Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 12152017 20171215

Of vladimiritic putin discusses russias influence in the u. S. And other countries. Washington journal is next. Returning to the Legal Framework that covered the president rom clintons announcement in 1996 to 2015 is not going to destroy the internet. It is not going to and the internet as we know it. High the fcc chair a jeep pai reversing regulations from the Obama Administration, known as Net Neutrality. Ahead on the washington journal, we will begin with your calls and comments, your reaction, and mean for you. All eyes on Congress Next week with the expected vote on that republican tax bill, but new concerns this morning from the hill. Com. Obstacles emerge as the gop races to the tax finish. We will be talking about all of these, but we want to get your reaction to the secs fcc cs repeal of Net Neutrality. If you support the measure, call us at 202 7488000. If you oppose, 202 7488001. We want to begin with what a of what Net Neutrality is and the impact of yesterdays 32 decision. Netrding to the fcc, neutrality is the following internet providers cannot or blockely slow speeds for Internet Services or apps, favor some internet traffic in exchange for consideration, or engage in other practices that harm internet openness. Ruled on netote neutrality. The story begins with these words. Federal regulators voted thursday to allow internet providers to speed up services for websites they favor and block or slowdown others in a decision repealing the landmark obama era regulations overseeing Broadband Companies such as at t and verizons. The move by the federal was aication commission prominent example of a policy shift taking place in washington under President Donald Trump and a major setback for consumer groups, companies, and democrats who have lobbied heavily against the decision. The threeto Vote Along Party Lines enabled the republican pai to repeal the governments 2015 Net Neutrality rules, which required internet providers to treat all websites, large and small, equally. We have this all on our website at www. Cspan. Org. One of the democratic members of clyburn. S mignon [video clip] his video towing congest, asking a hightraffic video provider ask what it can pay to make that pain go away . Happen, you say . Newsflash it already has. The difference now is the open question of what is stopping them. The difference after todays vote is that no one will be able to stop them. Several providers will quietly rollout paid prioritization practices, packages that will enable deeppocketed players to cut the queue. Maybe a vertically integrated broadband provider decides it will favor its own apps and services, or some highvalue internet of things traffic will be subject to an additional fee. Maybe some of these actions will be cloaked under nondisclosure agreements and wrapped up in mandatory arbitration clauses so it will be a breach of contract to disclose these publicly or take the provider to court if there is any wrongdoing. Say, of course this will never happen. But after todays vote, what will be in place to stop any of this . Host a democratic member of the in the this editorial wall street journal, the internet is free again. By effectively deeming the internet a utility, this turned the fcc into a political gatekeeper. Rules willama era remove the fcc so consumers can choose broadband providers and plan accordingly. Technology and markets change faster than the speed of regulation. The fcc is restoring the promise of internet freedom. Isep high ajit pai the chairman of the fcc. [video clip] we are not living in some digital dystopia. Perhaps, the internet is one thing we can agree in American Society has been a stunning success. But this solution has not worked. The main complaint consumers have about the internet is not and has never been that their Internet Service provider is blocking access to content, it is that they do not have access at all or not enough competition. These regulations have ironically taken us in the opposite direction from these consumer preferences. Under title ii, investment in highspeed networks has declined by billions of dollars. Notably, this is the first time that such investment has declined outside of a recession in the internet era. When there is less investment, that means fewer of next Generations Networks are built. That means less access and less competitions, less jobs for americans building those networks, and more americans are stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide. With that background, what do you say . Do you support or oppose the decision on Net Neutrality . Our phone lines are open. 202 7488000 if you support the idea of repealing Net Neutrality. If you oppose it, 202 7488001. And we are taking your tweets. You can send us a tweet c spanwj. This headline, Net Neutrality might be costly for consumers. Joe, supporting the reversal. Good morning. I would say that i wholeheartedly agree with ajit pais definition, classification, everything. I never understood the people who want free internet, free net wantality, but they dont free speech. Reddit it, you too, they have been censoring rightwing speech because they have not been able to agree with that. But lets have an even Playing Field for everyone. At least under this plan the fcc can come down on these people and now it will be an even Playing Field instead of people saying oh, this hurts my feelings. No, we can have a law on the books. And the state attorney generals sue and do something about it if they like. The attorney general of the state of new york is one of many filing a lawsuit. This is from netflix, which sent out a tweet next her day yesterday after the fcc decision. In the disappointed decision to got Net Neutrality protections that ushered in an era of innovations, creativity, and civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands with innovators, large and small, to oppose this misguided fcc order. Richard, baltimore, opposing the decision. Good morning. Caller good morning, i oppose the decision because the way large Internet Service providers our access to content, our different content, our different needs for the internet. Am worried that my Small Business Service Writer will be able to charge me more for using the internet to provide services to my customers. A Small Business, i do not have any clout, and they can. The comments by during the editorial about the cutback of provisionally priced internet to areas that is from the larger Service Providers, but small Internet Service providers are doing a booming business providing wideranging wifi Internet Access to people in rural areas and in our own city of baltimore. Fcc wouldby the discourage that. Host what is your business, richer . Richard . Caller i am an i. T. Consultant. Are it sounds like you listening on cspan radio, which is 90. 1 in the baltimore area. We are getting your reaction to yesterdays repeal of Net Neutrality. Ets coming in. Eric, with the fcc vote, republicans screwed americans yesterday. They do it so often we should be used to it by now. Janet, you own it, gop. And this comments from a mile. If you stream lots, Net Neutrality might be costly. If you do not, it might not reduce your cost. Trent, new jersey. Your view on this . Caller this is similar to the way the Telephone Company used to provide service. The more you use, the more you pay for it. We used to have a flat rate service so people could hang on the line all day long and use all those circuits up and pay the same amount as the person who made one call once a week. It is not fair that the people who use the most capacity on the network pay for the building out. I could not see anything that would be any fairer than that. Host thanks for the call. I want to share a tweet from gary schneiderman, the mayor in new york. The in new york. He said the voter apart Net Neutrality is a blow to new york consumers. He is joining other attorney generals to sue the government. Here is part of what he said. [video clip] hi, im new york states attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. The fcc has just voted to got Net Neutrality. Todays vote as an early Christmas Gift to big Telecom Companies and means Internet Service providers have another way to put corporate profits over consumers. Todays rollback will give isps new ways to control what we see, what we do, and what we say online. This new rule would enable isps to charge consumers more to get access to social media platforms like facebook and twitter, and give them the leverage to degrade highquality video streaming until and unless someone pays them more money to clean it up. Even worse, todays vote would enable isps to favor certain viewpoints over others. Even if they promised not to do any of these things today, there will be no rule against the changing of those promises down the road. New yorkers deserve a free and open internet, and that is why my office will sue to stop the fccs illegal rollback of Net Neutrality. We will file a claim to establish protections for new yorkers and all americans, and will work aggressively to establish the fccs leadership will do no more damage to us in the u. S. Economy. Seven months ago, my office began investigating a flood of fake comments submitted during Net Neutrality. We have found nearly 2 million fake comments that uses stolen identities of people across the country, including 100,000 new yorkers. We asked the fcc tell our investigations, and waited months to hear back. Delayed on the fcc to todays vote and help us with an investigation into the corrupted rulemaking process. Fcc leadership push ahead with their boat today anyway and ignore the massive scam that corrupted the public record. This is more of an attack this is more than an attack on the future of the internet as we know it, it is something important for people who care about their voice in government. We will be suing, but we need everyone to stay strong and keep speaking out. Host that is from the new York Attorney general, Eric Schneiderman on the twitter page yesterday. Some of your tweets include this, including this one from jim, saying interestingly, the democratically controlled states are opposing the fcc action. Think about that. And from the u. S. Telecom industry, which support what happened yesterday, this will build more opportunity for rural sericans, praising ajit pai fcc trying to close the digital divide. Get the facts. This is a tweet from one of the Industries Supporting the fcc decision. Your views on all of this, and if you support the idea, 202 7488000. Amanda opposes the ruling yesterday. She joins us from brooklyn, new york. Caller hi, thank you. If you are nots streaming or gaming, but what is going to prevent them from making this very expensive for people that want to do those things . Is part of the governments responsibility to protect us from those price ofes for a small group Internet Service providers. Not want them i do not want it to become a monopoly. Host jarrett, fort washington, maryland. Supporting the majority vote of the fcc yesterday. Why . Caller you have to understand where it started. Initially, Companies Like comcast and verizon wanted to slow down at netflix because was putting all of their customers in the video line. You fill out a network like fios where you are putting in brandnew fiberoptic lines, you need to make that money back. How can Companies Make their money back if are only using Internet Services . Thehey are only using Internet Service for the tvs and phones, why would they want to go buy a travel package for 200 bucks . Companies should have the ability to make as much money as they want and as much money as they need, because companies are what is more important. Prattville,l from alabama. You oppose the ruling on Net Neutrality. Why . Caller good morning. Im a 31yearold i. T. Professional. Theatched this, and internet is no longer just a service, it is a utility. Businessnnot do any because everything goes over the backbone of the internet, and earlier this year the white house rolled back rules they can sell you data, they can look at your search history, they will basically control what you will be watching. Forre already paying access. Im paying for a 100 megabit line and they are slowing my content delivery, so why are you paying for the line . They are giving me a cell phone model where they want us to pay for every vet, use qos, which we are already doing, and start charging us for every kind of bit, whether it is video or what. We need to go for a free, open internet, which lets the user pick what they want to watch. If i am paying for this beat, give me the speed. Why buy a ford f forte tv and they slow the streaming on the video because i am using another service . That is why i oppose it. The internet needs to be open and free to the consumer. Host michael from alabama. Marcus has the street. Why did obama put in Net Neutrality . The internet was working just fine. This from mary, remember the last time we let the Telecom Industry write its own rules . 1996. How did that turn out for consumers . Bruneau and washington, d. C. Also opposed. Good morning. If you are a Small Business online, you could be itling anything that might be real estate, you have a small website. How will i compete against facebook or google to pay for the traffic, and i want to react one of the previous commenters who mentioned the people who use more traffic actually pay more they already pay more, because a lot of data centers of data. Or this is just a way for the Service Providers to make more package deals. As a Small Business, there is no way i will be able to compete with them. It is impossible. Much fornk you very the call. Inside the financial times, the u. S. Regulators wrapping the rules that protect and open internet. Humbert, valley string, new york. What is your view on this . Caller most people do not even understand the internet, but what they will stop doing is charging you to use apps. For instance, they will put a fee, something that takes income from them like whatsapp, and they will start charging you fees for that. But a lot of people do not understand the difference between it. No one owns the internet. It was always free. They are making it sound as though they are doing you a favor no Company Gives a customer anything for free. Anything they give you, they want to charge you for it. Host the front page of the washington times, more legal battles to come over the issue of Net Neutrality. S is from richard waters gee, you want a huge pipe type so someone can send you more commercials . No thank you. Mary from tacoma, washington. You are opposing the fcc rule. Why . Caller i am in my late 70s, and i was there when the internet was first made available to the public. My understanding is that the internet was invented by the government for use worldwide, by the cia and therefore, by definition, it is owned by the andrnment and the people, should be available to everybody, just like the post office or Public Libraries or whatever. It is not possible increase in the cost that bothers me, it is the fact that somebody can control the content. For instance, mr. Trump is friends with the fcc director. He could tell him i do not like cnn, shut off their website. What is to stop him . That is the part that is dangerous about this. Host the front page of the new york times, the fcc reverses the ruling requiring Net Neutrality. We are getting your