This morning, jeff mason of reuters who covers the white of fox wholan nelson was their congressional reporter, thank you for joining us. Lets start with you, the president tweeted toward some democratic powers of congress. Tell us the reaction since those tweets were delivered. Guest there has been outrage over them particular from democrats but others as well. Many people are viewing them as racist. The president suggested that three or four four members of congress who are women of color should go back to where they came from. Three out of the fort of them were born in the United States and the other was an immigrant or is an immigrant. This is sort of part of a pattern that his critics see as engaging and racial baiting and outrage to essentially White America or White Supremacists. The president denies that in the he is notund him say engaging in racism and is just talking about love of country and objecting to some of the things they have said. In terms of the pattern of some of his behavior, they really object to the suggestion that he is racist. There were people on the other side who think thats exactly the kind of behavior that hes engaging in and the tweet exemplifies that. Host talk about who was the focus of these tweets and the reaction. Guest these are focused on the socalled progressive squad which is Representative Ilhan Omar aoc, and the sheet a tally. Rashida talib. Unapologetic progressive women and the president s tweets did not specifically say go back to your home country but said go back to where you came from. Is obviously worth putting out the three out of four of these women were born in the United States. Somaliaar was born in but as a naturalized citizen of the United States. The reason the president was tweeting this was coming on the heels of this internal debate among House Democrats over the place of progressives in congress and longtime House Democrats. I think there was this vicious infighting happening last week and continuing on to this weekend. I think the president may have solved that with his own tweet, unifying democrats by stepping into this fight. Host the assistant speaker going on the sundays show yesterday and talking about that aspect. Lets hear what he had to say. [video clip] the president has been tweeting this morning and i want to put up a tweet. He specifically has been calling out Progressive Democratic congresswoman who come whoseally from countries governments are complete and total catastrophe and he says why dont they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. Your thoughts about president mac aying to duly a duly elected member the covers to go back home. Thats the first time hearing about that. Thats a racist week. Telling people to go back where they came from these are american citizens elected by voters in the United States of in one of theve most distinguished representative bodies. I think thats wrong and what this going on across america, for the president to spend time saying such racist things this , horrendous detention facilities we have across the country, the Vice President pence brought attention to that even he says are around and the Inspector General has called out , that the commission on human rights from the u. N. Has said that these facilities are in horrendous conditions. The price of insulin has increased over 1000 and will impact people, thats what the president should have his attention on, not picking these fights and sending out racist tweets. Reaction, whate do you expect as far as this week in congress if we hear more about it . Guest democrats will keep hammering this. Sent out another tweak accusing these four of being racist themselves. This is not something that will go away. Democrats are going to continue to protect and defend these four members. What we are really looking to see is if republicans will say anything. So far, there hasnt been much from that side. The president s selfdefense of these tweets and the message behind them, have you seen anymore . Guest i havent but im sure there will be more at the white house from his crowd of supporters who will come up and defend what he is saying or interpret what hes saying. Right, therere will be a lot more criticism certainly coming from capitol hill. It might be instructive to take a look at how the president and the white house have reacted in previous times were there is a controversy about what he has said that is considered racist. Im thinking of the charlottesville controversy. He doubled down after that. He came back to the white house from new york and gave a statement in the lobby of trump tower and came back to the white house and made a statement again where he tried to pull back a little bit and directly after that, doubled down again. I dont think we will see a president who apologizes or who sees this as having been the wrong thing to say despite the outcry. Host here are the phone lines the other topic is the detention of the border but the long immigration ratids that were supposed to launch yesterday. What have we seen from these raids . Guest going into these rates, there was a question of how much we w guest theyre not bringing reporters along with them for these raids. So far, i have not y clear reporting or evidence of what actually took place yesterday and perhaps they are trying to keep it a little more secretive than the president did last week when he telegraphed the fact that it was supposed to happen. There were definitely people all over the country this weekend who were afraid and knew who are concerned about what was coming and on edge about the fact that ice agents were apparently coming to their door. Host is there a reaction of that telegraphing . Some when you hear from of the agencies involved, they will not give you a whole lot of information and they suggest this is not something we telegraph but the president dead. I think the president , by doing that, raises the question of whether it was actually talking about the fact that this is happening or talking to his base to show that is doing something and making good on promises he has made generally. Host we saw the Vice President traveling to these Detention Centers. What is the messaging there . Guest that was a very dramatic visit on friday, Vice President pence visited a couple of Detention Centers in texas. One of them was for families and was brandnew and pretty clean. It