Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 09192019 20240714

At 8 30 a. M. , House Foreign Affairs member Gregory Meeks on the Trumps Administration policy towards iran. At drutman on the need for a multiparty system in the u. S. [video clip] i am submitting this report as my testimony because i dont want you to listen to me, i want you to listen to the scientists. Host Greta Sundberg on capitol hill yesterday testifying alongside other young Climate Change witnesses. The swedish activist is leading from washington tomorrow a Global Climate strike with an expected one million young kids from 150 Different Countries expecting to join in. We wanted to get the best ways to combat Climate Change from you. If you live in the eastern, central part of the country, 2027488000. Mountain, pacific, 2027488001. Parents and students, especially if you plan to attend, we want to hear from you this morning, 2027488002. You can also text us if you call at 2027488003. Just put your first name, city, and state. Also go to twitter at cspanwj or facebook. Com cspan. We will get to your calls in just a minute, but from that same hearing, lawmakers heard from conservatives on the issue as well. American Conservation Coalition, who advocates for freemarket answers to Climate Change told lawmakers this. [video clip] americans have been told onesizefitsall approaches, such as the green new deal, are the only solution. Such policies advocate for Economic Transformation that increases government control, spending, and are not an effective way to reduce emissions. Countries with high read restrictive highly controls like venezuela have disastrous records. Countries leading emissions reduction have some of the freest economic systems in the world. We cannot ignore this reality and the fact of the matter is we cannot regulate our way out of Climate Change. Markets and competition reduce emissions far more than heavyhanded regulation. A truly effective climate plan will capitalize on americas strength, technological advancements, and powered consumers, effective government, and bold global leadership. We need to the globalized fossil fuel emissions d globalized globalize fossil fuel emissions. It is easily to export innovative American Technologies then burden regulations to developing nations. Host that was benji bakker from a group that heads up the take aoalition look out republicans have changed on the issue of Climate Change. Reuters sites a report which vasses that number rose by 11 Percentage Points to 58 between 2014 and 2019. The rumor from number of Republican Voters worried about the issue rose by 18 percentage. Oints to you a reminder for all of that think this might be a way to combat Climate Change, a shift to renewable sources, build a National Energy efficient smart grid, upgrade buildings to become energyefficient, decarbonized industries and the nations infrastructure in transportation as well as address income inequality. We ask all of you this morning, best ways to combat Climate Change after lawmakers heard from capitol hill yesterday young people testifying from capitol hill yesterday about what the United States should do. Lorraine in oregon, good morning to you. Caller good morning. My husband and i do a lot of things around our own house. We have solar panels, we buy energyefficient appliances. We are getting an electric car and we save water. One discussion we have all the in thend i believe democrats and liberals, one discussion we have all the time is one of the best ways to to stop thes overpopulation of the earth. If we didnt have so many people fighting for resources and ending up in migrant camps, if we could stop the overpopulation of the earth, that would go such a long way to help. Thank you for your time and i look forward to your other callers comments. Host bill in myrtle beach, what do you think . Caller thanks for taking my call. I am just listening to the previous caller talking about overpopulation of the earth. What is the solution on that . Monitoring or contraception. Is she even advocating extermination . I am a christian and i believe godybody has a soul and created the earth and he gave, according to the bible, the earth man dominion over the earth. I can understand being a reasonable citizen and rything, but when you look everybody is basically tasting taking Climate Change from models. We have been taking enough data for a long enough. Can i give you a perfect example of what people dont what argument the cyclical is working and true because do you remember a couple years ago when the lady was down in antarctica and she was a outpostt at one of the in the late 1800s or whatever and she had a disease or emergency and all the icebreakers tried to get down to her and none of the icebreakers could get to her except the one from china and they got her out and she survived. They showed pictures of the same outpost in like 1912 and you could see the rocks on the beach. That is kind of a support of a cyclical climate. I think Climate Change is the substitute for religion and a vehicle for control to try to take over the world and dominate the world through the world government and the United States. It is cyclical. I wont be here. What americanwhat teens are saying according to a Washington Post poll. They are frightened by Climate Change and about 1 in 4 are taking action. About 1 in 7 u. S. Teens participated in a Climate Change school walk and when they have asked these teenagers, a majority of teenagers feel afraid and angry about Climate Change, but also motivated. Teenagersjority of say humans are causing the climate to change. That is a little bit from the Washington Post and the perspective of youth in this country. Many planning to participate in the Global Climate strike taking place in tomorrow in washington, new york, and about 150 countries with about one million teens, young people expected to participate. California. City, what do you think . Caller this is all liberal media driven. They believe in this. There are 31,000 scientists that signed a petition saying Climate Change does not exist. It is a total farce and even if you want to subscribe to it, china and india are doing nothing to combat Climate Change and look at their populations. And now the liberals want to tond trillions of dollars chase something that does not exist and ruin our economy. It is insane. It is totally insane. Host i want to show you and others a moment from yesterdays hearing with the young people testifying about Climate Change. Jamie is asked the question about why the u. S. United states should act on Climate Change if countries like china, india are not. Here is what she had to say. [video clip] i have a question. When your children ask you did you do absolutely everything in your power to stop the Climate Crisis when the storms are getting worse and we are seeing the effects of the Climate Crisis and they ask, did you do everything . Can you really look them in the could noty, sorry, i do anything because that country did not do anything. If they are not going to do anything, i am not. That is shameful and cowardly and there is no excuse to not take action and improve as much as we can in the United States. How can we call ourselves the city on the hill or be an example for the world if we are going to be cowards and hide behind waiting for other people, saying i am not going to do this because they didnt . This is all about being able to and your country in the eye say i did every thing i could for you to read i know we are up against pressure and time is running out, but i did everything i could. I dont understand as a parent, how can you look your kid in the eye and say there is this impending crisis, everything is at stake, but i stood back and i didnt really do anything. I did not take action, i did not act like it was an emergency because our neighbors were not doing it. How can you tell your children that . From yesterdays hearing, we are asking all of you to tell washington what you think should be done on Climate Change. When should people address Climate Change . Surveyed said right now. 13 said further in the future while 18 said it doesnt need to be addressed. Janet in washington, good morning to you. Caller al gore talked in sun is and he said the making the water real hot and it is not getting cold and that is why we are having so many hurricanes in florida. He said it is going to destroy the whole world. Will you please listen and not destroy our world. It is not our world, it is gods world. Texas. Ack in el paso, caller good morning, greta, thank you for taking my call. You look the same today as you did then. Unfortunately, i have aged dramatically. I am 77 years old and for 53 field i have been a scientist. Cetera. Et cetera, et i would like to say one thing 80 of history has been under ice. A lesson a million years ago sitting. Re you are we are sitting under probably glacier. Es of temperature outside was below zero. If you walked outside, you froze within seconds. As i said, 80 of our history only two types of temperature. We are presently under degla ciation, which has been going on 950,000 years. Host jack, what is the outcome of that . Is that Climate Change . 2. 7 billion years ago is when we first had a discernible atmosphere. We would notice one thing. There would be a change in those readings because that is what climate do. You have to remember the earth is like our atmosphere constantly being churns by mountains. Where you are sitting right milesis churning 500,000 per hour 500 miles per hour. People say we just discovered Climate Change, it has been happening for 3 billion years now. Ere is what i think about it glaciated climate is conditions. I called and said this could be it because emissions out there were off the charts. We are headed back down the road to glaciation. Thank goodness it didnt. I thought we were headed to age. Er ice host i have got to get in other calls. I apologize, i am going to leave it there for now. Related to this conversation this morning is the president announcing yesterday that the Trump Administration is revoking california pot federal waiver on emissions to produce californias federal waiver on emissions to produce more affordable cars. This will lead to more production because of saving safety advantages. Betty polluting cars will replaced. There will be very little difference in emissions between the california and the u. S. Standard, but cars will be safer and less expensive. Many more cars will be produced, meaning significantly more jobs. Automakers should seize this opportunity because without this alternative, you will be out of business. The reaction from the Attorney Says thejavier becerra Trump Administration is preparing to announce a excuse me, to let me pull this up on my sorry, let me try to read that. Longstandingits authority to set vehicle measure standards to those who claim to. Upport states rights the attorney general basically saying california is going to fight this in his tweet. Then lawmakers, democrat ted lieu saying as the president 33, he isifornias working to destroy a critical part of our state to combat Climate Change. , donaldn, reality check trump is taking another step to dirty the air we breathe. This will harm consumers, the health. Ent, and public. Is this one of the ways you think we should combat Climate Change by getting standards for vehicle emissions . We will go to middleton, maryland. A certainam all for amount of emissions. No one wants to breathe polluted air. I care about the environment. I like to have healthy air, water, the whole bit. What i dont know is somebody telling me what i have to do so they can control and fleece me through taxation and regulation. It is common sense and the young generations have been indoctrinated so long, they dont understand the difference between taking care of your earth. I am speaking from someone who up been very green, picked garbage on the side of the road as a young kid. I am very proenvironment, but i am also conservative in my thinking. It is a nobrainer to me. We are very good at clean coal and that kind of thing. When it gets to a point where we are paying for everybody else in the world and countries like china and other countries have dirty air and dirty water and allow the environment, it is something to think about. It is common sense. Host tom, florida, good morning to you. Caller good morning. Thank you for the call. What we are talking about is the discrepancy of everything. Everybody agrees it is actually happening. What we are not talking about is the fact over 25 of the carbon is being absorbed by the ocean, more so by the cold water and those are the facts we cannot discriminate. If you have ever garden or had an aquarium, you know a ph problem is a problem. Host what is to be done about it . Caller we are going to either have to start absorbing the carbon from the ocean, which i wish everyone would look up Brandon Smith and 3d vertical growing, 60 minutes has done shows on it, we need to curb our Carbon Emissions. I am sure what we are seeing now is from the industrial age, but we are throwing too much carbon into the atmosphere. Host since april of 2012, Sheldon Whitehouse has delivered weekly speeches on the senate floor on the climate situation. This is how he delivered his speech on monday. [video clip] indonesia or the brazilian rain forest or arctic tundra, the costs of the and paid for by political ignorance that has stopped us from acting are on full display. Our planet suffers as a consequence. We have heard our ayes in the pursuit of cheap fossil fuel, but nothing comes without a cost and our debt is coming due. Pope francis drove home this point in a recent sunday address saying, and i quote, we have thatd a Climate Emergency gravely threatens nature and life itself, including our own. President , our world is on fire. I am sorry to call up billy joel, but this time, we did start the fire and if that cannot get the attention of my colleagues in congress, i do not know what can. We must wake up. I yield the floor. Host Sheldon Whitehouse on the floor in giving his 253rd speech on climate. Your turn to tell washington what you think should be done. Elaine in washington, good morning to you. Caller hi. High call in several times, but this time i have big interest in this because i think we are putting all our faith in the co2. I think the Climate Change is much more complex than we have figured out. What we should be doing is making i cant think of the word right now. We should be planning on accommodating or taking care of or assisting in Climate Change. In other words, we have to be prepared for it. We can put turbines in the ocean and we can make a lot of electricity out of the ocean currents, the tides. If every person in the world planted a tree, that would help a lot. We should be purifying. Even from the ocean, we can make pure water by just desalinating or Something Like that, taking the salt out of it. There is a lot of things we should think ahead. Even if we could not get control of it and it kept on going, we could find our world ourselves in a world of trouble and we have not made preparations and that is what we should be doing, in my opinion. Host in north dakota, what do you think . Caller i am not going to worry about Climate Change. You have people in miami, florida. The price of real estate is not reducing. They dont buy Climate Change or the effects of it. You have laws concerning pollution, they have been in effect since the 1950s. It is doing the job. The only incident in history where man has done on anything with climate is some people remember the dirty 30s in the midwest. Yes, there were agricultural practices that affected the environment. In the 1950s, that was changed. It can be changed by market forces. When the markets get excited about Climate Change, i will worry about it. Thank you very much. Host jeff in arizona, good morning. Caller i still take issue with of your segment, combat Climate Change. It implies there is a war on climate. Hoax. K it is a fabricated i am amazed i guess i am not amazed, the left brings out these kids now and again front and center to defend their issue. I dont believe there is a war on climate. I dont believe in Climate Change other than what happens naturally through nature. I dont believe the senators and congressmen are any smarter than mother nature. That is my point on it. Post the cbs washington poll found when they ask americans what is the cause of Climate Change, 29 said human activity. 