Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal Washington Journal 20240711

Provide an update on emergency efforts. Here live coverage tuesday at three, cspan cspan. Org, or on the cspan radio app. On thanksgiving afternoon, President Trump held an event with troops overseas. He spoke with reporters about the results at his legal efforts to overturn the. This is 25 minutes overturn them. This is 25 minutes. Know whatp we dont his last. If you look at what is going on, there finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes. Nobody believes those numbers. Those numbers are incorrect numbers. A lot of numbers have been reported as incorrect. You are going to see things that are going to be shocking to people. If you look at the numbers in michigan and pennsylvania and five foot votes. I cant say what is first and last, if this is the first one or the last one or is this the first one of his second term. We will see what happens. No one was to see the fraud this has come to represent. We are looking at things that are so bad in georgia, they dont want to show signatures. The reason they dont want to show signatures is simple. It is a close race. We will find thousands of discrepancies, and fraud. Why they are 20 to show those signatures is amazing. In the recounts they found thousands of votes that were off. Now we want to look at the signatures and you will find tens of thousands of forged ballots. Ou are to see a lot of it he saw the meeting we had yesterday with pennsylvania. People came up and said you cant vote, already some money sent in a ballot. This is happening tens of thousands of times. 687,000 fraudulent votes cast in pennsylvania. If you look at the statehouse now, the republican statehouse is seeing what will go on there. Then you go to michigan. He look what happened in wayne county and detroit. I went through a list. I went through almost every 68 . Y, 78 , 72 , you get to wayne and something happened. Canvasers refused to sign documents because they said we cats in portalet document said we cant support a fraudulent commit. Document. At the counties, i won almost all of them except detroit was so egregious, it was phony. Look at what is going on in wisconsin, there finding tremendous discrepancy. We are going to see what happens. Servent have someone office they already want to get rid of America First. You know why . Because china doesnt wanted. Wish,expressed their please get rid of America First and joe biden said we are getting rid of America First. We dont want to get rid of it. We want other countries to put themselves first and i tell them that all the time. Joe biden did not get 80 million votes. There74 million votes but were more ballots torn away so i got more than that. 74 million is 11 more million then i got last time. It is millions more than Ronald Reagan got. E won 49 states millions more than Hillary Clinton got. Did not beat for barack obama with the black vote. They have him as beating them beating him. If you look at the numbers, they are false. The numbers are corrupt. It was a rigged election and people know it. That is why you have people marching all over the United States, they know it was rigged. Look at what is happening in georgia, a lot of things are being found in georgia. They are absolutely against showing they dont want to show signatures. It can be solved if you show signatures. Youre going to find that the people that signed art the people that are supposed to be signing are not the people that are supposed to be signing. Somebody said maybe the envelopes were thrown out. In thelook at 10 00 evening, you saw what happened. You saw his massive dumps. You have dominion which is very suspect. Nobody knows the ownerships, people say the votes are counted in foreign counties and much worse than that Foreign Countries and much worse than that. Dominion is partially based in canada but is based in other countries, too. Canada refuses to use dominion. Canada uses paper ballots. Theyre based in canada and canada refuses to use them. They are smart, they use paper ballots because paper ballots youre only thing that going to get an accurate have on because those machines are rigged. You can press trump and it goes to biden. All you have to do is play with a chip. All you have to do is play with a chip and they played with a chip, especially in wayne county, in detroit. In philadelphia, take a look. We have had excellent meetings with senators from pennsylvania, republican senators and others. They knew it was dishonest but they didnt know it was this dishonest. You will see it all. Speaking of georgia, i will be going there. I spoke with the two great senators. I will probably be going saturday. Were going to have bituminous turnout and we seem to always have a good turnout. The people are very disappointed that we were robbed. I won that by hundreds of thousands of votes. If you go down the streets, there were trumppence signs all down this place all down the place. That will solve itself, we are finding the votes. Once we get to the signatures, we will take over 100 . When we get the signatures, we will take over georgia and we will get georgia. The woolrams pulled over the head of the secretary of state. [indiscernible] i dont knowump him, i have not met him. He says i love trump, i respect trump. This guy got played like nothing i have ever seen. Tell him if he likes trump, let us see the signatures. Yc is he not letting us see the signatures. There is only one reason you cant see the signatures and that is because there is fraud all over the place. We found thousands of wrong votes always against me. It is not 5050, it was always against me. Look at michigan. Look at what they did with respect to counties. 59 , the whole thing. One after another. Andthen you get to detroit it is like more votes that people . Dead people voting all over the place . Georgia, i will be going there saturday night. It is important we win those races. These are two great people, i know them very well and they are great people. The one gentleman ran against a congressional candidate who was an excellent person and he didnt even live in the right community and that is how we won. Now we have to beat him again. Andas going for congress now he is running against david. He doesnt deserve to be there, he is a lightweight. The other one is either a communist or socialist, i cant figure that out. He is either a communist or socialist. This is not for georgia. I want to tell my people, dont be disappointed because this race is far from over. Night,be going saturday we will have two minutes ground. We would like to take one of the big stadiums but you cant because of covid. Form,l have an outdoor most likely an airport. We will have tens of thousands of people show up. I think it is very important. I may go a second time. There are two really good people. If the Electoral College votes for joe biden, will you concede . Pres. Trump it is going to be a hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud. As to weather as to whether or not i can get this moving quickly because time is not on our side. Facts are on our side. This is a massive fraud. This should have never taken place in this country. We have machines that no one knows what theyre looking at. Look at even georgia, look at the mistakes they made. That one is simple you just press a button. Look at georgia, all the votes they found. I said they should even do it because it doesnt mean anything. They are doing every account in georgia that is meaningless. In only recount that counts torture is to look at the signatures on the envelopes and you will find they do not match the people that were many of them hundreds of thousands of them. I didnt lose, i dont like to i would boost i lost dont like to say i lost. Well that they did know to do, they panicked. Look at their drops at 3 00 in the morning in certain states. Along like this and then you have a spike that goes to the ceiling. It is disgraceful. We cant let that happen. Republicanshia, the are very upset. It is appropriate because philadelphia has become very activist if you look at what is going on. They dont want that to happen to pennsylvania. It was a rigged election. If the if Electoral College votes for joe biden will you concede . Pres. Trump it would be a mistake because this election was a fraud. They have biden beating obama in areas that mattered in terms of the election in swing states and yet he is losing to obama all over the place but hes beating obama in swing states which are the states that mattered for the election. I cant say that all. I think it is a possibility dont talk to me that way. Youre just a lightweight, dont talk to me that way. I am the president of the u. S. , dont ever talk to the president that way. Im going to go with another question. If Electoral College does elect joe biden, are you not going to leave this building . Pres. Trump certainly i will and you know that. I think there will be a lot of things happening between now and the 20th of january. Massive fraud has been found. We are like a third world country. We are using computer commit that can be hacked. Computer equipment that can be hacked. They have talked about glitches. In all cases the vote went from trump to biden. The glitches whatever from biden to trump. There were many glitches. A glitch is like the equipment is a little broken we will fix it up. A glitch in this case is because the cheating we caught them stealing, we caught them cheating, we caught an effort to still votes. There wereproblem probably 10, 20, 30 times that didnt get caught3 caught. Glitch, theat the glitch means we got caught with the votes. Now lets call it a glitch. It wasnt the machinery. Look anywhere on the internet, you will see many people where the rx permitting with this stupid look anywhere on the internet where they are experimenting with this machinery. If you look at arizona where i was going to win very easily i have had the biggest politicians in arizona say there was no way you lost arizona. There is no way i lost with his anti fracking and the things they stand against. Texas you all set i was going to lose texas by lot. I won texas by eight or nine points. In wisconsin, you said i was points. Lose by 17 think of how dishonest. I thought i was going to win it, and frankly i did when it i did win it. In wisconsin they had massive discrepancy. They said i was going to lose by 17 points and i won the state. But it was very close whether you say win or lose. When you look at the discrepancy , between be revealed big tech and the Fake News Media , you put out this little rep. Trahan . This Little Railroad train. I cant imagine whether it is courts or legislatures. Are going to attach hundreds of thousands of false pallets ballots, and im talking each state im not saying we caught between were dead people but we short thousand votes. We have tens of thousands votes more than we need in all cases. I think youre going to see something. I think it is going to be a big story. It is the most important story of our time. If joe biden takes over the white house on generate 21st, campaign announce a for 2024 . Pres. Trump i dont want to talk about 2024 yet. This is far from i am very professional and deep look at all the stuff that came out if you look at the pennsylvania meeting yesterday, a lot of it came out. This has a long way to go. Youre going to find tremendous fraud. Youre going to find fraud of hundreds of thousands of votes per state. Youre going to find fraud of many many times the votes i need. Were not talking about less , 20 votes that dont turn the election. We are talking about thousands of thousands of votes to turn a state. When you see that, i think it is media to even for the say that biden won the state. There is no way that joe biden got 80 million votes. The only way he got 80 million votes is through massive fraud. Ofdo you have a timeline when you are going to present the voter fraud youre talking about . Pres. Trump it is happening now. We are in courts and in front of legislatures. If you dont think the president ial election was legitimate, what confidence do you expect for voters to have when they go to the polls to . Ote for pres. Trump ipres. Trump told him today i think theyre working in a fraudulent system. People, davidtted are excellent people. I said today you have a fraudulent system where at the click of a switch or the putting in of the new chip can change the course of history. You have to be very careful. I read this morning that stacey ballotsas 850,000 accumulated. That is called harvesting. You not allowed to harvest. I understand the secretary of state who is an enemy of the people. Whether he is republican or not, what he has done supposedly he has made a deal where she is allowed to harvest but in other areas theyre not allowed. What kind of deal is that . How can she say she has taken a 50,000 ballots . That would mean she has 850,000 ballots for proper. That is not for her. That is not an election. If youre not feeling well or there is a problem they used in order to defraud the people of this country. The whole world is watching and the whole world is laughing at our electoral process. The whole world is watching and it is a sad thing. I have done a lot of things. You saw space force and the tax cuts and the regulation cuts and the way we have taken care of events and what we did in alaska and all the Different Things we have done. More than just about anybody has done. What im doing is the most important thing ive ever done. I think it may be true. Let joeines dont biden take credit for the vaccines. Joe biden failed with the swine flu. Dont let him take credit for the vaccines. And iccines were me pushed people harder than they have ever been pushed and we got that approved and through. No one has ever seen anything like it. You have resistance from the fda for years and years of people working there. There are those that say the vaccine is one of the greatest things it is a medical miracle. Dont let anyone else take credit report. With all of the things i have done, this could be the most important because there has been voter fraud coming on going on but never at this scale. Tens of millions about habits it out to people that did not even want them. Received two or three or four ballots. Many people have taken them and voted them. This election was a fraud. This was a rigged election. At the highest level it was a rigged election. I think it is very dangerous for the two people running against unqualified people. I think it is very dangerous for a nation. I will go a step further. Other than the fact that you have all the eyes and ears or maybe it is not covered properly because im convinced if they saw something wrong the media would not report it. If the media was honest in this country which for the most part theyre not, this would never have happened. This fraud has taken place. If the media were honest, this would never have happened. Yeah a big election coming up, you have a woman or somebody announced 850,000 absentee ballots have been collected. , iold david perdue today said theyre talking about having 850,000 ballots against you. You cant do that. What kind of races that . You cant allow that to happen. If the media were honest and big tech were honest which it is not. That whole section 230 is a terrible disgrace. If the media were honest and big tech were fair, this wouldnt even be a contest. I would have won by a tremendous amount. I did win