The union address. This was hosted by axios. Good morning. Happy morning after. Thank you for coming out to the state of the union post game. I appreciate the bank of america for making these conversations possible. We have a fantastic triple crown, tripleheader lineup this morning, people who were in the chamber for helping make the news and are going to illuminate it for us. Axios makes you smarter faster on topics that matter, business tech, media, politics and our events follow the same format. They are quick and we start with what happens and why it matters. Thats the formula you always get in the axios stream when you go on axios. Com. Every story starts as one phone screen, and in that whats new, what is happening, why it matters to make you smarter faster. Id like to thank my axios events colleagues for pulling together this fantastic event, and thank all of you for being here. Were going to start. We have three guests today, and our first guest this morning who has seen 35 addresses to Congress States ofunion representative from the Fifth DistrictPrince Georges County maryland House Democratic whip congressman steny hoyer. What an honor. Thank you so much. Thank you, mike. So we were just talking with sen. Or college that collins stage. We were just talking with senator collins back stage. You have seen 35, 36 states of the Union Addresses to congress but this is the first time the president has ever he was director of flapping. He likes to do that. He did it in all his speeches and he comes out clapping. He leads the clapping, tells you, he ought to have an applause sign, time to applaud. He got the reaction he wanted, but it was i thought a disappointing speech. It was billed as very bipartisan bring us together speech, and i think for the first may be quarter of the speech that was true the thin it turned pretty dark i thought. The president said he wanted to make us safer, stronger, prouder. Not sure whether he is accomplished any of those things either in the world or in our country. In many ways he has spent most of last year, almost all of the last year doing two things with the republican congress. Trying to repeal the Affordable Care act and passed the tax bill that we think does not really help the middle class working people of this country. In fact, will pass a Credit Card Debt along to all of our children. So a call for unity, New York Times headlineappeal for headline appeal for unity in the state of the union. This is the more positive tone that weve seen from this president in the past. What do you make of it . A more positive tone at the beginning. I think it turned pretty dark towards the end. Why do you think that is . Who was he talking to at the beginning and the end . His talking points in the beginning he was talking to a talking to his base at the end. I think he was trying to cover himself, the positive of course was in terms of Immigration Reform which is one of the principal issues we need to pursue, that he offered covering 1. 8 million daca signees and eligibles, and protecting them and providing them on a path to citizenship. But then he pointed out that he put a bipartisan proposal to the congress, which i dont think any democrat thought it was bipartisan. No democrats have signed onto that bipartisan proposal, though there are bipartisan proposals i by mr. Durbin, mr. Graham in the senate and holy we can and hopefully we can pursue those and hopefully his statement about how far he wants to go and who he wants toinclude will dominate speculative tweet yesterday from the president s memorable line from the speech and very much aspace, something Axios Jonathan swann reports this morning is something a president has said before in private. The president said americans are dreamers, too, and you tweeted you have it backwards. Well, americans are dreamers but what his, and, of course, was, we understand you dreamers, many of whom came with us, i had a young woman, gabriella hernandez. She is a wonderful 19yearold. She came from el salvador at the age of four and has gone to Elementary School middle school, high school. She now in college, once to be a social worker. Delightful young woman. At 19 i had nowhere near the poise that she had, but, and shes a dreamer and she dreams of making a life here which is why most people into this country. They dreamed of a better life for themselves and their families. And i think what he was doing, we are dreamers, too. Of course thats the case. Americans are dreamers. Americans have visions, have made a great country because of that vision and willingness to work hard. But the point is, the overwhelming number of americans almost 90 of americans are saying and identifying these young people who came here through no conscious effort of americans ine every sense of the word and are dreaming of what they can do to make their lives better and americas lives better. Pics we thought it was an attempt to diminish their perspective. Read you a text i got last from someone close to the white house, mr. Hoyer, as the House Democratic whip you help set the message, set the tone for the party, Party Discipline and texted somebody, somebody said democrats are looking angry as the president talks about unity. And bad optics. Were you a little concerned about that . There was some hissing. There was very little i think demonstrations. As a matter fact, specifically i think stoically and quietly. One of the problems is we think the president rhetoric does not purport with his actions, does not purport with what is done. As a city aspent most of you