who are optimistic, (202) 748-8000. if you are pessimistic, (202) and if you have mixed thoughts about 2017, (202) 748-8002. i hope 2017 is a terrific year for all of you. with some breaking news from istanbul, turkey as the death toll continues to mount. the current death toll at 39, including at least 15 foreigners killed in an attack in a nightclub and desk in istanbul, turkey. a gun man opened fire at about 1:30 local time as revelers were marking the new year. another 69 people were being treated in the hospital or are said to be --, four are said to be in critical condition. have imposedrities a media blackout on coverage of the attack, citing security and public order concerns. some media reports speaking of wyatt -- more than one attacker, and some witnesses claimed the attackers were speaking arabic but there is no confirmation. a developing story, the situation in turkey were the death toll stands at 39. on the front page of the new york times as times square, with more than a million people welcoming in the new year. the president working to cement his legacy with an eye on trump. the weekly standard is taking a look at a new associated press poll taking a look at the year ahead. here is a summary of what you might be thinking. again, a doggedly optimistic american public is hopeful that next year will be better than the current one, which people have described as less than glowing, and something they would rather forget, according to the associated press' reporting of its regular year in review polling. theof those surveyed said country did not improve in 2016. only 18% said the nation's circumstances got better. 47% said their thoughts were unchanged and 33% said their thoughts got worse. said 2017 will be a better year than 2016, compared to just 19% who say it will be worse. taking that from the associated press poll which was published at the end of last year, as we welcome 2017 on this january 1. michelle obama appearing in an interview with oprah winfrey, describing her thoughts about a new year and the start of a new administration as she and her husband prepared to leave the white house. [video clip] everything was about hope. do you think this administration achieved that? mrs. obama yes, i do. .e feel the difference now now we are feeling what not having hope feels like. hope is necessary. it is a necessary concept. and barack did not just talk about hope because he thought it was a nice slogan to get votes. he and i and so many believed, what else do you have if you do not have hope? what do you give your kids if you cannot give them hope? our children respond to crises the way they see us respond. it is like the toddler that bumps his head on the table and they look at you to see whether it hurts. if you are like, oh my god, they are crying, but if you are like it is ok, it is ok, i feel like barack has been that for the nation in ways that people will toe to be -- come appreciate. having a grown up in the white house who can say to you in times of crisis and turmoil, it is going to be ok, let's remember the good things we have , let's look at the future and all the things we are building, all of this is important for kids to stay focused, and to feel like their work is not in vain, that their lives are not in vain. what do we do if we do not have hope? host: are you hopeful or mixed reviews or pessimistic? that was an interview with first --y shall obama that aired michelle obama that aired earlier. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. it is an honor and a privilege to talk to you. i am optimistic because a lot of getle were angry and, let's our over our anger in washington and work together to solve our problems. i think trump will bring this nation together. host: a tweet overnight from donald trump on the new year. he wrote the following -- to all americans, happy new year, and many blessings to you all. looking forward to a wonderful and prosperous 27 -- 2017 as we #maga, make america great again. doug, you are on the air. caller: yes, i am very optimistic. i am so thrilled we have the senate, we have congress, we have donald trump. not doingt, they are it for them on because they are tremendously wealthy. i think we are going to have the justices, so i am optimistic. i am glad and very hopeful. i think everybody should get behind trump. let's hope that he does a good job. happy new year to everybody. host: let's go to carl, who has mixed views on the year ahead, joining us for montana. caller: good morning. when president obama was giving a talk, he said he was going to go back to his community organizing. set everybody needs to study up on saul wilensky to find out what his community organizing is about. he has got a very good legacy. he will go down in american history as the greatest gun sales man ever. thank you. host: from our facebook page you can join the conversation, facebook.com/c-span. many of you are weighing in. blair said -- i'm optimistic that a renewed sense of patriotism could potentially be brought back to the oval office, something that has been lacking for the past eight years. not unless you can define optimistic as the enduring the daily trip of disappointment and discussed that will be the trump administration. gail joining us from fairbanks, alaska, calling on the line for mixed views ahead. forer: i am very optimistic all of the reasons that the previous caller stated. just because they could not have been much worse than it has been over the last eight years. so i know that things are going to get better. , helready shows he is just just wants to get in and get it seeingnd you are already results of things that he is doing and he is not even the president yet. my mixed emotions come from the fact that once we have had a chance to view the reactions to his election, and you see how people have reported themselves, themselves,orted that causes me concern for the future of the country because we are having to deal with that type of the mentality where you are dealing with people, especially young people who are going to be our future, and as an older person this concerns me , how they cannot handle something outside of their realm of acceptability. the fact that they have had to cocoa and color in college is very concerning to me for the future of the country and the people whose hands it will be left in. but right now i am optimistic donald trump will do a good job. the people that support him just need to make sure that as we go forward, that we do not fall prey to what the media is going to be throwing at us because they have not learned their lesson from what has happened, the exposure. so i have mixed feelings. host: gail from fairbanks, alaska. we are having some issues with our twitter feed so we will not be able to read your tweets so send us -- join us on facebook. yes, it is another year of life and possibilities. we should not allow politicians to control our mood. eric says, politically wise, no. personal wise, yes. we are dividing our phone lines for those who are optimistic, pessimistic, or have mixed views. l.a. times out with an editorial. 2017 wishial board's list, it includes among these items as the l.a. times puts it, in no particular order, we fervently wish for an end to the war in syria and displaced syrians, recognition by donald trump that real presidents do not tweet diatribes that are hastily conceived, reckless, patty, or misspelled. and i've justice for the u.s. supreme court who should be competent, well-qualified and respected. an end to the deadly attacks on police officers and police shootings of unarmed suspects. put country before party, and trump's cabinet nominees to increasing scrutiny, a constitutional amendment to abolish the electrical -- electoral college, and a narrowing of political division. the l.a. times' wish list for 2017. joining us from long beach, california, pessimistic about the year ahead. caller: i am very pessimistic about trump's presidency because he does not always think things through or is always begin out loud. you can say whatever of the top of your head, but now you cannot do that because the whole world is listening. everybody.fear in you have the young people that do not know what is going to happen. likeave the older people myself, i do not know what is going to happen, and he says he wants to be a president for all the people. if he starts to speak more presidential or tries to bring people together and stop doing this negativity and tweeting, he has aggravated the ku klux klan, activate america, activate everybody because we are all americans, we are all here, and we all want to succeed. i want him to succeed. i want him to change. i want him to be a president for all the people and not scare people, have people confused. together. to get it he has got to show us that he can lead. he is a great businessman. he needs to be a great president . i think he can do it if he focuses on what needs to be done. host: thank you for the call from long beach, california. more comments from our facebook .age, facebook.com/c-span david says -- yes and no, personally for me, yes, for american political policies and no. he says hell we will have a complete imbecile running the country, what do you think? yes, as i am and have been every new year's for all of my life. joining us from oak ridge, tennessee, mixed views on the year ahead. why? 2009r: because of 2008 and , the other day they were showing long lines for people losing their jobs, losing their homes. did not want to be president but the republican party forced him. thing heump, the only said is that he wanted to be president. you do not talk like that if you want to be president. white america had got tired of seeing a black america so they would have voted for a white dog. this country has become complacent a lot of times. when things are going good, white america gets complacent. when things are going dad, they look for somebody to blame -- going bad, they look for something to -- somebody to blame. the republican party controls all rural areas. there are no jobs in the rural parts of the country and it was not because of the democrats, it was because of the republicans. just like the governor in tennessee. twice.ture killed it republicans don't want to do nothing. i got it made, i am laying in bed. i retired in 1996. i got a good life. there is ade, but lot of people who are complacent and do not have any idea what they are voting for. i will give mr. trump a chance, but i see bad things down the road. a rich man, dick cheney was rich. mr. bush was rich. he owned the texas rangers. do not tell me nothing about rich people doing this and doing that, because if you are a rich person you care about yourself. i should know. host: dick cheney did not own halliburton, he did run halliburton, and george w. bush was a majority owner in the texas rangers. you mentioned the tennessee governor, there is a new governor in north carolina, a democrat, ray cooper sworn in shortly after midnight as north carolina's 75th governor. taking the reins of a deeply divided state and facing an openly hostile legislator as he tries to accomplish an agenda calling for improved schools and a stronger economy for middle-class families. the incoming democratic governor who served four terms as the winning byneral, slightly more than 10,000 votes over 4.7 million cast. the contest was not settled until early december, leaving cooper with the shortest transition time in decades. sworn in just past midnight. jeff is joining us from pittsburg, california, you are optimistic about the new year. caller: happy new year, america. god bless everybody. said, we have to be optimistic. you have to be optimistic. and move forward. and the republican senate and congress, the last eight years when president obama was trying to make stimulus packages and all that, maybe they might work for trump in a good way. i did not vote for trump. i am not happy with none of that. if you think too deep into it you will have a heart attack. i want to think positive. if he messes up i will be the first one to beat the drum and say, let's get him. meanwhile, he might get the republicans and democrats to get together and pass some infrastructure. we really do need infrastructure. host: thank you for the call from california. donald trump spending the holiday weekend in mar-a-lago. we will take a look at trump and the economy, peter marie c will be joining us to give us his outlook on 2017 and what it means for you and financial markets and donald trump. fromis joining us philadelphia, you are pessimistic about the new year. caller: it is not so much that i think president trump will be that bad. kate is a pragmatic person, kind of like ronald reagan -- he is a pragmatic person, kind of like john -- ronald reagan. ist really i think sticks this republican-controlled congress. let's face it, they are going to exact their pound of flesh out of mr. trump to get legislation passed, especially the so-called freedom caucus. you put that in quotes, they are not about freedom. they represent maybe one million people in this country and posed their radical white -- right-wing beliefs on the rest of us. it is not so much mr. trump i am afraid of, it is this republican congress. already they are talking about repealing obama and the indefinite future, replacing it with who knows? host: you like divided government, one branch holding pennsylvania avenue and the other on the other end of pennsylvania avenue? caller: i like divided government the way it was for bill clinton. he was a democratic in just democrat in the white house and newt gingrich, he worked with president clinton. look at what was accomplished. the same thing for ronald reagan and tip o'neill. i would like jackson balances the way it has been for the last six years with president obama and mitch mcconnell. host: the new congress sworn in on tuesday, we will have live coverage from the u.s. house as lawmakers in that chamber are sworn in, and from the u.s. senate, one of the final acts by the president of the senate. vice president joe biden will swear in the new members of the u.s. senate, coverage beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time, marking the start of the 115th congress. streaming live on c-span.org and c-span radio, and feel free to check out our free c-span app. donald trump sitting down in the oval office with president obama, looking ahead on president obama trying to cement his own legacy with policies and appointees less than three weeks before he steps down. donald trump is sworn in. this editorial column from the toronto sun looking at donald trump. whatwrite the following -- happened to moving forward together? i am no trump fan, nor clinton, however it is done. trump is the president-elect and on january 20 he will be president. so let's see what he does. keep his feet to the fire when he is not putting them in his mouth. speaking in response to what the first lady said about no hope, this is what he said in mobile, alabama. many, any we face challenges. the world is a mess. our country is in trouble. we face many, many challenges. yesterdaybama said that there is no hope. [booing] trump: but i assume she was talking about the past, not the future because i am telling you we have tremendous hope and tremendous promise and tremendous potential. we are going to be so successful as a country again, we are going to be amazing. i actually think she made that statement not meaning it the way .t came out, i really do i met with president obama and michelle obama in the white house, i wife was there, she could not have been nicer. i honestly believe she made that statement -- meant that statement in a different way than it came out, because i believe there is tremendous hope and beyond hope, we have such potential. this country has such potential. you watch, it is going to be so special. happen likeoing to you have not seen happen in many decades. host: donald trump in alabama as part of his thank you tour. from the hill newspaper, americans are hopeful for a better 2017. tell us your thoughts, your outlook as we begin a brand-new year. brian, san diego, your thoughts are next. caller: i am a little pessimistic -- i would say a