by a tremendous amount but it has not been reported yet. People understand what happened, they know what happened. Tradition for is previous president to go to a sidents inauguration pres. Trump i dont want to say that yet. I know the answer but i dont want to say that yet. A thing like this has happened before but people didnt catch it. We cut hundreds of thousands of votes. We caught hundreds of thousands of votes. If i may pres. Trump excuse me. Poll watcher is considered sacred in this country. When it though them out of rooms when they throw them out of ms and they when they throw them out of counting rooms and they are 20 or 30 or 40 feet away, when things like that happen when a woman walks in november 3 two vote, a proud woman and this is by the tens of thousands. She says i have yet to vote and they say you have already voted. She said i did not vote i wanted to cast my vote in person. They said you have already voted by ballot and then they leave. This is a horrible thing and we have tens of thousands of that happening. This is a horrible thing. They give biden a lot of votes he would not have had. This is not a candidate who has a million votes. This is not a candidate who beat barack obama with a black voter. This is not a candidate who beats barack obama with a black voter. This is not a candidate that beats Hillary Clinton to a pulp. When you look at the data and when you look at the things we have, we have affidavits and hundreds of people. This was a rigged election. Thank you very much everybody. Talk] some people say you are denying reality. Later today, the conclusion of a q and a interview with historian Harold Holzer on the relationship between the media and u. S. President s. The program talks about president s from Franklin Roosevelt to donald trump. Watched una today at 7 00 p. M. Todayn time watch q a at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. With coronavirus cases increasing a constant country, use our website, cspan. Org coronavirus, two track the trends, use interactive maps interactive maps. Saturday,ton journal the trend in this country toward the legalization of marijuana with john from the brookings and astute the brookings institution. Then Amanda Valentine on the challenges facing Small Businesses during the pandemic. She is from main street alliance. Watch washington journal Live Saturday morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern and join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. Cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. At 9 00kend, saturday p. M. Eastern, barack obama reflects on his life and political career in his memoir a promised land. ,unday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern Sally Hubbard and her book. Seven ways big corporations will your life and how to take back control. She is interviewed by david mclaughlin. Professorge and law Douglas Ginsburg in his book voices of our republic. Cspan2 this on weekend and watch indepth guest eddie grau eddie claude junior. Eddi glaude jr. Host here are some of the things they talk about. Even on the heels of a surprise lay strong jobs report, some economists say there were red lights ahead in november. Weeksota imposed a four shutdown of farce, restaurants, and gyms starting november 20. Philadelphia took a similar step ending november 14. The firstaims for time in more than. 70 the42,000 742,000 claims bd 710,000 claims predicted by economists. They were behind on their mortgage for had no confidence they could make that up. That number crept up from 7. 2 back in late august. If you look at Business Insider, they give you a chart of the questions they posed to people about finances during covid. The question when it comes to savings saying many relying on savings after losing income was never an option. 20 had no Emergency Savings to start with, 18 of americans dont expect to run out of savings because they have income. Also looking at income, adding that 38 of americans turned to other means to make those ends meet. They include 401k withdrawals or borrowing. From friends and family. Business insider is where you can find that. Finance and how to has been impacted by covid, you can give us a call 2027488000 if you live in eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time on time zones. If youre employed you can call 2027488002. And for Business Owners out there, call us at 2027488003. You can use that same line if you want to text us your thoughts. Put your name, city, and state and text us at 2027488003. It was on matters of the economy that joe biden was meeting with the National Governors association and talked about concerns of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly matters of the economy. Mr. Biden we discussed critical ways we can [video clip] we discussed ways we can work together. First delivering Economic Relief to city states and city, state, and native communities. The loss of covid is defecating state andvastating to local budgets. The federal government has to release this relief sooner than later. This includes helping businesses, schools, working. Amilies all that is needed during this communitiestes and shouldnt have to Services Services host host . You can find more of those comments online. Cutting the matching funds for our time and plan. Cost is rising. There hasnt been a raise in 10 years. Jeremy from facebook saying what is money . I havent seen it since march. Your call starting in california. Todd starts us off. Thank you for calling, go ahead. Caller i am a retired Public School teacher in the california. m doing extremely well. Making about 90,000 a year we have actually general generous medical benefits following us into retirement. I thought it was a myth that Public School teachers were unpaid. I thought we were paid very well. As students that didnt know how to add fractions with the one think they had learned is that teachers were underpaid. Host . Are you worried about climate that is going to get hit . Caller i knew you would interrupt me right in the middle of me trying to take a point. Host you made a good point so im just following up on it. Are you worried about your portfolio . Okay, we will go on. This is tony in texas. Thank you for calling, europe. Caller that first color is ignorant. If trump did but obama did during ebola, we would be in. Etter shape host when it comes to personal finances, how would you describe your situation. Caller terrible. I would be homeless. It is sick. Being homeless, i want to kill myself to god is with you. You. Be honest with i dont want to be homeless. Host where are you staying then currently . Are you there . Go to samuel, from wisconsin. Thank you for calling. R today marks 66th birthday. Host thats waukesha, wisconsin. Again, some people sharing their perspectives on this idea of finances during covid. And youre welcome to add yours to the mix as well if you want. Joshua ashburn from facebook. Talked about his situation in talking about his hours. Saying theyve been cut every day and hes worried about being laid off. And then michael in portland, oregon, texting us this morning, adding that hes retired. So that Revenue Streams has been untouched so far. Prosperous beyond our merits. So we try to practice sustainable philanthropy and support of struggling businesses and causes. No one who has the means should be stingy at this time. Again, if youre one of those Business Owners, you want to give us your perspective on is, you can call us at 2027488003 and give your perspective there. If youre unemployed as well, 2027488002. Minneapolis, minnesota. Gregory is there. Gregory, hello. Caller yes. Good morning. How are you doing this morning . I need to respond to what is going on about finances. I am a caricature artist. I need people to be around for my business to flourish. Nd this president thats ocalled president fails that. Feels like hes a pardoning himself and thats not his job. I didnt vote for him and im still his boss. He needs to understand that. Host so what kind of business were you doing before the pandemic and what are you doing now . Caller i was an independent basically, just in between my job have to deal with people directly. This is where i get my rain showers resource. As an artist, when you caricature, you have to deal with people oneonone. You have to have contact. Of course, you could do it online and whatnot, but the essence is you have to deal with people 2027488001. And oneonone. And this economy has affect me to the point that i have basically, i dont have a vocation. Because im isolated and i have to stay inside. And that whole thing. Host is there a way to apply your skills to other similar types of jobs . Caller absolutely. Absolutely. But in essence as i was indicating, you know, you have to deal with people oneonone. And there is a compromise basically. It does cut it off a little bit but what youre saying is, you know, alternative ways of doing with it. Yes. But the quality of my work has been affected, immensely. And i just hold this person responsible. Host allen is in illinois. Good morning. You were next. Talking about finances and covid19. Allen, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Caller thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. I am a retired teacher from illinois. And we have a pension thats supposed opposed to 401k and i feel very secure with the Pension Program that we have in illinois for our teachers. Our former i mean our oldtime retired teachers, im 74 years old. The newer teachers coming in are ot going to have a quite nicer pension the teachers punching the burden trying to figure out what theyre going to do for their retirement is really a bad situation. A good Pension Program is worthwhile. Host thats allen in illinois. Gina is in mississippi. Gina, thanks for calling. Youre next. Caller good morning. Host morning. Caller my husband and i are retired. So it really hasnt affected us very much to covid but i just want to say to all of you trump bashers out there, trump is not the problem. Trump is not the reason for the virus. Your democratic governors and mayors, theyre shutting down the city are the reason youre having financial problems. Host so gina, when it comes to your retirement then, youre pretty secure. Youll think its consistent even though no matter how the economy does . Caller at this time, i do, yes. But, yeah, i just dont understand what is happening to the mentality of people. The virus is not caused by trump. Host ok. Caller it is a natural occurrence. Host ok. You made that point. Gina in mississippi. One of the things that are talked about at this time of the year particularly Congress Still has to yet pass another additional amount of resources when it comes to coronavirus pandemic resources. Here are some of the packages et to expire according to cnn. December 30 or 31. They would include the expanded Unemployment Benefits program, student loan fear beerns program, paid family leave benefits, Eviction Program and coronavirus funds for state and local government, either on the 30th of next month or the 31st of next month when it talks about that second relief package. It was recently that Mitch Mcconnell talked about the potential of another relief package and for covid. And heres what he has to say. Senator mcconnell host so well show you that in a second. Well hear from paul though. Paul this washington, d. C. Paul, good morning. Ill push the button. Lets go, paul in washington, d. C. , good morning. Caller good morning, pedro. Im doing fine here in d. C. Because im an adjunct professor. And so i continue to get paid although i have to work three times as hard to teach via zoom. I do think though that in general, the professional classes media and politicians, of course, are all doing fine. The refrigerator trucks are already rolling into d. C. So im sure the vaccines are going to be ready for the Political Class very soon, not already. But i wonder whats happening with other people. I think its quite bad and when inflation hits, as i fully expect, when were certainly going to be up the creek. Host let me ask you then, because you teach online and for people who dont teach. You say it was three times harder. What makes it harder . Caller its just very hard to reach people when you dont see their faces. On zoom, you can if you look at an individual person. But if you have a whole class, you dont really see the faces. And there are message that you can use to indicate things. Theres chat and so forth. But just trying to keep in mind the content of the subject i do mathematics and the reception of the audience is already sufficient mental load. And if you try to keep in mind a half a dozen other special features of software, its cant be done. And i can see from the difficulty of the students, only because i take the extra time to link with them separately and have conversations as needed am i able to get the material across. Even though they pay me very little as a person who is concerned with doing a good job, i nevertheless do whats required, even though i dont get paid for it like writing letters of recognition and so on. And each one requires a zoom call. So the only good thing of the pandemic seems to be that we can do International Communications a whole lot better. Thats a good thing. But were not fighting the pandemic with intelligent means, although the president , President Trump did bring up the only good idea that ive heard so far and that is to use light, especially ultraviolet and sterilization. Its suppressed by the media. Host as an adjunct professor, this is in your main means of employment. Do you have any other resources then, if i may ask . Caller occasionally, i do consulting but i really enjoy mathematics. So i manage to just get by on i have a very, very low income but i have very low expenses. This will be extremely difficult if there is rampant inflation. And with poor Financial Management as i fully expect if we have a different regime come in, as there will be massive inflation and then its going to be i dont know what will happen then. Host ok, paul, telling his story and his finances when it comes to how theyve been impacted by covid. Host i promised you Mitch Mcconnell talking about that relief scompleags what a future of that legislation might be, heres what he had to say. Based on what im seeing publicly because weve had no private discussions about this. And it looks to me like the speaker, the democratic leader of the senate and former Vice President biden all have a view that 2. 5 trillion or nothing. I share the view of my colleagues which has been expressed here is that a more narrowly targeted proposal such as was laid out in september and october here in the senate deals with the actual problem. As some of you may or may not have noticed, revenues, at the state level are up almost everywhere. And i continue to insist apparently on almost 1 trillion on state and local government. That has nothing to do with solving this problem. So to sum it up, im open to a targeted bill, roughly of the amount that we recommended, a half a trillion dollars, which is nothing. Narrowly targeted at schools, at health care providers, at p. P. E. And Liability Reform to keep network from being engaged in an epidemic of losses on the heel of a pandemic very open to that but ive seen no evidence yet as several of my colleagues have suggested that theyre open to it. Host the Business Insider story that i showed you earlier has a series of charts and one of the questions asked by the Organization Bank rate back in june of this year talked about how long will it take for households to financially recover from covid19. 