as i said he spent most of the year trying to repeal the Affordable Care act which we think was damaging. The big cheer on their side was the ones he cheered for, too. Repealing the mandate. That will result in 13 Million People not having access to affordable, quality healthcare. We dont think that is a sheer line. What we use was a very quiet, not happy and disappointed i think democratic majority on our side. Very quiet, not happy. Very quiet and not happy. So in your statement after the state of the union you said the state of Donald Trumps presidency may be perilous. What do you mean by that . I think he said stronger, better, and safer, proud. Ironically, he says that we are a better standing in the world. Every polling data throughout the world shows thats not true and, in fact, respect to the United States and confidence in the United States has plummeted. Thats dangerous not only for the United States but its dangerous for the International Community that they dont think they can rely on a steady hand of the leader of the free world, which is the United States of america. And in terms of again safer and stronger, you are not stronger if you do not have health care. You are not stronger if you dont have some stability in your economy. We think that he vastly overstated the results of his presidency. After all, for six years prior to that there was more job growth. So when he says his greatest economic growth, thats not true. We are pleased that the hispanic and africanamerican unemployment has gone down, but its been going down for some number of years. This president was advantaged i a growingriting economy. An economy that was less than 5 unemployment as opposed to his predecessor, president obama, who inherited an economy in peril. And he brought it up as continued to go up and thats good news and hopefully it will continue. The tax bill we think is however in the longterm going to be detrimental to the economy. And certainly in terms of middleclass working people that they talked about and he talked about that as well, those taxes of course will be phased out. The taxes on the upper 1 will continue. Mr. Hoyer, since you came to congress as as a young man and in a special election in may 1981, you have seen the majority change hands three times back and forth and back 94, you had a newrevolution, new revolution, democrats got it back in 2006. Republicans of course took the majority back in 2010. What is your after going back and forth and back, what is your optimism that injanuary 2019 you will be for the majority against . I think we will win. I think the environment is such that you see it all over the country. You see two phenomena. Number one come with a lot of candidates who want to run and a lot of districts, almost 100 districts now were we really good candidates in. Are all of them competitive . Maybe not but a large of a, charlie cooks is a larger number that it is enough for us to take back the majority. Secondly, what you see on the republican side, use retirements particularly districts that are swing districts figures and republican members decide not to run for reelection. You see throughout the election weve seen in virginia, in new jersey, alabama, in wisconsin just two weeks ago, you see a real energy on our side and a disinterest would overstated but a lack of enthusiasm on the republican side. That kind of context which happened in 2006 on our side positively, and on 2010 positively for the republicans side, you saw significant swings. And i see this election is being in the context, and i think were on the upside. The president s popularity is very low, in the 30s. And when you see that historically, you see significant shift of membership in the house of representatives. What is the likelihood that you get the majority . I think it is 90 . How many seats do you pick up . I think we would pick up 30 plus, which is, by the way, pretty close to the average turnover and a by election if that is, the second you election of a president. Now its not always that way but its an average. What do you need . We need 24. 24. So youre protecting a good cushion. I dont think good cushion. It will be tough. You are going to have a narrow majority . I think 30 is a minimum frankly. Depends upon where we are six months from now. I think in the summer, first of all, you see people pretty much having made up their mind. When you saw the alabama election, president went down to pensacola to try to energize his base, to bring somebody who we thought and obviously the majority of alabamians thought was not prepared to be nor should he have been a member of United States senate. But the president urged his election because he needed it. They went to the polls and our base was very energized and went in big numbers. Wasnt that trumps people voted for doug jones. It was that they simply didnt come out. That happen in virginia as well. So you think in the republic you think in the midterms, republicans will turn out . I think there will be a depressed turnout because i think they are not energize and i think there are a lot of republicans who are somewhat disappointed with trumps not changing. They voted for him but expected him to be more president ial. Now, on the two speeches hes given to the joint sessions of congress hes been pretty president ial because he was locked in to the teleprompter. But when he is not locked into the teleprompter and he is freewheeling, he hasnt done very well. Mr. Hoyer, ive come to going back to the top i was a metroreporter at the Washington Post and over the course