♪♪ >> yesterday president biden toured a mack truck facility in pennsylvania and spoke with employees. >> welcome to mack truck. >> good to be here. mack trucks has been a-- at the center of building america for 120 years. our products are the core of american infrastructure and those products, those heavy

duty macks are all made here in pennsylvania at this factory. and we're able to do that because of the skills and strong uaw work force, and we're all part of the same mack family and part of a great company. so kevin, maybe say a few words about our work force here. >> exactly what he's saying, we have a great relationship and looking to hire 400 to 600 more people in this plant and creating more jobs in this lehigh valley area and the best work force we could have. we're very proud and we'll continue to invest. we're not going anywhere. we'll go up to our first station here, mr. president. you'll meet some outstanding colleagues. >> hey, guys. >> how are you? and john, do me a favor, work on your biceps.

>> of course, it's a pleasure. >> what's your name? >> glenn gray. >> good to see you, glenn. joe biden. >> my pleasure. my pleasure. >> gentlemen, please, go ahead. >> welcome, mr. president, it's a pleasure and an honor to have you here today at lehigh valley at mack truck, i'm glenn gray, a production supervisor for the engine room on second shift. currently we have 2400 employees that are here and out of the 2400-- >> all right. >> out of the 2400, 21 #00 are united auto worker union technicians. we currently are hiring an additional 400 to-- >> good for you. >> to be able to support the chasse insourcing we've done really, really hard so we can now make the chasse and the rails in-house. >> you make them in-house now. >> we'll be making them in-house. >> we were outsourcing. >> that's what i thought.

and we wanted the jobs to be in the factory uaw jobs and we brought it in two phases over the thats two years completed last fall. it's started by rails and finished and drive it off. >> 100% built here. >> excuse me, did you have to expand? >> yeah, over the last four years we added a third again to then plant, 1.1 million square feet. all rightments the additional 330,000 square that we added and that's what we'll fill the additional employees with. >> you know, and our trucks are very much made to the customer's specifications and macks are known for reliability and durability. and meet the colleagues, please. >> how are you? >> good, how are you. >> what's your name? >> tammy. >> it's a great honor. >> tammy, great to meet you,

nice to see you. >> eric meyers. >> nice to meet you. >> good to see you, nice to meet you. so tell me what you're doing, i'm supposed to stand here, got to find the blue x. [laughter] >> so, go ahead, please. >> i work in supply chain, mr. president, and it's been a tough year for us here with microchips and some of the challenges we faced and we've had to close our plant for one shift weeks this year, and lost some of our labor and support for our teams to work. so we're hoping for support with you-- >> you've got it we're making billion dollar, $50 billion investment in microchips and we're going to make them here in the united states. >> in america where we can get access. >> that's what we're doing. >> thank you. >> those important. well, thank you. >> how long have you been here, big guy? >> 10 years, a little over 10

years. >> he's a third generation mcmahon. your grandfather and-- >> my grandfather worked here almost 50 years and uncle 43, third generation, proud to work here. >> going to get better. make an awful lot of electric vehicles pretty soon. >> yeah. >> all right, well, that's cool. so, this is over. >> you'll see as we go around the corner, department of sanitation in new york city is our customer, one of the best operators in the world of this kind and if i may, mr. president, take you up to introduce you to colleagues here and introduce you to the electric mack truck. >> what's your name. >> jacob evans. >> and heather. >> heather, good to see you. >> and shaun. >> can i open the door? >> we don't actually have the keys. >> oh, man. >> i can tell you a lot about

this truck, however. >> so i'm honored, we're honored to be standing here today to show off the mack electric lr to you. it's a feat of engineering in my personal opinion. mack trucks has been building trucks that have built america for 121 years now and this is just the newest edition of what we can do and how we can plow into the future with our heavy duty lr. couple things about the truck, we have four main battery packs, two behind the cab here and the chasse replacing the fuel tank and other components. the truck is zero emissions, almost noiseless, virtually noiseless, requires no oil changes, very, very cool piece of machinery. and a target that we've set is by 2030 we want to have about a third of our truck sales being zero emissions, so-- >> and it's going to be higher than that. >> i like that. >> i'm serious. >> with the correct

infrastructure in place-- ments no, built 570,000 charging stations, and the-- >> perfect. and we, as mack trucks, we appreciate that because we know it's going to allow us to continue to support jobs and hopefully open more jobs to the future as well as we continue to refine the technology and become the leader we hope. >> if you would, tell the president what you do at the plant. i've been with the company for 16 self-years and production flex currently on the cab line and looking forward for this technology to move over to the conventional cab line so we can be more technology savvy. >> i just was down in north carolina and there's -- we're now, we're make ago lot of buses, electric as well, as well as-- weekends on c-span2 are an

intellectual feast. every saturday you'll find events and people that explore our nation's past on american tven 0 sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and office, it's television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore, weekends on c-span2. ♪♪ sunday night on q & a, gary ginsburg, author of "first friends", i've been endlessly fascinated by the american presidency as a kid and as i grew older, i worked op campaigns and the clinton administration and the leaders best friends and the leader himself and how that best friend could speak in a way that no aide or staffer could and speak more bluntly, act more naturally and i thought with warren beatty and the gary

hart complain and fly into major events and speak to the candidates the way no one else around him would at the time and he would say all the time, stop acting and talking like a politician, gary. and gary would get quite roused by that, but he would listen and he would change the way he spoke. and i often thought he would at night with late night conversations and dinners. and i felt the same dynamic was at play in the bill clinton campaign with vernon jordan and how they were of equal stature and what that allowed clinton to get from jordan the way he wouldn't from anyone else in the administration himself mth former clinton administration aid and author of first friends, gary ginsburg, talks about the political influence wielded by confidantes and close friends of u.s. presidents. sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q & a. you can listen as a podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

federal reserve chair jerome powell held a news conference yesterday to discuss monetary policy and the economy. he announced they would hold its benchmark interest rate near zero. mr. powell also answered questions on rising inflation, the labor market and the impact of the pandemic on the u.s. economy. >> good afternoon. at the federal reserve we're strongly committed to achieving the monetary policy goals that congress has given us, maximum employment and price stability. today the federal open market committee kept interest rates near zero and maintained our asset purchases. these measures, along with our strong guidance on interest rates and our balance sheet will ensure that monetary policy will continue to support the economy until the recovery is comp