17 saying its already back to normal. Less than one month, 7 of those, one month less than three month, 17 , 18 for both saying it will take three to six months and six to 12 months for those to recover. And then 19 of those saying it would take a year or longer. Only 4 saying it would never recover to the same extent. Again, those calculations done by bank rate. You can see that story at business provider. Reading, pennsylvania, peter, you are up next. Hello. Caller hi. Hold on now. Let me take you off speaker. Yes. Im a construction worker. I work seasonal. And through the winter months, we dont work. With ive made less than half of what i normally make this year, but im grateful for that because i have buddies that didnt hardly work at all this year. And i have a month left of unemployment. And as we head into winter months or the weather, i oil heat my home. So im going to be struggling to put oil in my house. And just to hear what mr. Mcconnell said is ridiculous. He doesnt see these food lines. He doesnt see whats going on because he doesnt drive by people that have to live like that. And its so unfair, you know . The republicans and their crumbs they try to throw around and they act like theyre doing you a favor. I work hard for my money. Im a union member, and we work hard. We try to build roads and bridges for this country. This is america. We can do a lot better than this. Thank you. Host ralph is next, from negotiate. New york state. Ralph, hello. Caller good morning, pedro. Yeah, im a writer tax preparer. And when the pandemic hit, they had to move my site. I work within a health center. And i lost all of our volunteers because we work with volunteers, you know, College Students and retired people. And they had to move my site because its right in the area where theyre going to do a testing in a health center. So i had to move to another part of the building. So i lost everybody except for another people. So it impacted a lot of people that couldnt got their taxes prepared because all the vital sites of our area and the aarp sites are also closed down and i was the only one open. I dont really run a business. Its a service on the community. And a lot of taxpayers that couldnt get their taxes prepared and theres a lot of mouth there in my area that never got them a lot of them out there that never got them completed. Host do you have a sense of whatever you saw as normal before the pandemic . Caller well, im in a different building now. And where i can be separated from the public, so it just all depends if the College Students, if the professors and parents, they have to sign off to allow them to work at the sites. So its going to be a tough tax season, im anticipating. Host this is from texas. We will hear from john in belton. Hello. Caller hello, peyton. Good morning. Host good morning. Caller how are you . Fine, thank you. How about yourself . Caller oh, hanging on the best i can, thank the lord for that. But i wanted to respond to the lady that called from mississippi and referenced to the pandemic. Know, this stuff was host well, before you referenced the lady specifically, what about the state of finances . Whats your experience so far because of the pandemic . Caller yes. You know, im disabled but, you know, i used to get out and cut lawns and trim the take care of lawn care and stuff, you know for a friend of mine that have a business. Host and your thing thats been affected since the start or it slowed down or is it the same . How would you describe it . Caller yes, its the start, you know . Shes talking about this pandemic, you know, trump didnt start this. I think it was made here in america. You know what i mean . And he had plenty of opportunities to be aware of what was going on. This started in october. Host ok. John in belton, texas, also give some advice of those of you listening and waiting on the phone, if you want to participate, you would just turn down your television the end si is to watch the television or listen to the television rather than the phone and went to keep this conversation rolling as smoothly as possible. So if you can do that, we would appreciate it. Phillip saying i feel lucky but for the millions of people who have lost their jobs and businesses due to political and bureaucratic maturations surrounding the pandemic. Bill in connecticut, saying im a playwright. My play opened in a big theater in paris in february. Had to close in march. No royalties from there or anywhere for months all theater artists are in a kind of forced temporary retirement. This is george in chicagoful saying the travel agency, i am selfemployed. Our income has completely dried up since march of 2020. Unemployment benefits were decreased by 600 per week recently. We cannot afford utility bills our home and the car. The restart is undetermined. Adding the republican refusal to approve a bill first of all the house and the president was sarcastic, narcissistic and sarcastic with sociopathic tendencys and adding help, help now. If you havent to text us, text us at 2027488003. Or facebook. Com cspan. And you can also tweet us cspanwj. You heard Mitch Mcconnell talking about second package. The organization known as the committee for responsible federal budget has kept the tracking of covid spending. You can go to the website for more information but they also tracked uncommitted legislative fund that were initially approved but uncommitted. Claiming 532 billion of the p. P. P. Lion through the program through the Economic Injury disaster loans adding that the Federal Reserve has only tapped 195 billion out of 454 billion to establish mergency lending facilities. 637 billion programs when it comes to uncommitted funds. You can find more information and how theyre spent for the budget. Ray in kentucky in worthville. Hello. Caller hello, sir. Good morning. Yeah, i just like to be say that i work construction for 25 years. Made real good money. His pandemic has ruined me in march, you know, there was a massive leadoff. And i had to go to lay off and i had to go to work making 10 an hour. And basically, still am making 10 an hour, which is about 12,000 a year. So, i dont know. Host so im sorry, did you say it was Home Construction or what type of construction . Caller oh, im sorry. Heavy highway work. Construction. Host ok. And so is it money that typically comes from state or locality that basically fund the work that you do or am i wrong . Caller yes, that is correct. State and government. You know, its a good paying job. It was. But, you know, because of covid, you know, i had to either go on nemployment or find a job. And, you know, at that time, the 10 an hour job was all that was out there. Host let me ask, if i may, have you been through these kind of slowdowns before and do you find the work eventually comes back or is this time different for you . Caller yes. I dont know. Something was different. I think because of the election year, i dont know. This wasnt there just wasnt there. I dont know. And the thing of it is, i was a trump supporter, but kind of chose biden and only on one comment he made, that he would anst the minimum wage to 15 hour. So, you know . Hopefully, it works out. Host ray in kentucky, talking about his work in highway construction and what hes experiencing currently for about a halfhour, we heard the stories and people commenting as well. Well continue on. The lines are divided where if you live in the Eastern Central time zones, call us at 2027488000. The mountain and pacific time zones, 2027488001 perhaps that you want to call us and you are nemployed as some have called, 2027488002. And you can do one of two things on the fourth line, if youre a business line, give us your perspective at 2027488003 or text us your thoughts at that number two. And then just include your name you city and your safety well hear from dean next, in chino valley, arizona. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host im well, thank you. How about yourself . Caller not too bad. As far as our individual situation here, my wife and i, were not doing too bad. I have a small pension, very small. And Social Security and my wife is a school teacher. Thats where the problem lies. With kids coming to school and then being sent home. E works an average of six to eight hours a week because of the shutdown. Right now, its not too bad. The kids are back to school. But it looks like were headed back to another online session, where its real hard on all the teachers and theyre working additional hours thats not in their contract. Weve also done some little bit of remodeling in our house recently. And i personally am buying the lumber and the twobyfours is costing somewhere in the for aorhood of 6. 70 each eight foot twobyfour and a year ago it was only 2. 50. The other thing is you talked about the covid relief funds that are drying up at the end of the year. The town near to us, we live in the county, the town near to us, took their police funds to pay for road improvements. And theyre taking the covid funds to fund the police department. I guess theres nothing illegal about it. But everybodys scamming somewhere. We got to get back to opening up the country, give being people a choice to go to the businesses, the restaurants, the stores that they want to and the stores have the choice of deciding whether or not to let people in. We cant keep shutting down the country or were never going to get anywhere. Host ok. Dean, giving us a story from chino valley, arizona. Thank you, dean, for the call. If you go to gallup, they talk about those americans within the pandemic that actually save money during this time, saying its a slim majority saying theyre saving at least a little money and this is what they do to it. When asked the question what do you blan to do with your increased savings over the next six months . 7. of those saying they would continue to add the savings. 28 saying they would spend it on basic goods and or services only 13 saying theyll spend on it a future vacation or personal travel. And then 10 of those this was done in august of this year, saying that they would use it to pay off existing debt. But theres more to this at the gallup site if you want to take a look there. And if you want to tell us how youre doing with that, you can call ounce the lines too that best represent you. Samantha in washington, d. C. Good morning, youre next. Caller yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Im just wondering when will reality is going to set in. Theres money that has been appropriated that mnuchin has decided he does not want to be spent on the american public. And i believe it was that the money was in the fair to be distributed to banks so that they could help people and hes demanded that he gets the money back before the end of the year. In the meantime, you go back and look at the money hes given to many people who did not need it, organizations and socalled entities, corporations, who have done nothing but buy back their own stock and have inflated their profits. When we look at the leader in the senate, i think we need to look at what has happened with money in the covid and loeffler,s, senators, perdue, in North Carolina, in particular and its not anything for the american people. Its the republican scam that they are to be the rich. And everybody else including the people who supported them. They dont care about them. They care about lining their portfolios and their profits and we need to know how much money Mitch Mcconnell has been taking n in his negotiating and bringing Russian Companies into kentucky, which is one of the poorest states in the country. Host ok. Thats samantha in washington, d. C. He is moving that unspent money into a fund. And the Biden Administration cannot deploy by congress, that includes money that treasure secretary is yanking from the Federal Reserve and unused loans for companies. They will be deposited into the general fund which requires legislative approval to use that money elsewhere. Business insider saying the move according to experts be likely undercut the ability of mnuchins likely successor, janet yellen from restarting eds lending program. Here is what nancy pelosi had to say. And another misguided responsibility, secretary mnuchin had said he would end many critical emergency lending initiatives at the end of the year. Now why would they do that . Drawing a rare rebuke from the senate. That really speaks out. As the fed said in a statement, it would prefer the full sweep of emergency facilities excuse me, facilities established during the coronavirus pandemic to continue to serve their Important Role as a backstop for a still strained and vulnerable economy. The fed. The fed. Would prefer the full sweep of emergency facilities to establish during the coronavirus pandemic continue to serve their Important Role as a backdrop for a still strained and vulnerable economy. It is highly unusual for the fed to comment in that manner on something said by the secretary of the treasury. Gain, why . Because they want to impede the ability to have the next administration to have everything available to them. Host we will hear from timothy in largo, florida. Good morning. Youre next up. Caller hello. Good morning. His is tim lewis from largo, florida. I know that on tv before. I have nearly been affected all worse by the pandemic. The only thing that happened is changed jobs because at instacart, i get paid better than my second job. I still kept my first job at publix. They hired too many parttime people and i was down to 14 hours. That was a week in some cases. Host how instacart as a job treating you . Caller well, instacart cart start going down dramatically on the hours due the fact got their jobs back or went back to work. So i ended up getting a third job at Family Dollar and work at instacart to pay for my car insurance. Host timothy in largo telling his story. We will hear from matt from maryland. Hi. Caller how. How are you . Host im well. How about yourself . Caller im hanging in there. Im a Business Owner in maryland. And this pandemic has hit us in an entirely unique way. So were basically competing against unemployment, you know, to employing people. Weve got an attitude out there of why when i can make as much or more money by not working . And from an employers perspective, were having to strive so much just to make, you know, ends meet, just to make payroll, just to make what we were making prior to the pandemic starting that i got not be honest with you. Dumping more money into the, you know, into the p. P. P. , all that stuff the 2. 