Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240703

Comments live. Then Alex Rouhandeh talks about news of the day on capitol hill, including the delay by House Republicans and bringing articles of impeachment against Homeland Security secretary Alejandra Mayorkas to the senate. And then jared bass with the center for American Progress and Christian Cooper of the foundation for research on equal opportunity to talk about President Bidens revised student loan forgiveness plan. Also, lisa curtis, Program Director for the indo pacific on the japanese Prime Ministers u. S. Visit, and the Security Alliance between the two countries in the face of threats from china. Washington journal starts now. Host good morning. Wednesday, april 10. Yesterday, the Arizona Supreme Court imposed a near total ban on abortion, citing an 1864 law that forbids the procedure except his ailing mothers life. It also punishes providers with six years of prison time. The first halfhour, we will get your reaction to the arizona ruling. Publicans, 202 7488001. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. We have a specialine set aside for arizona residents, 202 88003. That is the same number you would call to text us. You can be sure to send your first name, city and state. We are also on social media, facebook. Com cspan, and on x at cspanwj. We will start with an article about the subject from Arizona Central that says abortion in arizona said to be illegal in nearly all circumstances. The article says the Arizona Supreme Court on tuesday upheld a 160 year old law that bans abortions and punishes doctors that provide them, saying that the band that existed before arizona became a state can be enforced going forward. The ruling indicated that it cannot be retroactively enforced and the court state enforcement for 14 days continues in mandates two years to five years in prison for anyone aiding and abortion except if the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother. It requires at least one year in prison for a woman seeking an abortion the law was repealed in 2021. Lets look at what arizonas derek craddick demo democratic arizonas democrat governor said, criticizing it. [video clip] it is a dark day in arizona. Just now, the Arizona Court issued its decision, upholding one of the most extreme abortion bands in the country. And while it has currently stayed, we continue to live under a law that still strips arizonans of their personal autonomy and has no exceptions for women who are the victims of rape, incest, or any regard for pregnancy complication. Let me be clear. Arizonas 2022 abortion ban is extreme and hurts women. The civil war era band that continues to hang over our heads only serves to create marc casper women and doctors in our state. As governor, i promise i will do everything in my power to protect our reproductive freedom. [end video clip] host that was the governor of arizona. We are talking about the Arizona Supreme Court ruling from yesterday about abortion. Here is nbc news that says the white house says Vice President harris will travel to arizona after the abortion ban ruling. The Supreme Court ruled that a 160yearold near abortion ban still on the books in the state can be enforced. Here is what the White House Press secretary said yesterday about that ruling. [video clip] with todays decisions, millions of arizonans will face an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban than they did before. This arizona law, which was initially enacted in 1864, more than 150 years ago, fails to protect women, even when their health is at risk, or in horrific cases of rape or incest. There are now 21 extreme state abortion bands in effect across the country. One third of all women of reproductive age now live in a state with an abortion ban. And all of them, including the one upheld today, upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court, are a direct result of the Supreme Court overturning roe v. Wade. When the president s predecessor handicapped three Supreme Court justices to overturn roe v. Wade, it paved the way for the chaos and confusion we are seeing play out across the country today. President biden and Vice President harris will continue to stand with the vast majority of americans support a womans right to choose, and they will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on congress to pass a law restoring the protections of roe v. Wade for women in every state. [end video clip] host here is an article from axios, arizonas bombshell tests trumps abortion gamble, saying that one day before former President Trump declared abortion should be left to the states, the Arizona Supreme Court revise the law, effectively banning all abortions with the exception only to state a mothers life. It delivered a massive political gift to democrats, who could not have asked for better timing to highlight the consequences of trumps abortion ruling sorry, the consequences of trumps abortion position. Lets take a quick look at part of the video that former President Trump put out on monday about his position on abortion bans. [video clip] now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the vote will be determined by legislation in whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a Different Number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that is what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart, or, in many cases, your religion or faith. Do what is right for your family, and do what is right for yourself, do what is right for your children, do what is right for our country and vote. So important to vote. At the end of the day, it is all about will of the people. That is where we are right now, and that is what we want, the will of the people. [end video clip] host we will go to your calls about the Arizona Supreme Court decision. Haroldin livingston, tennessee. Democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. This is awful what they have done. Women aint going to have a chance for nothing. Women, you better get out and vote and stand up and vote because this is pitiful. Theyre going to be little girls and women dying. It is just not right. This aint biblical or nothing else like that. God would not put anybody in this kind of punishment. A lot of this right here is coming from the churches. If donald trump says this, you can bet it is nationwide. It is all about keeping control of women. Womens rights matter, womens lives matter, and i think god will stand up and vote and vote and vote, and thank you so much for having a show about this this morning because two women, this is important to women right here because this is a matter of life and death. Women vote. Thank you. Host lets talk to ben in pennsylvania, republican. Caller good morning. First of all, i would like to see my heart truly goes out to any woman who has had to make this difficult decision. Talk about this in terms of politics, so i feel like we are desensitized to what should be a sensitive issue. That being said, to quote President Trump, it has to be the will of the people, and when he said it should be up to the legislature of each state, eight vote or, frankly, both, legislature and vote, to a certain extent i agree, but i would prefer it be a vote of the people and each state versus a law passed by the legislature. So, overall, i do 100 agree it should be left up to the states and that should be the law of the land. Host do you disagree that this is being handled by the courts . In this case, this was a Supreme Court decision. Caller oh, in that case, my apologies, i understood it as it was a law that they decided the state constitutionality host the law was from 1864. So the Supreme Court decided, yes, we can enforce that law. Caller understood. No, i mean, if it is a Court Decision like that, no, i think there needs to be more say on that versus justo unilateral decision like that and arizonas case. Host lets talk to trish, democrat. Caller i would like to thank ben, for a man to stand up and say that in this day and age, you just dont hear men trying to come out and support as women, so bravo on that, and as far as all the state rights, it was a u. S. Constitution that had this all settled until the former guy had to stick his nose in it and dillydally around and would like to tease everybody, so that happened. He is the one who started it, and then he makes everybody else do the work. Im retired. Actually, a retired labor and delivery nurse, and some of the crap they pull out pulling these babies out it doesnt happen, people. It just doesnt happen. My point is, if that is what hes going to do about the abortion rights, how soon and hard far behind are they with, well, the states can decide their own Social Security . The states can decide their own medicare . Oh, like i could believe that. I do have one last thing to say, i would like to say thank you to all the military people and their families for their service to our nation. Thank you. Host thats dr. Joe, independent, new jersey. Lets talk to joe, independent, new jersey. Caller i just wanted to say a couple of things. This is not about women. This is about the baby being killed. It has nothing to do with the women, and if it was about the women, they keep on saying they have the power, it is their body, they have the power to do what they want. Well, why do they keep on getting pregnant . One other thing, i dont think the government should pay for all of this. If they have a couple of five minutes, 10 minutes of joy, they should pay for this, the abortion, nobody else. Thank you. Bye. Host this is the latest map from the Washington Post on abortion access. So the dark red color here is a an on all is a ban on all or most abortion. The great is it is still legal. And you can see here that the origin color is banned after 12 or 15 weeks, but florida and arizona have a new ban taking effect, so florida, six weeks, arizona, we are talking about that right now. And we will go to eddie, republican, city sits massachusetts. Caller good morning. Im a christian, and i believe killing a baby is a mortal sin. I believe moses came down with the 10 commandments. I believe muslims and buddhists all believe something the same. They believe when a baby is born, it is already nine months old. As a taxpayer, i do not believe that government should be aborting babies. I thought roe versus wade said that you could not abort a baby, you cannot convict the doctor or nurse, but what im against, we do not believe we should be paying for abortions. Host andy, if it was paid for by private insurance, would that make a difference to you . Caller right, if you wished to abort her baby, that is your responsibility. Not government. The father said Something Like we should make no laws, but atheists and agnostics, communists abort babies. China said, you can only have one babies. So governments there abort babies. Russia kidnaps babies. This is what authoritarians do. I do not believe government should be responsible for a womans pregnancy. Host got it. And here is axios that says republicans rushed to distant from disaster arizona abortion ruling, saying that republican candidates are scrambling to create distance between themselves and the Arizona Supreme Court. They upheld a near total ban in the state, and they say it is part of the difficult balancing act republicans have had to perform since roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Just on monday, former President Trump put vulnerable House Republicans at ease by stopping short of endorsing a nationwide abortion ban. Lets take a look at when reporters tried to question Mitch Mcconnell about his reaction to the arizona decision and former president s stance on a federal ban. [video clip] the Arizona Supreme Court moved toward a total ban on abortion, [indiscernible] are you concerned . You are asking me about an Arizona Supreme Court decision. I have not taken a look at it yet, but im certain, as you are, that this whole issue will continue to unfold during the course of the campaign. Leader mcconnell, do you agree with former President Trump that this issue should remain with the states and it should not be a federal ban . [end video clip] host that was from yesterday. We are taking your calls on the topic on the Arizona Supreme Court ruling, saying that in 1864, a law banning abortion in all cases except for the life of the mother, can be enforced, and here is horace in pennsylvania, democrat. Caller hello . Host hello. Caller good morning, my dear. How are you . Host im doing great. Go right ahead. Caller this foolish man, donald trump, has ripped this whole unfortunate thing upside down on its side. When this foolish man put those judges on the Supreme Court, he made it bad for every living woman in america. This guy is no good. And hats off to all american women who know what theyre going to do. They are going to make sure that this idiot does not become president. Thank you, my dear. And host janet is a democrat in youngsville, pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host go right ahead. We are listening. Caller i think what brought all this abortion stuff on his all the old men running our country do not want to have their grandkids in the armed forces, and it is the less privileged kids who fight for our country. Not everyone can claim they have achilles heel. Im just saying, step up, women, and go vote. Thank you. Host all right, janet. Jeff is an independent in wisconsin. Caller good morning. Thank you for my call. First time ive called in, so i appreciate it. I just wanted to maybe ask cspan, sometimes you have guests on, maybe someone can talk about the history of abortion in the United States because what i heard this law back from 1860, thinking if you put yourself back in 1860, they talk about women could not vote and all these things, and i was thinking, 1860, they probably did not have abortions within the first 15 weeks. They probably had to wait until the birthday, the birth because they wanted to save the life of the mother, so maybe they had to have abortion at that time and not the first 15 weeks. I think people should get out and vote. And change the laws so they are more modern. Thank you. Host robert is next in michigan. Independent. Caller good morning, how are you doing . Host doing great. Caller i have one statement about this, i dont think it should be, you know, arizona im sorry. Inc. About it like this, back in 1864, when they made that ban, the procedure itself, i mean, anything about it back then, they did not have none of this stuff to provide a good safety procedure, and that is probably maybe one of the reasons they banned