Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 10142019 20240713

You can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Michael we begin with york host we begin with your thoughts. The last of the u. S. Forces have left syria as fighting between turkey and the kurds escalate over the weekend. Your reaction to the president s decisions. We will get to your thoughts in a minute. Lets begin with mark esper, the defense secretary on the sunday shows. He was on face the nation, and here is what he had to say about the decision to withdraw these troops. [indiscernible] a deliberate [video clip] a deliberate withdraw from the entire country . From Northern Syria. 1000 troops. How long and over what time period . It will be a deliberate withdraw and we want to conduct it as safely as possible. We want to make sure we deconflict a pullback of forces and dont leave equipment behind. I am not prepared to put a timeline on it. You said you are doing this for u. S. Force protection. The armies are advancing after the u. S. Pulled back, after the u. S. Air force, that had controlled the airspace, stopped doing so. Do you actually believe they would advance with the commanderinchief saying dont do this . I do. Host that was the defense secretary on face the nation. Eliot engel, this is what he had to say yesterday about the president s decision. [video clip] i can think of nothing more disgusting in all the years i have been in congress than what this president is allowing to happen with the kurds. They have been our loyal and faithful allies for so many this. And after who again would trust the United States to be an ally . Who would think it pays for them to align themselves with us . Nobody. This is going to make people flee from us. It is disgraceful the president of the United States is facilitating all of this. Host lucille in savannah, georgia, democratic caller. What do you think about the president s decisions in syria . ,aller when i think about it he should not move the people from their country. In chicago is also a democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. Donald trump is setting this country back at least 50 to 100 years. I know he campaigned on the fact he was going to make america great, he is doing the opposite. He is doing putins bidding and it seems he is a plant for the russians. Every move he makes and if its the russians. I dont know how anyone in this country could vote for this guy. I am shaking my head. I am 53 years old. He is taking this country backwards. Host robert, portland, oregon. Democratic caller as well. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am just really, really upset at the president. I am at the point where i am ashamed to call myself an american. Beare letting the kurds slaughtered. This man needs to go. This man needs to go. Please go. Host what are you concerned about with this decision . Caller im concerned about the kurds. I am concerned about the people being slaughtered. Host robert in oregon. Theing us is ben hubbard, bureau chief for the New York Times on the iraqsyria border today. Give us the latest on the fighting in Northern Syria. We have another very dynamic situation today. Trump pulled of american troops out of the way the new deal between former and kurdishies forces and the syrian and kurdih forces and the Syrian Government what we are seeing today are large number of syrian troops headed back into this area of the country that has been largely protected by the United States for the last number of years. Host what is the deal that was struck and who struck this deal . What does it mean . Deal was struck basically between the kurdishled militia working with the United States in Northern Syria to fight the Islamic State and after the Islamic State was pushed out, just to hold the territory. This group felt like they had they struck a deal with the Syrian Government. Ayeds a symbol of how betr these former American Allies felt. Hours, theyof 24 have a very loyal and close American Partner in the region. . Ost why did they do that guest they worry that if the turks come in, they could kill a large number of people. A backer to protect them and the United States did not want to do that job. Its all about selfpreservation against an invading force. Host who does this benefit . I think it benefits the Syrian Government, definitely. They are trying to get this timetory back for a long in the battle to reclaim all this territory they were able to get this territory back. I think those are really the big winners. There is some speculation as. Ell it could make it easier for sleeper cells to start activity again. I dont think we have seen a lot of indication of that yet, but it is a concern. Host what does this deal mean for turkey . Complicates things for turkey probably because they had this idea to come in and create a buffer zone on the syrian side of their border. The idea to come in and they could have done this if it was the local militia forces in the area. Of howes the question much is turkey really in a position or have the desire to get into a war with the Syrian Government as opposed to destined with the battle for a battle with the local militia. Host how many isis fighters work and paint were contained in this part of Northern Syria and what is their status today . Guest 10,000 were detained and arelieve 2000 of them foreigners. As far as we know, the prisons are stable. We dont have any reports about significant changes in the prison. Everything is moving so fast in this area. We have Turkish Forces trying to push from the north and Syrian Forces from the south. It is difficult to tell how things are going to develop. Describe what the fighting was like over the weekend. Over the weekend, we had we had the First Contact seen between local forces backed by turkey and the kurdish militia. It was not pretty. We had reports of civilians being harmed in some of the fighting and reports from the New York Times about the killing of at least two prisoners that had been taken by turkishbacked forces. There is an ethnic undercurrent to some of this violence. Some of these big power politics between the Syrian Government and turkish government have been trying to find some kind of accommodation, but there is concern if the militias on the ground, facetoface, there could be a lot of bloodshed. We thank youbard, for your time. Guest thank you. Frontben hubbard on the pages contribute into the New York Times stories this morning. As u. S. Troops depart, kurds form an alliance with syrian authorities. Steve, charleston, South Carolina. Independent. Good morning to you. Caller good morning, greta. A couple of thoughts here to read i dont agree with this decision or action at all. I am very uncomfortable with it. Weary. Se we are war trump had some words of the other day and he talked about needing airplanes at dover, the drapedth bodies and flag coffins. The problem with that is the parents of the soldiers and the lives of those soldiers my son or my husband has died in vain. We committed to a mission. We stay until the mission is complete. On the other hand, we dont know what goes on in the bowels of the pentagon. That stuffwhat is secret. We dont have that knowledge. I bet joe dunford would not agree with it. I worked with former military people and i have been around military people and i worked with people in desert storm and all those conflicts. You have to keep telling yourself what you are doing is right, what is good for humanity and the United States of america and what keeps you going. You stick with the mission until it is complete and that is the way it is. Slap to the face further kurds and that is my opinion. Host are you worried about the fallout domestically . It diminishesk and people obviously it will lead to a lack of trust in the United States. Hy wouldnt it i dont like that at all. Democratic caller, mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. Caller i think it is a great decision. Host tell us why . Caller i feel we are in these endless wars and it goes on and on. Where are the european allies . If we are the only people helping out and we are caught in the crossfire, i dont see anything wrong with leaving. We have been there for a long time and nobody is getting anywhere. That is how i feel about it. Host how do you respond to the previous caller who said our allies will no longer trust us . Caller they are wrong. They dont trust us and we dont trust them. They are not making good decisions over there in europe. You can see this is why the mess is the way it is right now. Host react to this. Ben hubbard contribute in along with eric schmidt, Thomas Gibbons and helene cooper. They have a quote from one of the kurds fighting with the u. S. In that region. They trusted us and we broke that trust. This is an army officer in Northern Syria a u. S. Army officer. It is a stain on the u. S. Conscience. Another officer saying i am ashamed. Kurdssponse from the themselves was just as dark. The logic in the trench is betrayal. Caller i have seen articles to the exact opposite. It depends on the media you read. If you are democrat, republican, it depends on what you read and believe. If you look at it from the middle actually look at a moderate viewpoint like no one does anymore, you see a clearer picture. It is the reverse. It is a catch 22, there is no win in this situation. We are going to be there forever unless we get out. Host pittsburgh, you are next, republican. Good morning to you. Caller good morning to you. How are you . Host doing well. Caller i was going to talk about the syria thing. I do not agree with this. Trust. You lose allies. Lose that is kind of my comment. It is a great idea. There is a mission you have to do and it is like a commitment. Host in wyoming, what do you think . Knew from the very beginning that trump could not be trusted. Would vote for him. Why would anybody trust america fool . When we are led by a place and he is doing putins bidding. Host Lindsey Graham tweeting we stop theperative bloodshed and stabilize northeastern syria to prevent the reemergence of isis and the rise of iran. He said, spoke with the president yesterday evening, i applaud his decision to work with congress to stop syria aggression. This decision, he wrote, if we this decisiont will be a game changer in all the wrong ways for turkey. Fromwarner, democrat virginia the president s actions made the world less safe. Congressman dan crenshaw, isolationist argue it is not a war while forgetting world history. When isis regains strength, it becomes our problem again. Isolationists need to make an argument by more war is better than preventing war. Ill wait, he says. The reaction this morning from members of congress yesterday to the president s decision to begin withdrawing those last troops out of syria. The treasury secretary was on. In reactionek to the turks fighting the kurds, the white house has said it will go after turkeys economy. [video clip] this is a complicated, developing situation. You have a nato ally fighting against the kurds. We are in Daily Communications defensekey, both at the department, state department on very specific issues. We are ready to go at a moments notice to put on sanctions. These could be starting small, they could be maximum pressure. The president is very focused on this. He has offered to mediate this situation. It is a developing situation. What are you waiting for . Look at what we have seen on the ground. This is a rapidly deteriorating situation. Is moving correct, it quickly. We will be monitoring the situation and taking in information and we will be ready to go at a moments notice to put on sanctions. I spoke to the finance minister and the state department has had conversations. They know what we will do if they dont stop these activities. Host your reaction to the last u. S. Forces leaving syria, the president s decisions in that region. Front page of the papers. Wall street with the headline Northern Syria pullout, millions of isis fighters flee. Kurds look to syria, russia for alliance. Full retreat. Last u. S. Forces to leave syria and International Anger at turkey has been mounting with france and germany halting arms sales through their nato ally. That in the front pages of the papers this morning. The president tweeting the u. S. Has the worst of the isis prisoners. At turkey and the kurds must not let them escape. Europe should have taken the back after numerous requests. They will never come to or be allowed in the United States. Manhattan, democratic caller. What do you think, james . Caller good morning, greta. I think everybody is forgetting after the first gulf war, we abandoned the kurds then also. We have done it again. How can we be trusted . Never. Host bob, missouri, independent. What do you think . Caller i think we have been there 19 years now, it is still time to get out. We have not accomplished anything. This started when bush senior said we need to put Saddam Hussein in a box. We had no business putting Saddam Hussein in a box. We cannot believe the world, it is time to bring our troops home and let these people solve their own problems. Host what do you say to people who argue we have to have a foothold in the region . If we dont, russia iran, they gain more ground. They gain more control and more say over what happens there. Caller lets look southeast asia. Remember when we got out in 1975 . All the people said that region is going to collapse. Guess what . You namet in 1975 and one time the country of vietnam has been a problem to us. People have to solve their own problem. We cannot believe the entire world womene young men and coming home with no legs, no arms, their lives changed forever. This. Not do it is time to bring our troops home. Debt. 23 trillion in thank you. Host we will go to columbus, georgia, a republican. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Cbs story about the bidens and the Trump Administration and they are so biased because they said hunter the chinese lord he was on and did not give any reason why he quit just quit and then he said hunter was not going to be in any position if joe biden gets elected. The thing about that is they never tell about all the money he took. Host what does this have to do with the question we are asking all of you . Your reaction to syria . Caller listening to all these people talking and a lot of people say we should not be in syria we should not be in syria, you dont know until you try to get it from the news and the news dont give you a clear picture. You have to put it all together and decide for yourself whether we should be there or not. I think the president was not was right when you see those people coming in on that c130 130 c130 with all those bodies in those caskets. We spent 8 trillion over there. They are always fighting. It is a sad situation and we cannot do that. We fought the korean war and we are still there. Afghanistan, we have been there 20 years. Was a civil war between the north and the south. Listen to the news, all the different news. Brian at fox and friends one of the hosts got it all wrong, we are not going into another war between people who have been fighting with each other 200 years. Europe had a chance to get there isis prisoners and did not want the cost. Us may be releasing big sanctions on turkey coming. Do people really think we should go to war with natoending turkey . As New York Times reports american troops were deployed, two american officials said the United States failed to transfer 5000 Islamic State detainees out of the country. As the kurdish incursion growns and increasingly angry. Some cast mr. Trumps move as a betrayal. The kurds refused to let the American Military take anymore detainees from their sites for captive isis fighters which range from former School Houses to a former prison. These facilities hold about 11,000 men. From 50 other nations whose governments have refused to repatriate them. That in the New York Times. Richard in massachusetts, it is your turn. Him on thisree with it is about time we got out of there. We have been over there for years. If we took foreign aid away, you will see how many allies we have. Where is france . Where is germany . Where is canada . Why arent they with us . Host the wall street kernel