All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 24, 2026 10:59-11:34 - CSPAN
34:56
Washington Journal Washington Journal
Source
|

Time Text
U.S. and Europe Tensions 00:05:12
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series. Sunday with our guest, Christopher Buckley, best-selling satirical author and son of conservative writer William F. Buckley.
He has written more than a dozen books, including The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Florence of Arabia, and The Deeply Personal, Losing Mum and Pup.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
You have written 20 books, many of them satires.
Satire is a lost art a bit.
I don't see that many satirists that are best-selling authors.
There are.
Carl Heilson, Dave Barry, although they might be more classified as humorists.
The difference between a satire and a humorist, you would say, is hundreds of thousands of sales.
Watch America's Book Club with Christopher Buckley.
Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Joining us now to talk about tensions between the U.S. and Europe is Daniel Freed.
He's a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, former U.S. Ambassador to Poland, and also former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe.
Ambassador Freed, welcome to the program.
Hi, thanks for having me.
So start with Davos.
The president traveled there to Switzerland this week.
What would you say is the current relationship between the United States and European countries?
The Europeans feel burnt and bruised by President Trump having made a crisis for no good reason.
That is, President Trump threatened to attack Greenland and attack our NATO ally Denmark so the United States could take possession of Greenland against the apparent wishes of its people.
And there was no good reason for this.
The United States does have interests in Arctic security and Greenland security, for sure.
So does NATO.
It's also true that NATO could be doing more for Arctic security.
But all of those things, the United States could have advanced, all those interests the U.S. could have advanced without the drama over Greenland.
We have the right to put basic military bases in Greenland.
We have that right.
We've had it since 1951.
So the Europeans simply did not understand why the United States was making a claim against Greenland, and they were alarmed when the United States and President Trump seemed to threaten war against a NATO ally, Denmark, for the purposes of territorial aggression.
They were horrified.
Now there seems to be a deal of details to be worked out, I suppose.
Yeah, well, let's talk about that deal, Ambassador.
What do we know about what was gained for the United States in that deal?
We know that outright ownership of the island seems to be off the table at this point.
Right.
Well, President Trump, after he backed down from his threats to go to war, said that the United States is going to get military access to Greenland and do so without a time limit and do so without paying for it.
Those are three reasonable objectives.
But we had those rights already before this whole crisis started.
We've had them since 1951.
So it's not clear to me what this new framework will accomplish.
Of course, if it does provide for greater Arctic security and greater European investment in Arctic security, that is arguably a plus for NATO.
So, okay, we could come out of this modestly ahead in terms of security, but at a very big and unnecessary price.
The European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen said this at Davos.
She said, quote, that it was time to seize this opportunity and build a new independent Europe.
What did that mean to you?
What's a new independent Europe?
Well, the Europeans have been talking this way for decades.
I've heard the French for a generation saying that Europe needed to be more strategically independent, more strategically autonomous.
But the Europeans have failed to build the military capacity needed to match their rhetoric.
If this time the Europeans decide to build up their strength so they can operate independently.
Pre-Treating Roads Safely 00:15:28
As most of the country is preparing for a massive winter storm, states continue to brief reporters on preparations.
We take you to one now.
Live coverage here on C-SPAN.
I'm joined today by Georgia DOT Commissioner Russell McMurray, DPS Commissioner Colonel Billy Hitchens, DNR Commissioner Walter Rabin, Forestry Director Johnny Sabo, General Dwayne Wilson, and state meteorologist Will Langston.
All of them will be speaking to their own individual efforts in a moment.
We just finished up a briefing with Governor Kemp to discuss the actions being taken by our partners across the state.
Governor Kemp has been leading our response over the past week.
He's been in constant contact and will continue to do so throughout the entire event.
Two days ago, Governor Kemp issued a state of emergency order for all 159 counties, which will remain in effect through January 29th.
The state of emergency makes all state resources available for local governments and allows for more efficient deployment.
State offices in the northern half of the state will be closed on Monday, as shown on the map behind me.
The map will also be available on our website.
That's all areas above and including Carrollton, Griffin, Sandersville, and Burke County.
As of this morning at 7 a.m., the State Operations Center is activated at level one full activation and will operate 24-7 until the winter weather event has passed.