it back then because you know, im just theorizing it is possible there were a lot of complications, and maybe there were a lot of deaths to women because of the procedure itself and how they did it. Back then, it was pretty nasty probably. But, now, the procedure is done in a pretty safe, sterilized way , and that is all i have to say about it. I think it should be up to womens choice. Host this is frank on facebook, houses, arizona, florida, and a few other republican run states around the country are going to get a reality check in november. They have pushed women way too far since the roe decision. Lauren on facebook, the provision of any state abortion law allows it if the mothers life is endangered, but this falls down to state rights which was the whole idea behind the Supreme Court. Dennis is next, this, tennessee. Mccright. Caller democrat. Caller good morning, mimi. Host what do you think . Caller i was listening to what the caller from new jersey said, it had nothing to do with women . Well, he said this has nothing to do with women. This has to do with a bunch of guys sitting around saying, well, we say you should not do this. Well, that is one thing, this is all about women. It has nothing to do with women, but please, come november, women, let them know what you stand for. Please, come out and vote, women. Thank you. Have a good day. Host francis in michigan. Democrat. Caller hi, how are you . Host good, how is it going . Caller well, i think the world is overpopulated right now and something has to happen. Host you think abortion is the way to deal with that . Caller well, it is one way. Maybe there is someone who needs to be looking at it really hard and needs to have a program on that. Host we will talk to kyle and new york. Republican. Caller good morning. The problem i have is the Supreme Court really did our country a disservice because in some regards, they overdid roe v. Wade and get it back to the states. The Supreme Court justice is that some people complained about, they were questioned and asked if they were going to do anything to roe v. Wade, and since you had the trump ministrations and Obama Administration, they all said that it was law, and they were not going to touch it. What did they do . They touched it. They give it back to the states. You have liberal and conservative states, and conservative states, now you have this whole mess of things that we probably did not deal with in the 1980s to early 2000 and stuff like that, and it is just sad because as a republican, we are supposed to be limiting government intervention. Not any type of religious values. We are democracy, and that is one of the reasons why i have a problem with the Republican Party because they seem like the democrats are old, getting into other peoples business, telling them what to do. That is a problem i have with the Supreme Court really lied. We cannot trust anybody anymore. They requested in the Senate Confirmation hearings and said, no, they were not going to do anything, and what do they do . They did it and they screwed us. Now, we have this mess for the election, and congress is talking about im this and that. Well, you cannot go back to the old backdoor days. Dont people understand regardless of your personal opinion, if a woman has a right to choose, she has a right to choose. Idle know what i do not know what is going on in a persons heart and i dont want to make that decision. And that female caller, she is right, we have all these men making decisions for women. Im sure some women out there dont believe in abortion because they are catholic, christian values or whatever, but, again, the people out there who, again, they do not want abortion, but they dont want to take care of the child until they are 18 or 20 years old, so the keep cutting funding for this with that program, so you support the child while they are here, and god supports them all the way through college. Host as a republican, what was your reaction to former President Trumps decision that he just put out . Caller i liked the decision actually, and i hope he doesnt back down from the party because he was never really republican anyway, to be quite honest. It is true because what an election does is you are going to have people who are going to vote strictly off of abortion, which is sad because we have a lot more issues to deal with than just abortion. I hope he stays strong to what he originally said. Thank you. Host roy, democrat, florida. Caller yes, this is roy. Host go ahead. Caller yeah, im older than roe v. Wade, and before roe v. Wade, they were still abortions going on, and in my hometown, there were two people that i knew that did these abortions. One was a hairdresser, and the other, they called him dr. Johnson. He was a janitor at the hospital , and i know a rich girl that got pregnant when she was in high school. She got a holiday in europe. I also know of a poor girl who got pregnant by a rich kid, and the hairdresser did her abortion , and she bled to death. I do not want to see our country ever go back to that. It is just ludicrous that that is where the Supreme Court justice is that all lied to get in their position stand. Thank you. Host anne is next in maryland. Caller good morning. I have one major thing to say. For all the people who keep pulling the bible about thou shalt not kill. They need to look at the cooccurrence of the Death Penalty and limitations on abortions. Almost every state, save one, that has limitations on abortions, has the Death Penalty. So, they do not want us to kill an unborn child, but it is ok if we kill somebody who is already here . That just makes no sense to me, and i have a son who was a pastor, and i can tell you, we argue about this all the time. Additionally, there were some gentlemen thats the wrong term. He was so crude. Who said, if the woman has five to 10 minutes of leisure, she should have to pay for the abortion. I think he forgets about the kids to get raped and have incest jewel situations. That is just wrong. Thank you for taking my call, and i ask you people that think we should have limitations on abortions, what are you going to do about the fact that you kill people who are already here . Some of whom say they did not commit the crime. Thank you. Host on the independent line, rosemary in new jersey. Good morning. Caller hi, yeah. I was wondering, why cant arizona do what ohio did i just put it on the ballot . And ohio is allowing abortion. To me, it sounds very simple to just do that instead of having all this, you know, making mountains out of mole hills. Thats my opinion. Host that is what florida is going to do, but the band is going to affect before november when it gets to the ballot. So there will be several months. Caller they cant do a special session . They do it for other things. Why not this . Because i mean, the law is old. And nobody is going to abide by it, but that is what i think. Host we will get one more call, build, mean, republican. Bill, maine, republican. Caller im just saying, the Supreme Court made this decision, and now it is up to the state legislator to change the law. I dont know why people are going crazy. You just have to go to the state legislator. Host a lot more to come. Next, we will talk about House Republican decision to delay the impeachment proceedings against the homelands security secretary. And we will talk about it with Alex Rouhandeh, and then jerrod bass of the center for American Progress and Preston Cooper of the foundation for research on equal opportunity discussing President Bidens new student loan forgiveness plan. We will be right back. Since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, cspan has provided complete coverage in the halls of congress, from the house and Senate Floors, the congressional hearings, and committee meetings. Cspan gives you a front row seat on how issues are debated and decided, with no commentary, interruptions, and completely unfiltered. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. 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Find our podcasts by downloading the free, cspan now app, or wherever you get your podcasts, and on our website, cspan. Org podcasts. The house will be in order. This year, cspan celebrates 45 years of covering Congress Like no other. Since 1979, we have been your primary source for capital hill, providing unfiltered view of government, taking you to where the policy is debated and decided, all in support of americas cable company. Cspan, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back. We are joined by Alex Rouhandeh, a Congressional Correspondent for newsweek. Welcome. Guest thank you for having me. Host impeachment articles for Homeland Security secretary mayorkas were supposed to have been delivered to the senate today. They have decided to delay the delivery. What is going on . Guest we all thought that the house would start its formal proceeding of walking the impeachment articles over to the senate to begin things for the week, but Senate Republicans, particularly conservative members, spoke up and said they believe it should be delayed so it is not falling on the preceding on thursday but the last week of the congressional workweek. For people at home who do not know, members generally fly out of d. C. At the end of the thursday workweek, so republican senator mike lee of utah said he did not want jet fumes to affect the thinking on this. So republicans would like things to start at the beginning of the week to keep more attention on this issue with the hopes of maybe extra attention to swing moderate democrats who may be more inclined to hear a full trial. Host by the way, secretary mayorkas will be testifying in front of both sides of the hill on the dhs budget, so the House Appropriations hearing will be at 10 00 a. M. , live on cspan three, also on cspan. Org and cspan now. Then he will testify in front of the Senate Appropriations committee at 2 38, also on cspan3, our website and app. Regarding impeachment, you can find all of the hearings, the news events and related documents about the impeachment on our special webpage, cspan. Org meteor kiss impeachment mayorkas impeachment, so you can find everything you might have missed. Going back to the possible impeachment, house and Senate Republicans would like a full trial for secretary mayorkas. Will that happen . What is majority leader schumer signaling . Guest the majority leader said during his Weekly Leadership Press Conference yesterday repeatedly that he would like to see this result as soon as possible. He sees this as a base issue and something that will take a the importance of democrats value for advancing joe bidens judicial nominees, so he would like to end this as soon as possible, whether that means referring it to committee, cabling it, or having members simply vote against it right then remains to be seen. He has been a bit quiet about how he would like this resolved, but he has confirmed he would like to see this taken care of as fast as possible. Host secretary mayorkas will be on the hill today. Talking about the budget, are we expecting anything besides the budget to be brought up was to mark it seems a little awkward. Guest it is an interesting split screen of mayorkas addressing his more formal duties overseeing the department of Homeland Security. At the same time, have this intense issue of impeachment. You know, he is going to be focused on the budget and things he believes his Department Needs to ensure his country is safer, with the border particularly, but as we can expect, these hearings could turn contentious, specifically with the issue regarding the border, which is the reason why republicans brought forth the impeachment articles to begin with. Host we will take your calls for Alex Rouhandeh of newsweek about anything regarding what is going on in Congress Read you can call us on our lines by party, republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. We will take your calls for the next 25 minutes or so. Here is an article from axios. Marjorie Taylor Greene ramps up threats to oust johnston. She sent a fivepage Dear Colleague letter to fellow republicans, laying the case out on speaker johnson. Where does that stand . Guest her letter was extensive, and she has been very outspoken that she believes johnson has thwarted the interests of her party by voting alongside democrats to keep the government opened. He violated a 72 hour review rule to bring that bill forward, so she has been very outspoken on this, and she is saying that other lawmakers support her efforts. That remains to be seen as to who and to what extent if any republicans are supporting her, so with the motion to vacate, unlike the motion to vacate that led to former speaker mccarthys ousting, this one is unprivileged, so it does not need to be brought forth in two days like the last one. It is kind of going to be lingering over his head for some time. She signaled that if he decides to move on funding ukraine, that that could be when she would decide to trigger the motion. Host lets talk about funding ukraine. What is the possibility of that coming up . Guest for ukraine, it seems at this point, nearly half, perhaps a little more or less of republicans supported, however, it is still a significant portion of republicans who have supported it along with almost all the democrats, even during the state of the union, we still see a large number of republicans clapping for the issue of ukraine, so speaker johnson bases pressure on both sides to move on this, so it is a matter of when, if and how he thinks he can do this in the most tenable fashion possible. It is interesting with johnson because at one point, he did not support funding ukraine, but since he has become speaker and privy to the classified briefings, his position has changed a bit, so we are starting to see some kind of support for him and an awareness that things need to move forward. Host despite the reauthorization that needs to get done by april 19, remind us what is at stake and where does it stand . Guest that is a similarly contentious issue and could serve as a preliminary battleground to the ukraine issue. It needs to be reauthorized and it involves warrants for the Intelligence Community to conduct various National Security operations, and that is where we are seeing the divide between the National Security oriented lawmakers and then those lawmakers that favor privacy issues. Really, that is an issue on both parties with democrats and republicans on both sides of the coin. We will see how the speaker decides to navigate that contentious issue. Host on israel, nbc news has the headline turning point, after