Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 09092019 20240714

New survey on credit card use and consumer debt. As always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. Washington journal is next. Host the house and the senate come back into session today after a 5 week after a 6week break. This is the washington journal for september 9. Several state attorneys general will announce they will investigate google over antitrust concerns. This as another group of attorneys general plan to investigate facebook over its practices and congress expressed concerns over these two companies and discussing more regulation of these companies. What do you think about this new round of investigations . Do you think larger tech firms need more regulation. If you say more regulation of these companies needed, 2027488000. If you say no new regulation needed, call at 2027488001. If you say less regulation is needed, 2027488002. You can post on our twitter feed at cspanwj an facebook, you can post there, too, at facebook. Com cspan. Folks at gallup did recent polling on this idea of regulation of Tech Companies and heres what the poll found. Windows asked of this question, 48 saying more government regulation of big Tech Companies like facebook and google are needed. Those saying regulation should not change, 40 and 10 expressing they think a decrease of regulation is needed. The poll also saying those that defined themselves as liberals more than conservatives favor tighter controls. The poll asked about overall. Iews of Technology Companies 15 expressing a very positive view, 31 saying somewhat positive when it comes to those with no opinion, 22 . 23 saying they were negative of these companies and when it comes to very negative responses , 10 . It is today in washington, d. C. Attorneysates general will announce efforts on regulating google. It is one of the lead stories. Who writes about Technology Policy joins us on the phone to express the story now. Good morning. Guest good morning. Host could you give us the genesis, thus part of these looks by attorneys general . Guest this is a big deal and we will see this unfold on the steps of the Supreme Court later today. There are two points you pointed out. The one being announced that todays event will see more than put their voices behind an antitrust investigation of google and the extent to which the advertising empire might be harming competitors and consumers. The second probe, which will not be reflected on stage, but certainly hangs over this conversation is with facebook. The attorney general of new york is leading that bipartisan probe and that will explore weather the social networking giant poses concern both of these things have the potential to be huge for the Tech Industry. The state ags are so powerful in their own right. We typically think about the federal government playing a role of antitrust, but the states can do it just as much. Host on the google side, the announcement that extends today, could you dive deeper into what these attorney generals will look at attorneys general will look at . Guest we know a few things. To the probe has more than 40 state ags. It is bipartisan and being led by ken paxton, who is a republican, but there is an executive committee running the show. One of the early focuses is advertising. Far theremember, is by Biggest Company when it comes to market revenue for online advertising. That advertising only beefs up googles locker to lucrative line and it is able to do that because of the data it collects. There is an early focus on that, but there are a lot of state ags part of this organization who have pet issues with respect to google. Like paxton others in texas who question weather the companys search results are biased against conservatives, which is something google has denied. It will be interesting if some of these issues in the eyes of the states become part of this broader antitrust probe. Takesif an investigation place and states decide to take action, what can they do versus what the federal government can do . Guest it is a great question and it remains to be seen because it hinges on the harm. Figuring out what the states plan to look at and weather they find charges that google violated competition law with respect to advertising, for example. The state sort of had three options. A sort of them had Competition Laws on the books and some of them have statutes that allow them to go after things like deception. It is that latter bucket of things that states often have used to penalize companies for things like privacy violations and the third option available is to use federal antitrust law. The state attorneys general have the ability to bring cases to protect citizens by tapping antitrust law and we have seen them do things like that when they challenged mergers that have gone through. A really is all tied to the harm and it could be the case that there is so much political pressure and so much legal pressure coming over the coming months that this never makes it to the court room, never makes it to an official series of charges, but becomes a settlement that resolves some competition concerns. Host if the states are doing this on their own, does it change anyway the interest to the congress has on looking up these issues for these types of companies . Guest i think the biggest question isnt so much congress, but other agencies in washington because the department of justice and the federal trade commission individually announced specific action on big tech and antitrust. The doj in july said it was going to take a close look at search advertising ecommerce and social media and while it did not name any company explicitly, that pretty much tracks with facebook and google and amazon and we got the first the amazon last week federal trade commission is embarking on a similar review similar to that and we know from facebook there is an antitrust investigation happening. It could be the case that all these folks team up and we get one major push by regulators to look at big tech or they could operate individually, which complicates the picture. I think that is going to be the big thing to watch more so than what is happening on capitol hill. Ont tony romm reports washington Technology Policy for the Washington Post. Thank you for your time in explaining this issue. When it comes to your view on regulation of these companies e facebook and google if you say more regulation, 2027488000. If you say no new regulation,. 027488001 perhaps you are one that said less regulation is needed, 2027488002. You can post on our facebook page. Several of you doing so before the start of the show. You can read on our twitter feed at cspanwj. It was in july the senate the house looked at a hearing about practices of Companies Like facebook. It included an exchange between a legislator and facebooks washington, d. C. Corporate folks who talked about the size of the company and the impact of the company. Here is a bit of that exchange. [video clip] is facebook, in your view, a monopoly . No, congressman, it is not. I assume the reason is because in your view, facebook has a number of competitors in your view and a number of products the company offers. Would that be a fair katter whatn categorization of of your view . Yes. Social media platform by active users in the world . Do you know . I dont. I know we have 2. 7 billion users. I can tell you it is facebook. Do you know the thirdlargest company is whatsapp . What company owns whatsapp . We do. Facebook. Correct . Yes, congressman. Fourthlargest social media networking platform in the world by active users is facebook messenger. I wont make you answer the question. Suffice to say that service is also owned by facebook. Instagram. Gest is what company owns instagram . Facebook does. Okay. Skepticismerstand because when a company owns 4 of the largest 6 entities measured by active users in the world in that industry, we have a word for that. That is monopoly or at least monopolypowered. Host if you are interested in learning more, go to our website, cspan. Org, to find out more. John says more regulation is needed. Go ahead. Caller absolutely. Needs more regulation. I dont have a facebook account or twitter account or instagram account. I think they are all a bunch of garbage, to tell you the truth. That is my comment. Host if you dont have these various accounts he has left us. You can also make the case if you want on the phone lines or as many of you posted on facebook itself on the topic saying this is don thompson saying i dont know about regulating them necessarily, but you can make the case for busing google and amazon up into smaller entities. We go to chris on facebook saying regulation to protect privacy would be nice. When it comes to other regulations, no. Steve rogers says if more needed,on is regulations only impede lawabiding citizens. Scott hannigan saying they will only regulate themselves as a monopoly. They may enjoy current physical monopolies allowing them to write their own regulation. John harold also on facebook saying no when it comes to regulation. Less regulation across the board is needed, let the people vote with their dollars. If you dont like big Tech Companies, walk away from them. One of googles Vice President for government a fails affairs appearing on the senate side back in july. This exchange talking about charges of censorship and it was the google Vice President for Government Affairs talking about the platform and the efforts it makes to monitor content. [video clip] googleplatform such as search or youtube deal with massive amounts of information and to manage these volumes, we rely on algorithms and implement testing and evaluation by thirdparty graders. None of our systems are designed to filter out individuals or groups based on political viewpoints. Operating at the scale we do, we are bound to get criticism from both sides and we do. From time to time, political ads may violate advertising guidelines and we have disallowed ads from republicans and democrats. Our knowledge panels, which help you find quick facts when you search for informations about Hillary Clinton or the California Republican party may reflect erroneous information from the web and will need to be corrected. We work hard to learn from our mistakes and improve products, but these must ask mistakes have affected both parties. As technology plays an essential role in the lives of americans, we know users expect the highest degree of integrity and we must day. That expectation every if we dont, users will go elsewhere. Host that was on the senate side if you want to take a look at that exchange. Onn go to our website top of other Tech Companies. If you want to see more about some of the concerns legislators have, go to our website at cspan. Org. Greensburg, kentucky, is next. Caller good morning to you. I think there should be more regulation on them. When they broke them up, the man got richer because they own stock in all of them. The guy who owns facebook is going to get richer. Host you say more regulation, but dont caller break up the companies. If you break them up, they will get richer. Host lets hear from mark in new jersey. Also an advocate of more regulation. Tell us why. Caller i think the Tech Companies have too much power. The political process is completely polluted by things like facebook and google with their power and i believe we should break them up. It happened with the Big Oil Companies and google and facebook are way too powerful. They just do too much. Host when you say too powerful, how do you define that or view that when you say they are too powerful . On facebook,ler for instance, there is probably accounts theot russians and the chinese placed on there and it is affecting our whole political process. It is poisoning the well. There has to be more regulations in my opinion. Host that is mark in new jersey calling for more regulations. His is Charles Spring hill, tennessee, saying no new regulations. Caller good morning. Host you are on, go ahead. Caller i am more concerned , nbc,fox news, abc, cbs cspan and public tv than i am facebook. Facebook is not a necessity. Facebook is an us if fox news is still on the air, and i have heard them destroy my people for decades without any regulations, i am opposed to anything against twitter. It gives twitter gives me the platform to speak my mind against politicians and it is the politicians who want these internet sites regulated. Tech you dont view these companies as too big or too powerful, as someone categorize them. These companies, you go to these sites voluntarily. I do not go to facebook for anything. A lot of Bad Information from fox news over the decades. We should give fox news and hate radio credit for the current status of race relationships in america. Host juan in alexandria, virginia, saying more regulation is needed. Caller good morning, yes, more regulation is needed. It hooves the government to. Egulate this type of activity i think the government should have strong oversight on how these Companies Use our information. Has been done in europe prohibit the use and miss abuse misuse of private information. Host do you think the european model can work in the United States . Caller absolutely. Host why is that . Caller i think we have we have privacy. It is even more compelling because on to the 14th amendment, we have a right to privacy and i think we are not exercising the full benefits of that amendment, the rights we have as citizens to protect our data. Europe is taking a strongly forward and we should follow that. Host what do you think about the idea that users willingly offer their data when they decide . To use these sites . Caller if you believe everybody reads the sign print when they sign up on facebook, i have a bridge to sell you. Nobody reads that stuff. When people sign up and consent, they dont understand what they are consenting to. There are pages of fine print you have to read to use these applications. There should be more transparency, more explanation and Regulatory Framework to provide users and private citizens the ability to waive off the ability for companies to use that data. If they monetize it, part of the dividend should come back to the user. Host in texas, no new regulation needed. You are next up. Caller i believe there is no need for any new regulations. If they have regulations already , use it. Contract, read that contract and understand it. N host does it Say Something to you that attorneys general are concerned and members of congress are concerned about the operating policies of some of these companies . Caller no, sir. All of it is in that contract. And understand it, if something goes wrong, that is on me. I dont have any problems with. Hat host some of you have said more regulation is needed. I dont know if we received any with less regulation, but if you want to call on those fronts, it is 2027488000 if you say more regulation is needed. If you say no new regulation is needed and if you say less regulation is needed, 2027488002. Last year Donald Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post posted an oped taking a look at federal site federal oversight of the government here is some of the argument he makes from the oped saying i worked in regulated industries for years and the regulation can be fairly described as odd. Talkators often cannot facetoface with those being regulated to understand the consequences of what they are doing. Is there a set of regulators in washington who would understand how google or facebook is put together . Facebook and google argue they have one goal in their businesses, innovating to satisfy customers. Regulation introduces a different goal, not offending the regulators. Almost inevitably, this hurts accompanys performance. Money, time, and above all, management attention are focused. Lsewhere Donald Graham writing that. We will