Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 07142020 20240712

7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Ndependents, 202 7488002 you can send us a text this morning, if you do its 202 7488003, and we ask that you provide your name and where you are from. You can catch up with us on social media, facebook or twitter. A good Tuesday Morning to you, you can go ahead and start calling in now. The latest focus on Anthony Fauci began last thursday when President Trump gave a interview to sean hannity, saying that faucher had made a lot of mistakes since the outbreak and by saturday the post and other news outlets got a document listing those mistakes from unnamed sources at the white house and by yesterday here were some of the headlines about dr. Fauci from both sides of the political spectrum. From the left, the huffington post, medical schools voice support for how she amid white house attacks. We are concerned and alarmed by the efforts to undercut the top u. S. Infectious disease expert. From the right side of the aisle, from the red state website, saying that literally thousands of doctors and scientists have come out against the lockdowns, including a nobel but nobel prizewinning biophysicists biophysicists that the media doesnt want you to know about. When asked about this issue, heres the president s response. Are you in a good place with dr. Fauci . There has been criticism of him over the last couple of days. Ive had a Good Relationship with him from the long time, since the beginning. Hes a nice person. I close the border to china, i dont always agree with him. I did the ban on china, heavily infected, we saved tens of thousands of lives and dr. Fauci will admit that it was a good decision, it was early, in january, long before it was thought of as the right thing to do. I also closed the borders to europe when italy and a couple of other countries over there, france, certainly, spain, were having a lot of problems. Lives,saved a lot of weve made a lot of good decisions. I get along with him well. I like him personally. Please. Host President Trump yesterday at the white house, that list of supposedly stakes that were made since the beginning of coronavirus. Also the focus of questions yesterday, the list described by some as a form of Opposition Research dump against Anthony Fauci. The White House Press secretary was asked about it at her press briefing. [video clip] house is the white sending out Opposition Research like memos to reporters . The president has gone off on Anonymous Sources in the past. Why not have the guts to trash and with your own names . Refersident trump, i will you back it, there is no Opposition Research being dumped to reporters. We were asked a specific question where President Trump noted that dr. Fauci made mistakes and we provided direct answers to a wrecked question. The president , has he made mistakes . He suggested at one point that americans inject themselves with disinfectants. Why not send out these notes to reporters with your names on it . It was sent out by a white house official that the president said he doesnt trust, these Anonymous Sources, yet you send these out anonymously. I would note that in terms of the president and his record on coronavirus, he stands by the actions and steps he has taken in this historic response. You have dr. Fauci who set the record of the president is impressive and said that he cant imagine under any circumstance that anyone could be doing more and those are the words of dr. Fauci. We provided a direct response to direct questions. To the notion that there is Opposition Research, that couldnt be further from the truth. Dr. Fauci and the president have always had a good working relationship. On anthonyfocus fauci yesterday came up in the new york gubernatorial briefing yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo was asked about what has been happening with Anthony Fauci and his relationship with the president. This is what andrew cuomo said. [video clip] and now the president is attacking science. What a surprise. No surprise. Hes been attacking science from day one. The denial of reality was to deny science. And hes done that from day one. , scienced of the day trumps politics. Politics does not trump science. Withont defeat a virus politics. By usingt a virus science and medicine. That was true from day one. Att Governor Andrew Cuomo his Coronavirus Press briefing yesterday. A couple of notes on Anthony Fauci, he was back at the white house yesterday, this being reported by the New York Times, with a meeting with mark meadows. Did not meet with the president according to that reporting from the New York Times co. Anthony fauci will be taking part in a discussion today at georgetown university. 4 00 p. M. Is when that is expected to start. We will be airing it live on cspan two, cspan. Org, and you can of course listen to it on the free cspan radio app. We are asking you this morning about your view of Anthony Fauci. Do you trust him . 202 7488000 four democrats, for 7488001 republicans. Ndependents, 202 7488002 rashida, good morning. E, hesi admire faucher sincere but he has to tread carefully because he doesnt want to be removed by trump. I think there is pressure there on him in the wrong duroc wrong direction. For example, the World Health Organization just in the last few days admits that this virus is airborne. Its not just in droplets when you sneeze or cough that you can get it from other people. Its airborne. Its a microscopic organism living that you can see under an electron microscope. It can attach itself to dust that comes to us from outer space and also the heavier host on what you originally talked about, removal of Anthony Fauci, do you think we are going in that direction . Caller no, i dont think we will, but i think he has failed us by not telling us that the virus stays on your clothes, your shoes, your hair, and on surfaces. The cdc revised their original. Wash surfaces all the time. In your house through the air for one thing, wash her hands all the time. The virus is ever present. From thats rashida brooklyn, new york. More on potential removal, not exactly an easy process. President trump could formally remove him from the Coronavirus Task force, but it would be a relatively meaningless step because the it no longer serves as the nerve center a Pandemic Response in the Trump Administration that has pushed governors to take more responsibility and as the director of the new yorkm times story about this relationship. The headline on that story, open drifting further apart, faucher she and trump seem stuck with each other. Amy, democratic line, georgia. Good morning. Caller first of all, i turned on cspan like i always do this morning and i saw this question and i find it astounding. Served fauci has honestly and professionally six american administrations. He has served the American People honorably in all of those cases. Donald trump is the problem here. Hes the failure. Hes a failed businessman. Hes a failure as a father and a husband. A failure as the president. And hes a failure as a human being. They are not even on the same planet. Im a High School English teacher. My colleagues and i are talking about not just how we are going to do school this year, but about our wills and letting people know what we want to happen to us if we do end up in the hospital. This is because this administration led by this failure of a human being, donald trump, ignore this pandemic. This is not Anthony Faucis problem, not his responsibility. He has done his job, doing his job. Trump is the failure, he has let us down and people are dead because of this. I am so angry i can barely get my words out. Thank you for letting me have my chance to speak. Thank you, good morning. Christopher, maine, republican line, good morning. Caller yes, how are you doing today . Host doing well. Caller i think dr. Fauci is a nice man and i dont trust him too much. I think he means well, but i think the anger is misdirected. Instead of the anger being at President Trump, dr. Fauci, i think it should be at china. They are the ones that started the whole mess and i think it was intentional. Host can i go back to your first statement, why dont you trust Anthony Fauci . Caller because the poor guy is just trying to do the right thing. First they say dont wear. Any doctor knows that if you wear any face covering, it helps you any time. If they had done this, they should have said right off, to heck with these masks, but where a face covering, bandana. If they had done that, i would have believed him more but i go back to the original point. I think the anger should be at china. This china virus was put upon us on purpose. And dr. Fauci, you cant really blame him, hes trying his best, but i dont trust, i dont trust china and i dont trust some of the big names in politics. They wont tell us the real truth of whats happening here. In maine onopher mask wearing, the guidance was apparently on that unsourced from white house officials that the Washington Post and other news outlets received as one of the reasons, one of the missteps that was pointed to in that document. Dr. Anthony fauci was asked about the guidance he gave on mask wearing at a recent congressional house hearing by congressman David Mckinley of west virginia, the republican congressman having a bit of a Tense Exchange during the hearing. Here is part of the hearing. [video clip] you said as late, and ive got the nurse newspaper article here, as late as march 31 that there was no consensus on Wearing Masks and the president , as you know, relies on your expertise. Do you now regret not advising people more forcefully to wear masks earlier . Going to play that game. Let me explain to you what happened back then. Should be a yes or no. No, its more than yes or no by the tone of your question. I dont regret that, let me ask mind to you what happened. At that time there was a paucity of equipment that our Health Care Providers needed, who put themselves daily in harms way of taking care of people who are ill. We did not want to divert masks and ppe away from them to be used by the people. Now that we have enough, we recommend ive got two more questions, so thank you for that. Month at fauci last the house hearing. Taking your calls on dr. Fauci this morning. Your thoughts about how he is doing in the Coronavirus Task force and whether you trust him. 202 7488000 is the number four democrats. 202 7488001 is for republicans. Ndependents, 202 7488002 hersey, democrat out of l. A. , thanks for getting up early. , dr. Faucid morning is a scientist dealing with a moving target spiking at different times, so he has to adjust accordingly. Trump has been trying to undermine the very symptoms system. He has undermined the service that should be able to take care of this problem. Trump is functioning as if he is hisl on television with associates, dealing with them when they dont agree with them. Now she must deal with a moving target and adjust accordingly. Thank you. Cincinnati. Out of democrat, good morning. Caller yes, thank you. I support dr. Fauci and it is typical that trump doesnt like anybody that does not agree with him. Thats the typical thing right there. The things that trump has done is mislead this country, telling you to go back to work, we have no plan, nothing to resolve this issue. Trump is trying to promote thegs without following science. Science will tell you how to handle this. Trump thinks that he knows more than faucher, thinks he knows more than the scientists. Its hard for people to believe in him and those that do believe in him have a very misguided concept of how to carry themselves. Listen to a scientist. Overannot play politics scientists. Scientists trump politics. Simple as that. Thank you. Democrats there, expressing support for dr. Anthony fauci. Heres a poll that breaks it down by political affiliation. The question that was asked in that Siena College New York Times poll, asking voters whether they trust each source for Accurate Information about coronavirus. When it comes to medical scientists, democrats 90 trusting medical scientists, republicans 75 , independents, 86 . Specifically asked about whether they trust dr. Anthony fauci, 81 of democrats say they trust them. Just 51 of republicans say they trust him. 61 say they trust him for Accurate Information about the coronavirus. The news media polled, 50 of democrats saying they trust in the news media for act Accurate Information about coronavirus. Just 7 of republicans. President , just 4 of democrats saying they trust the president for Accurate Information about the coronavirus. 66 of republicans say they do. Poll, a New York Times Siena College poll from last month. Jim, new orleans, independent. What do you think about Anthony Fauci . I sincerely believe that tony fauci he has been the only credible voice coming out of washington from the very beginning of this coronavirus pandemic episode or disaster, as it were. The leadership provided by donald trump and his cabinet and all of his supporters has been politicized to the extent that it is actually contradicting common sense science. Listened too have tony fauci earlier on, we might have been able to mitigate some of the problems we are seeing today. Whats really frightening to me as a career scientist myself is that we are not doing the things we need to do to get back on track to try to slow things down. Its going to get a lot worse. And of course, some of the people in the republican camp think that it is a deliberate plan by the opposition, but viruses dont have political plans. Sometimes they seem to be smarter than we are. Right now i would still believe that tony fauci is the only credible voice and donald trump tried to mute that voice to the extent that he possibly can. Credible say the only voice, how do you feel about dr. Deborah birx or dr. Robert redfield, who we have seen a lot, director of the cdc, also very much involved in this effort with tony fauci. Caller redfield has been accurate once in a while, but he understands that he has been appointed by the president and tries to walk a very thin line between pleasing the president and being objective and i dont think hes done a very good job of that. Deborah birx, in the scientific community, is called dr. Dont answer the question because i have never seen her answer a question directly. She always gives whatever the trump, whatever she thinks the trump spin line requires. She has lost her credibility. As i say, tony fauci is the only one who i believe is a truly credible voice and to the extent possible, the trump people are trying to mute it. More from dr. Anthony fauci, a recent 500 and 38 podcast, this is what he had to say. [video clip] do you think the hyperpartisan environment has made it more difficult to suppress the virus . Bikes i think you would have to admit that that