of your career you boys push the idea of the coveting more convenient and efficient and customer friendly. What is the biggest gap, what is the biggest change that needs to happen in government for it to beconsidered customer friendly . I said we need to get really technologically much more able to communicate and to be responsive to the public, and the public is much more Information Available to them. What would be an example of the type of information . Well, for instance, i think one thing the constituents have is a window on the confrontation. They really dont see congress or the government working in a a positive fashion because thats not really news. Its working, okay, go a long, its working but i think they need to have greater access. I think cspan gives them that, gavel to gavel coverage. Thank you to cspan, we have cspan with us today. But, unfortunately, even that come tickling the house of come tickling the house ofrepresentatives theres very few times when there are large members on the floor voting and milling around. But on the debate it is with the confrontational debates that really get paid attention to. But also in terms of just responding, having a question, a problem, having some information that they want and being able to get that. Just as they can get it, you have axios. Com. Right. Can move back and forth. We are working to make sure that we are more technologically available. You have a number of, a lot of federal workers in your district. How optimistic are you about avoiding a shutdown two . Rep. Hoyer i do hope we avoid a shutdown. Mike allen is any chance there will be a shutdown . Rep. Hoyer any chance . Yes, theres always a chance. I dont think well have shutdown. I think thats, we dont want a shutdown. Mike allen i think you kind of learned your lesson . Rep. Hoyer it wasnt so much we learned our lesson. I think you may be right on that in a certain sense, but in the other sense, we are a party that thinks the government needs to be operating and serve the people. Its been shutdown five times consciously, purposely over the last 20 years by republicans have used that as policy. Thats thats not our policy. What happened this last time is we have two major things that we need agreement on. We are now a quarter or a third in the fiscal year. We still dont have a single appropriation bill sent to the president of the United States to fund any agency of government, not one. That i think is unprecedented, and particularly it is unprecedented when you the president of the house and senate majorities. One of the reasons is because the republicans refuse to compromise onwhat the spending number is going to be. The irony of that is weve had the same agreement that were asking for the last four years. Senator murray and speaker ryan agreed that the increase in domestic and defense spending would be equal. Thats all we ask for but we havent gotten that agreement and, therefore, the republicans have been unable to get come in the house, obviously simply rolls, they have enough numbers. In the senate then needs to give it refusing to compromise to move appropriation bills forward. Mr. Hoyer, as a second by, your big moviegoer. You saw the post about the pentagon papers. What your take away or the lesson of the post for todays america . Rep. Hoyer i thought was an excellent movie but any movie with meryl streep and is it excellent i think. But it think the message is the more transparent we are, the better decisions we can make in a democracy and information that people have. Obviously, this is a perfect example of where internally there was a lot of consternation and reservation about the vietnam effort. But externally information the public was getting is we are succeeding, doing well, and the light is at the end of the tunnel. But the experts inside didnt believe that. Had the American Public had more information sooner, perhaps we would have corrected our actions before we get. Mike allen steny hoyer your scene at all. Thanks for with us. Rep. Hoyer thank you. [applause] mike allen really appreciate that. Take the secret files rep. Hoyer my secret files. Mike allen thank you very much, mr. Hoyer. What a treat. Now its my honor to welcome somebody who played a a vital role in getting thegovernment restarted recently, consistent rank as one of themost effective senators, someone that is always at the top of the list of republicans and people and make things happens in the city, senator Susan Collins of maine. What an honor. Thank you so much for coming here. [applause] ns and thank you. Mike allen senator collins and i often see each other on a thursday night, American Airlines flight to bangor maine axios ceo has a a placeup there, and senator collins, when you get off that plane, yougo to place that most people would call a cab and pick up there they call it. Collins a camp. Mike allen tell me about. Its a beautiful, Pristine Lake called a coldstream pond. My favorite place in the world. But i have seen you out kayaking. I dont understand this. Its because, its because im surfing. [laughing] on those huge, crashing waves. Maybe we should stick with the paddle boards. Anyway, senator collins, thank you so much. What was like to be in the chamber last night . You have a complicated relationship with thispresident. It was a fascinating evening. I kept thinking that the president s speech was so eclectic. On the one hand, you heard him pitch for Immigration Reform, for controlling the high cost ofprescription drug, for a brandnew infrastructure package. And then you heard him saying we