deadly strikes on eight convoys pushed into conditions for military help for israel. Where is that on House Democrats pushing conditions on the military aid . Guest democrats have been increasingly woeful about this, especially after chef jose andress yes, after they were killed in israel, more and more democrats of come out calling for conditions, so that could make things tricky with this aid package because johnson has said, well, we might like to take the senate bill and make a few changes, perhaps make the ukraine aid alone. However, if he decides to keep israel and there, that could make the vote trickier for some democrats who previously supported moving it through. So if the house does past the state package but it is revised, it has to go back to the senate and that is where we could see issues involving israel and how the democrats choose to handle it. Host lets take some calls. Roy, publican, North Carolina. Republican, North Carolina. Caller good morning. I wanted you to discuss a little bit about the illegal aliens being flown into america by the Biden Administration. Amy, sorry if i get your name wrong, a republican called in and mention this, and you were quick to pull your piece of paper over that someone handed to you in the morning that said, no, that is false. There are no illegal aliens being flown in here, ha, ha, and now it is coming up all over the news, at least the new media, not the old dinosaur media, proving and writing articles on the illegal aliens being flown into our country. I just wanted to know, where did you get your little piece of paper that said, that is not true, you silly republicans . Host im afraid i dont even remember that, roy. Maybe it was not me, but we will get an answer from our guest. Guest yes, im not sure which specific case the caller is referring to. However, when it comes to migrants, if they do cross the border, they can file a silent claim an asylum claim, and legally, it has to be heard. A bipartisan package in the senate would have addressed how asylum claims are handled. However, that package, ultimately, did not advance after republicans felt it did not go far enough in addressing the issue, even though we did see a few republicans, including senators langford, romney, murkowski and collins ultimately support the final package. Host lets talk to clara, new york, democrat. Caller hi. Im calling about marjorie Taylor Greene. I think she is the problem, she and trump, and they both need to be out, especially Margaret Taylor green. What is her problem . Why cant they get rid of her instead of always voting other people out . She is the problem. Guest marjorie Taylor Greene, as you mentioned, is closely aligned with the president. She is a close ally of the former president excuse me he is a close ally of his and often speaks about how she talks to him often still, and with the former president s popularity, she holds similar popularity in her district. Ultimately, those are the individuals who would be responsible for whether she stays in congress, a member cannot be removed in a motion to vacate fashion that johnston pieces as speaker. Host what is happening with tiktok . Last month, the house bill that could lead to a ban on tiktok. Remind us what that House Builders and where does it stand in the senate . House bill does and why does it stand in the senate . Guest it would force tiktok to sell to a company that is not under the control of china, although, tiktok says it is not under chinese control. That is the issue at hand here. So, if it is not sold, then that could lead to this ban. Right now, that bill is sitting in the senate as lawmakers in the Upper Chamber decide how they would like to act on that. Host we are taking your calls for another 15 minutes with our guest, Alex Rouhandeh of newsweek. You can call on our lines by parties. Republican, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. Lets go to edward in new york, new york, republican. Caller good morning. This is a great discussion, but wanted to touch on ukraine. Victoria spartz is voting against the bill, and for the life of me and i dont understand why nobody talks about only being 14 billion in that package for arms. Im sure you know the breakdown, but nobody gives the breakdown. And i am a vietnam vet, by the way, but a lack of excitement on bidens part in supporting the war, hes dragging his feet, metering out aid every step of the way. It took two years to get tanks, two years to get behind morris. They sent a group of pilots to the u. S. To see if they would be suitable for training. I mean, the u. K. And world war ii are trained with 2000 polish airmen. I mean, never on bidens part, you know, speech on ukraine, never used the word win, etc. , etc. Can you shed any light on this . And the last thing i will say, if there were a real emergency in ukraine, you would not be protecting up to 27yearold young people from going into combat, which is what they have done. They will not draft until age 25, and if you are drafted, you cannot go into combat unless you are 27. And people are fleeing the country, etc. , etc. Host lets get a response. Guest yeah, so to your point about the level of support for ukraine, in congress, majority leader schumer has been very vocal about his desire to see support for ukraine, as has leader mcconnell. When it comes to the type of aid being delivered to ukraine, that point that you made about wanting to see additional military supplies provided specifically, that is an area that we see some republicans who are hesitant to provide aid speaking about where they would like to see the support. They say they would not like to see as much of the humanitarian support. They just want to see the weapons. So that is a point that is being made by republicans on capitol hill. It remains to be seen how exactly the house will decide to approach the issue. Host edward, just to clarify something you said about the draft age. This is from the New York Times seven days ago, the draft age was lowered, risking political backlash. It says that the parliament passed legislation lowering the draft legibility age from 27 to 25, but the president delayed signing it but relented on tuesday, and signed the measure, along with laws and eliminating category of medical exemption known as partially eligible and creating an electronic database of men ukraine, starting at 17, to crackdown on draft dodgers. June, south carolina, independent. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller ok. I think we should give ukraine all have they can get. It seems that somebody out there does not know that originally, we thought against russia during world war two, and when they realized germany was losing, they worked with us. Well, now they are taking ukraine. They have already taken their powerplant, their Nuclear Power plant. The want to take the whole country, why not . You offered to give it to them. We should be putting more help for them. It is disgusting. Guest yes, russia, you know, as we know, was an ally at world war ii, and then during the cold war, obviously, the u. S. Experienced significant tensions with russia. For a lot of the lawmakers who came of age during that time, the idea of not supporting ukraine is very disturbing to many of them. As we see how this issue moves in congress, that is definitely a consideration that many lawmakers who came of age at that time consider. Host there is this from cnn that you might be interested in, people are calling about ukraine, it says u. S. Transfers thousands of seized iranian guns and rocket launchers to ukraine. The u. S. Transferred thousands of machine guns, sniper rifles and hundreds and thousands of rounds of ammunition, seized from iran to ukraine last week, according to u. S. Central command, ukraine has suffered from shortages of weapons, as we know, and the u. S. Unable to send more equipment from its own stockpile until more funding is approved by congress, but the material transfer ukraine is enough to equip one ukrainian brigade around 4000 personnel with small armed rifles, these weapons will help ukraine defend against russias invasion, and the munitions were originally seized by the u. S. Military and its partners from four separate transiting stateless vessels between may of 2021 and february of 2023, but the u. S. Government did not obtain ownership anyway, that is the article. We will go to george next in new york, independent line. Caller hello. Host high. Guest high. Hi. Caller nato countries that border russia, if the all worked to get together and stopped relying on the u. S. All the time , and they got together, they could push russia back out of ukraine. All right . They need to stop always depending on us. Israel next more money than we do. They need to take responsibility and stop shooting up everybody. I mean, it is really crazy. We can go on. We have china, russia, everybody is carrying on. They just used america. Them countries are selecting people you want to know, and America Needs to look out for its own people, especially africanamericans. They built this country. Thank you and have a great day. Guest thank you. Yes. It is an interesting point you make. You know, we have seen poland, for example, one of those countries that is one of the most concerned about russia and ukraine. We have seen them provide a significant amount of military aid. To the overall point of seeing europe step up its level of aid, that is the point that Many Republican lawmakers on capitol hill had stressed, the ones that opposed providing a significant amount of additional aid. However, some of the other members state that while we are seeing europe step up its military effort, it does not necessarily have the capabilities to produce these weapons that ukraine needs now at the rate the u. S. Test, so while we might be seeing europe step up a bit more in terms of the military aid it is able to provide, it has been sometime since europe was producing such military equipment at a rate that would be significant enough to support such efforts. Host sandy, republican. Caller hi, yes. Im here. Im a little frustrated to start off, a previous caller asked about immigrants being flown in by the Biden Administration, and then your guest sort of deflected into here is what happens when people immigrate. Well, we already know that. What we are interested in is like the administrations flying people in from other countries to our country. So we would like to have an answer to that. Thank you. Guest yeah, to your point, it is not necessarily a pass of emigrating. A lot of these cases occur when people are seeking asylum. So if it comes to an example of flying in, it is harder to address that, unless it is the specific country at hand mentioned because a lot of these there are parole, which allows certain vulnerable groups to come to the u. S. For humanitarian reasons. But it is hard to know and speak on specifics without knowing what country specifically these individuals are coming from. Again, when it comes to the issue of the border, when individuals cross and the present valid asylum claim or when that could be valid, they are allowed to stay in the u. S. , while their claim is going through the process to be heard in court. So there is a significant backlog in the asylum court millions of cases long, and that leads individuals waiting in the u. S. For some extended time. Again, the bipartisan bill, the senate would have helped to alleviate that backlog to get individuals out of the country at a quicker time, but that will has languished and it seems that it will pass, so that is where we stand right now when it comes to asylum and how that leads to specific groups and migrants coming to the u. S. Host here is a fact checked on u. S. News, claims the Biden Administration is secretly flying immigration immigrants into the country is unfounded. It says migrants are not being flown into the u. S. Randomly under a biden policy in effect since january 2023. Up to 30,000 people from haiti, cuba, nicaragua can enter monthly if they apply online with a financial sponsor, arrived at a specified airport, paying their own way. Biden exercised his Parole Authority which under a 1952 law allows them to admit people only on a casebycase basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. You can drill down a little bit more on that. That is on u. S. News and world report. Bernie, republican, south carolina. Caller yes maam. Good morning. I got a response to the abortion situation. I appreciate what arizona did. I dont like the governor. I think she cheated to get in, but i really think that abortion might have a couple of situations. The average abortion is a sin, against gods law, and that man from tennessee, [indiscernible] we view it as a new downright wrong thing to do. Host any congressional reaction to the arizona ruling or former President Trumps announcement about abortion . Guest well, the Arizona Democratic senator came out strongly against it shortly after and it is hard to not see how difficult the politics will be here come 2024. In arizona, they are looking to put forth a Ballot Initiative to enshrine abortion protections in the constitution, and arizona is one of the key battleground states, with Kyrsten Sinema leaving office, we are going to see a hardfought battle between congressman Ruben Gallego and kari lake, and that race could ultimately decide who controls the senate with senator joe manchin stepping down, democrats have 50 key seats that they might end up with, so that will be a key factor there and abortions and it is sure to have a big impact on the race. Host Alex Rouhandeh with newsweek, you can find his reporting at newsweek. Com. Thank you for joining. Next, jared bass of the center for American Progress and Christian Cooper of the foundation for research on equal opportunity discuss President Bidens revised student loan forgiveness plan and, later, lisa curtis, the Program Director of into pacific security discusses the japanese Prime Ministers trip to the u. S. 