A political and religious crisis. As always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter is next. Host good morning. It is monday, september 30. Welcome to washington journal. Though congress is in a two week break, House Democrats impeachment efforts move forward. Herker pelosi telling caucus in a Conference Call beterday, our tone must solemn, prayerful, and respectful of the constitution. Is the effort by democrats worthy of the constitution . Democrats, call 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents and others, that is 2027488002. Or you can send us a text and that line is 2027488003. We are also on twitter. Tweet us at cspanwj or post your comments on facebook, facebook. Com cspan. A piece updated in the new york pelosithe headline says pushes for simple message as inquiry barrels ahead. Nancy pelosi made a private appeal on sunday to democrats not to build public support for a school fullscale impeachment inquiry on President Trump. We are ready to push forward with a politically divisive process. The polls have changed. Rastically about this our tone must be prayerful, respectful, solemn, worthy of. E constitution after several murky messaging and mr. Trumps efforts to derail that inquiry, democrats believe the new push centered on efforts to pressure the leader of ukraine to dig up dirt on political rival gives them a fresh start and a clear chance to make a case the president deserves to be removed. Adam schiff of california told cbs 60 minutes more subpoenas in the inquiry would be coming soon, as early as this week, including one for rudy giuliani, whom he deputized the followup with ukrainians. We are here on washington journal on the phone by Catherine Tully mcmanus who reports for roll call, covers congress for roll call. What idea can you give us about the timeline for the investigation . How quickly do they want to move through this . Guest at least one subpoena has already been issued. Demanding that secretary mike pompeo produce documents and witnesses that could illuminate more about the dealings with ukraine that were on the Conference Call with President Trump. What all members were saying last week and into this weekend was that expeditiously was the word used over and over again. It is my sense that lawmakers, weather they have been for impeachment months and months or only came on board the last few days, they do not want this to drag on forever even though some people are talking about the election and what it would mean for that, they see if they make concise, clear actions moving forward consistently, that is the strategy they are hoping to take. There are more subpoenas expected this week. There is even a closed hearing expected on friday, october 4 with the House Intelligence Committee and the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community committee to bring clarity for the Intelligence Committee members on what they are dealing with. Host is there any possibility of a public hearing during this two week break . Guest i am not aware of any plans for that during this break. I would say more members might want to be present for that and so that might be the only Thing Holding that back. There is no clarity on when the whistleblower will meet with lawmakers. The lawyers came forward with a Statement Last night saying there is not a timeline for that , but they are in communication with congress. Host as members know back to their home districts and town halls in other meetings with constituents, what is the main message they are taking back regarding impeachment and the democratic agenda in congress . Guest the plan for town halls in many events is an opportunity for members to address this issue that i am sure is now on many of their constituents minds about how House Speaker paint nancy pelosi sent a letter to her caucus late last week and i think she framed nicely what she would like her members to bring home with them, which she said, with our inquiry in place, we can focus on promoting our agenda. What they mean by their agenda is the Kitchen Table topics impacting the lives of their constituents. They are rolling out a bill they say would lower Prescription Drug costs for everyday americans. They would love to be talking about that and the two bills and one resolution they recently passed in the house on border issues to increase oversight and transparency of agencies operating on the border, medical screenings for children and families at the border, and a resolution disapproving of the money being routed away from military projects for border construction. Those are the types of things they will be talking about in their districts. Of course, impeachment will come up and how every member handles that will likely be different depending on the politics of their district. All members are saying this is not about the 2020 election, this is about securing our democracy, et cetera. However, everyones district has a different makeup and they have to take that into account. Some members will be going home, especially these members who most recently came up for impeachment in trump . Winning districts, they will be defending their choice to support and impeachment inquiry where trump won whereas others will be going home and saying finally, we have everyone on board, you know i have been hoping for this and pushing for this for a long time. Host catherine telling mcmanus tullymcmanus, thanks for being with us this morning. Back to theire home districts, Speaker Pelosi admonishing them that their tone should be worthy of the constitution your thoughts. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. And all others, 2027488002. Joe is first, indianola, indiana. Welcome. Caller how are you doing . Top of the morning to you. Host you bet. Go ahead. Caller i remember hearing a year or so ago that old Vladimir Putin said by 2020, the u. S. Would have a civil war and now i am hearing talk of civil war on the republican side. Ant joe brings up interesting point because the president used those words in a tweet yesterday. Quoting a pastor who appeared on fox news and i want to show that to you. In a series of tweets yesterday, President Trump tweeted if democrats are successful removing the democrat asked the president from office, which they will never be, it will cause a civil warlike fracture in this nation from which the country will neville never heal. I havenzinger says visited nations ravaged by civil war. President trump and i never imagined such a quote to repeated by a president. This is beyond repugnant. Phoenix,publican line, arizona. Welcome to christian. Caller thank you so much for taking my call. Here we are again, another scam by the democrats. Another scheme to rush to judgment to get the president out of office. Guiltr presumption of instead of a presumption of innocence, which our entire country is founded upon and they are not following the constitution because in our country, in this country, not only do we have a presumption of innocence, we also have a presumption of the reasonable standard. Without that standard, we are lost as a country. Here we have the president of the United States who had a conversation on july 25 and three days later, dan coats resigned as the director of National Intelligence on july 28 august, the office of the director of National Intelligence retroactively changes the form the whistleblower complaint form in august of 2019, which was just therted over the weekend by federalist . And shortly after that, the whistleblower complaint was then dan coats officially leaves the office of the director of national 15. Lligence august why is it that all the republicans in the country and the people who elected donald after rush to impeachment this whistleblower complaint form is retroactively changed right before the complaint is filed and given to adam schiff and the committees . I also want to point out, why is there such a double standard when it comes to democrats . Here we have hunter biden, who not only was widely known as hunter biden was involved with the second largest gas company in the ukraine, hunter biden was on that board of directors from 2019 2014 all the way to 2019. On yourst a quick note timeline, dan coats President Trump announced that in a tweet, late july. Dan coats stepped down mid ust right after or before coincidentally or not, the letter came out the whistleblower report was filed august 12. Alabama, we go to the independent line and this is tom. Go ahead. Thank good morning and you for taking my call. My big problem with everything going on with donald trump is look at our economy, look at the state of our country. They had 20 candidates, the democrats did in the beginning. None of them could even come close to beating trump in an election. What do they do . They figure out a way to muddy his name again. We heard russia, russia, russia, even when the reports came out he had done nothing wrong, it was still russia and then the leak in the wall street journal that we are going to go out to him because he is a racist. When the report came out, you dont hear anything about being a racist anymore. Quit announcing biden as Vice President biden, he is a common president ofd the the United States has the right he is not undermining the actions taken in our country now. He is nobody, he is running for president ial candidate and he is a private citizen. Host is the impeachment inquiry worthy of the constitution . The admonition of Speaker Pelosi. You can text us. A couple here, this one from chad. Democrats are engaged in nothing less than a coup. The integrity of the worthy of the impeachment inquiry. Here is what Speaker Pelosi had to say yesterday in her in on on 60 minutes cbs. [video clip] it wasnt any change of mine, i always said we will follow the facts, where they take us and when we see them, we will be ready and we are ready. He told you about the phone call . He told me it was perfect. He there was nothing in the call. It was in public domain, he did was wrong. Ll us it it is wrong for a president to wants another head of state to create something negative about his possible political opponent to his own advantage at the extent of our expense of our National Security and the integrity of our elections. Host back to your phone calls and comments. Caller i am just listening to what nancy pelosi had to say creating what the democrats did in 2016. And for by the democrats Hillary Clinton and then they have the nerve to think we are stupid and more ons, that we do not understand what the constitution is. They have been changing everything ever since donald trump got elected, they have been trying to bring him down. As the country gets better and better, they are bitter because they know they are not going to 2020. E to beat him in that is what they are trying to bring him down. As far as adam schiff, for years he was telling us i have the proof, i have the proof that he colluded with russia. In the end, it was all a lie. He had nothing. He sits there and tries to make up a story about donald trump and what the conversation was. They should be shameful of what they are doing. Thank you. Essex,liff is next in maryland. Also on the republican line. Go ahead. Caller i am hardened by some of the calls i have heard this morning. So far, 100 of the American People are against this. This is nothing but another coup. It is shameful what these communists are doing. This is the communist party, the Democrat Party is nonexistent. Crew conducting a coup against the president of the United States. As far as the constitution is concerned, these communists are trying to destroy the constitution. Trying to destroy the First Amendment, second amendment, they want to open borders and sanctuary cities, this is crazy stuff. These people are insane. Host another view from maryland in greenbelt on our democrats line. Cspan. Good morning, i am up proud africanamerican scientist and a democrat and my party is democrat and this is the United States of america. I reported to two president s in , george h. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and i swore on the bible to protect my country from domestic and foreign enemies. This president has put on a private server to hide wrong doings of his own making. Nancy pelosi is doing the correct thing, she is trying to protect our nation, our constitution. He puts on a private server in order to hide his deals with government of this country to put some dirt on biden. Biden was a private citizen. Was theof biden, which Vice President of barack obama. This is wrong. This is a violation of our constitution. The deal that was made was passed by congress, congressional deal to save this country, which is being attacked by russia. To save this country already approved by the congressional action and this president wants to use that to put his own personal wrongdoings to find on biden. And reviewstand up the constitution like nancy pelosi is doing. Host we are basing the question on Nancy Pelosis comments in terms of the tone on their approach of the impeachment and cree. Impeachment inquiry. Cbs poll quoted in the new york times, more than half of americans and an overwhelming number of democrats say they improve of the inquiry. The survey found a partisan split with democrats calling the president s handling of ukraine illegal. Most republicans calling the actions proper or if improper, at least legal. His advisor, Stephen Miller was on Fox News Sunday and asked if he believed it was a partisan job by the whistleblower. [video clip] read the sevenpage nancy drew novel, it drips with condescension, righteous indignation, and contempt for the president. It describes an elaborate coverup that also the president discussed on sean hannity april 25. What kind of secret coverup are you discussing on the airwaves of fox news . Furthermore, the Inspector General found evidence of political bias in the individual, which is not disputed by anybody. He also felt the director of National Intelligence and Inspector General said they found his comments to be credible and a matter of urgent concern and turned it over to the justice department. They thought it was a credible complaint. And they are wrong. On whose basis . I have worked in the federal government for nearly three years. I know what the deep state looks like. I know the difference between a whistleblower and a deep state operative. This is a deep state operative pure and simple. Host your calls and comments and questions on washington journal. The usa today has the headline whistleblower agrees to testify before congress. A picture of adam schiff, the chair of the Intelligence Committee. Congress is on a two week recess, but the inquiry does not appear to be slowing down. A number of depositions scheduled with state Department Officials and a private hearing with the Inspector General, the official who received a whistleblower complaint and found a credible and urgent. Mike pompeo is being subpoenaed for documents related to the trumpukraine episode. The biggest concern was having the whistleblower appear before the commentsng made by President Trump at a private event where he suggested the whistleblower committed treason and should be punished. Ine on our independent line philadelphia. Go ahead. Caller i think you asked to comment on pelosi. Shesaid today or yesterday