is the case. Having you have to be blindfolds on and covering your ears to think that we dont live in a very divisive society now from a political standpoint. I mean, its just unfortunate, but it is what it is. And you know from experience, historically, when you dont have unanimity in an approach to something, you are not as effective in how you handle it. So, you would have to make the assumption that if there wasnt such divisiveness that we would have a more coordinated approach. We are talking about dr. Fauci this morning. Do you trust dr. Anthony fauci when it comes to the Coronavirus Response and information about the coronavirus . Stephen out of connecticut, republican. What do you think . Caller dr. Fauci was a complete failure. He did not show any leadership. The problem with our society in america is that the doctors in every state have their own mindset on how to serve this virus. And faucher she dances around and never took charge. Never took charge of the entire United States. Never told people how dangerous this terrible virus is. Faucher she is just a failure. He needs to leave office, he needs to retire. His credibility is terrible. Reach out to us. Thailand and taiwan, one country has 58 deaths, 59 deaths, thailand, which ive been to, and taiwan has about 200 deaths. They have reached out to us to show us the procedures. Well, faucher never took any respect to those countries and never relayed it to the other doctors on how to proceed in serving this virus. Host who has shown leadership . Wants to blamedy donald trump and President Trump has done a great job on one thing, running the nation in reference to economies and strength and we are respected all over the world. But when it came to this he allowed these doctors to take charge and the problem is, faucher she is supposed to be the leader of the entire United States doctorate. The uniteddoctors in states do their own procedure. Each one in each state has their own ego and thats a terrible thing. You ever hear tout sheet here faucher she tell you that you will die from this here dr. Fauci tell you that you will die from this virus . He never told you, where or you will die. The virus is a fungus out of your lungs and yes, a mask will stop you from reading it out if you are contagious and you from reading it in. Host are you a doctor . Caller im not, but i have studied this for seven months, seven months. Ive been home working and studying. Faucher she is a yankees fan from the bronx or brooklyn. He has gotten away with over the years dodging the bullet with his talk. A few comments from our social messaging service and social media. Host coming up on 7 30 on the east coast, having this conversation with you this morning, phone lines 202 7488000 free democrats. For democrats. 202 7488001, republicans. Ndependents, 202 7488002 steve, good morning. Caller good morning, america. I dont know how long we will tolerate this nonsense, but dr. Anthony fauci, he has been on top of it. With donaldo fight trump over the facts. The fact is that this guy is a liar, a coward, and a thief. End of story for mr. Stump. Host why do you say that . Caller the guy is a liar. He has been a liar since they took the pacifier out of his mouth. The guys just incredibly stupid. Hes a stupid man. Get rid of this kook before we all get killed. If they open the schools before we stop if we stop testing, you are not going to know. I dont even know if i have it. I havent seen my grandchildren in three months. Im getting sick and tired of this guy getting up and lying and everybody backing him. He is not a scientist, hes not much of a person, really. I think he is just a kook. Host darlene, hyde park, new york, independent, good morning. Hi high, good morning , good morning. I believe in dr. Fauci. He has a long history trying to help america through a bunch of diseases in the past. He has a record to stand on. Now, this administration has not taken anything serious concerning science. Thats a fact. Donald trump touted drugs that have proven to be wrong. Bleach. Clorox and give me a break. They just dont believe in science. And also, half of him and his supporters think that god sent him because they think that god and the devil are having a war on earth. And i say, satan send him, because how do we really know . I just think it is wrong. People are being so misguided by this man that is a pathological narcissist liar and i really, really hope he gets voted out and we get back to some normalcy instead of the great divider in chief. Thank you, have a blessed day. Host republican line, beth, florida. Caller i trust dr. Fauci with my life and with the life of every person in this country. Has dedicated his life to medicine and to working for our public health. What donald trump is trying to sheo him with this faucher is lying is just absolutely ridiculous. , ong on about the masks february 29 he said dont wear a mask . He said dont wear a mask because they were trying to save them, the n95 masks for the medical people because we didnt have enough. Donald trump said, when he was running for election, that he was the only one that could do the job. Well, the one thing as president of the United States that he is the only one that can do the job is to put into effect, not just say he has done, but put into effect the defense production act. Because we are still now in a deficit for ppe. You, you areask calling in on a republican line in that key state of florida. Are you a republican who will not be voting for your Party Nominee in the fall . Caller pardon . Host are you not going to vote for the president in the fall . Caller i did not vote for him before, i will not vote for him again. I voted for the libertarian in 16 and i will be voting for joe biden come november. Host that is beth out of florida this morning. President trump has not tweeted today, but plenty of tweets yesterday and retweets yesterday, including one that focused on some of the medical community and concerns about the information they are giving out. The president , reach weeding former name show host chuck woolery, a supporter of the president outspoken on twitter. This was Chuck Woolerys between that the president retweeted, saying that the most outrageous lies are the ones about covid19, host and then a couple of tweets about this topic of Anthony Fauci from members of congress and others yesterday. Republican congressman andy biggs of arizona saying dr. Fauci and dr. Birx must not continue imposing a doctrine of destruction across the nation, they must be shown the door immediately. Lives are being devastated because of lockdowns. No more. That was congressman andrey andy biggs from late last week, july 9. This yesterday from congressman , trump and his cronies should be ashamed of themselves, dr. Fauci is a worldrenowned Infectious Disease expert working tirelessly to protect us from a deadly virus and if they would listen, our country would be in a better place than it is today. This from congresswoman donna shalala, saying simply trust of the experts, i stand with dr. Fauci. Thats the congresswoman from florida. David cicilline of rhode island, saying that democrats saying shaking my head, reporters do not have anonymity for this obvious hackett job hatchet job on dr. Fauci, referring to that list of supposedly missteps. Joe biden tweeting yesterday saying that donald trump needs to spend less time playing golf and more time listening to. Perts like dr. Fauci in about half an hour we will be turning to the senate battlefield in 2020, talking up forhe races that are grabs and in which direction they are moving and the fact int today is primary day three states, including alabama, texas, and maine. Plenty to talk about in those elections. There is the headline from usa primaries clearing the playing field. We will have a guest in that hour to discuss that election. Back to your phone calls about dr. Fauci. Gwen, detroit, democratic line, good morning. Caller good morning. The lady who just finished talking before me, she is a republican. Thank you so much for speaking the truth. We need more republicans like you to come over and vote for ridbiden so that we can get of trump and so that we can bring the country back to normalcy. Fauci, irds to dr. Love dr. Fauci. I have a tshirt for him. Until today, when i heard one of your callers say fauci is not hired by trump. So thats the reason hes able to speak out. You know . Dr. Birx, she just goes along, she skips over questions and everything, shes not telling the truth. Host when it comes to his career, he has been advising president s from his post at nih since the reagan administration. Caller right, but the point is trump cant fire him like he can the other doctors. So, thats why trump cant stand him, because he is not following along with the program. But like this other lady mentioned, we, can you have a much, howng about how prepared we are, what the ppe, with the protective gear . Hasnto, why dont, why they brought in people to Start Building extra space for the children to go to schools . You know, like they did for those hospitals . Those hospitals also need additional room. Why isnt there a campaign about that . What are we waiting for . You know what im saying . And we have you go, other colors to get to, but what does your tshirt say . Your dr. Fauci tshirt . Caller it says i trust, in faucher g. I. Trust, i would send you a picture of it but i cant. It says i trust dr. Fauci. Host that is gwen out of detroit this morning. Similar to her tshirt is this sign from a yard in massachusetts supporting dr. Fauci that goes with a story in the Washington Post about that topic, saying in faucher she we uci we trust. He good morning. Caller last time i checked, dr. Fauci is a lifetime bureaucrat thinks he nothing, he knows everything and moves around like a dictator. That we should go home, crawl under our beds, until this is over and our country is in a Great Depression. Host who do you trust when it comes to information about coronavirus . Caller i sure as hell dont trust of the National News media and democrats, doing everything they can to drive this country into the ground economically and otherwise, to try to get trump out of office. Trump is the best president this country has ever had and this country was in great shape until this hit. Faucher she is a clown. Host who do you trust . And of i trust dr. Birx the cdc. How she wants to be the endall voice to everything, thinks he can control everything. Everything he says, the gospel. Everything, Everybody Needs to go home, crawl under their house and under their beds and lock up until this is over with. When we get a vaccine for it two or three years from now, maybe we can come out the Great Depression that time. This is bobby, nashville, republican line, good morning. Yes, sir. I think dr. Fauci is a joke. At the beginning of this pandemic, he said it wasnt human to human. Then he said we didnt need to wear a mask. Now hes saying we do need to wear a mask. They say hes the greatest doctor on the earth . Infectious diseases doctor . For me what he has skewered god sakes. Do you know that . Host he got his start and did a lot of work on aids, one of the main issues. Caller there is not a cure for aids . Host we have come very far caller yes, i agree to that, but there is no cure for that. People need to be talking about supply chains, about ppe and stuff. He done everything they could to get them over here. We even got some of the plans back over here, donald trump has. The democrats sold out in china. This come from china. Political. All day trying to do is push these high dollar drugs from these insurance companies. Look at these other countries, see what they are doing and what they are up to, like india. Study onhey done a what they were doing. I think he needs to listen to that. Its all money. Like i said, the democrats sold out to china, they are not Holding China accountable. Got your point. This is the official biography of dr. Anthony fauci from the institute of Infectious Diseases. Host host thats the short version. If you want to read more, head to their website. Dr. Anthony fauci will be back in the spotlight again today, as we said, when he speaks at georgetown university. He will be talking to young people about the risks they face and an update on the pandemic. We will be airing that live on cspan two. You can watch it on cspan. Org or listen to it on the free cspan radio app. Thats 4 p. M. Today eastern if you want to watch dr. Fauci. This is dale out of columbus, ohio, democratic line, good morning. Caller good morning. I want to say i believe in dr. Fauci 100 , you know . Any type you have a virus, any type of disease, or a headache, you have to make adjustments accordingly. People are dying around the world. Even if he said you dont have to worry about a mask the first time, later they find out other things and they make the adjustment. One thing i dont understand, donald trump, hes pushing people to go back to work and everything and, like, these children are in school, all it takes is one child, if we open the schools backup, if one child dies of this virus and stuff, its going to start all back over. We are going to start taking our children away from schools. The parents are. Im almost finished, one thing i would love to say, if you believe in trump, before he became president of the United States, before 2000 16, he had over 3500 lawsuits. That is criminal and civil. Criminal and civil lawsuits. Its all online. I would prefer that republicans and democrats find out how many lawsuits he had. 3005 hundred before he became president. Why would i trust him . Thank you, have a very nice day. Bernie, pennsylvania, independent line. Aller yes im really dumbfounded by all these responses by the american public. Where have we slipped into where down tobeen dumbed accept the tierney of authority . Oday no one is thinking everyone is trying to believe in some person with a title. First of all, we were taught when we were growing up to think. How do you think . You examine other alternative sources of information. Months we keepur seeing the same usual suspects on television. The same medical authorities telling us their data model programming, telling us that we invisiblesome sort of enemy attacking us that could be a symptomatically are you in other words, they are not finding anything. Bernie, who do you want to hear from that we are not thereg from now . Caller are over one million doctors and scientists in this country alone and we keep seeing host who are those folks . Caller this is the main point here, when you slip into a dictatorship in a communist country, you have the same authorities pounding you 24 7 over and over again, their opinion. There is no diversity in thinking. Ok . We dont want to hear nothing from somebody else. Host got your point. Bernie, in pennsylvania. This is ed, pleasant valley, new york. Republican line. Morning. Ood i believe in faucher but there are a lot of backseat drivers in this country, you can hear them calling into your station. Everybody has a plan, nobody has a plan. Blame the Vice President , blame the president. Come to new york, our governor killed 5000 people by sticking patients in nursing homes. Nobody talks about that. This is ridiculous. It adds to the death rate when that stuff happens. China is the reason we have this problem and there was a gal on one of the news stations yesterday talking about they knew about this in the middle of december and did nothing and didnt keep it from our country. You know . This is what the problem is. We are being taken over by other countries and you just dont see it happen. When trump turned around and stopped the flights coming in from china, he got called every name in the book. The man cannot do anything right because this country is so divided. Thank you, i have nothing else to say. Host you mentioned the death rate, 100 and 32,000 americans milliond, more than 3. 