seemed like it was a reasonable place in terms of the facility itself. The other one was for single men and was clearly overcrowded. It was really unpleasant. He was only in there for about andeconds and he walked out it was a messaging opportunity that he said he expected to be overcrowding and he said its a sign the Congress Needs to get its act together in terms of funding. The flipside is this is happening under Vice President pence and President Donald Trump watch. Its their administration and the criticism will be this is what you are overseeing. Host the messaging coming from democrats and republicans we saw them go to the border and look for themselves but what is the message from both sides on capitol hill . Guest among democrats and its on the heels of what happened before with this drama with the border aid funding bill. It passed the house even though progressives are angry about there not being further standards to make sure these places are clean and there are Translator Services and especially kids are getting basic necessities like to russias. Like toothbrushes. Congress passed the funding bill so there is money going toward trying to improve and that was the intention. I think there is going to be concerned about oversight and making sure this money is actually doing what the Administration Says it will do. Contributegoing to to more overcrowding and people pouring into these camps and conditions not improving. Host republicans were telling democrats that they were turning a blind eye to this issue even before it became an issue. Democrats wasand say they have not been. That is the messaging from republicans that democrats, maybe this happened during the obama years but the fact is, there are Trump Administration policies that are exacerbating this like turning white people coming to ports of entry. And kind of creating exacerbating this crisis on the border and i think the video that came out this weekend supported that. Are with us for the hour and her first caller is from bob in illinois. The republican line, go ahead. Caller good morning. I would like to ask each of your guests regarding the meal a report them mueller report, the lead the fbi allegedly spying on the trunk campaign to take off their reporter hats for a few minutes and look at it like we do out here in the general population i like to find out if they think it will reach up to obama . How high up in the Obama Administration did they think it will go realistically . Thank you. Talk about the status of the Robert MillerRobert Mueller testify. Guest it was pushed back another week so this will be pivotal, highly watched testimony on capitol hill although Robert Mueller has been clear that he will not talk about anything beyond what has been in the report already. I dont think he wants to politicize this any more than it already has been. Democrats still have an ongoing debate about impeachment i capitol hill and a number of democrats who were on the fence started saying they wanted an impeachment after he made that rare public spate statement in may. That testifying could cause more democrats to support that. Host what will spell it out as far as the pushback of the hearings . I have to confess that i was traveling last week so it wasnt as tuned into watching the news but it was to sort of give him more time to push that back. Host the white house is still dealing with the idea of the mueller guest report. Guest you see in the president s tweets and discussions that he continues to see this is what he calls a witchhunt in the fact that Robert Mueller is testify at all brings the story back to the forefront of the news and that is not really something that the president is eager to see. He and other republicans will view this as an opportunity to ask Robert Mueller questions that they dont believe have been answered and maybe one will be what the caller was talking about. Certainlye, it will be an intense few hours for both sides when that happens if it does happen next week. Host is there a concern that it might not happen next week . Guest i dont want to suggest that for the fact that its been put off a week, for me, it always raises skepticism about whether it will happen or not. Host the Inspector General is looking into the fbi in the sourcing of the dossier, where are we on that . I think that was supposed to come up pretty soon and i dont have the date in my head but thats been coming on the white house is foreshadowing that as something to be watching. Host lets hear from nancy in austin, texas. Caller two brave things one on charlottesville. One representative came from a camp in somalia or kenya. She was there for four years and we rescued her and brought her to the u. S. She becomes a representative and she starts saying how much she hates the United States and how she was to change it fundamentally. Thats what trump was talking about. It has nothing to do with her raise whatsoever. Second thing has to do with charlottesville. Im tired of you guys repeating over and over this false narrative of that trump was deciding with the white nationalists or whatever they were. There were many other people there. There were people who did not want to see our statues taken down. Im one of those im not a white nationalists. You keep on throwing up this false narrative over and over. If youre repeated often enough, people will believe it. Those are my comments. Host il lets start withhan omar, the perception she hates the United States, where does that come from . Guest i would push back on that. Is an immigrant and came from small you enter the United States through the citizenship process and enter the u. S. Legally. She repeated this weekend that she is progressive at roots nation. Of the United States is much different than the president s and his base. I think thats part of what the caller is talking about is some of the comments that she has made in the past that are perceived as antiisrael and calling out aipac and other things in congress. Her focus on israel has kind of been twisted as being an antiu. S. Focus. Alliance is. S. Strong and that something republicans in particular have been trying to strengthen and are calling out omar. I wouldnt say thats an antiamerican bias. Host do you want to respond to the charlottesville comments . Guest sure, the facts of that situation are that there were White Supremacists who were it was led by them and there were people who came to protest them and it led to one woman being killed. The president afterwards made a point of saying there are good people on both sides and many people took that as a census because it came across as being a defense of White Supremacists. The caller is saying that there were different views about the statues and that very well may be but the fact of the matter are what he said in the context of it being a white supremacist rally. Host this is from georgia, robert honor independent line. