Debt for being with us. Thank you for being with us. We have sarah ferris with politico. And jennifer with roll call. Lets begin with the budget rollcall act. You face a deadline. Remind us how we got to this point. The budget cap. Thank you. In 2011, there was a special committee of 16 members of the house and senate. Their goal was to come up with a deficit reduction plan. The process was under the budget control act, which ultimately passed, they set motion sequestration. If these 16 people could not come to an agreement in a way to reduce the deficit, there would be automatic budget cuts. It has a 10 year duration. It expires after 2021. Right now, if we dont by statute increase the levels part of the budget control act, we will face cuts of about 125 billion. Equally allocated against the defense and nondefense side. We have this cliff you are talking about. There is also the crisis of the debt ceiling which could have effects on the financial markets. I want to know, how much of the burden is on democrats to find a solution that can work, a deal with republicans, if it is not an ideal situation. Democrats were able to weed out President Trump until he basically decided to reopen the government. There are very real consequences. How do you see democrats addressing that situation . Why ask when we came out of the shutdown, we passed an agreement on spending levels. We all thought it was reasonable. It wasnt perfect from our perspective. It continued funding at a reasonable level through 2018 and 2019. Until september 30, this year. As we approached negotiations for 2020, we said now we are in the majority, we should expect no worse a deal than what we negotiated at the beginning of the shutdown. I think republicans in the senate understand that very well. If left to the house and senate, we would be on the verge of not having reached an agreement. This is not a twosided negotiation. This is three or 47. Sometimes, the white house has two sides. I think we could find a deal but im not sure what the white house is going to agree to. The talks so far have blown up. When the president walked out in a meeting with speaker pelosi. This past week, the Senate Republican senators went to the white house to talk about a budget deal. Democrats were not invited. That is not exactly the best way to negotiate either. Hopefully we can deal with the debt ceiling. We have a statutory debt ceiling, the only country in the industrialized world other than denmark that has one. I wish we could repeal it. We reach it periodically. And then we have to, congress has to act to raise the limit. We have to do it by mid july. We could go later. The safest time is mid july and that would keep us from potentially defaulting on our debts which would be a disaster. Would you like to see the debt ceiling addressed with the spending caps, or is there a negotiating room . I would personally like to see it negotiated as part of the cap steel. The president s chief of staff, i dont think he wants to do that. I think he wants to go as close to the edge of the cliff as he can. He would like to see deeper cuts, particularly in the nondefense side of the budget. The secretary at the treasury would like to do a deal that includes the caps. Get that done as soon as possible. The house and senate, i think, are not going to have a problem as long as we can get some sort of cooperation from the white house. Could you explain what democrats want . You say you do not want less of a deal. What is it exactly democrats want . In the original budget control discussions, there was some legislative history. However we treated the Defense Budget, we would treat nondefense spending the same way. What we are asking for, we have asked for an increase in defense and nondefense. They be equal. If you are increasing the Defense Budget by 15 billion for instance, you would increase nondefense spending by 15 billion. A great deal of the nondefense discretionary budget involves national security. The fbi, the fda. A lot of people think, the nondefense side is social programs and that is far from the truth. In addition to disagreement about how much to raise spending levels, there is disagreement about whether to do another twoyear deal or one deal. Would then accredits except a oneyear agreement or would you accept a twoyear deal. We would accept a oneyear deal if the numbers are right. We would much prefer two years because that takes us out of the situation of having to go back next year. Nobody wants sequestration. The reason this was put in was everybody thought it was such an overly destructive process that no one would want to do it and there would be a greater incentive to reach a negotiated solution. But true to form, that was not enough of an incentive every to we are stuck with it. Nobody likes it. Even hal rogers. He said it would be absurd to try to meet the countrys needs at sequestration levels. There is no appetite for these cuts that would emerge if we could not do it statutorily. If we get a oneyear deal that is appropriate and suitable, absolutely. I am going to ask about an issue emboldening a lot of members of your caucus. Impeachment. You have said you think this is inevitable. What do you think over the next several months could galvanize the rest of your caucus to that position . Do you think that needs to happen this year or is there a chance they would be willing to do this in 2020 even though it is an Election Year . Quiet ask i think it would be unfortunate if we had to wait until next year. Started impeachment process in the Election Year. It could happen that way. Our leadership might decide the only way to get public sentiment is to wait a little while. See what other evidence emerges from these investigations. I cosponsored a resolution last time. I am convinced the president has committed multiple impeachable offenses, the last two days ago when he said he would accept Campaign Opposition research. I do agree with speaker pelosi. There are other investigations going on into other entanglements with foreign governments. A clause where he is benefiting personally from his position in the white house. We ought to let these investigations go forward. We ought to do it as expeditiously as possible. I dont think we ought to wait until next year. We ought to initiate it this year. A majority does not support an inquiry including after what the president said this week about help from a foreign government. If that does not put them there, is there anything that could change their mind . Is this where we will be . What you are seeing is a significant