hear from earl in north hi. How are you doing this morning caller . Host fine, go ahead. Caller i am for more regulation based on the fact that i see these people who regulate or if itconservatives is going to be open forum, let it be open forum and if it is not going to be open forum, let them know up front either on the liberal side or conservative side. Host it is First Amendment and expression issues when it comes to how these Companies Operate . Caller yes. Peoples open forum, let put what they want. If not, let them know what you will be taking out and what you will be putting in. Host do you think new rules will change these issues or change the practices of these companies . Why is it that a new set of rules will do that . Caller i am trying to figure out how to word it. You cannot go in and say we are going to be open forum and allow people to go in, that is the problem with the russian thing. Them putting this stuff in and nobody was regulating. Hisasnt our president or crew, it wasnt clinton or her crew. If it was going to be open forum, it should be open forum. Host if a company violates these rules, how should they be punished . Do you think that goes far enough if it is just monetary or punishment by money . Caller there is no regulation to say it right now, but we need regulation that says here is how we punish you for breaking the rules. Host that is earl in North Carolina giving his thoughts. When it comes to the category of no new regulation, reston, virginia, is next. Caller i wanted to say if you add these regulations to big companies, Small Companies will have to comply. As an independent software engineer, i dont want to contact a lawyer anytime i want to put up a website. Eart from the hat you w as an independent, what do you think congress should look at as far as practices and would you have concerns about some of these practices . Caller the concerns i have with the e. U. s regulation, they are saying we should have regulations like that, that is a whole framework. Now it is five years instead of three years to make a website. Host you dont think what the European Union has proposed could that work in some way in the United States . Are there differences between how the approaches could work . To a website at the u. K. , it is a worldwide network, so there is no real difference between going on a website in america and going on a website in europe, it makes it harder, that is all i am saying. Host that is michael giving the perspective he has working in the tech field, as many in Northern Virginia do. You can add yours to the mix. 2027488000 if you say more regulation is needed. If you are saying no new regulation needed, 2027488001. Perhaps you are one that says less regulation is needed, 2027488002. When it comes to technology, we at washington journal are going to change the way you commit kate with us. You will have the ability to text us if you want to comment. First of all, the number starting wednesday that you can do that, 2027488003. You can go ahead and text us when you do that. A couple of things we will ask you to do, give your name and the city and state where you are calling from and if you can keep the comments as relatively short or what you can be allowed to do as texts, we will get those and, possibly put those on the program. Starting wednesday not only facebook and twitter, but also you can text as well. That number if you want to put it in, 2027488003. We will start accepting those texts on wednesday mornings washington journal. Jennifer is next in california saying less regulation is needed. Good morning. Aller less or no regulation that includes regulating opinions and advertising because we still have free speech and an open forum is what the internet is for. I suspect the reason behind is to pick and choose who these Companies Want to andey their opinions to whose advertisers. I use facebook, google, twitter, i have never seen an ad. Not from a foreign country or here in the u. S. I am opposed to any regulation because it is an issue of free speech to me. Host do you think more rules would ultimately use how you change these platforms . Caller how i use them . No. More rules . It would be discouraging to use them and me, not being a liberal, i use a forum called and my comments are always getting deleted because i have a liberal point of view they have a liberal point of view and i dont. I suspect this is part of what this is all about. Host birmingham, alabama, is next. More regulation is needed, he says. Rick, thanks for joining the conversation. I, and changed based on the last caller. They showed a contradiction in understanding exactly what social media allows you to do. She says she is a conservative, but she is using a liberal platform. Goes to the information ignorance of people using the internet. People do not know what they are signing up for and do not know what the information can be used for in the future that will affect their lives. The general pop ilyushin population they do not understand technology and the impact massive communication can have on a population of people. Host are you one of those people that actually read Service Agreements before you sign on to some of these things . Caller the Service Agreements are so long, i do not. That is why i dont use a lot of social media platforms. It howare looking at they can use it, not looking at how companies can use the information to manipulate society and create social engineering in this country and abroad. Birmingham, alabama, giving his thought on regulations of these companies. Twitter saying many Tech Companies who receive startup funding from wall Street Investors are dominant monopolies and should be chopped up to encourage competition. Our antitrust department has been nonexistent for decades. Alisa pate off of our twitter feed, here is the thing many people generally do not understand about facebook, google, et cetera, the customers are not the users, the customers are the advertisers. You can agree or disagree with these thoughts. Make these thoughts on twitter, facebook, phone lines. Walter is next in st. Petersburg, florida, hello. Caller good morning. I am fairly conservative and basically a capitalist. The problems with the social media is contracts are not being read and more important than that, the people agreeing to these contracts, many of them are underaged. They are not legally allowed to sign a contract. The same people signing contracts with google saying they approve of things could not go into an auto dealership and sign a contract to buy a car or be legally allowed to buy cigarettes. There has to be some way of knowing who is signing these contracts. Because these are social media sites, they are using suppose it customers as suppliers and there is really a different relationship. I dont believe they need extensive regulation, but i believe there needs to be thoughtful regulation. That may be extended to clarifying the Service Agreements or what people are getting into when they sign up for using these things . Caller i think so and i think they just need to know more they believe their users have a platform when they are suppliers of a platform and i think if you thatto 99 of the people use it, a lot of people in my family do. I dont think it is a good thing for them because they just dont understand. They should be allowed to use it, but there should be a clear understanding what they are getting into. I have a 12yearold grandson who uses facebook. I dont think he understands one tiny bit of what he is doing and summarized to some extent by someone who is legally liable for signing contracts. Host jonathan posts an opinion piece taking a look at regulation on the website, the american conservative, calling for even more oversight of these type of companies. The tech gianty, should be regulated as Media Companies. Executives from google and facebook go to Great Lengths to deny they run Media Companies even though they behave like Media Companies. They bear none of the burdens that come with that designation. Facebooks newsfeed has become what the front page of the newspaper was for old people. There they are to factor editors of news content, haveook and youtube designed their algorithms to customize User Experience and they accomplish this by suggesting stories the user will most likely respond to. Be angorithm may not oldfashioned editor, but it is making editorial changes all the same. In the federal Communications Commission would not let them off lightly for their many failings. Marilyn in michigan, says no new regulation. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host i am well. How about yourself . This. i got hooked on i usually dont bother watching tv this early in the morning, but i happened to turn you guys on. Adont feel that we could do very good job regulating these companies. They have become so large i think it is an effort a futile effort to regulate the company. I would like to see regulation, but i dont see how we could possibly enforce it. Host what areas would you like to see regulation in . Caller the collection of data on the people that use these different sites. I use facebook. When i started facebook, i Read Everything i could to find out what it was all about. When i put my intra incorrectn in, i put information. They dont have my correct information. I think this is probably saved me a lot of anguish over the years. Like is the fact that when i shop online and later in the day i go into facebook and all of a sudden i see all these ads popping up for what i was shopping for. That really upsets me because i think big brother is here. 1984 has come to pass. Even by and large though you expressed concerns, you are not afraid of using technology to engage in what you engage in. Caller i have too much fun. I love it. I like to see the banter back and forth about different issues and i really enjoy it hurried i use my computer every day. Probably way more than i should. Host since you came upon us, i will leave you with this. Cspan. Org is the website you can go and look at our video library. A lot of content there, particularly technology or other issues you might be engaging in. I encourage you to keep watching the program. Simon in ashburn, virginia. More regulation needed he says. Hello. A simple sign out capability in which you can then get a document from the people saying you have signed out and if you see your data, you can sue the company very quickly. They should be maintaining any signout list of people who do not want data on these systems. Host what causes you concern over that specific thing . Caller because there is no simple way to do it to make sure your private data gets on these systems. That is the problem. You really dont have the control and what you should do is put the control back into the people who have the data and the simplest way is to have the people keep a sign out list and if they violate that, they can be sued. Put the money issue in front and very quickly, they will do what is necessary to keep the system entertained. No new regulation. Caller marilyn said exactly what i think. You do not have to put your private data in. I am a female and i lied about my age forever. Just be careful, you dont have to do it. The other thing i am going to comment about is back in 2016 when facebook was being manipulated with false information, i am a retired scientist and anything you publish has to be documented. I suspected a rat in the summer of 2016. What she was putting on my timeline was not correct and it was dangerous. I had a very high security clearance. My son does, too. I cannot have that on there because i know how social media is accessed. Any time somebody gets arrested they say, you have someone on social you had this on social media. Herd to comment contact tell her when you get on the internet and you search something, it shows up on your facebook account. You dont have to buy it, just dont click on it. Host even as you express those concerns, no new regulation to take care of or resolve these issues. Caller how do you regulate common sense . Wake up, people. Andt now, when i called in you knew i was from maryland because of my phone, you can do that, that is the way it is. There are other things you dont want to dont have to put on there. I dont put personal photographs of mind. I am elderly and had a bad accident. When i wake up with insomnia, i know i can find somebody on the others of the world to communicate with and it has been a pleasure for me. Use it for the tool it is. One more thing and i will let you go, this thing about stealing your personal data, i pay for my checks by mail and in the big post office, i dont put credit card numbers out. I am justranoid, protective. Herndon, virginia, frank is next. Frank says more regulation. Go ahead. Caller the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was established more than a decade , established these entities like facebook were basically considered to be platforms and not publishers. This basically holds them harmless from Copyright Infringement or libel suits. It holds they are not publishers like a newspaper. If they are platforms, let them be platforms and avoid editing the content of contributors. Contributors. If they are publishers and wanted to edit, they should be held liable or responsible for libel or Copyright Infringement. It is either or. In other words, if you are going to enjoy the freedom given to you by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and not be responsible for the content of thet ributors, censorship is all one way. In other words, they will censor even the mildest program directed at liberals, but will allow liberals to publish the most heinous and sometimes threatening posts and let them go. Look into i think it is there is a tool called the privacy dodger and there are a variety of other ad blockers that help diminish the degree of intersite these platforms have about your habits of thirdparty cookies and a variety of other things. Host that is frank giving his idea of this idea of regulation. Attorneys general expect to gather at the extreme the Supreme Court today to talk about a new effort looking at google. Another group taking a look at facebook. You can look for that later. We are using the remaining 15 minutes talking about this idea of regulation of Tech Companies. Noyou think more regulation, new regulation, or less regulation. If you say more regulation, 2027488000. If you say no new regulation, 2027488001. If you say less regulation, 2027488002. Things we will talk about during the remainder of this morning, the wall street journal reflects the headline of several papers about the president taking action, shelving talks between the United States, taliban, and afghanistan. Post, in washington the next hour we take a larger look at this. Consideredings being. The idea of funding the federal government, but there will be other issues considered by the house and senate as they resume work. Then there is the political front, particularly 2020, the Washington Times highlighting the fact it is former South Carolina representative mark sanford planning a primary challenge against president donald trump, joining yet another member of congress, former member of congress and governor on that effort. When you talk to us or communicate with us during the program before a new way of doing so. Starting wednesday morning, you will be able to text us your thoughts on a question or segment and you can do so by texting 2027488003. 2027488003. When you text us starting wednesday, make sure you include your name, the city and state you are at, and a couple of the things that should be included. If you can keep the comments brief and ontopic, you will be possibly able to integrate into the conversation. 