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I like donald trump. All of a sudden he is a racist and i understand his comments on the other ladies. I hear that if you dont like this country the way it was founded, why are you here . We dont keep you here, we are not a communist nation. In the meantime, if you dont enjoy us the way the constitution is written, you are free to leave. Thats my comment. The four women are congresswomen and they were duly elected by their districts and represent their constituents in congress. Having some views about how to change america is also very american. There is nothing wrong with having views on how to improve the country or district you represent. Those views may be different from the callers or the president and thats in line with the spirit of the constitution that the callers talking about. Its protected by the values and the laws of the United States. When making comments about the president , nancy pelosi said that when Donald Trump Tells for america in to go back to their country, it reaffirms the plan to make America Great again is about making merrick at white again. Is making America White again. Guest it was a strong town. Politically felt like she had to push back vigorously. Nation of a immigrants and has been long before we found ourselves in this crisis. This is going back centuries. People come from other countries with perspectives on how to strengthen this country. Is a pelosis tweet message she has of our diversity is our power and diversity is our strength, many different ideas come up with something stronger and better. With this also comes division in the party itself. I think there is still some hashing out in the internal Democratic Caucus that will happen this week. Beeniggest divide that has roiling the caucus is a bit of an idea logical and generational divide. Cortez oh seo casio cortez has been ridiculed by the Republican Party because calledbacked by a Group Justice democrats that makes its mission to primary more moderate, older democrats. As we get closer to the election, House Democrats intent on keeping their majority. That dont want primary challenges even in the bluer districts. They want to keep their incumbents safe and the reason there was such vicious infighting is because groups like justice democrats were more are making no bonds about the fact that they would like to see some of these more moderate members gone. Host the white house use this back of death back and forth for its advantages . Guest it gives them an opening. There are plenty of issues on be republican side that will vulnerabilities for President Trump in 2020. Right now, the unity as a Republican Party is not one of them. The Republican Party is largely unified behind President Trump. The rnc and President Trumps campaign are working very closely together, raising canions of dollars and he going to his reelection by and evenhat his base people who may have had questions in 2016 on the republican side, want him to get reelected. You can see this divisiveness and he can use it to his advantage. He is trying to do that. Host raleigh, north carolina, democratic line. Caller how are you . Say that for me personally, i have obamacare. Its the best thing thats ever happened to me. Ive never been able to afford insurance before. Im self employed in the construction business. Thatnly thing i can say is there is some of that the needs to be fixed just like my son. Have three girls right now and they are all teenagers. He doesnt quite make enough to get obamacare because youve got to make a certain amount of money before you can get the obamacare. He doesnt make that which in turn, he should be able to go for medicare. Or medicaid. Carolina, got to make under a certain amount of money before you can qualify for medicaid so he is stuck in the middle. I think there is a way we can me, im 62t for years old and is the first time ive ever been able to afford any kind of insurance. Host thank you very much. At the same time weve we see the administration suing over they say theyar have some kind of plan to protect those might be affected. Is there a game plan of how thats done . Guest no, and the president said he will provide those details after the election. Republicans on the hill are pretty concerned when he suggested he was going to do this big push to get rid of obamacare without a plan. The democrats in 2018 were very successful on the issue and helped bring a majority. Have lawmakers makeng for president who health care another hot topic on the campaign trail. I think republicans are probably concerned about that. The callerf epitomizes the fact that, for many people, obamacare, even with its flaws, has been a good thing. Its for people who have it and there are many people who were opposed to how obamacare was brought in and feel there should be Something Different. Both sides are legitimate but this is going to be i think another big topic in 2020. Host from the republicans on health care, is there an alternative they can present . Im curious to see what that is. A bigpublicans won victory during the tax bill when they repealed the individual mandate. The Trump Administration is looking to further weaken the Affordable Care act but the vision we have seen her from republicans so far as what they dont like about the Affordable Care act and how they are trying to dismantle. They are not really putting back a proactive issue of what they would like to see i think thats happening on the democratic side where we have a number of candidates running in 2020 joe biden put out his Health Care Plan which seem to be an option thats more for a medicare by him. We have people advocating for plans like Bernie Sanders who authored the plan in congress. There is a robust debate on the democratic side over where we want to go from here. Do we want to