts on the military. I am a military child. My father fought in saudi arabia. Host we will go to sue in North Carolina stu in North Carolina. Caller you are speaking to a veteran of 30 years in the military. I spent most of that time as a fighter pilot. I am still closely associated. Why the recruiting and retention is so low, one, host im sorry, can you try dialing back in. Your connection is a little spotty. I no you have some points to make, but if you get of us a quick call back, we will try and give us a quick call back, we will try and get you on. Caller i dont know whether it is appropriate, if you want to talk about the Social Security or if we have to keep it on the military. Host its open news issues or whatever. Caller yeah im 70 years old and i have been hearing about Social Security running out of money my whole professional career. It seems we continue to kick the can down the road. Now im hearing 2035 we will run out of money once again. My question is, for the last couple of years i heard over one Million People died from the deadly disease of covid and of those people i would assume that 90 of them were of Social Security or medicare age. If i do my math correctly, thats about 3 billion a year. If we give these people the Life Expectancy of another five or six years, you can see how we are talking about 15, maybe 20 billion of actual savings. None of the politicians talk about this. None of the politicians want to mention anything about savings, as you know. What happened to all that money . Where is all that money . If it wasnt there we would have been i assume from what politicians are telling us, it wouldnt be too thousand 35, it would be next year when we run out of money. Thats my question. Host all right, george. This is from the hill, headline, former Vice President mike pence has qualified to make the stage in the first republican with 40,000 individual donors required by the committee to make the debate stage. He had met the polling requirement, which stipulated candidates be polling at a minimum of 1 in a combination of National Polls and or early primary state polls. The first debate will be held by fox news in milwaukee, wisconsin. Pence joined several other candidates who qualified for the event. Jim scott tim scott, chris christie, nikki haley, vac ramaswamy. Next, dale in open forum, calling from riverdale, maryland. Caller how are you today . Host fine, thanks. Caller im calling to push back on your gas to suggested the draft was not a good idea. I was one of those reluctant soldiers drafted in 1972 and what i found, what happened was i got drafted and i had a recruiter suggest i could enlist, i had 24 hours to enlist to avoid going to vietnam, which i did. I had already finished four years of college when i got drafted. So i ended up in a group of people, very professional level, the Army Security agency, filled with draftees because they were all like college grads. So as far as having draftees in the military, you actually get a higher grade of people, education wise, by drafting people. People try to avoid the draft, they go to college. And then your deferment runs out and they snap you up. I just found what he was saying to be a bit offensive. Host it also sounds like the army took advantage of the four years of college by suggesting you enlist and were able to get into that program, that part of the army. Caller absolutely. When i initially enlisted i signed up to fly a deskbook i figured typists dont get shot and i was able to go on a six month Delay Program where i didnt even have to go in for six month. And then when i ran out of money i went in but then another recruiter caught me right before i went to basic training and said hey you want to join our group and i said cool. I said what are you doing and i said that she said we are spies and i said really and i ended up doing some weird stuff for those people. Host you got drafted in 72. That was near the end of the, one of the last drafts, correct . Caller i might have been the last guy. I went in november of 72. I was in basic and i said hey can i get out and they go no. [laughter] host sorry you missed our guest and i bet he heard it and appreciate your input in telling us about your experience. Open forum. Kathy, virginia, independent line. Caller yes, good morning. Host good morning. Caller im calling to defend senator tuberville. You had a woman on yesterday, allison jazz low. Nobody is telling the truth about what this is about. Senator to prevail is my hero. He is standing up for what i have been yelling and screaming about for years and years. Which is i dont want my taxpayer money going to pay for elective abortions. President biden after the roe v. Wade thing got settled in the states, some states said no. Then President Biden forced elective abortions on to the va hospitals. Which is illegal. There is a law that you cannot use taxpayer money and you cannot use military hospitals for elective abortions. That is what this is about. All the women that want elective abortions are pushed over now. They can leave the state and go to the va hospital. This is not right. He is standing up for what i believe in. None of the news channels are saying the truth. This allison jazz low never says the truth. They try to make it sound like our no, to reveal is standing up so women wont get any medical care. Thats not true. This could be stopped tomorrow. All President Biden has to do is reverse having, this is elective abortions, now. Nothing to do with emergency. Elective abortions only. Which is not right. Host all right, its open forum. 