23 said natural patterns. 9 said it is not happening. Darrell in she can, good morning. In michigan, good morning. Caller thanks for having me on your show. Of age scoring down to time. Laciations we have five to 6 ice ages and between those, we have warming period is called integration. We are still in a warming phase. What amazes me is they can look at a 100 year period the last 100 years, which, on that chart they show, is about the width of a human hair and try to model the next 1000 years on that. It has gotten more ridiculous. As of about two months ago, usse scientists are telling a 11 years, we will reach Tipping Point to extinction because of Climate Change. It is absolutely absurd. Host they also surveyed scientists. 52 of scientists agree humans are the main cause, 48 of scientists disagree as humans the main cause. Lets go to scott in mississippi. There ine you gulfport, mississippi . Scott, one more try for scott. Lets move on to ali in georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning, maam. How are you . Host doing well. What do you think about Climate Change . Caller we are all over the place on this one, arent we . A parent myself, 45 years of age. I think on this one, both liberals and conservatives got it wrong all the way. I happen to believe of course there is Climate Change. The reason behind it, according to me is just like two things come agreed and ignorance. We are greedy people. We can talk about Climate Change all the time, but none of us really do 100 of what they can do to make sure we date make a difference. Unfortunately, our government is run by greedy corporations who only care about their bottom line. To the caller from maryland, there is no such thing as clean coal. Coal isbad front bad from a to z. People who want to maximize profits tell you this is a good way to go. It is not. We cannot look back to what was done. At the rate we are going right now, it is so bad. We cannot sustain this kind of living. To my liberal people there is no problem with population. Host let me clarify that poll i read. This is actually americans split and opinions on the consensus of scientific evidence. 52 of americans think climate scientists agree human activity while the is the main cause while 53 say there is still disagreement. This is what americans believe about the science community. N 10 americans steve in north dakota. Caller hello. I am calling about the comments from peter tullis, the secretarygeneral of the World Meteorological association. His comments on september 6th stating that he basically disagrees with the doomsday climate extremists who call for radical action to prevent a reported apocalypse and he this isy went on to say an example of religious extremism. He is really wasting an opinion against this radical movement we have that he doesnt see that it is not a positive thing. I havent seen any releases on this in any of the newspapers. The guy who did the research in the magazine i am looking at sent a list to 5000 media contacts. I havent seen anything, any eporting on peter tullis comments. I was wondering if you had seen that. It is a magazine in finland. Host steve in north carolina. Best ways to combat Climate Change. Prompted yesterday by teens testifying on capitol hill, sundberg, from sweden who is leading a Global Climate strike tomorrow where young people are expected to leave schools and strike on Climate Change. This is what she told lawmakers yesterday in her opening remarks. [video clip] i have not come to offer any hearing remarks at this hearing. I am, instead, attaching my testimony. It is the ipcc special report on global warning warming which 2018. Leased on october 8, i am submitting this report as my testimony because i dont want to listen to me, i want you to listen to the scientists and i want you to unite behind science. Then i want you to take real action. Thank you. Host teen climate activist calls for action on capitol hill and they report she is a noble piece prize peace prize nominee who keeps her long ponytail in a braid. Everyted to skip School Friday to demonstrate outside the swedish parliament. Soon copied by students across sweden and europe. The team spent two weeks last month sailing across the ocean in a zero emissions sailboat. She also met yesterday with the speaker of the house along with other American Teens who are part of a landmark childrens lawsuit against the United States. She participated in a meeting with the speaker of the house. He did not want to say much she felt it was an opportunity for the u. S. She was very clear she does not feel like the attention needs to be on her. You can go to our website, cspan. Org, to watch the hearing. Ken in california, you are next. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to call to voice my opinion on the Climate Change issue. I guess we could generally say the Climate Changes season to season out in california, of. Ourse a gentleman called in earlier the 31,000 scientists online. It is a petition, i dont member it. Exact name of first off, people always use the word carbon, but they dont say the other part. Carbon dioxide is what they are referring to, that is a nontoxic, colorless, odorless gas we exhale. It is not technically a pollutant. I live in california for almost 50 years and i can say personally for me that the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s were much hotter in general than they are now. The air is also cleaner. When i came out here in the 1970s, you could almost cut the solution with a knife, had nothing to do with carbon dioxide. There is a lot of things. Rather than reading from these precious children we need to be justwashing, scaring, another side to it. I wish you would have a program where you would put at least one individual scientist from both up using opposing views at the same time so they can discuss it for us. The more the merrier, but that would be a start. Host thank you for the suggestion, that is why we are asking all of you to call in. It is your chance to tell washington what you think is the situation and what you think you. Ant them to do about it want to see a marketbased approach to it. Benji bakker of the Group American Conservation Coalition had this to say. [video clip] we must understand the privilege americans bring. Across the globe, those who can to cleaneransition Energy Landscapes in the United States and abroad, we need to consider the most vulnerable in our world. There are still over one billion people without electricity. Fighting Climate Change is an opportunity to improve human health, lift people up, and grow the economy. I see promising signs. Y climate related bills reducing emissions and creating remarkable new technologies. More republicans are speaking up than ever before. This innovationbased approach is not limited to the United States. The British Conservation alliance was launched by students in the United Kingdom to advocate for marketbased environmental reforms. We are making strides in the right direction, but we must do more. Hearingom yesterdays on capitol hill. A few texts and tweets. There is good documents of evidence that shows transportation by rails is more energyefficient than transportation by semitruck or trailers. If we had a modern rail system that could get products to their destination in a timely way, we could save energy and money. Says inom victor who the vietnam war, it was the th at home posttesting protesting that brought the war to heal. We can start by not connecting electing candidates who dont believe Climate Change is real. America has reduced Carbon Emissions significantly. Ron in virginia, what do you think . Caller thanks for having me on. I think we are getting kind of played as a society the last few decades because the driving force behind Carbon Emissions for decades has been two things, american consumption and chinese production. That is what needs to change. We have Corporate America with corporate politicians telling us the best thing for the environment should drive production out of first world countries. It is in those countries like the u. S. We have the strictest environment of rules and regulations. We are getting convinced it is in our interest to have products made in countries made with very little environment of. Egulations i want milo as long as the production and the dirt and filth is somewhere else. You can make that argument. Dont say you care about the environment, the world, the buyh if you continue to products made in china. The focus should be on two things. New tv everying a year or make choices based on products made in places that have strict environmental rules. I think we need to be a little more honest about themselves about what is driving this environmental change. Not this attitude like i am going to talk all day about it. Nd change my behavior host the president announced yesterday the administration would move to ban or bar californias auto rules. Andrew wheeler along with the transportation secretary will be talking about that today at 8 00 a. M. Eastern time. About 20 minutes on cspan 2, you will be able to watch that News Conference or our website, cspan. Org. The epa administrator may also get questions on the president s siding administration plans to mr. Trump said the notice would come from the epa. Waste in storm sewers contributive to pollution. We have to clean it up, we cannot have our cities going to hell. San francisco officials did not respond to a request for comment. Violation the agency can take that doesnt epalve a traditional the has not conclusively determine the violation occurred and typically offer recipients compliance. Epa administrator likely to get questions on that at 8 00 a. M. Pressn when they hold a conference. Dave in cincinnati, ohio. Caller good morning, greta. You look very regal this morning. A few comments. You did not bring up the Auto Companies when you brought up this california thing. They are against what trump is trying to do. People brought up china. China is trying to start to. Lean up their air they finally realized there is a major issue of health for their citizens. I am optimistic. I think we waited too long already. You have heard the calls this alling, it is sad to hear the people. Selfishness, i cant explain it. The Koch Brothers over the years have really spent a lot of money in denial and that has affected a lot of peoples opinions. They worked very hard at forming peoples opinion by false information. I wish i was more optimistic. And gun National Debt violence in america, i am very pessimistic at all three. Host bill on the line for parents and students, good morning. Thisr i want to address thing about what al gore says. Cold and heat, summer and winter. I will take my word over al gores. Host in california, good morning. Caller morning. How are you doing today . Host doing fine. Caller first of all, i wanted to contradict the gentleman who called a while ago saying Carbon Monoxide does not contribute to Global Warming. All you have to do is think of the greenhouse effect where if you are in one room without ventilation, you are consuming oxygen and eventually you will get hot and sweat because there is no oxygen, only Carbon Monoxide. That contributes to Global Warming. What i wanted to say is an idea that happened a long time ago and pay the same way people pay their taxes every year. If everybody planted a tree on their birthday, grandfathers, grandparents grandchildren can Work Together and make a culture you can save the earth. 