2027488003 hour texting number starting wednesday on washington journal. Kevin next up in michigan saying more regulation is needed. I wasi was caller sitting here thinking if these social media platforms would be suppressing liberal or progressive stuff, they would slap regulations on them faster than you could blink your eyes. Being sold or misplaced, i think there should be a penalty of 1 billion and that way it would stop right away. Host do you think that is a reality, those type of excessive fines if data gets misused . Caller they should be. If not they have more money than anybody. The only way you are going to hurt them is hit them in the pocketbooks. If you give them fines that are going to be crazy high, maybe they will stop suppressing other peoples comments. Jeremy inext to wisconsin, hello. No new regulations needed, he says. Good morning, go ahead. Caller i have a couple points, bear with me. Thank you for cspan. It is a pleasure to talk to you, sir. I appreciate this new idea you are developing about the texts. I am new to facebook. Lets say 14, 15 months. Facebookingook at cspan and i dont really know how to do that. I appreciate this new idea of developing texts. The cspan bus is going to be in wisconsin in a couple of days. I am interested in that. The third point, i apologize for my language. The use of the word data, the functioning of the word data, how data is coming across to each of your individual a tad. Rs i know i take the word as the word is being used or functioning in a different way. I did not explain it very well. Host only in the interest of time, this idea of regulation of companies you talk about or reference, what do you think about the approach of regulation . You are saying no new regulation needed, why is that . Caller i am saying there is no language here, that is what i am saying. Here is no paradigm Marsha Blackburn was talking about this topic. Host apologies for that, we have to go onto other callers. From illinois, proponent of no new regulation. This is mike, hello. Caller good morning, cspan. My problem is who is regulating the regulators . Trump is going to appoint someone . I have noticed a pattern of a pattern of fortune 500 companies. If you havent moved overseas, there is a war against you. Last week it was youtube, the week before was pharmacy companies. They are going after. What i noticed also is reappointing the whole board instead of going after the company, reappointing the board. As of youtube last week, they had a Police Monitor from the government going through the place. I think there is a war against the fortune 500 companies that havent moved to china. Ost that is mike in illinois the president in fayetteville, North Carolina, tonight. A 7 00 you can watch this as North Carolinas special elections take place on tuesday. You can see the president s comments at cspan 2 starting at 7 00 and go to cspan. Org and our cspan radio app is a place where you can monitor that as well. Virginia,exandria, and advocate for more regulation. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Host fine, thank you. Caller a couple callers ago a comment was made if a company is too large, it is futile to attempt to regulate it. When we throw up our hands because something becomes too big, we lose. We lose when it happens to the coal industry and they destroy our environment, it happens we lose when tech becomes too big. The belief the federal government cannot help or step in to regulate some of these bigger bodies is said to see people give up like that. Host because we are seeing attorneys general across the United States get involved, do you think the states have more power than the federal government . Caller the states only have more power if the states that are directly affected step in. The states that have larger Tech Industry ban together and are able to agree on a united front. Individualistically, they dont. I think the federal government wields more power that way. Host from pennsylvania, we will hear from emory. Calls for more regulation. Hello. Concern is now that we have these Mass Shootings newg on, they put all these regulations on people. When you want to get on the internet, make people go through a background check where they are going to get their iphones, their computers. I know so many people that are mentally unstable and they act as if these phones are there bibles. Anything that is in there, they think is true. If they want to have background checks on getting new guns, have people get a background check when they sign up for these companies, get an iphone, or get a new computer. These computers are what is causing all this hostility going on through these shootings and all these other things in my opinion. Host a couple of folks tweeting in this morning. Off of twitter, when it comes to regulating, reinstate Net Neutrality and the internet privacy. Good competition requires a good Playing Field. Internet Service Providers and content hosts should be separate entities and should not be allowed to collude. Mark lassiter saying we need regulations and we need to regulate who can access your social media sites. If you want to communicate with you dopanwj is how that off of twitter. Facebook. Com cspan is how you do that on facebook and as of wednesday, this coming wednesday, you can text us. 2027488003. Include your name, keep it brief. Possibly we will use them as part of your response to us on washington journal. Find out more at cspan. Org. Louise in florida, and advocate for more regulation. Hello. Caller yes, hello. I want people to listen very carefully to me. In july 2017, trump wasnt in office that long. I want to read something out of an editorial i wrote for our Daytona Beach news journal. Our private er our privacy over to corporate interests when he signed, as president , a Senate Resolution privacy,aled internet opening up to scrutiny our web Search History to all corporations and regarding our health, our everything. Financial data, everything. Trump already sold us out. Trying to put regulations in place, he signed a regulation opening up everything to corporate interest. Host you call for more regulations. If that is your belief, where should those regulations why . Ie . L louise in florida. I think louise hung up on us. That is louise giving her thoughts this morning. You can have a few minutes to do so on the phone lines and off our facebook tweets and feeds and twitter. We take a look at congress as they return and some of the things they face upon their return and on your money segment later on this morning, what we will do is take a look at Consumer Credit debt. Some new statistics and figures from a company that takes a look at these types of issues and you can also comment on that as well. That will be at 9 00 this morning. Clarksville, tennessee, george saying no new regulation needed. Hello. Caller good morning. It is kind of a hard thing to understand. Are these regulators going to be Government Employees . Egulators can also be bribed i recall after dodd frank, they had all kinds of regulations on things and jp morgan or chase or somebody was doing all these applications and bad deals and corrupting right under the regulators noses. Areovernment employees regulating anything. Host would you say no regulations overall or does it depend on who does the regulating . Caller regulators are only as good as the regulators themselves. They have devices, they can be swayed one way or another. It is really the customers who decide our ultimate regulators by not purchasing the product. You cannot regulate things into nothing. You cannot regulate somebodys mind. A company as big as that would have never happened at all,. Ould not have have existed that is too much of a burden. I think the regulators they did not create the companies. Why let them try to take it over . Host lets hear from paul in indiana, and advocate for less regulation. Hi. Caller hi. How are you doing today . Host fine, thank you. You are on. Caller thinking, i said less registration it should be more. We dont know what is going to happen down the road with people. Know how our country is going to turn out in the long run. Host by that what do you mean by that and how does that apply to more regulation . Walls like the border and our congress and the democrats and republicans, it is like what did you say . Host that is paul in indiana giving thoughts of many this past hour, taking a look at regulation of Tech Companies and thank you for the conversation. Thank you for calling us. One more reminder, starting wednesday, the ability to text , 202 7488003 will be the number you can text us. At keep your text to brief and on text us at. Keep your texts brief and ontopic. In our next segment, mike lillis of the hill. We will have that next on washington journal on washington journal. What is in 2020 what is your vision in 2020 . You most want what do you most want the president ial candidates to address . The studentcam competition for middle and high students with 100,000 dollars in total cash prizes at stake, including a 5,000 grand prize. 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Host this is mike lillis of the hill, senior reporter, here to talk about congress returning from the august break. Lets start with the brick itself. Any significant changes when legislators were back in their districts and how does that translate to coming back to work today . Guest all of these Mass Shootings had began just after they had gone home and that drove the debate are a couple weeks and democrats hope that momentum, something that can be done legislatively will be done in september. All of that ball is up in the draftedls are being with some markups, but the wildcard is what is Mitch Mcconnell going to bring to the floor . He made it clear he is not going to bring anything up to a vote without President Trump support. Trump has been all over the board. You go back to decades and two weeks, he seems to contradict himself on what he supports. He used to support assault weapons bans and background checks and all of these things, and sometimes he says he does not support those things anymore and seems to be adopting an ra points, claiming Mental Health and violent video games and all of these things. The white house is putting together a package on all of these things. We will have to see what will be in there. Democrats will say that is insufficient and of course nancy pelosi and House Democrats have passed a background check bill and they are trying to keep the pressure to bring it up for a vote. If it does come up for a vote, pelosi and Charles Schumer another letter to mcconnell. They will have hearings and press conferences on all of this stuff this week, really amplifying that message but mcconnell is not going to do anything unless donald trump supports it. The wildcard is going to be the president. Mcconnelltor receiving one letter to advocate for the bill. Can you expand on what it is . Guest it is a universal expansion of background checks before you buy a gun. If you go to a federally licensed gun dealer, walmart, any major gun store, Something Like that, they will run your name through an fbi database. They have been doing this since 1994. This was the brady bill. Just to check and see if you are a prohibited buyer. That means felons and domestic abusers and those who have been adjudicated to be severely mentally ill, illegal immigrants, those on the lam. Categories of people who are not permitted to buy a gun. That is federally licensed dealers. For those just selling on the internet or at a gun show or Something Like that and are not federally licensed, there is no screening. There is the loophole. If i am a felon, i will not trying to go to walmart, i can just go to a gun show or online and buy a gun. That is the loophole that hra would close. Everybody has to go through this screening process. What we saw in odessa a few weeks ago was a suspect who had failed a federally licensed background check in 2014 in texas, but for this particular shooting was able to buy one from a private seller and of course he killed seven people. The democrats will highlight that tragedy. You mentioned walmart, a story last week you had on the hill, walmarts decision on guns and ammo in certain places. Does that have a nice way and how legislators might make their decisions . Guest certainly, or at least that is the hope of gun reform supporters. They believe Corporate America getting behind these things will change the dialogue. Even if it does not mean immediate passage of these bills, it is changing the culture and the conversation. Things have shifted over this month. It is not just walmart. It was a long list of corporations turning to take internal steps. At the same time, pushing congress to do something. The victims and advocates have not had a lot of sway on capitol hill. Nothing has been done on guns for decades. Democrats are hoping that corporations have a little more voice. Couple of these shootings have happened in texas and what you saw last weekend was theant Lieutenant Governor coming out for background checks. He had an a plus rating from the nra and the nra really came after him. A lot of public pressure. Credit toe too much these corporations were trying to do this stuff because i think they are worried about their bottom line and what it that going to do. Is not going to turn off the Second Amendment folks and are they going to boycott . You saw addicts after the Portland Shooting up the parkland shooting stop selling guns and there was all of this warning, youre really going to take a hit and instead their overall sales increased across the country. I think other corporations like walmart look at that and say if there is no financial risk, then we might as well do it because it is good pr. Host mike lillis from the hill joining us. If you want to ask some questions about congress, 202 7488000 for democrats, republicans, 202 7488001. It is 202 7488002 for independents. A lot of activity last week. Could you spell out what happens on that front . Guest the big thing that happens is in the Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over impeachment. Jerry nadler who has been around forever, a constitutional law expert, seems to be wellpositioned to be the presiding guy on this issue. There has been all of this talk, are we doing impeachment, are we not . A lot of outlets out there including our newspaper keeping these lists of democrats who ours you are supporting who are supporting impeachment. They are playing this game, the semantics game where they are saying we are in an impeachment inquiry, but we are not going to vote on anything to do so and that is a change from the impeachment inquiries of the past, watergate and surrounding bill clinton in the late 90s where they did have a vote to launch this process. Nadler says we dont need to have an official process because the republicans changed the rules of the Judiciary Committee a few years back. We dont need to vote. They are trying to protect the centrist democrats who are in vulnerable conservative leaning seats. They are trying to play it both ways, using impeachment as a tool to get some information from the courts. They are saying all of these investigations now, the subtext is do we want to bring impeachment articles . Hoping the courts will side with them some of these documents to compel testimony. On wednesday the Judiciary Committee is going to pass a series of rules that will govern all of these investigations. Closer too be inching that impeachment inquiry, something more formal on the impeachment front. These new rules will allow staff and witnesses and things like that. It will broaden the scope of things to conduct these investigations which are all kind of tied up in the courts because the white house has not been cooperative. Host we have seen Speaker Pelosi be hesitant on this topic. Does that mean then, she has given her blessing to Jerry Nadlers approach . Guest yes. The semantic part of it is you can call it an impeachment