wanted to be somber, serious and yet when she spoke about this, she was giggling and cackling. It reminded me of a mob from the french revolution. People should refer to literature to look that up. I think this is a marxist move and age attraction a distraction from our country being invaded. I want to encourage our fellow citizens weather demo whether democrat or republican, there will not be a civil war because we will pray to god. Host our democrats line, over to new jersey. James, hello. Caller how are you doing, cspan . I am a moderate. Politics since i was three years old, eisenhower. Ays i have been studying this situation. Biden situation, the two companies in the ukraine, one was given oil and gas to as trump called them, animals and scum people. The prosecutor he was on the board of the ones giving oil and not to the russians. Crime, to help out the rest of the country and not russians it is really sick to think its a crime. Host the Washington Times is reporting on hunter biden. Transaction approved by the Obama Administration in 2015. Scrutiny of business deals by former Vice President joe bidens son hunter includes his joint venture with a Chinese Government entity to combine an Automotive Company with potential military applications. The chairman of the senate the committee, truck direct involvement of mr. Hunter biden and mr. Heinz, the stepson as of john kerry in the acquisition prevents a potential conflict of interest. Senator grassley wrote a letter to treasury secretary steven mnuchin. Is larry, welcome. Comment is it is not about the constitution, its about the hatred of these Democrat Members and congress and senate that hate this man and they are trying to destroy him. I wanted to say to all the good there, you ought to see what this country has become with the Democrat Party and you should get out and vote. Donald trump is not a perfect man, but at least he is a man trying to help this country. God bless donald trump. Host our independent line in florida, earl on our democrats line. Go ahead. Caller i am not a democrat, i am on the independent line. Host go ahead. I called a couple months academia on your network this idea of democracy is an effort in futility. I listen to your callers. Ask if they believe the memo given out by the president , the. Hite house has ragraph three and four an ellipses. Claim ors you omit my my calls or complaints. Thether words now, i see people who support the socalled candidate, it is like a seesaw. Democrats are up and then you have republicans crying about democrats and now republicans are up and you have republicans crying over democrats crying. It is an effort in futility and i am grateful for this opportunity to see history in the making when this thing crashes in your face. Host earl in florida and the white house explained it when it came out and you can check on our website, we linked to the document. I think they call it memorandum of the phone conversation. It includes notes from aides in on that conversation with the president. 2027488000 is the line for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. And for independents and others, 2027488002. Well. Come your texts as yesterday afternoon on the developing situation, joe biden tweeting President Trump is trying to hijack this election to distract from how he has turned his back on americas families, sabotaging our health care, prioritizing tax cuts for super wealthy, and rolling back process on Climate Change. , johnt, 2027488003 holly says absolutely, this is worthy of the constitution, the current controversy and several early and ongoing controversies rise to the level of impeachable offense. I am disappointed, cspan, this is not a democratic impeachment inquiry, it is the duty of article 1, legislative branch becoming more and more bipartisan by the day. It is high time the man in our Nations Highest Office be reminded he is not above the law. Wanted to play the comments of john bossert, the president s former Homeland Security advisor, tom bossert, rather, in the white house until last year. He was on abc news this week. Here is a look. [video clip] i am deeply disturbed by it and this mess has me frustrated. You and i both lived through the impeachment of president clinton and saw how dividing it can be and i spent the week overseas and i will tell you, the whole world is watching this. The removal of a president is a big and serious deal. The removal of a president in a democracy and the biggest democracy in the world is a weighty matter. I hope everyone can be careful as i have seen a lot of rush to judgment this week. That said, it is a bad day and a bad week for this president and this country if he is asking for political dirt on an opponent. It looks to me like the other matter that is far from proven his weather he is doing anything to abuse his power and withhold aid to solicit such a thing, that seems to be far from proven and it will be the focus of our Congress Next year. Lets walk through lets walk through what is in the whistleblower complaint. We are ready to continue to cooperate for next steps and ready to buy more javelins for defense purposes. Because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it, i would like you to find out what happened with this situation with ukraine . Things thatlot of went on, the whole situation. What the president is referring to is a debunked Conspiracy Theory that ukraine, not russia hacked democratic emails and ukraine might have the dnc server and hillarys emails. During your time in the white house, you explained that to the white house, right to the president , right . I did. It is not only a Conspiracy Theory, it is completely debunked. I dont want to be glib about this matter, but last year, judd piece ina peace the hill magazine and wrote the five ways to impeach oneself. The third way is to hire rudy giuliani. I am disappointed with what he and his legal team is doing repeating that debunked theory to the president. For clarity, let me, again, repeat that it has no validity. The United States government reached its conclusion on attributing to russia the dnc evenin 2016 before it communicated it to the fbi. Inside the dnc was not relevant to our whiletion to the servers can be important, it has nothing to do with the u. S. Governments attribution of russia for the dnc hack. Former White House Security advisor tom bossert yesterday. 2027488000 the line for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. And for independents and others, 2027488002. We played you some comments of nancy pelosi yesterday. These are the most important facts we have. Wasnt on thewer call, the ig did not read the back towithout your calls and comments and memphis, on our democrats line, author arthur. Caller mr. Trump will resign in the next 6 months, thank you. Host woodbridge, virginia, independent line, this is mike. Caller hello. Yeah. I think the president has done. O much harm to this country it is kind of hypocritical on the path of the democrats. They dont recognize gay marriage, marijuana they dont give african countries auid. Host ernest is next, south carolina. This is ernest on the republican line. Caller good morning, cspan. I just have a couple quick comments and i will take my voice off the air. I am a United States air force veteran. Retired trump in abeat national election. I tallied this thing up and probably trump will get 400 electoral votes. Democrats have no policy, they cannot run on the economy. Everywhere you look, there are houses, shopping centers, roads being built everywhere i traveled. Democrats, go and impeach trump, that is giving trump another sure election in november. Thank you, have a good day, everybody. T politico focus on focusing on the 2020 race. Democrats see impeachment as weapon against republican senate. Democrats insist their march toward impeaching President Donald Trump is simply about doing the right thing, but a growing number of them see a political upside, it might help them win back the senate. Democrats are becoming giddy at the prospect of having seeing squirm. Ozen senators while conventional wisdom holds trying to remove the president House Democrats in bella ground seats, there is a democratsould improve bid to seize the senate. In connecticut, this is chuck. Caller good morning. Love your show. Haved to let you know i been a democrat for 20 years and after investigating and seeing in reference to being almost a journalist to the point , i havetigating things found the Democratic Party is going to blow it. There is too much wrong information. Adam schiff made a complete idiot of himself. We have two Connecticut Democrats who have not done anything for our state over the past several years. Blumenthal and murphy. As of today, i am no longer a democrat. I am going to vote for trump. Thank you very much. I am so upset about the Democratic Party, i cant take it anymore. On thehis is harry independent line in georgia. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. The thing i called to say is i keep hearing it repeated by republicans that there was no collusion, it was proven there was no collusion. The Mueller Report, the first half of the Mueller Report documents over 150 meetings between russian government officials and employees of. Rumps Campaign Collusion is not a crime and notler regrets he could charge conspiracy. Trump is doing more obstruction along with bill barr not testifying now. To say there is no collusion is crazy with the russians. Now you have this new thing going on, good luck with that, republicans. Thanks very much. Host illinois, our republican line, this is robert. Good morning. I saw something on the news about that, that carry son,s stepson and bidens the Obama Administration of hisd the sale corporation sensitive thetary operation to china, sale of that corporation and i think it just shows what money can do in politics. I think it is all our secret information the Chinese Company is the wrong thing to do. I saw a report about that. Host robert is referring to the story we read a while ago. Purchase byout the the chinese needed approval by the Obama Administrations committee on investment in the United States. That included the goahead for mr. Kerrys state department. Direct control of the antivibration technology. Dhr got a 49 share of the business. Lengthy story, you can find it at washingtontimes. Com. We will hear from memphis next, jasper on the democrats line. Caller yes. These republicans are worried about what hunter biden is doing. 130 million worth of taxpayer money. Host that is your question . I want to know why dont they tell their president to release all the information these reports have in them . And tell these people to report to congress to their statements. Why is it every time we turn around this man is doing nothing but paying off prostitutes, lying about taxes. Why cant these republicans see what is going on with this man host republican senators, they are out for two weeks. Kevin mccarthy, the republican leader in the senate have a joint opinion piece in todays wall street journal. House democrats resist a win for american workers. President trump and the leaders of canada and mexico announced the most significant trade deal in a generation. The u. S. Mexico Canada Agreement is a win for america. It would create new jobs, expand export markets, strengthen protections for workers, and generate billions of dollars. Keepuld help creep north American Partners close. Mexico has ratified the agreement. Canada is waiting for us to take the lead. The u. S. Senate stands ready, willing, and eager to pass it. Under pressure from progressives to deny the country any successes during the trump administration, nancy pelosi is trying to run out the clock on the usmca. Finding one excuse after another to delay passing it. Your calls and comments about the impeachment inquiry. Is it, in the words of nancy pelosi, worthy of the constitution . Harvey in virginia, go ahead. Dealr my question has to with the way the senate and congress operate. Hello . Host you are on the air, we are listening. Caller okay. Nancy pelosi and mcconnell in the senate, they appoint these Committee Chairmans. We are spending money to conduct this impeachment hearing by the committee on intelligence and the other Committee Judiciary committee. Rule therecy pelosi is an impeachment inquiry spending taxpayer money to conduct an inquiry which half of our representatives have not voted on and approved such spending . I dont understand it. When democrats are in power, this huntergs biden thing was under the table and now the republicans bring it up because democrats brought up this stuff on trump. Your question about how they started the procedure, the Washington Post reports on how the Intelligence Committee has taken the lead. In their story, and a strategy shift, democrats settle on shift adam schiff to lead the inquiry. House democrats hoping to build a case to remove President Trump from office. Hisy lewandowski made questioners look hapless with a flurry of deflections and delays. Told one of her fellow leaders, Hakeem Jeffries i heard it did not go well. An observation she and other leaders would hear from several democrats according to officials familiar with discussions who spoke on conditions of anonymity to describe private conversations. Another top democrat, john yarmuth, had a more blunt assessment, a fiasco, he said. Served as a reminder through how the democrats through years of speeches, lawsuits, and subpoenas even after taking the House Majority have failed to figure out how to hold a norm busting president and his lieutenants in check. It laid the groundwork for a critical shift in the democrats strategy that has emerged in recent days in the wake of the revolution about trump interaction with ukraines president and the breach of power in asking a foreign president applied to provide dirt. Jerome nadler has been moved to the sideline in favor of the trusted head of the Intelligence Committee. Pelosi has made clear the investigation will focus narrowly on the ukraine matter, a scandal she says can be easily understood by the public. We will hear from donna in virginia on the republican line. Caller good morning. I havewanted to say heard these people for about two years and they act like more like a coven than they do a congress. It is really scary. Host we will hear from casey in leesburg, virginia, democrats line. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I would like to say i agree with the previous caller that things are stare scary. From my point of view, what is scary is a collective movement on the side of republicans to really not see the truth and the constant doublespeak, halftruths. I feel like they have done a disservice to their own people. The real need has to be a balanced approach to any inquiry and investigation and i think it is incumbent on the American People to demand the truth be good, bad, or otherwise in order to get to the end of this impeachment inquiry. I am concerned when people become too emotionally and wrapped with these kinds of life and death situations and i want to thank you again for taking my call and remind the American People to look past the double speech, the lies, the emotion and try to get to the facts and allow themselves to recognize they may be wrong and accept that and i believe nancy pelosi and the democrats are holding up the constitution and it is important for all americans to recognize that. Independents on the line, mechanicsville, new york. America. Ood morning, i want to say a couple things. I am an immigrant. I came here in 1962. I am from germany and what i andk of pelosi and schiff democrats, basically, i dont know if you people know about joseph goebbels, he was a propaganda minister in germany during world war ii 2 and basically, what is happening he lied to he did, the people and he put out so many lies and that is what democrats are doing, they are putting out so many lies people are believing these lies. I hear it. Schiff have done is a disgrace to the usa. I am a veteran. I became a citizen in the army and i am disgusted with what is going on in the Democratic Party. I used to be a democrat along time ago and i changed because their views have totally changed from kennedy. It is a total disgrace what they are doing to trump and if anybody votes for biden, they are out of their mind. The guy is 30. How can people be so stupid to think his son can receive 50,000 every three months . This is ridiculous. Host Los Angeles Times focusing on california. California to play an outside role in the impeachment inquiry. Ast photo from january 2017 nancy pelosi received the speaker gavel. Adam schiff is the chair of the Intelligence Committee and asked yesterday on meet the press if he expects the was a blower to testify. Here is what he said. [video clip] soon. And i hope very all that needs to be done at this point is to make sure the attorneys that represent the whistleblower get the clearances they need to accompany the whistleblower to testimony and that we figure out the logistics to make sure we protect the identity of the whistleblower. This whistleblower has done a Cardinal Service to the country by exposing wrongdoing of the most serious crime. A breach that endangers our security and he has to be worried about his own security with the president issuing threats like he did the other day. Your committee has seen material end up with the white house before and the president s team before. Are you confident your committee can protect the identity . Everybody in your committee can protect the identity of the whistleblower from the ire of the president . I am certainly going to do everything human, humanly possible to make sure that happens and we have been concerned for some time about back channels between our minority and the white house. Maybe even front channels. This is serious business. The president suggested people like this whistleblower should be treated the way we use to. Reat spies and traitors there is no messing around here. We want to protect this whistleblower, but we also want to encourage others aware of this wrongdoing or other wrongdoing. Host on meet the press, that is adam schiff. On twitter, we are cspanwj. If you want to text us, that is 2027488003. A text from duane in georgia. He says go ahead, push impeachment, i will still vote trump 2020. Alex in maryland. Trump and biden can both be wrong. Impeach trump, indict biden, and we will be out a president with still a dozen Democratic Candidates to pick from. The better question, cspan, is why do americans believe impeachment to be a coup when the founders included it in the constitution . The current constitution controversy rise to the level of impeachable offense, certainly more significant than lying about an affair. Chris says it is high time the men in our Nations Highest Office be reminded he is not above the law and this one from rick in california, founders anticipated a president like trump and that is why they put the impeachment clause in the constitution. Wasimpeachment of clinton sour grapes and unworthy. Impeachment of donald trump is police work. He did it in front of all of us. A sampling of some of the tweets and texts we are seeing. Republican line. Aller yes i am calling about you just played a clip of stephanopoulos on abc news, he read directly linskytrumpki ze dialogue right after the javelin and trump says i would like to ask a favor and then he says because trump gives the reason he wants the favor. It is not because i want you to go after a political opponent, biden is not even mentioned in that paragraph. It is because our country has been through a lot and he does bring up mueller in that paragraph. It is because trump knows he has been railroaded and there is a lot of people in the government that hate him and they are pulling some type of crew to get coup to get rid of him. Host jonathan in new york, welcome. Controlling the ukraine by getting the prosecutor fired. Biden bragged about that. Bill clinton got impeached a rate of perjury in case and he did not get impeached for having an affair. Democrats were trying to impeach trump for two years. What happened to all the other stuff they were trying to impeach him for . Host we go to new jersey and hear from mary on the democrats line. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. I dont understand donald trump. He is trying to change the constitution. I would like to know why republicans are afraid of him. Because they will be thrown out of office . Lets get real, republicans. Open your eyes. Host we started the hour looking at this, democrats return home and keep it simple. The closed Conference Call according to the new york times, Speaker Pelosi telling her members their tone must be somber and worthy of the constitution. We hear from sue in michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question for you. You ask if impeachment is worthy of the constitution, i dont believe so and the reason i dont believe so is because nancy pelosi in december 2018 changed at the rules to block participating. M have a good day. Host on the front page of the Washington Post, some biden backers fear the front is not ready to fight on two fronts. His campaign is not prepared to political ripal currents reshaping the 2020 race. An onslaught of attacks on his allies, several including top financial backers are weighing weather to create a super pac to independently defend biden and go after the president who repeatedly accused the former Vice President of corruption and Whose Campaign blitzed a 10 million ad aimed at attacking biden. A more aggressive approach could cut against bidens above the fray appeal and warn him against the losing sight of senator elizabeth warren, whose steady march popularity has eroded bidens standing and given her narrow leads over him in several pollsj. Jenee on our democrats line. Caller good morning, cspan. Lets just say the perspective of the current impeachment inquiry, people inside the beltway have a very different view of what nancy pelosi is doing and i believe with nancy pelosi. We weather this storm. William barr whitewashing and trying to protect mr. Trump. I think we need to sit back, i think we have been through a whirlwind of quite a few catastrophic events from mr. Trump. He comes with baggage and he has been in bed with the russians since 1980. There is nothing new here but a corrupt situation. I think people have all their stories very twisted. The biden story is twisted, you did to find out what biden an hunter biden. They were cleared by the ukrainians and prosecutors and what happened in ukraine is pretty much what is happening here. If you think about the mess in the capital with mr. Trump, giuliani, and the entire people that have left his cabinet, the same thing happened in ukraine. If ukrainians are going to lie, so are the people in the u. S. The biden story is another way for people to go with benghazi and the emails and so on. What is mike pompeo doing investigating Hillary Clintons emails when he should be investigating really giuliani . Heis going to need to prove was deputized by the he was there to find out about mueller to get mr. Trump Tour De France save paul man forth and get him out of prison. Thanks for your call and your comments here on washington journal next up well be talking with the cofounder of the Tea Party Patriots. House democrats impeachment effort of President Trump and pact ld be comb impact 2020. Tonight on the communicators, tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn chair of the judiciary committees Technology Task force on chinas waw way company in the u. S. Antitrust issues, regulating ig tech. Host joining us from atlanta, georgia, the cofounder of the Tea Party Patriots. The Tea Party Patriots celebrating ten years. Remind us the origins of the Tea Party Ten years ago. Guest we started because were upset with the stimulus bill that passed through congress on the heels of the tarp bill and other bailouts in 2008. O the stimulus passed in 2009. Rick had a rant on the floor. He said our Founding Fathers would be turning over in their graves and we should have a Tea Party Like they did. We started tweeting about it. About 22 of us got on a Conference Call. A week later we had 48 tea parties around the country with over 35,000 people in attendance. Six weeks after that we had ver 850 tea parties around the country. And weve been going strong ever since. We stand for personal freedom, Economic Freedom and a debt free future. Host how has the message evolved and how would you say its different now than it was ten years ago . Guest i just mentioned our three core values. Back then we talked about them in terms of fiscal responsibility, constitutionaly limited government and free markets. We talk about what we stand for in a little simpler language. Personal, economic, freedom and debt free future. One thing weve realized is that we have to get back to a constitutionally limited government that respects personal freedom and Economic Freedom in order for us to be able to reduce the deficit and get to a balanced budget. We still want to get to that balanced budget. I dont think that it is going to happen if we dont reduce the unconstitutional programs that we have in our country. It may be that they may be deemed constitutional but theyre certainly outside the scope of what i think our framers intended us to do. Host how would you rank the president s efforts and the Congress Efforts to reduce the deficit, to reduce spending since President Trumps been elected . Guest i think President Trump has grown, has expanded Economic Freedom which i think is very important. Hes done that by reducing regulations and by reducing taxes through the Tax Reform Program that he had. Weve seen there have been a Record Number of revenue that is have come in to the government. Weve had the most revenues coming in to the government since the tax cuts. So it helped stimulate the economy and it helped bring more revenue into the government. But the government is still spending as much money as it brings in and a lot more on top of that. And we still need to work on that. We show this pretty regular the National Debt clock over 22 trillion and tick ago way. How receptive is the administration to your message in washington ten years after you started are you still finding friendly ears toward the message of Debt Reduction in particular . Guest i think that we have elected more members of congress who are focused on ebt reduction but going from a very, very few people in the very beginning like one person who was to cussed on it in the senate back in 2009 when we began was senator jim demint but now we have ted cruz, rand paul, mike lee, tom cotton, david perdue. There are a lot more senators who care about it and talk about it and are focused on trying to find a way to reduce the debt than we have in the beginning. The same would go for the house. More people aware and want to solve the problem. One thing i would really like to see President Trump do as part of a Campaign Promise for his reelection bid is to make a promise that he will address the deficit and get us to a balanced budget with a plan to move us to a debtfree future during his second term. It may be that Something Like this being able to tackle the deficits spending and the debt is something that has to happen in a second term of a presidency when the president knows theyve been reelected their agenda has been tested among the American Voters twice, if reelected, and they dont have to worry about getting reelected so they dont have that hanging over their heads and can take tougher stances to be necessary to do that. Host we welcome your calls, comments, texts. On the constitutional principles, lets look, we spent the first hour asking our listeners about nangsy pelosis comments to her members that their efforts should be worsty of the constitution. What are your thoughts . Is this effort worthy of the constitution . I think when you engage in talks of impeaching a president and you talk about an impeachment inquiry, it has to be worthy of the constitution and you have to be able to do Something Like this understanding that youre going to be overthrowing the will of the American Voters who voted for whoever the president is and whatever you do may be setting a precedent for the next time impeachment comes up. So you want to make sure that the things that youre doing, if it is against the Political Party that youre a part of, that youre willing to have that happen to your own Political Party. I would imagine that Speaker Pelosi would not be willing to have a lot of what weve seen happen over the last weekandahalf happen to a democrat president. I think she would be outraged if the roles were reversed and a republican got up and lied to the American People in an Opening Statement in the Intelligence Committee as we aw adam schiff do last week. I think also that she would be upset if they were making decisions to move forward with impeachment before even seeing the evidence for what the impeachment for why they were doing impeachment. I think she would also be upset if the speaker of the house continued to talk about Going Forward with impeachment while saying i understand the transcript was released, i havent read it yet but i still think we need to impeach the president. So i dont think that their actions are worthy of the constitution. Theyre setting very dangerous precedents that i dont think they would want to see happen to a democrat president. Your calls in a moment. How is your organization how are your members engaging on the issue . Guest last week, we got a lot of emails and a lot of comments from people really angry about what they were seeing unfold in washington, d. C. I think that they see this as a very unjust process and they feel like theyre being betrayed by the house of representatives. So we are urging all of our supporters this week to mount the phone lines, to sign a petition we put on our website that we will send on to congress so that congress can hear from people who are against these proceedings, and then a week from this wednesday so ocket before 9, next wednesday, we are urging everyone to show up at your local Congressional Office, at noon local time. But frankly just go next wednesday to your local Congressional Office if you cant get there at noon go at any time during the day. Visit with the staff and let them know that you do not want this president to be impeached, you dont want the 2016 election to be overturned, and make sure theyre hearing from you. Theyve heard from the people who are quote unquote