lot pessimistic. i did not vote for donald trump because of his views on russia and that worries me. i am optimistic when it comes to the home front as far as, it is going to come to the old saying goes, the economy is stupid. americans will have to change. that is going to start with education, we need education reform. we need to get more finance degrees and kind of do away with the -- or at least put in the background the liberal arts degrees that are not as economically beneficial to college graduates. focus more on trade schools. maybe convert our community colleges to trade schools were kind of get a hybrid sort of thing going -- or kind of get a hybrid sort of thing going. i believe americans will adapt. one more thing i am pessimistic about is how we are divided as far as our news goes. we do not really listen to both sides of the story. we kind of look to something that reinforces what we already believe, and that worries me. host: brian, thank me, you are up early in san diego. are you still up from the new year? caller: yes, still up. host: the wall street journal poll finding americans viewing donald trump more positively, 29% into 41% from october. year, and of the editorial from the new york times, take a bad year and make it better. available online at nytimes.com. here are some of the highlights. the forces of this unity are strong but our job is to make the country less divided then donald trump's splintering campaign has left it. fight for $15 an hour minimum wage, leading police of abusing and discrimination, those are marginalized, poor, and week, this may be the most heartening in a year, we can indeed do this and indeed can summon the will. gary from virginia, you are next. caller: i hope that president trump is an eisenhower republican. with a plank of common sense for the party. i think to optimize the efficiency of our expenditures on the infrastructure, we need to use satellite computer is theogy, because as it unions are featherbedding on these projects. the corporations are just under bidding, and we are getting bottlenecks that are expensive. he says he wants to clean up the swamp. that would be the first thing. we are wasting money. and time. people's lives are going up in smoke literally and figuratively. host: gary from sterling, virginia, thank you. we are not getting your tweets but we are getting your comments on facebook. here are some of your thoughts, this is from lori -- yes, absolutely, this is the path to changing the world to be a better place. it is not doom and gloom. -- i am veryg optimistic about 2017 especially because of the american politics. the american people are about to be subjected to a political extreme that we simply will not tolerate. david is joining us from new york, good morning, welcome, you are optimistic. why? david, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you today? host: we are fine. why are you optimistic? caller: i voted for trump and i support my president. even if she won i would still support her. i am a 20 year veteran from the nypd. donald trump, everyone is bashing him and no one is giving him a chance. stand behind him and see what he can do. address, theweekly president with these words as we begin a new year. madedent obama: we have extraordinary progress these last eight years and none of it was inevitable. it was the result of tough choices we made and the result of your hard work and resilience. keep america moving forward is a task that falls to all of us. sustaining and building on all we have achieved from helping more young people afford a higher education to ending discrimination based on pre-existing conditions to tightening roles on wall street to protecting this planet for our kids. that is going to take all of us working together, because that has always been our story, the story of ordinary people coming slow,er in the hard, sometimes frustrating work of self-government. it has been a privilege of my life to serve as your president, and as i prepare to take on the even more important role of citizen, know that i will be with their with you every step of the way to make sure this country forever strives to live up to the incredible promise of our founding, that all of us are created equal and all of us deserve a chance to live out our dreams. from the obama family to yours, have a happy and blessed 2017. host: the weekly address by president obama. today at noon eastern time on c-span3's booktv, in-depth with three leading authors as we look at three years of the obama presidency. eastern,ern -- 12:00 9:00 on the west coast. we go back to our facebook page and show you some of your comments. gary says -- it is too early to say that trump cannot undo obama's mass. bill says -- as optimistic as you can be with the reality tv host of our president. -- no, say goodbye to medicare, tri-care, and social security as we know it. lori is joining us from new paul's, new york. you are optimistic, why? caller: i am just glad we have a president trump now. he is not taking a salary which is great. we are watching him just fleecing america one by one through his hotels, which is fine. everybody has got to make a buck. esther trump is doing everyone a great service by cutting all of is doing. trump everyone a great service by cutting all of the old people and weak people. all of the old people and poor people will die a grisly death, but that is just like jesus wanted it, isn't it? host: laurie from new york. from texas, calling about mixed reviews from the year ahead -- for the year ahead. caller: the lady that just called, that is kind of a person who trump attracts, someone like that. evidence she does not know anything about jesus. i am mixed because a lot of the things he has said already, he is flip-flopping. he lies a whole lot, and that has been proven. , i am 64 a black woman years old now and i have been voting since i was 18 years old. i do not miss voting. , we haveke as blacks always had to roll with the punches. i am hoping things will get better, but i'm going to have to wait and see because this is a man who flip flops too much. all of this stuff about putin, and he wants to think he does not have anything to do with hacking into america's, we know he did it. i do not know why he wants to be friends with this dictator. that is another thing. americans. i do not know when we are going to get to that. when these terrorists come in and burned places, they hate americans. they do not see our skin color. host: essay from texas. will look at the relations with vladimir putin. michael o'hanlon will be joining us later from the brookings institution. that will key hearing be taking place on thursday that we will be carrying on the c-span network on 9:00 eastern time. you can watch it on c-span3, listen on c-span radio or c-span.org. gallup organization, a look at the most admired person in america. president obama beating donald trump. obama, 15%barack admire donald trump. hillary clinton the most admired woman, and it is the ninth time president obama has won the most admired man in america, the 21st time for hillary clinton to be the most admired woman. more details online at gallup.com. edithuburn, pennsylvania, is up next. you are pessimistic. caller: let me say, happy new year to everyone. i am not optimistic but pessimistic, because i think the country has lost its way. moneysay that because means everything to everybody. we are large. i cannot see us as being a christian nation because we put too much stock in money. we do not trust in god enough. just because you do not like ,bortion, you do not like gays that does not make you christian. i am concerned because i truly believe that we are putting stock in donald trump. he is not god. we should be putting all that we in leaving in god. host: from the denver post, i want to share with you some photographs on new year's eve from times square to sydney, australia, these are some of the photographs available online. it is available on the denver post website. a look at some of the photographs, and listening to jason from san diego, good morning. caller: good morning, this is david. i guess i'm kind of mixed. hen i look at donald trump, is a man who believes in his head and heart, and spent the money backing it up, trying to prove that barack obama was not a citizen and did not graduate from college. here is a man in his head and heart, believes that sandy hook was a hoax. now our intelligence gave us cornets for a compound in coordinates for a compound in pakistan where obama -- osama bin laden was residing. .ur intelligence got it our same intelligence is telling us that russia is hacking us. they did not hack the gop by any means. putin andg played by netanyahu. they are laying the groundwork. he is just that type of person trying to be that way with these conspiracies, but anybody could have taken down the wrong rabbit hole. i am sorry, that is what i have got to say. host: the front page of the daily news -- a santa massacre, costume terrorist killing 35 in an istanbul nightclub. new developments overnight from the bbc, the death toll is up to 39. it is believed to be a terrorist attack but more details yet to be determined. it took place at 1:30 in the morning local time, an hour and a half after the new year began in an istanbul nightclub. here are some of the scenes courtesy of getty images. those injured, 69 with four in critical condition. monroe, georgia, your thoughts about the new year. caller: good morning and happy new year. i want to let everybody know we did vote for trump and i believe it is going to be better because i believe he will straighten out the welfare system because it is overburdened, overused, people are staying at home when i could work. i also feel like these , need tos are really be contained and run out of this country and run out of the world. as far as the economy is concerned, i think the economy will be great. look at the stock market. i have made several thousand dollars since november 9. i hope everybody does well. i hope trump succeeds in everything he does. again, happy new year to everybody. host: we will be talking the economy in just a couple of minutes. the sunday editorial on this january 1 from the washington post -- what will matter most in 2017? each of us has a role in preserving the founding father'' vision. the thin veneer of civilization rests upon what well may be the illusory faith in our common a desk, humanity. whether or not we would do well to cling to it, that is faith. the constraints it places upon human misbehavior, that is the first to go in times of war or civil unrest. those words by the historian were published in the year of his death, 2010. seementiment may unexceptionable but apparently it is not, at least to a sizable number of americans as the country passes through a time not of war or civil unrest, or even widespread economic distress, but rather of discontent, adjuvants, mutual contempt. -- petulance, which will consent. -- visual contempt. caller: i am optimistic about the upcoming year. -- i have mixed feelings about the upcoming year. eight years ago the market was at about 6000 points. americans were having their jobs in jeopardy, and this president saved a lot of jobs. he built a lot of companies, a lot of companies who got the money and passed their money and it was paid back with interest. eight years later, the economy is doing ok. .he unemployment is about 5% we are moving into the right direction. my biggest optimistic about the year is about our president, i think we ought to give him a chance. i want a person as a president who is going to treat about everybody. he is tweeting about his enemies. that shows he does not want to get away from twitter and does not want to be a good president for everybody. that is what my comment is, and i'm hoping this elected president will unite america and not divide it. ishmael joining us from indianapolis. usa today taking a look at the year ahead. you can read it online at usa today.com. trumppoll saying donald has not yet made progress in uniting the usa. gina is joining us from jacksonville, florida. caller: good morning, and a blessed year. because theyic hope does not lie in donald trump. it would not have been in hillary if she had one. my hope is in god. , not only this nation but nations, all nations, we need to go back to god. we need to have him first in our lives. we need to follow his glory, his commandments, to love one another. we need to get rid of the hate. the underlying problems in the world in america, is hatred. host: how do you get rid of it? caller: by finding the word of god. he said to follow peace with all men and holiness. so we go by god's word we could easily eradicate hate. i want to just, if you will allow me, just read a couple of verses from a hymnal that was written by a south african reverend. he was 50 years ahead of his time when he penned this hymn. lights, shine on eternal to greet all souls this day. the gloominess of night and drive our doubts away. come love and give new birth demands destructive mind. spread where confusion reigns on earth, goodwill to all mankind. of all of the gifts that flowed ask our great above, we hearts restore the gift of love. repair, the well and strife chelsea's. -- shall cease. the new era of peace. shine on, eternal light. host: when did he write that? rayer: a penetrating shelter in the darkest night into day. that is my prayer, that god will intervene. it is not in the hand of man. what theo get back to founding fathers built this nation on, and that is god. host: from jacksonville, florida, jean. devon facebook page, from -- optimistic or pessimistic, definitely not. those who need help will continue to suffer. says -- yes for myself but not the average american who will be rolled by trump like he has been doing to these people all his life. steve says -- of course, to say so on january 1 will almost guarantee a crappy year. you areyou say pessimistic, joining us from illinois. understandpeople that trump is bought and sold by putin, there is a $500 billion deskact sitting on putin's right now. fought,very war we have if you really research it, was fought over money. trump does putin. putin. our intelligence agencies have informed us and have protected us. now all of a sudden trump does not believe it. what amazes me is the naivete of the american people. they believe this man. i do not believe this has anything to do with race, it is about greed. trump is a businessman. his whole cabinet is filled with rich ceos, investors. main street is going crazy. the middle class is getting worse or staying the same. one more thing, i watch the news and i listen to all the stations, even fox news even though i am a democrat. i hear them talking about tax cuts. minutes talking about tax cuts for corporate america. nobody really even talks about tax cuts for the middle class. that is about all i have to say. host: tyrone from illinois. you mentioned about vladimir putin and the cyber security issue related to the 2016 election. live coverage of the hearing chaired by john mccain and the senate armed services committee live thursday at 9:00 eastern time. , the start returns of the 115th congress gets underway on january 3, tuesday. we will have live coverage on c-span and c-span2. coming up, what is next for the economy? journal,en of national a look ahead at the new -- been of national journal, a look ahead. firstunday morning, the day of january, the start of a brand-new year, back in a moment. ♪ >> the new congress starts tuesday. want all of the opening day events and activities on c-span. we are live from the u.s. capitol starting 7:00 a.m. eastern. you will meet new representatives and hear from returning members. the house devils in at noon. -- gavels and at noon. on roles of congress, -- it is in response to last summer's democratic city and streamed by several democrats. live coverage of the senate starts at noon eastern and includes the swearing in of senators. on c-span3 continues with live coverage of the ceremonial swearing-in of members of congress at 1:00 p.m. eastern. joe biden presides over the swearing in of individual senators. at 3:00, paul ryan swears in members of the health -- house. tonight