Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20180102

Correspondent daniel new howser and congressional reporter pitterson, later anthony from the center for strategic and International Talk about the Foreign Policy challenges that are facing in 2018. Social media. But voters, wed, should make it a priority that basic knowledge pertaining to our government. Amy says it helps. I have learned so much from the social media. I can adjust my opinion to include new facts. Ive change my mind is some because of conversations with people online. One more from saul. A lot of people do not care about the research, it hurts, they end up spreading false information. That is a sampling of the discussion on our facebook page. Here is a poll. Different wording, but same idea, this is from surveymonkey from october, asked whether social media does more to help, promote democracy and free speech or does more to hurt it. 51 surveyed in the late october poll said it did more to her democracy, 45 said it did more to help. Large majorities among hispanics and blacks, said it helps, while white respondents said it hurts. To thepeople responded survey said they trust neither the federal government or Tech Companies to keep foreign influence at of elections on social media. 20 said they trust them both. Pope francis taking up this topic in his new years day delivered from st. Peters, he urged the world to observe silence in 2018. The story from the daily beast. He said, doing so would keep our freedom from being corroded by the banality of consumerism, the blair of commercials, the stream of empty words, and the overpowering the overpowering waves of empty chatter and loud shouting. He did not address his resume editions to any person or thing in particular, but he warned against the false the fiction of reality created by social media. Earlier this year we urged young people to find meaning outside of twitter, his comments yesterday came as President Trump, which the daily beast notes perhaps the only american hesident known to use it, began many nearby slamming pakistan for lives and deceit and saying iran is failing at every level and will focus more on the president s tweets and Foreign Policy, that was the subject yesterday, we will look for any tweets he had this morning on his way back to washington dc. He did tweet this over the weekend, i use social media not because i like to, but because it is the only way to fight a dishonest press. Now often referred to as fake news media, phony and a nonexistent sources are being used more often than ever and many stories and reports ap or fiction a pure fiction. We want to hear from you, the social media helped or hurt political discourse . 202 7488000 is the number if you think it helps. 202 7488001 is the number if you think it hurts political discourse. Phone lines are you can start calling open coming can start calling. Phil, go ahead. Caller hello . Host go ahead. Caller i am 75 years old and i am new to social media. ,ot too long ago, on twitter and i got on facebook. I am a little afraid of facebook. This is what democracy is about, the people speaking. Veryn, some people are astute about what they have to say. They are very well researched. Are describedey by shooters. That is what we have to tolerate. Host what finally got you on . What pushed you onto social media . Caller say what . Host what got you using these different platforms . Caller i think the fact the president tweets. [laughter] i was interested. Yous interested in that, know before you go coming said your skater facebook, why you are scared of facebook, why . Caller it is what people reveal about themselves. It is like walking down the street naked for some people. I cannot believe they do this. It is kind of scary. Host good luck to you navigating it. We are talking about social media usage this morning, whether it hurts or helps political discourse . Caller from fairfield connecticut. Caller good morning. I think it helps because social media democratize is the conversation and without it, if you go back prior to that, to the early 2000 or intimate 1990s, the American Public were mostly spectators to what was going on, now with social media people have the ability to share ideas, to share their opinions, and even to openly question people on twitter and on andbook, regarding issues it speaking directly to elected officials and former bureaucrats who are posting messages online. It has now become a conversation, as opposed to being the monologue with the American Public as the audience. Host how many hours a day do you spend on social media having those discussions and is it more than you have in person with people . Caller i probably spend in the course of my work, because i work in the media, anywhere from 24 hours. The problem with social media though, because it is a written out media as opposed to conversational media and a lot of people on facebook, when a state an opinion that you do not like, they will come after you full throttle. That is the downside of social media. I have lost a number of acquaintances, no close friends, due to the fact ive stated a political opinion that people disagreed with. Host thank you for the call. Liner from new york on the that it helps. Caller good morning. Is where everybody is equal to express their view. You obama talks about, know, comfortable ideation compartmentalization, even if you meet somebody officially in a discussion, there will be a disarmament, so for me with social media goes to the extreme like the iranians denouncing facebook, chinese denouncing it, because it challenges their authority. We should understand that this freedom is good for humanity. We should not even if it shows weakness, we should not say it is dangerous. Social media is a very important tool for political discourse, love, compd your locate ideas, i wonder why complicate ideas, i wonder why people are saying it is dangerous. It is not dangerous for me credit host he mentioned for me. Host he mentioned president obamas recent comments on social media. Here is the interview he had with prince harry on bbcs radio. His comments about social media. The question has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows a multiplicity of voices, a diversity of views, but does not lead to a balkanization of our society, but rather continues to promote ways of finding common ground. I am not sure that the government can legislate that, but what i do believe is that all of us in leadership have to find ways in which we can recreate a common space on the internet, because it used to be in the United States for example, we had three television stations and everybody watched Walter Cronkite or david brinkley, everybody had a common set of facts, so there might be conservatives and liberals, but people generally could agree on a baseline of reality. One of the dangers of the internet is people can have entirely different realities. They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases. One of the things i think i discovered, even back in 2007 and 2008, is a good way of fighting against that is making sure that all my communities do not just a online, that they move offline. What i mean by that is that i think social media is a really powerful tool for people with common interests to convene and get to know each other and connect, but then it is important for them to get offline, meet in a pub meet in the community. Meet at a place of worship, meet in a neighborhood, and get to know each other, because the truth is on the Internet Everything is simplified and when you meet people facetoface, it turns out they are complicated. There may be somebody who you think is diametrically opposed to you when it comes to political views, but you read for the same sports team, or you notice that they are really good parents, and that if they that you care about. It is important. You find areas of common ground, because you see that things are not as simple as had been portrayed in whatever chat room you have been in. It is also by the way harder to be as of noxious and cruel as obnoxious andas crew as it can be cruel as it can be on the internet. Host that was president obama. Does social media hurt or help political discourse . We will look for your comments on our social media pages, if you follow the at cspanwj on twitter, you can follow the conversation. It helps andht, hurts depending on the topic and he was posting. Raises theit i voices of the people. Trump abuses social media like a trouble, the leader of the free world is supposed to be more disciplined. Dana, ask the iranians if social media helps or hurts. She is referring to the ongoing protests in iran. Here is the front page of the financial times, with a picture of the protesters. Iran with their largest protest in almost a decade of thousands taking to the streets across the country in recent days. The president calling for unity yesterday as the death toll reached at least 15, some outlets reporting more. Yesterday,sts eased the atmosphere remained tense. That is the lead story in the financial times. President trump tweeting a few minutes it on the subject of iran. Here is what he said. The people of iran are finally acted against the regime, all the money that obama gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and an of human rights. The u. S. Is watching. This morning we will continue to watch his social media page as we talk about social media and the impact of social media. Tell us what you think it helps or hurts when it comes to political discourse. Douglas, michigan, on the line for those who say it hurts. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I think that social media is a tool, so it can be used to help or hurt. I think most of the time it is used to hurt. On the internet is fine, and when people talk about things like, i can research stuff and i have access to information. But when you talk about social media and things like facebook and twitter, people tend to, they tend to circle around their own groups and they tend to stay with people who support with a feel like, and they do not tend to have discourse with somebody who feels anything different, unless it is an attack. You see people trolling each other, trolling on the left and right, and its like im going to chew you out. There is no different take on the relationship or in terms of talking. Host do you think it is Getting Better or worse . Do you think people are finding new ways to use it so it helps more, or will this continue going in the direction that you described . Caller i think it will continue to go in the direction i described. I think again it is ok, because say that something happens, like a storm. People need to get the information out. From that standpoint, this is where i am, i am ok. That is a good thing. I think that will get, i think that will get better as a matter of fact. In terms of political issues, it is like, man, it is not going to get any better. It is like you have 45 coming on. He is still talking about president obama, about secretary clinton, he will not let it go. He is doing it because his base loves that stuff. He is rallying his base, he is not talking to americans in general as a whole. Youll find individuals doing the same thing, they want to group andeir little they will not talk to somebody else. It is not like you sit people down and over a cup of coffee you have either a civil conversation or a knockdown drag ut atthat at least b least you are learning from each other. Host clyde, go ahead. Caller host are you with us . Go ahead. Caller yes, thank you for taking my call. I believe it helps, because with the press the way that they are, the National Media it does not help with how they portray the president. They do not give up the truth. They are onesided. Else inar as everything e, it helps with host i am listening. Caller it helps with getting the message out to the people. To the people of iran where they are having the troubles. Instead of just closing up and not being able to hear anybody in the world, they get to see and hear people trying to cheer them on. They get better situations for themselves. It helps around the world. It helps with people who are getting in trouble and an accidents, they can get help right away. And it helps the world. I believe it is good for us. Jan on our facebook page, is a retired media teacher. She writes, it could help, however with the boxed society that spreads , it hurts. The problem is those that post. Not everybody will agree with every matter, including the weather, so how can political discourse be handled on discussion boards like this . That is the question posed by the retired teacher. Happy to have you talk about it. Give us a call, 202 7488000 if you think social media helps the political discourse. 202 7488001 if you think it hurts. Pennsylvania, on the line for those who say it hurts. Caller good morning. Happy new year. Host same to you. Caller thank you. I will say why it hurts. If the media would listen and not take sides of the political job, and just do their they should never get involved with political sides. Always be objective. Hateds the media has donald trump from day one. I hate what i see. Tell the truth. Do not be involved, whoever your or,to for, keep it voted f keep it to yourself. That is the only way to be fair to everybody. What donald trump is doing, i read him every morning, he is doing the right thing. He is telling you the way it is. He does not turn around to somebody in the media and say this is that. Host you tweet the president every morning . What do you say it was sort of response are you expecting . Do you expect to get a response from him . Caller i get a response. That i president about the lobbyists. About the term limits. Please guys have been there, the poor guy [indiscernible] here, andt people they got host do you think do you think the president sees your tweets . Do you think the message gets through to him . Caller i have a lot of good response and i love him. Between you and i, he will be the best president the country ever had. I hope you guys stick with him. Host that was bill in pennsylvania. Speaking of the president s twitter habits, this poll from last month from the hill newspaper talking about people that cannot only december, 26 of respondents say that they find the president s twitter use appropriate, 29 disapprove, 15 say they are not sure. The president tweeted more than 2600 times in 2017 according to the archives. It broke down along party lines, it is 7 of those identified as democrats, called them inappropriate, while 50 of republicans felt that way. Among independents, 50 found that the twitter use from the president was inappropriate, 29 was that it was appropriate. That was the breakdown on party lines. We want to hear from you, your thoughts on this topic. 202 7488000 if you think social media helps the political discourse. 