resisting the president and its time that they hear from the people supporting and defending the president. Host go ahead. Caller i just have a question regarding oversight. Does the tea party person believe in oversight . Know when obama was in office and this president and this administration has done nothing but stonewalling every bit of oversight. To me thats against the constitution and im wondering where the Tea Party People screaming and throwing their hands up now. And what does she mean that could they still be trade by the house. Just because its a Democraticled Congress does not mean that they shouldnt conduct oversight just like the republicans did over obama when he was in office for two terms. Host thank you. Guest thanks so much for your question. I think that we both can agree that congress has a legitimate oversight role, absolutely. And we saw that happen with president obama when he was in office, we have seen that with President Trump. And President Trump and his administration have turned over volumes of paperwork. He just released a transcript of a phone call with a leader of a foreign country. Thats never done. And a rough transcript i understand someone may call in and say it wasnt a precise transcript. Its never done. Those conversations are intended to be kept confidential so that the leaders of the countries can communicate freely with one another to have conversations without having fear that theyre going to be reported and have to worry about what happens in those particular conversations. Yet President Trump went ahead and released that information so the whole entire country could read it. So i dont think that its stonewalling. He released information in the muleer investigation, hes released information and given information nonstop for these nonstop investigations that have happened to him frankly since before he was even elected. So yes there should be oversight and President Trump has complied with it. As far as the outrage towards the house of representatives, oh yeah the house of representatives they should go ahead if they need to have oversight, have oversight. But dont have this quasi impeachment inquiry that we have going on right now, announcing and deeming that youre having an impeachment inquiry without actually having the guts to vote on it on the floor of the house of representatives so each and every american as a constituent can know where their member of Congress Stands on this process. Right now nancy pelosi is trying to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to have an inquiry but doesnt want to make anyone vote on it because she doesnt want to put her members in the uncomfortable situation of having to defend however they vote. You know what . If youre going to impeach a president of the United States, you had better have the guts to publicly go and make that vote to start the impeachment and they havent done that yet. Host independent line, ohio, anthony. Caller hello. Thank you for having me on your show. Im i dont support is the democrats or the republicans on this impeachment. I think theyre making a mockery out of our system. I think they are wasting our money whether youre democrat, republican, independent, theyre wasting our i work hard for what i earn and i have had three days off work and i sit and watch your show and everybodys distracted by all of whats going on. Meanwhile, theyre all up there wasting our money and then they go on recess. How many recesses do these people get a year . Do you know that . Do you have an answer to that . Host well let you go there. On that issue of debt and deficit, several months ago senator rand paul said regarding this that the tea party is no more. What are your thoughts and your response . Guest ill come back to rand paul in just a moment. Anthony, youve got three days off turn off the tv and enjoy your three days off. This stuff is not going to go away, its going to keep going. Make sure youre taking time to enjoy yourself. Youre right congress is not focused on what the American People need to see happen. Smca. Could be passing u theyre not doing that. They could secure the border. Theyre not doing that. They could provide relief for the people who are awaiting immigration hearings and court dates. Theyre not doing that. Theyre not looking for any sort of bipartisan solution on any problem that america faces, and i dont think were going to see at this point any other meaningful legislation that will pass until after the elections next year. So youre right about that. And at this point i think that the line has been drawn in the sand and its going to be about impeachment and then its going to be about the elections next year. As far as what senator rand paul said about the tea party being dead, weve heard that we are dead so many times yet here i am sitting right before you talking and i have a heartbeat. So were very much alive. I understand the frustration that he had in what probably prompted him to say some of what he said. The Congress Just keeps on spending money and they keep spending and they are not willing to make the tough choices that they need to make and the tough decisions and to show the leadership that they need to show in order ro to reduce spending. The fact is that if they would reduce spending by one, maybe two pennies at this point out of every single dollar our budget would be balanced in five years. Rand paul introduced the penny plan this year. We supported it. His penny plan was two pennies instead of one. In the past its been one penny out of every dollar. If you ask American People if they would support Congress Spending two pennies less out of every single dollar in order for us to get to a balanced budget in five years, i guarantee you a super majority of americans just like anthony would wind up saying that they support that. I think part of the reason so many in congress and especially during the Previous Administration attacked the tea party and did so much to try to harm the Tea Party Movement is because they understood that what we were saying is something that the American People would agree with and they didnt want us to bring that attention to the games played in congress. So i understand the frustration that senator rand paul had but were not dead weve made a difference. I talked about the difference in the number of people that we have in congress who share our values and care about what we care about. And that number will continue to grow. We have a president in the white house who has reduced taxes, who is reducing regulations, and also who has weve had over 150 judges who have been approached after being nominated by this president who have been confirmed two of them on the Supreme Court. And those two on the Supreme Court especially kneelgoers up are constitutionalists who are going to make decisions that adhere to the constitution. And that is a win for all of america and for the Tea Party Movement. Host our guest this morning, joining us from atlanta cofounder of the Tea Party Patriots. We hear next from florida, patrick. Caller if this is isnt your typical guest on cspan, got to have the guts, got to have the guts. Why dont you have the guts to run for congress and reduce start with fdic its a quart million account per account. You can have unlimited accounts on fdic. Houston who didnt have any a g laws, who just got couple years ago got 50 llion in fema money that senator was to come out and say please pull up by your bootstraps. Her family has got 500,000 in crops, farm supports. Of course we dont hear what state you come from North Carolina state budget is 30 subsidized by the federal government. You guys always love to say cut taxes, cut regulations but you never say cut subsidies. You know we never hear the resume of all your gas bags. Host all right. Well let our guest respond. Caller i really appreciate this opportunity to reply to that. I live in georgia, i live in the atlanta area in georgia. In 2007 and 2008 my then husband and i went through financial crisis. It wasnt because of loans related to our house, it was because of thing that is went on with his business and he had to close his business and we filed personal bankruptcy. I understand what its like if you dont if you have too much debt and thats part of the reason why i worry about that for our country. When you talk about whether i have guts or not and whether i live by my principals or not, when we filed bankruptcy we lost our house and we realized there was some paperwork we should have filled out we couldnt even afford an attorney to reopen the bankruptcy so we knew we needed to start over and to deal with that. To deal with the consequences. While we were looking at a rental home we had a phone call from our Mortgage Company telling us we could get a fannie mae or freddie mac loan, i dont know which one it was, that was related to the bailout in 2008. We were offered that money so we could stay in our house and it would bring us current in our mortgage and then we could continue to be in that house rather than starting over. Now, who in their right mind gives a loan to somebody who just came out of bankruptcy . No one. Only the federal government would do Something Like that. We turned it down. We said no because we were opposed to those bailouts in 2008 and we were not going to be part of taking that money. So we started over and when we started over we were cleaning our neighbors homes and repairing computers. So i understand what youre saying. I dont think that you need to be taking money from the government unless you need that money as im not saying get rid of the safety net as a country weve decided a safety net is an appropriate thing. Ok, fine, do that. But i understand the frustration that you have with that. As far as me running for office, right now i have children im a single mom, i have children and im not running for office. I have no idea what the future holds. But im in the position that i am in right now which is the constituent of my members of congress and my congressman and my two senators just like you, and as a constituent and as an american we can urge them to do the right thing and we can work to hold them accountable. Host many americans, probably a number of former and current members of congress remember the Tea Party Summer of 2009, the organization continuing with gatherings and rallies, a recent one in washington reported here and their headline Capitol Hill Tea Party rally americans do not want socialism at a rally on capitol hill to educate our americans about the difference between socialism and freedom Tea Party Patriots, said her organization and conservatives in general are concerned people are blindly giving in to socialism without realizing it. It will infringe on their natural rights. Is this a newer message or a modification of a message the tea party has been presenting . Guest a newer message as weve watched what happened with newly elected members of congress and with so many people running for president right now on the democrat side, they seem to be embracing socialism and younger generations, its people who did not grow up during the cold war so they dont remember the cold war at all. They dont understand quite what socialism is about. And what happens with socialism. So we are taking a stand against socialism and for freedom and were trying to bring more information about people who have escaped from socialist countries and communist countries to light here in america so that americans understand that the danger of it. That particular rally we had a lady who lived under communism in china, was put in a forced labor camp. The things that she said people can go look at the video for the exact speech but it was awful to listen to the things that happened to this woman. One of the most important things that i heard her say though is that socialism that people who want socialism will promise you heaven on earth and all she got was a one way ticket to hell. And that is what happens so often with socialism. People want to believe in this dream that you can have heaven on earth but the reality is much, much different from that. Host perry on our democrats line. Caller i cant believe the lying, the hypocracy from you this morning. Youre lying when you say that trump cooperated with the investigation. Thats the only reason it took so long because he didnt cooperate. Everyone knows this was, we cant say anything. To say that this president is fiscally responsible, are you kidding me . Hes ballooned us into debt, hes given trillions to wealthy people that dont need it. Only because of john mccain didnt we give trillions more way to the Big Oil Companies and to all the other millionaires and billionaires. Host all right. Guest so the president did cooperate. He gave the transcript or the rough transcript of the phone call that he had with the president of ukraine, he made it completely public. Everyone in the whole entire country can go and read it. He did the same thing with the whistleblower report. So he did do that. The phone call happened in july. Were sitting here in september and weve read what was said. That is very quick especially for washington timeframes. So he did cooperate when it comes to this. He has cooperated. He has given volumes and volumes of information. People who work for him have gone and testified before congress. He has done that. As far as what hes done for the economy, he has expanded Economic Freedom. We have the most revenue coming in to the federal government that weve had maybe ever but certainly in years right now. That is largely because the economy is growing. We have a 3. 7 Unemployment Rate, the lowest Unemployment Rate weve hit an historic low for unemployment with African Americans at 5. 5 . In fact, African American women is even lower at 4. 4 . With hispanic people it is i believe the number is 4. 2 for the Unemployment Rate with Asian Americans its 2. 