GEMA Homeland Security is coordinating with partners at all levels, as including other state agencies and our utility partners, to ensure resources are available where they are needed.
Resources such as water, blankets, and MREs have been moved to northern areas of the state.
We're working with the Department of Public Health to ensure nursing homes know who to call if they lose power.
Our local EMA directors are working with the EPD to identify debris staging areas.
GEMA Homeland Security is working in conjunction with the Red Cross and are opening shelters in White, Walker, and Raven counties.
The Department of Transportation and Public Safety have response teams on standby on heavily traveled roadways to assist with potential travel issues involving stranded motorists, stalled vehicles, or crashes.
Track teams from the Department of Natural Resources and Forestry Commission are also on standby to respond to requests for road debris clearing, public safety assistance, and other needs.
Up to 500 guardsmen are available if needed.
Georgia EMC employees and contract crews have been taking proactive measures to prepare for restoration efforts for the past several days.
Vehicles have been winterized and emergency equipment has been loaded onto trucks.
10,000 plus personnel, including crews from Florida, are positioning in the areas forecasted to be most heavily impacted.
Crews from southern Georgia will also be assisting in power restoration.
Coordination efforts will continue as the storm's exact path is determined, and crews from unaffected areas will quickly mobilize to the hardest hit regions.
For all the work that GEMA and our state partners are doing to prepare for the winter storm, the best help we can get is for individuals to be prepared and to stay informed.
If you haven't already, take the time now to prepare your family and home for the winter weather impacts.
Sit down with your family and make a communications plan.
Know how you'll contact one another and reconnect if needed.
Make sure you have a ready kit with enough non-perishable food, water, and medications for at least three days.
Ensure you have warm clothing and blankets, flashlights and batteries.
Update your first aid kit, and remember, always have a way to charge your phone.
If you have pets, make sure they have enough food and water for three days and bring them inside with you as much as possible.
Take precautions like installing and testing smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, covering outdoor pipes with styrofoam, sealing your doors and windows, and cleaning out your gutters.
Think of ways to safely heat your house, especially if the power goes out.
Remember to never use an oven to heat your home and never bring a portable generator inside due to the threat of carbon monoxide poisoning.
In case you lose power, Georgia State Parks are opening warming stations for public use beginning today.
Park pass fees will be waived for those using warming stations.
For locations, dates, and times, please visit georgiastateparks.org/slash alerts.
You can also reach out to your local EMAs for a list of warming stations.
Please note that campgrounds at Georgia State Parks are closed in the affected areas.
Starting at 6 p.m. this evening, we recommend that you be in place and you plan to stay there for the next 48 hours.
We strongly encourage everyone in the warning and advisory areas to stay off the roads tonight, tomorrow, and Monday morning.
Not only does staying off the roads ensure your safety, it ensures everybody's safety and it gives the time and room that our Georgia DOT crews need to maintain the condition of our roadways.
If travel is necessary, slow down, allow extra time, and be especially careful on bridges and overpasses as they freeze first.
If everyone takes the time now to follow these steps, GEMA and our state partners will be better able to respond to needs as they arise.
GEMA Homeland Security will continue to monitor the winter weather and collaborate with local and state officials to assess conditions and determine the best steps to keep Georgians safe.
We ask that you follow all guidance from your local officials and continue to monitor your National Weather Service and trusted news sources for the most updated information.
GEMA Homeland Security will provide additional information and updates regarding winter weather via our website as gema.georgia.gov where we have a page dedicated to this event.
You can also follow us on our social media at Georgia EMAHS for updates and don't forget to follow our local and state partners as well.
And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Murray to talk about the efforts of Georgia DOT, which you can imagine are robust.
Commissioner McMurray.
Thank you, Director Lamb.
It's a pleasure to provide you an update of our current situation at the Georgia Department of Transportation.
This is an all-hands effort.
We have nearly 1,800 employees that are now working 12-hour shifts continually until this event is over.
We are working our plan currently, which is to pre-treat the interstates starting at I-20 over on the west at Temple, Georgia, all the way to South Carolina at Augusta.
We're pre-treating I-85 starting at noon in Georgia all the way to South Carolina.