on q and a -- >> people were starving and he was having these fancy parties and the white house. it was part of the image making where harrison was the candidate, poor man for the poor people, and here was this rich man in washington sneering at the poor people. he had thousands of acres and he was a wealthy man, but was portrayed as a champion of the poor. women came to the parades and waved handkerchiefs. some gave speeches and wrote pamphlets, and it was shocking. criticizedemocrat -- by the democrats who said these women should be home taking putting. the carnival " campaign." tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. >> the presidential inauguration of donald trump is friday, january 20. c-span will have live coverage of all the events and ceremonies. watch live on c-span and c-span.org, and listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> washington journal continues. host: we went to welcome back ici, economics professor at the university of maryland and we learned it was your last class before retirement. guest: i will just write and do the kinds of things that i have been doing. i have been teaching since 1970's so i think it is time to make way for other people. host: let's begin with a piece you wrote for the washington times, the measure of trump's presidency. you begin with what he needs to do to have 3% or 4% economic growth, and he may -- has to scale some huge barriers to a compass that. about doinglks three things that have long-term structural consequences for growth -- tax cuts and rationalizing the tax system, rolling back unnecessarily maintaininghile consumer protection and stability protection in the financial sector and so forth, and finally he talks about trade with china. and trade generally. those are all very complex problems. this is not ronald reagan's america and he is not facing ronald reagan's problems. we have a much more heavily entrenched regulatory state ban we did 20 or 30 years ago. you can merely by executive order remove many of president obama's executive orders. but to rollback regulation generally means you have to repeat the process that president obama went through, which is laborious. you have to have hearings, public comment, you draft a regulation. it could take years. look at all of the issues surrounding the federal overtime rule. you really have to know what you are doing to do that, and it can be done. you can also wrap it up into a reconciliation bill. you only get one of those a year in the senate rules which allows you to push through legislation without 60 votes. anything that is budget related i can put in their, or put the national ping-pong tournament in there because it requires money to go on. taxes, it is very hard politically to cut taxes. 83% of income tax is paid by the top 20% because of the way we have had success of tax cuts. reagan cut taxes for everybody. bush and clinton kind of raised them more on the people knew the top. the second bush cut taxes on everybody, and essentially mr. obama reinstated taxes for people on the top. we have a tax structure that is extraordinarily progressive and it comes to income tax. 47% of the population does not pay income tax. , thoseu talk about it taxes are burdensome on entrepreneurs. if you are a small businessperson, you do not have to go very far before you are paying more than 50% of your profit in taxes between the federal and state and local. we do need some help but it is kind of hard to do it unless you change the tax structure entirely. to adeological opposition value-added tax on capitol hill among republicans is so strong that it will not happen. that is one of the reasons, let's go to corporate taxes, they are trying to come up with a system where the corporate taxes are rebate of bull on exports and can be applied to imports, the way european countries and china do with their value added taxes. that is going to be very difficult to do and be compliant with our treaty all these it -- obligations in the wto. the reason they are going through all of these trump is sortnd of caught between the legacy of history on a lot of these issues , and the ideological constraints put on him by his own majority. host: you have donald trump talking about infrastructure spending during the campaign that could total about $1 trillion. let me put that on the table, a tax cut plan on the table, and debt clock.org where the debt is approaching $20 trillion. how do you deal with infrastructure, tax cuts, and trying to rein in the debt and deficit or does that not matter? guest: it does matter. president obama is leaving the legacy of a large debt, and the deficit itself is structurally very large. we have a very large federal deficit right now and if we do nothing, if he had been elected for a third and fourth term and had no change in policy the deficit would be ballooning because of the aging policy and socials -- population and social security. this is an example of what i call the great snake oil sale. made absolutely preposterous promises when it came to spending. hillary was going to provide every conceivable social benefit by taxing the wealthy. she was going to use the same dollar 11 different ways. donald trump is going to do this with private funding. the record of private funding on infrastructure is not good. toll roads are going bankrupt and where private equity has taken over public utilities, rates have skyrocketed out of control. when private equity took over twinkies, they were able to cut costs and raise prices a little bit. and basically resurrect the brand. they had to face competition from other snack foods and other snack cakes like little debbie pies. they were limited in how much they could raise prices. but when they take over your local water company and jack it up with a lot of debt, and then to line their pockets, rates go up astronomically. at the end of the day, there is only one way to pay for infrastructure -- or two ways. you either borrow the money, run of the deficit, or pay higher user fees and taxes. a lot of that -- host: a lot of that we are borrowing from china. -- that is is a not not a good place to be borrowing from so we have to use our infrastructure money smarter. a classic example of that is the highway trust fund. we are using the highway trust fund to subsidize mass transit. there is no evidence that that makes it cheaper. it just runs up the salaries, and look at the washington metro system. it is the most expensive in the country. my daughter rides the metro and it costs her more to get to work then my son in new york. that, thatu look at old axiom, why do you rob banks? that is where the money is. medicare, medicaid, defense spending, and entitlement spending, if you are going to cut spending you have to go to those areas. guest: you have me in the position of being donald trump's director of omb. he is going to have to cut spending. when you say he is going to basically pilfer the poor, you have to think of what has happened with entitlement spending. if you are a healthy male who is 32 and refused to look for a job , you can get food stamps and medicaid. i do not know that we should be doing that. 65,out of 20 adults, 16 to one out of 20 is on social security disability. that is an absurd situation considering that we are living longer, healthier lives. what is becoming very apparent -- and the liberal media has even gone after this -- basically we have a lot of fraud in the social security disability system. putting into place an appropriate hearings process where the government is , theately represented governor does not have a lawyer arguing on the other side. there are places where it can cut, but can we cut as much as mr. trump would like to spend? i do not know the on top of that, this morning in "the new york times," the democrats are behaving as if they have to ride out of the four years. this guy will be gone. you look at all of the things that the "new york times" has documented that president obama entrenchto basically his legacy by putting up roadblocks to action by taking last-minute initiatives. mr. trump will spend a great deal of his time doing what mr. obama did in his last 60 days. it is a very unfortunate situation. postevent let's get your phone calls for puma receipt, a professor at the university of -- host: less get your phone calls for peter marin see, a professor at the university of maryland. there is a fellow on there who said that -- was going to cut taxes for corporate america. evidently he did not. trump is talking about cutting taxes all across the board. states, abortion, killing the babies. these people kill cops and kill -- and commit sex crimes against children. --payers got to suspect support of them. host: thank you. guest: it will be hard to have substantial tax cut. there are things to do to accelerate growth and enjoy opportunities for actual tax cuts. that's by rationalizing the tax itself down. the corporate tax system is a christmas tree on special benefits to folks that support democratic interest and folks who support republican interests, depending on who is writing the tax law. if we got rid of all the exemptions, i think we could make real progress. it remains to be seen whether the republicans have the courage whent rid of the benefits they are in the saddle. it will be easy to get rid of the benefits for people who oppose them. are they willing to get rid of the benefits for people who historically supported a? host: let's look at it from the members of the trump cabinet. cabinets.e 4 0%, 10%, 20% and 25%. no income tax for earning less than 250,000 or a married couple for less than $50,000. i do not think you can cut to the business tax. i will say that right now. that would mean, an employee here and if we turn to a consultant, we could cut your taxes by a limited liability corporation and running it through. is one state, i wish i could recall it, the basketball his $180,000xes on basketball salary but he has all kind of endorsements. noer similar system, he pays state taxes. that is absurd. if you want to cut of use rates and only do that by getting rid of popular deduction or capping reductions, charitable deductions, i think it makes a great deal of sense. i do not know why charitable should have a special rate. most charitable organizations are not at the assistance of the poor. you of them are pursuing, know, things we want pursued. often from a political perspective. is we can do those things. i am an economist so economists like to do those things. politicians do not. aen they talk about talking mortgage reduction a you were waiting of that, you have a family crisis. easier to run for president and talk about these things. it has to be said that donald trump does not have an economist. he does not bring he has peter navarro working on trade and he gets very thin very fast. the people who ever devised him our media types. as a consequence, when we look at his proposals, it comes up very badly in terms of the net effect on the budget. talk about love to the dynamic effects of generating growth. i will tell you you can generally growth by cutting cut sobut you cannot much that you cannot finance the government. in this environment, unlike the regular environment, where we how 4% or 5% growth, we are a six-year recovery. of the regulatory state, as they have to rollback regulations and that is where was skeptical. the labor department has imposed so many conditions and so much paperwork on hiring the first employee that the fastest area of growth in small businesses in single proprietor businesses. people like me who have consulting business. i will do anything i possibly can to avoid having an employee because of the unrest burdens by the -- onerous burdens by the department of labor. they might as well be the planning of the old soviet union. the guy going in there is a fast food executive. whatever is harmful to fast food, restaurants will become trolled and hopefully swept away. the minimum wage is not going above nine bucks an hour. whether he is sensitive to what the labor department does to me, i do not know. likewise, at the department of lot of there will be a stuff that is consistent with the agenda that i was pursuing as a governor. will be inow if he position to fully understand and implement the changes to get the department of interior, department of education, epa off producers aback. -- backs. my feeling is we have this notion in america that the government is staffed by blundering, incompetence. this expertise, things will miraculously get better. if you look the history act of the state level, it has not always worked out well. had the president of the university of missouri fired because inadequately handled minority situations. business guy brought in to clean up ways and fraud. to thelity is he wanted political situation and do not know how to handle it. s program ismorici' carried in great britain, we welcome your calls. we are also carried on the potus channel. channel 121 on sirius xm. for those of you listening on potus or c-span radio, check out our new radio app. welcome our guest, peter morici. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning and happy new year. i am a conservative, a fiscal conservative. i do not understand why president-elect trump consist -- and cisco cutting taxes for the super rich. -- insist on cutting taxes for the super rich. the top 1%. it is not good politically. i do not understand it myself. is there really some tax reward pube read if -- rea if we -- reaped if we put a minimal tax on the ultrarich? guest: we do have something. what is really the problem when it comes to the wealthy -- host: you have to earn how much? you a i cannot give number off the top of my head. i have gotten it, but not this year. you have people who can make $250,000 and can get hit with it . the real problem with the rich is the tax benefit. if i could pick one thing to get rid of, it is what we call the carried interest tax benefit. basically, if you are in private ceoty or investments or a and take most of your compensation in some sort of shares or stop, which event go up in value and you sell them and then take that your income, that is not taxed as wage but investment income. benefits from the capital gains tax rate is very different than people receive going out -- peter morici going. and getting shares and holding them for three years. , corporated interest ceos, traders, investors, warren buffetts of the world. every president talks about doing that. rail againstwould it. he had critical moments where he slipped in new taxes. the 11th hourn with regard to the affordable care act, he slipped in the 3.8% dividendserested and of people who earn over $250,000. it is people who have stock portfolios. he could have done something at that critical moment where he needs revenue and he to add a operational majority and the senate -- and he had an operational majority in the senate. enter donald trump. look at who is in his cabinet. it seems as if the principal qualifications for being in the cabinet are either you are a billionaire, who likes money, you are good with the media, or you are in the military. if you look at donald trump's history, his dad was a billionaire and he wanted to the military school and he is good with the media. those people benefit from the carried interest. it will be interesting to see if these guys do it to themselves. he will do everything he can in 2017 to get rid of the carried interest provision. i do not think he will get the low rates he wants and maintain a balanced budget. host: steam of newton is the treasuries that steve -- steve is of the treasury secretary if he is confirmed. what challenges will he say's it during the confirmation? guest: they will all face also cools. to takebe are you going us from instability. -- they were all face also cools. the dodd frank -- obstacles. we did a christmas season and show in new york, seneca falls, new york is the town that was the basis for "it's a wonderful life." the river is called charles street and the angel charles. i went to the seneca falls savings and loan. it is a modest place. i went to the basement because of that is where the president keeps his office. he takes off his