1 . Again, that is an historic low with hispanics it is at an alltime low. This is good for the country. It is good for every single demographic. Wages increased last year by over 3 and american households. I dont think that the people who have received a tax cut who will continue to have their reduced tax cuts and also who are receiving wage increases and can go and get better jobs because the economy is going so well they can negotiate for better jobs think that things are going poorly for them in an economic standpoint. Host you covered this a little bit in your comments on taxes. A question on twitter. Does the guest support rolling back the tax cuts . I do not think that the problem with the deficit is because of the tax cuts. Again, take a look at the revenue coming in to the government. The revenue is at may not be alltime highs but it is certainly at very high level and its higher than it was before the tax cut went in to place. So take a look at the revenue coming in to the government. As far as the spending goes, im very clear, i think that the government needs to spend less money the way to reduce the deficit is to spend less money. John. Ndependent line, caller hello. I would like to say i have one solution i believe to the all government have this weapon against us called secrecy. They use it against all the people and none of us know what really goes on and then we all pick sides because we heard this or we heard that and none all the true facts are never presented to us because the government leaders say theyve got to negotiate in secret or they can get nothing done. If the government says were not going to negotiate with anybody in secrecy, then they cant negotiate, you cant do business with us because the American People say they need to know what is going on in these negotiations so they can make real decisions based on the real facts, and until that half the country isnt fighting with the other half of the country. Democrats, republicans, independents, we all dont get the facts. All my buddies are democrats and republicans and independents, my Business Partners half are republicans and the other half are democrats, and we all get along fine. Because we know whats going on in our lives. We dont have secrets between us. We are able to work together. And work through our problems and be successful. But the leaders, they all have this secrecy code going on and they like im not going to i cant release this, i cant release that detail. And they just keep us on edge. But any how, stop the secrecy, the secret negotiations, tell them no secrets. We need the facts. Host ill let you go there. Thanks for your comments. Guest i understand what youre saying and we do have freedom of information act so that we can get a lot of information for how decisions are made in the government. Of Course Congress exempted itself from that so you cannot get it from congress. I will say this. I think that there are times when you are dealing with coming up with solutions if youre truly trying to find a solution that you may need to be behind closed doors and be able to be brutally honest with one another, let your temper flair, calm back down, do whatever it takes, so you can get to an honest solution. I would not want to do something that would prevent that from happening. You probably have had conflict with people in your own personal life and you may not want every step along the way to resolve that conflict to be completely out in the open. So i think there needs to be sunlight absolutely and i also know that we came up with a constitution for our country nd it was done behind closed doors. And that was so the men who were coming up with it were able to do so and to have honest conversations with one another. As far as conversations with the president , that the president has with other world aders, those conversations historically have not been released. And its so that those World Leaders can talk to the president , the president can talk to them. They can talk about other World Leaders and other countries if they need to. They can talk about whats going on within their own country i guess if they need to. I dont know because im not privy to these conversations. What i do know is that to be able to have those kind of conversations with the elected leader, the man that we make whoever it may be the leader of this country, the commander in chief, we are voting for him. He is the executive of this country and were entrusting in him the authority and the power to be the executive. And that would be the same for president obama or future president s that is a democrat just as im saying this for President Trump. I did not demand that all of president obamas conversations with foreign leaders be released. You know, we didnt do that then with president obama. Thats my answer. I dont know if it helps you but thats kind of where i stand on it. St we welcome your calls, comments. The numbers are on your screen. Lets go to kathy in montgomery, texas on our republican line. Caller thanks for calling in. Youre right about socialism. Europe is suffering because of socialism. So my comment is this impeachment will backfire. The socialist party will do anything to stop trump from running in 2020. Hes got the country is moving in the direction he isnt perfect, hes not a politician but he loves his country. So trump released a trance cript he didnt try to hide anything unlike clinton who was cheating on his wife and lied about it. That was a real scandal. The real criminals are biden and his son. Look up the video of biden bragging on how he held money on ukraine forcing the ukraine government to fire their prosecutor who was getting close to the biden corruption. Now biden via a letter to news stations are trying to stop them from giuliani so he cant sow the biden corruption. I mean, biden is in trouble, he doesnt want to admit it. Hoes not doing well anyway but it doesnt matter trumps going to win. Well be ok. Thank you. Host just a quick note. A couple mentioned that clip of president biden. We covered that event back in 2018, 2017, on the website. The council on the entire event is probably an hour, hourandahalf. Ks find it there but i interrupted you go ahead. Guest thats ok. I think that President Trump will likely win reelection as well. But i dont have a crystal ball so i dont think we should take anything for granted and we would have to we still have to get out the vote for him. As far as what biden did, biden could have avoided all these problems by just doing one thing as soon as his son took a position on the board of directors of that Energy Company in ukraine that was owned and controlled by ukrainian olgark he could have recused himself from anything to do with ukraine. If biden had done that we probably wouldnt be talking about a lot of this today. But he didnt. And the decisions that he made after that all kind of come into question and there are a lot of questions about it. Host i wanted to ask you about the comments of Mitch Mcconnell in terms of how the republican party, how President Trump would proceed with the next step in health care after republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care act. These are the recent comments. I was fine with senator alexander and senator grassley working on Prescription Drug pricing and other issues that are not a comprehensive effort that we the issue had the opportunity to address last congress and were unable to do so. So i made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the senate. He did say as he later tweeted he accepted that. And that he would be developing a plan that he would take to the American People during the 2020 campaign and suggests that that would be what he would be advocating a second term if there were a republican congress. So we dont have a misunderstanding about that. Well not be doing comprehensive host where do the Tea Party Patriots stand on the repeal of the Affordable Care act and more broadly the issue of health care . Guest we Want Health Care freedom so that means Less Government interference and Less Government control in health care. Which is means changing where we are today. I think that in 2020 there are going to be several different clear choices for voters as they go to the polls. It will be more than just trump versus some other candidate whoever the nominee is on the democrats side. But also it will be socialism versus freedom. It will be socialized Health Care Medicare for all government controlled health care versus more Health Care Freedom. And i think that well see more plans about what Health Care Freedom looks like from President Trump. I know Job Creators Network is working on a plan, i know that turner with the Galen Institute has been working on a plan. So i think that there will be a plan and not just we want to change health care, we want to repeal obamacare we Want Health Care freedom. But something that outlines exactly what we mean when we say that. So that theres a clear choice when people go to the polls. And well see several different clear choices like that that will emerge as the election day draws nearer in 2020. Host back to calls. Jack in massachusetts, democrats line. Caller between this lady and gingrich and fox news, thats why this country is as screwed up as it is. And youre worried about the democrats going to socialism . Trumps wearing red ties he has red all around him. Thats a sign of communism. Cant you see . Its right in your face. By the way, where is your hood . The kkk wants you back. Host were going to let you go. Our guests come on voluntarily we ask you treat them with some respect and thats an insulting thing to say to any guest. Mike in massachusetts ondintnt line. Caller good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my call. Ive been on the phone for 20 minutes theres a lot to say but the one thing i did notice is that a lot of republicans, democrats, and independents, are coming together and agreeing on a lot of points here that your guest is bringing up and i want to point that out. The debt and spending thing is i think its good to focus on but the tea party doesnt know how to handle that. Like the other republican said, its just an excuse to cut social programs. I think its interesting, you often hear a lot of liberals or you often hear a lot of criticism for liberals about how emotional the politics can be. I think the tea party is a really good example of the other side of that. Seems like emotions run the tea party and not really correct policy thats backed by evidence and outcomes. The revenue, you know, im getting a little tired of hear the tax cut thing because ive been hearing it since bush. Its really clear that everybodys quality of life has suffered and i really think its because of corruption and lobbying and a broken government relating to those two things. I think thats on the forefront of politics that we need to figure out. I havent heard anything about that from our guest which is interesting. Last point, the socialism word gets thrown around but at the end of the day the reason why people want democratic socialism and its not socialism its not communism, its because of wage stagnation, its because our Public Sector is not performing well and people want it to be fixed. Its about health care. Its about vacation, sick days, about quality of life. And from what i can tell, the rich have really engineered society to their benefit. Host you have several points there well let our guest respond. Guest thanks for being on hold for 20 minutes. You talked about corruption, you talked about reducing spending in different programs, and you also talked about socialism. So im going to start with reducing spending. I did talk about the how the penny plan rand pauls plan this year, his bill was spending two pennies less out of every dollar that the government spends and we would be at a balanced budget within five years. The Senate BudgetCommittee Chairman mike ensy has been a cosponsor of that legislation in the past. Its s not just based on fact and the Senate BudgetCommittee Chairman has even endorsed and sponsored the plan. As far as dealing one of the other callers or somebody who put a message on a text or a tweet said something along the same lines you did about the social programs, medicare, medicaid, Social Security. What i assume you mean by that and what the person who put it in the text said. These programs, medicare and Social Security, are going to go bankrupt in the next decade. We have to address them as a country we have to understand what were fatesing. There are going to be problems 2026 edicare by i believe and then Social Security a few years after that. I am 49 years old. My entire Business Life the whole time ive been working anyone who is around my age has never thought that Social Security would be there when we retire. So i think that gives us an opportunity to say ok what can we do to make sure that the people who are on it right now are getting what they need to get to be able to survive and to live and to have a life because theyre dependent on it. And what can we do to adjust the program to accommodate the other people who have contributed to it and how do we make it more sustainable . Im not saying get rid of it altogether but im saying we need to have those kind of conversations, and the same thing would go for medicare. We need to have these conversations in our country. But the very first way to deal with it is to first acknowledge that theres a problem. We have to acknowledge that theres a problem and then work towards a solution. The way washington works well probably deal with the problem about 12 hours before the system goes bankrupt. And it will be a terrible, terrible solution. So im raising the red flag now and i would love to have conversations about how we can get to solving that problem. I dont have all the answers but i do know that theres a looming problem that must be addressed. As far as the corruption goes that you mentioned, the tea party has been very frustrated when we see big business and Big Government and big labor and now big tech teaming up together to make rules and laws that benefit each of those different groups and leave the middleman not the middleman but the average american, the forgotten american out in the cold. And i think thats largely why President Trump wound up being elected president , because he saw that those kind of deals were happening. Its not just big business and government. It is also big labor and government and now were watching big tech and government get involved. So these are issues that we need to be watching and i think that you and i could find some Common Ground with that. And then the final thing about socialism, look, as a speak who lived under this has said that i have spoken with and i know somebody who did this also who survived it in venezuela, you will be promised heaven on earth, you will be promised vacation and all sorts of different things. But how are you going to pay for it . At the end of the day, it winds up taking money from one set of people and giving it to another. Thats its redistributing wealth. Its not charity. Its not creating things on your own. Right now last year wages increased for the average household 3 plus you had a tax cut. If you dont like your job, if you dont have the right kind of health care from your job, the right kind of benefits, the right kind of Vacation Time get another job and negotiate Better Benefits for yourself. Companies need employees right now and that puts the employees in a really good position to negotiate a better term for themselves. So if you dont like what youre getting right now get a job or negotiate with your employer to get Better Benefits for yourself. Host well go to teresa in little rock, arkansas. Caller good morning. I had a real quick question. I was reading something in the federalist over the weekend about how the Intelligence Agency changed their whistleblowering where it could be secondhand, thirdhand, instead of firsthand knowledge. Did they do that on their own or something done by congress . Guest its my understanding that happened on their own. I believe that was the report that steve davis wrote in the federalist. It has been in the works apparently but very secretly from may of 2018 until it was finalized at some point in august of 2019. So thats over a year may of 2018 to august of 2019. I dont know every detail and right now that is something that i think we need to find out more answers to what prompted it why did they think they needed to change it from firsthand information to rumors and hear save. Second hand and thirdhand information that wouldnt hold up in ra court of law. Im not quite sure how in the world if it wouldnt hold up in a court of law its enough