202 7488001 if you think it hurts. Ary lynn in ohio. Caller i think social media helps from a different reasons. Particularly, facebook, because facebook opens up the dialogue between many people of different backgrounds. Especially in the United States, where we are dealing with the problems with the president , how he is portraying it and his use of twitter. He uses twitter more like a pulpit and basically he dictates to people with that. With facebook, it allows people to be very open and what they feel the president has been doing on twitter, which most people realize this president is not honest on twitter and he is just more or less talking to the people instead of listening to what the people have to say. That is why with facebook, it is an extremely powerful tool, it has been helping in many cases where people are coming together and uniting. And we are having a bigger platform and we will be, we will continue to do so until the next presidency, because people are seeing what benefits it creates. Have consensus on the facebook groups. The only problem i have with it, the negative side, if there is more censorship going on with Net Neutrality and we must be very careful to not be censored. So that is my only negative. I am not for the twitter personality types that go out and because they are abusive, but facebook has been beneficial to the political environment today. Host when it comes to your usage on facebook, are you mostly, when you interact with folks, is a people you agree with . How often do you interact with people who disagree, and how would you describe those interactions . Caller it is too combative with the trump supporters. I have gone on many antitrump groups and day oconnor many project groups and i have gone on many protrump groups. I find iit very beneficial. Memes, they are very powerful, and many people have been following them and they become a very big point. In other words, 30 years ago, they used political cartoons to her day president s, now that is what emememes are. They can create tension. A lot of times it is effective. Host when you say effective, people say to you that because of what you have sent out they have changed their opinion . Caller they do not change it, but they comment that they like it. They are agreeing because they say they like it. By comment, they will put up that comment, they are rationalizing it and understanding it. Host joe in north carolina, line for those that say it helps. Joe, go ahead. Caller yes, this is a great subject. What i like to do as a real estate appraiser, i had to look at information and to see what was real and wasnt, and bias was always important. One thing i think we have done, which kind of got us off on the wrong foot by focusing on facebook and twitter, we have an opportunity, i see this in the educational system, to work with social media and its new form and we failed. That is called wikipedia. Wikipedia has as some of the best and worst information out there. It is different from the old days when you sat and watched Walter Cronkite and he listened to what he said and you accepted it, a oneway street. In the future we have to see this as a twoway street, that means we have to participate and make discerning information about what we are getting and what we rely on. For example, when i use wikipedia, i see all the information that is out there and you have to then take it to the next layer and make a decision about whether it is coming from a reliable source, like i did in the appraisal business. If i asked a Real Estate Agent with the building was worth, they were always bias. The assessor was biased too. You have to tease that out. That is a challenge for people and i think eventually we will learn how to use this as a tool. It is just a tool. If we look at it from the historical point of view, like water concrete, and expect us to get hurt with information, then we are not looking at it the correct way. We have to look at this in a forward thinking way. One of the nice things about wikipedia is it does not require, it is not looking for profits, it does not look to use robots to figure out what is fake news, it actually has real people passionate about news and information. They get rated, they get reputations, you create. A fabric of a way for you to use wikipedia. I think at facebook learns to do that and twitter does that as well and as the citizens learn to use these tools, we will find a better way. Host were you around to watch Walter Cronkite . Caller unfortunately, i am that old and i remember watching him. Host was a perfect Information Pack been back then, did people feel like it was perfect or balanced . Caller no, but remember, a lot of what we need to understand is is it really about perfect or how we feel about it . What upsets people and not as how upset they are about how they are being used in this new environment. So what is the difference between reality and perception, that is what you are bringing up when you talk about perfection. Host we appreciate the call this morning, joe talking a lot about what is real and what is not, in terms of what is real and what is not, fake news is a term that we have seen the president used quite a bit. We saw him use it on new years eve. As our country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, i want to wish all of my supporters and haters, even the very dishonest fake news media, a happy and healthy new year. 2018 will be a great year for america. Yesterday, senator ben seth, out of nebraska, put out his own tweet talking about the importance of the news media and the importance of establishing facts. Here is the tweet. The reality is journalism will change a lot more in the digital era and we have a risk of getting to a place where we do not have shared public facts. A republican will not work if we do not have shared facts. I am the third most conservative guy in the senate, by sending a project moynihans desk on purpose, because he is the author of the famous quote, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. The only way the republic can work is if we come together and we defend each others rights to say things that we differ about. We defend each others rights to publish pieces that we would argue about. Injuries into journalism will go down. It will be possible in the next threefive years for people to surround themselves only with echo chambers into silos of people that already believe what they believe. That is a recipe for a new kind of tribalism and america will not work if we do that. We need to come together as a people and read teach our children with the First Amendment is all about. It is not hopeful to call the press the enemy of the american people. Poll that came out on social media platforms and how people consume their news on those platforms found that, as of august, two thirds of americans report that they get some of the news on social media often,in 10 doing so according to the pew research report. And modest increase since 2016 winter in the height of the president ial primary, 62 of u. S. It also reported getting news from social media. For the first time in senator surveyed, those 50 and older reporting getting their news on social media sites, that is a 10 Percentage Points higher difference from the 45 who said so in 2016. Those under 50 remain more likely van elders together get theirn others to news from social media. A lot of information in the report, including what platforms are most popular and how people use those sites. Here is a sampling of some of the charts that are in that 66 of showing facebook, those polled use the website and 45 of them got their news from facebook, some unmount of the news. Twitter, 15 of them use the site. And so on down the line through snapchat, read it reddit, linkedin. You can go through the. Search center report from august if you want to read more. The link there, you can see the headline on your screen. Cindy. Ia caller, go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. Host go ahead. Caller hello. I most definitely believe that social media helps. I believe that with trumps tutoring i get it twit tering, i get it straight from the horses mouth. I do not get it from others who are out to make a new for themselves creating drama at every possible turn. There is good and bad with both of them, but i think both sides of the spectrum are there. A happy medium. You have a lot of arguments from people who are trolling, but at least they are having a conversation. It would be nice if we could trust the media in getting factual news out. Again, you have a lot of people and making a name for themselves. I believe in social media and i believe it helps more than it hurts. Again, we did not go through all this when obama was president , you could not say anything to all the biases that were thrown at you. That you were beaten down and trodden down with. Donald trump on a daily basis stand up for what he believes in and keeps Going Forward. Host you said nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer creating drama, do you think the president creates drama with his tweets . We lost here, but we have more tweets. Blogging. You know cause or symptom . I believe social media is a cause of social discourse. Social media has become a bullring of animosity. One more, less snark and more honesty would be a good thing. We want to hear from you, your phone calls this morning, talking about this for the next half hour before we turn to a roundtable on the congressional agenda coming up in 2018, plenty of stories on that subject in the papers, including the lead story in the washington post. A packed agenda awaits, hill. Listess facing a to do with deadlines on difficult issues including how to find the government and a stabilizing Health Insurance programs for children and whether the undocumented immigrants should be shielded, fresh off a partyline vote in favor of legislation overhauling the tax code, negotiations will test whether congress and the white house still have the potential to craft any form of bipartisan agreement. Several of the years most contested issues could be resolved for the 2018 midterm campaign. One more headline from the front page of the usa today, seven things to watch is what they go through. The policy plans for 2018, the clinical distractions could loom over any of those compartments. Some of the items include, foreignpolicy challenges, as roundtable, weur will be joined for a foreignpolicy discussion this morning, coming up at about nine or km Anthony Cordesman of the center for Strategic International studies will be here. This first hour devoted to your calls on whether social media helps or hurts political discourse. Buffalo, new york. For those who say it helps. Go ahead. Caller good morning. As far as the social media goes, per say, it is just a tool. It is not good or bad. It can lead to a bad situation. Se i believe becau the American Public, which is for the most part fully educated, seriously is misinformed and easily misled. And the social media can be imported by charlatans, such as donald trump, who tells lies. Mislead social media to lead thelieve American Public a stray, and lead to the American Public into something bad, which is the American Public believes stuff that is not true. And that is a bad thing, because democracy depends on a well informed populace. Host for all of that, you still say that you are optimistic about social media usage . Caller well, i am neither. I fear, because it is a good tool for people who want to mislead the public, and they do. Hitler knew that if you tell a lie and detail often enough people will believe it. That is what happens in this country. Like fox i mean, news, they tell people things that are highly biased. And it leads them astray. And they believe stuff that is not true. A lot of republicans believe that obama is a muslim, and that he was not born in the United States, donald trump was the major perpetrator in that, in transmitting that falsity. And it is bad that people who can be so easily misled i do not know what the remedy is, because it is neither good or bad, it can be a good thing socialpresident used media to bring people together instead of dividing them. T eli in sinclair shores st. Clair shores. Go ahead. Caller all you need to do is look at the entities that oppose social media to judge it. Number one, china and iran, they are trying to stop social media or censor it. You have the progressive left, the fascist left, who had a monopoly on information in academia, the news media pop culture for somebody years. Now social media for so many years. Now social media has taken over the monopoly and undermined it in people like donald trump are utilizing it. Empowersocial media the individual and i think that progressives fear that, because they like order and the like government. So i think it is very beneficial. From tennessee, go ahead. Caller i think that social media, we need it, but we do not need garbage. We do not need the people that are giving the broadcaster opinions. We need to make our own opinions. State the news, state what is going on overseas, so we know what is happening. State what is going on in america, the children that are starving, things going on here. But do not give your opinions. Let us make our own opinions. Host how do you evaluate the news from the garbage . Caller i do not think that it is as much garbage, i think they believe it. And i think that they think they should give their opinions, but i fully think they should not. Host who do you what newspapers do you read and what television stations do you watch . Caller i want i get the washington post. Wanda. Hat was warren from arizona. Caller good morning. Happy new year, everybody. Host same to you. Caller i think that it helps, because just like everything in life, it depends on the person and the circumstances. It is like the big debate, like having whether it helps or hurts, you have people who needed to protect themselves. And in that case it hurts. Could you imagine the president not having a voice, while 90 of the media spouts negative propaganda . 247. In that regard it creates a balance, so to speak. Can people remember when donald trump won, when he was giving his speech, he asked for unity. Lets come together. Instead of people trying to say that, they look to political differences and they started attacking. Choice does he have but to defend himself and twitter seems like the most logical platform he can use to even the Playing Field. Because you have to remember, he asked for everybody to come together and unite, but everybody else had a different opinions and they started being a offensive. Just like the notion of the 17 agencies that came out and said something about collusion, or something, it even came out that they had to correct themselves. 