3 americans have been infected by coronavirus. Dr. Anthony fauci on that, 500 and 38. Com podcast, asked recently about how the u. S. Is doing compared to the rest of the world. This is what he had to say. [video clip] how do you think u. S. Is doing right now, if you look across the world . Caller let me say, let me say, there are parts of the United States like where you live right now that are doing well. You have been through something really bad if you have things under control and you have a governor and a mayor in the city who understand what it means to go by the guidelines, the gateways, phase i, phase ii, phase three. You are doing well, other cities are doing well. But as a country, when you compare us to other countries, i dont think you can say we are doing great. We are just not. If you look at the curves, look at what happened in the european union. Infections went up, they came all the way down to baseline, and then they kind of stayed there, even though they tried to open and there were more cases. In the United States as a country, with the exceptions of the areas that did well, we came up. We came down but we plateaued at 20,000 for weeks and weeks and weeks. And now the last couple of weeks, we have gone back as high as 50,000 new cases per day. And now, like yesterday, it was 43,000. 43000 and 50,000 is twice what your baseline is. So, i think you have to say we have got to do better. The dr. Anthony fauci on 500 and 38. Com podcast, if you want to check it out in its entirety. Back to your phone calls for about 15 minutes. Kevin, democratic line. What are your feelings about dr. Fauci, do you trust him . Caller i would say i trust him about 99 . Is only reason im reserving his backbone. You can tell kind of through the that he was being kind of muscled by trump. Going to do, right . Hes walking a tight rope. Host what would you have like him to have done, kevin . Caller i dont know. Be a little more outspoken. Know, call trump on his ullshit. Sorry. I suggest that democrats and republicans realize that we are in this together and that if you die, we die. I dont know. Understand why we are like this anymore. The america i grew up in, im we didnt hate each other like we do nowadays. Host when did that start happening . Start when did that happening . I dont know, i dont really know. Host when was the last time you remember we didnt hate each other . Timer probably around the that i realized i was being really naive about a lot of stuff. I debatedou know, voting trump. You know . I didnt like hillary, either. I never voted for bill. I voted for ross perot twice. Bush senior, perrault, whoever was against bush both times. Obama twice. And then i voted for hillary. Guess is in there, i when it started happening. You know . I was a kid when reagan was president and i remember carter. Somewhere in there we all got sideways. Maybe it was that whatever, whatever they passed that made takegal for big money to over politics, you know . Kevin, from texas this morning. Editorials today in the Washington Post, on this issue of dr. Fauci, reports from over the weekend about the list of supposedly stakes that was circulated by white house officials. The Editorial Board of the Washington Post, saying that mr. Trump is leading a campaigne back alley to discredit dr. Fauci to the detriment of the nation. Host host the Editorial Board of the Washington Post today. Leah, south carolina, republican line. Im a high, yes, registered nurse 24 years. I really like dr. Fauci. I think he has done a great job. I think he is still on team trump. What im a let people know is that when a pandemic like this happen, it hits right in the face. It took months to get the supplies that we needed. All of that. You cant just go, you know, in one or two days and get everything prepared for this number of patients. The government has been great to us. They have helped us every way that we need with supplies, etc. Dont workday today, politically. Republican and democrat nurses, doctors. We work for the patients. We dont give adamma bout that damn about that. We all know that. All of us tired nurses. I want people out there to know that someone like me on the front lines that sees this every day, that sees people die every day, we have been given everything by the government. They have been great to us. So, do your research before you get on tv and start trashing people. Thank you, have a good day and god bless america. Host thank you for what you do, leah. You started by saying that you trust faucher she and say he is still on trumps team. What does that mean . Caller i believe that he has been in with trump and helping him on a daily basis with this pandemic. I dont believe this tension. Again, pelosi, schumer, all of those cronies in washington are using this horrible pandemic against the American People, whether they are democrat, republican, or whatever. Just because they hate trump. All of us medical people, you know, doctors, Everybody Knows that. We hear it, we see it every day. We dont give a damn. Again, people need to do their homework before they, you know, trash trump. Hes done the best he can do. Again, we are getting everything we need to try to save people with this horrible pandemic. Is, out of michigan. Good morning. Caller how are you . Sue, out of michigan. Good morning. Caller how are you . Host good, good morning. Caller what i dont trust is that he met with bobby rush in 2019 to hashust of out the windfall from a government Contract Tracing program and then nine months later, in may, bobby rush put out a bill for Contact Tracing. The second part host where do you go for this research . Caller i went on the government website to find out when people do their, like their vacations, when they travel and stuff like that. This is all under the government. Host what government websites are the vacations on . Caller my god, there are so many, i wrote it all down. The second thing is, faucher she is married to Christie Grady fauci is married to Christie Grady, the head of Human Subject Research at the nih. Host so, so caller they are altogether for depopulation. Thats what this is about. Host thats what you think this comes down to . Caller i do, out of the research i have done for the past six months, yes. But that gets me that they knew in august that they were having a meeting on Contact Tracing on the covid. Host sarasota, florida, good morning. Thatr its interesting this woman said that. These paranoid ideas that circulate, my idea is that trump wants to get rid of everybody who isnt like him. Who is dying in this thing . Blacks are dying. Hispanics are dying. Children with disabilities are dying. Adults with disabilities are dying. Host you are saying the president wants this to happen . Yeah, no, im saying he doesnt care about who is dying. He has looked at this from the beginning and realized who are the people that died . My enemies are dying, so let them die. So let them die. Thats how paranoid it is. Than some oflistic this other paranoid crap you here. Douglas, independent line, good morning. Caller sir, how are you . Host doing well. Caller dr. Fauci, i think he has tried real hard, but everybody is puzzled by this virus. Cant take 10, 20, 30 years to find a cure for this. Its time for the president to step up, get some backbone. Hes not no medical doctor. The president needs to step out, get rid of ouchi, get someone in there who can do the job and get this thing going. Host who do you think and do it better . Can do it better . Caller im sure that there is a doctor somewhere that has a better chance at it and he can still help from the sidelines if he wants to. The president cannot do all this by himself. Youve got those supply lines started back with key people in all the places that we need in that task force. I think deborah birx is doing a pretty good job, but found she is just, they need some new ideas in their. Hes not gaining no ground and the president , when he does take his advice, went ouchi is wrong, the media, they dont even go to those interviews to to ask about safety, they bring up some somethingbout racism, like that, that doesnt even pertain to the virus for the task force. Trump, hes been in there saying that hes going to do this and that. Hes just trying to get peoples hopes up, the American Peoples hopes up, he knows hes not no host douglas in texas. Douglas was the last color in the washington journal. If you want to watch dr. Anthony fauci live today, you can do so on cspan two, 4 00 p. M. Eastern. He will be speaking on georgetown university, an update on the Pandemic Response and what young people face and what they can do to help mitigate the pandemic. Cspan2, cspan. Org, and the free cspan radio app. Up next, we will talk about the senate battlefield in election 2020. We will be joined by a representative from inside elections. About tomorrows tax filing deadline and what it does next compared to the dutch when it comes to the fiscal aid package. The president , from Public Affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. Biographies of every president , organized by ranking, by noted historians, from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of the nations chief executives and leadership style. Visit our website, cspan. Org thepresident s to learn more about the president s. Order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Book tv on cspan two has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. This weekend, sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwards, wired Magazine Editor at large discusses his book facebook, the inside story. He isered by d interviewed. Then, new gingrich offers his thoughts on why President Trump should be reelected with his book trumps the american future, solving the great problems of our time. Watch put tv on cspan two. This weekend. Watch our live, unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house. Pres. Trump our countries are linked by trade and travel on issues important to you. Ongoing efforts to focus on the mission, to save lives, meet the needs of our health care workers. Along with briefings on the coronavirus pandemic. Supreme Court Oral Arguments and decisions. Thanks for coming out to say hello. And the latest from campaign 2020. Your calls and comments welcome. Be a part of the conversation every day with our live callin program, washington journal. If you missed any live coverage, watch ondemand at cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Continuesn journal host Jacob Rubashkin joins us now for a deep dive on the senate battlefield of campaign 2020. Updated theirns race rankings of every senate race and the headline take away, democrats poised to take control of the senate. Jacob rubashkin, explain why. Guest good morning, john. Like you said last week, we shifted eight of our senate races. All democrats, and like you said, what this indicates is democrats are now in very good position to retake control of since they lost it in 2014. There are a lot of Different Reasons why the senate is looking so much better for democrats this cycle. But the main reason why we are in this position now, starts at the top of the ballot. That is a good position President Trump put himself in his reelection fight against joe biden. The president s struggle at the top of the ballots, where he is 8 to 11upwards of points. In a more balanced cycle, republicans might not have a problem. Host explain the math here, how many seats are up. How many are democrats defending and how many they need to take over the send it. Guest there are 35 senate seats up for election, including special ones as well in arizona and georgia. The senate is divided 53 republicans and 47 democrats. That means democrats either need four to take back the majority, or if joe biden wins the presidency, because the Vice President can cast a tiebreaking vote, democrats would only need three seats to get to a 5050 tie which would then be broken by the Vice President. If donald trump wins, wins, democrats need four seats. If joe biden wins, democrats only need three seats. Host what is a wave election and when do we know if we are in one . Guest it is hard to tell. Really whereon is all races that could go one way and of going one way end up going one way. Weyou look at our ratings, have a fair number of ratings. In vacuum fair number of tossup ratings. In a vacuum, a tossup is a coin flip, but when elections look like waves, what you see is all of those top up races going in one direction. If this became a democratic wave, you would see all four of our tossup races go to democrats, as well as races where republicans might be favorite to. Once the fundraising, polling, and media narratives catch hold, it has a snowball effect. Before an you can say Election Night occurs the way it is happening. You can look at the signals and understand what they are saying to you. Even in an election like 2018, which is known as the blue wave when democrats took back the , they lost the house two seats in the senate. Does that mean it is a way for not . It is a question of how you label it. Host insideelections. Com is where you can check out the race ratings and analysis from the team there. For our viewers watching at home, here is a list of the rating, the tossups. All Republican House seats, Susan Collins of maine, joni ernst of iowa, tom tillis of north carolina. You can get into the tilting democratic territory, two republican seats listed in that arizona, colorado and and so on down the line with the rest of the ratings. We will talk about those races and take your questions in this segment with Jacob Rubashkin of inside elections. The phone numbers to call in to ask about senate races you want to talk about, democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. 