reports french and british accompaniedh had u. S. Forces in syria, so they had been alongside u. S. Forces, were expected to depart along with the United States, marking a complete withdrawal of western alliances. Our allies were there with us in Northern Syria. Guest how many caller how many were there . A handful . That is what it was. Weve got battalions over there. Hat is how i look at it thank you for listening to my call. Host the washington post, european leaders demand a halt to turkish offensive in syria. Calling for a halt and warning of painful consequences for turkey and their own security as the United States accelerated the pullout. Emmanuel macron met with the and anchancellor emergency meeting of Security Advisors on sunday. Direct and immediate risks for europe. Byse camps have been guarded Kurdish Fighting groups now under attack by turkey. John in illinois, democratic caller, good morning. Caller hello . Host you are on the air, john. Caller yes, springfield. Host yes, go ahead, sir. Caller yeah. I believe we should be withdrawing from turkey. I guess from what i understand from troops, we had 50 soldiers and then 500 or 1000, the numbers were confusing on how many were actually there and what their focus was. I think there was more support than combat. On another point i think i would like to make with cspan that would help out a lot of people you guys want to identify who we are. I think it is only fair you guys you are. Ow who you want us to know if we are democrat or republican, we should know who you guys are. That way we might get a sense prayed i already know who you guys are. I did background checks on all of you. You are all democrats. Host the job of the post who sits host who sits in the chair is to moderate the conversation. It doesnt matter what our opinion is, we are not expressing it for a reason because we are moderating the situation between the viewers and if we have guests at our table to take your questions and comments. The reason why we ask if you are democrat or republican is it helps give the other people listening context. Caller every morning your whole thing is about trump, trump, trump. All it is is trump bashing. Host this morning . We are asking people their opinion caller i watch it seven days a week. It was hard to get through sunday. Every question is geared toward trump bashing three the questions you pose even brings up trump bashing. You know you are going to give the response from it. It is always focused on trump. You guys might as well get over with it. He is going to win in 2020. I dont know why we are going through this charade. Host we will leave it there. John in illinois. We will take more of your phone calls on the president s decision to remove u. S. Troops to Northern Syria. First, an update for all of you on what is happening in washington. Congress returns from a twoweek recess. Joining us is mike lillis. In the on the agenda capital behind us for this week . Guest thank you for having me, good morning. Week recess, but it did not really feel like a recess because they had all these depositions, the house democrats, nancy pelosi, adam schiff pressing forward with impeachment. They were back in town for two weeks and the capital, which would normally have been empty, was quite a show. There were reporters everywhere, lawmakers back from the committees leading the investigation and that will continue this week with the number of depositions and that will suck the oxygen out of the capital. It democrats like to say we can legislate and investigate, do all these things at the same time, but any time you try to remove the president of the United States, that is your agenda and where they are headed and where all the press attention, Media Attention and Public Interest will be. It begins very early, begins today. It is a holiday and the house is not back until tomorrow. They are having a deposition. Fiona hill will be on the hill this morning. She resigned over the summer and she is expected to talk about murrayhe raised murray jovanovich removed in may. She testified on friday against the wishes of mike pompeo and the wishes of the state department. The question is what is she going to say. Not public hearings, they are closed doors so lawmakers are shuffling in and out and there is about 100 reporters running around trying to stick a microphone in their face and see what is happening behind closed doors. If it was anything like the gestimony, it could be damnin for the administration and President Trump and this allegation he did press a foreign leader to interfere in a domestic election. That is the first deposition, fiona hale today. Tomorrow, george kent is scheduled to appear. He was supposed to be here last weekend that was postponed. Thursday, gordon sondland, u. S. Ambassador to the European Union will be deposed. He was supposed to appear last tuesday and state department blocked him. His lawyer said he will appear this thursday. He was one of those who had gone back and forth with these Text Messages with other diplomats and was very defensive of trump. He is a businessman and a republican supporter wealthy supporter of the party and the president. Republicans on capitol hill were disappointed his testimony was postponed and they are looking forward to all of that because they think he will defend the president and say he was going after corruption in general. That is what is on tap. Three bigname positions and a number of subpoena headlines related to the impeachment inquiry. Mike pence was subpoenaed for documents, that deadline is tomorrow. On wednesday, these two ukrainian businessmen who were just arrested, these are Business Associates of rudy subpoenaed they were for documents on the same day they were arrested on related to their arrest. Their arrest was campaignfinance and this is what are their insights into the ukrainian affair and friday, subpoenaed. As been mick mulvaney, the acting white house chief of staff has been subpoenaed for documents and that deadline happens on friday. A lot of balls in the air and a lot of People Democrats want to hear from. All eyes on the impeachment inquiry this week. The syrianlillis on story we are talking to our viewers about this morning. What have you heard from members of congress on how they may react to the president s decision to pull out all troops from Northern Syria . Guest the outcry was immediate and it was bipartisan. Republicans on capitol hill have been reluctant to criticize this president on anything, but in this case, there was a notable exception. You have a couple things moving on capitol hill. You have a sanctions bill. Lindsey graham, a big supporter of trump, but not on this issue teaming up with chris van hollen, a maryland democrat and they have a sanctions bill on turkey based on their incursion into Northern Syria. In the house, you have elliott angle who joined forces with mike mccall. They have a nonbinding resolution saying we should not have abandoned our allies a Northern Syria, we should not have abandoned the kurds. That should pass very easily. It is nonbinding, but sends a signal to the white house both parties in the capital are not happy with how you are conducting this Foreign Policy. Aside from that, the only real thing congress can do they have the power of the purse. If this continues, if it gets worse and they want to yank money out of these defense bills, these appropriations bills, that can be something they can do later in the year. They just passed a continuing resolution, which is a shortterm spending bill to kick the can down the road until november, the thanksgiving break. If things get work, get worse, things deteriorate and trump does not change the policy, they will probably look turkey. Money out of those are three things moving on capitol hill, but trump is commander in chief. There is very Little Congress can do outside of those things. Host to follow the reporting, cano thehill. Com, you follow mike lillis there, senior reporter. Thank you for your time. Thats get back to the conversation with all of you. David in virginia, and independent. What do you think of the president s decision . Caller thank you for taking my call. I fully support this decision. I think it is great. Some people say we are losing a foothold in syria. People arent aware we have more military bases in and around the middle east than anybody. We have more military bases than any country times 10. I think this is really rich, all this outrage or faux outrage from the left. I dont know if it is 2017 or 2018, trump dropped that onto syria because they were gassing citizens and everybody on the left was mad about it. They had these standup protests where they hand tourists signs and get everyone to stand up and protest about todays outrage and that day it was syria. Why are we bombing syria . We should not be in syria . Now everybody is on the opposite side. They want to stay in syria. I think this is a good example of how the past 2. 5, three years have been with regards to trump. , we gettever he does angry about it. If he cures cancer, he is putting doctors out of business. If he walks on water, he is afraid to swim. If you turns water into wine, trump is an alcoholic. Host in new york, republican. Hi, joan. Caller hello. First, i have a comment and i would like to ask you a question. Our boys are tired. I had a son in the first gulf war and i had one that was in , just retired, they are tired. You have these leftist snowflakes that wont join the military, so these boys are recycled over and over again. That is my comment. To havelike to ask you a couple guests on. John solomon of the hill and sarah carter, both investigative reporters and they are actual reporters, they are not commentary. I would love to have you have them on as guests and i bet you wont do it. Host thank you for the suggestion. Paul in wisconsin, democratic caller. Caller i dont think trumps decision was a Foreign Policy decision. It was a financial decision. Tanbul two towers in is and president erdogan told him your towers are going to be unbusy, they will slow down if you dont let us bulldoze syria and he is probably like okay, do what you want. He would probably give putin our Nuclear Codes if he agreed to give him a tower in moscow. I cannot believe all these republicans that support them him. Get your heads out of your butts. This guy is a crook. Host we will go to pam, independent. Good morning. What do you think . Caller i completely agree with the guy who called, although i probably would not have used that language. I just think it is a disgrace that he pulled out. To me, it shows where his loyalties lie and i think that is evident over the last 2. 5, three years in office, just like cohen. Did with michael he was a great attorney, and then a month later, he is a rat. He is right the guy who just called his right, he has a lot of money tied up in a lot of countries and if he wants to get out of the middle east, why are we sending troops to saudi arabia where al qaeda the guys that knocked the towers down, came from . Follow the money. Host jessica in new york, democratic caller iller i want you to know think you are wonderful and i love cspan and i know you try to do the best job that you can. I wanted to be a journalist myself and i really believe in the power of journalism. I have a few things i want to say. Now i am getting nervous and i want to forget what i am going to say. First of all, i am for impeachment. Also, if it is ok to say, i also junioresident bush should have been impeached for going into iraq. Host tie this back to syria and our conversation. Caller sorry. I think what is happening now, i feel for the country. We should not have gone out as much as i dont want the military to be there in the first place, it is just that there is no diplomacy. This administration is destroying our country. I am sorry all the calls that come in, does anybody think about the suffering of the people there . We have destroyed the middle east. We have caused so much pain. We took off the limbs of our soldiers for what . Why are we getting involved in other countries . Andook these peoples oil they are not even reconstructing their countries. It is such a scam. Host i think we lost you. We will go to paul in arkansas, republican. Caller good morning, greta. I love cspan. I have been watching it for years. I will give the foundation of where i am coming from. I am a veteran. In high school and college when i was getting my commission in the United States army was listen to reporters say 300 men were getting killed per week. I got lucky, i went to thailand. I hoped helped load ammunition bombs going north. Only got close to getting killed twice. My daughter served in iraq in 2006 and 2007. January 20, and Arkansas National guard helicopter was shot down and i had to wait 3d three days to find out if my daughter was alive. I am of veteran i am not talking this republican or veteran, but here is the situation as i see it. If congress and the president are going to commit our troops just like world war ii, we were deployed they were deployed and they did not come home until the war was over and they killed everybody. Truman used up to including nuclear war. Ifopinion is like vietnam we were there, they should have lined up tanks on the dmz, went at the b52s chinese if the chinese and sians wanted to come in, we pulled out of vietnam and left them hanging. All i am saying is if you guys want to have our troops in syria you had better be willing to go nuclear against the chinese and the russians. I am hating seeing our troops they areled by arabs fighting with and turn around and shoot you in the back. If they want us to be there, by god, be nuclear. I watched trump on tv when he talked about arlington and going down if you want us over there, be ready to go nuclear or dont send our troops. Thank you very much. By the way, find out what has happened to our big base in turkey. That is where a lot of our supplies are coming out. Goodbye. Host pauls thoughts and arkansas. Woodbridge, virginia, kevin, independent. Caller good morning, greta. As i sit back and listen i am listening to the viewers and their perspectives. May i provide a Little Information more military professional than it is emotional . Host yes. Caller we have to understand that number one, in the military, i am a retired military officer. I was a military strategist. Nothing is supposed to be done in the usual case, nothing is done without some sort of strategic goals vetted through various agencies up to the white house and from there, they come out as orders to the various units and individual soldiers. The issue is there is a strategic goal and what is when those happen is strategic goals are accomplished, at that point, the u. S. Military withdraws. That is part of the doctrine where general powell said this, we do not go any place unless we know why we are going there, what we are there to do and when we accomplish it, we leave. What i looked at in syria was that whole process of determination was never done. That is the first thing. Of course, we dont know when we are pulling out why we are pulling out and it is almost arbitrary. The second thing is this, when we make a commitment to our and the high levels, that is great. With the people working on the ground, the person facetoface, that becomes a problem because it is the people on the ground that makes things make things happen. When we pull out after we said we would not or after making a commitment you have to remember, we have a history of pulling out. Every time we go, that question is asked and we say we are not pulling out. What we are doing is we are now supporting that history and future leaders of those or elementsountries or factions or whatever who we may need their help one day, they will remember we pulled out and we cannot be trusted. Host i am going to leave it there so i can get in other voices. Diane, michigan, independent caller. Caller yes, hello. I have been listening and becoming so frustrated over time by everyone giving their responses. Thirdhand this show has so much credibility to lose. You have such good programming, you bring on people with expert firsthand knowledge and experience that you could put in place of this talkshow. It has become like conversation