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488000 for democrats, independents and all others, 202 7488002. She wrote up senator tuberville. Here is the senator himself expanding his reasoning on the senate floor. [video clip] tanner kratz say that this is unprecedented but i will say this, their abortion policy is unprecedented. We are here to make the law. Not the pentagon. Anyone who calls himself prolife needs to stand up and be counted right now. Thats my party included. Democrats, the media machine is throwing the kitchen sink at this. It doesnt bother me. Ive been called everything anyway. It just makes me that much stronger to hear people complain about this knowing that deep down somewhere there is a soft part in their heart for the 45,000 unborn babies that will never breathe life on this earth. So the more joe biden attacks me, the more im convinced im doing the right thing. Seems like my colleagues on the left will do anything to change the subject and distract from this issue at hand. Recently even the white house attacked my football record. My wife did the same thing at times. Its absolutely ridiculous though how this thing has gotten out of hand. There has been very little conversation. Very little dialogue. That is what this place is supposed to be about. Host its open forum on washington journal until 98 until 10 a. M. Eastern. This is from politico. Impeachment effort losing steam in the house gop. Writing that House Republicans once regarded the Homeland Security secretary Alejandra Mayorkas as their easiest impeachment target and it seems out of reach now. Centrists were never sold on impeaching him over problems at the border nor were they aligned with their colleague on the lies of colleagues. Now the most vocal republicans pushing to remove him are acknowledging they are finding skeptics immovable. Even kevin mccarthy, who thrilled conservatives last year when he opened the door to proceedings is signaling that hes still not convinced. Saying the only time you use impeachment is if someone does something that rises to impeachment. Mccarthy told politico that committees are still investigating him. They write its a sign that he has bowed to the conservative wing even as he cedes the hope of inquiry into Merrick Garland and joe biden. Centrists and their allies across the conference are even less enthusiastic about actually attempting to boot them from office. They have supported investigations but warned that taking the votes without proof of wrongdoing could mean party losses for the next house term. That is from politico. Some news from alaska this morning, from the Washington Post, reporting on major flooding happening in juneau, alaska. Record glacial flooding sweeping away two homes in the capital. Unprecedented glacial flooding over the weekend swept away two homes, severely damaging others in the capital. No injuries were ever reported but floodwaters took part of a third home and caused significant damage to a condominium building according to the deputy city manager of juneau, saying it is directly tied to a single specific glacial phenomenon. The water surrounding the 3000yearold glacier that draws tourists from around the world is threatening the city. Flooding from the glacier has been happening every summer since 2011 but this weekend the overflow smashed previous records by nearly three feet. On the line from georgetown, delaware, kathleen, democratic caller, go ahead. Kathleen i have something, its not a question, its not a statement. Its just something i think about and i think others should give thought to it. This country has never had a war inside of its borders. People today have no idea what it is to try to have your children sleep with bombs going off and gun fire and people screaming. The front of their building being destroyed in the place of their bedroom and everything. These women and children, running down the streets, crazy looking for someplace safe to go while being bombed. Americans have never had to know this in their country. They can criticize. They can talk everything they want about whats going on in ukraine. How about a heart for the ukrainian citizens. Vladimir putin is not bombing military installations or depots. Hes bombing the citizens. The houses in the hospitals the people need to use when the war is over and they dont even have a hospital to go back to. The world is sending all kinds of ammunition and weapons and everything. What about manpower . No one wants to be the manpower because if anyone goes in there it officially puts met or with russia. No one wants to be the first to go in but if people, young people especially today, who take life so complacently with fancy sneakers and video games and everything, they have no idea. If the day ever, i pray it doesnt, but if war ever comes to this country these same people will be on their knees, begging every country in the world to come to their rescue. Host shirley is on the line from bloomington, illinois. Democratic caller. Hello there. Caller i would like to bring up a subject