Democrats can call in at 202 7488000. Republicans 202 7488001. Independents 202 7488002. You can also send us a text this morning. That number 202 7488003. If you do, please include your name and where you are from. Catch up with us on social wj, on on twitter cspan facebook. Com cspan. Today marks three weeks since election day 2020. Transition to Bidens Administration begins. Take you now to the front page of the trade news. Their lead story about the certification process. Michigan born in charge of certifying election votes casts what they call a pivotal vote, cementing joe bidens victory in the state. The board of state canvassers voted 30 to certify the results. The republican board member crossed over to certify the election, which is traditionally viewed as an administrative step , but had drawn a spotlight as the Trump Campaign questioned the integrity of the election. Less than two hours after that final vote, a letter from gsa administrator emily murphy to joe biden. That saying, as the administrator, i have the ability under the president ial transition act of 1963 to make postelection Services Available to assist in the event of a president ial transition. I take this role seriously. Because of recent developments, i am transmitting this letter today to make those Resources Available to you. I did not receive any direction to delay my determination. I did receive threats online directed at my family, my staff, and even my pets to course me into making this determination prematurely. I remain committed to upholding the law. Getting your reaction. President trump with his own reaction to that letter. Within minutes of that letter eing posted, the president , she has been harassed, threatened, and abused. I do not want to see this happen to her, her family, or employees of gsa. We will keep up the good fight. I believe we will prevail. In the best interests of our country, i am recommending that emily and her team do what needs to be done and have told my team to do the same. Joe bidens camp with their own reaction to that official ascertainment by emily murphy. This was the statement from the ,ransition executive director they wrote, todays transition is a needed step to tackle the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track. This final decision is a definitive action to formally begin the transition process. Nsition officials we begin will begin meeting with federal officials and get a complete understanding of the Trump Administrations efforts to hollow out government agencies. Ist that does in practice releases 6 million in funds to the Biden Administration transition effort, opens up briefings from federal agencies, information about covid response, plans for vaccine rollout. This morning, getting your reaction to all of that news that broke yesterday afternoon, and also will let you know what members of congress and others had to say about it. We want to hear from you. Democrats 202 7488000. Republicans 202 7488001. Independents 202 7488002. Northis first out of carolina, independent. Caller all i can say is they stole the election from our president. He tried to tell them in his campaign. All these mailin ballots, it is just like if you go and have something notarized. It has to be signed. They let these people get away with everything. God help our country when joe ere, and nobodyh is doing anything about his son with all this money he was paid. This man did not deserve to be elected president. He did nothing. Went on all these rallies, all these thousands of people. You cannot tell me that they did not steal this election from our president. God save america. Host do you think you will ever accept joe biden as president . Caller no, sir. No, sir. This man is a crook. Where did he get all that money to buy all than beach houses . He cannot even carry on a decent conversation. They stole the election. Host that is helen. This is nelson out of maryland, democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. If we can deal with this president for four years, i think helen should be able to deal with joe biden for the next four years and most likely Kamala Harris for the next four additional. I am happy that they have ascertained those votes and released the federal forms joe biden needs. The president needs to concede. He has no path to reelection. He has no path to become president. The game is over. It is time he started getting out of the way house. Republicans will say they love america so much. It is appalling how they are trying to do legitimize our elections and democracy. All these people going around and saying joe biden stole the election, get over it. It is over. The game is over. They should deal with it. Downplayingesident that action by gsa just after 11 00 p. M. Eastern. This is his followup tweet. The president saying, what does gsa have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases as what will go down as the most corrupt election in American History . We are moving full speed ahead. We will never concede to fake ballots and dominion. Peakberg news with a behind the curtain about what is happening at the white house. Staff, chief of staff mark meadows said the white house will comply with all actions needed to ensure the smooth transfer of power. Our work here is not finished. I am confident that each of you will represent and preserve the executive office of the president as we continue. That memo telling staffers that unless they are told that they are authorized to do so, they are not allowed to speak directly with the Biden Transition Team. Meadows naming points of contact in each office to work with the biden team. Getting your reaction to all of this this morning in the first hour of washington journal. Independent out of michigan. The reaction, especially to decision yesterday in michigan by the board of canvassers . Caller good morning, yes. As far as that goes, it was clear biden had more votes than trump. If you want to look at how the election was rigged, i worked on Michael Bloombergs campaign, and i saw firsthand how it was raped against Bernie Sanders was rigged against Bernie Sanders. Biden got more votes, but they shut down trumps entire campaign. I am disappointed in biden. Host what do you mean . Rigged . You mean by shut down his campaign . He was not able to campaign the way he wanted to . Caller on march 10, i was at joe bidens michigan victory party. I got dragged there by a girl from delaware. Thesame night joe biden won michigan primary, which i thought was rigged, they shut down bernies entire campaign, which would have been epic. Trump could not have his rallies and had to deal with this covid thing. I think the democrats and the media exploded it to destroy trump, set down his machine, and make sure he could not win. These are the people who stick up for the multinationals, the corporations. I think they wanted nothing to do with trumps nationalism. It is all to do with globalism. That is what you are going to get with this administration. Host same question to you, will you accept joe biden as president of the United States . Caller what choice do i have . Nobody is going to ask me. Yeah, sure. Host this is bill out of maryland, democrat. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Looks like a nice sunrise before you. Host beautiful actually. Just before the program, there were six helicopters flying around the capitol. It has been a beautiful morning. I was born in , moved out to the suburbs as a result of deconstruction where we lived. I was raised republican, moved to indiana and ran as a republican. I cannot understand how anybody cannot see through what has been going on with the Trump Administration. This is one of the dirtiest administrations we have ever had. I doubt if there is ever going to be anything like this again. I think we need to get rid of the Electoral College. Word outthis magical there, they. They. No one says who they are. Mr. Biden won. Mr. Trump did not. He got less votes than Hillary Clinton got. These peoplee dirt are throwing on our country is exposed. Years ago when bush was president , i would travel to europe, and most people would carry their backpacks with canadian flags on them even though they were u. S. Citizens. It took eight years to clean up bushs mess. Goodness knows how many years it trumpse to clean up mess. When trump first came into office, there was clean coal bed all this noise when he first ran. West virginiaom said, what are we going to get our coal jobs back . Over 10 Mining Companies have closed down across the country since Trump Took Office. That was a lie. A lot of people call in and say trump cap to all of his promises. He did not. Host to our republican line, tom in florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. I guess the last caller wants americans to pay twice as much anddrugs as the europeans then not even finance their defense. We are the ones that are under possible invasion. I guess it is ok if the United States becomes dependent on china for many of our strategic materials. Wow. Man, we are going to have a Great Administration coming in. As far as this election is concerned, it does not make any sense to me. Trump would have a rally of would have biden something for 20 people, and 10 of those were newspeople people a. Give me a break. That was the biggest lie. It was ridiculous. Poll is this wisconsin where trump was supposed to lose by 17 . The stuff that came out during this election, if you call up trump dirty, i dont know what you call the democrats. Host more republican lawmakers saying it is time for the transition to begin to the Bidens Administration. What do you make of those calls . Caller here is what needs to be done, there is palpable anger among republicans. It is dangerous. What needs to be done is these machines have to be forensically inspected by people who know how to inspect these machines. Certifiedhave to be as being legal and true votes. Inspectionsone any on the actual ballots. If they can this in a way that these machines are forensically inspected, maybe you can get a little bit of acceptance. Thele are very angry about avoidance of inspecting these machines. That is tom in florida. The certification process is underway. Certifyingunties Election Results. More and more republican lawmakers calling on the president to begin the formal transition process. , saying witheet results,certifying its joe biden has more than 270 Electoral College votes. The Trump Campaign has not presented evidence of the massive fraud which would have to be present to overturn the election. I voted for President Trump. The senator going on to say the transition should begin. Here is senator mark alexander, outgoing senator, senior recountsn saying the are being completed, most states will certify their results by december 8. Since it seems clear that joe biden will be the president elect, my hope is that President Trump will put the Country First and have an orderly transition to help the next administration succeed. When you are in public life, people remember the last thing you do. Just one or two more. Congressman dusty johnson, freshman member of the house, republican, saying i supported the president s right to make his case in course, these efforts have not been successful. Oft some republican Members Congress making their thoughts known. Phone lines, democrats, republicans, and independents. Elaine is a democrat out of texas. Here is what i want to say quickly to a lady out of carolina, she needs to get out her bible and read it. Are you there . Host yes, maam. Caller god is looking at all of us. And love oneay another and get along. Trump was a bad president. God will take care of him. I have always loved joe biden. We need to pray and love one another. Let me tell you this little story quick. I am 84 years old. In 1960 eight, i left the School System and went to southwestern bell. When i came home that morning at 8 00, it was too little white ladies. One of them said being loud, i dont want to see another and she used the nword. I just kept on walking. It was january 15, 1968. I did my training. I was promoted to supervisor. I became her supervisor. I loved her and trained her like everybody else. I stayed right there and did my work. We have got to love one another. Do, is what god wants us to love and try to get along. , i just had to say this, that little lady, god rest her soul. I hope she rests in peace. I lost a brother in a nurse friend to covid. I keep my distance. My son takes care of me. I do not drive anymore. I still love everybody. It does not matter what color you are. Mexican, inext door, respect them. They respect me. Host thanks for the call. Sorry for your losses. This is tom in south carolina, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. I do not know what i could say to improve on that lady that just called in. Wow. If she wants to move to south carolina, tell her i will come get her in my uhaul truck. What a message. That is my home message. Lets try to get along for goodness sake. This is not going to work when we have got separations and all of that. We just need to get along. Who gotot agree with elected president or who he might appoint into his administration, but we can get along, go along to get along. This country will be that much better for it. Tothat lady from texas wants move to south carolina, on, carolina, come on, honey. We are expecting a formal announcement on appointments today. Several of those appointments have already been leaked and confirmed. We will run through them courtesy of usa today. Biden building a diverse cabinet is the headline. The president elect chose janet yellen to become treasury ping the former chairwoman of the powerful Federal Reserve. If confirmed, janet yellen would be the first woman as treasury secretary. Alejandra new york this will become the first immigrant to and borderigration security. Cubanamerican in 1960. Ofhas been deputy secretary the department of Homeland Security and headed its citizenship agency. Avril haines, the former Deputy Director of cia will be the first director of national intelligence. He chose tony blinken as secretary of state, Jake Sullivan as National Security advisor, john kerry as special envoy for climate. He is expected to make some of today in wilmington, delaware. Have appeared in cspan Video Library throughout the years in previous roles. We will feature some of them for you. Jenny, cspan viewers very familiar with her work as chair of the Federal Reserve. We want to take you back to when she was vice chair of the Federal Reserve, talking about unemployment and inflation issues of that time. This is from one of her 93 videos in the cspan Video Library. [video clip] in contrast to the large gap employment,al inflation, apart from fluctuations due to energy and commodity prices, has been running for some time a little below the rate of 2 per year that the Committee Judges to be consistent with the Federal Reserves dual mandate. The committee anticipates inflation will continue to run at or below 2 in the mediumterm. Expectations for inflation over the next five to 10 years remain well anchored according to surveys of households and professional forecasters. With employment so far from its maximum level and with inflation 2 ning below the committees objective, i believe it is appropriate for progress in the labor market to take center stage in the context of monetary policy. From janet yellen back 2013. You can find all of her appearances in the cspan Video Library. O maentioned alejandra yorka. He appeared on this program back in 2011 to talk about the government everify, back when he was with uscis. [video clip] i was curious why we cannot use that money, use that system to actually fight immigration . Why cant we use our money to go now where everybody is coming across when it is trying to go to the corporations, they are not going to fix it. They do not care. I am curious how you plan to something thato has not even been fixed from the start, deal with the real problem. I appreciate the question. There is funding from congress for a wide number of tools to combat illegal immigration. Funds toappropriates enable the department of Homeland Security to secure our borders. Everify program and other worksite enforcement programs are designed on the basic foundation that individuals come here illegally in order to secure work. A we ensure