of coffee shops and bars where everyone keeps throwing everyone feels so many times is irresponsible statements and you could draw so many people speakers from firsthand experience and knowledge that so. Nt muddy these waters this is going across the whole american landscape and so many irresponsible statements are being made and i notice now they are very pointed at the person that is running this talk program. I think it is very wrong of people. You are not the target or the reason for the conversation, it is the subject that is. I have called through to programming saying this does not accomplish anything, this mudslinging back and forth over your program. Host the goal is that washington is debating, in this what is our role in syria or they are debating what should we do about medicare or health care, at cetera is your opportunity the only program that allowsprogram the voter to call in and let washington know that issue you are debating, this is my opinion about it. That is what we are trying to accomplish. Know iti get that and i is free speech and all of this but people giving their opinions i am afraid are not informed. I am not completely informed, nobody is, but there are people that come from an informed perspective that can make responsible statements and this is like a morning hash. Like i say, you could pull very informed people on your program. Your program has a lot of credibility. Host victorino, illinois. Independent. Hi, victoria. We lost victoria. Caller i am here. I am calling about syria. I support our troops and the i am not wholly supporting him, but i would think if he was going to do , thehing like this responsible thing to do would have been to consult the general, all the necessary people to help make a decision and not take a phone call and tweet it and go for it. I dont think that was the right way to do it. If you are going to do Something Like that, it has to be planned. Also, this is putin. Land. I am really concerned about that. If he keeps doing this with our allies, who is going to come to our need when we need them . I think this is one way of him taking over and doing whatever he wants and when he wants to do it to us, who is going to come to our aid . Host a torys final victorias final thoughts. We will take a break and when we come back, Pay Attention to a cspans ipsos poll. We will talk to reid wilson about that. Later on, a look at the trump and Obama Administrations policy on ukraine. We will be right back. Here is a look at some books being published this week. In the case against socialism, rand paul of kentucky offers a critical look at socialism. He will be a guest on book tvs after Words Program in a few weeks. Wayskasich lists 10 citizens can promote political change in it is up to us. Kimberly strawser contends overzealous critics of the Trump Administration pose a threat to our rule of law. She will be on cspans Interview Program. Ronan farrow details the efforts made by others to stifle his reporting. Also being published, amaryllis ax recounts her time as cia operative. L bryson gives a detailed how the human body works. How americans attitudes toward women have changed. Look for these titles this week and watch for many of the authors in the future on book tv on cspan 2. Tonight on the communicators, gigi sohn, former Senior Advisor to tom wheeler and patrick halley, Senior Vice President at u. S. Telecom talk about the recent Appeals Court decision on net neutrality. [video clip] with the court said was the fccs decision to regulate Broadband Access as an information source as it has been under the title 2 order was permissible. When the fcc deregulated broadband and recasts related ast as an information another part of the communications act, section 706 does not provide authority for regulation, it washed its hands, abdicated its authority, its ability to oversee the broadband market. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan 2. Thinking about participating in cspans studentcam 2020 competition but you have never made a documentary film before . We have resources on our website to help you get started. Check out our Getting Started and downloads pages on studentcam. Org for producing information and links to footage. Teachers will find resources on the teachers materials page to help you introduce studentcam to your students. My advice to anyone who wants to compete is find a topic you are passionate about and pursue it as much as you can. We are asking Middleton High School students to create a documentary on the issue you would like president ial candidates to address during the 2020 campaign. Cspan will award 100,000 in total prizes and a 5,000 grand prize. Microphonemera, a and Start Building and produce the best video you can possibly produce. For morestudentcam. Org information today. Washington journal continues. Host reid wilson at our table, National Reporter with the hill newspaper. It talking about our new ipsos cspan poll, crisis of confidence in u. S. Elections. Americans who believe the 2020 election will be open and fair, 72 of republicans thought that, but total overall, only 53 and 39 of democrats believe that. What do you make of those . Guest it is remarkable. We are the only western democracy democracy of any time that has decentralized elections. That means there are different laws and Access Points in states across the country. In some states, they mail you your ballot. There is not even a polling place in many parts of california. You get your ballot and fill it out at home. The increased focus on Election Security and whether or not its going to be conducted in an open and fair manner i think reflects a real crisis point in the confidence in our system that has worked so far for 240 years but now were in a point where National Elections are fought very narrowly and therefore the processes by how you vote started to matter more and more. Host independents when asked their view of parties commitment to fair and accurate election, the parties commitment they say 48 Republican Party they give the vote of confidence 60 to the democratic party. Guest this is the commitment to whether or not the two parties are willing to hold an open and Fair Election, and i think this reflects a little bit there has been a republican strategy to tighten election rules. Republicans say its for security to make sure only those who are voting actually vote. Democrats say its meant to suppress the vote among younger votesers and minorities voters. We have seen cases go to the Supreme Court that have debated this around debated the fundamental rules of our democratsy. I think its important to remember that those rules are evolving and changing every year whether a democrat or republican majority comes in to some state legislature somewhere they can change the rules. Its one of the first things they do. They figure where the bathrooms are and change the rules to make sure they keep their majority. This is something that has become increasingly political conversation in recent years which is probably unfortunate but a fact of our modern democracy. Host what do you make of these two questions . 61 said yes, 38 no. Are republicans committed to fair and accurate elections, 49 saying yes 50 no. Guest just a few hours after the poll came out last week the survey of partisanship and the way we feel about members of the other party, people who disagree with us. The numbers there sort of underscore the numbers that you just read. More and more of us now think that the members of the other party, whether were a democrat and thinking of republicans or whether republicans and thinking democrat, arent just wrong. Theyre bad for the country. Thats a pretty significant sea change that has taken place. Back in the early part of the clinton years only about 125 of democrats and 15 of republicans thought that the other party was actually bad for america. Now that number is about 60 . Thats really troubling. And the numbers you just read tell me that democrats believe hat republicans want to harm the country and republicans believe the same thing about democrats. Thats not great. Especially when the majority of our secretaries of state, the people who administrator the elections, are elected in partisan ways. I spent a lot of time talking to those secretaries of state. But they are committed to running the best possible election that they can. Thats theres a disconnect between the Civil Servants who work in those secretary of states offices trying to run a Fair Election and the way the actual voters think about the other party and the damage or the credit that theyre doing to american democratsy. Host we want to get you involved as well. Your reaction to this poll a crisis of confidence in u. S. Elections. Remember you can text us if you put in your first name city and state text us. Let me add some more numbers to what you were just talking about. When asked about americans who believe that foreign governments pose a threat to the United States, a 58 of those surveyed said yes, 41 of republicans, 77 of democrats and 58 of independents. Guest a remarkable distinction there between the two parties. One side definitely thinks that there is a threat from foreign governments and the other side kind of does, too. 41 of republicans, thats not nothing. Its not a majority but is it is a significant percent of republicans who are worried. The number of americans who believe that the federal government has actually done enough to protect our election system from the foreign interference is remarkably small. Only 31 of us believe that the federal government has done enough to protect our election system. That includes about half of republicans, just 16 of democrats. A significant number. We have not seen a lot of action from congress, the house of representatives has passed h. R. 1 their big election reform package. The senate has not done as much. Theyve released some money that will go to the states to protect election from interference. One of the remarkable things about the way we run these elections though is that that money has to filter down to a State Government and to a county government and then to a local government whos operating a precinct. Were talking about in the state of wisconsin there are Something Like 3,000 precincts. That is 3,000 tugtse for somebody to interfere with a machine or Something Like that. The good news is theyve got a lot of safe guards but who is to say that all 3,000 have accepted the latest Windows Update or whatever it is thats going to protect from outside interference . And more broadly by the way were not just talking about the security of machines. Were talking about what happened in 1e6, which was the influence operation meant to change the way we think as a society. I think when we talk about russian interference in the elections were talking about it in too small a way. It wasnt just the elections, it was the entire societal conversation. Host is anything being done about that . Guest in fits and starts. I think weve seen president ial candidates like senators warren and sanders calling on facebook to change the way they operate. Warren just ran an interesting experiment over the weekend where she placed a knowingly false advertisement on facebook saying that facebooks ceo had endorsed President Trump, which is not true, but her point was to show that a campaign can run an advertisement that is demsably untrue. Now, should that be allowed . Television stations wont do that if the claims are the ad are verified to be false. What about these tech giants . Their role in the modern election in the way we all consume information is something that we havent grappled with yet. And something that we all need to think about as 2020 approaches. Host you said the house passed h. R. 1. What has the senate done . Guest the senate has not taken up h. R. 1 but have allowed money i think it was 250 million to go to Election Security efforts. H. R. 1 is a measure that basically includes the wish list of all the democratic priorities in election reform. Senator mcconnell, the republican, has very strong thoughts about election reform himself, and i dont think those two interests are going to align. Hes not going to be daking up a lot of democratic priorities. Host before we get to calls another question asked was should the president be elected by popular vote . 60 said yes. Guest the wording was well done in this poll. They made clear to respondents that changing the elect ral college to the popular vote would require an amendment to the constitution, and that piece of information i think gives puts that number in starker contrast. 60 of americans want to amend the constitution to allow the winner of the popular vote to become the president. Now, that has thats an interesting proposal. Theres a version of that thats gone through a number of state legislatures around the country, and basically what that is is an agreement among states that would award electoral votes not to the winner of that state but to the winner of the National Popular vote without amending the constitution. And thats possible because the constitution allows the states to award their elect tor to figure out basically how their electors show up to vote and who those happen to be. This is sort of an end run around the constitution without requiring the change that would require all the states to ratify it as well. Which is a pretty intriguing concept. Weve seen it pass in a number of democratic states around the country, california, new york, places like that. Weve seen some movement in republican states in recent years. Oklahoma took up a bill that didnt pass but at least it was introduced and debated. Arizona was introduced and debate. Even michigan which has a Republican Legislature has been introduced and debated. That could be the future of this movement that does not require the herk lin lift of amending the constitution. Host well go to calls. Caller good morning. I guess what i would say about these elections is i became a i registered to start voting back in the 8 os. So basically im a career politician. Anybodys who is registered to vote and you vote, youre a career politician. So stop talking about the people you send to office. The other thing i would say is so weve been having an issue with the elections since i mean ross perot. Thats the last president i voted for. The last thing i will say is the democrats they deserve what they get and the republicans they deserve what they get. I knew trump was going to get elected even before he was elected because ive been to augusta, maine, to burlington, vermont, south dakota, so i already knew the landscape what was going to happen. Now, the republicans, they have to live with they dropped the ball and let the democrats take the house so they have to live with that, also. Host im going to move on to josh, in connecticut. Caller my point is that everyone is getting mat at donald trump because he had his lawyer Rudy Giuliani go over to ukraine and was trying to dig up dirt on biden. Ill give you that. But my point is that hillary inton paid her lawyer to get dirt on trump from a foreign person. Hes a foreigner. Host let me tie this back to our poll and our conversation. Are you concerned about foreign interference and the elections or does it not bother you . Caller its going to happen and you are a fool if you think its not going to happen. So the key is being fair about both sides doing it. I think is the question here. Its not if its going to happen. Its how to be fair about it, to be fair. I think thats the question. Host ok. Guest i want resting points. I think that the Cyber Security experts who Pay Attention to this and the Foreign Policy experts would say that josh is probably right, that there will be some effort at foreign interference and im not talking about Rudy Giuliani and anything like that. Im talking about erts to change the way we as americans think about our politicians and maybe even change the way we think about voting and whether or not it is safe and secure. These are worrying numbers. Nly half think that our system will be open and fair. This is based on the confidence in being open and fair and being able to trust the results. President trump has not made that better by talking about millions of illegal votes