3 a year doesnt sound that bad. When you think, for example one american gives one dollar and one Million People give one dollar, it is a Million Dollars and one million trees. That is what i think, that is all. The son ofe scalia, testifying on is his nomination to serve as labor secretary. We will have coverage of that 9 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 3. Also on the website, cspan. Org, or listen to the free cspan radio app. On friday, tomorrow, the president and the first lady will host Scott Morrison and his wife at the white house. By dinner toast offered President Trump and the prime. Inister online or cspan. Org or listen again with the free cspan radio app. On the weekend, 18 of the 2020 president ial candidates will speak at the steak fry in des moines, iowa. On cspan, on our website, cspan. Org, or listen live with the radio app. You can find out more if you go to our website. Tim in ohio, hi. Caller hi, gretchen, how are you doing . I am calling, i work for the city here in ohio. The department of natural that when youlaw sucked water out of the ground, you had to measure it. The state of Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimate measures one billion gallons a day sucked out of the ground and dumped into lake erie or the ohio river. The ohio river takes half of that. If all the states had a lot a law like ohio that measured how much water was growing into the ohio river or this is to be river, that would make sense to everybody. Nothing but ahave bunch of people saying i have a theory. Lets get some measurements and numbers. The dead things called zone. It has grown to the size of rhode island. We could stop that by taking a pipeline from mississippi out to death valley. Host mark, newport news, virginia. Your ideas. Caller it is not an idea. Every plan around our planets around our sun from mercury all the way to pluto is experiencing warming for one reason, our sun is warmer than it was 50, 60, or 100 years ago. Our big problem is pollution. We need to quit getting emotionally involved with little students millennial students from sweden. They are puppet. That is the land that invented gender change. You know they are involved with the illuminati and globalism. Host marks thoughts. Jim in pennsylvania. Caller good morning. Top of the morning, america. Thanks for taking my call. Host we are listening, go ahead. Iller this Global Warming am 60, this has been going on since i was 20. I am sure there were rules, regulations, laws, why dont they enforce them . Miles to work and i passe tractortrailer truck pass a tractortrailer truck cars. G more than 10,000 why dont these people do something about enforcing the laws . Sending spaceships to mars. I would like one person to tell me what we are going to benefit from that. I think if they would stop doing that and the billions and billions of dollars that they waste on that would help americans to get an electric car, which they will never do because they make more money than you can imagine off of. Asoline, diesel fuel, coal i cry fortravesty, this country. Host gabriel, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Before i get to my solution, i would like to say someone was talking about Climate Change and how it snows in the winter. I would like to say there is a difference between the weather and climate. The weather is like every day and climate is average temperature over 30 years. I feel that is important to say because americans are. Articularly uninformed my solution for Climate Change mainly is to try to use anything fuels. Han fossil i am all right with nuclear, which many of the democratic president ial candidates are against, even the more progressive ones. How old are you . Caller i am 17. Host are you going to participate in the climate strike tomorrow . Caller probably not. I have classes. I am not really the activist type. I like this channel a lot, but host thanks for calling in, we will go to jim in florida. Caller hello. Host you are on the air. Caller can you hear me . Host yep. Caller can you hear me . Host we can. Caller i am sorry. The issue needs to be settled once and for all even if it is only man creating this problem. The earth has gone through freezes and thaws many times in the past. Just as our solar system moves maybe the galaxy is can tribbett into our area and we are rubbing shoulders with the dark matter they tell us exists. I think nasa should set up weather stations, sent signals, and let us find out if there is other reasons or causes of the Climate Change other than man. I am not saying man is not doing a lot of it, but there could be a bigger issue than what humans are doing. I put this on facebook a couple years ago and was mocked for the theory. The russian chemist that theorized what now is our periodic table of the elements was not because of the history of elements not known to exist when he came out with his theory. Just saying. Host david, millersville, maryland. Caller good morning, cspan. Good morning, america. Andink it is caused by man. Ational occurrences there were people that walked across the bering strait, the first in habit ors of north america. Ims i assume that was ice. Mount saint helens, when mount it spewedns erupted, so much poisonous emissions in the air, i forget with the equivalent was in terms of atomic bombs, but it was the manmade side of the house. You build all these roads and buildings and then you have this rain and it goes into the oceans around the world and that is all freshwater into the oceans. Did that change the salinity of the ocean . Does that change ocean currents . Does that change weather patterns . We have elected batteries and things for cars and everybody wants electric cars, but you e to find a way to recycle them. I have a feeling this is mostly about creating a new commodity, which is in the name of carbon credits. I remember reading in weekly reader about Global Warming, it is not new, that was 40 years ago. Host we will go to debbie in oregon. What do you think . How do you combat Climate Change, if at all . Caller hello . Host good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead, please. Caller i hate Nuclear Energy and i cannot imagine america signing any agreement that says Nuclear Energy is clean energy. I think everybody must know by now that it is not and what do they do with all the waste . Host sorry, i thought you were done. We will go to sam in ohio. Caller hi. I believe there is some Climate Change, but it has been doing it, as many of your collars have mentioned, for years. Ice und some guy under i dont remember if it was sweden or wherever, like a neanderthal man. Caused likeman everybody is saying. When i was 12 years old, that would be 1970, they were pushing this and they scared me back then. When i was 12, i was scared because i was taught about the trucks and the smoke coming out and i was going to cedar point looking at that and i was scared. Children are easily scared and that is why they are going after the kids. There are things you can do planting trees in empty lots, it is a good idea and along the freeways, the trees that arent have acorns or shit that is going to go all over the freeway to read i am sorry. There is a lot of empty ground you could plant freeways. Host we are going to take a break. When we come back, tom mcclintic, a member of the House Judiciary Committee joins us to talk about the committees investigation of President Trump and later we will talk about the witht escalation with iran Gregory Meeks, a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee. On book tvsaturday at 11 00 p. M. Eastern, in their new book the education of brett kavanaugh, kate kelly and robin explore Justice Brett kavanaughsthen on sunday, at 10 eastern, live coverage of the 2019 brooklyn book festival featuring a discussion on the tropic the Trump Administration with annette don reed and historian with author and activist then at 8 00 eastern, in his latest book, former utah republican congressman jason cheesman argues that liberals are trying to undermine the trump presidency. There is this recurring theme in the air that they really do believe on that radical far left side, they throw all these labels like fascist and all of these negative terms on donald trump. Exactlyee them doing is what they claim the president is doing. That in order to protect our freedom they need to take it away. In order to make sure the First Amendment the need to take away our rights under the First Amendment. It is just a recurring theme. Onat 9 00, her thoughts u. S. Immigration policy in her book, open borders inc. She is interviewed by texas republican congressman chip roy. Jeff bezos has sown into many of these deeppocketed nonprofit organizations that are crusading for illegal alien rights. You wonder how it is that they have instant representation in to sue over every last Trump Administration Trump Initiative to enforce the law. Big business and the u. S. Chamber of commerce are huge reasons for that. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan two cspan2. Washington journal continues. Morning,our table this congressman Tom Mcclintock republican of california. Toant to get your reaction the democrat and maryland who sits on the committee with you and was on the program yesterday. He talked about Committee Efforts to investigate President Trump. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] the problem is this is a president who has basically ordered everyone in the executive branch not to cooperate with the lawful requests of congress or the subpoenas. They have tried to pull the curtain down over the presidency. Imagine how they would be reacting if this were barack obama or bill clinton who said we are not going to purchase a paid in any congressional investigation. The democrats did not love the fast and furious investigation or the benghazi investigation which cost tens of millions of dollars and went on forever, but it was the power of congress to do that. We think this affects everyone in congress and everybody in congress should be standing up for our prerogatives. Host congressman . Butt this might be new this has been true of every presidency since back in truman. There is a concept called executive privilege. Conversations with the president are privileged from congress. Just as congress behind the scenes conversations are privileged from the executive. This has been tested in court many times and the presidency has always prevailed. Congress trying to subpoena truman and his advisors after they had left the white house. The courts stood with the presidency. Host yesterday the committee heard, tuesday from corey the former who was Campaign Manager for the president. He has not served in the white house. What did you make of the argument that he did not have to talk about his conversations with the president even though he has not served in an official capacity . Guest he had conversations with the president in the president s official capacity. It is not complicated. The democrats seem to focus on what lewandowski had told the Mueller Investigation. The president came to him and said i want you to go to Jeff Sessions and i want you he needs to say, i was a Campaign Chairman and there was no rush in collusion. This whole thing has been unfair and the president did nothing wrong. He did not ask to shut down the investigation which he had the Legal Authority to do. Hes got to make a statement and say this is unfair. That is what the democrats are currently hanging their hopes of impeachment on. Again, this is a solemn constitutional process. This is literally the nullification of the National Election and a decision made by the American People. They are doing this over the pretext that the president who had committed no wrongs, that the Mueller Investigation was able to find no signs of russian collusion, simply saying he knows the true story, he needs to have a press conference and tell it. I dont find that objectionable. Host the committee is also looking at financial misdeeds by the president , violation of the a moments clause. Guest they are trying desperately to find some excuse to nullify the 2016 election. When you think about it, that is a pretty dangerous thing. Democracy,acy, any one side or the other is going to go away disappointed. That is the nature of elections. Somebody wins, somebody loses. Democracies depend on whoever wins and whoever loses, both sides have to respect the decision of the majority. Thats what democracy is based upon. If one side or the other does not respect the will of the people, democracy collapses. That is happening today and that is frightening. That has only happened one other time in our nations history, when the democrats refused to accept the election of 1860. Concern you have any about headlines like this, Pentagon Spending 184,000 in two years at the trump hotel. Guest as i understand, that is within the normal per diem allowed to soldiers. They make the choice. Host what about that money going to enriching the president . That is not the president s decision. That is the decision of the individual soldiers who are taking their per diem and making a decision on what to do with it. Host what about foreign leaders who stay at the trump hotel, et cetera . What democrats are pointing to is the president is in violation guest if they can show that anybody is paying above market rates, then they might have a case but they have not been able to show that. Host what comes next, do you think . You have said i double dog dare you to bring impeachment of the house floor. Guest i think what is going to come next is the other she was going to drop. For three years our country has been torn apart by this bizarre and monstrous lie that the president is somehow a Foreign Agent under the thrall of a hostile foreign government. We now know that was a complete lie. It was based on the steele dossier which was a phony concoction of the clinton campaign. All of that we are sorting to see the investigations unfold with the Inspector Generals office, the department of justice and the u. S. Attorneys offices looking into how this lie was conceived. How it was used. How the most terrifying powers that we give our government were turned against our elections process. The most terrifying powers the government has, to rule over your life, to throw you in jail, bankrupt you and threaten your family members, to launch predawn swat raids on your house. We entrust the government with these powers, with the expectation they will be used to protect our freedoms but we are starting to find out that in the 2016 election, these terrifying powers were turned against our own democracy, first to concoct this lie and then to use that lie as a pretext to launch an investigation, leak the existence of that investigation to the press influence the 2016 election and when they failed to do that, that became the insurance policy that peter strzok was bragging about, coming out of Andrew Mccabes office of the fbi. If they couldnt influence and interfere with our election, they would nullify the election. What youre seeing the democrats doing in the capital right now is the next step in that attempt. These facts are coming out. Gods grindof the slow but they grind exceedingly fine. We are going to get to the bottom of this and we will see the full story. If it is true that these powers were turned against our democracy, by our own justice and intelligence agencies, that no got to become because democracy, no free civilization can endure with that kind of embryo of tyranny within it. Host we are talking with congressman Tom Mcclintock. Joining the conversation. If youre a democrat, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. You can also text if you punch in 202 7488003. Just put your first name, city and state. Headlines related to what you are talking about in the washington, watchdog referred james comey for prosecution after memos leak that is a that the Justice Department decided not to go forward with any charges. Guest i think that was probably a wise decision. They have much bigger fish to fry than james comey. These were his own notes, they were classified, they were the property of the u. S. Government and he broke the law. Host it says the documents leaked by mr. Comey were sensitive but not classified. Guest correct but it was illegal to leak them. Smallk that is a very story compared with the totality of what he did and i think the Justice Department is looking at that and realizing we dont need a distraction like this when we have much bigger issues. Host when will we learn about the attorney generals investigation