the lawfulness of workforce and prevent the hiring of undocumented workers, that financial magnet will be removed. That is one of the Core Principles of the everify program. Host as we said, the president elect is set to make his Personnel Announcements today. We will be covering that live at 1 00 p. M. Eastern. You can watch that here on cspan, at cspan. Org, and on the free cspan radio app. One of the reasons you are likely to find a lot of these picks in the cspan Video Library is because they have been in washington for a while. As the Washington Post points out, many of these picks are steeped in washington policy ways. This is the lead story in the Washington Post on this issue, calling bidens victory akin to the revenge of the washington establishment. Bidens early commitments are in many ways a systemic reversal of Donald Trumps own outsider effort, using the same people who created the Obama Policies in the first place. Ks are steeped in the ways of washington policy. Jake sullivan, who is National Security advisor to Vice President biden will now become National Security advisor to present biden. President biden. Back to your phone calls this morning. Getting your thoughts on michigan certification, gsa ascertaining joe biden as the victor. Connie, good morning. Thanks for waiting. Caller thank you for taking my call. Everything was going fine and good with President Trump creating jobs and everything and thens covid hit, everything started going down, and people started getting radical. Held,ose riots that were i never heard any of the democrats that are running for office. Will do this the right way. All the statues being torn down. Person, that woman that said we must all be because god yes. But she said she has something against President Trump. Love everybody, not just certain people. Guided joe just god to judge us. Can you love somebody and still disagree with them . Caller yes. To me god loves everyone. I am a human. I am not him. He loved everyone. Well, ok. Who am i not to . If god loved everyone, i should try to be like him. Not be judgmental. Host do you think you can love joe biden over except joe biden . Or except joe biden . Caller i will. I hope and i pray him and kamala ruled the country wisely and we all get along. People. Is black i was an orphan and i did not have any guidance but i told myself i will make myself be good on what i do and everything. I could have gone the wrong way but no. The people rioting, take up yourself. At of sun is roy city, california. A democrat. Caller i am astounded at the level of galactic gullible deficienttellectually and morally challenged people in this country that refuse to accept the fact that they lost. They believed in a man that they claim has done so much. There is no oneman, no one politician that knew more than generals, more than scientists, more than economists, more than the entire Intelligence Community. They believed everything this man says to the point he was willing to burn this country to the ground on his way out. He has done everything. He wanted to overturn folks because he felt he lost. I am originally from new york. 22your retired military veteran and they work for the department of defense also. Im telling these people, he put this countrys security in dire straits. He has guided the government. He has a limited gutted the government. 40 of theinated department of defense Upper Echelon people. For what purpose . To avoid going to jail . Host what you say to callers concerned about the washington swamp, about the deep state . We hear those terms from people calling in saying that is the problem in washington, d. C. Caller it is on both sides. Citizens united. They go for the money. Both sides go for the money. Said we havecaller to do something about the immigration. Just think. These chicken farms are whatever they have in the middle of the country that hire these people and they work and they get raided, a slap on the wrist, and three much later everybody is back. To penalties have to go the people hiring. They have to be made accountable and play by the rules. The rules are not just for poor people. It is for the rich, too. Host steve and western massachusetts, republican. Good morning. Caller good morning, john. Congratulations to president elect biden and god bless america. I have a couple of comments and talking points. Take it for what its worth. s sloganelect biden was Building Back better. If you google build back better. ,d the director of the w. H. O you will find the World Health Organization uses build back better for Climate Change, you know, green energy. Forell as the used slogan they used the slogan for a Mental Health thing. The World Health Organization uses the slogan. Speaking of ethiopia, ethiopia eight trillion cubic meters of oil. China is building Natural Gas Pipelines and oil pipelines. That oil is not destined for us. It is destined for china. They are using fossil fuels while we want to go green. If anybody doesnt the whole situation is absurd as far as im concerned. I would like to say thanks china and the spirit of thanksgiving for the virus, but i consider it a globalist threat. You talk about deep state and washington establishment, etc. I know these are talking points but they are valid talking points. People are unaware of these things. Host when you say you would like to congratulate president elect biden, is that a surprising thing for you to say among your republican friends . Caller not at all. We are a democracy. This goes back and forth. 100 years ago, we had the spanish flu. Some say it came from fort riley. Some say it came from china. Fort riley soldiers in southeast asia. Two uncles died in the spanish flu. I am pushing 70. My dad was born in 1919. N we had the wilson moment the wilsonian moment, a conflict between us and David Lloyd George of britain trying to end colonialism and establish selfdetermination. They were opposed by lenin and trotsky. There are a lot of moving parts that are repeating. People dont know their history. Host steve out of massachusetts. You were talking about climate issues. The announcement yesterday that john kerry, former secretary of statewill lead the countrys free entry to the quotable Global Climate politics and his new role will elevate the priority in the joe Biden Administration. The president ial envoy for climate, he will report directly to biden as part of the white houses National Security council underscoring how the administration views the warming of the planet as an issue with applications for National Defense and foreign policy. Kerry will fight Climate Change fulltime as a special president ial envoy. Team sayingsition this is the first time the nsc annclude a dedicated dedicated to Climate Change. John kerry with a tweet yesterday saying america will soon have a government that treats the Climate Crisis as the urgent National Security threat it is. I am proud to partner with the president elect, our allies, and Young Leaders of the Climate Movement to take on this crisis. Bardstown, kentucky, democrat. Caller how are you doing . Thank you for allowing me to call in. I had a comment about the administration coming in. We come together instead of division. P tried toh trum divide us, we pray for those who things like this because we should look to god for a perfect thing we do in life. Without him we are not going to make it. We should all come together as one. That is my comment for the entire world. Thank you. Carol in panama city, florida. Its about time. Disgusting it took three weeks to do it should have been done the day after the election. Sycophants try to appease him with frivolous lawsuit after for this lawsuit. Shameful behavior by trump and his cohorts. George and virginia. We hired a pitiful to fight for us in all 50 states, including oilproducing states. They fight to the death and do not recognize when they lost. Trump will continue to fight as is suitcase is packed. Marvin out of chattanooga, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to make a couple of comments to the people talking about detroit, michigan, or wayne county. Understand for the ones that had these racist overtones that detroit is no longer willed by black people. It has a white mayor. A very significant amount of the population is now caucasian. Being this country is just as racist as it was when i was born in 1949. A well andm veteran, highly decorated vietnam veteran l. May 25 is dr. Marvin bartley date in tennessee. I am marvin bartley. To think the black race is a monolithic movement, it is by no stretch of the imagination. Onere not onesided, politically affiliated. Are not understand why we being taken out of the American Population as some type of thisly that is used for purpose and that purpose. The bible told us if you understand if you understand your bible, a devout christian, you have no business voting at all. You are not of this world. You are simply in this world. You hypocrites and you racists need to wake up and realize the black man, not the black woman, but the black man will reap all kinds of repercussions because donald trump has lost. Host marvin in tennessee. William out of wildly, georgia, a democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. A couple of quick, simple comments. Ers are talking about the number of people that trump had. He won 70 million votes. The majority of the people that voted for trump, a lot were his basic supporters primarily conservative whites. 75 million. T he has whites plus the minorities. They put him ahead. They are standing too close to the mere. They are part of the 70 million that voted for trump. I hear people talk about the machine got hacked. One of the worst things that could have happened to the Voting System was the put them on computers. Voting should be show concrete and so simple as colorcoded popsicle sticks. I guess there is the possibility it could happen with the machine but i dont think there was anything crooked. Ng should be more simple for all of us to vote. Host 15 minutes left of this first segment. Michigan certifies result. Gsa ascertains biden win. To dive into those terms and what they mean with a little help from this mornings papers. Certification, a step towards naming the slate of electors each state sends to washington to vote for president in the Electoral College. That is december 14. The michigan certification happening yesterday. Multiple county certifying results yesterday. We expect news out of nevada today when it comes to the certification of president ial results. I should note we will be airing that meeting today of the Nevada Supreme Court at noon eastern on the issue of certification of president ial results. You can watch that on cspan, cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. Ascertaining. Gsa ascertaining joe biden as the victor in the 2020 election. The formal declaration releases more than 6 million to the Biden Transition Team which you can use to hire staff, pay for travel and cover expenses. Perhaps more portly, biden more importantly, bidens people have access to briefings with key agencies including information about covid19 response and plans for vaccine rollout. That can now move forward now that the gsa, the General Services administration, administered the administrator took the formal step. This is george from circleville, ohio, a republican. Caller good morning to you. You are doing a fine job. I like the way you handle the democratic and republican callers. You seem fair to both sides and i appreciate that. My take on this is the 14th amendment. You cannot have states or counties count votes and give them an advantage over counties that do not. Look at ohio and florida. They came up with results a few hours after the polls closed. They had mailin ballots. You cant disparage that. I dont think even if biden wins, he will be inaugurated. Nancy set up something to take the office. She has talked about is. Where is the story about hunter biden . The media covered it up. Hong kong and china are getting into it. You dont hear anything on the media. What do you think when biden gets in . He has so many money trails to china, what do you expect . It is treasonous what he has done. Host who do you trust . Caller i dont trust biden. I trust trump. Everything he said he would do when he campaigned, he did. Even though the democrats harassed him. He did everything he said he was going to do. In and sayill call he hasnt, they are not paying attention. They are just listening to the mainstream media. If you look at trumps record, everything he promised, he has done. Call ine thing callers and say is he will build the wall and have mexico pay for that. That is a promise he made. Caller mexico will pay for it. They did that trade agreement. They have to pay a decent wage to their workers. That will help keep people out of this country. Cheryl atkinson has a book out. It shows the media. They show kids in cages. Those were obama. That was 20 when obama was president. The act 2014 when obama was president. Host that is george in ohio. Cheryl atkinson has been on this program before and taking your calls on this program. You can find all her appearances at her website at cspan. Org. There is a search bar at the top of the page. Type in her name if you want to watch some of her appearances. Shirley from south carolina, democrat. Caller good morning. I am from orangeburg, south carolina. Host i apologize. Im not sure if there is an orangeville. I will look that up. Caller nice to see you up there. I am happy joe biden wins. I am sorry trump is not out of their like you out of there like yesterday. He is a horrible person and i want him gone. Thank you. Host he is going to be there until noon on january 20. Caller yeah, but he keeps saying hes not going anywhere. That is why i want him gone right now. It is time for him to go. He has got to get out of there. Host shirley from orangeburg. Cj in baton rouge, louisiana, independent. Caller good morning, john. Has Stacey Abrams conceded the election for governor of georgia or does she still think she is governor . Has she conceded . Host you are talking from a couple of years back . Formal concession, i can look that up for you. I dont have it off the top my head the top of my head. Caller i do think she did. I dont think she did. The democrats are screaming trump should concede. Anyway. Now going to be president. Should we look at the 20 for the event meant 25th amendment . Host why would you do that . Caller i dont think the man is capable of being president , unless he works half a day. I dont think he can do that as president. He was running for president and shut it down around 10 00 every day. I guess he went back into his bunker. I dont think you can do that as president , can you . They tried to do that to trump when he worked about 20 hours a day. I think we need to look into that. That is a good possibility the man cannot fulfill his job. The 25th amendment needs to be looked at in this case. I really think so. From npr to your first question. Trump has not conceded georgia. Neither did Stacey Abrams. Npr asking what changed . Going back to the 2018 election. The idea of not conceding given a new isnt a new concept in georgia. The democratic governor candidate Stacey Abrams refused to concede to her republican opponent. Abrams stayed quiet for 10 days after the election as a camping focused on getting more absentee and provisional ballots counted. She called a press conference where she made a careful statement saying i acknowledge brian camp will be certified as the 2018 gubernatorial election, although she declared it was not in concession. A concession speech. Never did officially concede. If you want to read the background on that, npr has the story. Trump has not conceded georgia and neither did Stacey Abrams. Rob in new york city, democrat. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. I listen to some trump callers. I think they get hit exactly opposite of what reality is. To think trump has been working 20 hours a day. Hes been wearing silk pajamas and watching television. Back in the day there was another named marshall mcluhan. I believe he was an expert on the media. His quote was something to the effect that the media is the message. I dont quite remember but i believe trumps main interest has been manipulating as many minds with propaganda through the media. I think we have been watching an ugly, mean tv show. Presidency apprentice. You are fired. I think that will continue in the media. Anything that interfered with trumps manipulating the media, anything that interfered with trumps manipulating the media trump was not interested in. That includes the virus. It is not just he wasnt interested in the virus. Trump is not capable of handling such a huge task. In my development down south, our housing development, they had to paint hundreds of houses. The machinery they put into place was a huge task. Which to think that is minute compared to managing a thing like the coronavirus, with everything that has to be rolled out in each state. Trump is not up to the task. He is not interested in the task. He could not handle painting 100 houses in my development. He could not handle the coronavirus. He is only interested in manipulating our minds so much. He is on tv every five minutes. You how much attention do think the media will pay to President Trumps twitter feed when he is former President Trump . Hope he wouldd fade and be when have to think about this guy anymore. He is obsessed with being in our faces and in our minds. The media is having now. Back in the day media was television. There are a lot of people reallyg tv that have not got into these new platforms. I know the young people the old people like myself are still watching tv. Occasionally, the internet. The media incorporates the internet, obviously. It is all about the tv show, all about the media. Everything is upside down with trump. Host this is kevin out of palos , california. Caller i hope you have a wonderful holiday. I knew michigan was going to certify. I knew joe biden was going to win because for the past four years i have called in and relentlessly supported the president. I ended up not voting for him at all because of the way he behaved towards the very end. It started with george floyd. 13 cities in United States on fire. Have madeent should they wereffice trying to stop killing in the streets. Talking down to the doctors and medical staff. They are really important. The cdc. Then came covid. In the beginning i did not blame the president for covid. I dont think it is reasonable to expect anyone to handle a situation of this magnitude. Then he got himself. A, they allowed the virus to penetrate the white house bothered me. The president should be protected against himself by all costs. Number two is when he said dont wear the mask. When he got the virus and he said dont wear the mask, that was it. I think he lost the rest of the people like me. I was all about him. I have talked with the plenty of times about how much i like him, and i still do. I think you did a lot of great things. But covid was the biggest thing that has affected my life probably in the last 20 years. Host what you think about a joe biden presidency . Are you willing to accept joe biden is your president . Caller absolutely. The American People have spoken. Im not going to go against what my fellow americans said. There was no hocuspocus on this election. Its a shame with a have done. Because of what they have done, if he comes back in 2024, i will not vote for him because of his behavior and he would not take the shot to the chin like a man. Host who do you think would be a republican who you could vote for in 2024 . What, theu know president has taken over the party so strong. I understand why republicans are so gung ho on him. The group he has on the Republican Party is significant. I dont know. Thats a great question. Host call in again down the road and we will talk about it. Bill from chicago . Caller good morning to you. Thanks a lot. Yeah, im from chicago. Politicianscrooked and all things bad about politics. It has always been that way and will always be that way. Believe as not political contest or election cannot be fixed, i dont know what you are drinking. Here in chicago we know better. It is just a matter of who is can finagleson and the vote. Counts, it isvote who counts the votes who counts. Let me start with michigan certifying the election. Want to certify Election Results if the contest is still in dispute in terms of legal possibilities . One would think that would have n core issues have been resolved court issues have been resolved. That is a political move by politicians. Absentee voting. That is a crooked way of fixing elections. Host our last caller in this first segment, but stick around. Plenty more to talk about. We will be joined again by billy shore, the head of the antihunger group share our strength. We will talk about the pandemic and what it meant for Food Insecurity in the United States. Later, dakota wood joins us to discuss his groups index of u. S. Military strength. Stick around. We will be right back. With coronavirus cases increasing across the country, use website, cspan. Org coronavirus to follow the trends, tracked this bread with interactive maps, and watch updates on demand, anytime at cspan. Org coronavirus. Listen to cspans podcast the weekly. We are talking about president ial transmissions with the director of the white house transition project. Find the weekly for you get your podcasts. Washington journal continues. Host billy shore joins us this thanksgiving week. Founder and executive chair of share our strength to end childhood hunger. We have all seen the images of the food lines. Help us understand the scope of the problem. How many more children are food insecure this thanksgiving week then compared to last year at this time . Guest thanks. We are in a position we really have never seen before. It is shaping up to be possibly the hungriest Holiday Season in memory. There are lots of different ways we measure hunger. It looks like we have gone from one in seven kids being at risk to one in four. As many as 17 million American Kids at risk of hunger. Not just during the Holiday Season but especially poignant during the season but since the pandemic began. Bureausure is the census does a pulse survey. They take a regular survey of americans. They found that 15 of adults say their families are struggling to feed their kids. That is up from 1 just a year ago. Really remarkable change. Host struggling to feed their kids. Define what we mean by Food Insecurity. What does that mean in practice . Guest Food Security is kind of a socioeconomic measure that helps us understand families are struggling with their economics, with their finances to have enough food to feed their kids. They are typically taking shortcuts or skipping meals where the parents are protecting the kids by making sure the kids eat even if the parents skip meals. It means we dont have enough resources, but enough funding and finances to be able to feed their families. Tragic andsolutely longlasting consequences, particularly for kids that are developmentally sensitive. Host your group is focused on childhood hunger. School closures happening in this country. What has that meant for not just Food Insecurity but the ability to monitor Food Insecurity . To know which kids need help and how to reach them . Guest it had a profound impact. Our strategy and a lot of the nations strategy is using the public School System to feed kids. 22 million kids get a free or reduced priced school lunch when schools are open. When they are closed, logistically it is so challenging to make sure kids get lunch and breakfast and an afterschool snack. It is really almost catastrophic. The schools have done a herculean job in finding alternative ways to feed kids. A lot of the work of share our strength and our Campaign Includes 60 million in grants that started in the spring and will go into december, making sure School Districts have what they need to feed kids in an alternative way. Instead of feeding them in the cafeteria, there are grab and go meals outside the schools. There are bus drivers taking instead of bringing the kids to school, they are taking the meals to where they used to pick kids up. They need personal protective gear, storage, transformation transportation, refrigeration. That was donated by americans across the country. Those of the things our dollars are paying forward to make sure kids get fed. One thing to remember is childhood hunger is a solvable problem. We dont have shortages of food and food programs. We have great programs. We have to connect kids with them. If we do that, this can be the most solvable aspect of this pandemic. Host billy shore, our guest for this 45 minutes. A special phone line for those who have experienced or are experiencing Food Insecurity. 202 7488002 is that number. Phone lines are split up regionally. 202 7488000 for the eastern and central time zones. Mountain or pacific, 202 7488001. Start calling and now. Billy shore, we asked about what congress has done and what they might do when it comes to this issue. Talk about the money that has already gone to this issue since covid19. Guest congress acted in a very important way the beginning of the pandemic. Soy created flexibilities schools and communities could feed kids in different ways. A lot of the regulations that existed before were constraining. A child had to come to school to get the meal. They could not be the parent. The child could only get one meal. Waivers and changes of regulations made all that more accessible for families and kids. There was a lot of funding as well. Electronict, and benefit transfer. What we think of as the snap program. Now is the supplemental nutrition assistance program. It was expanded through this pandemic to make sure families who depended on schools to provide meals to their kids. The value of those meals was added to their ebt card. That was pandemic ebt. Congress acted in important ways. One thing so tragic about this Holiday Season at this moment is many of these benefits are expiring. There has been a lot of controversy about whether congress would pass another stimulus bill. It needs to. If not in the lameduck session, immediately when congress reconvenes. Unemployment benefits are expiring. Eviction moratoriums are expiring. We need to increase snap benefits by at least 15 so families will have the resources they need. Congress acted well in the beginning. It needs to act again. Host what is increasing benefits by 50 mean in actual inlars . 15 means an actual dollars . Guest it provides a vital lifeline to so Many American families and children. An increase without about 25 a month for families. It will certainly help at a time like this. Host billy shore from share our strength. You have been on the program several times. Besides the no kid Hungry Program, what else do you do . Guest no kid hungry has been our primary focus. We are involved in a number of other important efforts to alleviate hunger and poverty. Not only through the no kid Hungry Program are we providing resources to schools to provide school meals but we are providing grants to boys and girls clubs, ymcas, Community Organizations across this country so they can do the emergency feeding system for families who are falling between the cracks during this pandemic. We have an important attrition Education Program called cooking matters that works with families across the country and teaches cooking skills, Grocery Shopping solls, food budgeting families can take their resources and stretch them and make the best choices for their children. One of the things that is so important to remember is, as much as we focus on kids, one of the most important things we can do for kids is make sure their families and parents and caregivers have the resources they need. Everybody wants to feed a hungry child. We all understand why. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is strengthen their families. That is done through policy. That is done through the snap benefit program. That is through the earned income tax credit. That is done through childcare tax credits. Families then can get by and have the resources they need. Host barbara out of oklahoma. You are on with billy shore. Caller i was given some of those food boxes. I did not need them but they gave them to me. If what was in those food boxes it was ridiculous. The only good thing they had was butter and cheese and a gallon of milk and some potatoes. Why dont they put, Green Vegetables beans, green peopleles, macaroni, have to cook it, sure. My goodness. I was raised on that so i know what im talking about. I was raised in a labor camp. In california. Its ridiculous what they have in there its ridiculous what they have in their. I realize a lot of people dont want to cook but my mom cooked three meals a day and except for breakfast it was beans, potatoes, macaroni, and Green Vegetables. Host this is the farmers the Family Food Box Program . Caller yes. Host how hard was it for you to become a part of the program . Caller it was just given to me. I dont need it. It was just given to me. Them they give them to my sister. Sheister had so many apples gave them to me. She said we dont need those. Host thank you for bringing up the program. Billy shore, can you explain about how the program came into being and how effective it is . Guest this was a Trump Administration response to the pandemic. What they thought would be an alternative to snap. I think it was probably well intended and some orders but barbara made the case better than i could for the snap program. But we need to be doing is giving families what we need to be doing is giving families the resources to go to the grocery store, buy the healthier products barbara talked about, not products that are left over organ surplus. Items that are healthy and nutritious. Cook for yourselves. Make your own choices. That is why snap is important. That is why it does that. Instead of the federal government dictating what they think we should eat, we should just give americans the flexibility and resources to make those choices themselves. Host when we talk about the snap program and nutrition at asian, we get nutrition education, we get, is like this. Maybe snap should not prevent things like potato chips and ice cream purchases. Guest that has been the controversy for a long time. Most of us would say we dont want restrictions on what our families can do or eat when it comes to our groceries. At the same time there are Public Health considerations. Snacksas been talk about and sugary beverages and so forth. That is something for future congresses to decide. I think the most important thing is we let families have the resources and have the education and nutritional assistance, the awareness of what the best choices are so they can make those. Host atlanta, georgia. Good morning. You are on with billy shore. Go ahead, terri. Caller thank you for taking my call and happy thanksgiving to you and everyone listening in. I think covid19 is probably the worst pandemic that i have experienced. It has certainly caused problems for people i know. I am retired. I have a comfortable retirement. I worked most of my life. Orm not in need of food anything like that. I do support and contribute to local food banks. I live in dekalb county, georgia. The county has been good about having box giveaway for families. Each time they do the lines are very long. People wait in line for hours and they receive food. That tells me there is a need. But if you check with your local food bank, you will find they are having severe depletion of things they usually have. If you are able to contribute to the food bank for your little church, synagogue, mosque, whatever, people are in dire need of food. People are hungry. Covid19 has not made it any better for us. I just hope and pray we are soon able to get past this terrible, terrible virus and we are able to get our country back on the right path of Economic Development and health and health care. Thank you so much for taking my call. Happy thanksgiving to everyone. You listen to what i say but contribute to food banks or helping local worship organizations. Thank you again, cspan. Billy shore . Guest the caller made such an important point. There is a role for everyone to play in this fight against hunger. You can donate to a local food bank or soup kitchen or a pantry. You can donate food. You can donate funds. In some cases there are covidsafe ways to help distribute food or pack food or store it. In the fight against hunger there is a role for everybody. The food banks are doing and absolutely extraordinary job. They have risen to the occasion during this pandemic. 