strengthen the reform will care act or do Something Different . I would be curious to see if muchdent trump releases a more detailed laid out vision of what he would like to see for health care . Our reporters are joining us. If you want to ask questions in the next half hour, these are the numbers there is a budget to be assidered so where are we far as the house and the senate as far as the budget . Orst this is the one area hopefully democrats and republicans can Work Together on legislation. I think there are some things that need to be hammered out with budget caps on spending caps but its something that last i heard, majority leader steny hoyer is negotiating with Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell and republicans said is feeling confident that Congressional Republicans want to come to a deal on a spending cap and the budget. Theres less copper is that the white house wants to come to a deal with that. This is a big thing and i think democrats want to be seen as a party that can pass a longer budgets we dont have constant anothere month after and a looming Government Shutdown crisis which we saw a lot last year. I think there is still kind of a long road ahead. Of thehats your sense roles that Steven Mnuchin and Mick Mulvaney will play in getting a resolve on this . Guest they have an interest in getting something done and making sure the debt ceiling gets raised. Both parties have used the fight over budgets and the debt ceiling in particular as a way to get Something Else they want. We will see to what extent that ends up being the dynamic in the coming weeks. I believe secretary mnuchin has said recently, i think he sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi saying he would like to see this issue taken care of before the august recess because the United States technically might run out of money before Congress Gets back in the fall if they dont raise the debt ceiling before then. Host has the president said anything specifically about resolving these legit issues . Guest i havent seen anything from him on this. Now that we are getting closer dday, theto the reporters will start asking him but i cannot recall anything he said about himself lately. Host is there a sense that when it comes to getting these things whats the timetable . Is august a realistic timetable to get this done question mark guest i think democrats want to meet the timetable. I think there are still a number of things that still need to be i believe all stop floodedch mcconnell has keeping senators here during august recess if they cannot finalize this. Lets hear from a viewer in indiana, robert come republican line go ahead. Caller good morning, i dont know where to start but i tell you if we dont open our eyes and see whats going on the democrats dont want to do anything to help this country. You can see it. They dont want to do anything but bring trump down and impeach him. Job and get your policies made and get some kind of togetherness. Host we heard of lot of resistance even from the house side toward the idea of impeachment. Of thethere are members Democratic Caucus that want to start an impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is opposed to that and she believes impeachment is a waste of time and i kind of agree with the colors point that she wants to pass bipartisan policy rather than going down this rabbit hole of impeachment. Gone the to see trump of the 2020 election. Rather than impeachment. Host there is a hearing at 5 00 a a content of congress contempt of Congress Resolution about attorney general william barr. That will be at 5 00 p. M. Right here on cspan. What are they looking for when it comes to the contempt issue . Guest this has to do with this ongoing we saw this being decided in Supreme Court that there would be no Citizenship Question on the 20 census. I think democrats want more information about why the Trump Administration has been trying to get this question on the senses. They tried to get wilbur ross to testify but he refused to comply with subpoenas so another contempt issue has been brought up. Host what led the white house to take the path it did on the senses question . This happened last week the president had first indicated he would still try to get the question of citizenship on the senses despite the Supreme Court decision. He expressed disappointment or anger were angrier or when the administration said they would not do this but there was a backandforth sense that that was being reversed and then he reversed himself again last week and said there wasnt going to be time to get onto the senses so instead, he was theing in order to get executive departments, the administrative part, the agencies, i should say to collate and turn in that information to the extent we have it on citizenship. I think it came down partially to a logistic thing to continue to have legal challenges to this and go through the court. It wouldve taken a long time. The Supreme Court left open the possibility that the administration could put that question on the senses but they said their new to be a different rationale all stop the amount of time to get that through the process in the end did not appear to be sufficient in order to make it happen. Host the white house expects a clean process with no hiccups. Guest anything they do now on this issue will be challenged. Outside groups who were challenging it already when it led to the senses have already said they continue they intend to continue challenging this. This will be tied up in the courts either way for some time8. Host from ellicott city, keith, democrats line. To the good morning, previous africanamerican caller that questioned that donald trump was a racist. He may not be a races but he uses race for political gain. All the ones that voted for donald trump, he is the first to come to washington to start problems. Andease our National Debt the country had never been more divided. Ive never seen more people not being able to talk her Work Together. This is the first time in his because donald trump language, actions, he is the most divisive person i have ever seen an office and ive been a supporter of him if he tried to be more president ial and solve these problems. Within the first 100 days he solve the immigration issue and would solve the health issue. He has done nothing but dishonest thing since hes been in