that geffnill did not happen. One of the interesting thing that is came out was a minority, im going to blank but not a majority think that voter fraud is a real concern. And thats true. Voter fraud is not a significant source of illegal votes or anything like that. There was a recent study that looked at the last five elections which encompassed more than 1 billion votes across the country and they found about two dozen instances of voter fraud. So we run the system better than we give ourselves credit for. The American Election system does pretty well. And this shaky confidence that we have in it is concerning because its hard to prove the positive. Its hard to prove that were actually counting the votes in a way that we should be. Host the majority of those polled did say they support requiring citizens to show an id to vote, 78 . Guest and not just 78 of all americans but remember voter id laws are something that democrats think unduly burden minority and loik voters which happen to be their voters in southern states. Not just southern states. States across is the country. But asked whether or not they believe in that all voters should be required to show ids, two thirds thought voters should show ids. And this gets back to the theme with the popular vote, with voter ids, some other elements of this. Americans are open to pretty radical changes of our election system. Requiring voter ids, requiring the popular vote winner to win the overall election. Thats interesting, and lawmakers should take note. Host do you think they will . Or more at the state level . Guest first because elections are so decentralized these things have tobacco take place in state legislaturing to take place in state egislatures. There are even some states like West Virginia experimenting with online voting. Well see how that goes in the long run but at least theyre eengs permitting with it. Changes are coming as Technology Changes and by the way i should say the Polling Industry is changing, too, and i found this out when i got the list of the respondents to this poll who were willing to talk to me about it. I called through a i probably made a hundred phone calls and got three people on the phone. That tells you what happens when a pollster calls your cell phone. Are you going to answer it . Probably not. Host bruce, republican. Caller how are you doing this morning . I think the crisis of confidence we have is not foreign but rather globalist corporate interference. I was deplatformed from facebook just a week ago because of my stance on 5 g, which is an existential crisis. You should have martin paul, professor emerit yuss for washington state. I mean, theyre putting antennas up in our neighborhoods and theres an absolute blackout on talking about the dagers of the radiation dangers of the radiation that these antennas are going to incur on our people and nobody is talking about it and theyre erasing people like me who is a journalist who has run for congress and our voice is being taken away, and this is happening by the day. If we cannot speak freely, whats in our hearts, what concerns us, you know, and there is a Global Movement right now to stop the deployment of these 5 g antennas, in switzerland theyre having protests because they rolled these out early in switzerland and people are getting sick. Host all right. Bruce well leave your comments there and go to edward in new ersey. Caller good morning. Mr. Wilson im so excited about the topic im going to pay extra attention but i wanted to say a couple of things. I work the polls in new jersey a lot. So as far as voter fraud i dont know how we can do that because when voters come to the polls we have Electronic System that they cast a ballot on but theres also like a refeed. So i know how many voters come to the polls and i check the numbers. Like im on top of it the whole time. But the cyber warfare the big thing i think its on congress the house and senate to shore up our our elections. Im so excited about the National President ial cant dates everything they have to say about shoring up our elections. Im with Bernie Sanders even the voting dollars to take big money out of the elections. Host ok. Guest one of the interesting things you might have the numbers there, cspan asked how people would be most confident in casting their ballots and the paper ballots were way up there. But then again that speaks to the decentralization of our election system. If you are a voter in new york city, youre going to cast your ballot in a different way than if youre a vote anywhere seattle or if youre a voter in atlanta. Youre going to use a different machine, youre going to i mean, its going to be just a different experience. Somebody might use an ipad where somebody else, when i vote here at my local precinct in d. C. I still use the paper and fill it out. I remember my parents doing that when i was a kid. But that is a big debate. Do we need those paper radio ecreets that edward was talking about receipts . Do we need just a paper ballot so we can go back and count all over again or do we trust the Computer System that is will one in 100, one in a million will malfunction and that becomes a big story and undermines confidence even though u89. 999 work just fine. Host you talked about americans being open to big changes to how we run our elections. Another question is support requiring a president ial candidate to release their tax returns. If 53 said yes, 26 of republicans said yes, while 75 of democrats said yes and 57 of independents. Guest california governor new som signed a bill a couple months ago to require any president ial candidate who wanted Ballot Access in california, a pretty big state, to submit their tax returns or to make public their tax returns. Its a bill that the previous governor jerry brown no conservative by any means had vetoed. He himself had not released his own tax returns. Maybe there was something there. Baw federal judge struck that down just recently in what was a win for the Trump Administration over the Trump Campaign i should say, not the administration, and well see if that makes it through the courts but that bill, a similar version of that bill has popped up in a lot of states across country. It is unlikely that will force President Trump to release his tax returns baw remarkable divide again there just a quarter of republicans three quarters of candidates think a candidate should release their tax returns. Host to rob in new york. Caller good morning. Thanks for cspan. I guess my comment is that trump has cast doubt on everything. Hes made us believe hes tried to make us believe that there are no facts and that everything is made up and its all phony news and theres comments that you cant rely on f. B. I. , you cant rely on our c. I. A. You have career diplomats who are unstable and untrust worthy according to what our president would have us believe. If you are going to look at our elections and so theres no facts any more. I dont understand why people have not looked into matters such as occupants floor after floor in trump tower owned by russian olgarks. How do we know that the trump hasnt been being survailed from within the trump tower by some of the tenants that occupied the dirty Tricks Department now going on in the Republican Party . Host ok. So talk about the sentiment that youre hearing from the caller and the distrust and how do you think that resonates and impacts the results of campaign 2020 . Guest in talking to those three voters who did angs their phones all three of them, i found one very conservative independent in wisconsin, one trump voting republican in florida, and one democrat in pennsylvania the pittsburgh suburbs, and all three of them thats a pretty Broad Spectrum none of them said they trusted this would be conducted in an open and fair manner. They cited all manner of things. It was the things weve heard about ukraine and Vice President biden. T was things about the jerry mannedering and efforts to tamp down the minority vote in southern states. And it was a simple distrust the very conservative end nt from wisconsin who talked to me a lot about his christian values said he couldnt bring himself to vote for President Trump because of the language that the president used. Now, thats a small sample of just three people but thats a pretty broad set of reasons to be distrustful of the american electorate or the American Election system. You know, thats a troubling thing that were going to have to deal with not just in this presidency but beyond. Donald trump is not the birth of the Conspiracy Theory. Thi they questioned whether the last guy was born in the u. S. And this is a longterm problem that we face and a longterm crisis not just in the confidence in our election system but in the confidence in our institutions more broadly. Gallup does a great poll where they ask whether or not people have a high degree of trust in certain occupations, and only a quarter of americans have a high degree of trust in journalists, only 7 have a high degree of trust in congress. The banks lawyers doctors, well doctors are a little higher but everybody else is below 50 . We dont trust our big institutions any more and i think this is the product of basically two decades of uncertainty and angst and it gets to the conversation you were having in the last half hour about our deployment of troops which is 20 years in the middle east so far. This is a big societywide problem and this is just one example. Host new york, nick, republican. Welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you. Good morning. I was just wondering, because you talked about the National Popular vote. Last year we had in the North Carolina ninth Congressional District somebody tried to steal the election and they were caught because votes were found in a certain county. But thats illegal in North Carolina but you had the same thing happen in california where the republican was leading, three or four house districts on election night, and then ballot harvesting took it away the next day. If we dont have the same rules in every day i dont know how you do popular vote. Guest an interesting point. Ballot harvesting, which is a great term to use, is one of the things that is legal or illegal in different states. Its a real bone of contention and its come up this year in places like arizona where it is in fact legal. Ballot harvesting is basically a group that supports Voting Rights or supports candidate x or y goes out and finds voters likely to cast ballots and collects the ballots, make sure their absentee ballots get in on time. The absentee version of get out the vote vans or rallies or things like that. It is the difference in North Carolina is that the allegations against the guy who was conducting this ballot harvesting operation, those ballots were either being changed or werent showing up at the polling place or at the elections offices. So clearly somebody changing somebody elses ballot, thats illegal across the country. However, collecting ballots is not necessarily illegal and i would challenge you a little on the california example, that is an interesting state because they tend to count they tend to vote extremely highly through absentee ballots and 75 plus through absentee ballots and those take a long time to count. The voter registrars out there, the elections offices, cant even start counting the ballots until election day closes. So imagine youre the registrar of orange county, california, and youve got 1 million unopened envelopes sitting next to you, you cant start opening them until 8 00 election night. Thats why we see results changing over time. Host from georgia, robert. Caller thanks for taking my call. I was going to say that myself or anybody else has not seen one itia of evidence that russia had anything to do with our elections. Zero. The democratic server supposedly stolen by russia and give ton wikileaks given to a place called cloud strike in the ukraine not to the proper authorities. Its all a hoax. Who could believe the c. I. A. . Good god, i could go on and on for an hour. Hierarchy in this country stealing the election, in our own country. Look at the knees mudia. They prop up their person they want for the election. Were the ones. Host all right. Guest first, the company is called crowd strike, and the ll, the number of american intelligence offices and the u. S. Senate, a bipartisan report in the United States senate that just came out detailed the russian efforts to interfere in our again not just our election, its our societal conversation and the way that we talk to and relate to each other. So i think thats pretty much without dispute at the moment. I mean, i think the average american wont see it. Were not going to see a bunch showing up on our facebook feeds or something that said paid for by putin. But the efforts to interfere have continued a pace the Law Enforcement officials have talked about their efforts to fight back even in more recent elections. Something were going to have to do in the long run. Host you can find it if you go to our website cspan. Org at the very top it will bring you to this page richard burr republican senator who leads the committee along with mark warner, democrat from virginia, and they released this bipartisan report that digs into russias use of social media. You also had the Mueller Report that laid out russias influence and the indictments made from the russia report intelligence, people who had they say theres plenty of evidence to say they interfered in the election. Caller good morning, cspan. Your topic is right on the money. There is a crisis of confidence. Im 57 years old. Ive never in my life seen a resistant party thats going on. Representative pressly hit it on the head when she said that the president is just holding space. When you call a crisis of confidence, North Carolina has been without a governor for the last three years because of whats going on. The white house behind you and the president will never ever ever be another man or woman democrat that will sit in that chair that will be consequential. Host what do you make of that . Guest why do you say North Carolina has been without a governor for the last three years . Caller roy cooper is not my governor, hashtag resist. Host go ahead. Guest im not entirely sure how to respond. Ok, lets go back to that Research Poll that i talked about earlier. And gallup historical trend, theres a fascinating chart gallup does called president ial Approval Ratings over time. One of the things that we see is that in the early part of modern polling basically the kennedy administration, the johnson administration, those president s came to office with sky high Approval Ratings, 75, 80 of americans approved. Then nixon and carter came and it was 65, and reagan came to office and it was 60 . Bottom line we have seen a long term decline of americans willing to give any new president the doubt ben 2 benefit of the doubt when they came in. Obama was 50, and thats better than president bush and clinton. But President Trump came in, never had a favorable approval rating, been in a very narrow range. And that is because we are so incredibly polarized that were simply not willing to give the benefit of the doubt. The democrat whose are running for president right now, the vast majority of them their favorable ratings are about what their unfavorable ratings are. That means that people arent even willing to wait to learn who they are. Simply the d after their name gives them that unfavorable edge. That is again a part of this crisis of confidence. We dont even have enough confidence in our leaders who we just elected to give them any kind of space to do anything because we simply pigeon hole them as definitely the two liberal democrats or two conservative republicans. I dont know how we get out of that but its something were going to deal with for a long time. Host you can following the reporting National Reporter, thank you very much for your time. Guest thank you. Host were going to take a break. When we come back take a look at the history of u. S. Policy toward ukraine in the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration. Well talk with amy about that, a Foreign Policy magazine, and then hear from 2020 canned date and former South Carolina