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Tell us a bit about the foundation for research on equal opportunities. Guest its a nonprofit nonpartisan think tank focused on using marketbased solutions to lower the costofliving for everyday americans. Host in the center for American Progress . Guest we are a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on building things like inclusive economy, tackling racial injustice, climate change, and of course, education. Host here is the article from nbc news, Biden Announces New plans for Student Debt Relief for millions. Millions. This is the second attempt, so whats different this time . Guest the plan this time, plan b, focuses on categories of borrowers unlike the broadbased options the president first pursued and announced in 2022. Or at least that was proposed. This time, you know, the first group of borrowers centers on those who have been paying interest or have been paying more than what they took out because of interest on their loans. People who have been paying for 25 years or more. Providing forgiveness for them. Looking at folks who have been in low financial value programs, opportunities there, and another group of borrowers providing forgiveness, if they qualify under other plans. The fed group is looking at hardship. We are seeing a more targeted approach as we look at the new initiative for debt cancellation. The first time they use the heroes act, for international emergencies. This time they are doing under the Higher Education act of 1965. Host preston, do you see this as different from what was rejected by the Supreme Court and the reasons it was rejected . Guest its a different legal strategy but at its core, i dont think it is fundamentally different. At its core, its illegal, the president doesnt have the ability to forgive Student Loans by executive fiat. And even the narrative that it is more targeted, the actual plan is not very well targeted. This Economic Hardship category would essentially be a black box for the secretary of education to forgive whatever Student Loans he wants to forgive. There are no real parameters around what constitutes a hardship. This could end up being just as expensive and costly as the loan forgiveness plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court. Host you mentioned the big focus would be on accrued interest. Give us a sense of how many people would be impacted by that. And the borrowers who have been paying for years but havent made a dent in their principal. Guest the administration released numbers this week, we dont have all the estimates that are out there. I dont want to misquote, but i think it is around 20 million or so that would fall into that category, that group of people who have taken out loans and actually owe more than what they originally took out because of interest. I know that the plan as of a hole under all four categories would help about 30 million borrowers, but i think its around 20 million, that first group. The administration has Different Numbers out there for that. Host you could be paying back for years and just never get to principal . Guest yes. Even under some plans, if you are paying less, making payments but its less than what would cover principal and interest, you are paying the interest and thats compounded on the loan. Then you end up paying back more than what you took out. Thats just the structure of the loan program, they charge interest right now. Fixed Interest Rate right now about 5. 5 for unsubsidized Student Loans that people are taking out, the interest is for the life of the loan. Host it varies widely, depending on the type of degrees this is from nerd wallet this is the average debt for the type of degree. Bachelors degree, average of 29,000. Other ones, say for instance, law school, 132. Dental school, nearly 300,000 in debt. Preston, you have written an article called student loan cancellation enters the crystal ball era. What does that mean . Guest referring to the hardship authority the secretary of education is claiming in order to forgive Student Loans. Essentially, this is a black box, a crystal ball. The secretary of education looks at a bunch of different factors, they dont exactly say which factors. They give themselves wide authority to use different factors to basically assess whether a borrower is in hardship and they say well, if the borrower is in hardship, we have the authority to forgive the loans in full, current and future borrowers, and there are no rules around what constitutes a hardship and what kinds of students are experiencing severe difficulty paying back their loans and what just seems like a hardship. What is the secretary of education just calling hardship for the purposes of doing mass loan forgiveness again because they were denied the first time . Host we will open our phone lines. This is how they are split up this time. If you have Student Loan Debt currently, call us on 202 7488000. If you have already paid off your Student Loans, 202 7488001. Everybody else can call us on 202 7488002. You can also text us at 202 7488003. We are on facebook and on x. Preston, we touched on this a little bit, but what are the legal challenges that you think this might face . Guest its the same kind of issue, a major questions issue. Using it as a rule that will costs hundreds of billions of dollars, thats not the authority that Congress Gives away like that. He needs to be explicitly authorized through congress and signed by the president. None of that happens here. For the exact same reason that the Supreme Court struck down the original plan, which would have caused about 400 billion, i expect the courts will find the new plan is legal simply because the secretary of education does not have the authority to forgive this volume of Student Loans without congressional say so. Host what do you think of that, jared . Guest i disagree. The authority being used at this time is under hga, paragraph a, subsection a, dealing with waiver, compromise, and release of Student Loans. Its a pretty broad authority. Hes using the same Regulatory Authority he has used for other repayment plans. If you think about the pay as you earn plan, which came out under president obama, successful, the legality was not challenged, those plans still exist and thats the savings same authority being used here for cancellation. There is also a congressional opportunity for cancellation already built in, right now, through teacher loan forgiveness, ps lf, you name it, the forgiveness exists and has been approved already. This was a law or written by congress that provided this authority to the secretary and the secretary is exercising that authority through the plan, through the alternative. Host do we know about how much this will costs if the loans are forgiven . Guest not right now, that will come out with the final details, there will be a section described in the process around what the plan costs. Host mark is up first from jefferson, colorado. Caller how you doing . Ok, i firmly believe this is my opinion, my opinion only, as you talk about Student Loans back and backandforth, backandforth, nobody mentions the g. I. Bill. I put myself in college on the g. I. Bill, as my brothers did, as my father did, as my grandfather did. I have never met a veteran with a student loan. In fact why, for the life of me i do not understand that you dont push this issue. Five to six years of your life, you get a college degree. Now at the same time that this all happens, we are listening to people paying interest for 20 and 25 years, as one of your speakers has said. How many people have a mortgage . How many have a new car, boat, or rv instead of paying off their student loan . They are playing and buying toys. You can drive an older car. You dont need an rv. You can rent one. Why . Why doesnt anybody talk about this . Why doesnt anyone express this . Lets take the conversation a bit further than im sorry i cant pay my student moan. How many of these folks have turned around and quit college . You listed the categories. Doctors, phds, lawyers, it costs money to educate yourself. Those are folks who make way more money than the average person in the populace. Lets talk about this, they make all kinds of money. When you quit paying on your student loan, maybe you ought to be drafted for four years and we will waive your loan in exchange for four years to six years of service. Host all right, lets get an answer. Jared . Guest i believe that there are Service Members who do have Student Loans. I dont think its as common in the student populace. I want to thank veterans for their service, but it isnt the only avenue or opportunity when it comes to education. There are people within the population who wont have that opportunity under the g. I. Bill. Its great that they have those, but for those who can, we need to make sure we have a functioning student loan system that works for everyone. The gentleman talked about org edges and things like that, you cant live on your student loan and your education. Its different, fundamentally different. I support having doctors and lawyers and such, i believe we need them, but those are expensive degrees. Particular, there might be a payoff 20 years later, but upfront costs, we are seeing a decline in real challenges when it comes to the profession, given the highcost. Host what do you think . Another way for debt forgiveness. We can put these students, they can pay off their loans, maybe four years of giving back. Something like that. Where they are getting the necessary skills, but we are giving back to them the amount of money that we are going to pay off in that loan. There is another way. My name is lehr way and im running as a republican and i hope to be written in come november. Host all right, good luck with that. Go ahead, jared. Guest i wish you luck in his race. The first piece of this is yes, Student Loans are expensive. Its not just people coming from those backgrounds. The amount of debt that people carry has risen. 3500 in 1990 to like he thousand 22. I would also say that this is not the only strategy when it comes to addressing the problem of Student Loans, starting the Obama Administration it was another impact costsaving measure, keeping costs down and providing affordable actions for people. Also, there are a bunch of proposals that the president unleashed or unveiled in the last month. One is the reducing College Costs fund, 12 billion to look at how we actually keep costs down while providing these other opportunities through cancellation to better the system as a whole. Its a multipronged approach. Host chris is in manassas, virginia, and has Student Loan Debt. Caller my issue is twofold. I have tried over the past year multiple times, 30 times, probably, to call, and i have waited half an hour, 45 minutes, i can never get through to the loan holder, servicer, whatever you call them. That is in addition to emails. No response from any emails for ever for a year. Im almost 65. My wife became a paraplegic. Im supposed to prep her for getting ready for retirement and i have 40,000 in Student Loan Debt and i cant even talk to them about maybe getting a more appropriate amount, consider we all if i for wong longterm medicaid, no significant assets, they take half of everything and anything. If we were to sell the house to downgrade to something smaller and use the equity as something to live off of in addition to retirement, i would, they would take half the equity in the house. I dont know, its a grip broken system and i cannot even communicate with the loan servicer. Im trying to prep for retirement. Host what kind of degree do you have . Guest its a bachelors in Geographic Information systems and global mapping. Host and you are getting ready to retire . Guest i would love to. I went to school in 2010 for this degree, graduated with honors in 2012. I hit a wall of age discrimination. I got nothing. All my history was in bluecollar work, repairing aircraft, now i fix commercial kitchen equipment. The employer is not the problem. My income is not the problem. Its just that the debt, my wifes disability, etc. , has loaded me at a time when im looking at retiring, age wise. Host all right, preston . Guest its an important issue, the problem around administering the Student Loan Program and it turns out the federal government is not good at running the loan program. When people try to get in touch with servicers, to get their payments started up again, they can be on hold for two or three hours, they could call 30 times, as chris said. Those are the issues that we need to address here. I wish the department would devote more time to doing the hard work of cleaning up student aid administration, making the Program Simpler to navigate, making sure people can get in touch with servicers to get in touch with the right repayment plan. They are in stand putting their energy into the student loan forgiveness plan, something that will give them favorable headlines, maybe help them get through an election, but its not the hard work of making sure the Program Functions and im worried that in chasing these high profile loan cancellations, the department of education has neglected the hard work of governing. Guest i believe that the administration is trying to improve the student loan system as a whole, from obama to trump, biden, we have done just that, a Service Platform to change the system and a promise from congress, it has been flat funded for a while, some of that is due to cancellations, but there are Real Investments that they have been asking for from congress to say that look, we have all acknowledged there have been problems here, but we really need congress to be investing in the Administration Loan programs in the belief that we have that the office of federal student aid can do so. Host eric, new jersey, good morning. Caller i just wanted to point out that we should be operating under a sense of fairness. I think that biden is potentially alienating at least half of a dozen groups with this nonsense of pandering in order to get votes by forgiving Student Loans. Let me explain very briefly. If you had people that saved up for their childrens education and didnt go on those vacations, i wish biden would tell me eric, guess what, we will replenish your 401 k that you had to dip into two pay for your kids education. There are students who didnt go to better colleges on account of the loan situation. Other students who stayed home and commuted and didnt live in dorms. You have all these groups. Now all of a sudden there is a Forgiveness Program for a very select group of people and it basically, it pokes people in the eye that have made life decisions and sacrifices only to be betrayed like this. Host what do you think about the idea that its fundamentally unfair to the people who made sacrifices . Guest i dont think its unfair. We have Public Policy set up to benefit certain categories of people, and thats ok, as long as there is a rationale to help in advance those interests. The opportunities provided to others when debt was not as high, 1990 and beyond, you could pay back a student loan because the original principal was so low. Its not the case anymore. Some of that has changed because of the fundamental rising costs. The Student Loans may not be like