got to crack down on drug dealers, which appeals more to my side of the aisle. But then he said he wanted prison reform. So he covers a lot of territory,and you couldnt pigeonhole the speech. It was neither liberal speech or a conservative speech. It really was all over the place and touched a lot of important areas. Mike allen is donald trump, is President Trump growing on you . The president is the president and [laughing] i accept that. And i say that actually in seriousness. I think it has been difficult for many people in this country, still a year later, to accept the fact that donald trump is our president. He was not my choice for the republican candidate, but i respect the fact that he is the president and i work with him. Mike allen senator collins, i mentioned in the introduction your Common Sense Coalition helped get the government reopened. The Commonsense Coalition has its roots in 2013. Could you tell us literally what it is, how many members you started with, how many people come to your meetings now . Collins well, we start the coalition back in 2013 when government was shutdown, and it was obviously extremely harmful to the economy. It happened during the peak tourism season, so it had an especially adverse impact on my constituents. And it represented to me the ultimate failure to govern. So when government shutdown, when it was obvious that friday that we were not going to have the votes to keep government open, i reconvened the group. There been a lot of changes over the years, but 17 senators, democrats and republicans and independents, angus king, showed up in my office in response to my email, and the group kept growing so that its now about 26 members. And we worked night and day. We work friday. We met saturday. We met sunday. Mike allen this is senators pic this is no staff, right . Sen. Collins thats correct what you think was a key to our success with all due respect to the wonderful staff that we have. But people, and as a former staffer myself. But people have to talk more frankly and give their more candid views if there are not other people in the room. So i had to keep feeding them Girl Scout Cookies and Dunkin Donuts coffee and that sort of thing. The girl scouts sent me three boxes of cookies. They were so happy about it. Mike allen you tweeted a picture the other day. Sen. Collins exactly. But to me its very encouraging that there is that large a number of senators who are willing to make government work again. And thats what we really need. Mike allen so over the years that are always stories about how well have a sudden flexing of the muscles in the center, and after the government reopened, front page story in the l. A. Times pick up and actions can they see our meetings in your office, offered a glimpse of how a new senate could break from the hyper partisanship in washington to govern. How optimistic are you that were going to head inthat direction . Sen. Collins i am encouraged were continuing to meet. I cant believe howgood the attendance has been, whether we meeting deep in the evening or early in the morning. People are coming. People are calling me and wanting to join the effort, all of a sudden. And in all seriousness, i think that thats a good sign for our country. We have to get away from the hyper partisanship that has led to gridlock on far too many issues, and lowered the publics confidence in our ability to get anything done. Theres a question about that. The ratings for center like the ratings for the press. Effectiveness is a big part of that. How does leader mcconnell view to the efforts of your coalition . Sen. Collins he was very complimentary of the work that we did to reopen government. In general, i dont think that leaders on either side of the aisle are particularly enamored by groups that are trying to perhaps work out compromises. But our approach ends with the shutdown to come up with the plan and give it to the two leaders, encourage them to take it, talk with them. We sent delegations to mitch mcconnell, delegations to chuck schumer. And we got them talking with one another. So if we can be a catalyst for better working relationship among our leaders, i think that matters. Mike allen senator collins, in addition to Girl Scout Cookies and Dunkin Donuts coffee, you have a talking stick. Sen. Collins this is true. Heidi heitkamp of north dakota gave me come severalyears ago when we were negotiating a bill, a talking stick. Its beautifully beaded and i used it to control the debate in the room because as you can imagine, when you have 2025 senators sitting around an office, each thinks that he or she should be the first to speak, and theres a lot of crosstalk. And i wanted to make sure that in addition to everybody getting an opportunity to speak, everybody listen to one another so i would pass this stick around. Believe it or not it worked. We are not using it right now, we used it for all the shutdown meetings, and it did help to ensure that everyone had a chance to speak and to be heard. Mike allen so you got other senators to obey . Sen. Collins [laughter] well, i dont know whether it was so unexpected that i would pull out this stick, but people were very respectful of each others views. Mike allen you talked about personal to President Trump during the health care debate. What is President Trump like behind the scenes . Sen. Collins he tends to be very gracious, and he tends to listen. He will say, well, that sounds reasonable. Now, sometimes when he talks with his staff afterwards he changes his mind. On what is reasonable. But we all do