comments. Janet, brooklyn, new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. I think this is a way for the Cable Companies to go after people who have cut the cord. I, for one, am watching you this morning over the internet because i cut the cord. My cable bill was 170 a month to looki only paid 69 at tv over the internet. So we are paying for channels that we do not need, and now they will make us pay for more internet or raise our bills because they need to make up this money. The Cable Companies are losing millions and millions of subscribers every month. Now they will be able to get that money back. We will not have the choice anymore of what we pay for. Ourill shove it down throats the way they shoved all those extra channels we did not want every month, and they are going after the cord cutters. Like i said, i am watching you this morning over the internet. I might not have that choice again in a couple of months. Or my bill will go up. That is my comment. Host in a couple minutes, we will have two different perspectives in our friday roundtable, drilling down more deeply into Net Neutrality and the short and longterm impact on consumers like you, so stay with us. Susan, hampton, virginia. Go ahead. Caller hi, good morning. I always get nervous when i get on and i have all of these thoughts. Host you do not need to be nervous. Where your friends. [laughter] with the texte about the internet was working before 2015. It is a known fact that democrats love power, so when they want to control something, that is all that is. They want to control the internet. Google, facebook, they are the loudest companies against getting rid of the rules, and that is because they do not want to pay more for people to get their services. Hand overjust making fist, and verizon and these other companies had to keep stringing all that streaming all this information, and google was not paying, and facebook. Those are my comments. Host thank you for the call. Fortune magazine and fortune. Com, a commentary on seven surprising things about the end of Net Neutrality. Netg one of the points neutrality is somewhat of a misnomer. A better term is content agnostic. The impact for subscribers will be minimal. Most isps already charge higher prices were higher speeds, servicesss attractive with more attractive ones, like better Internet Access. The only difference is that the slow speeds could affect some sites more than others. For more detail that fortune. Com. Gordonsville, virginia. You oppose the ruling, why. Taking myank you for call. I opposed this, because before you could control the distribution of books, and that was control over what people know and do not know. I think the issue on the problem that we are facing, people are realizing i need to understand the internet that is a utility to me. Now i need to understand how this works. I have always argued that we do not understand taxes enough, health care enough that is what needs to be taught. It needs to stop being sold off as boring information. That is important to everyone. That is my biggest concern right now, not enough people understand what our world is now. Host thank you for the call. Another viewer saying omg, the internet has not been owned by the government for decades. cspanwj. Tweet at [video clip] the fcc is not the Expert Community for communications, it has authority over unfair and disruptive practices. But to evade ftc review, the broadband providers will need to add new conditions to the fine print in its terms of service. In addition, it is both costly and impractical to report difficulties to the ftc. Why the time the ftc gets around to addressing them in Court Proceedings or enforcement assume, it is fair to that the startups and Small Businesses wrestling with discriminatory treatment could be long gone. Moreover, what little authority the ftc has is now under question in the court. Host making reference to the role of the ftc, the federal trade commission in yesterdays ruling, and the legal battles ahead in congress. They are expected to weigh in from the commentary section of the washington times. Network neutrality comes to an end, the fcc repeals Net Neutrality rules and the rules drawn up by the Obama Administration must not be replace. Karen,e of tweets, from the repeal of Net Neutrality feels like another spiteful move by the trumpet ministrations remove any trace of obama. And jim, a big pipe merely delivers a larger quantity of data, but all data is delivered at the same speed. Ed, anaheim, california. You oppose the ruling yesterday, why . Caller a guy called in and was os and allout fi that. Because they put in files they should make more money. No, consumer land lines pay for fios. Forumer landlines paid Wireless Services that we enjoy. Separate rooms for the rich so people can pay more and lesser rates for those who do not. Im sorry, im getting nervous. The call. Give for vivian, california, san francisco. Good morning. Hi, i wanted to make a similar point. I have heard several people say download a lotor are not paying for it, but now they will have to. That is not true. If i want a plan with more gigs of data, i have to pay more for it. Two they will do is set up different tiers of the internet, one that will be master than the other one. If the websites faster than the other one. If the websites cannot pay to be on the fast one, like the. Orgs, universities, health care s, they do notte have the money to pay to be in the fast lane, but they are useful to us. After this, they will not be in the same category as things like mcdonalds or goldman sachs. That is my comment. We have been sharing with you some of the editorials, the wall street journal earlier, and this from the l. A. Times. The fcc sacrifices a free and open internet on the altar of deregulation. The deregulation of at t, comcast, and other broadband providers is a dramatic abdication of authority that could usher in an old like an ugly new era for individuals and companies that offer content and Services Online, and for the people who rely on them. The obvious problem there is that broadband providers could pick winners and losers online. There is also a realistic fear that broadband providers would favor their own sites and services, because some are doing it already. For example, at t effectively exempts video streams from its directvs subsidiary from its wireless data cap. Congress needs to clean up the mess that fcc chair ajit pai created. Ontario, california. Welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you and good morning. I attend a Community College in california, i am an adult students, and i am appalled that i did not hear anything about the students rallying up or communicating about this issue. I know there was a petition going on in the past, i signed it. But i am appalled as to what is going on. We need to be more new united more united, we cannot allow this to happen. Thank you. To get anothernt explanation on what Net Neutrality is, there is a lot out there on the web, including this from politico. Com. Explains,ne, politico walking you through todays biggest policy debates and todays issue of Net Neutrality is highlighted at politico. Com. This from jim let me get the tweet up we will go to a call, actually. Ellen, georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just wanted to call in and say i am one of the people who, after many years of waiting for the Cable Companies to allow customers to have all a carte carte programming, and the Cable Companies have quashed that. They give you 200 channels and you want to watch 10 or 12. I cut the cord, because i did not have many choices. Becauseose directv now they offer cspan. So i stream tv through my internet, and i pay 19. 99 a month for internet and 30 a month for my directv now. I do notice at certain times that comcast will throttle or slowdown my tv streaming because isprovider, directv now, actually owned by at t. So they are competitors. I can see that this is going to be a problem in the future. 55 a month now versus 148 a month before with at t or comcast for channels that i really did not want. So the consumer will lose in this, and that is what i want to say. There are a lot of cord cutters out there who have done this and they will definitely be impacted. So thank you for listening to my call. Host and thank you for watching cspan on the web. This is from sam i support the ruling, why should my grandparents who do not use net pay the same price for internet as me . And another from rick, saying their appeal of Net Neutrality is about the house and havenots, another redistribution of wealth brought to you by President Trump. Marie, east dublin, georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning, how are you . Host im good, how are you. I am fantastic, thank you. This ruling will not stand, ultimately. There are too many elements of chicanery and deception that put the republicans on the board in order to justify making this ruling in the first place. As you probably know, they are a growing number of state attorney generals, democrats and republicans, who are suing the fcc in order to not only stop this ruling from going into effect, but ultimately issuing that Net Neutrality as it stands will be the law of the land going into perpetuity, because ultimately the american taxpayers created and paid for the creation and development of the internet. It is ours, not corporations. Corporations are not people, first and foremost. Ultimately, we are going to win this. Until the time that these lawsuits are determined, i do not think that the ruling and of kandi ben lead implement it, if im not mistaken. The once there is a court case, we will win, because there was a similar ruling earlier, during the time that the Obama Administration put the rules that they put into effect in effect, in which there was clarity that was emerged that determined that no, the fcc cannot take away Net Neutrality or the rules of Net Neutrality, if im not mistaken about that. Nonetheless, that will be the law of the land when this is all said and done, so do not freak out or panic, just fight and continue to make your voice heard. Host marie, thank you for making your voice heard. To give you a sense of how this will play out potentially in congress, republican representative mike coffman submitted this tweet. Thank you for everyone to contacted me in regards to Net Neutrality. Below, the letter i sent to chairman ajit pai to ensure the continuation of a free and open internet. Says Net Neutrality is a misnomer, like the Affordable Care act. We will have much more on this topic coming up in just a moment. Our friday roundtable with two different perspectives from the free state foundation, randolph may will be joining us, and Kristen Lewis is from the Public Knowledge campaign. Thehris lewis is from Public Knowledge campaign. And later, Joseph Lawler to talk about the republican tax bill. What is in it and what obstacles are still ahead as they try to get it to the president s desk before christmas . Watching and listening to cspans washington journal. It is friday, december 15. Stay with us. We will be back in just a moment. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, generals we love to hate with author craig simons on confederate general joseph johnston. Johnstons critics argue that the enemy andith his combativeness with the confederate government enrichment so undermined the southern war effort as to make them a contributing factor in confederate defeat. To these critics, johnston was the real mcclellan of the west. [laughter] a man who lacks the moral will to commit troops to battle unless he could be absolutely certain of victory, and since those circumstances never obtained, he seldom, if ever, salt battle thought battle at all. And the white house naval photographic units report on president lyndon johnson. Two days after his return from new york, the president s oldest daughter became the bride of captain charles roth of the United States marine corps. Was the firstit white house wedding and 53 years. On american00 artifacts, the 200 year history of the Willard Hotel in whose guests, include abraham lincoln, world war ii soldiers, and the first japanese delegation to the United States in 1860. Abraham lincoln conducted quite a bit of business while he was here. He stayed for 10 days, and it says the First White House levy was not at the white house, but it was a the Willard Hotel. When he introduced himself and his wife, who was quite a bit shorter than him, he said i wanted to make her feel tall. Watch cspan profile series on White House Administration officials. This week will feature Senior Adviser for Strategic Communications first lady slap rcedesst lady slap me schlapp. There is a part of me that carried a sense of duty to my nation, and a duty to helping my the older, generation, the Younger Generation to understand why we are here, why we are in america, and why we have to preserve the greatness of america. It is very similar to why it was an easy yes when i was asked to join the Trump Administration, because it was a sense of understanding the acceptable nature of our country and preserving that. First lady slap mercedes schlapp, on cspan. Org and the free cspan radio app. Washington journal continues. Host our focus, Net Neutrality. Yesterdays fcc decision. We want to welcome randolph may, the president of the free state foundation, which is what . Free market think tank, freemarket think tank. Host and chris lewis, with a group of the foundation of Public Knowledge . We want to give you a sense of what is happening outside the fcc yesterday, as inside the commissioners were deciding the threeto ruling. [video clip] is it any wonder they want to shut it down, silence it, and stop it . Are we shocked . . Shocked . No. Are we going to let them get away with it . No. Post some of the demonstration outside of the fcc. Access isrnet overturned by the fcc. What you heard outside in this headline, randy may, is it accurate . Mr. May no. Really, what happened yesterday was going back to the type of fromnet regime that we had the beginning of the regulation of the internet until 2015. We had a return to what we called a light touch regulatory regime. In 2015, the Previous Commission imposed public utility type regulation on the Internet Service providers. That type of regulation is really too heavyhanded for the environment we have today with the internet. It is appropriate for maybe water systems, a lecture said he electricity delivery, but it is not appropriate for the technologically, rapidly changing environment we have with the internet. I dont expect any more. When people access the internet, they will not notice a change. I do not suspect that they will notice a change a year from now or two years from now, but what happened yesterday is that the fcc removed the threat that was overhanging the internet, that this public utility type regulation would stifle innovation and investment. Out one steptake further. The argument put forward by tom wheeler, the former chair of the fcc, is that when you turn on the light, you expect the electricity to be there. We have become so dependent on the internet we should expect the same service and speed, regardless of which site we are on . Mr. May no, i think it is fair to have that expectation. But from my perspective i think this is the perspective of a lot of economists who study this issue, a lot of other policymakers, we did not have a problem with the internet before the imposition of these public utility