office and its hard for these folks who are supporters to say he has failed in all the things he tried to do. Two piecesed through of legislation Everything Else is an executive order and he was supposed to be the person to walk across both parties. He has done a terrible job. The facts are clear. I suppose the Trump Campaign, the Reelection Campaign will look at circumstances where they will look at it positively. Guest in terms of promises made, promises kept, that is one withe mantras at his rally another one this wednesday and that something his Campaign Sees as a strength. The caller is right in terms of some of the legislation. The tax reform bill and law is viewed by the president and around him as a success as one of the drivers of the economy. The economy is seen as a major success. Those are the types of things he will talk about going into the election. There are other things he did as well that were promises that he made. Kept the United States out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement which is controversial. It was certainly telegraphed by the president when he was a candidate. He full the United States out of the paris climate accord. Many people think that was a wrong move but many republicans were supportive of that. Host also north korea. Guest he has been active in trying to get some sort of peace deal with north korea. He has held three meetings with kim jongun. Criticism about that because he is given the north Korean Leader a stage and some would say a legitimacy but having conduct of these meetings without a whole lot to show for it. And he still working on that. The Trump Campaign manager we not focus on what the caller suggests which is not having a whole lot of promises made. They view it as having a lot to do with checkmarks on it. Several senators on the democratic side a running for president. Hows is the Senate Working with those senators running and how is it affecting the work of the senate . Guest the bulk of the work of the senate right now is confirming judges and working on this budget deal. I think some of the senators are now that they are running. There is a whole litany of senators who were not there. I am following Elizabeth Warrens campaign closely and she doing quite a bit of work. Rulesfice is turning out and different letters and some of thet mirror things she is putting out on the campaign trail as well. For the larger business of the senate, Mitch Mcconnell is clear that he is mostly interested in confirming judges. There is model a lot of big legislation happening in the senate. Missed. Know if they are was what kind of event Elizabeth Warren at . They have an annual gathering of progressive activists and there were nearly 4000 people in philadelphia this weekend for this annual gathering. Meeting the net roots last year. She was there last year as well and has been coming there for years since before she was a senator. She tried to regulate big thanks in the wake of the financial crisis. This crowd loves her. Shes very familiar with them and got the warmest sort reception out of any of the candidates that appeared. Whats notable to many people is senators who were not there. Kamala harris and cory booker were there last are but did not trip up this year as well as Bernie Sanders. Activists are excited about Elizabeth Warren but i dont think they are ready to coordinate her as the nominee quite yet. Host when it comes to central challengers, is joe biden topping the list are everyone else . Anyone the trunk campaign would be concerned about . Like to keep saying its still early so president on joe think is focused biden because he is the front runner. The firstin democratic debate, senator Kamala Harris came out swinging and that helped her and her poll numbers. Senator warren is doing pretty well. Senator sanders is still pretty high but facing challenges. Tier and pete buttigieg, the mayor of south bend, indiana out fun raised the entire field. So you have a lot of players but i think its fair to say that President Trump has been focusing a lot of his attention on joe biden because of his place in that list. Despite having a rough first debate, continues to be the front runner. We will see. You got a bunch of time between now and the first primary contest which is the iowa caucus and a lot can change. Bloomington, indiana, democrats line, hello. Caller good morning, cspan. I want obamacare to be fixed first of all. These democrats running for president would be better than what we have at the moment. Why they havent m toueller and why they are not giving the information to the democrats in the house. It must be a coverup is for as im concerned. Host what do you mean by that . Caller i mean they are not getting anything that we know of from the president. He is blocking everything. Sorythings being blocked nobody gets to hear what really is going on. Im very disappointed that he will not be here this coming wednesday. Becausecerning to me there is so much russia communication. I have been reading the mueller report. Im close to being done. But its not right whats going of thosenow and anyone democrats would be better than President Trump. Host do you want to take anything from that . Thet she is speaking to larger frustration, certainly members of the House Democrats that this speaks to the larger subpoena battle between congress and the president and the fact that kratzer were trying to conduct oversight of the white house not just with the mullah report they are trying to do a lot of things about the u. S. Response to the hurricane and puerto rico, about immigration come about climate change. There are many things they want to look at where the Trump Administration is not providing documents and witnesses and democrats are decrying it as an unprecedented opposition to them trying to do constitutionally mandated oversight and that leads to frustration and this opposition between the white house and congress. Let me shift topics before we move on the president with supporting the sky and now hes out. Guest according to people around the president , and the president himself of that matter, secretary acosta decided himself that he did not want to be a distraction because of his and well leave this conversation here to go live to the floor of the u. S. House. Members are gaveling in to start legislative business this afternoon. They are expected to go