congress on his side, but i'm thinking he would possibly use executive action to recognize taiwan as an orependent country [indiscernible] aggression toward crimea. is anything that could be done to stop it before china and the eu take military action against united states? host: thank you. guest: yes and no. it may depend on the area. as you probably know, the president has a good amount of leeway in foreign policy, but congress does still have laws. it was taiwan, we have a system that evolved over the past few decades. based on committee case with the chinese government and the he may be, so somewhat constrained. i am not an expert on china policy or taiwan, but i think it would be constrained. areas, he might have more room to move executive action, the jerusalem embassy relocation i that requires the president to move the u.s. embassy in israel from pebble beach to jerusalem. congress also included a waiver toallow the president determine every six months it is not in our national security interest to move it to jerusalem. trump does have the authority. not even through an executiv

sparked controversy after calling the president of taiwan over the phone yesterday. in addition, the new administration and its allies challenges in pennsylvania and wisconsin. how should the government approach student loans? leastreport estimates at 108 billion dollars in student debt in coming years. we want to know what you think. here are the lines for you to dial this morning. if you are a current college student, you can call us at (202) 748-8000. payingare still off that student loan debt, your number is (202) 748-8001. all others, you can call us at (202) 748-8002. you can also send us your thoughts on twitter. our twitter handle is @cspanwj. you can comment on our facebook page at facebook.com/cspan. here is a story in the "wall street journal" that details the new government report, the story mitchell.five josh . . josh mitchell. host: to stem a sharp rise in borrowers defaulting on their loans since the recession -- host: we have josh mitchell on the phone joining us this morning to give us a little bit more detail about this story. josh mitchell, good morning to you. gue

taiwan. is saying over the past two decades, taiwan has split from its position. that is from the front page of the new york times this morning. we want to focus on trade and jobs. donald trump in indianapolis last thursday. they are not going to leave the united states anymore without consequences. it's not going to happen. it's not going to happen. we are losing so much. one of the things we're doing to keep them is lowering our hopefullyax from 35% down to 15%, which would take us from the highest taxed nation in the world. it's terrible for business. to one of the lower. one of the other things we are doing is regulations. i thought taxes would be number one and regulations -- these great leaders of industry and even small business people who are just being crushed, if they had a choice between lower taxes and a massive cutting of regulations, they would take the regulations. since about six years ago, 260 new federal regulations have passed. plant.ct this none of them probably amount to anything in terms of safety or the things you have regulations for. he announced the retur

received from taiwan. how much of an issue is this for you, being from that world? guest: clearly, it has rattled the chinese. in terms of an administrative dish and mission, i used to be -- an admission, i used to be lobbyist. i think the president knew what he was doing when he took the call. when you look at president obama's tibbett to asia -- the guidance to get out of the middle east and focus on asia. unfortunate, the problems this administration is leaving behind for the president-elect are significant. china is engaging in cyber warfare with the united states. it has not done enough, in effect, to constrain north korea's nuclear program. china is building islands -- military islands in the south china sea. it has engaged in currency manipulation, and it's face it, the trade deficit with china is astronomical. i think what is important is to understand here i suspect the president-elect new exactly what he was doing. he wanted to send a message to china. this suggests that the same time he will need a very good ambassador in beijing, and i understand one of the persons he

: do you see a lasting impact to the phone call that esther trump had the leader of taiwan? guest: that is hard to predict. i think it will fall back towards norms. host: talk about the policy toward north korea and their leader there. it is an important story with the nuclear weapons and the tensions. how do you expect mr. trump to approach that country? guest: north korea does not get as much attention as it should. i spent a week in south korea and i was struck by just how concerned people who live there are. i do not have an appreciation about what that looks like on a day-to-day level and the concerns that are there and all the weapons that north korea oul.s that are aimed at sea you will see north korea stretch their wings and test boundaries and see what they can do and continue to work on their nuclear weapons program. that always remains one of the central concerns. that does not get discussed until there is a major movement in addition to another missile getting launched. st: let's hear from karen, a republican caller. caller: is president obama the first resident in his

with putin and whoever else, taiwan and who knows what is going on. it is always going to be and a has already probably been there. if national communications were really getting get from so many different directions, i do not want to go back to where we were gentlemen.st 2 as far citizens united, getting rid of the electoral college. host: i want to stay on this topic. guest: to the truck campaign, i do not know. it does not seem like he is directly controlled by the russians. the opportunity is of their anti-he didn't advantage -- is there and he took advantage of news that was not true at times. the campaign manager did something that turned out to be false or pushed by russia propaganda networks. the more interesting things we need to look at is in terms of russia, it is not really an information war but a term i heard on radio was a war on. we create such a space where it is difficult to understand or pick up truth from fiction that you have no basis of which to make your judgments. in that disorienting place, you do not trust your government, people around you or political pa

interest interfering in any way. mr. trump had a call with the president of taiwan. he has some business, he is in talks of building a series of luxury resorts and hotels there. trump developer has a special envoy to the united states. another one with his business and foreign policy, slate says donald trump's phone is a national security threat. do you agree with that? guest: i don't know if i would call that a national security threat. we have never had a president does. he is supposed to have a press conference on the 15th where he will talk about how he is going to detach himself from his business interests. we don't want even the perception even if it is not the reality that he is making some decision about foreign policy that will benefit his business. that just looks bad. i hope you will find some way to detach himself as much as possible. so he does not have that problem to deal with. the perception can be as damaging as the reality. we have never had a president with these sorts of global business interests. host: robert levinson, senior defense analyst for bloomberg go