no one has touched on. Whats wrong with politicians that they think its ok to pack up and take classified or declassified documents home with them when they are no longer in office. None of it should be taken by any Government Official whatsoever, including a former president. Its an embarrassment to our country. All of it should be filed away in the government archives, where it is safe and locked up in case those papers are ever needed. What could these politicians possibly need them for. Our government is starting to act like a bunch of little kids. I for 1 am scared that these papers could have fallen into the wrong hands. I think that the Supreme Court should make it a law that no documents are to be taken by anyone. All of it should be turned over to the archives with no exception. The papers should be locked up where they are safe. Host update on the january 6 case against former President Donald Trump. Lawyers urging for narrowing of proposed rules in the case. Peace says the legal team told the judge sphere is the case against them on monday that prosecutors proposed a protective order aimed at protecting the Public Disclosure of evidence is too broad and would restrict his rights. Silver spring, maryland, go ahead. Caller good morning. Couple of comments. First, on the thrice indicted, twice impeached thing that used to be in the white house. He gave credit to biden. He conceded integrity. Biden, powerful enough to have the world soccer team fail. Isnt that amazing . And then he was so nice to megan. He said nice kick, megan. Hes a disgrace. What a disgrace. Then they have the route he took from National Airport in the limousine that america pays for two well from the court from National Airport and he was in a tunnel and forgot what it looked like when he left famously from the thing when he did not transition, of course he would never transition because he is a winner. Its interesting, he claimed about the trash and everything that he sees now. Its decayed since he left. Armed guards, fences. Everything was up when he left because he caused insurrection. Lets not forget. And his wonderful patriots desecrated the capital and he walked on out with millions of dollars. Host all right. Thank you for all the calls. Still ahead here next we will be joined by dr. Anand parekh, sheep medical advisor the Bipartisan Policy Center. Talking about how the coming spending battles in congress could affect your health care and other issues in the news. Thats next here on washington journal. Order your copy of the 118th congressional directory available at cspan shop. Org. Your access to the federal government with bio and Contact Information for every house and senate name member. The president s cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. Scan the code at the right to order your copy today or go to cspan shop. Org. 2995 plus shipping and handling. 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Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you towards interesting news highlights. The markers appear on the righthand slide side of your screen. Giving you a quick idea of what was debated in washington. Scroll through and spend a few minutes on the cspan points of interest. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined by the chief medical advent advisor at the medical policy center, peter feaver, working under the george w. Bush and Obama Administrations. With us this morning to talk about the congressional spending debates and how they tie into Health Policies that are being held up while Congress Figures outspending. Welcome back. Guest great to be with you. Host tell us a bit about what you do as chief medical advisor. Guest our organization tries to take the best ideas from both sides to promote health and security. I think we are the only remaining organization in town with the word bipartisan in it. We focus on a range of bipartisan issues. I provide Clinical Public Health expertise for our programs, activities. We focus on health care issues. Delivering access and Public Health. Guest what was your medical back background . Guest adult medicine. What i found was getting me up in the morning was making an impact on population health. Host this is from back in july, Health Emergencies dont discriminate by Political Party. In that you are talking about a number of Health Programs and policies being held up by the debates happening on capitol hill. Broadly can you give us an idea of the things you are concerned about in the article . Guest the first set of concerns is Government Spending bills with appropriations on the health side that have to be passed by congress by september 30. Otherwise theres a Government Shutdown and you need a continuing resolution. Then there are other bills. Reauthorization is the difference there. Appropriation is where you spend the money. Reauthorization is the ability to spend the money. One in particular is called the pandemic all hazards preparedness act. I talked about that in the oped in july. That piece of legislation provides a structure for the federal government to prepare for pandemic. Everything from developing medical countermeasures to how you prepare hospitals and Public Health departments and make sure that you have supply chains with stockpiled critical medical material. That piece of