I-75 from Macon all the way to Tennessee and all of metro Atlanta and everything north of that I-20 boundary that where the forecasted freezing precipitation and ice is forecasted for.
This includes about 18,000 miles of roadways that we have to pre-treat.
This takes at least 12 to 14 hours to do this pre-treatment.
We started this pre-treatment with brine, which is a salt water solution that helps delay the onset of freezing precipitation to the roadways at midnight last night, 12.01 a.m. this morning, and we'll complete our first shift at noon.
I'm pleased to say that we are on track to hit all our marks such that we will have that first round of brine applied on all those areas that I spoke about today.
And our plan is to continuously brine those locations of interstates and critical state routes the entire time of this event.
So we will do that after our shift change from noon and continue that all the way through this evening and through tomorrow.
Now, as the onset of freezing rain and rain freezing on our roadways and other surfaces begin, we have 300 plow trucks that will be spreading a salt aggregate mix and trying to push anything off the road that may be slushy or trying to freeze.
And we'll start that this evening as the onset of the weather comes in.
In addition to that, we do have some chainsaw strike teams that are ready to go on Sunday morning along with our partners at Georgia Forestry Commission and the Department of Natural Resources to try to deal with any down trees that may happen.
Our expectations of this, this is an ICE event.
This is not a snow event.
This is an ice event.
We're going to do what we can to try to keep the ice from sticking to the roads on the interstates and the state route system.
Again, state routes, interstates of the high-priority state routes.
This is going to be a challenge as this weather comes through with freezing rain continually.
Again, we'll continually to work, but as this is a long event of a lot of precipitation and freezing, and it's going to be very cold.
One of our concerns is what happens into Sunday night into Monday morning as it might melt or have rain and then refreeze with these very cold temperatures that are coming forward.
Please understand it takes us 12 to 14 hours to come back to a roadway that may be near you or interstate.
So you can't be everywhere at one time.
The other expectations we have again with this ice event is gusty winds that are forecast into Sunday, which creates a very dangerous situation for everybody, including our workers and anybody out with power that's trying to get limbs or power lines reinstalled.
This ice, again, has a real potential for down trees.
What we ask of you, limit your travel today so we can get our work done.
So far, we've seen traffic volumes down about 30 to 40 percent.
So thank you for staying off the roads.
Get to where you need to be through at least Monday at this point and stay there.
If we can get the brine down while there's less traffic, it has a lot better opportunity to absorb into the roadway, which prevents that initial freezing that may take place.
We also want to acknowledge that we move a lot slower than you are right now as we're brining and pre-treating roads.
So please pay attention and slow down and move over so our crews can at least have a safe opportunity to pre-treat the roads.
Again, tonight, tomorrow, stay home.
Get to where you need to be for a very long time and just stay weather aware.
I want to thank the men and women for GDOT for their commitment and dedication to try to keep our roadways safe and open, but this no doubt will be a challenge Sunday, especially into Monday.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to our partner, Colonel Hitchens, the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, provides you an update from their perspective.
Colonel?
Thank you, Commissioner McMurray.
DPS has been planning our activities for this whole week.
What we have come up with and what we're going to deploy, we're bringing extra personnel up into the metro area.
So starting about 6 o'clock tonight, you'll see some troopers that are stationed along the interstates within the metro area.
We'll have about 30 people to work overnight, and they'll be placed in strategic area sectors so they'll be ready to respond to any kind of motorist assist or crashes that occur.
We've also brought in two south teams that will supplement them for the morning shift.
So we'll have about 50 to 60 personnel that will be in those sectors during the daytime.
Our northern troops have been put on what we call phase A, and that is for them to be ready with their cars packed, ready to deploy anywhere throughout the state, but most likely it's going to be in their own troops.
And we're waiting for the ice and snow to come in so we know exactly where to place those personnel.
The rest of our troops and regions will be on what we call IRT teams and we have those pre-identified.
So once the snow or ice comes in, we can take those teams, deploy them into the areas that need more personnel, and they'll be able to supplement the people where the most damage or most need is.
The other thing we've done is identify some drone teams in our aviation is once the storm passes, if we need some recovery photos or some damage assessments, they'll be able to go out and do that.
We are also having our commercial vehicle enforcement division.