those of years past. I dont think that people should have to sacrifice and soldier on, when we had to have the opportunity to soldier on, taking a look at that to see that we need to make some changes here, it shouldnt be that difficult to access the opportunities in the American Dream. Host he mentioned rising costs. Its going up way past the costofliving increases. Others are saying that college isnt worth it anymore, im not going to get the economic benefit of what i am going to have to put in. What you think about that in the impact of that long term . Guest rising College Costs are absolutely an important issue we need to be discussing, but im worried that student loan forgiveness doesnt address the issue of underlying rising College Costs. The issue is that they feel like they can because they feel they will be subsidized by the federal government and colleges are not holding up their bargain in the terms of using the value they expect from a Higher Education. A lot of students will end up with a degree that doesnt have a lot of labor market value. We should say to colleges that if you need to continue participating in these federal grant programs, getting these federal loan dollars, you have to start showing value, keep costs down, it degrees if you have labor market elements. If we forgive loans without Holding Colleges accountable for what they are producing, we are just kicking the can down the road and be back here five years from now. Host jared . Guest i think we should hold counted out colleges accountable, i agree on that. How we do that, there might be disagreement, but we need to make sure that colleges have skin in the game when it comes to this. It shouldnt just be the federal governments problem. We need participation guest guest from colleges. Participation from colleges. Host moses, lake elmo. Good morning. Caller the president and the executive branch does not print money. They have no authority to pay anything at all. It has to go through the purse, which is congress. Second, democrats always complain about price gouging. Its price gouging on these educational socalled institutions charging so much for people to go to school. Maybe they should look at that. The Democratic Party has solidified the notion that they do not represent the working man. I never went to college. I dont expect anybody to pay for my bill. Somehow, you want to bribe people and pay them off to get your vote . Thank you very much. Host jared . Guest Higher Education is not the only option. Pursuing other options like apprenticeships and career oriented programming for individuals to be able to do that, theres workforce innovation opportunity act reauthorization. Our organization looks at workforce opportunities to see what is the right way and i understand that there are alternatives and other policies folks are advancing to help people in the general mens situation. Host mary lou, new jersey. Hi. Caller good morning. First of all, i want to say im very pleased to see you have both points of view on this. I wish we could have more of this on washington journal. Regarding the student loan issue, two things bother me. First of all, im going to echo what a lot of previous callers have said. They need to investigate the costs of college and why the costs are so exorbitant. When you think about what some of these colleges are teaching our students, that is another issue. As far as college loan payback, i paid my back for 10 years as a hardship. I had to do without. We have another problem in this country in the area of responsibility. When you take out a loan for whatever, college, car, house, you are signing an agreement that you will be responsible to pay back the loan. Now, to expect people who have already paid loans or already had loans, either because they chose not to go to college and couldnt afford it to pay these debts is totally responsible. I agree with many previous callers. I think that joe biden is using this as nothing more than an election ploy. Its not going to work. We need responsibility in this country. The way he is going along with this is not fostering positive ideas. Thank you. Host the idea of responsibility . Guest response ability is important. There is a responsibility, i would say, on the part of the government, for programs that work. When that doesnt work in private apartments, you get your money back. If you get a defective product, you can take it back. Here people are saying we have had bad experiences, its a broken system, we have to wait for hours to speak to a servicer in order to get help, thats a system that isnt working and they should get their money back. Guest i agree that in a lot of cases, Higher Education is not necessarily working out the student and it is a defective product, but we cant put all of the responsibility on the taxpayer. Colleges have to chip in to make students whole when the product they get, the degree, is not worth what they thought it would be in the labor markets. I think getting in the game earlier has to be a part of the conversation when we talk about longer loan forgiveness. Guest i agree. Host lets talk to david in detroit, who has Student Loan Debt. Caller ive been on the phone for 10 minutes. Im a caller that calls in every 30 days, so im going to insist that i have no more than two minutes, because this is a topic that is in or mislead sensitive to me. I do have Student Loans. By the way, i was a veteran. The fellow that called in talking about veterans shouldnt have Student Loans, check your veteran status. Not all veterans receive a student loan, thats one. It depends on what time you went in. I went in in 78, got out in 82. That made me a veteran of good status, out with an honorable discharge. I did not have the g. I. Bill. I have always coffee veterans Educational Assistance program. I had to put in money and they matched it. That was my experience. I had to take out Student Loans. In between there, in my working career, i had a divorce. In that divorce, i had a lapse of employment. I ended up owing money for Child Support. When you over Child Support in theowe for Child Support in the state of michigan, you are a felon. The felony blindsided me. Therefore, i do have Student Loans. I dont know if im going to be able to pay them back. Im 64 years old and i dont have any assets. Im not trying to say, you know, feel sorry for me, but i hate it when white people call in with their privilege because you had an opportunity, you might have had an opportunity to amass assets and use a g ideal g. I. Bill when there were black men unable to use it after world war ii because of their ethnicity. Take that and please comment on that. Thank you. Host preston . Guest i think one thing the gentleman referred to is the fact that he was not necessarily able to get the jobs he was hoping for with the education that he had completed. He had some specific circumstances, but that is a problem that affects a lot of folks. There was a report from a month ago showing 52 of College Graduates are underemployed, not working in a job that is traditionally requiring of a college degree. They often pay a salary penalty for that. I worry that by kind of you know, encouraging more people to accrue as many degrees as possible, to get masters degrees and advanced degrees, we end up in a situation where there are not necessarily enough jobs that require a graduate degree. People end up with a loan they cannot pay off. I dont think the solution is loan forgiveness. The issues is the whole Higher Education system has people getting degrees that arent worth anything. Host columbia, pennsylvania, good morning. Caller yes. I have a quick question for both guys right here. What do you do when i only took out to go to a music school for Television Production in south beach, miami. I took out 4005 hundred dollars in 1990 to go to this school. 4500 to go to the school in 1990. They have been taking my income tax since i was 21 years old. I have not been able to buy a car, house, even to this day get married, ok, because of the interest. Now, they take my income tax, right . They take my income tax every time i file, right . How come my income tax, right, hasnt covered the interest in 30 years . 30 years. The interest from my income tax, right . The payments from my income tax have not cover the interest on my student loan, which the premium was only 4000. Yeah, by the way, the school filed for bankruptcy after a year of being open. I only went for four months. Imagine, i went to school for four months in 1990, right . Its 2024. I went to school for four months , right . I borrowed 4000. Its 2024 and i o 39,000 and they have been taking my income tax since i was 21. Host you owe 35 39,000 because of interest . Caller and this is while they take my income tax. I have bad credit. I have had bad credit since i was about 23. You understand what im saying mark bad credit my whole life. I cant get married. Me and my fiance, we have been engaged for 14 years. Host lets hear from both. Jared . Guest lets highlight some of the problems that we have any Student Loan Program, the penalties are severe. If the gentleman held steve Student Loans, they garnish your wages, they take your income tax. They will continue to do that. That is what is written into the law. All of these things are a choice. It doesnt have to be that way. We can change how we provide these loans, change the system. Look at grants, we have grant programs. The situation was set up and we need to do more to keep institutions accountable. Its outrageous that a school could be let off the hook for allowing a person to go through this experience, file for bankruptcy, but that person is not allowed to file for bankruptcy in most cases. I think the government is working on that now. We really need to do a better job of making sure that the system that we have in place works for borrowers as well as taxpayers, institutions. Guest i agree on this one. I think that when people default on their Student Loans, the penalties associated with it are overwhelmingly punitive, completely unnecessary. We did a report a few years back where we found that the penalties can be up to 25 of each payment. Pete people are paying all this money towards penalties and there are no there is no way to pray the pay the principal and a 4000 loan can turn into a 40,000 loan over the course of 30 years. I dont think that that means we need to do mass loan forgiveness, though. [laughter] host fred nessa has vanessa has Student Loan Debt in virginia. Hi, vanessa. Guest i have 8000 caller i have a thousand dollars on the loan i took in 1995, because at my job they said i had to go back to school and i went back and got my bachelors degree. My loan was sold to about five Different Companies back and forth, whole bunch of this and that. You couldnt get in contact with anybody. For all the people calling in, calling people deadbeats, i believe that a lot of people took out those loans and got them forgiven, so why can we not use that money towards the people that have Student Loans who actually profited from the loans . The loan that i had should have been covered by public health. However, that fell through and i dont know what is going on with that, so i am still paying mine. Thank you. Host what about this argument that people got ppp loans during covid, they were welloff and people helped them. Guest that was made for a purpose, people shut down businesses government shut down businesses during covid saying you cannot operate. We will cut off your source of revenue, but we will give you a source of revenue to retain staff. You dont need to lay people off or for low people. That is what ppp was designed for. It was always designed to be given as a forgivable loan and if you didnt meet the terms, the government could clawback the money. That was authorized by congress, unlike this loan forgiveness plan. Ppp was a program that was always designed to be grant money disguised as a loan for administrative purposes. In retrospect, a lot of people think that ppp was not necessarily a great idea. Not a great program. I dont think we want to repeat it. Host different situations . Guest there are different servicers, but at least for federal loans, you can have them transfer it. We have people who went into the pandemic with one servicer, came out like another servicer they had never worked with before it had to go through like a whole new process, which caused some problems. Especially as we had the servicers drop out. In the same way that your debt can be bought and sold, there are other lenders there to collect on it. You dont have a choice of the lender or servicer when it comes to Student Loans, you are assigned one. It comes down to who is servicing your loan in the system. Host can in palm bay, florida, having paid off as loans. Guest they were paid off due to a Class Action Lawsuit. The school that i went to, i went to school for a criminal justice degree, two degree. I owed about 80,000 for the twoyear degree, due to not paying because of not being able to find a job. Like that. They were actually not accredited. They lie to people and said they were accredited. I could not get my four year degree, which is what i had tried to do, because everything i put into that college would not transfer to a normal community college. Therefore, i quit paying on it, got a different job in a different field, and after about 20 years of not paying on it, i owed about 80,000, like i said, but because the school lied and said that they were accredited when they were not, corinthian college, so anyone who went to everest, fmu in florida, anyone who went to anything associated with corinthian college, there is a Class Action Lawsuit where all of your loans get forgiven. So, that was that Class Action Lawsuit. Also, i wish you would call it loan transfer, its loan forgiveness not loan forgiveness. Guest i think this goes to the point of Holding Institutions accountable, which we both talked about. Horrible experience with corinthian colleges. We have seen the collapse of other bad actors in the space. We need to do a better job of holding them accountable. When it comes to actually providing forgiveness, the only problem is the program is being challenged and there is a injunction to prevent it from operating. Operating the weight it is supposed to operate. The way it is supposed to operate. There are real hardships, real harm the people suffered. Host harry, georgia, good morning. Caller ill make this a quick story. I went to the college of university of new mexico. It was 240 a semester for a full class load. I went for three years. Paid for it. My dad paid for it, actually. Heres the