5 trillion that the democrats want to spend, its going to put people like me out of business. Basically, we wont have the workforce to be able to do our obs. Host what kind of business do you do . Caller were a remodeling business. We are in and out of their homes it is already difficult to convince customers and guys to expose them and us to each other on a regular basis. So its just a very difficult time. I mean, were better off than some throughout the country and so im very thankful for that. But i think just moving forward, this reckless throwing money, you know, like it grows on trees just is you know, at this point, my work ethic and our skill set is the most valuable thing that we have, you know, when we work hard to save money, to put money away, to be financially responsible as a business, you know. When that does, it sets us apart because everybody else is being handed money like it grows on trees. It becomes frustrating from our end, and almost discouraging to a point where you just want to kind of give in and play the game that everybody else is playing. Host matt in edge water, maryland, is a remolder. One other aspect of the economy to some then stock market, wall street journal reporting this morning the s p 500 currently on track to end this week near record high saying that futures tied to the dow industrial average index is ahead of the short trading sessions the blue chips breached the 30,000 milestone for the first time in history before sliding lower on wednesday. Trading was suspended thursday for the thanksgiving holiday. This has the contract ticking up suggesting that it may raise his tepid loss on wednesday. When it comes do that dow hitting 30,000 and above. The president comment on the state of the dow and heres what he had to say. President trump i just want to congratulate everybody. The stock market, daniel jones do you jerry jones just hit 30,000. That is the highest in history and thats despite everything thats taken place with the pandemic. Im very thrilled with whats happened on the vaccine front. Nothing like that has happened medically and people are acknowledging that and is having a big effect. But the stock market just broken 30,000. Never been broken, that number thats a sacred number, 30,000. Nobody thought they would ever see it. Thats the ninth time since the beginning of 2020 and its the 48th time that we have broken records in during the Trump Administration. And i just want to congratulate all the people within the administration that worked so hard and most importantly, i want to congratulate the people of our country. Host text from chris he lives in puerto rico. And he is saying hes retired, saying that how the pandemic affected my finances help my finances. I did not have many places to discretionary spending. Expending. I still gave as much support to local businesses and other small retailers as i could help them keep afloat. And get taxes. We will have to get raised. The borg that weve done. Matthew in des plaines, illinois, saying ive been blessed to have money coming in even landed a new job. My finance has kept disappearing from my account. And most on the income is going towards medical debt. The covid19 pandemic is eating away at my health. I need another stimulus check adding stay strong, america. Have faith in god and all will be well. Scott from georgia. Scott in georgia, hello. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you, peyton . Host im well, thank you. Go ahead. Caller i am a Health Insurance broker. And i thought i would have a major drop in income when this first happened, but surprisingly, everything has been steady. I have not had an increase in money but ive certainly havent had a decrease. Very thankful for that. Some of your other callers have mentioned i have adjusted what i do. I dont travel. I stay local. I may go an hour or two away for the beach. I dont go to games and concerts. And entertainment type functions. So actually, ive probably ended up with a net savings because of my spending. Ive actually put more money in my home. Ive fixed a roof that i should have fixed a while back and we eat more family meals. We like to get back out little bit but theres actually been we feel like theres been some good things that have come from this pandemic as far as the familys concerned. Host i use the term normal in parenthesis but once things get back to normal, do you think those practices will continue about not spending or do you think youll loosen up or go back to before . What do you think . Caller i think itll be a gradual thing. Ive been surprised that i hadnt missed things that i thought i would. I dont see myself doing any International Travel for instance. I want to stay i do. Im for sure going to stay more local. I think over time, im sure ill loosen up some and want to live my lifestyle prior to but i see some advantages of this. I dont go i was a big football fan. I used to go to all the games and now, i just dont miss it as much. Ive found other things to do. And that is something a lot of these, you know, pro sports and that type of things, theyre going to have to think about that because i dont think im the only one that looks at it that way. Host thats scott in georgia, giving us his perspective. Being in georgia, a short sidebar, too talk about the two Senate Runoff races the wall street journal highlights the efforts on the republican in this matter. Saying Mitch Mcconnell and the senator from indiana, todd young have told colleagues each of them need to help perdue and loeffler keep their seats for the january 5 races. Senators are traveling to the states to rally voters and tapping their own doeren list to raise money and the races are already set to hit 300 million. The opinion pages of u. S. A. Today, an oped from the secretary of state of georgia whos been in the news much because of the recounting and accountings going there. Under the headline, trump threw me and my family under the bus he said georgia had a widely successful and smooth election. We finally defeated voting lines and put behind Fulton County for disastrous election. This should be something for georgians to celebrate burks those wondering mine lost. My family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him. Elections are the bed rock of our democracy. There needs to be runned fairly and more important, impartially. Thats not part partisan, thats just american. Yet some dont seem to see it that way. More on the thoughts of the secretary of state georgia if you go to u. S. A. Today. Terrence in germantown, maryland. Hello. Caller hello. Im actually, i feel like im doing better than most since i got the stimulus, ive been able to be save most of that money for like car repairs and medical bills to be honest with you. But ive been i see my salary go up since covid start because im working nonnormal hours at my job. So i get a bonus for doing that. Im not traveling as much. I can work from home if i need to. Im saving money doing that. And since im not going on vacation and visit family, im saving money doing that. And i admit im feeling better than most people. Host what kind of work that you do . Caller i so i. T. , tech support for the i. T. Company in the area. Were essentially essential employees. We have to be available to their their phone calls if they have any questions about our software. So i spent thanksgiving on the weekends and holidays. By helping out our clients. Host terrence in jerry tantown, maryland. Next is keith. Keith in new jersey. Hello. Caller hi. I have two comments. But im retired and my wife just recently retired. And i think actually, we probably spend less money because we havent traveled at all. We are probably not gone on a 50mile radius since march. But i always wanted to comment about one of the contracter who said that he cant get employees because theyre willing to take unemployment. I dont know about you, but anybody who collects unemployment and finds that be more money than they would get by working, theyre clearly not getting paid enough at their job. I think he should pay people more we have had work done in our place and the contractors say theyre crazy busy. And they should clear i will be able to find people that are willing to work if they get paid a decent wage. Host i was going to ask him what hes experiencing is theyre doing their own home repairs. I think youre relying on contractors for this though. Caller yes. Weve done some things ourself. My wife is busy stage a bunch of cabinets. Weve had paintings and Electrical Work done and we all say that theyve been as busy as theyve ever been. Host we had a caller, the same one or the one before talked about spending habits do you envision a change after some normalcy comes back to americans, at least for yourself as far as your spending of money . Caller yes, i would. Weve done International Travel perhaps once a year for the past four or five years. And thats been out of the picture clearly since covid started. And i dont anticipate it resuming until 2021, probably. Host keith in new jersey giving us a call, telling us about his situation the Business Insider story that i showed you with the charts. It also charted with how americans are spending before the pandemic, tracking back to august of 2019. And then Going Forward to august, 2020, to compare and contrast. More people spending money for electronics a year later. Home furniture, and Home Appliances as far as increases in spending. But if you look at vacations in 2019 of august, 30 of those saying that they were spending their money for a vacation. Compare that to august of 2020, only 12. 6 of those. When it comes to vehicles, 11 of those say they were saving for that last year. Only 8. 3 this year. And home replayers, just about the same with a little more spending this year than previous. Theres a lot of charts there to too with that story if you want to look at that and see how people were talking about their finances and looking at charts for that. Lets go to darrsheen in new york who is unemployed. Hello. Caller yes, hi. Im calling in before i told them we need a second stimulus check because there are single parent like me who have three kids, five kids, and its never enough money. I dont think theyre looking at it the right way. Were not lazy people. Were just drown to the minimum wage is so low and we need another stimulus check to get back on our feet. We dont want to sit home and collect unemployment but we need it right now were in a pandemic. Host what kind of work did you do before you found yourself unemployed . Caller i was a carpenter. Host and as far as when it come it is a second stimulus, if it were to come, what would you think youre spending most ho of that at . Caller on food. And then my rent and taking care of my children, buying new clothes and trying to get them back in daycare. Ost michael is in maryland in williamsport, a small Business Owner. Hi, michael. Caller how are you . Host im well. Caller i got not be honest, i dont think we need another stimulus check. Months. Ads on for six i cant get anyone to show up for an interview. Host why do you think that is . Caller i think everybodys got their stimulus check and they like sitting at home. I have four guys that come to work every day and i could use four more. I got rid of my indeed ad. Its just a waste of money. Im in construct construction and they consider me essential. So we go to philadelphia, we go to eerie. I work in d. C. Almost every day, arlington in virginia. All the big businesses up here like staples and all the large warehouses, lowes, Home Ownership Home Ownership and they hope depot and theyve had these jobs for months theres work out there. People just dont want to go to work theyve created a lazy bunch of americans that are sitting at home collecting money for free. We cant just keep giving money away. Where are we making the money from . Host as a wielder, how much can a wielder earn per hour . Caller i have guys that just friday were making 52 an hour. And my helpers, guys that are Just High School Just High School graduates. They need a drivers license and need to know how to read a tape measure. Host michael, are you still there . Caller yes, im here. Host for the welding part of it, what do you have do to become a certified wielder . Caller i sent my gentlemans to school, it costs me 4200. I paid for it. I pay him minimum wage. The two days a week he was in school. The other two days a week, he worked for me. And it took him 90 hours to get that certified. Host michael arc wielder there. Where is williamsport in the state there . Caller im on the west. Western maryland. Im in the very small part of the state where p. A. s next to me and West Virginia is on the other side of me. Host ok. Michael in williamsport, talking about his wielding experience for he and his worker. Weve set aside on the line for this. From elaine in massachusetts in newtonville. Hello. Caller hello. Host hi. Youre on. Caller oh o. Im retired, age 80. And im losing a lot of money on my c. D. s, bank interest. And im noticing a lot of prices are increasing, and particularly on groceries. So its causing sort of a strain. Host so youre looking when it comes to your certificate of deposit, youre saying youre not making anything the as far as the money you put into those . Caller very little significant difference. Host and whats your thought about the stock market about moving that, i expose maybe thats something you wouldnt consider at this point . Caller well, i moved some off of stock market which created a quite a bit. I moved some of my accounts off of the stock market which and now im not earning any. Very little little. 25. Host what prompted you to to make the move . Caller i figured i would keep losing from the stock market. Host elaine in massachusetts there, telling the us her story when it comes to savings and finances. Mike in North Carolina. Hello. Caller hey. How are you doing . Host im fine, thanks. Caller yeah. Im on essential security. The thing im worried about is the democrats are talking about giving medicare and medicaid or medicare or whatever to all. Is that not going to run Social Security for everybody . I worked all my life, paying in Social Security. I worked for the i kept up people that were deadbeats. And they were all on welfare. And they were living better than i was. Ive been a construction worker all my life and im just kind of worried about that. Host in kansas city, missouri. This is may, who is next. Hello. Caller hi. Host hi. Caller well, the covid has not impacted me financially. I am retired. So im living pretty much like i was living prior to the covid. But what id like to make a tatement about is the stimulus check. I dont think everybody deserves to get a stimulus. Those that are unemployed should be receiving stimulus help. Small businesses should be. The big corporations do not deserve to get another stimulus check. Think if they would host go ahead. Youre on, still. Caller ok. As long as they would make an effort to give a stimulus check to those that are unemployed and continue for a while to give them a chance to get back on their feet, thats what it should be. But everybody does not deserve or should get a stimulus check. Thank you. Host thats may in missouri. And then one more call from North Carolina in new hill. We will hear from sophia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I could not get a stimulus check. I did not qualify. Not had a verse affects of my finances but as usual, i continue to help families who are less fortunate. If you could imagine how much that check is, i think its 1,200 which is something that is not going to sustain anyone for any length of time, according to these comments that are being made, and its just ridiculous to think that people on welfare getting assistance are better off not working. You know the truth is that is being told by some of these callers but i do feel for those who are in the food lions. I do hope that something can be done to help the most unfortunate. Host you talked about the amount. Do you think a second round of stimulus checks should happen . Caller should it been rounded up . Host no, should another round be offered by the federal government . Caller definitely. You see all the people that dont even have food and Certain Industries like the hotels, the restaurants, and Different Industries that work with people are not working. They need assistance. Host thats sophia, new hill, North Carolina who finishes out this hour of calls. We thank you for participating. You heard the last guest mentioned. Industries, one of those industries looked at today, particularly today on day after thanksgiving as the Retail Industry and were going to get a snapshot of what that industry expects Going Forward with Lauren Thomas of cnbc. Later in the program, we will talk about the future of u. S. Iran relations with Behnam Ben Taleblu of the foundation for the defense of democracies. Those conversations 2020 was a historic year for women with the election of the first woman Vice President kamala harris. , it happened in the year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the womens right to vote. A journalist on her book the womans hour. About the womans right to vote. It granted women the right to vote. Passes in the house and has to be a two thirds majority. It passes by a margin very small. It passes the senate with only two vote margins. Senators who are sitting after the house passes it in 1918 it takes until june of 1919 before it passes both houses. Then, the senate knew they were sending out for ratification in the states. Most state legislatures were not going to be in session. Of purposeful, to make it more difficult. They had to convince 30 governors to call legislatures back into session to consider the amendment. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on q a. Washington journal continues. Host on this day after thanksgiving, we introduce Lauren Thomas of cnbc who reports on the Retail Industry. Cnbc who reports on the Retail Industry. A key for your time. Guest thank you for having. Host give us a snapshot of what retailers are hoping for this year especially can there to years past. Guest i dont even know where to begin. This is a black friday that is covering the Retail Industry it looks like nothing we have ever seen before. Retailers happen working through this pandemic all year. You roll into the Holiday Season which is the most important time of the year for the Retail Industry. Black friday got its name because it has been this day where retailers turn from the red into the black for the year. Itself can be worth a week of sales. It has held importance in industry for some time. You have this pandemic and black friday has changed. The season is elongated this year and you see deals creeping earlier and earlier. Ive already seen snapshots this morning from various Stores Across the country and youre not seeing those long lines and crowds, people fighting over tvs like we have seen in the past. Companies have to enforce social distancing and policies in store right now. A lot of that has shifted online. It is still important, we are still expected to see record spending, but more of that online and less on stores. It is spread out throughout this Holiday Season. Theirwe ask people about economic impact, youre saying retailers are looking at record spending. How do you square those two things, people being affected financially but spending the season . About thehave talked high unemployment levels and many people are cutting back and budgeting throughout the pandemic. At the same time, you have the National Retail Federation Come out and they put out their holiday forecast and said they anywhereles to be up from 3. 6 to 5. 2 yearoveryear. That is quite an increase. Strongpect this to be a season for the Retail Industry. I think a lot of that is due in part to consumers are cutting back on travel and dining out, spending on these other experiences and things we would probably be doing if we werent in the pandemic. I think he was he that funnel in a lot of gifting categories. Usually this stuff at walmart, youet, macys can sell rather than concert tickets and a meal out. That is what is driving this increases we are expected to see these increases we are expecting to see. I know it is a competing narrative and theres always this divide between the higher income consumers where we are seeing a strong rebound in Luxury Retail which is interesting then you do have in lower income consumers and those out of work that are going to have to cut back the season. Walmart and other stores offer more discounts. Host Lauren Thomas talking about the Retail Industry is time of year. If you want to ask her questions about this, you can do so. If you live in eastern and central time zones, 2027488000. If you live in the mountain and pacific time zones, it is 2027488001. Perhaps you work in the Retail Industry and you want to give the perspective there, it was a call at 2027488002. You can always text us at 2027488003. You can post on social media or on facebook and twitter. Those retail workers, what is their perspective compared to retail owners . Guest it has been an interesting year for people. If you work and industry, you have to go through these obstacles as well. Back in march and april, there was a lot of discussion around teleworkers and he saw Many Companies come out with hazard pay, bonuses for employees that have to work to the pandemic we sign number of furloughs as Companies Like macys had to cut back. They temporarily laid workers off. There was a great article in the New York Times posted a few days ago that called out now as we are entering this second wave in the u. S. Of covered cases, youre not seeing those same benefits or perks in hazard pay rolled out again from the likes of walmart and kroger that did that in march and april. Workers at kroger who have protested more recently in spite of that. I think it is an interesting dynamic or it was more front and center earlier this year. Now we are in the Holiday Season in the thick of it and this is a are and hope that workers top of the line for companies. There spent millions of dollars uncovered cost throughout the year, in stores, sanitation, and things like that. I think it will be interesting to see as we head into 2021 west becomes more permanent. Do we see whats becomes more permanent. Benefits longterm . New and probably a lot of other americans get boxes on their doorsteps because of amazon, do they only market as far as online . Are there online competitors and what is amazons positioning today . 2020, as we round out amazon is expected to take the lions share of retail spending online, more than 30 of online share online sales. You cannot deny they are a huge layer. When you are walmart or target or best buy, that is who you are competing with. Monday and cyber black friday enter that week that amazon and walmart took the largest share of online sales. Them tend towo of been at and around the holidays. Neck around the neck and c and neck around the holidays. Flowe seeing bankruptcies through the apparel industry, we are seeing amazon invest in apparel and rollout more private labels. You cant ever count them out. Yes, you go downstairs in your lobby and baby eight out of 10 boxes are amazon and maybe eight out of 10 boxes are amazon. I think we continue to expect them to be the most dominant player, especially on days like cyber monday. They just had prime day in october and that is normally held in july. It was pushed back because of the pandemic. That really marks the unofficial start to the Holiday Shopping season. Amazonny companies is doing this in october, theyre going to have deals in early october so we have to launch our deals to keep up with them online. I think that was in part tribute it to that holiday spend being full being pulled forward and the Holiday Spending altogether. On the lines,call you can also post on social media to have a conversation with Lauren Thomas of cnbc. We will start with henry in your desk in new york. In new york. Know, whatanted to are these retailers doing to step up with lack of stimulus for people . How are they taking care of employees and how are they convincing people to work for them . Guest that is a great question. I think we have seen some companies do a better job at making at taking care of their employees than others. Amazon announced yesterday that they are going to roll out another onetime bonus for workers, many of them in warehouses. Of poor hear stories working conditions in those work in those warehouses. That is one thing that amazon is doing. It is tough. What you can do as a retailer plexiglasn is install shields at registers and tried social distancing throughout the store, staggering shifts is one way retailers have tried to adjust to make employees feel more safe. Heading out these onetime bonuses. We have seen a lot of furloughs and layoffs in the industry this year. I think it begs the question of what is going to happen to these workers . Will they end up working in a work horse a warehouse environment again as retail moves online . To watch buthing that is just a few ways tellers ensure just trying to the employees but the customers that come in every day. Host we will have from hear from bill next. Hello. Caller i am wondering how you see mall traffic rebounding rain the Holiday Season and how Department Scores Department Stores recover. ,uest malls in particular growing up as a kid it was a tradition for many families to head to the mall after thanksgiving black friday. Malls andwe saw many Stores Closed on fixed giving. The traffic is expected to be down this year. Back calledew weeks for a 25 drop year over year in malls around the Holiday Season. What thatting to see final date is going to look like. You can anticipate there will be a steep decline at malls this Holiday Season. Department stores, too. There often the retailers that drive traffic to the mall, these Companies Like macys, nordstrom, jesse any, sears jcpenney, and sears back in the day. These companies were struggling for the pandemic, really struggling this year. Many of them have been strained for liquidity, had to pull down revolve to have cash to work through this crisis. An evens malls in tougher spot. There trying to get creative. Mall owners Like Simon Property Group have their own protocols and ways to try to entice people to come to stores. Claus atsee santa malls this season, he might just be hide a barrier. Host you wrote about , what hase and fitch it been like for other retailers as they have to determine where they go from here . Guest i have had the opportunity to talk to ceos throughout the pandemic, especially ahead of the holidays. The ceo of abercrombie and fitch, we spoke on the phone recently. How you are working through this especially after this resurgence of cases. They have had to shut down stores in countries like france. How are you working through that is what i was asking her. She talked about this playbook. They have been through this and it has allowed them given that a playbook to work through again given them a playbook to work through again. In the u. S. , they have had to close stores in the u. S. During the Holiday Season. What does that playbook look like . I think one thing retailers with the struggle with in the early days is inventory and managing inventory. Suddenly you have to shutdown your stores overnight and have all this stock sitting on shelves and backroom and beckerman that becomes stale overtime that overtime. Then you are not able to plan not knowing what to from consumers will look like. They had to get hard on inventory in the summer months to think through what do we need or the Holiday Season. We have seen a number of retailers have mentioned that they are in a lien inventory position. That cut down to make sure they dont have too much that they would have to sell through. Ofis going to be a season shaving awaiting demand and see what consumers want, what is a hot item and order as many of. Hat item as they can hopefully not disappointing customers who come to your website and see something is unavailable. That is happening this morning with the playstation 5, that is one item on everybodys list this Holiday Season in the gaming world. At abercrombie, that is one thing she mentioned about inventory. Online as well, managing your website as you see his record cases online. Adobe is crediting that ecommerce sales this year is going to be up yearoveryear. If you have not seen this kind of traffic before, how do you work through that . There are a lot of companies that invest heavily in their website. Just to kind of motivate them to work through this as well. Thingk its another companys are working through. Another ceo mentioned this idea of a playbook that they developed a playbook to work through hopefully work through this better the second time. That seems like a theme right now. Host im sure you have done reporting on this idea of big retail and small retail. Tell that story this year and how it is changed from years previous. Guest it is showing up in the data. There was a survey out from mastercard that says about consumers are focusing and making it more of a priority to shop local. Even women owned businesses or black on businesses this holiday. Many of our favorite mom and pop shops struggle more than these chains during the pandemic. Top of minds more for consumers right now to shoprt local places, local. We want to keep these guys afloat because theyre not received a lot of funding for their businesses. Ae Retail Industry was put in harder position than the restaurants. If you could argue they got more help from the government. It shows up in these surveys that consumers are thinking more about shopping small this year versus the mass chains. That is not to say that walmart and target they are still going to do really well. I think there is renewed focus on supporting Small Business theseat this familyowned businesses have been through. Host for the central and eastern time zones it is 2027488000, for the mountain and pacific time zones it is 2027488001. Perhaps you work in the Retail Industry, that is 2027488002. You mentioned walmart and other businesses that may have gotten assistance from the federal government. There was the ceo of walmart making the plea to congress for more relief pop businesses and small. I want to play some of what he had to say and talk about it. [video clip] moneyple arent spending is much to travel and take vacations. Some of that is impacting retails the category we sell retail in the category we sell. I think the lack of stimulus is showing up in those that are unemployed, Small Businesses, those that need help. In some ways we are having a shared experience because we are in a pandemic together. In other ways we are having a different experience. If you have been let go and you have not had income, you need some help. What we have been saying through the voice at walmart and the roundtable at the administration is that we need we have people that need help. There are some Industries Like airline and lodging that need targeted specific assistance and it is important that happens. This country is so driven by Small Business. Small businesses and families that are disadvantaged need help in ways that some of the rest of us dont and we would like to see that happen as soon as possible. Host the ceo of one of the worlds biggest ceo worlds Biggest Companies making this pitch, tell us more about that. Guest walmart is leaving other ceos not just in retail through this pandemic. He is important to listen to because of that. Companies like walmart back in march when the first round of stimulus