that in public life when we get more information, but i found that he listens to me on some issues. I believe that he still needs at times to react to rapidly and i wish he wouldnt do Early Morning tweets myself, but it does allow him to reach people directly and im sure thats what he likes mike allen and would you say the president has room to grow . Sen. Collins coming into government, you have to remember that this president was the first president weve ever had who had no experience in the military, no experience in government so the learning curve has been steep for anyone who comes in with a business background and without experience in government or in the military. So he is still feeling his way as far as understanding how best to interact with congress and recognizing whose role is what. Mike allen senator collins, maine and the bangor area in particular is Trump Country and Trump Country took a lot of people in this room by surprise. People didnt understand what was happening around the country and like you are in close touch with your constituents, you saw it coming. Help us understand Trump Country. Sen. Collins im from northern maine and that definitely is Trump Country. Maine is a microcosm of the country in many ways but we only have two congressional districts. The Second District voted for donald trump by 11 votes, the first District Voted for Hillary Clinton by 14 percent points and so theres a real split in maine. The southern part is more prosperous. The northern and western parts of the state have been hit so hard by the loss of paper mills and other Traditional Industries where people use to be able to work for their entire lives and have a good pension, a good life and whats happened is those hardworking people through, no fault of their own have lost their jobs and often times what has happened is the paper mills have gone from being owned i by traditional Paper Companies to being owned by private equity firms, on wall street and often times they have a much shorter time frame in their commitment to the area, but not really as involved as owners in the community and i think a lotof those people feel very betrayed. They didnt do anything wrong. They worked hard, they were the best papermakers in the world and yet they found themselves losing their jobs. So donald trump cashed in to that very understandable discontent, and his talk on trade, which doesnt go over well in washington circles resonates with these individuals. Mike allen the paper mills, up there they call it the small smell of money and i heard you say that the trunk country irritation is understandable. Sen. Collins it is, it absolutely is. I dont think in years past that enough was done to help these displaced workers. If you are 52 years old, not in particularly good health, had what you thought was agreat, secure job, showed up at work every single day. Raise your family, educated your children and all of a sudden you find out you are out of work and there are very few programs to help people find themselves in. Situation and one thing that hasnt been tied to that by anyone that was in thepresident s speech last night was an emphasis on workforcetraining. Mike allen why should people in this room care about the Opioid Crisis . Sen. Collins the Opioid Crisis is devastating our communities and our families in this country. It is particularly a problem in rural states like mine. Last night, my guest in the state of the union told me the tragic story of her own son he spent two years in rehabilitation, and is still in recovery, hes doing very well right now but it cost that family all the money they saved for decades for his college education. Hes now back in school, is doing much better. Senator shaheens guest last night was the woman who had lost her child to the Opioid Crisis. It is everywhere, and no family is immune. Senator collins, ultimate question, youre the most senior republican woman in the senate this year. As leaders know, a Record Number of women at Time Magazine was the avengers, first they marched,now they ran which is quite clever. How optimistic are you that women running would be interested in that and translate into actual power over here . We have some excellent candidates in arizona, an extraordinarywoman of great accomplishment and the women in the senate stand the ed ideological spectrum as you might expect and we dont think alike and i always want to push back against that stereotype, but we do bring different Life Experiences to the job, and that does matter. I remember when i was first elected in 1997, there were only nine women in the senate. There were not a sufficient number of women to be represented and thats not good. Now we have a record high of 22, but ill tell you a great maine fact. When i was elected i was only the 15th woman in history to be elected in her own right which boggles my mind, since its not exactly ancient history. There were others who followed their husbands into elected office, but three of those women were from the great state of maine so we have a great record in my state. That is a great fact. Allie rubin have given me the hook up so we have to be quick but i have to ask you on your twitter feed, you said you are probably standing with four former usa Gymnastic Team members whoshowed incredible courage as they told their personal experiences. Sen. Collins that was such a moving experience and for those of us who read or watched part of the victims statements, in doctor nassers trial, how could you not be so angry and appalled that there were 157 women who came