150 eed is up well over from what it was before. The food banks that managed. We have all seen on the news and in newspapers the photographs of long lines. Sometimes more than 1000 cars lined up at a food bank. The need is real. Storeod banks tend to food and then redistribute it to hundreds of smaller soup kitchens and religious organizations and pantries. They are providing a lifeline for people. If there is anyway those can folksbute cash folk can contribute. Ihave done a really cannot say enough about the job they have done. Host for the folks who have never visited or volunteered for one of these places, can you talk about the difference between a food bank, soup kitchen, pantry, and how they actually work . Guest think of a food bank as an upstream of where this all starts. It tends to be a massive warehouse that has access product that has been donated. Milk, cereals, bread. It is a massive warehouse with forklifts and shelving. Bankin turn each food probably supplies food to about 250 to 300 smaller Community Organizations which is where people actually get the food. You dont go to a food bank to get food. The Food Bank Supplies your local organization. It might be a suit kitchen over church basement. They take that food and kind of package it up in familysized portions. It starts with the food banks. A lot of the Large Food Companies in this country, whether it is kelloggs or General Mills or others, they are very generous in donating product. Host who runs food banks themselves, the larger warehouses . Guest they tend to be independent organizations, but they are affiliated with feeding america to help direct resources to them. In each community and washington, there is a capital area food bank. Boston has the Greater Boston food bank. Chicago has the chicago food depository. They were closely and share best practices and they need certain standards of safety and efficiency and effectiveness. Host tina out of roseville, michigan. Caller how are you doing today . Host you are on with billy shore. Whoeveri thank god for initiated this. I know a lot of people who have benefited from the boxes. Boxesa did not get the she thought were good for her. We are getting things in those boxes that help people like frozen food items. They get frozen meatballs, chicken, sausage. Get get milk and they cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt. We use. E items i appreciate those boxes. Guest i think that underscores there is not necessarily any one right way to feed people. The box of Food Supplies has been helpful to our caller. I think for other families, having the flex ability to make their own choices will be better. We have to use every resource at our disposal in this crisis. Host abilene, kansas. This is roger. Seeler i was wanting to i agree with the snap program. I am a farmer. To revealwanted him to the people how much of this program is really financed by the farm programs. The farm programs furnished the money for all of these. When they see these large farm bills they realize part of that is going to staff programs at other programs similar to this. Thank you. Guest thats a great point, roger. The farmers have played a huge role in this. Every five years that is a farm bill that includes resources for farmers but also a very significant part of it is Financial Support for the snap program. Farmers have been the backbone of that. They feed our communities. Thank you for making that point and the work that you do. Host do you find farm bills are becoming more polarized . Is it harder to get past the Congress Passed through congress . Guest it is more difficult because it nears everything going on in our political dynamic. One thing that is worth pointing out is there has been a long bipartisan a long history of bipartisan support for food and nutrition grams in particular programs in particular. It is one place for republicans and democrats have worked together at the federal, state. Governors have been deeply engaged in supporting the work of the no kid hungry campaign. You at the federal level have the chairs and ranking members of the senate and house echo also committees. I think people see feeding kids and families as a place where partisanship can be set aside. Have pollyanna i view of it, but there is a great track record of bipartisanship. That is something we have tried w to perpetuate. If youre about feeding people rather than scoring political points, you have to do it on a bipartisan basis. Why ican anyone explain am suddenly receiving more snap because of this pandemic . It seems ironic i was not worth it before. Guest a new program has been stood up. It is getting resources to people like timothy, the pandemic ebt program is my guess as to what he is referring to. It became available in ways that had not been before. Without knowing the particular circumstances timothy is in, my guess is that is why. Host brittany out of maryland on the line for those who have experienced Food Insecurity. Caller hi there. I am a nurse working to the pandemic. Dashed through the pandemic. I am a nurse working through this pandemic. The community has been stepping up to help those in need. I guess my frustration and question is why the senate has taken a recess so early with the break with all this going on. I find that very frustrating. Pandemic a lot of us feel burned out and working. I guess that is my question. Host you are a nurse who is currently experiencing Food Insecurity . No, personally i am not. I am still working. My family is ok. I guess seeing what is going on around me in my community is just frustrating. Host billy shore . Guest first, thank you for the work you are doing is a nurse. I cant imagine anything more heroic at this particular time. We see nurses and doctors and First Responders on the news every day. You have got to be having a hard time of it so thank you for that. Boy, iour frustration, sure share it. The fact the senate has not acted on this and is in fact blocking efforts to get another stimulus package through at a time when, as we talked about, the pandemic is raging and unemployment is high, benefits are running out, schools are closed, you would be hardpressed to name a combination of circumstances more demanding of congressional action at this moment. It is frustrating. Hopefully there will be a new tone in washington, new leadership. I am optimistic there will be more bipartisanship than we have seen. There certainly cant be less. We have witnessed the low watermark. Hopefully these problems will get dealt with. Host any thoughts on who you would expect to run the department of agriculture and hhs . The names you are hearing about in your universe of Public Policy . Guest i dont really know. I dont have inside track. I have seen names others have seen having to do with the women who runs agriculture in the whoe of california woman runs agriculture in the state of california. Jon kyl sack was a great was a greatvilsack champion for hundred kids. The economic appointment is a coming first. I am sure we will know in a few weeks by the dont have any inside information unfortunately. Host the National Security appointments are respected to be hearing statements from the president elect today on that. Cspan is covering that if you want to join in on our coverage. That happens at 1 00 p. M. Today andspan, on cspan. Org, listen to it on the free cspan radio app. 1 00 p. M. Eastern today. Thomas out of washington, d. C. On the line for those who have experienced Food Insecurity. Go ahead. Caller thank you for having me. I want to send my appreciation to mr. Shore for the work everybody does of the snap program. It was the first time i used it during the pandemic. It was a huge relief. I dont have to worry about food on a daytoday basis. Really glad to hear the program has helped. When we think about your situation multiplied across millions of americans we know it has done a lot of good. Particularly pleased we could help as many kids as we to take may not be able care of themselves as well. When we think about the longterm ramifications, whether it is you or others going hungry, it can be debilitating. You cant work. You cant learn. You cant function in the ways you are fully capable of. In a triage since food is a first priority. So much of our focus has been on younger kids because they are the least responsible for the situation they find themselves in. They are the most vulnerable. We have got to make sure they have the ability to learn under really challenging circumstances right now. So many kids are either on a hybrid School Situation or being homeschooled or online. It is enormously challenging. Whatever your age, if you are in need of food in this country, it is the one solvable aspect of what we are doing. I am glad it made a difference for you, thomas. Host you mentioned a triage since. Sense. Needs not just the porky counseling and better skills. If you cannot put food on the table, you are in survival mode. Nutritional classes are useless in survival mode. Just give people money for food. Guest i would say it has to be both. Yes, the funds, whether it is snap or private efforts, that is first and foremost. But if you understand more about and food and cooking budgeting and Grocery Shopping, you can stretch those dollars out further. That is one of the thats one of the reasons why this is such an important implement to the Financial Resources that families receive, because you can stretch those resources and make healthier choices. Host to jane out of cleveland, ohio, good morning, youre next. Caller hi, i agree with the person who just called and with the woman before who was talking about having grown up in a labor camp and learned how to cook three times a day with what her mom did. I just noah greig with the importance of nutrition and knowing how to cook and knowing thousand shop, and yes, thats very important, but the thing s i think were up against a powerful industry that addicts us to sugar and sells us crap, pardon my french, but in the stores that people shop in every day in poor neighborhoods, you know . I have a friend who india and he was visiting, and we were out on the road and stopped at one of those Convenience Stores and he said to the clerk in there, i cant buy anything in here because theres no food here. Theres no nutrition here. You know, he was used to cooking and nutrition and all he found was sugar. And thats what you can buy. I think its not that people dont know how to cook in their cultural history, but theyre up against an industry that wants to addict them by feeding them sugar and getting them to uy basically zero nutrition. Also when i go to the doctor, im old now, but, you know, im lucky to be in relatively good health, and when by to the doctor and have to list your medications and i dont say i dont take any, and they just say, look at me like theres something wrong with me, that i should be taking a lot of pills that they would like to sell me. If i felt the need for pills, i guess i may have to take smem someday, but my food is my medicine. People have lost that connection. We have our own way to cure ourselves, and its through food. Host billy shore . Guest well, jane makes a fabulous point. Theres been a growing body of evidence and activism around the notion of food as medicine. Theres so many nutritional choices that we can make that lead us to be unhealthy, but the converse of that is true as well. Theres a lot of nutritional choices we can make in the food as medicine sense that can make us very healthy. I think this gets to the issue of why its so important not only to feed people and provide food resources they have, but to make sure that folks have the Economic Opportunity and the resources, the Education Skills to really make choices for themselves. One of the things that jane was alluding to is what we call food deserts, which are so many communities in this country, urban and rural, where in the urban areas your only opportunity for miles around might be a corner store or a convenience store, and those continued to have a lot of processed food and not a lot of fresh food that is healthy for you. Making sure we get fullservice Grocery Stores into communities around this country, make sure that families have the resources to avail themselves of it. In the long run, theres going to be no substitute for those strategies if were really going to end hunger scombuns for all. Weve been able to make tremendous progress, reduced before this pandemic, by making sure that every kid was eligible for things like School Breakfast, summer meals, those kids were getting it, but weve also got to find ways to support families and support folks like jane who know that the best thing they can be doing is buying healthy food. Host the height of the Great Recession was sort of the high point when it came to federal spending on snap programs, the most amount of money as a percentage of the federal budget being spent on snap programs. How much have we fallen off since that 20112012, 2013 time frame in terms of how much money goes to the snap program . Guest well, you know, at one point i think we were spending as much as 46 billion im sorry, we had as many as 46 million americans on the snap program during the Great Recession. And then as jobs started to come back in a prepandemic we were actually doing pretty well. Unemployment was very low, and the snap program is meant to be a program that responds to that. So the snap spending went down. Now its up in ways, frankly, that we can barely keep up with in terms of the data between all the americans who have gone under the snap program and were spending at a significant but very important rate. Im pretty sure that it is greater than during the Great Recession, but i dont have the actual numbers for you. Host what wage level qualifies you for snap benefits . Guest well, it really depends on the size of your family. So if youre a family, if youre an individual and youre at probably i think about 150 of the poverty line, youre going to be eligible for snap. If youre a family, again, its going to be in relation to where you are against poverty, and if you think of the poverty ne for a family of between 24,000 and 30,000 you realize thats not a lot of money, youre going to need Food Assistance. Host outside ohio, holly, good morning, youre on with billy shore. Caller yes, mr. Shore, nice to see you. Youre doing a great job getting this out. But theres something that body thinks about, and were doing fine. My husband is deceased, and he left us pretty well fixed, my son and i. So were doing all right. But im an invalid, so im not all that depressed about not being able to go anywhere, because i cant anyway. So it doesnt matter. But we try to help with our local food bank. Ive talked to them personally, and they tell me the money goes much further because they can uy a lot more food for a lot better than if i went up to albert sons and bought it myself. And then theres Something Else nobodys thinking about. And that is power bills. Every month when our power bills come, gas and electric, theres a donation card in there. You can get all the food in the world, but if you cant cook it if you dont have power or gas, youre out of luck. Guest really great point, holly. , and you know, the point you make about why Financial Resources are so valuable to food banks is because like anything else, theyre able to buy wholesale, theyre able to buy in bulk. So your dollars go a lot farther. And you also pointed out, in talking about power bills, something in our work is referred to as the heat for heat dilemma. A lot of families cant afford both. One of the reasons that Food Assistance becomes so important, and there are programs that also provide Energy Assistance for families is you should never have to make that choice as to whether youre going to keep your home or feed your family. Be obviously have to have the resources to do both. Host new york, john, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host doing well. Youre on with billy shore. Caller i just want to make a statement of how proud i am to be an american now that we have a president that is for the thought this just was everything thats going on. Thank you very much for allowing notice talk. Host this is peter out of durham, north carolina. Good morning. Caller yeah, good morning. I have a comment, and im going make this brief. Not like the fool who he was on before me. What i want to say is this. What i see this man doing, what i see all of you doing, is lining up at the trough of big government. What im saying is this gentleman, who youre speaking with today, doesnt receive one dollar from the government when theres two, three, four trillion dollar deal comes down the line in about four months. Hes going to have his mouth in the trough like r or nonprofit. Host billy shore, let you respond to that. Guest yeah, i think peter might be misinformed about the way we work. We dont have government money. We have a lot of private donations. In fact, one of the things thats happened during this pandemic is that an additional 90,000, more than 90,000, today its up to about 100,000 americans who had not donated to us before donated to share our strength and our no kids hungry campaign. This is the largest base of support weve ever had. We dont have government money in our organization. Government money plays an absolutely essential role of feeding kids through programs that, again, have bipartisan support, your caller might be interested to know that programs like the School Breakfast program and School Lunch Program didnt come from bleeding heart nonprofits. They came from admirals and generals who after world war ii came to congress to say our troops were not strong enough, healthy enough, fit enough by the end of the world war to serve as effectively as they could, so we need to be feeding kids so we have Strong Americans. We cant have a Strong America if we dont have strong kids. But we dont have government money at share our strength. I think we have some volunteers who get a sty up and down, so maybe if you count that, but were really funded privately and through the generosity of donors and through many Corporate Partners who realize that they as corporations have a social responsibility and really hundreds of Corporate Partners have fueled the work of the no kid hungry campaign. Its not about government dollars for us, although, as i say, government dollars play a Important Role in feeding americans who need to be fed. Host two ways to view this. First, the numbers. We talked about this Food Insecurity in america. Some 50. 