to take down the president of the United States when 63 Million People voted for him. Ost next call from georgia. Aller good morning. In 009 when you had barack obama as the president you went around hollering and raising all kinds of saying about the deficit. Now youve got trump in there, the deaf sit running off the charts. Youve got no problem with it. Let me ask you something. When i first saw you on cspan you probably [inaudible] today you lost a lot of weight. Youre looking good. I hope your health is in good shape. But let me ask you this. Are you still making 500 or 600,000 on your job . Guest walt thank you so much for the compliment. And its good to hear from a fellow georgian. I want to set the record straight on a few things. I never made that much money first so i dont make that much money still. Second, it may be shocking to know that some of the Mainstream Media got things wrong although it may not be to many people who follow it closely. Second, with president obama youre right we were upset about the deficit, were upset about government growing and growing and growing. On this particular Program Throughout this entire hour and you can go back over the course of the last three years you will see editorials and op eds from me that talk about how we still must address deficit spending. And i hope that President Trump makes that a Campaign Promise and that he can do that if he is reelected in a second term. He loves to keep Campaign Promises, i want him to make it a Campaign Promise, and then help him reduce it, get it to no deficit so we can start reducing the debt. Then the other thing about president obama, one thing i think is really important to understand, walt. We did not call for president obama to be impeached. In fact, when people in my organization would reach out and say why arent we trying to impeach him, i would always say we respect our fellow voters who voted for him as president. We may not like everything he does but we respect the fact that hes president , we respect the people who voted for him, and we respect the system that made it possible for him to be elected president. We never called for impeachment. And i push back on that hard. So i can sit here today and push back on impeachment against President Trump knowing that i did the same thing for president obama even when i opposed much of what he did. And even when the i. R. S. While he was president targeted groups with tea party impeachment in their names. Host President Trump must be attuned to the story on the whistleblower rules he just tweeted this. Who changed the longstanding whistleblower rules before submittle of the fake whistleblower report . How are the Tea Party Patriots funded . Guest we are funded largely by our small dollar donors. We have direct mail we have telemarketing and we have online donations and our average donation is about 52. We do have a few people who have given a little more than that or have made a few larger ntributions but that is less than two hand fls of people. Most of the people who donate are donating in that average range of 52 and we have tens of thousands of people who do nate to us each year. Host lets see if we can wrap with a few more phone calls here. Jerry in minnesota on the republican line. Caller good morning. I would like to direct this question to my democratic citizens. I would like to know how on earth you wouldnt want a guy investigated. The man was Vice President of the United States. His son with no experience in the field is nominated to a board and gets 50,000 a month. According to everything ive read and seen where he was kicked out of the army Hunter Bidens only attributes is being able to get cocaine and prostitutes. And yet nobody why dont we ask for an investigation then he hops over to china and cuts another 150 million deal with john kerrys son. I mean, this is just unbelievable to me that anybody would say why would you ask to look into that . Thats a legitimate concern. Thats true corruption. Host all right. Any further comments . Guest i would just say that i do think that it needs to be fully investigated. The democrats have had no problems investigating don jr. President trumps son and his other children. And they wanted a full investigation of the 2016 elections in this ties to the 2016 elections. The democrats have made it clear that what happens to the children is fair game. So i think that what we dont know what happened but were not going to know everything that happened unless theres an investigation. Perhaps the Senate Republicans an subpoena hunter biden and subpoena his bank records and ask for copies of his calls and contacts as well. The democrats have no problem doing that to President Trump. Host one more call. Matthew in virginia beach. Caller good morning cspan. I really dont care who gets investigated. As far as im concerned all of government is corrupt. But lets just take a look at something. Trump was surrounded by criminal activity from before he became president. Any time someone goes through so much trouble to take executive privilege on everything, Block Congress from investigating him which is their role you have a whistleblower who came forward with information he heard that is being qualified. What is it we dont see . This guy is corrupt from the head to the toes. Host some final thoughts. Guest thank you very much. And again President Trump gave the rough transcript of the call with the ukrainian president that has never been done before. He gave it. He made it public. He made sure the whistleblower complaint was public. He cooperated with the mueller investigation. He gave volumes of information about it. We spent millions of dollars on that investigation. At the end of the day they found that there was no collusion, which is what had been the accusation and the initial crime to begin with. There was no collusion. He has cooperated. He has cooperated for years. Youre right investigate. Hes been investigated. Let him do his job. 63 million of us voted for him to be president. He needs to be able to do his job. You would not want a democrat to be treated this way from the moment it was clear that they won on Election Night to be resisted and undermined their entire presidency undermined by people who are supposed to work for them. You would not want to see that to a democrat it is not right to be done to President Trump. He has been cooperative and transparent. Host chair and cofounder of Tea Party Patriots. Thanks for hanging with us the last hour or so. Guest thank you for having me. Host joined next by progressive evangelist reverend jim wallace, he be talk with us about his brand new book christ in crisis as well as the tonight on the communicators, tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn, chair of the judiciary committees Technology Task force on chinas wall way company in the u. S. , antitrust issues, and regulating big tech. Some of the social media platforms that are beginning to distribute news and have a news feed individuals want to see them have a news director. Tonight at 8 00 eastern cspan two. Bookses a look at some being published this week. Msnbcs Rachel Maddow argues the gas and Oil Industries are weakening democracies around the globe. Harvard University ProfessorElizabeth Cohen examines american urban policy. A look at the science and history behind treating breast cancer. In the cigarette, university of virginia professor sarah milo explores the history of tobacco in america. Also this week, the invention of yesterday explores differing interpretations of history around the world. In troubling water, a look at the effects of contaminated Drinking Water in the u. S. The 1965 televised debate over the civil rights movement. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week. Watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv on cspan two. House will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Washington journal continues. With rev. Jim wallis is us. He is the president and founder of sojourners, author of several books, including this latest, christ in crisis. What pounded you to write the book . Guest the word crisis is everywhere. But what is the crisis . It is important to understand it is political, civil, constitutional. It is also a moral crisis. And a spiritual one. Maybe even a religious one. The book, how do you follow christ in a crisis . It centers on why we need to reclaim jesus. Jesus needs reclaiming. He is worth reclaiming. Somehow, he has survived us all. This interest in jesus inside and outside the churches. How do we talk about our faith and the polarization the intense polarization . How do we have our faith shape our politics and not the other way around . This lays out questions jesus asked or was prompted. Like, who is my neighbor . What is truth . How not to be afraid. Goes right to the heart of where we are in this intense polarization. I am saying, do not go right. Do not go left. Go deeper. Those who are followers of jesus have to say, what about jesus . What did he say . Host what are the spiritual and political things within your faith that are making this divide happen within this within the Christian Faith that are exacerbating the crises you mentioned . Guest at the core, what brought me to my Christian Faith was matthew 25 text where jesus says, i was hungry, i was thirsty, i was naked, i was sick. I was a stranger. He word stranger is, immigrant that is what that means. I was locked up. What did you do to me . He said, as you have done to the least of me, you have done to them. The least of these, those who are marginal are the least important in this town. What jesus says, they are the most important. How do we make the least of defineentral to how we our politics . Abraham lincoln famously talked about in his second inaugural, he appealed to our better angels. Worst demons are being appealed to . This battle of angels and demons, the apostle paul talks ut spiritual warfare will warfare. I think we have angels and demons now. The best of america versus the worst. That kind of moral crisis is even deeper than the political one. Aimed to be ak is wider reach. How do you tell a nonchristian of whatever faith or no faith that it is important to reclaim christ . Guest because jesus has especiallyl of us, all of us who say we are christians, i find a real interest outside of the churches among young people, what did this brown skinned, jewish, rabbi who was born in what is now occupied palestinian territory but did he have to say . Jesus is for all of us. And rabbi friends when christians talk about jesus, they are less afraid. Jesus we talk about this who is for all of us and not just the christian . Wallis, mentioned, jim progressive evangelist. Would you agree with that . What does it mean to be a progressive evangelist . Guest i do not usually use terms like this. The word evangelical is very controversial. Why would i still call myself an evangelical . Inition comes from his Opening Statement at nazareth. His mission statement. What i call his nazareth manifesto. The spirit of the lord is upon me. It has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The word good news in the greek is evangel. That means, the gospel of jesus christ is meant to be good news to the poor. It is not the gospel of jesus. That is what evangelical is supposed to mean. That is not the image we have in this country right now. How do we reclaim that jesus . Silenced,been sabotaged, politicized, polarized. We have done all kinds of things, throwing his name around. What did he say . What did he mean . This book is about the questions he asked that go to the heart of where we are right now in this intense polarization. Why we needis to reclaim jesus. Rev. Jim wallis is with us until 10 00 eastern. We welcome your calls and comments. For those of you in the eastern and central time zones. Mallon and pacific, mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. You mention your calling to christianity. Your initial encounter for being a fairly welloff suburban detroit young man. And then, encountering poverty in innercity detroit. Now 15, 16. I am listening to the news and watching shows like this. Something very big seemed very wrong in my city and my church and school. All white. I kept asking, why do we live this way . It seems like, white detroit. In black detroit, things seems how much different. I was not getting answers to my questions. I tell young people, trust your questions and follow them to where they take you. I went into the city and met the black churches. I worked in jobs alongside young black men who are my age. My money was being saved for college. There is was being supported being saved to support their families. The same city, but these young black men and been raised in different countries. The book talks about how to follow those questions. They take you outside your path sometimes. Jesus actually says, your neighbor is the one who is different from you. How do you love your neighbor . That often means going outside your path to find a neighbor who is not the same as you are. That opened up a whole world for me. Going to the city and meeting people who were different than i was. Host and this was detroit . Guest this was detroit in the 1960s. We had the rights, the uprising in detroit. Host plenty of calls. Lets hear from mitchell. He is in hollywood, florida. Caller yes, good morning and thanks to cspan who can at times drop us off the air. God, jesus is alive. It is about jesus. The evangelicals, they have and what we see and what we are witnessing, they have a form of godliness. They deny the power because their leaders are all about airplanes and conservative rights. By the same token, browns and black is going to be around and is back. You are white and have followed puritans,ts and people like you keep it up. A house divided against itself shall not stand. Those evangelicals that have this movement with supporting these pastors with all these luxurious airplanes and living for their wives and their reaping, it is its days are coming. It makes no sense when god gives you a gift, you take it. It is about self instead of doing for people like you are saying. Host ok, mitchell. Thank you. Guest i would like to go back to a phrase he lifted up. It is about jesus. I could not agree with that more. In the middle of our terrible polarization, even in the religious community, those of us who are followers of jesus and say that, need to go back right now and say and look at what he said and what that means. Ishink a study of jesus important right now so we understand who he is and what he said and what that means. Say, ican read this and do not think jesus is for our public life. It is me and got in the atonement. If you think that, you have nothing to talk about. I do not think that is true. God so loved the world was a verse i learned as a kid. If you disagree what i think this might mean in regard to how we treat immigrants and refugees, lets have that conversation. Lets have a conversation, but not about the left and right. Lets have a conversation about jesus. What if in the impeachment hearings through these next 10 had a what if we conversation about jesus at the same time . Inside and outside the churches. What he said, what he did, what it meant, and what it means in relationship to all these