big telephone book, it was not a telephone book. it is. for the regulation for making a mortgage loan. i cannot possibly deal with this. does it. frank regulation -- it dodd-franknk d regulation book. that andell him about he kind of rolled his eyes and move on to the next subject. do you like cabbage? that's obama administration when it comes to dealing with that. s job.s mnuchin' things that mps things on wall street like china, my feeling is we have a serious question on whether these appointees are going to be really focused on the things that people voted for. host: peter morici, another look at the trump tax plan to the rates.p of 4 tax 0%, 10%, 20% and 25%. what is next in the trump administration and what is the legacy of obama's economic record? democrats line, good morning. caller: professor marie c -- morici, thank you for sharon. -- for sharing. point, you talked about the reconciliations. the fast check budget process. about two bells to push through. the second i am concerned about. it has to deal with understanding they are trying to couple tax cuts with radical overhaul of medicaid and even the supplemental security program so the elderly and disabled poor, is this something that really happen without a single vote from us, the democrats? tost: the democrats do get vote. they cannot block legislation under the 60 vote rule. it is possible reconciliation and medicaid reform if you want to do it at that time and not have a need for 60 votes. there are aspects of medicaid there really need reforming. that will not hurt the people that medicaid is set up to assist. for example, we pay enormous amounts of drugs in the united states. let's set the pair to the germans who do not have a single-payer system as we do. it looks like obama care. the question is why are we paying so much? federal finance programs seem to be lineage with a drunk companies. with the put things in there. seemderal finance program to be lenient with drug companies. who refuse to work and sponge off of their girlfriends and wives and do not do much of anything useful and they get medicaid. i do not know if we'll be a terrible thing to cut them off and orson them to go to work. i -- it would be a terrible thing to cut them off and forcing them to go to work. what republicans are looking to do is basically puts medicaid more in the patrol of the governors, take the money they are spending now, give it to the governors and say if you cannot spend it better. i do not know if it is terribly harmful if you remove the restrictions already present in the program in regard to reimburse insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, for example. i am an older person. as you get older, you've is a hospitals more. wereught universities inefficiency in the often railed that the university, why do i have to put up with the bureaucracy? goodness gracious, you have to visit the hospital. my department chairman is a lovely fellow. he is as liberal as hillary lovely fellow. he is a canadian. he said one of the things that hit us when we went to the american system is how many people running around. go up there. a lot of satisfied customers. a lot of people covered but they spend less. if you give it to the governors, they may be able to implement reforms. one thing i do know, i do know as a fact through hard experience after 68 years on this planet is the federal officials in charge can get hardly anything constructive done when it comes to cutting costs. , not only enough rope is very expensive system but a very covetous system. i often say the washington metro is so bad to distract bureaucrats' attention from the v.a. administration which it does not service veterans very well and frankly lobbies against reform to protect their own bureaucratic. host: let me pick it to the fed. you talked about interest rate hike how it will help not hurt a true recovery. why? guest: my feeling is obama came and a credibly -- incredibly difficult situation. he did pretty darn well the first two years. i criticized some of the things he did, ok? but by and large, we had an economy on life support. he was in a crisis mode and he is a liberal and he does the things liberals do. he got economy up and rolling. but, over time, a lot of the things he did build up a created impediments for growth. this is been the slowest recovery since the depression. less thanh has been half in the last three recoveries. labor force participation is very low. we have a lot of people sitting on the sidelines not looking. it requires reform. that's the case that second term presidents do not get a lot done. i think he did pretty well. it is a permanent stain on the republicans that george bush did so little to anticipate the financial crisis. and by the way, his treasury secretary, paulson, was one of the private sector guys who was smarter than god and was supposed to straighten out washington. before the crisis, he saw no problems emerging. one of the biggest problems we had with the instruction vehicles that the banks had to hide their mortgage offer their books for say he even said, there is no problem. the guy from wall street who is supposed understand wall street, .o problems almost brought down the global economy for good. the notion that you can simply go and get carl icahn in here and working part-time, somehow going to develop a list of restrictions the need to be done. i am for limited government. i'm interested in seeing how limited they are. host: kevin is waiting from california. republican line with peter morici from the university of maryland. my question is this, i remember a year and half ago before the election took over all of the news, there were a lot of people fighting each other. there is china, russia, middle east, north korea. i think president obama has done a good job of keeping america out of other people's business. i think trump is in the position he might engage in war. next fouro war in the years, how does it impact of the american economy? guest: let's focus on the economy first. i think we are more likely to enter in armed conflict because of then at the lake mr. obama -- enabling mr. obama did with china. i do not think he did a very good job with china. they militarize the south china sea. host: i want you to hear what donald trump said. speakingonald trump about china, traded economy. mr. trump: we have lost 70,000 factories since china joined the world trade organization. think of that. i said 700, you mean. i said 7000 maybe. factories.is 70,000 many from alabama. and you know what. inis the greatest jobs theft the world. we are going to un-theft it. we are going to bring it back. be takene not going to advantage of anymore more by all of these foreign countries. we are what have a very new policy for very long time that has not been this way, it is called america first. it is now america. if a company wants to fire their great stateve the of alabama or another state for another country and then ship their new products right back into our country to a very strong border, by the way, there will be consequences. right now, they can do that, make the product, bring it in for nothing. you saw what we did for carrier air conditioner. goal by carrier. they were great. fromve thousands of people a family standpoint that will have a great christmas in indiana. we have many of those things going. many, many. if they want to do that, we will impose a 35% tax on those products, guitar country. they will not move. host: peter morici, donald trump last month in mobile, alabama. that you is one thing say during the campaign and another thing what you do. america first. those are catchphrases that we can dismiss. we have to forget about the business of running this country. china is the single largest andomic and foreign policy defense and strategic issues facing the united states. correct,bama is quite is a regional power and we can dispatch of russia as a threat in the middle east or american interests quite rapidly, china's navy, russia's navy would not stand up to hours. it would not do much. china is very complex. ,f you merely put up a tariff all you do is make goods more expensive. you do not do very much about getting the jobs of that here because -- jobs back here because of their all types of places that china can apply pressure to the united states. united states investors in china and push some pawns in the china sea and promulgate a conflict. squeeze on taiwan right now economically. creating -- my feeling is you have to approach china in a comprehensive way, redefined american relationship with china. as part of that is to demand balanced trade. to do that, you cannot think of do it in the ways we have approached trade. that is simply renegotiating the trade agreement between u.s. and china. there is a trade agreement. it is defined as all kind of things like this. that is a very complex task which requires skilled professionals who are well familiar with trade agreements, china and so forth and are committed to doing this. so that when you impose of the tariff, which by the way, if you look at my writings, i have endorsed something very similar. opposite, iberal write for "the washington times" anti-rights for "the new york times" anti-rights of the same thing. you have to know what you want for china and go to the wall with them on all of these other issues or they will push back. for example, they are putting pressure and that causes the ceo of general motors to put political pressure in washington on trump. you have to say we are not going to tolerate that. the biggest professional outsourcer in america is ibm. they will show you how to outsource. they also base their logistics operations in china. they will put pressure on them. you have to know what you are doing. it is not just slogans and not as easy as attacks. we have to look at who is going to be in charge of trade policy. are they familiar? host: the second part is the impact a war or conflict on the economy. guest: if we got involved in a war with china or with russia, it would be a naval war. it would probably be short-term. if we prevailed, we will certainly prevail with russia. china is more difficult. china has interesting resources. prevail, it would probably have a positive effect on the economy because you would spend more on the military. with an infrastructure program gives you is put people to work and dollars and the hands to expand. theet back to how we began discussion, the deficit. i do not think it would be harmful to the economy. misconstrued, my critics say there is professor marie c -- more receipt -- peter morici advocating the war. when you have a disruption like the, a tariff on china, stock market will tank. you will have a momentarily panicked on wall street for him donald trump is a cold, there will be a panic. you get initial panics with the rest. and all longer-term, if the economy does well, the stock market follows it up. when we talk about the numbers, if you look at where it was in 2000 and now, it reflects the poor economy we have had it is not up a lot from its peak in 2001. it went up a lot and went down a lot. made a lot ofally progress over the last 16 years. neither the republicans nor the democrats have figured out how to run the 21st century economy. host: a few more minutes with our guest, peter morici. you can follow his work at "the washington times." john, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. one of the major factors in economic growth and job creation is indigenous high-value added startups. and yet the united states does not seem to be focused on building these. for example, we have robotics industry that was born in this country and now japan and korea are the leaders in this industry. host: we will get a response. we always like to blame the success of the japanese on government intervention and subsidies and this and that. the reality is japanese have focused on robotics in a way we have not. where as we are focusing artificial intelligence in a way that did they have not. you have to acknowledge japan, after china, third-largest economy in the world. resources andd they will lead and some things. it is a very different one from a small business issue. this is where the robbing of the rich to give to the poor tax structure, 83% of the taxes paid on the top 20% of owners. the very wealthy, the 1% of the 1%, the warren buffetts, the donald trumps and so forth have done very was snickering to the system with carried interest. what really matters in terms of start up is someone who manage $500,000 a year with having a great deal will earn. they are getting clobbered by the tax rates. both ways.have it you cannot say you want to have a more equitable tax system and beating the hell out of small businesses which is what federal policy does. small businesses creation is at a very low level historically right now as is entrepreneurial activity from young people. that has to do something with the tax structure. most of these kids have gone to bureaucratic, bloated places. they learn about different doors at plate -- entrepreneurs at princeton university or maryland a you learn about processes and rules and bureaucracy. and if they leave saddled up with a lot of debt. a young person, a young man or woman who has a couple of hundred thousand dollars of debt from getting a degree in electrical engineering that is who christened the company. it is not abide with a liberal , foreign affairs or international relations. star businesses are engineers and those are expensive degrees to that. they are indebted to do creative things. host: another essay by peter morici. this is by the desert news website. the mantra prepare for a showdown with china. online follow his work at the university of maryland website. georgia, democrats line. caller: good morning. happy new year. commentee with this morici that mr. made about the guy -- that mr. morici made about the guy sitting on the couch and getting a free check. in the state of georgia, you have to work to get a check from the government. that is all i have to say. them: in stays at that for lamented the obamacare medicaid program, you do not have to be working to get medicaid for example. -- in the states that have implemented the obama medicaid program, you do not have to be working to get medicaid, for example. want free health care and you are in the right state, you can get it. conclude with mr. obama said in his year and news conference. he talked about his economic record. here's the president from last month. president obama: as i was preparing to take the office, the unemployment was at 10%. now, it is at 4.6%. we of saying the longest streak ever. recovery -- we have the longest streak of job recovery ever. when i came in office, 44 million people were uninsured. now, with covered more than 20 million of them. more than 90% of americans are in short. in fact, yesterday was the biggest a day ever for healthcare.gov. more than 670,000 americans signed up to get coverage more are signing up by the day. we cut our dependency on foreign oil by more than half and doubled renewal energy. none of these actions stifled growth as critics predicted. instead the stock market has nearly tripled. since i signed obacare into law on our businesses have added more than 15 million new jobs. the economy is more durable than it was in the days when we relied on oil or money stable nations and banks took risky bets with your money. , last year, the poverty rate fell at the fastest rate in almost 50 years. while the median household income grew at the fastest rate on record. income test games were larger for households at the bottom in the middle than those at the top . we have done all of this while cutting our deficits by nearly 2/3 and protecting vital investments that grow the middle class. host: the president on his economic legacy. pick out all can statistics that make us look good after eight years. certainly, mr. obama have a completion is to be product -- proud of. as i said earlier in this broadcast, he did a great deal to resurrect it. like you told by wage growth, all wage growth is less than half of what was in the last three recoveries. one of the reasons donald trump was able to win in places like michigan