4 million americans expected to experience Food Insecurity this year compared to 37. 2 million in 2018, the numbers from feeding america when it comes to children and Food Security, 17 million children expected to experience Food Insecurity this year, compared to 11. 2 million last year. And this writing in on twitter with a view from the ground. I rarely saw cars at the small church down the road from me that holds a food pantry twice a month. Lately theres many cars in line. The hunger in my small georgia sub surgeon real. This also, please talk about how food banks experience feast and famine every year from thanksgiving to christmas with feelgood donations that may fill pantries, but come january donations fall and then the cupboard is bare. Guest yep, when you see these lines at food banks, and if you can imagine yourself in them, you know thats not a fun thing. Thats not a good feeling to have to to know that thats the only way you can support your family through this time. People who are there are there because they need to be, because they desperately need help. Fortunately, theres resources in america, they say theres no short annal of food or food programs, theres resources to get food to people when they need it. Food banks do tend to see, and we tend to see a seasonal bump up, because people are more conscious and theres more Public Awareness of hunger during the holidays during thanksgiving and the christmas olidays in particular. I would have to say the outpouring during this pandemic has not been seasonal, its raised awareness in a different type of way. But the need is year long. And when we get past this pandemic, which we will, it will be important for people to remember that americans are hungry not just during the holidays, but that weve got a find ways to support them charitablely, absolutely. But the best thing is to get behind public policies, increases in the snap program, support for school meals, and make sure that on a systemic way were feeding kids and families around the year when they need to be fed. Thats going to come back to the benefit of our entire economy. This is not just about helping individuals who are struggling. This is about making sure that we have a Strong America and a strong economy. Host one last call for you, billy shore. Michelle has been waiting out of livonia, michigan, good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question. My question is, isnt snap program is such a wonderful program, why are people using snap cards in popeye chicken and mcdonalds and other fast food restaurants . If theyre supposed to care for he family, i. E. , the children. And why, if they getting snap cards because theres low income or theyre struggling in feeding their households, shouldnt they be used in that breakfast ard to buy food for their children and feeding their children . Guest the overwhelming majority of snap dollars are spent on groceries, and in most cases, youre not able to use your snap card at restaurants, whether its fine dining or casual. There may somebody exceptions to that, but if you look at the way snap dollars are being spent today, the vast majority of dollars are being spent on groceries in just the way that you described so you can provide Healthy Breakfast and lunches and dinners for your family. Host billy shore is the executive director of share our strength. You can find them at shareourstrength. Org. Appreciate your time, especially this week. Guest thanks for having me. Take care. Have a good holiday. Host up next this morning on the washington journal, well be joined by the Heritage Foundations dakota wood to talk about that groups yearly assessment of u. S. Military strength. Stick around. Well right back. Listen to cspans podcast the weekly. Were talking about the history of president ial transitions with the director of the white house transition project. Find cspans the peekly where you bet your podcasts. Use your mobile devices and go to cspan. Org for the latest video, live and on demand, to follow the transition of power. President trump, president elect biden, news conferences, and event coverage at cspan. Org. Washington journal continues. Host a conversation on u. S. Military ready sandnts Global Threats we face. Our guest is dakota wood, Heritage Foundations Defense Program Senior Research fellow, served two decades in the marine corps. Assessing u. S. Military strength, a pretty major undertaking. How does the Heritage Foundation try to do that . Guest we gather all publicly available information we can come across, official testimony from the pentagon, acquisition reports on major programs, general news reporting from the defense reporting community, our own personal contacts in the services and the pentagon and on capitol hill, and we gather all that all year long, go through a several month analysis and writing process, compare last years information to this years information, and then basically issue a report card on the military, and this year on a scale of one to five, we would give it a three, or in the words we use, we call it marginal, and we feel that the u. S. Military writ large is marginally able to meet the demands of u. S. National security requirements, meaning they can handle one major conflict in one part of the world, but not much more than that. We think it needs to be more than that, because the u. S. Has global interests and global responsibilities. Host the u. S. Military budget is increased under the Trump Administration. Had that made an impact . Guest it actually has. Weve seen that mostly in readiness. Things like building new ships and airplanes, these are multiyear efforts, and it takes a while to expand or grow the size of the military. The same thing on man power, the number of people that you have in there as well. But readiness, where you get people you have with the equipment they have into the field to train and fly and shoot and drive and all those sorts of things, to be competent incident in what theyre doing, that has really improved over the last two or three years. So if we were going to have one high point in this years report card, its increased readiness of the force we currently have. Host its the 2021 index of u. S. Military strength. You can find it at heritage. Org. Thats what were going to talk about in this 45 minutes of the washington journal. Phone lines split up this way. If you want to join this conversation this morning with dakota wood, democrats can demall at 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents, 2027488002. Zpive retired members of the military, special line for you, doment to hear from you, 2027488003 is that number. The report, to want dive into it, mr. Wood. One of the key topics, assessing the Global Operating environment. Thats the threats were facing in the world, where are they coming from . Guest its actual two parts youre talking about. The world, is it easier or difficult for the American Military to do what we were called upon to do. In that we look at our friends and allies, where we have forces at. Do they know how to work in a particular area. The threat section is really, to your point, and we look at russia, china, iran, north korea, and then kind of the general destabilizing influence of terrorism in key parts of the world. And we assess the threat environment in general as high, not the highest category of four on our score of one to five, but in that high category, because the main competitors, like china and russia, have really made serious investments in their military capabilities, expanding their reach, more of a power projection, really improve the capability of the forces with longer range, guide munitions, a lot more attention to training for readiness, combat, competencies, iran has expanded its portfolio of missiles to 3,000 Ballistic Missiles. Certainly youve seen the headlines with china and what theyve been doing in the South China Sea. Its a worrisome environment from a threats perspective. From the ally and partner perspective, they have been making some progress, especially in the last year or two, and among nato members, making more investments in their own defense. But theyre still falling far short of where they need to be. Host encourage viewers to go to heritage. Org, open up this very easy to navigate index, because you can follow along with some of the easy to read charts that were going to go through for our visual learners. Were showing them the capability of the threats around the world, you talked about russia and china as being rated as formidable threats. On the lower end of the threat scale, are those that you consider to be capable threats, middle east terrorism falls into that, as well as afghanistan and pakistan terrorism. Explain that y thats on the lower level of capability. Guest right, in those tables, we try to use zrip active words. What is a two or four mean . So using our language to convey a sense, is it something you really need to be concerned about, or is this something, you know, that generates a sense of urgency . So when we look at threats, its a combination of intense and capability. You cant measure intents the way you look at observed behavior. How has a country been behaving, and as its been behaving more or less aggressively, what are the tools that it has . When you look at terror groups, they dont possess submarines and combat aircraft fleets and large land forces with Ballistic Missiles and those sorts of things, right . But they do pose an on the ground immediate threat, especially in a politically destabilizing way. So you could have a terror group like al qaeda or Islamic State or alshabab that is very aggressive in its rhetoric, but their capability is limited to small arms, manufactured bombs, maybe some smaller gauge rockets. So we give them a lower score on the capability side even if their activities have been very aggressive. Host heres a part that have report that those called the active and retired Military Lines would happen most interested or most respond to, talking about the capabilities, the readiness and capacity of the military branches in this country. And just taking a look at the comparison between the army and the navy, the army rated very high when it comes to readiness, weak when it comes to its capacity. You can see the comparison to the navy here. Weak when it comes to capacity, readiness more on the marginal level. Explain the differences to that and why you chose those rankings. Guest on capacity, its very important to understand our scoring. We think the u. S. Military needs to be able to handle two major problems. So if you got tied up in the asia pacific region, you know, some kind of a problem or a conflict with china, its not that you can leave the middle east or europe when youve got iran and russia, so you have to have a sufficiently large capability that you can address u. S. Interests in multiple regions, and thats why we think theres capacity is so critical. When we look at the u. S. Navy, we look at the army, they just dont have the numbers of units. It doesnt mean that the individuals, say soldiers, or anything like that, extraordinarily competent incident people. We just dont have enough of them. The army has paid a lot of attention to the readiness of its forces, sending its brigade combat teams to its National Training centers, really making the shift from Counter Terrorism sorts of focus operations to readying itself if it had to go into a largescale conventional conflict against a major opponent like a russia or a china, Something Like that. So their readiness is almost off the charts. I mean, them spent a lot of time getting their units back up to speed. Whereas the navy has had some really problematic maintenance areas, you know, keeping ships out at sea, doing a quick turn to shipyards and all the back log maintenance that occurred over many years. So when you look at those scores, the force we have today, not the one five years from now, if it was called upon to go to war, the forces are too small for the task that we think they would have, and they really need to do a lot more focus on modernizing their equipment, which is a lot of money from congress thats needed, and then spending time and attention to make those forces competent and proficient. So thats kind of explaining some of the scoring metology we used in those charts. Host if you agree or disagree, take it one dakota wood directly, Defense Programs Senior Research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. That line for active and retired military, again, 2027488003. Mr. Wood, thats where were going to start, ed from jacksonville, florida, retired military. Go ahead, ed. Caller good morning. I was just wondering if your report looked at the reserve component included in your report. Guest we addressed the criticality of reserve forces, especially in that introduction chapter, if haup to download it at heritage. Org military. Theres so much complexity in the political establishment of our National Guard and our reserve forces. A lot of variability in different units across the country, depending on what their particular focus might be and whether youre talking individual Ready Reserve or actually selected units. So what we do is we look at the active component in these scores, and we use those active combat units as kind of a bellwether. There are representative components of the total force. So our active units would be those probably first thrown into the breach. We have to make sure theyre there, but they cant do anything over a sustained period without the reserve forces. The ones we score in those tables are the active component elements. Host one of the topline conclusions from the report, it notes that americas leadership remains in question, and its security interests are under significant pressure. Challenges continue to grow, longstanding allies are not what they once were, and the u. S. Is increasingly bedeviled by debt that can strain its ability to sustain its forces commensurate with its interests, that from the 2021 index of u. S. Military strength. Focus on longstanding allies are not what they once were. Guest when you think about nato, nato