thing, if you go to college and you have to borrow 150,000, then you get out of college, you go to congress for 15,000 a month and you can pay it off in about 10 months, you know . Thats the real racket after all [no audio] host eating up. We got your initial point. Then . Caller im an engineer for the federal government. My wife and i have paid off our loans. The conversation has been lacking in regards to the debt increasing so much. We are fortunate and privileged, but i have plenty of friends who have accrued the same amount of student debt as me who cannot afford a home. I could not afford a home here. I had to move out of the area and i could not afford a home on a government salary with my wife working fulltime with a degree. What would you say to the folks who are able to make it out of this, you know, largely exploitive system and still are not able to participate in this large capitalist market that benefits folks who were able to go to college but are not able to participate and enjoy the benefits that come with the degree . Host i want to ask you about what they caller said previously , which was that if you cannot afford to pay off alone, dont sign for it, dont take it to begin with, do something else. Caller to that point, if you want to live the American Dream at this current juncture, an option available to you from a young age is to attend Higher Education. I took that option and was able to do it through the financial metric and i was successful in that, but it is not the case like that, and again im a Research Engineer at a government and situation, and im still not able to afford it. My father is an english teacher. He wont be able to retire, despite being loan free, largely a problem of labor market value. Is it an issue of labor Market College value or how much we are paying for this institution . Host lets get a response. Guest the issue the caller raised on the costs of housing is critical. I live in d. C. , too, my partner and i are trying to save for a house, im in the same boat. I think that when we talk about how to address the costs of housing, we need to remember 87 percent of American Adults dont have Student Loans and are trying to afford a home, too. We can address the costs of housing through deregulation and make it easier to build houses and apartment buildings. Driving down the costs of mortgage. Its tempting to try to do a bank shot, but doing it to the Student Loan Program is not the best way to fix this problem. Host winstonsalem, good morning. Caller good morning. When President Biden during the debate, that was one of the debates, to help us. 10,000, he wasnt supposed to pay off anybodys loans. That got mixed up when the republicans stuck they face into it and it went to the congress. It never was to pay off nobodys loan. It was dependent pay 10,000 towards the loan. Hes not doing that for a vote. He got his debate when he was running for president. They need to get that straight and do their research before they get out there to talk so badly about what President Biden is doing. Hes trying to help people with me. Im like the woman with the loan, but i got two kids with loans and had to cosign for them. Not only that, they take they tax money and they also was taken money out they paycheck. Guest this is a good point. Its not something that was done in secret, it is something the president has talked about for a long time on the campaign trail and in the first years of his administration, when he came out with the first option, 10 to 20,000 in first cases. Now july, they announced they were going to try again, over they had a public hearing and had been negotiating public. The other important point is its not about pundits or what people say, its really for borrowers. Its a meaningful program. People may not like it, thats ok, but if it helps the borrowers like the one who just called in, thats meaningful action. Host john, louisiana. Caller a little history lesson, i graduated, attended Purdue University with brian lamb and my freshman year, ok, room and board was 750. Tuition at Purdue University was about 145 dollars per semester for two semesters, and you could get your books for 20 bucks. So, for about 1000 you could go to Purdue University for a year. I graduated from purdue and did not have a student loan, because i didnt need it. Now i dont know what it costs. Host what did you study . Just curious. Caller i got a degree in industrial management. I was going to be a shop foreman in a factory. I went into rotc and spent the next 28 years as an air force pilot and tacked on another 17 years as a Delta Airlines pilot. Host all right. Well, we talked about how the costs of those days are definitely over. Its not going to costs 145 a semester. Guest Purdue University is still a good example of how colleges can keep costs down. Mitch daniels kept costs frozen for 10 years and it had an impact. There was a share of graduates who were borrowing that plummeted over that time. Purdue really proves them wrong, it is a choice to raise costs and some follow costs down and doing a good job of that and they show its not true. Host brainerd, minnesota, good morning. Caller good morning. These colleges, they need to be audited. If you look at a basketball game , look at the people, its full of people. The play the other day, 413 of the average just to get in the door. Where did all that money go . The college professors, they could make as much or more as the president of the United States. American greed has taken over. Every College Needs to be audited. We are talking sports every week , and the players get nothing. Host jared . Guest colleges are audited, they have to be to participate in the federal Student Loan Program, but taking his point, understanding the class of defendant where they say this is what we are charging you, this is the number, this is where your money is going, we dont have a lot of insight into how those taxpayer dollars are being used. There is a new thing that happened a few years ago where the secretary, the used to be a b wherea the federal government could not ask questions, but now they are askingn essence and doing some regulating on that. I hope the federal government does that and understands now better how taxpayer dollars are being used when it comes to college campuses. People talk about it being an arms race now, these apartment buildings getting these students, thats not really the purpose of Higher Education. Its about education, educating people. Lazy rivers, golf simulators, those are great, not knocking it, but need to make sure there are instructional materials. Holding people accountable and understanding how they are using the funding for more transparency there, i think it is something that we agree on, bringing the costs down. Host all right. Thats jared bass and Preston Cooper. Thank you both so much for joining us. Guest thank you. Host later, lisa curtis, Program Director of indo pacific security at the center for new americans 30 joins us to discuss the japanese Prime Ministers trip to the u. S. , security between the countries, and threats from china. First, its open forum. 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I think one of the defining characteristics which separates it from many of the National Security think tanks in washington dc is the fact is truly bipartisan. We have people that have worked in republican administrations, democratic administrations and we are truly focused on providing good policy advice for u. S. Policymakers on a bipartisan basis. So i think thats one of the defining characteristics. Another one is we are focused on the next generation of Foreign Policy leaders, we have a next gen program which focuses on developing younger, more junior analysts and preparing them to be in key Foreign Policy National Security and government positions in the future. I think those are the two things that set us apart from other think tanks. Host and your funding. Guest it, some of variety of places, from Foundation Spirits and u. S. Governments, some from u. S. Corporations. Private individuals. So it is a smattering of different funders that help us do what we do because we are Nonprofit Organization so we depend on the generosity of our founders to do the work we are doing. Lets talk about the visit of the japanese Prime Minister meeting with President Biden whats good to be the main agenda item between those two. Guest this is an important visit. I think its about the continued importance of the Indo Pacific Region at a time when we see two other wars happening across the globe, of war between israel and hamas and the war in ukraine. So it shows this is still a key region for the Biden Administration. Second i think this visit will show that the u. S. Is upgrading and modernizing its alliance with japan and we will see this in announcements related to integrating the u. S. Forces with japanese forces. There are about 54,000 u. S. Forces in japan right now which, under the command of u. S. Forces japan which is under command of the u. S. Indo Pacific Command in hawaii. There will be an effort to integrate and just have better integration of commandandcontrol structure of the two forces. I do not think this is going to resolve in a unified command like weve seen in south korea between those forces and south Korean Forces but it will be an improvement and it will show the alliance is adapting itself to the new realities and concerns that there could be a potential contingency in the taiwan straight or the South China Sea. The president has called it a historic upgrade of the Security Alliance between the two countries. Do you think it is historic . It is moving in that direction. Im not sure if therell be a specific announcement that we can say today there was this major change in the relationship but i think its an evolution we see and its driven by new policy that the Prime Minister has adopted. He is increasing the Defense Budget of japan almost doubling it. Over the next couple of years. Host is that because they are worried about china doing something to them . I think there is increased concern in one of the major drivers of this concern is russias war in ukraine. I think its such a scene we seen the Prime Minister raise when he addresses the u. S. Congress on thursday this idea that what we are seeing happens in europe with russias aggression towards ukraine could very well happen in the Indo Pacific Region. So i think that is driving the increased concern about japans security. Is this idea that we see russia and china increasingly cooperating with each other and there is a threat to this rulesbased global order that we see. This is one of the reasons we are seeing this upgrading and modernizing of the u. S. European alliance and the reason we are seeing the japanese leadership in vast more in their own defense and develop new capabilities at the counter strike capabilities they are now implementing, they are concerned there could be conflict in the Indo Pacific Region. Host you mention the joint address in front of congress. We will be carrying that live on cspan tomorrow at 11 00 a. M. Thats the japanese Prime Minister who will address a joint meeting of congress. He will also meet with President Biden at the white house and attend a state dinner in his honor. That joint meeting will be live here on cspan, cspan now and cspan. Org. We will also have coverage of highlights of that state dinner thats going to be happening today this evening. I want to show you the National Security advisor Jake Sullivan spoke to reporters yesterday and he denied that the deepening military ties of japan and the philippines had anything to do with countering china. [video clip] the president said his alliances are designed for a free and open indo pacific, for peace and stability in the indo pacific and that system has helped bring peace and stability for decades. Now we need to update and upgrade that Alliance Network for the modern age. That includes reaching out to partners who are not traditional treaty allies of the United States who have a key role to play in ensuring the indo pacific, thats all we are looking across the region. It goes way beyond security. Its economics and technology, Infrastructure Development and it is diplomacy. Thats all going to be on display in the meeting with the Prime Minister and with the trilateral meeting along with president marcos, Prime Minister kishida and President Biden. Guest i think this is what the National Security advisor must say. The Biden Administration enhancing its relationship with allies and partners and preparing for potential crises or conflict in the region at the same time its pursuing dialogue with china. We just saw the secretary yellen visit to china. We saw conversations recently between President Biden and president xi jinping. So the administration is trying for a dialogue with china at the same time they are preparing for a potential conflict. We saw the commander, the head of the Pacific Command recently testified before congress he Still Believes there was a chance china could take military action against taiwan as early as 2027. Not everyone agrees with that assessment but i think the u. S. Is prudently preparing for such a scenario. At the same time trying to pursue diplomacy with china and that is why we have seen the National Security advisors statement that the integration, the upgrading of the u. S. Japan military alliance is not necessarily about china but more about maintaining an open and free indo pacific. Host if you have a question or comment from for lisa curtis a concert calling in now. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats 2027488000. Independents 2027488002. Tomorrow there will be a trilateral meeting with Prime Minister kishida, the philippines president ferdinand marcos, jr. And President Biden. What are you looking at their the what you see of the strategic importance of the united of the philippines to the United States. Guest the fact you are seeing the first ever between the u. S. , japan and the philippines. It means to send a signal to china that the u. S. And japan stand behind the philippines because what we see is china conducting increasingly aggressive activities, maritime activities against the philippines. Host why are they doing that . Guest they have maritime disputes. China makes these expansive Maritime Claims in the South China Sea. So one of the philippines outposts in its exclusive Economic Zone but china actually claims it. The philippines has staked its claim for this with a world war ii era ship that basically dr. There back in the 90s so its a very old ship, it is starting to sink so there is concern about that and concerned the philippines wants to make a more permanent structure there to keep its claim but what china is doing his every time the philippines try to resupply the marines on the ship, china tries to impede the deliveries. It does things like shoot Water Cannons at the philippines ship which is quite provocative. In march they injured filipino soldiers so really some might declare that an act of war. And this matters because the u. S. Has a treaty with the philippines. Any kind of crisis or conflict between china and the philippines would involve the United States. So i think this is an important meeting because it shows not only is the United States find the philippines, japan also is stepping up support for the philippines. It provided surveillance radars to the philippines, and it is doing more exercises, military exercises with the philippines, so this meeting of the three leaders here in washington at the white house sends an unmistakable signal to china that if you are going to threaten the philippines you are also going to face the United States and japan. That conflict between the philippines and china would involve the United States, why would it necessarily have to involve the United States. Guest we have a Treaty Alliance with the philippines and article five of that treaty is invoked, the u. S. Is compelled to defend the philippines. So if you have a situation for example where you had loss of life in the philippines, due to chinese provocative activity, the u. S. Could become involved in defending the philippines and thats why i say there is concern. A lot of people are focused on the taiwan straight and the idea there could be a u. S. China conflict there. Not as many people are focused on this issue. But we should be. That is why deterrence is so important. And thats why this meeting is important. We can help deter china for takes those provocative activities that could lead to a crisis or conflict. We will get to calls shortly but i wanted to show you this article written that says countering coercion, managing chinese gray zone activity in the indian ocean region. Explain gray zone activity and how you counter that . Guest gray zone activity is activity that seeks to change the status quo but does not rise to the level of provoking a military response. It is all those things china is doing to try to prevent the philippines from staking its claim on this disputed reef that i talked about in the South China Sea. For example, one year ago they basically directed lasers at the philippines vessel that trying to resupply and resulting in blinding or temporarily blinding military officials on the ship, so this is something that is a gray zone activity. Its not an act of war but it is pretty provocative. It eased geared at intimidating the philippines and forcing philippines vessels to turn around, to not fulfill their missions. It has resulted many times in the philippines being unable to complete the mission that they are trying to do. This is what is meant by gray zone activity. Do you think potential joint exercises between the u. S. And japan would be seen as escalatory by china . Guest china has already made the point that it does not like the fact there is this trilateral meeting happening. China does not like any multilateral groupings that the u. S. Is leading. For example china often complains about the quad which is a grouping that consists of the u. S. , japan, australia and india. Chipley they claim the u. S. Is trying to surround or contain china. Host that is kind of true. Guest its all a matter of semantics. Theyre trying to maintain a stable open border so that china cannot force the International Norms and rules of the road. Like it is trying to do with dominating the South China Sea and trying to make expansive Maritime Claims for example. So i dont think the u. S. Would call that surrounding, but i think if you get past the semantics you are probably right it probably is aimed at circumscribing chinese ability to dominate the region. Host lets talk to callers for lisa curtis. Democrat in sherwood arkansas. Good morning, on first time caller. I usually watch cspan every morning. People do watch cspan, i think you should have a show in the evening time. You guys give out a lot of knowledge. Listening to this lady talk about whats going on with japan and going on in china in the South China Sea. Im 77 years old. One time china was just a small place. Until america started moving their jobs overseas out of the country, i worked as a machinist most of my life, made good money at firestone. Left memphis where im actually from, moved overseas and built china up, people that have too much greed in them dont realize what theyre actually doing in order to become billionaires and stuff. Theres a few 1 billionaires in this country, the million the middle class and mostly poor people. They destroyed the country and now we have to worry about a country we built up. That might turn it on us. Thank you very much i appreciate that comment and that question and you make a very good point. For many years the u. S. Hoped investing in china and trying to integrate china into International Organizations would make china invest in the system and more part of the system. And we were more likely to have peaceful relationships. But i think what we have seen is china has taken advantage of that investment and is building up its military pursuing some of these aggressive activities weve been discussing and so theres been a change both in republicans and democratic administrations, we saw this change with the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration has continued a change in its policy trying to shift away from china and not be so overly dependent on china for manufactured goods and trade, but try to shift this supply chain and that is one of the important parts of the visit, not only will they talk about this relationship or they will also talk about the economic relationship, and high end so that we dont become dependent or more depended on china. Youll see the japanese Prime Minister traveling to North Carolina where japan is made huge investments the auto Manufacturing Industry and we will see more cooperations between the u. S. And japan, these two allies who want to maintain this peaceful order that we have seen in the indo pacific since world war ii. That Work Together to shift dependency on china for highend technology and make those investments in the u. S. As well as japan. We saw the president of microsoft met with Prime Minister kishida and announced the 2. 9 billion investment in japan ai Artificial Intelligence and infrastructure. The investment is going both ways and the countries see each other is important in shifting away from dependency on china. Leo is next in hyattsville, maryland. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are on. Caller why is the United States kind of being aggressive. Doesnt china have the right to expand the want to be adores america policing the world. Isnt this posture for countries to be more defensive aggressively against the United States. Guest thank you for that question. I think the way that i see it is the u. S. Is trying to maintain a peaceful stable order and trying to prevent things from happening like weve seen with russias unjustified ukraine. Rather than the u. S. Moves towards deterrence. Like japan. The u. S. Trying to maintain a peaceful order in the world and in particular in the indo pacific. I think the greatest justification for that could be seen in the aggression weve seen with regard to ukraine. This is the way many of the u. S. Partners putting it that way as well. Why is the philippines president coming here why is he holding a joint meeting with the japanese Prime Minister and the u. S. President. His country feels threatened and hes looking for allies and partners to keep the peace in the South China Sea. I think there is a good case to be made for what the u. S. Is doing, its pursuit of closer partnership and alliances with likeminded countries is a push for peace. Not for conflict. Host linda is a republican in virginia beach, virginia. Im calling from Atlantic Shores retirement village. I will be 87 years old and i wanted to Say Something about President Bidens ability to work with details of whats going on in china. Where was he when the chinese were taking over those Little Islands and militarizing them. The media has never said anything about this. He never has press conferences so that people can ask intelligent questions and get cognitive answers from him. Actually whats happening in the United States is the china is buying up farmland. They bought farmland near a air force facility. Secondly most of our drugs are manufactured in china. Thirdly, what about the chinese coming to this country and we have been told china will not take them back. Thirdly. This whole regime of President Biden will go down in history as the most egregious, inattentive president and regime that i have ever seen and i grew up in the 50s and 60s. And our country is no longer recognizable. What he has done with the border host linda lets get some answers on the purchasing of farmland in the United States and on chinese migrants across the border. Guest ok. So you raise some important issues. I think the first issue you raised happened about 10 years ago with chinas militarization of artificial islands it constructed in the South China Sea. I think you rightly pointed out. Now it was the Obama Administration that was in power at the time and i think if you speak to people who worked in that administration they would acknowledge they should have done more to prevent china from militarizing these islands and that they regret more was not done now. I think the point that im making is not make that same mistake now. We see what china is doing in the South China Sea lets not ignore it, lets make sure we work with allies and partners to make sure the china doesnt continue these aggressive activities. The other issue you raised was china buying up farmland near u. S. Military bases. I could not agree more. This is something we cannot tolerate they putting in legislation to prevent this from happening so i think the states are dealing with this issue and it is something of concern and im glad that you raised it. But again i will say the way the Biden Administration is dealing with a rising china increasingly aggressive china is by building up alliances and partnerships with countries like japan and the philippines, like australia and others to be able to show china that there is a block of countries that want to keep the current peaceful regional order that will not tolerate aggression, changing these borders by force and they wont allow what is happening in europe to happen in the Indo Pacific Region and thats why its so important to connect what is happening in ukraine with russias aggression in war with ukraine and connect that with the Indo Pacific Region and what china could do visavis taiwan and in the South China Sea. That is what is important for the American People to focus on that there is this connection and that is why its so important the u. S. Continues to support ukrainians in the fight against russia. It has implications for what china could do in the Indo Pacific Region. Host do you consider the chinese migrants coming across the southern Border Security threat . Guest i am not sure thats what the caller was referring to. But i do not know about chinese immigrants coming across the southern border. But i think the issue is one that needs to be dealt with with whats happening visavis the border is unacceptable. I think the two parties need to come together and find a solution to do something that works. I agree with her. I dont know specifically about the chinese immigrants coming across. I know a lot of people from other countries are coming across. We will go to gary in newport, kentucky, republican. We are speaking about building up chinas economy. The United States since world war ii has built up many economies. And that includes japan. Its time its long overdue to keep that innovation within the United States and share reasonably with these people because we are building them up and our economy is being broke down. Guest thank you for the comment. As was indicated the japanese are also investing in the u. S. Economy and creating jobs. Thats why the japanese Prime Ministers going to North Carolina to showcase that. There are tens of thousands of jobs being created by Japanese Investment in the United States. I think you are right that they need to keep innovation and keep its cutting edge on technology in the United States, but also it really needs other countries and allies to help in countering china. So there is going to need to be two way support between countries, thats why we see microsoft is investing in the japanese economy in terms of ai and Cloud Infrastructure because it is important also for cybersecurity in japan that you have these u. S. Japan connections particularly in the private sector, thats microsoft investment into japan is important for overall cybersecurity because we dont have cybersecurity but we can trust, its good to be harder for the u. S. And japan to cooperate militarily on the defense front. So while i see your point i think theres a two way back and forth investment between the u. S. And japan for those countries interests. Host one more call. Democrat, kentucky. Caller joe biden helped build china up whenever they pass the most favored nation trading status with china they gave it to them and suck the industry right out of america. There was a lot of plants of two to 3000 people working that went right to china. You would you can thank them for giving us the problem we had today with them. Host i think republicans and democrats are responsible for the policies towards china from 2025 years ago. And again i would just point out both the Trump Administration and now the Biden Administration recognize that those policies of hoping including china, opening up trade with china is going to moderate its policy and make it more responsible stakeholder in the international system. Those assumptions now seem flawed. So i think i would disagree with the caller but you can blame one individual or one party. Both parties in many different leaders are responsible for maybe some of the mistakes made with china 20 or 25 years ago. Indo pacific security Program Director at the center for a new American Security thank you for joining us. Guest thanks for having me. Host up next it is open forum. Republicans, www. Cspan. Org. Dump republicans 2027488001. Democrats 2027488000. Independents 