17 individual agencies did not say that russia had anything to do with the election. It was [indiscernible] representd nsa that 17 smaller agencies. Host we have your point. We will talk more about the russian investigation, where it is heading in 2018 in our roundtable coming up in about 20 minutes this morning, we will be focusing on what congress, what the white house is going to be taking up as they look at their 2018 agenda. Stick around for that discussion. I want to point out the oped pages of todays new york times. There is a note from the new publisher of the paper, that is ag sulzberger. Secceeding his father, who tenure again in 1992. In new publisher writing, part, the Business Model that long supported the hard and expensive work of original reporting is a routing and we are seeing News Organizations cut the reporting staff and is kobach ambitions. Miss information is rising and the trust immediate is declining and technological platforms elevate rumor and propaganda over real journalism, the politicians jockey for advantage by inflaming suspicion of the press. Growing polarization is jeopardizing the foundation of, truth, the stuff that binds a society together. Mye her predecessors, colleagues and i will not give in to these forces. The times will continue to search for the most important stories of our era with curiosity, encourage and empathy, because we believe that improving the world starts with understanding it. Potential continue to resist polarization by giving voice to a breath of ideas and experiences that we believe journalism should help people think for themselves. The time to hold itself to the hice standards of rigor in fairness as we believe trust is the most precious asset that we have. The times will do everything without fear and favor, because we believe truth should be pursued wherever it leads. That is part of the note from the new publisher of the new york times, ag sulzberger. You can read the rest on their website or on the oped pages of that paper. Christopher, texas, for those who say that social media helps political discourse. Go ahead. Caller yes, i do believe it helps. I do believe it can hurt as well. I believe it is sort of like havethese craig list scams been going around and everybody was tricked by these princes overseas, they thought they would give them money or whatever, like you have to be informed, and really just look out for yourself. I think social media can help. Like, it helps organize people and it helps start revolutions. Npr had a piece i was listening to about people being stuck in their political bubbles, where they just refuse to believe anything else. They refuse to step back and look at things. And i think that people need to step back and look at host how do you do that personally . Caller i tend to lean more to the left, but i tend to distance myself by watching other outlets, rightwing outlets, fox news, rp, you know. It is sometimes changes my mind about things and people should keep an open mind. Host can you give us an example about where you changed your mind on something . Caller actually, the election, the president ial election. I was leaning more toward hillary clinton, but the more that i heard about the issues, the more i read about things, the more i started leaning toward bernie. But i ended up writing and Bernie Sanders in Bernie Sanders for the election. Is really, you just have to step back, you have to look at everything from everybodys perspective. Like other callers said, think for yourself. Host ray in new mexico. Go ahead. Are you with us . Caller yes, i think it hurts. It hurts it a lot. Every time that you turn on one of these news shows, the reporters, all you are doing is putting down donald trump and his presidency. You have not given him a chance to do anything. Democrat, butbe a i will never be a democratic again after all the stuff ive seen. The clintons have done more to this country, bad things, then anyone ever has and they are not under investigation or anything. Host we will talk, as you said, in the roundtable about a lot of the issues that congress will be taking up in 2018 and we will talk about the potential for investigations into the clintons, again by congress. Stick around for that. It is a Congressional Election year, plenty of stories as the year kicks off about potential races to watch and a storylines in 2018. Here is one this morning, at least a dozen foreign aids and policy staff that work for president obama have entered the midterm races, running for office for the first time. Brian ford, a former advisor that moved back to california where he was raised and is running against a republican, mimi waters, the former acting assistant for defense challenging gop rep mike bishop in michigan. Two more alumni taking on pete allred, and one who worked in the state department, ed meier. That is in the wall street journal today. Also in the washington times, another race to watch, another interesting candidate, Don Blankenship has said the environment of balloon Environmental Protection agency just the tip of the iceberg for what they describe as a colorful, Controversial Senate hopeful who is using his West Virginia campaign as a vehicle to clear his name and push the theory that an obama led coconspiracy sent him to federal prison. Ofnotes, the former ceo matthew energy, he spent a year behind bars, in connection to the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in 2010 that killed 29 of his employees, now facing an uphill clinical battle. If you want to read more on that in the washington times. Andrea in california, go ahead. Caller i think social media, i hope i got the right line, i think that social media is ating ay treating cre mistrust of the press. Our press is not always correct, we are dealing with human beings here. Yes, they make mistakes, but they still have a basic job of looking for the truth. Instance, ther particular news outlets that i watch where if the president tells an untruth, they will show it. Able show exactly what was said, when, and what is being said now. You are giving both sides of the story. We have to understand as the people, who this press represents, that they are also our voice. And as long as they are trying pretendit apart, try to that somehow the press is our enemy. Our forefathers knew what they were doing when they asked for freedom of the press. If they make those mistakes, they are human. We are not talking paparazzi. We are talking about journalists. The problem that i see with the, with the internet, is the problem that you get a lot of people with their opinions. And they promote themselves as having a source they do not have. And a mass of people would jump on that line because this person has that kind of a personality that draws people to them, rather than looking for the fact s themselves, seeing what the media said. Somebody mentioned Walter Cronkite. He was a great reporter, a great journalist. I am 74 years old and i know this mans career and what he has done. Sections, inll this day and age, young people see that they have lived. You see that you have lived. I see in the vast section that i have lived. What the press has meant to the United States of america. I hear all the complaints about barack obama. When weme in at a time were lucky that he saved this countrys economy, nobody thinks about the fact that is all he really had time to do against a Hostile Congress that was fighting against him, when he was trying to save our economy. The economy got saved anyway. Collette in oregon. Go ahead. Caller i think if people would look at the source where these to factm and then go check and counteracted them, i think that some of that check and counteracted them, i i would fact check and send it back to the source that sent it to me. A lot of times that was taken down because they were not true. I think in order for us to have truth in this. I think that we need to come out of it with fact checking. Host what is an example of where that happened . Where you send something back, what was the issue in fact check that you sent back . Caller that the muslims were taking over and that sort of thing. Host it was from a Campaign Website . Did they send a retraction email . Caller it was facebook. Reason,ry for some i got a lot of racist stuff. And im not racist. I was very offended and i would counteract. Host ok. Ben in michigan, go ahead. Are you with us . Is, ben fromhis mississippi. Host go ahead. Caller i think it helps and it is great for us to communicate with each other, but not our leaders to communicate with us. Our leaders should go to the press, say what they want to say, what they want us to know. And that is the way that they should communicate with us. We communicate with each other with social media. I think that is what it was meant for. Host why should it be different for politicians . Politicians should not have opinions. Host why not . Caller because they should be e. Le to put the truth out ther social media is for people to communicate with each other with different ideas, with different political backgrounds, and communicate with each other. That is how i look at it. Because i go to twitter, i do facebook. Most people on facebook and twitter, they have a political leaning. President trump, he is a republican, but still he has to govern everybody, democrats, republicans and independents. Host the system that you describe, certainly not the system that the president ascribes to, tweeting already this morning. Here is his latest from about eight minutes ago, crooked Hillary Clintons top aide has been accused of disregarding security protocol and she put classified of passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Sailors onctures of a simmering. On a submarine. We will keep you updated on what the president tweets. This is the time of day when he usually does a lot of tweeting. A few more comments from our facebook page. The question of whether social media helps or hurts political discourse. Feels not good and it polarization of our country, instead of focusing on the common good. Socalled news outlets should be held accountable for what they publish. There is freedom of speech, but actions have consequences. It gets more people involved because it gives them a platform, unfortunately most end up speaking on subjects they have no knowledge of simply because they want to be heard. Tim is in iowa on the line for those who say it helps. Go ahead. Caller we can have both, but people need to stop mishandling it. The fcc, you should see the stuff in iowa what is put in. I agree with the lady in california about our democracy, that is media is part of our democracy, that is what our Founding Fathers put it there for. Witht has been mishandled conspiracy theories, propaganda, it is the people who are using it. It is not the facebook, it is not twitter at all, that is the problem. Including racist things on facebook, and that should not be there. Facebook should be something good for families. Putting up pictures of families. Host whose responsibility is that . Facebook should get more involved in deciding what is racist and what is not and taking down those things . Caller yes, it is opening up old wounds. Host do you think there should be laws enacted to say what you can and cannot post . Well, i believe in the freedom of speech, but there are some things that should not be said that really offend. Just like when our president tweets about hillary clinton. It is not right. Host who gets to decide what is offensive. Caller the fcc is there. We as human beings should be monitoring what is right and wrong. Host on the one for those who say hurts, go ahead. Caller i said it can be either or. I think what is trying to happen, i do not think, i think people in america are realizing now that a lot of the, a lot of the liberal media is using the tricks from the 1800s, which was a psychology of and they are trying to figure out how to control the masses and how to push them into certain ways to get them to see that this is good for them. About thesaying media, you cannot stop truth, because truth comes from god and the father of light comes from the devil. God has promised we will only have truth, so there is no way that mans attempts to stop truth will be altered. Host a few more tweets. One says protecting the First Amendment is a priority and you can always ignore the bs. Another one says you should not call them tweets from the president , call the official statements. One more the chief purpose for social media initially went beyond local and organizing, and it has expanded to propaganda and political. Kansas, line for those who say it helps. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller knowledge is power. Social media thrives in knowledge for our society. We need to know before we can make decisions. Thank you. Host that was our last call in this segment. Next, a roundtable discussion on the congressional agenda ahead in 2018. We will be joined by Daniel Newhauser from the National Journal and Kristina Peterson from the wall street journal. Later, Foreign Policy in the challenges ahead and we will be joined by Anthony Cordesman of the center for strategic and International Studies. All coming up this morning on the washington journal. Cspans cities tour takes you to springfield, missouri. Were working with mediacom to explore the literary scene and history of the birthplace of route 66 in southwestern missouri. Saturday at noon on booktv, and author talks about the conflict occurring along the kansasmissouri border and the struggle over slavery in his book, the border between them. Raidsbegins a series of into western missouri, during which his men will liberate enslaved people from missouri and help them escape to freedom. They will kill a number of slaveholders. Is notoriety of john brown part of this struggle, that asple locally understand it the beginning of the civil war. Sunday at 2 00 p. M. On a American History tv, we visit the nra National Sporting arms museum. He was a very avid hunter. First thing he did when he left office was organized and go on a very large hunting safari to africa. This rifle was prepared specifically for roosevelt. It has the president ial seal engraved on the breach. Famousse, roosevelt was for the Bull Moose Party, and there is a bull most engraved on the side plate of this gun. Cities tour ofs springfield, missouri, saturday at noon eastern on cspan2s booktv. Working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. Washington journal continues. The second session of the 115th Congress Officially begins tomorrow. We have a roundtable discussion,oined by Daniel Newhauser staff correspondent with the National Journal. Kristina peterson is with us from the wall street journal. Be agenda is likely to shaped by what happens over the weekend when Mitch Mcconnell, paul ryan joined the president at camp david for a retreat. What do you know about the topic, the agenda, there and what each of those men bring into that meeting with the president . Guest House Speaker paul ryan has indicated he is interested in doing some kind of overhaul of welfare programs. Stamps or be food housing assistance. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has shown he is not that interested in doing a Major Overhaul of entitlement programs. He has talked about not wanting to do some thing to medicare and medicaid right now. If therest sure some narrow sliver that those two leaders might agree to work on. Of course, the president will in this he has told House Republicans he is interested in some changes to welfare programs, but it is a midterm year, and im not sure there is a huge appetite in the senate to take up any big controversial changes. Host Daniel Newhauser, what is your sense of how this meeting goes at camp david . Seems like Mitch Mcconnell is try to convey the political realities facing him. The biggest change in the senate will be that his majority has slammed from 52 republicans to 51. They could barely get the tax bill done. Obviously, they failed on the obamacare repeal. Told reportershe at his yearend press conference, that changes a lot. When it comes to entitlement reforms, whatever they might be, it will be hard to get any democrats on board. I expect him to try to convey that. Paul ryan has been a big think kind of leader. For him, you know, he may try, as he said he will, to the these, but he is facing some hurdles in his own chamber, too. A lot of House Republicans will be kind of scared off by the prospects of touching entitlements in an Election Year. Guest yeah. Guest the 51 majority in the senate and the fact that it is an Election Year will cover almost everything. See how high some of these totals are for paul ryan and Mitch Mcconnell and some of the shortterm deadlines and fiscal fights. Walk us through what is ahead. I have the wall street journal in front of me with a calendar about this. What is the first thing congress will have to take up when they get that . Guest january 19, the current funding expires for the government. All sorts ofth other measures that often try to get attached to it. Tease isxiliary immigration, and democrats are making a real push to try to get some kind of deal to work out to provide Legal Protections for the socalled dreamers, the young people who came to the u. S. As children, brought by their parents, and now they are here legally. The president into that program in september but Gave Congress six months to figure out what to do with the dreamers. Democrats want to make sure that this squared away before the government funding deadline passes, because they know they have leverage there. That is the biggest immediate hurdle. They will probably try and see leaders