issues. Host what is your message to American Christians to those who support President Trump . Guest i think it is finally not about trump. Or about Democratic Candidates. It is about the spirit of the politics. Attackmple, when you immigrants, and refugees, that comes right out of this text in matthew 25 where jesus says, as you welcome a stranger or not, that is how you welcome me or not. That is right there in the text. I have talked with republicans and democrats, helped on the immigration bill from the senate, the bipartisan one from years ago. What the policy is is something we can talk about. The tone, the spirit, how we talk about and treat those who are strangers in the land. That is a religious question. Not just a political one. You cannot the antiimmigrant in the spirit of what you are saying. To be antiimmigrant we take antichrist if jesus seriously. Host here is michelle. She is in atlanta. Caller good morning, reverend jim wallis. I appreciate everything youre saying this morning. I agree with the caller from florida, the black man. This administration and the White Folks Party are against all africanamericans. On black andr brown people on this country. He wants to send them back on the plantation or he wants to get rid of them. In our churches in atlanta, we are preaching against him. Himwe are preaching against psalmsr wallis, read 109. This is what is going to happen to lucifer in the white house. , lucifer is nazi the devil. Lucifer is murder. Lucifer will not be elected in 2020 because all of us africanamerican, black and brown, hispanics, are going to the polls like cockroaches. We are going to get rid of him. No longer will they hide behind their religion and go to church on sunday and hang a at 6 00 in the evening. Host we will let you go there. Chapter ine is a this book about the image of god. This is genesis chapter one, first book in the bible. As god says, let us make them in our own image after our own likeness. All of humankind, all of gods children are made says scripture in gods image and likeness. The image of god is underneath all of our politics. We treat each other in that way as image bearers of god. This makes it theological and not just political. One side or the other. How do we say, im going to treat you as image bearer of god . Us was made in the image of god, efforts to or asss votes for example a North Carolina court said, efforts to the present votes to suppress votes strategically aimed at africanAmerican Voters is what the courts said. That is an offense to the image of god. Not just politics. Every voter is made in the image of god. Their vote is important. To say that some people are more valuable than other people is not just a left and right thing. It is a theological thing. We areu have to divided, polarized, angry. Lets get down to what the bible says about all of us being valuable because of because of the image of god. Take that into our politics. Host here is tim. He is joining us from toledo, ohio. Caller im so glad to hear from you. Youre like a breath of fresh air. My wife died 30 some years ago. We used two read the bible and all that and go to church. I kind of got away from all that. I started to go to church again. The things i heard being said in church by the right and my recollection of the bible, i reread the bible. I talked to an atheist friend of mine, which i have always tried to get a christian. How do i want to phrase this . People love jesus, but they do not love his message. Message is more important than jesus himself. He came here to give us a message. Ishink the evangelical right just as bad for christianity as terrorists are for islam. The religion has been hijacked. The teachings of jesus are no longer respected. People say they love jesus. If people arere starving in the streets. They do not care about kids being locked up. They do not care about immigrants coming to the border. It is so confusing. I no longer go to church, but i do go back to reading the bible. I do believe in jesuss message. You remind me of a conversation i had last week with a number of interns who were interning all over the city as students do from college. The they all said in the conversation, i am formerly something. I am formerly baptist or catholic or raised in the presbyterian church. I left it because of the hypocrisy i saw and felt. Churchesnjustices the were not speaking out against. Room, that came to light about who this jesus might be. Religion ito that would say is not no religion. This better religion it is better religion. The answer to that religion is true faith. We are trying to wrestle with what it means to be a true follower in jesus. They could take us beyond the Political Polarization we have gotten stuck in. It means we have got to say jesus is saying we all are valuable. There are not shole countries as the way it was talked about. There are not bad people. Said, be note afraid. He said that eight different times. Be not afraid. You have politics running on fear, i would say, the politics of jesus are, be not afraid. Antichrist politics are, be afraid. Always be afraid. Fear does the to hate. Does lead to hate. Hate can lead to violence. That is what we are seeing all around. These are not just political issues. These are moral issues and religious issues. To tims point about that you hear about in churches, jesus once said, why do you call me lord, lord and do not the things i say . Why do you call me lord, lord and do not the things i say . , theif in this crisis political caucuses, what if this the political crisis, what at this let us back to looking freshly at what jesus said, who he was, and the teachings of teaches . What at the teaches of jesus . What did they mean now for politics . Host tim talked about reading the bible. There was a weekend piece in the wall street journal that luta people embracing their fave their faith or broadly. You think you have outgrown your childhood faith. Do you think the political issues that come up make it difficult for people to return or ever enter a Church Person agog or mosque . Church a church or synagogue or mosque . Guest i hear pastors that say they they want to raise issues that filter them like moral issues. Pastors wanted to raise the issue of the separation of Migrant Children from their parents at the border. We can have different views about what a future fixed immigration policy should be. That is a fair political debate. The separation of children, republicans and democrats, were made uncomfortable with that. Pastors want to raise this, separating kids from their parents if they are migrants, and yet, they did not know how to do that because there congregations because their congregations were so polarized. That is why i am going to say it over and over again, we cannot go left or right we have to go deeper. There are a lot of people who are not sure about faith at all. They click on their affiliation as none of the above. Because theynes are open and seeking. They are not affiliated, but they are interested in what the dutch in what faith is supposed to be. Host sandra in alabama. Good morning. Caller i hope you will give me a minute. I am 71 years old. I grew up in a town when prayer and bible reading was in our schools. We played with guns. We played cowboy and indian. I cannot remember anybody on the gun situation. There was not what was going on now. I blame the Supreme Court for things going wrong. They are the ones that took bible reading and prayer out of schools. Theyre the ones that legalized abortion, the killing of human beings. A little different than this gentleman, the legal things, i believe the parents need to be responsible for their children. I would never let my child go off with a stranger to another country. You have to look after your own children. The lady who put the president down, i thought she was horrible. Our president has given me as a person plus others i know a chance to go back to our faith. Obama had everyone pressed down. He was having homosexuality. We had whatever you call push downs are pushed down our throats. I stand behind this president 100 . I am a christian. There are things that are to be done decently and in order. As long as they come in by those all, i welcome everybody. I have a sisterinlaw who is spanish. You have to come in and do it decently. The Supreme Court needs to undo some of the harder they have done. Man who gotic pornography, it is everywhere. Host sandra, thanks for your calls. Guest sandra, you are mentioning a lot of issues that are moral issues for you and for many people. I think it is a good thing to raise what we think are moral issues in a conversation. I do not to start with, i support this president or the president , therefore i believe this. I want to start with what i think are the moral issues. After the election, there was a phone call among evangelical leaders about the results of the election. Blackare white and evangelicals on the phone call. Some of the white evangelicals said, we do not support . We do not support we did not vote for the racial bigotry of donald trump. We voted because of other moral issues we care about. Some of which sandra named. Abortion, samesex marriage, and all the rest. We did not vote for his racial bigotry. We voted for these other issues. Islack evangelical woman who known in this town said, so racial bigotry for you is not a dealbreaker i guess. Is that right . Silence on the call. Racial bigotry is a dealbreaker. For the gospel. I think she is right. I think abortion is a moral issue. Twodo you deal with Vulnerable People . Most women who get abortions are not married and are low income. Assistantmy chief just had a new baby. That life as it was becoming was the most vulnerable thing in the world for he and his wife. Two Vulnerable People. How do we understand two Vulnerable People . What do we do about that . These are real issues. We have got to not select our moral issues based on our political ideology. How do we go to where jesus said this and that and racial bigotry , gospel wise is a dealbreaker. Host do you feel people do select their political issues now more so . Guest when christians select their issues based on their politics, more than what their face says, we are in some trouble. I will say flat out, a lot of people here have mentioned already the religious right. The evangelicals. The religious right. Critical of things they say or do not say. I do not want to create a religious left that wrapped in ideological flag around that wraps and ideological flag around our faith. We have to go deeper than religious right or left. If we are following jesus, what did jesus say . Host our color sandra brought up president our caller sandra brought up president obama. The president the president s relationship to faithbased communities . Guest president obama was not raised in church or a family that went to church. He became a christian as an adult. I knew him before he was president. He was a friend before he was even a politician. His faith was important to him. He had lots of events in the white house for christians and from muslims and cheers. His faith was real. He was a christian as an adult. Rigorousa, we had some conversations about how much we are putting the poor upfront. Jesus in the famous text, matthew 25, did not say as you have done to the middle class, you have done to me. He says as you have done to the least of these, you have done to me. This town cares about the wealthy, powerful, and middleclass. Both parties do not show early enough attention to those who jesus talked about. The hungry, the thursday, the naked, the stranger. How we treat them as how we treat him. I have had that rigorous conversation with president s of both parties in this town for many years. Conform our faith to our politics. We have to have our politics shaped by our faith. That is a different thing. Host a halfhour more with our guest, rev. Jim wallis on his new book. At 10 00 eastern, we will take you live to the booking its institution to the Brookings Institution. 202 7488000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 for mountain and pacific. Good morning. Experience. Nge a quick background. I am a must 73. I am almost 73. I have three grown kids. Believeought up to there is a jesus, how, and heaven but never went to church. I watched tv in the morning. I say think jesus every day for how my life and family has turned up. Leaving the Doctors Office a few weeks ago, walking out to my car and looked down on the ground, there was a small metal cross. I picked it up and turned it over. It said god loves you. It kind of gave me chills. I keep it. Every morning, i take it out of my wallet and look at it. Wonder i want to know if you have some kind of opinion on that. It is what my wife would call a god wink. I will hang up and take any comment off the air. Host thanks, phil. Guest phil, the cross on the ground when i go to a country, i would always find a cross and bring it back. My wallet and my dining room has all of these crosses from all over the world. Very different, beautiful crosses. I do that to remind me what is at the heart of this faith i have in jesus. It is about suffering for the sake of the world. It is about giving his life for us and the world. And for turning the world upside down with a whole order of things he called the kingdom of god. It was not meant to support the status quo. It was meant to change the world. Followers of his way are to do the same. That is a moment i can relate to. What does it mean to go back to the cross and not to go to politics or to wrap our religion around our politics . What does it mean to talk about a crushed who can append things thingsnd upend things . Blessed are the poor, blessed are the peacemakers. There is a whole chapter about peacemaking. We all love peace. Jesus says you have to be peacemakers. That is tough. In a world of inevitable Human Conflict i am not a utopian. Weions in conflict, how do make peace . How do we resolve conflicts that do not end up killing each other . This book is practical. Teachingstake jesuss and try to apply them to our situation now . This and jesus were in debate about truth. Pilate was losing the debate. He said, what is truth . Autocrats do that. They do not just lie. They also do not want you to believe there is any truth. It is all fake news. Says, it is the truth that will set us free. Our freedom is connected to the truth. It is not about lying. It is about knowing the truth and how the truth will set us free. You work in this media world. Somebody could ask you, how do you find the truth . That is a tough question for a media anchor like you. You probably do a lot of listening to different sides. I say, listen to people who are being most impacted by things. People on the bottom who are not always listened to in studios in washington. Knowing truth will set us free. Everyese questions week, we are going to have a question. What is it mean . Who is my neighbor . Iago he greatest greatest . If we can reflect on these questions, that can take us to a different place in our politics. Host lets hear from xavier next in springfield, pennsylvania. All, i would of like to give praise and glory to our lord, jesus christ. The reverend who is on tv, you are a breath of fresh air. There is nothing other people have not said that i could add