legislation needs to be reauthorized. In a bipartisan manner. There are a couple of issues both sides need to tackle. Host why is it being held up do you think . Guest there are issues related to drug shortages. In many cases as in covid we had situations where there were drug shortage demands that outpaced supply. One of the ideas is should the fda have more authority when there is a drug shortage during an emergency to make sure manufacturers are transparent in letting the public know that there is a gap and we need to work together. Others in congress think the pharmaceutical sector needs to be able to raise prices so that they can keep manufacturing facilities up so that they can respond to shortage. Another policy issue is related to data. Federal agencies, as we knew during the pandemic, they needed data to make evidencebased decisions. Some places like the cdc dont have the authority to get that data from localities and states. Guest host you also write about a clarification of the roles. That the central tenet for the reauthorization should include clarified roles and responsibilities of the federal agencies involved in preparedness and response or improved coordination and collaboration. Has that not been done since the covered pandemic started . Guest we made some progress and we argued that there should be a White House Office coordinating preparedness and response and that got passed last september as part of the omnibus. But there are a array of other important federal agencies from the cdc to the nih, fema and the fda, the department of defense and Homeland Security, they all need to be coordinated. We learned that from covid and the American Public and states deserve the court coordination. Host the holdup of military nominations in the case of cover ville in the holdup of to prevail and the whole senator tuberville and the holdup around abortion policies, why has that become a bigger factor this year . Guest one, its affecting appropriations bills. On the house side the appropriations bill the subcommittee passed, there are a number of riders focused on antiabortion and antigender care that need to be reconciled. Other things, like the large Global Health program that president bush 20 years ago created, it comes from reauthorization and has always been bipartisan. Some members now contending and lobby for abortions. Abortion there is also being discussed. Abortion with these cultural social issues, they are inserting themselves in the day issues of congress. They are important issues and people have strongly held views. The danger is if they are inserted in every Issue Congress has to deal with it can paralyze the work. Host has the House Republican majority voted on that yet . Guest they have not yet. It is up for reauthorization and they are hopefully doing good faith review on both sides. Hopefully both sides will realize whats at stake. Its a lifesaving program. Millions supported from the program. For the taxpayer its not just about helping people overseas, which is important, but its a return to the taxpayer as well. We have done research at the Bipartisan Policy Center. As you fund these programs to prevent and treat individuals with hivaids, Public Opinion around the world improves. Socioeconomic status and these countries, its important from that perspective. Rule of law improves as well. From a National Security perspective its a really important program. As well as from a health perspective. Host dr. Parekh is our guest. We welcome your calls and comments. Eastern or central time zones, it is 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. If you want to comment or ask a question by text, include your name and where you are texting from at 202 7488003. Going back to the reauthorization of the preventative perforation for pandemic the pandemic preparation measures, do you find its harder to talk to lawmakers or staff about this . Does it feel like sometimes they feel we are beyond covid and onto other things and that is a lesser priority . Guest im finding two things. One theres a genuine concern to learn the lessons of covid so that we are prepared for next time. Among some members there is a continued desire to look back. Either discontent with the response in the work of federal agencies. You are seeing those conflicting themes play out. Thats also one of the reasons why the authorization has been somewhat contentious but hopefully we will pass it by the end of the year. Host we have seen changes in leadership at the cdc, the nih. Those are the key ones in the administration. Does that have an effect . Guest we have a new cdc director who is saying the right things now, thats the most important piece or mission of the cdc right now. Rebuilding trust with the American Public. The nih has an acting director. The nominee has been confirmed by the senate. As new leaders come in, the issues are still there and they have to be top of mind. Host the nih director not approved yet but its not being held by a senator that you know of . Guest not formally. Being held by a different reason. Senator sanders is really concerned about the rising costs of prescription drugs in this country, most others are as well and would like assurances from the nominee and nih that they will also have or play a role in ensuring that all the biomedical advances going into new drugs, that there is some recognition there, some common patient if you will. He is looking at that from the nih director. Host often in these spending battles people will say dont worry, your medicare, medicaid, Social Security will continue on. But the Health Programs that are affected by a Government Shutdown, certainly funding, not meeting those funding deadlines, things like Government Community health centers, emergency response, pandemic preparedness, Substance Abuse and Mental Health aides that fall through the. Guest so important. These programs prevent disease for health. The Community Health center, that one is connected to appropriations. 