202 7488002. Jacob rubashkin, as folks are calling in, we should not get ahead of the primaries. There are lots to happen, including today. Take us through what we should be watching through an primaries in three states with all senate emily asians all with senate implications. Guest the biggest race on looking at is the Senate Republican primary runoff in alabama. In a normal situation, alabama would not be contended at the senate level. At this is a republican state. In 2017 this is a republican state. In 2017, a democrat was able to narrow the narrowly defeat his opponent in that election. A seat in aemocrats very red territory. What a wave election looks like. Doug jones is the most vocal democrat. As a result of this primary, he will either face the former attorney general Jeff Sessions mmytummy tuck bird to tubbard. Not tuberville. You might see this race become more competitive. One of the interesting things over the last couple weeks, at least one outside group has started to reserve advertising for the fall, which shows even the republicans are not taking this race for granted. You want to talk about waves, when republicans are not absolutely convinced they will be able to win a state election in alabama, you are looking at potentially a pretty big knife for democrats. Host in the ticket is up to maine . Guest in maine, we have one of previous republicans on the map. Sue collins. Has crafteddes, she herself as a middleoftheroad republican member of the united of the senate. While she has faced some competitive challenges in the past, she has always won that by double digits at least. This time is different. What we have seen is the democrats coalesce around sarah. Ideon as their candidate while she has to yet through the primary, and there are two other challengers in that contest, she is widely considered to be the heavy frontrunner there, and is already operating with the national party. The most formidable challenger Susan Collins has faced before. Sarah combination of who gideon is, and her position, but it is also the question of whether sue collins has lost what she was able to use to such great advantage in her previous election. Over the last couple years, kavanaugh, brett voting for the republican tax can come up in conversation with voters in maine as the main reasons why certainly democrats and a lot of independents in the state no longer view Susan Collins as a down the line operator in the senate. They view her as much more aligned. In a cycle like 20 20, shaping up to be a against the Republican Party and trump that is not a good position for collins to be in. Lag behindeady in fundraising, which is unusual for someone as deeply entrenched as she is. The other states with primaries today, texas. Do democrats have a chance of picking up a seat in texas . Guest yes. Democrats do have the chance of by john cornyn. The reason is because what is happening at the top of the ticket. Over the last couple months, he held an independent polling and private polling that indicates texas, the republican bastion of the president ial level. Because of this, it has created an opening for the dems to win this senate as well. The better performing your president ial candidate does, the easier it is for you to win that senate seat as well. If you are a democrat, if joe biden is winning the state, all you have to do is get all of joe bidens voters to vote for you as well. Today, we have a runoff in the two top finishing democrats from last months first run of the primary. J hagar was a congressional candidate who antiviral because of her Stunning Campaign ad. She lost that race but decided to run for senate. Also running against her is roy sweats who has been underfunded and somewhat under covered in this primary, but some people think, for a variety of reasons, he has moment has late momentum into the runoff. Either one of these candidates will be an underdog. Senator cornyn, who retains cash million, ander 10 even though texas is following the president , it is a generic republican state for the moment. It isthere is an opening, certainly not a slamdunk for democrats, but it is a sign of just how the senate map is for the Democratic Party, that they can be competing. Host im going to let our control room to work with you a little bit to make sure we have your sound a little better. We are going to take calls from viewers to talk a little bit with them and get their thoughts about the senate race. We will get back to you when we fix your sound and get that better. Because we want to keep chatting with you. It for our viewers, the numbers to call and is 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. We want to hear your thoughts about the senate races, the cycle, whether you think democrats can or will take control of the senate. And about the races in your state and what you are watching. We will go to samuel out of wisconsin. An independent. Samuel, good morning. Caller hi. Athink if democrats wanted chance of taking back the senate, which they do, unlike past elections where they are all trying to have a high turnout of democrats and trying to outnumber the republicans, i think you need to focus on trying to switch Republican Voters to our side. As we can see, Donald Trumps failed administration will go up and down the ballot to really have a referendum on voters. Is this really the party we want in control . We can see what trump is doing. Im not comparing trump to every other republican, but when a republican supports donald trump, they are saying that is what we support. I think democrats need to make a change this election, and instead of trying to get enthusiasm with their own party to outnumber the republicans, we need to focus on republicans trying to switch voters. Host what is the best pitch or message to do that do you think . Caller to really just focus on Donald Trumps administration. Focus on the lies they have told , on the promises they made that did not work. We focus on the president ial administration and say this is what the rest of the country is going to look like if we put republicans back in control of the senate and we give them a chance to get them back in control of the house. This is what the country will turn into. When you focus on trumps failed administration, it works down the ballot, that it shows this is what the Republican Party is trying to do, this is what will happen if we elect them up and down the ballot one more time. Host this is mike out of orlando this morning as we are back with Jacob Rubashkin of insight elections. Mike is a republican. Good morning. What is your question or comment . Caller i really think our country needs to keep republicans in the senate majority. Also, bring it to the house. I dontious caller, agree with the previous caller. What im seeing happen in our , and a hugearxism push by the media and democrat leaders, trying to push us into socialism. That is not what america is about. Host that is mike in florida. Jacob rubashkin, the last two colors bringing up the house and we are focusing on the senate this morning. Is the house in play . He ran through the math for the senate for a democratic takeover. What is the math in the house for a potential republican takeover . At the end of the day, not in play in the Current National environment. Republicans would need 18 i believe seats to flick the chamber, give or take a few vacancies. In the current environment, it does not appear there are enough competitive republican candidates and enough competitive districts held by candidates in enough competitive districts held by democrats. There are plenty of folks on the republican side who believe they will be able to get to that point later in the cycle. However, where the president ial race currently stands, where the fundraising situation currently stands for so many of these republican candidates, and where the underlying questions remain outs it difficult to see anyway back to a republican majority. If the election for the house were held today, we would just as likely see democrats expand their majority and pick up another handful of seats as we would see them lose any of their seats. Host a question from jimbo in california. If the president s poll numbers continue on their downward trajectory, could Kentucky Senate leader Mitch Mcconnell lose his bid for reelection in november . Guest the thing about Mitch Mcconnells he comes from kentucky, which is one of the most republican states. Its a base level for a democrat to win statewide, regardless of who they are running against. The last person to do it was andy beshear, who won the election in 2019, but only wanted with 49 . He won it against the incumbent governor, who was perhaps the most unpopular governor in the entire country for some time. He still wasnt able to get a majority. Kentucky is a very difficult state for democrats to compete in. The camp this democrats have in kentucky, amy mcgrath, is one of the best fundraisers the democrats have had as a Senate Candidate in the history of the party. She is unparalleled among ability to raise enormous sums of money. Whenever you are raising those kinds of figures she is, she has raised over 40 million, many in the party think she could raise another 40 million before the election is done, you will always have to Pay Attention to it. Republicans are paying attention to it. Thats why weve seen several outside groups place over 14 million in ad reservations in kentucky to help Mitch Mcconnell. You havee of thumb, if to feel like you need to spend 14 million to keep a race in your column, perhaps it is not as solid as we think it was. Host one of the things we like to do during these segments is show viewers what voters in individual states are seeing on their televisions, the campaign ads. We want to focus on one of those most highprofile races, the arizona race. Make sally in the tilt Democrat Column against mark kelly, the astronaut. Here are two of their back to back. We will talk about them of th eir ads back to back. I put my line on live for american families. Marks ads are shameful and false. I will protect those with preexisting conditions. Im taking on china to make sure prescription drugs are safe, affordable, and made in america. And irtha mcsally, believe every american deserves health care. Washington politicians look the other way after taking millions from drug companies. Drug companies protect their prospects, and those politicians protect their careers. Isnt congress job to protect us . Im not taking a dime from any corporates. I will make cheaper generic drugs more available. I will be a senator for arizona. Im mark kelly, and i approve this message. Host we are back. The focus on health care in those two ads. Guest exactly. It is fascinating to see, despite the events of the last thele months between coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic fallout, and the nationwide reckoning on issues of race in america, despite all of that, the through line from the election of 2018 is still so present in so many of those races. Thats health care. Health care is the reason why democrats were able to seize back control of the house of 2019, atives in 2018. So many believe in the party that that is the way they will read and trip regain control of the senate in 2020, the defining issue in many ways for this cycle as it was in last cycle. What we saw there was the incumbent senator, she was not elected. She was defending her old record on existing conditions. This has been the most effective cudgel democrats have been able to wield against republicans. The republican repetitive republican attempts to repeal obama care never grappled with the issue of protecting people with preexisting conditions. , and seems to be, the most effective line of attack. One of the ways we can see how effective it is is that mark and ally have to gocs on tv and instead of her own message, she has to respond to mark kellys attack on her record first. So shes operating from a defensive posture. We have this race tilting democratic. We moved this race out of the toss of column last week. To indicate mark kelly, the former astronaut and current giffords isabrielle a slight favorite in the Arizona Senate race. Host back to florida, this is an independent. You are on with Jacob Rubashkin. Democratsthink the will flip the senate. As for mark kelly, he has been there over 30 years and has not done anything. Been fighting the democrats for 20 years. I think we would flip the senate this year. Y in arizona,all kelly is going to win the race. Host what gives you the confidence caller obama care be repealed. Thats it. Ok . Host you think the Affordable Care act should be repealed . Caller it should be repaired, but not repealed. It is working. We should stay with obamacare. Host Jacob Rubashkin on the Affordable Care act, obamacare, as a campaign issue. You talked about health care in the arizona races. Is that on the ground in other races as well . Guest absolutely. This is the number one issue when i talked democratic strategist door candidates. It is or candidates. For many of them, it is the number one issue about why they began to be in politics or run for office in the first place. Its fascinating to think about. Wider look,a back to 2010, which was a wave election, health care was the defining issue of that election and specifically obama obamacare. In that time, it was a favorable issue to republicans. 