members and the forces they used to have, at the end of the cold war, west germany alone had 5,000 main battle tanks, pretty sufficient navy, very competent air force. Today the combined germany, 20, 30 years later, has fewer than 300 tanks. So 5,000 for west german, only 300, actually fewer than that today. Two years ago, they had no operationally deployable submarines. They had to contract out to civilian dops get their military pilots sufficient time and helicopter cockpits to maintain certifications. So its an example. The british military, the totality, the size of the british military, air power, navy, royal marines, and the army, the total of that is smaller than the United States marine corps alone. They only have 17 surface ships in their navy. China has added that number of ships to its navy just in the last two years or so. So when we look at the investments of our partners and our friends, they have really fallen short for about 20 to 25 years. Theres a lot of ground to make up. And we talk about the importance of allies. If youre going to go to war, you want people helping you out, and you want to be there to help people. But theyre not doing what they should be doing, its a greater burden on the United States, which increased our costs and necessarily increased our risks. Host chris in massachusetts is next, line for democrats. Good morning. Caller hi, quick question. Unlike iran and russia, United States is in jury without an invitation from the internationally recognized government. But the United States is in syria without congressional approval. The United States is in syria without United Nations Security Council authorization. In fact, the United States is there as an occupying force, and it appears to be looking after the interests of the emirates, the saudis and israelis. Do you have any commonets that any comments on my observations . Guest sure, talking policy decision, right . So policy, the use of military force is different than the condition of military forces. So the policy debate that has gone on in washington, Congress Continues to fund the Defense Department. They havent forbidden the use of military forces. So almost by default we have the u. S. Congress, representative branch of the American People going along with this use of military power. When those forces were introduced in syria, it was absolute chaos. You had a lot of civilians who ere being massacred by the recognized government under Bashar Alassad, use of chlorine gas. It was just mayhem. So there was an international effort, at least by coalition partners, to try to introduce forces, keep back some of the wars parties, support the civilians that were really under assault, and really a lot of freedom fighters, if you wanted to call them that, that were a representative form of government. Things have consolidated a bit in the last year or two, especially because russia and iran came in to help support the assad regime. But i dont think anybody is saying that Bashar Alassad and his military are advocates of peace, stability, helping out their own population. So from my understanding of the role of u. S. Forces, its so combat the remnants of the Islamic State to try to provide some kind of a peaceful enclave to try to facilitate the support of humanitarian assistance thats flowing into that region, things that the Syrian Government wouldnt be supporting. So i think that there are sometimes situations in which, if you cant get consensus among the international community, the right thing to do is go in, use military force for the right reasons, and then see how the situation evolves. Host our sarasota, florida, steven, republican, good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I was wondering, it seems like some of the news, some programs seem to be a form of propaganda to help other countries and why we dont see or havent heard much in the last several years, other than maybe some of the conservative channels, i watch both conservative and liberal channels, and i hear things like the russians targeting americans, and sort of like propaganda, nothing they dont talk about any of the good things thats going on in our military. I was always wondering why are we being used to hurt ourselves or why is our left, some of the socialist not socialist, but some of the networks that are almost antiamerican. It seems strange to me that were hurting ourselves. Guest well, i think the past year has pointed out the differences of opinion across the United States. Well see what the Electoral College decides on who the next president is. It does appear to be remaining in joe bidens favor on that. But even with that said, 74 Million People or so voted for the current president. Obviously more voted for the contender. So its just an example that people hold very strongly held views. There are differences of opinion on the role of the United States in the world and how it executes that role. Is it primarily economic and diplomatic . Is it primarily military . Is it a mixture of all of those sorts of things . And i think what weve seen in the news Media Establishment writ large is really kind of picking sides on that, that there is a political philosophy that pervades across of the reporting based on either the journalist involved or the Editorial Board or whoever is writing the checks for a particular news outlet, and we see this kind of preference for viewpoints coming through that. So i think a really educated consumer of information, as you appear to be, taking in multiple different streams, left leaning, right leaning, whats going on on the web, looking at international reporting. You know, what are the germans and brits and japanese and australians writing about . I think its really the only way to get a holistic view of whats going on in the world. And then you throw your voice in as youve done on this particular program. Host coming back to the issue of assessing u. S. Military strength, and the Trump Administration, one person said america has been told that we are the strongest. You seem to have a more negative position on that. Guest well, strength is relative. So fern for person, unit for unit, we would dominate, i believe, on any battlefield. We just have really good people, good leadership, kind of the american model where we punish initiative down to the lower ranks, as opposed to other models, which are much more authoritarian. They dont have the kind of free play where personal initiative really comes up. And they dont, frankly, have the experience. The last time china went to war with anybody was against vietnam in 1979, i believe, and they didnt fare too well. That doesnt mean you dont recognize your shortfalls and try to improve your situation, which is what china is doing. So where we have a negative view on these things is, if you had to go more than one place at one time, we just dont have the capacity. The military skills we have are great, but were using equipment that is 30 and 40 years old. The average age of an air force Fighter Aircraft that we see flying around on the news is 30 years old. More than half of the navy ships are greater than 20 years old. Mat reason core still uses ones purchased in the 197 owes. Its a comparison thing. Where would you put a u. S. Force on a map against an opposing force if thats all they have to be concerned about, were pretty sure that they would win in that conflict. But if it was more than that, if you had to be more than one place, oldie quiment and too small capacity to handle those sorts of challenges. Host we have a space. What can you say about assessing the strength of the space force . Guest it was an easy move to take individuals in the u. S. Air force who focus on Space Operations and carve them out into a separate service, but we still have 20,000 or more spaceoriented Service Personnel in the army and the navy that are not part of that space force. So its a great first step. We think its needed because of the unique nature of space, Space Operations and the different sorts of platforms you can put up there for various reasons, but it needs to continue to expand. And thats just in the military service. You still have the Intelligence Community that are huge consumers of space and space products that arent part of that space force. So we think that the initiative is good, theyve been very aggressive in trying to get their feet under them and develop an sandeist culture, which will take time. But the efforts l effort needs to continue and it needs to be a much more comprehensive. Host its the index of military strength, the yearly index put out by the Heritage Foundation. Dakota wood is the Senior Research fellow there, served two decades in the marine corps, taking your phone calls this morning as we talk about that report. Up next, woodbridge, virginia, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. Thank you for taking my call. Ive been trying to get a hold of cspan for the last seven months. Host well, youre on now, lynn. Whats your question or comment for dakota wood . Caller i have a comment. Civilian n ordinary citizen. And i just have a comment about our military system. I am so proud and impressed of what our President Trump has one for the last four years. Even though that im a very citizen, but i watch the correct news, and even you can feel it, you know it, that we are in much safer place for the last four years than for a long, long time. That is just my simple comment. Host are we in a safer place . Guest i think were more realistic. So in that sense, yes, we are. But during that period of time, the world doesnt stand still. So you do have a china that has dramatically expanded its capabilities and improved its skill levels. I mean, theyve gotten more serious about a power projection sort of force, to secure its commercial routes from china proper through the South China Sea into the indian ocean, the middle east. So its a much different china. While we have gotten better in terms of our focus, less Counter Terrorism, counter insurgency, in places like afghanistan and iraq, and much more on this Great Power Competition that people will talk about, our adversaries, our competitors, have also made improvements. So the first step in dealing with any kind of problem is recognizing that you have a problem. Now its what am i going to do about that . So weve talked about improvements and readiness, very important. The military services have really matured their requirements. You know, what they believe they would need to prevail in a larger scale conventional conflict. So thats great. Were much better off there. Where we still fall short is the funding for the programs needed to give the forces what they need. And defense spending, twhile does increase in real dollars, it does not keep pace with the ravages of inflation or the premature wearing out of equipment that has occurred in these continuing operations for the last nearly 20 years. The price of outfitting the average soldier has increased 16 times the rate of inflation since the vietnam war. Its five times the rate of inflation, more expensive to buy an armored vehicle, a tank, for example, in that time period as well. I think the realities of these numbers just have not been shared with the american public, so it seems odd that 700 billion isnt enough, but it falls far short of what we had to spend, lets say during the cold war, when you had a global contest against one competitor, and today we still have a global contest with four major competitors in very different parts of the world. Our government just has not done a good job at conveying that reality, and so people find it kind of shocking that our military is falling short in terms of what it has in zperms capabilities. Host dave is in seattle, a democrat. Good morning. Youre on with dakota wood. Caller hello, yes. I had a couple of things to say. When i was in the army a number of years ago, i was in an infantry unit, and it seemed like we did a lot of training. It wasnt individual enough. We didnt learn other peoples jobs well enough. In combat, you can lose a squad leader or machine gun or n no time at all. The other people in the squad didnt know anything about a squad leader or machine gunner or working the radio. But it seemed like everything was for show. Lets go out and put a good show on, and the officers would say, gee, look at that practice attack, thats just wonderful. Thats not real combat, i didnt think. There was a deficiency in our training. And also, my dad, he worked for a shipyard for a number of years, and they used to make destroyer escorts, lot of them. That was nothing. I dont think the shipyards even is in seattle anymore. But you dont hear anything about making ships or anything. Host dave, lets take up the two subjects. Dakota wood . Guest were talking about professionalism of the force. Spent 20 years, u. S. Marine, really, really well led. Other offices or units that i was in, you kind of scratch your head, and we thought we were going to get something a bit better, and thats just human nature, differences between companies, sports teams, family members. Its people being people. So when we talk about small unit leadership, small unit training, whether its individual or aggregated up to larger size units, its incumbent upon that service, the operating forces, various levels of command to try to figure out what it is they should be doing, and do you have quality people who are held accountable for how well theyre training their forces. And that will vary from year year, unit to unit, person to person. On average, we have really good people trying to do the right things for the right reasons. But you can always find shortfalls where something has gone wrong. You have the skipper of a ship thats relieved of command because the higher command structure has lost confidence or something really bizarre happens in the operating space. So there will be those instances because were talking about human beings. But i think were lot better postured today than we were perhaps in past years. As far as the industrial capacity, this is a 30year problem. Sort the end of the cold war, no soviet union, no major competitor, china wasnt a Global Economic power that it is technology today. Technology didnt enable other countries to become an aspiring Nuclear Power with longrange Ballistic Missiles. The u. S. Military shrank dramatic until the 1990s. We went from 770,000 soldiers to now today of 480,000. 550 ships in the yeave. Today, fewer than 300. I think its 298 or so. The air force is 2 3 the size in some cases one half the size behalf it was than we had in the early 1990s. So if you dont have as big of force, you will dont need as Many Companies making as many things. And if you dont have business, you go out of business. So our Defense Industrial base in terms of major manufacturers have shrunk in number. Their ability to produce rcraft and ships and tanks have dramatically reduced. Theres only one company in one city in the country in ohio, general dynamics, that makes tanks. So if you need a dramatic expansion of tanks, where are you going to get that from . Again, its a problem thats evolved over 30 years. There wasnt a compelling case to spend taxpayer money if you thought you need a small military. What we have today, when i talked about this capacity issue, is the need to rebuild, to be able to deal with the world as it is today, where military power actually enables and strengthens diplomacy and economic relationships, and were just falling far short of that. Host how many aircraft carriers do we have right now . Guest Congress Wants us to have somewhere between 12 and 13. I think its a mandated minimum of 11. Weve got nine that are out and about. Most of those are in shipyards, just under standard maintenance. Theres lot made about the United States having, lets say, 11 carriers, and any other country might just have one or two. What doesnt come across in that argument is that for your navy, you only have a small percentage of it that is actually available for deployment. Lets say we had 300 ships. 