type rules. There was no market failure, the consumert cite problems at the time that it imposed the rules. It is really appropriate it is better to wait until problems impose aefore you heavyhanded regulatory regime. I think what we will see if we do have Problems Develop in the future, nothing the fcc did yesterday would prevent the fcc from coming back in and changing its rules. It certainly doesnt prevent congress from legislating, but importantly this has all been lost in what we heard yesterday and some of the rhetoric what the fcc did was restore the enforcey of the ftc to its oversight of Internet Service providers, which had byn invested from the ftc this 2015 regulation. Isis not as if the internet not going to be regulated by isp Service Providers, the ftc is restored now back as a police, cop on the beat to oversee the practices of the Internet Service providers. Wrecks is what we heard from the heard. Hat is what we we want to share some editorials. This from the wall street journal, the internet is free again. By effectively deeming the internet a utility, former chairman tom wheeler turned the fcc into a political gatekeeper, killing obama era rules will remove the fcc. Consumers can choose broadband providers and plan accordingly. Technology and markets change faster than the speed of regulation. The fcc is restoring the promise of internet freedom. That was the argument put forward yesterday by ajit pai, the republican chair of the fcc. [video clip] brokeninternet was not in 2015. We were not living in a digital dystopia. Isthe contrary, the internet one thing, perhaps the only thing in American Society that we can all agree has been a stunning success. ,ot only was there no problem this solution has not worked. The main complaint consumers have about the internet is not and has never been that their Internet Service provider is blocking access to content. It is that they do not have access at all or not enough competition. These regulations have ironically taken us in the opposite direction from these consumer preferences. Under title ii, investment in highspeed networks has declined by billions of dollars. Notably, this is the first time that such investment has declined outside of a recession in the internet era. When there is less investment, that means fewer nextgeneration networks are built. That means less access and less competition. That means fewer jobs for americans building those networks, and that means more americans are stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide. Was part of yesterdays hearing by the fcc, again, on our website at www. Cspan. Org. Lewis. Go back to chris you have heard the rebuttal from mr. May, your of you . Mr. Lewis we are very disappointed in the boat. This is the first time they have decided they would take themselves off the field as the enforcer and the cop on the beat to make sure the internet is open. This is another editorial, from the l. A. Times. The fcc sacrifices the free and open internet on the altar of deregulation. Deregulation of at t, comcast, and other broadband providers is a abdication of authority that could usher in a new era of content and Services Online and people who rely on them. The obvious problem is that the broadband providers could pick winners and losers online. There is also a realistic fear that broadband providers would favor their own sites and services, because some are doing it already. For example, at t effectively exempts video streams from its directv city area subsidiary from its wireless data cap. Congress needs to clean up the iss that fcc chair ajit pai creating. Mr. Lewis they have it absolutely right. There is a long history of isp, internet providers blocking applications, giving preferential treatment to some traffic over others, like you described with directv. The fcc ignored that history that led their predecessors to create these rules and to principles, these protections over the last 15 years. Host randy may . Mr. May i really dispute the notion there is a long history of any type of discriminatory action. There were literally three or four examples cited when the fcc 2015. D the rules in i think a lot of people, steve, are beginning to realize that perhaps the greatest threat of discrimination to actually actually comes from the socalled edge providers,. Oogle, twitter, facebook twitter, for example, recently took down an ad from congresswoman Marsha Blackburn that was prolife, talk about blocking. There is an increasing realization that the giant internet sites, google, facebook, and so forth, that they are more likely to discriminate because of their dominance then these Internet Service providers. Progressives organizations that are so concerned about Net Neutrality with the Internet Service providers were as concerned about the same type of conduct that we see from the edge providers. I do not happen to believe that they should be regulated either by public utilities, i am not advocating regulation for them. What i think it is wrong to look this out a onesided way in a onesided way. Ist we have now, and this the important point, is that the ftc will be able to oversee the types of practices of both the Internet Service providers on the one hand and the edge providers, google, twitter, and so forth, on the other hand to see whether they are living up to their representations. Point one final on final point, we focused the action yesterday by the commission. It is important that the mission strengthens can parents he rolls transparency rules. They have to disclose their practices, they will have to be clear to consumers, and that is the basis upon which, if they violate those practices, that the ftc would be able to sanction it. Our guests have worked at the fcc, so they come to this from very different perspectives. Randolph may, who is a graduate of duke university, where he also earned his law degree, is the head of the free state foundation. He served as the fcc assistant general counsel. Christopher lewis is a graduate of harvard, the former fcc Deputy Director for legislative affairs. Our phone lines are open, give us a call. Frank, one for republicans. Thank you. Caller good morning, thank you everybody. I am concern about concerned about the present censorship on the internet. I have been centered about four imes in the past censored about four times in the past year. Last night i was censored again. I raised a question about any collusion between the prodemocratic people at the fbi in the murder case in the rich murder case. But they would not send my online tweets on that subject matter. I had to work up to the final question, and they still have not let me send the final two. Host what site were you on . Caller well, i am just hoping under the new system, there will not be censorship. Host frank, thanks for the call. Will there he censorship on the larger matter of issue what people can or cannot post and who can post it . Mr. Lewis we are very clear about who the rules impact. They have access to the network providers. They do not have jurisdiction over website, web services, and large platforms. While i agree with randy that there are concerns with some platforms, and we have spoken out about that recently, and agree with those were calling for a deeper look at the competition of those large toolorms, we have a at the fcc under the law that they could be using to have strong Net Neutrality rules and make sure folks give you access to the internet. Which consumers know the difference between a website and the company that gives them access to the internet . The difference is that you do not have a choice in network provider. Most consumers have one highspeed broadband provider, some have none, very few lucky folks have a couple. If they do not like the rules that they have from that internet provider, they do not have any else to go. That is why we needed an fcc that can enforce clear rules of the road, that said you cannot block a website, you cannot throttle and application, you cannot set up a prior tour is paid prior to her station prioritization schemes. Host when did you work at the fcc . [indiscernible] host and you . Mr. May 19871991. When i was at the fcc, we were the belling with anomaly. The competition was beginning to there were even online providers that were beginning to emerge at that time. We were developing rules for those online providers. What we did, and i was actually part of working on this process, was classifying online providers as Information Services so they would be unregulated and mopbell and the telephone classified asd be television carriers that were regulated. That was the environment that we had really from that time, those were called the computer 2015,ies, right up till when the information providers, the Broadband Companies were flipped and classified as telecommunications carriers, and public utilities. I think most people agree when they think about it, that all those years that we had the light touch regulation of information Service Providers, the internet did flourish, surely, we would all like for it to be faster, cheaper, but the reality was it was 1. 5 trillion of broadband providers in building out Broadband Networks in that. Period of light touch regulation. When we switched over to a new ,egime without a good reason there was not a reason to impose stifling of investment , innovation stifling regulation. Host we will drill down even more on this issue of Net Neutrality. Program the communicators airs over the weekend, and is also available on the website, www. Cspan. Org. But what is Net Neutrality . According to the fcc, here is the definition. Broadband Service Providers cannot deliberately block or slow speeds for Internet Services for internet apps, favor some internet traffic in exchange for consideration, or engage in other practices that harm internet openness. That is from the fcc. Elaine, olympia, washington, republican line. Caller there are two things i want to bring up. When i first got my computer, i watched live tv, i could record data, but anyway, i cannot even stream. I cannot stream anything on the internet that is live, nothing. For ay, i was looking i was researching those emails on bing and google, and i was reading different sites, and all of a sudden, they were gone. I could not find them anywhere. They were off the internet, i could not access one thing about fraud. That happened yesterday, and i would like to know why. Host elaine, thank you. Christopher lewis. Mr. Lewis that is a good question to ask for broadband provider, what happened to her access . Hopefully nothing is going wrong with her service there, but what is important about these rules is that there is Nothing Holding frombroadband providers taking a service or a website and saying we will not show that website and service anymore. The rule that says you cannot block anything has gone away with this repeal. Unfortunately, the federal trade commission is not a rulemaking body. They do not have the ability to create and enforce any no blocking rules. All they can really do is use what is called section five authority, their unfair deceptive practices authority, to say that if the broadband provider says they are not going to block, they can hold them accountable if they do. So we are setting ourselves up now to trust and rely on the broadband providers to be honest , and to set the rules for themselves. ,ost your opinion and views setting aside, what happens next . What can congress do and what could we potentially face in the court . Mr. May i think there is a real opportunity for a mr. Lewis i think there is a real opportunity for a court challenge. We have dealt with these cases before and we are evaluating that, and we hope we can build a case to overturn the decision at the the. The fcc. We hope folks will follow that. Congress has a chance to overturn these rules as well, and there have already been to members of congress, one in the senate and one in the house, who have suggested they will introduce a resolution to overturn the rule and decision of the fcc yesterday. Heard attorney general eric saturn of new york saying yesterday there are a lot of petitions, and there were some fake comments that included 100,000 new yorkers that posted on there, but did not say anything. There is an investigation into the fake comments, that we ensure that people are putting up fake comments, they are putting up comments under other peoples names. Names. We do not see that had of investigation before the decision was handed down. Host democrat line, thank you for being with us. Caller good morning, guys. I think this is a huge mistake and could put hundreds of thousands of Small Businesses out of business, because right now the internet runs at full speed for everybody and everybody has access. That was the rule put in place , even the obama era access. They are trying to reverse that. So couple of corporations might make some more. Right now, everything is running at full speed. The only way to make things faster is by slowing everyone down. That will make pages load slower for hundreds of thousands of Small Businesses, and google will penalize them. Before you know it, google searches might drop them all together for being slow, and the republicans have no idea what they are doing. They are hiring revolving door lobbyists around the country to talk to the fcc, and it is up to congress to stop them and go against them. Host thanks for the call. Randy made . May . Mr. May the reality is it takes billions of dollars each year to keep building up a network to accommodate the explosion in traffic. I think chris will agree with that. On average, it is about 70 billion a year that is invested by the isps. That is not government money, that is private capital by the internet is providers. What this decision may do over time is allow the Internet Service providers to innovate new types of offerings that allow them to recover more of those costs from those companies that really imposed disproportionate amounts of cost. It is not clear that will happen, but it could. What i am referring to specifically is, for example, on any giventflix, night on average, 50 of the traffic on the internet is actually generated by those two companies. If that is the case, we are not talking about the average , orumer that is imposing who will pay for it. In order to ensure that the video andthat netflix Googles Youtube are delivered in a manner that satisfies their consumers, it is possible the enduser customer would pay less because ultimately someone has to pay for the investment in these networks. If you are just tuning in we are talking about Net Neutrality. , theterans on the fcc president of the free state foundation. And Christopher Lewis of Vice President of Public Knowledge. We are disappointed in the Net Neutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of creativity and civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands with innovators large and small to oppose this misguided fcc order. Caller good morning. I just got off of the phone yesterday with my city council members. To at them to go preinternet, pennies on the dollar and bypass a lot of this monopoly from inner net providers with their noncompete contracts they have with each other to keep prices up. I feel the competitive rest of the world, in our area, the United States, it was 20th in speed to the rest of the world being faster than i was. South korea is faster. I think this monopoly they have is holding us back. Thank you. Dont know