into the steele dossier . What is the timeline . Guest i cant tell fortunes. Host you dont know. Guest i dont. Eight is very clear that the Inspector Generals report on fisa abuse and the lying to a federal court to obtain warrants to spy on opposition campaigns, using the powers of government, that is in the department of justice jay k hands and we hope to see that report released to the public in the future. The more important investigation is the one being conducted by the u. S. Attorney. That can look into the Justice Department but also the intelligence agencies. We know this information was fed to George Papadopoulos who was identified by the fbi as a russian operative. We now know it was not a russian operative. He had long established ties to western intelligence including a long history with the cia. They used the disinformation theiras fed as part of justification for this sham investigation which they then leaked to the present to the press. All of this is coming out and it will be a real eyeopener to a lot of folks. It will be a tremendous embarrassment of the democrats who have continued to peddle this line long after it became clear it was a lie. Host john in pennsylvania, republican. Caller hi. I am a registered republican and i am actually over 70 years old. I believe all of us that are over 70 those what it is to actually be conservative because our parents grew up during the depression and they were certainly conservative. That wentt a man bankrupt attempting to build a place called the taj mahal and went through four bankruptcies and to listen to these people on fox news say we cannot afford to a migrant a bar of soap and toothpaste but we can afford to give the casino over 1 billion in debt relief. He got 1 billion. They just had an article in the Atlantic City press about what trump marina was like when it was sold. They were removing the pipes around to catch the water that was running in from the roof when trump filed for bankruptcy. To say that a conservative this is their position, these conservatives and i am still republican. If this is their position that a conservative on the one Year Anniversary of their third mentor third marriage goes out and seeks out the star of a porno movie. He was not satisfied with any average host what is your question . Or point . What do you want the congressman to respond to . Guest the point he is making is that trump used a lot of crony capitalist advantages that have been built into the system over the years. He resents that. I dont blame him. Those crony capitalist provisions should never have been there. These subsidies, licenses, all of these things that inhibit a free market. As long as they are there, people are going to use them. I dont excuse the president s personal conduct that has nothing to do with his official conduct. Bill clinton was a reprehensible individual but not a bad president. Not a great one but certainly not a bad one. I understand that. This whole narrative that trump is just using the white house, if it is not to help the russians it is to help himself. There was an article recently that pointed out the presidency has been a tremendous drain on trumps fortunes. The rent at all of his hotels has dropped dramatically because there are a lot of people who dont like him and will boycott those hotels. Fees are coming down. , Donald Trumpt up will have suffered financially more from the presidency than anybody has ever who has ever served. Host our next caller from louisiana, independent. I listen tohing is they were so many things that were found. Lets talk about mueller. You would callat it, but the Campaign Manager sharing data with the russians. I dont see why that is not some form of collusion. Host you said who colluded with the russians . Caller excuse me . Host who colluded with the russians . Caller im saying the Trump Campaign colluded with the russians. Guest what is your evidence of that because mueller spent 30 million, 22 months with a team of the most partisan Investigative Team i have ever seen assembled and came up with no evidence. Host let him get to his point. Caller you are saying no evidence. That is what i am trying to talk about. You keep saying no evidence. Thats not true. He did find evidence of collusion. What he didnt find was enough evidence to bring it to court. One of the reasons he did not find enough evidence to bring it to court, which he pointed out was even though it shows where you had over 160,000 160 contacts with people in the Trump Administration, so many of lied, many of them claimed with the fifth amendment. You had them talking about attorneyclient privilege. They did everything they could to avoid that. This was going on for a year after the campaign. It wasnt the fact that he did not find enough evidence. Host we heard your point. Guest the president s central responsibility and Foreign Policy, of course they are going to have contact with foreign leaders after the election and they certainly did. Even before the election, it is not uncommon for governments to be in contact with all of the candidates. , the u. S. F mine ambassador to australia, there was an election going on and he used to tell me stories of being in contact with all the candidates because as u. S. Ambassador it was his responsibility to convey to them the positions of the u. S. Government and to convey to the u. S. Government their views on port on Foreign Policy matters. To say he had contact with russians did not mean a damn thing. He is supposed to have contact with all foreign governments and has. The point is, there was no evidence of any kind of criminal activity and this notion that somehow the investigation is supposed to exonerate somebody. Investigators dont exonerate. They determine whether or not there is evidence of a crime and the mother team could not make that case. And the mueller team could not make that case. There is a federal case going on in the d. C. Court involving these russian trolls. That is part of the narrative. The russian government was interfering with our election. That is being contested in court and the judge demanded muellers investigators to produce the evidence that these trolls had ties to the russian government. The investigators could provide no such evidence and mueller was forced to withdraw that distinction publicly. But is why he had that press conference. This whole story has been made up from the start. It is a false narrative. The more evidence that comes to us, the more it is being revealed as one of the most monstrous lies ever told in the history of american politics. Host our next caller is a republican in michigan. Caller hello. T last caller just prefer just personifies what is going on in this country with the misinformation and the refusal to accept the facts and reality and they just keep parking on the same harping on the same things over and over again and it is all a big fat lie. Mcclintock, i watched every excruciating moment of that hearing on tuesday. I could not believe the democrats, the anger and that 30 minutes, whatever that weird thing was at the end of it with the consultant. Talk about i cant even find the words. He has no business sitting up there. Im glad the republicans did not have their own quote, consultant, to counter what he was trying to prove. You cant prove a zero. There is no crime to prove. Host lets have the congressman respond. Guest thats exactly right. Of acould find no evidence crime so now they have switched to a coverup. How do you cover up a crime that never happened . Corey lewandowskis conversation with the president and the mother report came up with a big fat nothing. The president did not tell him to shut down the investigation. He told him to remind Jeff Sessions, he was the Campaign Chairman, he knows what was going on and needs to say that publicly, that there was no contact with the russian government and that the president did nothing wrong. Why shouldnt he do that . A reporter from the hill quoted a wyoming rancher saying we know two things from the mueller report, that trump didnt steal any horses but he certainly is guilty of about wanting to be hanged for it. Host on Gun Legislation there is negotiations in the senate about possibly putting on a on the floor a background check bill. The document first reported by the daily caller said background checks would be extended to include all commercial sales including gun shows. The checks would be conducted created soy they can keep records of the to storeallow the ffl them. Guest ive got no objection to background checks but i would not put a whole lot of hope in them. California has a universal background check and a study by uc davis and Johns Hopkins was released in december 2018 and found that californias universal background check had absolutely zero effect on gun related crimes. The reason they dont work is the same reason our drug laws dont work. Aat makes people think that criminal or madman or terrorists cannot get firearms through the underground market . The fast majority of firearms already used in crimes are not legally obtained. They are obtained either through purchases or india or in the underground market. Host yes we should debate an assault weapon buyback. Nearly 75 of democrats support an assault weapons buyback and it even greater number support a ban on their sale. A mandatory gun buyback does make sense. That is exactly what australia and new zealand did after their Mass Shootings and in just six weeks, gun owners turned in 15,000 newly banned guns. In australia, about 650,000 guns were turned in as part of a mandatory buyback in 1996 through 97. The result was a 42 decline in the rate of firearm homicides and 57 decline in firearm suicides. Guest i would have to take a look at that study. That sounds very suspicious. Buyback, that sounds voluntary but it is not voluntary at all. Host a mandatory one. Guest the government forcibly taking your firearms in violation of the second amendment. With respect to assault weapons, they are talking about semiautomatic firing mechanisms. Those are common to many kinds of hunting rifles, target rifles. They are using a term that sounds scary to actually cover a wide range of firearms that are legally owned by millions of americans. Lets get to the fine point of it. We had 50 years of experience with various guncontrol laws. They are very effective at disarming lawabiding citizens. They are extremely ineffective at disarming terrorists and mad men and criminals. When you do that you end up with a society where decent people are defenseless and the criminal element is just as welloff. Mexico has the most stringent gun laws in the entire western hemisphere and their murder rate is 10 times what it is in the u. S. Host we will go to ray in california, democratic caller. Caller so much to talk about but my question is, dont you reason for so much suspicion regarding this president and how that triggers what is to investigate actually going on. Do you think the president is doing the right thing by meeting with people like pruden for extended periods of time with no notetakers, no translators or when there is someone taking notes, that those notes are destroyed . Dont you see that there are that those are some things that are just not in the interest of the American People . Host lets get a response. Guest a lot of diplomacy has to be conducted behind closed doors because of the sensitive nature of the relationships between governments. I remember barack obama over a hot mic telling the russian ibassador, you tell vladimir will have a lot more Maneuvering Room after the election. Communication communication between leaders. As far as suspicious activity, there is suspicious activity under every presidency. There is always a veil of secrecy around the discussions within the with the president , when the president is trading different ideas, people thinking outofthebox, mentioning options off the top of their heads that they would not want to see published. If the president needs that kind of dialogue, that is why the concept of executive privilege exists and that is why diplomacy is conducted behind closed doors. I dont like it. I believe what Louis Brandeis says, that sunlight is the best disinfectant but it is certainly not unusual and it is certainly not suspicious. What does troubled me greatly is the unwillingness of many Democratic Leaders to respect our elections process and respect the will of the American People. Decisions made by people under the constitution to elect donald trump as president. Continuing efforts to obstruct the presidency, to nullify the decision the American People. Lets be clear. That is what is going on. It is absolutely lethal to a democracy that is based upon respect for the will of the majority. Host Washington Post front page, trump is subject of intelligence complaint. Their headline, a complaint has triggered a tense showdown between the u. S. Intelligence community and congress involving President Trumps communication with a foreign leader. s interaction included a promise that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the u. S. Intelligence committee to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. What do you make of this . Guest i cant make much out of it because there is no substance to it. We dont know who the foreign leader is, what was said and we dont know if this was true at all. We have been bombarded by a constant river of allegations that turn out to be completely false. Kavanaugh by the New York Times the other day was a perfect example and this may well be another one. I want to see the details and i want to hear from this anonymous source and i want to see some evidence because so far the experience has been these charges have been made up. Host according to the Washington Post, the inspector scheduled is expected to escalate late thursday when he is scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence Committee in a classified session. That hearing is the latest move by the Committee Chair to compel u. S. Intelligence officials to disclose the full details of the whistleblower complaint to congress. Maguire has agreed to testify before the Panel Next Week. He declined to comment for the article. That is there that is the director of national intelligence. Guest i want to see that out in the open. I have not found adam schiff to be a particularly credible source for truthful information. Quite the contrary. He has been one of the tree purveyors of a lot of the lies that have polluted our democratic dialogue. Host more to come on that. Thank you for your time. Tom mcclintock, republican from california. Guest thank you. Host coming up we will talk about the latest escalation with iran with democratic congressman Gregory Meeks. Later on, a conversation with author and political scientist lee drutman about whether it is really possible to break the american