investigation, and impeachment inquiry, and you can use this language in these Court Documents that you are filing, but we will not bring a vote on that until the public is on board. In the latest poll across the country that supports this. Nancy pelosi was around during watergate and she was on capitol hill during the clinton impeachment. She knows this is not go anywhere without public support this doesnt go anywhere without public support. If this isnt bipartisan, it doesnt go anywhere and could just hurt vulnerable democrats. She wants to keep the house in 2020, that is her number one goal. Aggressive oversight over the white house but she does not want to go too far. Host comedy democrats are currently behind how Many Democrats are currently behind impeachment . Even our list is just one long list and we try to bring out some of the nuance in their comments but some people want to impeach trump yesterday. Some have already drafted the articles. That is a small minority of the democrats who think we are there already. There is another group who does not want to bring a vote on an inquiry because they think that would give the democrats more legal tools to govern their investigation and get to the bottom of some of these things. Then there is a third group that is behind nadler that says we are fine calling it an impeachment investigation but lets just continue to investigate. We dont need to vote. If we find something that is impeachable down the line, that is when we will start drafting articles. Then there are those who dont want to talk about it, those in the red districts who dont want to go back and have to explain to voters who are accusing them of just being on a witch hunt and trying to overturn a president. Host we have some calls for you. Pennsylvania, carol is on with mike lillis from the hill. Caller i would like to go back a little bit to the gun legislation. It is my understanding that there is no central databank for any of the gun registration law itself, preventing a central databank and that there are files and boxes and that the police when they are looking after information, sometimes it takes days and weeks to get the information. Is that true and do you think congress would do anything to change that . Guest a good question. It is true that there is no federally mandated registration of firearms when you buy them. What they do have is a list of prohibited buyers that is being run by the fbi. They do not have a list of those who own guns, have a list of those who cannot own guns but it is incomplete. It is difficult to gauge because every state has a different set of laws, some are very aggressive in going after guns and some states require registration. From a federal standpoint there is nothing that requires gun owners to register. That is something that the nra has opposed for many years and republicans on capitol hill would never go there go for that. Host this is kenny on our democrats line. Caller hello. I was wondering, has there been arediscussion here we going on the third year of the trump administration. 7. 25 minimum wage and 11 years later, the federal looking for, i am them to get back to discussing greatness. I dont know where we are on that. Guest good question. The answer is the house passed its bill to raise the minimum wage to 15 an hour. That passed earlier in the year. They sent into the senate and it is not going anywhere in the senate. Not a popular idea with Mitch Mcconnell and republican leaders. It is one of those messaging bills that pelosi and House Democrats are leaning on, heading into 2020. It is one of those issues that pulls very well, but the democrats have not found a lot of traction or support on the others of the aisle. Until it has that, it is not going to go anywhere. Host another topic that Congress Considers this week, spending. 21 days until money for the federal government operation runs out. What has to happen before then . Guest they hopped a big hurdle in july. Trump signed this big budget deal into law in august and this set the stage for them to prevent a Government Shutdown on october 1. The twoyear deal was a big deal to get this done because this is the type of thing that could really snarl the entire process. They raised the caps, prevented automatic spending cuts. Above what that previously passed cap would have instated. It also raise the debt ceiling for two years and takes us beyond the 2020 president ial election. Both enormous steps for them to prevent a shutdown. What they havent done is actually fund the government. But is step one, step two is to pass the appropriation bills. 10. House has already passed the senate has not passed any of them. They are not even pretending they have enough time to put this together and fund the thernment by october 1 for entire year fiscal 2020. They will do a continuing resolution, a shortterm got a short term stopgap spending bill. We are not sure how long it is going to be. Month kick theo can down the road situation. What could happen is we are hearing from Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, sorry, who want to do something bigger. They want to pass a defense bill that runs the entire year. Putting be some kind of the pieces together, some of it we would just kick down the road. Some of it would be for the full year. We are waiting and seeing what will happen on that front. Bridget shelby is the appropriation center in the senate. They will work on some markup bills this thursday. That includes the labor and Health Department bill and the defense bill which is an enormous chunk of defense of spending. Republicans hope to take those bills and pass them for the full year. Whether pelosi and House Democrats go along remains to be seen. They just had this 35 day shut down earlier in the year. No one wants to do that again. We are closer to a president ial election. Both sides get beat up during a Government Shutdown, it just makes them look incompetent. That was triggered by trump jake trumps insistence on wall funding. Democrats will not have a dime for more border wall spending. That could be one kind of wildcard, one snag that we have to be watching out for. Thatupreme court did rule trump by declaring a National Emergency can use pentagon money to begin building the wall. There is hope among a lot of Senate Republicans that that relieves the pressure on congress to put money for the wall into these bills but anything can happen. Host for mike lillis of the hill, we will go next to ray in pennsylvania, democrats line. Caller good morning. I want to make a statement. I have noticed a lot of stuff being discussed but i have not noticed anything being discussed about our labor unions. Passed by congress before the break. Hopefully the senate will pass this thing when they come back this week because sometime this week or in the near future because weve got people, and i am one of them, selling stuff, selling their homes. Thatis millions of people this act has affected. One guy lost 70 of his pension. 70 of a pension he worked his whole life for. Worked 34y country, i years in a place and all of a sudden, but we thought was a secure nice pension at the end of our careers is being cut. It would be nice if congress or the senate would pass this thing. Host we will let our guest respond. Guest thanks ray. As you mention, the house has passed this bill. It is one of those Top Priorities for richard neal. It was something that he campaigned on. The thought was that it helped them in the 2018 midterms, the democrats. Pelosi has been pushing on it and again, the question is, is Mitch Mcconnell going to do anything with it . I have to claim ignorance on what the senate is doing on that bill. I know it is not on the calendar for this week. Whether or not they have plans to do anything on their own, what might happen is they could write their own bill and try to unite them in a Conference Committee or bounce those bills back and forth until they can find a deal. I dont know how much interest there is on the others of the aisle but it is another one of those messaging things that pelosi and the democrats are going to be pushing. They will be screaming about that heading into 2020. Labor unions historically have been on the side of the democrats and that has not changed. Host mike from massachusetts, independent line. Caller how are you doing . I have a question about americans and information. It seems like more americans are getting more into politics but they dont know the depths of it. Do you think it is like pseudointellectualism where we think that we are going into it but it is actually putting more pressure on policymakers instead of letting them do their jobs . Guest certainly what we have seen is a kind of tribalism that has grown and there is fully a lot of causes for that but certainly the media landscape and how quickly it has changed with the internet and now social media, and it does allow the conversation to happen. If everyone is just tweeting and screaming at each other, then you are not digging into any issue in any kind of depth. I think that is a problem that everybody recognizes, particularly those of us in the media. How to write the stories with more context and nuance and liver something that is digestible that also gets to the meat of the matter. I dont think there is anyway to answer that question in generalizations. Some people are more interested than others. Some will know all the policy details. Host lets talk about people leaving congress. 12 announced resignations from the publican side, three on the democratic side. As far as republicans, how does that number track at this time of a midterm of presidency . Guest it is not unusual. 2012,e looking back at the exact same situation for the democrats that the publicans are in right now. They had the white house but they just lost the house and it looked like they were not going to flip it back. People who have been around a while, people who have not been around a while. There is not a lot of power if you are a house member in the minority. Davis across the river here and he said you do two things as the minority in the house. You fill the quorum, you go vote so that there is enough votes for the body to work and you collect a paycheck and thats it. People who have been used to holding gavels and having all kinds of sway on capitol hill and they suddenly lose it get a little bit disenchanted. Everybody has different reasons. Some of them had promised selfimposed term limits. We saw that with bill florez in texas. He said i will not be here forever. Sensenbrenner has been here a very long time and thinks it was time to retire for him. We do hear grumbling off the record in private conversations that a lot of these guys are just tired of getting questions about trump. So much of the conversation is dictated by whatever the president has tweeted that morning or some comments he made or some scandal or something happening and it is taking up so much of the oxygen, the discussion and a lot of these guys are tired of having to answer for it and defend the white house. I think that is a factor. Host in a general sense come election day, will the senate stay in republican hands . Guest i dont know the answer to that. Does anybody know . I think the math is looking good for them to keep the senate but i have not followed that closely enough. House, everybody thinks the democrats will keep it but nothing is a slamdunk these days. The polls were wrong in 2018, certainly wrong in 2016. Host lets hear from jan in virginia, independent line. Nurse, i am a navy served in korea and i love the internet. It provides the opportunity for people to speak their minds and speak about the constitution that is totally violated today. I believe the gop has been very cowardly, very submissive to a president that doesnt do anything but harm our country. Impeachment will becoming. We will see him go to prison. I believe in karma. Thank you. Guest she is speaking for a lot of democrats who would like to see the president impeached and or put in prison. A long ways away that is a long ways away. Nancy pelosi is not going to do anything with it. It would take quite a revelation for republicans to get behind any sort of impeachment, even an inquiry never mind and impeachment or conviction in the senate. Jan is speaking for a lot of democrats who are frustrating you are frustrated that this is not have to who are frustrated that this is not happening sooner. Host one of those skeptics, represented of doug collins, judiciary ranking member, he was on fox yesterday talking about impeachment. [video clip] gobetween democrats have portrayed themselves in a terrible way over the last eight months and they just keep digging their whole. They keep going after things because they hate the president so much that they dont want to have anything happen. I am tired of the chairman and the rest of the House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee doing away with our house to corum, our house rule, making it up as they go in one minute in june they see them Mueller Report is everything and then they have mr. Mueller, there is nothing and then the chairman to find impeachment material. The mother report is just a small piece of it. This is pathetic. Nothing like this has ever happened in the house before. They are trying to chart new ground when they dont want to do what they know they have to do. If they really want to do this, have to bring impeachment to the floor. This is simply a show. Frankly they should be ashamed. Lillis, the republican perspective or approach on these proceedings. This is what we are hearing from all of President Trumps defenders on capitol hill, that this has been a witchhunt from the start and democrats have no interest in actually going after the president because they dont have the support or the votes to get rid of him, so they are just using it as a political bludgeon to damage the white house so he cant get anything done policy wise. Doug collins has been saying this all year along with three publican leaders. That is the frustration you are hearing from republicans. No surprises there. As the Shifting Sands of the investigation, certainly we saw for a long time, pelosi and the democrats were saying we have to wait for the mother report to come out. Now the report has come out and we have to wait for his testimony. Now the testimony is done and we have to wait for these Court Documents. It is an evolving process. A lot of the testimony is not being given. They say the investigation is incomplete and until they get all the information they will not make any determinations but they are also not going to give up. That is where we are. Is there a political element to this . Of course. The base once President Trump impeached and part of the democrats job heading into 2020 is not to deflate their base. They have to prove they were elected for a reason and that they will be an aggressive check on this white house. That is not going to stop regardless of what doug collins wants. Host massachusetts, independent line, we will hear from kevin. Caller hello. Host go ahead. It seems one thing that they agree on is to increase the budget. That is one thing they agree on. They did not want to look incompetent. So pathetic, it would be funny. That is all i have to say. Guest certainly when it comes to Government Spending, both sides of the aisle are supportive of it. During campaign season, they talk about skyrocketing deficits, skyrocketing debt. It is a Good Campaign tool, it wins votes. It was effective in the obama when annual deficits jumped above 1 trillion. Then they get elected and what happens is they realize that cutting these popular programs doesnt win them mini support back home. Both sides of the aisle have done this for years. That talk about raining and spending, but there is no appetite and no political incentive to do so. Economy,in a booming