>> listen to c-span's podcast, the weekly. this week, the paris agreement. 3 1/2 years after former president trump withdrew, president biden's executive order for the u.s. to re-enter the global treaty.

wall street journal brussels bureau chief dan michaels explains the paris agreement and how it's viewed worldwide and what's next for the united states. dan: the first challenge would seem to be, when he meets his counterparts, to discuss the paris accord, is rebuilding u.s. credibility. no one will doubt carries credibility on this. he helps write the paris accord. no one will doubt president biden's sincerity. but the u.s. as a whole, probably europe, others will be looking at it to see if the u.s. is really going to take measures that will address climate change and also commit money to helping other countries address climate change. >> find c-span's the weekly where you get your podcasts. >> and live to capitol hill now where house speaker nancy pelosi has been holding a weekly

briefing. speaker pelosi: i want to salute the general honore for reviewing the security here. i tasked -- i was honored that he accepted the charge to study how we keep members safe here as they do their jobs in washington and the capitol, as they do their jobs in their districts and their travel to and fro. again, the security posture of the capitol complex, and that includes the house office buildings, this will run until march 15. one of the proposals that he made that we already have some good news on is that it was clear that many -- that the capitol police had been severely affected by covid. separate and apart from everything else that's going on, like the rest of the country, they have been severely affected by covid. and he recommended that we

vaccinate the capitol police. and now, with the cooperation of the biden administration, we were able to do that. and i thank the acting police chief for her statement that she put out this morning. again, we have the threat from within, as you are all well aware. some members refuse to comply with security protocols to keep members, staff, police officers, everyone, including all of you, safe, which is why we are passing a rule mandating fines for noncompliance in that regard. you are aware of that, i'm sure. also, in terms of acknowledging a threat, i remain profoundly concerned about house republican's leadership of acceptance of extreme conspiracy theorists. particularly, they will reward a

qanon, harasser of survivors of school shootings and to give them committee positions, including -- who could imagine they would put such a person on the education committee. today, the house will vote to remove representative greene from her seat on education and labor and the budget committees. it's just so unfortunate. you would think that the republican leadership in the congress would have some sense of responsibility to this institution. as they did when they did not seek representative king of iowa two years ago. for some reason, they have chosen not to go down that path, even though we gave -- mr. hoyer gave the leader mccarthy sufficient notice that this was a path we would follow. again, legislating in terms of the budget, in terms of the

apprenticeship program, in terms of putting together our legislation a commission, similar to a 9/11 commission. i'm very pleased that others -- and i commend debbie wasserman schultz for taking the lead on upholding our oath in office, protect the constitution, and not only that, to uphold the spirit of standard for the house of representatives that respects the institution in which we serve and does no harm to it institutionally or to our members, staff, visitors personally. with that, i'll be pleased to take any questions. let me see. let me see. reporter: thank you, madam speaker. i have a question and i have a question from one of the reporters who is unable to be here today. first, looking ahead to the impeachment trial -- speaker pelosi: is that an announcement you will have two

questions? reporter: yes, ma'am. speaker pelosi: go ahead. reporter: looking ahead to the impeachment trial. it will be one month since the attack on the capitol, the former president is long gone. there are plenty of people who say, why bother, why go through this entire exercise, what do you say to them? speaker pelosi: well, i appreciate that question. it seems to me that the answer is self-evident. again, we're here to support and defend the constitution of the united states. the world witnessed the incitement that the president caused to incite an insurrection against our government, against our capitol, against members of congress with the use of force and violence. for us to -- why bother? why bother? ask our founders why bother. ask those who wrote the constitution.