twoparty system. Car manufacturing is very important to us. That industry is one of the backbones. We have Michigan State university, we have the state capital and we have automobile manufacturing. Those three components have kept lansing a very successful town. Cspans cities tour is on the road exploring americas story. This week we take you to lansing, michigan, known for its automotive history, it has been michigans capital city since 1847. Ironically was nobody wanted to be the capital city. Hear about the auto Company Founded in lansing. He founded the real Motor Car Company which was the company that was titled is an acronym of his name. It emerged here in 1904 and stayed here in a variety of different formats through 1975. Ofwatch cspan cities tour lansing, michigan as we take in its history and literary scene this saturday at noon eastern on and sunday at tv 2 00 p. M. On American History tv on cspan3, working with our cable affiliates as we explore the american story. Washington journal continues. Host Gregory Meeks is our is at our table, a democrat congressman from new york. I want to get your reaction to these dual headlines in the New York Times. Pompeo calls saudi strike act of war by tehran. Tehrans president seeking to sound tough but not pull the trigger while his secretary of state is calling this an act of war. Guest it is something that we have grown accustomed to over the time that President Trump has been president. It is confusing. There is no other way to say it. It is contradictory. The secretary of state says one thing, the president says another. Our allies dont know who to believe. Have a conversation with someone from the administration and they think that is what the strategy of the United States is. The talk of the president and he they talk to the president and he contradict that. It is a confusing way to do business. Host the president told reporters yesterday quote, it is very easy to attack. Asked Lindsey Graham how did going to the middle east go and how did it work going into iraq . Do you agree with him . Guest on that i do. I voted against iraq. We should not have gone in. There is not an appetite for us to go into a war with iran, particularly when if there was an act of war, it is not an act of war against the United States. They was an act of war against saudi arabia. Host are they our ally . Guest to a degree they are our ally but i have my problems with saudi arabia. Just last year we were talking about them killing an american journalist. We talked about some of the Human Rights Violations and the lack of democracy in saudi arabia and the connection, all betweenback to 9 11, some folks in saudi arabia and that attack. There are problems, at least i have. I have problems with saudi arabia and with iran. The whole thing with yemen and that fight. Host how does the netted states respond to what they allege iran did in attacking those oil fields and producing plants . Guest i think here is where a lot of the problems began, when President Trump got elected. Number one, pulling out of the iran Nuclear Agreement. The reason why that is significant and important is because we were working with our allies. You dont go at these things alone. You work in collection and cooperation with our allies. That is tremendously important. You need to find all the information and do all of the investigation, not just the United States. Some of our credibility is at stake. Weve got all the heads of state coming into the u. N. Next week. There should be a dialogue and conversation and factfinding, done in a multilateral way so we can come up with the facts. Then it is not just the netted states against iran or the United States with saudi arabia, it is all of us working together. Host what do you think about the New York Times report that the military options available to mr. Trump are similar to the airstrikes that he called off at the last minute in june after iran shot down an american surveillance drone. Among those potential iranian targets were facilities like radar and missile batteries. Instead of missile attacks, the United States mounted a cyber ack on iran that mr. Trump that aborted the casualties mr. Trump said concerned him. Guest where is saudi arabia in this . We have sold them billions of dollars of equipment and defense equipment, protection. Where is saudi arabia . They can step up and defend themselves. I dont hear anything in dialogue or conversation about saudi arabia. What i saw yesterday was saudi arabia telling the Trump Administration that they are not ready to go to war with iran and to cool off. We are making all of this talk. There has been no strike against the United States. There has to be, for me, either states, to the united or some kind of humanitarian concern where there is going to be mass lossoflife. I see neither in this case. Host you see that in yemen. Guest yemen is a scenario that i am more concerned about. That has been going on for over four years. If we ought to do anything, we should be trying to figure that out. There is blame to go in that regards with saudi arabia and iran. That is where we should have been, the honest broker to try and get some peace in the region. We can make the decision to go all on one side and looked past some of the reprehensible acts of saudi arabia, as well as some of the rents about reprehensible acts by iran, we give up that leadership role. We do things in a multilateral way, it gives everybody better credibility to take a position one way or the other when you Start Talking about humanitarian crises in yemen. Host what do you think about the administrations maximum pressure strategy against iran. The president put more sanctions on them after the oil strike. Guest weve already got maximum pressure on iran. How and what the president intends on doing does not make sense. What makes sense to me is the president should allow our p4 1, to figure out how we can keep the agreement that we had so that iran does not obtain a Nuclear Weapon. That is what we were all united on, to make sure that iran does not obtain a Nuclear Weapon. That is the reason we have the agreement. That is the reason we were free to go in and look at their program and inspect. The timelso, even at that donald trump pulled us out of the agreement, every expert, every country said that iran was complying fully with that particular agreement. Pulling out was a mistake. Now it makes us to have to negotiate from a position of weakness as opposed to a position of strength. Allies,pressure on our so much so that they are trying to figure this thing out. This point, our allies have to figure out how we keep the agreement so that we dont have to worry about the threat of iran getting a Nuclear Weapon. President trump can figure out a word or two he might want to switch because what he has been doing is pulling out of anything that barack obama did and then coming back and saying while i have come up with the best agreement in the best of all time. It is happening in the trade agreement between the netted states, mexico and canada. Basically tpp with a few switches. Let him figure that out for the unity andving some multilateral cooperation. I think we need to figure that out. Host Gregory Meeks is here with us taking your questions and comments. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. William in philadelphia, republican. Caller i would like to ask the congressman how he said this all started with donald trump. Say that yemen was a model of peace and tranquility . Lets put the buck where it is supposed to be. Yemenat i said was has never been full of peace entering quality. Theas been an issue between sunni and the shiites. That is part of what the problem is and the balance of power therein. I dont think in that region you are going to have the opportunity to have any one of the two dominate. You have to figure out how both will be able to coexist with one another. That is one of the things that barack obama was trying to do. Was i really just expressed by pulling out of the Nuclear Agreement, of which we wanted to make sure that iran did not have the possibility of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon in a multilateral way, now we have to deal with the problem of iran again trying to nuclear rise. Host when will you get a briefing of the situation with iran . Guest i spoke to the chairman yesterday because i wanted to learn more. I know he made a request to the state department have a classified briefing. Int is going to go on today regards to afghanistan. We are hoping to get one before we leave tomorrow, if not something early next week. I know the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee put in a request for one and i hope we will see one shortly. Host the closeddoor briefing youre are getting today is with afghanistan. The Trump Administrations afghanistan envoy, why is it behind closed doors . He was initially going to be testifying in public. Guest i know from the chairman that he had been asking for this meeting for a long time, since we have the scenario back and forth, there has been some resistance. It was negotiated. The chairman was willing to have an open hearing. It was negotiated as a result of the negotiation for having this classified meeting and maybe some Additional Information that but i not be made public know it was a negotiated agreement. Many members just got the notice late last night that there was going to be a meeting this morning because it had not been on the schedule previously. Host that is why we have to let you go a little bit early. Covering the open part of this hearing which will be at 10 00 eastern time. The House Foreign Affairs committee. You can watch that online at cspan. Org. Our next caller is on the independent line. Caller sometimes i dont understand the democrats. I am independent. I used to be democrat. Trump went and pulled us out of the deal that obama had. We had everything set up they were not going to get a Nuclear Weapon. And pulledcame in back out of the deal that we had. That is what is causing all of this. Why dont you let people know that trump policies are causing this stuff . Expect put yourself in the shoes of the man in north korea. If you pulled out of this agreement, there is no way he will get an agreement with north korea. Guest that is exactly what i was trying to articulate. As a result of the policies of this presidency with reference to the Nuclear Agreement that we had, the p5 plus one. Pulling out of it is why we are in the situation we are in right now with iran moving forward and trying to go back to nuclear rise asian. Nuclear rise asian nuclearization. If we pulled out of the paris climate agreement and others, why would anyone want to enter an agreement with the unit it states if they feel we are just going to pull out of them . It ruins our credibility. I agree with the caller and i think that is what i was trying to articulate earlier in the conversation. Host ruth in mississippi, democrat caller. Caller good morning. To both sides of this and they act like they dont know what is going on. He is changing everything obama did just to say that he changed what obama did. That dont make good Foreign Policy. He is doing what he wants to do and they are allowing him to do it. They cant stop him i guess. Its like they agree with every wrong thing he do. About the investigation they have on him and how long it took them to have this investigation. They went on with benghazi for four years, trying to get something on Hillary Clinton and we all know they got something to hide evidence and destroy evidence. They act like people are stupid. Guest i concur with you. I could not say it better myself. Go back and look at the films on tape. Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes . You can see what they did during the entire time that Hillary Clinton was running for president and beforehand as secretary of state. I could not agree with you more. Host john in florida, independent. Caller thank you. I think this should have been a treaty all along, this p5 plus one jcpoa agreement. It is an agreement but not a treaty. This agreement led to them to continue to do Missile Development and limited expections inspections where they would have to give access but not access to certain areas of the country. If we would have pushed for a treaty, we would have had more teeth and more bipartisan agreement within the country to hold them and enforce what we are trying to do. Without a treaty, we see what they are doing. Guest actually we have unlimited access and are able to inspect anything that iran had under the agreement. It was one of the most difficult decisions that i had we had to vote for it. I went to vienna and i talked to our allies and nuclear scientists. I wanted to make sure that we would get all the information that we needed so that we could make sure and be assured that iran was complying with that agreement. We got them all. Every country that was a part of that agreement, even members of the United States and the president S Administration had to admit that iran was complying with the terms of that agreement. There were other things because iran does not have clean hands. They were things with reference to Ballistic Missiles that were not included in that agreement that we needed to continue to put pressure on and it would also and it also had sanctions in that regard. If we wanted to boost up those sanctions in regards to what was not included in that agreement, it seems to me we would have had more of a strategic opportunity in dealing from strength if we had done so collectively with our allies. Host we have to let you go to this closeddoor meeting with the afghan envoy. What is your one question to him . Exactly want to know he have fory does us ultimately, being able to completely get out of afghanistan. Weve been there for 18 years. If we are going to stay there, then what is the strategy that we have not utilized thus far . We talked about previously making sure that we are armed and trained that we have armed and trained the Afghan Government so they can protect themselves and we can move out. Are we going to stay there forever . What is going to take for us to get out of there and bring our troops home . Host we appreciate the time we had with you. Thank you for the conversation. When we come back, we turn our attention to a new book by lee drutman, breaking the twoparty doom loop. Cspan is back in des moines, iowa this saturday for Life Campaign 2020 coverage of the polk county democrats annual steak fry beginning at 2 00 p. M. Eastern where 18 president ial candidates will take the stage for speeches. Wants the iowa steak fry live on onpan, cspan. Org or listen the go with the free cspan radio app. President trump and First Lady Melania Trump host a second state dinner as he welcomes australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his