and wisconsin was because wage growth has been so stagnant. he did not get votes from the guise of the couches but the gals in diners and the guys who drive trucks is wages have not kept up. health care, forcing people to buy an expensive product or face a penalty is hardly an accomplishment. you remember in october just before the election, next year's health care rates came out that people who would have to buy on the exchanges. many other people make up this, after the big networks, i do a lot at fox, they are contractors. they have to buy their own health insurance on the exchanges. maybe they make 50,000 or 60,000 a year. health care bill would be $1400 a month. you absolutely cannot afford it. that poor woman is faced with either paying the fine and going without health care for herself and her two kids or basically not eating. that is absurd. to say that is in a publishing is silly. -- to say that is an accomplishment is silly. they never really dealt with the fundamental problem, we pay 50% more for health care than the germans do even though they have a private insurance system. we overpay for drugs, well too many bureaucrats and insurance companies and a hospitals, as i said, really should be universities. i was have to admit the only bigger problem we have in america is that hospitals is universities. if were going to talk about our economic legacy, think about all of those kids who cannot find a decent job who have a college education and delivering under student debt working at starbucks. get of your unemployment rate down to 4.5% is no great trick. down the adult participation risk. i have done computations, estimates and so forth. i do grind numbers. i do not go tv and talk about it stop if -- talk about it. if we had the same percentage of adults working today, looking for a job as we had when mr. obama took office or when mr. bush took office, we would have an unemployment rate of 10%, 9%. program effective jobs that president obama has accomplished is to encourage able-bodied men and women to not to look for a job so they do not count and the unemployment statistics. is that is an employee -- that is in a couple summit, i will play shortstop. we need a colorful character. as the ages six it, i will be the satchel paige -- at the age of 68, i will be the satchel paige. host: we will be there to watch it. peter morici. we hope you have a happy retirement. peter morici, university of maryland print the president will be meeting with congressional democrats on wednesday to focus on one of his legacy items, the affordable care act. on new congress is sworn in tuesday. ben gorman will be joining us. will be talking foreign policy, syria, vladimir putin, russia and china, all ahead on "washington journal." we are back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ announcer: in depth will feature a live discussion with the presidency of barack obama. we are taking your calls and tweets. our panel includes april ryan, a washington correspondent and author of "the presidency in black and white." ,rison university professor author of "democracy in black: how race in slaves the american soul." and david, author of president obama: the story." watching today on book tv on c-span 2. >> monday night on the communicators, carnegie mellon co-author professor, of the book "streaming, sharing, stealing" discusses the impact of data on the book, movie and music industries. he talks about how companies like netflix, amazon and google accumulate large them as a data on consumer purposes and use it to transform industries. access to these detailed views of information and having the skills and willingness to use the data, it provides them at advantage and you can see where it is going. announcer: watch "the communicators" on monday at 8:00 on c-span2. announcer: the new congress starts tuesday. watch on the opening date events and give it is on c-span for them we are live from the u.s. capital start at 7:00 a.m. you will hear from returning inbers, the house and gavels at noon. opening day business is election of the house speaker, his address and debate and a vote on rules for the new congress. one rule in particular is getting attention. a proposal to find members who live stream video from the house floor in response to last summer's democratic sit in that was streamed by several democrats. a c-span2, live coverage of the senate starts at noon and includes the swearing in of senators. continues on c-span3 with live coverage of the ceremonial swearing-in at 1:00 p.m., vice president joe biden precise of the swearing in of individual senators. at 3:00, house pick swears in members of the house. we will have a full replay 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span2. host: ben gorman covers policy for "national journey policy." good morning. back to a piece you wrote about a month and a half ago comparing senate democrats to visiting the cafeteria, trying to find something palatable. the headline, democrats plan to pick their battles with the donald trump. explain. guest: democrats are in a period of mourning given the elections and election of trump as they do not have either chamber. analogy.eria let's say you're in a cafeteria a you are unhappy with a you do not want to eat something and maybe you can find a couple of things you want to choke down. will send the democratic strategy with the incoming trump administration. the republicans who will be calling the shots. democratsalk about about compromise, you hear about infrastructure is one thing. there might be a couple of other small things. will see strong democratic opposition right out of the gate. obamacare, unified democratic opposition to that. depending on what the infrastructure package looks like, that the be an area of some overlap. toocrats have been trying sort of do infrastructure spending for quite a long time and quite unsuccessfully. havees schumer and others said they are open to the concept. if you look at the early signals from the incoming administration, they want to have some type of largely private-sector initiative around tax credits for creation of private sector jobs. i think there would be pushed back. returnsul ryan as he following the election returns back in november's from reporters about what to expect when the new congress convenes on tuesday. house speaker ryan: welcome to of a new- dawn republican party. a government focused on turning president-elect trump's victory into real progress for the american people. our team is excited and we cannot wait to get to work. we recognize that task ahead of us is enormous. if we put our country back on the right track, we have to be bold and goal bit. this country is expecting no less. in the days and weeks ahead, we will work closely with the president-elect and his transition team to put out our ambitious plan. --t seems led by mike pence that team is led by mike pence and we are working hand in glove from the start and want to make sure we hit the ground running to deliver on the president's new agenda. better days lie ahead for our country. tot: he was reelected another term. how unified will the republican party be with the donald trump? guest: we will see less friction within the hubble the party right out of the get -- we will see less friction within the republican party right out of the gate. the most hard-core republicans, what they wanted for the past several years was a stronger, firmer stance and aggressive posturing toward president obama. they have a the same party. scissors some real with a both parties that we can see going forward. one of the things that are trump made a hallmark was unlike many republicans he does not necessarily want to go after long-term and title programs. -- entitlement programs. that is something speak ryan has been aggressive about wanting to privatize elements of medicare. that could be one area of tension. in the democratic ranks, you have divisions on the house and senate side. on the senate, grassroots energy with democrats, the bernie .anders, elizabeth warren wing the 2010 map for senate democrats is brutal. there defending 20 56 including a bunch that trump won by 20 points or more, west virginia, .orth dakota, joe manchin they will be up for reelection. is trick for the democrats to find ways to keep their pockets together when conservatives are sweating. host: two democrats that met with the donald trump for possible seats. senator john mccain who donald trump was critical of will be holding a hearing we will be covering this thursday. .he issue of cyber threats donald saying it is time to move past the sanctions put in place by president obama. this thursday, live on c-span3. streamed on the web at www.c-span.org and c-span radio. what can we expect? seeing is the are potential divisions among republicans you were mentionable for. donald trump has had a friend julie posture toward -- friendly posture toward russia. even congratulate russian president putin for not retaliating when obama announced sanctions and diplomatic penalties on russia. on the other hand, you have a real defense and national security hawks on the republican side led by senator mccain. i think he is raring to go, look at out of the gate, the first week back, he wants to put a real spotlight on the russian meddling the russian involvement in our election. that is an immediate source of tension between some of the defense hawks and trump. it is now much love lost between john mccain and donald trump. we remember things like very early and donald trump's campaign and one of the things people thought would be fatal to his election that did not turn out to betrayal, if you recall in 2015 he questions and criticizing john mccain's record as a war hero. i do not the mccain has a great reason to shield donald trump on this issue. host: one of your areas of expertise is energy. we will have a confirmation hearing for governor perry and all of president-elect trump's nominations. why did he want the job and white except the job? been: rick perry has interested in energy for a long time which makes a lot of this. he was a longtime governor of the state of texas. that is a dominant oil and natural gas producing state. there's a lot of wind power in texas. he may several successful efforts as governor to expand wind power there as well. running the energy department is a really, sort of, fascinating job. sure, it is involved with research and development programs on specific energy technologies. the bulk of the budget is on something that's on related to energy, which is maintaining emissions and nuclear stockpiles. is in them is in -- perry for an interesting confirmation and will be asked about a series of nuclear security issues. a department he talked about cutting as a presidential candidate in 2008. guest: he had the famous moment momentople -- oops that people thought ended his candidacy. he cannot remember the energy department was the third one of them that he wanted to eliminate. one footnote is he is not the first likely energy secretary to be late in the department he tried to abolish. spencer abraham was george w. bush's first energy secretary. he cosponsor legislation that would have abolished the energy secretary. energy department. his legislation one not have done with all sectors, it was a euro credit realignment. rick perry gets a lot of attention. not the first energy secretary to do so amazingly enough. host: let's get your calls. our guest is ben gorman at "national journey policy." line for-8000 is our democrats. we have new numbers today. don from houston, texas. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. -- whatthe question is would our energy policies look like had we embraced more of tesla's ideas? tesla came here with ideas. host: thank you. guest: to bring it back to perry. when you think about tesla motors. back in 2014, the wind is was governorship launched an aggressive effort to a tesla motors build their huge factory in texas. ultimately, nevada won the competition. if you were to look at some a brutal for-eight years pretty you have cabinet picks including rick perry whole denies climate change. -- who denies climate change. if they want to find more keenly signs, rick perry understands the job crating potential of energy sources of all kinds. he wanted the tesla he plant in his country but because he simply realized it is a lot of economic development and jobs. one of the things on the electric vehicle front is as congress looks to do policy overhaul, what will be the fate of the test credit for purchasing electrical vehicles which the important right now. there is a credit for purchases that make the vehicles more attainable. if that were to fall victim for an overhaul, that is something the industry would feel punished by. host: sometimes we switch and numbers. the number for this segment is (202) 748-8000 for republicans. democrats.48-8001, we will keep the numbers on the line. sean, independent line. you are next. noticed we discuss politix ad nauseam, we dissect as if it had great importance. i am a former investigative broadcast journalists whose my -- i find it a waste of time if we were such great detail a harry potter movie and i second get. it was seem to me it would have as much importance. is notrage individual taxed at all about what is happening. it is not real, whoever is in control of whatever is making the decisions. but we have such energy in this discussion as if it actually meant anything. it is an incredible waste of time. and very, very depressing. i am curious of your position, you as an expert in politics and discussing these matters in such a detail and death and expertise. -- depth and expertise. does it have anything to do with anybody? would it not be more important if we put our energies elsewhere ? the political races are some sort of sporting event where the outcome is probably -- anyway, a very pleasant good morning and a happy new year. host: thank you for the call for the does it matter? would respectfully disagree with the caller a little bit. respectfullyould disagree with the caller a little bit. the political horserace journalism but one of the reasons is the policy stakes of these races, up and down the ballot are quite that it. we will see it very quickly out of the gate and the new congress. one of the things republicans what to do fairly quickly is move to repeal a number of obama administration's regulations. their ability to do it is compromised by the way the regulatory process works. there will be some regulations and donna lake and the president's term using these privileged proof resolutions notr something that's been very done much. to get back to the caller's point, one of the things republicans might try to go after his department of labor's regulations on overtime. that is something that would because a for a lot of people. they are poised to go after environmental regulations. one of them could be some very recent finalize interior department regulations that deal with prevent country from dumping coal mining waste close to streams and appalachia and elsewhere. yes, back to the caller's point, a lot of attention to the horse race, but the policy stakes are very real for very large numbers of people. host: all this with a new democratic leader, charles schumer. here's what he had to say. something none: of us expected, i suspected that is true for many of you in the press as well. it certainly do not go the way we democrats hoped. it was a tough night, no doubt about it. election likean this, you cannot flinch. you cannot ignore it. you need to look at it right in the eye and ask, why, analyze it and learn from it. one thing we know is that we heard the american people loud and clear. they fell to the government was not working for them. they fell to the economy was rigged against them in many places. and the government was so beholden to big money and special interests. there is a debate going on on whether we should be the party of the diverse, obama coalition or the blue color american in the heartland. something we need to make a choice. and spend oliver energy focus on one group of americans or spend all of our energy focused on one group of americans or another. i believe there