checks went out to millions of americans, these sought. S when we saw our earnings come out, we saw a record sale increases for people like walmart, best buy, home depot, lowes. They performed really well and spark in part due to the stimulus checks. It was killing their business. Helpingrk it was their business. But when that dries up, what is next . Where does it go from here. From here . That is why you see Companies Like walmart i know macys has spoken to it as well, they are banking on some sort of stimulus or assistance coming through. It looks like that is going to be early next year. It didnt come in time for the Holiday Season. Many in the industry were hoping for that. Federationl retail was lobbying on that. These businesses saw benefit. Not everyone, though. There has been this divide. I am thinking more about the essential versus nonessential retail nomenclature that has been used throughout the pandemic. Yet Companies Like target and walmart that sell a little bit of everything. They were deemed essential early on and allowed to keep their stores open. Yet the nonessential stores like macys or a gap that just sell apparel and accessories. Those were forced to close and they took a hit because of that. The goods operate online, but there was only so much they could make up online. They are starting to recover now that their stores are able to reopen again, but there was a clear divide their. Stimulus dollars are being spent at walmart and target where you can buy a little bit of everything. Host we will hear from shelby in tennessee. Go ahead. Guest i appreciate you and cspan cash caller i appreciate you and cspan caller i appreciate you and cspan. And food andimited Grocery Stores have,. It is hard to meet ends meet make and sweet. Make ends meet. We are struggling on Social Security because you never know what is going to happen. If you lose a spouse, you dont even get their part. We struggle, too. To betterng forward years now that joe biden has one has won. Because i have been pressed four years under the current president. Because he won i can feel a little better at night. I appreciate you and all the americans and we are struck together. Thank you. Host thank you, shelley. Lauren thomas, go ahead. I think Many Americans that find themselves shy think there are Many Americans that find themselves i think there are Many Americans that find themselves in a similar situation as you. There have been many promotions forughout this Year Companies that have access inventory. You have seen some price cuts which is tough for consumers, but those prices can only which is good for consumers but those prices can only drop so much. Theyre trying to make a profit at the end of the day. The grocery industry has already been a lowmargin business to begin with but it is tough for them to compete on prices. I think everyone is hopeful that 2021 will be a better year. Viewer who asked about Movie Theaters and the like and restaurants and how they go through this correctly and how they plan to come out of it. Can you expand on that . Guest i think it is still relevant. When i think of Movie Theaters and restaurants, a lot of this is at malls as well. It is part of the mall formula of the classic mall. Have a Movie Theater and a Cheesecake Factory and a macys. These other industries have struggled as well. We have seen a number of bankruptcies in the restaurant space and even some Movie Theater chains go under. When you are allowed to operate your business but you still have to have his capacity restraints in place, at the end of the day it is hard to make money when you think of all the cost that are incorporated and keep the lights on everyday. Will rd out there and when will consumers feel safe sitting in a Movie Theater again . I dont know. Moviesome are right now, theaters in most states are allowed to be open with restrictions. Ande is heightened anxiety it is changing consumers psyche. Theyre having to adapt in new york city. Outdoor dining is the new norm and we are going to see what that is like this winter. Everyone is trying to get creative and do with the cap. Creativeying to get and deal with it. Did reflect onme how to because of the year, how do we deal with the holidays. If it wasnt enough, we will see a number file for bankruptcy and that will be heightened in 2021. We are waiting to see exactly how that shakes out but that is something to watch for. Host our guest is Lauren Thomas who reports on the Retail Industry here to take your questions on the state of the industry during the pandemic. For eastern and central time zones, 2027488000. 2027488001 for mountain and pacific time zones. If you work in the Retail Industry, 2027488002. From minnesota, this is daniel. Heartlandam in the and it is almost like back in the days of the gold rush everything went west with. Alifornia me as an entrepreneur and artist, i am struggling with all of that. , it is starts back up like the fire dwindles. To make a perfect thing for the perfect world. To live our lives but we have to live what life is left. I think the spectacular thing is to do it right all the way around together because it is the only way it is going to work as a society or culture. That is what i have. Host what would you like our guest to address . Community, i cant do anything for my community. Have a father because of war all my life but that is another topic. Move on and move the right direction. Guest one thing i would say is i think it is important for retailers to not just think about one market. In new york city, when you think of your consumers, what are their confidence levels at right now . You have to be like daniel and cast a wide net. The Retail Industry is trying to. E cognizant of that everyone is in a different spot. Each store can show you that different profile depending on where you are in the country. Host you talked about new york city, lee from our twitter feed says that new york city has been mauled by giant chains. Small businesses are going out of business or out of business. Guest sure. York and it isew sad to see. The big chains and the small change struggle this year. A perfect example is this new Shopping Mall that opened about a year ago on the west side of manhattan. Spent spanned multiple levels and then the pandemic hit and they filed for bankruptcy. It had hardly been open for a year. Now that is vacant space that is looking for something to move in. Chains, we have been overbuilt and over retailed, especially in new york city. You see a lot of that come up over the years. But i think this year has flush that out on the National Level and Small Businesses as well. You walk down the street and you unfortunately see a lot of small shops are closed up and vacant. It will probably take a few years for that to be built again. I think that will take an adjustment. I talked to folks in the Real Estate Industry and they speak to how much rent has escalated over the years. I think this will finally be an opportunity where we will see downward pressure on rent. Host lets hear from a retail worker in cincinnati. This is mike, hello. Us. I think he has left this is tony from florida he says what effect do you think a what willdown be the impact on brick and mortar establishments. Establishments . Guest i dont think it will be dontnd these retailers scaledhey will see a shutdown like they did earlier this year. Theyre not expecting to see widespread closures and have to work through that again. Happen, it were to could be the death note for a lot of these companies. We said number of companies teetering on the edge. As i was saying earlier with bankruptcies in two to 21, that 2021, thatn could be a sign. The Holiday Season is a make or break time for companies on the brink of survival. It would not be good. Workers, there was a story in the wall street journal that profiled a retail worker of the day and he walks through his story of how he was furloughed and out of work for a while. There was uncertainty hanging over his head and all the sudden he was called to come back in. The retailers figured they could open stores again. That uncertainty is not fun for anyone. We hope we would not see that again because it would be hard for the Retail Industry to go through that again. Host this is joel in illinois. Good morning. Whatr i am wondering Lauren Thomas thinks about the industry thinks about the internet. How was the internet changed the Retail Industry . And ilooking for shoes went onto to google and found i could find them cheaper because i guess there is no middleman on the internet. I am just wondering what your thoughts are on that . Guest that is such a good question. Thousands of people have had that same experience. You see something that is in stores, you google it, you see the exact same item at a cheaper price. It is a nobrainer if you are a consumer, why not just buy online . In large part i think it has been amazon and the pressure theyre putting on other retailers to keep lower prices. You mentioned no middleman, i think that is true. I think a company like amazon has that advantage where theyre able to keep prices competitively low. When you have scale, it is easier to do that. That pushes other companies to compete. You havething you what to do is have a customer search for any item and see that yours is the more expensive option so they can pass over it. Thisnk i mentioned earlier, but we are expecting to see record gains online this Holiday Season. What is going to be interesting is to see how Companies Work through the logistics and supply chain. It is suddenly a more important part than it has ever been. There are so many deliveries with the system, so many packages that must be set out. We are shipping cut offs and deadlines come sooner so retailers can ensure they are able to get your sweater to your doorstep in time for christmas. My words of advice if you are a consumer and you havent finished Holiday Shopping yet and you are thinking when it online, i would place those orders now and you are thinking of ordering online, i would place those orders now. Retailers are seeing a record search in orders. They have to go to their where andes there warehouses shipped those up and shipped those out now. Everyone is trying to work through this. The internet, i think that is going to be a theme, digital dominance. A lot of those sales traditionally done and stores are going to be moving on my. Host here is brenda from new jersey. Good morning. On the tvjust turned and watch the program, very interesting. Thank you to cspan. Have a question you may help me answer. With the new year coming, im a democrat and i would hope they would come to some solution to give a stimulus check. I get a small Social Security check. Food prices have gone up tremendously. I dont buy extravagantly but i do buy food. Too shop in local stores send that money they gave me on the stimulus. Do you have any comment that maybe we would be getting a stimulus check for people who are on Social Security . I will preface this by saying that i am no political expert but i do walk to watch these talks play out. Retailers and consumers are both opal this is going to happen are both hopeful this is going to happen. I dont think we are going to see anything this year. I think that is going to be a 2021 issue. Talks remain ongoing. We are certainly working towards some sort of deal or agreement. I dont think i could give you exact timing on that front. Everyone is still hopeful this is going to get done next year. Host did you get a sense from those in the Retail Community about the incoming joe Biden Administration and are there any thoughts about having a change that way . Guest to be totally honest, i think we often see that retailers dont get too political. You saw if you congratulate the , but theyiden team dont get too political and the extent of how the talk about how this is going to help or hurt business. I think that might be my answer. I havent seen too much chatter around joe biden and how that could potentially help them more than trump. They are very nonpartisan for the most part. Host he wrote a piece about the six ways the pandemic changed retail. You touched on some of these with the advent of touch free shopping, ecommerce, and the rise of the everything store. But you also have a category, big spenders versus penny pictures. Rs. Penny pinche explain that. Guest essentially there is this divide work your seen the middle class shrink and you have this gap between consumers that are very well off and they have a high savings rate, they are storing money away, they have money to spend in this growing group of lower income consumers as well. I think the pandemic accelerated that in the extent that he had millions of americans out of work and driving that down. At the same time, you have a have af consumers that job and because they are not dining out and traveling, they actually have more money theyre putting back into their pockets. I think that is one of the holds that will probably truth to the pandemic and beyond , the continuing divide between these groups of consumers and the shrieking middleclass. Host you also talked about the blow to malls and Department Stores. But you added the casual station ionclosing the casualizat of clothing. Guest oh yeah, if you are like me you are wearing your pajama bottoms right now. We are all at home and i think everyone is pursuing comfort more than anything else. We see that with apartment stores with sales down. Banana republic is a great example. Cap reported earnings and Banana Republic is known for more dressy apparel and it is really struggling. When i speak to the head of the company and she walked me through how they are trying to theagine that brand to fit needs of consumers now looking for loungewear and comfortable angst where everyday. Npd group had a study on comfortable clothing, that this category is going to account for 31 of all apparel sales this Holiday Season. We were already heading in that direction prepandemic, leggings after tes are athleisure. We are not owing out so we are wearing sweatpants everyday. I think it will be hard to revert back to some of these trends once everything passes. I mentioned Banana Republic tried to offer more comfortable clothing. The macys ceo did tell me he is hopeful that everyone will be so sick of wearing pajamas that it is going to be a spike in dressy apparel. We will have to wait and see. Host lets get one more call from bob in minnesota. Caller thank you for taking my call. Cities wherewin the tragic killing of george floyd took place and the rights started. If you go up and down lake street, there is a lot of momandpop stores that look like a burned out berlin in world war ii. I think there are a lot of People Living on the edge that dont have food, dont have a job. 40 of businesses are going out. I think the politicians are dancing around with this package. I will give you an example. The right is saying too much in the left is saying not enough. Wet senator schumer passed the package in july or whatever. That was unrelated. I happen to be retired and live on Social Security. The one lady who called in, like her. I am going to predict this, write this down. Afters going to happen is joe biden is swine in sworn in, miraculously there will be a breakthrough because the left does not want anything on trumps watch. Host since you already address the politics of it, to finish off with you, give us what you are looking for today and in the days to follow