wife jenny morrison. Watch guest arrivals and dinner toasts. Our live coverage begins friday at 6 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen on the free cspan radio app. Cspan is back in des moines, iowa this saturday for Life Campaign 2020 coverage of the pulp county democrats annual steak fry beginning at 2 00 p. M. Eastern where 18 president ial candidates will take the stage for speeches. Wants the polk county steak fry live on cspan, cspan. Org or listen live oozing the free cspan radio app. Live using the free cspan radio app. Arewashington journal mugs available at cspans new online store. Check out the washington check out the washington journal and see washington all of thegs and see watch see all of the cspan products. Washington journal continues. Our lee drutman is at table, with his new book, breaking the twoparty doom loop. Lets talk about why you call the twoparty system doomed. Guest i think American American politics right now is in a bad situation, and a sense that we have this very bitter partisan warfare that is basically breaking our democracy. I dont think we can continue going this way for that much longer until we have a contested election in which there is a legitimacy crisis and the federal government breaks down. We need to think about some big ideas to get us out of this very tough moment. Host when did the twoparty system start to break down . Who is to blame . Guest nobody is to blame. A different of interpretation of when we actually had a twoparty system. Some would say we have always had a twoparty system and thats true but we really only had a genuine twoparty system since about 2010. That is when everything has kind of gone haywire in washington. For a long time, we had two parties but the two parties were a bitpping and there was of incoherence in where the parties stood. Starting in 2010, we had two parties without any overlap. Our Political Institutions are not designed to work this way. The framers were very concerned about having just two parties. Are system requires an incredible amount of compromise and negotiation. Fluid coalitions. A twoparty system as it now operates does not allow for that. Host in 2010 the two parties were overlapping. In what way . Guest there were liberal republicans and conservative democrats. Theyns were a little were the last vestiges of what i called a four party system. On an issue by issue basi there were coalitions. Some people were allies on some issues and enemies on others. You could get that kind of cross partisan negotiation that our system really requires. That what wesay is had was a four party system and it worked well. That system really thrived in the mid1960s through the 1990s. The 1994 election kind of push that assigned and from the mid90s up through 2010, we sort of had the falling apart of that system and in the midterms in 2010 you lost the last blue dog conservative democrats. We had this breakdown of american democracy. Host what was happening at this time . Are you pointing to the tea party . Guest i dont want to put the blame on any one single moment or any single actor. This has been something that is building for over half a century. And 1960s, the parties did not stand for anything. Democrats and publicans were essentially one and the same. Eisenhower was courted by both democrats and republicans. He ran on such a moderate centrist platform. Civil rights happened and that created a long slow reorientation of the american parties. We had a halfcentury of shifting coalitions to the point republicans, one party for rural traditional america and the other party, the democrats would became the party for urban cosmopolitan multicultural secular america. Now we basically have two parties that represent very separate parts of the country and a very distinct and that is what i would say is a genuine twoparty system. It turns out that is a disaster for our hour for howell our governing institutions function and it is driving us all insane. Host lets get our viewers thoughts. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. You can text us at 202 7488003. Put your first name, your city and state. System as itparty exists now, where do you think most americans are . To the fall into one of these two parties . Do they fall into one of these two parties . Guest 30 of americans or so identify as democrats. 30 identify as we publicans and about 40 identify as independent. Republicans as and about 40 identify as independents. People who identify as democrats or republicans dont necessarily love their party. When you pull americans and ask them would you like to see more than two parties, about two thirds say yes consistently. People are for the most part not happy with the two parties. They would like more options. I think it is healthy for a democracy to have a range of choices. A lot of folks who feel that Neither Party really represents them all that well. I think that is a frustrating thing and it makes people feel not so great about their democracy when they dont feel like there was a party that represents them that well. Host you wrote in your book, surveyedrian warnings democracy experts collectively giving the United States a one in six chance of democratic breakdown in the next four years. They were nearly unanimous, and their assessment of american democracy declining over the lastdemocracy had declined overe last decade. Do you agree with the assessment we are four years away from this breakdown . Guest i agree that american democracy has declined. I dont think anybody would say over the past decade that we have not declined. One in six chance of democratic breakdown . Seems a fair assessment. Heres what i am worried about. I am worried about a contested close election in which neither, either donald trump contests the election and refuses to leave office and we have a constitutional crisis over that or democrats say he cheated because there was Voter Suppression and you have endless and he is refused to be recognized as president or there is some situation where there is massive violence, protests, suppression of civil , suppression of free press dissenting. There are a lot of scenarios that have happened in other countries. We know how democracies breakdown, spiraling escalation when, often when there is a contested election, both sides feel they have won and it is really hard to step back from that. That is kind of, we are on the brink of that, i fear. I fear it is really a product of having these two parties so far apart, yet so equally balanced and so filled with really, hatred for each other. The stakes are so high that it justifies perhaps, extra democratic activity. Host lets get to calls. Lawrenceville, georgia, independent. Caller good morning. Honor to speak to lee drutman, i read your voter study group. It is a study i dont think i have ever heard a single time, on cspan i believe, make any comment about this study and how important it was in the finding of the 2016 election. I am libertarian. This study, what i took away from it, libertarians make up only 3. 5 . We have been told that the majority of americans are libertarians, they just dont know it. The study put the lie to that idea. I will buy your book. Is thereike to know, help for the Libertarian Party . Resigned from the executive committee of the georgia Libertarian Party, i was so depressed after reading this study. I would like to know your thoughts. Considering all the money, all these think tanks that influence conservative economics, for a lesser extent, on the social side, the Libertarian Party is stuck in a rut, never able to raise any money. They have managed to get on the balance the ballot, but at the end of the day, 3 . That is my question. Guest thank you for your kind words. Enjoyed mye that you voter study group. Is there any hope for the libertarian . In a winner take all, electoral system we have, it is very hard to be a thirdparty. You suffer from feeling like, well, if i vote for a third party, my vote is wasted and as a result, third parties have a hard time getting traction because people dont want to waste votes or feel like they spoiled the election. The only hope for libertarians or other third parties out there for us to change the way we hold elections. Most advanced democracies do not have winner take all to opposed single winter elections single winner elections, in which you do not have to get a plurality of the votes to get a seat. You have districts that have multiple members, usually five, six, sometimes more, then you can get, the top five were the top seven or top 10 finishers, go to the legislature, would go to congress and that means you could get 10, 15 of the vote and still have a seat in the legislature, which means you could have more parties. Libertarians, the problem, as with other third parties is that nobody really pays attention to these parties because they do not feel they can win, that they have a shot of getting representation. For the libertarians to have a shot, you need to change the electoral rules and you need a system of proportional representation, which is what i advocate in my forthcoming book, and as for the study you referenced, what i found was under 4 of the electorate has views that are both fiscally economically conservative and socially liberal which is how libertarians often define. Is a function of the fact that there are few politicians in public life who espouse those views and most people who Pay Attention to politics sort of follow what is level andt a national they look to politicians who are at National Level to decide, how should i understand the world . What is at stake with these issues . Without a set of National Political leaders advocating views both fiscally conservative and socially liberal, it is hard for many folks to understand what that worldview looks like. As a result, they do not share it. If you went back in history, 20, 30 years, you would find more folks who have those views because there used to be, part of the Republican Party that was new more in that vein, england liberal republicans, fiscally conservative, socially liberal. The disappearance of those type of republicans, you have seen the disappearance of those views in the electorate as well. Host fort wayne, indiana, mike, democratic. Caller lee, i appreciate you. I will make this short. Africanamerican, make this short, you really summed it up, especially when you reference civil rights. We can say what we want. We know that when everything was segregated, it was all good. Once you get those folks some down. , but still trickles alabama, tennessee, parts of the midwest. Lee, i appreciate you because you are fairminded. I guess i can say you are fair balanced. One of those terms, which is of course, good for what i call the even gelcoat white right even ical, white evnagel writes. There are a handful of blacks that probably voted for it. I am not sure people agree with that or not but thank you for your views. I appreciate you. Host thoughts . Guest i have lots of thoughts. Thank you for the comment. Challenge in a contemporary political alignment is we have defined the two ethnic,along cultural, identity lines. We have created a political conflict that feels very zerosum over questions of American National identity. That is a dangerous conflict for a political system, especially when you have given people only one of two choices and said there is no alternative. There are a lot of folks, on the right, who were not enthusiastic about trump but because there was no other option other than voting for a democrat, which a lot of them felt Hillary Clinton was somebody who they would not consider, they voted for trump. There are a lot of folks in congress, republicans, who were certainly not enthusiastic about trump initially but they got pushed into his camp because they had no alternative to stay in office other than staying in the Republican Party which meant cozying up to trump. The twoparty system has pushed folks to take views and align themselves with views they were originally uncomfortable with but none of us likes to feel like we are doing something wrong. We adjust our views based on who is on our side and that creates a dangerous zerosum conflict. That is what i am worried about. Host republican, brooklyn. Caller good morning. I appreciate you coming on the airwaves. A couple questions. Old. 73 years i have been following this political system, going back to the johnson administration. What i keep seeing over and over again is politicians that pretty much follow the guidelines of the corporations that fund the money through the lobbyists to the coffers to promote another invasion so they can keep promoting the military hardware, the military contracts that keeps this quagmire we seem to keep finding ourselves in. Meanwhile, politicians on the airwaves, talking heads, have managed to create one paper trail after another to divert the attention of this country and its citizens to actually what is going on with its twoparty system and why it is defunct at this point in time. I look at the people moving forward in the Road Development initiative, which most people do not understand, that is going on in china, and that economic development, going into sovereign nations, bringing death and destruction to innocent people. Im not saying china does not have its issues. The u. S. Has its issues but that is what we are concerned about today. How would you feel if at some point in time the twoparty system will actually have to be taken down by the citizens of this country, to say we are going to reconstruct how we do business and it is not going to be to the corporations but the political leaders that will step up and do the right things because that is not what is happening today . Appreciate your comments. On thefirst of all, power of corporate lobbyists, my lobbyists, my previous book was about corporate lobbying called, the business of america is lobbying. I agree with you. Corporations have become powerful in washington, distorted how our government works. I think the frustration that you are sharing is a frustration a lot of americans feel. They feel the political system does not represent them well. We are at a moment in American History where that frustration feelyou and most americans is becoming unsustainable. Longterm polling trends, you see trust in institutions is at a low as far as we have had polling, frustration with the twoparty system is at a high and we have only had one other moment in American History in which there has been a similar level of frustration of dissatisfaction and that was around the turnofthecentury when the end of the gilded age, when everyone understood the political system was corrupt. We went through a form through reform. I am optimistic we will enter another period of reform because there are a lot of folks out there who feel that what we have got going on now is