majority that wants to follow speaker pelosis lead. If you asked our caucus, has the president committed impeachable offenses, the vast majority would say yes. I dont think there is a whole lot of difference as to what the president has done. The course of action, has less unanimity, you might say. In terms of the legislative agenda moving forward, it took lawmakers months to read a disaster aid to bill. It has been 67 weeks since the white house sent its supplemental request. It has taken a long time for lawmakers to get in a room together and start negotiating. What does that mean for the other items down the road like spending caps and debt limit. Do you think these are things we could be, well into december before we see results . The atmosphere for cooperation in normal legislative activities is not very good right now. Not conducive to getting things done. We passed a lot of important bills already in this congress. Mitch mcconnell has said, called himself the grim reaper because he intends to kill virtually everything that comes his way. Im not encouraged we can make progress on important priorities. In terms of the Appropriations Bills, we are moving expeditiously. We will be doing that in june. The majority leader has pledged our appropriations work will be done this month. The senate has its own timetable. They are going to markup their bills to a different set of numbers than we did. I dont think they are going to be so far off we couldnt come out with an agreement. The question is, what will the white house except . Even whether the president and Mick Mulvaney are in the same page. You guys have passed more than a half dozen of your agenda items. None of them have been signed into law. Do democrats need to acknowledge this reality and focus less on messaging bills . And more on items that can be done . Creating a dreamers bill that has republican support . Or a violence against women bill . There is support to create a pathway for dreamers. For the violence against women act. There is universal support in the country for doing something about Prescription Drug prices. We passed some legislation republicans say they want to deal with. I dont see why this should be any different. We are not sane, pass our bills. Take our bills and amend them if you want to. They are not willing to do that. To help us meet the priorities of the country and that is disturbing. We are not passing we will continue to do that. If the republicans in the Senate Continue to obstruct them, we will go next year and say come on give us a Democratic Senate and president. We have shown you what kind of government you will get. You have about 60 freshmen members going home to campaign that mean eight have legislation they are able to get signed into law. How can you address that before it really starts . I am not sure that is the way voters cast their ballots. The number one thing any candidate has to do, and my opinion, is to demonstrate empathy. Voters want to know you understand the challenges they are going through. You may not have a solution but you understand them. That is what our candidates did so well last year. They talked about health care. They know how to do that. They have done it in many cases. I have confidence they can go home and talk about what this house has done. Many of them have important positions. Many are chairing subcommittees. As long as they talk about them in a way that reflects their understanding of the way people live, i think our members are going to be fine. I went to ask if you have any plans to run for senate or a preferred candidate you want to see challenge Mitch Mcconnell. I have no plans to run for senate. I think we have potentially two excellent candidates. One is the former air force pilot who ran for a congressional seat last year and barely lost. She developed a great following here in kentucky. As well as a national following. She is looking at the race seriously. I think she is going to make the race. There is a guy named matt jones here. He has a sports radio talk show. A lot of conservative republican listeners who i think would vote for him. I think amy is probably the first target. I have talked to her. She is dedicated to public service. It will be the beddoe Orourke Ted Cruz race of 2020. The democrat in the beto ted cruz race, the democrat lost. Do you think a democrat can win especially against Mitch Mcconnell . If the race were in 2022 or 2018, i would say there was a much better chance. It is hard to tell with donald trump at the top of the ticket. He still is popular in parts of kentucky. On the other hand, mitch is very unpopular. His disapproval rating is over 50 . One of the questions is how much the top of the ticket will affect the senate race. The way i look at it, there will be no president ial campaign in kentucky next year. But there will be 50, 60, 70 million spent in the senate race. I would think most kentuckians would be focused more on the senate race than the president ial and that would give amy a chance. I want to go back to the work of your committee. You tried to put out a resolution to reach the floor that was unsuccessful. Is there anything you would have done differently to get that resolution to the floor . Or is this just the reality of the caucus you have . I think we felt if we had had any more time, we could have gotten the resolution we passed. On the other hand, it was not going to pass in the senate. We were constrained because of the commitment to appropriations. When you backup the timetable, the appropriators needed to start working. We had very little time to get a budget resolution done. We tried to get a statutory piece of legislation done. Again, we did not have enough votes on the floor. We passed a rule that deemed those numbers. If you take that resolution we passed on the floor and all the Appropriations Bills, you will see what the democratic budget looks like. We were not able to pass a resolution. It would have been nice. It was never going anywhere passed the house. Rather than waste time on that and keep working and still but not get enough votes, we decided to take the route we did. Will that be a sign of anything to come . You have to get key bills, potentially avoiding another shutdown . Are these tensions, do you think that will pose a problem . You will get a hint of that next week when we vote on a bill. We have five Appropriations Bills we have packaged together. They include the health and Human Services budget. A lot of members who dont want to vote for increased defense spending. A lot to think we should spend