forward who were abused as girls by this horrible monster, and the good news is we have not just talked about this issue, which , dianertant in of itself feinstein and i led the effort in the senate. We introduced the bill to try to prevent anyone from sweeping under the rug allegations of sexual abuse, and that bill got its final passage by the senate just yesterday and is on the way to the president s desk. Its going to require the physicians, trainers, anyone who is associated with the amateur Athletics Organization to report allegations of sexual abuse in 24 hours. And that is powerful, but what was even more powerful is hearing the story,something of these brave men and women who come forward and inspired us to take action. Mike allen this is an example of the government can work fast when it has to or needs to. The government can pass what it needs to. Will the government sign this . Sen. Collins exactly. Mike allen how big a difference you think that will make for government . Sen. Collins i think it sends a signal to young women that they dont have to remain silent when they are abused and that they are not going to lose their chance to be in a olympics which i think a lot of these young girls got and some of them were so young they didnt even recognize what was happening to them until they were older. And it was just a horrific situation, and i was very proud that the judge made doctor nasser listen to each of these survivors of abuse. And im very hopeful that this tells those young girls and women that weve got their back. Mike allen senator collins, thank you for a very positive message. [applause] thank you so much for being with us and we appreciate bank of america making these conversations possible and now we will see a quick video from bank of america and i will be back. You look at the kind of things in the world that we can use, the people we know the , contacts weve made, to hopefully make a better world with respect to some of the issues of today, like climate change, and we should be able to do it by being smart. We start to brainstorm how could we bring Financial Instruments to the table that would enable us to scale. Have to be creative together. We partner with them to create a subsidiary onassets in concert with them and help drive down the cost of capital so that they can sell more at a more competitive price. Because of how lowrisk these investments are, the pension funds, insurance companies, sophisticated money managers, all clients of bank of america , they are now investing directly. I love it when i go meet with the ceo or cfo and i find the common link in how we can connect our firm to them. It is helping the causes that we believe in. Thank you very much to bank of america for that message and now its our honor to have with us top democrat from the house intelligence committee, someone who as you see is in the thick of the news every single day, a great photo at the top of guesta. M. Had our yesterday surrounded by media. Its an honor to have with us and coming in on his way tothe capital to brief us democrats, congressman schiff from california. Thank you very much for being here. [applause] thank you very much. You had your son at the capital last night. What were his impressions inside the chamber . My son isn schiff 15, the first time i brought him to the state of the union and i wanted to give him a chance to form his own impressions. These are his parents talking about the president quite a bit and in fact i remember picking him up at camp over the summer and one of the nice things about camp is you are deprived of all your electronics and during the time he was in the president had called me sleazy and i didnt want him to learn about this from others, i wanted to tell him but my son is like many young boys talk on the outside, maybe not as tough on the inside so i wasnt sure how he was going to react so my wife and i went to pick him up and i said eli, i need to tell you about something that happened during camp, its not a big deal but i want you to know the president called your dad sleazy. And i looked for his reaction and he took a moment to kind of process this, its not every day the president of the united father, orlts your actually, maybe it is. [laughter] and he thinks about it for a moment and then he says, can i call you sleazy . [laughter] to which i responded, only if you want me to call you sleazy junior. But he is not entirely fascinating. The spectacle of the state of the union, seeing the president in person, watching the reaction of people around him, these found it totally fascinating. Found it totally fascinating. Mike allen congressman schiff, where did you think you were going to be at this moment . Congressman schiff we were supposed to interview steve bannon today. This is another effort to get answers from Mister Bannon. That has been postponed and we are setting another date where we hope he will come in and answer questions. Mike allen why was it postponed . Congressman schiff according to Mister Bannons counsel, because they needed more time to work out privileged issues. That may be the case or it may be they didnt want Mister Bannons testimony to step on the state of the union. Obviously theres close coordination between Mister Bannons counsel and the white house. In fact, Mister Bannons counsel represents several others in the white house including don mcgann , so its never easy to find out what the true motivation is but that was the ostensible motivation for the postponement. Mike allen and when steve bannon appeared before you, the white