They're working with DOT to help them as they brine the roads, put out the aggregate once the ice and snow start.
So we hope that we'll give them a safe environment for them to be able to get their job done.
We've also been messaging out with the Georgia Motor Trucking Association to let them know what we're expecting on the roadways coming through metro area and hopefully trying to reduce that traffic that comes in, commercial motor vehicle traffic as well as just your regular civilian traffic.
And as Commissioner Murray said, the best thing that y'all can do is have a plan, stay at home, stay off the roadways, let us do our job.
I can assure you our folks will be fine if they are bored all weekend just sitting on interstate because there's nothing to do.
That will be a great weekend for us.
So please stay home.
Make sure that if you do come out, that you have clothing that's appropriate to be out in this weather.
They've already mentioned that the weather is going to be extremely cold.
If you do run in a ditch, you need to get out of your car.
You need to make sure that you're prepared to be out in this cold weather.
I want to thank our personnel for stepping up like they always do.
They're ready to go.
And hopefully, as I said, maybe they'll be bored this weekend.
But if not, they're ready to do their job.
At this time, I'll introduce the Commissioner from the Department of Natural Resources, Commissioner Walter Raby.
Thank you, Colonel.
Good morning.
At the direction of Governor Kemp and Director Lamb, DNR is currently operating under a unified command with the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Department of Agriculture.
We currently have 17 task force and strike teams ready to deploy when needed.
We have 16 warming stations at our Georgia State Parks.
As Director Lamb mentioned, if you'll go to gastateparks.org forward slash alerts, you can find the locations to those warming stations.
Currently, the Environmental Protection Division has 19 debris staging areas that have been pre-approved for debris to be stationed at and also has 29 generators and four bypass pumps to assist in getting drinking water and wastewater systems back up and running.
At this time, I'll turn it over to Georgia Forestry Commission Director Johnny Sabo.
Good morning.
Even Freezing Can Cause Outages 00:14:12
Thank you, Walter.
As Director Raven mentioned, we're in unified command with Department of Revenue, sorry, in Unified Command with DNR and Department of Ag.
Georgia Forestry Commission has 113 personnel solely dedicated to this incident at this time.
10 saw teams with skid steers mostly located in Catoosa and Franklin County.
Also, we do have some in reserve in Baldwin and Calwito.
We also have drivers scattered all over the state for logistical needs and runs as supplies are needed that we can get them in quickly.
After the storm passes, we have foresters identified to do rapid timber assessments.
Depending on how far south the ice travels, a lot of our species does not do well when frozen.
In addition to the ice storm, we fully anticipate wildfires in our southwest corner as this front moves through with the thunderstorms and as dry as we are down there.
So we have a contingent of resources in the southwest ready to deploy and fight wildfires as needed.
Thank you.
General Wilson.
Hey, good morning.
Hey, well, our team certainly been preparing for this event for the last few days.
As of the end of today, we'll have about 500 National Guardsmen, soldiers, airmen, and volunteers from our state defense force that will be ready to provide any requirements that may be needed.
We're certainly scalable.
We're a large organization, so if there's additional capability or capacity that's required once we determine the requirements, we can certainly do that as well.
Some of the first things that we're going to focus on is just assisting our local and our state teammates with power restoration.
So we've got a number of chainsaw teams and engineers with heavy equipment that could be moved into the affected area to try to get the roads cleared so that we can get the power teams in and get the power turned back on.
We can certainly move any critical supplies around the affected area either by ground or by air.
We've got lots of helicopters so as soon as the weather permits if we've got to move stuff by air we can do that as well.
We've got a number of just general purpose soldiers, airmen and volunteers again from our state defense force that are going to be standing by to just provide any support that's required.
We certainly stay synced up with our Title 10 partners and as well as our neighboring states, the military leadership within the neighboring states, just to make sure that if there's any gaps or anything that we come up with that we may need here in the state, that we're going to be postured to ask for it and get it here in a timely manner.
Happy to take any questions after we finish up, but that's all I've got for now.
I think I'm going to introduce or be followed by Mr. Will Langson.
Thanks, sir.
So, again, as we've mentioned, we're expecting a very significant ice storm across Georgia, perhaps the biggest ice storm that we've expected in over a decade.