reach a budget deal for the next two years. They want to set spending levels higher than they would be, so that is going to provoke a fair unt of International Internal tension among republicans, because many republicans want to see those levels raised for defense spending but have qualms about nondefense spending. Host there is another debt hit wee actually have not actually hit the debt limit, but we might run into problems with doing that. Guest march is a potential date for that. That will be a whale of an issue, as it always is, for republicans. They have had to rely on democrats to help them raise the debt limit. Democrats are not happy about the way the tax debate went. We saw that at the end of last year when they refused to give the ability to pass a cr, and they made republicans do it on their own. That is usually bipartisan. So it will be tough. Leverage that as a point and the spending bill itself as a leverage point. They have indicated they want to use it for daca. The thing about that is the president said he wants a border wall. Someid border wall, but republicans see that as more Border Security or what have you. You reconcilehow those two propositions, to be honest. It will be interesting. Guest some House Republicans have said they might try to do that with a spending deadline this month, the debt limit. It is an ugly issue for republicans. The spending bill will probably be an ugly vote. They might as well do it all at once and get it over with before heading into the primaries, which really kick in around march. We will see if they can organize and get that done early. Host we have plenty of time to talk about it this morning. Our roundtable here with us until monday 00. Until 9 00. Basket ofdeopen issues this morning. Phone numbers for democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Ts, 2027488002. Daniel newhauser and Kristina Peterson with us. Dan, a we in the same place as we were at the end of december in terms of the leverage and approaching the january 19 deadline . Guest the biggest thing that is different is the tax bill is behind them. That kind of screwed up the whole debate. For democrats, they were not happy about eating excluded from the process. For republicans, particularly the conservative flank, the House Freedom caucus, they were wary of the spending bill being used to counter negotiate, you know, one thing of the tax bill for one thing in the spending bill. They made a conscious effort to try to decouple those. Probably the biggest factor working against putting debt ceiling and cr and all the things they need to do together, it is a new trend were conservatives do not want to do that. They have made an effort to try to split issues from each other. They know that when you put them together, you have to swallow something you do not like at the end of the day. Democrats will try to package these things together. Found it really interesting that House Republicans were able to pass spending bills in december with their own votes. I am not sure that can continue this year. Defense hawks want higher defense spending. So it seems like we are likely to get a spending bill that the Freedom Caucus probably cannot come around to. Then gop leaders need democratic support. And then the whole negotiations just change. Leaders do notp need democratic votes, and that change the discussion. Guest cr is one thing, but an omnibus is a hold of it matter. Host any chance of a cr passing . Guest this is we have one week for the whole omnibus. All this stuff, no. I think they will have to extend it, maybe for another month or another couple weeks. Issue,here is the fisa which has been hanging over this, as well. Guest i think that is the biggest contentious point that people are talking about the least. There are people on both sides who have significant concerns about civil liberties. They do not like the idea that some american citizens get caught up in some of these wiretaps, and they want to do something about it, even if it means letting this entire program expire. People who are otherwise defense hawks looked at this and say, yeah, i dont like it. The other problem is if you try to attach it to a big piece of legislation, everyone also gets mad about that because they want nothing more than to debate this on its own merits. Guest to your early point, dan, the Freedom Caucus secured some cut of agreement to get a second vote on the surveillance law because it is so important to them to vote on that as a standalone and to have a separate debate on it. Host that is right. Rand paul is a big voice on this issue. Tweeted yesterday morning happy new year. My new years resolution is to work for a bipartisan solution to surveillance reform and restore the fourth amendment. We can talk about any of these issues with our panel this morning. Robert is in harrison, arkansas, line for democrats. As you look at the agenda, what is on your mind . Caller good morning. Thank you. I hope you have a good new year. Thank you for cspan. Three things when the president came in, one of the first things he did is he made it to where china could now come in and bid for natural gas, which means they increased the demand for natural gas. Up to that point, we actually had a surplus. A lot of that surplus came from fracking, injecting millions of gallons of contaminated water back into the earth, and our industries took that energy, gas. Hing to natural now we are seeing our gas prices go up because we have introduced communist china into the market. Host what are some other issues you wanted to bring up . Caller entitlements. You can go to the Postal Regulatory Commission careers, and it has a list of entitlements that you get if you work for them. 401 k ,ou donate to a you get 5 from the government to build up your retirement. This is not to everyone else. But when we use the word entitlement, we think Social Security and medicare and these things that the poor people get. A lot to go through there. Lets talk about entitlements. Kristina peterson, the possibility for entitlement reform, however entitlement is defined by congress, if they get that far . Guest i think the one corner of entitlements that we might actually see some legislation related to is the food stamp program, because we are going to be starting on a new farm will. That has historically been armked at together, the f assistance programs coupled with the food stamps. The House Agriculture Committee has been doing an extensive review of how the program works. So we may see some action there. That, i think it is a little bit unlikely. The snape problem with program, the food stamp program, is people want to take that and use it as a bargaining chip for other debates, spitting debates, etc. The ag committee knows you need that funding and that issue to get people to vote for the farm bill. So they were traditionally packaged together. There will be worked to decouple those two issues. People on those committees pat roberts talking about it on cspan a couple weeks ago, that that is something they need on the same track to get the leverage. Host the caller brings up energy and environmental issues. What is at the top of the agenda for congress on that front . Guest it does not seem to be a huge hot button issue. We could see some Infrastructure Spending that could have an effect. But there is disagreement about how to pay for it, how much the government should be on the hook. That still seems a little uncertain for me. Trade, trump has cast aspersions on that. A lot of people agree it has problems but do not want to scrap it wholesale. Guest we have heard Senate Republicans pushing back on their trade position and their closeddoor lunch is with the Vice President recently. There has been some consternation over trade policy. Trade issues, possible entitlement reform, possible infrastructure what is the window for this stuff to get done . It is an Election Year, and people usually shut down early to campaign. What is the timeframe here . Guest it is a narrow window. I would say the next few months be it even then, the fact that we are now in an Election Year, it diminishes the process of big legislative action. They had that last year, and it seems like it is pretty much done. The to happen,n and needs to get started in the first couple months of 2018 so for something to happen, it needs to get started in the first couple of months of 2018 . Guest they have to lay the groundwork and start working on it. I think we will see blueprints from last year, the stuff we talked about. They have to do more tax bills. They will probably have to do a technical corrections bill to shore up mistakes in the last tax bill. The extensions will take up a lot of Political Capital and debating time. The debt ceiling is going to be a big issue. Have maybe between march and august as a window to put some the on the floor. That is not a lot of time. Host to glen rose, texas, line for democrats. Caller i am in my upper 80s. I know infrastructure. I drove on the highways when we do not have an interstate highway system. We have got these huge highways. It is like the lanes are property of the federal government. We paid for that rightofway in the 1940s and 1950s. I remember when we started the agenda for public highways for the people. And now you cannot get on it unless you pay a toll. Host what was the other issue on your mind . Caller iraq. I watch the deception and diversion of these little old deals, like when trop accused obama of wiring the white house. That created a big deal for the names. Deception of it is like when adolf hitler took power. I lived through that. He took over, nobody had any rights. He had life or death right in his hands, whoever he wanted to kill or do away with. Dont you understand this is where this country is going . Host we will start with infrastructure. Is there a number being put up right now for with the Trump Administration wants on infrastructure . Guest i know it is a smaller number than what they talked about in the campaign, which i believe was a 1 trillion package. Like one of these 1 trillion over 10 years . Guest i believe so. But i have not heard substantive discussion about how that would be pay for, other than a mix of public and private financing. So that is a big question m ark. Can they come up with a way to pay for it that everyone is ok with . That has not materialized. Host he talked about guest he talked about tolls, and i think people are frustrated about where that money is going and who owns the roads of the tollbooths. That is a big issue, and democrats are much less likely to be open to those kinds of publicprivate partnerships than republicans are. Guest one interesting note about infrastructure is a bunch of people have talked about, what would last year have been like if the president and congress had started on infrastructure, rather than the topic of trying to dismantle the Affordable Care act . Happen, but there is some speculation that you could have seen Something Like that happened last year. It could have been more productive. It will be tougher in an Election Year. Mentioned theer wiretapping of the trump tower issue related to the Russia Campaign or the russia investigation. Where does the russia investigation go here in 2010 from congress perspective and how it effects of the Trump Administration will push some of these agenda items forward . Guest there are some House Republicans trying to delegitimize the investigation. They are running a real counter operation and some even want him to be investigated, want other investigations. They have called on him to resign. Others are working behind the scenes in the House Intelligence Committee to put up roadblocks when it comes to who they want to interview. But it is such an unknown where it is going to go. I mean, we could be talking about all these legislative items and in the middle of the mueller wraps up his investigation and this is out the window because everything becomes about that. So that is really hanging out there over the president. Guest there is a group of House Republicans who are trying to delegitimize mueller, but i would say the majority republicans are not and have backed him and believe he is an independent operator. So that is not the whole tenor. It is a group, an important group, but it does not represent the whole. Does that include pushing legislation that would make sure he can complete his investigation as the president and deaths if the president moves to have him fired . Push i think there was a for that, but i do not recall the status. Guest when you say back in, does that mean tacitly backed him . Will he be unscathed . Back him,say they but i have not seeing strong headed everts to do that. On theoming up on 8 30 east coast. For anotherle here half hour, talking about congress and the trump agenda in 2018. Tommy from tennessee, line for independents. Go ahead. Caller good morning, brothers and sisters. I have been watching this debate over spending and government shutdowns here for at least 12, 15 years. I have come to the conclusion and is nothing but a scam by both sides of the aisle. They use fear to try to control the people, to try to get them to call in and say save my program, save this, save that. This is nothing but a scam. The people who are putting the money control the money supply. Host what does that scam me for the 2018 election . Toyou think people are going reject the incumbents in 2018 . Caller i hope so. I hope and pray that we have a female majority in the house. We will not get one in the senate this time around, but hopefully we will have a female majority in the house so that we can end what is going on in the media and in the pr section of government. Host that is tommy in tennessee. Guest tommy said the sword, shutdown. Congressional reporters ears stand up when they hear that. A budget guy said there might be more incentive to shut down the government this year than at the end of last year. They did not want to stay here over christmas, lets be honest. As we have this deadline orroaching in january whatever the cr is up next, people might want to show that theyre serious. Democrats might want to show their serious over daca. Republicans could choose another issue appeared the border wall is probably a big thing. Could be Border Security, immigration, but for them to say i care about this issue so much that i am willing to shut down the government over it, it very well might happen. Host and willing to take the blame for the shutdown . Frankly, for a lot of these members who are in safe districts, they go home and if they are shown they are willing to take the blame, if they are shown to be fighting for something that their constituents believe in. Guest that is maybe even more true for the president who wants to drain the swamp and when know this has of government, and he that weted for months might need a good shutdown. So we could see some appetite from him to do this. Guest especially if there is no border wall spending. Host a call from the line for republicans. Sarah, go ahead. Shrink i think once they government, there will be enough money to build a wall. We can build anything, because government makes quite a bit of money. My question is i think that many people on your show and many people in the media are very far removed from a lot of poor americans. They do not know what they go through. I think a lot of people, you know like you i do not what your story is or if you have ever been on welfare are taken food stamps or if your family has, but i do know that a lot of you are privileged. Host do you think that applies to politicians or members of the media . Caller i think it applies to a lot of people. You know, it applies to a lot of people in the media. And i want to talk about the media. We have been focusing on