our exact rankings but i think the concern about having a monopoly provider is when we hear often. They lead to higher costs. We should expect to see that with these rules. And your story is common. You hear a lot of local communities looking to find ways to provide access to broadband when companies dont feel they have a Business Case to roll out and avoid networks to their communities. So, more and more communities are stepping up to invest dollars to make sure that their assistants have access to highspeed broadband. It is important. To have access to jobs and civic life generally. To washe fcc was smart their hands of the legal aspects. Now Congress Needs to regulate it. Cta. From the in our objective to title to has never been about not wanting to provide customers with an open internet. Broad andis overly has the potential to rate regulation. Following nctae on twitter. Aller good morning i have a question that is a little off the subject but it is with the subject. Supplier. T a comcast they blinked us out on the youngstown station. News in theatch morning for two hours. A good news show. Now they blinked it out. I can get all of the pittsburgh stations. Youngstown is not that far. They tell me that they had to do that through the fcc. I would like to know why that was done. Host can either of you answer that . That is not really a Net Neutrality issue strictly speaking. It has to do with negotiations between broadcasters. If i can go to the last caller. I think this is something we may agree upon here, it would be good if congress would actually take up this issue and could reach a resolution that would in this debate in a way from my perspective that didnt adopt the public utility type regime but nevertheless did leave in place oversight over the internet providers. We have been going backandforth on this Net Neutrality issue for over 10 years now. It is an issue that really is within congress domain. Perhaps congress will now decide to take it out. Host this is a tweet from a congressman. The upcoming decision should not allow for corporate monopolistic domination. Avid from grand rapids democrats line. Good morning. Caller real quick. Why should congress have to make any rules when the fcc and obama made rules that said you have to be neutral. Enough said. Be neutral. All of those republicans complaining, you voted for trump. What did you expect . He is for the business. Sll he is doing is lining hi pockets for the next four years. Byst what i am encouraged is the quote you read. A number of republicans have heard from constituents because outside of the beltway, 75 of republicans want to keep Net Neutrality rules. Beltway, onlye inside washington is this a controversial issue. You have large special interests led by Big Broadband providers trying to roll back these protections. It is important that folks know that the rules that we have, if they go away, congress could act. But we have not seen any legislation come along that protects an open internet as fully as the rules that we have. And the Speed Congress moves it is not fast enough. We do have a law Congress Passed in 1996 that empowers the fcc to create these rules. A sick rules broadband providers can live by and say they are going to continue to live by. Then i see no reason why people should go away at all. Guest one quick note on that. 1996 mentioned the Telecommunications Act Congress Passed. That is important because that is the First Time Congress made a statement about the internet in the telecom act. It said the competitive internet should develop unfettered by federal and state regulation. Hat is the policy that is essentially the bipartisan policy that we had until 2015. Host the front page story of the washington post. The audience may still be unclear in terms of what it would mean. The split fcc votes to in the rules on Net Neutrality. They begin the piece as follows. Federal regulators provide internet providers to speed of service for websites they favor or block and slow down others in a decision repealing landmark regulations overseeing Broadband Companies such as at t and verizon. The move to deregulated telecom and Cable Industries was a prominent example of the policy shifts in washington under President Trump and being viewed as a setback for consumer groups. Companies and democrats who lobbied against the decision. Chair toallowed the follow through on his promise to repeal the governments Net Neutrality rules which required internet providers to treat all websites, large and small equally. We will go to peter on the republican line. Caller good morning. My question basically is, the way i see the fcc, it is supposed to implement the rule of congress. Whether Net Neutrality is good or bad, it is irrelevant. My question is, all these reinterpretations, which is really the implement of what congress directed the agency to do . Christopher lewis. Guest the 2015 rules did implement what congress has asked the fcc to do, to make sure the medications network of the 21st century, like the phone network, is nondiscriminatory. When you pay for access to it you can go and call anyone you want to. You can go to any website and service that you want to. By creating these rules it was a long effort to make sure that these protections were in place. Under at in 2005 when Republican Administration to try to enforce basic principles of nonblocking. In 2009, again under republicans. They set rules of the road so that isps would stop throttling traffic as they had done during those administrations. When the court throughout those rules they came back and said if you want to have nonblocking and nonthrottling rules, you have to do them under title ii. Those are common rules. You have to classify broadband as a common carrier. That is what they did in 2015. Host good morning independent line. Caller good morning. I want to talk about investment argument these guys keep making. In reality, if these companies are able to charge google and facebook, these Huge Companies more money, and they go along with it, why would the isp invest in Smaller Companies that dont have as much money . Work. Snt it doesnt add up. It is irrational. On top of that, what is driving the, growth is coming from content providers. That is where the future is. To go. Where they want which is why theyre trying to go into that market. The only way they can get ahead into that market is live they content area that is where this starts. What their drive is. I look at this ruling and i think it is a shame. Host thank you for the call. There is just no question that it is going to take ongoing investment of billions of dollars in order to be able to deal with the expanding traffic. A lot of that expansion is due to the consumption of video, which is exploding. Ultimately the network has to be paid for. I suggest that new rules will mean over time the small consumers, Small Businesses, residential consumers, they will end up paying less than they would pay absent these rules. I think that is the way we see the economy working in other segments where we have different between differentiation products. When we dont treat everything absolutely equal, and that is the way consumers benefit from this type of differential treatment. Host opinion as zika mobile Congress Take this up . Will it be challenged in the courts . Guest i dont think it is any question it will be challenged in the courts. Chris will see to that. I dont know whether congress will take it up. I hope that ultimately it does. I want to say one thing. View on theris legal question. I understand that perspective. It is my firm opinion that ultimately the fccs decision that it lacked authority to impose this public utility regime will ultimately be affirmed by the courts. It may take the Supreme Court but i think we have a difference in terms of missions going forward. To answer thed question from the caller. He raises one of the great concerns. One of the rules was a ban against paid prioritization. Creator, small content not the netflix or the googles who will be penalized if they have to compete with netflix. But they dont and they are trying to compete and create content and have to pay to get preferential treatment online. His is why we have these rules to create a free Market Online for all services and all websites. Now that rule has gone away, im very concerned about the longterm viability for these small companies. Host the story is front page of the new york times. Caller good morning. I have been listening for 30 minutes or so. I havent heard anybody talk about the potential impact of media. Wards independent for example, netflix and google, cnbc, but mayr smaller independent media havees would then potential to be restricted and on a bandwidth consumers could access. I would like to have both sides comment. With the fake news and Mainstream Media stuff that has been so huge this past year, i think this could potentially be damaging for people who want to get media smaller, independent content creators. Thanks. Host thanks for putting that on the table. Guest i just dont think that is going to happen. I think these broadband providers respond to what consumers want. Consumer complaints. We would like to see more competition in the marketplace. I think we are seeing that. I just believe that is going to happen. One other quick comment. I think as chris may know, the d. C. Circuit in the rehearing petition from the original decision made clear that the internet providers could have a nonneutral network even under the obama rules if they wanted to, as long as they disclosed that practice. That has not been discussed much. It ought to be discussed more. , truly, there wasnt as much that happened yesterday as we are all hearing that happened because of that rehearing petition. Host in this editorial, the , killingis free again the obama era rules will remove the fcc as a political gatekeeper. Christopher lewis your response . Guest there is a number of problems with what we are hearing. Number one, the caller was concerned about independent media. They are absolutely right. Small websites from the left or the right or not political at to need to have the ability access consumers. Consumers need to have the ability to access them. Voicess a concern those will go away if they are forced to compete with big media conglomerates. The competition randy once is going away. You see with merger after merger. The mergers were seeing now are not the mergers of the late 90s where Cable Companies were buying Cable Companies which led to the local monopolies we have right now. What we are is a greater consolidation where they are buying content. Universal. S nbc and at t owns directv and is trying to buy time warner. By buying content, by merging vertical, they have a greater incentive to prefer content that they own over others. These rules going away is an extra step to make it easier to make greater profits, to edge out competition and independent voices. Host i want to point out to our viewers who know that this company, cspan is fully funded by the cable industry. A few pennies each month provide funds that we use to operate three networks, our radio station, and the website. One moment last night on Abcs Jimmy Kimmel show, from latenight comedy. Jimmy kimmel the fcc did something absolutely despicable. They voted to put an end to Net Neutrality. This is the rule that says everyone gets equal access to the internet. A big company, somebody selling crocheted owls from their house in the midwest. As long as they tell us they are doing it now, Internet Service providers will be allowed to block web traffic to any website or streaming service they like which benefits big Telecom Companies and does the opposite. 83 of americans support Net Neutrality. 2 Million People who wrote to the fcc to oppose Net Neutrality were bogus. Many turned out to be dead people. Someone stole the identities of dead people to help push this through. We have to hold Congress Hope Congress Agrees to reverse it. Thank you President Trump thanks areou, big corporations about to take full control of the internet. Merry christmas, everybody. Host we will give you a response. Guest steve, lets dont forget yesterday the fcc strengthened the transparency rules that apply to the Internet Service providers. It restored the ftcs authority to enforce any violations of the promises made by the isps to customers. , almosthe major isps all of the isps in the country have already said they intend not to block websites, not to throttle, and not to engage in unfair prioritization. The ftc will now be in a position to enforce those promises. Randy. E begin with chris lewis, you get the final word. Randy described the rollback. It is now left to transparency of promises by Internet Service providers. When they choose to change their policies, there is no one to hold them back from blocking and throttling content. Weve already seen them start to do this. What randy just described. Instead of saying they will not engage in paid prioritization, they talk about harmful prioritization. They are easing it in so folks dont notice they are changing practices. We will continue to see this now that the rules has gone away. It is Important Congress acts. I hope people Contact Congress to turn to overturn this. Host we want to thank Christopher Lewis of Public Knowledge, and randy may of the free state foundation. We appreciate your time and your perspectives. Thank you for being with us. Host up next, the tax bill making its way through the senate and the house. Lastminute hurdles, what it potentially means for you. ,oseph is following all of this he will be here in a moment. And later, the ceo of a londonbased Capital Management term, also a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin. We will talk about the investigation into russia, president putin and President Trump them all ahead. It is friday morning. Sunday newsmakers, the guest is sander levin of michigan, stepping down at the end of his turn. You expect when the actual conference report comes out democrats will be united in opposition to it . Absolutely. This is atrocious. These two bills are atrocious. When you combine two negative, you dont get a positive. You get a bigger negative. I think that will be true. They have not shown it to us. They have excluded us. The policy has been bad. I took a quote from the president. He said i promised we would pass a tax cut for the everyday working American Families, the backbone and the heartbeat of our country. Now we are days away from keeping that promise. Taxant to give you a giant cut for christmas. The giant tax cut is going to be for the very wealthy. That haveto the bills passed, they may get worse on this, millions of families next year, 13 million are going to pay higher taxes in the middle class. 10 years from now that figure will be 30 million. Paying more in taxes. Essentially they are not telling the truth as to who will benefit. They are grossly miss stating what the realities are as to the National Debt and their hope for growth. They more than anything else want a tax bill because they have not accomplished anything else. It is desperation. That is why republicans are pulling together, even those who have doubts about this. They figure if they fail on this after failing on other things, then they are going to lose the election next year. Essentially what is driving this is politics. Haste and bad policy. Im convinced of that. We want to welcome joseph, who covers economics for the washington examiner, and politics. Thank you for being with us. Lets begin with this headline from your story. Winning over a few senators is all the replicants need to pass tax reform in a week. We have heard there are a couple of complications. Sen. Rubio has concerns over the Child Tax Credit. Sen. Corker s concerns about the impact on the debt and deficit. And the illness of senator john mccain. Sen. Cochran in dealing with melanoma. Where is this today . Guest you summed it up. There are a handful of votes in the senate. 