governor mark sanford. Well be right back. Host amy here to talk about ukraine and the origins of this impeachment inquiry. Lets go back to 2014, 2015, 2016, Obama Administration. What is u. S. Policy toward ukraine at this time . Guest u. S. Policy towards ukraine since ukraines independence has been fairly consistent in pushing ukraine on anticorruption reform. Thats been one of the cornerstones for decades. Thats been fairly consistent both under barack obama and under President Trump. Under the Obama Administration this was very much carried by his ambassadors who long play add strong role in kiev and working with politicians to try to convey the message of you need to clean up corruption. Host what was then Vice President joe bidens role . Guest joe biden was obamas point person in ukraine and he really carried that message for the president. He also oversaw the u. S. Response perhaps not the u. S. Response but the u. S. Messaging when it came to the conflict in eastern ukraine, the annexation of crimea because it was 2014 where you had russia lops off a chunk of ukraine, annexes crimea, and then the war begins. That was the first hot war in the region in an extremely long time, and biden really carried obamas messaging on that in the region. Host was it only the United States that was worried about corruption in ukraine at this time . Guest no. Absolutely not. This has been an issue for the European Union, allies in europe, and also International Institutions such as the International Monetary fund. So things like the cornerstone of the i guess the Conspiracy Theory if you can call it that have been pushed about joe biden and ukraine is that he was pushing for ukraine to remove their prosecutor general who was that he was somehow doing it inappropriately to shield his son hunter biden who was on the board of the Ukrainian Gas Company, and that doesnt stack up with what was happening at the time. It wasnt just joe biden, the secretary of state was pushing for him to be removed as was the European Union and the International Monetary fund at the time. So joe bidens work was really much in line with the broader picture of what the u. S. Allies and International Institutions were pushing. Host irish times reporting at the time march 29, 2016 e. U. Hails backing of ukraines prosecutor. Guest yes. Host they hailed the firing of him because, why . Guest because he was seen as slowwalking corruption investigations. The whole point, the cornerstone of the revolution in 2014 they called it the revolution of dignity, all about the signing of the Association Agreement and seen as a water shed moment in ukraine saying we want to go closer to europe. As part of that we want to clean up corruption, we want to have a free and sare society. So the u. S. Has always sought to support ukraine in that message. And he was seen as an obstacle. There were a number of corruption investigations which he wasnt pursuing. One of them was that investigation. So contrary to the allegation that the biden was trying to shut it down, it was already basically kind of stalled. Its also important to note that he wasnt kind of sacked with a single decision. He was removed by the Ukrainian Parliament as well. Host at this time, though, hunter biden is serving on the board of this energy company. How did that come about . Guest he was invited to join the board as they were looking to kind of they were looking to get some american involvement to clean up the companies, try and promote transparency measures, and look why they picked hunter biden of all people, i mean, he has a law degree, he does have a background on being on boards and business. Was it bad optics for the Vice President s son whose carrying the messaging in ukraine for his sob to be on the board . Its bad optics but theres been no evidence thats come to light that hunter biden was involved in any wrongdoing. Host how much was he getting paid . Guest about 50,000 u. S. Dollars a month. Host do you know, is that in line with what other people make on boards . I know thats a little outside of your purview, and at the time hes not the only sort of prominent person serving on this board. Guest sure. There was other americans serving on the board, other former colleagues that were on the board. Before they joined it they had done Due Diligence through a private Investigations Firm in new york to see what the status was. There was Due Diligence done beforehand. Host in may of 2014, i want to show our viewers White House Press secretary, asked about Hunter Bidens job with this gas company. Hunter biden has now taken a position with the Largest Holding company in ukraine. Is there any concern about at least the appearance of a conflict there . I would refer you to the Vice President s office. I saw the reports hunter biden and other members are obviously private citizens and where they work is not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the Vice President or president but i would refer you to the Vice President s office. Host that was back in 2014 and that is their response to hunter biden serving on the board. The Vice President then as we know as hes talked about travels to ukraine to put more pressure on the then president to fire shoken. At the time, what is happening with in perception, the optics of him serving on this board while the Vice President is making this push . Guest its not great optics. You have the son of the Vice President on the board of a major Ukrainian Gas Company and you cant overestimate the importance of gas energy in both ukraine economy, ukrainian business and politics. So its certainly not great optics but again theres no evidence thats come to light that hunter biden was involved in any wrong doing and the biesance have been consistent on that. Its not even clear joe biden discussed it with his son. I believe he said i hope youre knowing what youre doing. But as far as the bidens have said is as much as they discussed what was going on. Host you take the look at the New York Times that the Vice President is traveling to ukraine. The headline is joe biden his son in the case against ukrainian olegark and in this piece, he writes you just noted this the new yorker did a profile recently about hunter biden. Will hunter biden jeopardize his Fathers Campaign . And they note in this story hunter biden saying to the reporter, gets let to our viewers involved. Republican, oklahoma, go ahead. Caller good morning. Your guest here is an apologist for the democrats, the biden campaign, and generally shes lacking in facts. There were four visitors who played a game marky particularly democrat senators who were promoting Gas Production, more Gas Production in ukraine and getting kickbacks on that. Markey is one thats opposed to Gas Production in the United States and favors a green deal, and the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton all back were using ukraine because it was dependent on u. S. Aid in the battle against russia, and they took advantage of that swage situation. And this guest is just simply giving plat tudes. Bidens son received 83,000 a month not 50,000 a month. So shes not up to date. Court records show that. So you need to have a guest on that has facts. Host ok. Well, theres been reporting of 50,000 a month as well. Talk about what he just mentioned on ukraine policy and what is it that ukraine needs and wants from the United States . Both during the Obama Administration and during the Trump Administration. Guest i think its interesting that your caller framed ukraine as being part of the u. S. s war against russia when really the situation is quite the opposite. It was ukraine that crimea annesmed in 2014, it was ukraine that was invated by russia, russia and its proxies have fomented war in ukraine for five years now and theres been over 13,000 lives lost. And in ukraines fight against russia. And russia is huge. Russia can swamp ukraine. The size differential is just massive and ukraine is very dependent on u. S. Support for this, support for International Institutions as it both tries to jungle these many things at the same time they have an ongoing hot war, theyre trying to clean up corruption, thrying to improve their politics, and long relied on western support. And the cornerstone has been u. S. Military aid and the sale of antitank javelins and of course thats whats at the heart of the impeachment investigation, whether that was dangled over the ukrainians in exchange for politically useful information. Host give us a ballpark of how much military aid ukraine has received from the United States over the years. Guest millions and millions of dollars. The u. S. The u. S. Has invested so much in trying to support ukraine and cleaning it up. Thats part of what makes this whole situation really kind of sad, is that u. S. Taxpayers money has gone into helping ukraine to reform, helping ukraine to improve when the president s allies tried to kind of go in Opposition Research and dangle potentially dangle military aid over their heads, it undermines years of taxpayer money thats been spent in ukraine. Host as we talk about u. S. Policy toward ukraine both obama and Trump Administrations, and the connections to what the role was of joe biden at the time and hunter biden part of this as well, the Des Moines Register reporting that the former Vice President in iowa yesterday announced his family wont work for Foreign Companies if hes president and tied to that is the headline this morning that hunter biden said he has now stepped down from serving on the board of a chinese company. Max in michigan, independent. Good morning. Hunter biden, his son is not the only one. You have john kerry, his stepson is in there doing the same type of job as hunter biden. Nancy pelosis son is another one. Also mitt romney. So theyre all part of this. Thats what i have to say. Host does commit fort you that joe biden, saying today if he becomes president , family members will not serve on any boards of Foreign Companies . Guest no, it doesnt. I dont believe that. I dont care. What about the other countries hes involved in . Host ok. Guest and the truth that last guy called, it was 86,000 that hes making a year. For what . Hes an ex dope head. Host ok. Terry, indiana, independent. Caller two things. First, i was in the air force jag for over 10 years and it was a clear ethics violation for Vice President biden not to recuse himself from doing any negotiations with the youre crane as Vice President. Ukraine as Vice President. Secondly, it seems the defense is that he threatened to withhold money for a good reason. He said i wont give you the money unless you get rid of this guy. I wonder if anybody can tell us, under the law, i dont think that matters. He didnt have any authority or power to threaten to withhold the money from the ukraine from ukraine. Host lets talk about this. Joe biden at Council Foreign relations in january 2018 talks about his efforts to get ukraine to fire the prosecutor. Heres what he had to say. Im desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of kiev in terms of corruption. They made i mean, ill give you one concrete example. I was not i. It just happened to be the assignment i got. I got all the good ones. So i got ukraine. And i remember going over, convincing our team, others to convince that we should be providing for loan guarantees. I went over i guess the 12, 13th time to kiev and i was supposed to announce that theres another 1 billion loan guarantee. I had gotten a commitment from porshenchingo and from yatsen that they would take action against the state prosecutor, and they didnt. So they said they were walking out and said, im not going to were not going to give you the billion dollars. They said you have no authority. Youre not the president. The president said. I said call him. I said im telling you youre not getting the 1 billion. Im going to be leaving here, i think it was six hours, im leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired youre not getting the money. Well, son of a , he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid. At the time. Well, still so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionly and with people. But one of the three institutions, theres now some backsliding. Host is that accurate what the Vice President , the former Vice President said there about his role and what happened in ukraine at the time . Uest so whats interesting is they had a good spetion about this that at the time when joe biden told this story, his aides realized that this was be an anecdote which would be seized on for years as joe biden almost showing off about the u. S. Trying to leverage its loan guarantees over ukraine to seek the removal of this prosecutor general. There was an awareness at the time that this could be something which could potentially haunt a future biden campaign, and clearly it has that this anecdote has been resurrected. But the delivery of his message is one thing but what he says was very much in line with what the European Union, International Institutions and others within the u. S. Government were seeking at the time, which was just the realization that i mean, the prosecutor general has a huge role in ukraine, its their equivalent ofert attorney general, and if you havent if you have a prosecutor general who is not pursuing corruption investigations its a bit of an issue for a country seeking to clean up its act. Host what happens after this point with u. S. And ukraine relations . Uest under trump, u. S. Policy by and large towards ukraine has been very similar under obama. I mean, theres been a lot of attention towards trumps comments about russia and his relationship with putin. But by and large the broader apparatus of the u. S. Government, of congress, has been very strong bipartisan support for ukraine. Very strong support in the state department. And if anything, its been a little bit support for ukraine s been stronger because under trump, the Trump Administration has sold these antitank missiles to ukraine, which was also a bit of a red line for the Obama Administration. They were hes tent of giving these powerful weapons to the ukrainions. They werent sure they were yet equipped to handle them and in the event they got captured by the russians, the russians could figure out how to develop their own version of these weapons. But under the Trump Administration they agreed to first one set and then a couple weeks ago, now theyre going to sell more. So under both obama and trump policy for ukraine has been pretty strong. Host what is their view of crimea . Guest the administration as a whole in the state department certainly very strong that crimea is ukrainian and that sanctions should be lifted there needs to be progress on returning crimea to ukraine. Trump, however, has not had a lot to say about this particular issue. Host who does that benefit . Guest unquestionably russia. The russians portray the annexation of crimea as a huge victory. It was seen as a return of this land they had lost and it was extremely popular in russia amongst russian population. Putin had a huge surge in the polls after it. Do not large, they recognize crimea being part of russia. But any steps that would normalize crimea as being russia would be a huge boon for the crem kremlin. Host fast forward to march of 2019. Where is how is ukraine playing a role or who in ukraine is playing a role in this theory that the Vice President was trying to get the prosecutor fired to benefit his son . Guest one of the Big Questions for me about this whole thing is when did it really begin . I spoke with Rudy Giuliani on friday and he said it began when he was approached by an investigater in new york who kind of came up with this pack of documents and said i have this information about the bidens in ukraine, i think this could be interesting to you. And giuliani said he met with this source found him to be credible and thats where this began. We know in january and february of this year Rudy Giuliani met with the prosecutor general who has since left office but he was then prosecutor general, and that appears to be when he began kind of gathering this information both about the bidens but also this idea which has been widely debunked that the origins of the election interference