does not need to benefits -- division. there should not be a division. we should be the party that speaks to and work on behalf of all americans. and a bigger, bolder, sharper asked economic message -- sharper edged economic message for those struggling to make it to the middle class can make a there and deal with the unfairness and the american economic system. andill unite our caucus speak to the blue-collar worker ,n west virginia, in michigan as well as the people who live along the coasts. bolder, sharper, the words from charles schumer as the democrats lost an election. as he takes over as leader on tuesday. guest: if you are the incoming leader, this need for a sharper message on the economy and the working class voters, the democrats will be tried to road test that message fairly quickly for a couple of different reasons. you will have a whole series of nomination hearings. we were talking about governor rick perry and also a whole series of other confirmation hearing scheduled for the opening weeks of this month. what i am hearing from democratic aides, they want to use the hearings took rate contrast between the wealth of the nominees, multiple billionaires. they will try to say, while trump campaigned on a message of appealing to working-class voters, democrats will try to say his nominees are not sort of faithful to those messages or those goals. another thing after the date is that republicans are going to take the first steps to end obamacare. the way there are going to do do not because of they have enough power in the senate to beat back filibusters, they need to find a way to strip away striptop they need -- away. they need budget reconciliation, which means there will be budget resolutions introduced fairly quickly that essentially paved the way for future legislation down the line, but one of the fascinating things about budget resolutions, which are often have this burst of relevance, likely will seek soon is that they allow for a full series of boats on the senate floor and members can bring up essentially what they want, often times, the senate floor is famously slow and difficult to get with you want up there. in this case, there are a lot of opportunities to test out the message and try to enforce the of party into taking a difficult vote. if you're senator schumer's plans for how democrats resent goals going forward, they will be able to go through this the confirmation hearings and all the upcoming budgets. host: tomorrow morning, "the washington journal" will focus on your message to washington as we begin a brand-new year and are start of the 115th congress gets underway wednesday morning, january 3, at 7:00 eastern time on c-span's "-- tuesday morning on c-span's "washington journal." live all day coverage on c-span and c-span2. stephanie come you have been patient from new jersey. democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning and happy new year. host: happy new year. as far as question is congress goes, all the things they say they will to, which they did not do this past eight years, and why all of a sudden to do these things? they did not want to spend the money for infrastructure, this andother, and donald trump others say that the way to go is and heg industries in also said they will be making money off of this. ok? erssaid that the contract would pay -- contractors or pay taxes and then be taxed again, which means contractors will pay for this and so will taxpayers. host: based on stephanie's question, office of the debate she outlined. the point that stephanie was making on calls is that for years, there have been great deals of discussions on the need to rebuild various types of like crumblings bridges, highways and airports but there are other infrastructure needs, as well. how to pay for it is going to be a topic of great debate, you can till with deficit spending come at a time when borrowing rates are really attractive or do do what the incoming president is looking to do, which is have the system or you provide incentives toward private industries. is in thee devil details. you hear that everyone is on board with the concept of infrastructure but how far they can go remains to be seen. not only you look at how it is paid for but what type of infrastructure, so one example democrats often want to seek the type of infrastructure that supports green or low carbon development and they could be in any one of the infrastructure packages. and where democrats come around would depend on some extent to some competing wings of the party because senator of west virginia, schumer put him in the new democratic leadership team and he will have a voice around run the table, but senator bernie sanders also has a seat on the democratic leadership team on the chairman about reach , something to what extent that is within the democratic caucus, given who is up for reelection, will dictate where they come out. host: the headline that bernie sanders wants to help congress and bring some of the issues to the floor by having his base storm congress as the chair, the chairman of the outreach, national journal.com. beth from tennessee, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have some concerns and questions. on the federal reserve, can you hear me? host: we sure can. go ahead. caller: sorry about that. it concerns me that with donald trump, i think one of his main goals is to get control of moneys, or about the federal the federal bank, and my concern, especially on the , donald trump does slam the environmental protection agency, are we going to get more businesses by polluting air like china has? -- water systems westmark systems? will it placate the middle class in a way with infrastructure but have the main money people control pretty much everything. host: thank you. there,my wife is from great place. i like it there. on theg with the points epa, that will be one of the flashpoints. pull betweensh and the parties regulations in general, to what extent are protections for clean air and clean water? how far should we go? whathould we dictate industries need to do? the president-elect and a lot of congressional republicans have for years wanting to be here back what president obama has done through climate change and other things. how far they can get with that will be one of the most interesting stories going forward. becauseon for that is republicans have this view that these regulations will be damaging to the economy, but how much that they can unwind the -- depends on factors because we think of executive actions with a broad paintbrush, but what kind really matters. from executive order can be unwound quickly come up something general policy matter, like insurance department policy not giving any more: dining in western states, that would not be hard to unwind. what is known as formal notice in rulemakings, that is the bulk of the most aggressive policies of the obama administration carried out to the epa and you cannot just snap your fingers and take them away. you need careful documentation under the environmental procedure act, and it will be howly heavily litigated, so much of the kind of obama regulatory kind of prolific regulatory efforts and what we see can unwound will depend on different factors because it is a slow-moving thing. host: our guest with "national ," and fred is next on essex, maryland, independent line. good morning and happy new year. caller: good morning, happy new year. my question -- can you hear me ok? host: yes. is related to germany and the changes going on in germany. it looks like germany is going to fill the void in leadership. i guess that is a controversial matter of leadership in general, , thatwas just wondering is my one question about germany . my other question is about i think the biggest events in the last year was a discovery by the chinese scientists and scientists that the bloomberg school medicine at johns hopkins, that it is much more sensitive to pollutants than two and these thought scientists are just coming out and saying point-blank that the regulations are not adequate. apparently, the mass media has not read this or discovered this. inhink it needs to begin publicity and have some bearing on our energy policy. host: thank you. on both points, a response? guest: sure. on the second one, i'm not familiar with the research fred was referring to, but it does get to the kind of the debate on regulation, which is how much should the federal government be levelsng to the types of of different a mission that can happen in what will be the economic effects of that? defenders of the epa will say, ourave been tightening pollution standards and it has not hindered or humpback economy or growth. that said, they drill down into specific sectors and it could be more pronounced. donald trump talks about the coal industry and a qs president obama waging a war on coal. it is accurate to say epa regulations to some extent had an effect on coal in the electricity sector, but the dominant and strongest reason that coal has been declining for years now is because of the rise of relatively cheap and natural gas developed through fracking techniques, circuit court of the difficulties donald trump might have is if the sort of tries to andg back the coal industry simultaneously try to provide the natural gas industry with deregulations, those do not sing in harmony. but is good for natural gas is not good for cold. on germany, i am not sure what the caller was referring to. germany has had an aggressive program on conditioning the energy sector, but -- host: a new year, a new congress . we welcome our listeners on c-span radio, check out our free radio app and serious xm, live every sunday morning on the potus channel, 124. kim from pittsburgh, pennsylvania, republican line come you are next. caller: good morning. this global warming, this debate ist saying the over. we never had a debate. these global warming people are going to lose. i would like to ask you a question and i went to ask you and i'll tell you why i am asking the question. what is the diameter of the earth? me?you tell host: wehost: have no idea, so why do you ask? statement gore made a that it is one billion degrees in the middle of the art. [indiscernible] in this global warming nonsense, there has never been a debate. produce they are being paid by the government. host: thank you. guest: certainly, i guess i would disagree with the caller to some extent. if you look at the overwhelming opinion of the scientific community, whether we talk about federally funded science or science conducted within preparation like exxon mobil, which you can get to in a moment, the dominant scientific view is the earth is heating up and warming at this point since the middle of the last century has been human activities, notably burning of fossil fuel and deforestation and other types of industries. heating up at what rate? guest: the last several years, i think 15 of the 16 hottest years on record have occurred during this century. heating up at what rate? guest:the one that was not was , so it has been very pronounced. what is less concern is how much warning we are in for. climate of the paris change and the goal of a lot of experts is to hold off some of the most dangerous forecasted effects of global climate change. you would not want to see global temperatures rise by more than two degrees celsius over their preindustrial levels. we are about halfway there right now. if we did nothing to abate emission, you could see projections that go far higher than that. how much you can hold lower than that is difficult to say. is theer question of global warming, is it human induced, and will it have a dangers affect on the road and do we see some of those effects come into being already? i don't think there is a huge amount of this paper, but the economic effects of u.s. policy and how far we should go is something that is subject of massive debate and a lot of that plays out quickly in congress. there will be a lot of focus on repealing the affordable care act and that will be a source of contention and they have one of the chance to pay back what they see as overly aggressive obama administration and regulations. hardest tickethe in the house, giving that the outgoing ceo of exxon mobil is the nominee for secretary of state. the biggest source of questioning for him at the senate foreign relations committee is quite certain will be his views about russia, gigantic explorer -- expiration deals in russia, and rex tillerson was awarded a medal by the russians, so i think what the senators will be looking for is on both sides of the i/o is some type of signal from rex tillerson and that he is willing to adopt a somewhat aggressive posture toward russia or at least they will be looking for him to sort of not just be buddy-buddy with vladimir putin -- host: i think i'm correct in saying the former senator tower forlast time nominee president elect herbert walker bush, designated him as treasury secretary and it was scuttled by the senate. to think >>'s tillerson -- see think rex tillerson could face the same or he will be confirmed? guest: if i had to guess, and everyone who guesses is wrong, but if i had to guess, he will be confirmed. i would imagine democrats to be fairly united against him, so you only need three republicans to go against him. john mccain, lindsey graham, marco rubio and some of the other hawks in the senate will look for some fairly strong reassurance that he is committed so if thatf solid goal can be filled, it is hard for me to imagine them floating him down. there was one nominee that will face the most difficult road and it would be tillerson and to bring that back around to the climate issue, i think we will see a lot of questions toward him or some about his own company's history of in the past funding organizations and think tanks that sort of tried to show doubt about the reality of climate change, but that said, i think the greatest number of questions will be about his connections and experience with russia as the ceo of exxon. host: it begins tuesday morning with the swearing in of the 115th congress, live on c-span2, asked the president of the senate, vice president joe biden swears in new senators, an interesting thing to watch. we stream it on the website. we will be your place for all of the confirmation hearings, the president-elect nominees for cabinet positions, you can check out the full schedule as the hearings continue into february orthe website at c-span.org that's go to janice in east st. louis, illinois, democrat line. good morning. caller: how are you? host: we are fine, good morning. caller: good. you know i called -- it was the and he wasn earlier telling the geither what he was saying wasn't really important or doing any good -- i apologize for him because what that guy is doing is very important. again to what i was about to say can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: my phone wasutting out. all those people will be nominated, every last one of them, will be sworn in. every last one will get the job everyone -- job. everyone except that the president. the first time after he swears in an officially got that seats, the first [indiscernible] will be the one to impeach us, and i'm talking about the republicans. guest: i agree with janice insofar that she mentioned everyone of the pixel be confirmed. i think that would be -- if i had to bet -- that would be my suspicion. we talked about difficult to tillerson my face, but in 2013, the democrats in the senate were forced to able change that prevents filibuster some cabinet nominees. while i think the democrats will try to exact the political crisis against the current administration, [indiscernible] i think it would take some sort of really damaging or major revelation from these hearings that has not come out yet. host: two democrats regret that moved by harry reid? guest: i think they viewed it as necessary given the slow pace of executive appointments. i think they did say that eventually, the she would be on the other foot, and guess what? it is on the other foot. henderson, north carolina, republican line. good one. caller: i would like to ask a question to the gentleman. i really do not trust