unsustainable. Ultimately, what we will see is a broad, grassroots uprising supporting new reforms. We will see a few politicians forward thinking who get that as we saw in the progressive era, who will channel that energy and who will lead us to a renewal of american democracy. Host what would a reform look like and how does that work with the constitution in place . Guest the constitution has an elections clause, section one, states canhich says decide how they want to send members to congress. States can enact reforms themselves. The state of maine has put in place ranked Choice Voting, and innovation for elections. Instead of picking one candidate, you get to rank your candidates. That means, you have essentially an instant runoff, where the candidate who finishes last among first choice preferences gets eliminated. Votes get allocated to second choice preference and you keep doing that until you have somebody who has a majority of votes. That takes away the spoiler effect, which prevents third parties and alternate views from getting in the system. That is an innovation states are already beginning to experiment with. It is not a new idea. Australia has been using it for over 100 years, ireland has been using it for 100 years. Ireland and australia both use a multiwinner form, proportional representation, which is what most democracies use. Most democracies are multiparty democracies. The. Is not lighter u. S. Is an outlier in a twoparty system. It is an integrated system. Both countries have moved to a more advanced form of proportional representation which allows multiple parties views and builds compromising coalitions into the government process. So, i think we will see more and more states starting to extreme and. There is a bill starting to experiment. There is a bill in congress, from virginia, that would change national laws, totally constitutional and create a system of multimember districts with ranked Choice Voting, fivemember districts, which would create an opportunity for more parties. Congressman raskin has introduced a National Ranked Choice Voting single winner, which within perfectly constitutional and you could also, another perfectly constitutional way to expand representation is to increase the size of the u. S. House, which at 435 members is quite small for a country our size. Most countries have bigger peoples houses with fewer people in the country. In fact, we used to increase the house every decade from the founding through 1911. We stopped in 1911 as the country tripled in size, which would increase diversity and create opportunities for more parties, especially when coupled with electoral reforms. Host you write in the book that other solutions would be to get rid of congressional primaries and ranked Choice Voting for president. Guest lets talk about that. Ranked Choice Voting for is, seems likeh a common sense thing to me. Most countries that elect president s, have a two round system, if anyone follows the french election, there were two rounds and that is how Emmanuel Macron won. Ranked Choice Voting is similar except that the second round happens instantly and you get to express your full range of preferences. What ring Choice Voting tends to do and places it has been adopted is it feels a more compromise, oriented, more moderate, less zerosum style of campaigning because you are campaigning not to just be the first choices, but also the second and third choices. You want to appeal broadly where is our current winner take all system encourages candidates to go to the base, vocalize the extreme supporters and that is arguably, howd National President ial campaigns have been running for some time, creating an incredibly divisive situation. Ranked Choice Voting for president would create different incentives. Most importantly, it would ensure the person who is the genuine majority preferred candidate actually wins, as preferred to the candidate preferred intensely by the plurality but not by a majority. That would create a totally different dynamic for campaigns. As for congressional primaries, one of the things everyone in washington knows is that members of congress are scared of being primaried. This means they are only looking to the most dedicated partisan fighters, the people who show up most in the primaries and they are worried they will be punished if they compromise with notother party, if they are a stalwart partisan warrior. By getting rid of congressional primaries, you free up numbers to not worry so much about being stalwart partisan fighters. The argument for primaries and why we have them, which is a progressive era innovation 100 years ago, was that the system with controlled by a corrupt cabal of Party Insiders and corporate donors. The idea was you open up. The reality is you wind up getting more or less the same candidates running as you would have under the primary but you give people more participation, which in a twoparty system, i guess is good because it is hard for dissenters to have a way in otherwise but you change the electrical system the electoral system so it is easier for third parties to compete, you dont need room for dissent. You can run as a third or fourth or fifth party in the general election. There is really no need. The u. S. Is the only country in the world that has congressional primaries that are public and open to anybody who wants to vote. I dont think people really appreciate how strange u. S. Democracy is compared to the rest of the world of advanced democracy. Were the only one that has a twoparty system and the only has public direct primaries. Host dan, new jersey, democratic. Caller thank you. I agree with everything you are saying. I think it has been going on from the beginning. Example. Be optimistic. My biggest mistake was looking into history. 1776194050, it was the same thing. The Founding Fathers says all men are created equal. They werent. Hoped thated, they that would be the dream. Guy and2yearold white i think it is great that the warn won the the civil but it let up to the civil war because white americans feel they are superior. Then we have a coolingoff period. During the vietnam war, i believed in everything, i believed everything would get better, civil rights came. There was the problem. Things started to get better. I totally believe in everything that happened with civil rights to make everybody equal in america but i see this in my own family. Anybody todont want get in their way when it comes to them getting the best jobs, best everything. We are in cycles. Our representatives, president , everybody, all politicians, they are not stupid. They represent the people. You have this underground of white people, like i said, i say this because i am shocked in my own family, they wont tell him public the way they really feel. I think we are in the second stage. It will go on and on. It will get better, there will be cycles but as long as we have this dna, as far as slavery, i think it will always happen. Guest history is a dangerous thing to look at but even more dangerous is not looking at it. We have struggled throughout history with the legacy of slavery. It has always been a challenge. It is with us to this day. Ideals of american democracy and the realities of american democracy, the framers were idealists and realists. We have always struggled with that tension between the ideals of america and the realities of america. Over the course of American History, we have become more and more of a true democracy. ,e have expanded the franchise we have made our institutions more accountable and it is two steps forward, one step back in everyut i believe encounter the same problems, and we have had these moments in american democracy where we have made those steps forward. It,ly, if you think about every 50 years or so, we have these moments in which we make a real advance, starting with the revolution, then the 1830s, an expansion of the franchise, 1890s, 1900, progressive era with reforms, 1960s, civil rights to today. I believe that 2020s will be an exciting decade for reform in which we make american democracy more democratic. The conversations that we are having now around issues of of reckoning with history are really the precursor to a more inclusive, more representative and more democratic era. It is easy to be pessimistic. The title of the book, the doom loop, does give us a sense of pessimism, because i believe what we have now is unsustainable but i also believe we recognize that it is unsustainable and that is the whichecursor to an era in we make those steps forward again. Host republican, tacoma, washington. Wondering if you believe the news media, like cnn and fox news, may be contributing to the downfall of the twoparty system . I am not sure. Blame the media for the polarization and escalation of partisan warfare because the media becomes echo chambers for inflated partisan views. I certainly think that is something that is really challenging, the political system we have, that more and more people are getting their news from sources that reinforce what they already think. I tend to think the media is an amplifier more than a cause of the Current Crisis. The Current Crisis is unsustainable. Maybe the media will contribute to a moment of reform. Host newport news, virginia, jeffrey, democratic. Caller thank you for taking my call. Her new jersey caller, actually pointed out a systemic problem in our society, even though we are young democracy, that is one of the foremost things that is holding us back as far as progressing. Somethingnote that is you should add into your study because it is an actual factor in some of the leadership and also voting practices we have in this country. I want to ask you if your study had taken into account, the changes of the Political Party . I mean, at one point in the political history of this country, republicans were considered more liberal, forward thinking party, as far as all rights to all people. Theome point, i would say, 50s, jean started where republicans became more conservative, had more conservative views and rights, also like with the jersey caller, had a point of view of their status or their supremacy in the political system. I wanted to know if that is something your study would take into consideration . Book, ideal a lot with that history i deal a lot with that history. I suspect that had Richard Nixon made a call to Martin Luther kings wife, instead of kennedy, in the 1960 election, not only would he have won but the republicans would have become the party of civil rights and we would have had a different alignment. It is so hard to believe in this current moment but if you take history seriously you could have envisioned that different future in 1960, had the election played out differently. Once johnson embraced civil rights, democrats embraced civil rights and it was impossible not to, even with the south in the early 1960s, it took that issue away from republicans. Won theldwater nomination and enforced the states position, and he said, we are going to go hunting where the ducks are, meaning we are going to get the votes of the south. 1964, there were people who were predicting the end of the Republican Party because johnson won with such a landslide and democrats won with such a landslide in congress. By 1968, there have been , and nixon won by trying to embrace a southern strategy. That set in motion this 50 year systemment of the party in which we are now fundamentally divided over these issues of race and inclusion on american identity which forces folks to decide on one of two positions that are increasingly moving apart from each other and that is creating a very zerosum conflict. A lot of the calls have been about this question of American National identity and our history of slavery and racial strife. That has always been with us but it has been elevated to the core political conflict between our parties. Hard foraking it very our political system to function. We have reconciled these issues and created new problems over the course of history and this will always be with us, we are a diverse society. Pastolitical system in the has found ways to deal with these problems and make progress. It has made progress at times in which this was not the structuring conflict dividing our parties but rather, in the 1960s, if you look at the votes for the civil rights bill, they were broadly bipartisan. Majority of republicans and democrats supported those bills because in both parties there were racial liberals. That is not the case today. Host david, clearwater, florida, independent. Caller good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to run a couple things by you, lee. I am the founder of my united american super pac. With the recent and previous binding, the extreme left and right trying to call out and get voters and try to change feel there are more independents for free minded voters than there have been in previous election cycles . I dontrsonally, recognize the Democratic Party at all. I dont know what has triggered outrighteme left and outrageous behavior but it doesnt seem like they are in line with what the American People want and i am also believing there are many voters throughout the country who feel like they have been left out and who are trying to find the correct path. How do we necessarily get these voters back to the table . We need, of course, to increase with thenout but infighting it seems the Democratic Party for example,istrict 12, San Francisco their Voter Registration or out 35 of8, leave voters in the district. Here. Two questions are there more independents . What can we do to increase turnout . Numbers ofy sheer self identification, people identifying as independent, now depending on the poll, which is 40 , as high as it has ever been. Because vote partisan that is what people can choose from in our elections but by registering as independent, they are expressing some level of frustration with the twoparty system. Certainly that is on the rise. As for, how can we get more people to vote . That is a great question. If you look at voter turnout in it has basically been flat for almost forever but we have made it easier to vote on the whole, though there have been some back steps on that, since the 1960s and yet turnout for a president ial election is between 50 and 60 . We may hit a high this year because of the high stakes of the election, people are particularly engaged. Midterm elections, we had a high turnout, almost 50 , in the past it has been more like 35 . U. S. Inook at the international context, we are very low. Most advanced democracies, european democracies have turned out 80 . There is a clear relationship between the number of parties and the turnout. The countries with fewer parties have lower turnouts. Why . A few reasons. One, if there are more parties, more people are likely to find a party that represents them and