52 republican senators. They can lose to instill new and still pass with just republican votes. Bob corker voted against the bill when it left from the senate. He is likely a no vote. Marco rubio of florida came out yesterday and said i am a no on the bill unless they expand Child Tax Credit to apply to low income families. They are at the margin and the have a few undecideds. One is mike lee of utah for thatng judgment same reason, and then we dont know where Susan Collins of maine is. We dont know what she intends to do. She did vote for a coming out of the senate. You never know if there is a wildcard in play. That all said, they are pretty close. Votes, heee these no has made a specific ask. If they can meet that he will vote yes and then they will have the votes. To costat ask is going money. Tens of billions. Where do they come up with the money . Guest they will have to move things around. They have do in that they have done that already. They did that by raising Corporate Tax rate when percent from 20 to 21 and shifting other things around. We dont know what exactly they did to raise that revenue but you are right. They are going to have to make concessions elsewhere. Host the house will be in session. Does that mean we will get more details of the bill . That is right. We are going to see the conference agreement today. It should be signed. That is the plan. Later tonight we will see the detailed provisions of the bill. Over the weekend they will be tightening the legislative language to have it ready for the house and senate to vote on next week. Our phone lines are open for republicans. We have a line for independence. You can send us a tweet or join us on facebook. Hasalso the Vice President scrapped plans to go to the middle east. Why . Guest he could be the 51st vote. Against, he 54 and could cast the deciding vote. Host walk us through the highlights. What is in the republican bill, and what will it mean for typical family of four making 75,000 a year . Guest the centerpiece of this is lowering the Corporate Tax rate. It is the compromise deal. It is going to wind up at 21 . Republicans believe that is going to allow more companies to stay here in the u. S. Rather than being pressured to move overseas. Then you have another big tax partnershipsesses, etc. Aroundet a tax rate of 30 . On the individual side theres a lot of provisions that will affect families everywhere including lowering tax rates. We will see where that inset but it looks like 37 . The brackets below will probably go lower as well. That doubles standard deductions. Rather than having to itemize , things likections that, people are going to get a bigger standard deduction. It is going to affect a lot of people with simplification. Credit, fromtax 1000 to 2000. That is one of the subjects of debate. Under the hood there are many more provisions that will shape the u. S. Economy and affect nearly every family. Me follow up, where this is going in regards to senator rubio. Is he just trying to negotiate this . Do you think he is going to support the bill . Guest we have seen in the past when they bring up a specific ask like this, that is the first step toward them dealing with leadership to get what they want. We see this exact same thing from ron johnson. He said i am a no unless the bill is changed to increase the tax break that goes too Small Businesses, noncorporate businesses. He got it. The leadership moved things to to a, dead that accommodate that. It is rubio said that unfortunate. He voted yes and the senate. We will see where he ends up. Host one final question. Why is the Senate Taking it up first . Host the timing is not yet nailed down. I believe that is what they would want to do. There are procedural things about the senate rules which are complicated. Points of order could be raised to endanger the privileged of that bill. Are, im exact rules not a Senate Procedure expert but there are reasons why they want the house or senate to go first. Host our guest is Joseph Lawler. For republicans, thank you for being with us. Caller hi, how are you doing . Clarify, did you say proposing a tax cut for people that make 75,000 a year or more , or 75,000 a year or less . The intent of republicans is to cut taxes for everyone. It will depend on your situation. Down at eachets go level. They have in past versions of the bill. Provisions,of those it is to create tax breaks. Not just people above 75,000, but for underneath as well. It will depend on each tax situation, where they live in the country, how they get their income. Might face ae who tax increase. At every income level. The vast majority in the early years are going to see a tax cut. Host the caller is from new york. You have been writing about the salt tax. Guest state and local tax deductions. That is one of the most consequential tax breaks they are going to be limiting. How that works is you can do. Rom your federal tax income that is going to be kurt detailed quite a bit. You are only going to deduct 10,000 in income. Most people are not going to be detailing those specific deductions. They are doubling the standard deduction. For some people at the margin that is going to make a difference. Joseph lawler of the washington examiner. Question. Just have a my wife and i are 70 years old. We both collect social security. I have a pension from my retirement. I still work a parttime job. Year. 7,000 a that is to give me something to do and get me out of the house. Between my pension and our social security, probably around 49 a year. What effect will this have on me and my wife, if any . I will take my answer off of the air. Host he hung up. Guest thank you for the question. That is tough to answer without knowing where you live, what tax breaks you get now, and other details about your tax situation. That would be better addressed to a tax expert. Make a deduction. You might have less taxable income and probably be seeing a lower rate on that, 50,000 in income. Based on that limited information, i might speculate you will get a tax cut, but it is impossible to say. Host when they say the bill is being scored, what does that mean . Inst they have experts congress to go through each bill and try to assess what impact it will have on the federal government revenue, spending on people outside in the country, and there are a few different entities that do that. One is the joint committee on taxation, tax experts they have looking through every bill, running it through models, trying to say how much revenue is this going to lose . Then they will produce information and put into one document, the score. Host now to the republican line. Caller i am single, never married, i dont have any kids. How much will i be making . I work parttime. Host what is your salary . Hour, i make 10. 15 an social security, they claim i make 888 a month. It if im nots mistaken. Tost again, it is tough know what your exact situation is. Sounds like maybe you dont have that much income Tax Liability to begin with. You will probably be receiving a paybreak or continuing to no taxes, if that is the case. Any bill does not increase refundable tax credits for working people like you, who dont have a lot of income Tax Liability to begin with. You say you dont have children. It does include a very small increase in refund ability in that. That would provide a tax break for you. You said you dont have children. Im not sure what provision might affect you. You might be one of the few who will not see a difference. Host what are passed through corporations . Say pass through mimi the company that passes through its income to its owners tax returns. They are not taxed at the corporate level. Is under current law, that is a big company being taxed at the top individual labor tax rate. Over has been a debate those companies and how they tax bill. Eated in the ron johnson has been active on this issue. The concern is if you or lower the Corporate Tax rate 20 of adult lower that 39. 6 individual tax rate, those are going to be at disadvantage. What they are trying to do is create a special rate for business income that passes straight through this. Individual owners. A lot are Small Businesses. , a lot ofp shops Small Manufacturers. There are also some big ones. Big law firms which are partnerships. The vast majority of businesses are passed through. The account for half of total business income. This is a big feature of this tax bill. Facilitiesave offshore in ireland or the cayman islands, does this give them an incentive to bring those jobs and people back . Guest you have hit on one of the most complicated parts of the bill. The short answer is that is a big debate. We will see what actually happens. The number one incentive they will have to bring those profits back is the Corporate Tax rate is going lower. That is one of the reasons this attempt got started, to address that circumstance. You mentioned ireland. They have a rate of 12. 5 . Companiesy a lot of try to read their income through ireland. If the u. S. Moves its corporate , theyte down to 20 narrow that quite a bit. The thought is they wont engage in much like that. That is one part. There is a whole section that relates to the treatment of profits earned by companies overseas. There is a lot of different parts of that that would affect that decision you are talking about. Josephark, talking with lawler. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Hopefully after Net Neutrality you will still get cspan. Income. 150,000 i live in new york, which we have high state taxes i have always been able to deduct. Proprietor. I pay for my own Health Insurance and things like that. I have one child i can claim. Im concerned about the Real Estate Tax deduction going away. The salt being cap or going away. I wondered if mr. Lawler can clarify whether or not the Health Insurance premiums i pay to the exchange will still be deductible, and if my business expenses. Be deductible, as well is going on for sure under this plan with the individual mandate. I will stay on if you want to ask questions. Host thank you. Exact you are almost the taxpayer that they have in mind as they tried to put the finishing touches on this bill. It is people like mark that they are afraid might see tax increases under the bill. Those representatives from new york and new jersey who had a tough time voting yes were thinking exactly about people like mark. They dont want their constituents to see tax hikes. Mark amodei of the things that would affect you is that limitation on the state and local tax deduction. ,f you are still itemizing which it sounds like you will, you are going to get 10,000 in those taxes. That might help you. You are also going to see a lower tax rate. That may also help you. You have that one child. Youre going to get that Child Tax Credit. Whether that gets you back to even is a good question. You also said you have income from a Small Business. A tax break to get on that. Maybe as a Business Owner you will get a tax cut and be closer to even. You might be on the margin. We will see. We would have to look more at your tax returns. You are affected by the Health Care Provision of this bill which is a major part, the repeal of the Affordable Care act individual mandate. How that will affect your health care is really one of the Big Questions that democrats of trying to raise attention about. That could be a net loss for you. Host from your perspective do you think you will pay more or less taxes . Caller i think i will pay more. Out, ilawless pointed always itemized. For clarification, i dont have a passthrough entity. I simply file an individual return. I think i will pay more because ,f i cant deduct my state tax that is another point, is the Real Estate Taxes i pay, 6,000 a year, and the state and local Tax Income Tax that i paid to new york state, are those cumulative for that 10,000 cap, or are those not cumulative . Guest great question. We do not know the answer to that. We have not seen actual legislative tax addressing that issue. Yesterday the house ways and told Committee Chairman reporters that it would be cumulative. He would be able to add in taxes and income taxes up to that 10,000 limit. But then you are limited at 10,000. That might help you were might not. Point, you might not have a passthrough but you will still be receiving a tax cut on that income you have. The american conservative and the washington times. The washington examiner. The democrats line. Caller good morning. It is hard for me to believe they are going to give the rich ,eople like the head of the nfl who makes 40 million a year, youre going to give them a 2. 6 tax cut. This is definitely for the rich. Host is it definitely for the rich . Guest he mentioned roger goodell. He would be getting more that knowing his specifics, it would certainly seem like he would get a significant tax cut. Host he just signed a 200 million contract. Guest he is obviously the top bracket. Theyre are going to be lowering that top rate. He probably has he is going to see a lot of tax relief on any business income he is getting. He is a wealthy individual and he will be getting a tax cut. Host good morning. Caller good morning. Think for taking my call. With a question about my son who filed his income tax every year. Because he could not afford insurance, he has been penalized. I wondered if that is still going to happen next year. Is that in this repeal . What are they going to do about it . Guest yes, part of the bill is going to be zeroing out that penalty. If you paid the penalty last not seen the final text of the bill but that was part of the bill that passed the senate. That tax penalty for not having insurance your son paid would be gone under this tax bill. Host chris from milwaukee. Caller i have a few questions. One is nobody ever mentions the fact that they are repealing, theres going to be no personal exemptions. Taxes, forst years each person. Thathe races a lot of 12,000 gain. Not only that, they are going to you cannot deduct capital losses. With all the hurricanes and everything, the wildfires weathers going to be they urged people to please get losses in by december 31. Host stay on the line. We will follow up. Guest that is a great point. That is one of the biggest revenue raisers in the bill, the elimination of personal exemption. The thought process republicans say they went through is the double standard deduction will make up for the personal of standard deductions. Individuals are no longer going to take that exemption for themselves. It will be and not it will not be enough to move people into a tax cut situation. That is what republicans have in the bill the Child Tax Credit, lower rates, income brackets and other things. ,or those people at the margin especially people in california, sing a lead of wildfires recently, people racking up casualties there, they could see that is the exact kind of tax situation, where you could be facing a tax hike. Host we will follow up. Caller i have another one because besides the capital losses. When i listen to the hearings, they said doctors, dentists, chiropractors, professionals. Ere not included in the llcs only real estate. Trump is supposed to have Something Like 500 llcs. Hedge funds get tax breaks. O doctors or dentists they dont get anything. Guest that is right. This is one of the guard rails a put around that passthrough tax cut. Here is why. The thought is, lawyers and just Fund Managers lawyers and dentists, those are great examples of people who pay salaries today but as this tax cut goes through they will to turn themselves into llc is rather than take a salary. Get themselves a pretty significant tax cut through that Small Business rate. Workers wholaried shouldnt be treated as Small Businesses because they should be getting salaries. That is the thought behind that tradeoff. Someone running a real estate business, or a Small Manufacturer who does file as an salariedot really a professional but a Business Owner. It is when a treat different high earners differently. Host where is the estate tax in this bill . That the have heard estate tax will not be repealed, but the exemption level at which it will kick in will be raised. I dont know where that cut off is. We will see that later today presumably. They are going to fall short of that goal. Republicans have been promising that they would repeal the estate tax. They are going to fall short of that. The estate tax today, the exemption level is pretty high. It is going to go up. In previous versions it was doubled. Far fewer people would be paying it. We of course will have more on our website. Dave, republican line with Joseph Lawler. Good morning. Caller a couple of things. Make 150 a year and im in california. I have a 401 k . It started before donald trump was elected. It has gone up by 150. Because of anticipation of this tax bill. 10050i have just gained. 