deficits are back over 1 trillion. This twoyear budget deal did not help that with 320 billion in new spending and the tax cuts they were tax cuts the republicans passed at the end of 2016. What they say on the campaign trail and what they do once they are in washington are often two different things. Host mike lillis, Senior Editor for the hill. He covers congress from new york. Matt on our independent line. Go ahead. Get a i just wanted to couple of points across. I got sidetracked listening while i was on hold and as far as the impeachment, i think back to we are no longer in the where we can depend on government as leadership. I think Everybody Needs to start taking a more active role in smaller towns and smaller politics and community and that is where it starts. Democrats are looking for instant debt instant gratification when it comes to gun control. Looking to this impeachment stuff and it gets ridiculous. I think back to the party of Hubert Humphrey and the things he would say. Democracy, knowing the true meaning of it, opportunity has changed for tomorrow and what happened to that . American electric still powers up all of my devices that come from Silicon Valley and that is where you start. Railroads ran on americans on american soil. Guest he is voicing some frustration about the process and there is a lot of frustration with congress in recent years that they cant do anything at all. We were having that conversation just this month because Government Spending is a must pass bill, can they do it, and they proved they could not do it last year. Underlying all of these debates is what can congress do . What happened to the art of obamamise and president ran on i will be a postpartisan postpartisan president and donald trump ran on the art of the deal and both struggled to unite these parties are very divided, very partisanship. It has defined this town for the past decade and the question is when is the pendulum going to swing back and that is voicing the frustration of what happened to the art of the deal. I dont know how the pendulum swings back or if it does but right now we are in a place where the parties dont agree on much and there is more political incentive for them to fight then there is to get along and at least to accomplish some of these big things, meaning immigration, guns, infrastructure, some of the enormous things they talk about wanting to do but it never gets done. Billy thing they can do is Government Spending and even then they come up short. Host you talk about bipartisan efforts when it comes to the topic of guns. Chris coons talked about efforts he was making with republicans in congress on coming up with some type of framework. We will hear what he had to say. [video clip] i,senator pat toomey and republican from pennsylvania, we have been working hard on a bipartisan bill, tragically in august we lost 15 more americans in mass shooting incidents in dayton and el paso and odessa. The odessa shooter failed a background check. Our fill would make sure state Law Enforcement is probably notify when someone fails a background check. I have been talking with republicans, democrats over the august recess. I am hopeful President Trump will lead on this issue next week, take a position, stick with it. The American People deserve no less. Host can you expand on that effort going on and the potential it might see some light of day . Guest we talked about how this debate has shifted because of the shootings and one of the major shifts is not just incorporations and what texas is doing but Mitch Mcconnells openness to bringing some of these bills to the floor. He has always been a bit of a big Second Amendment guy. He has always opposed these things in the past. The possibility of a vote is a major shift. He is does he needed some of the legislative powers to his he hasee had designated some of his slate of powers to his Committee Head legislative powers to his Committee Head. That would be a big step. The nra opposes that. That would be republicans bucking the gun lobby what you dont see that often. Which you dont see that often. Republicans have a red flag law that will pass judiciary this week. Thinking is because that will be just democrats writing that one, it will probably be a bit stronger. We will have to see what Lindsey Graham comes up with, if mcconnell brings it to the floor, if trump supports it and if democrats on the house side would support it. Lindsey graham is working with Richard Blumenthal who is a liberal connecticut democrat. There is a lot of hope on the democrat side that it would be a bill that actually had teeth and would be something democrats could support in the end. There is a joe mansion from West Virginia and pat toomey bill after the new shooting in 2012 that came to the floor in 2013 and came five votes short of the thet needed to be republican filibuster up to beat the republican filibuster at the time. That is an expansion of background checks. It is not a universal expansion. It does not go quite as far as hr eight but it would get a lot of bipartisan support. We will have to see if trump supports it. Then mcconnell would bring it to the floor. Whether it has the votes to pass, we dont know. There are only four republican senators who voted for mansionto me in 2013 in 2013. Ntoomey is there more appetite for that now in the wake of these shootings . We dont know. Host from berkeley springs, West Virginia, carl is next, public in line. Caller what i am wait republican line. Caller what i am waiting on is the senate Judiciary Committee to get into this russian illusion that all began and think you are going to hear about james comey because he warrants ton faisal spy on an american citizen and they did not find anything. The man has not been charged with anything. Coverer if the press will when they really get into that and we get the same coverage that has been for the last two years telling us that trump is a russian agent. I just wonder if your paper will cover that. Thank you. Guest good question. We will be covering it. There is plenty of focus on that from Senate Republicans. They want to go back and dig into the origin of that and james comey is a big part of it. Just last week a new report from the fbi was very critical of comey and his handling of everything. How he leaked some of that information through a friend. He kind of sidestepped a legal loophole. Plenty of criticism and there has been plenty of coverage as that evolves. As you mentioned, graham is looking into it. House republicans are looking are pressing democrats to look into that as well. That is a big part of their message these days. I dont know an outlet that is not covering it. Host these any sense of when that might be coming down . Report ontor general what happened leading up to the russian collusion . Guest the aig report that came out last week is step one. I dont know if there will be more reports. Host a longrange report looking at the basis. I did not know if there was any indication. Guest i dont know the timeline for that. We will watch. Host West Virginia, republican line, larry. Caller i am calling to talk about the budget. I feel the main thing they have to do is cut the spending and they should start with cutting the department of education. The department of education has never educated anyone and he keeps going up and up and it has gotten nothing but worse since they started the department of education. The laboralking about bill that was introduced to bailout labor and companies that mismanaged their funds in their pensions and you cant keep rewarding people for bad behavior and bailing them out if they made bad investments and did not put the proper money into pension funds. We have to stop bailing out everybody. The other question, i never hear anybody say they never have enough money for illegal aliens but they dont have enough money for Senior Citizens, they dont have enough are veterans and i think it is a shame that Senior Citizens have to pay taxes on their Social Security. It was never meant to be taxed. A lot of states tax it and the government taxes it. They have to get back to basics and cut out a lot of stuff and take care of America First and cut the spending on illegal aliens, foreign aid and a lot of departments are way too big. I think the department of education should be handled by the state and local level and they will do a much better job. Guest thank you caller host thank you caller. Guest this is the debate we will be having all month. It is not just an issue of how much money is being spent but where does it go. Everybody has their favorite programs. The Defense Department just got a 3 raise, 4 raise for the other domestic programs across the board. Everybody claims of victory and goes home and says look what we did for our constituents, for our Interest Groups but this is nothing new. This is not going to go away. This is not going to be solved this year. This is a question of which programs should get how much money and what is the role of the federal government in ensuring that these programs continue and have some teeth and strength or as the caller said, should they be eliminated altogether . A lot of people think the Education Department has been ineffective and should shrink considerably if not disappear. Of course there are those who think it is just underfunded and that is the reason why it is underperforming in some cases. This is just an ongoing debate that we are having. Immigrants,legal that is another part of this. I mentioned the wall is going to be a big part of the spending debate, but also the treatment of the migrants at the border. The Immigration Judges are going to be a big issue because the backlog for these cases is so long. Of course the health and hygiene reports we have been seeing coming out of the border is a big concern for the democrats who are going to want to put some more money in for the care and wellbeing of these kids. It is all an issue of priorities and the parties are just divided on so many issues that these are the fights we have over and over again. The politics of this creeps in because everybody is just looking for that little leverage that will allow them to sneak some of this money into big spending bills and that is what we will see all month. That is what we will see the rest of the year, especially if we will have this debate heading into the thanksgiving break. Plenty of room for another shutdown. Host one more call from christina in new york, republican line. You could spar back and forth, how does that look . Is that the appropriate platform . This guy talking a wall street journal, host caller if you are not christina from new york or if you are somebody else, do you have a question or comment for mike lillis from the hill . Caller i went on youtube yesterday and video record the fact ofst on email responses on a public platform on institutions websites and accessible host we will keep it there. Mike lillis, before we let you go, trade on the usmca fund. Congress has considered that before the end of the year. Guest we dont know. This is one of those ongoing debates. Involved and much she very much very much wants to get a deal. She is heavily invested in this. She was able to win this budget deal with steve mnuchin. List. On her priority trump wants it, pelosi wants it. Anytime those two want something badly enough, they can get it done but there are a lot of details to be ironed out. You are hearing the same concerns over and over again from the democratic side. They will not sign off on anything that does not have strong environment protections. They are talking about new teeth for drug price provisions, Labor Protections and things like that. Not only here, but Labor Protections abroad. There are a lot of sticking points to be ironed out. It is not impossible. They have done hard things before and anytime the two principles are invested as much as they are, things can get done, and pretty quickly. It just depends on where the pressure points are and what else is happening. We are talking about a shut down, it might be a distraction and it might be tough to get something as big as a brandnew trade deal. There is a lot of pressure to get something done. Host mike lillis of the hill, he writes at thehill. Com. Here to talk about the week ahead for congress. We appreciate your time. Coming up, we take a look at the topic of Consumer Credit card debt with matt schultz with oft schulz as we take a look a look at new reports. Washington journal continues after this. What is your vision in 2020 . Studentcam 20 is asking students what issue do you most want to see president ial candidates addressed during the campaign . Studentcam is cspans nationwide video documentary competition for middle and High School Students with 100,000 in total cash prizes at stake including a 5,000 grand prize. Students are asked to produce a short video documentary, include cspan video and reflect differing points of view. Information to help you get started is on our website, studentcam. Org. Campaign 2020. Watch our live coverage of the president ial cam provincial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own minds. Cspans campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. Wednesday is the 18th anniversary of the 9 11 terrorist attack. Watch our live coverage at 8 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan3 from the 9 11 Memorial Plaza in new york city. The moment of silence, the reading of the names, and the ringing of the bell. At 9 00 eastern on cspan, from the pentagon, a wreathlaying ceremony at the 9 11 memorial. Live coverage of the 18th anniversary of the 9 11 terrorist attack on cspan, cspan3 and listen live on the free cspan radio app. Washington journal mugs are are available at the new cspan store. Washington journal continues. Host every monday at this time we go ahead and do our your money segment and today we are looking at the topic of Consumer Credit card debt with our guest, matt schulz of comparingcards. Com. He serves as the chief analyst. Good morning. How are you funded . Guest comparecards. Com is owned by lending tree. We are a credit card marketplace where people can come and get the cards but also learn how to use them wisely and what to know when you are shopping for one. Basically we get a bounty every time somebody signs up for a card through our site. We have relationships with lots of issuers, but we also have a church and state divide in our newsroom like any other media outlet in the country. My role basically is to be the person who goes out and tells the truth and help people make smart decisions about cards. Host when it comes to the overall topic of consumer debt, how are residents of the United States doing generally . Guest they are still handling their business pretty well right now. Delinquencies are climbing up a little bit but they are still generally low. There are definitely signs that we are starting to run into some issues. That is to be expected because there is 1 trillion in Credit Card Debt and essentially people are going to have to start having a hard time with that. We sorted to see we started to see some signs of people becoming less confident about their ability to pay. Host such as what . Guest we do polling every month, asking people how confident they are in being able to pay their statement balance in full this month. How often they have paid in full in the last six months and how often they expect to do it in the next six months. What we have seen is basically all those numbers are at the lowest they have been in the year that we have been doing this. The really troubling aspect of it is that there is a gender gap the size of the grand canyon, where women are three times more likely to say that they have never paid their bill in full in the past 6 in the past six months and to say that they are not confident in being able to pay their bills in full. That is tough. Host to go through the numbers. 