2010 was the start of the republican resurgence with retaking the house of representatives on the backs of the tea party. [inaudible] all because of the issue of obamacare we saw in president obamas first term. Law is more a popular than it ever was, and it is the fear of republicans repealing obamacare that is motivating voters to go to the polls. Its no longer anger over the law itself. It is anger over attempts to repeal the law. What we have seen is that there is dissent within the Democratic Party about the best way forward. Medicarenders style for all plan would have the Government Act as the sole insurer while more moderate candidates like mark kelly are not advocating for singlepayer but are advocating for expansion of medicaid, bolstering medicare, and in some cases, advocating for a public option. A governmentrun Health Program people can opt into or go back in and use their private insurance. Host maybe it is because florida is in the spotlight every election cycle, but a lot of colors from florida. Brian is in miami. Democrats. Good morning. Caller thank you for giving me the time to speak on cspan. This is the first time i have ever done so. Ive always been an attentive listener. With the pandemic, the first time this country has undergone a pandemic in the Information Age i guess it is called now, the age of the internet, age of mass transit. We are in an age where, as dr. Fauci said a few years ago, a pandemic is possible but not only is it possible in the old sense as it was 100 years ago when the spanish flu hit where it took three years for it to sweep through the world and kill 500,000 people 500 million people, which at the time half a billion people, which was a large part of the population at the time. What they were pointing out at the time was that the spread of the virus, especially airborne, is quick. Very rapid. They have been able to pin it down to an infection rate of one person can infect four. Host bringing it back to today and Jacob Rubashkin, the impact of the pandemic on people showing up to vote in november and all of the questions about mailin ballots and how that will impact not only election day but how we view election day, and when we will know the results of some of the senate races. Guest i think its clear that we will see record numbers of male and and absentee balloting this fall mailin and absentee balloting this fall. It is not just the normal population that votes male in mailin that we use that option this time around. What that means for election need to beat we cautious when we are watching those returns come in. Dont have one election system, we have 51 different election systems. Each one of these states or territories operates in their own way. They all have different protocols for how they deal with absentee balloting, early voting, and with mailin voting. Why people are able to do that and why those votes are counted. The important thing to remember, forward to november, when you are watching the Election Night returns come in on screen, as a rule of thumb, you should understand those returns are not final. What we have seen, especially in primaries in new york which happened a month ago, is that the results we see when we go to bed tuesday night look different from the results we see when all of the votes are tallied up and counted. Theome cases, that means difference between one candidate winning or the other candidate winning. Every vote counts, and the vote counts in the ballot box on thanion day counts no more a vote you fill out on an absentee ballot and mail in. As a pillar function of our democracy, it is important we count all of the votes. When you are watching those returns come in on Election Night, even if it says 100 reporting, 100 precincts reporting, that is somewhat outdated terminology at this point that does not reflect the sheer number of male in votes mailin votes that we will expect on Election Night. Election night as we know it could be something more like election host walnuts, mississippi. This is jerry, an independent. Caller good morning. I would like to ask mr. Jacob and he thinks about race alabama. Im not talking about the primary, im talking about [inaudible] that could be one that could be a loss. Personally, i see the Senate Staying the same. Lly couldlins or mcsa lose. 5051 of them will win and one of them will lose. It still makes it about even. What i would worry about is a house. Republicans to have seats up in the house. Host Jacob Rubashkin . Guest it is certainly possible republicans could pick up seats in the house. It is as likely for republicans to pick up one or two seats perhaps as it is for democrats to pick up one or two seats. That might be shifting in the near future in the democrats favor, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility republicans could pick up a handful of seats in the house of representatives. Not enough to win that majority, but to your question about if tommy tupper bill , heerville emerges tonight will undoubtedly be the favorites going into november. Most democrats really like joe jones. They think he is a phenomenal senator. He has had a has done a good job fundraising. Democrats understand he is the underdog into that race. Are the party strategists doing the math in their heads, they are not saying forget about doug, because they like doug and think there is an outside trough. If things go his way, if everything goes his way, he might be able to get out. When they do the math, the calculation in their head where they say we need three seats if biden wins or four if biden loses, generally, they start a negative one because they understand the challenges of see in alabamae in a president ial year. It is not just collins and mcsally who are vulnerable. Colorado, senator in north carolina, senator in iowa are all in precarious positions. We also have seats in texas, in montana, even in kansas there is a possibility that race could become more and more competitive. The democrats have done a good job of expanding the map to a point where they have multiple paths to victory. Even if they start at negative one, because doug jones is not able to hold office seats, there are plenty of ways to make up that difference and get themselves to that 50 or 51 mark they will need to control the senate. Host about 20 minutes left with Jacob Rubashkin of inside elections, inside elections insideelections. Com. You mentioned iowa a second ago. Joni ernst, the democrat there, theresa greenfield. Here are two other campaign ads back to back. We will talk about them. We drove our trucks all over baghdad, through terrorist cells and ieds, but we kept the supply chain going because american lives counted on it. Today, we face a different supply chain threat. We rely on communist china for far too much. From technology to medicine. So im fighting to bring us home. Im joni ernst and i approve this message because saving america starts with made in america. Oury dad used to say on farm, there are no boy jobs or girl jobs. Just jobs that need to get done. I learned to work, taking on parttime jobs during the farm crisis. After my first husband died, i went back to school while caring for two kids. Then, worked my way up to running a small business. Im theresa greenfield, and i approve this message, because washington is not working for folks in iowa. Lets change that. Host Jacob Rubashkin, what do you take from those two ads back to back . Guest they are interesting to see. Iowa was not considered one of the top tier races when the cycle began. Generally, fulks thought joni thought jonis ernst was formidable. Giving how resounding President Trumps victory in 2016 in iowa was, a lot of democrats were not considering it to be in the top tier of opportunities. But that has changed and the race has since become a tossup. We can see why in oath of those ads. To start with the one from senator ernst, it is a solid ad because it does two things, first begins with her career in military service, one of her later calling cards when she burst onto the political scene in 2014. And reminds voters joni ernst is someone who put on the uniform and served overseas in various situations. What i hear from a lot of that thens is that now coronavirus pandemic is affecting americans and the economic fallout puts millions of people in unemployment, focusing races on china and using china as an antagonist has become one of the dominant republican strategies that we are seeing across the board. On the other hand, you have theresa greenfield who, in many ways is mirroring the same path ini ernst took in her race 2014. Theresa greenfield grew up on a often talks extensively about her experience going up in rural iowa, no girl jobs or boy jobs. It hardens back to almost senator ernsts famous ad, the make them squeal ad where she talks about learning how to castrate hogs and how she would go to washington, d. C. And castrate hogs there too. Greenfield is saying joni ernst is the senator, now the republican establishment. Im the girl who grew up on a farm. Then, she says i have this amazing life story. She talks about this often. Theresa greenfields first husband was tragically killed in a factory accident. It was because of greenfields Social Security Survivor Benefits that she was able to survive that incredible tragedy on her family as a young, single mother with tilden. With children. Security,de social the safety net, a pillar of her race. Said she would go to washington and make them squeal but all she did was go to work for the big guys. Greenfield got off to a shaky start. Before the primary, there were questions about whether she was up to the challenge, but democrats are really comfortable with what they are seeing from her these days. She has done a great job fundraising, and senator ernst has been flatfooted. Like i said, this race was not expected to be a marquee race at the beginning of the cycle. It has only been recently that it has become one of those. That makes it difficult if you are an incumbent senator, if you have not been planning to be in the race, and all of a sudden you have to be everywhere all at once, raising money, and your actions are scrutinized to a greater degree. You find yourself in a competitive decision. Competitive situation. That will be a great bellwether for Senate Control is the senate race in iowa. Host tony on twitter with this comment, the two iowa commercials are refreshing. No name calling and it addresses the candidates and issues. Jacob rubashkin, on the idea of negative ads, everyone says they hate negative ads, but that is where we always seem to go by the end of the cycle. Why . Guest because they are effective. If political strategists and candidates didnt believe negative ads work, they would stay away from them. Theres always the possibility of blowback. Poorly to aacting negative ad. Candidates and campaigns generally agree they are an effective way of changing the race to your favor, and in this modern Information Age, the more itthing an attack ad perhaps does not just air on tv and get inside viewers. It gets picked up by the news media and guest discussed and disseminated in a wider format than its original layer on tv on tv. L air you have this opportunity to almost go viral with a campaign it gives you value of your investment beyond what you initially paid to get it on tv. One of the interesting things we started to see in the cycle is a candidate will run a negative ad attacking other candidates, and the candidates who was attacked will run their own ad saying that ad is false. That my opponent is lying about me. Then, the original candidate will run a third ad attacking the attack on the attack ad, and you almost kind of you go down this rabbit hole of refracting attack ads, and it is not clear to me that by the time you get to the second or third order derivative of the original attack that voters are really able to follow what is going on. ,hat said, the original attacks if they stick, can be incredibly devastating. All you have to do is look at maine. The notion Susan Collins voted to overturn roe v. Wade by putting kavanaugh on the bench, that has been a defining issue of this race since the Kavanaugh Hearing happened. Nts she collins stateme supports roe v. Wade and does not believe Justice Kavanaugh is going to overturn it, she says he personally told her it was subtle law. That line has followed her around for the last two years. It has no signs of going away. When you find an effective message you can use against your opponent, you want to seize it. There is a chance that could become the defining message of the race. That could be helpful to you as a candidate. Host about 15 minutes left with Jacob Rubashkin of inside elections. Joel has been waiting in silver spring, maryland, it democrat. Caller good morning. In the alabama race, who did the democrats want to run against and who do you think would be easier to beat . Democrats are divided about this question. Most of them approach it with the feeling that whichever republican emerges from that primary is going to be a formidable challenger and will start out the election as a favorite. There are reasons why democrats might want to face either one of them. One of the storylines of this republican primary has been how far President Trump has gone out of his way to attack Jeff Sessions, his own former attorney general. Trump, ever since senator sessions recused himself from the russian investigation, has had this deepseated anger against him. That has come out in full force over the course of this primary. Endorseid not just tuberville he constantly goes after sessions on twitter, makes it clear that tuberville is the preferred choice. Sessionss if jeff manages to pull off the upset in this primary, President Trump will be faced with a choice. He will have to endorse Jeff Sessions, a man he has bad mouth to the press for two years and hope sessions can win the race and help keep the republicans in the majority in the senate, or he can give an to his perhaps more basic instincts and not extend any sort of helping hand to a man he has no interest in helping. Ise democrats think if it session, thats kind of nuance between the pression and sessions could make the race better for doug jones. Tommy tuberville is not a perfect candidate either. The last couple weeks in particular has seen a rough spate of headlines for him. It is not just the original attacks on him or that he was from florida and the original attacks was that he was not from florida but he got fired from cincinnati and that he has no real allegiance to the state beyond having coached for alabama. That was the original line against him. Since then, we have seen a couple more really potentially damaging stories emerge. About how questions he dealt with a Football Player on his team that was accused of sexual assault. There are questions about a hedge fund he participated in that turned out to be a fraudulent service. Tuberville was sued for fraud and ended up settling out of court with no fault, but it was the subject of an extensive New York Times investigation last week. There were certainly things in tubervilles background as well, the fact that his experience is being a formal football coach who has never served in Public Office before. It is not disqualifying but could weigh on some voters minds. Theres something that makes tuberville a more attractive option for democrats. At the end of the day, this election is going to be decided by a couple things. Winow much doug jones can over people who will vote for donald trump, because he will have to win over trump voters. It will be decided by how close joe biden can keep the election in alabama. Byjoe biden looses alabama 20 points, doug jones is toast. He wont be able to overcome that. If joe biden looses alabama by 10 points, that is much more manageable. Though still a difficult path forward for doug jones to say i only have to perform 10 points better than biden as opposed to an impossible 20 points. Host a lot of calls for you in a little bit of time. Bob in wisconsin, republican. Iowa, you notice the two in all of your political ads you ran, the democrat never says i am a democrat. Joni ernst never says im a republican. Heres something about wisconsin. We have one piece of paper all citizens get to vote. It is in columns. If i wanted to vote libertarian in a primary, that is the only vote i can cast. I cannot