150,000 gained . A 401 k veryone with saw it go up 25 . Host go ahead. So, i have already realize the benefit from this. The alternative minimum tax. I need to know about that. Sure. If the question is, is the alternative minimum remaining in the bill, again, based on what we have been told, it seems the answer is yes. It will apply to higher levels. There be a bigger exemption for that. You would be held harmless by that. You would be under that threshold. We will see where that comes out. I dont know if you had a specific question but where one of those people who it sounds like could potentially be at the margin of getting a tax hike or a tax cut. We will have to see exactly what the terms of the final bill are. Host carl, good morning. Caller good morning. I am someone who works on my Financial Committee with washington regularly. We got an interesting letter. When the postal authorities received a letter he addressed it to the lord. Impressed that he instructed the secretary the boy thought it was a lot of money. The little boy was so delighted he wrote a thank you note. He said dear lord thank you for the money. He had to send it to the governor. Thank you. I think we have heard that before. Know, im glad that someone still able to make a joke even when we are talking about taxes. Host next on the republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Doubled thethey standard deductions for married couples. You get 24,000 for a married couple, standard induction. You also get a standard induction for a married couple with two kids. How does that affect them . You used to get a standard induction for your children. What did they do with that . Reflect in the tax reduction bracket . It seems to me families with children are not going to make out is good. Earlierarbara, in caller made that same point. You are losing personal exemptions which would have applied were children. Harder t is basically it is harder to cover each additional child. Here is how they try to make up the difference. What is with a lower tax rate. You are going to be paying a lower tax rate, and additionally the Child Tax Credit boosted from 1000 2000 would provide tax breaks. But you are right. The bigger family you have, they can put you in a situation where you are at risk of facing a tax hike. One thing to watch out for in this bill would be how it treats larger families. Host one final point, the repeal of the Affordable Care act mandate. Where does that stand . Caller as far as we know that is in the bill. I do not think it is over until it is over. I would expect that to be part of the bill. Host you can read more of Joseph Lawlers work at washington examiner. Com. Thank you for being with us. Guest thank you for having me on. Host this is from gq. Bill browder public enemy number one. Hes a nemesis of the russian president Vladimir Putin. He is joining us next. Tour is next. Ies we talked to, the , aboutf Saratoga Springs the springs that led to the founding of Saratoga Springs. We like to think of Saratoga Springs as upstate new york between york city and montreal, on the remark border. We are best known for our historic charm. Oldestalso known for the sporting venue in the country, the Saratoga Race course. We are known for our thoroughbred horse racing. We have diversified our portfolio and to multiple package assets. ,eople come here for the arts for the best work in the world. , so we such a history talk about the mineral springs. People come for medicinal reasons. On theseounded wonderful bubbling waters that came out of the ground. It was the native americans in the civil war times and when the native americans were hunting for dare, they noticed the deer were drinking the sparkling, salty mineral water out of the ground. They tasted it and they began to realize the medicinal value and they would bring in soldiers from encampments to feed them the waters and have them take the waters, as we say in Saratoga Springs, to be cured of their wounds and elements during the war. We are a small city based on our commerce. Now, we are fighting we are in entrepreneurial hub. People are coming here to start businesses. Washington journal continues. Host joining us from new york, the cofounder and ceo of hermitage Capital Management, being viewed by some as public enemy number one by Vladimir Putin. Sean flynn writes the harrowing rowder isill b his own kind of daily terror. Thank you for being with us on cspan. Is that a Fair Assessment . Guest i think it is. I have done a lot of things over the last decade to cause utin personal trouble in retaliation for the murder of my russian lawyer in a russian prison after my lawyer uncovered corruption by the putin regime. Host which led to an act that congress dont with. Explain specifically what this does. Guest sergei was my lawyer in russia. He uncovered a massive 230 governmentsian corruption scheme. He exposed it. Instead of arresting the people who committed the fraud, they arrested sergei himself and put him in pretrial detention and killed him in a horrific beating on november 16, 2009. He was 37 years old. I got the news the next day and i made a bow in his memory to his family and to myself that i would go after the people who killed him. For the last eight years, thats what ive been doing. The major tool to get justice in this case was creating a law named after sergei called the magnitsky act. It was introduced by benjamin. Ardin and john mccain then theres the maintenance act in 2010. It passed in 2012. Passed the house by 80 . It was signed into law in 2014 by president obama. President putin acted unbelievably angry. Adoption of russian orphans i American Families and stated that repealing the act was the single largest foreignpolicy priority. ,e have seen numerous efforts bullying, all sorts of crazy stuff leading up to a major which was launched by an agent of Vladimir Putin. Natalya is famous because she was the person on june 9, 2016 who went to trump tower and met with donald trump, jr. And Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort with the specific agenda of trying to repeal the magnitsky act on behalf of Vladimir Putin. Story long and shocking of how we effectively found the achilles heel of the p utin regime. Guesthost are you saying one oe motivating factors was this act he passed in 2012 . Guest unfortunately, this was the primary motivator for him to take sides in the election. Believed donald trump be more likely than Hillary Clinton to repeal the magnitsky act. He sent an emissary to approach the Trump Campaign to do this ds. N was actively relating ourinute electoral outcome in america based on the hack of the dnc and all sorts of troll farms distributing fake information through facebook and twitter. We dont know whether this was just putin expressing his own preferences in a vacuum on his own or whether he was doing it in conjunction with anybody in the United States. That stillness need to be investigated and proven one way or another. Host how much is Vladimir Putin worth . Guest in my estimation, is the richest man in the world. He became the richest man in the world through theft and extortion. About 12 billion. When he became president , he had one group of people who work stealing power from him. These were the russian oligarchs. They were taking away the power of the presidency. He decided at one point to arrest the richest oligarch in russia. He was the owner of an oil company. He put him in jail. The rest of the oligarchs went to payton and asked what we have to make su do to make sure we t face the same fate . Putin said 50 . He owns 50 of the wealth of the russian oligarchs. Is a peersam browder and vocal opponent of the russian president. Are you worried about your safety or the safety of your family . Guest worry is an emotional concept. I dont worry. I dont spend my time living in fear. There are very real clear and direct threats coming from the russian government to me. They have threatened to kill me. Y have threatened toe kidnap me. There is a very real risk. Host the relationship between trump and putin, how would you describe it . Guest its a strange relationship. Theres a difference between the relationship between donald trump and the relationship between the Trump Administration to Vladimir Putin. Does a bunch of things that i find unpleasant and offensive. These as Vladimir Putin is not a killer, he is a good guy, we should respect him. Those sentiments are not true. Putng said that, hes together an administration of people who are actually executing the Foreign Policy of if not who are as tough tougher than me on russia. He has general mattis as his defense secretary. He has mcmaster on his National Security council. Pompeo as the head of the cia. Nikki haley, even Rex Tillerson. If you listened to tillersons speech last week, that was an extremely hawkish speech. The actual policy of the United States of america of the Trump Administration towards russia is tough based on these people i just mentioned. Inch bysnt gotten an supporting donald trump. At the moment, we have a person who is tweeting nice things but theadimir putin policy hasnt changed so far. Host based on some of the reporting this morning, including the story in the washington post, renewed speculation about how long Rex Tillerson will stay on as secretary of state. He hasnt learned his lesson, according to trump allies. Guest i dont know. I have read a lot of things over the course of weeks that Rex Tillerson was absolutely out and then i read statements from donald trump saying hes absolutely not out. This is like a show of the apprentice. Who knows who is in and who is out . At the moment, he is still the secretary of state and the policies seem to be tough towards russia. Donald trump doesnt have a lot of political attitude to warm relations with russia. Extremely heavy cloud hanging over his head about whether hes got some kind of site dealings with putin. He can do anything without having the whole country question his decision. Host are you saying the russian president is a killer . Guest im saying Vladimir Putin is a coldblooded sociopathic killer. Host will he be reelected next year . Guest theres a very big assumption that theres a real election taking place. In russia, they have the facade of democracy. There is no democracy in russia. To makedimir putin do sure theres no chance hes not the leader of russia . In some cases kills or exiles anybody who has any real chance of challenging them. He controls absolutely every aspect of the media, television, radio, newspapers, the internet. So that anything bad said about him will be seen by his people. He creates this fake election where they stuff the ballot boxes to make sure they get the results they want. Theres 100 percent certainty that Vladimir Putin will be in power until he dies a natural death or until some of the overthrows him. Host we are joined by William Browder, the head of hermitage Capital Management. A graduate of the university of chicago, earned his masters from stanford. Tell us briefly about your firm. Guest i went out to russia when the berlin wall came down. I come from an unusual family background. My grandfather was leader of the american coming as party. By rebellion, i became a businessman. I decided if my grandfather was the largest communist america, i would be the largest capitalist in eastern europe. I set up a firm called hermitage Capital Management. Invested in the russian stock market. It went well for a long time and then not well when we discovered corruption and exposed it. I was named a threat to National Security, expelled from russia. My offices were raided. They took my documents, stole 200 million of taxes i paid. Magnitsky was arrested, tortured and killed by the putin regime and then putin participated in the coverup. Host the cspan podcast is Available Online on the precspan radio app the free cspan radio app. Dawn in kansas. Caller how many of the oligarchs who been adversely affected by the magnitsky act have had reported contacts with Trump Associates . Could you name a few . Act so farmagnitsky has sanctioned 44 russian individuals. 35 of them were involved in srgei magnitsky arrest and death. There are none on the list at present. Judges andailers, other human rights violators. Some of them are very wealthy in their own right. Some of them are midlevel officials. The reason the magnitsky act is so terrifying is not what its done so far, its what it could do in the future. Richest guy in the world with 200 billion. That money is not held by him personally. Its held in the name of oligarch trustees. Putin was one of the recipients of the proceeds of the Segei Magnitsky exposure that makes putin subject to the magnitsky act at some point in the future. And hes not holding the money in his own name, u. S. Government will go after the oligarchs who holds the money for him. Host where is this money being held . Guest its being held by big russian oligarchs. Those people invest their money through major u. S. And european banks, hedge funds and private equity funds and Trophy Properties and all sorts of other things. What looks like legitimate money of russian oligarchs is in some cases putins money. Host lorraine in ohio. Republican line. Caller how did the uranium one deal benefit america . Guest im not all that familiar with the uranium one deal. I dont know how to analyze who did what to whom on that. Host your former partner who was killed, he left behind a wife and how many children . Guest a wife and two children. Thankfully, they are now out of russia. They live in london. Host carol in idaho. Good morning. 