politicians and picking on them, and you are talking about 2018 and a lot of things are going to be pushed aside because it is an Election Year. But i believe a lot of things will go on behind the scenes. Host which is what . Caller well, people start getting greedy and start train to get there things pushed through. So they are going to support, you know, whatever helps them get rich, whatever helps them get wealthy. Host that call was from sarasota, florida, talking about being on welfare. Lets bring it back to snap and entitlement reform. When does start that start of paul ryan has his way . Guest it is unclear. Nobody has outlined what specifically they mean by welfare reform or entitlement reform. There is a lot of different ideas floating out there. It could come as soon as the next spending bill if they decide that they want to cut funding from some a telnet programs to pay for whatever cut funding from some entitlement programs to pay for whatever else. They maymeans tent means test snap recipients. Guest speaker ryan has talked a lot about these programs as a push to diminish poverty in this country, and that is something he talks about a lot. We could see that in the farm bill or in a wide array of programs. He has talked about trying to and make it a disincentive, so we will probably see some debate around that kind of issue. Host some comments about the media, as well. You have not had a chance to talk about your reporting careers and how long you have worked on capitol hill. Guest i started as a local reporter for the palo alto daily news, and i have been with the journal about nine years in covering congress for six of them. Guest i have been covering congress for roll call and National Journal for six years. I went to school out there. To think i have a background in school leather reporting for i host how often you get a chance at talk about these issues outside of the beltway and to go visit districts where these things happen . When you get a chance to do that . Guest more so during Election Year but i do personal travel as well. Yes, the collar made a great point that there is a bubble here. Without on legislation really focusing on the people that are affected. The bills are so massive, it is hard to envision. They touched so many parts of american life. It is hard to envision it from an individual perspective. That does not mean the reporters are callous to that. Most reporters who have not experienced these issues themselves, they know those who have. Out and talkto go to people in various congressional districts. We also get a lot of feedback from readers over email. Think hearing what people about legislation. But i agree, there is something of a bubble. There are some lawmakers in congress who did talk about their personal experience with food stamps but that is not the prevailing view. Host this is our chance to hear from viewers from around the country. S 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001, independents 202 7488002. Jerry is waiting. Caller hello. I am a registered democrat but i did vote for donald trump. I think everybody is going to be extremely surprised that a lot is going to get accomplished. I think trump is going to make sure of that. I think the wall is going to go up it is not going to go across the whole border but there is going to be some wall. If the democrats want to shut the government down for the Illegal Immigrants. That is not going to go over well with the american people. The one thing about the reporters and the news media, i am really curious because the thing i see here is you have got and schulz, ton i. T. Guys i got lost by the wayside and i do not hear a whole of talk about that. Im curious to see what reporter is going to stand up and investigate what happened with the democrats and the dnc server was not turned over to the fbi how can you investigate anything without that service . There is so much here that people do not want to admit that i believe that that has got to come out. There is more here i do not think it has anything to do with trump. I think it is an organized plan to try to take him down. Mccain, some of these people hate trump. Host got your point. I will let you start with that one. Are heading into another Election Year but we have not closed out the wounds of the last one. It is clear. People are still talking about the clinton versus trump election. We are going to be relitigation litigating that election into the next president ial election. The issue that the caller mentioned as one aspect. Be really hard to move onto a lot of these issues that we put on our plate for when it isk about that kind of talk in the backdrop. This is going to be one of the innate challenges of this legislative year is that all of this political story and going toon are detract from the legislative work that Congress Needs to do. Jerry made an interesting point that we could be surprised by what happens this year. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Trump Presidency so far is that he surprises us often. We had that meeting in september where he struck a deal with nancy pelosier and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer and there is voice the possibility of that to happen again. When we go into the next meeting, there is always the potential for a big deal to be cut. The big surprises of the political world and 2017 was that there is competitive race in alabama and the special Senate Election doug jones, the winner of that. He will be sworn in by the Vice President. Republicanceed luther strange. Dan, how does that change the political map in the near and longterm . Guest i do not want to draw too from thatusions because there were unique circumstances with all of the accusations against moore. Is every Senate Candidate going to be running with that kind of background. Democrats are emboldened by it. They are probably more interested in running a viable candidate in every district they possibly can. I think this is a big boom for fundraising for them. Forakes it that much harder republicans in the senate to pass legislation. It does not mean there is going to be a wave but there are signs of a wave. Host election day 2018, 34 and theeats print entire house of representatives up. For colorado in the line republicans. Caller yes. The media speaks to the First Amendment. E want to thank you we have to sort through the fake news it is not the medias fault. It is our job to look at you and say is this part of what we believe in and if it is not, we need to research b the reason we are here today to research. The reason we are here today is the day that obama won the election, Mitch Mcconnell put party before country. He said, we will make him a one term president. The day barack obama became president how is that the you medias fault that report the truth about the people who are getting paid and do not do their job . They go against the will of the people. When we lose, it is not a indate for the democrats but reality, we all lose because we are all the same planet. The other thing about this wall i keep telling you to go back and look at what Nelson Mandela in power did. Here andple floated Indigenous People did not. There is talk in the background of making a National Hispanic party. They will outnumber you. Host how do you feel that the term fake news . Guest i do not like being called it. [laughter] st i appreciate the confidence in the media. It started off as literally being news that was not real news. News articles that were not molded. Nd then it was news withany time and said that someone did not like, they did legitimize they delegitimized it. How is that term in the focus on it changed at any how you have the new job . Hast i do not think it changed how ive done my job and i think it is fair that citizens should hold the media accountable for the job that we do. When we do it right, hopefully people believe and do not destroy credibility that media has when we are accurately reporting the facts. One piece of evidence that suggests there is credibility in the media is the Alabama Senate race where there was Investigative Journalism exposing roy moores past. That ultimately did play a big factor in the election. Host Kristina Peterson is with the washington journal. The washington post. Be with us the next 15 minutes taking your calls as we look ahead at congress and the Trump Administrations agenda and 2018. Mike for independents. Caller good morning. My Biggest Issue is the socialization of this country, oilher it is infrastructure, fuel Energy Infrastructure no matter what it is, we have socialized the cost of building all of this s are all now the 1 privatizing the gains. They get the gains from space, they get the gains from stealing our oil are gold, they do not , we are giving away the dam national f orest. Tohink we are too stupid survive but i pray god somebody can Pay Attention and start looking at these people individually. The 1 all drink out of the same trough. Michigan, line for democrats. Caller good morning. About thisnderstand of fake news but unfortunately, your colleague, christina, is part of the problem. She serves as rupert murdoch. Serves rupert murdoch. Two issues i have with what she said this morning one is that the majority of republicans support the mueller investigation. If that was true, they would pass legislation supporting him out right. Trump once the drain the swamp, that as a clear and blatant lie. Donald trump wants to be vladimir putin. I want to give christina a chance to talk about some of those comments. Guest thanks for sharing your thoughts. I would like to note that in the newsroom, we are independent operators so our owner is a separate matter. We are reporters and we do our job. On the point about muellers investigation, dan made a good point that republicans may not be publicly challenging. They do notittle want to rock the boat with the president. They want to mueller to do his job but they are not challenging that as vocally as they could be because there is some fear of the president s voice over twitter targeting them. As for draining the swamp, the president has said that is what he wants to do. We will have to see if he actually does accomplish that by the end of his four years. It is a little early to tell whether hell be able to do that. If i could come to my defense of my colleagues in the media, we are not a monolith. Reporters are all over the world who may have an editorial page that has no bearing on most of the reporters who work for the organization. From the new york times, wall street journal, they are terrific reporters. They have a great vacation from both sides of the aisle and just because their News Organization is owned by one person or another does not color how they report. Host jim in new york, line for republicans. Talking about the news and fake news, ive not been able to watch the news and years. It makes me dizzy. There are so many things in the background swimming around. Absurd andutely nothing like the days that Walter Cronkite was on air. You are quick to hang up on that gentleman that spoke about the wall. We have to build that wall. Let me finish before you hang up. Weve got five People Living in ooms, in the summer, they are blasting the music, the es in front of all the schools in our neighborhood is spanish where are the french, spanish . They are getting special treatment and i do not know why. I am glad trump is in the white house because he is the only one doing anything about this. Deportation you should see some of the orangutans i went out with. Host what you consider success for the wall . What do you deceive and the president in terms of the wall . , but lets jim talk about the wall a little bit more and what President Trump thinks he can believe he can accomplish. Guest i think it is really interesting that we have heard from collars on the republican, democrat, and independent lines all advocating for the wall. It is clear that there is support about people coming into this country illegally. Whether or not the wall is going to fix that, that has become a symbol for dealing with it. Be s the wall going to a physical wall, a fence, drones . I reported in arizona and there is some stretches of that terrain i do not know how youre going to build a wall over it. Guest the republicans from that region that make that point. It is not feasible to construct a raw whether our ravines or rivers. There are semantics around the wall. It means Different Things to different people. Democrats would be ok with many Border Security strengthening measures. We seen fromve it nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer . Guest there was a bipartisan with of senators meeting white house chief of staff john from those talks are continuing, it sounds like one of the biggest points will be interior enforcement. Those are measures democrats have more concerned over because they target people are a living here, not just preventing people from entering the country. That could be one of the bigger hurdles to reach. Host the president tweeting about the border just a few minutes ago, thank you to brandon judd on the national about how we are doing at the border. Well be bringing more and more willur great folks and build the desperately needed wall. Guest they want something they can call the wall. Whether or not that is a physical barrier or something a little different in some areas, that remains to be seen. Never vote for something that you could call a wall. It is a semantic roadblock between the two parties. They might have overlapping agreement. There was an agreement principle that eventually fell through but that was something democrats agreed with. Host if something does eventually happen on this, you will likely see once i call it the wall and one side say, it is not actually a wall . Guest by that same token, how can you the agreement done . Guest and you need the president to be onboard with this. It would be an extremely hard sell in the house if he is not supportive. Talk about aant to very big story from 2017 that we have not touched on. The impact of the me too movement specifically on Congress Accusations and sexual assault. Looking ahead at 2018, dan news hauser, how is this impacting the Playing Field Going Forward . Seen enough members leave and possibly hearing stories of more accusations to calm. Guest there are a lot of rumors and it is hard to know what is real and what is not. Some rumors turned out to be real and other things have yet to materialize. Thereprobably safe to say will be more of those kind of revelations this year. Congress has shown that they can deal with that issue on an individual basis and people will resign and it does not affect the broader legislative outlook. Topic comes up and 2018 against a member of congress, you Better Believe it will be used against him in the election. Look at roy moore. That was probably the issue of the election. Moore, there was concern among republicans that if you were to be elected, they would all be colored by that. Onet i have yet to see member that has had one of those accusations stay and say im going to run again. Turnedgest tide that has is you can no longer whether these accusations. That is the biggest change of the me too movement. Guest we will see that more on the campaign trail. Re are more female Democratic Candidates connecting to female voters. I expect this to be something that we hear more about on the trail than we ever did. And more female candidates running. And a few more calls, jeff and upper market world, maryland. Yes, im calling about some specific locations. With anthere is issues actual wall it is a physical barrier and easiest places they want to start with holding it arent publicly owned places such as National Wildlife refuges. The Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife complexes nobody is crossing the border in these locations. There are no drugs pouring across the border in these locations. A human can barely survive let alone walk through these areas out in west texas areas. Texas, there is no reason up a wall because there is no crossing in those locations. Onyou spend that money surveillance techniques, but that is not what they are proposing. They are talking about a physical barrier. It is a political ploy. They cannot put them in areas they need it because they are privately owned and they are going to have hard times getting right of way. Host are their memories of Congress Making that point . Guest absolutely. You will not find a member who represents a district above the Mexican Border who says we should build a wall there. I grew up in texas too, nobody wants to put a wall in his big natural bend. In arizona, you got a massive indian reservation it takes up 100 miles of borderland they did they do not want a wall there. They have members of tribe that live on the american side and y, butalk over semifreelu the caller highlights this issue very well. It is going to be incredibly top. Host chuck from florida. Caller im just marinating with what a lot of you guys are saying. Ller discussed giving support for the news media. Ive been really critical about the news because today, we are talking about more security in regards to illegal immigration, but our media has pushed a narrative of undocumented workers. We talk about global warming, our and media to the narrative our media pushes the narrative of climate change. If you want a real debate about immigration, lets start by distinguishing between illegal and legal immigrants. Host do you think it is just the media you think politicians tried to do that and try to frame those issues as well when they are having their discussions with media . I think the politicians do and i think the media carries a depending on who the media supports. Candidateat ran a bad but the media is fixated on something else. Resistance is not leadership. A better jobuld do holding the Democrat Party accountable. Mcconnell said something ridiculous about Holding Obama as a one term president but at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to Work Together and that is what republicans they at least do to some degree with obama. We are not seeing that with the democratic party. Host i got your point, chuck. Christina, what do you want to pick up . Guest i know that dan and i both try to do that every day. It is an important point about democrats and how they react this year. Politically being unified against Something Like the president can be helpful. It is generally much harder to be the party in power and Senior Republicans are having difficulty trying to coalesce the end of towards last year, we saw them able to pass spending bills but that will be put to the test next year and democrats will have to figure out who their next leader is. Chock and other viewers interested in the immigration issue and the law, we are going to spend our entire program tomorrow on the issue of immigration so tune in from 7 00 until 10 00 a. M. A question from brian to comment on twitter, our money should go to feeding and caring for children, the elderly, and the homeless and not some stupid, useless wall. I want to update us on the childrens Health Insurance program and where that stands link to be running out of money. Stands when it could be running out of money. Guest it runs a little bit longer than some of the other measures that marks or shows the same date for that but generally, we do want to extend this program. There is agreement among democrats and republicans with some exceptions. The question is how do you pay for it . There is not agreement among democrats or republicans about where you get that money from. Host dean from colorado. Caller i would just like to say that i respect the journalists and the media. I think they are doing their jobs. I had a question while you all were there. What is the definition of the . Wamp in your opinion ye good question. The president would consider the swamp to be the government and the people who benefit or earn a living to connection to its revenues. And that isyists probably my start. Guest i cannot argue with that. Host billys in massachusetts, lines for democrats. Caller good morning. Ive a question about the tax bill. They impose a new excised tax on University Endowments and at the same time, it opens the ductions it opens deductions for private. What message does this tax bill express . What is the value. I would just like to ask about the philosophy behind imposing a new tax on universities . Host christina, let you start. Guest the caller makes a good point that this was billed as a supplication that a simplification a simplifi cation, but for someone to fill out their taxes on a postcard, it is probably going to be a big list. They are trying to get the economy going by reducing taxes on corporations. The rest of the year and probably until it is changing to another law. Im not in host up next we go from omestic policy to Foreign Policy, well be joined by Anthony Cordesman of the center for strategic and International Studies, to talk about the challenges on Foreign Policy in the years ahead, well be right back. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. S brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. This weekend cspan cities our takes you to springfield, missouri. While in springfield, working ith media com, to explore the literary scene of the birthplace of route 66 in southwestern missouri. Saturday noon eastern on book neeley talksjeremy about the conflict along the kansasmissouri border and slavery in border between them. Having 58, john brown, left kansas, comes back to the territory and begins raids in missouri, during which slaves andl liberate help them escape to freedom and a number of slave holders. Ty of legend or notorie john brown grows as part of the locally that people understand is really the beginning of the civil war. Sunday, 2 p. M. On American History t. V. , we visit the nra arms museum. Ting roosevelt was our shootingest president , an avid hunter. He did when he left office was organize and go on a to large hunting safari africa. This particular rifle was prepared specifically for it has the president ial seal engraved on breech. Oosevelt was famous for the Bull Moose Party and there is a the side engraved on plate of this gun. Watch cspan cities tour, missouri, saturday noon eastern on cspan2 book t. V. And sunday 2 p. M. On history t. V. On cspan 3, working with our cable to explore america. Washington journal continues. Host we return now to the topic policy with Anthony Cordesman, serves as chair in center for strategic and International Studies. Mr. Anthony cordesman, we try to hart this path through the challenges ahead in 2018, the president setting the agenda some tweets. With this was the tweet just after 7 00 this morning talking about iran. The people of iran are acting iranian regime. All the money president obama oolishly gave them went into terrorism and their pockets. Eople have little food, big inflation. The u. S. Is watching. A lot to unpack there. Iranian protest, do you agree with the president s read there of why the protests are happening . Guest i think we need to be ery careful, a lot of the protests do seem to be a reaction to economics, it is not lacking food or is a opportunities, it failure to do reform, to provide jobs and income people need and want. It is the fact inflation, as president pointed out deprived savings, their opportunities, it is a very oung country, where young people have stated unemployment of population that may be higher. These are critical factors. Are certainly many liberal that want more socie society, that are calling for change change, but we need to be careful, the president tends to a very hard line. Host the protests going on for world a week, with the community taken by surprise by the protests happening now . Are alwaysink people taken by surprise when you have this happen suddenly. Back at the economic forecast, they actually were a more favorable than they have been in past years and here have been some economic reforms. So this was something of a urprise, but people have said or years that this is a regime that has been oppressive and failed to develop a country, economic needs, to serve the basic interests of the people. Of unrest this sort happens in a country like iran, u. S. s goal, what should we be doing right now in your mind . The one key goal we have is to encourage reform. T is to create a situation where if we can, to get irans military security actions. Potentially at least, for some kind of incentives that would iran more economic opportunities. We need to be very careful, if threaten intervention, if we regime as if seeking change and make this something where the u. S. Appears to be the protest for its own goals, you undermine all of that are positive and there are certainly many iranians that take the threat from the United States and the world serious. Host is the president doing that when it comes to tweets couple days . E past guest i think the president has stand, so has the administration, we havent really decided on what our is yet. And i think the world has the tweets sort of in perspective and wait for path of american action. Host in terms of what our trump is, i know the administration put out a new National Security strategy in 2017, one, what is that, and two, what does it say about iran . Well, one has to be careful, it describes iran, i accurately, as one of the more serious threats against peace. About a very strong its effort to check iran, influence, its nuclear programs. Take a clear stand on the Nuclear Agreement, but talks about very strong support of our allies in the region, including he arab countries and the gulf cooperation. Address oesnt do is any issues now emerging, what happens if you get unrest in how do you deal with the regime and the iranian people . Before this National Security strike was issued, supposed iran strategy, but it kconsisted list of indictments, many correct, against iran. Really any ggest positive policy. Host what is the point of a National Security strategy if it be changed or if events date . That make it out of guest well, reality is when we National Security strategy, it was a 55page outlined goal t after goal as priority actions nder four different major categories, plus a separate section on regional action. Did do is cite primary goals, what it did do is our allies in Many American estated policy in more conservative major it called for defense building. But what it does do is tell administration thinks about protecting america, about economic policy, about allies, about r strengthening defense. Work for s the ground the budgets and in the real world, the strategy documents are mostly goals. Specific nly one statement about the defense in calls ire document, that for Ballistic Missile defense. Really specific reference to Something Like the buried all and it is among some 17 other priorities issue. Aling with the we have to wait until the budget submission comes out in february what it means, if it means all that much. Host spending some time with Anthony Cordesman this morning, goals and ut the issues that will be on the Trump Administrations radar on Foreign Policy tochlt join the conversation, 2027488000 is for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488002 is the number for independents. The ure calling in, president also yesterday taking s to afghanistan and pakistan with a tweet saying the United States is foolishly given billion in aid over have st 15 years and they given us nothing but lies and deceit thinking of our leaders as fools. Safe haven to the terrorists, no more the president said. Mean, no more . Guest i think what it means deal of pended a great the aid. If you take it literally, it means no more aid. Doesnt mean were going to somehow take military pakistan. Ainst it also is conditioned, it gives option of making as usual, tion and the president has taken a hard line. Akistan has taken quite a number of measures to deal with terrorism, but the broad ndictment is correct and now the question is whether suspending aid will accomplish anything. Host how does that impact the military mission in afghanistan u. S. Forces still are . Guest well, the question is a we have one because talked about this again and it hasnt had d that much impact. Pakistan is acted in its own interest, it certainly hasnt acted in ours for those of the afghan government. Talking with Anthony Center n, chair at the for strategic and International Studies. With us for the next 20 minutes, well get to your calls. Texarkana, arkansas, line for independents. Go ahead. Caller yes, sir, thank you for taking my call. Love cspan, it is the only place to get accurate news. Ahead, mike, what is your question for Anthony Cordesman . Caller yes, sir, i have a question for you. Years old and followed politics since eisenhower, i president l any , eeting diplomatic policies statement against pakistan. Weapon has nuclear capability, why do we what is that he does not understand how diplomacy works. Diplomats that are in ffice because of ignorant diplomacy. Uest i think that many people question the sort of tweeting trategy that the president is using. The best i can come up with is tweets, ot of these while i take a hard line, very stand, almost hard sell, to other ften signals countrys and some reinforce u. S. Existed for a long time. They tend to be followed up by pragmatic d more stance. Whether this negotiating tactic works is something that we have yet to see. So far it isnt clear that it is having that much more impact, if any, than more conventional policy options you just talked about. Host well let the tweets continue to be our guide this morning, including one from just 9 00, the president tweeting out, sanctions and other pressures are beginning to a big impact on north korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing korea. H rocket man now wants to talk to outh korea for the first time, perhaps that is good news, perhaps not, we will see, the president tweeted this morning. What signal are you takeing from that . Uest well, i think that this strange newa rather years, were getting an aroundtheworld survey of new president. The host good time to have you on. Guest couple people crossing dmz is not much military sense of defections, these all the time. That they had north korea doing anything in to u. S. Pressure that will serve our interests. F anything, he has turned to south korea and taken more moderate stand because he knows like to rnment would have the option of negotiating, improving relations with north korea and needs it because of olympics and the desire to have secure sort of during the time this is being held. A signal of north korea korea moderation. F anything, there are some signals that north korea even more committed to Nuclear Weapons and missiles than in the past. Host such as . Guest there is a recent uncertain way they have had more chinese even more committed to Nuclear Weapons and missiles than wethe had previously thought and there also are indications they are still able to get oil indirectly russia in spite of the pledges they made to the. N. Host center for strategic and International Studies is online t csis. Org, Anthony Cordesman is the chair in strategy at csis. Georgetown, indiana, line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. Host go than we had ahead. Caller yes, sir. T seems mr. Anthony cordesman was rather grinning at the idea the president and his tweet. Im a democrat, ive been all my i happen to be a legislator. It seems to me this president is to be said. Needs