On the map behind me, you can see the National Weather Service products.
They have issued an ice storm warning for basically all of North Georgia and parts of East Central Georgia as well, down into the Augusta area.
So, generally, north of the I-20 corridor on the east side of Metro Atlanta and much of northwest and west central Georgia as well in an ice storm warning.
If you're in an ice storm warning, you can expect to see a tenth to a quarter of an inch of ice or more as you get further north and east in the state up the 575 corridor, up 85, even portions toward Athens and even further east towards South Carolina.
You can expect even more ice.
We're talking a half inch to an inch of ice.
Not only is that going to make travel nearly impossible, if not impossible, we're looking at the potential for widespread power outages, and some of those power outages could be prolonged.
If crews can't get to those areas, it's just going to take that much longer for power to be restored.
So, our advice is the onset of this precipitation is going to be this evening.
So, I would anticipate road conditions to start deteriorating tonight.
So, please be where you plan to be for the next couple of days at least by the time the sun goes down or 6 p.m. tonight and plan on staying there tonight, tomorrow, and potentially into Monday morning as well.
Like I mentioned, widespread power outages.
So, use today to make final preparations.
Think through what you would need or what you would do if the power went out for a day or two.
Hopefully, if you do experience power outages, it'll be on the order of a couple of hours.
But again, as you move further the northeast metro area and then further to the north and east, that's where we're looking at the most significant ice accumulations, and that's where we could see those prolonged power outages of even more than a few hours.
As mentioned earlier, temperatures are going to be below freezing again on Monday.
So, even when the freezing precipitation ends on Sunday evening, there's not going to be a lot of time behind the precipitation for temperatures to drop below freezing.
So, we're looking at a potential refreeze situation on Monday morning, even in areas that don't receive ice accumulations from the freezing rain.
So, if you're in the ice storm warning area, again, let me reiterate: try to be off the roads by 6 p.m. tonight on Saturday and plan to stay where you are this evening, tomorrow, and into Monday morning, where we can reassess what fell, what's refrozen, and try and get power back on and the roads clear.
Sir?
All right, thank you all.
Management heard from all the agencies.
Hey, Agency Hayes, we'll open it up for a few questions.
Yes, sir.
Archibald Macstart, can you talk a little bit about what the likelihood of Tuesday is going to be?
I know it's early on, but the people that are at school daycare situations like that into the week ahead.
Can we walk through the forecast of what that's going to look like?
What the fuel should be closed?
Yeah, some of the coldest air that we've seen in a very long time, years, is projected to move in Tuesday morning.
So, even though it's going to be below freezing Monday morning, an additional surge of cold air is going to move into basically all of north and central Georgia overnight Monday into Tuesday.
We're expecting low temperatures in the low to mid-teens.
That's air temperature.
Wind chill is going to be even lower and single-digit low temperatures possible in North Georgia.
So, this is obviously extremely cold, can be dangerous if you're outdoors and unprepared for a prolonged period of time.
We will warm up into the 30s to the lower 40s Tuesday afternoon, but then again, we're going to continue dropping below freezing every night with well below average temperatures for the remainder of the week.
Pearl Hitchens, if you ignore the advice to stay off the road, how does that make it harder for first responders if they have to respond to an emergency?
Well, first off, if they're not on the roadway, they're going to crowd the roadway, maybe get in the way of DOT, but it's also going to have our personnel have to drive into a dangerous area as well.
You know, we don't have any special talents or things we're trained in driving, but it is ice is going to be very slippery wherever you go.
So, it's going to put first responders in danger as well, trying to respond to whatever issues they have.
So, people mentioned it, tracking this down.
What about the warming stages?
If people already started coming into the road, yes, currently, the warming stations open at noon today, so we will be tracking those numbers as people start taking us up on our offer for those warming stations.
Director Lamb, if you would just talk about the value of the State Operations Center and how having everyone here in one place affects the response, absolutely.
So, the great thing about the State Operations Center is it brings all the necessary decision makers and problem solvers together collectively.
And I've certainly found over the course of my career that collective reasoning and problem solving is always the way to go.
I know individually things are difficult, but together, when we come together, there's almost no problem we can't solve.