70 of those resources come from the reauthorization. I think it will get done by the end of the year but if it is not done, 30 million americans receiving care, thousands of communities without a regard for the ability to pay. Half of these individuals are on medicaid. This is comprehensive primary care. Behavioral health, dental, pharmacy. Its a big deal to the American Public. Guest i want to host i wanted to ask you about the treat and reduce obesity act, expanding Medicare Coverage for approved prescriptio drugs for chronic weight management, expanding coverage to include screening and treatment of obesity from different ranges of care and providers with intensive Behavioral Counseling provided by registered dietitians. Where is it in the process . Guest recently reintroduced, bipartisan in the house it it has been introduced in previous sessions but not crossed the finish line. Members are concerned about the price tag. This is a big deal. As we know 40 of adults in the United States have obesity. Obesity is a medical condition. We have evidence to based treatment with counseling focused on diet, physical activity. Only certain providers can provide those services. In terms of prescriptions there are now safe and effective antiobesity medications out there but because of laws from 20 years ago, medicare is statutorily prohibited from even considering the medications for coverage. At this point 20 years later its discriminatory. Host we are talking about which drugs . [indiscernible] guest exactly. It was epic one specifically for individuals who have obesity. Because of the 2003 statute, interestingly enough medicare cant even really consider the evidence on whether to cover that and that matters because oftentimes commercial private payers follow what medicare does. Host with the treat and reduce obesity act, this would address that . Guest it would, it would allow them to have the authority to look at the evidence and determine if it is reasonable or necessary for Medicare Beneficiaries to ask those questions and consider it for coverage. Guest lee, new york city, welcome. Caller thank you. I would like to focus on ppe in the u. S. And how south korea handled covid versus our response. We have sent all ppe to china, mexico 10 . South korea, when they had their first case of covid they immediately started manufacturing the equivalent of our n95 respirator. Everyone in south korea got a text where they could go to purchase two masks each week. Or they may have received them free, im not sure. I would encourage you to speak with david bowen at prestige ameritech. One of the few respirators respirator producers in the u. S. , hes been on a 20 seat 20 year crusade about off shoring and how it was National Security risk. I briefly heard you mention stockpiling. You cannot stockpile n95, they deteriorate. Mr. Bowen, we had a stockpile and the masks had deteriorate. He got calls from consumers who wound up buying the masks when they fell apart. Host thanks for raising the issue. Guest the caller makes many, many good points. The truth of the matter is we need to increase domestic manufacturing capacity uncritical materials like mask and respirators. We talk about the pandemic preparedness act, this would increase the visibility of supply chain gaps. Particularly on this too that would be really important. Host have domestic providers stepped it up postcovid . Guest they started to but more authorities for publicprivate partnerships would be helpful. Host heres michael from howard county, florida. Caller your timing is perfect, school is starting across the nation. Dr. Parekh i think i partisan ship is bipartisanship is particularly important at this time, key i think most in reevaluating if there has been partisanship. Are you primarily defending, you think, Political Parties are science . If one party, making this hypothetical, so easier to answer, if one party went rogue completely and endangered the health of people and had tapes, like the nixon tapes, with tapes showing a president and Vice President went on record that their goal was to let it run its course and their excuse postdisaster was we didnt know there was a vaccine when in truth its when you dont have a vaccine that you need to stick to what science says to do. If that president and Vice President through it out to form a committee that said keep things open so that it runs its course, is that not again hypothetically, the exact definition of genocide . Purposely letting it is seen run its course through a population to keep business going. If a Foreign Government were to do that, we would be screaming murder. Host all right, michael. Guest