the media and he is using a lot of democrat focused words, such as da,atizing health care, the all these other organizations. no, i think donald trump, his message then he put out is he wants to personalize, , the taxze the v.a. code a little fairer, personalize health care and out like to know what he thinks about that. i think that is the brother -- that is the better word to what mr. trump has put out in his speeches. host: thank you. guest: i think with the term privatize, i was referring to past her puzzles by congressional republicans on have it be something about the voucher program. a lot of that will be hashed out in the coming months in the .attle over obamacare certainly, republicans feel the health insurance law is heavy on mandates and heavy on taxes and has not been that good for people, even though on paper, it has increased the number of people who have insurance. of the thingsne the caller gets to you is what precisely they want to replace it with this something that is more big. -- more vague. people gained insurance through and it will be a runway, not losing the insurance right away but as digitally at the law, what are the parameters of the replacement what they look like is unclear but they andbuying themselves time they have to work on that replacement legislation in fairly short order but they have to give themselves plenty of time to seek an early transition, undercutting the main parts of obamacare. democrats of do their darndest not to let that happen. obama is going to capitol hill on wednesday to meet with democrats to talk about how they can try to make the defense of that law as robust as possible against this incoming onslaught. host: i went to share this tweet from donald trump yesterday. he talked about political enemies -- happy new year to all, including my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly, they just do not know what to do. love? -- love! guest: [laughter] beloved part notwithstanding, a fairly aggressive treat. -- tweet. something that will give congress harper and is anything -- giverump -- anytime congress a hard time is anytime donald trump says something over twitter, they are asked to respond and that happens frequently. i would be curious to hear what the next thing he tells people or how congressional republicans will respond. from let's go to lee and austin, texas. democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning, happy new year. thank you for the show, i appreciate all the information i get. i worked for the army my entire life. when regulations are put in place, they are reviewed. and all of the experts are placeed and they are in for our safety, and it concerns me that mr. president-elect trump -- had a hard time getting that out -- it concerns me that he is so blase about the work that went into the regulation that was put in place to begin with. host: thank you. guest: i think that gets to the .arameters of the debate i think what you will hear, congressional republicans are saying, and incoming president saying, something to counter that would be the argument that companies when they had -- if there are too many requirements put on them, it would include safety and environmental protection that they would need to free their hands to try and find the more flexibility to it. on way to reach we will see a couple of measures to repeal the obamacare legislation. i think they will try for something [indiscernible] which is essentially giving congress much more sway over whether regulatory agencies go forward. there is simply not 60 votes in the senate, but the fact that it comes up quickly does show that russia andabout obamacare, and tax overhaul, regulations and paring back to within thestate is priority of the administration and incoming republican congress. , george december 2008 w. bush said he would make room for barack obama, and he essentially did that. based on what we have seen in this transition over the last 1.5 months, what will do think we will see from president obama when he leaves the stage but stays in washington and working with his foundation in chicago and new york? guest: i think he will give the incoming president some deference. advocate for ex presidents going back for a long time is that they do not weigh in on the news of the day. president obama gave an interview on dick black survives podcast and obama addressed the question head-on and he said there is clearly a need and you would like to encourage new voices within the democratic if they arend out talking all the time and it is hard to develop. he also made the point that when he sees foundational principles something to that effect, he threatened they might speak out, so i don't think we will hear a lot from president obama. i think he might speak a little georgee frequently and w. bush has been very off the states, but to say that he has been more active in that, i don't think we will hear obama talking about the new cycle of the day. host: amy joins us from south carolina. you are calling on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. happy new year to you all. i wanted to make a comment on global warming and the drama .ith the media i think certain people that believe that people are so powerful they can change the think that from what i have read, you have linda shifts, plates aat are shifting, we have change in our weather. host: thanks for the call. this is an area you focus on. guest: i think it is true that there are immensely powerful national phenomenon that happened with her without human induced carbon commissions or with without global warming. i think the concern is not so much that global warning or human induced climate change creates strong storms but creates a signal boost, sue can have certain climactic effects that are quite dangerous and damaging in long-term drought, terrible wildfires, and huge storms, that it is not just [indiscernible] it is not that these things do not happen as a global warming, it is that when you have so much more carbon in the atmosphere, it is a signal booster to things that are already dangerous and can be made more dangerous by add-on effects of global warming. from chicago, democrat line. how are you doing this morning? host: we are fine. caller: before you cut me off, this is to the host and gentlemen, can you go in your computer or laptop and pull up all the businesses that donald trump has outsourced to mexico and whatever? i was just looking at cnn and he was saying he will put a 35% tax on exports, so if that is the case, and of the people who voted to him, if you will put up time from other people shipping jobs out of the united states, is he going to do the same thing for his is this? he is making suits and everything all over it world, and everything, including the host of all of these, you do not bring up stuff like that great when president obama was in the white house, everything that man did, including the color suit he wore, you had something on your station pertaining to that. why is it that people are not concerned about this man just putting some of everything in his? -- in his cabinet? he has some of everything, and he claims he will be a people president, but he has nothing but millionaires and billionaires surrounding him. "the washington post" did a point on your point about the number of jobs he might have lost in the u.s. trump profiting from foreign laborers, and look at his signature collection made in china and bangladesh and other foreign countries. guest: i do not want to speak for the president-elect, but i think what he would say with his businesses and with a sort of behavior under the tax code is he has done what is legal and allowed and when he is now seeking to do is rewrite those rules to the economy that a much more protected of jobs in the u.s. we saw with the deal with indiana manufacturer caria carrier, i believe it is 700 to 1000 jobs here, how much trump doesn't that going forward is something to watch. handleifficult to one-off deals, everything will be manufactured, but he has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on companies that he feels are not behaving properly toward the u.s. economy. whether or not he goes through with that, we see push back. there are some things where we see the chamber of commerce and butony in the same sheet, there are concerns about hesitations about what he might do. host: you congress on tuesday, august 2 the ceremonious aspects? guest: there will be a lot of pomp and circumstance in the coming days. we have the swearing-in tomorrow and we have the president here on wednesday to meet with democrats later in the week. we will hear about the electoral college and where there are not that is the house and senate on friday in a joint session with formal accountings of electoral votes. are the kind of events happening next week and the hearing that will happen on thursday about russian cyber attacks, so we will have democrats in the senate and the believe they can get to work on these resolutions that set the stage to unwind obamacare, so it will be an incredibly busy and fascinating week. host: ben geman of "national journal," thank you. busy week indeed. history" on c-span. we will be covering all of this, this wine in of new members of the house and senate on tuesday -- the swearing-in of new members of the house and senate on tuesday, the senate hearing thursday morning at nine: 30 eastern time, looking at cyber threats and vladimir putin, and the electoral college book count on friday. check it out on the website at www.c-span.org. michael o'hanlon will join us from the brookings institution the middleon syria, east, russia and china. "washington journal" continues. it is sunday morning, the first day of january. we are back in a moment. ♪ startsnew congress tuesday. watch all of the opening day events and activities on c-span. we live from the u.s. capital, starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern, meeting new representatives and hearing from attorney members. the house elbows and at noon and opening-day business includes the election of the house speaker, his address, and the debate and vote on rules for the new congress. attention, getting the potential to find members to live stream videos from the house floor. streamed by several democrats. on c-span two, live coverage of the senate starts at noon eastern and includes the swearing-in of all senators. opening-day continues on [indiscernible] with live coverage of the swearing-in on members of congress. vice president joe biden presides over the swearing-in of individual senators and at 3:00, paul ryan swears and members of the house. we will have a full replay of opening day at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span2. they,"ght on "q and --"q&a," -- >> while people were starving, it was part of the image making where he was the candidate for the poor people and he was this rich man in washington sneering at the poor people. agentsn had thousands of in the state, so he was a wealthy man, but he was portrayed as the captain of the poor. women came to the parades and waved handkerchief's, some gave speeches, summer pamphlets and it was shocking. they were criticized other democrats saying women should be homemaking pudding. ofronald schaffer, author presidentialow elections changed forever, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q and a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome back michael o'hanlon, the foreign-policy director at brookings institution, and good morning. guest: happy new year. host: you have been busy with projects, including your latest book, "the $650 billion bargain." wrote to share what you recently for "usa today," you said donald trump is right about what direction the u.s. should go, in a continued specter of return, which forced automatic cuts in 2013. a somewhat larger military budget is needed, as well, and it is important to understand our starting point. the u.s. armed forces are not a disgrace and a readiness is not in shambles. explain. guest: mr. trump painlessly said during the campaign that the military was at this case and in horrible condition. we hear this and most political campaigns from somebody. i will not say donald trump is unusual in that regard, but it is important to understand where we are with the military. i'm sure there are a lot of veterans who have their own thoughts, but my summary would be that military is still excellent but it is small and tired and we all know what we have been asking the last 15 years. there are a lot of people still being deployed and are leaving their families again for the fifth time this century, from iraq and afghanistan and many other smaller places, so they are working very hard. therefore, we owed them theitude and to spread burden more widely, but we do not need to start down talking them or claiming their condition is horrible. that would imply to mad measures are required and we do not have the money to do anything dramatic. a $650way, i say bargain, which should be more than we are spending now, we are still spending about $6 billion on a military, not including veterans, more than the cold war average, comparable to the reagan era average when you adjust inflation, a lot of money, so we need some improvement and increase but not a dramatic defense. host: sequestration was put in place because lawmakers on capitol hill could not agree to budget cuts, so this is a poison pill, and automatic plan to cut spending across the board. 2011. that happened in since that time, and people and of the budget control act, which gave us sequestration, is in effect for the next four years, for the entire trump presidency, unless superseded, but what congress has done most years is thate this two-year bridge has plus up spending on defense and nondefense sides. that has allowed us to relent those sequestration like cap's. we've only had sequestration in the sense of automatic cuts, one time in 2013, but it has been like a guillotine thinking over the heads of congress. there has been some benefit in the sense that it has applied to the general downward pressure on spending and any time you had to plus inc.'s upcoming would have to fight the relatively modest increase. that is not entirely bad that is not entirely bad we had big deficits to begin with, but we would be better off not having dramatic [indiscernible] every six months to 12 months. i would have to seek a four-year deal, to keep the budget control act in place, the basic toucture, but maybe have 5% 10% for defense and nondefense, above and beyond what is in the budget control act, so relax them but keep the basic consonant. host: michael o'hanlon will be with us to the top of the hour. i want to focus on two trouble spots with the rights to rush and what president obama put in place, the sanctions, and you told nbc news the following -- "we did have to respond. president obama did trump a favor by taking action now. this way, mr. trump is not have to be the guy who does this, it is already achieved." guest: the sanctions received a fair number of expulsions but not unprecedented. there were couple agencies that were stationed, as if they have take bank accounts, but they do not in the united states. it is relatively modest but it sent a message, a little bit more than we normally have done in the past for these kinds of things, never quite the same degree of russian meddling in an election like this, so president obama needed to find a way to do a bit more and be a bit assertive. there are bipartisan clamoring's on both sides of the pile and congress, and if obama had done nothing, trump would have been in this uncomfortable position. what would he do? say it is ok for russia to meddle in the election and for them to hack american organizations like a dnc or will he have to apply sanctions, at a time when he is trying to get along with vladimir putin better than we happen? him in it was better for the country, for obama to apply sanctions that are relatively modest with no huge, and doing damage to u.s.-russian relations but send a clear message. mr. trump comes in, and i wish him well in trying to improve the u.s. relations with russia. he is right to try if he can do it in a way that is consistent with our values and interests. by having the sanctions imposed now, obama gives trump the chance to create a clean slate with u.s.