we have been tiptoeing through lips for too many years with these peep and he will they heari wha we have been tiptoeing through the tu lips for too many years with these peep and he will they need to hen wha we have been tiptoeing through the tu lips for too many years with these peep and he will they need to heg whatting needs to b said. We have been tiptoeing through the tu lips for too many years with these peep and he will they need to hearwe have been tiptoe the tu lips for too many years with these peep and he will they lips for too many years with these peep and he will they need to hear some straight talk. Like he said, what we do is a little bit different, but they need to know, indeed there is a in town and im glad years mocrat, and im 81 birthday, so host virginia, what office did office, e in, state local office . Caller it was a local Office Roberts rules are roberts and we need more of roberts rules. Call. Thanks for the Anthony Cordesman, give you a chance. Guest i think we need to be hardline l taking that sometimes exaggerate the case and willingnessmericas to act. It is one thing to take a firm tand and then implement it clearly in ways that other ountries, particularly potential threats, can see. It is another to simply take a stance and not change the path of action. To be hink this is going a critical year, because weve said a lot in the last year and lot of it has not been followed up by action. Going toion is, are we ake tangible actions or make hard statements. Host to virginia, oscar, morning. , good caller good morning, thanks for taking my call. The ike to ask you about pence that Vice President made to afghanistan. Fact that d on the south korea has 28,000 soldiers, nly about a couple thousand afghanistan. Does pence have to make a isit during the holidays to afghanistan or oneday visit, what have you, even if a holiday visit. Why couldnt he have gone to outh korea and visit our most Critical Military apparatus, who are more danger or in line with ire than the folks in afghanistan in the almost 28,000 plus people there, plus their families . Your point, oscar. Guest remember, the president has been. We have had senior american iing als regularly visit korea. Neglecting matter of u. S. Troops in korea and i think ertainly secretary mattis cannot be accused in any sense of the eassuring them kind of support theyre going to need. He Vice President s trip to afghanistan was not announced, it followed rief, problems in arranging a cheduled trip to the middle east, so he took the opportunity to visit u. S. Troops in that,istan, but more than it isnt a matter of just visiting troops, every time you this, you send signals as to support for a s. Given ally and thats the key reason for these visits. I think in fairness, the vice visit was something that had to be rearranged tis certainlyickly not the case that any has neglected troop necessary korea. Ost you mentioned secretary mattis, also want to talk about secretary of state Rex Tillerson turnover when it comes to key leaders, when it comes to Foreign Policy and turnover arew much you expecting in 2018 . You know, i think anybody made any process about turnover administration, almost any administration would be proved ertain to be wrong. T is certainly a question and becoming i think disruptive question. With is e ended up constant doubt in the world as of our the future secretary of state is. That makes it harder to have an harder to support the administration, it creates the of gap between the president and his secretary of state. Be dealt with either by , the ing the relationship timing, the statement on both sides or by changing the of state. But if you do that, youll do it the state department is being reorganized without having reorganized, do it in ways that raise serious questions support ther we still all of the actions that the and secretarytate and fense cooperated on whatever the impact is in the and is massive confusion uncertainty all over the world. Host what was Rex Tillersons in 2017 . Mpact guest i think his biggest bring was to constantly the kind of hard sell from the a more t back into entral position, without moderating or undermining, to how there was practical parliament to cooperate with the secretary of defense and show had a unified approach o actually running the administration. This is a matter of balance and it is a matter of the secretary state and the secretary of under therked closely president and at the same time, rovided the kind of pragmatic following that this president needs. Indiana, urora, robert, republican, go ahead. Soler yes, you know, we get many of these what you call experts about the world today today, it tells you, you will have wars, rumors you will have tornados, is trying tond god show people, in the last days he says they will be blinded to truth. Are blinded to the truth today, i think mr. Trump is alone is job, leave him and let him do it. That is my comment. About obert talking experts. It will take me a long time to biography rough your briefly and where you served around the world and how long doing this. Caller well, i went into the secretary of defense during the kennedy administration. In the office of the secretary of defense in the department, u. S. Elegation to nato, i served delegated to National Security inncil, i was at the embassy lond london. In policy in the middle east. Issues in asia, areas likenvolved in inside of afghanistan, both as a consultant and as an advisor on the genermccrystal. Th assistant to senator john ccain, its been more than 50 years, to put it simply and quite a number of president s and officials in the process. Host and what is csis, for folks who dont know. Guest its center for strategic and International Studies, it abshire, d by david which is where comes from. It is very much not politically n line, we dont have a democratic or republican side. A center for analysis and planning. Of lobbyists. T host we have 10 minutes left to Anthony Cordesman, get as many calls as we can. Grant in d. C. , line for ahead. Ndents, go caller yes, i want to ask nthony what he thinks the u. S. Moral position on Nuclear Nonproliferation is, essentially we waved or president s allowed export,ress to wave arms control prohibition on aid to 1999, mr. D india n. Anthony cordesman himself said 1986, he believed the sraelis in collusion with the plans ownener apollo, pennsylvania, actually stole build 10 pons to Nuclear Weapons. I mean, what is the u. S. Moral nuclear on nonproliferation when were ssentially bit by bit destroying this countrys credibility on Nuclear Nonproliferation . Guest well, first, lets be very careful, i reported and the suspicion there ad been israeli effort to obtain material from a plant. Here it has never been affirmed. When you talk about proliferation, the reality is we have continuously taken a strong attempting to check it. The reality is, when you have confrontation you do indiapakistan, you have to deal with the fact once they with two te, you live major powers that have great influence. Mpact and when you talk about what has appened in israel, and thankfully no doubt that most experts believe israel has a nuclear arm Ballistic Missile force. The u. S. Has pressured israel kind of over at force that might provoke its neighbors. Its put pressure on virtually all of the arab states to not go nuclear. Theres only so much you can do, frankly in the world. T is not simply a matter of dealing with nuclear, you have advances in biotechnology. You have the fact that precisionguided conventional weapons can now take out economic facilities, effectively becoming weapons of effectiveness. These are realities that are steadily more threatening in the future. We can put as much pressure as we can on the new National Strategy calls for that. But we have no unilateral to stop other countries and taking moral stand our influence and ability to work with them is not to achieve any moral effects. Host jay, silver spring, independents, for go ahead. Caller hi, i am so glad that on this someone morning, im sorry, good talk on everyone; to what is going on in the world. I am 75 years old. In a few more days. I agree with what the guest has far, everything he said, i would like to say one thing, him you please have explain why some segment ontainment about obama giving money to iran . Let him do hisnd answer. Host sure. We will hangup and do that. Early happy birthday to you. Anthony cordesman. Guest a lot of this is failure happened. And what he Nuclear Agreement with iran basically led to our essentially iran had oney that given us that was no gift. Recognized death. Iran to nly allowed have the ability to export oil easily and to increase the the export t from that was not an american gift, it was the lifting of sanctions. Itshe process, iran gave up Nuclear Reactor capability to plutonim, put uranium tight ing under international inspection. It had to give up highly uranium materials. Of was a major set sacrifices and it means iran in practice cannot, at least in the term, produce nuclear eapons and missiles with nuclear war. Tradeoff because iran ot something for giving up its Nuclear Systems and it is debatable, if you happen to feel we should never make concessions that you need the perfect arms control agreement. Experts do disagree over this certainly no guarantees for the future, as said, problem we ave, technology advances, our ability to control both nuclear nd biological weapons does decline. Nd negotiation gets harder and harder and trade loss become more host when it comes to iranian what sort of deadline should we focus on in 2018 . Oming months of guest really are a set of inspections. The key issue is how well this inspection process is working. T is how well countries in the group that super flies this actually demand the inspections be fully effective be going through a set of regular threemonth which the question is going to be, will the that ent take a stand could potentially lead to an end to the agreement. This is something where there is lways going to be idea that arms control somehow leads or to a problem historically that is never the case. Call from wanda in california, line for republicans, go ahead. Like to know d what mr. Anthony cordesmans opinion is of President Trumps recent executive order, where it seems he has frozen the a lot of prominent domestically and internationally. And there is no news about that, of e seems to be some sort news blackout on it. Id like to know what he thinks about it. Well, the president cant assets of stic american citizens. Is only way that can be done through the Justice System and system. Legal but there is a process that deals with people outside the who are ates or people involved in the support of extremism or transnational crime, where it is possible for the Treasury Department to list people who financing or sponsoring terrori or other areas of extremism. Assets will be frozen and they able to use u. S. Assets, they will not be able to and they United States will be flagged internationally and pporters of extremism terrorism. This is not new to this president , this has been going was critical step in countering terrorism after the 9 11. Of it actually is listed and on the Treasury Departments website, so if you of all the published. S, it is host plenty published on csiss read more you want to about the center for strategic and International Studies and Anthony Cordesman, the chair at csis. Org. Thank you for your time this morning. Come back again. Guest thank you. Host well end our program today in open phones, any public olicy issue you want to talk about, the phones are yours for the next 25 minutes until 10 00. Start call nothing onlines for emocrats, republicans and independents on your screen. Well be right back. Springfield,kes tou missouri, to explore the literary scene and history of the birthplace of route 66 in missouri. Rn saturday, noon eastern on book neeley talksjeremy about the conflict occurring along the kansasmissouri border over slavery in his book, the border between them. John brown, having left kansas, came back to the seriesry and he begins a of raids in western missouri, uring which his men will liberate enslaved people from missouri and help them escape to freedom. This, they willf kill a number of slave holders notorie ty legend or of john brown wrote as part of struggle, thatty of john brown wrote as part of this struggle, that people the beginning of the civil war. Sunday 2 p. M. On american nra ory t. V. , we visit the National Sporting arms museum. Roosevelt was probably our shootingest president , very avid hunter, did when he left ffice was organize and go on a very large hunting safari to africa. This particular rifle was specifically for roosevelt, it has the engraved on seal the breach and of course famous for the Bull Moose Party and there is a on the side graved plate of this gun. Watch cspan cities tour springfield, missouri, saturday s book tern on cspan, t. V. And sunday 2 p. M. On American History t. V. On cspan3, working with cable affiliates as we explore america. Washington journal continues. On its open phones washington journal. Any public issues you want to democrats, lines for 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents, 2027488002. Calling in, as we show the front page of the Palm Beach Post this morning, from florida, trump departs maralago, with the picture of president the plane at West Palm Beach yesterday afternoon for the flight back to washington, d. C. Picture of air force one taking off there, below that, d. C. , and nt back in hes been active this morning on twitter. Since weve been on the air this morning, by my count. Want to hear from you on the that are on your mind this morning. In oklahoma city, oklahoma, line for democrats. J. D. , go ahead. Yeah, i want to know about the oil spill in south dakota, was that part of pipeline that trump authorized . Up to date im not on that oil spill, tell me your interest in it, do you have a oil and gas the industry . Caller well, no, i was just wondering, we heard so much indians trying to goingct the pipeline from across their land and not wanting to pollute the water up and heard about the aquifer in the middle of the going try in the next 30 years that does most of the farming and im a farmer and i kind of want to, you know, protect my water rights and like that. Host and is there any threat to in oklahoma, hts where you are j. D. . Aller well, they talked about on like rfd t. V. , the aquifer in like nter of the country in kansas and missouri and part of oklahoma, is running dry and about 30 years we wont be able to farm the land in the country because the aquifer is going dry. Out of duluth ry pipeline ne, keystone may have led to huge oil spill, of south dakota. The study is considering priy preliminary reports and the Keystone Pipeline may have led gallons eak of 210,000 of crude oil in prairie gas ield near the south dakota and north dakota border in november. Causedture may have been by concrete weight placed on the 30inch pipeline to hold it in field near amherst, in northeast south dakota, reporting out there on that. Duluth news tribune story. Jacqueline, line for republicans, what is on your mind . Caller good morning. Host good morning. Want to point out to people that the democrats gotten brown to pass and install a sanctuaryat were state. People of say, california, never got to vote on that. Is pretty clear that as e is in california they make it sanctuary city and m kind of glad we didnt get to vote against it or for it because hes breaking a federal making california a sanctuary state. They dont clear want a wall built here. Host jacqueline, tune in tomorrow on the washington ournal, were going to be focusing on the immigration issue, on Border Control, on all issues that you just brought up over the course of three hours, it will be entire immigration on policy and Border Security. Eerie, pennsylvania, line for democrats, go ahead. Caller good morning and happy to you folks at cspan, we watch all the time. That. Appreciate caller im wondering about he we have a lot of daca folks up in eerie, pennsylvania, 5000 ofimate is at least them just here in the city of nancy and, you know, beforeand Chuck Schumer, they let republicans get away the this tax break for rich, said that they were going to hold the republicans feet to fire and werent going to do dreamers were s included. Now let me talk to the dreamers for just a second. Hey, dreamers, the democrats super e white house,the majority in the house and super majority in the senate for two help you they didnt folks out at all, so anybody hats waiting around for impeachment, it is never going to happen because they cant unless the president hey get the votes in the house and even if they get votes in the house, it goes to senate, acquit they need t least 10 republicans in the senate to uphold the repeal or impeach the president. So you people out there thinking bad, why dont you take a look back at the irst two years of the Obama Administration and ask why didnt they do anything for me. Host jim, got your point. Financial times, u. S. Dreamers, wait until fate dawns Congress Fails to find a solution after arrival ess Childhood Program focusing on how the 2018, may play out in fter tumultiuous 2017. 