100 would be available on any given day. Of that 100, you might have 60 that are in the western pacific. Theyre going up against the totality of a chinese navy, the plan, of 350 ships. So youre starting off in a peacetime footing of a 61 disadvantage. Russia, iran, in the persian gulf, north korea with its missile boats, china in the South China Sea, all of their military power is applied and focused on their very near waters, whereas the United States has to sail across 5,000 or 8,000 miles of ocean. It takes three weeks to get that military power where it needs to be, and you have to sustain those operations over time. To do that, the u. S. Just has to have more stuff that is able to be projected and sustained at a longer range of time. And thats why you see these investments, like the carrier that has very modern systems and is better able to do what we would want an aircraft to be able to do. Host lancaster, california, glen, republican, good morning. Caller god bless our troops. The hard working men, and god bless the hardest working president of the United States weve ever had. Heres one thing. What about joe biden . Is that a threat to our military . Him working behind our back with china and barack obama sending planes of foreign money iran, who is one of the biggest threats because theyre a state sponsor of terrorism. And nancy pelosi attacking our president right after we were attacked by iran by not letting im do his job through congress , not letting him have the military capability through ongress in the war powers act, she has this fake russia collusion. Host got your point, glen. Dakota wood, expectations for a Biden Administration . Guest well, theyre going inherent the world that is today, just like donald trump inherited the world that was at the end of the Obama Presidency and obama inherited the one at the end of the george w. Bush presidency. So a lot of things are said on campaign trails. We were talking to enthusiastic crowds, trying to generate support, and you will say this is what i would do, or this is where the person im trying to unseat has really fallen short and made major mistakes. And what every president finds when they come into office is that the reality is far different than the cases that they were making on the campaign trail. Its easier to do some things, but usually its far more difficult to do things that they have promised that they would do when they come into office. And politics is always a part of governoring. We dont want a unit authoritarian autocratic system like exists in beijing or moscow or pyongyang, and so if were going to have different parties competing, youre going to see some heated rhetoric, right . Youre going see people trying to undermine each other. I just havent too many instances where it was lets all pull together to get a particular job done, although thats what every person running for office says we need. You get into office, theres power politicking, there is vying for position and influence and trying to show your way would be better than somebody elses way. I know the caller was talking about a lot of the reporting thats come out in a very Heated Campaign season. I would rather not get into the divisive politics thats really permeated the general election area. I like to focus on our u. S. Military forces and how those forces in any administration or congress should be supporting them, because to the callers point, we have great men and women in the military. And if were going to send them potentially into harms way to secure a Vital National interest, they have to have the resources, the equipment, the training and the leadership to be successful in combat, right . So one would hope that politics stops at the waters edge, but that just doesnt happen. You know, theres a different point of view about how the u. S. Should engage with nato and russia, north korea and china, sfrearg Administration Team to Administration Team. So while biden is putting his Team Together and announcing various individuals, they do have certain political philosophies. And how they go about tchearg out will be transparent to the American People. Congress can either support that or try to push back, and certainly the American Voter can make their voices known on shows like this and at the ballot box when you come around for the next election cycle. Host there was a report noting that president elect joe bidens choice for secretary of defense still in flux. What would be your thoughts on michelle as secretary of defense, if she is, in fact, picked . Guest well, i think she and some of the others that had mentioned, jay johnson and some others, have much more of an internationalist multinational sort of perspective. Put a lot of stock in organizations like nato, which has been dramatically successful over its run, but its also the case that its kind of gotten lazy. Nato member countries have not been contributing to this collective security arrangement in meaningful capabilities as they should. Japan is still in. Theyre starting to wake up to the reality of a very aggressive, expansionist sort of china. I think michele fournay or whoever is nominated is going to deal with the reality of the world in terms of the behavior of competitors, what types of things might the United States do that shapes that behavior, that says, look, its not just diplomacy were bringing to the table, but if you dont come to an agreement that seats both of our interests, especially the United States, which is where President Trump has put the focus, we have the military power to back up protecting our interests as well. How do you do that with a limited stpwhugget how do you do that with a set of allies that have underinvested in their capabilities . And how do you do that with leaders like Vladimir Putin and ping and kim jong un who have been extraordinarily aggressive, manipulative, engaging in information warfare, improving their own military capabilities . So i think, again, its easier write things in academia and to write things from a think tank perspective and what the United States should do, its far different to be in an Actual Office where youre making decisions, going to congress, talking about funding, running major programs in the acquisition world, and dealing with the realities that i just described with competitors and partners. Well just have to see how the aspirations and how the academic talk meets up with the reality of this world that she or somebody else would actual have the to deal with. Host less than 10 minutes left with dakota wood of the Heritage Foundation. Were talking in this segment about the 2021 index of u. S. Military strength. Its put out each year by the Heritage Foundation, heritage. Org, taking your phone calls. Alan has been waiting from indiana, democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. I hope all are scombl safe this day. Big fan of washington journal. Love your show. Greatest one on tv. Thank you. Before i get cut off, one, i kind of agree that we need wing tips and pumps on the ground rather than boots on the ground. And our state department has suffered budget cuts and a lot of Unfilled Positions have been going there. But i think thats the biggest case case of waste, fraud, mismanagement at the federal government. I believe there was an audit done of the military a couple of years ago, and it said over 20year period, about 12 trillion was lost and unaccounted for, had no where to go. If we have a problem with readiness, i think its more with the training that were lacking. On the subject of aircraft carriers, we have 14 aircraft carriers, the gerald ford was commissioned right after Trump Took Office back in 2017, and theyre building a 15th one now. And all the rest of the world, there are five aircraft carriers. Russia has one, china has two. One of them uses just trained pie throts land on an aircraft carrier. Brazil has one. Host alan, you bring up a couple of topics, and were running out of time, so i want to give dakota wood a chance to respond to one or both. Guest when i think we look at things like the state department, its interesting people talk about the importance of diplomacy, which i agree with. All of my military colleagues agree that. The department of defense agrees with that. You would much rather resolve things diplomatically than put a young man or woman in an american uniform in harms way, in firing rounds at people, receiving rounds in return. So diplomacy is an essential component. I find it interesting then that over a series of administrations we have failed to properly fund the state departments to expand its capabilities. Congress allocating money for it. I mean, if its so important, and we believe it is, why arent we seeing the funding . Its not the Defense Department takes money away from states or somehow manipulates the federal government in any way, shape or form. So what we need to see is movement and action behind the rhetoric that would enable our diplomatic core to be as big and professional as it needs to be and to be empowered to go out and do the things that the caller is talking about. Every military leader that i have served under, around, over, what have you, with, would talk about the importance of our diplomatic brethren doing the things that they do in capitaling all over the world. Its just a challenge when you go into a securitycompromised area like iraq, syria, someplace else, and you dont have the ability to get the ng tip crowd on the ground until the boot wearing crowd actually provides a safe and secure environment for those kind of diplomatic negotiations to go alofpblgt id be looking forward to whichever administration is in office after january 20 to putting much more combasoice diplomacy. But again, that has to be backed up with both economic initiatives, fair trade relationships that benefit the United States, as well as the competent military of sufficient size that is able to do the things we want it to do. Host new york, this is ross, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. Accomplish tour hear from you. I just had a question. I believe, as you know, i guess you can concur with the first statement, the u. S. Spends more than the next 11 countries combined on the military, is that true . Guest on dollar per dollar, it is. Whats not brought up in that is if your partners arent spending anything, then you are spending dramatically more than anything else combined. So if england, russia, france, spain, japan, south korea were actually investing what they should be investing, then that gap would narrow quite a bit. The other part that doesnt come across in that kind of a comparison is purchasing power parity. Its more expensive to build something in the United States or to provide or pay benefits for a u. S. Service member than it is in china. In china, no Environmental Compliance regulation, no regulatory control mechanisms that u. S. Companies have to deal with, pay standards, living standards, you know, wages and those sorts of things, healthcare, theyre all at much, much lower levels. So if you look what the a dollar buys in the United States and what a dollar would buy in the equivalent economy of china, youre going see a massive disparity. In these comparisons, you have to talk about a level playing field. Host i get the sense ross had a followup, and we only have about a minute or two left. Go ahead. Caller now we have this sparkling defense that spends more money than 11 countries combined. Currently, were defending a country that has d plus infrastructure, roads and bridges were built in 1950, and now all of the stuff is crumbling. Our Education System is down to 50 hoth in the world because we spend local property taxes on education, and they have a brt Education System than we do. The question is, why are we spending so much money on defense when were defending the countries that are falling apart . Guest as a percentage of the federal budget, the Defense Budget is the smallest it has been since prior to the 1930s, for about 3. 2 of g. D. P. Throughout the cold war, it was roughly 5 , 5. 5 am again, as a percentage, its very, very small. Most of the spending from the federal government, taxpayer money and debt, goes to social entitlement programs. So if we want to dedicate money to infrastructure, it has to come from somewhere else. The world is a messy place. Weve got interest globally, if you want jobs at home, you have to be able to sell goods and services to markets abroad. You have to get access to those markets, raw materials. Military power is a part of that. As ive described here in the last, well, during the show, the military is small relative to what the task we assign to what the tasking assignment is worldwide. It is doing this for the smallest percentage of the federal budget, especially as a component of the Gross Domestic Product than at any time in our personal history. We need to look at other places where the government is spending money and see if that is being widely spent or not with respect to the purposes of the federal government differing from state and local level. The dakota wood, at Heritage Foundation, that is heritage. Org. That is where you can find the 2021 index of military strength, but we have been talking about. We appreciate your time, sir. Guest really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me on. Host about 30 minutes left in our program, and then we will take you to the house pro forma session. Until then, going back to this session question that we began the program with. The board of state canvassers in michigan certified joe bidens victory. Within hours, the formal federal transition process got underway after the head of the General Services administration ascertained biden to be the winner. Getting your response, reaction to all of it. Phone lines are on the screen. You can start calling in now. We will be right back. With coronavirus cases increasing across the country, use our website, cspan. Org coronavirus to track the spread with interactive maps, and watch updates on demand anytime at cspan. Org coronavirus. Listen to cspans podcast the weekly. We are talking about president ial transitions with the director of the white house transition project. Find it where you get your podcasts. Washington journal continues. The new york times, the transition to bond and administration begins. The shift coming after the defeat in michigan not long after the border canvassers certify the michigan results, the General Services administration began its formal process of transitioning, communicating to the president elects office and joe biden that it had ascertained him to be the winner of the november 3 election. Getting your thoughts to that news. It happened around different time yesterday. Here are the phone lines for you to call in. 202 7488000 four democrats. 