to. I have always gone through my life wondering why i feel there is cliffhangers in the bible that lead you what is lead you wondering what is going on. I read through the bible a couple of times through depression. Words are so true. There are so many more messages on instinct it on instant gratification. The one that hammy the most was mattie. He said he did not come here for peace. He came here for division, mother against daughter, father against son. I have experienced that in my life. My family has become my own worst enemy. Religion inple have box. They pull it up on sunday so they can get their ears tickled and feel good about what theyre doing. Jacob whenlk about he wanted his bowl of stew and he gave up his birthright, he was looking for instant gratification. That is what the world is looking for today. When jesus said rendered in caesar, the world wants to keep rendering to caesar. We need a deliver again. Thank you very much for being on this program today and putting joy and love in my heart because i know god is true, god is real, and god is there. Raised a lot of issues. There are some painful plans with your own family. I understand that pain. That pain is real. What you said about god being in a box struck me. Alll tend to put god we tend to put god in boxes. When jesus came, he broke open the boxes. The beatitudes that you mentioned, to live that way was called the way of jesus. The early christians were not christianity were not called, christianity came later. People following the way. It was not about self gratification. It was about serving. When jesus talked about leadership, it was not about winning and losing or wealth and power. It was about serving each other. It is where we get the idea of public service. He showed them what he meant by washing their feet as last supper. It turns things upside down. We are so stuck in our boxes. We put god in our boxes. We divide up because of our politics. We have to let the faith we say we believe in break open our boxes and change our thinking, go deeper than just left and right. How we find solutions Going Forward. How do we not keep blaming each solutions Going Forward . Im hoping this book can create a fresh conversation about jesus in the middle of our terrible host and divisive crisis. Host the book is christ in crisis. Why we need to reclaim jesus. We hear roger next in ferdinand, indiana. Good morning. Hello. This is roger. I appreciate you being on their. Being on there. I was raised a catholic. Religion, they die, and are ad bad boy our girl, you go to hell. You cannot die. Hitlers put people in concentration camps, but they were allowed to die. What is your opinion on all this that is going on . I appreciate you listening to me. Ok. A number of young people who have left the church speak of how the church was so judgmental in their lives. It was closed and judgmental. And then i hear some of that in your question. The passage i am lifting up this morning, matthew 25, is one of the few places where jesus is a little judgmental. He is generally open and welcoming. Common follow and learn how come and follow and learn along the way. The judgment is not about heaven and hell. The judgment is about how we treat those who are on the bottom, who are left out, who are marginalized. His finals discipleship test. The final test is how youre going to treat those who are always pushed away by all of us. By our systems and our culture. Issays how you treat them how you treat me. It is the sheep and goats. Theyre judged for how going to treat the least of these. That is a judgment that falls heavily on this town. Historically, a lot of politicians. What does it mean when right now, the least of these are not is being ignored as they often are. They are being targeted. There the root they are being deliberately attacked. They are being used to stoke fears among other people about what is going to happen to them. This is a critical moment to resurrect the passage and say, hungry, peoplee who are food insecure is what they say in washington, the thirsty, in flint, the water is full of lead. The word means immigrant, refugee. Naked, have had things stripped away. Who are sick, who cannot get health care. Who are incarcerated. When you have drug use, blackandwhite is absolutely the same. Overwhelminglys black and brown. That is just a fact. The incarceration of black and brown people is antichrist. It is not just wrong, it is antichrist. How do we look at things from a gospel point of view and not just a political point of view . Host washington is a town full of prayer breakfast, fellowships, bible study groups. Do you think those groups are having much of an effect . Groupssometimes, those have they would say, you cannot bring politics in the conversation. Partisan politics, i agree. I know a lot of those folks. Im friends with a lot of those folks. They want to bring things into the conversation like, a meeting i had with senators, republican democrat republicans and democrats who thought separating kids from their parents was not a political issue. They thought it was a faith issue. We have to bring the moral issues into the conversations. This is not just piety. This is not between us and god. God who wants to change the web. He sent jesus to change the world along with us. How do we let that change occur . How can that shakeup are polarized ideological and emotional politics. Host we will hear from beaverton, oregon. This is john. Caller i mentioned a number of years ago in i met you a number of years ago in portland. Was peaceesus gave us and the commandment to love. August 2018, i was part of an Interfaith Group that had in august of action where we prayed and we petitioned and we had a we had 123 detainees released from sheraton prison. Prayerful, andl, powerful. Catholic, i am roman we are going to have a visual at our a visual at our cathedral. When youre talking about faith in the public square, i totally agree with you. Weth in faith informs how act in the public square. Being roman catholic, our church has a window, but it also has a crucifix. In front of that window. Crucifix whent the light hits it the appropriate way, that crucifix is reflected out. To me, we are fed in a church to , thewhat we are fed with word and body of christ, being catholic, and to take it into the world. Host thanks for your call. Guest you mentioned being a catholic. The book talks about the new pope we have who is making changes. He took the name francis after st. Francis of assisi of course. It was about three things. He said it was at the it was about the poor, the planet, and peace. The poor, planet, and peace. One about the poor, and one about the environment. There may be another one coming about peace. These are issues that cut through politics. What does it mean to be prayerful, peaceful, and powerful as you all were in that session with the detainees . That is the witness that is bipartisan. That goes deeper than politics. How do we focus on this planet, i have kids. They are 16 and 21. They care a lot about the planet. For them, it is a whole different question than people who have accepted things for so long. I think change happens when a new generation decides what is no longer tolerable for them or what is no longer impossible to change. This is intolerable, and we are going to change it. That is what my kids feel. I meet young people all over the country were making commitments to change things like reversing Climate Change so that their kids have a future. Privilege and punishment are not dependent on skin color in this country. That is no longer tolerable for them. How do we get to the core of things . The fact that many of those young people are interested in jesus now maybe america is ready for a fresh reintroduction to the person and teachings of jesus christ. Host lets hear from michael next up in lebanon, new jersey. Caller thank you for being on the show today. I agree with everything you say about the moral doctrines that are lacking of christ in our country. That our savior as we identify jesus as our savior has been replaced by the savior of the u. S. Government and the media. Morality in what is bombing countries all over the world. They tell us what is morality in terms of starting people in Foreign Countries who are different colors. Angle since world war ii, 22 Million People, foreign citizens, nonanglo, have been martyred because we are the saviors of the world. Until we bring christ back as our savior and follow his doctrines, we can then make the judgments that tell and speak up against the behavior that this country is involved with. You can deny all you want, but somehow, we are witnessing around the world, actual genocide for aristocratic elitists. That is only because we do not have the moral fiber, the moral prestige any longer any this country because they stripped us of our christian values to not be able to speak up or be too fearful to speak up. The circus that is going on in washington is not just donald trump. It is the whole halls of congress of degenerate freaks who have no moral conscience, have no concern other than make money and empower themselves further. Host we will let you go there, michael. Guest there is a lot of anger and passion and emotion in your comments and in this country. I do not think im sure my brother here does not think the media is our savior either. Donald trump is not the cause of all the problems. I think he is a consequence. Beenows us what we have becoming. Host do you think the president was an inevitable consequence of where politics had been heading . Guest politics becomes often accidental at certain points around an election. Candidates and electoral votes and all the rest. I will says this. This politics we are seeing now appeals to what i think is the worst of america. There is a worst there is a best and a worse. It is lincolns better angels and our worst demons. I think those demons are indeed. The appeal is to the worst in us to be afraid of people who are different. White people to be afraid of people of color. Do not treat Migrant Children like we would treat to not treat Migrant Children like we would treat our own. Things we have to look at. Going back to jesus, and applying that to foreign policy. Applying that the criminal justice reform. Applying that to our environmental policy. Applying what he said to those very things is the way forward. That is what this book is talking about. It in the end is about love. It is not about anger and hatred. It is about love. Assomeone saying, it someone saying, if it aint about love, it aint about god. Host matthew says this, it is my view that god is fiction is lis as wal i would think so. Put an atheist on cspan and analyze political life from that point of view. To matthews point, we have. We talked about this earlier. How does that speak to those who are atheists . Guest this book is not to judge or push out or even proselytize. Jesus is from more than just the christians. Andsh rabbis and imams people of no click of no faith at all. I have regular conversations with agnostics all the time and even atheists. This jesus has been used and abused and politicized and sabotaged and polarized. I went to get back to the real jesus. Then we can all look at what he said. Host should have about five more minutes with rev. Jim wallis. We are taking you to the Brookings Institution in about 10 or so. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I agree with the reverend in what he has discussing and saying over the tv about jesus. The bible stands from what i understand, basic instructions before leaving earth. It is about the hungry. It is not about politics. You can see it all over this nation in california, san francisco, the homelessness. People do not know what to do with them. We have two address the hungriest of this nation. We have to take care of all people. It starts at home. We have to educate our young people that jesus is for everyone, just not one color. Love thy neighbor as you love yourself, whoever your neighbor is. It is not about republicans or democrats. It is about our father above who died on the cross for everyone. Host thanks, jack. Guest there was this lawyer who asked jesus a question. How do i inherit internal inherit eternal life . He said, love god and love your neighbor. Think was awho i washington lawyer said, who is my neighbor . Jesus tells the Good Samaritan story. The Good Samaritan story is not out, stop, take time, help spend your money. It is about your neighbor. He is the one who is different from you. You have to go outside your path to find your neighbors. When you hear politicians wanting to make you afraid of that person, of that neighbor who is different than you, be afraid of that. Jesus says, go outside of your path to find your neighbor. Who is my neighbor is the most important question in american politics today. It will determine the soul of this nation and the integrity of faith. If we are willing to love our neighbor in the way jesus said, that could change our politics. Dave inis is manchester, washington. Caller good morning, reverend. A noner. I appreciate you recognizing there are many of us out there still searching. Most religions are really good. It is good to have people believe in faith and such. Theyll promote love and by neighbor and the golden rule type of environment. I just wish we could all get back to that. Where we actually practice the teachings. Would like to address sandra from alabama, the one who was talking about prayer in school and homosexuals. Kids can pray. They can pray at any time. They should not let it interfere with their lessons, but they can pray before they eat. They can pray before they take their test. Teacher and ilim would have the kids line up, face mecca, drop to their knees and began to pray, i do not think she would be happy with that. There are other religions outside of christianity that the students may hold. Prayer in school organized by the leader in a Public School just is not right. Host we are going to let you go there. We are running out of time. Go ahead. Guest i have a kid in high school. He would tell me that official prayers in school would not change much about the culture of his high school. A conversation about how the image of god is present in all of us the color you talked about before heres the caller you talked about before, heres my response to that. Lgbtq are all initials for by thewho are beloved people of god. Loving thy neighbor is the way to eternal life. Who is my neighbor . What does that mean . How do we expand the notion of neighbor beyond our tribe . That go touestions the heart of politics but could change politics. When we listen to jesus who is all of us who is for all of us and not just for the christians. Host lets hear from joseph from florida. Caller good morning, reverend. Theve a question about concept of a christian nation. I am a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. You may know, our definition of religious liberty says the seventh Adventist Church strongly believes that strongly related and persons conscience, not government should dictate his or her choice to worship or not. Theconcept is based on First Amendment and also on christs words where he said render to caesars that which is caesars and unto god what is gods. Host we will let reverend