1849, russia sold as alaska for 7 million. Donald trump is upset about that. He will never beat that deal. Russia was our ally in world war i and world war ii. We didnt lose half a Million People in world war i. Russia lost 15 million. While we were going to the moon, they were working on Nuclear Weapons. Dont even think about the fact that some of our policies lead us to a situation where we all better be bullies in our own backyard building in our own backyard in Nuclear Nuclear fallout shelter. You see Police Shooting individuals in the back and you start putting those on the news, we dont have time for anything else. That is my comment. I hear you about all the terrible things going on in america and i agree with you but that doesnt justify the terrible things that Vladimir Putin is doing. A lot of people will say we should be thinking about russia, we should be nicer to russia and maybe they would behave themselves. Appeasement has proven to never work. If you remember back in world war ii, theres a famous british Prime Minister. Britain didnt want to be involved in world war ii. Noble kimberlin had a meeting with hitler. He thought hitler had made a promise and he was willing to appease him by giving away czechoslovakia. In reality, appeasement didnt work with adolf hitler and it wont work with Vladimir Putin. Putin is an extremely nasty man who is causing all sorts of trouble, innovating ukraine and bombing children in syria. The only policy we can have towards putin an russia is one of containment. Host at the end of the year, the russian president has a marathon News Conference. He held one yesterday in moscow. The headline in washington times, the meddling is invented. [video clip] we have all the respect for the opposition in the u. S. Who opposed donald trump. Things he been some hasnt been able to execute like the Health Care Reform and Foreign International relations, hes promised improved relations with russia. Even if he wanted to do that, hes not able to due to specific restrictions. Maybe he doesnt have it. You will have to ask him. Hope he still has that desire because its in the interest of the russian and american nations. Issues, iaenvironmental hope we can Work Together on them. Weapons of mass destruction proliferation in the middle east and north korea and other issues, there are other issues where we can work much better when we work jointly. Host the russian president in moscow yesterday. William browder, what can you gleam from his answer . Guest what putin does is go out and do a lot of terrible things, invades Foreign Countries and gets involved in crazy that he dopes the olympics and then says we should Work Together. Of course, we should all be working together with lots of countries. You have a country with a economy the size of italy starving its own people and using its resources to cause trouble in the rest of the world and hes saying we should Work Together. He has a responsibility to stop doing the bad stuff he does. Ashave a responsibility strong democracies in free countries to stop him from doing the nasty stuff hes doing. All this talk about working together only works if he works with us on the terms of civilized western countries, noncriminal countries. The burdens on him stop doing the bad stuff hes doing. Host an extensive piece written by greg miller and philip of washington post. Frontpage above the fold, how trumps pursuit of putin has left the u. S. Vulnerable to the russian threat. Heres a summary your response . Guest so far, he hasnt been able to roll back anything because lets look at the chronology. Russia hacked the election by hacking dnc and spreading fake news and many other things we dont know about yet. The Obama Administration in the last days of their administration imposed sanctions that. Sia are doinfor doing they were put in place by executive order. There was some talk that donald trump would lift those sanctions. Since he was talking about lifting those sanctions, congress got involved. Democrats and republicans got thether and said should president be able to lift sanctions on russia on his own collision based on these on his own volition. Congress decided to take away the power of lifting sanctions from the president and to take them to congress, where they would vote on them in the future. There hasnt been an inch given away on this particular issue. Ofterms of the importance making sure that we are not exposed to this stuff in the future, there is a big agenda of not allowing russia to meddle in the future elections. This has become a partisan issue because many people say if you put too much attention on the fact that they meddled in the past election it takes away from the legitimacy of the election. Whatever happened the last election, we need to look forward and say we shouldnt allow any country to have any impact on elections here or anywhere else in the world. My home country of britain this is a big issue, a big issue in france. Host richard joining us from reston virginia. On the line with William Browder in new york. Caller good morning. This issue, antipathy toward russia, is so terrible today. The media screams it, the bankers scream it. And needs to be understood that putin did one thing which upset these people so much. Or movede destroyed that central bank that russia had, which was under the dominion of the host the you want to respond do you want to respond . Guest im not sure what im responding to. The central bank of russia was bank ofopoly russia and there are no other banks in 1991. They freed up banking and it allowed many banks to enter. This was a good decade before Vladimir Putin came in. Banksesult, theres many in russia. I dont believe Rothschilds Bank is in russia. Im not sure what to say about that. Host in case you want to get more information on our guest, he wrote this piece last month on cnn. Com. Why does Vladimir Putin hate me . What is the summary of this piece . Guest Vladimir Putin hates me because, in my opinion, the primary objective of Vladimir Putins presidency has been to a team late well. To accumulate wealth. Hes been stealing from his people and the state. In order to commit those crimes, hes had a lot of people imprisoning and torturing and exhorting people of their money. In the process, hes become worth 200 billion. That is now at risk because of the magnitsky act, which i was very instrumental in getting passed in the u. S. And five other countries. It puts putins personal money at risk. Hes very upset about that because thats what he cares about. You put all this work in. Its not easy to steal that kind of money and torture those people. It was hard work for Vladimir Putin. Now, all of a sudden theres a chance that money will be frozen in the west. Host that act was passed in 2012, led by john mccain and signed by president obama. It allows the u. S. To withhold visas and freeze Financial Assets of russian officials caught involved with human rights violations. In annapolis, maryland. The morning. Good morning. Caller ive been astonished by what youve accomplished with the magnitsky act. I wanted to ask you, what can people like me due to further your mission here . Guest the most important thing at this point what happens with Vladimir Putin and what happens with russia is that when we get to the truth, it turns out to be much worse, 100 times worse in some cases than our speculation. Recently, there was a movie called icarus about the doping program in russia. It wasnt but as a of the person in charge of the doping program who fled to america. When he told us about what was really going on, it was 100 times worse than what people thought. The same thing is true in most aspects of what Vladimir Putin is up to. The most important thing you and asers can do as citizens people engaged in the process is to say that russia is a threat, a country that is threatening our wellbeing that doesnt wish us well. Things are worse than we think, not better. We should contain them, not appease them. That applies to the magnitsky act, it applies to any involvement they may have in Election Fraud or election manipulation and various other aspects. We need to wake up and become a country that contains russia, doesnt appease russia. Host can you provide any insight into the personal life of Vladimir Putin . His wife and his children . Guest i dont think he has much of a personal life anymore. He divorced his wife and while ago and his children live outside of the country. They are hidden from view completely. Any russian journalist that writes about them finds there publication their shut down completely. They dont have what we have in the u. S. Or u. K. With the royal family or the president s family seen walking across the white house lawn. Start,ia, it is a whole, lonely place stark, lonely place. He doesnt need a lot of human warmth. I view him as being a sociopathic individual. He has no capacity for empathy. Host alexandria, minnesota. Republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are we one to go on with russia if we condemn them for everything . Trump doesnt agree with everything, but hes trying to make friends with them. I think putin acts just like the democrats do in the United States. Guest i take a bit of a fence to comparing a coldblooded peoplethic killer with you may not have agreements with. I have seen putin up close and personal. He covered up the murder of my lawyer. Hes been involved in the murder of an opposition politician who was a friend of mine. This is a different order of magnitude this is like Pablo Escobar and the spanish nukes. Different people have different approaches toward different political issues. Europe,ca and in whatever our differences are between democrats and republicans and labor and conservative are minor differences we all have with a person who is involved in terror and killing and things like that. You would understand that this is not a man that we can just try to buddy up with. You doesnt respect it. He doesnt respect it. He doesnt view friendship as something that will change his behavior. He views it as weakness. Can, we will extend, if we and have you stick around for some more calls and questions. Steve is joining us from michigan. Good morning, steve. Independent line. Caller putin is a coldblooded mass murderer. I would like to equate that to clinton in the United States. Thats about all i have to say. Guest again, im not here to defend clinton, but let me tell you a little story about what putin did with my lawyer in the we can decide whether that stuff happens here in u. S. Was murdered by the putin regime because he uncovered a massive corruption scheme. Putin promoted the people who were involved in the murder. Three years after they murdered my lawyer, they put them on trial in the first ever trial against a dead man in russia. Whatever differences you have between trump and clinton and so , the department of justice is in putting dead people on trial for political reasons. They are not chasing human rights activists trying to kill them abroad. Theres a whole different order of magnitude to any disagreement you may have an United States. Host when was the last time you talk to your partner . Guest i was in touch with Sergei Magnitsky shortly before he was arrested. I was on a conference call. He was very adamant and angry russianat a bunch of government officials had done to his country. As a patriot, he wanted to stop it. They arrested him and tortured him and killed him. Host jennifer from somerset, new jersey. Democrats line. The morning. Good morning. Caller thank you for being on our television. I want to ask you a question. If you can give us information on putins activities in south and why alaska, turkey, america should be concerned. Guest great question. Theres a lot of different territories to cover. Lets start with turkey. Turkey is a country very close to russia and very strategic to russia. Effectively has effectively gone from being an enemy of russia to an ally to putin. Rdogan,kish president , e makes putin almost look like a vegetarian in terms of arresting people and going after everybody. Putin is also involved in venezuela. Doingasically are predatory lending in venezuela where venezuelans are desperate for cash so putin is taking over the Venezuelan Oil industry. They run a Foreign Policy were they try to infringe and get involved in every countrys internall affairs. They run hundreds of projects. Most of them are not successful, but every once in a while, they have amazing success. They dont care whether 99 out of 100 arent successful. They are just looking for the moments where they have success. They are meddling everywhere, meddling in europe and let america, meddling in asia. Europe and latin america, meddling in asia. Host the Trump Supporters are putting their heads in the sand when the clear connections are shown. This from audrey who says what does a sanction entail . What is involved . Guest what the sanctions are it freezes the assets of people who have them in america. It prevents them travel to america. It adds peoples names to the sanctions list. That is the u. S. Treasury sanction list. There is no think in the world that wants to do business with you anymore if you get added to that list. No bank in the world wants to be in violation of u. S. Sanctions. They can be fined billions of dollars. If you are on the sanctions list, the moment you get put on that list, you will become a financial pariah. Thats what really gets these regime, thee putin fact that they can become financial pariahs overnight. Host respond to this tweet. Any attempt at friendship with putin is seen as a weakness. Very interesting. Guest it is weakness. Putin does bad stuff and then says lets all be friends. He comes from its difficult for civilized people in the west to look at putin and understand what his psychology is. The psychology of someone in a prison yard. Everybody in the prison yard is carrying around their shanks about to stab each other. Where he comes from this is different from us. Hes either a killer or be killed. We are coming in and sing can you be nice to us about this thing. He laughs at us. Host michael from new york. Republican line. Good morning. Caller i would like to comment on your guest saying hes comparing putin to hitler. Thats a shame because hitler killed jews systematically. Putin is a jew friend. , its a your guest great thing to do, but your guest failed to represent what National Security threat is so immediate for america versus the bigger threat from iran, which america under the Obama Administration tried to befriend. They also kill people. They are spreading terrorism. I would like to get an answer. Host thank you, michael. Guest the question is really what is more threatening, russia or iran . I would argue that russia is more of a threat to the National Security of america than iran. Why . Russia has the single largest stockpile of Nuclear Weapons of any country in the world. Russia is on the border of europe, our allies. Very recentlyin has decided for the First Time Since the Second World War to redraw the map of europe by invading a foreign country, ukraine. Russia has also been involved in killing in syria innocent people, supporting the assad regime and the use of chemical weapons. Russia is very actively involved with iran. Analysisny objective putting aside any prejudices, putin is a more dangerous person than anybody else in the world right now. It may not appeal to people who have their preconceived notions. That is the result you would come to. Host market in georgia. Democrats