more on the human side, human investment side. The vote will give you an idea whether it is going to be a problem going forward. Time for a couple more questions. You are the chair of the budget committee. How often does that come up when you are back in the district . How much do your constituents care about that . Compared to other things that happen in washington . They dont talk to me about what happened to the budget resolution or why we did not pass that. They are not interested in process. Right now, they are asking, how are we going to get rid of donald trump . We have constituents interested in health care and education. The environment. They are not interested in the process. In terms of the budget process or even the appropriations process. They are not interested in how much we spend on individual programs. They are interested in living their lives. The house has successfully passed a hand fill of smaller bills. Drug pricing, smaller pieces of legislation. Do you think voters, after handing you the majority, are expecting something bigger . There has not been a lot of legislative action out of the house in health care. I suspect many of them do. I have a strong contingent who are for medicare for all. Which actually means Different Things to many of them. Generally speaking, they would like to see it expanded if not universal. They are not really that focused on what we are doing. They are more focused on what is happening in kentucky with medicaid. We have a governor who has done everything he can do to undo the most successful expansion of medicaid in the country under the Affordable Care act. We have a governors race this year. The constituents are focused on that. Tariffs have become a large part of the Economic Policy and foreign policy. Something there is a new news cycle almost every day on. Some of the tariffs led to rotella torrey tariffs from other countries. In whiskey. Bourbon is part of that. How is that impacting the economy of your state . What do voters think about these tariffs . Is this going to be an issue that ranks with health care and the economy people consider when choosing who to vote for . Bourbon is an a billiondollar dollar industry in kentucky. It has almost tripled in the last five years. The tariffs themselves, they do not affect bourbon domestically. They affect the ability of distillers to export their products and expand their products. Im not sure the citizens are concerned. We have lots of soybean farmers in kentucky. They have been devastated by the chinese backing out purchasing soybeans from the u. S. We have two major plants. The thirdlargest auto making plant, state in the country. These tariffs, particularly those threatened against mexico, that is what our people are really concerned about. They would devastate our auto industry. Between mexico and the u. S. It is a huge economic factor in kentucky. The Global Headquarters of ups is in my district. They want as much trade as possible. To the extent tariffs reduce trade, that affects them. There is a lot of angst over the tariff strategy. We will have to leave it there. We have covered a lot with you. Thank you so much for being this weeks newsmaker. Thank you for having me. We turn to the two of you. We will start with you. The budget cap, control act. Deadline is september 30. One of the prospects . A democraticcontrolled house and senate, coming to a deal. You get a sense of the unpredictability. You have the chairman unable to confidently say he will be in a bill to avoid a crisis. This is something that is unprecedented in recent history. A president who said he wants to see the sequestration. Advisors and congress. They were calling for these cuts. Mick mulvaney was one of the biggest advocates. Democrats and Republican Leaders of the socalled establishment are trying to talk them out of this decision. There are only a couple of months until september 30. They are going to be gone for several weeks, and that is something they have to address sooner rather than later. The senate and the house have not made much progress. Quiets saying they dont want sequestration. Explain to people why they do not want that. No one once these acrosstheboard cuts. One of the other things important to remember, even though the fiscal year does begin october 1, if they have until the end of december 2 region agreement and work out their final bills, the sequestration would not take effect until 15 days after the end of this session. Sometime in january the sequestration wont taken effect until 15 days after the end of the session so likely sometime in january. There is certainly still several months for them to reach a deal. One of the good signs as it seems everyone agrees they need to increase spending cap and their have re been a few meetings between senior and Administration Officials and republicans and democrats in congress. If they do not reach an agreement, there will be 125 billion drops off in Discretionary Spending which will impact several departments through the government including the pentagon and homeland security, so this is something that across the board, lawmakers want to avoid. Thank you very much for being on newsmakers. Here is a look at our live coverage. Chinas strategy to control technology and business. That gets underway at 12 30 a. M. Eastern. Statement in washington, d. C. Governor andan former pennsylvanian senator. And on cspan2, the summit on ted cruz is what ted cruz is one of the speakers. This weekend on book tv, today at 6 45 eastern, husband and wife offered authors on how they maintain the relationship. When you lie and a hospital ask of the not person standing next to you. At 8 00, the author talks about his book. The difference between the modern media and the patriot media, patriot means the men with the Printing Press and pamphlets. That is it. They were trying to fundamentally transform government. Didnt want a lot of that. Press trying to fundamentally transform us. And im 00 eastern on afterwards, chief White House Correspondent jim acosta offers his firsthand account of covering the Trump Administration in his book, the enemy of the people. Hes interviewed by a journalism professor. White house officials the way it used to. A variety of reporters. The foreign news outlets, watch book tv all weekend on cspan2. Centre Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg spoke last night at a party gala. About 5000 people attended. The fundraising event in the commonwealth. The congressional delegation also spoke. Good evening, democrats. Welcome to the 2019 blue commonwealth gala