2027488002. We will be right back. Do you solemn that in the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Watch American History tvs congress investigates as we explore major investigations in our countrys history by the u. S. House and senate. Each week authors and historians will tell the stories and we will see historic footage and examine the impact the legacy of key congressional hearings. A Senate Committee led by Estes Kefauver discussed organized crime in interstate commerce in the early 1950s. Hearings were held throughout the country including key figures including Frank Costello resulting in the fbi acknowledging a National Organized Crime syndicate and the passage of the racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act in 1970. What congress investigates on cspan2. The house will be in order. Cspan celebrates 45 years of covering Congress Like no other. Since 1979 weve been your primary source for capitol hill providing balanced unfiltered coverage of government. Where policy is debated and decided all with the support of americas cable companies. Cspan, 45 years and counting. Powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Welcome back to open forum. You can start calling in now. I want to make sure you know about some programs coming up that 10 00 a. M. In about 20 minutes on cspan3 we will have the Homeland Security secretary on capitol hill to testify on the president s budget request for his department and take questions on immigration policy in the u. S. Southern border. He is appearing before both chambers of Congress Starting with the House Appropriations subcommittee and then in the afternoon a Senate Appropriations subcommittee will hear testimony at 2 30 p. M. We will have live coverage on cspan3. Also online at cspan. Org. We will go straight to the phones. Jay is in fort wayne, indiana. Caller with the way you were treated host your line is really bad. I heard you say about how was treated by roy but thank you for that. If you can try to call in on a better line. Caller my name is judith. I love your show and have been to japan five times my one granddaughter lives in japan. Can you hear me . Host yes we can. Caller i worked in the 80s at a very large Important Company in the chicago area and i had the opportunity to see some of what happened during that time period and people closed not only our company but other companies in the 80s. And moved to where there was cheap labor, a cheap. Unbelievably cheap. It helped with the bottom line. So its been 45 years that weve been doing this and the difference, ive been to japan five times theres a big difference between asian culture and american culture. In asian culture in japan people worked for days without pay building cars just so they could be able to be profitable. China of course people are working, we tried but i think the major thing i want to make is the actual of china. It couple weeks ago they have one million men in their military theyd one child policy. Some really stark differences between the outlook on life and work ethic. Host judith lets talk to chip next in sedona, arizona. Caller good morning. Let me turn my tv down. Sorry about that. We had the opportunity when i was invited to go to china in 2018. I was shocked by the level of pollution. Its a big coal area of china, i was invited there and they actually i was on a trip with some highlevel delegates and they showed us this incredible solar installation. They also showed us across the valley this area that was inundated, the pollution was so intense. It was shocking. What i learned about the trip, we know about the pollution but we dont know of the 1. 5 billion chinese but one billion of them are living very low on the economic scale. They try to figure out how to feed the people. To the earlier comment about china buying up farmland in america that is true. There also buying a lot of farmland in africa, south america, middle east, everywhere they can. Host i wanted to ask you about the pollution because my understanding is its gotten a lot better because of their ev program. Theyve got byd is the company that is putting out these 10,000 evs. They are just making them very cheaply and very widely available. Have you heard about that. Caller china is leading the revolution on ev. But there also leading the revolution and putting up many coal plants. Its a real doubleedged sword. How much we gain to step forward and five steps back. The world as a Global Annual gdp about 80 trillion. But together both countries have half the worlds economy. The reality is we also put up half the worlds pet i think china and the United States have to come to real terms with those facts. We will have to Work Together with china, thats my comment today. Lets go to the independent line. Hello. Good morning everybody. Theres some story spreading around nationally yesterday in chicago that some black guy got shot 96 times by police. I think theres good to be some type of uprising in this country eventually. I dont understand why any white cop would want to work in these areas. For the past 10 years black lives matter havent understood that there some type of tension going on. Every time there is a Police Incident in this country theres always tension, some type of uprising. None of them can fix it its up to the people of this country and as far as im concerned if i was the Police Commissioner in this city i would hire white cops in black areas. Vice versa. I would have black cops in white areas. It is a communication problem and it has to stop before things get out of control in this country and countries like china and japan takeover globally because we cannot get our act together. Theres a problem in this country and neither biden, trump, none of them can fix the situation. Thats all i have to say. Host the independent has this article black mans family requires answers. Says that the officers fired 96 times even after he got out of his car and fell on the ground. Robert is in washington dc, independent. Good morning. I would like to make a way in on china. I remember im a d. C. Native but i found out the real reason it was that brokered the deal between the u. S. And china and it was george h. W. Bush and his son neil. I dont know if you can remember when the savings and loan scandal happened. At that time it was not known who had their hand in the cookie jar so later on they came to find out it was neil bush the son that brokered the deal between the u. S. And china. I talked to an engineer and he was in china about 1992, maybe 93. And said that neil bush was the host of an International Conference of engineers in china in 92. After the savings and loan scandal 150 billion evaporated and bush went to the fbi see so they were bankrupt by 148 billion so than bush went into the Social Security fund and took out nearly 170 billion. From there i recall at the world bank almost 200 billion had exited about that same time. Afterwards neil bush was found. They posted that information all around the white house. And the secret service destroyed all the information concerning neil bush but i was able to see that and they said it was him who brokered the main deal between the u. S. And china. Many republicans have forgotten that between reagan and bush, was china. Host lets talk to eric in hopewell junction, a line for democrats. Good morning, its good to see you. I miss some of the old guard, i hope youre doing well wherever you are. I just wanted to make an observation in this postpandemic america we live in. Remember we are kind of getting over that is a people. I think typically after pandemics we want to get behind it and forget it as quickly as possible but we are still licking our wounds from that time. But apart from that i want to point out the other phenomenon that happened during the eclipse when millions of americans decided to get in their car and go somewhere they dont normally go and hang out with a bunch of other americans and watch this amazing thing. And get along. People were gazing up at the moon sitting next to somebody who did not share their political views at all. It just seems it would manifest itself poorly in the real world we live in. Host were you in the path of totality . Guest i was in the path of partiality. We were up on top of our little hill in our neighborhood and people gathered with their dogs and stuff and so forth. Maybe 60 of us on this little hill in the woods. It was just complete happiness. Host lets talk go to cleveland, tennessee. Boris, good morning. Caller let me tell you number one. Let me say that you are beautiful, you are very pretty. I dont know if anybody else noticed today but you are very pretty. Host i appreciate that. What did you want to talk about . Caller number one is theres a lot going on with housing. Residential living is ridiculous. You cant afford to move, you cant afford to leave your house because you can buy a house nowhere else. The economy is getting to a point where people can afford to live. You go to walmart you spend 200 for three bags of groceries. Its ridiculous. I just think the whole world is going to appoint where we will have to do something. Money is money. But god is god. You have a nice day. Host speaking of prices, the Inflation Numbers to just come out so i will share those with you. Consumer prices rose 3. 5 from a year ago in march more than expected, shelter and energy costs drove the increase on the items index. Will in norco california. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to Say Something to try to get out quickly. I am a gay republican. Openly gay, very proud of my political stance and yes i voted for trump in 2016. Voted for him and 2020 and will be voting for him in 2024, this november. I want to get out some facts. I didnt call the talk about the eclipse or some conspiracy theories like the caller before him. From one side of the aisle. But the other side you cut us off. January 6, a lot of facts have been swept under the rug by that committee and im just going to deliver a few of them. It was very obvious they omitted trumps peaceful protest comment , trump said to march peacefully and patriotically. Most of the nation doesnt even know he said that. Nancy pelosi and muriel bowser, the mayor of d. C. They both signed off on not having the National Guard. There is actual factual evidence their signature. Can you tell me why. If they signed that and decided to not have the National Guard on january 6, they declined trumps offer. That changes everything. Im really upset because the tweets were deleted. Im good to read them right now for you quickly. January 6, 2021 at 3 13 p. M. , first let me give you the 2 38 p. M. Please support our Capitol Police and law enforcement. They are truly on the side of our country. Stay peaceful. These were deleted from twitter. The next one and the last one i will read. 3 13 p. M. , i am asking for everyone at the u. S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence. Remember we are the party of law and order. Respect the law under great men and women in blue. Thank you. These were pulled down from twitter on january 6. Theres record of it. Thanks. Host brenda is in fort lee, new jersey. Good morning. Caller im calling in regards, so disappointed in President Biden. The things that hes doing trying to buy votes. And i dont just understand why he cant do more for us. Prices are so high at the supermarket. Prices are so high all over. You can buy a house. Its just so hard to understand where this man is coming from. All i know is hes not getting my vote. Ive always been a democrat. Always thought when i voted for President Biden the things would change, that he would do better. Hes always on vacation and hes not doing what he should do for the american just changing things for the better. Im voting for president , i just dont know. Im just so confused and i really think in the future i am not going to vote for him and im really seriously thinking of changing to vote for President Trump. He will do the right thing and help us. Thank you for listening. Host take a look here, this is the room where in about five minutes the House Appropriations homeland subcommittee hearing will kick off on the dhs fiscal 2025 budget, secretary mayorkas is the only witness. We will have live coverage of that on cspan3 its also on cspan. Org and on our app. That will be getting underway shortly. You can watch that right after this program. Eleanor is in detroit. Caller i was listening the other day. Ive been listening for the last six months and i always hear Trump Supporters and republican say i may not like his personality, but i like his policies and they say i think trumps policies would be better for the economy than joe biden. Full employment for the last three years almost. Salaries are raised. What i never hear is the person the republicans are talking to say like msnbc hosts or whatever, i never hear the host asked what are the policies. I never hear you guys ask them to elaborate or to say which policy is it that you think will make the economy so much better. The man spent four years having infrastructure week every month and it never got done. Biden came in and took care of it immediately. So for the publics good could you ask people to tell us what his policies are, his plans are or if you have the information could you inform us as to what his platform and his policies are. Host we will do our best. Carrie also in michigan. Democrat, good morning. Id like to talk about trump, this caller who called two times ago. History is already written on january 6. The only thing left is the trial. You can change history. There isnt any going back. The way they foment these things and tell me that im watching fake news when im spouting facts is just so sickening to me. There are trials coming up, the man is going to be guilty of felonies. He was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman by a jury of his peers. I love the show, thank you. Host iris in alabama, good morning. Caller one of the things i wanted to bring up you guys were talking about china. They took the only factory where the women had to work and moved it so they even sent the women over there to train the mexicans how to make the clothes and the downs that they made up there. Thats one comment. My other comment is about the insurrection. We did hear donald trump say we are going to raise hell, we are going to fight. I heard that. The other one is the same thing ive said for the last couple of times i called in. About the mexican border. Host weve got to go because the house is about to gavel in. Thank you for watching we will back be back tomorrow. [captioning performed by the