Democrats, 202 7370001 and independents, 202 6280205. Phone lines are open so start dialing in. Let us begin with the reaction from donald trump. He issued a statement yesterday after president obama expelled the Russian Diplomats as well as closing two compounds in the u. S. Saying it is time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. But in the interest of our country, i will meet with leaders of the Intelligence Community next week in order to be updated on the facts. From capitol hill, the chairman of the Armed Services committee, john mccain saying that the white house sanctions are long overdue but a small price for russia to pay for this reason attack on u. S. Democracy. Senator mccain promising tougher action against russia. Leader, the top democrat in the senate says strongly support the Obama Administration work to fight back against russias interference in our election system. And the top democrat on the Foreign Affairs committee, senator ben cardin sing the white house sanctions are good but not sufficient. Congress should now complement and strengthen these new executive sanctions. That senator wanting an independent commission to look into the hacking by russians. With that, what do you think about what happened . The president s actions yesterday . Paul ryan also issuing a statement saying while todays actions by the administration is are overdue, it is an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with russia. That is what the speaker of the house had to say yesterday. The foreign minister of russia, mr. Live rob was on russia today recently, moments ago. And this is what he had to say. Therefore, the russian or in ministry along with our colleagues have proposed to diplomats. We have suggested these americans will be prohibited from using their country houses in moscow. We hope this will be reviewed as quickly as possible. Host that was russia todays coverage of the back and forth between the United States and russia over this election hacking. What are your thoughts on this . Front page of usa today on this obama sanctions russian officials. David jackson reporting that the administration will soon be providing a report to congress in the coming days about russias efforts to interfere in our elections as well as malicious cyber activity in previous elections. It goes on to say that this report will likely classified. Will likely be classified. What is your reaction to this . The New York Times reports that the expulsion of the 35 russians and their families was in response to the harassment of american diplomats in russia. It is unclear if they were involved in the hacking. There are other issues involved here as well. The wall street journal from page this morning the showdown poses a challenge for donald trump. Central promise of president elect Donald TrumpsForeign Policy is that he will forge a working partnership with russia turning an adversary into an ally. Wants to renew ties with russia, he will inherit a bilateral relationship indelibly shaped by mr. Obamas move on thursday to punish russia for their attempts to influence the election. He may not have the freehand that he envisioned. From his own party endorsed the actions from president obama. Senator mccain says he will push for even harsher measures. Potentially tipping u. S. Public opinion more decisively against russian leadership. Let us go to ted in flushing, new york. An independent. Good morning. Waser as you know, i insisting on working with russia before. Russia, it comes to hacking and doing some bad things with our diplomats, we should stand with obama. This time, obama is 100 right. Russia should not be underestimated. This isongress against our national interest. Vladimir should not play this game. He is not our dictator. He will not do whatever he wants. Donald trump also he will be checked. I am for it, 100 . Host you do not think that donald trump should undo this executive order. Caller he cannot. The republicans and the democrats they are not saying that Vladimir Putin should do whatever he wants in the united eights. We are a democracy. We need to respect this. Might increase problems. Host listen to this analysis by the wall street journal. Donald trump is not entirely boxed in. Senior Obama Administration officials says that the new president could undo these sanctions. Article itin the says a dealmaker to the core, mr. Trump could offer to ease the sanctions as a carrot to win more cooperation with the russians in the battle against islamic state. He could also threaten to escalate the conflict even further. Carl in oxford, massachusetts, a democrat. Good morning to you. Start, iight from the used to have admiration for john mccain. Honest to god, i think he is losing it. Everyone in the government, republicans and democrats. It is not the soviet union anymore. It is russia. They are trying to survive and we are acting our and we are into theur noses politics of different nations. We have some nerve to a allegedly they allegedly hacked, they have no proof. They are trying to get us into a war. They want war. Our government wants more. Host let us listen to let senator lindsey graham. This was before the announcement from the white house though the white house had said this action was coming. Here is the senator from south carolina. What will you do if he does not change his tune on russia . There are 100 u. S. Senators. We have a democrat from minnesota. I would say that 99 of us believe the russians did this and we are going to do something about this along with senator mccain. We will have the hearings. We will put together sanctions that will hit Vladimir Putin as an individual and his inner circle for interfering in our election. They are doing it all over the world. Estonia is hit all of the time. They are hitting democratic nations all over the world. Point made bylast the senator, take a look at the Financial