ask abraham lincoln. ask anyone who cares about our democracy why we are bothering. you cannot go forward until you have justice, and what did we say about the preamble to the constitution? didn't we say it started out with justice? we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice. you've heard me say again and again, if you want peace, vote for justice. martin luther king, peace is not just accents of dissension, it's the presence of justice. so we will honor the constitution by establishing justice. and, again, we can do a couple of things at once. we are moving with our legislation to pass the biden administration -- biden-harris

administration covid package. the people -- the whole world were witnesses to this, as i said before, so we'll see. i have no idea how the managers will proceed. i saw their brief when you saw their brief. i'm so proud of the dignity with which they have brought to enabling us to honor our constitution. if we were not to follow up with this, we might as well remove any penalty from the constitution of impeachment. just take it out. but our founders, they knew about two things. we keep hearing this again and again. they were fearful of a demagogue, and they were fearful of a demagogue and a mob, and that's exactly what -- that's what they defended in the constitution. i want the public to know there is no opportunity cost in our defending the constitution.

in fact, it is an enhancement for us to do our work in a way that is respectful of the institutions in which we serve, the constitution which we take an oath to protect and defend. other question? reporter: my colleague from the l.a. times asked -- but the house managers are walking into a trial where all signs point to acquittal. speaker pelosi: they don't know. they don't know. they haven't heard the case. they haven't heard the case. and the court of the senate, they will make their case. in a court of public opinion, they will make their case. and for history and prosperity, as our founders said, to ourselves and our prosperity, they will make the case. but i have great confidence in them and we'll see. we'll see if it's going to be a senate of courage or cowardess. reporter: what does a victory

look like? speaker pelosi: why don't we just wait and let them make their case? they have been very, shall we say, silent, hard working, brilliant in terms of what we saw in the brief, not only wise, but you might appreciate well-written. and those spelling mistakes of the united states. so, again, i'm not here to talk about that because they are going to be there to present the case. and we don't have to defend why it is necessary. and we don't have to talk about who's going to be there or not, because we just don't know. they know and they will present it when they do. yes, sir. reporter: i was wondering what you thought of the republican senators' plan, they went to the white house this week to meet with the president. and how much the plan 1.9, joe

biden said he wants to stay there. where do you think it will end up? speaker pelosi: well, joe biden presented a plan that meets the needs of the american people. this is very important because we have been -- i want to read this to you because i think this is very important for people to know. we'll get around 450,000 people who have died. before you know, it's sad to say, but we're on a path to half a million people dying from covid. and that is because of a complete failure on the part of the trump administration. but don't take it from me. this is what the g.a.o. in a 346-page government accountable document said. it said almost 90%, 27 of 31 of the g.a.o.'s recommendations from june, september, and november remain unimplemented as

of january 15. less than a week before trump left office. g.o.p. remains deeply troubled that the agencies have not acted on recommendations to more fully address official gaps in the medical supply chain. and the list goes on. we want to save lives and save livelihoods. it's going to cost some money to do so. but it is a good investment. and don't take it from us. whether you're talking about the chairman of the fed, the secretary of the treasury, mark zandi, our economists have said, even the governor of west virginia has said go big rather than go small. that's what we have to do. it is a reasonable plan. it meets the needs. it is not excessive. it is coronavirus centric. it's in a timely fashion. and that's where we have to go

if we are going to, again, put vaccines in people's arms, children in school, money in people's pockets, and workers back in their jobs. so it's pretty exciting what he's put there. and what we did at the end of december is approximately what we have been advocating in the heroes act all along, $3.2 trillion. this comes up to nearly $3 trillion. but that's what the needs are. for the republican senators to come in at $600 billion, 1/3. what is it? are we going to feed fewer children? are we going to inoculate fewer people? how do you cut that? i think they have not respected our heroes by supporting state and local governments. whether it's police, fire, first responders, anybody of any kind, sanitation, transportation, food workers, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers, our schools. we have to invest in safely

returning our children to schools. so, again, i just don't see how you have to make those choices about who you cut out when you decide to cut the funding in the package. yes, sir. reporter: madam speaker, given some of the events in russia and burma this week, curious if you believe the house will move forward with any sort of response, sanctions, anything like that? speaker pelosi: well, we look to the leadership of our new president on that score. i myself have been a supporter of sanctions of burma at the time. going way back. still call it burma, smart. and then, of course, to really enforce the sanctions on russia in a way that really reaches the, shall we say, enablers of putin. but, again, we'll take our lead from the president because he's made his voice clear to putin