go to the republican and pick a republican congressman. What do they do in these other states . Do you actually get a republican ballot, democrat ballot, is this response unusual . I will hang up. Runs itsery state primary elections differently. We have 51 different systems of running primary elections and general elections. Some states are offering a closed primary system, which means you have to be a registered member of a Political Party in order to vote in their primary. If you are a democrat, you only receive a democratic ballot and you can only vote in that primary if you are a registered democrat. Some states operate under an open primary, where you get to choose which party you would like to vote for. Regardless of whether you are a registered democrat, independent, or republican, if you prefer to vote in the republican primary and you are an independent, you can do that. Republicant a ballot. You cannot then vote in a democratic primary, you have to choose, but you can decide which primary you vote in. Some states do away with the partisan breakdown regardless. In total. For instance, the state of california, every candidate from every party, not just democrats or republicans but greens and libertarians and independents as well of all stripes appear on the same ballot in the primary. The top two gogetters in the primary, regardless of what parted they are in, are the two people that advance to the november election. Perfectlyit possible in california to have a general election against two democrats against each other or two republicans against each other. There is no rule set like in every other state where the two candidates have to be nominees from a major party. Host viewers always enjoy the campaign ads. Heres one more set from georgia, the senate race in georgia featuring a democrat in his early 30s against a 70yearold, the senator from georgia. Here are those ads back to back. Contrary to what the radical end is saying, america has been and still is the greatest country in the world. We are the shining city on the hill. Many americans have died defending it. It is up to us to protect what the rest of the world envies, economic arc Economic Opportunity for everybody, limited government, individual liberty. I will not let him destroy the American Dream for our children and grandchildren. Im david perdue, and i approve this message. I lead a business that investigates corruption for news organizations worldwide. We have exposed sexual slavery by isis, crooked judges, child trafficking, and bribery. Th is, per option is why my job. Corruption is it is what i will do as your senator. That is why im refusing donations from corporate packs, and why i approve this message. Host Jacob Rubashkin, your analysis of those two ads. Guest so this race between them where the 28 races we moved. We moved it from likely republican all the way to one category shy of being a pure tossup. Remember him from the 2017 special election, the atlanta house district, that became the most expensive house race in the entire country. At the time, he was 30 years old for democratsn searching for a victory. Any sort of victory in the wake of Donald Trumps election in 2016. He raised close to 40 million, and he lost that race by a few points, despite it being a district that the previous congressman had one by double digits in previous cycles. After that loss, there was this ,otion that ossoff was a fluke he was a lightweight, wasnt really the right candidate to move forward for democrats. Inple really thought that 2018, where the same district he lost was one by a different democrat won by a different democrat. Many wrote off jon ossoff, including republicans i talked to. He is not the democratic nominee for this eight in georgia running again senator purdue. The issues of this race are evident in these two ads. Purdue is the only fortune 500 perdue is a businessman, the only fortune 500 to serve. Strategy that they have been planning on using, running on this great economy, is not applicable in the current moment. That is why you hear them talking about socialism, marxism, and more cultural war identifiers like that to try to paint jon ossoff as this radical leftist who is going to turn them into the ussr. That is a more difficult message to run on then the economy is going great, im a businessman, and your 401 k will continue to prosper. Part of what we see is what we see in jon ossoffs ad. Hes 33, in a investigative journalist, a pretty mildmannered guy. Unlike 2017 where he struggled to find a defining message beyond giving democrats hope for a victory, he has zero in on this corruption message. He does Investigative Journalism work to produce his documentary in africa and middle east. And he has found a way or try to find a way to weave together his own experience with anticorruption work and this notion the issues people care about in georgia, things like maternalre, the mortality rates, can be linked back to the culture of corruption in washington. He is trying to neatly wrap up his previous experience as a fairly young man with the defining issues of the day. Because georgia has become so competitive on a president ial level, he stands a good shot of making this race competitive. Again, this was not a race people thought would be particularly contested at the beginning of the cycle. Republicans rode on ossoff. Democrats were not too crazy on georgia. All of that has changed over the last couple months. Host two minutes left but mary has been waiting in maryland, and independent. Go ahead. An independent. Go ahead. Caller i was calling to say i have a visa that says republicans for biden. Way theutraged by the patriotichas treated individuals, ousted from their stand by andcannot vote for a president who, around petworld, is called putins panda. Mike iconnell has feel Mitch Mcconnell has enabled him without giving him any opposition or standing up for any truths or any individuals who are willing to talk and say something, because they are patriotic. Ust Jacob Rubashkin brings Jacob Rubashkin, on this and raises guest absolutely. What i hear from mary is what i hear from a lot of folks around the country and in particular, this issue of National Security issues. Thel security military,e party of the party of a more aggressive stance worldwide. That has shifted during the trump era. President trump has shown a proclivity to get into fights with his own intelligence services, with his own military commanders. We have seen general mattis, the former defense secretary acoriate trump in an oped couple of weeks ago. Ark millie was dragged in mark milley was dragged in front of congress and had to apologize for appearing in a photo op with the president in lafayette square. If you look at the polling data it is very interesting. The president has fairly low support relatively speaking among a republican for a republican among the armed services. He is struggling. When voters who provisionally voted republican because they care about things like National Security, the fight against terrorism, the safety of troops abroad, they take a look at things like some of these Foreign Policy issues, things like the russian bounties story that broke a few weeks ago, the way trump creates figures like alexander vindman, people ask is he relayed the guy for these issues really the guy for these issues . The guy whosn, kids served in the military, the guy im going to pick . How many of those folks who used to think of themselves as republicans already think of themselves as independent . Republicans for once have an advantage, but given the president s on undisciplined messaging, that advantage may be slipping toward the democrats. Kin lets getubash you back before the election to talk more. Thank you for your time this morning. Guest thanks. 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Host in just a moment we will be joined by Maya Macguineas with the committee for a responsible federal budget having this conversation on the day when this is the lead story in the wall street journal the budget deficit surpassed a 3 trillion in june as it tax revenue plunged, putting the federal government on pace to register the largest deficit since world war ii. Thery notes that as deficit came to 4 when the u. S. Was in june alone the deficit widened to a record. The Treasury Department said monday it is nearly as much as the gap for the entire previous fiscal year, which totaled 984 billion. Maya mckinneys joins us my mayaineas joins us now macguineas joins us now via zoom. Guest those are not normally the numbers i like to hear. It is what we need to be doing right now in this moment during this serious downturn in the economy. Because we are in a Health Crisis and an economic crisis we need to get more money to fight the pandemic, alleviate hardships, and make up for the loss of economic activity. Putting all this money into the economy is what we need to be doing. Numbers are reflective of just how bad this Economic Situation is. Congress has been acting to combat it. Host host how long do we need to be doing that . There has been talk of the next fiscal stimulus package totaling 1 trillion or more . Long the question is how will this pandemic last before we get control of that. The best thing we can do for the economy is fight the pandemic, come out with come up with strong ways to reallocate it to hash come up with strong ways to come up with strong ways to eradicate it. Think we will see another round of money that goes in rather quickly because we still have one glaring cap in terms of need and that is gap in terms of need and that is a and local governments. State and local is state and local governments. State and local governments cant borrow it the federal government can. There will be massive gaps. Bige will have to be layoffs. Might strong sense is that congress will come together and pass some aid package that will focus heavily on state and local governments among other things. Host one thing they tried to do was delay tax filing day. We are having this conversation a day before the new july 15 date for filing. When you talk about revenue, what does that delayed mean for revenues from the for the federal government . A smart policy the administration put in place, delaying tax payments because it was the craziest moment. It feels like years ago to so many of us. When taxes were due we were just coming to terms with the fact that this was shutting down the economy, this was leading to massive uncertainty. It was complicated for people to pay their taxes but it also caused a lot of hardship for the people who were suddenly hit with questions of how to pay and because due to assad due to a sudden loss of income at no fault of their own. That revenue getting into the federal government and because estate and local governments are state and local governments are tied to the federal government, cutting off revenue to them. It made sense because it allowed people to have access to that money in the short run and avoided the complications of trying to pay taxes then but tomorrow is tax day for many who did not pay their taxes on april 15. It is the same old drudgery of paying your taxes, figuring out what you owe. There will be people who get money back and you will actually get interest on the lost amount of time where you did not have that money back. At the moment, the right thing to do and that revenue will go to the government. Ont why do we pay taxes april 15 . Could it be july 15 Going Forward . Guest sure. There are huge jumps in the amount of revenue that comes into based on when you pay your quarterly taxes. Changed, it could be but it doesnt really make a difference, kind of when companies or states change their fiscal years. Even the governments fiscal a calendarrun on year. The big surprise on tax day is that no one whoever does withholding ever gets it right. Some people get a big bonus act, which just means they overpaid taxes throughout the year back which just means they overpaid taxes throughout the year. There is always uncertainty that surrounds what you will owe on the actual tax day but the date itself is something we can pick. It has no particular importance. Not Maya Macguineas needs introduction on the washington journal. Here to answer your questions tax policy,deficit, joining us until the end of our program. Emocrats, 202 7488000 republicans, 202 7488001. Ndependents, 202 7488002 our first color is on the line for democrats. Is on the line for democrats. Good morning. Inler i voted for trump 2016 but i am voting democratic this year because of all this craziness. Here is my question. The debt has gone to levels that are almost unimaginable, worse maybe even been what happened in world war ii, which was a little before my time. Why do we always cater to this business community, give them tax breaks . They never share their profits with the rest of us when they are doing well. All they ever do is cheat on their taxes. I have business friends. All their business cars are owned by the business. They even do their Grocery Shopping through the business, cutting themselves breaks. What are we doing about this . Why are we even doing it . I am really frightened of Mitch Mcconnell. His solution is always cut Social Security. We paid for this they are the ones who ineptly ran this government, giving tax breaks to the wealthy. Where is this really going . Please tell me. Guest that is a great question. I could spend the rest of the show answering it. Let me jump right in. Let me address three things you brought up the business communitys role in the debt, the debt, and Social Security. All, huge topics. Let me talk about the debt for a moment. As the committee for irresponsible federal budget we worry about the huge runup in debt this country has had. Last go back to the recession. In the last recession our debt as a share of gdp for all the reasons your debt does during the downturn. You have to put more money into the economy to compensate for the loss of activity and your programs that help people during times of hardship all kick in, so unemployment, food stamps, worker retraining over the long run, disability, and your revenues drop. And it grewassively during the last recession as we expected it to. What you want to do when times backood is bring that debt under control. Our organization is bipartisan. We dont look at this as big government, small government. You want to think about what role debt plays in your economy and how those reasons that should be driven for economic reasons rather than political reasons. During the last economic expansion, which lasted a very long time, what we failed to do was get the debt under control. 