in 2016 was in ukraine and not with russia. But the first public manifestation of this came towards the end of march of this year, in april, when there was a series of interviews in the washington, d. C. Newspaper the hill. It appears to be one long video interview with the prosecutor general which was then chopped up and then turned into several articles. It was really kind of an octopus of an attack. There was as many different lines. It was the kind of first very public iteration of this theory that joe biden had acted ininappropriately in ukraine to see him removed to protect his son. It also advanced the theory that it was ukraine the source of the election hack. For reasons not clear, it began the attack on the then u. S. Ambassador to ukraine claiming the prosecution claimed that she handed him a do not prosecute list. An argument that she since walked back and she has vehemently denied. So its really kind of bizarre, multipronged, theory which was advanced. And then it was picked up by trump tweeted out some of the articles and it was picked up by conservative commentators in the u. S. And it kind of spun out from there. It was a couple months later that the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine was recalled two months ahead of schedule. Host the story may 7, 2019 u. S. Ambassador to ukraine recalled in quote political hit job, says a lawmaker. Guest i see the ambassador as being the kind of can airy in the coal mine. Her removal was the first sign that something was up. It wasnt clear, my colleague and i were watching this and we could see this one interview, this one series of interviews had tied all these and put these theories out. And we just couldnt figure out how they fit together, who was behind them. It was the political aspect, it was emerging that there was a narrative which could single handedly that ukraine was the source of all the fixing all of the president s problems. You could both undermine the narrative that it was russia interfering and also find out to head out one of his opponents. It wasnt clear how the ambassador fit in and who wanted her to removed and why. We learned there was this behind the Scenes Campaign by two of rudy jewel nis allies. Giulianis allies. Host today theyre going to hear from fiona hill. Who is she . Guest funea hill was head, a brit fiona hill is widely respectd in washington. I havent heard anybody say a bad word about her yet. Shes seen as very coolheaded. She was very much a russia hawk. She wrote very well about putin a few years ago. So its going to be interesting to hear what she has to say. Theres been a couple of stories about previewing what might be in her testimony. She looked to say that giuliani and his allies had f had sought to circumstance navigate the usual processes in going about his work in ukraine. Host well go to zack, democratic caller. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to commend you for such a fine job of homework that youve done. I watch rachel maddow. I love when people have their facts and times down on paper show how systematic and how this has become. From baracks birth certificate we all knew d when there were several departments who had to sign off on that deal. When it comes to joe biden, several countries wanted him to remove this particular prosecutor because he wasnt prosecuting the raugses. Its russians. Its just another shiny thing this guy throws out to waste our time on. Meanwhile, as an ex military rson, im appalled that my guys have to stay at one of his failing hotels or my Vice President has to travel hundreds of miles to a meeting when he could be closer. Host ok. Sydney as well, caller apparently the us but he has not watch the tapes where she says shes already spent 5 million to overthrow ukraine. She said we were going to put and shehe government said if you dont like what i said, you can go blank yourself. And you are also blending in on russia starting a mess, but we started. And the last guy asked this question, he said she did use some colorful language. Thank you. Host was good to victoria on that. She was the secretary of state and oversaw the u. S. Response when the war was beginning. Of course, there was that famous phone call when they were trying to reach a deal with the andpean union on what to do she famously said things i wont repeat at this time in the morning about the europeans. She was experienced, shes a longtime Career State Department throughshe was going the appropriate channels unlike Rudy Giuliani you has no role with the state department, doesnt have any diplomatic credentials and is working privately for the president. This Current Situation underscores how the usual dogmatic processes have been sidestepped. Host lets talk about Rudy Giuliani because you have New York Times headlines in the early part of this year, Rudy Giuliani plans to push for inquiries that could help the president. A few days later, Rudy Giuliani canceled his trip to ukraine, blaming democrats. What is his role, and is it protocol for state department to access somebody outside of the agency of private citizens for what he says they wanted him to do what he was doing . Giuliani was not working for the state department, hes the president s personal lawyer. But what will be a core aspect of the impeachment investigation is to what extent did people in the state department know what was going on and to what extent are they involved . So far, theres no evidence of any wrongdoing by anybody at state. A lot of career diplomats have been shocked by would really read giuliani was doing. But its also clear that mike pompeo was on that call which is at the heart of the complaint. One thing which investigators are going to be looking at is who, what, when . We got our first glimpse of that oft week with the testimony the former u. S. Special envoy for ukraine. He testified from most 10 hours. He released a series of Text Messages which shows behind the scenes on how he had helped Rudy Giuliani set up a meeting over the summer with one of the aid es of the ukrainian president and these Text Messages which seem to show that they were the ukrainian tolic would commit publicly investigation it would help them to get the white house. That is something which is going to be dug down deeper on. Who knew what when, and what were their intentions . You had a direct envoy of the president say one thing, then you have the official diplomatic process of the state department and National Security council saying another. At the time, this is may of 2019 when originally on a says he is traveling to ukraine, then he says im not going to. You have adam schiff who is the house intelligence chair weeding todaytweeting out giuliani admitted seeking political help from a foreign power again. Meddlingse, we are not in an election, were meddling in an investigation. Somebody could say its improper. Ism schiff says now it immoral, unethical, unpatriotic, and standard procedure. Senator murphy sending a letter to the chair saying that he has concerns with Rudy Giulianis role. His reports indicate that promises have been made regarding u. S. Policy as a quid pro quo in exchange for information. Other private representatives of the president lead to any official Foreign Policy positions such as recalling of the u. S. Ambassadors to ukraine. Remarkable is that so much of it played out in public. By the time the complaint came out, and since the summer, since the stories first came out trying to figure what was going on, by the time the was a blower complaint came out, the whistleblower complaint came out, we already knew the outline of what had gone on. We even had a short ukrainian readout published which said the u. S. President expressed the hopes that ukraine would pursue whichtion investigations was stymied u. S. Ukrainian relations since we already knew this had been flagged and that causing a lot of people off in washington who is readout. Host let me show that readout to our viewers. The readout from july 25 after this phone call president has. President congratulated the president of ukraine on. Olding democratic elections what is happening in ukraine at this time . Guest if youve been following what was published in march, corruption talk among certain circles has been coopted to mean political Opposition Research. So if youve been following that thats why this call stood out. Its not abnormal for a u. S. President to encourage ukraine for similar allies to help clean up corruption, but the very context in which this call came caused a lot of people to go huh, thats interesting. It was around this time we learned there had been a hold placed on military aid to ukraine. It just wasnt clear whether they fit together or whether they were unrelated. We didnt know whether trump was pushing ukraine on anticorruption because thats what the u. S. Has done for decades with ukraine. We didnt know whether military aid had been stalled for political reasons or whether it was just part of a general cut back on for a. There were all these data points out there but it was the whistleblower complaint that made it clear there was a connection here. Host kevin in texas is a republican. Caller you all are putting a lot out there. Call,uickly, on the phone it seemed like silence get one,president zelinski, he did not like the ambassador favor ofhe was also in an open and candid investigation. And keep in mind, according to some of these other transcripts coming out, that he didnt know at that time that there was a hold. Theres no evidence that he even knew there was a hold. But thats what i wanted to talk that he wasntim hard enough on corruption and was pulleda, once he out, it was all about the owner, and i cant pronounce his name, but he was supposedly getting into contracts with the government. Shokin was investigating and the complaint was he wasnt investigating hard. By theyour way, defended by a former attorney general assistant for andObama Administration, now its free and clear and they gave it back to them. I dont understand, can you explain that . Guest sure. At the time that biden began to to be removed, the investigation had already been stalled for a long time. I believe it was being investigated whether the owner had inappropriately gained in the Previous Administration prior to the revolution in ukraine. A was being investigated whether he had inappropriately received these contracts. Spoken to anticorruption campaigners in ukraine who tell me that the investigation was stalled, it was not going anywhere at the time when joe biden began to call the removal of shokin. There were several significant corruption investigations which were being pursued and just were not going anywhere. The administration of the previous president in ukraine who came to power after the revolution, he really did make, ukraine made some huge leaps in the past five years. Seen as mixed, particularly when it comes to highlevel, bigticket corruption investigations, and that was what he was accused of stalling on. About ins also talk the transcript of the phone calls that the right house release, the president mentioned crowd strike. What is crowd strike, who is it owned by, and what is the theory being pushed out by conservatives at this time . Is one ofwd strike two theories which portrays ukraine as being the argent of the election interference and not russia. The theory is that after the dnc was hacked, crowd strike was part of that investigation, and they didnt turn over the physical servers to the fbi, but they made carbon copies of what was on the servers and handed that over to the fbi. Conspiracy. Has bubbled for a long time. One of the cofounders of crowd strike is allegedly from ukraine, and the conspiracy their egos that these servers were not handed over to the fbi and they have some kind of with which them ukraine released the emails, that it wasnt russia. This theory has been widely debunked and multiple u. S. Intelligence agencies, senate s have allce committee concluded that it was a russia that sought to interfere in the elections, that it wasnt ukraine. By u. S. Een debunked Intelligence Committee establishments. , arizona, independent. Caller thank you so much. The last point that you just made is the most important, because if this information had been disseminated about what the original origins were of who hacked the dnc and all that, it would have sent the message that trump was right all along and the russians really did not hack our elections, and i really do believe that the pressure that trump was intending to put on ukraines president was to send out their narrative. Is thatost thankful for this whole debacle was exposed and i thank goodness for the whistle blower laws so that the American People can see exactly what took twice. I appreciate your guests today, she is being attacked. I grew up around the beltway and i had family members that worked in the intelligence community. I understand that people outside of the beltway dont understand things like of course i can see this being nepotism, the senators children getting jobs. All of that has gone on for years. Yale,dens son is from hes not stupid. But the fact that he has some bigtime job somewhere is no big surprise. People outside the beltway just dont understand how washington works and youve got jared and ivanka in the white house with a security clearance. To hope American People make a decision on whether some things like asking a foreign entity to get involved in our elections is really something americans want for their future elections. Thank you so much. Areow our lawmakers they aware that Ukraine Military aid is seen held up, and how are they reacting to that . Guest people ive spoken to on capitol hill said this is the first time they were really aware that the eighth possibly been held up for political reasons with the complaint. That, there was an awareness, politico broke the story that eight had been held up. Like i said before, no one was really sure whether this was part of a general hold on foreign aid that was going on. Course, congressional not yetators have concluded whether it was politically motivated. Be its certainly going to the core aspect of the investigation. Theres that one aspect in the memo of the call which was released that the ukrainian president mentions these antitank missiles and trump pivots and says let me ask you a favor. And thats going to be one of the core parts of that memo, is whether that was evidence of an underlying quid pro quo. Host did the president of ukraine know, was he aware that military aid was being held up . Guest he was not. About a week before the call to place. Host florida, democratic caller. Caller good morning. I actually have two points to ine, to me, the big scandal this, i dont know the ins and outs of what happened with ukraine, but the big scandal is receiveder biden 50,000 for being on a board because his father is the Vice President , and there are, like the previous caller said, theres just this generational systemic corruption. Did he deserve to be on that board . I for a Different Things about him, i heard he got kicked out of the navy. Im concerned, it seems like all of them get into yale or harvard and they get degrees. George bush had a law degree, too. But was he supersmart to have a degree . We dont know. Theres systemic corruption on both sides and i think a good segment would be to ask the viewers what do you think of the children of all of these politicians getting on this year after year, generation after generation. A bipartisan response that we dont want this systemic corruption, and that is why people elected donald trump. Jarede the fact that theinvanka have been in white house, theyve made like 82 million construct has been in the white house. Host i will just add to that, the headlines from this morning. Joe biden in iowa says his for foreign Work Companies if hes president. And his son hunter stepping down from chinese boards. Is there a bipartisan call to write legislation that would prohibit family members from serving on corporate boards . Guest i think what a lot of the calls we had into the show have is that there is no evidence to underpin these conspiracy theories to attack by biden. Done, they have tapped into concern amongst American Voters about who is on boards, who