202 7488001 four republicans. , 202 7488002. Amidst all of this learning about who will be in the Biden Administration cabinet, here is the lead story in the usa today. Biden building a diverse cabinet. Biden choosing janet yellen to become treasury secretary, tapping the former chairwoman of the Federal Reserve to guide his efforts to steer the pandemic hit economy. If confirmed, she would be the countrys first woman treasury secretary. He selected Alejandra Mayorkas to become the first immigrant and latino to lead the department of Homeland Security. Note joe going on to biden plans to nominate april haynes, the former Deputy Director of the cia to serve as the first female director of national intelligence. He plans to nominate Linda Thomasgreenfield as the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Blinken, jakeny sullivan as National Security advisor, john kerry as special envoy for climate. Hisill be introducing personnel picks this afternoon in wilmington, delaware. We will be covering that announcement at 1 00 today. You can watch it here on cspan, cspan. Org, you can listen to it on the free cspan radio app. A pretty active past 24 hours when it comes to president ial transition. Getting your reaction and response to all of it. Anita is first, a democrat from washington. Northeasts, im in washington, d. C. , a democrat. Trump want to say, donald has really embarrassed the white race, my White Brothers and sisters. It is an international embarrassment. Society and the world. Black people deserve much more than this. We helped build this country. We helped biden. Thank you. Host bernard, pittsburgh, republican. You are next. Trump haddo feel mr. A good series of activities when he was in office, i think he did a lot with the people in the United States. We certainly have a lot more jobs, more wealth going to the lower classes, middleclass, socioEconomic Development with all of the things that were done for the black people. Various things with the prison reform, pardoning of various people. It is just sorry that people cannot look at his four years of accomplishments and give him credit where credit is due. I am hopeful that things will go along in the next four years, but unfortunately, a lot of people coming back into power. We didnt have a whole lot of record to fall back on, but now they are back in office. I am worried it will not work out so good. Of course, it will be the four years of somebody else having their say. Again, i have to say, mr. Trump did a great job for all americans. No wars, thank god. No young men going off to get killed and maimed. If somebody could walk around walter reed hospital, then you could see why we dont want any more of these wars that are destroying our younger people. Host you mentioned the return of people who used to be in power. One of the front page stories in todays Washington Post notes the nominees that have been put forward so far push the policies that fueled trumps rise. Here is part of what the story had to say, noting that his picks so far are akin to the washington establishment. Bidens early commitment are in many ways asymmetric reversal of trumps own outsider efforts to undo the obama administrations legacy, using the same people that created those policies in the first place. If not household names, his picks are steeped in washington. Longtimeken, a adviser, is set to become secretary of state. The position was held by john kerry who will not be the climate envoy. Jake sullivan will become the National Security advisor to president biden. If you want to read the story, it is in todays Washington Post. In the wayssteeped of washington. Call, buoy, maryland. Democrat. Youre crazy uncle came to dinner four years ago, he stayed around, ate all of your food. He spread a lot of propaganda, told a lot of lies. He served a lot of foolaid. He went from room to room telling lies, doing nothing, just laying around and spending up all the time that he could find, laying around on the couch cushions. Now, we finally got rid of him. Goodbye. All you republicans, get over it. That is all we heard for the past four years, regrets, get over it. Republicans, get over it. Your cult leader lost. Have a happy thanksgiving. Host over the past four years, did you ever get over the 2016 election . Knewr absolutely, but i what was going to happen, and it happened just as we thought it would. We had a crazy person trying to run the country, and he screwed up everything. These people calling and saying what he has done for us, he has not done a darn thing. Bo is in independent, mississippi. Caller can you hear me all right . Host yes, sir. Caller i am in the cotton field, i dont know how far my radio goes. Apparently, biden will be our next president. But a lifetime republican, trump still has an opportunity to exposed to the public just how rickety our voting situation is. We do not have an election day anymore. County, ile, wayne believe wisconsin has some 80,000 absentee ballots that were certified and ready to go. Well over 100,000 were counted. I dont know what you call that paving we have our own were down here in mississippi. We that is some things that have a chance to expose as much as we can, let the public know how rickety our voting situation is. Said it isast caller time to get over the election. Will you get over it . That was bo in mississippi. Joe and pottsville, pennsylvania. Morning. Ood i am a diehard democrat. Born and raised all my life, took my mother to the polls to vote democrat. The lady handed us a piece of paper and said, just mark the blocks. No name, no Social Security number on it. My mother turned and marked republican. I said, if you are doing republican, i will, too. So we both voted republican. I will tell you why we voted republican. Biden, who went to china to meet with the Chinese Communist party, had a close relationship, according to the investigators, tony Something Like that. Host the same question to you that the other caller brought up. We were told to get over the 2016 election as democrats. It is time for republicans to get over the 2020 election. You think you will get over it . Caller never. When they handed me that piece of paper, there was nothing on it except for blocks of information. That is a scam. Could get 1000 pieces of paper and just mark those blocks biden and put them in the machine, and nobody cares. They are all counting them up. 1000, 1000, 1000, whatever. About read the paper he is thes ye founder of the multimillion dollar chinese energy, whatever it is, china energy thing, and he had a solid relationship with hunter biden. Host that was joyce in pennsylvania. This is hunter in nevada. Independent. Good morning. Caller i just want to point out from what i have been hearing. Conservatives are insane, just like donald duck, our president. They ended up voting this cloud and we got in, nothing but a circus. He also made himself and the gop madeuardians of putin themselves look just like him, look like dictators, and everybody else is to blame, instead of the person who need to take responsibility, is the person who decided to run for president. By scam or whatever you want to call it, became president. Over the 2016 election. That was the most embarrassing time in American History. It will go down, in 20 years, people will look back and say what a bunch of more rounds. Host nevada, missouri. This is cameron, republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just want to say, all of this chaos about who will be theident, trump challenging votes being counted, which i think you should, because as everyone remembers correctly, at beginning, trump said they said he colluded with russia. None of that came true. There is no evidence to prove any of that. So, i can see why trump is challenging the democrats and trying to figure out the deep state and all of that, chaos that goes with it. We need somebody like trump be our president because he has brought the economy to great strength, and i think he has done a great job as president because of all of the stuff that he has had to put up with, all of the stress. Anyone in his position would be in the same, fighting for their presidency, tired of getting the finger pointed at them. Always the president s fault. The people of the country. We need to move forward and rise above challenges like covid19 and all of the craziness that this election has brought. Host cameron in missouri. This last segment in washington journal today, michigan certified results. Gsa ascertains biden win. Just to dive into what those words mean in practice with the help of this mornings papers, the wall street journal, noting certification is a step toward naming the slate of electors that each state sends to washington to then vote for president in the Electoral College. That meeting is scheduled to happen on december 14. When it comes to ascertaining biden as the victor, that is the job of the gsa administrator, Stephanie Murphy. She took that step yesterday. What does that mean in practice . The formal declaration will release more than 6 million to the Biden Transition Team which it can be used to hire staff, travel. More importantly, bidens team will not have access to briefings from key federal agencies, including information on the covid19 response, and the plans for a vaccine rollout. Night on, though, last twitter downplayed the action by emily murphy not Stephanie Murphy the president tweeting this. Tot does gsa being allowed polemic narrowly work with the democrats have to do with teeming to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in american political history . We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots and dominion. That was the president on twitter. The president also tweeting this morning, a couple minutes ago, adding this when it comes to the gsa. The gsa has been terrific. Emily murphy has done a great job, but the gsa does not determine who the next president of the United States will be. That is the president this morning active on twitter. Mike in covington, indiana. Republican. Good morning. Caller hello . Yes, i think mr. Trump did a fine job the last four years, considering he lowered the price of drugs, peace in the middle east, the border wall. He has done so much for this country. When i hear democrats come on and lie about him, it is stunning. That is why i believe the boat has been changed. Its been astonishing to listen to these people. I think Everybody Knows what he has done, its pretty obvious. All day yesterday, about the medicine, he lowered prices astronomically. As far as the democrats go and these scientists, i think it is the scientist who put us in this hole. The wuhan lab, gasoline, bonds, plastic. The more we go to the scientist, the worse the world gets. Charlotte, in michigan. Independent, you are next. Caller i echo the guys that reflect the good job the president has done. With the deep state response democrats have given him the entire four years he has been in office. I voted democrat my entire life until this last election and took great umbrage with the fit politics these people engage in. Attempt to put all of these oldschool politicians back into positions so they can carry on like nothing has changed is a bad policy for america. I think donald trump will be remembered as the one that caused america to wake up and Pay Attention to what is going on in this country politically. I hope to goodness this changes america for the better. Thank you for making letting me make my comment. Een, astoria, new york. Good morning. Caller good morning, john. Im happy to talk to you. I seem to get you every time this is the second time. Host i dont know if that is good or bad. It is a good thing, i like you. The other thing is, thank you for cspan. I am very happy today. I am happy about john kerry. I thought i would never see him again, but im so happy about him getting his position. We lose some, we win some. We won this one and will do the best we can. Peopleose again later, take it on. Good to see you, have a happy thanksgiving. America, be good. We are all right. A story in the Washington Post today about john kerrys new position, the Biden Administration prioritizing Climate Change as the president ial envoy for climate, kerry will report directly to joe biden, underscoring how important it views the idea of global warming. This marks the first time the nsc will include an official dedicated to Climate Change. John kerry with this tweet from yesterday, saying america will soon have a government that treats the Climate Crisis as the urgent National Security threat it is. I am proud to partner with the president elect, our allies, and Young Leaders of the Climate Crisis as the president s climate envoy. This is rita out of pennsylvania. Democrat, you are next. Are you with us . You have to stay by your phone. Scott in new york, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. God bless all of us humans in america. God bless america. If you go back to june 1, i you have to look it up, but i talked about President Trump and the policy. The day after, he went on to shoot tear into peaceful protesters. Fors still not too late that to happen, to be in martial law. We have done so much damage to the United States in these last four years. I pray, [indiscernible] bring peace, love, and unity back to the United States. We will leave you there because we are losing you a bit, but i think we got your point. Charlotte in houston, texas. Republican. Caller good morning. First of all, we are not conceding yet. Trump is still our president. The other thing just a statement. Republicans to democrats. We will show mr. Biden the same respect that the democrats and the media showed President Trump. Host and what does that mean in practice . Caller you want to know if we are going to get over it. That is what it means. We are going to show him the same respect that he showed President Trump, which was none. Host what do you make of the increasing number of republican elected officials calling for t he transition to move forward . We lost charlotte. I will simply note that several came out yesterday, bill cassidy from louisiana. With michigan certifying its results, joe biden has over to hunt at 70 Electoral College votes. President trumps legal team has not presented evidence of the massive fraud. I voted for President Trump, but joe biden won. The transition should begin for the sake of the country. One more from congressman dusty johnson. In the days after the election, i supported the president s right to make his case to the courts. These efforts have not been successful. It is time for the administration to begin the transition process. Those are republican members of congress adding their voices to this concern about the transition process. Five minutes left before the house is scheduled to come in for a brief pro forma session. We will take you there when they do. Until then, your phone calls. Orlando in georgia. Regret. Good morning. Caller good morning, how are you . Host i am doing well. Trump is a part of the rich. They have all the money and power. Everybody that voted for him were pretty much rich. That is a powerful portion of the population. The rich were able to get all of the medicines. I am a truck driver, i drive in different parts of the state. When i go to places like tampa, the rich areas like santa rosa, noifornia, i can get lysol, limits on it, wipes, no limits on it. Doesnt haveunity the money or the resources. The Poor Community were more affected. The rich do not really care about the poor, because that is how they make their money. Is Truck Driving business during the pandemic . Caller it is booming. I have been making plenty of money. Everybody wants resources. Everybody needs food, clothes, everything. , during this coronavirus, you just got richer. Host that is orlando. Huntington, west virginia. A democrat. Caller i just have a few words to say, and i want to say them directly to donald trump. You horrible man, take your hatred and take your divisiveness, and leave washington. You have been beaten, sir. This politics as your venue to spew your venom. It is time for you to leave, sir. Get out and quit messing with our system. Host bradley is an independent in prince george, virginia. Good morning, cspan viewers. Thank you for having my call. As an independent, i am glad that michigan has certified the results and that we can begin the process of moving forward. The next comment i want to make is, i was never excited about president donald trump, or Hillary Clinton. I thought both choices were well, they could have been better. I feel like beer in the same position. Host can i ask which choice you made in 2016 . I did select gary johnson, the libertarian candidate. Included, i think we should all practice selfgovernance, we are all human beings. Behave veryy to civilly toward one another, and in our own personal lives to work hard every day, making ourselves and our loved ones safer and more secure. Steve in maryland. Gaithersburg, maryland. Independent. I normally act as a chief judge in montgomery county. Bym a little bit bothered particularly the gop callers that are suspicious of the process. I can speak only for montgomery we always see voter identification, but it is really there to tell you who you are for soviet affiliated with for the primary, where your precinct is to go and vote. You dont have to present it. Really you just identify who you are. If you are in the poll books, you are fine. If you are not, you are issued a provisional ballot. We are not turning anyone away. Those provisionals will be looked at as time goes on just to see what the conflict was. Therewe have to end it because the house is coming in. Brief pro forma session. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. Before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, d. C. , november 24, 2020. Hereby appoint the honorable Jennifer Wexton to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by our conroy. N, father chaplain conroy let us pray. Gracious and merciful god, we giving us anks for another day. N this chamber, where the peoples house gathers, we pause to offer you gratitude for the land on which od we live and for this great nation, which you have
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