house said it was okay for him to talk about the campaign transition, orhe his time in the west wing. Will that objection hold . No. Ressman schiff and this is the dissidence of the white house. You have Sarah Huckabee sanders day we are being fully transparent. At the same time you have the white house telling Steve Barrons lawyer, do not allow steve bannon to answer questions about anything that happened during the transition or about anything that happened while he was in the administration and even after he left the administration, there are lots of things we dont want him talking about. Thats not transparency and is not how privilege works . Mike allen is their legitimate privilege objective to former west wing officials talking about what happened inside the west wing . Congressman schiff there may be certainly a very limited specific executive privilege that could be claimed as to certain conversations with the president. Under certain circumstances. But there is no precedent whatsoever to say this whole period of time is offlimits, you cant talk about it because we asked Mister Bannon refused , to answer. You cant talk about whether you were in a meeting, what you saw, you cant talk about conversations you had with others. And its never been applied to the transition, so this is a wholly unprecedented and unsustainable claim of privilege. They will not claim this privilege before the special counsel and theres also no precedent to say that the privilege exists viscvis Congress Even if its waived by special counsel. Mike allen my question on this most important thing. Most important thing that you want to learn from steve bannon . Congressman Schiff Steve Bannon has a lot to say about the russian investigation. These expressed concerns about Money Laundering, somethingthat also concerns me a great deal. He described that meeting in trump tower is not only unpatriotic but treasonous. We like to know some of the reasons why he feels this was of that severity but obviously he , could shed a lot of light on events that took place during the campaign. Mike flynns interactions with the Russian Ambassador and his private efforts to undermine the sanctions imposed over russias interference in the election and the false statement that comes out of the administration about that june trump tower meeting. He would probably have like to shed on that as well. Mike allen the president we saw how was the microphone last night saying 100 percent, a Republican House member urged him to release acontroversial memo out of your committee about the originsof russian investigation. You have seen this 3. 5 page classified memo, when it comes out, what is going to be the consequence . Congressman schiff its difficult to say what the consequence is. We know obviously the department of justice and fbi feel this is an extraordinarily reckless step to take because the information has been vetted. They havent been able to do analysis of what the impact sources and methods are and while that analysis is supposed to go on, the president hasnt even read the memo and hes 100 percent certain hes going to release it. Mike allen i can tell you the president feels that the memo vindicates his contention that the origins of the investigation are tainted. Is there anything in this memo that would vindicate the president . Congressman schiff no. Course this is the same president who felt vindicated when chairman nunez went to the white house to present evidence that showed a vast unmasking conspiracy in the obama administration. The president said literally i feel vindicated or somewhat vindicated and of course there was nothing presented that vindicated him and the material had been obtained from the white house. Now, im handicapped from discussing at this point whats in the gop memo, but i think you can probably tell all you need to know about it by the fact that the chairman and even chairman had not even bothered to read the underlying document that characterizes. I made a motion in the committee to allow the department of justice and fbi to come into our committee to brief members on inaccuracies in the memo, lack of context in the memo, concerns about sources and methods, if it were to be released. On a partyline vote, the gop members voted against being informed of what the context, the underlying documents were which they also havent read with only one exception so this is not about the facts. This is about a narrative that the chairman wants to put out, a misleading narrative to undermine the fbi, undermine the department and ultimately undermine mueller and the danger in all this is the obvious one of politicizing the intelligence process is that it sends a message to the white house that you can fire Rod Rosenstein or fire Robert Mueller and there are members who are so vested in his presidency that they will roll over. And that will cause a considerable crisis. Mike allen what do you think is the likelihood that bob mueller will be fired . Congressman schiff i dont know. it obviously was something the president tried to do earlier. If bob mueller gets too close to the president , bob mueller looks at the Money Laundering issue and thats too threatening for the president , theres no telling what this president will do. What im more worried about at the moment is that he fires Rod Rosenstein. He knows the blowback that would accompany firing the special counsel so he fires Rod Rosenstein, puts in his own person then becomes bob muellers boss and you say to bob mueller, you cant look into this, you cant look into that, you need