40 saying very confident in their ability to pay. 30 said they always pay the monthly statement balance in full. 21 say they never once paid monthly statement balance in full during the last six months. Lets start with those three. You are saying that collectively, this showing of concerns could be a possible bubble situation . Guest i dont know if it will be a bubble, but i think it is going to be an interesting transition over the next there is so much recession talk. I personally believe that americas financial margin for error is so small that even those even though those to link with cs are small right now, it will not take all that much right now to have people from going to have people going from feeling ok about things to being in some scary situations. Host talk about the comparisons you are seeing between what you are seeing now and 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Guest that was such a crazy time. Banksuencies spiked and were cutting off accounts because they did not want to take any risk. Not there in not there yet and it is going to take some sort of external trigger like we saw in 2008 with the housing bubble in order to really send things over the edge. We dont know how high Credit Card Debt can go without causing a lot of issues because that peak we saw in 2008 was stopped cold by other economic issues. Host are just as with us until 9 30. If you want to ask him questions concerning can Credit Card Debt, you can call us. 202 7488000 for the eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 in the mountain and pacific time zones. The final line of the report taking a look at women and the approach they have in paying off Credit Card Debt. Expand on that. Guest there has been a lot written about the wage gap and women have so many things stacked against them financially, not the least of which being the wage gap. Being theikelihood of head of a Single Family household. A lot of things that make things difficult for women in this particular space. In the year we have been doing this tracking of confidence, we have seen the gender gap be completely obvious in the numbers we have done and in all the surveys we do, there can be a pretty good amount of difference between men and women in what we dont want is for that gap to expand. We want it to go the other way. It is going to be interesting to economic downturn eventually comes and how that looks. Host how does that number compared to men who responded . Guest men are much more confident when it comes to being able to pay their bills, and much more likely to have said they pay their bills in full. For example, about 30 of men said they were confident in their ability to pay their bills , but only about 10 of women said that. I think that is right. There are a lot of numbers in my head. Host a couple other numbers to show you. This was the Consumer Financial protection bureau. They put out a report on their own. 2018,aid by the end of total balances when it came to credit cards, about 900 billion, well above their recession peak. Cardholders were using prime and subprime Credit Scores to set off most of that Credit Card Debt and the look the delinquency rate had declined sharply. Guest what is interesting is in the past few years, when we have seen things really good in the credit card space, people were spending and going crazy with it. We sought expansion into the subprime space we saw an expansion into the subprime space. A lot of the growth and delinquencies is in that subprime space which should not be surprising. It just ends up being the cycle that credit cards get in. It is not just credit cards, it is the whole thing but that is kind of how it ends up going. What we have seen in the past year or two is a little bit of tightening when it comes to lending standards and banks being less likely to lend to those subprime folks because they are girding themselves a little bit for whenever any downturn comes up. Host who is filling the gap as far as approaching those in the prime or subprime area and meeting their needs . Guest there are always people who will go after that. The personal loan space has been really interesting, where it is not even necessarily banks. It can be banks but sometimes it is Tech Companies who are offering personal loans to people, to get started with credit or to help rebuild their credit and we have already we have already we have actually seen signs in the credit card space of people using personal loans in the way that people used to use Balance Transfer credit cards. A lot of that Credit Card Debt that people are trying to consolidate and manage is now appearing in the personal loan space and may actually be making it to where it looks like there is less Credit Card Debt than there actually is because it just move somewhere else. Host this is matt schulz, chief analyst for comparingcards. Com. Our first caller is helen from maryland. Caller thank you for calling thank you for taking my call. I am glad to know this subject is out in front of me. I have been talking to one of my credit card providers and trying to get them to stop doing some of the predatory things they are doing. A 745 credit rating. I have a low amount on my credit card. 150 or 75 more each month. They changed me from a 12 Interest Rate to a 20 foot 28 so i started went from that paying 200 a month. Arbitrarily setting me at 200 a month. The last three payments ive made i made 200 for three payments that gives me 600 and they charged me 147 dollars in Interest Rate. So i dont know how to get ahead of them other than trying to pay it off. I am at a fixed income, they are eating up my income. Utilities are eating up my income. We have our utilities, we have mortgages, medical bills and these things are playing together all at one time. Host thank you very much for the call. Guest Credit Card Debt is a big problem for many people in the country, there is no question and generally speaking when it are beinghat people charged and what they have to pay in terms of minimum payments, generally there are formulas that are involved that help calculate based on how much of it balance you have and that number moves with the palance balance you have but it shouldnt move on a monthtomonth basis if your balance hasnt moved that much. Since there are restrictions as to how quickly the bank can change your Interest Rate without something having happened because regulations we 2008, 2009 make it where in most situations the banks have to give you 45 days notice if theyre going to increase your Interest Rate. If Something Like that happens more quickly or you werent notified, thats a whole other issue. Generally speaking most things shouldnt change that much in that direction so i am not sure what the case might be there. Host if you are off twitter says overall Interest Rates are going down, yet card rates are staying the same. The movement in credit card rates over the last few years has been driven by the fed. Cards in of credit this country are called variablerate cards and they move when the fed moves rates. Is raisinghe fed rates and things move that way but before that it was interesting, after the Great Recession after banks slashed credit card lines, there was a whole lot of movement. Apr for a little while and then everything got volatile for short time and it flattened out for the few years and it was pretty stable until the fed started to raise rates. So now what we see is according to our latest report we did last month, the average credit card apr is about 20. 9 and the and the average offer comes the range of apr basically 17 to about 23 . Depending on your creditworthiness, a big difference. Host this is lindsay, hello. Caller ive had a couple of small questions if i could. To switchone is how to a different card and cancel one without hurting your credit score and the other is i have a visa card and ive tried for a few months to pay it off and i paid it off a couple of times and i keep getting this deal so when i called, my bill is due on the 12th of each month but they didnt add the interest from that bill until the 15th of each month so i kept getting a bill for the interest and it a neverending thing so i had to pay in more than my bill was so i would have a negative balance so i still get a bill every month but its negative. I know the answer, so they can keep you on a continuous billing but if you could tell a little bit about that, i appreciate it. There can be times where there ends up being a little bit of residual interest after you close a credit card. Islly the best thing to do to call the 800 number on the back of your credit card and say im closing it and ask them about any other interest going to be accrued on this account and they should be able to give you that final closeout number that you should be able to wrap up that card and not have to worry about it anymore. With that said, generally for your credit score the best move is to keep that credit card. Maybe you cut it up, stick it in a desk. Fronted fronted in their freezer so they cant use it. Generally the best thing for you to do is to keep that credit card open because it impacts something called credit utilization which is basically how much debt you have compared to how much available credit you have. So if your 3000 in debt and 10,000 in available credit, your utilization rate is 30 but if you knock that down to 5,000 in available credit, all of a sudden utilization rate is 60 and that is going to hurt your credit score and credit utilization is the second most important aspect of your credit score behind your payment history, so really a good thing to do would be to keep that card and maybe put a recurring small subscription charge, maybe netflix or spotify or some particular subscription that you setup that auto pay and that billing to where it is there, it is active and youre not going to miss any payments and it is doing the work for you in preserving the credit. Host donna off of twitter asks how well do those Debt Relief Companies work, adding she doesnt know anyone that use one personally. Ifgenerally speaking something is being offered up sounds too good to be true, it probably is and there is a whole lot of that in that space. And it is important for people to understand that if debt gets forgiven and you dont pay the full amount that you o2 somebody, it will shoot your credit in a pretty significant way and the other thing a lot of people dont know when it comes to forgiving debt is that that forgiven debt is viewed as income by the irs and a lot of people think they are done with that debt and then they get themselves a bill from the irs. Host from california in san jose, renee is next. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Im glad this topic is on the air. I have a question about digital example ies for finally got credit established, it was great. I got an expansion for a larger amount, everything was going great. Im very responsible with my debt. I have a Health Situation that insurance covers. If i didnt get it done i would lose the function of my jaw completely. So i needed a significant amount of money. Was ired interest want to know how this has changed health care. Does it change the format of credit cards and what is the digital aspect of the credit card being digital because they give you a choice and i just thing itember for one is overwhelming and my mom also has alzheimers which is not covered by health insurance. The health care and the debt and credit cards, i dont understand how my credit is down to five something. How important is it. Guest health care is an enormous issue. It is crazy. Most americans muster a lebron james or someone super wealthy is really one medical emergency away from being in pretty significant financial trouble. Credit cards are tough in that situation because the Interest Rates are so high that a lot of times those medical bills are astronomical and bigger than anybodys credit limit would be so it can make it a challenging thing. There are things which im not extremely familiar with but i know there are services out there and their personal things you can take to help out with that sort of thing as well as some goodwill programs that some of the pharmaceutical companies are for up for people on fixed income. Comes to the digital aspect of a credit card, we are going to see that a lot more. Theapple card was kind of first big example of a wellknown big brand card that came out and said we are in Digital First and we will give you the physical card but we want you to use it for your iphone, online, that sort of thing. All of that is coming. Ultimately the thing to know is that it is all just credit, whether you are using it through online, through a plastic card or a titanium card or whatever it might be, it is still just basically credit and all the rules. This is robert in baltimore maryland. Questionefore asked my can you confirm i think you said 10 of women report being able to being able to pay their bills and only 30 of men, is that right . Guest it was getting at the andidence that people have the number of women who are confident in their ability to pay their bills in fall, credit card bills in full this time is in the Single Digits and men is about three times higher. Caller god it. That single factoid describes the state of the economy for people on the street better than complex economic results that politicians selectively cherry pick findings. Fore is no single metric we can go offhat of our numbers from income which i think is particularly valueless. Wealth probably makes more sense. But none of it makes a lot of value given the cost, especially health care radicallyexpenses change the Playing Field is in terms of security for individuals. That statistic i think is more valuable than many i have heard. You arelike to suggest uniquely positioned to weigh in on the actual state of the economy for people on the street better than economists or politicians. Guest thank you. When is kind of my hope started doing this polling. State and view of the the fragility of peoples personal finances took a shift when the last Government Shutdown happened because what we saw was it lasted 30 or 40 days, but the amount of people, people who make good incomes, people who pay bills regularly who missed a month of pay and found themselves in some really difficult scary situations seemed to me like it is Proof Positive that most americans financial margin for error is really small and again like we said earlier on in the show, i just dont think it is going to for americansmuch who are doing a fairly good job now of paying bills consistently to be in some real trouble and hopefully that stays a little farther away but im afraid it is not going to. Host you mentioned the credit card act of 2009. Talk about what its intended purpose was and what it accomplished. Guest it has accomplished a lot. The intent was essentially to sumersand help protect consumers against unfair and potentially deceptive practices out there and it was one of the big centerpieces of president obamas early years. It was one of the first things was itand what it did made a lot of changes and among regulatedthe fact it where your payment was applied for example. After the minimum payment, any amount you paid to your credit card has to go to the highest interest portion of the balance first and that is a significant thing because those calculations can be manipulated pretty quickly and easily to make some substantial issues for people. Rid of whats called universal default where if you miss a payment on one credit can, all the other issuers jack up your rates pretty quick. Another thing it did was make it harder for banks to do their work on College Campuses and it ability for the folks under 21 to get a credit card because when i was in college my dorm room mailbox was overrun with credit card offers, but