are more likely to be excited about voting. Way more important is the we do elections with singlemember districts, plurality voting means most districts, congressional tatesicts and most s are basically solid for one party. How many swing states do we have up for grabs . Even in a competitive congressional midterm, 80 seats are solid for one party or the other. For most people, their vote does not matter, so why waste your time standing in line going to the polls when the election is already decided . What does it mean for parties . Why invest in getting people to turn out to vote, and parties do a lot of voter turnout in district that are close, but in districts that are not close, the Democratic Party is closing up shop in south dakota because what is the point if you only have 30 . That is not something that happens in most democracies. In most democracies with proportional representation, 35 gives you 35 of the seats. Parties actually invest in organization and turn out the vote and engage voters throughout the country because your vote matters wherever you live. In the u. S. , your vote only matters if you live in a close district. Most, the choices are limited, the vote does not matter and the parties are not recruiting. No wonder voting is low in the u. S. Give people more choices. It is not rocket science. That is what happens in the rest of the world. Host massachusetts, independent. Caller thank you. Drutman, im interested because of the deadlock, the parties, i found it fascinating the people that were for prohibition 80 years ago when they pushed that through, they were a small minority. They used a political strategy to go around the different battleground states like today in close elections, deals, wey made these were guaranteed our voters for our movement will vote for you, your candidate, if your candidate supports prohibition. What i am interested in, couldnt that work today . More movements do that in battleground states . Go to the main parties and go, we will sway the election in your direction and support you but you have to make a deal and say we are going to move forward with this legislature, legislation or law or whatever it is . Why has that not worked more for an occupied nation or the tea party or the independent party . We will form a coalition and get our agenda passed . Host we are running out of time. Certainly, if you had a group of undecided voters, single issue, one issue, and had enough electoral might, they might be able to do that. The challenge is, there is no issue that unites that many voters who are ambivalent between the two parties. Participate,ho they think one party is better than the other or think that one party is clearly a threat to the nation and they need to keep that party out of office. In theory, your strategy would work. I dont know what the issue would be to unite that many undecided, ambivalent voters. Good luck to you if you can find that issue. An, thank drutm you very much for the conversation. Guest great to be with you. This is a fun conversation. Host we will take a break. When we come back, we will talk about your top policy issue. 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. We will be right back for that conversation. This weekend, on American History tv, saturday, 6 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, the coauthor of targeted tracks talks about the importance of the Cumberland Valley railroad during the civil war and at 8 00 on lectures in history, a discussion on August Wilson. The things motivating August Wilson are his desire to move black people from the margins to the center and say, what is true about us . What matters to us . What is happening in our lives . Sunday, 4 p. M. Eastern on real america, 1919 silent army film, motor convoy, about a transcontinental track from washington dc to San Francisco. 8 00 on the presidency, Herbert Hoover and his world war i relief work. To his team of mostly american volunteers, they built the crv into a remarkable organization. It had its own flag, its own fleet, it negotiated with some of the warring european powers, its a leader, hoover, enjoy diplomatic immunity and travel freely through enemy lines, probably the only american citizen permitted to do so during the entire war. Explore our nations past on American History tv, every weekend on cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host your top Public Policy issue for the remainder of washington journal. Headlines for you to chew on. Yahoo news website has, secretary state pompeo says attack was active war on saudi arabia. U. S. Wants to build a coalition of european and arab partners to deter iran. Mike pompeo described this as an act of war against the top oil exporter. , the president , in the New York Times quoted as saying to reporters yesterday it is easy to attack. If you ask Lindsey Graham, ask him how going into the middle east, how did that work out . How did iraq work out . The president seeking to sound tough but not pulling the trigger. Another headline from the chicago tribune. Retaliation,ing targeted for saudi oil attacks. Trump tweets sanctions are coming. From politico this morning, the story that the former National Security advisor, john bolton, at a private event in new york unloads on the president and the Foreign Policy behind closed doors. He says any negotiations with north korea and iran were doomed to failure. Inviting the taliban to camp david sends a terrible signal and it was disrespectful to the victims of 9 11 because the taliban had harbored al qaeda. A quote from someone who attended he ripped trump without using his name. Bolton said more than once that the failure to respond to the arabian attack on the american drone, set the stage for the aggression in recent months. Those are some headlines for you. On gun control, the hill newspaper, gop signaling unease with the attorney generals proposal for background checks. That is also in the news. From politico, the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi telling democrats behind closed doors last night, corey lewandowski, during the hearing tuesday, should have been held in contempt then and there, is what she had to say. Another issue earlier today, epa administrator along with transportation secretary held a conference about President Trump announcing a bar against california vehicle emissions rule. Here is what the transportation secretary had to say. [video clip] 2. 5 years ago, President Trump spoke with autoworkers in michigan and said that we would review and revise the last administrations unattainable fuel economy regulations. Those rules were making cars more expensive and impeding safety because consumers were being priced out of newark, safer vehicles newer, safer vehicles. Our team of experts have been working together conducting a long, thoughtful and detailed review of these rules. Todays action is an important down payment on the president s commitment. Areone National Program we announcing today will ensure there is one and only one set of National Fuel economy standards as Congress Mandated an intended and intended. No state has the authority to opt out of the nations rules and no state has the right to impose its policies on everybody else in our country. Consumersrwise harms and damages the american economy. Ruleould be noted this only applies to fuel economy. It will not affect californias effortsto refocus its on fighting the worst air pollution in the country and comply with existing regulations. Host that was the transportation secretary this move byannouncing this the administration to bar california from implementing vehicle emissions rule. The attorney general, former congressman responds on twitter. This follows a hearing yesterday a hearing on capitol hill where the swiss activist, 16yearold leading the Global Climate withe swedish activist, 126 countries participating and one million youth participating and not going to school, to participate in the global strike, she testified on capitol hill yesterday along with others on Climate Change. If you missed that, go to www. Cspan. Org to follow that. With all those issues on the table, what is your top Public Policy issue . Steve, independent. Caller Climate Change. Host ok. Caller i have studied reports on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ipcc. Ch and read that. Scientists say we have a narrow window of opportunity. The longer you wait, the more difficult and expensive it gets to reduce emissions. Irreversiblee consequences. The consequences are overwhelming. It should be our highest priority. Host steve, texas, republican. Caller good morning. Issue is one policy clear, immigration. It is clear to me and to many that the Democrat Party is dead set on opening borders, hook or crook. Pleasry to mask it with for fairness and things like that and and they talk about what is going on with separation of families but the bottom line is, they know the only way to continue to push forward their agenda and to get it forward quickly is to create a class of people, and to maintain a class of people totally dependent on the government and we need to push against that. Thank you. Host edward, manchester, connecticut, independent. Caller my top issue is going back a ways. Farmers and landowners used to vote on everything our elected representatives put on the floor up for vote they thought we wanted to pay for and the changes to our nation and lives. Waynnot think of a better to get the tough decisions voted on than randomly selecting voters like we do jurors. Male and female, from each party, from each state in our union, to sit in the seats of power. Voting on everything our representatives put up for a vote, becoming a self governed people by the vote and that is how you end slavery in america. Host ok. Bonnie in oklahoma, republican. Good morning. Caller hello . Host we are listening to you. People,yes, yes, these teenagers out there that have not even lived yet, wet behind the ears, they know some but they do not know anything. 1970, it was the ice age. 1980, acid rain. 1990, ozone layer. We are all going to die. 2000, Global Warming. We are all going to die. 2010, Climate Change. Years, we are all going to die. You think you believe that . We havent died yet. Tht lets listen to greta unberg at yesterdays hearing. I have not come to offer prepared remarks at this hearing. I am instead attaching my testimony. It is the ipcc special report on Global Warming, 1. 5 degrees onsius, which was released october 8, 2018. Report of myg this testimony because i do not you to listen to me. I want you to listen to scientists. Behindyou to unite science, then i want you to take real action. Thank you. Host if you missed that hearing, go to www. Cspan. Org to watch it. On capitol hill now, a closeddoor briefing on this story in the Washington Post. Trump, subject of intelligence complaint. According to the post, greg miller and Ellen Nakashima and shane harris reporting the complaint triggering a tense showdown between the u. S. Intelligence community and congress involves the president s communication with a foreign leader. This included a promise regarded as so troubling it prompted an official in the u. S. Intelligence community to file a former whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General. It was not immediately clear who the foreign leader was or what trump pledged to deliver. It has not been previously disclosed. It raises questions about the president s handling of sensitive info and further strained the relationship with u. S. Agencies. Kyle cheney on capitol hill reporter, tweeted, the first lawmaker to exit the briefing on, the whistleblower complaints is mike turner, republican of ohio who said, no comment. According to the post, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, michael acids and Michael Atkinson said the complaint was troubling enough to be considered an urgent concern. The dispute is expected to escalate today when atkinson is scheduled to appear, which is happening now, before the House Intelligence Committee, closed to the public. The hearing is the latest move by the Committee Chair, adam schiff to compel officials to disclose full details of the whistleblower complaint the congress. They are referring to the acting director of national intelligence, has agreed to testify before the Panel Next Week according to the chairman, adam schiff. Gaithersburg, maryland, democratic. Democrat. Am a most of my life, i have been nonpolitical. The last few years i have gotten very political. One of the reasons is Climate Change. The report you just read shows how many issues and things are going on that are truly troubling. Bareback to Climate Change, it will be a major Decision Point for me when i vote in 2020 and tonight i will be starting form,ng the msnbc climate it will tightly it will likely take me a week to watch them on dvr and i will be going to the climate strike in d. C. Tomorrow. The idea that anyone could continue to believe Climate Change is not real and we need to act on it, just is mindboggling. They clearly are not paying attention to the temperatures in the arctic, the wildfires, not just in the u. S. And the west but all over the world including siberia. It is just astounding that people can be so dense. We acted when pearl harbor was bombed. We did not get into world war ii until it was but we acted as a nation and we can do that with Climate Change. We can lessen the impact, et cetera. It is as the ozone hole, smaller. The worldwide work on that, the legislation all over the world worked. It is an example of what we can do about Climate Change if we all get together, pull our own weight, both personally, at state and federal level, we can solve this. I have five grandchildren. It matters to me. I will be dead when the worst happens. I care about my grandchildren. I care about the next generations. Obscene fors just us to let money run this issue. That is what is going on. Host sonja is next in daytona beach, florida, democratic. Caller i agree with the past caller about the need for addressing Climate Change. I live on the 12th floor, i am retired, psychotherapist who worked with abused children. My concern is even more than Climate Change but if we can even get to it, we need to start caring about the people. Our neighbors and us. Our neighbors are being torn apart. Families are being torn apart, little children are being put in, i think what you might call gulags. That is where trump takes his instruction. These children are being transported all over the u. S. And that causes terrible problems for children, something called reactive attachment disorder. Children start having problems for the rest of their lives in relationships and how to get along in life, not to mention the pure depression. Host sonja, we have to leave it there. Heard your point. The house is coming in for the legislative session