to give a suggestion retail is. Guest as soon i get off this call i will be talking to folks at stores and malls and hitting some myself. What we want to get a sense of today is traffic because black friday is traditionally a day you do go to stores. Watching to see that black friday is a day you do go to stores. Cyber monday would be we will be looking at commerce on that front. That is what we will be monitoring. The key thing this season and 81 of the biggest takeaways in the Retail Industry is the divide between the winners and losers like i was managing like i was mentioning at start of the show. Buy willtarget, best grab a large share of categories whatnotctronics and where you have these Small Companies that are buying a harder share of the season. I think that will hold true. We will have winners and losers like we do every year definitely this year. Host our guest reports for cnbc, you can see her work at cnbc. Com. Thank you and have happy holidays. Guest thank you for having me. Host we will talk about the upcoming Biden Administration and what it might mean with u. S. Iran relations with benham ben taleblu. That is coming up on washington journal. American history tv on people, exploring the and events that felt the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 7 p. M. Eastern, an interview on leadership with james baker who served as Ronald Reagans chief of staff and secretary. And then later, Eastern Connecticut State University president on the close rumored relationship between james buchanan, a elected the 15th rufusent, and william king, who served briefly as Vice President under franklin pierce. Explorecan artifacts we the Jfk Assassination records the magic artifacts, video taken by supporter. Exploring the american story. Cspan3. S weekend on journalngton continues. ,taleblu the foundation for the defense of democracies senior fellow. With yournot familiar organization, how would you describe it . Guest it is a nonpartisan ink tank in d. C. That focuses on National Security and Foreign Policy issues. It started with a more Regional Focus in the middle east and terrorism. It has layered on other threats as they arose and became more important to the u. S. By power competition, defense policy, things of that nature. Host i suppose the rest of the election,ed on to the how do you think iran looked on . Guest it is an important that wasause when there was a break in the u. S. Iran region relations. The oustingported of the last king of iran. R since then, i runs with the white house has grown. There have been spikes in relations where romney irani officials have wanted to spite washington for a particular policy. If your member the hostage crisis that ended a few moments after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, the hostage takers themselves admit to wanting to spite president carter. There is a slew of regime officials that are happy to have outlasted Donald Trumps economic pressure policy against the Islamic Republic. That is called the maximum Pressure Campaign by the Trump Administration throughout the u. S. Government, it probably its primary uses sanctions to punish the iranian republic rather than negotiate. Tehran saw washington leave the deal as a result of the sanctions policy and tehran try to meet pressure with pressure. You can see irani officials be happy discussions of eight returned to radio under a Biden Administration discussions of a potential return to a deal under a Biden Administration. Enmity iss, irans bipartisan. They are more happy to see the Trump Administration gone. Theyre happy to see their narrative of vengeance dedicated. Host what is the most difficult hurdle for the Incoming Administration. Guest there are several. There are some in washington, there are quite a few brought abroad. As some of itsll allies across europe. Be aan, while there will likely new u. S. Administration in january, in iran there will be elections in june and president will be inaugurated in august. That gives the u. S. Only six months to work with the administration on the nuclear which came from the interim nuclear deal in 2013. Team,den administration some of them can trace origins back to the Obama Administration and some were involved with the details of the deal and the diplomacy towards the deal. There likely to see actual iran and it may unfortunately or oddly motivate washington to try to deliver sanctions early to try to get iran to come to the table early or try to sweeten the deal if they cant clawback the complete steel but amend the changes to hopefully pause the escalation going on between both sides. We have one major roadblock there. We can guess the likely next iran president is going to be a hardliner. Is in the third degree third decade of his career. Their economy is hurting, theyre likely to extract the high price and that could get the u. S. Into a if they want to negotiate or not. Host this is joe biden who talked about the nuclear deal. Returns to iran compliance with the deal, the u. S. Will rejoin the agreement as a starting point for followup negotiations. With our allies, we will working to strengthen the deals provisions while addressing other issues of concern. Out theks to call regime on its pilot shins of human rights. We will work with our partners to reduce tensions and work with regional conflicts including the war in yemen. Yemen. What do you think about that approach . Guest i had a rebuttal to that piece after it was published trying to get folks to think about a theory of your for the biden approach. At the heart of that oped is the notion of compliance for complaints, the u. S. And iran will offer compliance to return to that baseline. The first observation is that the middle east of 2020 is not the middle east of 2015. With the factional situation in iran and the change in tehran and the coarsening of their position despite the weakening of the economy, once they see western interest that means they can capitalize on that and try like matureing sanctions release. Tehran has an incentive to keep laying chicken because it makes the other side less resolute. When we talk about compliance and compliance, we have to talk about phasing and that is something the oped did not mention. It spoke about returning to a nuclear baseline and trying to strengthen and lengthen i think those other work that tony about with talked the deal. To grow on it and add to it. That paradigm i think is going to be difficult. The bulk of the u. S. Sanctions makes a way for a nuclear concession by iran. If you trade away your primary coercion andhment, you try to go again and say we want you to make good on his nonnuclear threats reduce missile tests, sees human rights violations, stop interfering with your nations, stop making weapons, these kinds of things. Because the iran republic is ideologically motivated to be doing those things it has been doing those things as long as it has been around, the u. S. Has no leverage to address those things. The only tools that exist if you take away this policy towards iran which is sanctions and nonmilitary pressure, the only tools that exist if you look at the spectrum are coarsening the position, something donald trump didnt even want to do that much which is military action. Or the other end of the spectrum is more concessions. Was Vice President during the Obama Administration and they did offer concessions. There was piles of cash delivered to tehran. We hope you dont say reversion to those premature concessions. If you focus first is nuclear, youre going to be left with this question of what other leveraged you have to address those threats . That is where i think that oped falls short. Host you can ask our guest about u. S. Iran relations. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488002 for independents. You can text us on 2027488003n facebook as well. How would you describe the state of Irans Nuclear arsenal, as it stands today . Guest iran does not have a Nuclear Arsenal when we talk about weapons, at least not that we know of. Iran has a robust Nuclear Program that was not dismantled or destroyed by the jcpoa. Some of it was nearly paused, put into storage. One year after the u. S. Left the onar deal may 8, may 8, 2019, iran began its own policy of overtly violating that deal. When you look at Irans Nuclear program today, they have 12 times the permitted stockpile of low, enriched uranium on their soil. Reports of what they could do with it, they could get one to two bombs worth care that is quite a change from the jcpoa baseline. The jcpoa baseline was designed to keep iran about a year away from a Nuclear Weapon and to p no more than also this past year in 2020, while the u. S. Continued its sanctions pressure and escalations through sabotage, likely through u. S. Partner innovations many are talking confirmation, no of course, but it kind of complementary sabotage to supplement this u. S. Sanctions pressure. You have seen the centrifuge facility, which spain uranium quite fast to purify it. Reaction facility was destroyed through such sabotage attacks. I think tehrans interest in keeping this program more hidden from the eyes of the International Community is true. Iranians have a slew of facilities are now overt, but many were covert. Iran has incrementally been leaving the jcpoa. It has done things to remind us that, at one point in time, many of these facilities were actually secret. Iea wonders, while the iaea is inspecting, which ones are covert. And the question a possible military dimensions to Irans Nuclear dimensions, house or how thoroughly some of these Research Facilities were charted, if at all, and what elements linger today . There are a lot of answers but also a lot of questions. Looking at the incoming Biden Administration, they may look at the worries they have, which is the growth in Irans Nuclear output since 2015, in particular since 2019, when it left the deal. I fear this hyper focused on one element, trying to put Irans Nuclear development back at the level established in 2015, would come out the cost of knowing other issues. Host we have calls online for you. Boston, massachusetts up first, doug. Caller anybody who knows anything about the middle east knows that the foundation for the defense of democracies is an unregistered lobby group for israeli interests. Now heres my question for mr. Taleblu. Currently, the law of the land the foreign assistance act, which states any country that possesses or produces Nuclear Weapons without having signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty shall not receive United States foreign aid. Currently possesses and produces Nuclear Weapons. The nuclearo sign nonproliferation treaty, unlike iran, and is also the largest recipients of United States foreign aid, 3. 8 billion per annum. Wrong with this scenario we know what it is host we will let our guest address it. Guest i am no expert in israels Nuclear Program, but there is great literature on its. To assess theed scale and scope of Irans Nuclear program. I will ignore the slander against our organization, likening it to be some sort of foreign lobby group. In essence, there has always been this talk of what countries the middle east do have Nuclear Capability and the threat of those countries with civilian Nuclear Programs were cunning becoming military Nuclear Programs. You had multiple debates about the future of a Nuclear Weapons free zone in the middle east. As long as you have rising threats to that order, particularly questions over the scale and scope of irans program, we may not be able to adjust the full scale of other countries latent Nuclear Capabilities. I think some of that needs to be addressed to the history of u. S. Israel second, when you are looking up proliferation in the region, perhaps it is best to deal with some of the emerging threats. Host our next call from washington, d. C. Grant, go ahead. Caller my question for Behnam Ben Taleblu i guess i would like to know if he is israeli, following up on the previous caller. The law is the law. The amendments referred to by the previous caller require every president to notify congress when they are going to give aid to a nuclear proliferator. Sponsor ofding state Nuclear Proliferation in the middle east is israel. Its removed material from the United States illegally, it has conducted nuclear tests, it has misused peace infrastructure host sense of the last caller address this and our conversation is about iran, do you have a specific question about that . Caller how can the u. S. Possibly pretend to be against Nuclear Proliferation when we have this giant exception for ael and all of these host we will leave it there. Guest the question is is Nuclear Proliferation in the region proliferation is the key, which implies the spread of the material. That is something we have to be concerned about, given their reach into europe, given that you had germane intelligence agencies talking about iran going shopping for materials for its weapons programs shopping and places in east asia as well, to improve its missile capabilities. There is great concern to address this rising iranian challenge. One helpful framing tool again, i am not a scholar of u. S. Israel relations. But one framing tool is status quo and antistatus quo actors. If you use this lens to look at u. S. Interests in the region, you will see continuity in the way the u. S. Has acted in the cold war and into today. Some of those trends, when you look at the status quo antistatus quo debate, some of the trends will tell you that despite republican and democratic administrations, the support for democracy has been there, but most importantly, you will see the u. S. Committed to stemming the spread of these technologies, in particular trying to stop these technologies from reaching the hands of revisionist groups. Iran made a conscious choice to be a revisionist reactor. There are countless u. S. Attempts to reach out to the republic. At the offer look of big to big, there is an offer, trade offer, to give iran a full political normalization. So when you are talking about military support or nonproliferation, the best tool to see this through, when talking about u. S. Interests in the region, is what kind of actor are we talking about . Does the caller really have concerns at night about potential Nuclear Capability in japan, for instance . Does a caller have concerns at night when he goes to bed at about the Nuclear Capabilities of countries like zillah and argentina in the past . Does the caller know that taiwan used to have an interest in Nuclear Capability . Does the caller know that the netherlands had a robust infrastructure at one point, commercial infrastructure . The point is the actor matters here, and the Islamic Republic of iran is a qualitatively different actor in some of those estates we are talking about today. What you talk about persistent u. S. Policy, you want to stem the proration proliferation material toelivery the hands of everyone, but if youre going to be rank ordering your threats, i am sure you would have to focus on the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism, which the u. S. Has done consistently, given the tone and tenor of its relationship with iran. Host we have a viewer who says it is current u. S. Policy that led directly to the expansion of irans capabilities, calling the president s capabilities inept and adding that iran is stronger than four years ago. Heart of8001 at the that point is the fact, objectively, particularly