700,000 dreamers left in a times notes cial after Congress Left for holidays without solving the issue, center for American Progress think tank, 122 dreamers are losing their a daily basis in this country. If you want to read more on that times today. Cial joe, ohio, line for democrats, what is on your mind. Caller i would like to know if u. S. Is all right with paying for a wall supposed to be paid for by mexico . Host joe, are you all right that . Caller well, no, i thought that for it. t going to pay i thought that it was going to country or by another and if he decides were going to pay for it, are we putting a canada, also . N host joe fthere is some deal on the dreamers on the daca Program Funding combined with for the wall construction, hatever that may be, however much construction there might be on the wall, would you be okay with that . Then were because paying to get rid of the dreamers and paying for the wall. Are we going to pay for, paying for everything . John, in corpus christi, texas, line for independents. Ahead. Go caller hi, i continuing is awfully funny how the republicans and im an xrepublican, how the republicans never want to get to the root issue of illegal and the root issue is corporate buddies through nafta deliberately destroyed the mexican economy in the 1990s, which caused so many mexicans to poor and have to come up here to look for work and they never, the republicans go after their business buddies on this side of the border who are hiring they never do that. They just want to go after the toor people that came up here trying to work survive. I think that is disgusting how disingenuous, act like Illegal Immigrants are the problems themselves when it is that are ss interests the root cause of all the problems. When and why exrepublican. An caller the republicans are so otally business oriented, they dont care one bit about the poor man, the working man, the shape or in any way, form. Latest tax cut just 6 ran through without public approval whatsoever, prime example of how owned by big business. Host jane is a republican, go ahead. Concerned about the legalization of marijuana. The the it has been proven that caused from ects are american. American alert said the thc in marijuana affects the unfertilized eggs in the womans ovaries, also effects the sperm in the male. Bad forcigarette system you, how could smoking marijuana be a good thing . Stories in todays paper on marijuana laws across the country as we enter the new u. S. A. Today. California voted in 2016 to 21 ande sales and anyone older can now make purchases at well as grow, as possess and use limited quantities of weed. Retailers received licenses statewide to open new california. In concentrated in san diego, santa and palm springs, los angeles and San Francisco are among the cities where recreational pot will not be right away because regulations were not approved in city o start issuing the licenses needed to get state permits. Frno and d, fres iverside forbidding marijuana sales and one more state when it comes to the issue of marijuana, maine, legalized recreational companys16, has banned from firing employees from testing positive unless they can damaged job g performance, statute takes effect in february of this year. On washingtones journal, 2027488000 if youre a democrat. A 7488001 if youre republican. An 7488002 if youre independent. Were with you for the next 10 minutes until 10 00. Line for louisiana, independents. John, go ahead. Morning, how are you . Host im doing well. Caller yes, i wanted to respond caller a few calls ago in reference to the dreamers. Go ahead. Caller i served 30 years in the military and i served with a lot dreamers that went to war for and put their lives on the line. When people talk about when people talk about what the democrat didnt do for you, what the republican didnt do for you. There are people that are not United States citizens that went to war in the middle east with others and put their lives on the line. Many died for this country. I think we need to make sure we settle this problem and give the citizenship. Host to tennessee, connie, morning. , good caller good morning. Of all, hurray for the last call. Im going to try to keep my head older. R, im getting i would like to address the oklahomay the man from aquifer. Ooliga not five whole the largest inis the country and the largest in dimini ll diminish. Further, they have fracking oklahoma and in proven to haveen earthquakes, the toxins into the ground have i dont want to velocity can cause plates to shift under the ground then lets skip to south oil a, where we had bill spill. Host that is what the caller was calling in reference to, connie. Where does your interest in this topic stem from, connie . Of our the condition earth and our quality of life. Okay. But there are bunch of oil you can find on governmental sides. Here are oil spills we never hear about and i would just like stewards of our planet. Host where is good place to go, what federal site . Caller do you know, i have seen on that with people i have seenthat and sites from the federal and actually i went and looked n my computer, but i dont remember what they were. Host that is all right, connie, ill get my producer to check epas website or department of interior to see if with the charts referring to. This lot of time left morning, well see what they come up with. Dan is in new york, line for independents, dan, go ahead. Caller yes, i know i hear a lot of people complain about trump and how dishonest he is and stuff like that. You know, this morning, well see what they come up with. Dan is in new york, line anybod their own opinion. Id like to know why cant we go after about how people think about honesty in their state governors and e senators . You know, really bring up that people call in and voice their opinion how they feel about their state. The other thing i would like to talk about is immigration, that and they bring how we have about to have immigration for farmers, involved in i was years ago, but actually migrant king about worker . Aller s yes, yes, usually milk cows or take care of the animals. You wouldnt need workers if you helping farms become so large they have to have so much in the n you head back 40s and 50s, you had mom, dad, grandpa and kids doing farm work, you didnt need about it. Push toward we have to have large scale operations and got a whole lot of people from another country to do the work. Nd i wish i could talk about a lot of other issues, but i appreciate it, i dont know how i got. Me host appreciate it. County, in fairfax virginia. Go ahead. Caller happy new year, everybody. I want to followup with the social media discussion county, just expansion is a alance, somebody has control, newspaper has control. Well, you know, the opinion of that newspaper, the it is just ction, opinion, it is media, social media is media, newspaper is a media. Necessary valid and and something that we need as control. Or decentralization decentralization, explode this year and next year and following year and so is the platform for social media and i think it is a good thing that we have that and news all started when a lot entities , for profit money. Ey got to make so they were actually creatingm. So they were actually creating news factors and creating actual fake news. I know a few people were actually caught doing it, i know a party in brazil a decentralization, explode this some nd next year and following peop people News Agencies creating news, which is abhorrent and profit and people pay News Agencies to create news sometimes because they are for profit entity, like journalism. Back to the first part of your comment, do you think newspapers are better erve federal they got rid of editorials, if they got rid of the opinion of the newspaper on page . Ditorial caller if they got rid of the opinion page . I think it would be a disaster. Not op ed, having news ditorial, what is the opinion caller the opinion of the paper itself . Editors . We should w, i think hear everybodys opinion, that is what free speech is, essence the social media, that is free speech. And we need it desperately so gets a voice, otherwise why would you want to shut out you can decide whether or not that individual, who has an opinion, whatever it disagree or ou gree with it, go on social media and tell everybody your pinion, that way you get a better understanding of what everybody truly feels and you are going to have bologna and intelligence and insight and everything and it is up to the individual and the decentralized to make that decision, that is centralized, dictatorship, do we want a dictatorship . Point. We spent the first hour asking if social edia helps or hurts Political Engagement in this country and political discourse. You can go segment, good the caller necessary that seg frment our first hour of the washington journal today. In adams run, south carolina, an independent. Ruth, go ahead. Good morning. Cspan, been watching for years, ive been listening to people calling from the country giving their own opinion. Personally, i think the tax cut that the republicans did is a disgrace. Voted for trump, those people that need jobs and areas decaying and it is not going to help them at all. And for them to have thought and i understand why they did, this be a savior and be able to help them, i think im a american d african retired, get a good income, im i think down ut the road that this country is going to be in revoke. Lower people will be like iran is now. Not trickle down, the effect they will be getting, it will not mean anything. And going to rise up and theyre going to be tied and i are going to have are going toe they press so hard. Nothing wrong with people being always ch people has been here, that is not a problem. Trump voters, he doesnt care achieved what he wanted to achieve, give tax and his him, his family rich friends. Host that is ruth in south carolina. Asking the r question about pipelines, would pipeline and the hazardous Hazardous Materials administration. It is a bureau within the department of transportation, pipeline incident reports since the 1970s and have course of those years, you can check it out online. Calls. Or one or two more katie, branch pass, oregon, line democrats. Go ahead. With us this morning . Go ahead. Before we more try end the show today. Pointing you toward tomorrows program, well focus on the re show tomorrow immigration and Border Control join us from 7 to 10 tomorrow morning for discussion on that. Programming note tomorrow, the second session of the 115th underway. Ets tina smith, successor to al be sworn in, as well as doug jones, who was elected in Senate Special alabama, happening tomorrow on capitol hill. In the meantime, have a great tuesday, and well see you back here tomorrow morning 7 a. M. Eastern, 4 a. M. Pacific. There is what is coming up. North Korean Refugees describe life under kim jongun. House pro forma session at 12 00 eastern. Later, remarks from the Russian Ambassador to the u. S. Then at 2 00 eastern, the White House Briefing with spokesman sarah sanders. The senate is back on the senate is back on third and will welcome 2 new democratic lawmakers, doug jones and tina smith. House returns two returns days later on the eighth. Government funding runs out generate 19. So on the calendar, this years state of the union address. As always, you can watch the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan2. Atight on cspan, a look defense funding and readiness, the wife of officials as well as defense in the life of officials and defenseindustry executives. Here is a preview. We are going to defend ourselves against north korea bid, iran becomes a Nuclear Weapons state, we will defend ourselves against them, too. We would keep fighting terrorist , unfortunately, and we have europe and asia, traditionally, as congressman gallagher was ,aying this money, morning were areas we do not want to see dominated by no the power, and we will continue to do that. We will scale back our ambitions with the middle east, and god knows, i would love for the region to return to the security it so richly deserves, but it is just not going to happen. It will continue to impose ourselves on us. We are continuing to talk about risk and or resources. When we talk about resources command everyone goes to the , but it ise budget also intellectual resources. How do we think about fighting these potential conflicts in the future differently . You can see the entire event from the Reagan National defense for him in simi valley, california, tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Cspans cities toward takes you just been filled cities tour takes you to springfield, missouri. Exploring the history of the birthplace of route 66 in southwestern missouri. Saturday at noon eastern on book talksthor jeremy neely about the conflict occurring along the kansasmissouri border and the struggle over slavery in his book the border between them. In 1858, john brown having left kansas, came back to the territory, and stirred the raid into western missouri, during which his men will liberate enslaved people from missouri and help them escape to freedom. In the course of this, they will kill a number of slaveholders. And so the legend, the notoriety of john brown really arose as part of this struggle that people locally understand is really the beginning of the civil war. Sunday at 2 00 p. M. On American History tv, we visit the nra National Sporting arms museum. Cutera was probably our shooting is Theodore Roosevelt was probably our shootingest president. The first thing he did when he left office was organize and go on a large hunting safari to africa. This particular rifle was prepared specifically for roosevelt. It had the president ial seal engraved on the breach, and of course, roosevelt was famous for the Bull Moose Party, and there is a full news bull moose engraved on the side of this gun. Tour,ch cspans cities sprinkled, missouri springfield, missouri. Working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. Next two and a half hours from an event focusing on north korea and the kim regime. We begin with a testimony of a former official at the north Korean Embassy in london who defected with his family in 2016. This hearing before the House Foreign Affairs committee took place in early november