Times this morning. Bundestag hack fears russian targeting of german polls. Last years of assault on the bundestag Computer Network was also carried out by russian backed hackers seeking ammunition for electoral meddling. Angela merkel warned there were signs of internetbased campaigns that could play a role in the election campaign. The government has reacted with a complete overhaul of the parliaments computer system. It is also throwing its weight into defense against cyber warfare in response to the rising number of attacks. From bentonville, arkansas, a republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. That russia was just doing what an adversary does. Anytime they find an open or unsecured terminal, they will hack it. That is what the United States does also. We have a whole building of people at langley that does these things. I think that obama should take a 30 day vacation right now since there are only 20 days left in his term. And john mccain should retire because he does not know whether he is a democrat, a republican, or nothing. That is about all i have to say. Richard is in turlock, california. A democrat up early. Welcome. Caller good morning. People say they are hacking. That the hacking of the dnc did not affect the election. But when bernies people found out they were trying to get hillary in there, they stayed home and that made a big difference in the election. And the republicans, my goodness, do not even call yourself u. S. Citizens anymore. Is in cahoots with vladimir and if you cannot see that, my goodness that is why you have donald trump. I am done. Host richard, the wall street journal editorial says the obama that theation has said u. S. Must maintain dominance over russia and that is why obamas steps were so timid. Attackers have been emboldened to metal in the u. S. Political process. Only a u. S. President willing to exercise power will get the kremlin to stop. The wall street journal editorial goes on to write that lord knows, what the president elect means by his earlier statement that the country must move on but it seems to extend his strange habit of making excuses for latin america. On thursday, the transition released a more considerate statement from mr. Trump thing it is time to move on but in the interest of our country, he would meet with u. S. Intelligence officials next week in order to be updated on the facts of the situation. He is wise to do so. South river, new jersey, a democrat. Caller good morning. I would like to know what Hillary Clinton is going to do about this mess. She lost the election because of Vladimir Putin. What are you going to do, hillary . Host what do you think she should do, teresa . Caller she should try to win back her status. Host hildegard is in georgetown, south carolina. A republican. What are your thoughts this morning on this news . Russia was thing, if spying on america, america has do noting it since i know how long. And barack obama, he has never been a good president. He has never had any backbone. He is a crybaby because he lost the votes. Why would we have a crypt and their . Why would we have a crook in there . Reverses thisrump action by president obama yesterday, you would agree with that . Caller definitely. Host why . You cannot want to go to war with each country on this earth. Say things about countries that you are not at war with. The democrats missed of. They are putting everything on to on Vladimir Putin. Host from the wall street journal, the administrations actions on thursday appears to have been the largest expulsion of officials when george w. Bush ordered 51 democrat 51 russians to leave. That was fromer president Ronald Reagan ordered 65 soviet diplomats to leave the country. What is your reaction to that . Everything is normal. All over the world, they do this in other countries. Everyone wants to be the biggest but america goes into every country and tells them what to do. We have got to go back down to the basics. And be at peace with everybody and help everyone like israel. Host that is hildegard. In bellevue,to bob nebraska. A democrat. Good morning. Caller i would hope that senator graham and mccain and others interested in this should laws so thatwrite mandates in u. S. Elections. With having paper backup for everything, every election that we have. Host and they would be counted at the same time as we do electronic voting . Just make sure you have a paper or a nonnet backup. It seems like that is what we are going to have to do. We have opened the door to not only russia but other countries to come in and do this. It seems like a simple solution. The American People are going to pay for donald trump, believe me. There will be people who will probably be parents of children who are killed because of donald trump. This is something. Specific we can solve. Host bob, i want to show something to you from last week. Vladimir putin did his annual year and News Conference or she takes questions from reporters in russia for hours. This one lasted three hours and 53 minutes. A have gone five hours in the past. Reporterked by a bbc about these allegations of meddling in the was a lecture. I want to say. This was a week ago. Listen to his answer. I want to have you respond. Tampering anded my conversation with president obama. You may have noticed that i never review the contents of our conversations, one on one. You mentioned tampering. Mentioned to your colleague from the United States wayssers always look for to accuse someone else. They should look at themselves first. And they always forget the most important thing. The most important thing i think is let us say some hackers hacked a Democratic Party emails. Some hackers did it. Ok. E the president elect said who knows who those hackers were . Maybe they were not in russia but in some other countries or maybe it is just some guy lying on his sofa. It is easy to blame it on another