to end your investigation here. But thats not going to fly with bob mueller. Congressman Schiff Bob Mueller will only then have a choice. Does he accept these limitations placed on him by the new deputy chief or does heresign . Thats not a position the country or bob mueller should be put in. Mike allen it sounds like we are headed towards a constitutional crisis of some sort. Congressman schiff i dont know, but i do know that what the house is doing right now, this is more likely not less. At a time when members of congress should be speaking out in both parties and telling the president you need to leave this investigation alone. You already fired the fbi director over russia. You did everything you could to push out the Deputy Director of the fbi. You have done everything you could to push out others within the department of justice including our own attorney general. All of the russian investigation, you need to back off because if you do this, if you commit your own saturday night massacre, this will bring down this administration. Mike allen percent conflicted what do you think the president has 100 percent conflicted in this memo . Heres the schiff chronology. The chairman of the gop announced they were going to release the memo. I should back up. The gop announced they will release this memo to the house. Gop members of the Committee Say dont worry, this isnt going to become public, we are not that reckless but they had suggested to the Sean Hannitys of the world that this is the mostincriminating things and watered it. By the time they put this outthere, they can no longer constrain the forces that havegrown as a result. So the same members said we dont think it would be to make be prudent to make this they suddenly change their position. Now the chairman says were going to make this public. The fbi director, the fbi and department of justice are not allowed to read this. The fbi director is finally allowed to comment on sunday, the day before they put this out. He raises concerns about it. On monday he and the Deputy Attorney general go to the white house and say dont do this. Theyve already said it would be extraordinarily reckless. The president says 100 percent, im doing it. We have not even read it, we have not vetted it, but i can tell you 100 percent im going to do it. It. This doesnt surprise anyone about this president. No one had any doubt that the priority here is not national security, not the country, its not the interest of justice. Its just the naked personal interests of the president. Mike allen last question congressman schiff. I know that your schedule is pretty tight. Have facebook and twitter you twitter, google, been fully cooperative . I would notschiff say fully cooperative. We are waiting for facebook to produce the advertisements that were redacted. This was committed after we had our hearing and we demonstrated for the first time some of the images that were shared with the American People during the campaign. They made a commitment within weeks to scrub them of identifiable information so we can release them to the public, that has not happened and its been months so i cant say that theyve been fully cooperative. I also asked them to produce a report together about how the russians use these platforms interchangeably and in connection with each other, something that we in congress are not in the best position to do. Mike allen it has been months and they have not complied. What is your lever to get them to comply . Think then schiff i Companies Realize that the concerns over the impact of these technologies are growing. And congressional interest in this is growing. And if they appear reluctant to work with congress, reluctant to cooperate with congress, thats not a good position to be in. Im a proud californian, im very proud of Silicon Valley and the contributions that sector has made to our economy that we are recognizing some of the serious abuses of these platforms, unintended consequences of these platforms that need to be addressed. Mike allen congressman schiff, thank you for making time for us on a very busy morning. Congressman adam schiff of california, thank you for joining us. Thank you all for being with us for our state of the union post game. I like to thank bank of america for making these conversations possible. Staff, aroundtheclock and my many other colleagues were here, Margaret Mitchell and neil rothschild, many others who are here, grateful to you all and all of you for coming out so early this morning and i look forward to seeing you on axios. Com. Thank you. [applause] President Trump will be at the republican legislative retreat in West Virginia today. He will talk to gop lawmakers. That is live on cspan. Supreme Court Justice sits down for a discussion. Life coverage begins at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan two. Washington journal, like every day with news and policy that impacts you. Wasserman discusses his new project on gerrymandering. Then the future of the daca program and Trump Administration immigration policy. With our life and montgomery, inbama we are live montgomery, alabama. Ashingtono watch seven eastern. At about life conversations books. As a special project, were featuring bestselling feature writers. Join us live sunday. The Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Series with colson ontehead, on book tv cspan2. Nancy pelosi and other House Democrats reacted to President Trumps first estate of the union address. They were critical of his remarks on immigration, infrastructure, and tax reform