dead on arrival in the house. are there other avenues to bring it forward, say a discharge petition, seasoned is that something you'd support? guest: there's been a lot of talk this week about a potential discharge pe ttion decision. i represent a community, one of the biggest ukrainian communities in the country. i'm being able to provide ukraine -- being able to provided ato ukraine is incredibly important. we need to make sure ukraine has the resources, the aid and support it needs to be able to fight putin immediately. however, it's tied up to money to israel. we know that right now the u.s. is probing on how money that we have send over has killed innocent lives. there is no way on my conscience i can think of thousands of children we barely ever talk about here in this place. already dead. and sending more money to kill

more children in gaza because netanyahu's government has decided we don't care abinternational law. you need to give us more money. we'll do what we want for the sake of what netanyahu wants. there's no way i can give a blank check to yet anya hue, no one should. so how do we use a discharge petition to get money to ukraine as quickly as possible? that i could support. host: representative delia ramirez, serves on the committee on border security and enforcement and serves the third district of illinois. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: this story breaking in the course of our program this morning. alexei navalny, a fierce anti-corruption campaigner who gal vabbized critics, died in prison. the cause of his death still being established. he had been serving sentences in a penal colony amounting to more

than 30 dwhreerns various charges. he was 47 years old. he had been behind bars since january of 2021 when he returned to russia from germany where he was recovering after falling ill in a flight inside russia. doctors concluded at the time he had been poisoned with soviet era nerve gas. navalny blamed the poisoning on the kremlin which denied involvement and any attempt to harm him. it's open forum. area caller: a big bark out your team sanity. i'd like to talk about popular conservative economic policy. it's responsible for the eight point just 30 -- $33 trillion debt we have right now. for starters, tax cuts have never paid for themselves. the only thing i've seen the tax cut increase is the national

debt. it really doesn't trickle down to the rest of the classes. the lower classes worse off in the middle classes were off -- worse off. i'm sure when the rich guys get together and whine and dine, they have a good laugh that they convinced some poor old north carolina knucklehead to get fighting mad. host: we got your point. bonnie in pennsylvania, republican line. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i am a 74-year-old woman who probably won't be around in 10 or 15 years. i plead to all americans whether they are d's or r's or i's, we

need to exist. my grandparents came here separately in the 1930's to ellis island. they made a wonderful life and had a wonderful family. both sides, both democrats and republicans, it's all about power. we the citizens of this country need to solve our problems at the voting booth. we need to go there and say do we want to be like we were in years past or do we want to continue going through all of the turmoil? i have a relative who just passed away from a drug issue who is not a druggie. we cannot live like this. if we know what happened in china with mao zedong and ho chi minh, they destroyed their people, covered of hunger, covered up no jobs with opium.

that's with happening here. host: that's bonnie in pennsylvania. you can continue to call in our open forum. stay on the line for a few moments. later on today, the president will travel to east palestine, ohio to talk about efforts after that train wreck you remember from last year. joining us to talk about the trip in the larger issues is mike lee. thanks for your time. guest: thanks for having me. host: you write in your recent story, to give you the headline that mr. biden is confronting unfinished business when it comes to the ohio train wreck, can you elaborate? guest: i'd like to give a shout out to mike colleagues. just to my colleagues on that story. after that train wreck hapned, there was huge concerns in east palestine about the potential for chemical contaminaon also about theotential for

more train wrecks because of increase in the number of train wrecks on the railroad lines. over the last year, nothing has been accomplished to fix those problems. host: when it comes to the president's visit today, how much will he specifically mention efforts by his administration about this and what is the response expected to be? guest: at this point, we don't know who he will talk to or how long he will be there. we don't know what he will say. host: what has the white house done in this situation even if this is a year later than the incident? guest: the biden administration has said this was caused by the railroad, norfolk southern and the railroad should be responsible for any claims. host: the environmental protection agency, what has their role been since the accident? guest: they are basically in charge of overseeing the cleanup and making sure norfolk southern

does what it's supposed to do. host: what does the administration expect from norfolk southern? guest: they want to see the chemicals cleaned up, they want to see long-term monitoring of the soil in the area and there is discussion about how they need to monitor people's health going forward. people are concerned they might get sick in a couple of years. host: aside from the administration's efforts, has congress taken any role in correcting the incident in ohio or the lger issue of report just of improving rail safety? train wreck happened, the twohe senarom ohio po senator from pennsylvania which he neighboring state introduced a bill that was supposed to improve railroad ty. there is a lot of provisn their that would address several long-standing issues with the

railroads. that bill has been bottled up since it was produced. it passed one committee in the senate. but it hasn't gone to the house. host: why do you think that is? guest: my colleagues have reported there was a lot of lobbying around it. the railroads are cost-conscious and don't want to pay extra for some of the safety provisions and things like that. host: you spent some time in east palestine. as far as the residents themselves, year later, how intense is the concern about the aftereffects of the accident? guest: i was there last summer. there is a lot of people that are still concerned about what will happen to their town and will their kids get sick and will they lose the value of their homes and things like that area a lot of folks just want to move on. host: when it comes to the larger issue of rail accidents,

how often do these things occur? guest: this was unique because it was a derailment and a fire and there was the sort of second effect where the railroad came in and blew up one of the cars. that was a huge plume of smoke that made the headlines. that's fairlyare. the jerome it's happened almost every day. -- the derailments happen almost every day. host: he is looking at the issues involving east palestine where the president is expected later today. thanks for your time. guest: thanks for having me. host: you can also follow along c-span as the president travels out there and makes remarks. stay close to the website for that. back to open forum, let's hear from sharon in maryland, democrats line. caller: good morning. i just wanted to call in and say that as we are americans, we all

have full together and do the right. thing for want to take this country down. if we don't pay attention and be looking out, that's what's going to happen. we shouldn't be in this state right now. we need to come together, republicans and democrats and do their job and do it right. that's why we vote. we vote the ones in that are going to look out for the constituents. we've got to stop this hateful racism and this greediness and all of that that's going on. our country is chaotic. it doesn't even seem like the united states of america. it's just a shame it has to be like that. i am a 72-year-old woman and i have grandkids. and one great grandchild. with them, trying to teach them

to write things, no lines -- no lying, do what's right and you will be all right and say a prayer. host: let's hear from britney in michigan, independent line. caller: good morning. nice to talk with you this morning. i specifically wanted to go over an issue brought up earlier about immigrants on the border. i think it's very negative and terrible to talk about an entire group of people who are trying to be in these conditions out of desperation. there's such negative under tones but also we are missing an entirely important part which is we deep stabilize the global south. we did that for resources. we overturn governments. we overturned their capacity to have sovereignty and we know demonize the people for