country. That is not the most important thing. The most important thing was what was revealed. Like they invented something. Or that they came up with some information. True information was revealed. Truth came out as was evidenced i the fact that after they revealed how the Democratic Party has been manipulating Public Opinion in favor of one candidate over another, against , the head of the democratic part of leadership resigned and that indicates this was actually true. This was instead of apologizing and promising never to do it again, what they did was they started looking for people who hacked into their emails. That is not really important, right . Host that was a week ago, president Vladimir Putins annual year and News Conference. If you want to watch more of that, you can go to our website thomas cspan. Org. You, a democrat in nebraska. What do you make of his argument . What came out was truth and voters reacted to that. Caller using that kind of logic is interesting but not very factual. When people compete in the u. S. , when organizations compete, they have some degree of secrecy. A company that is selling soda pop against cocacola is not expected to have all of their information made public so everything is on the table. There is a degree in sports where coaching and playbooks and things like that are not made available to the other teams. So, i do not dispute the fact that if he wants to talk about a party that lost, there is a party that lost. But we are not talking about that. Here is why. The people who are championing this are republicans. Ccain is championing this the people who brought this to the forefront are separate actors including the cia and the fbi. They are not democratic operatives. It does not really make a lot of sense. All i am saying is that i think this is something that is obviously coming and we need to do more safeguards. Do not think donald trump has us this is not something he wants to worry about. We have never done the correct investigation of donald trump to find out what kind of ties he has to russia. Apparently, the American Public is not interested in this. I will admit, the american the rules we play by, donald trump won this election. They outplayedse the weaker opponent. However, that does not make any difference with regard to the future of what we will be looking at. Some of myy for republican friends. If they have children in the military and their kids and of getting killed, i will feel badly for them even though they voted for donald trump. Host to the point you are making, kearney, the spokesperson for obama in his first term tweeted this out the 20 underneath it is from george w. Bushs campaign manager. Let us be clear, you are not in American Patriot and you do not respect the constitution if you believe Vladimir Putin more than our president. Christian in louisiana, a republican. Caller good morning. That everyone had a merry christmas. I would like to extend a safe and happy new year going into 2017. Real quick, one question. Has been question that asked over and over again. Where is the proof, the factual proof that russia had any type of hand in manipulating our elections or having any type of control over the outcome of our elections and furthermore, now, we are starting to hear that Angela Merkel is starting to say Vladimir Putin is interfering in germanys elections. Where is the proof of this . Julian assange came out and said that Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with the wikileaks documents against the Democratic Party. Host have you looked at the coverage since the news broke yesterday afternoon . That theh a fact she white house sent out, they sent there is no direct evidence according to a newspaper that ties in this report that they sent out russia to that ties this. Another report will be coming but it will be classified. There is this report that the fbi sent out from the white house yesterday. They call it grizzly steps. They have a summary here. The also have a graphic depicting how this happened. How the russian cyber hackers were able to do this. You are saying you do not believe the government and the intelligence services. With an Approval Rating of lower than 10 , but government needs to be taken with a grain of salt because everything is politicized. We are getting a lot of political crying from the losing side blaming everything on their loss of this election other than the candidate herself. She did not get the numbers that previous democrat candidates received in president ial elections. She was a flawed to candidate. There was no chance of her winning. They thought oh my gosh, she is going against donald trump. It will be an easy walk in. You even had magazines stumping for Hillary Clinton, already printing their november 9 additions of modern president. Heir arrogance and political stumping for one candidate got ahead of where the election really was. We were all talking about fake news and library, now, the president just signed a bill to repeal some of the first amendment. Of all of this is coming off fake news, quite simply. You wantt do republicans in congress who control both chambers and president elect donald trump to do . Caller i want president elect donald trump to do what he has already begun to do and that is Ring Companies back to the u. S. Host specifically on this hacking issue. Proof thatthere is all of these socalled intelligence agencies, and keep this in mind, these are the same intelligence agencies that told the American People that there were met that there were weapons of mass distraction in iraq and we had to take out lions king. Where were those weapons of mass destruction . Where now, i say again, is the proof that russia had anything to do with the hack of our election. And i use that term hike loosely. It was not a hack. It was more of a leap of information. Host we believed your thoughts there. Looking at the