and he said and made a statement about miramar. so mynamar, they said they were arresting her for importing illegal radios. and in russia, they arrested the journalist for not reporting to his probation officer, something like that. again, it's an interesting time to demagoguery around the world and we have to prevent it from happening in our country. reporter: on the budget rilths, there are -- reconciliation, the minimum wage, if some of the things like the minimum wage don't wind up in the bill, worked through the process, what's the message, this is our chance to get things done? speaker pelosi: as you know, in

many ways we're at the mercy of the senate in terms of the byrd rule. again, the parlimentarian of the senate is going to make some determines. we would hope he would make them by now. but until we have our bill, which we now have, we tonight have those determinations from her. there's so much in the package that has to be done right now, and we'll dot best we can. reporter: do you have any concerns from some that say they'll have the house, senate, white house -- this bill doesn't mean it will get done but they'll be disappointed and -- speaker pelosi: we are already introducing the minimum wage. that's a high priority for us. but we can't -- and we hope that we can get it in reconciliation. i am a veteran of reconciliation

bills over time. i know, shall we say, the struggles that it frequently is to have everything comply in a way that meets the standards of the senate in terms of the byrd rule. we in the house think of it sort of it as a house of wars attitude. why don't we just pass what we can pass without having it being determined by one person as to what can be contained in there, let's put it on there, vote it up or vote it down? in any event, we're very proud of the legislation. again, it's not the last bill we'll pass. this is the republican -- this is the rescue package. this is the rescue package. we must pass this bill to crush the virus, to save the lives and livelihoods of the american people, to put children back in school and people back to work. that is its purpose. we want to do it in a way that

is fair, that addresses the disparities, as they existed. do you know in the native american community, two times as many people, percentagewide, has died than whites. the disparity in the african-american community and in the hispanic community is sinful. so as we do this bill, we want to do it in a way that's fair and equitable and continue to do testing, etc., distribution of the virus, but keeping a record of how this has been distributed. then, then, hopefully, we can get to a place where this bill will be a force for fairness rather than osifying some of the unfairness that has gone before. then, we have the next bill will

be -- this is rescue, that is recovery. we're already working with some of the provisions that we would have in the recovery act. we're legislators. that's why we're here. that's what we do. and so we're always getting ready for the next legislation. build back better for the people. these were some of what we talked about. joe biden says help is on the way. the recovery package, with lower health care costs and bigger paychecks for the people is what we need to do. so just because something might not be in one bill and we don't accept that yet, but if it isn't, we have other places to do it. in fact, i wish we were talking about a living wage. but $15 an hour is an important improvement over that. i just have time for one more question. reporter: as far as the impeachment trial is concerned,

senator graham said that if the democrats call any witness, that they will be prepared -- the republicans will be prepared to call in the f.b.i. and, quote, tell us about people who preplanned this attack and what happened with the security footprint at the capitol. what's your response to that? speaker pelosi: your question is a waste of time. reporter: are you worried at all by the precedent it will set? speaker pelosi: not at all. if any members threatened the safety of other members, we would be the first one to take them off the committee. that's it. thank you. reporter: are you willing to compromise on the eligibility for student -- [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the u.s. house will meet to vote on removing republican marjorie greene due to her conspiracy theories and other issues. we will have live coverage of that debate and vote here on c-span.

>> the senate impeachment trial of former president donald trump begins tuesday with senators deciding if the former president should be convicted on incitement of insurrection. watch our live coverage of the senate impeachment trials starting tuesday at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2, c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. and if you miss any part of the proceedings, watch anytime on demand at c-span.org/impeachment. ues. host: during a weekend when we are talking about budget and spending, we are glad to welcome the inking member of the house budget committee, congressman jason smith. on another $1.9 trillion in covid relief spending, do we have as a country the budget for that level of spending? guest: let's just think about it this way, if you count the $1.9 trillion that is included in the budget solution, along with the over $4 trillion