And that is the benefit and the importance of the SOC.
My question is for Will.
For folks who think that they've seen this before, maybe they blew up up and north.
What would you give to them about how the storm is shaping up and how they should take this seriously?
Yeah, ice is a whole different ballgame from snow.
We had snow in central Georgia this past weekend, and we didn't have any issues.
Ice, you can't do anything with.
You can't drive on it.
It's much more likely to take out trees and power lines than just regular snow is just because it's so much heavier.
You do not want to drive on ice any amount, even if it's a light glaze.
Sometimes it's difficult to even see on the road.
So, if you decide to travel tonight and tomorrow, especially when it's dark, it can be very difficult to even see.
So, just traveling with even a small amount of ice is putting yourself in danger and, in turn, causing problems for other people as well.
So, the best solution is to just not try to drive when there's ice in the area.
And anywhere in that ice storm warning, we could see accumulation significant enough to greatly disrupt travel and put people in harm.
Ben Will, just as a follow-up: I know for some areas like Augusta, when Hurricane Relief had some people that have power for two weeks, we are anticipating the power outages.
Do we have any other indication of putting more resources in in addition to 10,000 personnel in case there are more outages in other parts since that may not be enough for the state?
How would that be monitored?
I think we have, I mean, we have a 10,000-person crew is a lot.
I will mention that this is not just a Georgia issue, this storm.
We have basically every state in the southeast other than Florida that's dealing with this.
So power companies are going to be throwing everything they have at those at those issues.
I mentioned that that northeastern quadrant of the state is where we're looking at the highest odds of those significant prolonged damaging to infrastructure issues.
But it could go all the way, like you mentioned, Augusta.
We're expecting a quarter to a half inch down there.
So the further north and east you go, the more likely that we would see those prolonged power outages, but they're going to be possible anywhere within that ice storm warning.
Are you still encouraging people in the affected area to stay off the roads tomorrow, even if they're looking at their weather app and seeing above freezing temperatures?
Yes, great question.
Even the precipitation may change back over to rain tomorrow night, so you may see that happen.
However, if there's ice accumulated on roadways, it's not going to melt quickly.
Temperatures may be above freezing, but not warm enough.
Plus, with the sun down, it may not dry up off-roads before temperatures fall below freezing tomorrow night.
So it's best to just play it safe.
Don't test the roads.
Even if what you're seeing online, on social media, or on your weather app may indicate that it's safe to drive, it's just not worth taking a risk with this system.
This is one of the biggest ice storms that we've seen in quite a while, and it's just not a good idea to test it.
Commissioner McMurray, questionably, do you expect could become impassable first?
When realistically, should people plan to avoid them, and for how long?
So again, with this wedge of cold air that's coming in, and the map behind us really indicates where we would anticipate seeing those sort of worst conditions first, and it's going to be a lot colder in those areas.
And so, again, we're asking people to stay off the roads today, but for sure, as you've heard from Director Lamb and Will Langston, the meteorologist, is by dark, you know, get to where you need to be.
And it's going to just be bitterly cold based on this forecast Sunday into Monday, which again is, and if we talk about ice and as Will Langston just talked about, the spread of the ice based on the warning area, all it takes is one spot of ice, not a covering of an entire road.
All you have to do is find the wrong small spot to cause a peril for you and cause risk for you as traveling.
So again, we're just asking everybody to get where they need to be today, limit your travel today, and expect to be there at least through Monday and see where this hole is potentially into Tuesday based on these very cold temperatures.
Of course, the mountain counties and that cold air, cold wedge of air is right around the Appalachian Mountain coming into that area, and that's where obviously we don't expect any thawing to happen until well into Monday or later.
So that's, again, that's the problematic areas when the temperature just gets that cold.
We continue to, brine, we'll continue to use salt and aggregate mix to try to break that up.
And when the temperatures get around 20 degrees and below, we'll start using calcium chloride to accelerate, which lowers that freezing temperature even lower.
So those are all the tools we have in our toolbox.
But when you just have a continual amount of rain, freezing rain, and then cold temperatures on the backside, it's going to be a large effort for us to continue to try to keep up.
Director Libb, can you do this if I take the MRUs and the water?
Export Selection