is getting ahead because their dad is in the senate, or who is being paid a pretty penny because of the role of their father. Is going to be the longterm impact of this. Even if you dont believe in the Conspiracy Theory, for a lot of notle this is unfortunately going to help the crisis in confidence that we have in this country. Host tom, independent. Caller when people start to throw around the phrase conspiracy. Arethink people that listening to cspan and the general public need to understand that your investigation or your concerns, you are over the target. Corruptionassive issue and problem. People have conspired to use ukraines political positions to maneuver money, our tax dollars, through the world bank and through the International Monetary fund for their own social money, and that has been exposed here. Spint the media is in full action to turn everything over to the shiny object the left so we are not looking at exactly what the Vice President did. Countriesced another for a monetary payback. Host what evidence of that is there, top . Caller you guys just played it on cspan. Its all over the place. He said it right there. He is caught redhanded. Now everybody is in full been mowede. Biden has even said hes not going to have any politicians on boards. As amy pointed out earlier, its that you policy at the time that what needs to happen in ukraine and wide. Guest they needed to remove them because he was stalling corruption investigations. I do think theres any evidence that what biden said that he was committing a crime. All the world have worked with the United States and need help with anticorruption reform. It is the u. S. Policy to encourage them in the right direction. Before,very, as we said perhaps may haunt him throughout the campaign, but the actual message is consistent with years of u. S. Policy under both the aquatic and republican administrations. Again, the United States and other countries wanted the prosecutor fired because he was not doing enough to investigate companies. Guest exactly. Biden hadnt had this issue with his son, maybe he wouldnt have done anything. Host lisa, arkansas, republican. Caller good morning. The first two minutes of your guests speech, she used the new word for inappropriate behavior. That it looks inappropriate that biden was doing things. If he is quitting the chinese border, is he still on the ukrainian board . ,nd why is it ok for a democrat president , Vice President , or associate to be able to make ofands of a country because policy that when a republican does the same thing, its corruption . Biden stills hunter on the board . No, he stepped down earlier this year. Question, the key distinction of what he is alleged to have done versus what trump has done is what i was doing was very much in line with u. S. Policy. Cool for other members of the Obama Administration had passed the same message on to ukraine. What trump is alleged to have sought in ukraine was Material Information which could be politically beneficial to him personally going into the 2020 what couldnd that is potentially be seen as soliciting aid from a foreign power in an election. Host albert in chicago, democratic caller. Caller good morning, everybody. Listen, im glad that that color tom brought up what he did about bidens video because i wanted to go back to that video as well. Every time that video is shown there are two critical points that biden makes that get totally overlooked. The first he says is that he has given the assignment to go over to deal with ukrainians. Obama is the only one who has authority. Is second point he makes when the ukrainians question his authority to withhold money, he says call the white house. Meaning that the president gave him the authority to deal with ukraine as he did, including if he had to withhold the money. That point gets totally overlooked and it also shows that biden was not acting on his own authority, on his own accord, or of his own interest to go over there. He was sent there by president obama. Are you still there . I think we lost them. Guest you raise a really good point that biden was working on behalf of the Obama Administration. He had been appointed by obama to leon ukraine. So there was no way for him to go rogue and call for the removal without the wider administration raising eyebrows about that you make a bigger point that he was working closely with obama on this and on behalf of obama, not a biden only initiative. Host james in washington, d. C. , independent. Caller good morning, finally got through. Im independent now, but i just wanted to clarify i voted blue in 2016, but now im registered independent. Mostly because it just feels like the way we talk about how she lost as if she was supposed to win, the Mainstream Media and ito favor democrats dont really trusted that much anymore. My question, though, does anyone it was reallyf like they put from out here to i feel likels, and republicans took the bait, like this is the guy that triggers them the most, and its kind of upsetting to me because when they say it was russia that influence the election, it was pretty clear that democrats influenced the primary pretty if we act as if other countries cant interfere in our elections, wouldnt that mean that we would have to change some of our Foreign Policy strategies, because we tend to be heavyhanded in other democracies, you know . That was my question. I mean, the question around the 2016 election, i think the reason why it is still brought up three years later that a foreign power intervened, a historic adversary of the United States intervened. I dont think it is percent to do with Hillary Clinton as a more the think it is foreign interference and the fact that we are still trying to get to the bottom of that. There are still Unanswered Questions to what happened in 2016. Just two weeks ago, the senate Intelligence Committee put their report on what happened. There are very much still under investigation, thats why it is still a topic of conversation for a lot of people. At least, here in washington. Also, the fears that he could happen again in the next election. We had the midterms passed off without any interference last year, but in u. S. Intelligence agencies, they are looking to 2020 and what is going to go on there. Not is why it is specifically because of Hillary Clinton. One request that has been made by the ukraine president to the white house through his lines of communication, he also mentioned that the General Assembly recently is that white house visit. Why does he want a white house visit and what of the administration been saying about him visiting the white house . Guest a white house visit to the president of ukraine would be symbolic, a huge demonstration of u. S. Support as ukraine deals with a war with russia in the countrys east. It would also be a huge win for a newly elected president. He is a political novice, has predecessor was a former foreign minister who was quite comfortable on the world stage. I think that president zones give still needs president zelinski still needs to prove himself to be on the world stage. Host will he get one soon . Guest the ukrainians did announce that a couple months ago and certainly it will be a discussion for a long time but no date has been set. After everything has gone on i think it will be interesting to see if it does happen and what is discussed. Host what are you watching for next . Guest im watching for the origins of this, where this all came from. Who approach to . Giuliani says he was approached with information. Im interested in who approached them, what was their agenda . Who were they paid by, where did the money come from . Did giuliani begin this on his own . What were they after . Is hugelyat interesting because that is a potential avenue for foreign interference in u. S. Politics, thats my big question right now. Thank you very much for the conversation. We are going to take a short break. When we come back, we will talk with mark sanford, republican of South Carolina, he will be here to take your questions around his president ial bid. We will be right back. Announcer heres a look at some books being published this week. In the case against socialism, republican senator rand paul of kentucky offers a critical look at socialism. He will be the guest on the afterwards program in a few weeks. John kasich, former Ohio Governor and 2016 republican lists 10ial candidate ways that citizens can promote social and political change and its up to us. Costs,stance at all overzealous critics of the Trump Administration pose a threat to our rule of law. She will be on cspans q a Interview Program this sunday. Thein catch and kill, detail efforts made by others to stifle his reporting. Week,eing published this the time as a ca operative in life undercover. A detailed examination of how the human body works in the body a guide for occupants. And a New York Times columnist looks at how americas attitudes towards aging women have changed. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv on cspan2. The house will be in order. Announcer for 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court, and Public Policy events from washington and around the country. Up your own mind created by cable in 1979. Cspans brought to you by your local cable or settlor provider. Cspan your unfiltered view of government. Announcer washington journal continues. Joining us this morning from charleston, South Carolina, president ial candidate, republican mark sanford former governor and former congressman from his state. Good morning to you. Guest good morning to you. Host congressman, you are in the most recent polls. The president along with the national Republican Party has raised 125 alien dollars or are you having second thoughts about running for president . Guest i had second thoughts when i decided to get in. So im about three weeks into this, and its interesting. A number of friends have come to me with this over the last year basically, you need to do this, even talking about financial sanity and where we go as a country on deficit and Government Spending for a long time. To grab his microphone and tried to do something about it because on the democratic side, nobody is talking about deficit or spending and how we are going to pay for all of this. Side, if theican routine of i hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, and the president has called himself the king of debt and is not focusing on it. I still think we are walking toward a financial storm of immense proportions. I think we need to talk about it. I think that what im trying to do is to elevate that issue and to make it part of this National President ial debate that it is not currently. Organizatione your in the early primary states in your strategy. Again, im three weeks into it, we are just Getting Started. People want to join in, i asked them to go to my website and sign up. Whether that means signing up in terms of health in those early stages or signing up to help us its a lot a five dollar, dollar, 20 donation that will make a difference. We are Getting Started, but what i say is this ideas matter in the world of politics and in if you are a conservative republican, what you have to say onthe party has lost its way this cornerstone for the party was always about, which is financial conservativism and prudence on that front. If you are democrat you would have to say wait a minute, theres nothing more unfair than taxation without representation. Fundamentally, thats what a deficit is. Literally handing the bill for the governments consuming today to our kids and grandkids is not something that is fair and i think it would appeal to us through a social moderate resort for progressive. Host we are taking your questions, your comments for congress in mark sanford. You can dial in republicans that 202 7488001. Emocrats at 202 7488002 congressman, what was your reaction to the president s decision to withdraw troops from Northern Syria . Guest i think its a real problem. Ago, wea long time should have authorized the use of force in that part of the world, which is why i consistently voted as i did when for the congress authorization of use of military force. Us being there, we dont want to be capricious. Does apprise the pentagon into surprise allies around the world i think sends an incredibly Chilling Effect to allies around the world. If you want to be a good friend, be a good friend. If you want allies around the world, you need to be an ally. Whether we like them or not, the kurds have been allies in our fight against isis. They bled alongside american troops and in place of american troops. Rug with no foreshadowing or conversation i think is an incredible mistake not only for the middle east, but sending a message to allies around the world. Politically, democratic, men David Cicilline tweets out i really dont want to hear republicans talk about National Security free long time. Well, welcome to the world of politics. People are going to talk about what they want to talk about. In other words, republican should run on National Security issues. Not ever republican owns every decision by the present, although they have been muted of late, but it is what it is. I think you have to look at Adam Kinzinger who has spoken eloquently as to how to set asterisk this is in sending messages to allies. John served in the army, adam force,arir Lindsey Graham, one of the president s biggest allies, has spoken out as well that this is a mistake. Host louisiana, independent. Up,er hi, im just waking what one of the reasons i really , if all you had as a conservative christian, you must have a lot of accountability in your life. Im very proud you are doing well. Christian, youve must understand things better than i do that across the world, there is a massive christian revival going on in the possibility of a new new world order is emerging in the future looks very bright i think in terms of christian biblical ethics, morality, values, etc. I would like for you to speak to that if you would, thank you. Questionur second excited to hear that. Whether or not that really comes i dont know. If you that insomnia, i have the book for you, its called this time its different. What they did was they chronicled in the last 800 years of financial history as it relates to governments and what they found is that in essence, in every civilization, they got to a Tipping Point where they had to decide, and do we go back to what made us strong in the first place, or do we stay on this happy that unsustainable cycle of upward spending . Nine times out of 10 that civilization said this time its different. It never was, gravity always worked. On this front, its important to when asked what is the biggest threat to American Security, the and there is not the taliban, not the russians, not the chinese, its the american debt. My worry in terms of what might blossom in terms of faith around the world is that if we going to financial upheaval which is the kind of thing that has typically ended civilizations, i think a of that a lot blossoming that you allude to not just in america, but around the world. I dont want to be pessimistic but im worried about that which has everything to do with why im running. And to your first point, i blew myself up. Two thirds of the way or three quarters of the way through my governorship. Itsll i will say is this an incredibly humbling road to go on in terms of the christian model of repentance and renewal and a second chapter, to ultimately have been recognized by people who ive known best at home and who know me best at home. Wethe wake of that they say know you and we trust you and we are going to send you to congress to represent us. Thats a very humbling journey to go on. To your point, it makes you try to set of safeguards to make sure you dont make a big mistake like that again. Say it has added, for me, a whole new level of and the and humility that i think is important in being a dad or inner leadership role. With respectthat to the president , its in contrast to what he said when he said im essentially sorry for nothing ive done. And all of our walks of life, there are chapters of life that we wish we could push rewind on, but that is not life. You live through it and hopefully become better