line mark in georgia. Democrats line. Caller thanks, bill, for your act of courage and patriotism. Im a former United States marine. As looking at my passports i have quite a few countries from around the world stamped in my passport. I wanted to thank you for your act of courage and true act of patriotism. By my fellow illinoisan. I dont see you as a political person. I did watch your testimony at congress. Youre a straight shooter. I would trust you with my investments if i had them to make. I want to thank you very much for your american spirit. You represent freedom very well, sir. Got bless you. Guest think you. Thank you. Im a fulltime human rights activist. I wouldnt be able to manage your money. I do appreciate your support. Im trying. My campaign is not about left and right, republican or democrat. This is about fighting evil. Evil wears all sorts of different clothes in different skins. Weve found a way to fight evil. The evil of this century dictators oper autocracy and dictators. We have a global magnitsky act. The global magnitsky act targets killers, dictators, that guys everywhere. Bad guys everywhere. This was recently passed in canada and the u. K. And lithuania and estonia. Rgeihe name of se magnitsky, we want to create consequences for bad guys. We dont know whether there is collusion or not. We know the russian government wanted to influence the outcome here. We dont know whether they were engaged or whether there was a unilateral or bilateral effort. We are sitting here as armchair policeman and investigators policemen and investigators with one 1000 the information the Law Enforcement people have. They have the subpoena powers, access to witnesses the likes of which none of us have access to. We have tiny pieces of this puzzle. Eventually, the puzzle will crystallize. It will either crystallize that there was nothing or that there was collusion. In the meantime, im not going to speculate based on insufficient information. I dont think i have to because you will get the answer from people who will have the answer. Host to you have any insights into the meeting that took place in june of last year between donald trump, jr. And the russian lawyer . Guest my insights are that we know exactly what the russians wanted in that meeting. That is the one thing that everyone has agreed on. They tried to repeal the magnitsky act. My insight from that is that the russians wouldnt have gone to try to repeal the most important piece of human rights legislation in this century if they didnt have something equal to offer. We dont know what that was that they were offering. We dont know whether that was accepted. All we can say with any degree of certainty is what they wanted. We cannot say with any certainty what happened after that. This will all eventually come out one way or another with this investigation. Onthe meantime, everybody all different sides of this argument are all speculating. We should wait and see. Host we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. Dave in kansas. You are next. Caller thank you for all your work. My question is regarding the next steps of tracking the money with block chain and bitcoin on the rise, in seems like a haven for people to hide dark money. Whatur acts bear fruit, are the bad guys doing to stay one step ahead . What can the International Community do to try to keep pace with them . Guest im glad you asked that question. I was in washington yesterday testifying for congress about the that anniversary of the magnitsky act and i was discussing where the strength and weaknesses were. One of the biggest weaknesses of the magnitsky act and of other sanctions is the rise of bitcoin and other crypto currencies. The beauties of the current sanction regime, it really does whote pariahs out of people are sanctioned because when you cannot do business in the banking system, you are basically sunk. However, with the advent of bitcoin and other untreated currencies, this is like a gift from god for dictators and other gangsters. At the moment, its unregulated. The same way facebook and twitter were unregulated. We have a big problem that hasnt been addressed. Washington is behind the curve on this thing. Its a big issue that needs to be addressed. The anonymousies, use of the currencies have one great benefit. That is for criminals. And needs to be regulated. Clydequite in oklahoma anin oklahoma. Democrats line. Thats one thing people dont understand. Ande muslims came from where russians came from. Sends all evil spirits back to where they came from. Guest i have become very sensitized to russians and what they want and what their aspirations are. This is really important. When im talking about putin, im not talking about russians. Heres 141 million russians they are the best people you can come across and theres one million criminals occupying the country that are working for Vladimir Putin. The average russian, you would be amazed at how good and decent they are. My wife is russian my staff is russian. These are the best people on our but theyve been terribly mistreated by these vicious criminals that are occupying their country. Host can russia help us with regard to north korea . Guest i believe china is the key to north korea, not russia. Putin always tries to insert himself into the International Situation to become a spoiler. He could certainly cause harm to our situation in north korea. I wouldnt be surprised if some of the nasty stuff coming out of north korea has russian fingerprints on it. Host i want to put on the screen a photograph from the 1980s. President reagan in moscow shaking the hand of a young russian boy. Behind him is Vladimir Putin. How does somebody who works for the kgb in the 1980s become the russian leader in such a dominant way in his country . Guest it was kind of an accident. When Boris Yeltsin was the president , he was becoming old and decrepit, he was an alcoholic. The people around yeltsin, the oligarchs decided they needed to have some of the replace him who wouldnt take back their money. Yelton wanted some of the who would replace him who would pardon him immediately for any crimes he had committed. They picked a guy, a Prime Minister to come in because potential replacement. He didnt last long. They picked another guy, a former head of the police in russia. He didnt work out very well. They picked another guy, he didnt work out very well. Vladimir putin was the fourth guy they picked to become the prime and asked her to replace yeltsin. He was the fourth choice. He was in a drinker. Seemed like a reliable guide. Reliable guy. He doesnt entire kgb coup of the whole country he does an entire kgb coup of the whole country. Yelton believed it was a mistake. A very sad thing, what happened to russia with the way Vladimir Putin quietly came in and took over the country. Host oklahoma. Philip, good morning. Caller you had a color just a minute ago who said something about putin being a mass murderer. I remember something about him blowing up an airplane that had 200 people on it. No collusion . What happened with the meeting at trump tower . I havent heard anything, anymore about adopting these russian children. Nothing. There has to be collusion. These republicans need to get off of that they must be getting pretty close to trump. Otherwise they are just now starting to stir up a lot of trouble about that. Guest thank you for bringing up , the malaysian airliner that was shot down, 292 innocent civilians were killed. Russian operations shot down the plane. Vladimir putin was involved in setting up apartment bonds across russia to blame it on the chechnyans when he first came into power. 10,000 people have been killed in ukraine. Hundreds if not thousands of innocents in syria have been killed by russian farmers. Russian bombers. Putin is a nasty piece of work. Anybody who tries to take away that responsibility from him is doing it wrong thing. Doing a wrong thing. In terms of collusion, i agree with the caller. Lets wait and find out what the answer is from Law Enforcement. Host steve from indiana. Republican line. You are on the air with bill browder. Caller the current Prime Minister of poland claims his twin brother was killed along with some other polish leaders in an airplane crash and he insists putin was responsible. Does mr. Browder have any information on that . Guest excellent question. I read the same store yesterday. From my experience ive been close to a number of investigations involving murders and other atrocities committed by Vladimir Putin. Generally, the information you get as you dig deeper is much worse than you think. I dont believe that was an innocent pilot error. I dont believe the president of a sovereign state would have an incompetent pilot. The article i read yesterday, the new president of poland has reopened an investigation. They believe there were two explosions on that airplane before it went down. It strikes me as the kind of thing that putin would do. I dont have any evidence one way or another to prove or disprove it. Host i want to go back to the issue of north korea. The president was asked about that before heading on earlier today. This is from the south lawn of the white house. [video clip] it was great. He said very nice things about what ive done for this country. He also said some negative things in terms of whats going on elsewhere. The primary point was to talk about north korea. We would love to have his help on north korea. China is helping, russia is not helping. We would like to have russias help. Very important. Host the president earlier this morning. Your reaction . Guest i think that russia should help. We are not going to do them any favors, we are not going to exonerate them from their other misdeeds. If thatstively what i think it is, putin is effectively doing some hostagetaking here. Why hostages are all the other investigations going on, you have to put that aside if you want my help. That somehow this thing should work. Thats not how this thing should work. They have a military budget 1 15 of ours. We dont need to be pushed around by this guy. Host if you travel outside of the major m metropolitan areas like moscow guest they are suffering from poverty and destitution. Cars, no the size of proper medical care, the schools are not staffed with teachers. Oil. Has 10 of the worlds all the money has been stolen by 1000 corrupt senior officials and oligarchs. Of aa tragic situation country that should be a strong middle income country where the average person is living in destitute poverty. Host sandy from cleveland, ohio. Democrats line. Caller it sounds like the russian government is really looking at having these sanctions lifted from the magnitsky act. It seems like our congress is going to have the last word on it. What would the advantage be for the russian government if those sanctions happen to be lifted from the magnitsky act . Dealing with 200 million or more the russian government has more than that. What with the advantage be for the russian government what would the advantage be . Was the00 billion estimated net worth of Vladimir Putin. Guest its not for the russian people. Theyre worried about the sanctions on these individuals. Vladimir putin is worried about being sanctioned, himself. What they are doing is playing games with the world for their own personal benefit because the sanctions have gone against them personally. Thats the beauty of these sanctions. Individuals, the guys in charge. Of the russian people can continue living as normally as they can. And goes after the people who are stealing from the russian people. To garytting next kasparov, a russian about my age. He was saying in the testimony in Congress Talking about the magnitsky act that its the most single prorussian thing out there because it goes after the russian crooks. It doesnt go after the russian people themselves. Host if people want to follow you or get more information about your work, what is the best way to do so . Guest im very active on twitter. billbrowder. Im talking about my campaign, what putin is up to and how it affects the United States and europe. I will be doing this for a long time. Host james in jacksonville, florida. Republican line. Caller good morning. I wanted to get your thoughts on the russian collusion with these attempts to repeal that Net Neutrality. I go to use yet and i pay for their internet there. Cf and i pay us for their internet there. What would russia and the at to fcc be against one net price . Lets go to justin in oklahoma. Good morning. Toler i wanted to go back the school hostage thing. Remembering, it was near the beginning of putins t enure. Some of the outrage and antigovernment sentiment that was started here with the response to waco, i wonder why people wont look at that kind of basically just and takingolently over. You were shaking her head that your head. You were shaking your head. Guest putin doesnt care about casualties in these situations. There was a school taken over in chechnya. Many children were taken hostage. Putin was more worried about killing the hostage takers then saving then saving the hostages. Hundreds of children were killed. He doesnt operate in a democracy where he can be thrown out for mishandling a situation like this. He can stuff the ballot boxes. Theres no real democracy. He doesnt care abouthe does noe situations. There is a number of these terrorist incidents where he kills everybody in the room. There was something called northeast and the same type of thing happened where many people died. This is one of the symptoms of a dictatorship. The dictator does not care because there is no consequence to him. Host what is the best way for us to understand Vladimir Putin . T if you want to understand Vladimir Putin properly, read my book, it is called red notice. Read and itturgid tells my story of fighting with Vladimir Putin. A fulll get understanding of who this guy is by reading my book. It reads like a spy story, a reallife spies story and everyone who reads it comes away and says i knew Vladimir Putin was bad that i had no idea he was this bad. St what is next for you in terms of drawing attention to your former partner and relations between the u. S. And russia . Take the project is to act that was passed in the United States, passed in canada, passed in britain, and to globalize it get many other countries to sign up for it. Get it to be the standard for dealing with kleptocracy in other countries and have it be so surrogate so his death was not a meaningless death. Browder, joining us from new york. Is Un Security Council meeting on north korea and speaking at that event will be secretary Rex Tillerson. Jeff sessions has a News Conference this afternoon. The house will have a brief session at 5 30 eastern time. A close eye on what is happening with the republican tax bill. The house and senate both back in session next week. Expected to have votes in the senate and the house, keeping a close eye on the whip count in andsenate with thad cochran john mccain both ill and as theal no votes negotiations continue with senator marco rubio wanting changes to the tax bill. Well be following that over the weekend and an update to cspans washington journal. We are going live to quantico, virginia, outside of washington, d. C. Where President Trump is speaking to the graduates of the fbi, life here on cspan. Thanks for joining us on friday. Be sure to be back tomorrow morning with the washington journal. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [no audio]