i agree with many of your points. I think we need to prepare for the next pandemic. At the Bipartisan Policy Center we are trying to educate both sides to learn the importance of preparedness, funding preparedness, local, state, federal coordination, making sure federal agencies have the data they need to make the most evidencebased decisions, ensuring Public Health infrastructure is funded. That is why this legislation is so important. I think we have to try our best. This is what we do to try to not politicize pandemic sponsors as well as Public Health related issues. So i agree with you. I think we need to really focus on the Lessons Learned and not get distracted and it is important to apply to Lessons Learned for future preparedness. Host looking into the origins of covid, how do we get to the answer on this without it becoming the political issue it has been. Guest thats a great question. Many have weighed in. The predominant weight of the evidence suggests covid occurred from naturally occurring causes as opposed to Laboratory Accidents. The way i look at it, bill, at the end of the day from a preparedness perspective we have to prepare for both. Learning more and looking back, its fine and good, but that doesnt change preparedness. We have to be prepared that a naturally occurring event could happen and it could be spillover from animal to human. We also have to be prepared for Laboratory Accidents as well. That doesnt change. The important question, its critical but doesnt change preparedness. Host now from kyle in truth or consequences new mexico. Caller dr. Parekh, i appreciate you being on the show. Can you hear me . Host yes, we can. Caller awesome. We were just talking about the origins of the most recent pandemic. We talked about lab origins. I just, a lab origin, science doing Risky Research possibly, not making any statements of certainty, possibly just killed like 15 Million People. So the justification of further Research Like this is disconcerting. I dont want to say further than that. Other than two jokes. Can i say two jokes . Host lets save the jokes for some other show, a joke show. Lets hear from dr. Parekh. Guest there is a debate in congress right now on whether or how the fund for research on pathogens such as covid, again i think in terms of the lab origin hypothesis, its a hypothesis. A minority of scientific experts inc. That is likely. Whatever the case, we have to prepare for it. There is a healthy debate i think of how do we make sure this research, which is important, its important to know about the severity of the transmission and other distinction characteristics of highly virulent viruses out there and how they may affect humans, thats important to know. If its being done how do we make sure there are appropriate safeguards and at what point does it become too risky and there is a healthy debate on that topic right now. Host we talked a bit about this earlier on the appropriations process and the axios headline about health care poison pills complicating the process. One of those could potentially eliminate funds for fun title x, the Family Planning programs like planned parenthood clinics. Outside of abortion, what federal money, what do the federal planning clinics do. Guest clinical women health services. Cancer screenings. Sexually transmitted disease education. Preventing genderbased violence. Providing contraception. Providing education on heart healthy lifestyles. Its really comprehensive Womens Health in those clinics. It is not focused on abortion, as some would say. There are really important familyplanning services for women and families. Host does that money go to the all 50 state familyplanning clinics . Guest i dont know about all 50 but it is nationwide in the program has been operational for decades now, from time to time depending on the administration, the level of funding, who the grantees can be have changed as well. Thats an example of a program like teen pregnancy prevention, hiv programs. The scope of whats at risk seems to be increasing and thats the concern with the senate and its bipartisan appropriations bill on the house side with the house not only significantly less, large funding declines for nih and cdc , d agencies like the agency for Health Care Research programs like title x and teen pregnancy, how are these two chambers going to reconcile these differences, pass something both of them agree on, vote on it and get it decided before the 30th. Host alabama, brandon, good morning. Caller the health care medication we are dealing with in our local drugstores. With our medication being out of stock or on backorder, resulting in having to call back the doctor and to unwarranted things to suit. The restrictions because mass suicides, leaving hundreds of pain patients vulnerable to breaking laws, going into the streets to buy daily drugs. We are left with nothing. Theres this risk, what you call it, risk advantage where they have these thoughts, addicts get their treatment, drug paraphernalia, once you get current pain patients who have been dealing with pain for all their lives, deny them medication because the opiate medication closed. Something needs to be done. We have thousands of care patients dying with pain and it shouldnt happen in the United States. Thank you for your time. We need