for it. Host what are the safeguards you have established for yourself . Not going in on this particular show, accountability. It means some Close Friends that you talk to on a regular basis, you dont get isolated, you watch out for all the Different Things that can throw people off in life. Host rich, republican. Questionirst, i have a and then for mr. Sanford. Hosts, when are you going to have the book freedom on, because that was probably one of the bestselling books this year and you have on all these other sell 500 or 1000 books but i think he should have marked on with freedom of the press. Second, were you promised not to take any money from tom sires groups . In the future, running for president . Will you make a commitment now on tv . Second of all, when you criticize the president about the ukraine call, he talks like the average american. And he says would you do me a favor, we say that all the time. We dont talk political talk. When he says that, it was as innocent as a newborn baby. Ok . I just dont understand where you guys are coming from. Retired, i read everything, i dont take one group or one tv show or anything like that. I do my homework. In, canll have him jump i ask you real quickly, the book you are talking about, on freedom of the press . He was on cspan june 8, 2019. You can find that on our website. Guest caller ok, i thank you because they watch this every morning. Host congressman, you go ahead with his questions to you. First,the first question what i take money from tom stier . No, im quite sure they wouldnt give it to me. I have a very conservative voting record, i would invite people to look at my voting record on all the Different Industries out there on the conservative side. Im very conservative, im the last guy in the world who he would invest in. With respect to their political ideologies, they are very different than mine. As for your second point which was on ukraine, she just asked me a question about syria. Ive not spoken on ukraine on this program, but to answer your question, if i were to speak on this on this program, what ive said previously is i blame a system of innocence and print i believe in the system of innocent until proven guilty. The charges ought to be investigated. I have said we should withhold judgment until he get more of those facts out there. Host kevin next in ohio, and a credit democratic caller. Caller good morning. Just a quick couple questions. , on these wars that we invest our money into and to get in and out like we are doing now, is it hurting us, or will it help us in the end . My next question, im grateful and glad that somebody else is stepping up in the Republican Party and going against our president because otherwise we dont have a debate going on on the one side. And i appreciate that very much. Thank you. Guest thank you for calling. Your first point, it was on wars and are they good or are the bag . I would argue an 18yearold war is a bad thing. Fundamentally its unsustainable from the standpoint of the way in which our military is designed. I would furthermore say that i believe that colin powell was right. His doctrine was if you break it, you buy it. When you send large numbers of troops into any part of the world, things are going to happen. Unintentionally, but thats the tragedy of the war process. I think that we need to be much more strategic, much more directive in the way that we commit troops, and thats why i go back to my earlier comments on the authorization of force. What we cannot continue to do is have republicans or democratic president s unilaterally sending forces and a harms way and Congress Takes a vote after the fact. I guess we got to stay there. We sort of lead in with a toe, and then we cant seem to get ourselves out. I think that we need to decide what important to us. Back to thent come pentagon, they come back to Congressional Districts across this country. People need to actually take a vote and say yes, we should be involved or no, we shouldnt. Thats where i stand on that front which is more the Teddy Roosevelt model which is speak softly but carry a big stick. Lead to be much more restrained and strategic. Iur second point on trump, think we desperately need to have a debate as republicans that is concurrent with the debate that is taking place on the democratic side. If the only debate that takes places on the democratic side, then if you are conservative, theres a no mans land. We are not going to have a conversation on our responding to much as a country . Are these record level deficits that we are running now, are they a good thing or a bad thing . Is this record level of data that we are cumulative a good thing or a bad thing . Is a challenge to institutions or to trade a good thing or a bad thing . What about the tone out of the white house . I mean, you are so right, we need to have that conversation and those debates and that is a good part of why am running. Host james, mississippi, independent, youre next. Caller im glad to see that youre on cspan. Clinton washen this running for the president of the United States of america and the black caucus and Debbie Wasserman schultz and all the democrats, they surrounded her and they refused to allow other candidates to check her or even other women to run against her. I believe that because of that situation that she was not debated by her own party to hold her responsible for a lot of think that this is a good thing that you are doing to challenge the president , to challenge the Republican Party, and to challenge those people that are supporting him because evangelicals and Christian Faith and all that, the bible says when fall, you o him and you tell him his faults and if he does not listen to you, you tell another person with you, and they tell him, and then if he does not listen to you, then you bring it in front of the people. The Republican Party, they are protecting him and thats his fault. Thats not just his fault, that every senator that comes on tv and based on the statement that hes just talking, this is where the president did, its in the bible. The bible tells you about the rich people. It tells you about the people who claim to be rich and powerful. Im just hoping you responsible and you hold up for the Republican Party because anytime you see these people come on and give this president the kind of excuses and then when the democratic party, hillary and thenbarack obama, the man that was on fox news, i watch foxnews because of that man. I watched him more than i watched all of the others on fox news. Host im goe mr. Sanford respond. Amen, i have to say, brother, im with you. The model youre talking about is exactly what i tried to teach our sons, which is if you got a problem of somebody, you look them square in the eye and you try to get it right. Again, the public at large. It is a model that works. One, i agree with you there. Not just circling the wagons that we see occurring right now with the Republican Party. Number of republicans castigated me, saying why would you run against the president . I said because that is the american way. Competition makes us stronger. You think about it in high school terms, everybody has High School Teams out there. Scrimmage tonight. Get ready for the game on friday night. What the coach does not say is tell you what, we are not going to practice any this week or next week, we are just waiting for the big election, for the big game. That is crazy and makes us weaker, not only as a party, but as a country because the legitimate comparing and contrasting of ideas within republicans and within democrats is in the american way. Thats what the Founding Fathers gave us any reason based republic. Host kansas city, gordon on the line for republicans. Caller thanks for taking my call. Sanford, you are not a governor or a representative, you are former everything, and we know why youre running for president. To fill your pockets. Andknow you have no chance donald trump is going to be reelected with you or without you. Go ahead and fill your pockets and then tell the American People how your girlfriend is doing in argentina and how much taxpayer money you had to be paid to shut her up. The answer is none, and no. What i would say is the idea of doing my pockets is ludicrous. Poorer everyetting day in this process, im the guy without a job. But i believe to the core of my being that we are headed for the most predictable financial crisis in the history of man, and that its going to hurt you, sir, and its going to hurt my four sons, and its going to hurt a lot of kids and grandkids if we simply close our eyes and continue this crazy walk that we are walking right now to the end of the financial precipice. Ill give you an indicator. We have never before run a deficit this high. More than a trillion dollars is what we are running now. We are not even having a conversation about it. As republicans, as conservatives, its vital that we have this conversation. Because heres what is interesting if you look at the last series of economic in every instance over the last 70 years, it has been a five and five rule. The economy softens, Federal Reserve has tried to lower Interest Rates on average, by about five Percentage Points every single time in terms of trying to combat that recession. Guess what . Look at where we are on Interest Rates. They have sort of exhausted all the bullets. On the financial side, the fiscal side, what also happens, there has been about a fivepoint increase in deficit. Every single time on average in the last 70 years. Guess what . We are already running trillion dollar deficits. We dont have enough room to actually make that happen on the government side. Andre out of bullets walking toward the most predictable financial crisis in the history of our nation, i dont know whether you are retired or not, but i can destroy your retirement, could destroy your ability to achieve the american dream, to destroy a lot of jobs and we are not even having a debate about it. And i going to get poor . Yes. Do i believe we need to have the conversation . Yes. I would invite you to look on my website and learn more about where im coming from and how real these numbers are because i got the numbers on the website. Host you mentioned you just began three weeks into this, but how are you spending your time to get your campaign off the ground . Give us an idea of what your day is like. Well, i just got back from three days in New Hampshire beginning the process of Building Infrastructure over there. Before that, i was in iowa. Going back to the earlier callers words about the craziness of covering the candidate, circling the wagons and preventing debates, they just shut it down. , Health Primary South Carolina has been first in the self with its primary. There is something very weak about the president s numbers because in the world of politics, if you have a chance to take an 80 or 90 win, you would take it all day long. But they are not doing that. And so, particularly given the implication not only in South Carolina but in other southern states, given it is the first primary. The president s numbers are a mile wide and an inch deep, and maybe they are worried about people getting tired of the twitter and some of the crazy words on that front. I guess some folks decided me like where he is coming from. But if you talk to farmers in iowa as i was just two weeks ago, a lot of them are very concerned about what has happened to their economy based on the tariffs, based on changes in the administration. I hear the same kind of economic things when i go to a place like New Hampshire, when people are concerned about what comes next financially, given the fact that we are running giant deficits in peace time when its supposed to be the opposite. Centreville, virginia, independent. Caller thank you so much for taking my call. Just drilquip, the Federal Reserve, this goes to his point. And i wish reserve, cspan would do a series on this another repo rate in the fed right now, i dont know, its 80 billion a week, and they were originally going to do it for 10 days, and i just saw an article the other day, it goes all the way through 2020. That story is not even being reported by the news media. Opinion, i think President Trump would rather face down an impeachment trial and have this bit of news distract us from the rest of the American Public then to deal with what is coming. , ive never donated money to anybodys campaign, i own a business, i struggle like everything else. Toont know if thats going make any influence with this, but please, continue what you are doing. Get this on the table because while everybody is talking about ukraine and all the rest of it, the country is falling apart. Host lets have mr. Sanford respond. Guest i could not agree more. Again, im not unaware of how impossible and herculean and what a david and goliath story it is. Deficiencies as a candidate, im not unaware of my deficiencies in the infrastructure of a political campaign. I just know what i know which is that a buddy came to me last june and said god and said god just clear your calendar for a reason, you need to challenge the present. I said at that time, that fosters, thats crazy. Long story short, there has been a drumbeat over the last year, i watched two democratic debates where it was just a debate of more versus more and finally i said to these guys, look, i will roll the grenade down the aisle and see where it goes. I will try to get this word out because folks need to look at what happening in the repo market. To ais simply a tremor much larger earthquake that is based our way financially on what happening in shortterm rates, and basically, the fed having to induce people to buy paper. Just think of it as a pretremor to a big earthquake. The big earthquake has the capacity to completely change our lives and frankly if you go back to the book that i referenced earlier, the rise and fall of great powers, excuse me, thats a different book. Which is a fascinating book as well on how economics supremacy is the great progressive to military supremacy. But going back to what i was just referencing. If you look at the book this time, its different, what it shows is the history is littered with civilizations that have extinguished themselves financially. To this callers point, in that regard, what happens next in simply theraine or fall that covers the real threat to our civilization which makes it that much more important whatever the former chairman and chief of staff said, what is the biggest threat to American Security . His answer is the national debt. Mark sanford, we appreciate your time and thank you for talking to our viewers. Host we will be back tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time. Enjoy the rest of your day. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the 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. Crated by cable in 1979, cspan is brought you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. The former u. S. Special representative for north korea policy will talk about north Koreas Nuclear program today. Live coverage from the George Washington university gets underway at 3 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. You can watch online at cspan. Org and listen with their free cspan radio app. On may 17, 20 17, acting United States general Rod Rosenstein appointed robert mueller, former fbi director but at the time a lawyer in private practice, to be a special counsel for the department of justice. During the two years of operation of the office of special counsel, it impaneled a grand jury, issued thousands of subpoenas, indicted at least 33 people in three companies, secured seven guilty pleas, and obtained convictions on eight counts in a criminal trial. All of those actions had formal legal consequences, and some of those consequences continue to this day, even after the Office Closed up shop march 22, 2019. It is therefore more than academic interest, though also of academic interest, that all of those legally consequential. Ctions were unlawful Robert Muellers office of special counsel had no legal , to be sure,act this was not by any means the First Special counsel unlawfully appointed in the last two decades. Hopefully, will be the last of the argument that my lim