now in order for someone under 21 to get a credit card you either need to show proof of income or get a cosigner. That has changed the game a little bit. A bunch of other things it did. Find a wayhe banks to work around that . Guest they have. It was a really volatile time because it did hit them in the bottom line and they had to kind of scramble and see exactly how they could generate some more of awayrevenue that it took and they pressed some buttons and pulled some levers and managed to be ok. Host this is dana for our guest. Caller this is important. My sister passed away in michigan so we had to get a plane ticket to get in and then we had to get a ticket to get home. Getting in was fine. Getting home we called and found an agency called just fly. They gave me a price, i took the price and we went over it many times because i have discovery card and we never charged anything. Overcharged my credit card of a different price of what they quoted me on the phone. We never got a confirmation number from them so we called the next morning to make sure the flight went ok. Well it didnt. So we called our Credit Card Company to see if would it was even charge. From 138 ad ticket, they charged her credit card 500 something a ticket. So now we are trying to fight discovery to we didnt ok that charge because we couldnt afford it. So we wind up going and applying for another company, they didnt we didnt even take that flight. We got another flight and took that and came home on that one. How do we fight these charges that wrongfully charged our card. First of all im sorry for your loss. But second of all, it is tough. The short answer in this is that documentationre and the more proof you can have of that charge and of who you talked to and confirmation numbers and things like that, the more likely you will be to get a refund from your credit card issuer because to be honest credit card issuers, it is a pretty cut and dry straightforward sort of saying, they will generally be pretty willing to refund you or to waive a fraudulent fee, it happens hundreds of times every day around the country. But i suspect what the issue might be in your situation is the lack of documentation and that is a challenge of having something done over the phone as online to via emailer where you might get some sort of documentation that you can use as proof of what you were told. That is a tough situation. Host we will hear from terry in indiana. Caller good morning. First i wanted to say i do some tutoring online and we might learn something because i know my italian students, they cant carry a balance on their credit card. They have to pay it off every month. Againestion i had is these commercials ive been seeing on tv to make your credit card . Away, my understanding is it makes they tell you to stop a paying your bill altogether until it gets turned over for collection. Once its turned over collections, this company will send a demand letter to the collector saying give us proof of these debts, of course they cannot and basically it just goes away. , am i mistaken on how this works or could you comment on this . Guest you are not entirely mistaken. The truth is any time you are talking about Debt Settlement or debt consolidation or Debt Management or anything like that, it is really important that you understand what you are getting into and ultimately what the ramifications of these aregs can be because if you told to stop paying your bill as part of a program, that bill is not going to get paid, that will do a lot of damage to your credit. And honestly my personal view on things you hear from folks, whether it is debt repair or credit repair or all of that sort of stuff, these are things, these are companies that are Offering Services that a lot of us can do ourselves with a couple of phone calls and a little bit of knowledge and we have a lot of information on but it is really important to understand that not making that payment, stopping making that payment will destroy your credit because ultimately people overthink credit. They think it is this unknowable beast but really what it comes down to is paying your bills on time every single time, keep your balance as low as possible and not applying for too much credit too often. If you do those over and over again, you will be just fine. Anybody who tells you to do something that will disrupt any of those, take a step back and think about it before you do it. Host it has been about two years since the equifax data breach. What if we learned about Data Collection and data privacy . What we have learned is theres a lot of people starting to see this as some white noise. , it seemsequifax was like there is a data breach every other day or every day and we did some polling recently with the second anniversary of the announcement coming up and we found a lot of people, 95 of people are doing one of the 10 or 12 things we ask them if they are doing, but a lot of the basic blocking and tackling of credit protection and Identity Theft protection are not being done and the best example of about 60 ofact people said they check their credit score in the past year and that is great. But only about 40 said they check their Credit Report and when you are talking about Identity Theft, Fraud Protection , there is no comparison between those two as a tool because the Credit Report is somebody takes your Social Security number they found on the dark web after somebody sold it, the way youre going to find out about that account is to see it on your Credit Report, not to find it out any other way. It is really incumbent on people to do that as well as to do things like checking your online bank statement, your online credit card statement as often as you possibly can. Host what does equifax offer as far as rectifying rectifying the situation . Guest they have a site set up or you can check to see if you have been hacked and put your information and they will tell you and if you have been impacted. You have until january i think to submit your claim and you can either apply for monetary claims , there has been some debate as to exactly how much that will be. Host i think the initial amount was 125 per guest so many 125. Guest you can also apply for Credit Monitoring Services and that can be useful as well, we have some credit monitoring stuff from lending tree that we offer as well. Can bet sort of Service Really useful because we all try to do it we can to protect ourselves but it can be helpful and give peace of mind. Host winchester, virginia next. Thanks for taking my call. Myould like to relate situation with credit in this effect of what happened to me and if you can bear with me, this goes back to i owneding crisis and my house. My wife and i bought this house and we raised our children in it. There is a housing bubble. We were approached by several Mortgage Companies to refinance our house, Everybody Knows the value of houses went up. , took and my house equity and my wife and i proceeded to fix up a house we had lived in, raised her children in and that we intended to spend the rest of our natural lives. While the housing debacle was going on, im making my house payments regularly, ive never missed a payment on a house. My credit of the time was impeccable. I could walk into any bank, any car dealership, any dealership and buy whatever i wanted with my signature. I was not aware because of the way the housing crisis was communicated to us what was going on. I signed when i refinanced my loan, i did one of those stupid bubble balloon notes and i had four years and insurance said we will refinance you right away. Time andame refinance i contacted my bank and they informed me the house value had dropped in for me to refinance my home, i would have to pay cash and thenin they would finance the balance of 250,000. Guestwe will let our respond. Guest housing isnt necessarily myspace but i do know that there were a lot of people in your situation in the a lot of places around the country and it has been interesting. When it comes to Credit Scores today, since we are 10 years down,hen all of that went we now have the highest overall average credit score in this country than weve ever had, a little over 700 which is a pretty good credit score. In some of the fear doing that is that it is a little bit unnaturally high because times thatood and there is fear it wouldnt take all of that people fromo take feeling really good about things financially like you are talking andt to feeling not so good this is all about that razors edge that a lot of americans are on and whether its a housing bubble coming around, whether its a medical emergency or an unexpected job loss. Things can get tough quick. Host what do you expect as far , what do youredit think the future is . Do you think changes will happen . Guest i think it is hard to imagine the delinquencies wont keep going up. I think they will continue to be very slow and steady unless something happens where we see some Major Economic trigger that causes people to really start to struggle right off the bat. Fact we think just the have this trillion dollar mount itrest of Credit Card Debt, is starting to cause issues and there is no way that it wont cause more. It is just hard to know how that is going to be affected by the bigger economy as a whole. Host where can people find the research you do on credit theft . Guest we are at comparecards. Com we have information about getting a credit card and using it wisely once you get it. Our guest serves as the chief industry analyst for compare cards. This is the Washington Examiner this morning talking about the decision by President Trump to cancel negotiations between the United States and the taliban. Jamie mcintyre reporting it began with a short amount of tweets in which President Trump revealed he invited the taliban and the president of afghanistan which wouldve promised from the taliban to negotiate in good faith with the Afghan Government. The president revealing he pulled the plug though rates over continue taliban attacks including one last week to kill the nextan soldier for half hour we will get your thoughts on this meeting between the u. S. Government and the taliban over security in 202748an, democrats 8000. Republicans, 2027488001 and independents 2027488002. It was mike pompeo talking about the decision and the aftereffect. There have been periodic attacks throughout the talks, why pull out now . Its true there have been attacks from the taliban americans and enormous attacks from American Forces putting in real pressure on the taliban. In the last 10 days alone we killed over 1000 taliban. We been fighting and talking in a way america often doesnt do. Its what has driven us to be have the success we were beginning to have. We reached a point where we were close, we made progress in the taliban failed to live up to a series of commitments. President trump set im not going to take the deal and work with someone who cant deliver on commitments because an agreement is just a piece of paper, we have to actually see that change in behavior and when we saw this activity, when we were closing in on a solution and an opportunity for the president for the present to meet with the decisionmakers who can deliver that reconciliation piece to the Afghan People President Trump said we are knocking a reward that behavior and broke it off. The ambassadors as well . I hope it is the case the taliban will change their behavior. And will recommit to the things we talked about for months. This will be resolved through a series of conversations. I hope the taliban will agree to meet with the Afghan Government. Host that was the secretary of talking abc yesterday about the state of negotiations between the u. S. And the taliban in afghanistan. Thoughtstting your upon it for their manger of the program. 2027488000 free democrats, 2027488001 for republicans. For independents 2027488002. It was the president himself at any series of tweets we talked about in jamie mcintyres column. This is the tweet from the seventh of september saying almost everyone, the Major Taliban leaders and separately the president of afghanistan were going to meet with me in camp david on sunday, coming tonight but in order to build falls leverage, and it goes on from there. Saying it only made it worse, if they cannot make agree to a ceasefire during these talks that would kill 12 innocent people, they probably dont have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many decades of the going to fight . That was the president tweeting about this issue, one of the people commenting yesterday was president ial candidate amy klobuchar, a democrat from minnesota who served in the senate talked about the decision to cancel these meetings and what it means going forward. Like so many leaders i spent last night trying to figure out the meaning of the president tweet. To me this is just no way to conduct Foreign Policy. Yes we should be negotiating with the Afghan Government and we should be negotiating with the taliban to try and end the bloodshed in this country that has been going on for decades. The whole focus of this of course is to bring our troops home which i strongly support. Somehis time you see again kind of hastily arranged summit which no one knew was happening. But he didnt even seem to have an agreement or close to an agreement when he set this up. Then the excuse that is used to end of the summit and take it down is the fact tragically and american servicemember died as well as other civilians. Then they kept negotiating after that happened through saturday. So the whole thing doesnt quite make sense to me and it is another example of the president treating Foreign Policy like it is some kind of game show. These are terrorists and yes you want to try and in the bloodshed and talk to them and see if an agreement can be met and you want to do it with our allies and keep those hardfought democratic reforms in place. But the way he conducts Foreign Policy reminds me exactly of north korea, he loves the showmanship, he wants that moment and then all the details are done and we end up in a worse place than we were before. Host lets start with dale in ohio, democrats line. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Host fine, thank you. Caller with him sending the military over to his Scotland Golf course and trying to have that conference down there. Host the decision to cancel these talks, what do you think about those . Caller i just dont understand why he was going to have them at camp david, why didnt he have them at maralago or something . Host craig is on a republican line from tulsa, oklahoma. Caller good morning. Appreciate cspan. What people dont understand is the intricacy of whats going on here and what i mean is it is noble the trump would be trying to bring peace, but he is up against a number of things. One is our table of values in america are based on a law, based on the bible. In afghanistan its based on the koran. The other thing is he is not negotiating with a single state in the sense. The Afghan Government has to also deal with all of the different tribes within the taliban. Soy have their own interests there is not really a unified entity that we are negotiating with. We are negotiating with the Afghan Government, different tribes which they cant all agree and so it is a very difficult and intricate process. Host so youre saying because of that no result could have been reached . Caller results can be reached but its like threading a needle. They are going to have to find a , if afghanistan itself was more unified it would be easier, but it is not. They will have to find a way to work with a number of entities, all the tribes plus the Afghan Government and im just saying im not at all making excuses but its a very difficult needle to thread. So i understand why things could break down, but i dont think it is bad we are trying to negotiate even though they are involved in bad acts. We could still negotiate and find a way towards peace. I understand why it would be difficult or why these breakdowns would happen. Host lets hear from neil in philadelphia, democrats line. Caller hello . Host you are on. I understand the call previously to me made a good point about it being intricate. I think the problem we are running into is not that we dont understand its complicated, but that because it is complicated there needs to be more of a method and more understanding and less offthecuff flyby the seat of your pants negotiations. Peacesly if there was going on there would need negotiations. Host what makes you thinks there was a flyby the seedier pants approach as you describe it . Organized,this was they would have a state of negotiations. In any war that should be a ceasefire while we negotiate. I wouldve thought that would negotiate with a stay or ceasefire while negotiating the peace. Host that is neil in philadelphia giving his thoughts. Baldwin baldwin plains, new york, independent line. Go ahead. Camp davidst wouldve not in the most place to negotiate, a third country at low politicians are the highest level with Civil Servants who are really experts in terms of negotiating to put an end to this fiasco would be the place howeverhe bottom line is rather than trying to deal with the taliban that are not in any way close to the image and importance of a superpower such as our government is to go after the main root of the problem, taliban, isis, Islamic Radical terrorist perpetrated from as far back as four or five decades ago. Thats where the main source is, to be able to eradicate it and bring socioeconomic and political reforms in the region, especially afghanistan. We cant leave half the population, women, out of the equation after 18 years of having given them promise to rule their own country. Wendy in georgia, democrats line. Caller thanks for having me. This is not about letting the politics of taliban. This is about trump ego. Going behind this meeting without letting the American People know on the 9 11 week. Host go ahead. He shouldve let the people know in a tweet, just to feed his ego , new stories, there was no real solution. Anyone this is not the way you operate in the United States erica. Host jay in woodlawn, tennessee, republican line. Caller the comment i just heard from the lady of georgia is the whole problem. With this whole deal in afghanistan, these people dont want peace, they want to destroy theyd as long as we think are peace loving and all that, we are fighting a losing battle. It is time that if the Afghan Government cant get their stuff together, they are either a government of their people or they are not. I dont care about all these tribes, you either one person runs a country or nobody runs it. And that is the way afghanistan is, nobody is running the country. We need to pull our troops out of their, let these people do their own thing, they mess with us, we go over there and tear them up. Host that is jay in tennessee. The Washington Post writing about the afghan response to the decision by the president to call off talks. The headlines saying it was welcomed by the afghans. There is definitely a Silver Lining to this. There was total confusion before, everyone was afraid the u. S. Would violate in the taliban President Trump is personally rectified this with his own tweet. Few afghans trusted the negotiations between the United States and taliban. Many expressed fear the administration would make too many concessions, giving them free reign. You can read more at the Washington Post. From florida and tallahassee come independent line. Good morning. I concerns me is to the negotiating style that he would let the taliban as is reported by bbc already signed the agreement and then revoke it. That doesnt seem to be the way to conduct Foreign Policy. I think it is typical if you look at the iran deal, done quite similarly. Thats my comment. Host terry is next in florida. Independent line. Caller thank you. Good morning, cspan. The Biggest Issue in the biggest crisis that americans face america is facing is what the previous speaker was talking , the debt is at an alltime high and that is a crisis point right now. Afghanistan, about mosquitoike a gnat or compared to the bigger issue of americas debt and it has gotten to the point like it was in 2008, but this time it is worse. Host why the talks not a concerning issue . Issue it is a concerning , but its nothing compared to even more important than the climate crisis. And that hasnt gotten to a crisis yet but the debt is already a crisis. As a result of the 2008 issues. Host what do you think about the cancellation of these talks . Again and it still insignificant compared to incompetence the of our leaders and the process they have had to go through in order to do it. Host lets hear from garland in texas. Caller good morning. Caller in theme ,alks present from canceled on its just plain and simple. I believe trump is treasonous and like Hillary Clinton said, he is prudents puppet. Host how does that relate to the cancellation of talks . Caller he is conceding to every thing there want they dont want anyone in their, they dont have anybody in their with no type of experience. Human knows one thing, money. In california, republican line. Caller thank you for having me. To me i just feel there are two options here. Au either fight which i have history of being in the military myself and my family or you negotiate. I do believe canceling the negotiations is a dead end, it accomplishes nothing except raising our National Debt and a lot of our gis lives. We havebelieve that adequate negotiators and that includes the president and secretary of state. Host why do you not believe that was to mark why do you believe they are not adequate . He goes off half cocked without substance and im nothing on them that believes that. And i believe there is in the Republican Party people that are capable of constructing negotiating and we are not using them. Host such as . Thanould you recommend that in the process . Right off the top of my secretary ofs that defense clinton had . Colin powell. There is a man with a good mind and good head. These are the kind of people we should be using. Hip isshooting from the sometimes fine and the countrywestern movies but in real life, but this is a real situation. It is costing a lot of lives and to say nothing about the economic interests. Host that is albert in california. About hisday talked support of the president. I was there in april the year before. It doesnt seem to get better but im sure will get worse if we leave. Frankly i leave backing away from where we were just dealing with the taliban is the right thing to do, leaving troops there for now is the right thing to do. How do you tell an exhausted public. There is a was a reason to stay. Do you just say it could get worse it would get worse. Remember howot to this became the base of the 9 11 tragedy. Theres no reason to believe it wouldnt happen again. Even in the middle of the negotiation as to brag about killing an american soldier. Once we leave there that becomes a safe haven. Ive been concerned we were negotiating with the taliban and not including the Afghan Government in that and even the idea we can negotiate with taliban, the problems with that have been very evident this week as the taliban at this critical moment when i guess they knew they were coming to camp david, i didnt know they were coming for but in this critical moment they decide to brag about the car bomb and killing an american soldier and i think it shows who they are and this will get traumatically worse if we decide to leave. Lets go to benny. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller what i wanted to say was i think the president made a good move there because it was a stupid move in the first place without contacting allies. Move. E a good it shouldnt have been started. Without contacting our allies. Thee havent destroyed relationship. Alliesow do the factoring can into considering the american presence there . Caller because we are supposed orhave, its a Nato Alliance whatever alliance we have when obama was the president. We made an alliance with all of our allies there. We are not just number one anymore. We dont make decisions out there, it dont make any sense. Host gary is next in myrtle beach, South Carolina, republican line. Ist i believe caller believe it is time we pull out of afghanistan. There has got to be a better way, the system isnt working. We need to find a different system. There has to be something better. If you take all the troops out are you concerned about an uprising in islamic violence or islamic presence . Caller i believe we have technology in a place we are not using it and we have the capabilities to control without putting troops and armslength. Thank you for listening. Host lets go to aiken alabama. Democrats line. Caller the real problem to me and i think we need to get out of afghanistan but then it you will turn it over to the russians if we do. They build a pipeline coming through. They are going to the real problem is this. Our president got caught in so many lies that we cant begin to trust what happens comes out of the white house today. Act, he canrs negate the next election. Host lets go to derek on a republican line in indiana. Im a black conservative actually. I would say that because apparently there none of us left. My point about this particular topic is some people i believe you understand power and if like the taliban is one of those organizations. Who recognizese foreign invaders in our land. Areregardless of where you as far as the moralistic standpoint, the taliban obviously have ruled afghanistan, ran it into the ground, ruled it with violence and they see americans as foreign invaders and their land. There is never going to be peace only understand power and violence. Either get out or we will meet you with violence. I think it would be fruitless to continue with any kind of peace talks. The problem is we are spending amounts of money there and when we leave there will be a resurgence in violence. Sharia law leads to violence against homosexuals and women. All different types of people that would be free to live their lives in western culture. I think the Cultural Divide is just so big and so wide that there is its just going to take i dont know. Host ive got you. Go to james in new jersey, democrats line. Osama bin laden, he was our boy, remover the mujahedin remember the mujahedin. What did Osama Bin Laden tell the United States government . No american boots on the ground. Our government said we are going to go over there. Didnt do that, 9 11 wouldve never happened. This country loves getting involved and stuff they shouldnt get involved in just like vietnam. Host so the cancellation of the talks . What do you think about the cancellation of the talks . Caller alls i know is our government, not the people, caused it. They dont have any wisdom, they are not wise in to understand what they are doing. Causing allnes these countries to hate us, the government. Host lets hear from andy. Andy in michigan. It just seems to me that this country needs to learn that that we go into war with an area, we have to stay. The only time weve been successful is when we leave troops there. , allat japan and germany these countries where we have troops, they are successful. Either have to stay or dont go in. Host so you advocate for leaving the current u. S. Amount of troops there. Caller yes. If we are going to make that a successful area, we have to stay. Way for thefind a country to support us over there. Host lets hear from james in North Carolina. Democrats line. James in North Carolina, hello . You are on, go ahead. Caller good morning. I think he did the right thing canceling those talks because i dont think one person should make the decision like that. Especially an unstable person. Host a bit of political news, the Washington Times highlights the fact of an entry of the new challenger, a primary challenge of President Trump. Former republican senator governor mark sanford of South Carolina challenging the president. In 2009 serving as governor of South Carolina admitted to a highly publicized extramarital affair. Mr. Sanford goes on to say yesterday in the sunday shows he went on an apology tour after his indiscretion came to light and learned another level of humility. And in contrast to the president , i profoundly apologize for that. I believe in the christian motto over penson repentance and renewal. More in the Washington Times if you want to read it there. April North Carolina, independent line. Caller thank you. Andso was in the military serve years. The president lks is going to have with the taliban and bringing them over to camp david, i dont think tot is an approach it way negotiate. Also i think we should be focusing. I think more often policy has to do with more than everything else. I think most countries would be living in peace if others were not intruding on their ways of life. Host one more call, this is room tulsa, democrats line. How are you doing . Host you are on. Can you hear me . Host you are on, ahead. Caller we have to understand the taliban and what they did with this country and then you have to look at the Afghan Government to which we were rebuild to help benefit us. We are pursuing talks of the taliban but you couldnt test the other party. Which continues to bring to this table, they cant be left out. At the end of the day, america cant run, afghan has to run. Host thats the last call for this topic from tulsa, oklahoma. Another edition of this program coming your way at 7 00 tomorrow. For now we take you to the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee holding a hearing on 18 years later the state of Homeland Security after 9 11. This event being held at the national 9 11 memorial and museum in new york. Which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] bringing you live coverage from the national 9 11 memorial and museum, where the senate Homeland Security committee will hold a field hearing ahead of the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001. Expect to be hearing from former Homeland Security secretaries this morning. Youre watching live coverage on cspan. Again, this coverage from the national 9 11 memorial and museum. We will be hearing this morning from former Homeland Security securitys homeland secretaries on the 18th anniversary of the 9 11 attacks. The house will dabble in at 2 00 eastern time, returning from summer, state, and district work periods. You can find that live on cspan 2. In the house, members will inate oil and gas drilling alaska and the gulf of mexico. Watch live coverage of the house here on cspan. And the president will hold a Campaign Rally in North Carolina this evening tonight at 7 00 eastern. We will have that on cspan 2. Tomorrow, the house Judiciary Committee taking up a number of gun violence revenge and bills. Watch that live tomorrow at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3. Here on cspan this morning, we are live at national 9 11 memorial and museum. The senate Homeland Security committee is holding what is called a field hearing, head of the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks this wednesday, september 11. We are expecting to be hearing from former Homeland Security secretaries. Also, the house will gavel back in at 2 00 eastern time, the senate at the 00 eastern. The house will debate oil and house gas hearings. The senate will debate nomination hearings. Senators will vote on advancing a nomination at 5 30 eastern time. Watch live coverage of the senate and on cspan2. And we will be live at a trump. Ally today at 7 00 eastern tomorrow, gun violence prevention bill hearings by the house Judiciary Committee live at 2 00, tomorrow on cspan 3. My