80 rew from 40 of gdp to of gdp. Our annual deficit shrunk for a while but debt continued to grow. In the latter. Of the expansion in the latter period of the expansion policy irresponsible decisions. We had two huge spending increases, which we did not pay for. We had a tax cut that we did not pay for. Those were put on the National Credit card. If something is worth doing, it should be worth paying for. Putting it on the credit card does not help the economy. It could do real damage in the long run. The president signed over 5 trillion in new borrowing during the economic expansion. Downturn in this much worse shape than we did in the previous recession where debt was about 80 of gdp. It is now going to grow to 100 of gdp this year. Next year it will surpass the record we set after world war ii. Thatught a world war at time. After world war ii, the debt came down quickly because we ran balanced budgets and the economy was growing strongly because of the demographics on our side. We will not see that this time. When we come out of this, we will see our debt grow even once the economy is recovered because we have so many structural imbalances and growth will be challenging because of the theth of the aging of population. When we came to this moment, it was reckless to be at such a high debt level. This moment we are in is when we should be borrowing. We should not turn the spigots off. The most important thing right now is to deal with the pandemic , get the economy back on track. As soon as the economy is Strong Enough we need to turn to bringing the debt back down. And of the encouraging things i have seen was a letter from the house. 60 members of congress, 30 republicans, 30 democrats who said we should include in the next economic package a plan that says when the economy is Strong Enough we will focus on addressing the national debt. We should put in place a commitment today to put do it when the economy is Strong Enough. Last time we failed to do that in the right way. That is the kind of longerterm thinking need. Host how far away do you think we are from seeing a Budget Surplus again . Guest a Budget Surplus . I fear i wont see one and i hope that is very far away, my chance of seeing one. I think we are talking decades unless we shift the way we budget. In order to get our budget back on track we need to fix our politics. We need to fix the fact that we have two parties that are so focused on fighting against each other and constantly telling themselves the story if we could just get the majority, we could fix things, but that never happens. If we could focus on the strength and security of this country, being willing to compromise because we are a country of very diverse points of view about where we should spend our resources. The way you stay strong is you compromise. You do not create magic arguments that tax cuts pay for themselves or spending increases pay for themselves. They dont. We have to figure out how to pay for them when the economy is strong. We have this whole project that is looking at the root causes of the dysfunction and division in this country, how we address those in so we can deal with problems like the national debt, but also immigration, environment, pick your policy interest. Until we address those have a functioning government system where we can work out our differences and move forward instead of spending so much time divided. The answer is, the Budget Surplus is not on track right now. We are projected for the debt to grow faster than the economy every year for forever. Host do you think repealing the tax cuts and jobs act would work help . Guest i think that was necessary in terms of tax reform , reckless and misdirected by not being offset by spending cuts. Huge tax cut that added several trillion dollars to the national debt. If we extend it, it will be close to 3 trillion. It is close to expiring. We should have made changes to be more competitive, to clean up the tax code, but instead we did all the cuts and it didnt make any of the hard cuts. Ecisions for advocates of much Smaller Government who really wanted tax cuts, they should have paired them with spending cuts. That is how you make your government smaller. That makes your government larger because i didnt cut spending but it did add interest costs to the recipe. Of i think we did a lot damage by not doing comprehensive tax reform. For the build that was passed was put out there there were a model of tax a number of models of tax reforms that would have not added to the national debt. We shouldve used those. Go back, figure out how to offset the tax cuts and those that were illadvised in general, we should repeal them. About aneed to think lot of spending reforms because at the same time that we were passing huge tax cuts, we followed them with two huge spending increases that we did not offset. The caller also brought up Social Security. Can i take a minute and go over that . Social security is a topic that always comes up here on washington journal because it is an issue that is near and dear to all our hearts. They are collecting retirement thefits, or plan to in future. The largest tax paid by most people in the country is the payroll tax that goes to fund Social Security and medicare. It is a large chunk of all taxes. Here is the truth about Social Security and it is probably the issue that is the most contentious and demagogue and has the most mistruths put out there about it. Social securitys trust funds do not have enough money in them or are not projected to take in enough money to pay out benefits. We have known that for years. Social Security Trustees report every year that changes need to be made to the system. The real shame and this is that we have known this for so long and we have failed to make those changes, which jeopardizes benefits for people who depend on them. We could have done it in a way that did not affect a single in the program. With every year we wait, that gets more difficult. Look at the trustees report. How to make says those changes. We could fix the ground by lifting the payroll tax cap into the payroll tax rate or putting other revenues into the program. We could fix the entire program by reducing benefits, but if you are going to do it all by benefit cuts you would have to have a benefit cuts for people in the lower and middle classes or raise the retirement age and it changed the way those benefits are calculated. Differentlook at the factors, find reforms that would first and foremost protect those who depend on the program and keep us solid for the long run. I know talking about Social Security reform makes people nervous. What should make us nervous is delaying the discussion. We cannot wish away the fact that the trust funds do not have enough money. Money has been borrowed from the trust funds, which drains resources from the rest of the federal budget. Money went to pay for energy, environment, health care and it meant that we paid lower taxes otherwise. Payroll taxes were subsidizing the rest of the federal government. Now the federal government will have to repay that money. Because people depend on Social Security there is a lot of nervousness about this but there is also a lot of really irresponsible work by groups out there trying to scare people about Social Security reform when merely saying you need to address the program is in no way it. You are going to address there are politicians taking the. Ead on this congressmanom to mitt romney are about how youlk address these issues. Ir leading discussions congressman larson has a fullblown reform plan that romney with a number of has developed something called the trust act, which says if a trust fund is on track to become insolvent, we should appoint a special commission that would think to those to make fixes. Roblems. Think that is constructive the discussion is starting but it could not come too quickly because we cannot wish away the fact that those numbers do not add up. The role of business in all of this there are two sides to this. Businesses are what build the economy. There have been too many tax giveaways. Too much of the money that went to Corporate Tax reform does not seem to have trickled down into many of the workers. It did not seem to end up as broadbased as proponents of tax reform said it would. There is a real issue that needs to be resolved between trust in businesses and an understanding of how to contribute to the economy. Business leaders can play a role in discussing what is needed for the overall economy and making sure those reforms lead to Economic Growth that is broadly shared in a way we have not seen in the past year. Surprise, plenty of colors for maya mckinneys. S forll plenty of caller Maya Macguineas this morning. David is in gaithersburg, maryland. Caller thank you for cspan as always. Hear a lot of we should be andg this, back on track, things and respectfully my followup to that is why . I am about 40. I have been practicing law for a while. I pick up the economist every once and a while. Wondering whatre are the consequences . When you say when i hear you say you are worrying about the expanding date debt, can you articulate some of those consequences . We see what it looks like when everyone is losing their jobs. If we do not have the political will to do the things you are saying, and i dont know that we to hit ais it time hard reset . What does it mean when our currency doesnt have any pull . Saying, justple print money. Guest what a great question. There is so much discussion about this and it is so difficult to connect why one should worry about the debt to our individual lives. It is not something where you see the effects in the larger or dutch economy necessarily and in your daytoday life in the larger economy necessarily and not in your daytoday life. I will do my best and it is difficult for sure to understand how this trickles down to affecting all of us, which it does. My favorite quote about it was from charlie schultz, which is that deficit is like the termites in the basement. They are slowly eating away at the foundation in a way we do not see but quite possibly and it seems more and more likely case,t that is the until it is too late. You should not be worried about the deficit right now because you should be worried about the immediate plight of the economy. A terrible moment. I have to say, i cannot believe what this world is going through. This is a painful, excruciating moment in terms of health care, innomic losses, and does terms of the psychological uncertainty. It is lonely, people cant plan. It is we are fighting about masks. This is a terrible loss of life and livelihood. Andhould all take a moment struggle with that. It is painful to be going through. This is not the moment to sit there and say, we have to stop borrowing, our debt is too large , any minute now it is going to records ds break it is the time to say, what lessons should we learn the it is a think it is time say, what lessons should we learn . Is aeason i think it problem is in a time when we should be fighting against of the headwinds of an aging adding a layer of past debt on it and it debt that is not used predominantly for investment, that debt is used much more for consumption than that debt, having slow Economic Growth. At translates into our standard of living being lower today than it would if we did not have such a big debt in the past. It will continue to be lower in the future if we do not have a more responsible fiscal policy. You cannot see the effects. It is a frog in boiling water. Now feelsorrowing fine, but we are selling out the future of our economy. It also leads to higher Interest Payments on the debt. This is one of the confusing factors we have very low Interest Rates because they dutch are payments our Interest Payments arent as high. When our debt goes up, our Interest Payments will skyrocket. That will lead to trillions of dollars more over a decade of Interest Payments. We are very vulnerable to an increase in rate. It also leaves us dangerously ill prepared for future crises. This is not the only pandemic we will have or a Natural Disaster or a terrorist attack. There will be more crises and every time we go into one with our debt higher we got get closer to finding the edge of how much we are able to borrow is. If we find out, it will be very painful because it means borrowing could massively push up Interest Rates at a time when the economy needs them to be low to be strong. It could ultimately lead to inflation. Many are too young to remember how harmful damaging inflation is but it has profound consequences in the economy and leads to the loss of the value of savings. Right now we are the safe haven. We have a status. People always wanted to buy dollars but that is not guaranteed to last and there are many competitors who want to replace us. If we do not manage our finances well i also worry about the loss of things we should be doing. There are so many investments we need to be making for a longterm healthy economy from worker retraining to Lifelong Learning to new forms of security, which we do not have. We are not having that conversation because our budget is over constrained and we have put so many resources we are not having important discussions about what to do about how the government can partner to help us host on that debt to pinpoint, do you have a guess at Tipping Point, do you have a guess at what that could be . Guest you keep asking me to make an impossible projection. Just like knowing when the Budget Surplus, we have no idea when the budget Tipping Point is because it depends on the conditions of other economies. 40 of ourght now debt is borrowed from abroad 40 of our debt is owned by foreigners. 