from 2018 we can just go two years ago. Particularly from 2018, Irans Nuclear program has expanded considerably. Even from 2017, iran has done other more risk tolerant things, missiles peace rather than ware in Foreign Military operations they use proxies so that the patron itself does not have to absorb any blowback. When iran feels more comfortable confident using these missiles, touting its violations overtly rather than having to do things covertly, it is because of the new dynamic. In some ways, in the short time, if we look at this as an image rather than a video, yes, iran is trying to respond to an offset u. S. Pressure, but we have to ask ourselves why is iran doing this and have we ever tolerated this before and to what end . Yes, iran is more dangerous when it comes to its Nuclear Program and missile program. One reason is the max Pressure Campaign is actually strangling the regimes revenues, impeding its access to foreign exchange, and the regime is continuing to reference its revolutionary Foreign Policy over public goods or the National Interest of its own country. In this kind of instance, what happens is the u. S. Doubled down and iran doubled down, and you have this kind of escalatory spiral, but ultimately, iran so ofcannot win, the closer and closer you get to choking them out, the more violent their thrashing has to bbecom become. So was the Trump Administration prepared for this kind of flashing . Did the administration appropriately red team irans counters, and did the u. S. Have in place a whole series of diplomatic intelligence, military and economic tools to offset irans offsets . That a a legitimate clinical and legitimatehat is a political and policy criticism to have. But you saw iran accumulate anywhere from seven to nine one wasrth, and no pumping off, and one has to wonder why. When iran has one to two bombs worth of enriched uranium today, which should be stemmed and addressed, but when there is such concern over this volume today, where was the concern beforehand for the seven to nine bombs worth of enriched uranium, and if the sanctions the u. S. , at that point with its partners, had to address the seven to nine bombs worth was traded away to deal with the jcpoa, one should ask isnt it worth making more risks to get a better deal than is poa while iran at the heart of this policy is the belief that it is worth taking some risks for a greater reward. Host from our republican line, pat, youre up next. Caller do you have any insights or projections on loosening what loosening tensions with iran would do, what impact it would have those countries that recently signed a deals with israel . And would a country like saudi arabia feel the need to develop its own stockpile . Guest those are two excellent questions. They get to the heart of the u. S. Footprint in the region, who u. S. Partners in the region actually are, and the way the u. S. Could actually attempt to loose intentions loosened tensions recent loosen tensions in the short term. But when you look out the story of the evolving iranian threat, the picture becomes dangerous and a less worthwhile trade. So the risk reward there is not necessarily worth it. When you talk about some of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries that reached the abraham a court biggest factor driving these arab states in the persian gulf towards normalization with israel is the fact that they have this outsized threat across the goal from iran. In many ways, there has been this covert arabisraeli state level cooperation for more than a decade now, given the rising iranian threat, but the threat risen so much so sident obama talked about both trump and biden talked about ending in this wars. In particular, it sounds like u. S. Will be leaving at some point, that the iranians are rising, and that if you are a regional actor that is a u. S. Partner, you look at and ask yourself who is really the only country that has been successful at rolling back parts of the iranian threat, particularly as it gets to their own borders, and done so without triggering a massive conflict and without triggering what many analysts believe would happen world war iii . Some of these arab states have looked and said it is obviously israel, given the way they were able to impede the Iranian Networks in syria, and i think that is a major motivation for the abraham accords. The more countries in the region realize that and begin to normalize relations, the less and use and abuse the palestinian card as a vehicle for its Foreign Policy. If the u. S. Simply gives premature concessions that are not based in changes in irans regional behavior, not based on policy, it will actually empower the ability of iran to do things like claw at the region and intimidate some of these countries. In particular, this last year, for instance, in response to when these estates in the region see the u. S. As irresolute, they begin to hedge. Is for some of these countries to hedge, so they can use the jurisdiction for sanctions boston. There are countless sanction busting organizations active today. Been tons of them in the uae. Last summer, when the iranians shot down the u. S. Drone, those countries just across the gulf saw that, and some, like the uae, began to hedge. If you have a firm posture, you can restrain the hedge. And you can find a more common in therk to impede iranian threats. You have to prove there is no way out the iranians should not be able to capitalized on our domestic this stage is, or the iranian should not be able to save the simply waits out president s they do not like or play regional actors against one another. We are talking about baseline peace and stability for the region. Because iran is a fundamentally antistatus quo actor, trying to overturn the regional balance, these provisions jersey, we will hear from rhonda. Caller good morning, america. I have a question, but first i have a comment about iran. I truly have all the confidence new bidenld in the administration coming in and making a new nuclear upgrade deal with iran. I truly have confidence in him in doing that. My question to you, and i do not know if americans are aware of this i saw, on the Rachel Maddow show a couple days ago oure donald trump ordered pentagon, or whoever is in charge of there, to destroy our spy planes that fly over the country in the middle east to pick up intelligence, didnt r eplace them. These billiondollar intelligence spy planes, he destroyed them, where now , china can fly over our country and pick up intelligence. He said these planes only flag they have an agreement where they fly only six times a year, they have some type of agreement he actually we only have a few of these planes he ordered them to be liquidated host what would you like our guest the comments on . Caller i want to know if he has any information . Making the ways for russia to take over. He is pulling our troops out of rywhere he is host we will let our guest respond. Guest i am not familiar with the Rachel Maddow story the caller mentioned, but if i am not mistaken, the larger trend in that story was to talk about the destruction of some spy planes. I think the caller may be confusing that with an older treaty the u. S. Recently left, the open skies treaty. Involved the u. S. And russia inspecting each others strategic capabilities using spy planes. The Trump Administration left that because, in particular, it was not really functioning as a tool of verification. It was really a stand in. Nonproliferation scholars have been all over on this. Some have been for leaving, some against leaving. This is not the First Nuclear deal they left here they also left the intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, but that was because of persistent russian violations. Even nato sided with washington when it came to those persistent russian violations. Even previously the Obama Administration had noted those violations as well. This gets to a larger point about what do you do, whether you are republican or democratic administration, when you have deals with u. S. Adversaries, a country like iran, like russia, whomever, where that country is going to take incremental risks to try to hold you in the deal, hold you in a deal that they simply will not adhere too much anymore, that they will begin to violate over time. So the question has been a conundrum for u. S. Policy across the board, across the whole series of geographies, of functional arms control and nonproliferation agreements how do you incentivize those countries to change their behavior . Leave the deal outright, expose the violation, how did you learn of the violation . This will be a challenge for all administrations. It will continue to be this challenge because our adversaries use our rulesbased order against us. They do not necessary like to adhere to the same agreements they think with us over they ink with us over time. They hedge, which puts u. S. Policy at a fork in the road, do you simply stay in the deal when there are changes being made in the strategic environment that render contentions concessions moot . It raises this larger question that is more important than the russian or chinese or iranian threat individually. It gets to how do you change your adversaries behavior th rough coercion and diplomacy . The u. S. Has some tools, including leaving treaties, multilateral tools, using military options there is a whole series of tools here. The u. S. Has to prioritize what approach to take first. Whether democrat or republican, try toould first be to get your partners on board. But if youre partners do not agree with you, and you believe putting pressure on adversaries to expose their violations and to get them to change u. S. Interests, you should be willing to go at it alone, and that has been the way the Trump Administration dealt with iran. Host the caller mentioned the incoming Biden Administration. Issuesinken talked about including potentially rejoining the iran nuclear deal. We will take you back to the summer and apply it to today. [video clip] the most fundamental problem for us is dealing with Irans Nuclear program. So if iran comes back into compliance with its obligations, joe biden said we would, too. Having brought the allies back on our side, now they keep asserting an equivalence between iran and the United States, asking us both to calm down. With our partners and allies back on our side, with the agreement once again enforced, we can use that as a platform to try to build a stronger and longer agreement. And with the allies with us again, we are in a much better position to confront irans actions and provocations that we do not like. Right now, most of our partners are spending all their time trying to figure out how to keep the Nuclear Agreement alive, not working with us to deal with irans excesses. Host lets talk about tony blinken, what he says, and how it would apply if he becomes secretary of state. Guest very important comments there. I would disagree with some of them, but it is important, because it shows you how the approach may evolve towards iran under a potential Biden Administration. For instance, he mentioned, first, getting back into compliance, then trying to strengthen and lengthen or deal with these other threats. It is kind of like building a house. If you have a poor foundation, it will be tough to build on top of that foundation. If the goal is simply restoring irans compliance to a fatally flawed agreement, you will not be able to level the house on that foundation. If you trade away the bulk of your leverage just to get a Nuclear Agreement, what leverage do you have to be able to get iran to comply on other threats . Some of these threats have been around much longer than a Nuclear Program. They have been lingering things that are persistent in the way the Islamic Republic conducts itself at home and abroad. Any Incoming Administration would have a tough time, regardless of their view of the jcpoa, because iran is inclined to dig in their heels, and the americanism in the regime has always been high, but skepticism is now high as well. You will likely have a president ial change of power where there will be something that is even more of a hardliner, it and you could see a deja vu. 2005,ould be like 2004, two thousand six. In 2004, you had mass disqualification of reformists for iran who ran for parliament. Of2005, you had the election the holocaust denier in chief in iran. Controlugh they do not National Security, they began to support the unwinding of some of irans previous agreements under the tehran occlusion and the paris accords, which dealt with nuclearcap on irans capabilities. To Irans Nuclear file moved their security, which moved the nuclear crisis. Mass20, there was disqualification of people running for Parliament Inside iran. It became an ultra hardline parliament. A june, 2021, there will be president ial election, where you will likely have a hardliner dominate. Then this combination of Political Forces could help drive the discussion towards, morestance confrontation, despite washington not wanting confrontation. So something that the biting team will have to to grapple with is what if iran says no . Even if their economy is hurting, they were able to outlast some of this pressure policy under trump. There is a persian saying meaning that the spatula is hitting the end of the pot. Irans economy is frying up. Drying up. The biting team begins to loosen up, iran will double down. You could fundamentally return to the very mercantile dynamics that existed in 2013, which is when the iranians realized realized americans need the deal for political reasons more than they need the deal at home for economic reasons. It puts the pieces in place to best america at the negotiating table and resurrect a fundamentally bad deal. One morehave time for call. Illinois come independent line. Jump right in with your question or comment. Caller is a former soldier, first of all, i do not believe in any kind of military option. Secondly, we are not in the position to be telling anybody anything. You leave them alone, they will leave us alone. The iranians are very proud people, like anybody else care they deserve to defend themselves. I do not like the idea that israel can murder people at the gaza border, then reclaim the other guy is the bad guy. We have done this throughout time. So please address that. Dont make it onesided. Gave to pointter and at least equal time for the other side. Thank you. Bitt it is just a little funny that the caller would want to have the foreign minister of the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism on washington journal. My views are the independent views of a scholar focusing on iran here in washington, d. C. But there is something at the heart of what the caller was saying, which is the laissezfaire approach. If you look at the double medic diplomatict the record, it is iran who has shunned u. S. Outreach. You talk about the iranians being a part people. I am iranianamerican. I am proud of my heritage. But there is nothing to be part of, over the past 40 years. We take you now to the house, where members are having a brief pro forma session. The house will be in order. I hereby appoint the on the state. D j. Signed, nancy pelosi. Speaker of the house of representatives. The pro will be offered by our chaplain. Let us pray. Thanks for giving us another day. You have blessed us with all good gifts and just yesterday, our families and communities