to redact this cdc guideline. Thank you. Guest thats an important point. The support act before congress right now locus is on prevention treatment and recovery. One of those things debated is to make sure that all pharmacies are stocking evidencebased medication for use disorder and oftentimes they arent stocking the medications. Individuals with addiction have nowhere to turn. That is i think an important piece there. More broadly, this plays into drug shortages. We discussed the importance there of federal agencies tracking drug shortages, being able to do so and taking action. In terms of i will say quickly the Opioid Epidemic in this country, abuse disorder, 100,000 americans die each year from abuse disorders and it skyrocketed during pandemic. Seems to have leveled off but it is being driven by illicit fentanyl, as well as now really poly substances. New things coming into the drug supply. You may have heard of zylozene or tranq, essentially a horse tranquilizer looking to replicate the effects of fentanyl and contributing to overdose deaths. That is another really Important Health issue. We have talked about it in the past, talked about it for years. As we come out of the pandemic to address these existing Public Health challenges it is important to keep in mind. Host the caller from alabama brings up the point that there are folks out there with real pain issues and the shortage out there must be so difficult for them to deal with. They are not theoretically in the illicit drug part of this, just trying to revolve their problem. Guest for the majority, opioids may not the best answer. We need more research there as well. This is a class of drug, like with many, where there are spot shortages. That seems to have a significant negative effect on people who may need that. Guest whats your host what is your view on research for Drug Enforcement . Guest many of these agencies, you mentioned, they always need more staff and are always trying to get more funds to support all of these programs, activities, and initiatives. This is truly an annual battle for some of these agencies but they are funded comparatively in terms of what they have to regulate, trillions of dollars in the economy from the fda, pretty small budget there. Really working overtime and its been happening for a number of years. Host it would seem that the request to approve new medications are only increasing day by day. Guest absolutely. Take a look at agencies like the fda, the scope has increased over the years. Its not just food now. Not just drugs and devices. Its tobacco as well. Looking at all of these things and the backlog of submissions coming in to be safe and effective in terms of a particular product. Host bridget, south carolina, go ahead. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Im concerned about the antibioticresistant infections now. Are we going to be coming to a post antibiotic situation . And the government may have to get more involved in encouraging Drug Companies to start producing new antibiotics . If you could please speak to this problem. Thank you. Guest its a really important issue and you are absolutely right and during covid we saw a spike in antibiotic prescriptions even though those were not the right choice for viral infection. This has been going on for a long time and it is scary for many of us in the medical field because we absolutely rely on antibiotics and to think that there could be a time when you have drug resistant bacteria where none of the antibiotics are useful, that is scary. Congress is absolutely having that discussion. How do we incentivize manufacturers out there. A market to produce new antibiotics for one step ahead of drug bacteria. Host Congress Took up the issue of insulin prices. Where are we on insulin prices now, what does the field look like . Guest Congress Passed a law or related to medicare as a part of the inflation reduction act, limit, 35 copay monthly limit but it it was not enacted for the commercial insurer side so right now there is a push by democrats to get it back on the agenda to see if there can be some bipartisan agreement so that all americans with insurance have that 35 copay maximum per month. Host next up is russell in south carolina. Go ahead. Caller thanks for taking my call. During the opium challenge, a lady called in to talk about Tommy Tubervilles ban on promotions due to abortions and i would like the doctor to clarify something. He said that people in the community can go on to military bases to get an abortion. Thats not correct. Im a veteran. I worked in military hospitals. No one is allowed, no civilians are allowed to go on a base and get military care unless it is just for stabilization to be transported to a civilian hospital. I would like the doctor to clarify that particular issue. She is being lied to. She brought the lie onto cspan. Host would you care to say some thing about it . Guest im not aware of that particular situation. But i will say, this is another example i would say, bill, of sort of inserting abortion related issues in this particular case, related to the any aa, funding the military. Examples of how they are important issues and when they get inserted into the work of congress, the work can be paralyzed. Host here is chip from trinidad, colorado. Go ahead. Caller thank you. In terms of people accidentally overdosing from drugs, thats 100 because the drugs they want for their mental or physical pain are illegal and they have to get them illegally so they are not measured right, produced right, prescribed right. If we went back to the old days before the harrison act of 1914, when cocaine and heroin were legal and they could be prescribed for mental and physical pain, we would have zero accidental drug overdoses and it would also end the migrant crisis because it is all that drug money going down to south america corrupting those countries and thats with the migrants are running from. Thank you. Host dr. Parekh . Guest addiction is a brain disorder and we have to look at this sort of on two fronts. One, there are millions of americans, 2. 