60 domestically. We depend on the fed buying our debt or people in Foreign Countries buying our debt. If the demand for that debt drives up or the feds policy is not to buy as much debt as it did in the past, that would be a massive shock and it could lead to a Tipping Point. If Interest Rates go up, we will hit a Tipping Point. If there is a huge loss in the political stability of the u. S. , we will hit a Tipping Point. You have no idea when they are. It confounds me that a country who has such the privilege of being a safe haven, why would we be intent on finding out . We should get ahead of the problem. It is what we should have been doing for the last five years and it is what we should do once we get through this movements this moment. Be thevery fortunate to leading currency. Caller referenced, just money. Ey print that rushes us towards finding out what that Tipping Point is. Host our next caller is from massachusetts, independent. Caller tax cuts were a disaster for this country. After world war ii, eisenhower, startedrepublican, he the highway system in the u. S. The top rates we need to raise taxes on the. Illionaires host Maya Macguineas. Did nothe tax cuts we pay forward reckless. They added so much debt to the economy for no reason. Part of the promise is that they would pay for themselves by creating so much growth. Any serious thinker knew they would never pay for themselves and of course they have not and they were never going to. It is good for us to start this discussion about what taxes should be raised. We will have to when the economy is Strong Enough. I want there to be support for making and taking the measures necessary to deal with this on the spending side but i want to be clear that we should not start that before the economy is Strong Enough to accommodate those measures. To thinkimportant time about what new taxes we should be thinking about. People all have different preferences. Let me direct people to something on our website called the debt fixer, which allows you to pick your goal of how much you would like to reduce the debt, what you would like the goal to be and go through a bunch of policy choices. There is no right answer. This is about policy choices. Look at income tax rates and to raise those rates either on the individual side or on the corporate side and we can also , deductions,x base itstions, exclusions, like swiss cheese in the tax code. We can make a massive amount of money doing that. We could raise the payroll tax rate or cap. That money had to go through the rate is rather aggressive. Its a flat rate. Rates,u have progressive you could raise him at the higher end if you wanted to do what youre talking about, ask asking millionaires to pay a higher tax rate. We could repeal the tax cuts that were put in place or repeal some of them. That is something Vice President biden has put out as part of his land. Another thing i would mention is we have a program called u. S. Budget watch. We look at the promises of everyone running for president and will be putting out numerous reports in the coming months on the promises and plans of biden and trump, what they would do, explaining how they would work and their effects on the national debt. We can also think about new taxes. There has been a discussion about what wealth taxes. I am taxes another tax a big fan of our consumption taxes, a carbon tax. We can talk about new revenue and what you want to balance is how they would affect the economy and what are the distributional consequences . Am very eager that we get that discussion going in this country. I want to emphasize, i think over and over what we do not have is longterm focus in this country. We need to think about budgeting for the future. We need to think about where we are spending our money, how much of it is going towards investment versus consumption . I would argue we have under invested massively, primarily in human capital, also research and development in order to allow us to spend more on consumption. I think we have that backwards. I think we should spend more in investment with longterm growth prospects. Theou look how we spend to budget on kids versus seniors for example, we spend such a tiny sliver of the budget on children at a time when we know people are being born into an economy that will be much more competitive than the one we have seen in the past, that will have many more challenges coming at us more quickly. We should be investing more. Differenta lot of Budget Priorities we want to think about. We are told there is one way for people to look at it. That debt fixer tool is cfrd. Com. At guest the covid money tracker has been tracking how much money has been put into the economy in response to the pandemic and recession. In a couple of weeks we will launch the next version of it, which i think will be recall. It will allow users to interact with it in so many ways, slice and dice the data. , to seeeeper into that where the money is going. Is it going the Federal Reserve is taking a huge role in fighting this downturn. Has it been done legislatively . Or like the delay in income taxes has it been done through the white house echo coat white house . The covid money tractor shows you how much has been put out into the economy already. We also see how much of it will come back. We can hope to recoup some of that over the longterm but it is a great way to familiarize yourself with what the actual programs are. Trackvery difficult to these policies and we are going to keep doing it for as long as we should not let up on transparency and oversight and understanding where our tax dollars are being spent. It will give us a chance to look back once we are through this and figure out what worked, what didnt work so well. We know we will be hit by further emergencies and to this tool will help us evaluate what worked. Covid money tracker is a great way for people to familiarize themselves with what the recovery measures are and how much money is getting out into the economy. Host we have 15 minutes left with maya mcguiness, taking your phone calls Maya Macguineas taking your phone calls. Caller good morning. Macguineas, you are right on the spot. You are a very intelligent lady. I had a question here, but you already answered it how much money can the u. S. Government prints before someone wakes up and says, we are in deep trouble here. With no onet one buys our debt, we are in trouble. E though. Aying w who is we . I will give you an example here. Someone nths ago, it was an attorney. , a stimulus check for his father. His father passed away a couple of years ago. I have known other cases like this. I know there is a lot of confident people there, but under the current administration, there handing out stimulus checks. What i dont know how to explain it. Host maybe my amick guineas can navyybe miya macguineas can. Ybe Maya Macguineas guest what is leading to dysfunction and trust . Well, we are trusting our government to do a good job. Every time you hear a story about a check being sent to ed people, it chips away at our trust. Picture,y, in the big what they achieved with the stimulus measures, they being congress and our lawmakers, i think was extraordinary. I think they were able to pump a lot of money into the economy and a record amount of time. Have never put this much money into an economy and so little time. Incomes are were actually higher than they have been because it was so there was such a push to get money out into the economy really quickly because we could have gone into a spiral. It could have been deadly. I think it is great that that happened. What you sacra fate sacrifice targeted. We got the money out quickly but mistakes were made. That is clearly a problem. It comes with a loss of trust but we should keep the big picture in mind. They did a good job at getting the money out there. One of the big lessons of all our Government Systems are painfully, pathetically outdated. Our Unemployment Insurance systems cant talk to each other. Our ability to get money to people who need it in an era of Digital Currency is absurdly slow. Our Computer Systems dont talk to each other. When you look at what is going , there arether coast incredible innovations coming out of silicon valley. It doesnt make any sense. We need to bring this into our Public Policy world. That is an important lesson. Want to mention something, when you were talking about the debt, it made me think about how much of this situation is a bubble mentality. See it in the stock market all the time. We have a debt bubble in some ways where people will keep lending us money until the loss of trust. Something causes it and then it could be massively fast how quickly that leads to the popping of that bubble. We basically hopped from a one bubble to another in this country. When the confidence ends and the music stops playing, it could be incredibly painful to see how this unwinds. When the bubbles pop, the last person standing, it causes immense pain. Your final question was who is we . We named this program fix up because it is not just to the parties that need fixing. It is not just congress, which i think maids to learn how to function. It is all of us in that congress reflects all of us, the citizens. There are big divides in our inability to listen to each of thend the effects coarsening of the discussion and the loss of reasoning and extending trust to different points of view, all of that is ripping apart the social fabric of the country. When it comes to fiscal policy, we vote for politicians who give us tax cuts and spending increases without paying for them. I work with these folks all the time. There are so many good members of congress who would like to work on these issues and make hard choices but when the near certain outcome is if you talk the truth about having to raise taxes, fixing Social Security, tellng spending, if you those whole truths you are likely to lose your job and that is on us. Until we are willing to reward politicians for making hard decisions and deleting on hard issues, first and foremost fiscal choices, we will continue to have a debt that is growing. Basically, we are saying we do not want hard choices made on our watch. Lets send that bill to our kids. That is not who we are as a country. We have always been a country who has wanted to leave the country stronger. The role of lawmakers is critical here. It needs to start at the top. It has to come from us, that we demanded as well. Marshall, virginia. Line for democrats. The morning. Goodhere we are morning. Day thathis is a rainy my dad who grew up in the depression was always talking about. The Republican Voters who thisssfully demagogued issue and created red ink as far as the eye can see believe me, they will be the last ones to learn the lesson. I promise you they are salivating at the prospect of dismantling Social Security. Two points real quick. If we look at history, fallen empires and monarchs have one thing in common. A bankrupt treasury. These people who do not want to be she bowl and dont want to and be told sheeple what to do and have these check out lighten karen tantrums check out line karen tantrums, unfortunately ultimately it always comes around as this young lady adjusted to blaming the voter. I sit here not having been able to receive a dime of benefits since march through this screwed up security system, having paid taxes my entire life, subsidizing reparations like inc. , trump bank trump all these companies i have subsidized and i am going to sit there and listen to someone blame me. Guest thanks for calling me young. Ill take that. I understand your frustration. I am surprised to hear you are not receiving your Social Security check. There shouldnt have been a pause in that. I disagree. I disagree with two things you said and i agree with one thing you said. I disagree that Social Security of the problem. Look at the Social Security of the is it not part problem. Look at the Social Security trustees report. If we do not do something in the coming years, and not so far or so, wen 10 years will see acrosstheboard and if it cuts for the widow who depends on the program acrosstheboard and if it cuts for the acrosstheboard benefit cuts for the widow who depends on the program. That doesnt make sense. We shouldnt wait for budget cuts that will be devastating for so many people. What we should not do is pretend we do not have to fix it. The second bang is, i am not trying to vilify us, but the way your comment reflected that this is all republicans fault i just dont think this country can work as two teams. I dont think we can achieve the ambitions and aspirations, both economic and national of this country if we astinue to treat each other two different teams that are more intent on beating each other up and blaming each other than trying to come to terms. That youraying frustrations or criticisms are wrong. Many of them, i am sure i agree with. We have to figure out how to, all of us, solve these problems. Im sorry if that is not your approach. Im not trying to vilify us. Think compromise, figuring out what we are trying to all accomplish, which is to get in control of the pandemic, reopen the economy and alleviate hardship as we go. That is what i think our shared goals are. You talk about the damage a bankrupt treasury can have. I agree with you. We will lose our strength as a country if we we are at a of having that happen. We have squandered the incredible benefits this country has because we dont want to make hard choices. There are plenty of ways that could pan out. We have a choice of how big or small our government is. Need to find a way to function so that we can make those choices. Host we have two and a half minutes or so before we go to the House Appropriations of theee, their markup transportation, urban development, appropriations bill. It is expected to go most of the day but before they get started at 10 00 am eastern, give us a preview of what we should be looking for. Guest the appropriations process will be a sideshow this year. Preparations passed in time. It is an important piece to the overall budget process. What the focus will be on is the big economic packages as they move through because that is where people are trying to get National Priorities funded. Process iations there is a process we have for congressapproving then passes the budget, sets the topline numbers and then we fill it in bypassing appropriations. Very rarely do any of those steps take action. Congress almost routinely never passes a budget. They did not even try this year. Appropriations are almost always intoassed and are blocked one big at continuing resolution, which means the work of budgeting wasnt done and appropriations are only one third of the budget. Godatory spending does not through that process and does not receive oversight. It wont fix the fiscal situation. We need to fix the budget process. We need to use that as a tool to discuss what our National Properties priorities are. Andeed a Strategic Plan that is reflected in a national budget. When we do not have a national budget, we cannot expect our resources to be used wisely. Theyre not right now and we are paying the price as we have a massive mountain of debt and a lot of priorities that are not being meant host the president of the appreciate your time on washington journal. That will do it for our program today. We will of course be back here tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, 4 00 a. M. Pacific. We will take cspan viewers over to the House Appropriations committee. The fiscal year 2021 appropriations bill is set to go all day and is set to start in a few minutes. For Defense Appropriations Committee working on spending for defense, science, expected to be a long evening. You are watching live coverage on cspan. Hill,are live on capitol House Appropriations committee working on 2021 spending levels today. One of the things they are working on is defense spending, 694 billion. Fromcrease of 1. 2 billion 2020. You are watching live coverage on cspan. The House Appropriations committee working on 2021 spending levels for defense, commerce, justice, and science this morning. Expected to be a long day with the markup going into the evening. You are watching live coverage on cspan