-russia relations. host: with regard to syria, you are the peace for the wall street journal about how the u.s. and russian need to deal and heesident assad said, "in syria, we really have no strategy for ending the civil war. mr. trump maybe willing to let president assad when the work, but i'm not sure that is a 50 way forward because assad has a much blood on his hands. come -- blood on his hands.' guest: there is a lot of blood on their hands. it is almost as bad as rwanda, the most famous ethnic cleansing than the last 20 years now or pdip and combined in this one place, and assad has been the main perpetrator of violence, ande the killing from isis people estimate three fourths of the killing with assad and his allies, so i cannot see how you stay in power on a moral level, but the sunni population in syria will keep fighting as long as he is there. there is a cease-fire in place, but a lot of groups are opting out. i doubt very much a can hold, unless there is a political settlement that gives the sunni muslims in syria some degree of self-rule. you wrote in what "the wall street journal," -- "collaborating with russia to defeat terrorist groups can only work if the u.s. has a vision for what comes afterwards. the plan must be acceptable to the sunni muslims, the kurds, and countries like turkey, jordan, lebanon, israel, iraq and the gulf states. sunni arabs and kurds must be promised an alternative to living under the murderous assad regime. never again should they have to salute the leader that has committed genocidal acts." guest: what he has done is horrible. you can say he was responding to a violent uprising -- that is what he tries to say, but how does that justify barrel bombing apartment buildings because they might be to insurgents and there are 200 innocent civilians. he has airplanes fly low over a ofy and huge bombs full nails and gunpowder, explosives, a horrible way to fight an insurgency and he has been willing to love boat and a population base where he thinks insurgents might be located, -- willing to level any population base where he thinks insurgents might be located. anyplace they can still hold the sunni parts in kurdish parts, i find it objectionable and impossible because they will keep fighting and not live with this guy. we have to find some way to assure themselves the self-rule. i would prefer a new president in syria, but if we cannot get need some kind of pathan made for the region, like iraqi and kurdistan, where they tolerated saddam hussein being the president, but he did not really controlled their lives and they had their own security forces to police their own streets. i think that is the bare minimum for what could happen and it may require an international peacekeeping force to observe this, monitor this. turkey will insist to some degree of control of kurdish move towardy do not independence. you will have to allow for a turkish president, russian president and international peacekeeping presence. it will not be easy but i think it is a simplest approach them has a chance in the war. graduate ofest is a princeton, the author of a number of books, including his latest, which is the "$650 billion bargain." he is also the author of "pending history," and "the wounded giant." the senior fellow at the brookings institution, let's go to paul in pennsylvania, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with what you guest says so far. [indiscernible] trump a feeling that [indiscernible] .ussians [indiscernible] problem.is a my lungs -- host: thank you. guest: i heard the same thing what paul said when i was in jordan last fall, two months ago. a lot of jordanians instead, we will give trump a chance. we have to, he is the new president-elect, but there is a chance that if we work with the russians together, we can find some kind of a way to end this war. if we try to end it without them, whatever guilt they may have for supporting assad will not work. people i have spoken within the region, or many of them, have the view that paul does. that we will have to find somewhere to compromise with rush on this issue, as much as we may not like the idea and it will make us cringe. one correction, i'm that the program director brookings, i do not want to get fired, but i'm the director of research within the foreign policy program, but thank you for letting me clarify that. work thank you, and you available online at the brookings website. michael o'hanlon, how many books have you written? guest: i have had a lot of co-authors. peter fleming, john mack and most, -- john mcenroe's, the key to being a double player, i have written about a dozen, but also, brookings equivalents of john. host: that's go to massachusetts, democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. happy new year. veteran myself, my son is andteran from afghanistan, i hear a lot of people talking receivingthe veterans their due. . have never been to the v.a once, or taken the ones available to me, but my son does. hass in the program and he been paid to go to school, and he receives a lot -- i think a pretty good benefit package. i think they do probably deserve more. the democrats wanted to give the benefits, $28 million, and the republicans would only agree to $16 billion. the people that i hear complain the most about the v.a. benefits are republicans. to me, i do not know if they are just uninformed, but the democrats wanted to give all most as much to the veterans as the republicans, yet, the veterans of the republican bashed him. host: thank you. guest: a lot of important points . a lot of viewers would like to thank you for you and your son for your service. i am glad your son is having a good benefit package. i tend to agree that the veterans affairs department does a lot of things right, and they have been working hard to congress andhe president have been working hard on a bipartisan basis to improve things. mr. trump once to take the idea of a private option further for many veterans affairs beneficiaries so they don't have to go to the v.a. system of they don't want to. i am fine with that. i think it may help, but the veterans affairs system does well in a lot of areas and is often at the front edge, cutting edge from any number of areas. the owner of the new york mets an organization that he created called welcome back veterans, they have been pushing to try and improve access to ebay and others have worked with the congress on the notion of a private option for certain kinds electromagnetic brain injury, ptsd, and i think that is good and should go further. theree that i do not think system is fundamentally broken. i think people should be proud around the country, not only of veterans, but the quality of the care delivered to the v.a. system. retired marine general is set to become the new defense secretary and you had good things to say. why? guest: first of all, he is loved by troops, not just by marines before anybody else i know who has worked with him and u.s. served under him. i think -- you know, donald trump seem to think he was sort of the patent of his -- the pad tton of his day, but he was known for being tough on his troops and mattis is loved by the troops. he is a tough talk a, but partly for show. he is one of the most turkish generals i have ever met. this day and age, we have a lot butote educated generals, he is famous for quoting greek and roman antiquity, wanting to debate tactics from 2000 years ago, wanting to know what book you had recently been reading it if you go to his office, his walls are lined with also is a in history, so donald trump. he was getting george patton, but he was getting him, plus, dave petraeus of all wrapped into one, and i think he will be spectacular. an outstanding choice. host: from greenville, texas, republican line, robert is next to read good morning. caller: good morning. happy new year. i would like to touch on the subject that is in the news right now about the hacking of the democratic national committee and some of their members. about one point five months ago, i called in and was hoping [indiscernible] to connect the dots with this paul manafort, who is currently under investigation with the ukraine elections from several years ago, and the role he and about the $10 million you received and what role he might have played in orchestrating this entire during thent ukrainian elections. what is it to say that he did to thee any connection russian collection in the recent u.s. election? host: can you draw the connection? guest: i am uncomfortable discussing an allegation against a specific individual. my take on the overall hacking scandal is simple. the russians did some very bad things and we have extreme a good evidence they were behind to tilthey were trying the election for donald trump. having said that, i do not attribute trump's victory to them. the added to some of the fray, the false news, they leaked certain a mass, but we were doing a lot of this to ourselves in various ways in terms of the negative tone of our campaign and the russians were one more voice. as an it seriously american. i feel offended and we have to make sure this doesn't happen to our country again, so he better investigate, and obama's sanctions were mild for the infringement. it is important to be clear that mr. trump's victory cannot directly be a to b did to this russian action, at least based on anything we know so far. i think those two messages are important to combine and project together. they're trying to steal trumps victory back from him, and i think it is important to distinguish. the russians behaved in a really cannot tolerate and we must further investigate and make ourselves more resilient and less gullible next time. by the same token, we have to avoid somehow saying that if they necessarily focus rated this work it was due to this, i do not see evidence myself. host: donald trump saying it is time to move on and he will meet with the intelligence committee. he doesn't by the fact that russia hacked the dnc said,arters and the web so what does it tell you about how he will approach the issue after generally 20th? guest: i hope you recognizes pretty bad things are in the works with what russia do to us in the last year or two dove. there is unanimous agreement that they have sometimes been wrong before, even when they were unanimous and trump's right to point that out and follow up. i do not think you should do this as an attack on his mandate a victory. he has yet to distinguish right he will be in three weeks, between the fact that there were incorrect things and unacceptable things done to our institutions and our democracy, and that looks pretty incontrovertible. at the same token, not to feel like he has to be defensive about his own victory. there one one million things that affected the direction of the election and i was a hillary supporter but i don't blame her defeat on russia. mr. trumbull have to find a way to take seriously an attack like a foreign power on our democracy and continue the investigation if necessary. speaking about how we are not vulnerable next time, but i feel it he has to apologize for his victory somehow, two separate points yesterday find a way to articulate. host: if you could in one sentence, he would blame her defeat on what? guest: i am a big fan of hers and i can she got [indiscernible] in a lot of ways but i think her campaign lacked a strong economic message of a time when the country felt frustrated and weak economically. despite the recovery, i don't think there was a compelling argument. not have hadmay strategies are messages that would work any better, but they talked about the economy more and tapped into the anger in a more direct way. i think that gave voice to a lot of frustrated americans and i think her campaign did not wrestle with that reality and to not offer the vision for the economy that her husband had done 24 years before. to brian ingo philadelphia, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. michael, happy new year. guest: likewise, thank you. caller: i would like to switch gears for a brief second away russiae headlines of meddling in the election and hacking toward something that i feel is a little bit more pertinent. have a national interest article in front of me [indiscernible] and it outlines i guess you could call it a knee-jerk reaction and wherever it stems from and that is beside the point. the world we're living in currently, it calls for a good argument. eastorld of the middle benefits from better relationships with russia. they are in a better position -- moscow is better situated to move iran, turkey in the persian gulf toward compromise. it that pointtop because we are short on time and we will give our guest a chance to respond. guest: i think vladimir putin is not a great guy, but first of all, he has done some pretty brutal things in syria, but there has been a logical [indiscernible] moreover, at this point, you has several thousand forces there and he has not appear to be going anywhere and only realistic way out of this conflict is to look at some level with prussia. i don't mean we have to up with them in lockstep at every single way but we have to find a compromise that they can live with the minimal outcome that the text their interest and i think russia's interest in syria and to defeat sunni jihadists and protect their own access to the mediterranean, nab and air force assets in syria, and basically, to get to some kind of a peace because they don't benefit from a long, protracted war, in which they are seen as the enemies of the sunni muslim population. i think there is a way to compromise, allow russia to claim vindication, protect core just mentioned, and allow autonomy for the sunni muslim and kurdish areas of syria. i think that is a tolerable outcome. it has been a horrible war. we should have been a lot more effective earlier, but given where we are, that will be a outcomethree tolerable on all sides and i don't see how you get there without russia's support and our cooperation with moscow. host: at what point can look at legacy with's foreign policy? i think we can start now. there are some pretty good things. i think he has handled china pretty well. china is a rising power. thingsve done a lot of that caused people consume but it has primarily been in uninhabited parts of the east china sea. it is a complicated relationship and i think obama handled that one ok. he could've handled russia a lot worse. if you had gotten into putin's face -- if you had gotten into vladimir putin space and every junction, it could've of gotten more incendiary than it has gotten. was pursued with some degree of diligence and a pretty good outcome. you had all these different pieces of, afghanistan not great but not horrible, taliban not back in power, add a few more things to the equation. i think it is a reasonable foreign-policy legacy but we will not know for sure until we see what happens next with iran, syria, russia and china. it will be in oncoming -- ongoing debate. host: michael o'hanlon with the brookings institution. , and you canok check out his most recent essay on this topic online at usa today.com. always a pleasure. guest: thank you, steve. a look at upcoming schedule and information. first, our live coverage of the opening day of congress gets underway tuesday morning, 7:00 a.m. eastern time on the c-span networks. our coverage of the inauguration starts on january 20, also at 7:00 a.m., and continues into the evening with the official inauguration of balls. -- inauguration ball. and russia, and a reminder that tomorrow morning, "the washington journal" will be looking at some of the key issues for 2017 and our question -- your message to washington in this new year. we will be checking in with radio talkshow host. on thisu for joining us sunday. enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. have a great week ahead and a happy new year. we will see you next week. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] >> next, craig fugate. then, former president george w. bush discusses north korea.