5 million americans today who have addiction to opioids. Many of them started from prescription drugs. And then heroin and fentanyl. Now it is polysubstance use. The good part is we have effective evidencebased treatments for the individuals who. A new study came out yesterday suggesting only 10 to 20 of the individuals are actually getting treatment. One thing we need to do is increase access to treatments like naloxone. On the others, we do have to stop and reduce the flow, working with china, mexico, and other countries there as well to make sure that americans received treatment for opioid abuse disorder. I dont think there is a magic lit here, if we legalize drugs. Probably multipronged in terms of the approach, focusing on the Public Health side of this in terms of treatment and at the same time trying to reduce illicit flow. Guest what is the role of congress in controversial issues around abortion and gender affirming care . What is the role of congress in inserting that into debates overspending for the various agencies . Guest obviously they are issues that members and voters, constituents care about. The question for the members is when do you focus on these issues . Under what circumstances and how far do you go in focusing on those issues . Do you go so far as, as to lead to a Government Shutdown . Go so far as to sort of disrupt the appropriations process or funding for the military . These are questions every member on the hill is trying to balance. Host clearly some have said yes, they are willing to take it. Guest right that is why there is impasse in several of these areas. Host lets hear from mark in tallahassee, florida. Guest i have a couple caller i have a couple of issues i would like to make statements on. Hope you guys are doing well this morning. Anyways, medicaid. You cant go, you cant go anywhere and find help. Its really hard to get a doctor anywhere that takes medicaid. I think one of the things we could fix that with would be probably you know the first three years out of college for medical people should be mandatory that they deal with medicaid. First three years out of residency. I dont understand why no one is putting their mind to this. If you have to do with medicaid, its no fun out here. No fun at all. Everything goes wrong, too many entities dont talk to each other. Its just a mess. Host mark, how long have you been dealing with medicaid . Caller 12 years now. The doctors even tell me, cant you switch your insurance to like Sunshine Health . Worst insurance. They shouldnt even be in the medical field of insurance. Terrible, terrible people to deal with. The doctors even tell you. They dont want to deal with it. Anyways. I was going to get to two. I was wondering if there is any help out there for us people out here who are taking care of our dementia and alzheimers parents. Is there any help from the government . I keep seeing these things but they just dont help you. Host got a couple of minutes left. Dr. Parekh, a couple of things from the caller in florida. Guest i will take the last one. In terms of caregiving for individuals with alzheimers there was a recent announcement by medicare focusing on increased supports for caregivers. Federal programs also that fund communitybased organizations to support caregivers as well and hopefully some local organizations and area agencies on aging you can reach out to for help as well. Bill, can you remind me of the first question . Host he was concerned about being on medicare for 12 years and having trouble finding dr. Guest on medicaid, the first around state reimbursement in the primary care side, its too low. There were some initiatives over the last two years to increase those rates specifically for primary care for state and medicaid programs. We are seeing that where the rates are higher, theres greater access but there is also an issue as you pointed out of difficulty finding positions and we need to grow that workforce. There are 100 million americans living in primary care deserts. Not enough physicians out there. You try to schedule an appointment and you have to wait three or six months. There is a Workforce Shortage as well with Public Private Sector Solutions that you need to address. I think we really need to tackle those problems. Host dr. Peter feaver anand parekh, welcome back and thanks for being here. Guest thank you very much. Host that will do it for the program here. We are back tomorrow morning at 7 00 eastern and we hope you are as well. We are taking you across town to the bipartisan policy c